Business Commons^™

Break Even Analysis: A Tool For Budget Planning (Revised), Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Applications of the tools of modern business and public management to human service administrative problems has become increasingly sophisticated. In this article, the author presents Break-Even Analysis (BEA) as one such management tool useful for financial planning in nonprofit and public human services organizations, particularly those with multiple sources of funding. The original article, published in 1976, was the first-ever presentation on this topic in human services, and the core of the author's 1980 first-ever book on financial management in nonprofit human services. In this revision of the original article, Break-Even Analysis is presented as a compact, easily administered “early …

Lindblom County: Philanthropic Insufficiency, Amateurism And Paternalism, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In this fictionalized case study, a group of friends from graduate school compose a community elite with responsibility for human services decision-making in rural Lindblom County. They must deal with issues of insufficient resources, amateurism among other community officials, and challenges posed by opposing and emergent groups of aspiring community leaders. Discussion questions and questions of strategy and calculation are posed for further examination of the issues raised.

Book Review: Sievers, B. R. (2010). Civil Society, Philanthropy, And The Fate Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The selection of civil society institutions (which the author refers to as strands) around which the volume is woven is interesting because it contains several novel elements in a novel combination: civil society is said to consist of philanthropy, the common good, rule of law, nonprofit and voluntary institutions, individual rights, free expression and tolerance. This book is important reading for political philosophers, doctoral students and theorists interested in the connection of civil society and philanthropy. Yet it has a number of weaknesses that are enumerated in the review.

The Growth Of Nonprofit Accounting And It's Impact On Human Services, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Changes in nonprofit accounting standards and practices have spearheaded a quiet revolution in financial management practice in social agencies and the delivery of human services during the past three decades. These changes have gone hand-in-glove with other changes in the political arena to dramatically transform the ways in which human services are organized and delivered. At the core of this transition has been the movement from fund to enterprise accounting, together with such larger political developments as the expansion of grant-based relations with government into the performance management environment of purchase of service contracting.

The U.S. Social Economy And The Commons Model Of Production, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Recent work in Canada and Europe has re-emphasized the place of nonprofit organizations, as that term is conventionally understood in the broader context of social economy. Although not generally recognized by U.S. and international scholars, a distinctive concept of social economy largely compatible with the Canadian and European formulations is embedded in U.S. constitutional, corporate, charitable and tax law. However, its full recognition is discouraged in the current U.S. political culture and third sector studies. The U.S. social economy provides full and robust, recognition of the social, political and economic organizations known as commons, as well as nonprofit firms.

The Practice Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper

This paper lays out some of the basics of a language-based, person-centered, or agentic model of practice for nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy within the emerging domain of commons theory. Six principles are identified for the practice of commons. Two threats to the production of common goods - bureaucratization and colonization of the life world - are discussed and evaluated as limitations of the practice of commons.

National Security, Suburbanization, Technology, And The Prospect Of Renewing Civic Participation, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In a series of books and articles, Robert Putnam outlined his famous "bowling alone" theses of declining civic participation, which he attributed in considerable part to television and other alternative leisure time pursuits. Putnam also acknowledged the possibility of other possible factors. This presentation identifies two such possibilities that coincide with the decline Putnam noted, - national security and suburbanization - as well as more recent and more ambiguous, technology-related factors contributing to declines in civic participation.

Multiple Roles Of A Rural Administrator, Roger A. Lohmann, Nancy Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Basic administrative procedures are similar in rural and urban areas. Even so, rural human service administrators are often not prepared for the many roles they must assume in small and underfunded rural agencies. The roles may include personnel director, budget officer, accountant, fundraiser, supervisor, building and maintenance supervisor, volunteer coordinator, group developer, community organizer, public educator, policy analyst, and director of public relations and marketing.

Neighborhood Associations: The Foundation Of Community Development, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Neighborhood associations are one of the most ubiquitous types of voluntary organization. This paper reviews a variety of theoretical and practical perspectives on the concept of neighborhood and the various organized expressions of neighborhood organizing in rural and urban communities.

Community Foundations In West Virginia, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This report is part of an ongoing investigation of the support of neighborhood associations by community foundations in three states – Michigan, New Mexico and West Virginia. The findings are primarily negative: There is no evidence that the 22 community foundations of West Virginia have provided support for the development or continuation of neighborhood associations in the state.

Community Practice And The Internet, Roger A. Lohmann, John Mcnutt

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article examines several developments in electronic technology which appear to hold great potential for advancing human well-being and community organization and have already manifested some important portion of that potential in recent years. They are, in order of presentation, electronic communication and networking, electronic advocacy, fund raising support, geographic information systems and data base management. We conclude this brief article with a brief discussion of information poverty and the growing disparity of information haves and have-nots.

Has The Time Come To Evaluate Evaluation? (Or Who Will Be Accountable For Accountability?), Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

A review essay of six recent books represents an occasion to examine the very idea of accountability, and to examine what the effects of several decades of emphasis on evaluation have been.

The Future Of The Third Sector, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The U.S. "nonprofit sector" and other forms of contemporary national third sectors which are currently spreading around the world arose in a unique historical moment and for distinct historical reasons and are unlikely to outlast that moment in history. Voluntary action on the other hand has deep roots reaching far back in human history and is likely to be around far into the future.

Managed Care: The Questionable Triumph Of Financial Management, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Managed Care is a generic term for a broad and constantly changing mix of health insurance, assistance and payment programs which seek to retain quality and access while controlling the cost of physical and mental health services. The introduction of managed care fundamentally transforms the traditional “agency” relationships on which modern social work was built. Little research on its impact on social services is currently available. The managed care model, with its distinctive external patterns of accountability, raises serious questions about the continuing viability of the “social agency” model of practice to which social work has been committed for most …

Mutuality, Locality And Communitarianism, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

What is the nature of the bonds among participants in nonprofit organizations and voluntary action, and between philanthropic givers and recipients, and how do these affect the behavior of third sector actors and those in other sectors? Mutuality accounts for the intermediary bulwark which offers a primary protection of the individual from the state. Except through Tocqueville, mutuality has had very little impact on American legal and political philosophy until quite recently. Mutuality is a principal concern of some communitarians, particularly Taylor, Sandel and Bell. Communitarianism is one of the few instances of focus on this important problem. This paper …

Philanthropic Partnerships: The Theory Of The Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In Anglo-American traditions, the concept of a commons has historically been most frequently attached to shared land in joint use by a village or community. The common theory of voluntary action presents organized collective action as consisting of shared purposes, shared resources and voluntary participation resulting in an evolving sense of mutuality, and moral order, consisting of shared norms of fairness and participation.

Nonprofit Community Service And The Hidden Cost Of Information Technology, Roger A. Lohmann, Nancy Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Will the information superhighway – like its concrete counterpart, the interstate highway system – turn out to be a good idea but too expensive to maintain properly? This paper will explore issues associated with the initial and ongoing costs of adopting information technology for nonprofit community service organizations, with particular attention to access and use of the information superhighway. Several possible explanations for the lag in adoption of internet technology will be explored. One of these will be the "null hypothesis" that resources and services currently available over the internet may still be insufficient to justify the costs involved for …

The Executive Director As Keeper Of The Past, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper outlines a rationale for the materials which ought to be preserved by executives of local agencies, identifies some of the legal issues involved in record keeping for historical issues and resources available at local and state levels and discusses access issues.

The Repertory Of Social Care Of The Elderly, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper is an analysis of aspects of the emergence of a repertory of social care services for the elderly from the vantage point of the common theory of voluntary action. One facet of that theory, labeled here as endowment theory, is an emerging rational choice model of the praxeological implications of voluntary action within the pragmatic problem-solving tradition. Three terms – endowment, repertory and commons – are presented in the paper as terms whose conventional meanings contain previously undisclosed connotations relevant to a fuller understanding of voluntary action.

Treasuries, Repertories And Collections In The Production Of Common Goods, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

What types of resources are involved when members of a voluntary association combine their efforts in pursuit of joint goals or common goods? This paper examines the question from the vantage point of a rational choice theory termed endowment theory. Endowment theory is concerned with the rational allocation of productive surpluses to associations and other voluntary groups in pursuit of identified common goods. At least three distinct types of resource dowries can be identified in the current world of nonprofit associations. Treasuries are endowments of money and market-priced resources. Two other categories of "priceless" resource endowments are also evident among …

Breaking Even: Preface To The Revised Edition, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Breaking Even: Financial Management in Nonprofit Human Services (Temple University Press. 1980) was the first book-length discussion of nonprofit financial management ever published in English. This preface was prepared, along with several new or rewritten chapters and additional changes for a possible revised edition of the book. The publisher decided not to do a second edition and the original first edition continued to sell in its small market niche for 25 years.

Private Human Services In Welfare Society, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper is an effort to propose a moderately optimistic future for the personal care sector of human services. It is proposed that the best available future scenario for personal care services between now and the year 2019 is to concentrate on privatization of service delivery on a small-scale basis. Government, in this model should be limited largely to three roles: 1) source of venture capital; 2) regulation of service delivery; and 3) income maintenance for the poorest populations. In this future, the main burden of personal care services will be carried by the private sector. Dramatic improvements in the …

Planning For Aging Services: Implications Of Recent Amendments To The Older Americans Act (With 2019 Postscript), Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The 1978 Amendments to the Older Americans Act called for the establishment of social planning, greater emphasis on the needs of the frail elderly (“those in greatest social and economic need”), the establishment of community “focal points” and “comprehensive and coordinated service delivery systems” in rural and urban communities. The amendments were implemented in the 1980 guidelines to Area Agencies on Aging. In this unpublished paper portions of which were presented at several conferences, a Guttman Scaling Technique developed in rural New York state was used to examine the development of aging services in 13 counties in North Central West …

Matrix Analysis And Social Planning, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This study is a follow-up to an earlier (1971) proposal for the application of Input-output analysis to social planning in human services (Repository item #753), and predates current models of human services as part of the nonprofit, or third sector. The manuscript details a study of financial inputs and service outputs in human services in the United Way system of Knoxville TN, noting a variety of quantitative ratios and measures of the human services delivery system, and assessing some of the strengths and weaknesses of the matrix approach.

A Matrix Model Of The Public Social Welfare System For The Aged In The U.S.: A Research Proposal, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The creation or adaptation of planning tools will in all probability be an integral feature of the future development of social planning practice. One tool that offers a great deal of potential utility if it can be adapted to the constraints of the social planning milieu is matrix analysis utilizing input-output matrices. The specific focus of the proposed study is on the public welfare system of theaged in the United States. The fundamental hypothesis of the proposed matrix model proposed here is that the general overall characteristic most representative of the system of public social welfare for the aged is …

Camps: A Failed Manpower Planning Venture, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In 1967, the U.S. Labor Department and Office of Economic Opportunity and other federal agencies undertook an experiment in regional manpower planning labeled the Cooperative Area Manpower Planning System, or CAMPS. This paper, written during my graduate program in public administration, 1969-1970 reflects my experience as a rural community action program director and an ex-officio participant in the CAMPS planning process of a rural region in southern Minnesota during 1967-1968.