Keeping giving going : charitable bequests and Australians

The potential of bequests to contribute to the sustainability of charities1 is immense, with social and economic trends opening up the bequest landscape. Yet so much is unknown about how Australians think about charitable bequests – particularly about the motivations, barriers and triggers surrounding this behaviour. Do bequestors differ from other donors? What prevents good intentions from becoming good actions? Where do charities figure in this process? This study aims at a better understanding of those Australians who make a charitable bequest and those who might. It offers individual charities, and the sector as a whole, empirical evidence to support and extend the anecdotal knowledge of those working with donors around this sensitive, but vital, area. This research has been supported by the Perpetual Foundation, the EF and SL Gluyas Trust and the Edward Corbould Charitable Trust under the management of Perpetual Trustee Company Ltd.

Social change grant-making : a failure of innovation?

Focusing primarily on Anglophone countries, this article begins by looking at the changing environment of foundations, the pressures on foundations and some responses to those pressures. It then focuses on the potential of a structural change approach - often known as 'social change' or 'social justice' grant-making - as a solution to some of the modern dilemmas of foundations, and considers why this approach has, with some exceptions, gained relatively little support. This raises the wider issues of why and how resource-independent, endowed foundations change when conventional explanations of organisational change do not easily apply. Researching a 'lack' is clearly difficult; this article adopts an analytic perspective, examining the characteristics of the structural change approach as a mimetic model, and draws on the work of Rogers (2003) on the characteristics required for the successful diffusion of innovations. It suggests that the structural change approach suffers from some fundamental weaknesses as a mimetic model, failing to meet some key characteristics for the diffusion of innovations. In conclusion, the article looks at conditions under which these weaknesses may be overcome.

Every player wins a prize? Family provision applications and bequests to charity

This research deals with the interaction of family provision law and charitable bequests in wills, including qualitative research relating to the practical issues arising with both legal practitioners and charities’ bequest officers.

Spaces of care in the third sector : Understanding the effects of professionalization

Increasingly the health and welfare needs of individuals and communities are being met by third sector, or not-for-profit, organizations. Since the 1980s third sector organizations have been subject to significant, sector-wide changes, such as the development of contractual funding and an increasing need to collaborate with governments and other sectors. In particular, the processes of ‘professionalization’ and ‘bureaucratization’ have received significant attention and are now well documented in third sector literature. These processes are often understood to create barriers between organizations and their community groups and neutralize alternative forms of service provision. In this article we provide a case study of an Australian third sector organization undergoing professionalization. The case study draws on ethnographic and qualitative interviews with staff and volunteers at a health-based third sector organization involved in service provision to marginalized community groups. We examine how professionalization alters organizational spaces and dynamics and conclude that professionalized third sector spaces may still be ‘community’ spaces where individuals may give and receive care and services. Moreover, we suggest that these community spaces hold potential for resisting the neutralizing effects of contracting.

Social procurement and its implications for social enterprise : a literature review [Working Paper No. CPNS48]

This paper reviews the available academic and policy literature to identify the possibilities and limitations of social procurement, and the factors that enable its implementation. In doing so, it aims to contribute to an evidence-based approach to social enterprise development in Australia, and to provide practical information of use to both policy makers and social enterprises considering social procurement arrangements. Based on the available evidence, the dominant focus of this review is on social procurement by governments.

Exploring the impact of context-specific job stressors on employee work outcomes

A path model was developed to examine the impact of context-specific job stressors on the work outcomes of 132 customer service employees. Respondents who reported a moderate and high level of context-specific stressors report a higher level of job demand and work family conflict. Respondents who reported a higher level of job control tend to receive more work-related support and are more satisfied with their job. Surprisingly, respondents who experienced a higher level of work family conflict tend to receive less work-related support. We found that respondents who obtained more work-related support tend to report a higher level of job satisfaction. There was also a positive relationship between positive job satisfaction and a lower level of intention to quit.

Does 'fit' matter in nonprofits? Exploring value congruence, role stressors and employee health

The number of employees working in nonprofit organisations has grown significantly. These employees are often motivated to join these organisations by a strong desire to fulfil the particular vision and mission of that nonprofit (such as helping the community). While the effects of employee organisation value congruence on job-related attitudes are reasonably well documented, little consideration has been given to the nonprofit context and also perceptions of work stressors and health outcomes. A sample on nonprofit employees from a human services organisation (N = 181) was surveyed with results suggesting that value congruence was related to lower perceptions of role stressors. The results further revealed that value congruence was related to less favourable employee health in some circumstances. Outcomes are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical importance.

Subjective fit with organizational culture : an investigation of moderating effects in the work stressor-employee adjustment relationship

Occupational stress has been a concern for human resource managers in light of research investigating the work stressor-employee adjustment relationship. This research has consistently demonstrated many negative effects between stressors in the workplace and employee adjustment. A considerable amount of literature also describes potential moderators of this relationship. Subjective fit with organizational culture has been established as a significant predictor of employee job-related attitudes; however, research has neglected investigation of the potential moderating effect of subjective fit in the work stressor-employee adjustment process. It was predicted that perceptions of subjective fit with the organization’s values and goals would mitigate the negative effect of work stressors on employee adjustment in an employee sample from three organizations (N ¼ 256). Hierarchical multiple regression analyses revealed support for the stress-buffering effects of high subjective fit in the prediction of physical symptoms, job satisfaction, and intentions to leave. The theoretical and practical implications of the results are discussed.

Changing the rules in use? An examination of social enterprise in local governance

As multi-stakeholder entities that explicitly inhabit both social and economic domains, social enterprises pose new challenges and possibilities for local governance. In this paper, we draw on new institutional theory to examine the ways in which locally-focused social enterprises disrupt path dependencies and rules in use within local government. Rather than examining the more commonly asked question of the influence of the state on social enterprise, our purpose here is to examine the impacts of social enterprise on governmental institutions at the local level. Our discussion is based on a mixed-methods study, including an online survey of 66 local government staff, document analysis, and in-depth interviews with 24 social enterprise practitioners and local government actors working to support social enterprise development in Victoria, Australia. We find that, in some instances, the hybrid nature of social enterprise facilitates ‘joining up’ between different functional areas of local government. Beyond organisational relationships, social enterprise also influences local governance through the reinterpretation and regeneration of institutionalised public spaces.

Leaving a legacy : bequest giving in Australia

This article considers what drives donors to leave charitable bequests. Building on theories of charitable bequest giving, we consider two types of motivations for leaving a bequest: attitudinal and structural motivations. Using unique Australian data, we show that a strong belief in the efficacy of charitable organisations has a significant positive effect on the likelihood of leaving a bequest, as does past giving behaviour and having no children. As bequests constitute an important income stream for charitable organisations, this research can help fundraisers better target their marketing strategies towards those most likely to plan their estates and motivate these people to make bequests.