Civil society - comprising the activities of non-state organizations, institutions and movements - has in recent years emerged as the major force for change in the realms of politics, public policy and society both globally and locally. Yet, despite the crucial importance of this political phenomenon to the principle and practice of democracy, it eludes definition and systematic understanding.This book provides a comprehensive and flexible framework for the definition, measurement,...

Once largely confined to the biggest cities in the mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes states, philanthropic foundations now play a significant role in nearly every state. Wide-ranging and incisive, the essays in American Philanthropic Foundations: Regional Difference and Change examine the origins, development, and accomplishments of philanthropic foundations in key cities and regions of the United States. Each contributor assesses foundation efforts to address social and economic inequ...

Social Innovation: Comparative Perspectives investigates socio-economic impact. Since it is hard to establish causality and to measure social properties when investigating impact, especially at the level of society, the book narrows down impact to one priority aspect: social innovation – understood as organizations’ capacity to generate novel ideas, ways and means of doing things, of addressing public and social problems of many kinds.This volume’s primary assertion is tha...

The growth of philanthropic foundations in numbers and significance raises two immediate questions. First, what makes for success and failure of foundations’ projects and activities? Second, what yardsticks or benchmarks are used to measure performance and track goal attainment? The purpose of this book is to delve deeper into the complex set of issues that lie behind the performance and wider impact of philanthropy.Performance Measurement in Philanthropic Foundations looks at the ...

America's grantmaking foundations have grown rapidly over the course of recent decades, even in the face of financial and economic crises. Foundations have a great deal of freedom, enjoy widespread legitimacy, and wield considerable influence. In this book, David Hammack and Helmut Anheier follow up their edited volume, American Foundations, with a comprehensive historical account of what American foundations have done with that independence and power.While philanthropic fo...

The status of women in the creative and cultural industries remains precarious. This comparative analysis provides insights from seven key economies to help understand progress towards gender equality in culture and the arts and the broader cultural economy.With empirical and policy analysis spanning Europe and the US, the authors investigate the extent to which gender equality has entered the mainstream along dimensions of leadership, access and awards, pay and pension gaps, work-...

In this new edition of the popular textbook, Nonprofit Organizations: Theory, Management, Policy, Helmut K. Anheier and Stefan Toepler have fully updated, revised, and expanded this comprehensive introduction to a growing field. The text takes on an international and comparative perspective, detailing the background and concepts and examining relevant theories and central issues.Anheier and Toepler cover the full range of nonprofit organizations—service providers, membersh...

The nonprofit sector occupies an ever more central role in economic and social policies, from the redesign of welfare system in the U.S. or UK, to fostering democracy in Central and Eastern Europe. At the same time, non-profit organizations face increased public scrutiny, and calls for more 'efficiency' and greater 'accountability'. Against this background, this revealing book explore keys policy issues such as:* Is the nonprofit sector in crisis?* What are the common themes...

Philanthropy and endowed foundation are vitally important institutions of modern society, yet in recent years, they've faced new threats such as declining resources and questions of accountability and performance. To address these questions, individual philanthropists and foundation leaders have looked to strategic philanthropy to become more effective and efficient.This important book provides an overview of creative philanthropy along with an analysis of its theory and practice. ...

This guide to civil society provides a quick and easy reference to the key people, concepts and organizations of the third sector. It contains approximately 300 up-to-date entries including all terms and concepts associated with civil society, as well as regional information. Key features of the dictionary include:* definitions of concepts and terms surrounding civil society* details on specific regions important in the history of civil society, such as India, the CIS and th...

This volume is a collection of original essays prepared by colleagues, collaborators, and former students on the occasion of Helmut K. Anheier’s 65th birthday and retirement from the University of Heidelberg. An internationally recognized pioneer of nonprofit and civil society studies, Anheier focused his work on providing clarity around (1) civil society, local and global, observing its origins and trajectory and developing theories to explain it; (2) the nonprofit sector and institutions...

The governance of the modern corporation is broadly understood as the mechanisms, relations, and processes for balancing the interests of stakeholders. It spells out the rules and procedures for decision-making, accountability and transparency, and distributional rights. Corporate governance thus provides the framework in which corporate objectives are set, the means of attaining them, the kind of performance monitoring required, and by whom. In the aftermath of the global financial crisis...