Informal volunteering remains underrecognized in both research and public discourse, partly due to two interconnected issues: an analytical focus on who volunteers and what they gain from volunteering, and persistent measurement challenges that make it difficult for respondents and researchers to define and identify informal volunteering. Both issues originate from frameworks of volunteering developed in the context of formal volunteering and the assessment of informal volunteering through the conceptual lens of formal volunteering, emphasizing individual benefits and organizational affiliation. This article argues for a shift in analytical attention from a volunteer-centered framework to a task-centered framework that focuses on what volunteers do and accomplish through volunteering. Such a task-centered framework contributes to volunteering literature by including recipients of volunteering, and by providing a framework to approach informal volunteering on equal terms with formal volunteering.
This article examines democracy-related attitudes of German sports club members. It employs a framework derived from the neo-Tocquevillian theoretical works about democracy to argue that the depth of individual involvement in a club, in conjunction with the club's political and democratic culture, is crucial for determining attitudes conveyed by members. A representative sample of the population (N = 3,049) indicates that there is only a slight difference in the levels of political interest, political efficacy beliefs, cosmopolitan orientations, or satisfaction with democracy between sports club members and non-members. However, more nuanced models for sports club members indicate that active participation, as well as a club culture that encourages initiative, open political debate, and diversity, is predictive of pro-democratic attitudes. Based on these findings, we propose a perspective that no longer treats sports clubs as a homogeneous group, but acknowledges the existence of a range of club cultures.
Family businesses play an important role in philanthropic responses to disasters due to their distinctive combination of business, family, and community logics. Drawing on an institutional logics perspective and based on interviews with family business owners, we assess how three key logic features-collective identities, resources, and governing practices-affect the philanthropic responses of family businesses following the Beirut port explosion in 2020. The findings demonstrate the importance of non-financial contributions and reveal the inventiveness of family businesses in mobilizing a variety of assets distinctive to their business. This creativity, coupled with their knowledge of and embeddedness in community, resolves the paradox of how family businesses can respond so effectively to disasters with seemingly limited financial resources. Socioemotional wealth serves as a building block in the creation of civic wealth and is a key factor in explaining the enduring engagement of family businesses in later stages of disaster response. While family businesses pay significant attention to integrating institutional logics in their governance of disaster philanthropy, they often struggle with striking an appropriate balance between a personal, family-held approach and a more professionalized one. Practical implications for family businesses in Lebanon point to the challenges of resilience of philanthropic efforts in the context of a weak state and recurring crises.
The article aims to provide an analytical and empirical reassessment of the transformation of post-socialist political activism, with implications for the general analysis of civil society. Based on a distinction between two types of political activism-transactional and participatory-we seek to illustrate how these help us understand the development of the key aspects of post-socialist civil society. First, we conceptualize a general mode of activism with three dimensions: mobilization, transactional capacity, and strategic capacity. Using a unique protest event dataset (1989-2022), we empirically examine this activist mode in two thematic areas of activism-economic and environmental ones-over the course of three decades. We show, first, how each dimension of the activist model is linked to different contextual or intra-organizational factors, and second, that these two fields of activism, which were considered dramatically different, are slowly converging in all three dimensions.
Debt financing plays a critical role in the financial sustainability of nonprofit organizations, yet scholarly understanding of the factors influencing nonprofits' access to debt remains limited. This study explores the antecedents of creditworthiness among Chinese nonprofits, focusing on the role of political connections, revenue diversification, and organizational size. Drawing on signaling theory, we argue that these factors serve as credible signals to lenders, reducing information asymmetry and thereby enhancing nonprofits' access to debt. Using survey data from Chinese nonprofits, we find that political connections and organizational size significantly improve creditworthiness, while revenue diversification does not. The findings also reveal a heavy reliance on debt among Chinese nonprofits, highlighting the importance of debt financing as a useful financial tool in resource-constrained environments. This study adds to the literature on nonprofit debt by presenting evidence from the unique and underexplored authoritarian context of China and by offering practical insights for nonprofits seeking to enhance their creditworthiness.
Drawing on in-depth interviews with climate activists who initiated, monitored, or engaged with citizens' assemblies (CAs) across Poland, this article addresses a gap in the deliberative democracy literature on the bottom-up adoption of democratic innovations in Central and Eastern Europe. Our analysis shows that activists played a pivotal role in promoting CAs as a participatory tool for climate policymaking. Certain features of CAs, such as the random selection of participants, were strategically employed, while others, deliberation and expert input, were valued intrinsically. Their strategic use of assembly outcomes revealed both potential and transparency gaps, highlighting the need for institutional safeguards. As activists found their involvement exhausting, our findings suggest that the future of CAs will rely less on grassroots mobilization and more on institutional support and a robust implementation framework.
While institutionalization is often treated as a route to legitimacy, in civil society organizations (CSOs) it can harden into donor-driven formalities that reduce responsiveness in extreme contexts. This paper advances informalization not as a rejection of structure, but as a deliberate community-anchored response to rigid institutionalization that restores local flexibility and legitimacy while retaining a minimal formal backbone. Using a single case study of Palestinian CSOs operating under prolonged occupation and shrinking civic space, we draw on 30 semi-structured interviews, a small purposive survey, and document analysis. Findings identify three mechanisms of reinstitutionalization, mainly governance decentralization, knowledge-sharing routines coupled with organized bricolage, and the operationalization of Sumud in service delivery. Together, these mechanisms constitute a process of selective formalization that recouples practice to local logics, improving responsiveness and perceived legitimacy while reallocating administrative capacity from compliance to stewardship.
This study addresses critical gaps in cross-cultural philanthropy research by examining charitable giving in Taiwan and the United States. It identifies distinct empirical patterns through which individual characteristics are associated with voluntary giving across different institutional contexts. Utilizing propensity score matching, linear regression, and random forest analysis on nationally representative data, the study enhances ecological validity and offers a robust framework for cross-national comparison. Findings indicate that US giving is more individualized and evaluative, whereas Taiwanese giving is more socially embedded. The results provide theoretical and practical implications for culturally adaptive fundraising strategies. Overall, the study demonstrates how institutional contexts condition the relationships between individual characteristics and charitable giving, extending nonprofit research beyond Western contexts.
This qualitative study investigates social participation and recognition through volunteering for people with disabilities in Thailand. Using data from 65 participants across five provinces, and employing Social Role Valorization (SRV) as the framework, this study examines how volunteering can transform people with disabilities from recipients of aid into valued social contributors. The results revealed that volunteering can enhance self-esteem, skills development, and community connections. However, significant barriers impede access to valued roles, including societal attitudes, physical environment limitations, and a lack of support. Despite these challenges, many volunteers with disabilities exhibited leadership by participating in volunteering activities and successfully shifting society's perceptions about their abilities. Nonetheless, acceptance in the broader society remains limited due to insufficient promotion of their social contributions in the media. In conclusion, inclusive volunteering supported by both the private and government sectors is crucial for promoting the valuable social contributions that people with disabilities can provide.
Philanthropic organizations, as crucial intermediaries between the government and society, significantly contribute to public service delivery. This study examines how organizational features influence their effectiveness, especially exploring the impact of professional capacity and organizational resources. Based on the panel data of 259 philanthropic organizations in Shanghai from 2010 to 2022, we use two-way fixed effects models to examine the impact of professional capacity, financial scale, and annual income on public service delivery, as measured by the number of charitable projects, project expenditures, and the number of beneficiaries. The finding shows that professional capacity notably improves public service delivery. We also find that financial scale moderates the relationship, while annual income mediates it. The results advocate that policies should facilitate capacity building and resource support altogether to maximize philanthropic organizations' contributions to public service delivery.
The civil society organizations (CSOs) in Bangladesh that came into the limelight for their activities during the COVID-19 pandemic are relatively new. Their formation, platform building, support expansion, fundraising, and coordination took place within the virtual network. Moreover, this new generation of civil society is engaged in digital advocacy. Under these new circumstances, it has become important to undergo a systematic study on this new generation of CSOs. The present article has conducted a content analysis of the websites (105) and Facebook pages (20) of sampled CSOs that have registered with the NGO Affairs Bureau of Bangladesh from 2011 to 2021. Their digital activities have been analyzed under four broad headings, namely, information and transparency, participation, networking, and mobilization. It has been found that although a few CSOs have come into the limelight for their digital performance, 81% of the CSOs are not using any official website. CSOs that are active on digital platforms are mostly concerned with providing information about themselves rather than engaging in online advocacy or mobilization. Among the different types of CSOs, youth groups have been found to be the most active users of Facebook, whereas service-providing NGOs and environmental CSOs have been observed to be disinterested in utilizing the digital facilities. Though digital culture has already taken root in the socio-political and economic life of Bangladesh, the CSOs seem to be in a transitional phase of digitalization, and their efforts to advocate for and deliver services through the digital space are at an initial stage.
Changing civil society dynamics are often interpreted as the state's encroachment upon an autonomous sphere of democratic activity, presumed to be respected by liberal democratic regimes but violated by illiberal ones. The paper argues that such a normative autonomy/encroachment framework overlooks how illiberal civil society configurations are actively shaped by conflicts and structures carried over from liberal regimes. Through a systematic comparison of organization-state relationships across liberal and illiberal periods, using the case of a Hungarian conservative civic organization, the National Association of Large Families, the study uncovers underlying patterns of illiberal civil society. Adopting a longitudinal and historically informed perspective that foregrounds the agency of actors aligned with the illiberal regime, this study develops a typology of changing state-civil society interactions. The analysis demonstrates how Central and Eastern Europe's distinctive historical experience-marked by the transition from state socialism to liberal democracy, intertwined with neoliberal globalization-continues to shape the strategies of civic actors under illiberal rule, offering insights of global relevance for civil society studies and civic organizations seeking to counter illiberal regimes.
Foundations operate within external influences, requiring contextual factors to comprehensively assess their financial health. Our study investigates how political and economic environments-represented by political connections, accreditation evaluations, and the city of establishment-affect foundations' financial health, measured by equity adequacy, operating margin, revenue diversification, and administrative cost ratio. We hypothesize that government connections enhance financial health by providing funding stability and regulatory legitimacy. These connections confer legitimacy, reflected in accreditation evaluations, which enhance public trust and attract diverse financial support. Thus, we propose that foundations with higher accreditation evaluations demonstrate stronger financial health. We further expect foundations in economically developed cities to exhibit stronger financial health due to more vibrant markets and networks. We use data on Chinese foundations, a legally defined category of nonprofits in China, alongside social associations ((sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)) and social service organizations ((sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)(sic)), and comparable to charitable nonprofits in the United States. Our findings reveal that politically connected foundations exhibit stronger equity adequacy, higher operating margins, and greater revenue diversification. Foundations with better accreditation evaluations show greater revenue diversification but weaker net asset accumulation. Foundations in developed cities report lower net asset accumulation and higher administrative costs. These results underscore that financial health cannot be fully understood through financial metrics alone; external political and economic environments provide essential context. Foundations should strategically align their financial and charitable activities with their external environments to achieve sustainable financial health.
Third sector organizations (TSOs) increasingly operate in culturally diverse and politically unequal contexts in which global welfare models intersect with local traditions, knowledge systems, and institutional frameworks. This article develops a postcolonial approach to analyzing these dynamics by conceptualizing TSOs as "Third Spaces" in the sense of Homi K. Bhabha. It brings postcolonial theory into dialogue with approaches to organizational hybridity and argues that TSOs can be understood as hybrid contexts in which cultural, organizational, and political-economic dynamics intersect. Drawing on interdisciplinary literature and illustrative examples from Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, the article demonstrates how TSOs mediate between local knowledge and global governance structures, negotiate competing accountability regimes, and produce forms of cultural translation shaped by unequal power relations. The framework contributes to third sector research and highlights practical implications for context-sensitive and culturally grounded social welfare.
Crises intensify and affect the work of civil society organizations (CSOs). This paper looks at three moments of crises-austerity and budget cuts, right-wing surge, and the war in the Middle East-and analyzes their impact on CSOs working in the field of anti-discrimination and diversity promotion in Germany. Situating the study within debates on shrinking civic space and the concept of "post-migrant alliances," the paper demonstrates that multiple crises create a spectrum and complexity of restrictions and reactions. Based on data on 74 CSOs from a longitudinal mixed-methods design carried out between 2020 and 2024, we show that the crises amplify each other. Restrictions are caused by both state- and non-state actors, occur directly as well as indirectly, and latently. The CSO responses range from paralysis to internal coping strategies and the formation of new alliances. The study contributes empirical evidence on shrinking and changing civic space in Western democratic countries. It offers insights into the contested character of post-migrant society, where actors in favor of a pluralist society face growing challenges in a situation where diversity is increasingly challenged.
Indonesia has ranked as the world's most generous nation for seven consecutive years, yet the processes through which personal values shape humanitarian intention giving remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB), Norm Activation and Value-Belief-Norm (NAM/VBN) frameworks, warm-glow, and signaling/trust theories, this study examined donation intentions in Aceh-the nation's most charitable province-using a moderated value-resources model that integrated socioeconomic position, altruistic, social, and emotional values and organizational reputation, with religiosity as a moderating factor. Data from 400 adult respondents were analyzed via Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), revealing that altruistic, social, and emotional values, together with organizational reputation, significantly influenced humanitarian giving, whereas socioeconomic status showed no effect. Religiosity amplified these relationships, acting as a moral compass that transformed personal values into durable commitments to donate. These findings indicate that, in Aceh, moral and religious principles rather than material wealth primarily drive sustained philanthropic behavior. Based on these results, humanitarian organizations can improve fundraising effectiveness by segmenting donors according to religiosity and value orientation, using faith-consistent messaging, and providing transparent, real-time reporting of fund utilization. By uniting individual, organizational, and religious dimensions in a theory-informed framework, the study advances understanding of value-based humanitarian engagement in Muslim-majority contexts. The results, therefore, offer operational guidance for Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), policymakers, and faith-based institutions seeking to strengthen donor trust, engagement, and long-term participation.
Volunteering, essential to sustaining many social and sporting enterprises, has declined in recent years. Understanding how to cultivate and sustain volunteer labor is critical to ensure their survival and for individuals and wider society to benefit from the positive effects of volunteering. parkrun is a free, weekly, timed 5 km walk/run held in public spaces, which has disseminated widely (operating in 23 countries) and sustained itself over a 20-year period despite being largely reliant on volunteers for its operations. As such, parkrun can offer insights into how to attract and retain a large volunteer workforce. There are over 500 parkrun locations in Australia run by local volunteer teams, supported by a network of volunteer "ambassadors" and a relatively small number of paid employees. Our qualitative study examines whether and why individuals occupying volunteer roles central to event coordination and organizational delivery identify with the organization, and how parkrun cultivates and benefits from identification. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 67 parkrun Australia employees and volunteers who coordinate events. We deductively analyzed interview data against key theoretical concepts of organizational identification. Our findings show a dynamic layering process of identification with local event collectives and the broader parkrun movement, highlighting the organizational benefits of being community-led. parkrun intentionally perpetuates its identity, which volunteers internalize, defend, and enact, drawing in a labor force to sustain the organization. Our findings can inform volunteer initiation and retention strategies for parkrun and other volunteer organizations.
Food banks (FBs) are perceived as important nonprofit actors in tackling both hunger and food waste, yet their organizational model remains questioned in multiple ways. While digitalization and platformization offer new organizational possibilities, proper analyses of such initiatives over food waste recovery remain marginal. This research analyzes how the current drive toward digitalization in the food waste orbit can address some of its organizational shortcomings that appear as related to a deficit in its pragmatic legitimacy. To address this gap, the paper i) identifies the current institutional and organizational pressures that FBs face; ii) analyzes how digital transformation can address some of these limitations; iii) introduces a sample of digital platforms that seek to overcome the identified deficits through processes of digitalization; and, finally, iv) presents a set of insights for upgrading the organizational model of FBs through digitalization. Our contribution invites a reappraisal of legitimation strategies that prioritize pragmatic legitimacy concerns, particularly in a context where FBs-whether by design or default-are likely to remain indispensable institutional actors for the foreseeable future.
This article makes an original contribution to the study of philanthropy by applying an adaptation of Nancy Fraser's theoretical framework of social justice to a case study. Fraser's framework encompasses three dimensions: redistribution, representation and recognition. Drawing on an in-depth case study of a Quebec foundation active since 1990, we demonstrate how these dimensions are hierarchically structured and articulated differently across historical periods, actor profiles and social and political contexts. By identifying three successive configurations-each primarily focusing on redistribution (1990-2000), representation (2001-2021) and recognition (2022-2025)-the article highlights the internal tensions, blind spots and normative evolutions within the philanthropic sector. Our main theoretical contribution is to shed light on how philanthropic practices can integrate and support a vision of social justice, both internally, through the foundation's operations and team composition, and externally, through its donations, financial investments and public statements. Rather than treating social justice as an abstract ideal, we show how it materializes in governance, funding, relationships and public discourse. This comprehensive framework offers valuable insights for analyzing and supporting foundations seeking to pursue critical emancipation and empowerment.
Scholarship on volunteering often highlights transformations in civic engagement and their implications for democracy and social cohesion. This article examines one influential perspective-the discourse of change in volunteering-emphasizing declining participation, shifts in organizational preferences, and changing forms of engagement. We critically review this discourse with attention to the Scandinavian context and compare its claims with empirical evidence on formal volunteering in Sweden from 1992 to 2024. Drawing on cross-sectional survey data, we analyze trends in the scope, structure, forms, and values of volunteering. Contrary to narratives of decline or radical transformation, our findings indicate relative stability. To interpret these findings, we apply the theoretical perspective of the "reversed social engine" and argue that resilience offers a valuable yet underexplored lens for understanding civil society. This perspective shifts attention from change to stability as a phenomenon warranting further study.
