Dictionary of Nonprofit Terms and Concepts
This reference work defines more than 1,200 terms and concepts that have been found useful in past research and theory on the nonprofit sector. The entries reflect the importance of associations, citizen participation, philanthropy, voluntary action, nonprofit management, volunteer administration, leisure, and political activities of nonprofits. They also reflect a concern for the wider range of useful general concepts in theory and research that bear on the nonprofit sector and its manifestations in the United States and elsewhere. This dictionary supplies some of the necessary foundational work on the road toward a general theory of the nonprofit sector.
David Horton Smith is founder of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and its journal.
Robert A. Stebbins, FRSC, is Faculty Professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Calgary.
Michael A. Dover is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work at Central Michigan University.