In the Russian Federation the delivery of social services to deserving population groups is mostly the responsibility of local governments. Municipal agencies hold a monopoly position in delivering publicly funded services. One way to inject competition into the delivery system is for local government to hold competitions to contract for social service delivery. The competitions can be open to nonprofit organizations (NGOs), some of which have been providing assistance in recent years to needy individuals and families. A critical question is the readiness of NGOs to serve as contracted providers. This paper reports the results of an assessment of the current practices of 13 NGOs in delivering various types of social services. We find that the range of capability of Russian nonprofit organizations engaged in providing such services is indeed wide. We confirmed the relatively high level of professionalism in those NGOs that had received substantial technical and financial assistance from international organizations with similar missions. Additionally, among the nine “grass roots” NGOs in the sample, one-quarter appears to have the capacity to deliver services under contracts to local governments. A clear need for training in the process of service delivery was identified. An expansion in donor-supported training for the many NGOs engaged in these activities is recommended beyond the areas of start-up, governance, networking, and fund raising for which training is now abundant to ways to increase the efficiency and professionalism of service delivery.

View full abstract

It is clear that in the Green Olympic Bid campaign, the Chinese government changed its attitude of indifference to NGOs, even seeking active communication and cooperation with them. Moreover this cooperation was reported favorably by the government-controlled mass media. If this means that the government has truly changed or is changing its attitude and policy towards NGOs, the question is why? If this is not the case, then the question concerns the nature of the current relationship and what that means for Chinese NGOs. Through consideration of why the government actively co-opted NGOs into the Green Olympic Bid campaign as well as how NGOs were rewarded by joining this campaign, this paper finds that the government wanted the symbolic value of these NGOs to improve the international legitimacy of the Olympic bid. As such, the relationship between the government and NGOs has not basically changed through this process. However, joining government-led project can bring NGOs greater opportunity for development, which can benefit the growth of NGOs and promote the overall development of civil society in China.

View full abstract

Corporate philanthropy should be seen as social investment rather than charity, and should be linked to an enhancement of corporate value. To that end, companies must rebuild their social investment mission and reposition it clearly from a management perspective. Strategies must be put in place to efficiently and effectively realize a return on social investments. This paper presents innovative methods for corporate philanthropy reform on the basis of a balanced scorecard approach to evaluate business performance, which sets the stage for the emergence of a succession of far-sighted companies that have undertaken a paradigm shift in their strategies towards corporate philanthropy.

View full abstract

This paper examines the social roles of universities, and their relationships and partnerships with communities, specifically community-based nonprofit organizations, through literature review and examples from the U.S. and Japan. Recently, universities have rediscovered the importance of their service mission, and started to invest in university-community partnerships (UCPs), with the focus on service learning. Universities and communities can mutually benefit through partnerships both short- and long-term: UCPs lead to more civic engagement by universities and universities become true social institutions. An integrated and balanced approach of UCPs is proposed on the basis of components of institutional commitment and efficient and effective use of an intermediary organization.

View full abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the structure of volunteer's participative motivation. Data for the study was collected by questionnaire survey of 287 volunteers of voluntary associations and nonprofits of Kyoto City area. On the basis of factor analysis of the motive item, seven factors were extracted and named: (1) search for themselves, (2) altruism, (3) realization of ideal, (4) self growth and acquisition or exertion of skills, (5) recreation, (6) social adaptation, and (7) sympathy. Along with demographic variables, relations between motivations and various aspects of volunteer behavior were also examined. The analyses revealed that different motivation structures were associated with different types of volunteer activities, and different motivation structures were associated with different demographic groups (particularly on the basis of age, occupation, and past volunteering experience). The conclusion drawn is that volunteer’s participative motivation is multiple, indicative of the importance of recognizing the diversity of volunteer's participative motivation for nonprofit leaders and policymakers.

View full abstract

Little has been highlighted about the roles of civil societies in Korean society. The purpose of this study is to analyze the growth of civil societies in Korea. This study is based on review of the literature regarding both theoretical analysis of “resources mobilization theory” as well as “new social movements theory”. In addition, this study reports on empirical research regarding Korean civil societies that have lended their efforts to government support programs toward NPOs on the basis of the so-called NPO Law of 1999. The results from the survey reveal that “resources mobilization theory” is rather well suited to analyze the relationship between Korean civil societies, which have been rapidly increasing in number since 1997, and the government. Further, this study alludes to problems regarding the current government support program toward NPOs and suggests an alternative program.

View full abstract

While the notion of business-type evaluation has been introduced for NPOs, it has been plagued by difficulties regarding performance measurement appropriate for service. This paper examines organizational assessment of NPOs on the basis of itemized evaluations derived from ‘rules of thumb’ in one grant-making foundation, The Nippon Foundation. While such evaluations are based on conscious evaluation of (1) the characteristics of the organization and (2) the characteristics of the leader, on the basis of evaluation data of 24 support centers in Japan, we propose the new criteria of (3) planning ability and (4) organizational capability. The Nippon Foundation’s organizational assessment compounds examination know-how through past financial aid assessments for NPOs, and we can reproduce objective organizational assessment through our assessment tool on the basis of criteria (1) to (4). Moreover, planning ability and organizational capability better determine the organizational assessment potentiality. The paper concludes by discussing the importance of the self-business approaches as a means of directing NPOs toward autonomic growth.

View full abstract

As social needs have become more diversified and the market economy has made further inroads in society, peoples’ expectations for non-profit organizations (NPOs) have grown as well. Over the past few years Japan has experienced a significant surge of various nonprofit activities, led by the civil sector in fields where services by government and business have not been sufficient, such as community building, recycling, and welfare. These activities have gathered particular momentum since the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake in 1995 and the enactment of the NPO law in 1998. Although media, books and reports have introduced specific NPO activities, there are also quite a few materials which now provide us with macro-based and quantitative information as well. In this paper, we quantified the overall non-profit economic activity in Japan by resetting non-profit performance on the basis of an input-output (IO) table.

View full abstract

This paper considers the activities and financial circumstances of culture and art groups as nonprofit organizations (NPOs), emphasizing the importance of nonprofit-based culture and art activities in social development. For overall social development, not only is economic development necessary, but development must include other areas, such as culture and the arts, social welfare, education, religion and local political processes. The NPO sector in Korea became active in the latter half of the 1980s and has continued to develop steadily to the present. However, in the case of NPOs operating in the area of culture and arts, such development has been slowing down. The paper provides a detailed description of the financial circumstances of nonprofit-based culture and art groups in Korea, highlighting the tax system, which has a strong effect on the finances of NPOs. That noted, from the latter half of the 1990s, culture and the arts has been prioritized overall, the result being rapid progress and meaning that the activities of the nonprofit sector in culture and art fields are becoming important in meeting various needs and demands of consumers.

View full abstract

Although the number of nonprofit organizations (NPOs) per capita is usually used in analysis of the scale of the nonprofit sector, non-linearity between population and the number of the NPOs creates an artificial flaw in such measures. In order to address this aspect of nonlinearity, a Civil Index (the NPO Index) was developed as a new indicator to measure the relative scale of the local nonprofit sector. This index uses application of the studentized residuals, calculated on the basis of regression analysis, and has yielded accurate and useful comparative evaluations of the size of the nonprofit sector among the prefectures. To test this new indicator, the number of specified nonprofit organizations in Japanese prefectures was identified at three points (February 2002, June 2002 and December 2002), after which the Civil Index (NPO Index ) was calculated. Not only was the relative scale of the nonprofit sector in each prefecture well expressed, the Civil Indices for respective prefectures clearly revealed the disparity in the relative scale of the nonprofit sector among the prefectures.

View full abstract

A forecasting of the attestation number of the NPO corporations was conducted using trend models with prefectural-based dummy variables, and the determinants of the attestation number were also investigated through estimating multiple regression models. Since the available data have very short-time-spans, the forcasting depends largely on which types of trends were adopted and it became clear that further examination is necessary in the future. As for the determinants of the attestation number, it became clear that no.only scale factors such as population or area, but also other socio-economic factors like industrial structure, have influences on the attestation number.

View full abstract