Social Work Commons^™

And Lettuce Is Nonanimal: Toward A Positive Theory Of Voluntary Action, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Much recent conceptual and theoretical effort to identify and define the kinds of voluntary action that take place outside households, economic markets and governments has a consistent emphasis on negation: It seems to define these matters by what they are not: not for profit, or nonprofit, nongovernmental, unproductive, inefficient, examples of contract failure, market failure, government failure and more. This paper is a beginning effort to shift the emphasis to the positive and the describe and explain what voluntary action is and what it consists of. It proposes the beginnings of an economics of common goods production, and differentiates such …

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.

Deliberation And Dialogue In A Quiet Place, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article recounts the story of the rise and fall of the public deliberation and sustained dialogue mission of the Nova Institute in the (now defunct) School of Applied Social Sciences of West Virginia University. The concept of political quiescence in Appalachia is used to characterize some of the resistance to public discussion that was encountered. The article appears in a volume of essays around the theme of university-community relations in Central Europe and published in Budapest, Hungary.

Associations, Movements, Dialogues, Social Problems And News: Voluntary Action And The Life Cycles Of The Third Sector, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This is one of two summation papers presented at the conclusion of the 2012 Queensland University conference on the third sector, looking to the future. The focus initially is on the concept of the social imaginary as offered by the Canadian social philosopher, Charles Taylor. Much of the previous conceptual and theoretical work in third sector studies during the past few decades has been focused on questions of the best ways to imagine the community and national social configurations of increasingly large numbers of nonprofit, voluntary and nongovernmental organizations. The concepts of nonprofit organization and nonprofit sector have been most …

Community Centers And Settlement Houses In Appalachia, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Community centers were originally outside imports into an Appalachian culture that often placed much greater emphasis on individuality and family than on community but they continue to thrive in the region. Yet there have been important contributions from the region: L.J. Hanifan, Superintendent of Rural Instruction in the original WV Department of Education introduced the concept of social capital to the world. Miles Horton and the Highlander Center provide a direct link between Appalachia and the international settlement house movement. Senior centers may be the most pervasive type of community center in Appalachia today. Settlement houses, religious missions, senior centers, …

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.

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 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.

The New Philanthropy In The New West Virginia, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Although philanthropy is a very old concept, many authorities today see a new philanthropy, including dramatic increases in donations and the assets of foundations. Also a new West Virginia may be emerging from the past of the forest agriculture of buckskin-clad mountaineers and coal mining. This presentation examines the convergence of the new philanthropy and this new West Virginia.

Rural Social Work Bibliography (1999), Roger A. Lohmann, Nancy Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This bibliography was assembled in response to a request from OUP for a rural bibliography on their website prior to publication of our edited book on Rural Social Work Practice (Oxford University Press. 2005).

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.

Service Centers: The Neglected Role Of The Town, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The dichotomy of urban and rural areas does not fit the circumstances of contemporary social life in the United States. Although needy populations redistributed across the social landscape, almost no social service agencies serving rural populations are, or ever have been, located in either urban (city) or rural (countryside) areas. Social agencies serving rural populations are nearly always located in towns. The town is a unique and distinctive rural social, economic and political institution. An adequate approach to conceptualizing rural social work must begin with recognition of one of the fundamental insights of contemporary urban theory: the regional character of …

The Commons: A Multidisciplinary Approach To Nonprofit Organization, Voluntary Action And Philanthropy, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The task of identifying nonprofit organizations, voluntary action and philanthropy as the principal constituents of a single "sector" within the larger economy, society and polity has been a central challenge for the multidisciplinary paradigm which seems to be emerging in this field. The concepts of the commons and common goods are presented as concepts with important multi-disciplinary implications. The commons is characterized by uncoerced participation, shared purposes and resources, mutuality and fairness and the derivative concept of common goods, as desirable ends which are universal and indivisible within a commons but not necessarily beyond. Taken together, commons and common goods …

Social Planning And The Problems Of Old Age, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper includes a review of the evolution of social planning in the context of human services. It also includes an elaboration of nine approaches to social planning for aging services: community planning councils, the aging network, Title XX planning, state health planning, service reorganization initiatives, the national network of policy institutes, long-term care planning and housing planning. The paper concludes with a consideration of social planning technology, including needs assessment, resource analysis, comparison of alternatives, determination of priorities, implementation and evaluation. It concludes that social planning has been a primary tool in the long-term development of new institutions and …

Finances And The Social Settlement: The Management Of Hull House, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The development of social welfare history has powerful implications for the study of community practice theory. This historical study examines the Hull House social settlement as an actual, working social service establishment, rather than simply the stage for the activities of its most famous resident, Jane Addams. Hull House is examined as an organization, a campus, and a pioneering set of social programs. Its incorporation, by-laws are examined and all board members serving during Addams' 40 years there are identified. Various aspects of dealing with important donors, cash flows from donations and accountability issues are identified and discussed, as are …

Aging And Social Policy, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Social planning has a long history in social work. It has gone from an early emphasis on community as the modal point to an emphasis on public policy planning at the state and federal levels and recently to an emphasis on organizational issues and initiatives. Social planning has been a primary tool in the long-term development of new institutions and practices brought about by the unprecendented increases in the size of the aged population. Probably the oldest intact social planning systems for aging in most American communities today are the networks of community planning which grew up in the voluntary …

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.

From Social Welfare To Welfare Society: A Humane World Beyond Social Welfare?, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

In the 1980's, the relationship of social welfare activities to the future has been dramatically altered. Until the conservative ascendency of the Reagan government, the future of social welfare was defined largely in terms of the incremental welfare state, characterized by gradual expansion of tax supported programs and benefits, with periodic policy refinements and extensions of benefits and coverages to new populations. Since 1980, all sorts of "doom and gloom" has been spread--mostly linked to short-term developments. This paper is an effort to propose a moderately optimistic alternative future for one segment of the social welfare system--personal care services. In …

Aging And The Milieu Of Social Policy, Roger A. Lohmann, Nancy Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

One facet of the new conservatism, which is drawing so much interest but not much information currently is the proposal for converting a large number of social service programs (including the Administration on Aging) into a single community block grant program. Even without the Reagan Administration and its new conservatism, however, the case for substantial--if less dramatic--changes in the network of services and programs which benefit the aged has been growing for some time. In this chapter, wel review some of the broader implications of current social policies for the aged, and some of the criticisms raised among gerontologists, concentrating …

Social Work Practice With The Rural Aged, Nancy Lohmann, Roger A. Lohmann, Ellen Netting

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Approximately 27 percent of America’s aged live in rural areas. Despite similar problems, however, there are substantial differences in the nature of human services designed to meet these needs in cities and rural areas. This chapter examines rural problems and services in health, income, housing and social integration. In addition, unique rural issues of community outreach and professional relationships in rural areas are examined.

The Politics Of Aging And Rural Social Services: An Exploratory Analysis, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The advent of federal funding for rural social services during the late 1960s and 1970s brought about changes in the political organization of rural America. A host of new organizational actors, like Area Agencies on Aging and various local aging agencies were created in rural communities across the country, in the wake of Baker v. Carr with its “one man/one vote” principle and funding through programs like the Economic Opportunity Act and the Older Americans Act. This article details a leadership succession model suggesting that local leadership of aging interests went through at least four distinct phases during this time: …

Symbolic Interaction And Social Planning: Perspectives From The Early Years, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The principal thesis of this paper is that the inadequacies of recent efforts at social planning are essential failures of theory, rather than failures of practice. Economic, land use and social welfare planners it is suggested have all shared a common unwillingness or inability to abandon commitments to an essentially utilitarian rhetoric of reasoned behavior, wherein means are matched with ends, persons are viewed as essentially self-interested and goal-directed rational problem solvers operating on schedules of goal attainment known or predictable by the planners. Symbolic interaction theory has resources to revitalize planning theory. Selected publications by John Dewey, G.H. Mead, …

Public Affairs, Community Service And Personal Care: The Three Faces Of Social Work, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper was written for a faculty seminar at the School of Social Work, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where at the time the author was an Assistant Professor. It makes the case that contemporary social work at the time was an uneasy mix of three very different approaches: A public affairs perspective addressing broad social policy issues; a community services perspective extending to agency management, planning and financing; and a personal care perspective built on psychotherapy, social casework and group work. At the time, many schools of social work were struggling with a legacy of strong support for the personal …

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.

Death At A Later Age, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Report of a break out session of a conference on death education held at Hamlin University, St. Paul, Minnesota in Fall, 1969.