Ralph M. Kramer

A Third Sector in the Third Millennium

Three trends since the 1960s underscore the need for different ways of conceptualizing the new mixed economy in the human services. First, there has been an enormous increase in the number and types of nonprofit organizations, and greater dependence on governmental revenue. Second, extensive growth in privatization and commercialization in the human services. Third, this culminated in the convergence and blurring of sectoral boundaries. Numerous metaphors have been suggested to describe these new patterns, but more suitable concepts and theories are needed. Four theoretical frameworks are analyzed for an intersectoral study of organizations in the same industry: (1) political economy, (2) organizational ecology, (3) neoinstitutionalism, and (4) mixed, open systems. As analytic paradigms, these frameworks could supplement, complement, or be integrated with other research models for third sector studies, and could contribute to theory building and social policy.

The welfare state in Israel : the evolution of social security policy and practice

Though a latecomer to the ranks of social democratic welfare states, Israel developed a modern system of social security in the span of three decades. The authors examine the key policy issues common to all social security systems, while analyzing the distinctive Israeli process of policymaking in each case. They look specifically, for example, at the role played in the development of social security policy by ideology, politics, public opinion, demography, and ethnicity; the conditions under which various forms of social protection reduce inequality; and the effects of different types of institutional structures on the development of social policy.

The future of the voluntary agency in a mixed economy.

The growing reliance of voluntary nonprofit organizations on governmental funds ties their future to the fate of the welfare state. A mixed, three-sector, social service economy has blurred organizational differences and made a more rational division of responsibility unlikely. This article suggests that the traditional roles of voluntary agencies can still be reformulated to suggest a more realistic view of their distinctive areas of competence and vulnerability. To avoid goal deflection in the future, the author concludes that voluntary agencies must cope effectively with the dilemmas of entrepreneurialism and vendorism.

Change and continuity in British voluntary organisations, 1976 to 1988

A cohort of twenty British national voluntary agencies serving handicapped people was studied in 1976 and again in 1989 after a decade of major shifts in public policy. Changes and continuities were identified in income, structure, governance, management, programme, interorganisation relations and advocacy. A consistent pattern of growth, bureaucratisation and professionalisation was found, with relatively little change in the dominant mode of financing, statutory or philanthropic. A three-stage model is proposed to describe the development of British voluntary agencies since the 1970s, and some of the organisational implications of current policies for the 1990s are noted.

Voluntary Agencies in the Welfare State: An Analysis of the Vanguard Role

While pioneering has long been assumed to be the unique function of voluntary agencies, the flow of private invention to public adoption has rarely been studied empirically. Drawing on an exploratory study of twenty national agencies serving the physically and mentally handicapped, this article re-evaluates the vanguard role of the voluntary agency. Much of what has been regarded as ‘innovative’ consisted of small-scale, non-controversial, incremental improvements or extensions of programs with few original features to under-served clienteles. A series of external and internal organizational constraints to the statutory adoption of new programs is identified, which suggests that the conventional notion of voluntary pioneering is no longer appropriate. A new model of program change is proposed based on multiple outcomes and a redefinition of the concept of innovation. Some hypotheses are offered regarding conditions conducive to the initiation of new programs.

Alternative Futures for Voluntary Agencies in Social Welfare

as a &dquo;crisis,&dquo; &dquo;catastrophe,&dquo; &dquo;a threat to survival&dquo; and in various other dire ways. The calamity is usually defined in fiscal terms, and much evidence is cited of the increasing difficulty in raising sufficient funds and the consequent necessity of budget cuts resulting in staff reductions, fewer services to the community and much suffering by the needy, the ill, the handicapped, the troubled. In addition, this fiscal crisis is also perceived in ideological terms as a threat to the values of voluntarism and pluralism so essential in