Recent decades have witnessed a significant increase in the number of voluntary non-profit associations established to address solutions to major international social problems. Many of these associations concentrate on advocacy work, as opposed to service delivery, and are international in scope rather than based in a single country. This paper is concerned with the challenges to organising this particular type of voluntary association.

While rapid progress in communications and transportation technology has undoubtedly facilitated the development of these associations, such organisations still face formidable problems. The paper argues that international advocacy associations are successful when they adopt particular organisational structures and strategies to accommodate these problems. In particular, decentralised and federated structures appear to be more viable for the international advocacy arena.

This paper reviews relevant literature and elaborates on the theoretical expectations for successful structuring of international associations devoted to advocacy on global issues. Hypotheses are set forth and investigated in a preliminary way through the examination of case studies of three associations.

The impact of AIDS on Western polities serves as a useful indicator both of social values and of political and organisational relationships. At the same time, community-based nonprofit organisations have been at the forefront of AIDS policy-making and service development. Taking Britain and Germany as case studies, this paper discusses similarities and differences in the functions accorded to the voluntary sector in the pattern of responses to HIV and AIDS. Typical problems confronted by emergent voluntary sector welfare agencies are noted and particular features of AIDS service organisations described. Separate accounts are then given of the development of a federated network of AIDS service organisations (ASOs) in Germany and of contrasting experience in the UK. While governments have shared a concern to confine the activity of ASOs to serving the needs of those groups directly affected by AIDS, other significant differences in policy development may be attributed to differences in the organisational structure of the health sector.

The relationships between funding heterogeneity and organisational structure and functioning were examined for a panel of non-profit organisations. Resource dependence and institutional theory were used to derive hypotheses predicting positive associations between funding heterogeneity and non-profit boundary spanning, modelling and participation in collective efforts. For non-profits which were less vulnerable to institutional aspects of their environments, funding heterogeneity was found to have a positive effect on boundary spanning, consistent with resource dependence theory. For non-profits which were more vulnerable to institutional factors, on the other hand, funding heterogeneity was found to have positive effects on modelling and participation in collective efforts; consistent with institutional theory. These results argue that resource dependence and institutional theory need to be combined for the analysis of organisation-environment relations and suggest how this could be accomplished.

Transport services provided by voluntary organisations have grown dramatically in recent years. However, little systematic research has been undertaken on the functioning of these organisations. The aim of the research on which this paper is based was to rectify the lack of information on how decisions relating to service provision are made by such organisations - often called ‘community transport’ (CT) operators. Three organisations were selected for a comparative case study approach. The results show that the leadership approach of their key staff was of particular significance. Each organisation is moving in the direction of greater professionalism and away from its community roots. This cultural change can be attributed to responses to external forces, especially those affecting resources. Evidence suggests they are being forced towards adopting practices of the private sector, but that this need not be the case. Community transport provision is in a period of transition, the outcome of which may radically alter both its structure and its survival capacities.

The pre-war Hungarian voluntary sector was relatively weak as a service-provider, but played major social and political roles, and was an important vehicle of the self-organisation of society. That is why state socialist governments could develop the nationalised system of social services quite easily, but could not completely destroy citizens’ autonomy, solidarity and private initiatives. Both the pre-war traditions and the social and economic forces brought about by state socialism are of crucial importance in shaping the newly emerging Hungarian non-profit sector. The traditional government/non-profit partnership may be the basis for contracting out state-financed public services. At the same time, voluntary organisations are expected to plug the gaps present in the state socialist service system. Large government-funded non-profit organisations may play an important role in the denationalisation process, some of them can be appropriate means of assuring that the grant making procedure remain free from politicisation.