午夜剧场

When I say in class, "午夜剧场 is an NPO, too," the students all look puzzled. This is likely because it doesn't overlap with the "image of an NPO" that many people tend to envision. However, if an NPO is defined as an organization where people with a common purpose voluntarily associate and work together for the benefit of society independently of the government, then that is exactly how 午夜剧场 was established. Furthermore, it is an entity that has given birth to many NPOs.

Long before they were named NPOs, our society had these types of private, non-profit, public-interest activities. They have strengths in areas where government response is difficult and profit-oriented activities are unsuitable, and their presence has grown as intermediary groups such as families and local communities have weakened. In fact, they are more diverse than one might imagine; even Wikipedia, where volunteers create articles, is operated by a U.S. NPO.

In Japan, 1995 was the "First Year of Volunteering" following the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake, which served as a catalyst for drawing public interest toward NPOs. The NPO Corporation (Specified Non-Profit Corporation) system was born from this movement, and there are currently just under 50,000 of them. Today, corporate forms have diversified, and among the 100,000 total associations and foundations, many perform public-interest activities; thus, NPO does not necessarily equal an NPO Corporation. While they are universal entities in society, NPOs in a systemic sense change depending on the country and the era.

However, diverse and complex entities are difficult to understand and therefore tend to be viewed with prejudice; the public image and the actual reality of NPOs are sometimes vastly different. In particular, the term "non-profit" makes them appear somewhat self-sacrificing (which easily invites the impression of being hypocritical), but non-profit here means that maximizing profit for distribution to stakeholders is not the objective. It is a misunderstanding to think that everything is free or unpaid.

Naturally, there are problematic organizations, but the entire NPO sector tends to be judged based on the impression of a single case. This is similar to how there are trusted governments and untrusted ones, or popular companies and "black" (exploitative) companies, but such generalizations likely occur because a sufficient understanding has not yet been reached.

Just as 午夜剧场 is, there are surely many that will become indispensable organizations for society. I would be happy if this book helps, even a little, in understanding that world.

Gen Miyagaki

Chuko Shinsho

288 pages, 1,078 yen (tax included)

*Affiliations and titles are as of the time of publication.