The Influence of the Legal Environment On the Development of the Nonprofit Sector

Underlying the beliefs that the evolution of the nonprofit sector in different countries can be significantly affected by the 'favoribility' or 'unfavoribility' of the legal framework within which nonprofit organisations operate. While nonprofit organisations are, to a significant extent, informal organisations, they nevertheless interact with the formal mechanisms of the law in a varity of ways. This may range from the establishment of legal personality and its resulant protection of members and officers from personal legal libility for the organisations' actions, to provisions in the tax law which encourage or discourage contributions to such organisations