Hagai Katz

PATTERNS OF GOVERNMENT FUNDING TO THIRD SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS AS REFLECTING A DE FACTO POLICY AND THEIR IMPLICATIONS ON THE STRUCTURE OF THE SECTOR IN ISRAEL

The treatment of the Third Sector and its organizations by governments in Israel has been characterized by a lack of a declared, knowledge based and centrally planned policy. It takes a haphazard form of politically driven bargains, personally attained benefits, and reactive crisis intervention solutions. Paradoxically, the lack of planning and coordination in policymaking in issues involving the Third Sector is accompanied with an elaborate system of public funding to Third Sector organizations, a system that has developed incrementally over the years. These funding patterns have accumulated to a persistent de-facto policy towards that set of organizations. Findings on public funding to Third Sector organizations from two major research projects—the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project and the Israeli Third Sector Database—served to analyze that de-facto policy towards the Third Sector in Israel. The large-scale funding of Third Sector organizations and specifically service providing organizations in the fields of “Education” and “Health”, alongside with the meager support of other types of organizations imply a conception of the Third Sector as a complementary organ of government. The statist ideology this funding pattern reveals results in a non-deliberate yet unmistakable policy. It is geared towards utilizing the Third Sector to replace and complement the public sector in providing different essential services, and at the same time minimizing or ignoring other roles of the sector altogether (advocacy, innovation, development of civil society). This policy has concrete consequences. Since government funding is the major funding source of the Third Sector in Israel, these preferences influence the nature and the composition of the sector. It strengthened the service provision tendency and increased the major role religion plays in the sector on the one hand. On the other hand it undermines the development of foundations as a significant alternative to public funding and the development of civil society. The findings point out to some of the social origins of the Israeli Third Sector. Among these we discuss the major role these organizations played in the pre-state era, the centrality of religion in the Jewish State, the centralist and statist ideologies of the first Israeli governments and some political arrangements which still are in effect after decades. Our data show that despite the structural changes that the Israeli society and polity underwent since the 1970s, the economic structure of the sector and its public funding patterns have basically stayed the same. That is in spite of the drastic growth and diversification the sector enderwent since the 1980s. Third Sector policy too still carries a strong statist flavor, as it completely ignores the rising element of civil society. The clear consequences of that unplanned de-facto policy raise various questions regarding the roles of the Third Sector in Israel, the necessity of a systematic public debate on these roles and the desired government policy towards the sector in light of these roles.

Strengthening the conceptual foundations of civil society operationalizations: Discussing Heinrich's “studying civil society across the world”

The work done by Heinrich in his evaluation of recent conceptualizations and operationalizations of civil society is both important and timely. Indeed, it is high time for an open discussion of the measurement of civil society, a discussion that can yield measures that are at the same time theoretically sound and methodologically rigorous. I wish to add to this discussion by making three different points. The first is to stress the importance of theory as the basis for development of indicators. The second is to call attention to the question of civil society’s conceptual and real-life boundaries, and to argue that its fuzziness is not merely an obstacle to bypass but rather one of the very characteristics we should measure. The third is to point out a less seen measure which should be seen as central in the conceptualization and measurement of civil society, in the local, national or global levels -interorganizational and interpersonal links and networks.

Social entrepreneurs narrating their careers: A psychodynamic-existential perspective

This study aims to improve our understanding of social entrepreneurs’ careers through narrative analysis of their life stories. Narratives are an important part of the study of career-related transitions, as they form, revise, and reconstruct identities, and drive agency. For this purpose, 24 in-depth semi-structured narrative interviews were conducted with Israeli social entrepreneurs. The findings point out a process which takes place in different spheres and moulds the life story of a social entrepreneur: the personality sphere; the family sphere, including family dynamics and significant childhood experiences; the social sphere, including formative events outside the family; and the moral sphere, which includes attitudes and ideologies. The entirety of spheres generates a consistent meta-narrative which promotes a theoretical integration between psychoanalytical and existential psychological theories and offers a deeper understanding of how and why people become social entrepreneurs.

It Is All About Control: Understanding Reluctance to Register for Organ Donation:

This article tests the theory that anxiety about death causes feelings of lack of control, which, with other factors, results in reluctance to donate organs, despite endorsement of the act. Using a survey of U.S. and U.K. registered organ donors and unregistered adults (N = 777), we tested the impact of trust in medical professionals, perceived importance of information on the transplant processes, anxiety regarding loss of control at one’s end-of-life, and a prosocial view of organ donation on willingness to register as donor. Structural analyses show that control mediated the associations of trust and information with willingness, while prosocial did not predict willingness. The findings explain the gap between stated attitudes and actual behavior, and suggest that framing donor card registration and organ donation as a way to gain control over the loss of agency in death and dying may encourage organ donation.

The Impact of Familiarity and Perceived Trustworthiness and Influence on Donations to Nonprofits: An Unaided Recall Study

ABSTRACT What affects donations? Is it all in “the ask,” or does brand image matter? In the nonprofit brands literature perceived trustworthiness and influence of the organization are important factors that increase constituents’ willingness to support an organization. We examined the association between a nonprofit organization’s familiarity, trustworthiness, and influence and the propensity of donations it receives. To this end, we used a questionnaire on attitudes toward nonprofit organizations and unaided recall of nonprofit organizations collected from a nationally representative sample. The attitudes data revealed that perceptions of nonprofits’ effectiveness and trustworthiness in Israel are not particularly positive. A multivariate fractional polynomial regression on the unaided recall results shows that while familiarity and perceived effectiveness are positively associated with the propensity of donations to nonprofit organizations, trustworthiness is not. We explain this surprising result by changes in Israeli social policy, political culture, and trust in institutions. We suggest different efforts that organizations can make to enhance their brand image and consequently increase donations.

Internally Displaced Persons Between Nonprofits and Government: Comparing Two Israeli Wars

Abstract Internally displaced persons (IDPs) crises provide a dramatic backdrop to government–nonprofit relations, as they tend to engage variegated actors at local, national, and international levels. Such crises reveal the composition, forms of engagement, roles, and relationships of the actors involved. The comparison of two crises along Israeli history, separated by years of changing welfare systems and social and political contexts, is an exceptional opportunity to examine government–nonprofit relations over time, and assess the impact of this relationship on IDP crisis management. This article compares two separate studies of IDP response, one in the Israeli War of Independence and one in the Second Lebanon War. The differences are analysed using models of government–nonprofit relations, and reflect the dynamic nature and complexity of these relations in IDP crises. Some conclusions concerning IDP crisis management are suggested.