A Dictionary of Nonprofit Terms and Concepts

An essential resource for anyone in the nonprofit sector http://iupress. indiana. edu 1-800-842-6796 A DictionAry of Nonprofit Terms & Concepts David Horton Smith, Robert A. Stebbins, and Michael A. Dover This reference work presents clear, consistent, and carefully cross-referenced definitions for more than 1,200 terms and concepts that have been found useful in past research and theory on the nonprofit sector. The entries reflect the importance of associations, volunteering, citizen participation, philanthropy, voluntary action, nonprofit management, volunteer administration, leisure, and political activities of nonprofits. They also reflect a concern for the wider range of useful general concepts in theory and research that bear on the nonprofit sector and its manifestations in the United States and elsewhere. Although the definitions are presented in alphabetic order, they can also be clustered into ten meaningful sets: general concepts relevant to any researcher in the field; concepts related to nonprofit political activity; concepts that deal with associations; concepts centered on volunteers; terms related to philanthropy; terms referring to nonprofit management; terms referring to volunteer administration; terms referring to leisure; terms concerning religion; and, finally, terms concerning the law. These ten sets are not mutually exclusive, and scholars with different interests could undoubtedly add more terms to these sets. The dictionary serves as a glossary designed to help move the field toward a commonly held set of definitions that may be employed in nonprofit sector research within and across nations and languages. With few exceptions, each entry is linked by at least one reference to the relevant literature or website that either identifies the origin of the term or concept or that provides illustrative theory, research, or practice bearing on it. The dictionary supplies some of the foundational work necessary on the road toward a general theory of the nonprofit sector. DAviD HorToN SmiTH received his Ph. D. in Sociology from Harvard University (1965) and has spent most of his career as a professor in that field at Boston College, retiring in 2004. He is the founder of the Association for research on Nonprofit organizations and voluntary Action (ArNovA) and its journal. in 1994 he received the first ArNovA Lifetime Achievement Award. His career-long central interest has been grassroots association. His most recent book is Grassroots Associations (2000). roBerT A. STeBBiNS, FrSC, is Faculty Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Calgary. He received his Ph. D. from the University of minnesota (1964). He has written thirty-two books, including Between Work and Leisure and Volunteering as Leisure/Leisure as Volunteering: An International Assessment as well as numerous articles and chapters. Stebbins is a Fellow of the royal Society of Canada. miCHAeL A. Dover is Assistant Professor at Central michigan University in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work. His voluntary action began in the anti-war, alternative press, and Chile solidarity movements from 1966 to 1974. in 1975, he entered social work, earning degrees at Adelphi and Columbia. He was co-convenor in 1985 of the Bertha Capen reynolds Society (now the Social Welfare Action Alliance), a national organization of social work and human service activists. PhilanthroPic and nonProfit StudieS Dwight F. Burlingame and David C. Hammack, editors Reference Smith, Stebbins, and Dover A DictionAry of nonprofit terms & concepts INDIANA INDIANA University Press Bloomington & Indianapolis ISBN-13: 978-0-253-34783-1 ISBN-10: 0-253-34783-1