Peter C. Weber, PhD
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator
Philanthropy and Nonprofit Studies (PNPS) Program
College of Human Sciences
Auburn University

Greetings,

It is a pleasure to write my first letter as President of the Board of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC). I look forward to the coming two years and to working with you all to strengthen NACC, our programs and centers, and our field of study. I am grateful to Angela Logan, our immediate past president; Nicole Collier, our executive director; and the many past and present board members who have been part of my journey with NACC since I first joined the board in 2018. And it is also a pleasure to celebrate and congratulate all the new Nu Lambda Mu inductees who are graduating this term! Congratulations!

As the fall semester is finally reaching the end – and only mountains of assignments to grade prevent us from fully seeing the light at the end of the tunnel – I realize how intense this semester has been. The political, economic, and cultural pressures on our courses and programs, as well as on the nonprofit sector as a whole, made our lives as faculty members, scholars, and private individuals challenging. These challenges, however, remind us why NACC and our partner scholarly and professional organizations, including the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) and the International Society for Third-Sector Research (ISTR) exist: they provide spaces for connection, collaboration, and shared purpose.

Our professional organizations (NACC, ARNOVA, ISTR) and the many others, from the Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) to the American Society for Public Administration (ASPA), where, as scholars and administrators, we have found a home and space to congregate, serve as crucial places of socialization. We have all benefited, from junior scholars to established ones, from the exchange of ideas, networking, and peer support that takes place at our yearly ‘getting together.’ More than this, these gatherings are moments to reconnect with friends we have made throughout our academic lives, and offer moments of respite and joy in our hectic academic lives.

These organizations, however, are more than annual conferences. They are the infrastructure of a field of study that has grown around nonprofits, philanthropy, and related areas. They sustain the health and vibrancy of our field, and ultimately, of the nonprofit sector that we aim to fuel, strengthen, and support by fostering civic values, enhancing organizational capacity, and leveraging the power of data.

Serving an organization as a committee member, board member, or officer is not just a line on our curriculum vitae. It is a commitment to the organization, the field, and the sector. Today, that commitment matters more than ever. Our organizations face challenges that require renewed attention and action. We must be intentional in our efforts.

In the coming year, we must work together to ensure financial sustainability, articulate the unique value of our organizations, and build bridges across silos. For NACC, this means to work intentionally to deepen collaborations with partner organizations across the nonprofit, public administration, and philanthropic ecosystem, and reflect on both the unique value NACC brings to its members and the future of accreditation standards or quality indicators for stand-alone nonprofit programs.

The founders of our field were visionaries and builders. Now it is our turn.

Peter C. Weber
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Teaching Professor of Management & Organization
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

Back to Life…Welcome to a New Reality

For those of you who don’t know me well, I am a proud member of Gen X. Whether we are called “The Latchkey Generation”, because we were the first generation to let ourselves into the house after school, or “The Forgotten Generation,” sandwiched between our Boomer parents and our Millennial siblings, those of us born between 1965 and 1980 were formed and shaped by major cultural and historic moments. Most of us watched the Challenger explosion at school, and then had to shift to fractions. We remember the start of the technology age (anyone else have a relative with a “bag cellphone?”) . And our worldview was shaped by the launch of MTV. Music videos captured our imagination, exposing us to genres of music that we then wanted to record on cassettes while waiting for the DJ to stop talking over the song.

This time of year, I often catch myself humming the words of a song from that era: R&B soul band Soul II Soul’s “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me).” Written by Caron Wheeler, the song chronicles her feelings after a near death experience, and her frustrations about literally being brought “back to life.” But in true Gen X fashion, we channeled her frustration about coming back from a near death experience, and turned this song into a party anthem. What can I say: our Boomer parents’ version of mental health was to tell us to “Rub some dirt on it!” For those of you unfamiliar with the song, it begins, “Back to life, back to reality. Back to the here and now, oh yeah!”

Every start of the academic year, I think to myself, “THIS is the year I’m going to not get behind in my grading, work on my book proposals, and find more time for self-care.” And then, as sure as Midwestern weather is predictably unpredictable, I am greeted with a harsh reality. I would love to stay on top of my grading, but there are classes to teach, meetings with college leadership to prepare for, office hours to hold, and donors to entertain. Yep: it’s definitely “back to life.”

Only now, we are all faced with being “back to a new reality!” Each of us, in some way, suddenly find ourselves dealing with state and federal officials offering “insights” on how and what we can teach. General Counsel is suddenly offering advice on how to avoid the ire of the state Attorney General or the Department of Education. And it feels like every day, there’s a new executive order that will significantly impact our own lives, and those of our students.

What’s an Academic Director to do? Other than consistently playing the lottery or looking for a magic genie, I have decided to tackle this new reality in true Gen X fashion: tackle it head on. Yes, it’s all too much and not enough at the same time. Yes, there are days when I feel like Prometheus, whose punishment for giving fire to humanity (which is where the word φιλανθρωπία, meaning “love of humanity” comes from) was to have an eagle eat his liver by day, only to have it regenerate by night. Okay, faculty meetings aren’t THAT bad, but you get the idea. And yet, isn’t that why we keep showing up? To prepare and empower the next generation of nonprofit practitioners, scholars, and leaders to show up… and keep showing up? To make the world a better place than they found it?

So, as I transition my closet from Summer to Fall, and whittle down the number of assignments so as not to get too far behind, I’m reminded of the bridge of “Back to Life (However Do You Want Me):”

“I live at the top of the block
No more room for trouble and fuss (No more room, no, no, no there’s not)
Need a change (Oh), a positive change
Look, it’s my writing on the wall (Oh, oh, however do you want me, oh).”

We are all sitting, at the “top of the semester,” looking around at a world that doesn’t have the time or bandwidth for our delay and self-doubt: our world, our sector, and our students need us to make a positive change! So Friends, put on your dancing shoes, and dance with me, as we make a positive change!

Grace and peace, Friends!

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Teaching Professor of Management & Organization
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

Remembering Your Telos

Five years ago this week, sequestered in our homes due to the COVID-19 lockdowns, the world watched in horror, as for nine minutes and 29 seconds, Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. In the days and weeks after this senseless act, calls for racial justice and equity sprang up. Protest marches took place, social media avatars turned black, and organizations, including our own, issued statements, calling for a new way.

If you were like me, after the grief, shock, and rage settled, you started thinking about ways to double down on centering the work of justice for your students come Fall semester. I mean: isn’t that why we decided to get in the work of preparing the next generation of nonprofit practitioners, scholars, and leaders? It certainly wasn’t for the money or the fame! (LOL) And yet, even as I began reading King and Giovanni, Morrison and Thurman, I kept wondering: is this the renewal of the movement that my parents participated in during their formative years, or will this be a moment as short-lived as New Coke and BetaMax?

And of course, as predictably as Spring weather in the Midwestern, the resulting movement/moment had its ups and downs, complete with hail, snow, pollen, and tornadoes. The attempts at progress made in Summer 2020 were quickly forgotten by Fall 2020. Interest in transforming systems of oppression quickly faded, amidst the backdrop of a US presidential election, one that was either the most secure election in US history or stolen, depending upon your ideology. The cries of George Floyd for his mother with his last breath were replaced with shouts to hang the sitting vice president as he did his constitutional duty. And I went from being celebrated by students for teaching them the importance of centering belonging and justice in their work, to being called a Marxist Indoctrinator (thinking that may be the next tattoo)!

After untold hours of sweat, tears, primal screams, and cursing, wondering if any of this work was worth it, I was reminded of the ancient Greek word, τέλος. Often used by Aristotle, “telos” loosely translates to “the end, fulfillment, goal, or aim.” In other words, “What is your Why?” When the temps are below zero as I head to campus to lecture, or the pile of grading feels never-ending, those are the moments when I have to remember my telos.

Five years ago, along with our institutions, we were called to remember our τέλος: to prepare the next generation of nonprofit practitioners, scholars, and leaders to, in the words of the prophet Micah, “act justly and love mercy.” Today, in the midst of attacks on our work, our institutions, and the work of our nonprofit partners, through the elimination on diversity, equity, and inclusion, in the name of “merit, excellence, and innovation,” (as though the former does not include the latter), we are once again called to remember our telos. So whether this Summer, you are at the beach, with us at the University of Maryland for the NACC Conference, or anywhere in between, my hope for you is that you are filled to that which you have poured out this year, so that you are able to return to campus in the Fall, refreshed, renewed, and focused on your telos!

The fight continues!

Grace and peace, Friends!

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Associate Teaching Professor
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

Hope > Despair

Hello! As I write this, I am reflecting on a recent experience and wrestling with a question I’ve been pondering for the past three weeks. At the beginning of December, led by an international nonprofit, I embarked upon a ten day pilgrimage with members of my church, to study the principles and practices of peacemaking within the context of the Emerald Isles. Over the course of the trip, we traveled across Ireland and Northern Ireland, meeting with everyone from Benedictine monks to former paramilitary soldiers on both sides of The Troubles, and everyone in between. We visited with nonprofit leaders committed to reclaiming the Irish language, toured a working replica of the 19th-century vessel that carried Irish emigrants to North America fleeing the Great Irish Famine, and the largest stadium of the Gaelic Athletic Association (I even tried a wee bit of hurling).

As I sit here, thinking back over my trip, one question keeps coming. I suspect for many of you, you are also wrestling with the answer to this question. The question is simply this: What is my role in all of this?

As we wrap up the academic term, questioning who assigned all these projects and papers (okay, maybe that’s just me), while also making preparations for the start of the new term shortly after the Times Square ball drops, it can often feel like we are living on a perpetual hamster wheel (again, maybe that’s just me). The administrivia keeps piling up, with budget preparations, midyear performance evaluations of staff, and preparing preliminary reports of institutional leadership. And let’s not forget the political uncertainty in the US and abroad, and the implications that uncertainty will no doubt have on our sector, our students, and ourselves… We’re being asked to increasingly do so much more with so much less, while also trying to maintain a robust research agenda and preparing the next generation of nonprofit leaders. Whew…are you as tired reading that as I was typing it?!, And don’t get me started on the pressures of parenting, parenting your parents, or both, dealing with the realities of aging well, and just generally maintaining your physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing! It’s enough to send an academic director to Jamaica (again, probably just me).

And yet, as I hold the tension between all the things on my to-do list and my experience on the pilgrimage to the Emerald Isles, I can’t help but be challenged to focus on the wider context of all of this, and ask myself: What is my role in all of this? In a world that often pushes us to choose between despair and hope, my role is to choose hope. And more importantly, my role, and dare I say our role, is to challenge our students to do the same.

Because wasn’t hope the genesis of the nonprofit and philanthropic sector? Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give humanity hope (in the form of light). The America that de Tocqueville saw was one in which the citizens of a new nation banded together to provide each other hope in spite of all that surrounded them. Social service agencies and schools were born in the United States to give hope to the formerly enslaved and recent immigrants who had every right to sink into despair. Generosity with the intention of understanding how to live in hope when the world seems to constantly push you towards despair.

Friends, as you slowly but methodically wrap up 2024, I encourage you to hold onto the hope. The hope will sustain us in the days to come, and will give us what we need to give our students what they need: the hope to foolishly believe they can, and will, make a difference in this world!

All the best,

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Associate Teaching Professor
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year: The Start of a New Academic Year

Hello! As you are settling in to read this, if you’re like me, you are also probably starting to make the mental shift from the slower days of Summer to the accelerated pace of the start of the academic year! I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the more quickly Summer seems to fly by. This year was no different: between caregiving, teaching, and professional travel, I barely had a chance to do all the things I encouraged you to do in my June message. And yet, while I bask in the glory that is the Supermoon Blue Moon outside my window, I can’t help but think about the “once in a blue moon” experiences we all get to enjoy…every year!

There’s the moment during New Student Orientation where students come to campus for the first time, full of a mixture of excitement and dread. They may be filled with questions like: “Why did I enroll?” “Will I get a job when this is all over?” “Where do I park?” “Is my Academic Director as cool as everyone told me she is?” Okay, that last one may just be what my students are wondering.

Similarly, as faculty, we, too, are often filled with questions: “Did I upload my syllabi to the online platform?” “Where is my classroom?” “What time does my class start?” “Is this the year I’m going to get ahead on my grading?” Again, that last one is just me! Nevertheless, whether rooted in anxiety, imposter syndrome, or trying to balance professional and personal responsibilities, this time of the year often leads to a wicked bad case of “Academic Year Scaries.”

Whenever I’m plagued with the “Academic Year Scaries,” I engage in one of my love languages, pebbling. Inspired by the behavior of Gentoo penguins, who are known to leave pebbles in their mates’ nests as a sign of affection, the term pebbling is “the act of sending memes, links, and videos.” According to noted psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School, Adam Grant, “It signals that you’re thinking of (someone) and want them to share your joy.”

On a recent pebbling binge, I discovered some great advice for how to approach this academic year from Melissa Harris-Perry, Presidential Chair Professor of Politics & International Affairs and head of The Anna Julia Cooper Project at Wake Forest University. I thought I’d wrap this month’s message with excerpts from her Facebook post:

“As faculty members, we labor with challenges too. We are trying to navigate all the complexities of our professional and personal lives and working to be present, prepared, and effective in the classroom and beyond.

Give your students and yourself some grace, some space, some humor, and some second chances.

Try just one thing that is different and see what happens. If you hate it, stop. If it’s a disaster, never use it again. And give your students permission to try something new. See what happens if you reward the effort rather than outcome.

Drink a little more water.

Nap if you can.

Look for the opportunities that imperfection brings.

Try to remember that at times- in moments- if we are lucky, teaching can be really and truly the very best job in the world.

We got this.”

Friends, we got this! Make it a ridiculously amazing academic year!

All the best,

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Associate Teaching Professor
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

Summer! Summer!! Summertime!!!

Hello! We’ve just experienced the Summer Solstice in the Northern Hemisphere. This means longer days, patio nights, and in my world, the start of the Summer intensive program for our Executive Master’s students. Over the course of two to five Summers, these students complete ⅔ of their required coursework in two-week intensive classes. We affectionately refer to the Summer experience as “drinking out of a firehose.”

And yet, what I tell incoming cohorts is that your faculty are standing in front of the firehose, taking the brunt of the impact. One of my favorite quotes goes, “Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did backwards and in heels.” I tell students that their faculty are doing everything they are doing “backwards and in Chucks” (because I teach in Converse). Regardless of the metaphor, if we are doing it right, we are pouring our blood, sweat, and tears into our students. But if the last four years has taught us anything, it’s that you cannot pour from an empty cup.

At the end of this past academic year, I planned to get a brief break before the start of the Summer session. Instead, I became “the most degreed home health aide and chauffeur” for my widower father for five weeks (I’ll dedicate another letter about that experience). Recently, I was chatting with a younger cousin, who spoke an uncomfortable truth to me. Knowing both the burden I carry about my work and my students, and my intensive caregiving season, he lovingly said, “We can’t afford for you to die right now!” This harsh truth was like a splash of cold water. The work that I do, that we do, cannot go on if we do not take care of ourselves.

What are you doing this Summer to take care of yourself? Are you taking time to gaze at the stars? Check out a live concert? Gather with your friends and loved ones on the deck? Watch fireworks? Just be?

My encouragement to you, and myself, this Summer is to do what flight attendants tell us before takeoff: “Put your own mask on first before you help someone else!” As your President, I am giving you the permission and freedom to pour into yourself, put your own mask on, and put your toes in the sand: you will thank you, and so will your students!

All the best,

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, NACC President

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director,
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Associate Teaching Professor,
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

Spring is in the Air

Hello! The calendar says it’s Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. In the northwest corner of Indiana, that can only mean one thing: I am simultaneously dealing with high pollen count days and freeze warning nights! LOL!

In all seriousness, it’s also a great time in the life of our programs: Commencement season is upon! We get to witness the time-honored tradition of the culmination of all the blood, sweat, and tears we have endured right alongside our students to get them to this point! We welcome the newest members of Nu Lambda Mu, and meet the loved ones of our students. Faculty promotions and teaching awards are also announced, and we are recognized by our students and institutions for our commitment and dedication.

For me, Spring is also a time of reflection and renewal. As a new homeowner, that means I’ve been thinking a lot lately about planting flowers, building container gardens, and welcoming slower days and patio nights. In the Christian tradition, we speak of “seed-time-harvest.” As the granddaughter of a farmer and a gardener, I learned early that you should not expect to see peppers the day or even the week after you plant them. Good things take time, attention, and care.

Our work in nonprofit and philanthropic education is no different: when our students come to us, we cannot expect them to understand de Tocqueville at Orientation. It takes time, attention, and care to get them to understand the “Four-Legged Stool of Fundraising” or how Maslow’s Hierarchy of Need impacts volunteerism. We teach our students that cultivating donors requires “seed-time-harvest:” rarely do major gifts precede annual gifts.

Good things take time, attention, and care … especially us! I hope in this season of celebration and renewal, you are able to give yourself the time, attention, and care you need to flourish and bloom! Right now, that means I’m going to sit on the deck and enjoy the sun!

Congratulations: we survived another academic year! Go get some sun!

All the best,

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, NACC President

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director,
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Associate Teaching Professor,
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

What’s Love Got To Do With (Our Sector)?

Hello! This month, inspired both by Valentine’s Day and the Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll, the late, great Tina Turner, I’ve been thinking a lot about the age-old question: What’s love got to do with it, specifically, our sector? When I think about this question, I reflect on both my formal and informal connections to philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. While my formal journey into the study of philanthropy began 20 years ago in Dr. Dwight Burlingame’s course, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector (or, as we called it, “521’), my informal journey began decades earlier… in my childhood home. There, my parents instilled in me their own version of the Muhammad Ali quote, “Service to others is the rent you pay for the room here on earth.” Except, in my parents’ case, the quote was more like, “Service is the rent you pay for your room in this house.” In DB’s class, I learned about the Promethean Myth and Alexis de Tocqueville. On Elizabeth Drive, I learned about The Good Samaritan and my parents’ roles in the US Civil Rights Movement. Dwight gave me one of the staples of our field, Giving USA. Richard and Terry gave me staples of my culture, Jet Magazine and Ebony Kids.

Although they may have shown up in different forms, in both of those spaces, I constantly interrogated the true meaning of “φιλανθρωπία:” “love of humanity.” Whether it was giving my old toys and clothes to families in need, participating in Girl Scouts, or receiving a scholarship to attend my UG alma mater, my life was marked both by the impact of my own service and by the generosity of others. When I sat in 521, I began to piece together how acts of generosity were connected across time. What inspired my Girl Scout troop leader to work with me, 25 years after her husband led my father’s troop? What role did Black churches play in supporting the formerly enslaved, like my maternal great-grandmother, and how did that support change over time, to help my mother go to college? How did the work of Black Greek Letter Organizations, the majority of which were founded in the early 1900s, influence political activism as recently as the US Presidential election of 2020?

Similar to my own experiences, our students come to our classrooms with a lifetime of firsthand knowledge and experience of “φιλανθρωπία:” their faith communities, early childhood center, club participation, scholarships to pursue their education, and “walkaround money” from loved ones have all prepared them to ask questions of us…and our sector. Our responsibility is to provide them the tools and skills necessary to embed their own experiences into the wider context of our sector, all while helping them to remember that, at the root of our work is love.

So, the next time you’re feeling overwhelmed with administrivia and grading, remember why we do it: for the love of our students…and humanity. Because what’s love got to do with our sector? EVERYTHING!

All the best,

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

Angela R. Logan, NACC President

Angela R. Logan, PhD
St. Andre Bessette Academic Director,
Master of Nonprofit Administration
Associate Teaching Professor,
Mendoza College of Business
University of Notre Dame

Getting to Know…Me!

Hello! I hope this letter finds you and all whom you hold dear doing well and in good spirits. It is with delight and excitement that I write my first letter as the new Board President of NACC. Special thanks to Will Brown, who served us well these past two years, and has been a great resource to me during this transition. And thanks to each of you for your trust in me to lead our organization at this critical time in history.

For those of you who don’t know me, next year marks 20 years since I first became affiliated with NACC. Like many of our students, I didn’t necessarily plan on a career in nonprofit and philanthropic studies, let alone that I would devote my career to preparing the next generation of leaders in our field, but I cannot imagine doing anything else. My philosophy of teaching is “Becoming the Person I Once Needed,” and I try to live into that approach every day. I am a public scholar, whose research lies at the intersection of race, gender, and nonprofit and philanthropic leadership (check out the inaugural episode of my podcast, Powerful Conversations, for an example of my public scholarship). I am a proud product of the Mahoning Valley in Northeast Ohio, with roots in Alabama and Southern Virginia. One of my grandfathers was a dirt farmer, while the other was a steelworker, and both of my grandmothers were “The Help.” That background gives me a unique perspective about the communities our students come from, and helps guide my thinking about where we need to go as programs, centers, and institutes. I love football, good dinner parties, and most importantly, I love the power and the promise of our sector, which means I will challenge her to be the greatest force for good in the world.

Over the course of my term, I look forward to getting to know you and each of your stories. Many of us teach our students about “The Five Ts:” Time, Talent, Treasure, Ties, and Testimony. Now more than ever, we need to tell our stories, and the impact that our students and our programs have on the world. Together, let’s make sure our stories and our impact are known and felt!

All the best,

Angela R. Logan
Board President, NACC

William A. Brown, NACC President

William A. Brown
President, NACC
Professor, Bush School of Government and Public Service
Director, Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy
Director, Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management
Holder of the Mary Julia and George Jordan Professorship
Texas A&M University

Celebrating Two Years of Progress

I hope this message finds you in good health. It is with a profound sense of gratitude that I write to you today, marking the conclusion of my two-year term as your Board President. I am honored to have had the opportunity to serve alongside a dedicated group of individuals who make up our vibrant community. I want to express my appreciation to everyone for your continued support and engagement.

During my term as Board Chair, I have witnessed firsthand the dedication and remarkable efforts of our members, who have worked to enhance the value and experience of being part of our association. From organizing engaging events and educational programs to fostering an environment of inclusivity and camaraderie, our collective achievements are a testament to what a dedicated group of individuals can accomplish.

I have every confidence that, under the capable leadership of Angela Logan incoming President, the board, and Nicole, our association will continue to flourish and thrive. Texas A&M University has committed to continuing to serve as the institution home of NACC for another four years. Thank you for your trust, your dedication, and your enduring commitment to our shared vision. I look forward to staying connected with you all in the months and years to come and witnessing the continued growth and success of NACC.

Warm regards,

Will Brown
Outgoing Board President, NACC