Book excerpt: By understanding the ontogenesis of NGOs as civil society organizations from a historical-anthropological, communicational, sociological, economical and managerial perspective, Evandro Oliveira outlines the Instigatory Theory of NGO Communication (ITNC). This proposes the ontological principles, an applied conceptual model and a cybernetic operational model for understanding and managing communication at NGOs. Those models were tested using a mixed-method research design.