Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly current issue

Ethnicity, Acculturation, and Volunteering to Organizations: A Comparison of African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and Whites

Sundeen, R. A., Garcia, C., Raskoff, S. A. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

This article reports the findings of a study of volunteering to organizations among native-born and immigrant African Americans, Asians, Hispanics, and Whites in the United States. The authors focus on the questions, do ethnic groups differ in their likelihood of volunteering, and are these differences a function of acculturation? The conceptual framework to explain formal volunteering includes acculturation, personal and social capital, gender, and age. Using logistic regression analysis, the authors find that acculturation explains formal volunteering only partially and differently among the groups and that each native-born and immigrant group has its own unique combination of predictors of volunteering.

Immigrant Volunteering: A Stepping Stone to Integration?

Handy, F., Greenspan, I. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

This article investigates volunteering by immigrants. It examines if and how volunteering experiences can attenuate the effects of relocation for immigrants as they seek to regain social and human capital lost in the migration process. Based on analysis of 754 surveys, 33 focus groups, and 34 in-depth interviews, the authors explore the volunteering experiences of immigrants in ethnic congregations in four Canadian cities. Using a grounded theory approach, they propose a conceptual framework that delineates factors at the individual and organizational levels. Although individual-level factors are useful determinants of volunteer participation, for immigrants organizational factors are also an important part of the picture. These factors influence immigrants’ volunteer participation rates and the intensity of their participation. The benefits of volunteering include the enhancement of social and human capital, which provides a stepping stone for the integration of immigrants into the host society.

Religious Capital and Intergenerational Transmission of Volunteering as Correlates of Civic Engagement

Caputo, R. K. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Using a subsample of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97), this study (N = 2,471) provides evidence in support of social capital and socialization theories. Intergenerational transmission of civic engagement activities was found to occur through mechanisms such as parental religiosity and voluntarism. Using multinomial logistic regression analysis, correlates of four types of civic engagement were examined: mixed motivation voluntarism (voluntary participation in activist and nonactivist activities, n = 401), exclusively activist (n = 109), exclusive voluntarism (n = 652), and as the referent non—civic minded (no voluntary participation in either activist or nonactivist activities, n = 1,309). Parental voluntarism, socialization, religious participation, education, and presence of children were found to be robust predictors of mixed motivation voluntarism; parental devotion, presence of children, and race/ethnicity, of exclusive activism; and parental religious affiliation and fundamentalism, socialization, and religious participation, self-perceived sense of trustfulness, presence of children, and race/ethnicity of exclusive voluntarism.

The Collaboration Decision in Nonprofit Organizations: Views From the Front Line

Sowa, J. E. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

To understand the impact of collaborative service delivery by nonprofit organizations, scholars must fully understand why those nonprofits enter into service delivery collaborations and what motivates them to collaborate with another organization to deliver their services. Drawing on managers’ retrospective accounts concerning the creation of interagency collaborations and applying multiple theoretical perspectives, this article explores what managers directly involved in collaborations perceive to be the rewards or benefits of those collaborations. This research demonstrates the multiple forces driving the formation of interagency collaborations, in particular the desire to secure benefits attached to service delivery and to secure benefits for the organization as a whole. Understanding why nonprofit managers enter into interagency service delivery collaborations will allow for scholars to better determine the full impact of those collaborations on both services and the nonprofit organizations engaged in the collaborations.

Health, Wealth, and Charitable Estate Planning: A Longitudinal Examination of Testamentary Charitable Giving Plans

James, R. N. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Anticipated generational wealth transfers hold much potential for nonprofits. However, a weighted cross-sectional analysis of 18,469 respondents in the 2006 Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and data from respondents dying between the 2004 and 2006 HRS waves indicated that 88% to 90.5% of donors (>$500/year) more than the age of 50 will die without a charitable bequest. Cross-sectional probit analysis of the 2006 HRS and longitudinal conditional fixed-effects logistic analysis of the 1995-2006 HRS indicated that charitable estate planning was positively associated with age, wealth, education, religious attendance, volunteering, charitable giving, and the absence of children or grandchildren. In all specifications, the absence of children was a dominant predictor of charitable estate planning.

The Stages and Strategies of Advocacy Among Nonprofit Reproductive Health Providers

Nicholson-Crotty, J. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Research suggests that 501(c)(3) organizations play an active role in governance, shaping both the formulation and implementation of policy through advocacy. Previous work has, however, produced relatively inconsistent findings concerning the causes of and constrains on the advocacy function. In an attempt to reconcile these inconsistencies, this study draws on a theoretical model of strategic decision making in organizations, which suggests that decisions such as advocacy are best conceived of as a two-stage process. This approach produces the expectation that nonprofit organizations considering advocacy first decide whether the potential policy benefits are sufficient to undertake any form of political activity and then choose among the set of political tactics available to them. These hypotheses are tested in an analysis of the advocacy activities of more than 500 nonprofit reproductive health service providers.

Building a Policy Fields Framework to Inform Research on Nonprofit Organizations

Stone, M. M., Sandfort, J. R. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Although the importance of the public policy environment for strategic action of nonprofit organizations has become increasingly clear, research on nonprofits is often divorced from their policy context. The purpose of this article is to present a theoretically informed framework for analyzing policy environments that can inform nonprofit research. Drawing on insights from political science, organization theory, public management, and nonprofit studies, the authors propose that the framework reflects a policy field that is an identifiable set of elements in a specific environment that directly shapes local public service provision. These elements include the structures created by institutions that deliver public programs and the ways in which state and local actors interact with and shape these structures as they work on public problems. Through a research example, the article presents the policy field framework’s analytic steps.

Who Serves?: Predicting Placement of Management Graduates on Nonprofit, Government, and Business Boards

Tschirhart, M., Reed, K. K., Freeman, S. J., Anker, A. L. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

The authors elaborate on our understanding of the use of the labor market of individuals with MBA and MPA degrees for service on boards. They find that individuals are most likely to have board service in the same sector in which they have paid employment. Being older and having a "do good" orientation are associated with board service in all sectors. MPA degrees are connected to service on government boards, whereas MBAs are connected to service on business boards. Nonprofit boards do not show a preference for degree type. Years since graduate management education predicts nonprofit and government board service but not business board service. Only government boards seem to draw significantly more men than women from the pool of individuals with MBA and MPA degrees. The findings, consistent with resource dependence theory and the expected value of scholastic, social, and cultural capital, offer implications for board recruitment and future research studies.

Book Review: Clinton, Bill (2007). Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World. New York: Alfred A. Knopf

Wells, R. A. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Book Review: Foote, D. (2008). Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches With Teach for America. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. 338 pp., $24.95

Casey-Reed, A. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Book Review: Adams, C., Bartelt, D., Elesh, D., & Goldstein, I. (with Freely, J., & Schmitt, M.). (2008). Restructuring the Philadelphia Region: Metropolitan Divisions and Inequality. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Pp. 224. $25.95

Xiomara Rodriguez, D. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Book Review: Lee, M. (2008). Bureaus of Efficiency: Reforming Local Government in the Progressive Era. Milwaukee: Marquette University Press. 292 pages, $30.00

Adam, T. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST

Book Review: McCully, G. (2008). Philanthropy Reconsidered: Private Initiatives--Public Good-- Quality of Life. Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse. 129 pp. $23.95

Jeavons, T. H. — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 10:39:07 PST