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Who tends to volunteer and why? What causes attract certain types of volunteers? What motivates people to volunteer? How can volunteers be persuaded to continue their service? Making use of a broad range of survey information to offer a detailed portrait of the volunteer in America, Volunteers provides an important resource for everyone who works with volunteers or is interested in their role in contemporary society. Mark A. Musick and John Wilson address issues of volunteer motivation by focusing on individuals' subjective states, their available resources, and the influence of gender and race. In a section on social context, they reveal how volunteer work is influenced by family relationships and obligations through the impact of schools, churches, and communities. They consider cross-national differences in volunteering and historical trends, and close with consideration of the research on the organization of volunteer work and the consequences of volunteering for the volunteer.
Based on in-depth interviews with clergy and lay leaders in 251 congregations nationwide, this groundbreaking volume provides empirical data to social scientists, religious study scholars, and those involved in the debates over the role of faith-based organizations in social services.
"For those who thought Mainline Protestantism was well on its way to extinction, this collection provides interesting—possibly even shocking—reading. It points to new life arising out of old structures and changing modes of engagement with the culture. The message the reader takes away is that while the future for this religious tradition will not look like its past, it has a future. The best book written lately on this topic."—Wade Clark Roof, author of Spiritual Marketplace: BabyBoomers and the Remaking of American Religion "An important contribution to our understanding of the public influence of mainline Protestantism. This well-written and expansive book reveals how socially, civi...
Based on in-depth interviews with clergy and lay leaders in 251 congregations nationwide, this groundbreaking volume provides empirical data to social scientists, religious study scholars, and those involved in the debates over the role of faith-based organizations in social services.
Cnaan calls upon religious-based organizations and the social work-social service community to put aside their differences and forge a "limited partnership" focusing on joint care for those in need--with attention to services for people of color, gays and lesbians, women, and programs for community empowerment and economic development.
Deepens thinking about biblical and other conceptual foundations for political engagement in order to unify and give consistency to evangelicals' involvement in politics.
For people living in U.S. cities, social services come not only from the government but increasingly also from local religious communities. Ever since the Clinton administration's welfare reform, faith-based institutions, and especially congregations, have been allowed to bid for federal funds for their programs. In The Other Philadelphia Story, drawing on the first-ever census of congregations in any American city, Ram Cnaan and his colleagues provide an authoritative account of the functioning of congregations, their involvement in social services, and their support of other charitable organizations. An in-depth study of 1,392 congregations in Philadelphia, the book illuminates how these g...
"This edition of 'Tactics' involves substantial changes over the last one, in both organization and content. The basic goal remains, however, to provide a "hands on," more "recipe-oriented" book for community practitioners, specifically, and for macro practitioners, generally. The aim is to offer some "how to do it" pieces that professionals can use as they get into the practicalities of social change implementation."--
A groundbreaking new theory of religion Religion remains an important influence in the world today, yet the social sciences are still not adequately equipped to understand and explain it. This book advances an innovative theory of religion that goes beyond the problematic theoretical paradigms of the past. Drawing on the philosophy of critical realism and personalist social theory, Christian Smith explores why humans are religious in the first place—uniquely so as a species—and offers an account of secularization and religious innovation and persistence that breaks the logjam in which religious scholarship has been stuck for so long. Certain to stimulate debate and inspire promising new avenues of scholarship, Religion features a wealth of illustrations and examples that help to make its concepts accessible to readers. This superbly written book brings sound theoretical thinking to a perennially thorny subject, and a new vitality and focus to its study.
Become an innovator in the nonprofit world Student friendly and readable, Cases in Innovative Nonprofits provides readers with current comparative case studies of innovative nonprofit organizations that are meeting the needs of humanity in both the U.S. and abroad. Edited by well-known scholars, Ram A. Cnaan and Diane Vinokur-Kaplan, this text provides inspiring examples of social entrepreneurs who have instituted new services to meet the needs of both new and long standing social problems. Each case features either an unidentified need and its successful response, or an existing need that was tackled in a unique and innovative manner. The text is purposefully organized into four parts: Part...