Academic interest in voluntary or non-profit organisations has a long pedigree, but has been poorly served. The dissemination of ideas and findings from the many social science enquiries conducted on or around these organisations has, with a small number of notable exceptions, been confined to ‘disciplinary’ journals and books. Until 1990 there was in fact only one journal, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, (and its precursor, The Journal of Voluntary Action Research) wholly dedicated to scholarly research on or relevant to the voluntary sector. There have occasionally been series of books, for example those from Oxford University Press and more recently from Jossey-Bass, and the Yale Program on Non-Profit Organizations has actively encouraged new research and its dissemination through its impressive series of working papers. Despite these efforts there is still a large amount of excellent work which almost slips by the sector unnoticed.