Customer Reviews

The Nonprofit Sector: A Research Handbook, Second Edition

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The Nonprofit Sector is an essential resource for anyone studying nonprofit organizations and how they operate. It is a compendium of the latest research on the core aspects of nonprofit organizations -- the things that make them unique in terms of their purpose, structure and tax status. The handbook includes chapters on the various theories for the existence of nonprofit organizations, including the major political, economic and social theories, as well as full discussions of fund raising, voluntarism, governance and other key topics.

I teach a graduate course in the theory and practice of nonprofit management and use this book as one of two main texts.

This is an excellent edited book on the non-profit sector. It is one of the few sociological treatments on the subject As a sociologist it has the full set of critical perspectives I have been searching for.

Handbooks tend to be daunting reading. So you can imagine my surprise when, after reading it through the first time, I found myself wanting to read it through again! This is a very rich book that will be useful to a wide range of readers from experts to beginners in nonprofit sector research.



Beginners will benefit from the comprehensive nature of the collection. The broad coverage will serve as a fine map to guide those who are looking for paths to follow into nonprofit sector practice and research. Like an MRI scan, the depth of each chapter will serve as a map of the ever expanding theoretical and practical knowledge base of the contemporary nonprofit sector.



Readers who have some nonprofit sector experience will find themselves turning again and again to the chapters related to their area of research and practice. The experience of re-reading some of the chapters three and four times each allowed me to appreciate the depth of scholarship embedded in the theories and empirical evidence presented on each page. This is the kind of book you'll want to keep nearby, because something of value will be there to meet you at each read.



Experts in the field are going to find a lot here to their liking as well. The scope of the subject matter covers research from so many disciplines that, no matter what your interests are, you'll find something here that relates to your particular field of research. The volume also presents scholars with many well documented glimpses into the state of the art research on the full gamut of nonprofit sector issues.



The creation of a handbook that is broad in scope, deep in research detail, and useful to both beginners and scholars is something to be celebrated by all those involved in the nonprofit sector. Congratulations to those who worked on this project. You have pulled off a most difficult of tasks for the second time.

This volume is meant primarily to be a textbook for master's or Ph.D. level students. Nonprofit theory and cutting edge research is covered by the known academics in the field. The reference section is superb, leading one to further articles to explore an area in more depth. Yet the practioner will also find this book helpful in many ways, trends in funding and volunteering, up-to-date research brought to the practioner's world, etc. Even if you are not a student, if you work in the nonprofit sector you will find this book to be extraordinarily helpful.

I ordered this textbook before 10 am and when I got home it had already arrived. I guessed it helped to live in the same state and less than 30 miles from the shipping center. WAY TO GO AMAZON!!!!!!!!!!!!