In a climate of uncertain prices for grain and fuel, conservation and efficiency are more important than ever. Many agro-industrial residues are excellent substrates for solid-state fermentation (SSF). Dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS) are an important co-product of the ethanol industry and have potential as a substrate for solid-state fermentation. SSF products were produced using DDGS from a distillery and DDGS from a fuel ethanol plant as the fungal growth substrate. The spent grains were inoculated with GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe) organisms Aspergillus orzyae and Rhizopus oligosporus. After growth, the resultant SSF product was dried and used as an enzyme complex supplement that was added to laboratory scale standard fuel ethanol corn mash fermentations. Improved ethanol yields were consistently observed. The use of solid-state fermentation to produce unique enzyme complexes on DDGS offers a novel way to increase the value of the DDGS and to enhance bioethanol fermentation.

In most countries (Australia is an exception) the term 'civil society' is widely used by social researchers, activists and government officials. However its analytical value is limited by its great variety of meanings. The article proposes that if 'civil society' is to be of any use analytically it should be capable of being measured. It outlines two related efforts to measure civil society and to compare it cross nationally and identifies several problems with those approaches.

In the World Bank ‘governance’ model, organisations that are neither part of the establishment nor created to distribute profits among the owners/members have vital roles to play in the economic, and political advancement of a country.1 These organisations are formed by people to offer a variety of services to themselves or to others or to advance a cause, but not to make money. They play a central role in public governance achieving and sustaining a prosperous economy and a just civil society. They are known variously as voluntary organisations, non-profit organisations, Non-government organisations (NGOs), people’s organisations, community-based organisations, cooperatives and civil society organisations. Together they constitute a third sector, being separate from both government and business. While these third sector organisations’ (TSOs) importance in public governance is widely acknowledged, their sustainability is not guaranteed and depends to a large extent on the effectiveness and accountability of their own governance. The World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and many advocates of improved public governance in countries of the South pin a lot of hope on the capacity of civil society or the TSOs to hold governments accountable; for that to work, the former must model the attributes that are associated with good organisational governance.

This chapter draws on data collected from 492 of the third sector organisations (TSOs) in our organisational survey to explore the extent and distribution of three particular models of governing TSOs.

recent sales by the Salvation Army's Southern Territory and the St Vincent de Paul Society in NSW of their nursing homes point to a wider problem faced by many parts of Australia's nonprofit sector.Faced with the need for considerable new capital investment to ensure their accommodation met new aged care standards to be introduced in 2008, and recognising the challenges that such capital raising would entail, these two leading nonprofit organisations chose to pass the problem to others that could handle it -in the case of the Salvation Army a consortium containing Macquarie Bank and a large for-profit aged care provider (Macquarie Bank, 2005;Horin, 2006).Many other nonprofit organisations that over the past fifty years have built facilities such as hospitals, aged accommodation, child care and schools face similar needs to refurbish or reposition these assets and similar challenges in accessing the capital needed for the task.Capital is either difficult to raise or is inaccessible.Of greater importance perhaps, many successful nonprofits are constrained from expansion by difficulties in raising capital and many potentially important social innovations are strangled by their inability to raise start-up capital.Many anecdotes suggest a bias against nonprofit organisations in Australia's capital markets.However, there is another thread of discourse that argues the problems lie mainly with the managers and boards of nonprofits.Nonetheless, in comparable countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom governments have put in place policies specifically designed to ensure nonprofit organisations are able to access the capital they need.This paper draws on a recently completed report for the National Roundtable of Nonprofit Organisations (Lyons, North-Samardzic and Young, 2007) to determine the extent and dimensions of the problem in Australia and to canvass options, including government policy adjustments, which would address it.

This paper draws on a recently completed report for the National Roundtable of Nonprofit Organisations (Lyons, North-Samardzic and Young, 2007) to determine the extent and dimensions of problems nonprofit organisations have in accessing the capital they need.

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been used in many situations to develop students' critical thinking, interaction and problem solving skills. Despite being commonly used by lecturers, the effects of PBL have not been investigated in sports studies. This paper outlines the process of developing a second year, undergraduate module in sport and exercise biomechanics using problem-based learning. Following completion of the module, students completed reflective learning reports and participated in focus group interviews. Results from the focus group interviews and end-module questionnaires revealed that PBL delivery allowed greater autonomy to explore issues and problems, and served to develop the students' enthusiasm for and engagement with the subject compared to traditionally delivered modules. The students also reported that the content was stimulating, that PBL based delivery would help them prepare for the final year of their degree, and allowed them to develop particular skills that might be useful in later employment.

The policy of Australian governments, both Commonwealth, state and territory, toward those organisations that comprise a third sector of the organised economy is patchy and piecemeal. Absent is any recognition that they constitute a distinct sector; absent too is any recognition of their contribution to economy, society and politics. Such a situation is not inevitable. After identifying some of the gaps and contradictions in Australian policy toward the third sector, this article outlines the many policy initiatives to encourage the third sector or social economy (in European Union terms) taken by the Blair government in the United Kingdom. Given that there is a good deal of policy borrowing between Australia and the United Kingdom, the stark contrast between the two countries in this policy field is puzzling. This article concludes by identifying four developments that led to this policy explosion in the United Kingdom and finds them largely missing in Australia. This leads to a conclusion that a similar range of policies are unlikely to develop here.

This article draws on a household survey of giving and volunteering conducted by Roy Morgan Research early in 2005 to explore the relationship between religion and volunteering among adult Australians. We find that people who identify themselves as religious and demonstrate religious commitment by attending religious services frequently are more likely to volunteer and to volunteer more hours on average than people who are not religious. By contrast, those who claim to be religious but do not attend religious service or do so rarely are a little less likely to volunteer than those who profess to have no religion. The relationship holds even after allowing for other factors that affect the rate and amount of volunteering. It also holds for volunteering for non-religious causes (i.e. when volunteering for religion is omitted). However, when we omit volunteering for charities (many of which are operated or sponsored by religious organisations) as well as for religion and look at volunteering for civic causes alone we find that those with a strong religious commitment are less likely to support such causes and when they do volunteer, on average they volunteer less hours than even those who have no religious identity. However, those who attend religious service at least monthly, but less than weekly are more likely than others to volunteer for civic causes. A claim in some of the literature that the relationship between religion and volunteering operates through the social networks associated with involvement in other religious organisations is not supported.

The giving of time and money, mainly to private nonprofit organisations is not trivial, but in Australia has been little studied. This article introduces a special issue of the Australian Journal of Social Issues which draws on data collected in the largest study of giving and volunteering conducted in Australia hitherto. It seeks to establish terminological guidelines and reviews past Australian research on giving and volunteering, arguing that there has been a disproportionate interest in volunteering. It seeks to put to rest some common myths about giving and explores whether the increase in giving and volunteering can be attributed to government policy. It concludes by introducing the other papers in the collection.

Those who develop or influence Australian public policy impacting on the nonprofit sector rarely have adequate empirical research upon which to base their judgments. Giving Australia research evidence relevant to strengthening giving and volunteering is brought together in this article to inform policy options for government, nonprofit and philanthropic entities. It begins with consideration of research findings related to the capacity of those that give or volunteer and the implications these findings have for policy. Three key criteria are developed for assessing policies to strengthening giving and volunteering, behaviours that primarily assist nonprofit organisations – policies that build trust between those that give and the recipients of their gifts, policies that strengthen affiliation and policies that encourage planned giving.

AbstractNonprofit organizations are said to play important roles in the reproduction of social capital, although research suggests that some types of nonprofits add more to stocks of social capital than others and that they vary in the types of social capital they reproduce. Such findings typically come from surveys of individuals or households, as opposed to surveys of nonprofits themselves. In this research article, we draw on a survey of a sample of Australian nonprofit organizations to demonstrate a method of empirically testing some of the ways that nonprofit organizations are said to reproduce social capital and to assess differences in any contributions by important organizational characteristics such as industry or primary beneficiary. We aim to show how surveys of organizations might add to our understanding of the contribution of nonprofits to stocks of social capital.

This article draws on a household survey of giving and volunteering undertaken as part of the Giving Australia project to explore the relationship between religion and the giving behaviour of adult Australians. We find that people who identify themselves as having a religion are more likely to give and to give more on average than people who do not but that this relationship is produced by a subset of this group; namely, people who regularly attend religious services. Indeed, the likelihood of giving and average amounts given by givers over a year increase with levels of attendance at religious services. The relationship holds even after allowing for other factors that affect the likelihood of a person giving and the amount given. It also holds for giving to nonreligious causes (ie when giving to religion is omitted). However, when we also omit giving to charities and look at giving to civic causes alone we find that the frequency of attendance at religious services has an ambiguous relationship with giving. A suggestion in overseas literature that it is participation in religious groups, rather than attendance at religious services that is associated with giving is not supported.