As twitter followers will have gathered, I am currently in the USA. I’ve been given a handful of cash and some time off the PhD to go and find out what it’s like to be a non-profit or a community organisation in the States right now, in partnership with Rutgers University in Camden, NJ.
This has very little to do with the development of the voluntary sector in Birmingham, England between 1965 and 2015. There is a theoretical link to my research, however. While I’m out here, I’m meeting organisations and thinking about them in the context of their institutional field. This links back to work I’ve written about before on strategic action fields. I’m interested in the ways in which the field is rhetorically and practically constructed, how organisations reflect on their position within it, or their role in creating it, or whether they see themselves within it at all.
I’m aiming to meet with a few different types of organisations:
- Infrastructure organisations. What in the UK we’d call councils for voluntary service. I used to work for NAVCA, the national umbrella body for CVS, and I’m interested in their role in articulating the idea of a coherent ‘sector’, and in bridging the gap between a voluntary action field and a state one, at a local and a national level. In America there are state-wide organisations like the Nonprofit Association of Oregon, which I met with last week, and a national-level umbrella called the National Council of Nonprofits.
- High profile campaigning organisations. These are organisations working on some of the most currently contentious public policy issues, particularly relating to civil rights. I have a personal interest in the abortion rights movement as a trustee of the FPA in the UK, so I’m aiming to meet with the NARAL and Planned Parenthood federations, as well as other formal organisations campaigning on key issues. These tend to be well-organised, funded and staffed nonprofits that are powerful within their subsectors, and work hard through political structures to achieve change. I’m interested in how they work in partnership with different types of organisations, and also, as a campaigner myself, what methods they use.
- Grassroots community groups. These are likely to be more radical in action, volunteer led, and occupying a different space within the field in relation to more established, larger and state-wide organisations. I’m interested in how they position themselves in relation to incumbent members of the field (organisations working on similar issues, but using different methods, channels and resources), and whether they seek to work with them or challenge them.
I’ll be going all over the place – I don’t travel often, but when I do I like to cover as much ground as possible – so if you happen to be an organisation (or know one) in Portland, OR / Seattle, WA / Philadelphia, PA / Camden, NJ / New York, NY / Washington, DC / Austin or Houston, TX get in touch and we’ll go for a coffee.
I will, as ever, be writing as I go – a mixture of pieces about the organisations I meet and the work they’re doing, and broader theoretical reflections on fields and contexts. As ever, comments and questions welcome.
Voluntary Action and Other Animals 