Social and Behavioral Sciences 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 …

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.

Lee, J.-A. (2012). Nonprofit Organizations And The Intellectual Commons. Cheltenham, Uk; Northampton, Ma, Usa: Edward Elgar., Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Professor Lee defines intellectual commons as “intellectual resources which anyone can use either without permission or with permission granted in advance.” From the vantage point of third sector studies, this is different from both the Ostrom resources approach and the commons theory of associations articulated by Lohmann. This review assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Lee's approach.

Knowledge Commons In Ancient Greece, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper reviews a variety of published sources by specialists in ancient history and philosophy written for students of philanthropy, nonprofit organizations, commons and other, related social sciences. It discusses Plato's Academy, Aristotle's Lyceum, and other philosophical schools as real historically significant organizations, not merely ideas or symbols. It was expanded from one section of Chapter 3 of the author's book, The Commons: New Perspectives on Nonprofit Organizations, Voluntary Action and Philanthropy (1992).

The Principles Of Organizational Inaction, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Organization inaction and the absence of change are seriously understudied topics. This article (a spoof) reports on a research problem that identifies and studies four principles of organizational inaction: The time, subject matter, group size and controversy theorems together and separately explain a great deal of committee and organizational inaction. The article also introduces innovative techniques of invariant statistics and mystery sampling. The article is an extensive rewrite of a 'research report' that originally appeared in a peer-reviewed administrative humor journal, The Bureaucrat, in 1979.

A Third Sector Imaginary, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

A basic theoretical challenge for third sector scholars today is to speak in general and consistent terms about the institutional and normative orders forming outside households, markets and governments in numerous countries, regions and urban centers everywhere. The third sectors of the world have formed in light of a range of distinctive local conditions, including history, culture, law and other factors. A growing international group of scholars has produced a convincing, although limited and partial model of the third sector based in the linked concepts of nonprofit organization, nonprofit sector and non-distribution constraints. We will need to pay greater heed …

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 …

(Re)Considering The Third Sector, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Richard Cornuelle’s Reclaiming the American Dream: The Role of Private Associations and Voluntary Associations (RtAD) has been subjected to numerous interpretations in the more than half a century since its original publication in 1965. In this conference paper, the continuing importance of this work is reconsidered. Several of the issues that Cournelle raised are still important today. Thus, the label Independent Sector offers one possible solution to the continuing question of how to refer to the third sector.

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.

Deliberation, Dialogue And Deliberative Democracy In Social Work Education And Practice, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Ideas of public talk were central in various aspects of the history of social work and professional education. Social work has never just been a consumer of deliberative ideas. Several fundamental ideas associated with deliberative democracy theory arose directly out of social work education and practice and continue to function in different forms within contemporary social work theory and practice.

Giving Circles, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

A giving circle is a group of members pool their funds and information in collective or joint donations to organizations, causes or individuals. The article reviews some of the research on giving circles in the first decade of the 21st century.

Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The commons is a theoretical formalism that is useful in understanding many diverse problems of civil society. A common (or commons) is an economic, political, social, and legal institution that enables joint, shared, mutual or collective natural or social action by agents using a “pool” of shared or jointly held or mutually controlled resources. A substantial body of work exists detailing natural common resource pools acted upon by physical or biological agents. Another large body of work on humanly-directed natural resource pools study the human-natural environment interface, interspecies conflict and population density. Studies of social commons have also looked at …

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.

Social Entrepreneurship In The Practice Of Deliberation And Dialogue, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Advocates of public deliberation and sustained dialogue, like other change agents, often embrace roles as social entrepreneurs and engage in entrepreneurial efforts in promoting their cause. In particular, this may involve locating the resources necessary to establish and engage in programs of D & D, seeking to establish the costs and benefits of such programs, and furthering research into their effectiveness.

Deliberation And Dialogue In The Pracademic Commons, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

There is a strong connection between deliberation and dialogue and commons theory Deliberative activity generally takes place within group settings that approximate the defining conditions of a commons. In addition, social capital, in the form of trust and a sense of mutuality, and construction of a new or reconstituted normative outlook typically result from successful deliberation and dialogue efforts. This poses several lessons for the practice of the practice of such discussions.

Financial Management: Social Agency, Social Enterprise And Social Economy, Roger A. Lohmann, Nancy Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

There has been a quiet revolution in financial management practice in social agencies in recent decades, symbolized by the transition from fund to enterprise accounting and increasing recognition of the ‘third sector’ of the social economy. The traditional voluntary agency model of donations has been joined by grants, performance contracts, ‘managed care’ and an array of other options, and traditional voluntary agency based and public agency practice now exist alongside corporate for profit service delivery and various forms of private practice. Social enterprise and entrepreneurship are a common theme in all this diversity, as social agencies must aggressively seek out …

Modeling Third Sector Organizations: A Proposal For An Organizational Modeling Language, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Sector-talk is one of the stable features of discussions of nonprofit organizations today. However, little progress has yet been made in defining or measuring the allegedly different social relations which characterize the sectors. This paper proposes an approach to operational definition of the sectors, grounded in use of chemical modeling software to modify the lowly organization chart. The organizational modeling language proposed here addresses four dimensions: dominance, exchange, intimacy and mutuality.

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.

Partnerships Of Nonprofit Organizations And Business For The Development Of Community Social Welfare Activities: The American Experience, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Partnerships between traditionally non-profit social services (the theme of the conference), funded by various donative arrangements and subsidized by government contracts, and any type of commercial business ventures are still relative rare in the mainstream of U.S. social work today. We can identify three distinct positions on the question among scholars in the U.S. today: A general management perspective found in business schools, a public affairs perspective found in schools of public administration, and two perspectives among social workers. The vast majority of those social work have undoubtedly never heard of this issue. Yet, a very small portion of social …

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.

Wearable Arnova: The Intersection Of Ubiquitous Technology, Knowledge Management And Nonprofit Scholarship, Roger A. Lohmann, John Mcnutt

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Technology has created important new possibilities to expand and enrich the scholar's work situation. The Internet, on-line databases, collaborative technologies including Listserv/discussion groups and teleconferencing have made it possible for nonprofit scholars to collaborate in innovative new ways and produce their work at unprecedented rates. Electronic technology is one of the significant forces underpinning the growth on nonprofit scholarship. A number of institutions have made great strides in providing a rich research environment for nonprofit scholars. Efforts to create on-line communities have been fruitful and rewarding. Nonprofit researchers can develop relationships and share ideas with others anywhere in the world. …

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.

Charismatic Authority And The Board Of The Hull House Association, 1895-1935, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Discussions of boards in the third sector literature usually proceed from assumptions grounded in Weber’s rational-legal authority and international management principles like those of Henri Fayol. The generalizations made about boards are based on rational-legal views of the board as the principal governing body of a nonprofit organization. Much less frequently examined are the roles and functions of boards in organizations grounded in other forms of authority. In particular, the relationship between charismatic authority and boards has seldom been studied. This paper will examine the role of one such board, the Board of Trustees of the Hull House Association through …

The Internet Name Game And The Nonprofit Solution, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper is a case study of the campaign to create a new internet names authority to handle the assignment of internet domain names. Almost everyone knows by now that the Internet was originally a defense research project, which morphed into a research network for scientists and then into a tool of higher education and eventually into the commercial and general household utility we know today. In terms familiar to nonprofit research community what began in the state sector, expanded into the third sector and then into the market and household sectors and the consumer economy. There is a second …

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.