Dr. Ruth K. Hansen and Dr. Genevieve G. Shaker

Dr. Ruth K. Hansen
Assistant Professor, Nonprofit Management
Director, Institute for Nonprofit Management Studies
College of Business and Economics
University of Wisconsin-Whitewater

Dr. Genevieve G. Shaker
Associate Professor of Philanthropic Studies
Donald A. Campbell Chair in Fundraising Leadership
Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

Theory in Fundraising, a book chapter by Dr. Ruth K. Hansen, NACC board member, Assistant Professor, and Director of the Institute for Nonprofit Management Studies, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, discusses how theory can help us better understand how and why fundraising happens. Featured in Achieving Excellence in Fundraising (5th Edition, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2022) and The Fundraising Reader (1st Edition, Routledge, 2023) the chapter introduces four theoretical frameworks used to explain aspects of fundraising, especially relating to donor relations and engagement. Fundraisers function as boundary spanners within open systems to acquire and maintain resources for their charities. Donated gifts often contain social elements of reciprocity, which must be negotiated. Donors often make gifts that are consistent with their own values and identities. By understanding donors’ expectations, fundraisers can increase the nonprofit’s perceived salience, legitimacy, and trustworthiness. Readers are encouraged to apply different theoretical lenses to their own practice to generate further insights.

Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, co-edited by Dr. Genevieve G. Shaker, NACC board member and Associate Professor, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, has long been the go-to reference for fundraising principles, concepts, and techniques. Topics include donor motivations and behaviors, engaging donors at all levels, inclusive and ethical fundraising, and more, with contributions from noted experts in the field. You’ll gain insight into the practice of fundraising and the fundraising cycle, reinforced by discussion questions, application exercises, and research-based recommendations.

This 5th edition of Achieving Excellence in Fundraising is reimagined to meet the needs of today’s fundraisers, their nonprofit employers, and the causes they serve, while maintaining key concepts that stand the test of time. Compelling and timely topics new to this edition include donor-advised funds, crowdfunding, raising money in challenging times, fundraising for social advocacy, and more. The needs of fundraising educators are also a central consideration in the book’s organization and contents.

Ruth K. Hansen, PhD, is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater’s College of Business and Economics, and director of the Institute for Nonprofit Management Studies. She teaches classes in nonprofit organizations, fundraising, organizational behavior, and research methods. Her research focuses on the theory and practice of fundraising, and equity and inclusion in resource mobilization. Dr. Hansen has more than 20 years’ professional experience as a fundraiser, and is a former board member of AFP-Chicago. Recent publications include “Applying a stakeholder management approach to ethics in charitable fundraising,” published in the Journal of Philanthropy and Marketing and “Gary Neighborhood House: Managing mission and uncertainty in the Civil Rights era,” in the edited volume Hoosier Philanthropy. She contributed the chapter “Theory in Fundraising,” to the new edition of Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, which was featured on Bill Stanczykiewicz’s First Day Podcast from The Fundraising School. Her research with Dr. Lauren Dula on fundraising appeal letters, supported by the AFP Foundation, is the subject of a recent article in Advancing Philanthropy.

Genevieve G. Shaker, PhD, is associate professor of philanthropic studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and adjunct professor of liberal arts and of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at the Indiana University School of Liberal Arts at IUPUI.

She was an advancement officer for 20 years, most recently as associate dean for development and external affairs for the School of Liberal Arts, where she facilitated communications and marketing, alumni programming, and public events as well as fundraising, overseeing the school’s $20 million-dollar contribution to an overall $3.9 billion university-wide campaign.

Professor Shaker’s research focuses on fundraising and fundraisers, workplace philanthropy, philanthropy education, and higher education advancement—including faculty work and the public good as well as philanthropic practices within higher education. Her current projects include explorations of the fundraising profession, relationships between donors and fundraisers, studies intended to generate new information about workplace giving in the United States, and continued examination of how higher education contributes to the global common good.

Laura Deitrick, University of San Diego

Dr. Laura Deitrick
Interim Co-Executive Director, The Nonprofit Institute; Professor of Practice, Department of Leadership Studies; NLM Program Director, School of Leadership and Education Sciences
University of San Diego

2023 State of Nonprofits and Philanthropy Annual Report

Meschen, Connelly; Young, Emily; Tinkler, Tessa; Deitrick, Laura; and Durnford, Jon, “2023 State of Nonprofits and Philanthropy Annual Report” (2023). State of Nonprofits in San Diego. 20. https://digital.sandiego.edu/npi-stateofnp/20

San Diego County is home to a growing and dynamic nonprofit sector working on the frontlines to serve families and communities while also advancing innovative solutions to the region’s most urgent challenges. To support the community and regional leaders to be informed partners with the nonprofit sector, the 2023 State of Nonprofits and Philanthropy Annual Report provides relevant and current information on the health and impact of the sector. The report draws from over a decade of quarterly public opinion polling of San Diego residents and a survey of local nonprofit leaders, combined with the latest nonprofit data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the California Employment Development Department (EDD). This year’s data document a thriving nonprofit sector that is very much in need of ongoing support to sustain and enhance its capacity to address the pressing problems facing the San Diego County region.

Dr. Laura Deitrick serves as the Director of the Nonprofit Leadership and Management graduate program and as the Associate Director of The Nonprofit Institute at the University of San Diego. She has been a nonprofit executive director, board member, management consultant, and researcher on major nonprofit trends. Her research has led to important reports on nonprofit ethics, nonprofits and public education, nonprofit human resource practices, executive transition, the economics of San Diego and California’s nonprofit sector, nonprofit public confidence, and regional grantmaking. She served as the principal investigator for Nonprofit Academy, an award-winning capacity building project co-created by the Nonprofit Institute and The City of San Diego.

Dr. Deitrick is a faculty member in the Department of Leadership Studies where she teaches nonprofit management, organizational theory, program design, and evaluation. In2021, she was recognized as the department’s outstanding faculty member. Since 2019, Dr. Deitrick has served on the board of directors for Barrio Logan College Institute (BLCI). She is also the co-author of Cases in Nonprofit Management: A Hands-on Approach to Problem Solving, published by Sage publications.

Dr. Marco Tavanti, University of San Francisco

Dr. Marco Tavanti
Professor of Leadership
MNA Program Director
School of Management
University of San Francisco

Developing Sustainability in Organizations: A Values-Based Approach

Palgrave Macmillan Cham, 2023

This book explores the historical, foundational, and applied elements of sustainability theory and practice as relevant to the leadership, management, and innovation of organizations, companies, and enterprises. It provides analytical and critical reviews of the current evolution of sustainability for people, planet, prosperity, innovation, and impact.

Divided into four parts, the work offers an integrated model of development for creating and delivering sustainability values at the personal, organizational, societal, and environmental levels. The different sections examine sustainability leadership (focusing on of ethics, values, and purpose), sustainability management (focusing on organizational effectiveness and stakeholders’ wellbeing), sustainability innovation (focusing on social and environmental entrepreneurship), and sustainability impact (focusing on resilience, interconnectedness, consciousness, systemic thinking, and cosmic empathy for the common good and common future).

Combining theoretical and practical applications that give the reader a deeper, scientific, and critical understanding of the urgent, complex, and necessary values for a sustainable future for all, this comprehensive text is a must-read for researchers and students alike, providing a framework for effective globally responsible leadership.

Dr. Marco Tavanti is a sustainability and leadership international scholar whose experience stretches over 30 years and whose work has taken him to more than 18 countries in Europe, East Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Dr. Tavanti’s teaching in sustainable development, leadership ethics, intercultural diversity, and NGO management is grounded in Jesuit values and his scholarship is an embodiment of the University’s mission to be of service to humankind.

Dr. Tavanti is a systems thinker whose scholarship aims at providing practical and integrated solutions to issues in international development and poverty reduction. His research methods are participatory in nature and directed at building international capacity in leaders, organizations, and institutions. Through his teaching he inspires globally engaged leaders while building professional capacity through international managerial skills across sectors.

He is President of the Sustainable Capacity International Institute (SCII-ONLUS) and CEO of its subsidiary SDG.services. He is co-founder of the World Engagement Institute (WEI), an international organization providing capacity development services for sustainable human security. He designed and directed various professional training programs on sustainable community development, indigenous human rights, anti-human trafficking and refugee service management. He has been consulting and collaborating with United Nations agencies such as the Development Programme (UNDP), the Global Compact (UNGC), the Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO). Through his engagement with the UN Global Compact he contributed to the development of the Principles of Responsible Management Education (PRME) and the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Mark Schuller, Northern Illinois University

Mark Schuller, PhD
Acting Director of the Center for Nonprofit and NGO Studies, Presidential Research Professor of Anthropology, Northern Illinois University
Affiliate, Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti

Crystal A. Felima
Assistant Professor of Anthropology and African American & Africana Studies
University of Kentucky

“Maintaining Hope for a Better Future:” An Interview with Dr. Crystal Felima

Dr. Mark Schuller, et. al.

Annals of Anthropological Practice, August 2023

Crystal Felima, Abigail DeeWaard, Clara Barbier, Erica Cano-Garcia, Gonzalo Jeronimo, Nari Coleman, Nataliya Hryshko, Mark Schuller

“This piece not only offers advice to students about how to maintain activist engagement within the academy, but I love how this is coming from students themselves. Undergraduate students have lots of amazing things to say! With proper encouragement students *can* publish in peer reviewed journals. I’m so inspired by them.”
–Dr. Mark Schuller

While anthropologists have played roles speaking out for marginalized groups, formalized to combat Antisemitism, racism, and xenophobia, they have also aided in the marginalization and oppression of communities, justified colonialism, and put the communities they have studied at risk. In recent decades, anthropologists have rethought the way research is conducted, presented, and justified to reduce harm to communities. Despite these shifts, anthropological training has been slow to include activist work by women of color and other marginalized people, leaving anthropologists-in-training with limited concrete guidance on how to apply their anthropological lens to social justice.

Addressing this gap, this article centering a Black feminist analysis offers an interview conducted between anthropology students and a professor of anthropology, giving insights into how anthropological thought can be applied to activism and advocacy. Centering Black feminism is not only important to redress historical marginalization within the discipline. By centering the lives of marginalized people within an intersectional lens, Black feminist analysis provides a mandate to rethink theoretical models, such as political ecology, the dominant frame anthropologists have used to address disasters and climate change. Also importantly, centering Black women’s bodies and embodied experience uncovers the urgent necessity for self-care during fieldwork. Prof. Felima embodies both these challenges, and offers candid advice to students, inspiring a two-way dialogue.

NACC Member Representative

Mark Schuller is Acting Director of the Center for Nonprofit and NGO Studies as well as Presidential Research Professor of Anthropology at Northern Illinois University and affiliate at the Faculté d’Ethnologie, l’Université d’État d’Haïti. Supported by the National Science Foundation Senior and CAREER Grant, Bellagio Center, and others, Schuller’s research on NGOs, disasters, globalization, and gender in Haiti has been published in fifty peer-reviewed articles or book chapters as well as public media. He authored or coedited eight books including Humanity’s Last Stand. He is co-director / co-producer of documentary Poto Mitan: Haitian Women, Pillars of the Global Economy (2009). Schuller is co-editor of Berghahn Books’ Catastrophes in Context and University of Alabama Press’ NGOGraphies. He is Co-Chair of the Risk and Disaster Topical Interest Group at the Society for Applied Anthropology and Secretary of the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology. Recipient of the Margaret Mead Award, the Anthropology in Media Award, and the Haitian Studies Association’s Award for Excellence, he is active in several solidarity efforts.

Irina V. Mersiyanova, Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Nonprofit Sector

Irina V. Mersiyanova
Associate Professor and Director
Centre for Studies of Civil Society and Nonprofit Sector, Head of the Chair Economics and Management of NPOs, National Research University Higher School of Economics

Global Generosity During the COVID-19 Crisis: Recommendations for Philanthropic Organizations and Governments in Times of Crisis from 11 Countries

Irina V. Mersiyanova, et. al.

IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, September 2023

Hampton, D., Wiepking, P., Chapman, C., McHugh, L. H., Kim, S. J., Neumayr, M., Vamstad, J. Arnesen, D., Carrigan, C., Feit, G., Grönlund, H., Hrafnsdottir, S., Ivanova, N., Katz, H., Kristmundsson, Ó. H., Litofcenko, J., Mersianova, I., Pessi, A. B., Scaife, W., Sivesind, K. H., and Yang, Y. (2023). Global generosity during the COVID-19 crisis. Recommendations for philanthropic organizations and governments in times of crisis from 11 countries. Indianapolis, IN: IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

“This study contributes to an increased understanding of philanthropy, especially in times of crisis, by studying the conditions under which such behaviors may be threatened or promoted across different countries and cultures.”  –Global Generosity in Times of Crisis Project – Executive Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic presented a unique opportunity to undertake a cross-national study of how people living in different countries manifested generosity behaviors during the crisis. Cross-national data allow us to consider how generosity presented in countries with various welfare and health systems, as well as varying public and private responses to manage the effects of the pandemic. The present study also provides valuable insights about which actions philanthropic organizations and governments can take to promote a strong, viable social sector and to support societal wellbeing during times of crisis.

To this end, philanthropy researchers across 11 countries studied the generosity responses emerging in their own country during the early COVID-19 crisis in 2020. The 11 countries included in this project are Australia, Austria, Finland, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Sweden, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America. In 11 individual country reports, the researchers compared generosity behavior data for their country with data from the other participating countries.2 Second, they expounded what both philanthropic organizations and governments could learn from the findings, with the goal of facilitating people’s future generosity responses more effectively, especially during crises.

A survey of over 44,000 people across 11 countries showed a predominance of monetary donations to philanthropic organizations during crises, with notable variations in the beneficiaries of donations among different nations. Despite overall stability in giving compared to pre-pandemic times, the consistency was due to non-donors pre-pandemic continuing not to donate, while those who donated before were likely to either increase or decrease their donations during crises. Factors such as pandemic uncertainty or personal financial issues influenced some donors to decrease their donations, while paradoxically, others increased their generosity amid similar challenges. The authors advise philanthropic organizations to prioritize key actions to optimally support community needs during crises. More detailed information and specific recommendations can be accessed by reading the full text.

Dorothy Norris-Tirrell and Susan Tomlinson Schmidt

Dorothy Norris-Tirrell, PhD
Vice President of Programs and Research
Nonprofit Leadership Alliance

Susan Tomlinson Schmidt, ACNP
Content Specialist, Early Childhood Innovation Center
University of Missouri, Kansas City

Multiple disciplines and numerous theoretical foundations built the basis for study of nonprofit organizations. This article explores the disciplinary debate with data from the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance about the majors of students earning the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) credential over the last 10 years. Our analysis suggests that with a focus on the competencies needed for practice, nonprofit education works in any discipline. Embedding a competency-based, applied pedagogy allows many disciplines to ensure successful outcomes for students.

Dorothy Norris-Tirrell, Ph.D., is the Vice President of Programs and Research for the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance – a national network of 50 universities and national nonprofit partners working to create a talented and prepared nonprofit workforce. In this position, Dr. Norris-Tirrell facilitates the development of programs to develop strong nonprofit leaders. Her previous experience includes over twenty years as a faculty member and administrator at the University of Memphis and the University of Central Florida. Dr. Norris-Tirrell’s teaching and research focused on nonprofit organization leadership, governance and resilience, volunteerism, and cross-sector collaboration. Her research is published in the book, Strategic Collaboration in Public and Nonprofit Administration, and in book chapters and journals including the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Policy Studies Journal, American Review of Public Administration, International Journal of Public Administration, and the Journal of Health and Human Services Administration. Dr. Norris-Tirrell has extensive experience as an agency manager, board member, consultant, and volunteer for a wide range of nonprofit organizations.

For her work in connecting student learning, nonprofit agency needs, and academic knowledge, Dr. Norris-Tirrell received the 2009 University of Memphis Excellence in Engaged Scholarship Award, and the 2014 Don Pugliese Award from the Southeastern Conference for Public Administration. She received a Ph.D. in Public Administration from Florida International University.

Susan Tomlinson Schmidt has spent more than 30 years of her career advancing the missions of a variety of service organizations, by focusing on building capacity through partnerships with universities and their local communities.

Currently, Schmidt is a senior advisor to the Executive Director of the Early Childhood Innovation Center (ECIC) at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. ECIC is part of the Institute for Human Development. The Center supports a range of community-based programs that lift the quality of the early childhood workforce across the State of Missouri.

Previously, Schmidt was President of the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance, a national network of professionals, nonprofit organizations, and universities building capacity in the nonprofit workforce. While there, she successfully introduced several key initiatives, Leaderosity, a robust, virtual professional development platform. Leaderosity trains as many 15,000 nonprofit professionals annually reaching across the globe to provide targeted training in nonprofit leadership. Schmidt’s leadership in converting the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) program from an analog, B2B model to an innovative, virtual, B2C model increased access and affordability to earning the nationally recognized workforce credential.

She received her master’s in public administration from the University of Memphis and is an Advanced Certified Nonprofit Professional.