Managing Non Profit Organisations

Managing non-profit organisations: Towards a new approach

Civil Society Working Paper 1

Helmut K. Anheier

January 2000

Abstract
This paper puts forth the thesis that the management of non-profit organisations is often ill understood because we proceed from the wrong assumptions about how these organisations operate. Based on this premise, this paper develops a model of the non-profit form as a conglomerate of multiple organisations with multiple bottom lines that demand a variety of different management approaches and styles: a holistic conception that emphasises the diversity of orientations within and outside the organisation; a normative dimension that includes not only economic aspects but also the importance of values and politics; a strategic-developmental dimension that sees organisations as evolving systems encountering problems and opportunities that frequently involve fundamental dilemmas; and an operative dimension that deals with the everyday functioning of organisations. In a third part, the paper presents the basic contours of an analytic approach that tries to accommodate the distinct management challenges faced by non-profit organisations.

Acknowledgements
The author would to thank Stefan Toepler for suggesting to explore normative management models, and the students at the Centre for Civil Society for many helpful comments.

About the author
Helmut K. Anheier holds a PhD from Yale University, and is the director of the Centre for Civil Society at the London School of Economics and an associate professor of sociology at Rutgers University. His current research interests include civil society, the voluntary sector, organisational studies, policy analysis and comparative methodology. He is involved in research on a comparative study on the size, scope and role of the non-profit sector in over thirty developed and developing countries.

Email: [e-mail] Tel: [phone] Fax: [phone]

Correspondence