Geographic Information Systems and the Nonprofit Sector: The Last Frontier?

This is an exploratory study examining the predictors of geographic information systems (GIS) adoption among nonprofit organizations. A variety of organization, system, and environment characteristics are measured via a survey administered to 72 managers of nonprofit organizations. Comparisons are made between GIS and website adoption by these organizations. Results indicate that nonprofit managers view characteristics related to GIS differently than characteristics related to websites. GIS adoption is also related to the size of the information systems (IS) staff, risk propensity, and ability to predict changes in demand

Scope and Trends of Volunteering and Associations

This chapter has two themes: (1) the scope of formal and informal volunteering and of nonprofit, voluntary, Membership Associations (MAs) in the world, by which we mean the quantitative magnitudes of these phenomena at or near the present time, and (2) the long term and recent (past few decades) trends in these magnitudes. Global data are used, when available, but we also report data for world regions and for specific nations when feasible. We also report on estimated magnitudes of MA wealth and income, the economic value of volunteering, internal structures and processes of MAs, participation rates in MAs, methodological problems, and issues regarding computer mapping of data such at that presented in this chapter. Usable knowledge, future trends, and needed research are discussed