The voluntary sector

There is a growing recognition of the importance of networking for the vitality and cohesion of community life. Now in its third edition, and substantially updated, this textbook combines practical experience and theory for people working with and for communities.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence. Illustrated by global case studies and empirical data, this book explores the history and current practises of food sharing, whilst exploring the impact and potential of such sharing for cities.

This edited collection explores areas such as social enterprise, capacity building, volunteering and social value, and charts the historical development of the state-third sector relationship, reviewing the major debates and controversies accompanying recent shifts in that relationship.

The second edition of this popular book uses in-depth theoretical study and international case studies to explore new developments in social entrepreneurship, such as the rise of the social investment market and the increasing importance of social impact measurement.

Moving beyond theoretical notions of ‘resilience’ this is the first book to offer a conceptual and empirical approach to exploring and comparing the process of resilience across service ‘hubs’ in three complex but different global inner-city regions: London, Los Angeles and Sydney.

Custody visitors are volunteers who make unannounced visits to police custody blocks to check on the welfare of detainees. However, there is a fundamental power imbalance between the police and these visitors. This timely book offers detailed proposals for radically reforming custody visiting to make it an effective regulator of police behaviour.

Prison suicides reached a record high in 2016 in England and Wales. Provides the first detailed case study of the investigations that follow prison suicides with findings relevant at a global level.

This book outlines a new, human focussed model for public services – an approach focused on achieving and maintaining wellbeing, rather than on reacting to crisis or attempting to ‘fix’ people.

This is the first empirically-grounded and theorised account of the identity, characteristics and motivation of fundraisers in the UK. Based on original data collected during a 3-year study of over 1,200 fundraisers, the book argues that it is not possible to understand charitable giving without accounting for the role of fundraising.

Author and activist Asheem Singh explores how a movement of tiny ventures evolved into a global humanitarian and financial juggernaut, revealing new ways to fight privilege and inequality, rewire philanthropy, government and even capitalism itself.

Based on more than 30 case studies in eight different countries, this book explores the governance dynamics of local social innovations in the field of poverty reduction, illustrating how different governance dynamics and welfare mixes enable or hinder poverty reduction strategies.

Drawing on empirical research with the UK’s two largest Food Banks, this book explores the prolific rise of food charity over the last 15 years and its implications for overcoming food insecurity.