This course introduces you to the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations, and the concepts of leadership and governance. While this course has been developed with North American culture in mind, we do appreciate that in other parts of the world the nature of the nonprofit sector, nonprofit organizations, nonprofit leadership and governance may not be the same. Nevertheless, it is our hope that much of the course content will still be of value to those in other parts of the world. To learn more about this course, please watch the overview video by copying and pasting the following link into your web browser: https://goo.gl/YMg1Qd. Keywords: Nonprofit; Nonprofit Sector; Voluntary Sector; Nonprofit Organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations, Volunteer Organizations, Leadership, Management, Governance, Board, Board of Directors, Performance, Effectiveness Course 1 Overview: Week 1: Some of the questions you will explore this week are: What is the nonprofit sector and why does it exist? What are the unique characteristics of nonprofit organizations? What are the trends and emerging issues facing organizations in the nonprofit sector? Week 2: Questions to be explored this week are: What is leadership at the governance level and how is it different from management? What is good governance and why does it matter? What is a board of directors? Week 3: This week's questions: What roles do board members play in nonprofit organizations? Broadly speaking, what are boards responsible for and how do they go about their work? What are some of the issues that challenge the board's ability to go its work? Week 4: At this stage, you are asked to review the course content, submit a written assignment (known lightheartedly as a BEAR (Board Effectiveness Readiness Assessment), and take two multiple choice Readiness Assurance Tests (known similarly as RATs). One RAT will assess knowledge and reading comprehension and the other will test application of knowledge within a practical case. Week 5: We will encourage you to discuss the RATs in the discussion forums and take them again should you wish to change any of your answers based on the information exchanged.
Week 1 Overview
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Introduction to the Nonprofit Sector, Nonprofit Organizations, Nonprofit Leadership and Governance
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從本節課中
The Nonprofit Sector, Nonprofit Organizations, Leadership and Governance
Welcome to the first course in the series of three courses on developing leadership and improving governance in nonprofit organizations. We encourage you to dive right in--watch the lecture and guest interview videos, participate in the discussion forums, take the practice quiz, post a commentary in the forum, analyze the Board cases, and start working on the course project!
與講師見面
Prof. Yvonne D. Harrison, PhDAssociate Professor and Director
Voluntary Sector Studies Network (VSSN)
Prof. Vic Murray, PhDAdjunct Professor
School of Public Administration, University of Victoria
Welcome to the first course in Developing
Leadership and Improving Governance in Nonprofit Organizations.
This week, we'll focus on the nonprofit sector,
nonprofit organizations, and the role they play in society.
This short lecture is organized around
the following framework of questions,
Why do we have a nonprofit sector?
What are some of the names that we call it?
What types of organizations are part of the nonprofit sector and how big is it?
Where does the nonprofit sector,
and the organizations that comprise it fit in
relation to government and for profit business?
What role do nonprofit organizations play in society?
And I'll conclude with questions
to frame our discussion in the lecture forum this week.
The question, why do we have a nonprofit sector,
is one that Lester Solomon has examined.
In his research, he boils it down to a number of reasons,
that explain the existence of the nonprofit sector.
One, historically, communities formed long before governments existed,
when people would come together to solve local problems.
But as government and the market grew,
it came to be realized that they were not able or
willing to resolve all of the problems and concerns in the community.
And their failure to deal with these concerns,
led to the formation of nonprofit and voluntary organisations.
The existence of this sector can also be explained by
the failure of government and the market to meet all of the needs of the community.
But nonprofits are also a mechanism to allow
pooling of resources to produce collective goods,
which the market doesn't do well within a subset of the population.
They also help with those with interests that are not large or
popular enough to be of concern to the state or to be profitable in the market.
Other reasons come from the freedom to express values and interests,
that people either can't express themselves or wouldn't as individuals.
And we see this expression in self-help groups,
groups based on sexual orientation, ethnicity,
sports groups, hobby groups,
arts and culture, and so on.
For the emergence of the sector from this perspective can be explained
by pluralism and solidarity.
The next question gets at,
what do we call the nonprofit sector?
Now, this lecture is called the nonprofit sector but,
if you review the literature and even in
the terms used in where you're from in your own country,
you'll see that for a variety of terms are used to
describe what we're calling the nonprofit sector,
as a sector of the economy.
The third sector, the informal resilient,
the nonprofit sector the term used in the United States.
Invisible, independent, civil society used internationally.
Voluntary used in some countries like Canada and the United Kingdom,
the social sector and now more recently in Canada the social economy.
There's also a variety of terms used to describe,
nonprofit organizations as a type of organization and there's a variety of terms from;
a charitable organization, a nonprofit,
a not for profit.
Internationally often hear non-governmental organization,
a voluntary organization, an association,
a cooperative, a social enterprise or a social purpose organization.
And these terms are used to describe a type of nonprofit organization.
The third question gets at,
what types of organizations count as part of the nonprofit sector?
The organizations that are counted as part of this sector of the economy,
are those that have an established organizational presence.
They're incorporated as private organizations that are not controlled by government.
They're are also organizations that do not share profit with
their owners and that they invest in the mission of the organization.
They provide benefits either to the public or private members and use labor,
volunteer labor in the governance of the organization.
Or, and/or the management of its activities.
In terms of the nature of nonprofit work just looking
into public charities in the United States,
you'll see the diverse nature of the work that charities
do in the human services, arts, culture, humanities,
education, health, environment, religion,
public and societal benefit types and
international foreign affairs nonprofits doing charitable work.
This slide looks at labor,
the use of labor in nonprofit sector organizations.
You'll see statistics here across
country that a significant amount of labor is coming from volunteers.
Philanthropy, the giving of time is
a significant characteristic of nonprofit organizations.
In addition to the giving of time,
this slide shows that a significant amount of revenue comes from, gifts and donations.
Philanthropy the giving of money,
is an important revenue source and source
of income for organizations in the nonprofit sector.
You'll see this varies by country.
In Australia almost 50% of revenue is generated from gifts and donations.
Whereas in other countries like Germany and Canada,
a significant amount of revenue is coming from government funding.
In the United States and in Italy you'll see
fees and charges for services as a large source of revenue.
The fourth question examines,
how big the nonprofit sector is?
A large amount of this data comes from
Lester Solomon's work and his colleagues at Johns Hopkins.
See the nonprofit sector globally is very large and diverse in terms of the number,
types and sizes of organizations.
In the United States alone,
nonprofit organizations account for 5% of the national economy,
so it's a large contributor to the economy.
Compared to national economies,
the global nonprofit sector is equal to in
size to the eighth largest economy in the world.
Here we have a slide with statistics on the size of the nonprofit sector, and in Canada,
the United Kingdom, and the United States,
which has the largest sector in the world,
you'll see that it varies by country.
The numbers of organizations that are counted by each country as part of
its not-for-profit sector include
charitable and non-charitable corporations of a certain size.
These statistics do not include
the large number of smaller corporations, both charitable, non-charitable,
and also the unregistered, voluntary associations,
which you can see in the United Kingdom,
represents a much larger percentage of the sector.
The slide further shows that the not-for-profit sector is
a significant employer in terms of the number of full-time equivalent workers.
In the United States, for example,
you'll see that there are more full-time equivalent workers
in the not-for-profit sector than employees in the public sector,
and both the federal and state governments combined.
And finally, this slide shows that the revenue generated
by the not-for-profit sector in each country is significant.
And in the United States,
you see these revenues have doubled in the past 20 years and that the size of
the sector really contributes but 5% to 10% estimates to the national economy.
In Canada, for example,
the not-for-profit sector is equal to the entire economy of British Columbia.
Where do the organizations that are counted as part of
the nonprofit sector fit in relation to government and for profit business?
Well, one way to look at or think about these organizations and the
nonprofit as a sector of the economy is along the public-private goods continuum.
On the public good side of the continuum,
we have the public sector and government.
And governments collect tax,
and they use the revenue from tax to deliver public goods and services.
Consists of legislators and public administrators who are accountable for the delivery of
public goods and services within the rule of law so
that people are treated fairly and equally.
On the private goods side of the continuum,
we have the private for profit sector in the market.
And this consists of private for profit corporations that are taxed
and exist to deliver private goods and services.
These corporations are self-regulated,
meaning that they can't be controlled by government.
And paid boards of directors oversee and act as fiduciaries for
these corporations to make sure that they don't break
any laws and spend money appropriately.
They exist to share profits with their owners,
and the work of the corporation is typically managed
by a professional business administrator or chief executive officer.
The not-for-profit sector and
the private not-for-profit corporations that
comprise it fit in between these two sectors.
On the public sector side,
we see health, human services, education,
any type of not-for-profit corporation that exists to provide a public mission.
In fact, new trends in government,
you'll see a blurring of the boundaries between
the not-for-profit and the public sector as
governments contract out the delivery of
public goods and services to not-for-profit corporations.
On the private goods side of the continuum,
you see private not-for-profit corporations
that exist to provide private goods and services.
And you'll see examples of social purpose businesses,
social enterprises or any type of
corporation trade association that exists to
provide members with certain goods and services.
And then there'll be not-for-profit
corporations in the middle that exist, as I said earlier,
about the pooling of resources to provide collective goods and services,
and cooperatives are examples of these kinds of not-for-profits.
Like the private for profit sector,
you see not-for-profit corporations self-governed,
self-regulated so they can't be controlled by government,
and you see that they will be governed by a volunteer board of directors.
And they will also have as a sector a professional manager,
but many of the smaller ones will have volunteer administrators.
The final question asks what role nonprofit organizations play in society.
And like the diversity of organizations,
there are diversity of roles depending on the type
of corporation and its mission and purpose.
Some exist to advocate and influence public policy and public policy makers,
either through legislative or administrative advocacy,
trying to cut through some bureaucratic red tape.
Others exist to provide important services either to the public or to private members.
As we see the failure of government and
the market to meet all of the needs of the community,
nonprofit organizations will fill
this space and provide an important community development role,
empowering the community through different levels of social action.
Nonprofit organizations, along with other actors with government and the market,
play a problem-solving role in trying to solve some of our most complex societal issues.
And finally, we see nonprofit organizations playing an important funding role,
and I'm talking specifically about private foundations raising
private funds for the public good.
And finally, what roles do nonprofit organizations play in society?
Feel free to use these questions as a guide to
frame your conversation in the video forum this week.
