Range Of Voluntary Organisations Research Articles

The Planned Close of an NGO: Evidence for a New Organizational Form?

This article examines a human rights NGO that ceased operations after only 8 years. A voluntary and planned end, this case raises the possibility of a new form, the time-bound organization. Through a series of interviews with staff, board members, the founder, and key external stakeholders, this study examines the nonprofit’s leadership, time-bound structure, strategic approach, and wind-down process. Drawing on the lessons of this case, this article identifies benefits and challenges of the time-bound organization form. A range of voluntary organizations could learn from this example and consider the form, including nonprofits experiencing a leadership transition, facing environmental threats, or considering a structural change such as a merger.

Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska, Managing the Body: Beauty, Health, and Fitness in Britain, 1880–1939 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. xii + 394, £65.00/$115.00, hardback, ISBN: 978-0-19-928052-0.

In 1938, King George VI made a statement that will resonate with many Britons in the twenty-first century. ‘Our bodies’, he declared, are ‘instruments with which we have to work.’ His broadcast was part of an endorsement of the National Fitness Campaign, which had been inaugurated only a few months earlier. The campaign set out to dramatically improve the health and well-being of all British citizens. The King followed his statement with a declaration that would be less familiar to us today. Bodies needed ‘education’, primarily in order that citizens would be able to play an honourable part in ‘the life of our family and our country’. The duty to educate the body was a duty, not only to the individual, but also to ‘our generation’. The speech – including its emphasis on voluntarism and individual willpower – was well received. Criticisms that the new fitness movement was being ‘Nazified’ were dismissed. There was to be no compulsion. A ‘progressive government’ had a duty to improve national health – and this required everyone’s participation. Crucially, it meant that the government and voluntary organisations had to tackle problems of malnutrition, unemployment, and sub-standard housing. Masculinity also had to be strengthened. In the words of Keep Fit, the campaign’s popular film of 1937, ‘the nation’s got an A1 plan and I might turn into a man, if I had biceps, muscle, and brawn.’ Of course, this emphasis on manliness and the need to strive for an ‘A1 nation’ has a long history. As Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska rigorously documents, since the 1880s, national healthiness was frequently judged according to military criteria. Infamously, during the Boer War, two out of every three urban men who attempted to sign-up for military service were ‘virtual invalids’. Within less than forty years, the situation had dramatically improved. Nearly seventy per cent of men examined under the National Service Act between June 1939 and July 1945 were classed as being exceptionally fit. Major differences remained in terms of age, volunteer or conscript status, occupation, and place of residence, but major improvements were obvious nonetheless. Zweiniger-Bargielowska brilliantly sets out to explain how this happened. Rising living standards, declining morbidity and infant mortality, and increased life expectancy were inevitable consequences of welfare reforms. However, she also draws attention to the contributions of a wide range of voluntary and philanthropic organisations. Imperial and eugenic motives were clearly important (and not the exclusive ideological preserve of the political right), but the whole physical culture movement cannot simply be reduced to women as ‘race mothers’ and men as ‘empire-builders’. The dysgenic disaster of the First World War encouraged a new focus on the value of preventative medicine and environmental restructuring. In the words of Sir George Newman, the first Chief Medical Officer, ‘Never before in the history of this country has so much been attempted by the State on behalf of the health of the people as now.’ Crucially, he insisted, healthiness could ‘only be achieved by the people themselves.’ The number and range of voluntary organisations which embraced this ‘call to arms’ was remarkable, and their influence could be seen throughout society. This is a meticulous and formidably researched book about British society in the decades just prior to the Second World War. Although Zweiniger-Bargielowska focuses on health and the body, her book makes significant contributions to social history more generally. She clearly sets out her arguments, and is careful never to exaggerate the pace and extent of change. Not only is her story compelling in its own terms, but it also provides a model for future researchers dealing with the period immediately after the Second World War.

COOPERATIVES AND NONPROFIT ORGANIZATIONS IN SWEDISH SOCIAL WELFARE

ABSTRACT*The Swedish welfare system was developed in an incremental fashion in an interaction between the state and a range of voluntary organizations. Consequently, Swedish voluntary organizations do not quite fit accepted typologies, with regard to underlying normative principles, fields of activity and organizational forms. The absolute size of the Swedish nonprofit sector is comparable with that of other European countries. However, the bulk of its activity is within policy formulation, rather than service provision; concepts of membership and popular movement are central, and charitable organizations are marginal. The spread of existing organizational forms is reviewed, with particular reference to the role of cooperatives. New cooperative users' and producers' organizations play an important role in the current expansion of third‐sector organizations providing welfare services. Three case descriptions of new cooperative forms are appended.