This study examines the psychometric properties of a new self-report instrument to measure organisational connectedness (The Four-Dimensional Connectedness Scale; 4DCS) in two volunteer samples: state emergency service volunteers and volunteer ambulance workers. Confirmatory factor analyses in both studies supported the proposed four-factor structure of the 4DCS (other workers, recipients, task and values). In addition, confirmatory factor analyses showed that connectedness, commitment and engagement were separate constructs—a three-factor model with a Connectedness factor, a Commitment factor and an Engagement factor fitted best to the data. Moreover, hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed that connectedness and engagement each shared unique variance with job satisfaction and intention to continue. The results confirm the factorial, discriminant and predictive validity of connectedness relative to engagement and commitment. It is concluded that the 4DCS has acceptable psychometric properties and that the instrument can be used to study volunteer wellbeing.

The term “mapping” has garnered a lot of attention in civil society research and nonprofit studies. Important contributions to mapping discussions have often focused on definitional issues, what to include and not include, what the data is intended for, and measurement challenges. However, the who is undertaking the mapping is often neglected in these discussions. This short article comments on Brent Never’s recent piece in Voluntas and the mapping of civil society and nonprofit organizations in general. Never’s analysis pushes the conversation forward by recommending better maps with both supply and demand of services for funders and policymakers at the local level. However, it neglects the question of who should conduct the mapping and the implications resulting from who these mappers are.

This article reviews recent non-statutory attempts at charity fundraising regulation in the UK and Ireland. It explores the definition of success for each regime and examines whether broader policy lessons for fundraising regulation may be learnt from these implementation experiences to date. To this end, the article compares the UK framework for fundraising regulation (via the Fundraising Standards Board) with recent Irish proposals for non-statutory regulation. It also identifies the key challenges facing each regime. The article draws upon current Canadian, Dutch and American regulatory experiences and benchmarks these alternative non-statutory efforts against the Anglo-Irish models by way of comparative analysis. The article tackles the broader question of how we measure success in regulatory terms and argues for better identification of the constituency to be regulated, thereby enabling prioritisation of the salient performance indicators that should be included in any non-statutory framework.

In this introductory article to the thematic issue, our aim is to discuss the state of the art in research on co-production of public services. We define co-production, for the purpose of this article rather narrowly, as the involvement of individual citizens and groups in public service delivery. We discuss the concept along three main research lines that emerge from the literature: what are the motives for co-production? How can co-production be organized effectively? What are the effects of co-production? Secondly, we also critically assess the state of the art and discuss some conceptual and methodological issues that are still open to debate. Thirdly, we propose some directions for future research: greater methodological diversity and the need for empirical and comparative research with a specific attention for theoretical advancement in co-production research.

The Fund Raising Standards Board is the body responsible for the self-regulation of fundraising practice in the UK. As a requirement of membership of this body, charities are required to complete an annual return detailing the complaints received about their fundraising practice in the previous year. We conduct through this study an analysis of these data to highlight the percentage of solicitations in a wide variety of media that result in a complaint. We also examine the nature of those complaints and interpret our results in the context of the wider literature exploring the role of complaints in bolstering customer/donor satisfaction and determining subsequent behaviour.

While research has shown that having a “good” job significantly promotes formal volunteering, we have limited knowledge of how this paid work-to-volunteer work relationship may differ between men and women. Based on the gender-identification spillover theory, we hypothesize that because of the societal expectations that women should be caring, giving and communal, positive job traits such as authority and autonomy promote women’s volunteering more than men’s. Our analysis of data from the National Survey of Midlife in the United States shows that women who exercise supervisory authority on the job volunteer significantly more hours than women who do not, whereas job authority makes no difference in the number of hours volunteered for men. Meanwhile, job autonomy promotes men’s volunteering, but not women’s. Implications of these and related findings for future research on gender and volunteering are discussed.

The third sector is poised to play a leading role in public sector innovations in the twenty-first century. The third sector can enhance, facilitate, and promote greater citizen participation in the determination, provision, and governance of social services through co-production. This article explores some crucial conceptual issues related to the co-production of public services and the role of the third sector. It also provides some brief empirical evidence of the potential of the third sector, not merely as a service provider, but also as a facilitator of the re-democratization of the European welfare state. Here, collective action and third sector provision are crucial for distinguishing between co-production heavy and light. The conclusion focuses on the ability of the public, third, and for-profit sectors to embrace greater citizen participation and co-production.

The regulation of charitable fundraising is no longer just about the regulation of fundraising but about good governance, and increasingly involves co-regulatory regimes which blend elements of self- and state regulation. Canada’s charitable sector has undertaken a bold experiment in creating a comprehensive certification system for good governance, including fundraising, which reframes the target of regulation from the informed donor to the well-performing charity and has the ambitious goal of building a community of practice for self-improvement. At the same time, the federal government has introduced new guidance on fundraising that not only outlines accepted cost to revenue ratios but also specifies standards of good governance. It is an open question as to whether this new self- and state regulation will remain as dual systems or evolve into a hybrid co-regulatory regime in which government integrates sector certification into its own risk management.

This article reflects on the importance of the relations between state and society in policy-making in the area of public health. Several studies in various sectors such as health, education, and social services have made similar observations on organizational dynamics and the institutionalization of different models of partnerships or contracts, often based on the analytical model of three sectors. Individuals and their networks of relationships, however, remain an almost unexplored dimension in these types of research. Against this backdrop, this study seeks to analyze the movement of HIV/AIDS activists to governmental organizations working in this same field. The analysis raises questions concerning the forms of individual and institutional learning that help to maintain the distinct character of innovation of the Brazilian policy. Professionals who cross the borders hold a different profile once they have accumulated experience working with grassroots and local NGOs, and have also had the chance to be trained and enhance their technical and managerial capacities, since the government has supported NGOs for a long period. When combined, these experiences allow them to maintain relationships with social movements and give them the ability to navigate through the government bureaucracy and handle technical information about fighting AIDS epidemics, making it possible for them to negotiate strategic collaborations reflecting the interests of different groups. Hence, they constantly reflect on the differences between government and social spaces, and keep questioning and modifying their roles in the light of potential and existing complementarities.

User and community co-production has always been important, but rarely noticed. However, there has recently been a movement towards seeing co-production as a key driver for improving publicly valued outcomes, e.g. through triggering behaviour change and preventing future problems. However, citizens are only willing to co-produce in a relatively narrow range of activities that are genuinely important to them and are keen that their co-production effort is not wasted by public agencies. Moreover, there are concerns that co-production may involve greater risks than professionalised service provision, although services may be quality assured more successfully through involving users and embedding them in the community. While offering potential significant improvements in outcomes, and cost savings, co-production is not resource-free. Co-production may be ‘value for money’, but it usually cannot produce value without money.

Departing from regulation theories and varieties of capitalism school this article focuses on employment in the third sector. We start by discussing the emergence of the new third sector in the western world. In the second part of the article, we provide an overview of the third sector in Portugal today. The ideal values of the organizations of the third sector, namely the principles of democratic and participative management, the primacy of people and work over capital, and the centrality of social capital, frame the discussion of empirical data regarding the wage relation that characterizes the University of Porto (UP) graduates currently working in the third sector. We end with a critical discussion of the optimistic expectations and projections that loom over the third sector regarding the construction of an alternative model of social and economic development based on justice and equity.

Housing is an area in which the active involvement of citizens in the provision of services has the potential to enrich individual lifestyles, local communities and the organisations providing housing, regardless of whether public, private for-profit or non-profit. Yet in current housing markets, housing tends to be purely individual, in the form of home ownership, or collectively managed through social rented housing. The article explores the conditions under which co-production in this field could be successful, as an alternative model. The analysis, which draws upon the work of Ostrom, is based on empirical fieldwork carried out among German housing cooperatives. As it turns out, successful co-production depends primarily on the long-term maintenance of group boundaries and specific trajectories of organisational development. This can make co-production an attractive model for specific social groups, but there are drawbacks: it also tends to lead to limited use of the invested capital and an inward orientation.