In the search for ways to encourage more participation in voluntary activities, more attention is being given to what motivates people to participate. In empirical studies, however, the relationship between motives and participation in voluntary activity has not yet been made clear. To understand how to enable more effective recruitment of volunteers, the differences in participatory factors depending on the type of voluntary activity were studied. We used the data from a web survey to analyze the relationship between (1) motives, (2) social background factors such as gender, as well as (3) economic elements, and (4) the type of voluntary activities in which people seem to want to participate. Each voluntary activity was related to different motives and social backgrounds. Therefore it was thought that the types of voluntary activities in which a recruit would be interested could be selected according to their motives for participation and their social background elements.

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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of the introduction of evaluation systems in partnership programs between the government and nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in Japan. We used questionnaires about partnership programs between the government and NPOs for analysis. The dependent variable that was adopted was the option to introduce evaluation systems into partnership programs, and explanatory variables were divided into two categories which were the organizational conditions of the local governments and NPOs and program conditions such as the cost, type of contract, and content. The results were analyzed using logistic regression analysis. As an important result, we have found that there were relationships between the type of contract and the option to introduce evaluation systems into the partnership programs. Concretely, outsourcing-type programs tend to be evaluated, while grant-type programs tend not to be evaluated. This result shows that the government takes the initiative in evaluating partnership programs, and also shows that NPOs depend on the government. In the future, NPOs will need to participant actively in evaluation systems for partnership programs.

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This article analyzes the amount and content of information on the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami provided by NGOs and volunteer groups and cited in five daily newspapers published in the United States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, and Singapore. The article compares the amount and use of NGO-provided information published in newspaper stories with that provided by official agencies and victims of the disaster. The article finds that information from NGOs cited by newspapers focused overwhelmingly on local conditions and relief efforts and that comments about other organizations were few in all cases. Except for a few international NGOs, the kind and variety of volunteer organizations varied by newspaper and country. The article concludes that NGO information cited by the press affords a more accurate and unbiased understanding of local condition in disasters. However, the research also finds that this is only a small portion of NGO information actually published and that, as prior research points out, the pool of media informants is dominated by governments and international organizations.

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This paper is a result of an examination of the factors of sustainable long term grass-roots activities in the field of nature conservation. Chapter 3 is a bird's-eye view of Japanese nature conservation history. Chapter 4 is based on a survey of 150 Japanese NPOs (68 replies) in this field. As a result, the following several points became clear. (1) Organizations in this field are small, low-budget, and unpaid. (2) The major elements of the factors for long-term grass-roots activities in this field are “intellectual/emotional minds,” “organization management,” “characteristic style of activities,” “social element,” “locality,” “relevance in daily life,” and “active experience.” The last three elements can be called “real relevance to daily community life.” (3) “Intellectual/emotional minds” are in opposition to one another, but “practical experience” acts as a bridge between them. (4) Communication promotes the creation of a common awareness and increases sympathy through common ownership of the information in the member/society. (5) From the viewpoint of achievement of the organizations' aims, it's not necessarily true that the growth of NPOs equates to organization-wide expansion. It seems that NPOs follow some evolutionary process models that are different from the corporate one.

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This paper aims to clarify the changes that have taken place in the daytime population of Marunouchi, such as increased liveliness and diversity resulting from recent redevelopment, changes in the workers and their perception of the community, while retargeting the study area to Marunouchi, which has been suggested (in the author's paper, 2005) as having the greatest potential among the three characteristic communities in Chiyoda Ward (Kojimachi, Kanda, and Marunouchi) for local cooperation with the residents. First, the author identified the recent changes in Marunouchi as an exploratory period in the process of historical transition for new town building in commercially specialized Marunouchi. Second, based on questionnaire and interview results, the author verified the changes that have taken place among workers during the exploratory period and clarified the following four aspects: (1) Diversification of attributes; (2) Diversification of lifestyles; (3) The existence of four types of perception of the community: the locally cooperative/independent type, the CSR type, the work-oriented type, and the private life-oriented type; (4) The process of transition to a locally cooperative/independent type
The aspects above indicate the availability of options, such as diverse attributes, lifestyles, and types of perception of the community, based on the commercially specialized perception and lifestyles of the workers.

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This study attempts to shed new light on the relationship between accountability and external advocacy in the nonprofit sector. Executive directors in two nonprofits in UK and Japan, who were part of a group of nonprofit executives previously surveyed by the author, were further investigated through semi-structured interviews and non-participatory observation. A close relationship was found between the way in which executive directors in these two nonprofits approach downward accountability and their positive or negative relationship with statutory organisations. By corroborating the findings of the author's previous survey, the results of this case study provide further insight into the different ways in which the relationship between nonprofit and public sectors are envisaged in UK and Japan.

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