The article reviews a family of multilevel models that can be used to build general theories of the nonprofit sector that are still sensitive to variations in context. The comparative study of the nonprofit (or nongovernmental) sector presents formidable challenges to social scientists who are attempting to advance theory on the sector. Ostensibly, the goal is to model and test theories that are generalizable. Yet, as scholars study topics such as volunteerism, donations, governance, management, advocacy, accountability, and the like in different political, economic, and cultural contexts, they often find different patterns across cases. After reviewing the issues and introducing the idea that time (or more specifically events) can be thought of as context as well, we present an analytical approach for doing comparative research using the framework of hierarchical linear modeling.

本文回顾了一系列多层次模型，这些模型可用于建立仍对上下文变化敏感的非营利部门的一般理论。非营利（或非政府）部门的比较研究对试图推进该领域理论的社会科学家提出了巨大的挑战。表面上，目标是建模和测试可推广的理论。然而，当学者们在不同的政治，经济和文化背景下研究志愿服务，捐赠，治理，管理，倡导，问责制等主题时，他们往往会在不同案例中发现不同的模式。在审查了问题并提出了可以将时间（或更具体而言，事件）也视为上下文的想法之后，