This research identifies conditions of intra- and cross-sector partnerships with nonprofit organizations that lead to social innovation development. Primary survey data were collected from a nationally focused sample of executive directors in Canada (n = 720) on two valid and reliable multifactor measures, including partnership dynamics for social innovation and human services social innovation. Results of a multivariate regression analysis found that the structure of engagement and clarity of outcomes in partnerships were found to significantly predict all three types of social innovation (including product-based, process-based, and socially transformative social innovations), while alignment of partnership outcomes was not predictive of any social innovation outcome. Results identify aspects of partnerships that are most supportive of nonprofit social innovation development and provide a measurement tool for partner actors to assess partnership dynamics that lead to the development and undertaking of socially innovative initiatives.

Wood and Flinders re-center political participation on the idea of “nexus politics.” The effort is laudable because it contributes to other ongoing efforts at broadening our understanding of the nature of ‘political’ participation. Unfortunately, in our view, the authors misspecify new forms of political participation that have emerged by: (1) failing to take Henrik Bang’s work seriously; (2) focusing exclusively on motivation/intention, so that an action is “political,” only if the person acting sees it as “political”; (3) seeing all political participation as necessarily oppositional.

The ‘scholarship of engagement’, derived from work undertaken by the Boyer Commission in the US, emphasises the possibilities of enhanced undergraduate learning through research, yet in the UK this idea is less developed. Moreover, although the study of politics and international relations lends itself well to the use of placements to develop this model of learning, there are few examples of this in the UK. This article presents findings from a major research project, the Scholarship of Engagement for Politics, examining the ways in which placement learning can affect the student experience.

Despite the role that non-government organisations, including community development organisations, play in social transformation, their approach to managing projects has received little attention. Employing a processual approach and participatory methodology, this paper investigates how a small, distributed, community-based organisation negotiates the challenges associated with managing its geographically dispersed development projects. It examines lessons that this organisation’s project management approach offers for managing projects at a distance in ways that encourage community ownership, partnership with project beneficiaries and their maximum participation in the process. The paper underlines the need for positioning people’s participation in development projects as a key component of development, rather than as a tool for project implementation. It concludes by advocating a blend of participation and empowerment with technical assistance for recipient communities.

In an era of declining volunteerism it is critical to examine alternative approaches to volunteer management that may better promote engagement and address common barriers to volunteering. Using a “best practices” Canadian case study approach, this research describes an alternative approach to volunteer engagement that emphasizes lifestyle integration, organizational informality and flexibility, and volunteer–agency collaboration. We suggest that traditional volunteer management structures may actually be hindering engagement and call instead for a more vocation-based, networked, and collaborative approach which affords greater autonomy to the volunteer and sees power being shared between agencies and volunteers.

This article seeks through constructive criticism to consider how the ‘knowledge exchange’ agenda might be harnessed for the progressive goal of political education. The article discusses ‘Making Politics Matter’, an initiative that seeks to encourage active learning and teaching of politics, facilitate the development of social network capital among students, and to reach out to the wider community, with the aim of promoting public discussion of political issues.

In liberal systems governing-party-turnover and third sector organisations’ engagement in public policy-making are seen as key factors maintaining the health of democracy. However, a significant lacuna in current understanding is the effect on engagement when governing-party-turnover is absent. Accordingly, drawing on qualitative interview data, this study examines the effects of one-party-dominance (OPD) in Wales; a regional polity in the UK where the Left-of-centre Labour Party has held uninterrupted government office since a new meso-legislature was created in 1999. The findings reveal OPD introduces a range of pathologies related to party institutionalisation, path-dependency and cognitive locks. These affect third sector organisations’ resource dependency and strategic bridging to elected representatives. The resulting democratic ills are self-sustaining and include diminution of NGOs’ autonomy, trust and criticality. This study’s wider significance lies in underlining the importance of governing-party-turnover- not only to effective third sector public policy engagement, but also the health of contemporary liberal democracies.

Volunteering research has long focused on the characteristics of volunteers and their motivations to highlight what drives them to dedicate their free time to good causes. More recently, researchers have turned their attention toward exploring the management practices that nonprofit organizations can implement to promote volunteers’ motivations and thereby improve their attitudes and performance. Our study contributes to this research by analyzing the extent to which combinations of human resource practices can be leveraged to influence volunteers’ level of engagement in their role. Survey results from 256 volunteers in five different nonprofit organizations in the Netherlands support our hypothesized model. Specifically, high-performance human resource practices are related positively to volunteer engagement, and volunteers’ organizational identification and psychological empowerment can account for a significant portion of variance in this relationship. Implications for research and the professional management of volunteers are discussed.

The article analyses 360° video production in international humanitarian aid nonprofit organizations from 2015 to 2019 as 360° video storytelling is one of the latest innovations in organizational digital communication. Through a content analysis and interviews, a specific use of the 360° video format for particular issues or campaigns in order to bring a distant reality to the organization’s audience has been detected. Thus, putting the users in the shoes of “the other” seems to be the objective pursued. NGOs may soon begin to understand long-term interactivity and engagement not just as action and reaction between organization and receiver (almost non-existent to date), but above all as the receiver’s behaviour, which they may strive to orient towards one of the organization’s end goals, depending on the communication strategy set by the organization’s director. With this objective, common to entities from other sectors, they could be moving towards an innovative conceptualization of engagement.

Many non-profit organizations rely on volunteers to further their mission, but volunteer rates linger at only 25% of the population. Increasing the volunteer rate can positively impact society in a myriad of ways, including benefits to for-profit organizations. One potential way to increase volunteerism rates is by aligning volunteering with work-related outcomes of interest to employers, since many volunteers are employed. Following recovery theory, we use responses to a survey of working adults to investigate whether volunteers are more engaged and engage in more organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) than those who do not volunteer. We found that the meaningfulness and type of volunteer activity relate to both employee engagement and OCBs at work. Implications of these findings as well as opportunities for both practice and future research are discussed.

User engagement remains a challenge in digital mental health. This editorial reconsiders engagement as a process rather than an outcome, introducing a four-step model to define, measure and link engagement to outcomes. The approach promotes standardisation, interpretability and scalability, advancing the science and implementation of digital health interventions.

Translational science methods often fall short due to the complexity of the healthcare delivery environment. We developed a methodology that involves multiple interest holders working within a pre-competitive consortium to develop solutions to translational barriers. The methodology supports innovative collaboration in a stepwise fashion: elucidating challenges, designing solutions, enabling implementation, monitoring, learning, disseminating, and catalyzing. Cases that benefit most from a structured collaborative methodology are those where diverse needs require elucidation and alignment. Application of the methodology to develop regulatory, clinical, and business innovations has shown the importance of an innovation facilitator and the capacity-building potential of collective skill enhancement.

Digitalisation has given rise to concerns about the future effectiveness of older adult grassroots organisations in enabling group-based participation in later life. Despite this, these organisations and their potential role in securing a just digital transition has featured in neither research debates nor policy and innovation agendas. It is essential that this absence is addressed to ensure future citizenship rights across civic, social and political spheres within digitalising ageing societies. The aim of this article is to explore the impact of digital transformations on the capacity of older adult grassroots organisations to support group-based multifaceted engagement in later life. Focusing on an Irish national voluntary membership-based organisation, and its network of local groups, this analysis draws on data from a multi-level mixed-methods study design. Data collection involved: European expert interviews (n = 4); social media analysis (X); organisational-level interviews (n = 11); an older adult member survey (n = 464); follow-up lifecourse interviews (n = 40); and a Translational Forum involving participants from all research strands to validate findings and agree key messages (n = 13). The analysis demonstrates the transitional nature of digital communication for these groups, and the need to and difficulties in addressing the diverse preferences and digital literacies of grassroots membership. The analysis also shows that the most significant challenges are systemic and structural in nature. An assets-based, capability-orientated approach that is supported by state-level leadership and resourcing is required to equip ageing societies for an equitable digital transition.