Volunteering can be a catalyst for career development, yet little is known about the specific skills event volunteers acquire or the personal and situational factors that shape these outcomes. This research assessed skill development in 545 volunteers at a major sporting event in North America. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed qualitative and quantitative survey data. Qualitative analyses identified 12 skill themes divided equally into ‘soft skills’ (adaptability, communication, thinking, relationship building, work ethic/professionalism, and work management) and ‘hard skills’ (professional expertise, specific language and communication proficiency, knowledge of sport, management and operations, innovation and technology, and manual labor). Quantitative analyses revealed the total number of skills developed depended on volunteers' motives and levels of supervisor support. High supervisor support offset the effects of low motives on volunteer skill development.

This study investigated individual charitable giving in Ghana. Given that comprehensive data on individual giving in Africa is limited, this study’s theory-based approach used quantitative and qualitative methods to identify demographic and psychographic factors influencing the donation of money, time, and other resources towards assisting individuals, organisations, and charitable causes. With a sample size of 741 participants, the study identified gender, household size, age, financial constraints, social norms, egoism, religion, and trust as influential factors shaping giving behaviour among Ghanaians. The study’s outcomes have theoretical significance and suggest that individuals previously unwilling or lacking the capacity to give can become generous in the appropriate social and environmental context. The findings hold significance for nurturing a culture of philanthropy and developing culturally relevant and impactful giving campaigns and policies in Africa.

Residents’ self-governance associations (RSAs) in Seoul, South Korea, have been established to enhance local democracy at the grassroots level. Do participants in RSAs feel political efficacy? What factors influence the political efficacy of community benefits and consensus building through RSAs? This study aims to theorize and test the relationships between citizens’ political efficacy, as measured by participation satisfaction, community benefits, and consensus building, and various socioeconomic, cultural, procedural, and institutional factors. Multilevel ordered logit models of surveys from 1,319 RSA participants suggest that the citizen-led decision-making process, participation frequency, trust in neighbors, and budget and staff support are positively associated with political efficacy. To promote grassroots democracy and enhance the political efficacy of participating citizens, local RSAs should be operated in a voluntary, cooperative, and democratic manner. Supporting local self-governance organizations and their activities with adequate funding and effective administration is crucial for success.

Public disclosure of financial information by nonprofit organizations is a cornerstone of nonprofit governance. Evidence indicates that negative impressions are more impactful than positive ones, even when they are of equal intensity. Nevertheless, little research has evaluated the extent to which financial transparency and the positive–negative asymmetry influence citizens’ trust in nonprofit organizations. Using a survey experiment, we examine whether financial transparency—through the moderating effect of fiscal information—influences nonprofit trustworthiness. The effect was strongest for negative financial information, demonstrating that the positive–negative asymmetry influences the impact of financial transparency. This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between financial transparency and citizens’ trust in nonprofit organizations, including how they verify the legitimacy of nonprofit organizations. This study’s findings have practical implications for nonprofit organizations’ commitment to financial transparency in building trust among their constituents.

Aging in the twenty-first century presents a multifaceted global challenge, demanding subtle understanding for effective solutions. Shifting from merely extending life expectancy, active aging seeks to enrich the quality of later life, aiming to boost the well-being and life satisfaction of older individuals. As demographic and familial structures evolve, the involvement of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in aging affairs emerges as a pivotal force within civil society. These NGOs, operating across diverse countries and regions, undertake a spectrum of activities. Such activities bring considerable benefits to both physical and mental health of older individuals. Through a meticulous review of 31 studies from Web of Science (WOS) and Scopus databases, this study delves into the multifaceted roles of NGOs in promoting active aging. It uncovers three primary contributions: care services, lifelong learning, and volunteer engagement. Furthermore, this research critically examines the status and challenges faced by NGOs in advancing active aging principles, probing their impact on the life satisfaction of older adults. By elucidating these insights, this study offers collaborative pathways for future social policy enhancements in aging.

The aim of this scoping literature review is to conceptualize Policy Advocacy Effectiveness (PAE) within the sphere of nonprofit advocacy, responding to recent calls for research on NPO advocacy outcomes. We focus our analysis on the criteria and indicators used in empirical studies to measure NPO-driven PAE. Our findings identify five main categories of outcome criteria: policy cycle outcomes, organizational capacity outcomes, constituent outcomes, public salience outcomes and societal outcomes. Each operationalized with a diverse set of indicators that are seldom replicated across our sample. Despite this apparent multi-dimensional conceptualization of PAE throughout the studies, our review reveals a dominant trend toward unidimensional assessments, a focus on policy cycle outcome criteria and a methodological preference for perceptual methods in evaluating PAE. Moreover, our analysis exposes a significant lack of theoretical grounding in the reviewed studies, with minimal integration of political or policy process theories. In light of these findings, this paper advocates for a future research trajectory that could deepen the understanding of PAE. We recommend fully embracing the complexity of PAE, encouraging researchers to adopt a multi-dimensional perspective and to diversify their methodological approaches to enhance the robustness and relevance of PAE-related findings.

In 2023, the World Health Organization declared the end of the public health emergency brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. The sustained voluntary participation of community volunteers in the era after the COVID-19 pandemic emergency is of vital importance to community-level social governance and is one of the goals pursued by modern volunteer service. However, factors contributing to volunteers’ sustained voluntary behavior or intention have not been sufficiently investigated. This study examines the psychological determinants of volunteers’ sustained voluntary intention by constructing an expanded theory of commitment-trust. A dataset involving 507 respondents from Weihai city in China is developed. The empirical results based on a structural equation modeling analysis show that the comprehensive model explains 69% of the total variance in volunteers’ sustained voluntary intention. Volunteer trust is an important antecedent to activate other influencing factors, while community commitment has a directly positive effect on volunteers’ sustained voluntary intention. Volunteer satisfaction not only significantly affects volunteers’ sustained voluntary intention directly, but also impacts the dependent variable through community commitment indirectly. Besides, volunteer engagement has a significant positive effect on volunteers’ sustained intention through volunteer satisfaction. The results verify the applicability of the commitment-trust theory in the field of voluntary service and provide new perspectives for understanding the psychological mechanisms of volunteers’ sustained participation.

Numerous studies support the identifiable victim effect that donors prefer a single and identifiable beneficiary over multiple and unidentifiable beneficiaries. However, there is little understanding of how presenting pictures of single versus multiple beneficiaries interacts with donors’ traits. This research focuses on donors’ sense of power and explores its impact on the comparative effects of presenting different numbers of beneficiaries. We adopted an online experimental design and collected data from 515 participants across two studies. These two studies provide convergent results that high-power donors donate more when they view pictures of multiple beneficiaries, whereas low-power donors donate more when they view pictures of a single beneficiary. Besides, Study 2 finds that the interaction effect of sense of power and number of beneficiaries on donation effectiveness is mediated by perceived responsibility and self-efficacy. The findings provide implications for managers on how to present pictures featuring different numbers of beneficiaries to donors with varying senses of power.

Transparency means being honest and open about one’s practices. Transparency is considered a gold standard in the nonprofit sector and associated with a range of positive outcomes. We propose that transparency should also become a guiding principle and documented practice for nonprofit scholars. In this article, we articulate the context for discussing transparency in social science research and the potential risks of not being transparent. Acknowledging the epistemic and methodological diversity of our field—and therefore, the need for flexibility in how transparency will be practiced by different scholars—we encourage nonprofit researchers to consider how they can enhance their research transparency. To this end, we outline the benefits of transparency and offer concrete suggestions for different ways to demonstrate transparency in nonprofit research.

Research illustrates that a donor’s identity can play a key role in how and to whom they donate. Yet, most research overlooks how racial identity and social context influence giving, particularly during a crisis. Our study examines how race-shaped crisis-relief donations related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement during 2020. We propose that donors will be more likely to donate to causes that mirror their identities, specifically their racial/ethnic identity, and when their donation benefits their racial and ethnic group. We use new donation and identity data from the 2020 Collaborative Post-Election Multi-Racial Survey to test identity-based giving during crisis. We find that Black and Asian Americans are more likely than White donors to donate to BLM and COVID-19 relief efforts in 2020, respectively. Black and Asian American donors are more likely than White donors to indicate their donations are made in support of their racial/ethnic group. Black and Asian donors who intend their gift to benefit their racial/ethnic group will be more likely to donate to these causes. The results support our hypotheses that a donor’s racial identity can play a role in deciding what causes to support, signaling that identity-based giving occurs during a crisis. This paper contributes to theory building around non-white donor behavior and holds practical implications for equity in nonprofit fundraising.

Drawing from 41 qualitative interviews with Norwegian voluntary football clubs and local public stakeholders, this paper explores whether voluntary sport clubs (VSCs) are a convenient measure for including refugees in society. The following research questions are addressed: what expectations of refugee inclusion initiatives do local stakeholders hold towards voluntary sport clubs, and how do the clubs grapple with pursuing non-sport and sport objectives and systems simultaneously? The results show that the football clubs face high expectations of refugee inclusion. Although the football clubs generally understand and accept the expectations, inclusion and integration activities are costly in terms of time and competence and challenge the club’s capacities. Two competing logics are identified in the data: a functional logic passively welcoming everyone that are keen and resourced to play football and a moral and proactive logic, that expects the clubs to reach out to include refugees that are alien to the organization of indigenous sport. We find that despite external expectation, the sport clubs are not fast-tracks to refugee integration because the logic sustaining their existence and practices are at odds with the logic prescribing refugee integration through sport.

The paper aims to test why people from the general population intend to volunteer in the future. Our study tests empathy (affective and cognitive) as the intrinsic antecedent, satisfaction with life and meaning in life as the endocentric antecedents, and social value orientation as the ipsocentric antecedent of the intention to engage in volunteering. The paper is based on a 2-wave longitudinal online, questionnaire-based study (N = 566) performed on a general sample of Polish residents in May 2022 and May 2023. Results of structural equation modeling indicated that empathy at time 1 of the study predicted subsequent volunteering intention (when controlling for other variables in the model). Moreover, the volunteering intention at time 1 predicted social value orientation at time 2, and endocentric antecedents at time 1 negatively predicted empathy at time 2. The results suggest that concern for others and their welfare is the strongest factor associated with intentions to volunteer in the general population. Practitioners should consider that people with higher dispositional empathy might be the best targets for volunteer recruitment.

Media Competence (MC) enables citizens to efficiently utilize information and communication technologies, for both consuming and producing content, in order to participate in digital society in a responsible and reflective manner. Its integration in the curriculum requires inter-sectorial collaboration, which includes not only education authorities, but also key actors such as Civil Society Organizations (CSO). The present study examines the perception of CSO with regard to the integration of MC in the curriculum of basic education in Latin American countries. For this, a survey was designed that was stored in a digital platform. It was completed by 63 CSO from fourteen different countries. The main findings indicate that: a) the CSO recognize the importance of teaching MC and the associated challenges, such as the digital divide, the lack of political will, and the lack of understanding of the concept by the population in general; and b) they contribute through the creation of education resources and the teaching of classes for teachers and other vulnerable groups; however, it is crucial to strengthen the network of collaboration with other groups of interest, prioritize MC in their agendas, and ensure that CSO receive training in this area.

Multi-organizational cross-sector partnerships on social media involving nonprofits, governments, and corporations are increasingly important for addressing complex social issues. Such large-scale cross-sector networks would not be possible without brokers who connect otherwise disconnected clusters. Nevertheless, cross-sector brokers are not always positively received by the public. Drawing from the brokerage typology literature, we classify five distinctive types of brokers (i.e., representative, gatekeeper, liaison, itinerant, and coordinator) and explore public responses associated with them, and how such effects spill over to connected same-sector organizations. Our findings show that different types of brokers receive different public responses, which are moderated by organizations’ sectors. In particular, nonprofits playing brokerage roles are more likely to be positively received by the public compared to government agencies.

“Participatory grantmaking” (PGM)—the practice of ceding decision-making power about grants to communities that are affected by the outcomes of the grants—is gaining traction in many philanthropic spaces. While there is emerging literature on PGM primarily in the Global North, few academic contributions explore how PGM plays out in the Global South. This article therefore advances the state of knowledge related to philanthropy and grantmaking, by analytically exploring PGM specifically in the African continent. Through in-depth qualitative interviews with 19 grantmakers within sub-Saharan Africa, the article identifies common forms of PGM in the region, its impact on various forms of power—particularly visible power—and the barriers encountered, including shrinking civil society space, resource scarcity, and back-donor demands. The article argues that PGM in sub-Saharan Africa cannot be seen as isolated in a silo of philanthropy, but that its contributions to addressing power imbalances must be integrated in broader long-term development sectors that are often dominated by the Global North. It also underscores that power, in its various forms, will always be present in PGM. Practitioners must continuously adapt and refine these models to address the uneven power dynamics in grantmaking that they aim to change.

Social enterprises (SEs) have emerged throughout the world to address societal challenges through market-based activities and innovation. Research has focused on how SEs manage the tensions arising from the combination of social-welfare and market logics, neglecting the institutional complexity that arises in authoritarian regimes where the state plays a dominant role. Based on the institutional logics perspective and interview data of 42 SE leaders in China, we find that key tensions arise from the state and social-welfare logics and that state logic (re)configures the social–market relationships to be compatible. Chinese SEs employed depoliticization and localization to adapt to this unique form of institutional complexity in their social innovation efforts. This study advances research on SEs, institutional complexity, and hybrid organizing.

Research on civil society organizations’ advocacy has predominantly centered on examining societal and organizational structures as determining which organizations that engage in advocacy endeavors and whether they achieve influence. This structural determinism has instigated a growing body of research within the field emphasizing the agency of actors. Thus far, this new body of literature has tended to examine advocacy at the organizational level, thereby neglecting the impact of individual actors. This neglection is inconsistent with a related branch of organization studies, specifically the neo-institutional field, which long has recognized the relevance of studying individual actors’ role in change processes. This paper argues that it is similarly relevant to study the agency of individual actors in civil society organizations’ political advocacy. Through an archival case study utilizing analytical frameworks stemming from the neo-institutional concept of institutional entrepreneurship, the study examines how an individual actor influenced the law preparing process preceding the Danish Aliens Act of 1983. By outlining the significant impact of an individual actor in a legislative process, the paper underscores the need to integrate individual agency into civil society advocacy research to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of civil society organizations’ advocacy.

This article explores how grounded theory (GT) can advance nonprofit research by addressing its unique complexities and practice-oriented nature. While GT’s emphasis on developing theory directly from data makes it well suited for studying the dynamic nonprofit sector, its application has been constrained by conceptual ambiguity and methodological challenges. We clarify GT’s foundational principles, including emergence, theoretical sampling, constant comparison, and its evolving interpretations that influence the use of GT. Drawing on selected studies from leading nonprofit journals, we illustrate GT’s strengths in understanding complex dynamics, bridging theory and practice, capturing emerging trends, and refreshing established concepts and theories. We also provide practical guidance and strategies for overcoming challenges such as data access and methodological confusion. We conclude by emphasizing GT’s potential to advance nonprofit scholarship and practice and encouraging its broader adoption in nonprofit research.

Volunteering in emergency situations can involve the risk of injury. Overcoming such risks may motivate some volunteers, but may also deter those who are risk-averse. This presents a challenge, as recruiting and engaging volunteers with different risk attitudes is important to ensure response capacity and a balanced organizational culture. This cross-sectional study uses data from online surveys of search-and-rescue (SAR) volunteers (n = 1,659) and the general population (n = 3,185) in Norway to examine whether trust moderates a negative relationship between risk aversion and motivation in high-risk volunteering. Results from OLS regressions show that SAR volunteers have higher levels of risk propensity (B = 0.25, p < 0.001), trust (B = 1.47, p < 0.001) and felt trust (B = 1.36, p < 0.001) than other volunteers. Risk-averse volunteers report lower motivation and participation, but trust mitigates much of the negative impact (interaction term B = −0.10, p < 0.01). These findings underline the importance of strong cultures of trust within SAR volunteer teams.

This paper’s objective was to reveal the Hungarian population’s knowledge and attitude about international volunteering. The study compared the opinion of returned volunteers with that of those population groups that had no international volunteering experiences and drew conclusions about the similarities and differences. The article aimed to evaluate the perceived roles and impacts of volunteering as well as the experienced difficulties and challenges. The study evaluated the results of a quantitative online survey collecting the opinion of 344 respondents including 73 returned international volunteers. The sampling used was convenient and non-representative; however, efforts were made to contact respondents with various demographic background and volunteer-related experiences. Detailed SPSS-based factor and cluster analyses were used to identify homogeneous groups for data comparison. The general awareness about international volunteering is low in Hungary, still most of the respondents agree with its ideology. The positive effects of volunteering imposed on the volunteers’ persons were named as the most important advantage but only few respondents found it beneficiary for the donor country or its economy. Returned volunteers were challenged by local cultural habits as well as project management difficulties in the recipient countries. Strong correlations were experienced in the opinion of women, university graduates, and respondents with domestic volunteering background, all of them having significantly bigger knowledge and understanding level compared to those of other segment groups.