The paper describes how the involvement of non-profit organisations (NPOs) in welfare politics in Italy has historically developed in a mutual accommodation with the state, which has prevented the growth and the public recognition of an independent third sector. Using data from official statistics and recent research on non-profits, three analytical dimensions of the relationship between State and the third sector are considered: the resource exchange; the division of responsibility for delivering public services; and the dynamics of social policy making. The study indicates that distinctive features of the ‘welfare mix’ in Italy have been: the attribution of public status to many NPOs as a consequence of an arrangement between Church and state; the weakness of state guidance, in spite of the generous economic assistance provided to NPOs by the state; the substitutive role of NPOs in providing basic public services; and the emergence of informal arrangements between public authorities and NPOs mediated by political patronage.

Although the non-profit literature has grown substantially, the issue of how revenue diversification affects non-profits has not been fully explored. This paper presents several disciplinary perspectives regarding the financing of non-profits, what determines their ability to diversify, and the consequent effects on their behaviour. It first develops an index for measuring revenue diversification and applies it to a national sample of charitable non-profits. The results indicate that, while the perception that most non-profits rely on a single revenue source is exaggerated, the institutions in our sample have somewhat concentrated revenue. Our findings also suggest that the activity of a non-profit and the proportion of its expenditures that it devotes to fund-raising affect its ability to diversify its revenues concentration. While a number of anomalies exist, the weight of our evidence suggests that diversified revenue sources are more likely to be associated with a strong financial position than are concentrated revenue sources. Researchers interested in studying the life-cycle of non-profits, the factors that give rise to stability and growth, and the constraints on non-profit behaviour would do well to consider the diversification index presented in this paper.

This paper explores the issues inherent in defining contracts for service delivery between the state and charitable organisations, and in differentiating them from grants. It begins by making the point that there is no one correct definition of a contract; rather, it is a function of its purpose. It then details our work in developing a definition of a contract within the national accounting tradition, as part of a study of the contribution of charitable organisations to the GDP of the United Kingdom. The paper ends by drawing some general conclusions from this experience.

The National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE) constitutes a major contribution to the field of non-profit research, but is beset by conceptual and practical problems. The application of the taxonomy to the list of charitable organisations recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is also an important resource for research, although it has limitations as well, especially for industry-specific and regional analyses. Using survey data from the Chicago metropolitan region, I show that regional estimates for human services based on only those charitable organisations which are required to file tax returns may miss over 40 per cent of the total number of organisations and under-estimate total revenues by almost half. Finally, I point to conceptual, technical and institutional challenges that must be addressed if the NTEE is to gain maximum utility.

This paper reviews evidence concerning the recent growth of volunteerism among college students in the USA. It describes the various pressures to expand such activities and outlines steps being taken to promote them. Reforms of student financial aid can be used to facilitate service among students who would otherwise have to engage in substantial paid work to afford education, while educational institutions are taking numerous steps, most notably through integrating community service and academic study, to promote such involvement. The more general issues raised by all this are: the likely impacts on servers and served of this activity; whether education-based community service has demonstrable educational benefits; its impact on higher education institutions; and the wider impacts in terms of political attitudes and behaviour.