This book surveys the operations of the non‐profit sector in 12 countries chosen to represent the large, wealthy western economies, and also the developing countries in various parts of the world. Complete empirical data have been compiled for seven of these countries. “Nonprofit” translates approximately to “charitable organizations” in UK parlance. The book is the first in a series on the non‐profit sector being published by Manchester University Press, many concentrating on specific countries, whereas this work is a global overview, using representative countries as examples.
Starting at the beginning, the preliminaries include a foreword on the series, a short preface, and particularly useful is a summary of principal findings. Good biographical information is provided about the authors, who certainly come with strong credentials, one being a professor and the director of a non‐profit sector project at Johns Hopkins University, and the other an associate director of the project and associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University.
The chapters commence with an introduction which outlines the structure of the survey, and the rationale of the methodology, including such important factors as choice of countries. Chapter titles are generally informative, except for two ‐ “Variations on a theme” and “A house with many rooms”. The others deal with the non‐profit sector in terms of economic force, non‐profit finance, country profiles, and issues and implications. Each chapter is well supplied with tables and graphs illustrating the statistical data, and each ends with a summary or conclusions, which neatly tie up the subject under discussion. In sound scholarly style, each chapter concludes with a useful collection of numbered notes, referred to from the text. Six appendices provide social and economic indicators for project countries: the international classification of non‐profit organizations; data assembly methodology; non‐profit operating expenditures; employment in the sector; and revenue sources of the non‐profit sector. Lists of references and project documents, and an index conclude the book.
The sheer size of the non‐profit economy is impressive. The operating expenditures in the seven previously mentioned countries with full data compilations amounts to $604.3 billion. In the UK, the voluntary sector represents about 4 per cent of all UK workers or, put another way, nearly five times the number of Unilever’s employees. The distribution of expenditure varies considerably among countries. The most noticeable difference is the small (3.5 per cent) proportion that the UK non‐profit sector spends on health, compared with 21.4 per cent averaged over the seven countries. This is accounted for by the existence of the National Health Service, and enables the UK to devote proportionately more to education, research, and culture and recreation, than other countries.
Given what the authors describe as the “growing scope and importance of the nonprofit sector on the world scene”, it seems likely that the sector will command greater attention in the future. This book, (and some of the others in the series) should be a valuable addition to public reference libraries, at least the paperback edition, which is very reasonably priced at £14.99. I would be reluctant to spend another £30 to have the hardback version.
