RGK Center Faculty Fellow Marc Musick has a new book on volunteering entitled Volunteers: A Social Profile. The book brings together the research of Musick and John Wilson (Duke University) and provides an examination of the causes and consequences of volunteering. The book argues that volunteers play a critical role in society; without them, many nonprofit, religious and governmental institutions would simply cease to function.
The information below is a supplement to the fourth issue of the Investigator series.
In this issue of The Investigator, we introduce five different methods for measuring the value of volunteers. In addition to reading the fourth issue of The Investigator, we encourage you to learn more about these methods by browsing through some of the resources we have listed below.
This concise and illuminating book provides a road map to the evolving conceptual and policy terrain of the nonprofit sector. Drawing on prominent economic, political, and sociological explanations of nonprofit activity, Peter Frumkin focuses on four important functions that have come to define nonprofit organizations.
The information below is a supplement to the first issue of the Investigator series.
This series of one-page publications investigates the field of volunteerism, through promoting academic research and providing a bridge from academic research to the hands of practitioners. The series leads the field of volunteerism research by introducing new data sets, exploring characteristics of volunteers, and suggesting fruitful research agendas.
Cultural trusteeship is a subject that fascinates those who wonder about the relationship between power and culture. What compels the wealthy to serve on the boards of fine arts institutions? How do they exercise their influence as trustees, and how does this affect the way arts institutions operate? To find out, Francie Ostrower conducted candid personal interviews with 76 trustees drawn from two opera companies and two art museums in the United States.
At a time when boundaries between the nonprofit, business, and public sectors have grown increasingly confused and contested, this volume by leading experts on nonprofit organizations offers new ideas and and frameworks for understanding the terrain that lies between the state and the market.
Through a series of candid personal interviews with nearly one hundred donors, Why the Wealthy Give offers an in-depth look at the world of elite philanthropy. Francie Ostrower focuses on the New York City area, with its high concentration of affluent donors, to explore both the motivations of individual donors and the significance of philanthropy for the culture and organization of elite groups. In so doing, she offers an account of why the wealthy give that also provides insight into the nature of elite culture, status, identity, and cohesion.