Monographs & Edited Collections (4,727 posts)

The charitable sector is a multi-billion dollar industry, and business is booming. In No Such Thing as a Free Gift, sociologist Linsey McGoey exposes how “philanthrocapitalism” enables a small group of wealthy individuals to play an outsized role in global policy-making, and how government social services are being usurped by foundations with corporate interests.

When social worker Penny Wade meets her new client, Dani Martin, she thinks her job is to help the sixteen-year-old cope with her mother’s sudden death. But Dani raises some troubling question . . .

Condemned as shirkers for not being in uniform, rejected volunteers faced severe ostracism. Their own sense of nagging guilt, coupled with self-doubt about their social and physical worth, was often crippling. Faced with external and internal assaults, some rejected volunteers exiled themselves from society … others chose to end their lives.