Breaking Through The Noise
Assessing and Communicating the Impact of Nonprofits and Philanthropy
Date: September 12, 2025
Location: Virtual
Hosted by: Independent Sector, ARNOVA, and Nonprofit Policy Forum
Now more than ever, nonprofits need effective strategies to communicate about their impact. On September 12, the Symposium on Public Policy for Nonprofits will bring experts together to help organizations break through the noise and share their stories with key audiences.
On June 13, surrounded by friends and former colleagues at the OMB/BOB Alumni Society’s spring luncheon, Charles E. Kieffer received the 2025 Paul L. Posner Federal Budgeting Career Legacy Award, a well-earned recognition for more than four decades of outstanding public service in the federal budgeting world.
Now in its eleventh year, the Posner Award is presented by the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University in partnership with the Alumni Society. It’s named in honor of the late faculty leader Paul Posner, a giant in the field of public administration who brought both wisdom and warmth to the GAO and later to classrooms before his passing in 2017.
Presenting the award on behalf of the Schar School, Alan Abramson, professor and director of the Schar School’s Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise, remarked how fitting it was to celebrate Kieffer’s career while remembering Posner’s legacy as both men shaped the institutions they served with integrity, intellect, and a quiet but firm sense of purpose.
The introduction by Joe Minarik, an award committee member and former OMB official who presented the award with Abramson, summed it up: “Chuck Kieffer well deserves the Posner Award for his distinguished career in the federal service, a career marked by a unique combination of technical expertise and political—truly bipartisan—acumen. He faithfully spoke truth to power.”
Kieffer’s résumé reads like a master class in public budgeting. Over 44 years, he held senior roles on both sides of Pennsylvania Avenue, most notably as Staff Director of the Senate Appropriations Committee under Chairs Byrd, Leahy, and Mikulski, managing more than 60 professionals tasked with overseeing $1.7 trillion in annual federal spending. His work also helped shape the Department of Homeland Security in its early years, and he steered appropriations for the District of Columbia in the early 2000s.
Before that, he spent 16 years at the Office of Management and Budget, rising to become Acting Associate Director for Legislative Affairs. He served through the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, known for his steady hand and nonpartisan approach. He started his federal career in the Office of the Secretary at what was then Health, Education, and Welfare—later HHS—gaining deep insight into how policy becomes practice through budgets.
Along the way, Kieffer earned a shelf of honors, including the President’s Distinguished Executive Rank Award (1996), the Robert Damus Public Service Award (2001), and most recently, the William Cresswell Congressional Staff Leadership Award (2022).
Kieffer holds an MPA from American University and a bachelor’s in Economics and Government from William & Mary. The Posner Award, made possible by a generous grant from BOB/OMB alumni, adds one more well-deserved accolade to a remarkable career in public service.
The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise in George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government is pleased to announce the release of a new report, Nonprofit Employment in the States, 2017-2022, from the George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data Project (GMU-NED) focusing on nonprofit employment and wages in 53 states and territories between 2017 and 2022. A supplementary data dashboard provides field-level data over this same period.
This report follows up on our December 2024 Nonprofit Employment Report which provided an overview of national-level data on nonprofit employment and wages between 2017 and 2022 from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). Drawing on this same dataset, Nonprofit Employment in the States examines state-level 501(c)(3) nonprofit employment and wages in 2022, how the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic impacted nonprofit employment in the states and territories, and how state-level nonprofit employment had recovered as of 2022. Due to the unique nature of the underlying dataset, we are also able to compare nonprofit employment and wages to their counterparts in the for-profit sector during this crucial period. The report is structured around five key findings:
To supplement this report, we have developed a data dashboard, which provides additional information on the number of nonprofit establishments operating in each state, the fields in which they are active, and how this changed during and in the years immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic. For even more granular data, we invite those interested to consult our GMU Nonprofit Works website that provides user-guided access to these data points down to the county and metro statistical area (MSA) levels, and enables users to compare nonprofits to the government sector, in addition to for-profit businesses.
Led by Center Director Dr. Alan Abramson, in collaboration with his Center faculty colleagues Dr. Mirae Kim and Dr. Stefan Toepler, the GMU-NED Project aims to continue and expand on the important prior work of Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Civil Society Studies. Produced by former Johns Hopkins Project Manager and current GMU-NED Research Consultant Chelsea Newhouse and Dr. Abramson, this new report and field-level data dashboard provide important insights into the crucial economic role of the nonprofit sector in state and territorial economies.
The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise is grateful to the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation for its continuing support of this work.
To read the full report, please click here.
To explore the field-level data dashboard click here.
To learn more about the GMU-NED Project, click here.
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For press inquiries, contact: Chelsea Newhouse, [email protected]
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