A CARING INTERPRETATION OF NONPROFIT AND THIRD SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS

The paper aims to present care morality as a normative stakeholder approach for advancing meaningful conceptions and interpretations of the responsibility principle in nonprofit and third sector organizations. The language and method of care, with their focus on both dialogue and the reciprocal strengthening of interpersonal relationships as a primary means of moral deliberation, prove to be sound and defensible for enhancing proper justifications of the legitimacy of stakeholder and ‘organization-stakeholder’ relationships in European third sector environments. A reasoned review of the main literature on caring offers new insights and suggestions to conceive of nonprofit and third sector organizations as ideal ‘architectures of care’ that might simultaneously enhance the effectiveness and moral quality of public service provision in local communities. The validity of our arguments is circumscribed to membership-based nonprofit and third sector organizations (voluntary organizations and social enterprises); assets-based organizations (foundations) are not addressed.