Author: Kristina Podesta

Applications for the Nu Lambda Mu international honor society are being accepted until April 21

Apply Today!

The Nu Lambda Mu international honor society was established by the Nonprofit Academic Center’s Council (NACC) to recognize students dedicated to the study of nonprofit management, philanthropy, and social enterprise. It’s mission is to advance the study of nonprofit organizations and their function in society and to promote scholarly achievement among those who engage in these academic pursuits. Nu Lambda Mu is exclusively offered to students of colleges, academic centers, and programs who are members of NACC.

Nu Lambda Mu is highly selective and your membership in this honors society informs academic scholars, employers, and colleagues that you are a superior student and preferred candidate in the workplace. Your academic achievement deserves recognition, and Nu Lambda Mu provides the perfect platform for y you to showcase exemplary leadership, academic merit, and scholarly research that advances the your nonprofit and philanthropic sector. Upon induction, members receive a personalized membership certificate and honors cords which distinguish you as an honors recipient at your graduation ceremony. We hope you will take advantage of this opportunity.

Download the Flyer here

Applications for students that meet the requirements below are being accepted from February 15th to April 21st 2023, so be sure to apply today!

Be a current graduate or undergraduate student of a NACC member program, and be graduating this spring/summer of 2023 (or have already graduated).
Be pursuing a degree, concentration, major, certificate or similar in nonprofit management, philanthropy, and/or social entrepreneurship
Hold a minimum GPA of 3.7 (if a graduate student) or 3.5 (if an undergraduate student)
Pay the non-refundable $40 application fee **

**scholarships are available to those unable to pay the application fee, reach out for more information!

Contact
[email protected]
(979) 862-2089
www.nonprofit-academic-centers-council.org/nu-lambda-mu/

First GMU-NED Report: Nonprofits Estimated to Have Recovered COVID Pandemic-Related Job Losses

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 the first report from the George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data Project (GMU-NED).

Click here to access the report.

This brief report provides an update on the recovery of nonprofit jobs since the final Johns Hopkins University – Nonprofit Economic Data Project (JHU-NED) monthly update, which was released in January 2022. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting widespread job losses, the JHU-NED Project began to estimate the potential impact on nonprofit institutions based on existing data on nonprofit employment and monthly Bureau of Labor Statistics job reports. JHU-NED staff estimated that, as of May 2020, nonprofits may have lost a conservatively estimated 1.64 million jobs, reducing the nonprofit workforce by 13.2%. Following these initial estimates, the JHU-NED Project released monthly updates to track the recovery of these jobs; the January 2022 report found that the nonprofit sector’s workforce was still down by nearly 500,000 workers as of December 2021.

As indicated by the title of the new GMU-NED report, “Nonprofit Employment Estimated to Have Recovered from COVID Pandemic-Related Losses as of December 2022,” the good news is that—according to this estimation method—the nonprofit sector appeared to have recovered these job losses by October 2022, and potentially added new employment in the final months of the year.

Produced by former JHU-NED Project Manager and current GMU-NED Research Consultant Chelsea Newhouse, in collaboration with Center Director Dr. Alan Abramson and faculty colleagues Dr. Stefan Toepler and Dr. Mirae Kim, this new report also outlines plans for the next phase of work for the GMU-NED Project as it endeavors to carry forward the legacy of the JHU-NED Project and build on its successes to enhance and broaden the nonprofit data landscape.

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 learn more about the GMU-NED Project, click here.

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For inquiries, contact:

Chelsea Newhouse, [email protected]

Kristina Podesta, [email protected]

If you would like to keep up-to-date on new data, initiatives, and developments in the nonprofit employment and wage data space, please be sure to subscribe to our mailing list here.

Nonprofit Policy Forum invites papers for two upcoming special issues

Nonprofit Policy Forum (NPF) invites papers for two upcoming special issues. The first is entitled Nonprofits, Public Policy, and Migration Crises. The second is dedicated to the theme of the 11th International ERNOP Conference, Philanthropy and Crises: Roles and Functioning of Philanthropy in times of Societal Upheavals. More information is provided below.

Special Issue on Nonprofits, Public Policy, and Migration Crises

Special Issue in Nonprofit Policy Forum

Nonprofits, Public Policy, and Migration Crises

Guest Editors:

Anna Domaradzka, University of Warsaw
Shawn Flanigan, San Diego State University
Tania Haddad, American University of Beirut

Call for Papers:

Nonprofit Policy Forum invites papers for a special issue on Nonprofits, Public Policy, and Migration Crises. Crises of migration draw attention in many parts of the world, but are overlooked with dire consequences in others. Since the beginning of the Russian War in Ukraine in February 2022, over 11 million people have left Ukraine, and 7 million are internally displaced (UNHCR, August 2022). Images of Afghans clinging to planes evacuating Kabul prior to the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021 were only the most recent event in one of the largest protracted refugee situations in the world (UNHCR 2022). Eleven years after the onset of the Syrian civil war, 13 million Syrians still live as refugees or are internally displaced, the majority living in extreme poverty (UNHCR 2022). Migrant arrests on the Mexico-U.S. border exceeded 2 million for the first time in 2022 (Washington Post, 2022), with migrants fleeing not only repressive government regimes but natural disasters, poverty and food scarcity, and high levels of crime and gang violence. While migration crises driven by climate change, poverty and crime may receive less media coverage than those driven by war, the human toll is devastating. Yet crises of migration are not always viewed sympathetically, and in many countries around the world migration has become a controversial political issue and a rallying point for voters and political movements.

Nonprofits, NGOs, and other civil society actors participate in and are affected by migration crises in a variety of ways. For example, nonprofits advocate for and against public policy related to migration at national, international, and sometimes local levels; participate in policymaking and governance collaborations related to migration policy and services for migrants; and work with communities to implement initiatives responding to migration crises, or to implement services for migrants. This special issue explores the relationship between nonprofits (or NGOs or other civil society actors), public policy, and migration crises. We use the term “migration crises” here to capture situations of vulnerable migration that include refugees and internally displaced persons, but might also include other individuals who do not technically qualify for refugee status but are migrating at risk and in vulnerable circumstances. Questions to be addressed in this special issue may include, but are not limited to, the following:

What roles do nonprofits or other civil society actors play in policymaking or governance schemes related to migration, particularly migration crises? For example, what is the role of nonprofits in advocating directly to policymakers or engaging voters and others to be active in supporting or opposing migration initiatives? How does the role of civil society vary around the world, or what are the global dimensions of refugee governance?
What is the role of foundations in funding initiatives that support or oppose migration? And how do foundation and other funding priorities affect the ability of nonprofits to respond and adapt to migration crises?
How do policies governing the nonprofit sector affect organizations’ abilities to respond and adapt to migration crises?
What are the roles of nonprofit organizations and/or other civil society actors vis-a-vis the state in migration crises, (perhaps especially in situations where the state itself may have had a role in precipitating the crisis?)
How do nonprofits working in migration crises balance advocacy and service delivery? • What are the humanitarian and social justice implications of nonprofits’ advocacy, governance, or implementation activities?
As nonprofits engage in policy advocacy, what is the relationship between strategy and context? What strategies might work in particularly challenging or intractable political contexts?
What is the impact of migration crises (e.g. mass emigration) on nonprofits themselves?

The special issue will be comprised primarily of research articles, but may also include one or more research note, policy brief, commentary, case study, interview, or book review. Instructions for submissions are available on the NPF website.

Timeline:

02/15/2023: Optional deadline to submit 500-1,000 word abstracts to the guest editors for initial feedback.
08/15/2023: Deadline for full papers (prior abstract submission not required) to be submitted for peer review via NPF’S online submission portal. Please indicate that your submission is intended for the Migration Crises SI.

For any questions, please contact:

Shawn Flanigan, San Diego State University, [email protected]

Special ERNOP Conference issue: Philanthropy and Crises

ERNOP Special Issue in Nonprofit Policy Forum

Philanthropy and Crises: Roles and Functioning of Philanthropy in times of Societal Upheavals

Guest Editors:

Gojko Bežovan, University of Zagreb
Marta Rey-García, University of A Coruña (UDC)
Michaela Neumayr, Vienna University of Economics and Business

Call for Papers:

We are pleased to announce that a special issue of Nonprofit Policy Forum will be dedicated to the theme of the 11th International ERNOP Conference. Scholars who will present their papers at the 2023 ERNOP conference at the University of Zagreb, Croatia, in which we will focus on the roles that philanthropy in its different forms can play during and after crisis and social upheavals, are invited to submit their full papers for the special issue. The journal is open access and has no publication charges.

Philanthropy plays a key role in times of crisis. Philanthropic initiatives are often the first to engage when a crisis emerges and the last that remain when a crisis ends. Climate change created action by groups in society that were not traditionally considered philanthropic; the COVID crisis already saw the birth of many philanthropic initiatives and the war in Ukraine sparked generosity in Europe that might be – in absolute terms – unprecedented in history. However, at the same time, and within the context of societal upheavals, philanthropy is also criticized for being ineffective, its particularism, its elitism, and even as agents of influence by unwanted entities. Traditional forms of philanthropy are considered outdated by some and replaced by alternative forms like impact investing or informal and ad hoc giving through online and mobile platforms.

Against the background of these crises and developments, we invite papers to take stock not only of the roles that philanthropy in its different forms can play during and after social upheavals, but also of the crisis that certain forms of philanthropy may face. Questions to be addressed in this special issue may include, but are not limited to, the following:

How does philanthropy develop during crises and how can philanthropic behavior be sustained when a crisis fades away? To what extent does this vary depending on individual, organizational or national contexts?
How come a societal phenomenon that is defined as ‘private action for the public good’ and literally is translated as ‘love for mankind’ often must deal with negative perceptions in the public opinion?
How can philanthropic organizations and initiatives remain better connected with their constituents and societal stakeholders in times of crisis?
To what extent is philanthropy able to overcome its shortcomings and can it live up to its potential? What is needed to make philanthropy live up to its potentially catalytic capacities in contexts of societal unrest?
What can we learn from history of the role that philanthropy can play in transforming our society to address the crises of tomorrow?
What is the relevance of alternative sources of philanthropy like donating data, online volunteering and informal giving platforms and to what extent can this be used by philanthropic organizations in face of the crisis affecting more traditional, predigital forms of giving?

The special issue will be comprised primarily of research articles, but may include one or more research note, policy brief, commentary, case study, interview, or book review. Instructions for submissions are available on the NPF website: https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/npf/html?lang=en

Timeline:

Please take note of the following guidelines and working timeline:

02/12/23: Abstract/proposal submission deadline for ERNOP 2023 conference: https://ernop.eu/conference2023/
06/04/23: Optional deadline to submit full conference paper to the guest editors for initial feedback through the ERNOP Conference system.
10/12/23: Deadline for full papers (prior conference paper submission not required) to be submitted for peer review via NPF’S online submission portal. Please indicate that your submission is intended for the ERNOP special issue.

Please contact the guest editors with any questions:

[email protected]: Gojko Bežovan, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Law, Department of Social Work, Croatia
[email protected]: Marta Rey-García, School of Economics and Business, University of A Coruña (UDC), Spain
[email protected]: Michaela Neumayr, Institute for Nonprofit Management, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

More information about the journal

NPF publishes original, high-quality research and analysis from all scholarly disciplines and all parts of the world that address important public policy issues affecting nonprofits, philanthropy, and social enterprise. A double-blind peer review process is used to select papers for publication.

NPF is published quarterly by De Gruyter, Inc. in open access format and is fully available at www.degruyter.com/loi/npf Open access is made possible by NPF’s generous institutional sponsors: the Humphrey School of the University of Minnesota; the Urban Institute; the Jack, Joseph, and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences of Case Western Reserve University; and the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). NPF’s editorial board consists of leading scholars from 20 different countries in Europe, Asia, North America, and Australia. The journal is included in the Emerging Science Citation Index (ESCI) and is searchable in the Web of Science Core Collection.

Articles published in NPF address a broad range of nonprofit public policy issues. Subject areas include but are not limited to: government tax, spending, and regulatory policies related to nonprofits and philanthropy; nonprofit advocacy and lobbying; other aspects of nonprofit-government relations; social enterprise and sector boundary issues; global/cross-national NGO issues; and developments in policy fields such as health care, social justice, the environment, education, and the arts that affect nonprofits.

NPF invites research papers of 5,000-8,000 words as well as shorter special features such as policy briefs, commentaries, case studies, interviews, and book reviews. Proposals for special issues are also welcome. More detail on how to submit manuscripts to NPF is available on NPF’s website, www.degruyter.com/loi/npf.

We are very pleased to become NPF’s co-editors-in-chief as of July 2021, and thank founding editor Dennis Young and managing editor Linda Serra for their excellent work in establishing a terrific foundation for NPF in its first decade of publication.

Alan Abramson, Mirae Kim, and Stefan Toepler
Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University
Co-Editors-in-Chief, Nonprofit Policy Forum (as of July 1, 2021)

George Mason University Nonprofit Scholars Launch a New Phase of the Nonprofit Employment Data Project

The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University is pleased to announce that it has received support from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to continue the important work of the Johns Hopkins University – Nonprofit Economic Data (JHU-NED) Project following the passing of Dr. Lester Salamon in August 2021. The project will be led by Dr. Alan Abramson, director of the Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise, in collaboration with his Center faculty colleagues Dr. Stefan Toepler and Dr. Mirae Kim.

Led by Dr. Lester M. Salamon in collaboration with his colleagues S. Wojciech Sokolowski, Stephanie Lessans Geller, and Chelsea Newhouse, the JHU-NED Project surfaced and tapped a crucial new source of data on nonprofit employment and wages embedded in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW). The data from the QCEW are unique in that they are systematically collected for all sectors of the economy, making data on nonprofits directly comparable to data on for-profits and government employers. These data revealed that, as of 2017, the nonprofit sector employed more than 1 in every 10 non-government workers in the US—more than all branches of the manufacturing industry combined and behind only retail trade and accommodation and food services. The JHU-NED team’s work to track how this changed over time and how nonprofits compared to their for-profit counterparts in key fields, including health care, education, social services, and the arts, changed the understanding of the importance of these critical institutions. More recently, their work during the COVID-19 pandemic to highlight the impact of the crisis on these institutions provided a unique resource, which in turn, helped lead to a number of important policy changes that supported nonprofit recovery.

The George Mason University – Nonprofit Employment Data (GMU-NED) Project will not only continue the work of the JHU project, but will build on it, bringing the unique expertise of the GMU Center’s faculty and staff to bear to broaden and enhance the available data on nonprofit employment, wages, and economic impact in the US. According to Mott Foundation Associate Program Officer Carlos Rios-Santiago, “Nonprofit employment data is essential for informed and effective nonprofit and philanthropy advocacy efforts. We are confident that Alan Abramson and his team at George Mason University are ready take on the challenge of producing, analyzing, and visualizing this data and are proud to support their efforts.”

What will stay the same

Cutting-edge reports. The GMU-NED Project will continue to produce cutting-edge reports on nonprofit establishments, employment, and wages based on available BLS QCEW data. GMU has engaged former JHU-NED project manager Chelsea Newhouse, now a Senior Program Manager at East-West Management Institute, to lead the production of these reports—which will ensure consistency and comparability between previous and new research. As a first step, please look for a brief on current COVID-19 employment impact estimates in December.

Nonprofit Works. In addition, the Nonprofit Works interactive database application will remain live while we explore options for further development of the site in anticipation for the planned 2024 release of BLS employment and wage data covering 2018-2022.

Data advocacy. We will also continue to work with our colleagues at Independent Sector, the Aspen Institute, the National Council of Nonprofits, and other organizations to seek more frequent release of nonprofit employment data by BLS. The ultimate goal is to have BLS report on nonprofit employment more frequently than every five years, which is the current reporting cycle. As shared by our advocacy partner Independent Sector: “The Nonprofit Economic Data Project revolutionized how policymakers, sector leaders, and the American public view the immense contributions of the nonprofit sector. The importance of that work has never been clearer than during the COVID-19 pandemic. Independent Sector has been honored to advocate with our partners in recent years for critical data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and more. We are thrilled that this work will continue and grow under the leadership of the Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise at George Mason University.”

What we will add

Broadening the nonprofit data landscape. We will look to tap our team’s expertise in a broad range of federal data systems to enhance and expand the pool of available data on nonprofit employment, wages, and impact. Tapping into these additional data sources will allow for a more robust understanding of the nonprofit sector’s economic role, the demographics of the nonprofit workforce, and federal funding of nonprofit organizations.

Synergies with sector data projects. The GMU-NED Project is well positioned to explore synergies with other on-going efforts to make data on the nonprofit sector more readily accessible. Specifically, we will explore the possibility of folding the BLS and other federal databases on nonprofits into an on-going effort to develop a platform that can become a warehouse of various datasets on the nonprofit sector under the “Developing a Data Platform for Analysis of Nonprofit Organizations” project, funded by the National Science Foundation. GMU-NED Director Alan Abramson and Dr. Mirae Kim, who have been involved in this effort, will lead the discussion around integrating BLS and other federal data into the platform.

Building networks for nonprofit data. The GMU-NED Project will also explore with other stakeholders creating and hosting a network for federal officials who work with databases containing useful nonprofit data. We believe convening these officials on a regular basis would be of significant benefit for the nonprofit sector by highlighting the importance of nonprofit data for federal data experts, creating opportunities for collaboration, and expanding the pool of experts who can support nonprofit data generation, publication, and analysis within federal data systems.

Our team at George Mason University is excited to partner with the Mott Foundation and the East-West Management Institute to carry the important work of the JHU-NED project forward, to expand the available data on the nonprofit sector, and to ensure that this vital information remains available to sector stakeholders. “The exceptional team at the GMU-NED Project is uniquely positioned to carry on the pioneering work of Lester Salamon and his colleagues,” said Cinthia Schuman Ottinger, Director of the Nonprofit Data Project at the Aspen Institute’s Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation. “The nation’s third largest private employer—the nonprofit sector—continues to face extraordinary needs in the wake of COVID-19 and economic challenges. A regular source of employment and wage data to track the nonprofit workforce and its capacity has never been more essential. I look forward to working and advocating with GMU!”

For inquiries, contact:

Chelsea Newhouse, [email protected]

Kristina Podesta, [email protected]

If you would like to keep up-to-date on new data, initiatives, and developments in the nonprofit employment and wage data space, please be sure to subscribe to our mailing list here.

NPF’s first webinar discussed nonprofit get-out-the-vote (GOTV) initiatives.

The Nonprofit Policy Forum (NPF) hosted its first webinar on October 4^th, featuring a timely discussion of nonprofit get-out-the-vote (GOTV) initiatives. The webinar included an excellent panel of researchers and nonprofit leaders who brought a wealth of knowledge and insights to the conversation.

The panel was anchored by Kelly LeRoux, Julie Langer, and Samantha Plotner, who discussed their article “Nonprofit Messaging and the 2020 Election: Findings from a Nonpartisan Get-Out-The-Vote (GOTV) Field Experiment,” which was recently published in NPF. They explained that the most important takeaway from the study was that nonprofit GOTV activities impacted voting patterns. When nonprofits engage in this work, they help remedy the participation gap and promote higher turnout among under-represented voters.

Brian Miller, from Nonprofit VOTE, then discussed additional research that complements the findings of LeRoux, Langer, and Plotner. He provided insights on the scale of nonprofits involved in nonpartisan voter engagement activities, explaining that roughly 1 in 5 nonprofits are doing this work. He ended by discussing how nonprofits can align GOTV activities with their mission. He shared links to the following reports that provide more information on these topics:

Vivian Zhang, from the Coalition for a Better Chinese American Community (CBCAC), then rounded out the conversation by discussing the work she and her colleagues do to ensure Chinese American communities in Chicago have the tools and knowledge they need to be informed, engaged voters.

The Center on Nonprofits, Philanthropy, and Social Enterprise and NPF thank all the panelists for sharing their insights and providing a rich conversation that connected research and practice!