DonationA donation is a gift for charity, humanitarian aid, or to benefit a cause. A donation may take various forms, including money, alms, services, or goods such as clothing, toys, food, or vehicles. A donation may satisfy medical needs such as blood or organs for transplant. Charitable donations of goods or services are also called gifts in kind. In the United States, in 2007, the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that American households in the lowest fifth in terms of wealth, gave on average a higher percentage of their incomes to charitable organizations than those households in the highest fifth.
Democracy indicesDemocracy indices are quantitative and comparative assessments of the state of democracy for different countries according to various definitions of democracy. The democracies indices differ in whether they are categorical, such as classifying countries into democracies, hybrid regimes, and autocracies, or continuous values. The qualitative nature of democracy indices enables data analytical approaches for studying causal mechanisms of regime transformation processes.
Juridical personA juridical person is a human legal person that is not a single natural person but an organization recognized by law as a fictitious person such as a corporation, government agency, non-governmental organisation, or international organization (such as the United Nations). Other terms include artificial person, corporate person, judicial person, juridical entity, juridic person, or juristic person. A juridical person maintains certain duties and rights as enumerated under relevant laws.
CoalitionA coalition is formed when two or more people or groups temporarily work together to achieve a common goal. The term is most frequently used to denote a formation of power in political or economic spaces. According to A Guide for Political Parties published by the National Democratic Institute and the Oslo Center for Peace and Human Rights, there are five steps to coalition building. The first step in coalition building involves developing a party strategy that will prepare for successful negotiation.
AccountabilityAccountability, in terms of ethics and governance, is equated with answerability, culpability, liability, and the expectation of account-giving. As in an aspect of governance, it has been central to discussions related to problems in the public sector, nonprofit, private (corporate), and individual contexts. In leadership roles, accountability is the acknowledgment of and assumption of responsibility for actions, products, decisions, and policies such as administration, governance, and implementation, including the obligation to report, justify, and be answerable for resulting consequences.
Participatory rural appraisalParticipatory rural appraisal (PRA) is an approach used by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other agencies involved in international development. The approach aims to incorporate the knowledge and opinions of rural people in the planning and management of development projects and programmes. The philosophical roots of participatory rural appraisal techniques can be traced to activist adult education methods such as those of Paulo Freire and the study clubs of the Antigonish Movement.
Stakeholder (corporate)In a corporation, a stakeholder is a member of "groups without whose support the organization would cease to exist", as defined in the first usage of the word in a 1963 internal memorandum at the Stanford Research Institute. The theory was later developed and championed by R. Edward Freeman in the 1980s. Since then it has gained wide acceptance in business practice and in theorizing relating to strategic management, corporate governance, business purpose and corporate social responsibility (CSR).
Capacity buildingCapacity building (or capacity development, capacity strengthening) is the improvement in an individual's or organization's facility (or capability) "to produce, perform or deploy". The terms capacity building and capacity development have often been used interchangeably, although a publication by OECD-DAC stated in 2006 that capacity development was the preferable term. Since the 1950s, international organizations, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and communities use the concept of capacity building as part of "social and economic development" in national and subnational plans.
European Social CharterThe European Social Charter is a Council of Europe treaty which was opened for signature on October 18, 1961 and initially became effective on February 26, 1965, after West Germany had become the fifth of the 13 signing nations to ratify it. By 1991, 20 nations had ratified it. The Charter was established to support the European Convention on Human Rights which is principally for civil and political rights, and to broaden the scope of protected fundamental rights to include social and economic rights.
Environmental, social, and corporate governanceEnvironmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG), also known as environmental, social, and governance, is a set of aspects considered when investing in companies, that recommends taking environmental issues, social issues and corporate governance issues into account. Since 2020, there have been accelerating incentives from the United Nations (UN) to overlay ESG data with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), based on their work, which began in the 1980s.
