Is the environment a political issue or is it above politics? Do those who fight for environmental protection, the environmental civil society organizations (ENGOs), see the environment as an issue of politics or prefer to conceptualize it as a post-political phenomenon? In most societies, politics is viewed hesitantly. It is equated to activities undertaken legitimately only by the political parties and happening only in a parliamentary space. Political activities are perceived to be a call for destroying the social order and sometimes even an invitation for violence. However, whether the society views the issue of the environment as a political or an apolitical issue impacts the policy decisions. Hence, whether those pursuing environmental protection in environmental civil society organizations (ENGOs) see the environment as political or apolitical is highly significant. Through a survey of 119 ENGOs in the Aegean region of Turkey, this article explores the perspectives of ENGOs and examines how they perceive the nexus between the environment and politics.

The middle class is considered the most relevant group for formal volunteering. However, the middle class is shrinking, raising the question of the consequences for volunteering in general. Based on four samples of the Swiss Volunteering Survey from 2006, 2010, 2014, and 2019 containing over 5′000 individual responses, we test whether the intensity of middle-class volunteering changes over time. Our results show that the middle class is an essential source for formal volunteering compared to other parts of society, especially those with lower income. The relationship between the middle class and volunteering is positive, though non-significant in our samples. We found no significant changes over time in the volunteering development of the middle class.

Although the outcomes of nonprofit revenue diversification have been widely studied, its antecedents remain underexplored. This study applies resource dependence theory to examine the factors shaping nonprofits’ revenue diversification strategies, drawing from a nationwide survey of Chinese social service nonprofits. The findings indicate that, on average, Chinese nonprofits tend to have less diversified revenue portfolios, though significant variation exists across organizations. The analysis reveals that nonprofits with a well-established professional workforce and those operating in resource-rich environments are more likely to concentrate their revenue sources. In contrast, nonprofits with stronger government ties are more likely to have diversified revenue structures. These findings offer new insights into the literature and carry practical implications for nonprofit management.

This article uses Liberia’s national mental health program to explore how stakeholders make meaning of their work and how those meanings intertwine with various powers to shape program outcomes. We use interview data to analyze how the Carter Center (an INGO), Liberian government, and local mental health practitioners understood the program to address this stigmatized, often-ignored health issue. INGO officials emphasized personal connections, virtuous actions, and expertise in meaning-making, ideas intertwined with network, moral, and epistemic powers. Liberian government officials understood the program to be government directed but financially unaffordable, illustrating the government’s institutional authority but low economic power. Mental health clinicians perceived the program as a virtuous opportunity to gain expertise and economic advancement, although they used the power to exit when these aspirations were unrealized. This article illustrates that meaning-making cannot be divorced from actors’ various powers and that stakeholders’ failure to align meanings can undermine program outcomes.

Public disclosure of financial information by nonprofit organizations is a cornerstone of nonprofit governance. Evidence indicates that negative impressions are more impactful than positive ones, even when they are of equal intensity. Nevertheless, little research has evaluated the extent to which financial transparency and the positive–negative asymmetry influence citizens’ trust in nonprofit organizations. Using a survey experiment, we examine whether financial transparency—through the moderating effect of fiscal information—influences nonprofit trustworthiness. The effect was strongest for negative financial information, demonstrating that the positive–negative asymmetry influences the impact of financial transparency. This study contributes to the literature on the relationship between financial transparency and citizens’ trust in nonprofit organizations, including how they verify the legitimacy of nonprofit organizations. This study’s findings have practical implications for nonprofit organizations’ commitment to financial transparency in building trust among their constituents.

Transparency means being honest and open about one’s practices. Transparency is considered a gold standard in the nonprofit sector and associated with a range of positive outcomes. We propose that transparency should also become a guiding principle and documented practice for nonprofit scholars. In this article, we articulate the context for discussing transparency in social science research and the potential risks of not being transparent. Acknowledging the epistemic and methodological diversity of our field—and therefore, the need for flexibility in how transparency will be practiced by different scholars—we encourage nonprofit researchers to consider how they can enhance their research transparency. To this end, we outline the benefits of transparency and offer concrete suggestions for different ways to demonstrate transparency in nonprofit research.

Drawing from 41 qualitative interviews with Norwegian voluntary football clubs and local public stakeholders, this paper explores whether voluntary sport clubs (VSCs) are a convenient measure for including refugees in society. The following research questions are addressed: what expectations of refugee inclusion initiatives do local stakeholders hold towards voluntary sport clubs, and how do the clubs grapple with pursuing non-sport and sport objectives and systems simultaneously? The results show that the football clubs face high expectations of refugee inclusion. Although the football clubs generally understand and accept the expectations, inclusion and integration activities are costly in terms of time and competence and challenge the club’s capacities. Two competing logics are identified in the data: a functional logic passively welcoming everyone that are keen and resourced to play football and a moral and proactive logic, that expects the clubs to reach out to include refugees that are alien to the organization of indigenous sport. We find that despite external expectation, the sport clubs are not fast-tracks to refugee integration because the logic sustaining their existence and practices are at odds with the logic prescribing refugee integration through sport.

This paper’s objective was to reveal the Hungarian population’s knowledge and attitude about international volunteering. The study compared the opinion of returned volunteers with that of those population groups that had no international volunteering experiences and drew conclusions about the similarities and differences. The article aimed to evaluate the perceived roles and impacts of volunteering as well as the experienced difficulties and challenges. The study evaluated the results of a quantitative online survey collecting the opinion of 344 respondents including 73 returned international volunteers. The sampling used was convenient and non-representative; however, efforts were made to contact respondents with various demographic background and volunteer-related experiences. Detailed SPSS-based factor and cluster analyses were used to identify homogeneous groups for data comparison. The general awareness about international volunteering is low in Hungary, still most of the respondents agree with its ideology. The positive effects of volunteering imposed on the volunteers’ persons were named as the most important advantage but only few respondents found it beneficiary for the donor country or its economy. Returned volunteers were challenged by local cultural habits as well as project management difficulties in the recipient countries. Strong correlations were experienced in the opinion of women, university graduates, and respondents with domestic volunteering background, all of them having significantly bigger knowledge and understanding level compared to those of other segment groups.

While the importance of internal communication in nonprofit settings is well-recognized, its direct effects on members’ satisfaction and identification have been less explored. This study examines the role of internal communication satisfaction in influencing member satisfaction, professional identification, and organizational identification within professional associations, addressing a gap in nonprofit and organizational communication literature. The data were collected from members of the Medical Chamber in one of the central European countries via an online survey and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that satisfaction with internal communication positively impacts both membership satisfaction and identification with the professional association and the broader profession. Furthermore, professional association identification mediates the relationship between internal communication satisfaction and member satisfaction. These findings highlight the central role of internal communication in strengthening membership value, promoting professional identity, and fostering a deeper connection between members and their professional association.

This study investigates the factors influencing ICT device adoption in smart cities, with a particular focus on the mediating roles of perceived public value and ICT self-efficacy. Drawing on survey data from 474 residents in Tianjin, China, structural equation modeling shows that volunteer engagement significantly enhances both perceived public value and ICT self-efficacy, which in turn promote ICT adoption. Among the two mediators, perceived public value exerts a stronger influence, highlighting the importance of collective expectations regarding the effectiveness of e-government services over individual technological confidence. Furthermore, service quality and accessibility positively shape public value perceptions, whereas information security demonstrates a comparatively limited effect. These findings offer new insights into the mechanisms driving ICT adoption in smart cities and underscore the critical role—and challenges—of volunteer services in fostering citizen engagement and enhancing the perceived value of digital governance.

Social enterprises face complex institutional logics due to their focus on both economic and social goals, resulting in institutional tensions. Interorganizational collaboration is a strategy to cope with environmental turbulence and complexity. Guided by institutional theory and the literature on interorganizational collaboration, this study examines the role of partnership building in managing institutional tensions and hybrid organizational forms undertaken by social enterprise organizations. With interview data collected from 15 social enterprises in a southeastern state in the USA, this study demonstrates that the majority of the sampled organizations reported experiencing organizing and learning tensions while a couple reported performing and belonging tensions. Organizations leveraged specific cross-sector partnerships to obtain legitimacy and sustain their businesses. A typology of partnerships (community engagement, resource acquisition, and dual-value) is proposed based on organizational forms and activities undertaken by various SEs to manage these tensions.

How the price of giving affects charitable donations has been subject to extensive scrutiny in the literature, but the empirical evidence so far has been inconsistent. We conduct a meta-analysis to synthesize the empirical findings on the price-donation relationship, estimate a generalized effect and explore underlying moderators. After combining 386 effect sizes from 52 existing studies, we find that the price of giving generally has a significant, negative association with the level of charitable donations. Further meta-regression analysis suggests that this price effect on charitable donations is moderated by donor type and data year. Overall, donors are sensitive to the price of giving, and the price effect varies under certain circumstances.