Financial Management: Social Agency, Social Enterprise and Social Economy

There has been a quiet revolution in financial management practice in social agencies in recent decades, symbolized by the transition from fund to enterprise accounting and increasing recognition of the ‘third sector’ of the social economy. The traditional voluntary agency model of donations has been joined by grants, performance contracts, ‘managed care’ and an array of other options, and traditional voluntary agency based and public agency practice now exist alongside corporate for profit service delivery and various forms of private practice. Social enterprise and entrepreneurship are a common theme in all this diversity, as social agencies must aggressively seek out financial support. In this environment, two models of budgeting, termed ‘common-pool’ and social enterprise budgeting have emerged

Multiple Roles of a Rural Administrator

Basic administrative procedures are similar in rural and urban areas. Even so, rural human service administrators are often not prepared for the many roles they must assume in small and underfunded rural agencies. The roles may include personnel director, budget officer, accountant, fundraiser, supervisor, building and maintenance supervisor, volunteer coordinator, group developer, community organizer, public educator, policy analyst, and director of public relations and marketing

Nonprofit Community Service and the Hidden Cost of Information Technology

Will the information superhighway – like its concrete counterpart, the interstate highway system – turn out to be a good idea but too expensive to maintain properly? This paper will explore issues associated with the initial and ongoing costs of adopting information technology for nonprofit community service organizations, with particular attention to access and use of the information superhighway. Several possible explanations for the lag in adoption of internet technology will be explored. One of these will be the null hypothesis that resources and services currently available over the internet may still be insufficient to justify the costs involved for nonprofits. The paper will also explore the issue of long-term costs for nonprofits, by comparison with experiences in higher education. Decision-makers in business and higher education are already discovering that the initial startup costs of internet connection may only be the tip of what is beginning to look like a very large iceberg

Rural Social Work Bibliography (1999)

This bibliography was assembled in response to a request from OUP for a rural bibliography on their website prior to publication of our edited book on Rural Social Work Practice (Oxford University Press. 2005)

Urban-Designed Programs for the Rural Aged: Are They Exportable?

There are a variety of problems that affect older people in rural areas. In the first part of this paper, we examine four problems affecting the rural aged in particular: health, income, housing and social integration into rural communities. In the second part of the paper, we examine the question of whether programs to deal with these problems that have developed in various cities in the United States can readily be translated into rural communities. The paper concludes with a warning that the urban crisis, largely discovered by human services and other urbanists in the 1960s, is increasingly being expropriated as an issue by those whose primary concerns are reducing public spending and limiting local basic public services in both urban and rural areas

Aging and the Milieu of Social Policy

One facet of the new conservatism, which is drawing so much interest but not much information currently is the proposal for converting a large number of social service programs (including the Administration on Aging) into a single community block grant program. Even without the Reagan Administration and its new conservatism, however, the case for substantial--if less dramatic--changes in the network of services and programs which benefit the aged has been growing for some time. In this chapter, wel review some of the broader implications of current social policies for the aged, and some of the criticisms raised among gerontologists, concentrating on four principal areas: income policy; housing policy; services policy; and symbolic policy. We do so within the broad framework of social policy as a milieu for aging

Medicare, Medicaid and the Geriatric Residential Environment

This article reports on a study of interstate differences in the availability of nursing home beds, personal care home slots and public housing, and attempts to assess the impact of the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid six years before on the availability of these components of what was termed the geriatric residential environments continuum or GRE. The underlying idea is that components of long-term health care, personal care and housing/shelter are three common elements of a wide variety of public policy for the aged

Treasuries, Repertories and Collections In the Production of Common Goods

What types of resources are involved when members of a voluntary association combine their efforts in pursuit of joint goals or common goods? This paper examines the question from the vantage point of a rational choice theory termed endowment theory. Endowment theory is concerned with the rational allocation of productive surpluses to associations and other voluntary groups in pursuit of identified common goods. At least three distinct types of resource dowries can be identified in the current world of nonprofit associations. Treasuries are endowments of money and market-priced resources. Two other categories of priceless resource endowments are also evident among groups rendering common goods. Collections are sets of meaningful objects, superficially similar to inventories but lacking in market value, which have taken on special meaning in the context of association purposes. Repertories are dowries of know how --practical, sometimes tacit, knowledge and information of techniques and procedures appropriate to the association and its purposes. Understanding the resource position of associations requires taking repertories and collections into account along with treasuries

Model Neighborhoods: A Research Note

Cities, like people, age. In the United States the aging process for cities has, in many ways, been less than graceful. As a result, there is great concern in this country today with the “decline” of our cities. This note considers the elderly population of south Minneapolis Minnesota and makes recommendations for the adaptation of the Model Cities program to better meet their needs

Reviews of New Books in Gerontology (1991)

Review of L.A. Pastalan & M.E. Cowart. Lifestyles and Housing of Older Adults: The Florida Experience. New York: Haworth Press. 1989. 114 pp. $22.95. Brief reviews of Teitelman and Parham (Compilers) Fundamentals of Geriatrics for Health Professionals: An Annotated Bibliography; Hughston, Christopherson & Bonjean (Eds.) Aging and Family Therapy: Practitioner Perspectives on Golden Pond.; Disch (Ed.) Twenty-Five Years of the Life Review: Theoretical and Practical Considerations; and Clements (Ed). Religion, Aging and Health: A Global Perspective