Amanda J. Stewart, North Carolina State University
Exploring Nonprofit Education Impact: The Nonprofit Education Survey Project
The Nonprofit Education Survey Project (NESP) is a joint project between Kerry Kuenzi, Amanda J. Stewart, and Marlene Walk. The collaborative project began in 2017, and has compiled research evidence about nonprofit education alumni and outcomes.
Early works of the project focused on the profile of nonprofit graduate alumni, the role of nonprofit graduate education as a workforce pipeline for the nonprofit sector, and how nonprofit alumni think of their graduate degrees, including if school debt detracts from nonprofit sector commitment. More recent research has investigated the effect of COVID-19 on nonprofit graduates and how these workers fared during the pandemic.
NESP has partnered with 10 graduate programs to-date, and welcomes others who are open to surveying their alumni to understand the utility of their degree and how alumni use the degree in their work. NESP’s current research inquiry has engaged nonprofit executive recruiters to understand how they view nonprofit degrees as important to executive appointments.
Kuenzi is an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay and has her PhD in Public Affairs from the University of Colorado, Denver. Stewart is an Associate Professor at North Carolina State University and has her PhD in Public Administration from American University. Walk is a faculty member at the School of Business and Economics at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg (Germany) and has her PhD from the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania.