Volunteering or unpaid labour. A view from the Third World

Maha Abdelrahman (maha@iss.nl)

Literature on NGOs often assert that one of the most acclaimed comparative advantages of these organisations is their flexible methods of work, and non-bureaucratic managerial styles. They are believed to be able to achieve this by drawing on the contributions of volunteers to manage the organisation as well as implement its various projects. This paper argues that Îvolunteeringâ in the case of many Third World NGOs is a euphemism for unpaid labour, and that in fact it is a system, which deepens the inequalities within the society instead of Îempoweringâ its most poor and vulnerable members. Drawing on the case of Egyptian NGOs, the paper depicts how volunteering has become a costly burden that the poor have to shoulder in the absence of other options due to cutting down on public expenditure on social services. Apart from the exploitative dimension of Îvolunteeringâ, it is also very inefficient. Unpaid labour can only sustain a limited array of activities because full-time activity requires a living wage.

Celebrating the Past: Financial Management in the Third Sector

Anne Abraham (anne_abraham@uow.edu.au)

The centrality of the mission, as opposed to the importance of financial outcomes, created many problems in the early financial management of third sector organisations. Thus, it is important to celebrate the contribution made by these early managers as they struggled to guide their organisation in a fiscally responsible manner. This paper has two parts. First, it considers the need for accountability from an internal organisational perspective and also as a response to the external demand for accountability. Secondly, it provides a case study of an eighty year old organisation whose early leaders were responsible for putting in place procedures which have allowed it to develop into a service organisation with a multi-million dollar turnover. The study presents incidents which demonstrate the development of financial management strategies, by providing a microview of the evolution of a number of these processes, the factors which influenced their development, and the opposition their proponents encountered to their introduction.
 

Privatisation and Contractualism in Texas and Tasmania

Megan Alessandrini (M.Alessandrini@utas.edu.au)

This paper considers the nature and impact of the contemporary relationship between government and non-government non-profit organisations providing human services. It examines the structure and management of a range of organisations and considers the effect of market orientation on organisational structure and culture. Non-government non-profit human service oganisations are no longer always based on charitable models. Many are now difficult to distinguish from commercial operations. This paper will describe these organisations and compare the examples of Texas and Tasmania. The history and policy background of these two locations are contrasting, and the organisations that have developed also vary dramatically. A great deal can be learned from the American experience as Australia moves into an era of contractualism and privatisation, of government support for philanthropy and partnerships between business and the Îcharitableâ sector. Both Texas and Tasmania are currently experiencing a wave of policy changes to funding and management arrangements. What impact will these policy changes have on the structure and operations of third sector organisations?
 

Megan Alessandrini

Megan Alessandrini is currently a fulltime research higher degree student completing a PhD in the School of Government at the University of Tasrnania. She is also coordinating the Master of Public Administration and has taught in a wide variety of undergraduate units in public policy and political science. She works as a research consultant and has conducted many consultancies in the community sector through the University of Tasmania and privately. Prior to this, Megan had extensive experience in the public sector and completed a bachelor of arts with first class honours.
 

Factors in development of social activism: why people fear activism in a dominant conservative political environment

Rhonda Ansiewicz, Genevieve Rankin and Tim OâConnor

Students in community development courses at tertiary level are confronted with a method of social change that often challenges their current personal perceptions of the world. In community welfare and social work subjects taught at the University of Western Sydney, students have expressed a fear of activism. They say they fear being labeled, of being seen as ignorant, of being marginalised in their future employment and express a concern that they donât see enough contemporary role modeling in community action. In order to educate the next generation of community activists, these fears must be addressed in professional training across disciplines. Strategies for involving students in contemporary community activism will be discussed and examples of community activism about the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights, the Redfern experience of achieving social change and justice for Aboriginal people and student activism on campus at University of Western Sydney.
 

Constructing Resistances: Investigating Collective Identity in a Community Cooperative

Jo Barraket (Jo.Barraket@.uts.edu.au)

Since the emergence of modern cooperation in the early 19^th Century, the cooperative movement has received attention from economists, historians, and cooperative practitioners, but has been largely ignored by sociologists as a possible form of social movement activity. This paper outlines an investigation into the ways in which members of one Sydney based consumer cooperative construct their sense of collective identity, or common purpose, and the multiple meanings of resistance which these members ascribe to their cooperative participation. The research further considers the tensions and contradictions which emerge in an organisation which identifies itself as an alternative social and economic space, while also being a legally institutionalised economic enterprise. Finally, the possibilities and limitations of the Îactivist research approachâ developed to conduct this research are considered in the light of traditional social movement research methodologies.
 

Jo Barraket

Jo Barraket has been involved in the consumer food cooperative movement for the past seven years, first a founding member of the University of New South Wales cooperative, Pigweed, and later as a management committee member of Alfalfa House Community food Cooperative. She has a strong activist interest in cooperative development and alternative economic practices. She has used her interest as an activist to inform her academic work and recently completed her PhD on the role that sociological understandings of cooperation can play in improving our understanding of this form of collectivity.

Volunteering and Management

Joy Barrett (m.bell@mail.mpx.com.au)

This paper will explore the impact of changing perceptions of volunteering on paradigms for the management of volunteers and volunteer programs. The contribution of volunteers to third sector organisations has been widely acknowledged throughout their history. Responsibility for the management of volunteers rested with individual organisations. Some organisations chose to formally manage the contribution of volunteers, others used informal methods or provided a framework within which volunteers acted independently. Recognition of the significance of volunteering for the development of social capital and economic growth has only emerged over the last decade. As consequences, the relationship between volunteering and the emerging concept of citizen participation requires clarification and volunteering is no longer "owned" by third sector organisations. Although the economic contribution of volunteers is still not acknowledged in national accounts, governments are beginning to recognise that the growth of a strong society depends on active involvement of volunteers. This has resulted in an increase in legislative requirements, with diminishing differences between the legislative framework for volunteering and for paid employment. The legislation protects the rights of volunteers and requires at least some formal management of volunteers in third sector organisations. It has also resulted in public scrutiny of management practices, exemplified by the Industry Commission Inquiry into Community Social Welfare Organisations in 1995. Most recently it has resulted in the development of policies of social and mutual obligation with ambiguously identified links to volunteering. Corporates are also beginning to value volunteering. They have recognised the link between volunteering and a stable market. They have also recognised the contribution that volunteering can make to the personal development of their employees. This has opened up new opportunities for partnerships between corporates and third sector organisations. The partnerships bring with them obligations and accountability, requiring more formal management of volunteers and volunteer programs. BHP is a case in point. BHP contributes financially to a variety of Australian third sector organisations. They then fund places in the School of Volunteer Management Diploma program for paid staff in these organisations, with the stated goal of enhancing their capacity to manage volunteers. These trends have resulted in:

· growing recognition that managing volunteers requires specific vocational competencies and the development of vocational education and training programs to teach these skills, such as the programs offered by the School of Volunteer Management

· formalisation of standards of best practice for management of volunteers and volunteer programs.

A key issue for third sector organisations and volunteering networks is the protection of the rights and interests of volunteers. Although volunteers are not paid, they do derive a range of benefits in exchange for the contribution of their time and skills and it is important to ensure that these entitlements are not lost in a move to more formal management practices. Participants in the session will be asked to identify related trends in the management of volunteers and discuss their implications for third sector organisations.
 

Joy Barrett

Joy Barrett is the Director of the School of Volunteer Management. The School offers training programs for managers of volunteers throughout Australia and in other countries of the Asia-Pacific region. Joy has over twenty years experience managing non-for-profit organisations that depend on vo9lunteers for the achievement of their objectives and has tertiary qualifications in commerce, management and education. Her current focus is expansion of the scope of the Schoolâs training programs to address the wider perspective of citizen participation in the develop0ment of civil society.
 

Community Service Activity in Local Religious Congregations

Ian Bedford (i.bedford@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au)

Whilst religion and welfare have had a long common history, little attention has been given to the community service activities of religious congregations themselves. In the last decade social policy in the USA has begun to focus on the contributions these local bodies of people make to the community services sector. As a result religious sociology, non-profit and social welfare researchers are paying increasing attention to their role, potential and limitations whilst legislation has been passed which seeks to extend their involvement in direct service provision. In Australia little research has been undertaken on the nature of congregational involvement in our social support services. This paper seeks to present an overview of an early exploration of the issues confronting these congregations as they deliver services to their surrounding communities either separately or in partnership with others, and of the processes by which these congregations develop and sustain these activities.

Ian Bedford

Since ending a brief career as a teacher of maths and physics in 1976. Ian has been a social worker in Family Support for 11 years. The first 6 years were in general counselling at a congregationally-based Uniting Church agency in Broadmeadows, Victoria. The next 5 years were as counsellor and foundation coordinator for an Anglican agency in Rockhampton, Queensland. There followed 7 years as a lecturer in Welfare Studies, and later Social work, at La Trove University ö Albury-Wodonga campus. In 1993, whilst undertaking an MSW at the University of Melbourne his interest in better understanding the generally ignored phenomenon of congregational community service involvement developed, leading to this becoming the focus of his PhD research project.

"Itâs a Personal Thing". Volunteer Motivation in Hospitals and Community Health Services: The Implications for Management Practices. A Case Study.

Denise Blacket and Jenny Green (Jenny.Green@uts.edu.au)

Hospitals and health services rely on a substantial volunteer work force to provide a range of activities that parallel and support the medical care. As the needs of hospitals have changed so the demands on the volunteer workforce have changed. Volunteers perform a variety of roles from fairly simple task to complex and demanding duties. An emerging recognition of the need for effective management of volunteers has highlighted a corresponding need to understand better the motivation and expectations of volunteers. This paper reports on a preliminary study that explores the motivation of a sample of volunteers in hospitals and health services in the northern suburbs of Sydney. Two groups of volunteer were interviewed about their original reasons for volunteering. The first group commenced volunteering after 1997. Their responses suggest a shift in motivation and expectations that is more reflective of the paid workforce. Moreover, their responses raise valid questions about the employment and management practices of volunteers and suggests strategies that could improve current conditions.
 

Cooperatives as a Form for Business Development -
A Case Study in the Social Economy

Tomas Blomquist (tomas.blomquist@fek.umu.se)
Margareta Gallstedt (margaret.gallstedt@fek.umu.se)

This paper will present a case study of the start of a cooperative in Sweden, a project found by the European Social Fund to create a framework for developing the entrepreneurial ideas of individuals unemployed, sick or work disabled. The case study shows that new organizational forms can be a way to business development within the social economy. The project exceeded its goal. The membersâ ideas have during the project been realized and among the eight business ideas that initially started seven of them worked six months after the project ended. For the individuals, the project and the cooperative have been a way to break the patterns of unemployment and sick leave. The pension and allowance dependence of the members have in this way decreased. Even if none of the member businesses during the time of the project succeeded in covering all costs, the businesses still generated a positive contribution margin. The project shows several positive effects and cooperative decrease the individualsâ dependence on social welfare through the positive contribution but most important is the effect of the individuals, which after years outside the labor market have returned to society and established an active social network and improve their self-esteem.
 

'Nonprofit futures: risk, audit and the constitution of welfare citizens.'

Kevin Brown (kevinb@deakin.edu.au)

Salamon's (1999) claim that the nonprofit sector in (North) America is now at a crossroads can almost certainly be widened to include the situation in most developed western countries. This paper considers the implications for nonprofit sectors of increasing marketisation on the one hand and varied state responses to welfare need on the other. The paper draws initially on data from current research in Australia, Sweden and Russia and indicates some of the patterns of nonprofit activity to emerge from that work. The research surveyed nonprofit welfare organisations in each country (together with qualitative interviews) to gauge experiences of and approaches to the influences of state and market. The paper goes on to consider the squeeze on non-profits by for-profits which Salamon notes. While Salamon believes that a recentring of nonprofits (within their citizen base) is the answer₁ Wolch (1999) argues that the margins rather than the centre should be the destination of the nonprofit sector. I argue here that any reconnection of nonprofits to their 'citizen base' cannot fruitfully occur without significant policy intervention, which would allow the creation of associationalist structures of the kind advocated by Hirst. The construction of associationalism then, provides an alternative to the potentially disempowering pulls of either centrist incorporation or peripheral marginalisation. Through theorising the roles of citizenship type in the constitution of welfare regimes together with notions inherent in the concepts of risk and audit society the paper sets out five possible future paths for welfare in western democracies. These paths can be characterised as: social democratic; contractual; mass market; niche market and associationalist.

Innovative consultation processes and the changing roles of activism

Lyn Carson (l.carson@econ.usyd.edu.au)

Innovative consultation processes are emerging that challenge the role of special interest groups. These methods÷e.g. consensus conferences, feedback panels, deliberative polls, listening posts, citizen juries--tap into the views of a broader cross section of the community. Are these democratic processes challenging the historical role of the activist as the primary agent of change? Are activists being managed out of existence? Can special interest groups improve the effectiveness of their own practice by using these democratic methods? The presenter will offer case studies of innovative consultation methods and discuss their relevance to collective action.

Lyn Carson

Lyn Carson is a lecturer in applied politics with Government and International Relations at The University of Sydney. A long-time activist herself she now focuses on the processes for effecting change, rather than issues. She is a consultation practitioner who became interested in innovative processes when she was a local government councillor (Lismore City Council 1991-1995). More recently she has been involved in a number of national and local consultation strategies÷Australiaâs first consensus conference on gene technology, Australiaâs first deliberative poll on the republic issue, researching residentsâ feedback panels, trialling listening posts, designing and facilitating citizens juries. Lyn Carson is also the co-author (with Brian Martin) of Random Selection in Politics (1999), Praeger Publishers.
 

Community Sector Activism: A Framework for Analysis

John Casey (jcasey@csu.edu.au)

Before we can confidently speak about "activism", we have to separate rhetoric from reality. Do community organisations meaningfully participate in the political process? What factors determine their access to decision-making domains or other desired outcomes of attempts to influence? This paper presents a framework for the analysis of community sector participation in the public policy process, which examines intervening factors in the following four areas: the political opportunities offered by the polity in which community organisations operate; the nature of the policies they are seeking to influence; the characteristics of the organisations themselves and the resources they command; and the network of other political actors involved. The paper also reflects on how the three leitmotivs of new millennium politics --- marketisation, globalisation and informatisation -- are likely to impact on the future of community sector activism.
 

Consuming Education: An Activist's Tool Kit

Merilyn Childs (m.childs@uws.edu.au)

Two contradictory forces are at work in the world of 'lifelong learning'. Both are an expression of neo-liberal ideology. On the one hand, workers are being urged to develop new and flexible approaches to learning and work, to accept the ideology of the disposable workforce, and to assume individual responsibility for their careers. (Many people working in the Third Sector are well used to this kind of employment.) Lifelong learning is often associated with formal courses such as vocational and university studies, and there is increasing pressure for workers to be university qualified. On the other hand, governments have increasingly withdrawn public funding to support education and have introduced contestability. Workers now find that lifelong learning equates with lifelong debt. Poor and disadvantaged workers continue to be excluded, yet are told they must participate to keep their jobs. Gaining entry to university study has been mystified through processes such as TER scores, the notion of IQs, and by privileging particular language and cultural forms. Breaking through these forms of exclusion can be seen as a legitimate site for activism. Some of us at this Conference may be gatekeepers, unsure of how to break down our own processes of mystification and exclusion. Some of us may have been excluded. Participants will discuss a Toolkit of Strategies that may be used in gaining access to university qualifications, or in providing such access to potential students.

Merilyn Childs

Merilyn Childs is a Lecturer in Adult Education, Co-Director of the Workbased Learning Unit and Convenor of the RPL Working Party at the University of Western Sydney. As a career educator, she has a commitment to the reform of institutional practices that exclude learners and learning - often on the basis of unquestioned tradition or passionate elitism. One of her interests has been the development of recognition of prior learning as a social activist tool designed to shape the borders of the university in new ways. In this paper she draws on her experiences as an RPL Assessor and policy activist at the University of Western Sydney. She will discuss the RPL Tool Kit she is currently developing to help consumers of university education to be 'street savvy' when they approach university gatekeepers for RPL. In this session, she will present aspects of the Tool Kit for discussion.
 

The non-profit board in economic development: a method for examining internal management processes

Michael Christie (m.christie@qut.edu.au)

Pat Rowe (p.rowe@gsm.uq.edu.au)

Boards in the non-profit sector deal with hospitals, community service organisations, health organisations, education institutions, industry and union associations, religious organisations, aid agencies and social agencies. Even with the broad range of the different types non-profit boards and the importance in their activities little is known about how they execute internal management processes and roles. This paper investigates through critical realism a research approach to examine the influence of a board's internal operations on the operational issues of a non-profit board. There is a significant gap in the understanding of internal management operations within non-profit boards. The deficiency has implications for research methods in this area. The current debate on realism in case study research has examined the selection of an appropriate research methodology. The circumstances to be researched and the theoretical paradigm adopted by the researcher determines the research methodology in case study research. This paper builds on contributions to the debate by Perry, Alizadeh and Riege (1997) and Perry (1998) that describe the circumstances and paradigm that best argue for the use of case study method. Further this paper adds to this debate and sets out an example of the analysis of case comparison. In turn, preliminary findings are discussed through an examination of analysis of qualitative data through multi-level analysis.
 

Partnerships and Schools: Handshakes and Handouts

Caitlin Cronin (c.cronin@edfac.usyd.edu.au)

In 1995 Australia and the United States made "in theory" commitments to connect their schools and classrooms to the Internet by the year 2000. Over the next few years, each country used methods of private-public sector collaboration to enact this educational goal. To explore this policy and process scenario, case studies in each country were examined through the lens of NetDay. NetDay is an American-based strategy that incorporates community voluntarism, corporate philanthropy and existing education policy structures to connect classrooms and schools to the Internet. NetDay, among other things, is a combination of corporate, political, community, and media sector efforts combined with technology-driven rhetoric about what is demanded from education at the turn of the millennium. The case studies showed from a comparative perspective that schools using private-public sector collaboration to fund school expenditures need various pillars of support. These supports can include a strong personal and professional philanthropic community, an established or emerging concern about social capital, or a commitment to self-funded models of educational institutions. The research suggests that schools should develop a systemic policy on private-public sector collaboration that reflects its educational goals, managerial ethos and community values. This sense of mission may promote more successful and long-term partnerships. Likewise, larger systems (be they states or districts) may need to create an environment where schools are allowed the capacity to build these relationships not merely induced to change through mandates.

Caitlin Cronin

Caitlin Cronin is currently a doctorial student at the Faculty of Education, University of Sydney. Her doctorial research focuses on a comparative study of corporate involvement in education. Specifically she examines how different countries designed policy to connect schools to the Internet. Ms Cronin has worked in California, Massachusetts and Sydney with non-profit consortiums and organisations that assist schools, communities and businesses join forces to achieve this goal. She received her masters degree in education policy from Stanford University and her undergraduate degree from Harvard. She will submit her thesis at the close of 2000.

From activists-in-arms to arms-length partners: Changes in the relationship between local government and third sector organisations

Wendy Earles (Wendy.Earles@jcu.edu.au)

Local government organisations and localised third sector organisations share common ground as providers and as representative bodies. As providers, they can be 'near the people', whereas as representative bodies they can be 'of and for the people'. These attributes - access, representation, and participation - are under threat in the changing local government-third sector relationship. This paper will report the synthesised findings of case studies of the changing relationship between local government organisations and third sector organisations at specific sites during the 1980s and 1990s. This period included many managerialist and economic rationalist reforms, which cumulatively impacted both local government and the third sector. During the study period there were distinct themes in the changing relationships. There was a realignment of provision and funded-service management, which included the establishment of increasingly arms-length provision arrangements within local government and the divestment of funded-service management to the third sector. There was also a realignment of planning and fundseeking roles, which included deregionalisation, and consolidation of these roles within the central management levels of individual local government organisations. This realignment of the relationships was compounded by a reframing of the relationship within the language of business units, resource sharing and consultancy groupings.

Wendy Earles

Wendy has 15 years experience working in human service organisation in Papua New Guinea and Western Australia. She has worked on social indicator creation; youth and womenâs policy development and program design; aged care, childcare and family crisis service management; and government funding allocation and review. In 1998, Wendy completed a major study of the reshaping of Australian government and non-government human service organisations arising from cumulative managerialist and economic rationalist reforms. Wendy is currently lecturing at James Cook University in the School of Social work and community Welfare. Her new research direction involves investigating strategies for greater collaboration in the nonprofit sector. This includes analysis of cases of co-locations, federations, peaks, and mergers or strategic alliances.
 

The involvement of NGWOs and business enterprises in partnership

Sol Encel (s.encel@unsw.edu.au)

This paper presents a preliminary report of a survey of non-government welfare organisations (NGWOs) and business enterprises. The NGWOs were asked, inter alia, about their involvement in partnerships and sponsorships. The responses varied widely, but there is an obvious undercurrent of uneasiness about the constraints imposed by such processes as competitive tendering and advertising (in the case of private firms), as well as the short-term nature of most sponsorship agreements. A second phase of the study involves a survey of large and medium-sized business enterprises to elicit information about the extent and level of their support for charitable and philanthropic causes. Here again there is a wide variety of responses, including negative ones such as refusal to disclose information, even when it is in the public domain.

You don't necessarily lose power if you share it!

Jo-Anne Everingham (everingh@usq.edu.au)

What happens when a group of Australian women meet with an Indian community organisation to explore questions like:

· Should some issues be tackled as fundamental obstacles to the advancement of the majority of women?

· Can programs aimed at local capacity-building and empowerment actually result in measurable benefits for poor women?

· Could women in Australia act similarly as catalysts for social change?

The example taken is an organisation aimed at empowering women in Gujarat and improving women's access, not only to their practical need, water, but also to strategic and more nebulous resources such as decision-making power. This sharing between first world and third world activists offers insights into ways communities can use (even cooperate with) the 'system' despite strong links between government and business interests and a desire to change that system. Community development and empowerment strategies are effective in making bureaucracies (public and private) listen and in setting agendas for change. Australian development NGOs should build on the examples of, and their successful partnerships with, third world counterparts in order to work credibly with various sectors in the Australian community for changes in policies, practices and behaviours.

Jo-Anne Everingham

Jo-Anne Everingham is a lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Southern Queenslandâs Wide Bay Campus and current national chair of Community Aid Abroad ö Oxfam Australia. Her interests in the Third Sector relate to non-governmental development organizations both as Australian community organizations and in the field. She holds a Master of Development Studies from Deakin University and her research has focused on grassroots womenâs organizations in Indian civil society.
 

Is diversity important? Exploring the nature and role of informal, self help organisations in the Third Sector

Dorothy Ford (d.ford@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au)

Self help organisations exist in almost all community service networks. There is a self-help organisation for almost all medical diseases. If they are not directly accessible they can now usually be contacted via the Internet. Informal in character, self help organisations provide diverse and important sites for community support and participation. These organisations are characterised by the active involvement of people who have experienced 'the situation' which provides the focus for organising. 'Experiential' knowledge can contribute to distinctive approaches in organisational mission and technology. Within the power differential in relationships with formal organisations, self-help organisations are vulnerable to pressures to formalise. Based on Phd. research in progress, this paper explores the nature and role of self-help organisations and their interrelationships with formal organisations in a community service network for support of families following the death of a child.

The Citizenship of Excluded Groups: Challenging the Consumerist Agenda

Fran Gale and Natalie Bolzan

The language of consumerism suggests that through their involvement in consumer processes, consumers can influence policy formation and service provision. This paper examines, as illustrative cases, how two groups of consumers, people with a mental illness and older people, engage with the challenges presented by consumer processes. It finds they critically evaluate the opportunity for inclusion, in policy and programs, offered by consumer processes. Both people with a mental illness and interviewed older people indicated how they acted as 'agents involved in interpreting their needs' (Fraser 1989:174) despite finding that in consumer processes their needs were pre-defined. Rather than allowing themselves to be constructed as passive objects, they positioned themselves as active citizens, having agency not as individual consumers but through drawing on networks. The responses of both groups go some distance toward dismantling power differences between professionals and 'consumers', so that social policy and programs for both people with mental illness and older people develop in a context of greater inclusivity.

ÎIvory Towers or Tools of the Trade?â How Can Management Education Really Meet Sector Needs?

Jenny Green and Ken Dovey (ken.dovey@uts.edu.au) (jenny.green@uts.edu.au)

Traditionally and at their best, universities have played a pivotal role in bridging the frontiers of understanding with the cutting edge of practice. However, over the last five years the rapid and complex changes experienced by the sector as a consequence of globalisation, have encouraged innovation as a key survival strategy among third sector organisations. Such innovation has required the bridging of theory and practice divides by the generation of new learning through action research processes. As a consequence the hegemony of the university in the area of knowledge creation and distribution is under question. So, can universities change and define a new role that facilitates the sectorâs survival and growth in a global context that is experiencing rapid change? This paper addresses the issues from the perspective of the University of Technology Sydneyâs Community Management Program and its attempt to maintain and increase its relevance to the sector. It explores opportunities to bridge an increasing divide between research, education and practice through partnerships structured around mutual learning. The primary partnership is with the students and occurs in two ways. The first is through the use of learning partnerships where students in small groups engage in contracted assessed work. It is a process that builds both professional and personal networks that extend well beyond the course. The second element to the partnership with students is work-based learning projects. Students negotiate with their employers and the lecturer a project completed in the workplace that meets the subject objectives and their organisationâs work plan. These projects address the challenges that an individual studentâs organisation faces and thus ensures their immediate relevance. Project results are shared in feedback sessions and expose all students to the different approaches adopted to address the challenges the sector is facing. A secondary and more informal partnership operates with other universities and training providers. Students can gain up to a third of their course in credit for subjects and training completed with other providers and educational institutions. This allows students considerable latitude in tailoring their studies to their own educational, professional and personal needs. It also establishes links and pathways between different entry and exit points in the training continuum. The paper analyses our experience within such partnerships, in terms of their capacity to build bridging social capital and to empower community sector organisations. Our analysis also examines the role of new work-based approaches to university education, in the mediation of power and other key leadership strategies that underlie the successful development of bridging social capital within any specific community.
 

Who Cuts the Deal? Funding child and family services in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Kathryn Hay, Mary Nash, Robyn Munford (K.S.Hay@massey.ac.nz)

This paper explores the affects of government funding arrangements on a not-for-profit child and family service in Aotearoa-New Zealand between 1989 and 1999. In particular, it examines the impact of the changes from grants-in-aid to contractual arrangements. It poses the question: Have these changes significantly altered the organisational structure and social work practice of the organisation? Although the paper will focus on a specific child and family service, funding issues, which are currently of concern across the third sector in Aotearoa-New Zealand, will be discussed. These issues include: the influence of certain ideologies or theories, the changing nature of government funding arrangements, the reliance on other funding sources and the particular effects of the contracting model. The paper will conclude with a discussion of the possible implications of these trends for the future provision of child and family services in Aotearoa-New Zealand.

Kathryn Hay

Kathryn Hay is a tutor in the School of Social Policy and Social Work, Massey University, New Zealand. Before completing a post-graduate Diploma in Social Policy and Social Work in 1995 she trained and then worked as a primary school teacher. Kathryn has travelled extensively and taught children with special educational needs in London for two years. Kathryn is currently completing her Masters in Philosophy (Social Work), researching the affects of the contractual model of funding on a nonprofit Child and family Support Service. Kathrynâs interests in the area of Social work and Social Policy include advocacy, community development, Christian approaches to social work and fieldwork education.

Robyn Munford

Robyn Munford is a Professor and Head of School, Social Policy and Social Work, Massey University, New Zealand. She has extensive lecturing and research experience in the disability and family work fields. Her research interests include: women and management, disability policy, family policy, effective strategies for achieving family change, as well as issues around the creation of environments conducive to the development of child and family well-being. She has published over a wide range of topics including Superwoman Where are You? Women and Social Policy, 1992 (with M Nash and C Briar), Social Work in Action, 1994 (with Mary Nash), Supporting Families, 1999 (with Jackie Sanders) and Strategies for Change: Community Development in Aotearoa, New Zealand, 1999 (with Wheturangi Walsh Tapiata).

Mary Nash

Mary Nash is a senior lecturer in the School of Social Policy and Social work at Massey University. Before coming to New Zealand in 1978, she worked in local authorities in urban and rural settings in Scotland and Wales. Among Maryâs research interests are the history of social work and social work education in New Zealand and spiritually as a dimension of social work. As a immigrant to New Zealand, she has a personal interest in the experiences of migrants, and as social work educator she is keen to find out how equipped social workers are for practice with this group of people. She shares a forthcoming publication ÎHere I am everyoneâs umbrella: Relationships, domesticity and responsibilities of four Latinas in New Zealand, jointly with Maria Anita Rivera (senior author) and Andrew Trlin. Mary is member of the Aoetearoa New Zealand Association of Social Workers.

The community newspaper, narrative and the local public sphere.

Gill Heal (gilheal@melbpc.org.au)

This paper represents a work in progress relating to an M.A. project exploring the role of a community newspaper in the development of a local public sphere. In aiming Îto encourage a stronger sense of community feelingâ, the Flemington-Kensington News assumes that most individuals have to identify with and value their community before they will be prepared to defend it and acquire the social and civic skills that underpin a healthy democratic society. The paper proposes that narrative is the bedrock on which a community builds a sense of itself, its past and its future, but that the dominance of a particular culture as the point of universal reference causes the community to become a victim of the selective vision of those stories it tells, and chooses to hear. The paper discusses the learning of the production team as it develops the community newspaperâs role: to provide a forum for those Îotherâ voices ö Îplebeian, popular, informal or oppositionalâ (Dahlgren 1993), and the social interchange from which comes greater tolerance of complexity and the formation of public opinion.

Gill Heal

Gill Heal has a background in industry training and has taught communication skills at TAFE and at Melbourne University. For the last five years she has been the honorary coordinator of the Flemington-Kensington News, a local community newspaper in inner-suburban Melbourne. During this time she became increasingly aware of the impact on the newspaper of wisdom acquired and lost as volunteers came and drifted away. For the last two years she has been working on an MA by Research degree at Victoria University of Technology on the role of community newspapers, with, in part, the intention of establishing guidelines that may assist future workers on the paper to draw on the rich experience of the past in order to produce a quality newspaper for a contemporary community.
 

Defining Supply Chains For Nonprofit Organisations: The Case of Wesley Disability Support Services

Mammy Helou and Ian Caddy (m.helou@uws.edu.au)

This paper evaluates partnerships between business and governmental agencies on the one hand, and nonprofit organisations applying supply chain management models, on the other hand. Where most literature concentrates on the buying and selling of goods and services by commercial and profit-based organisations, the current research focuses on supply chain issues in non-traditional areas, such as non-profit service-oriented organisations. The current research applies the Generic Supply Chain Model (GSCM) (Caddy and Helou, 1999) to The Wesley Disability Support Services (WDSS) as a means of developing learning curves that allow WDSS, in particular, and other nonprofit service-based organisations, in general, to develop effective partnership strategies with commercial and governmental agencies. This also allows for the evaluation of the applicability/adaptation of the GSCM to service-based NPOs.

Mammy Helou

Dr Mammy Helou is a lecturer of services, supply and strategic management in the School of Social, Community and Organisational Studies at the University of Western Sydney, Parramatta Campus. She has degrees in management, marketing and economics. Her academic background covers areas of economic policy and development, business process management and international business. She has had intensive training in community-based integrated rehabilitation and development. Prior to the University Western Sydney, she lectured in management, marketing and economics and practiced as a program planner and credit manager in the United States and the Middle East, including the Gulf area, and Australia. Mammy is fluent in reading, as well as spoken and written English, and good in French. Her research interest include community planning and development, organizational studies: organizational behaviour and organizational psychology, contingency planning for systemâs evolution after turbulence, management of short-term and long-term corporate relationships, strategic management, international business services, marketing, customer service management and service recovery, case studies of turbulence at the corporate level, leadership styles and governance patterns under discontinuous changes and progressive levels of environmental uncertainties and cross-cultural orientation in business education.

Changing Structures of Thought in a Major Swedish Non-profit

Johan Hvenmark (ajh@hhs.se)

The Swedish non-profit or voluntary sector is dominated by organizations sprung out of a very strong popular mass movement tradition. As part of a larger, cooperative and comparative international project, coordinated from the John Hopkins Policy Institute in Boston, a Swedish research team had the opportunity to compare the Swedish situation with that of other countries. In the Swedish case, it was found that the overall economic size of the sector was very much the same as in other countries (eg, Germany, France or United Kingdom) but that the structure differed. While most of the other countriesâ sectors were dominated by service provision, within the core domains of the institutional welfare state (i.e., health care, social services, and education) the Swedish sector was dominated by organizations providing either voice (advocacy) or culture or recreation activities. Another interesting finding, was the distribution between various concepts used by the organisations to describe the field with which they felt associated. A strong pro-popular mass movement culture, combined with a clearly anti-charity profile, dominated the sectorâs view of itself (still) in the early 1990s. In the present paper, the author has taken a step further by carrying out an empirical case study in one of the major non-profit organisations in Sweden, the Swedish Red Cross. In an analysis of their employment policy over a twelve-year period, the case study confirms that the Swedish Red Cross above all is understood by the people in the oganisation as being a popular mass movement organisation, an organisational archetype within the Swedish sector. Secondly, the main findings in the study are interesting because of a general sense of a Îmarketizationâ or an emerging "contract culture" in the non-profit sector in Sweden (as argued by for example Wijkstrom, 1998, Johansson, 1999 or Nordfeldt, 1999), as well as in many other countries. This development could partly be supported by this limited survey of the language used in employment ads over a twelve-year period, since the "market framework" is the dominant operating framework found in these ads. It was not, however, possible to detect an increased market profile for this particular organization. Finally, it is argued in the paper that the four existing frameworks proposed in the operating framework analysis suggested by Kenny (1999) also need to be completed with a fifth framework ö a "popular mass movement framework" (folkrorelse-), which was necessary, considering the introductory phase of the study. It is argued in the paper, that this additional fifth framework bear some resemblanceâs of the activist framework" as well as of the "welfare state framework", but it is stated that it also carries some characteristics of its own, which differentiate it from the other frameworks.

Johan Hvenmark

Johan Hvenmark is a PhD student at the Centre for Organisation and Management Studies, Stockholm School of Economics. His earlier studies were focused on business administration within a Nordic and a Latin cultural context, with complementing studies in Spanish and Ethnology.
 

Reconciliation with a video camera

Julie James Bailey (jjbailey@ozemail.com.au)

This paper and video will describe three case studies of my work as a retired videomaker working for reconciliation. The first is the video of the Sea of Hands National Tour in 1998. The issues were clear - a video to record the journey for white reconciliation groups. The second is a video of The Bush University, a cooperative venture between the Ngarinyin elders who teach white people at their winter camp in the north west Kimberley and Wedgetails Tours who look after the logistics. As a videomaker was I the observer? the participant? The third is a video about the community teaching course at the Broome campus of Notre Dame University, to be made by students in a four week intensive course. No personal angst but who will take the course? How will it work? Will there be a film that the University wants at the end of it? I'll tell you and show you the results at the conference!

Julie James Bailey

Julie James Bailey is a freelance video maker, media policy analyst and teacher. She was the inaugural professor of Film and Media at Griffith University from 1990 to 1995 and still has an adjunct position at Griffith University. She was a full time memberf of the Australian Broadcasting Tribunal from 1983 to 1989. Prior to that she was Head of Research at the Australian Film Television and Radio School and set up their research department in 1975. She was trained as an actor in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and was a director writer and producer with various British television companies until her return to Australian in 1967. In 1999 her book Reel Women. Working in Film and Television was published by AFTRS and Allen and Unwin.
 

Reconciliation: Lesson Learn from Ambon, Indonesia

Ma'arif Djamuin (mjamuin@indo.net.id)

Indonesia is in a transition that sees its political, economic, and social structures changing and a process of democratization moving forward. As part of this transition, there are debates over truth and justice regarding human rights violations, the politics of reconciliation among branches of government and between government and the people, and the role of civil society.

Reconciliation initiatives after violent struggles have been undertaken in many countries around the world to address different types of conflict situations. These initiatives have taken on a variety of forms, and many lessons can be learned to help Indonesia move forward on its own path. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) model from South Africa under the commission of Nelson Mandela is a model that might be relevant to address in Indonesia.

Since January 1999 up to now, Ambon as a capital city of Maluku province has been "the place of war" among many group people in many ways, areas, and interests. The impact of the conflict has escalated to the broader places in Maluku areas. Being the conflict, many people get entrapment. They cannot access any social services during the situation. In addition, the relation among religious followers, inter-faith, inter-ethnic, and between people and government have not been normal. So, among the people, there were no trusts for any reasons. I took an experience from the field as a member of Tim Relawan untuk Rekonsiliasi Ambon (TI RA) or The Independent Team for Ambon Reconciliation.

Issues of Conflict for Reconcile

Conflict in Ambon takes many issues, e.g. (1) Ambon-Bugis-Makasar and native people. It is identified as an inter-ethnic conflict, (2) Moslem and Christian followers. It is identified as an inter-religious and religion conflict, (3) people and government. It is identified as a political conflict. What we see about the conflict, the team believes that it has relation with the changing of political reform. Even we realize we do not work to resolve the crucial problem but, we only take the path of the task of how to empower the grass root people knowing about their conflict. Together with them, we do a race of workshop, mapping the core of the problem, designing the program for action plan, doing the work plan, and communicating the grass root expectation to any NGOs, institutions, and forcing the government to take responsibility. In the workshop that was attended by people from any different religion, ethnic and institution background, we shared information, experience and lessons learned with the grass root people whether native or expatriate in Ambon. We also share the lesson learned to Indonesians specialist of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and South African Organization involved in conflict reconciliation. Together with them, the grass root people of Ambon are involved to any discussion dealing with the conflict. As a part of the task, the team does a race of lobby to any community, ethnic, and religious and political leaders whether based in Ambon, Ujung Pandang or Java. The lobby is to focus on how to protect the impact of their power in escalating the conflict. Because, many people get involved supporting Ambon as a form of solidarity. Again and again, in terms of it, many Moslem people from the places that I mentioned come to Ambon to support their relatives called as jihad. Not only some religious leaders but also some political leaders are asked for people to Ambon on behalf of jihad.

The Ethics of Activism in the age of Globalization: A Dance of Elephants Amongst Chickens

Debra Keenahan (d.keenahan@uws.edu.au)

There is constant debate in the human rights arena on the opposition between individual rights and the rights of the community. In particular, the rights of a group to adhere to cultural practices that contravene the rights of the individual. In this age of globalization and the multi-media there is increasing awareness of the physical conditions and social practices of different peoples. This decrease in the tyranny of distance brings with it a simultaneous increase in the efforts of organizations for social activism to develop and implement programs for social change. Though the notion of "business ethics" can be referred to as an oxymoron, with justifiable mirth, those organizations in the business of social activism function under an ethical rubric. This work examines the ethics of social activist organizations that form the basis for their programs of activism. The aim of the work is to establish the potential for moral dilemmas in such programs. The possibility for conciliation of such dilemmas is considered through the clarification of principles, values and ethics with compromise in operations and strategies. Conciliation of such dilemmas has the potential of increasing public acceptance and participation in programs of social activism.

What is the role for activism now?

Sue Kenny

Much of the current discussion of the role of the third sector today is powdered with concerns about new forms of relations between the state, the market and the third sector, and in particular, the ways in which the colonisation of the third sector by the state and the market erodes activism. For some, the third sector is at cross-roads and only a repositioning of third sector organisations to the centre will ensure its survival. For others, a de-centring of third sector organisations to the margins is crucial if the third sector is to maintain an innovative and activist edge. This paper argues that underlying this narrative of crisis is an essentialist notion of the third sector. Drawing on research in Australia and overseas, it identifies different forms of relationships between the state, the market and the third sector. It argues that while the third sector has always been characterised by contestation and the crisis narrative, there are new constellations of relations that problematise activism in new ways. The paper concludes with consideration of possibilities for activism in the third sector in Australia today.
 

Aged Advocacy in Australia: Organizational Responses to a Changing Environment

Brenda Keogh and Elizabeth Ozanne (e.ozanne@socialwork.unimelb.edu.au) (b.keogh@pgrad.unimelb.edu.au)

This paper is based on the preliminary work for a successful SPIRT Grant looking at the history of aged advocacy in Australia from the perspective of several key lobby groups. The paper reviews Australian and international literature on advocacy, interest group politics, and the way in which issues have been differentially framed according to the social, economic and demographic circumstances of the time. Specific organizational responses to the changing issue environment, by several key advocacy organizations are examined.

Brenda Lee Keogh

Brendaâs professional career in Social Work has been predominantly in the field of Aged Care. She holds an Australian Postgraduate Aware (Industry) scholarship through an ART/SPIRT grant made to Dr Elizabeth Ozanne, Senior lecturer in the School of Social Work, University of Melbourne for the Council on the Ageing History Project. The COTA History Project is a research partnership between the University of Melbourne and Council on the Ageing (Australia).

Ethnic Community Capital: Development of third sector infrastructure by immigrant communities in Sydney since WWII

Walter Von Lalich (walter.lalich@uts.edu.au)

NonEnglish speaking migrants have developed many public facilities to satisfy their diverse social needs, religious and nonreligious, through erection of new or adaptation of already existing facilities. Various migrant organisations have established their own physical facilities and this development is a response to perceived needs within the dynamic process of settlement. It is a transfer of culture. In addition, it solves many real life problems since a host society could only partially react to diverse situations and problems facing new arrivals. Consequently, voluntary investment has followed in religious buildings, educational and welfare facilities, community centres, social and sporting clubs. These visible facilities constitute ethnic community capital formation that is now very important material input in a largely urbanised Australian society. However, little is known and documented about this major contribution to the present socio-economic urban landscape. The aim of this paper is to focus attention to this specific voluntary development and its role in expanding and diversifying urban third sector. It is based on the findings of the author's 1999/2000 survey of over three hundred ethnic organisations in Sydney.

Walter Lalich

Walter Lalich is a PhD Candidate at the School of Finance and Economics, Faculty of Business, University of Technology, Sydney. Supervisors are Jock Collins and Stephen Wearing. Although Australian born, he was mostly educated in Croatia, but gained his Masters degree at the University of Western Australia. At that stage he was primarily interested in problems of international economic integration of less developed countries. His current research interest is a point of fusion of his previous marketing research and journalistic experience, life in two different countries and cultures. He got acquainted with the use of urban space through marketing research on location of shopping facilities, and through creation and planning of a marketing program for the Mediterranean games, a major sporting event in Mediterranean area held back in 1979, in Split, Croatia. Since then he is actively interested in urban space, and though this project he studies development of specific and culturally diverse service facilities in a large and modern metropolitan area by newly arrived settlers.

How changing public policy constructions of community impact on the possibilities for community-based policy activism.

Kate Lawrence

This paper considers the intersecting discourses of community, region, partnership and devolved governance. I discuss the positioning of Îcommunityâ in relation to structures of governance in Australia and overseas, exploring the inter-connections between the continuing neo-liberal strategy of Îhollowing out the stateâ and the communitarian/ ÎThird Wayâ policy statements about partnerships between government and community. Drawing upon my recent research into the inter-relationship between vocational education policy and community-based decision-making in one region of Australia I consider the possibilities and problems of community engagement with public policy. Arguments for a partnership approach, and the inclusion of community in structures of governance rest upon assertions of failure of previous models of government: both the welfare state interventionary strategies and neo-liberal market-based strategies (Jessop 1999). For example, the failure of both government and market strategies to halt or effectively address the spiralling social and economic decline in regional Australia is a significant factor in the emergence of partnerships as an integral element of rural development policy (Share & Curley 1997)(Dore & Woodhill 1999). One rationale for community as partner in governance with the state is therefore the perception that community participation in planning and implementation provides a new basis of legitimacy for the state and for public policies. Another related rationale, based upon my recent research, is that Îcommunity knowledgeâ is a critical resource for effective governance, and that through Îpartnership strategiesâ governments access this knowledge for effective implementation of policies, without necessarily seeking to address community-based interests or concerns. In spite of policy claims about Îthe empowerment of regional communitiesâ through the twin strategies of regionally-based determination of training needs and the competitive provision of training services (Kemp 1996), the effect of recent government strategies therefore appear to limit in some significant ways the possibilities for public discourse in relation to vocational education, and for informed and empowered community engagement in decision-making about vocational education. My research has, however, identified factors, which contribute to the possibility of effective community-based activism and advocacy in relation to public policy.
 

Intra-Sector Partnerships - Dangerous Liaisons?

Diana Leat (d.leat@philanthropy.org.au)

Partnerships within the community sector raise issues fundamental to civil society claims, as well as trust and confidence, and income generation, in the sector. This paper looks at the effects of the current policy emphasis on inter-sectoral partnerships on community organisations relationships with each other. The paper draws on empirical data from a study of strategic alliances within the UK voluntary sector, relating this to the Australian context and, in particular, recent work with grantmakers in Australia. It is suggested that while the rhetoric demands intra-sectoral relationships, other factors in the political environment combined with the culture of voluntary organisations work against this.

Diana Leat

Diana Leat is a visiting Professor at the Centre for Voluntary and Not-for-Profit Management, City University business School and is currently Senior research Fellow at the Centre for Citizenship and Human Rights at Deakin University, Melbourne, in association with Philanthropy Australia. She has held research and teaching posts in a number of Universities, research institutes ((including Policy Studies Institute, London and the UK think-tank DEMOS) and national voluntary organisations. Diana has written extensively on the voluntary sector, social policy and grant-making by foundations. Her recent publications specifically related to foundation giving include: Grant-giving: A guide to policy making, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, 1992; Trusts in Transition: the policy and practice of grant-giving trusts, Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, 1992; faith, Hope and Information: Assessing a grant Application, Jospeh Rowntree Foundation, York, 1998. Other recent publications include Managing Across Sectors: Similarities and Differences Between For-Profit and Voluntary Non-Profit Organisations, Volprof, City university Business School London; challenging Management: An exploratory study of perceptions of managers who have moved from for-profit to voluntary organisations, Volprof, city University Business School, London. A report on a study of joint working in the UK voluntary sector is to be published shortly by NCVO, London.

Developing Business Community Partnerships: Who Profits?

Sabina Leitmann (leitmans@spectrum.curtin.edu.au)

The ongoing retreat of government from the role of service provider and service funder has left a vacuum particularly in the provision of working capital and the development of new initiatives in the community based welfare sector. One proposed solution to this problem has been to suggest that the Australian business sector become more actively involved in corporate philanthropy, providing direct funding to community based organisations. Within this framing, the development of partnerships between the business and community sectors is constructed as mutually beneficial, where everyone profits. But is this the case? It seems timely to report on Western Australian research that explores some of the dynamics and consequences of forging these relationships between business and nonprofit human service organisations. Reflecting on the current funding environment and these partnership developments, the paper also explores the attendant implications for the value and ethical dimensions of service delivery.

Sabina Leitmann

Sabina Leitmann is a lecturer in the School of Social Work & Social Policy at Curtin University of Technology. For three years in the early 1990âs she was also the Director of the Western Australian Consortium of Social Policy Research. In her teaching and research she draws on a number of years of social work practice experience in public health settings. Integral to her work has been her routine immersion in consumer driven action research projects for the purpose of influencing and improving social policy. Such activities have stimulated her ongoing interest in researching the practice implications and tensions emerging from a Îmarketisationâ of social policy in Australia. She is presently undertaking a Perth based research study on the question of Îwho profits from community and business partnerships?â
 

Conceptualisation of Volunteering in Human Services

Rosemary Leonard (r.leonard@uws.edu.au)

This paper integrates theories from four main perspectives related to formal volunteering in human services into a two dimensional model. The four theories are:

1. Research in formal volunteering. This research is mainly developed in the US. and focuses on the free choice nature of voluntary work. No distinction is made between volunteering in human services versus other areas. Voluntary work is viewed positively with a range of advantages accruing to the people involved.

2. Social capital. Social capital is a public good. Social capital is the invisible resource that is created whenever people cooperate. Putnam defines it as "those features of social organisation such as trust, norms, and networks that can improve the efficiency of society by facilitating coordinated action." Volunteering in community organisations whether for human services or for other activities is a major factor in the accrual of social capital and indeed such participation has been used as a proxy measure for social capital.

3. Feminist research in voluntary work. Feminists have seen voluntary work as an extension of women's relegation to the private sphere and devalued status in society. However as Baldock argues their view of voluntary work as part of the private sphere has been based on their focus on informal volunteering and lack of recognition of the public nature formal volunteering. She argues that formal volunteering in human services is on the cusp of the public private divide and allows women's work of be brought into the public arena. Regardless of whether public or private, volunteer work in human services is clearly gendered and feminist critiques of the devaluation of women's work are highly relevant.

4. Labour market research. From this perspective, the focus is on the status of human service industry. The industry as a whole has a low status with workers receiving low rates of pay, little job security and few prerequisites. In addition, they are often expected to donate many unpaid hours. Volunteers are then the tail end of a poorly valued industry. These four theoretical perspectives can be conceptualised on two dimensions. One is the public versus the private. The other is positive versus negative but these categories should not be seen as intrinsically incompatible. Just as Baldock argues that formal volunteering in human services is on the cusp of the public/private divide so it may also be simultaneously positive and negative providing both opportunities for personal development and exploitation.

Rosemary Leonard

Dr Rosemary Leonard is a senior lecturer in social psychology in the School of Social Community and Organisational Studies at the University of Western Sydney. She is a Director of Australian & New Zealand Third Sector Research. She has worked with the Safe Womenâs Project for the past six years and contributed to a number of publications on womenâs safety. Her other research interests include older women, especially their organisations and their contribution through unpaid work and social capital, particularly the revaluing of social networks and the ability to work cooperatively as fundamental to social development.
 

Urban Harvest - Cities, Food, Activism and the Third Sector

Robyn Lynn (Robyn.Lynn@jcu.edu.au)

Food production in urban areas despite its long history and predicted continued growth has been neglected and devalued as a significant site for the resolution of problems of globalisation, urbanisation and environmental degradation. Globally and locally the failures of the industrial food system and our agricultural systems have prompted various calls for action. This paper will flag the significance of a new politics about food at the local level - a growing local food movement within the third sector - that is becoming globally significant in resisting the global discourses about food and the processes of deterritorialization. It will explore forms of partnership and activism within this movement and identify some of the issues that exist in these places of organisation within the third sector.

Robyn Lynn

Robyn Lynn is a Lecturer in the School of Social Work and Community Welfare, James Cook University, Cairns, She has published in the areas of womenâs activism, strategies for ecologically sustainable development and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander helping styles in social welfare practice. More recently her interest has focused on food production in urban areas and the growing local food movement as a process of reterritorializatioin.

Public Support for Australiaâs Third Sector

Mark Lyons

In 1997, Australia's third sector received $3 billion from approximately 70% of the Australian public in the form of cash donations. This compares with a little over $8 billion in government funding and $1.7 billion from business. There has been almost no analysis of Australian patterns of giving. Overseas research suggests that low income and high income people are more generous than those on middle incomes. Comparatively high levels of giving among lower income people is significantly influenced by age: older people have relatively low incomes but are more likely to engage in "giving away their surplus". This paper will analyse the first large-scale Australian data on giving, collected by the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the Australian Nonprofit Data Project during 1997. In particular, it will explore the effect of income on patterns of giving, paying particular attention to capacity to give, age and gender. It will also explore the effect of education level, which is such an important determinant of volunteering, on giving.

Mark Lyons

Mark Lyons is a Professor of Social Economy in the School of Management at the University of Technology, Sydney, and co-director of the recently established Australian Centre for Co-operative Research and Development (ACCORD). He has a PhD from the Australian National University and has researched and published in the fields of Australian history, social policy and nonprofit organisations and civil society. From 1986-1989 he was Executive Director of the Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS). He was the foundation chair of Australian and New Zealand third Sector alia, provide Australian participation in the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Project. He has explored the relationship between nonprofits and both government and business, and has been a member of the Prime Ministerâs Round Table on Business/Community Partnerships. He was a member of the Australian Governmentâs Reference Group on Welfare Reform. He is an executive member of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Consortium and director of the Asia Pacific Philanthropy Information Network. He is a member of the International Society for Third Sector Research. His book Third Sector ö The Contribution of Nonprofit and Cooperative Enterprise in Australia, the first comprehensive study of Australiaâs third sector, will be published by Allen & Unwin in February, 2001.
 

Promoting citizenship, consumption or charity? The relationship between community service organisations and their clients

Elizabeth Morgan and Catherine McDonald (C.McDonald@social.uq.edu.au)

People delivering services in non-profit community service organisations often assume that a positive and empowering type of relationship exists between service provider organisations and service users. Starting from the premise that subject identities of service users are inevitably partially constructed within the service provider-user relationship, we suggest that there is very good reason to reflect on the relationships and their outcomes. We suggest that both the constitutive processes and the resultant identities may well be more ambiguous that is commonly acknowledged. We argue, furthermore, that as the post war welfare settlement unravels, the non-profit community service organisations are being positioned as a primary institutional context for the enactment of service user subject identities in relation to the state. This raises a series of imperatives for how the sector manages the relationships with people who use services, particularly around exposing embedded assumptions, exposing processes to critical evaluation and reviewing possible futures.

Catherine McDonald

Catherine McDonald is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social work and Social Policy, the University of Queensland. She has a long-standing involvement in the non-profit sector both as a practitioner and an academic. Her research interests involve exploring the impact of change on non-profit organisations, the role of the sector in the mixed economy of welfare and the institutional role of voluntarism.

Responses to Change? Volunteering and Non-profit Organisations in Turbulent Times

Catherine McDonald and Jeni Warburton (C.McDonald@social.uq.edu.au) (J.Warburton@social.uq.edu.au)

Drawing on a body of exploratory data generated in Brisbane in 1999, this paper identifies and categorises the types of change that are impacting on volunteers and volunteerism in the contemporary turbulent context. In doing so, it locates change within a theoretical framework drawn from organisational sociology. The paper then articulates a model or typology identifying the characteristics of different organisational responses and identifies the likely impact on volunteering as an activity. The paper concludes by arguing that the theoretical model illustrated provides a useful tool to assist further research into change in voluntary organisations.

Catherine McDonald

Catherine McDonald is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social work and Social Policy, the University of Queensland. She has a long-standing involvement in the non-profit sector both as a practitioner and an academic. Her research interests involve exploring the impact of change on non-profit organisations, the role of the sector in the mixed economy of welfare and the institutional role of voluntarism.

Jeni Warburton

Dr Jeni Warburton is a Lecturer in the School of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Queensland. Her main research areas are volunteering and the non-profit sector, and ageing and retirement issues. She completed her PhD in 1998 looking at older peopleâs motivation to volunteer. This year, Jeni, together with Melanie Oppenheimer, received funding from the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia to run a workshop on the future for volunteering. The result is a book edited by Jeni and Melanie called Volunteers and Volunteering, published by Federation Press, and launched at the conference.
 

The Nonprofit Partnership with the Australian Taxation Office

Stephen Marsden and Myles McGregor-Lowndes (m.mcgregor@qut.edu.au)

This paper examines the public information of the Australian Taxation Office concerning nonprofit organisations and the ATO's developing relationship with the sector. The ATO has for many years produced some bare statistics on the deductible gifts by individuals to nonprofit organisations, but in recent years this has become more detailed. The paper examines the data and its trends. The paper also examines the strategies employed by the ATO in respect of the implementation of the Government' Tax Reform Agenda and the nonprofit sector. The Tax Reform agenda involved large scale registration of the nonprofit sector for the first time in Australia and the ATO was hampered by its previous lack of concern to collect meaningful nonprofit organisation statistics. The paper makes some suggestions for the improvement of nonprofit-ATO relationship.

Stephen Marsden

Stephen Marsden is employed as a full-time lecturer in the School of Accounting within the Faculty of Business atthe Queensland University of Technology. Stephen lectures and tutors a wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate subjects at QUT in the areas of financial reporting, income tax and the GST. Stephen is a member of both the Institute of Chartered Accountants and the Australian Society of CPAâs and is a regular presenter for both professional societies. Stephenâs involvement with the GST includes providing advice to a variety of organisations on the impact of GST, and assisting the Australian Taxation Office in delivering two-day GST workshops around Australia for charities and non-profit organisations. Stephen is also a board member for the Ronald McDonald House at the Royal Womenâs Hospital in Brisbane and has been heavily involved with their GST implementation.

Myles McGregor-Lowndes

Myles McGregor-Lowndes is an Associate Professor in the School of Accountancy, Faculty of Business at the Queensland University of Technology. He is also a consultant to Deacons lawyers. He has a strong interest in the law and regulation of nonprofit organisations and is a member of the Program on Nonprofit Corporations. He was a founding member and director of ANZTSR.
 

The net/web and community activism

Peter McGregor (petermcgregor@hotmail.com)
Matthew Arnison
Peter Lewis
Leanne Reinke
James Goodman

This session would explore the net as both a means and a site for community activism. Given both the increasingly mediated and globalised world we live in, consideration of the mediaâs role in constituting communities and various public spheres is crucial. Many activists these days operate predominantly as media activists, or at least their activism has a mediated dimension: the sense in which they constitute a community is largely as a mediated one. On the one hand, the mainstream media - commercial and governmental - function primarily as one-way, centre to periphery distribution channels where the senders are few and (predominantly) hegemonic. On the other hand, community media has - in its better incarnations - aimed for two-way communication/discussion channels, allowing for multiple voices and challenges to hegemony. The net/www as a media technology accentuates (a) two - or multiple - way communications/interactions, and (b) decentralisation. The cyber-communities constituted by the net are no less real/actual than those constituted by community newspapers, community radio, etc. Nevertheless, a crucial measure of the mere virtuality (as in insubstantial, merely-the-appearance, superficial), of the links between activists is the connection between cyberactivism and real-time/space activism. On the one hand, anti-globalisation movements, such as the anti-MAI, J-18 and anti-WTO, have revealed the potential exponential benefits of linking real-time/space activism via cyber-activism. On the other hand, the Zapatistas have shown the merits/strengths of keeping a struggle at a mediated/political rather than physical/military level. By choosing/preferring to engage virtually with the Mexican government, rather than physically with the Mexican military, the Zapatistas have managed, so far, to avoid destruction and to build considerable international solidarity, primarily via the net. While free speech, the having a voice is a necessary condition for social change, free action ö freedom - physical resistance remains the sufficient condition. Yet, to detourn that cliche, Îsticks and stones may break your bones, but words can cause permanent damageâ.

Peter McGregor

Peter McGregor works as a lecturer at University of Western Sydney. He has been involved in various forms of community activism, from the anti-apartheid movement and anti- Vietnam/USA war movement in his youth to the (Aboriginal) reconciliation and East Timor support movements more recently.

Matthew Arnison

Matthew Arnison has been involved in the development of community activist technology. He is a member of Catalyst (www.cat.org.au), Active Sydney, and the indymedia centre for September 11.

Peter Lewis

Peter Lewis has been involved in the development of LaborNET (www.labor.net.au) and Workers Online for the NSW Labor Council.

Leanne Reinke

Leanne Reinke works at Monash University and has been involved in the international on-line support network for the Zapatistas.

James Goodman

James Goodman works at the University of Technology, Sydney and was involved in the highly successful, largely on-line campaign that led to the still-birth of the OECDâs Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI)

(www.uts.edu.au/fac/hss/Research/protglob)

Can Team Production Theory be Applied to Third Sector Boards

Myles McGregor-Lowndes and Annie Liu (m.mcgregor@qut.edu.au)

The dominant economic theory of for-profit corporate governance for-profit is that of principal and agents. For-profit corporations have been considered as little more than bundles of assets collectively owned by shareholders (principals) who hire directors and officers (agents) to manage these assets on their behalf. An alternative theory is beginning to challenge this view through the recognition that productive activity requires the combined investment and coordinated effort of two or more individuals or groups. This theory is known as Team Production Theory. It suggests that the legal structure requiring a for-profit corporation to be managed under the supervision of a board of directors has evolved not as a device to reduce agency cost, but as a mediating structure to protect enterprise specific investments of all the employees, creditors and other stakeholders. The paper seeks to apply Team Production Theory to the charitable non-profit corporations as an explanation of the role of the board of directors. Such non-profit corporations often do not have shareholders, or if they do then they are very weak with a diverse group of competing stakeholders. Can this theory direct the most appropriate structure for partnership of stakeholders in the delivering of community services?

Myles McGregor-Lowndes

Dr Myles McGregor-Lowndes is an Associate Professor in the School of Accountancy, Faculty of Business at the Queensland University of Technology. He is also a consultant to Deacons lawyers. He has a strong interest in the law and regulation of nonprofit organisations and is a member of the Program on Nonprofit Corporations. He was a founding member and director of ANZTSR.

Annie Liu

Annie Liu holds a first class Honours Degree in Business, majoring in Accountancy and currently undertakes a Doctor of Philosophy degree in the area of nonprofit sector research. Due to her outstanding academic achievement, she was awarded a university medal by Queensland University of Technology in 2000. Her Honours thesis was focusing on the adoption of compliance systems by public listed companies for purposes of fulfilling their continuous disclosure obligations. She hopes to apply similar technique in research into compliance issues within the nonprofit sector.
 

Language and Power in Corporate/third sector alliances

Meryl McQueen (meryl@earthling.net)

Relationships are defined by the roles, actions and relative power of the parties involved. Although the goal of creating and sustaining partnerships between the private and community sectors may be a useful path to pursue, the relationships that result from good intentions sometimes fall short of equitable, reciprocal agreements. The community sector has been plagued from its inception by an organisational duality. On the one hand, we strive to promote agency on the part of the people whom we serve, on the other hand, nonprofits are constrained by chronic funding shortages and the power relationships under which these transactions operate. This paper discusses an alternative conceptual model that describes:

• Why funding alliances between for profit and nonprofit institutions are characterised by power inequities
• How language shapes and is shaped by these Îpartnershipsâ
• Implications of these elements for the nonprofit orgnisationâs ability to maintain and increase organisational capacity
• Implications for individual social agency of nonprofit staff members

Meryl McQueen is a PhD student in the School of Management, Faculty of Business at the University of Technology, Sydney. She holds a Masters Degree in Public Administration from the University of Illinois and a Bachelor of Science in Education (Honours) from Northwestern University in Chicago. Her background includes social work, volunteer management, third sector project management and HR consultancy. In addition to her thesis work on nonprofit/for-profit relationships, Meryl is affiliated with the Community Management Program at UTS and is engaged in collaborative research into mutual forms of organisation and distance education.
 

'Community Legal Centres: ^"The Role of Volunteers in a "Howard's New Philanthropic Age"

Rose Melville (rose_melville@uow.edu.au)

The Howard Government has decided to competitively tender out all community legal centre funding in 2000. As part of this funding change, the Federal Government is keen to exploit the use of 'volunteer professionals' in the roles of policy development and management of community centres so that paid staff can work on essential services'. This paper will report on the findings of a survey of 34 Community Legal Centres in NSW conducted during 2000. The survey provides a profile of the major characteristics of current volunteers. Their views about the proposed changes to the funding of legal centres, and whether they would continue to provide volunteer labour to legal centres should their role, purpose and commitment to social justice alter significantly under new funding arrangements. The results of this study will shed light on some of the impact of Howard's 'Philanthropic New Age' on an important site of community activism.

'New Directions for Partnerships: The Founding of the Burnside 'RAG'

Rose Melville (rose_melville@uow.edu.au)

This paper outlines the establishment of the Burnside Research Advisory Group (RAG) during 1998-1999. The initiative for this venture came from the CEO in the Agency, who recognised that the nature of policy and research-related activities was changing rapidly within the community services sector. The agency decided to take a pro-active stance and took steps to strengthen the research and policy arm of its operations. The main impetus for this was a clash between agency research needs and external demands by independent researchers and funding bodies. This paper provides an overview of the processes involved when Burnside, a large social welfare agency and academics from four Universities joined forces to form a successful partnership. The paper provides an insight into the benefits, outcomes and risks involved for both parties involved in this enterprise. The Burnside Îexperiment' has set established a benchmark for the development of institutional ethics committees in community sector organisations in Australia and overseas.

Rose Melville

Dr Rose Melville has been involved with community sector organisations for over twenty years. In recent years this involvement has been as a volunteer worker and as a researcher. In 1998 she was asked to become the Founding Chair of the newly established ÎResearch Advisory Groupâ at Burnside. She believes strongly that Universities active community involvement of this kind is crucial to maintaining a research agenda of relevance to the community sector. Partly, because of her work with Burnside, she was asked to join the UoW Human Research Ethics Committee in 2000, and in July was appointed Deputy-Chair. She is currently working on an Arc Large Project on the fate of peak bodies 2000-2002. Dr Melville was the first Anglo-social worker appointed at the Aboriginal and Islander Community Health Service in Brisbane in 1976. Between 1980-1988 she held the office of President and Vice-President of the Australian Social Welfare Unions. She has been the Treasurer of the Illawarra Legal Service since 1997. This involvement promoted the impetus to undertake the NSW community legal volunteer survey during 2000.
 

Women as Activists in Feminist Organisations

Debra Miles (d_miles@banks.ntu.edu.au)

This paper will present some of the results of my PhD research. This research has focussed on the experiences of women working in feminist organisations. One of the issues raised by the research has been the self perception of participants as activists. These women identify strongly with social movements - not only the feminist movement but also the green movement and /or anti imperialist movements. Women report that their involvement in feminist community based organisations is a key strategy in their activism. This paper will explore these understandings. It will particularly draw attention to the ways in which the relationship between feminist organisations and government is changing and how this change has impacted on women's perception of themselves as activists and their strategic alliances in the pursuit of social change. One of the outcomes of the research tends to suggest that women activists are individually and collectively engaging in strategic partnerships with government and increasingly corporate organisations to further their social change efforts.
 

Reconciliation - A Generic Brand of Social Justice

Shirley Morgan (s.morgan@uws.edu.au)

Some roads are paved with good intentions. Reconciliation is one of them. I work in the area of Indigenous employment and unfortunately, my paper is borne out of frustration and antagonism that after ten years of the progression of Reconciliation childishly I assumed that I would see marked changes, regrettably this is not the case. Reconciliation is a personal issue and a collective yearning for resolution, but surely there must be spin-offs. Undoubtedly, there has been a shift in community attitudes towards Indigenous peoples but has that shift resulted in better living standards? Look to your own organisation, do you embrace the principles of social justice? Is the colleague that you have your morning tea break with an Indigenous person and, if the answer is yes, are they employed because your organisation has seen the need for change or only because you needed an Indigenous person to run a Government program which you received funding for?

Shirley Morgan

Shirley Morgan is a Gamilaroi woman whoâs family is from Coonabarabran in North West New South Wales. She has been working as the Aboriginal Employment Coordinator for the University of Western Sydney for over four years and is also involved in lecturing and training. Her area of expertise is Indigenous Employment and she has presented a number of topics on the subject both nationally and internationally. Shirley has a long history of motivating disadvantaged people to expand their career paths, having come to the University after work for five years of working for the Sydney City Mission.

Peopleâs Cultural Action. A Force for Social Change and Community Healing

Celia Moon (cmoon@createaust.com.au)

This workshop will examine the methods and experiences of cultural activists from indigenous communities in Australia, Asia and the Pacific who use peopleâs own songs, stories, dances and theatre as strategies for community problem solving, awareness raising, education and action to address issues of urgent concern in communities in crisis. The workshop will combine formal presentation with participatory activities. Material for the workshop will be drawn from the presenterâs experience working with indigenous communities in the Philippines, Vanuatu, Solomon Islands and Australia. It will also draw on international development in popular theatre and popular education with particular reference to the Theatre of the Oppressed arsenal developed by Augusto Boal.

Celia Moon

With already a long background in community theatre, Celia Moon first encountered Augusto Boal and his Theatre of the Oppressed techniques while studying theatre in Paris from 1980-1982. For six years until 1996, Celia implemented Community Aid Abroadâs national Action Through Drama program, working with educators, theatre practitioners, non-government organizations and disenfranchised community groups in Australia and overseas who use participatory theatre to engage in dialogue and action on urgent issues of local and global concern, to facilitate social change processes and to promote community healing. Celia coordinated the International Popular Theatre Exchange, a three week event held in Sydney in 1993, which brought together cultural activists from around the world to share their skills, stories, performances, struggles and successes. Celia conducted a national Train the Trainer program in cultural action for community facilitators for four years, with the aim to create a network of trained cultural action facilitators in Australia working across all areas of the community sector. She has worked with indigenous theatre groups in Australia and overseas and currently presents lectures and workshops on theatre for social change.

The Role of the Institutional Environment in TSOs/GVT partnerships: Lesson from Mexico

Alejandro Natal (anatal@cmq.colmex.mx)

This paper explores how the context impacts the relation between third Sector Organisations (TSO) and the government. The context, is understood here as the political and organizational space, a dynamic institutional environment in which the TSOs and Government interact and that environment in which collaboration between TSOs and the government is flourishing. The study draws its cases from a program launched by a provincial government in central Mexico, that has created very productive partnerships between government and TSOs around environmental projects. This paper analyses how institutional context frames the TSOs-government relation. It tries to understand how and when evils or virtuous circles develop or do not. It provides an analytical model that helps actors and researchers to understand which factors in specific may account for the improvement or deterioration of the relationship and how these factors can be nourished and cared.
 

Closing the gap: Building the capacity of non-government organisations as advocates for health equity

Sally Nathan and A Rotem (s.nathan@unsw.edu.au)

There have been significant improvements in health around the world in terms of gross average indicators, but there are significant and growing inequalities in health between and within countries. There is an urgent need to broaden the focus of efforts to improve health equity to encompass civil society groups who should be supported and empowered to influence government policy and practice for health equity. This paper presents the results of a qualitative study, which examined the role of organisations outside government in advocating for health equity and the capacities and conditions, which were related to their success. In-depth, unstructured interviews were conducted with 26 non-government organisations (NGOs) who were active in three important health policy debates in Australia. Two key ways of working were identified - in partnership and in conflict with government with shifts in emphasis in response to organisational strengths and a changing environment. This and other key findings will be presented followed by an opportunity for discussion and debate

Sally Nathan

Sally Nathan is a lecturer in the School of Medical Education at the Centre for Public Health, University of New South Wales. She teaches Community Development and Health Promotion in the Master in Public Health Program. Sallyâs practice and research areas include advocacy, particularly the role of Non-Government Organisations as advocates, community development and participation methodologies and capacity building for health development. Sally previously worked as a Senior Health Policy Officer with the Australian Consumersâ Association. She was primarily responsible for representing the concerns and interests of health care consumers to government and industry. Prior to her appointment at the Consumers' Association, Sally worked in public health for a number of years with responsibilities in planning and managing programs for the prevention and early detection of cancer and researching and communicating best practice in health promotion.
 

Public/Corporate/Community Partnership: Is it ever possible?

Jenny Onyx (j.onyx@uts.edu.au)

The paper examines the rhetoric and the reality of partnership involving community organisations, with reference to a major public infrastructure project in Sydney, NSW. An Alliance consisting of a major public utility and three private sector companies is constructing this project. Alliancing is a partnership concept that seeks to establish a collaborative problem solving approach, with a 'best for project' and 'no blame' culture. The project has succeeded in avoiding the usual costly and time-consuming adversarial approaches of commercial contracting. However, one of the project objectives concerns establishing partnership relations with the communities impacted by the infrastructure construction. This aspect of the project has been less successful. Nonetheless, the experience has suggested a number of crucial factors necessary in any future community consultation that attempts to move to a partnership model. Some of these conditions were met in the Alliance project, while others were not. The paper discusses several key conditions including:

The establishment of community relations as a project objective with financial rewards and penalties attached,

Associate Professor Jenny Onyx (PhD) University of Technology, Sydney. She is currently Director of CACOM (Centre for Australian Community Organisations and Management) and Editor of Third Sector Review. She has some 30 years University teaching and research experience, as well as considerable consulting experience in areas as diverse as, Local Government community services, Community funding programs, Aboriginal services, women's services and aged services. She has produced over 30 refereed publications. Key current research interests include the combined effect of aging and gender on employment, career development and retirement planning, and nonprofit/ corporate sector partnerships. She is a leading Australian researcher in Social Capital, and is engaged in a series of empirical research projects examining the measurement of social capital and its role in the community.
 

Volunteering in Middle and Late Life: A Review of Shifting Perspectives

Elizabeth Ozanne (e.ozanne@socialwork.unimelb.edu.au)

Volunteers are considered to make a major contribution to the social capital of the nation and as the Australian population ages the actual and potential roles of older volunteers are being increasingly scrutinized from both left and right perspectives. This paper will attempt to explore the shifting frameworks within which the contribution of older volunteers are being documented and conceptualised, drawing on an extensive literature review, and the work of the University of Massachusetts, Gerontology Institute in pushing the boundaries of that conceptualization.

Managing strategic challenges in the third sector

Neil Paulsen (N.Paulsen@gsm.uq.edu.au)

Like those in other sectors, managers in the third sector face an uncertain and challenging future. Research and writing about the non-government sector has canvassed a wide range of issues. A selective review of the recent literature reveals the breadth of research interest in the challenges facing third sector managers. While research and reflection about the implications of current economic and social policy contexts is crucial for this sector, research effort needs to be directed towards understanding how third sector managers construe their current strategic challenges and the strategies they use to address them. A small sample of managers working in a regional area was asked to identify current strategic concerns related to the future viability their organisations. The key issues raised by managers are compared with the issues raised in the research literature.

Neil Paulsen

Neil Paulsen is a lecturer in the School of Management, University of Queensland. His research interests include a focus on intergroup perspectives in organisational change and communication, and organisational and group identity. One area of interest is the role of organisational identity in inter-organisational networks and alliances. His work on organisations in the community sector is focused on applying these insights to the strategic challenges faced by managers in the sector. He has been a successful senior manager and consultant in public and community sector organisations.
 

Community Informal Welfare Systems: A niche for practice by NGOs

Manohar Pawar (mpawar@csu.edu.au)

Modern societies and traditional communities appear to be losing their community informal care and welfare systems. Recognising the importance of such systems, policies of western societies are giving renewed emphasis on communities. On the other hand, traditional communities due to the impact of modernisation are gradually losing such systems. This paper argues that we need to preserve, practice and promote community informal care and welfare systems to enhance the well being of the whole population. Non-government organisations at different levels can play crucial roles in addressing this need. The paper suggests several strategies for NGOs so that they can extend their practice and contribute towards preserving, practising and promoting community informal care and welfare systems.

The role of business-nonprofit partnerships

Veronika Peters

The paper discusses patterns of business-nonprofit partnerships in an Australian context. Three in-depth case studies with three nonprofit organisations and three businesses investigated the initial characteristics of new forms of relationships between business and nonprofits in Australia. The cases capture the addressed cause, the history, selection criteria, management of the partnership and decision making procedures. The paper further investigates the criteria that turn a partnership a success. It assesses the impact, monitoring and evaluation processes and determines possible performance impact indicators for both partners as well as on the cause. In addition to the cases I conducted over 40 interviews with selected companies, nonprofits government and peak bodies and researchers. The study of international literature gave additional insights and sharpened the questions that helped to identify new trends in business-nonprofit partnerships. The research results suggest that companies increasingly chose to partner with nonprofits rather than to support them purely on a philanthropic basis. As preliminary impact indicators demonstrate, there are good reasons for their collaborations. While traditionally it has been the community sector that benefited from business support, there is case evidence that business benefits in a number of tangible and intangible ways. While Australia witnessed a sharp increase in partnerships over the last years, encouraged by the Prime Minister, there is still little theory on the relevance, establishment, management and assessment of partnerships. Businesses and nonprofit organisations describe their efforts as a learning process in a new field in which they learn by trial and error. A lot of understanding still needs to be gained in order to leverage the full potential of business nonprofit partnerships.

Veronika Peters

Veronika Peters is a PhD Student from Wirtschaftsuniversitaet Vienna. She now lives in Sydney. Veronika conducts research for her PhD on "Partnerships between Business and Nonprofits" at UTS, where she works with Jenny Onyx, Mark Lyons and Peter Booth. Recently she worked as a consultant for the Chamber of Commerce (NSW) and wrote a report for Australian businesses titled "Corporate Social Responsibility in Australia ö Trend, threat, opportunity or business imperative?" Prior to her PhD, Veronika lived in Canada, the UK and Belgium. She studied business and did a Master in International Management. Veronika worked for two years for UNDP in Africa, and managed a membership organisation in Vienna.

The Corporate Engagement Experience: CAAâs Mining Campaign ö a case study

Ruth Phillips (r.phillips@student.unsw.edu.au)

By embarking on a campaign with the specific aim of changing the behaviour of multinational mining companies in 1997, Community Aid Abroad began what evolved into a lengthy and ongoing process of corporate engagement. Based on case study research on the CAA Mining Campaign, this paper explores the complex dimensions of corporate engagement between NGOs and corporations. Corporate engagement has emerged, in the past decade, in NGO circles, as process that must be confronted or contested and, in many cases, adopted as a strategy for change. For CAA, corporate engagement was a conscious strategy, entered into with an openness to its possibilities as a means of achieving concrete material outcomes for people effected by mines in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and, to some extent, the Philippines. Documentation of the Campaign as a case study has provided a basis for analysis of what has become a common experience for many NGOs.
 

The validation of alternative discourses in the lifelong learning systems of Australian appreciative outdoor recreationalists and indigenous peoples

Kim Polistina (K.Polistina@mailbox.gu.edu.au)

In the current period of globalisation marginalised groups find it increasingly difficult to obtain validation of their specific discourses within the wider social system. This presentation will discuss this issue in relation to appreciative outdoor recreationalists and Indigenous peoples in Australia and their endeavours to validate their specific lifestyle and worldview discourses within the broader social arena. These discourses are encompassed in frameworks of lifelong learning Systems. Drawing on a work in progress some of the main characteristics of the discourses of these lifelong learning systems will be discussed. A brief overview of constraints to validation of these discourses within dominant social discourses will also be provided. Finally, the necessity for the development of platforms that validate and hence provide a voice for these discourses in the wider social context will be addressed.

Kim Polistina

Kim Polistina is a Brisbane based outdoor recreator/educator and academic. She has completed her BA in Leisure Management (First Class Honours)) at Griffith University. The recipient of the ANZALS Best Student Presentation Award in 1997 and 1999, she is currently working towards her PhD. Her fields of interests are outdoor recreation/education, focusing on environmental values and behaviours. Further interests include enhancing the acceptance and respect for cultural diversity, community development and alternative lifestyles within our broader social context. She is a registered instructor with the Rockclimbing Instructorsâ Association of Queensland the Board of Canoe Education. Rockclimbing, kayaking/canoeing, bushwalking, wildlife observation and mountain trekking are some of the outdoor pursuits in which she participates. Much of her leisure time is spent engaging with community based recreating clubs relevant to these activities

Engagement of voluntary organisations in the public sphere

John Prince (jkp@deakin.edu.au)

Recent literature has made claims that building an active civil society can be an effective strategy to reinvigorate democracy and the public sphere ö both of which, it is argued, are in a state of decline. Accordingly, theorists have suggested that voluntary associations (often identified as being part of the third sector), which are claimed to be the institutional core of civil society, can nourish a public sphere that is in a state of atrophy. The aim of this paper is to present some preliminary findings of my PhD which represents an attempt to empirically analyse voluntary associationsâ engagement in the public sphere. The paper firstly summarizes some theoretical issues relating to both the concept of the public sphere and voluntary associations, drawing on the work of Jurgen Habermas. The second section of the paper outlines some of the results of in-depth interviews recently conducted with voluntary organisations. A final section then seeks to develop the theoretical issues regarding the claim that voluntary associations can open up, and critically examine, the public sphere in innovative ways.
 

Keep them in the Dark: The Australian Governmentâs Strategy to Weaken Activism against Australiaâs new nuclear reactor

Genevieve Rankin and Fran Gale (m.dudley@unsw.edu.au)

Constraints on citizen participation in the campaign against the Australian Governmentâs decision to build a new nuclear reactor in suburban Sydney are explored. The political context, of a pro-nuclear Federal Governmentâs Îframingâ of the issues and their Îmanagementâ of information, appears significant. This is consistent with the findings of a number of European studies on anti-nuclear mobilisation. Responses were sought from residents in the local government area (Sutherland Shire). They describe confusion about conflicting information, marginalisation and a loss of a sense of political agency in relation to executive and bureaucratic opaqueness. The findings suggest that accessible, accurate information and accountability is crucial to a recovery of grass roots democracy and public confidence.

Panel - Researcher - Community Sector Relationships

Liz Reedy, Rosemary Leonard, Filip Wijkstrom

Researchers, especially academics and community workers come from different worlds. The values of the academy are objectivity and the search for universal truths. In contrast, workers in the community sector come from a world that values the local, the practical and engagement rather than disengagement. Yet we would not be having ANZTSR conferences if we did not believe there was much to be gained from working together. In this panel session, two academics and a community worker discuss the advantages and difficulties of collaboration.

Liz Reedy

Liz has sixteen years experience of coordination, management and advocacy in the government and non government sector on projects related to marginalised issues, community needs, and increased consumer participation. A significant component of this work includes raising issues of public policy importance. During this period Liz has worked collaboratively with a number of universities an