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This chapter returns to the antagonism between the WVS and other women's organizations, a relationship further embittered by an ill-conceived government attempt to force an amalgamation of WVS with the National Council of Social Services. The WVS survived because largely Lady Reading succeeded in convincing Whitehall that it could provide effective auxiliary services for the statutory authorities. Its hierarchical structure, which so offended leaders of established voluntary organizations, was crucial to its effectiveness as a handmaiden of the planning state: ‘an organized service with a proper chain of command’ as Labour's Home Secretary put it.

This chapter considers the experience of the First World War to demonstrate that state mobilisation does not necessarily crowd out voluntary endeavour. While the scale of volunteering to fight in that conflict has long been appreciated, the equivalent voluntary effort on the home front has been neglected by historians. This chapter charts the scale, coordination and regulation of this voluntary activity, from the establishment of the National Relief Fund, to the appointment of a Director General of Voluntary Organisations in 1915 and the 1916 War Charities Act. It is argued that the War encouraged professionalisation and innovation within the charity sector, while also embedding a notion of voluntarism working hand in hand with the state.

Identifies specific network mechanisms at the individual level and illustrates how different social networks affect recruitment and individual participation in different voluntary organizations and social movement organizations. Socialization functions of social networks create an initial disposition to participate; structural‐connection functions generate practical opportunities for involvement; decision‐shaping functions affect the ultimate decision to take part. Empirical evidence comes from members of two political organizations active in the solidarity movement and the environmental movement in Switzerland, the Bern Declaration and WWF.

Presents a comparative overview of non-profit or third-sector organizations in a wider welfare policy and civil society context. It addresses the social, economic, and political developments that have made this set of institutions more central to policy debates in developed market economies; in particular, within a broad policy framework known as the Third Way, which, unlike other policy approaches, pays the greatest and most systematic attention to the non-profit sector. The chapter finds that the strength of the Third Way stance toward the non-profit sector is closely related to its weakness: Because its basic perspective towards voluntarism and civil society overlaps significantly with those of neo-liberalism on the one hand, and with approaches in reformed minded post-corporatists countries, its distinct policy thrust is hard to fathom. Indeed, many countries practice some form of ‘third-wayism’ in their search for new policy approaches to modernize the welfare state.

Civil society should be understood not merely in terms of contrasting symbolic categories but as structures of feeling, the diffusely sensed obligations and rights that represent, and are at the same time evoked by, contrasting solidary ties. Collective representations of such social relationships are broadcast by civil society institutions specializing in communicative, not regulative tasks—by the mass media, public opinion polls, and voluntary organizations. The structures of feeling that such institutions produce must be conceptualized as influence rather than authoritative control, or power in a more structural sense. They institutionalize civil society by creating messages that translate general codes into situationally specific evaluations and descriptions. This chapter analyzes these organizations of influence. It begins by discussing the lifeworld of public opinion which anchors communicative and regulative institutions alike.

This chapter explores how the national defense was founded on gendered ideas around nation making processes and notions of citizenship. It is exemplified with Swedish military and defense practice with a focus on the connection between the defense and the nation through military conscription and voluntary defense organizations. The nation was gendered and men were the “neutral soldiers” acting as protectors of the nation, in the name of a specific militarism associated with neutrality—women were “the beautiful souls” to be protected, defined outside conscription, and military practice. Women’s political agency was limited and commonly associated with motherhood. Any other role that women pursued posed a challenge to the defense organization. The “woman-in-arms” identity was shown to be particularly problematic. Sweden pursued a neutral foreign policy yet the national defense was influenced by militarism. This “neutral” militarism was widely dispersed throughout society, trickled down through the state via conscription and voluntary defense organizations and was connected to everyday tasks.

This chapter deals with how the Korean state has been ruled through a less well-known partnership of government and civil society, in the form of voluntary agencies. Along with a symbiotic partnership with big business, it has also depended from the outset on a second and intrinsic coalition with voluntary agencies, for its effective provision of social services. Over time, voluntary counterparts have been altered, ranging from foreign relief agencies in the period of aid economy, through quasi-voluntary organisations during the period of authoritarian developmentalism, to advocacy civic groups in the post-democratization era. Government has relied on a combination of legal and institutional strategies to tie voluntarism with social accountability for service provision. Voluntary agencies marshaled national networks to challenge or cooperate with state policies. Mixed governance has been shifting, depending on the capacity of voluntarism to influence state policies and the power balance between hard state and soft voluntarism.

This chapter explores how the UK voluntary sector is responding to the political drive to reposition its role in the planning and delivery of social welfare, and how this is manifest at local level. It presents case study material from the Scottish City of Glasgow, which illustrates the impacts of changing regeneration and social inclusion policies on the development of the voluntary sector over time. The case study indicates that while the UK voluntary sector may be facing similar challenges, such a polarised debate is perhaps too simplistic and needs to take account of the diversity of the sector both in terms of organisational size and variation in the development of subsectors within the voluntary sector. It is demonstrated that while the new localism and governance arrangements can create a dynamic mosaic of opportunities for voluntary organisations to develop services in spatially defined communities, they can also facilitate complex patterns of voluntary sector inclusion and exclusion that act to reinforce existing patterns of unevenness. This chapter also explores how changes in urban policy and the shift to local governance and partnership working is affecting local voluntary sector development.

This chapter examines the role of formal and informal leaders, including local public officials and heads of voluntary organizations, in small communities' efforts to adapt to changing social and economic conditions. It considers how residents confer respect on leaders and how leaders draw on this respect in performing their roles. Leaders discuss why they take on civic responsibilities, the gratifications and frustrations involved, and how these activities serve as stepping-stones for public office in larger venues. Although it is sometimes suggested that small towns lack interesting cultural amenities, local cultural leadership is particularly important, and figures prominently in communities' understanding of their distinctive history and identity. The chapter also shows that small towns are laboratories for social innovation, judging from leaders' descriptions of new technology, electronic communications, sustainable energy projects, and efforts to rebuild following natural disasters.

This chapter examines the partnerships between black and ethnic minority voluntary organisations and local government in England as a way to challenge racism. It considers the stresses and strains in maintaining partnerships that are designed to bring about change or challenge oppression. The analyses of these types of partnerships reveal that black and minority ethnic voluntary organisations appear to have some of the tools required to provide an appropriate service and they have been able to earn the trust of their users.

An overview of the book’s main issues is presented: food aid, the role of the military in humanitarian aid, funding priorities, and the future of foreign aid. PVO financial independence is interrelated with types of federal funding mechanisms. To find out how much federal assistance PVOs received over time, a large data set on revenue and expenditures was constructed from 1939 to 2005 for all U.S.-based PVOs engaged in foreign assistance and registered with the federal government. The data set is new and the most comprehensive on U.S.-based PVOs. This introduction describes the data and characterizes the main trends among religious and secular PVOs since 1939. Analysis of the data produces findings that are contrary to widely held perceptions about PVOs and their relationship with the federal government. Two predominant myths are dispelled. Religious agencies have been integral to international humanitarian and development efforts since the formalization of the field in 1939. PVOs over the decades have increasingly sought federal funding and once recipients of federal dollars, they become an interest group.

This chapter addresses idealism and non-idealism as properties of social theories about voluntary action. It also pays attention to idealist and non-idealist social thought in voluntary organisations themselves and their purposes. The pro-state idealist social thought in ‘official’ or governmental circles concerning the perceived role of and relationships with voluntary action, and the changes in such thought and in government relationships with voluntary action in the 1970s are then explained. Next, the chapter considers the innovation of classifying voluntary organisations by the kind of social theory they profess in their own ‘mission statements’ and suggests this is helpful in considering voluntary action and the ‘third way’. It examines new approaches to the study of voluntary action in social life, sensitive to the theoretical orientations of all of the parties concerned. It is clear that the framework could not have been constructed unless the three assumptions presented had been abandoned.

This chapter is the first one, out of three that focus on opportunities and restrictions for older volunteers from an organisational perspective, based on 73 case studies carried out among European voluntary organisations. The chapter provides the main methodological information about the case study research conducted across the eight countries included in the study. It informs about the main criteria adopted for selecting voluntary organisations, i.e. the activity sector and age-structure of the volunteer workforce. The main characteristics of the voluntary organisations investigated are also shown. After methodological matters, the organisational internal management of older volunteers is analysed in this chapter, in terms of policies, behaviours and attitudes. This has meant to explore organisational age management initiatives regarding volunteers, and also organisational opinions and existing barriers for older volunteers. The study also identifies what type of voluntary organisations could experience more barriers than opportunities for volunteering in older age.

This chapter investigates the roles of voluntary and community organisations' (VCO) s in working alongside formal institutions of local government in community governance. It analyses the enrolment of VCOs in partnerships at different scales from the community to the region, emphasising issues of the effectiveness of engagement by VCOs and scales of representation. It discusses the interactions between parish, town and community councils and VCOs within communities. Thus, it explores how relations between councils and VCOs can be shaped by geographical context and the constitution of the local voluntary and community sector. It provides examples drawn from a series of research projects undertaken since the mid-1990s.

Across Europe voluntary organisations are aware of the main challenges population ageing is going to bring to them with respect to the volunteer workforce. This is reflected in the opinions they express and the age management strategies they have already implied or are considering to imply. Voluntary organisations particularly underlined the role played by staff shortages, service quality and older volunteers' high experience and competencies as relevant aspects to explain why recruitment, satisfaction and also retainment of older volunteer are essential in the current scenario of increased longevity and population ageing. Successful strategies would require to pay more attention to training and flexibility in terms of tasks, hours spent on volunteering and the duration of volunteer activities and overall more planning.

This chapter examines the role of voluntary organisations in generating social capital in city politics in Great Britain. It discusses the concept of social capital as developed by Robert Putnam, and stresses the need for social-capital research to consider the relations between associations and organisations and the role of corporate actors. The findings reveal that social capital can be most easily created in conditions where there is shared identity among those constructing the relationship, and that there is a distributional quality to social capital.

This chapter informs on the main opportunities and restrictions for older volunteers in Italy, through an examination across different levels (i.e. micro, meso, macro and structural). For example, the involvement, the preferences and the motivations of older volunteers have been scrutinised by considering interconnections with voluntary organisations, the welfare mix, the institutional level and cultural attitudes. Among other results, it has been argued that the dimension of older volunteering may be considerably under-estimated in Italy, due to a cultural propensity not to perceive self-expressive volunteer activities, as real “volunteering”. As a consequence of this, self-expressive volunteering among older people is not captured by the available data. The chapter also identifies main challenges on how to improve the match between supplies of older candidates with the demand of voluntary organisations in the future, in Italy.