Browsing by Subject "Voluntarism"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Establishing Criteria for Implementing and Evaluating Community Agency Involvement in Service-Learning
    (2010-08-31T18:26:13Z) Quiring, Erin B.; Plater, William Marmaduke, 1945-; Bringle, Robert G.; Sutton, Susan Buck
    Many academicians, business people, and government officials are calling for college students to not only earn a degree but to leave college ready to be active and engaged citizens in their communities. One of the fastest-growing responses to this call within higher education has been the introduction of service-learning courses across disciplines. This study was designed to attempt to bring some focus to community agency needs and desires in service-learning relationships, both in domestic and international programs. Factors and criteria frequently cited in the literature as important to community agencies and when creating partnerships were compiled into a list of 10 criteria. Community agencies and faculty/staff involved in service-learning at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) were then asked to respond to each factor, indicating how important each was to them and how satisfied they were with how each factor was carried out in their current relationship(s). Overall, the 62 respondents found having interaction based on mutual respect and relationships built on trust as most important and the factors with which they are most satisfied. Faculty/staff respondents tended rate each factor as more important than community agency respondents, though there were no significant differences between the two groups’ satisfaction ratings. International respondents, including both faculty/staff and community agency respondents, in general, rated each item more important and reported greater satisfaction than domestic respondents. Aspects of the relationships under study, including frequency of interaction, type of interaction, and frequency of supervising service-learning students, were also related to respondents’ ratings of each factor. Even with limitations, the study helps move toward a greater understanding of working with community agencies, establishing criteria to aid in evaluating and implementing service-learning relationships, and providing a base for future studies.
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    Grantmaking to Churches and Religious Organizations: Questions & Answers
    (Council on Foundations, 1993) Troyer, Thomas A.; Boisture, Robert A.; Livingston, Catherine E.
    Taken from the preface by President & CEO James A. Joseph: "Early observers of our nation recognized that religious charity represented the most prominent form of voluntary behavior in American society. Research studies indicate that a close correlation between religion and voluntarism continues to be of fundamental importance in charitable activity today. Nonetheless, foundations have often been reluctant to take advantage of this natural alliance to further the goals of philanthropy. The Council on Foundations, through its Religious Philanthropy program, strives to encourage collaboration between organized philanthropy and organized religion. With the support of The Ford Foundation, this booklet has been produced to encourage such partnerships in community service and revitalization efforts. This publication answers legal and practical questions that are commonly raised about making grants to churches or other religious organizations. The Council is pleased to have the opportunity to make this information available."
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    Informing practice and sabotaging membership growth: an ideological rhetorical analysis of discursive materials from Kiwanis International
    (2015-08) Stokes, Tonja LaFaye; Dobris, Catherine A.; Parrish-Sprowl, John; Goering, Elizabeth M.
    This study utilizes an ideological rhetorical analysis, applying Marxist and Feminist lenses, to artifacts from Kiwanis International, a prominent global service organization. These artifacts are: "The Permanent Objects of Kiwanis," guiding principles that were codified in 1924; "The Man Who Was God": a brief story about transforming from Kiwanis member to "Kiwanian," published in 1935 and 1985, respectively; and the 2012 "Join the Club" Membership Brochure. The rhetoric of discursive materials is one of the most salient representations of group ideology. In turn, ideology, particularly when it reflects and perpetuates social hegemony, has a normalizing effect on itself. Ideology shapes identity; identity shapes strategies to set process norms that create social cohesion. Norms of social cohesion become culture; culture reinforces ideology. When these components mirror social hegemony and replicate hegemonic power, they create institutions, like service organizations; these institutions then legitimate and normalize positions of social privilege. Ultimately, ideology and social hegemony reveal themselves through organizational and member practices and organizationally-produced discursive material. The purpose of this study is to analyze the historical, socio-political, and socio-cultural roots of Kiwanis International in order to draw logical conclusions about the organization's ideology for the purposes of understanding how that ideology contributes to, justifies, and perpetuates an unconscious, neo-colonial view of philanthropy. Kiwanis International, on an organizational (macro) level and at the club/member (micro) level, is structured around positions of racial, ethnic, socio-economic, linguistic, gender, and religious privilege, and so mimics the hegemonic power centers and dominant ideologies of society at large. In turn, the products and practices of the organization reflect these positions of privilege and inhibits the organization's ability to attract traditionally excluded, disenfranchised, or under-represented groups. Understanding that it is a contentious and futile to simply point where power relations exist and assert themselves, this study emphasizes where "othering" occurs in hopes of mitigating relations of domination and oppression between Kiwanis members and perspective members, and of moving forward the interests of those who have not traditionally been counted among Kiwanis' members but whose presence could save the organization.
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    Legal Considerations Affecting Public and Private Grantmaking to Religious Organizations
    (Council on Foundations, 1993) Troyer, Thomas A.; Boisture, Robert A.; Livingston, Catherine E.
    Taken from the preface by President & CEO James A. Joseph: "Early observers of our nation recognized that religious charity represented the most prominent form of voluntary behavior in American society. Research studies indicate that a close correlation between religion and voluntarism continues to be of fundamental importance in charitable activity today. Nonetheless, foundations have often been reluctant to take advantage of this natural alliance to further the goals of philanthropy. The Council on Foundations, through its Religious Philanthropy program, strives to encourage collaboration between organized philanthropy and organized religion. With the support of The Ford Foundation, the Council has produced two publications to foster partnerships in community service and revitalization efforts. The first, Grantmaking to Churches and Religious Organizations, answers commonly-asked questions about collaboration between funders and churches. This memorandum, designed as a companion piece to the booklet, addresses in technical terms the legal considerations affecting grantmaking to religious organizations. The Council is pleased to have the opportunity to make this information available."
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    The War in the Classroom: The Work of the Educational Section of the Indiana State Council of Defense during World War I
    (2012) Schuster, Casey Elizabeth; Barrows, Robert G. (Robert Graham), 1946-; Robertson, Nancy Marie, 1956-; Cramer, Kevin
    When the United States entered World War I in April 1917, many Americans quickly rallied to support the nation. Among the numerous committees, organizations, and individuals that became active in the mobilization process were the forty-eight state councils of defense. Encouraged to form by President Wilson and his administration in the days and weeks following U.S entry in the war, the state councils grew as offshoots of the Council of National Defense and assisted in bringing every section of the country into a single scheme of work. Everyone was expected to do their part in WWI, whether they were fighting overseas or helping on the home front. The state councils, broken down into various sections and county, township, and high-school level councils, made sure that this was the case by reaching down into local communities and encouraging individuals to become involved in the war effort. Their work represented the embodiment of a “total war” philosophy and, yet, studies on these organizations are surprisingly scarce, giving readers an inadequate understanding of the American home front during the conflict. This thesis therefore places the focus directly on the state councils and examines the work they undertook to make the United States ready for, and most effective in wartime service. In particular, it explores the efforts of the Educational Section of the Indiana State Council of Defense. By concentrating on this one section, readers may gain a better understanding of the lengths that the state councils went to in order to put every person – teachers and students included – on a wartime footing.