The nonprofit and voluntary sector is the contested arena between the state and the market where public and private concerns meet and where individual and social efforts are united. Attempting to define the fundamental features of the disparate entities that constitute the nonprofit and voluntary sector is a complex and daunting task. In some ways, the noncoercive character of the nonprofit and voluntary sector situates it closer to the market than to government. The nonprofit and voluntary sector occupies an ambiguous and at times contentious position in the current American political scene. At a time when nonprofit and voluntary activity has been the subject of increasing public attention and academic study, the breadth and depth of the people understanding of a phenomenon has been severely constrained by the lack of a clear statement of the sector's core activities, rationales, and dimensions.

iscontent in organized philanthropy today uns deep in some quarters. For years, leaders in the philanthropic world have worried about the effectiveness of their work. Although the amount of money given away each year continues to rise, there are lingering doubts about what the billions of dollars backed by good intentions have ultimately produced. Of course, almost all foundations, corporations, federated funders, and major individual donors can point to some grants that have led to impressive results. It remains very difficult, however, to see how the many small and isolated success stories of donors around the country aggregate up into anything vaguely resembling a meaningful response to any of the major social problems--be it economic development in the inner city, access to health care, reduction in youth violence, or reform of public schools--that private philanthropy has long targeted. Amid rising doubts about the impact of philanthropy's diverse and diluted efforts, many ideas have emerged about how the field might be strengthened. Some foundations have, for example, abandoned categorical grantmaking in fields such as education, health, and human services in favor of a geographical focus on a few specific communities. Other donors have fled from the limitations of direct service grantmaking in favor of a focus on changing public policy through public information campaigns, advocacy work, and ballot initiatives, all with the hope of seeing major change happen through politics and policy. Still other donors have sought to create funding collaboratives in order to pool resources and act in a coordinated way. Many of these ideas have been developed for and applied to the field of public school reform, where the need for broad system-wide change has forced donors to look for ways to increase the impact of their giving. While efforts to increase effectiveness have proceeded apace, it is fair to say that no idea for advancing the field of philanthropy has gotten more attention over the past five years than that of venture philanthropy. What exactly is venture philanthropy? What makes it different from traditional philanthropy? What innovations has it introduced into the field? Can it be used to reform public education? To begin to answer these questions, it is important to step back for a moment to consider the political and intellectual context within which the idea of venture philanthropy emerged.

Journal of Policy Analysis and ManagementVolume 25, Issue 2 p. 491-493 Book Review Sustaining nonprofit performance Peter Frumkin, Peter Frumkin No affiliationSearch for more papers by this author Peter Frumkin, Peter Frumkin No affiliationSearch for more papers by this author First published: 02 March 2006 https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.20183AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Volume25, Issue2Spring 2006Pages 491-493 RelatedInformation

Although public sector organizations have long been seen as driving the institutionalization of business firms and nonprofit organizations, government agencies themselves have only occasionally been studied as subjects of institutional pressures. This research examines whether public sector organizations, when compared with organizations in the business and nonprofit sectors, are more or less as susceptible to mimetic, normative, and coercive pressures. Using data from the National Organizations Study, we discover that governmental organizations are in fact more vulnerable to all three types of institutional forces than other organizations, whereas the effect of institutional variables on for-profits and nonprofits is more sporadic. The susceptibility of public sector organizations to institutional pressures raises important questions for the field of public administration and has consequences for nonprofits and business firms, which are funded and regulated by government.

to produce a framework agreement for localities to use, which preceded the 1998 compacts in each country. In England, too, some of the most successful compacts were born out of local government reorganization. However, if the introduction of local strategic partnerships is to provide a similar opportunity, much will depend on the significance of these new partnerships and the extent to which they—like compacts—are here to stay rather than a passing policy fashion.

Part I: Introduction. 1. Measuring the Contributions of the Nonprofit Sector P. Flynn, V.A. Hodgkinson. Part II: Concerns of Measurement and Evaluation. 2. Measuring Failure to Find Success C.W. Cobb. 3. Challenges of Measuring Performance in Nonprofit Organizations M.M. Stone, S. Cutcher-Gershenfeld. 4. Social Indicators for Assessing the Impact of the Independent, Not-for-Profit Sector of the Society K.C. Land. Part III: Civil Society and Governance. 5. Strengthening Democracy by Re-Creating Civil Society B.R. Barber. 6. The Vicious Circle of the Constricting State as Viewed through the Failure of Executive Leadership in Anglo-American Democracies C. Campbell. 7. The Necessity for Studying Organizational Advocacy Comparatively J.D. McCarthy, J. Castelli. 8. The Distributional Impacts of Nonprofits and Philanthropy J. Wolpert. 9. Can Public Life Be Regenerated? D. Mathews. Part IV: Measuring the Impact of Various Sub-Sectors and Special Populations. 10. Women and Philanthropy: Charting a Research Agenda K.D. McCarthy. 11. A Theory of Change Approach to Evaluating Investments in Public Education J.P. Connell, A.M. Klem. 12. Measuring the Impact of Nonprofit Health Care Organizations B.H. Gray. 13. Revealing the Implicit: Searching for Measures of the Impact of the Arts M.J. Wyszomirski. 14. The Emerging Status of Outcome Measurement in the Nonprofit Human Service Sector M.T. Greenway. 15. The Religious Dimension of Giving and Volunteering R. Wuthnow. Part V: Conclusions. 16. Measuring the Impact of the Nonprofit Sector on Society is Probably Impossible But Possibly Useful: A Sociological Perspective P. DiMaggio. 17. An Agenda for Quantitative Evaluation of the Nonprofit Sector: Need, Obstacles, and Approaches B.A. Weisbrod. Index.

Competition in the nonprofit world has intensified in recent years, and nonprofit managers are challenged to devise strategies that will serve both organizational needs and public interest. We propose a framework for thinking about nonprofit competition based on the intersection of two dimensions: the domain of competition, which can be either fee-based or donative activities; and the competitive strategy, which can be either price- or differentiation-based. The experience of the American Red Cross, a prominent nonprofit organization facing competition in both fee-based and donative domains, provides data for the elaboration of the framework and for tentative conclusions about the implications of nonprofit competition for both margin and mission.

Today, the annual IRS Form 990 tax filing is the principal annual disclosure mechanism of nonprofit organizations. Over time, considerable thought has been put into finding ways to improve access and use of the 990 Form, with only scant attention focused on whether the 990 is the right data source on which to build a system of nonprofit accountability. This paper takes a broader perspective, assessing not only the quality of the financial data and its availability, but also the entire financial reporting model. The paper begins with a framework for thinking about organizational accountability. It then examines the current structure of nonprofit financial reporting and contrasts it with alternative systems developed for publicly traded firms and credit unions. The paper concludes with recommendations for improving nonprofit accountability by reengineering the reporting and oversight systems in the sector.