A nonprofit organization (NPO) or non-profit organization, also known as a non-business entity, or nonprofit institution, is a legal entity organized and operated for a collective, public or social benefit, in contrary with an entity that operates as a business aiming to generate a profit for its owners. A nonprofit is subject to the non-distribution constraint: any revenues that exceed expenses must be committed to the organization's purpose, not taken by private parties. An array of organizations are nonprofit, including some political organizations, schools, business associations, churches, social clubs, and consumer cooperatives. Nonprofit entities may seek approval from governments to be tax-exempt, and some may also qualify to receive tax-deductible contributions, but an entity may incorporate as a nonprofit entity without securing tax-exempt status.
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material gain; and with government endeavors that are public initiatives for public good, such as those that focus on the provision of public services. A person who practices philanthropy is a philanthropist.
Tides Foundation is an American public charity and fiscal sponsor working to advance progressive causes and policy initiatives in areas such as the environment, health care, labor issues, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and human rights. It was founded in San Francisco in 1976. Through donor advised funds, Tides distributes money from anonymous donors to other organizations, which are often politically progressive. It manages two centers in San Francisco and New York that offer collaborative spaces for social ventures and other nonprofits.
Public Administration or Public Policy and Administration is the implementation of public policy, administration of government establishment, and management of non-profit establishment. It is also a subfield of political science taught in public policy school that studies this implementation and prepares people, especially civil servants in administrative positions, for working in the public sector, voluntary sector, or some industries in the private sector dealing with government relations, regulatory affairs, legislative assistance, corporate social responsibility (CSR), environmental, social, governance (ESG), public procurement (PP), public-private partnerships (P3), and business-to-government marketing/sales (B2G), as well as those working at think tanks, non-profit organizations, consulting firms, trade associations, or in other positions that use similar skills found in public administration.
Rupert Taylor, is a professor of political studies and former head of the Department of Political Studies at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, from 1987 to 2013. He was educated at the progressive independent Dartington Hall School in England and completed a BA degree in politics and government at the University of Kent in 1980, followed by an MSc at the London School of Economics (1981) and a PhD in sociology at Kent, (1986). He was formerly a visiting research fellow in the Department of Political Science at the New School for Social Research in New York City, adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University and a visiting research fellow in the School of Politics, Queen's University Belfast.
Michael O'Neill received a doctorate in education from Harvard University in 1967.
The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) is a progressive advocacy and watchdog group that monitors charitable spending in the United States. It was established in 1976 and is based in Washington, D.C. It advocates for a greater focus on social justice giving in the philanthropic sector.
Lester M. Salamon was a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He was also the director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at The Johns Hopkins Institute for Health and Social Policy Studies. Salamon has written or edited over 20 books in addition to hundreds of articles, monographs and chapters that have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The New York Times, Voluntas, and numerous other publications. He was a pioneer in the empirical study of the nonprofit sector in the United States, and is considered by many experts in his field to have been a leading specialist on alternative tools of government action and on the nonprofit sector in the U.S. and around the world.
The Hertie School is a German private, independent graduate school for governance located in Berlin. Hertie School is accredited to confer master's and doctoral degrees. Half of the school's students are international, with more than 95 countries represented among alumni and currently enrolled students. The working language is English.
Aseem Prakash is a professor of Political Science, the Walker Family Professor of the College of music and Sciences and the Founding Director of the UW Center for Environmental Politics. He serves as the General Editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on Business and Public Policy and the Associate Editor of Business & Society. In addition to serving on editorial boards of several additional journals, he has been elected as the Vice-President of the International Studies Association (2015-2016). Professor Prakash is a member of National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Board on Environmental Change and Society and International Research Fellow at the Center for Corporate Reputation, University of Oxford. He was elected to the position of the Vice President of the International Studies Association for the period, 2015-2016. He is the recipient of International Studies Association, International Political Economy Section's 2019 Distinguished Scholar Award that recognizes "outstanding senior scholars whose influence and path-breaking intellectual work will continue to impact the field for years to come as well as the Associations' 2018 James N. Rosenau Award for "scholar who has made the most important contributions to globalization studies". The European Consortium for Political Research Standing Group on Regulatory Governance awarded him the 2018 Regulatory Studies Development Award that recognizes a senior scholar who has made notable "contributions to the field of regulatory governance."
Alberto Martinelli is a scholar of social sciences, President of the International Social Science Council, former 14th president of the International Sociological Association (1998-2002) and professor of Political Science and Sociology at the University of Milan.
Michael Aubrey "Mike" Edwards is a writer and activist who has worked in various positions in foundations, think-tanks and international development institutions and who has written widely on civil society, philanthropy and social transformation. He has been a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos in New York and has worked in senior management positions for Oxfam, Voluntary Service Overseas, Save the Children, the World Bank and the Ford Foundation. In 2013 he founded a new section of the global website openDemocracy called "Transformation" which was designed to explore the links between personal change and political change, and edited the site for eight years before leaving at the end of 2020. His writings examine the global role of civil society and its institutions, the purpose and impact of philanthropy and the not-for-profit sector, the role of business in solving social problems, and the links between personal and social transformation.
The RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service is a research center at University of Texas at Austin located in the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. The teaching and research of the RGK Center are focused in the areas of nonprofit organizations, philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, and volunteerism.
Julian Wolpert is Bryant Professor Emeritus of Geography, Public Affairs, and Urban Planning at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, where he taught from 1973 to 2005 and chaired the Program in Urban and Regional Planning. He was previously a member of the Regional Science Department at the University of Pennsylvania (1963–73).
Inge Kaul was a German development economist who was an adjunct professor at the Hertie School of Governance, Berlin, and advisor to various governmental, multilateral and non-profit organizations on policy options to meet global challenges. She specialised in Global public goods, with much of her work looking at international cooperation financing, public-private partnerships, global governance, global issue diplomacy and UN system reform. She was the first director of UNDP's Human Development Report Office, a position which she held from 1989 to 1994, where with Mahbub ul Haq she led the team working on the Human Development Report. She was then director of UNDP's Office of Development Studies from 1995 to 2005. She was the author of numerous publications on international public economics and finance and was the lead editor of the books Providing Global Public Goods: Managing Globalization and The New Public Finance: Responding to Global Challenges.
Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations is a peer-reviewed academic journal covering research on the third sector. It is the official journal of the International Society for Third-Sector Research. It was established in 1990 with Helmut Anheier and Martin Knapp as its founding editors-in-chief. Its current editors are Ruth Simsa & Taco Brandsen.
Contract failure describes a situation in which the consumer of a good or service is unable to evaluate its quality, thus incentivizing the producer to produce a lower quality good or service. Such behavior creates suboptimal economic conditions. Contract failure is one explanation for the existence of non-profit organizations, although even non-profits can fall victim to contract failure in the right situations. Contract failure is connected to, but distinct from, market failure
Yutaka Tsujinaka is a professor of political science and the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Tsukuba. He is now teaching at the College of Social Sciences and the doctoral program in International and Advanced Japanese Studies. He is also the president of Japan Political Science Association, a member of the International Association of Universities (2012–2016), the director of Internationalization Subcommittee of IAU (2013–), the executive assistant to the President at University of Tsukuba (2013–) and the director of Institute for Comparative Research in Human and Social Sciences (ICR) (2014–). Youji Inaba professor of economy at Nippon University said in a newspaper column that Professor Tsujinaka talks in friendly Kansai dialect and always gives everyone warm smile as if he has "Tender-Heated DNA" in his body. (Nikkei: July 8, 2015)
The Global Studies Consortium (GSC) is an international academic association of over 20 institutions of higher learning. It seeks to "promote and facilitate graduate teaching programs in global studies and to foster cooperation among them." That cooperation includes exchange of materials and development of methods to survey outcomes, annual meetings, and a student exchange program. GSC deals only with graduate level programs, and there is no comparable association for undergraduate degree programs in global studies.
The International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR), founded in 1992, is an international association that is dedicated to promoting research and education on civil society, philanthropy, and the nongovernmental sector. ISTR works to unite scholars and researchers to exchange ideas and advance knowledge on both a local and international scale, regarding the third sector, human welfare and international development.
