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.

The non-profit sector in the United States relies on fee-paying individuals for a high proportion of its revenue. Given this fact, non-profits and forprofits coexist in the same industry when each type of firm can find a stable market niche that rewards its own special strengths: ideological commitment in the non-profit sector; access to capital and the profit motive in the for-profit. Coexistence is also possible when the non-profit form is superior but there is a shortage of non-profit entrepreneurs. The paper next considers the entry of non-profits into sectors dominated by for-profits. Here one must distinguish between purely commercial activities and those designed to further the charity's basic mission. In the former, non-profits should behave no differently than their for-profit competitors unless subsidies designed for mission-related activities are diverted to these activities. In the latter, the non-profits may have an advantage which reflects not ‘unfair competition’ but a judgement that their activities are worthy of subsidy. In evaluating competition between non-profits and for-profits, one must separate the issue of the appropriateness of an organisation's tax-exempt status from the impact of its actions on for-profit firms.

The need for a national typology of the US non-profit sector has long been recognised. A typology which could better define and describe the variety and diversity of non-profit organisations by type or major function will serve numerous research and public policy uses. This article describes the essential elements of the National Taxonomy of Exempt Entities (NTEE), developed over almost a decade after extensive consultation with agencies in the non-profit sector and the United States government. The article reports an initial analysis of the classification of nearly one million non-profit organisations in the US, and comparisons are made with earlier estimates in Dimensions of the Independent Sector. Based on these findings, changes are proposed to this biennial statistical profile of the US non-profit sector. The importance of developing national typologies of non-profit organisations is discussed as a basis for comparative international research.

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.

A common feature of most non-profit theories is their concentration on the service-providing role of non-profit organisations, and the neglect of their redistributional role. At the cost of some simplification, there are two possible public policy responses to social inequalities: (1) the welfare state model with welfare redistribution under government control; and (2) the non-profit-based model—a large network of private organisations heavily supported by the government and complemented by government delivery of services.

After 40 years of state socialism, Hungary now faces some important questions. What will be the role of the new voluntary sector? What are the possibilities of following the Western European route — a version of the welfare state model — or the American way — a non-profit-based model bolstered by ‘third-party government’? The present Hungarian situation is ambiguous; we can find arguments for and against both.

It is also argued that a mixed solution, some cooperation between the public and private sectors, is needed. The Western European, American and Hungarian experiences indicate that only a strong for-profit sector and a developed, harmonious government/non-profit partnership can ensure healthy social and economic development. The present Hungarian situation is far too complex and difficult to promise a fast and conflict-free establishment of this partnership. But both public institutions and government are acting in a way that may result in the development of a government-supported non-profit sector. There may be an opportunity for developing a ‘Hungarian welfare state model’.

This paper surveys 24 studies, appearing since Clotfelter's (1985) book, which estimate the influence of tax incentives on personal donations in three countries. Studies employ new surveys, experimental data, and data corrected for tax evasion. Newly available panel data sets obtain conclusions which strongly challenge the traditional consensus that tax incentives are a powerful stimulus to giving. The paper also surveys theoretical developments. In particular, the traditional test for efficiency (price elasticity exceeding unity) is not generally appropriate.

Both the private for-profit and the non-profit (or ‘third’) sectors provide what economists call public goods. The division of labour between these sectors, however, differs substantially across countries in terms of both qualitative and quantitative dimensions. Such cross-national differences are illustrated in the present paper with respect to France and West Germany. The autonomy of the state, the nature of the dominant actors and their style of interaction are identified as crucial variables shaping the linkage patterns of government/third-sector relationship. The cross-national comparison allows for the hypothesis that different patterns of government/third-sector linkages also shape different degrees of institutional adaptiveness in a changing political and economic environment.

Using five-year panel data, this study examines the various dimensions of the variability of individual charitable contributions at all income levels: the variation in the generosity of individuals and the variability of the individuals’ giving over a five-year period. The study finds considerable variability of both kinds. One finding is that the variability of generosity is substantially greater at the higher income levels. Another finding is that variability is substantially less pronounced by observing a five-year period of an individual's generosity than by observing annual behaviour. One consequence is that a relatively small proportion of donors account for a large proportion of total giving. The popular reputation of the wealthy for generosity is actually due to the exceptional generosity of a minority rather than widespread generosity among the wealthy. Differences in generosity and variability of giving over time are both more pronounced among high-income donors. Results of the study have implications for research on charitable giving, for predicting the effects of tax policy changes on giving, and for fund-raising.

Taking as a point of departure the postulated political-ideological and fiscal ‘crisis of the welfare state’, this article emphasises recent changes in the relationship between the four sectors of welfare providers: the informal sector of the family or community; the for-profit sector — where social goods are offered by profit-seeking institutions; the formalised sector of voluntary organisations; and the public sector of statutory bodies. Discussion is concentrated on the changing relationship between the voluntary and public sectors. Are voluntary organisations able to cope with new and extensive welfare problems within a more decentralised welfare state? Do they express the values, and do they possess the resources that both governmental agencies and the organisations themselves take for granted?

This paper investigates behavioural differences between non-profit organisations (NPOs), government organisations (GOs), and private market organisations (PMOs) as suppliers of nursery schools and retirement homes. On the basis of Weisbrod's undersupply model, the differentiated demand approach, and the public finance argument on the redistributive role of government, three hypotheses are theoretically specified and empirically tested: client differentiation; product differentiation; and price differentiation. NPOs and PMOs are shown to provide qualitatively better services and charge significantly higher prices than GOs. A clustering of clients with similar socio-economic backgrounds can be observed: GOs provide services for clients with lower economic and social status than private suppliers. GOs, holding more than two-thirds of the respective markets, are responsible for a ‘basic provision’ of services; they pursue distributional goals by producing services themselves; only rarely a ‘contracting ouť to private suppliers can be noted.

Accurate comparison of the social welfare systems operating in the twelve countries of the European Community is inhibited by lack of information about the voluntary or ‘non-governmental’ organisations which form an important element in those systems. This paper summarises available information about the scale and scope of voluntary organisations, and attempts to set them in the context of current policy debates. The changing nature of the family in Europe, the development of ‘mixed economies’ in the provision of welfare, the functions of NGOs as employers and organisers of volunteering, the future of NGOs after 1992, and in the context of a steadily more open Europe are some of the themes which are preoccupying voluntary organisations in most countries of the Community. The paper refers to the inadequacy of most data on NGOs at national level and to the consequent impossibility of constructing valid cross-national comparisons.

This research note presents several comparative theses on the historical development of voluntary and non-profit welfare associations in Germany and the United States. The major argument is that voluntary and non-profit associations in both countries share one common root: the secularisation and socio-political consequences of the enlightenment. However, voluntary welfare associations in Germany and the United States have developed along radically different fines, due to their distinct political embeddedness in society. Following periods of divergence in which the German voluntary action emphasised ‘state orientation’, and its American counterpart ‘market orientation’, the two countries have entered a new period of convergence.