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Description
Understanding Nonprofit Organizations is a collection of the most insightful classics and recent articles, chapters, and encyclopedia entries about managing a nonprofit organization in the United States. The anthology examines the distinctiveness of nonprofit organizations through the writing of scholars, consultants, and practicing executives. It focuses on governing, leading, and managing nonprofit organizations and how nonprofit organizations differ from both the public and private sectors.
Completely revised and updated with twenty new readings, the second edition speaks to the most important concepts that face today’s leaders and managers of nonprofit organizations. Each section includes one or more new contributions from the past decade on topics ranging from governance, legal frameworks, capacity building and strategic planning, fundraising, social entrepreneurship, finance, managing volunteers, and accountability—making Understanding Nonprofit Organizations the most current and topical compendium of essays on the nonprofit sector. Additionally, each part opens with a framing essay that identifies the central themes and issues presented within the part and also briefly summarizes the significance of the contribution that each piece makes to the development of knowledge in the field.
Understanding Nonprofit Organizations is an ideal text for use in graduate and upper-division undergraduate survey courses on nonprofit organizations and management.
About the Authors
J. Steven Ott is a professor and center director at the University of Utah. He has served as a consultant to numerous nonprofit organizations and local and state government agencies, and has chaired the Executive Committee of the Nonprofit Management Education Section of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). Dr. Ott has authored and edited many books, articles, and chapters on the nonprofit sector and its organizations, organization theory, organizational behavior, human resource management, administrative theory, accountability, and organizational culture.
Lisa A. Dicke is an associate professor at the University of North Texas. Dr. Dicke serves on the Executive Council and on the Committee of the Nonprofit Management Education Section of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration (NASPAA). Her research interests include organizational leadership, as well as accountability in government and nonprofit organizations, and her articles have been published in numerous books and journals
"The second edition of Understanding Nonprofit Organizations will be applauded by students, instructors, and practitioners. The explosion of recent research mandated an update of Steve Ott’s valuable and successful first edition. This eagerly anticipated new edition is a major revision and adds many recent articles by key scholars and adds fresh new topics required for anyone wishing to understand this fascinating dynamic sector. Steve Ott and Lisa Dicke’s updated Understanding Nonprofit Organizations will be a standard assigned text for nonprofit courses and should be found on practitioners’ “must read” lists. —Russell A. Cargo, Ph.D., Principal, Third Sector Services, LLC, and Senior Fellow, Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, University of Missouri at Kansas City
“I am delighted that Steve Ott and Lisa Dicke have prepared the second edition of this valuable book, Understanding Nonprofit Organizations, as a resource to help inform and educate those who lead or manage nonprofit organizations. An undertaking of this magnitude is very demanding, so we are fortunate that Steve and Lisa have chosen to invest their energies in creating the next generation of this important volume. … It is a welcome contribution to the literature of the nonprofit sector, because it explains in useful terms what we need to know about nonprofit organizations, how they function, and how they can effectively be led and managed. These chapters have been written by leading scholars and professionals, people who know their topics very well, and they are organized and presented in ways that bring important clarity to the management of this new world of nonprofit organizations. We are fortunate to have this valuable resource to inform our work in these exciting times.” —David O. Renz, from the foreword
Reviews from prior editions
“Professor Ott is a leader in nonprofit management education. He has assembled a group of authors who have a great deal of knowledge in the field. The reader provides a great overview of the subject.”—Naomi Bailin Wish, Center for Public Service, Seton Hall University
“Steven Ott has assembled an outstanding collection of readings on the nonprofit sector. It should be required reading for classes on this topic.”—Jeffrey L. Brudney, University of Georgia
“This compendium of readings delves into ongoing challenges of nonprofit leadership, management, and governance. The unique contribution of this work is the exploration of how the distinctive character of the sector is being transformed by the need to serve as a proxy for local government and emulate the private sector—a great addition to graduate courses in nonprofit management.”—Jennifer Alexander, Levin College of Urban Affairs, Cleveland State University
I: Governance of Nonprofit Organizations
1. Board of Directors
Stephen R. Block (1998)
2. The High-Impact Governing Model
Doug Eadie (2009)
3. Guide to Nonprofit Corporate Governance in the Wake of Sarbanes-Oxley
American Bar Association, Coordinating Committee on
Nonprofit Governance (2005)
II: The Legal Framework
4. Organizational, Operational, and Related Tests and Doctrines
Bruce R. Hopkins (2007)
5. Update: The Current State of Nonprofit Director Liability
Jaclyn A. Cherry (1999)
III: Effective, Ethical Leadership
6. Executive Director
Stephen R. Block (1998)
7. Ethics in Nonprofit Management: Creating a Culture of Integrity
Thomas H. Jeavons (1994)
IV Capacity Building
8. Building Nonprofit Capacity: A Framework for Addressing the Problem
Carol J. De Vita, Cory Fleming, and Eric C. Twombly (2001)
9. Introduction to Strategic Planning
Michael Allison and Jude Kaye (2006)
V: Fund Development: Generating Revenues
10. The Fundraising Process
Wesley E. Lindahl (2010)
11. Analyzing the Dynamics of Funding: Reliability and Autonomy
Jon Pratt (2004)
12. The Giving Circle Landscape
Angela M. Eikenberry (2009)
13. Foundations
Elizabeth T. Boris (1998)
VI: Social Entrepreneurship and Commercialism
14. Nonprofit Entrepreneurship
Dennis R. Young (1998)
15. The Legitimacy of Social Enterprise
Raymond Dart (2004)
16. Taking Social Entrepreneurship Seriously
J. Gregory Dees (2007)
17. Conceptualizing Nonprofit Commercialism: A Case Study
Stefan Toepler (2004)
VII: Managing Under Government Contracts,
Through Networks, and in Collaborations
18. Dilemmas of Management in Nonprofit Organizations
Steven Rathgeb Smith and Michael Lipsky (1993)
19. A Manager’s Guide to Choosing and Using Collaborative Networks
H. Brinton Milward and Keith G. Provan (2006)
20. Collaboration: Mission Driven Partnerships
Carol Chetkovich and Frances Kunreuther (2006)
VIII Budgets, Financial Reports, and Management Control
21. The Underpinnings of Financial and Fiscal Operations
Dale Swoboda and Georgalu Swoboda (2009)
22. Types of Nonprofit Income: Financial and
Cash Flow Management Considerations
Murray Dropkin and Allyson Hayden (2001)
IX: Managing Volunteers
23. What Is Volunteering?
Marc A. Musick and John Wilson (2008)
24. Volunteers at Work
Jone L. Pearce (1993)
25. It Ain’t Natural: Toward a New (Natural) Resource
Conceptualization for Volunteer Management
Jeffrey L. Brudney and Lucas C. P. M. Meijs (2009)
X: Accountability and Evaluation
26. Multiple Constituencies and the Social Construction
of Nonprofit Organization Effectiveness
Robert D. Herman and David O. Renz (1997)
27. Balancing Competing Accountability Requirements: Challenges in
Performance Improvement of the Nonprofit Human Services Agency
Seok-Eun Kim (2005)
28. Measuring Outcomes of United Way–Funded Programs:
Expectations and Reality
Michael Hendricks, Margaret C. Plantz, and Kathleen J. Pritchard (2008)
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