Understanding Nonprofit Work A Communication Perspective

Offers a valuable resource for scholars, teachers, students, and nonprofit practitioners interested in understanding nonprofit work from a communication perspective

This sophisticated yet accessible book explores the dynamics of organizational communication in the context of nonprofit work. It delves deeply into the subjects of communication and social construction and develops several key subject areas and issues including leadership, management, and governance; the marketization of nonprofit work; collaboration and organizational partnerships; meaningful labor; and international nonprofit work.

Understanding Nonprofit Work: A Communication Perspective is the first resource to bring together the considerable and voluminous amount of communication scholarship and nonprofit research available in academia. Moving beyond the simplistic notion of communication as merely the transmission of information, it instead develops a more insightful approach to nonprofit work based on the concept of communication as social construction, explaining the implications and applications of this distinct communication perspective in ways that will benefit both communication scholars and nonprofit practitioners. Additionally, this book:

• Brings together a wealth of information in communication theory and nonprofit organizations in a thoughtful, approachable style
• Demonstrates the application and utility of a communication perspective across several key aspects of nonprofit work
• Written by two well-known scholars in the field with considerable experience in nonprofit work—teaching, research, volunteering, consulting, and board membership

Understanding Nonprofit Work is an ideal book for advanced undergraduate and graduate level students in courses on nonprofit work, or broader classes on organizational communication and public administration that have units on the nonprofit sector. This book is also perfect for nonprofit professionals looking to develop a more sophisticated and insightful approach to their work.

MATTHEW A. KOSCHMANN is Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder. His research focuses on organizational communication and collaboration, especially in the civil society sector. His work has been published in numerous scholarly outlets such as Management Communication Quarterly, Academy of Management Review, Journal of Applied Social Science, and the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction; plus, his research has been funded by multiple grants from the National Science Foundation. Professor Koschmann teaches classes on organizational communication, leadership communication, group interaction, persuasion, conversation, and research methods. He is also a Fulbright scholar and worked as a visiting research professor at Ateneo de Manila University in the Philippines.

MATTHEW L. SANDERS is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Utah State University. His research focuses on communication and nonprofit organizations. He also writes about communication and teaching. His research has been published in scholarly outlets such as Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Management Communication Quarterly, The Review of Communication, Organization, and The Review of Communication. He is also the author of Becoming a Learner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education, and Studying Communication: An Invitation to Purposeful Learning. Professor Sanders teaches classes on organizational communication, nonprofits and social change, leadership, interpersonal communication, qualitative research methods, and communication pedagogy. In 2018 he received the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Western States Communication Association.

About the Authors

Acknowledgments

Preface

1 Developing a Communication Perspective of the Nonprofit
Matthew A. Koschmann and Matthew L. Sanders

2 Communicative L-M-G (Leadership, Management, and Governance)
Matthew A. Koschmann

3 The Marketization of Nonprofit Work
Matthew L. Sanders

4 Collaborcation
Matthew A. Koschmann

5 Meaningful Nonprofit Work
Matthew L. Sanders

6 International Nonprofit Work
Matthew A. Koschmann

Conclusion: Understanding What it Means to be Nonprofit
Matthew A. Koschmann and Matthew L. Sanders

Index

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