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Philanthropy Research Workshop

Philanthropy Research Workshop

Spring 2020 Schedule of Presenters

University Hall, home of Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy Tuesdays, 12:00-1:15 p.m. (with occasional exceptions) University Hall Room 3011

Instructions for remote access
Downloadable calendar

The Philanthropy Research Workshop is a venue for presenting academic research prior to publication.

The workshop has expanded its disciplinary and methodological scope, and students and faculty will have opportunities for individual meetings with our speakers.

The purposes of the workshop include the following:

To help students and early career faculty develop as scholars. Workshops illustrate the process of research—problems that come up and how best to deal with them. Workshops expose participants to unfamiliar methodologies that might become part of their analytic toolbox. Workshops expose participants to what’s hot in research. External speakers can meet with students and faculty during their visits, beginning a relationship that can enhance one’s career.
To build a sense of community and shared knowledge both within the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and beyond. We build a shared sense of purpose, and foster interdisciplinary collaborations across schools, campuses, and disciplinary homes.
To build the research reputation of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

January 14

Les Lenkowsky, Professor Emeritus, Indiana University and Senior Counsellor to the Dean, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

"Facts, Opinions, and Public Policies (with special reference to Philanthropy)"

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Abstract: The late Senator (and Professor) Daniel Patrick Moynihan famously observed that “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but not their own facts.” Valid as the statement is on its face—and important as it is in a time when many are simply inventing facts that serve their interests—it does beg the question of what exactly is a legitimate fact? What should policy makers do when facts may be legitimate, yet are profoundly inconvenient, as when they point toward policies and practices that are morally unacceptable and politically unfeasible? When they are themselves the product of opinion or judgment, solidly grounded as that may be in research, yet not without critics and disputants? In this paper, which will be published in National Affairs, Finn and Lenkowsky—both former Moynihan proteges—take the reader through that doorway and derive some sensible advice about how to handle what lies on the other side. Lenkowsky will add examples from philanthropic studies.

Bio: Dr. Leslie Lenkowsky is Professor Emeritus in the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University and Senior Counsellor to the Dean at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

From 2001 to 2003, Dr. Lenkowsky served as chief executive officer of the Corporation for National and Community Service, a position to which he was appointed by President George W. Bush. Previously, he had served as a director of the Corporation. Before joining the Bush Administration, Dr. Lenkowsky was professor of philanthropic studies and public policy at Indiana University. He has also served as president of the Hudson Institute, an internationally renowned public policy research institute, president of the Institute for Educational Affairs, deputy director of the United States Information Agency, research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and research director at the Smith Richardson Foundation.

A graduate of Franklin and Marshall College, Dr. Lenkowsky received his doctorate from Harvard University. He is a regular contributor to The Chronicle of Philanthropy and has spoken frequently to educational and philanthropic groups throughout the United States and internationally on philanthropy, social entrepreneurship, communications, and other topics.

January 21

Audra Wolfe, Freelance Writer and Editor

"Rethinking the Role of Public-Private Partnerships through the Lens of Science Diplomacy"

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Abstract: During the Cold War, the United States relied on extensive partnerships with private organizations, including philanthropic foundations, to conduct its cultural offensive against Communism. The CIA’s use of foundations to launder its support for writers, artists, and musicians is well known, but even overt U.S. government agencies, from the U.S. Information Agency to the National Science Foundation, sought practical as well as ideological benefits from private partnerships. This was particularly the case for campaigns involving science, as policymakers hoped to highlight U.S. scientists’ independence from government control. Working (both overly and covertly, wittingly and unwittingly) with governmental and private organizations, U.S. scientists tried to come to terms with the meanings of “scientific freedom” and “U.S. ideology.” More than 30 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the language of “nongovernmental science” continues to shape the relationship between science and politics both in and outside of the United States.

Bio: Audra J. Wolfe, Ph.D. is a Philadelphia-based writer, editor, and historian. She is the author of Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science (2018) and Competing with the Soviets: Science, Technology, and the State in Cold War America (2013).

Her articles have appeared in both scholarly and more popular venues, including the Washington Post, The Atlantic.com, Slate, and the podcast American History Tellers. Wolfe holds a Ph.D. in the History and Sociology of Science from the University of Pennsylvania (2002) and a B.S. in biochemistry and chemistry from Purdue University (1997). She has taught courses on Cold War science as well as science and the media at the University of Pennsylvania.

As a publishing professional, Wolfe has worked at the University of Pennsylvania Press, Rutgers University Press, and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, where she additionally produced an award-winning podcast, Distillations. Her editorial and publishing consulting company, The Outside Reader, supports the work of scholars and scholarly publishers.

January 28

Patrick Dwyer, Assistant Professor of Philanthropic Studies, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

"Gratitude and Giving: Multiple Perspectives"

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Abstract: People who have benefited from the generosity of others often experience the emotion of gratitude. And expressing thanks for others’ generosity can help build stronger relationships between benefactors and beneficiaries, which can inspire more giving. However, research shows that nonprofits don’t always express gratitude effectively, and may run the risk of losing donors as a result. This presentation will examine multiple perspectives on the linkages between gratitude and giving from the field of psychology. Key findings from a growing body of research on the science of gratitude will be presented, shedding light on how the experience and expression of gratitude can best serve individuals, their relationships, and their communities. Benefits as well as barriers to effective gratitude will be discussed. The goal of this presentation is to give attendees a greater appreciation for gratitude’s potential, and a greater understanding of factors that influence the quality and effectiveness of a “thank you,” including instances when an expression of thanks could even backfire.

Bio: Patrick Dwyer, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of philanthropic studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. He teaches courses on donor motivations, behaviors, and engagement, and on institutional fundraising and grant writing. Dr. Dwyer earned his Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Minnesota, and completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

His research focuses broadly on motivation, emotion, and social action. Some of the questions that inspire his work are: Why do people help others, and when and why do they look the other way? What are the benefits of gratitude, and is it ever a bad idea to say "thanks"? How can psychology be used to promote sustainable behaviors, and to benefit communities? His work has been published in a variety of outlets, such as the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Nonprofit Management & Leadership, PLOS ONE, Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Journal of Environmental Psychology, British Journal of Social Psychology, and Personality and Individual Differences.

February 11

Danielle Vance-McMullen, Assistant Professor, School of Public Service, DePaul University

"Giving Tuesday's Effect on Year-End Giving: Emerging Evidence"

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Abstract: Giving Tuesday, a social-media event encouraging giving on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, is becoming an important part of year-end giving in the United States. Giving Tuesday has grown quickly since its inception in 2012, with the 2019 drive raising over $511 million from online gifts alone (Haynes and Stiffman 2019). However, the effects of Giving Tuesday growth on the charitable giving landscape are not well understood. This presentation will discuss the effect of Giving Tuesday on later year-end giving, the degree to which Giving Tuesday donors are new givers, and the propensity of Giving Tuesday to contribute to the “rich get richer” phenomenon in the nonprofit sector. To investigate these phenomena, I will present a paper (joint with Nathan Dietz) which combines longitudinal individual giving data from the 11,000 nonprofits in the Growth in Giving database with newly-collected data on the time and location of community campaigns. Community campaigns are an important means of publicizing Giving Tuesday and encouraging nonprofit participation. Importantly, the staggered adoption of community campaigns allows for the effect of Giving Tuesday on year-end-giving to be identified using a difference-in-differences analysis. In addition, because data is available at the individual level by organization, it is possible to identify the effect on organizations of various sizes and on donors with various levels of previous giving to an organization.

Bio: Dr. Danielle Vance-McMullen is an Assistant Professor in the School of Public Service at DePaul University. She received her Ph.D. in Public Policy from Duke University. She also holds an M.A. in Economics (Duke), an M.P.A. in Nonprofit Management (IUPUI), and an M.A. in Philanthropic Studies (IUPUI). Dr. Vance-McMullen’s research focuses on donor behavior, fundraising, and nonprofit competition in new charitable giving contexts. Her current work in this area examines the rise of Giving Tuesday using big administrative data and behavioral experiments. Her article on Donor-Advised Fund giving during recessions was recently published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and Dr. Vance-McMullen currently serves as co-convener of the Donor-Advised Fund Research Collaborative. Dr. Vance-McMullen’s research has been featured in the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Times Fresh Research Podcast.

February 18

Becky Nesbit, Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, University of Georgia

"The Rural/Urban Divide: Examining Variations in Volunteering Behavior across Place"

Abstract: In the 21st century, public policy increasingly depends upon voluntary action to address local issues, yet local capacity for voluntary action differs significantly across place. This presentation explores the rural/urban volunteer divide. Although rural communities have traditionally been described as having high levels of civic engagement, ongoing changes in the economic and demographic makeup of rural places may be eroding the civic fabric of rural places. Drawing upon 13 years of volunteering data from the Current Population Survey, we find that there is indeed a rural/urban gap in volunteering rates, with residents of rural places having a higher likelihood of volunteering. But that the gap is declining, rather than widening over time. This narrowing comes from a sharper decline in rural volunteering rates compared to a more moderate decline in urban volunteering rates. Furthermore, this decline is being driven more by a decline in secular volunteering in rural places. Additionally, because we have access to confidential-level CPS volunteering data in a secure Census Bureau Research Data Center, we can merge in county-level characteristics for all respondents. Thus, we can investigate how community context affects volunteering behaviors. This presentation describes the declining rates of volunteering among rural respondents, factors behind those declines, and the implications for policy and volunteer management.

Bio: Rebecca Nesbit, Ph.D. is an associate professor of nonprofit management in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia. Dr. Nesbit received her Ph.D. in public affairs from the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University with a specialization in public management, policy analysis, and nonprofit management. She also holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Brigham Young University.

Dr. Nesbit’s research explores issues of philanthropy and volunteerism, public policy and management in the nonprofit and public sectors. In particular, Dr. Nesbit conducts research on volunteer programs, volunteers’ characteristics and motivations, and volunteer management in public and nonprofit organizations. Her work has appeared in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Public Administration Review, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Administration & Society. Dr. Nesbit is an area editor at Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly.

February 25

Edward Walker, Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Sociology, UCLA

"Demanding Disclosure: Sources and Impacts of the Movement for Corporate Political Accountability"

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Abstract: In the absence of required disclosure of expenditures of many forms of corporate political activity in the U.S.—alongside increasing concerns about “dark money” being funneled through 501(c)4 nonprofits and other entities—shareholder activists have stepped up their campaigns to demand that firms disclose these expenditures voluntarily. These campaigns have become widespread, with a majority of S&P 500 firms facing shareholder resolutions in recent years (and many of those firms making concessions). This research examines the targeting strategies, mechanisms, and outcomes of what has come to be known as the broader movement for corporate political accountability. I discuss implications for both corporations and the nonprofit sector.

Bio: Edward T. Walker is Professor, Vice Chair, and Director of Graduate Studies in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research investigates the mobilization and outcomes of advocacy both by social movement organizations and by business firms and trade associations; his focus in recent work is on contention surrounding hydraulic fracturing for natural gas as well as efforts by activists to pressure companies to improve their political disclosure practices.

He is author of Grassroots for Hire: Public Affairs Consultants in American Democracy (Cambridge University Press, 2014), which won the 2015 Charles Tilly Award from the American Sociological Association. He is also co-editor of Democratizing Inequalities: Dilemmas of the New Public Participation (NYU Press, 2015). His research has appeared in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Social Problems, and other journals, and has been covered in the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, The Atlantic, Time, and other outlets.

March 10

Eric John Abrahamson, IAEGHSBE Fellow, Johns Hopkins University and Principal Historian, Vantage Point Historical Services

"Profit For Good: Philanthropy, the Market, and the Bonds of Civil Society in the US Since 1913"

Abstract: A fierce debate over the social and political consequences of rising income inequality is at the heart of the presidential campaign for 2020 and is likely to be a critical issue for Congress no matter who wins the presidency. Recent books like Winners Take All (Anand Giridharadas), Decolonizing Wealth (Edgar Villanueva), Just Giving (Robert Reich) and The Givers (David Callahan) have criticized the rich and pointed to the self-serving nature of philanthropy, suggesting that it is fundamentally corrosive to American democracy. Lost in this debate is the important role that philanthropy and social investment play in driving innovation and opportunity in the American economy. This paper will serve as the introduction and overview for my book-in-progress: Profit For Good. The book will highlight the role that philanthropy has played in developing talent, new knowledge, and physical infrastructure to support innovation and economic growth over the last century. Just as important, it will show how philanthropy in the United States has built and sustained institutions critical to the development of social networks and social capital, cultivating values, attitudes, and levels of trust that spark financial investment and feed the marketplace for goods and services, as well as ideas.

Yet as sociologist Daniel Bell warned 50 years ago, the balance wheel between philanthropy and the market in the United States is threatened by the postindustrial expansion of capitalism. In disparate arenas ranging from the domestic to the political, systems of social exchange that strengthened the fabric of civil society in the past are being dissolved by the substitution of depersonalized or anonymized market transactions that do little to bind people to the larger culture or society as a whole. Thus, paradoxically, the market’s expansion into the social economy now threatens to unravel the civil society that fueled its growth.

Profit for Good explores these tensions in a series of historical chapters that look at the relationship between civil society and economic growth, the changing attitudes of Americans toward the separation of non-profit from for-profit activities, and the evolution of the regulation of philanthropy and the market in the public interest.

Bio: Eric John Abrahamson is a business and economic historian who has researched and written about various regulated industries including telecommunications, financial services and electric utilities, as well as business and philanthropy in California, the United States and Canada. Abrahamson is president of Vantage Point Historical Services, Inc. He is also a fellow with the Institute of Applied Economics, Global Health and Study of Business Enterprise at Johns Hopkins University. Abrahamson received his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in 2003. His dissertation explored the relationship between innovation and regulation in the development of mobile telephony in the United States from 1947-1984.

April 7

Amir Pasic, Eugene R. Tempel Dean and Professor of Philanthropic Studies, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

"Disasters, Disruptions, and Discontinuities: What roles for philanthropy?"

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Abstract: Dean Pasic will discuss his insights on disaster philanthropy, emphasizing the role that philanthropy plays in disasters and the possible roles that philanthropy and civil society will play in future recovery and a move towards resilience. The workshop will also offer a time to gather in resources and perspectives with a view to a possible new course on disaster philanthropy. Please bring your thoughts and potential resources for an open discussion.

April 21

Laurie Paarlberg, Charles Stewart Mott Chair on Community Foundations; Professor of Philanthropic Studies, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy

"Inching to Community Leadership? And then Covid-19"

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Abstract: Over the last two decades, philanthropy thought leaders have cautioned that inescapable local and global pressures were leading community philanthropy to something new. Demographic shifts, economic restructuring, the rise of online giving platforms, and growing competition from commercial funds and other nonprofits, were all threatening traditional models of community philanthropy. To respond to these pressures, philanthropy thought leaders proposed “a new way forward” for the United Way and community foundations. What is this new way forward and are organizations moving towards community leadership?

In this presentation, my research team and I offer a beginning definition of community leadership. Then drawing upon several data collection efforts, we describe to what extent local United Ways and community foundations describe themselves as “community leaders” and the factors associated with community leadership. Finally, we move from the community landscape in February 2020 to describe the roles that community philanthropic organizations are playing in local COVID-19 responses and future research in this space.

April 28

Catherine Herrold, Assistant Professor, Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy; Faculty Affiliate, Paul H. O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs

"Delta Democracy: Civic Mobilization and Collective Action in the Face of Governance Crises"

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Abstract: In 2011, the world was captivated as citizens across the Arab world took to the streets to demand political freedom, human dignity, and economic justice. As dictators across the region were toppled, it seemed that a new era of political democracy might settle upon the Arab world. Western donors poured democracy aid into the Arab world and academics overwrote decades of literature on durable authoritarianism with new theorizing on why the revolutions occurred. During subsequent years, however, governments cracked down on civil society sectors and the citizen cohesion that undergirded mass protests fizzled. Meanwhile, widespread economic decline diverted citizens’ attention from building democracy to simply meeting their basic human needs. As the Arab Spring turned to winter, donors slashed their democracy promotion budgets and academics went back to their desks to write about why the uprisings failed.

Catherine Herrold’s new book, Delta Democracy: Pathways to Incremental Civic Revolution in Egypt and Beyond (Oxford University Press), argues that we should not overlook the ongoing mobilization taking place in grassroots civil society. In her talk, Herrold will reveal the strategies that Egyptian civil society organizations used to build a more democratic and just society through participatory processes—and how they persevered through the withdrawal of Western aid and increasingly harsh government crackdowns. These findings advance our understanding of how civil society groups maneuver under state repression to combat authoritarianism. They also offer timely lessons about how government and private grantmakers can support civil society’s efforts to overcome governance crises and build more robust, citizen-oriented democracies—both at home and abroad.

May 12

Hanan Yonah, The Federmann School of Public Policy and Government, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

"Major Life Changing Events and Prosocial Behavior: Terrorism, Mass shootings, Natural disasters, Immigration and Philanthropy"

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Abstract: In this research I investigate the relationship between significant stressors and prosocial behavior. Four types of extreme traumatic events are of particular interest due to either their relative unpredictability, exogeneity, or their temporal and spatial reoccurrences and variations: terror attacks, mass shootings, natural disasters and immigration. These events exert a physical, emotional and economic toll, and their impact is far beyond the immediate individuals involved and the surrounding communities. Theory suggests that the differing mechanisms associated with each type of event could potentially generate a range of contradicting behavioral responses in the aftermath of these events. Observed variations across time and space allowed us to study, identify and quantify different behavioral response patterns associated with each type of event. Changes in charitable giving patterns and crime rates are used as a measure for prosocial and antisocial behavior of individuals, households and communities, as a response to extreme events.

The study results show that extreme traumatic events lead to an increase of prosocial behavior in the form of higher charitable giving. Regarding natural disasters and mass shootings, the research has identified the importance of geographic proximity of the overall effects of these events. We observe a decline in philanthropic behavior within the communities where the shootings occur and the natural disasters strike, yet the overall behavioral response of the surrounding communities result in an increase in prosocial behavior. Lastly, the study results show that recent immigrants to Israel, mainly those who were born in the U.S. and other wealthy Western countries, were found to be significantly more generous than their native-born and veteran immigrant counterparts, but as time goes by residing in Israel, their giving patterns decrease, converging to the level of the native-born donors.

May 19

Michaela Neumayr, Assistant Professor, Institute for Nonprofit Management, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria

Joris M. Schröder, PhD Candidate, Faculty of Social Sciences, Vrije Universiteit (VU) Amsterdam, the Netherlands

"How Socio-Economic Inequality Affects Individuals’ Civic Engagement: A Systematic Literature Review of Empirical Findings and Theoretical Explanations"

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Abstract: Rising socio-economic inequality in many countries raises the question of how inequality affects individuals’ civic engagement in the forms of charitable giving, volunteering and non-profit membership. Though a growing body of multidisciplinary literature has started to address this issue, empirical results and the theories applied to explain this relationship vary considerably. We thus conduct a systematic literature review to (a) provide a synopsis of empirical findings and (b) identify theoretical explanations and corresponding mediating mechanisms behind this relationship. Reviewing 70 articles, we find that higher inequality is most often negatively related to civic engagement, and that this effect is moderated by individual factors, for example income and education. We further disentangle the theoretical explanations, such as social integration and conflict theory, and discuss the respective underlying mechanisms at the individual level (e.g. generalized social trust). To conclude our analysis, we conceptualize the mechanisms in a comprehensive framework for this relationship.

Instructions for Remote Access

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5) Or Skype for Business (Lync)

Downloadable calendar

The Fall Philanthropy Research Workshop calendar in .ics format can be imported to Apple iCal, Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar. View instructions.

Available soon

Philanthropy Research Workshop

Spring 2020 Schedule of Presenters

January 14

January 21

January 28

February 11

February 18

February 25

March 10

April 7

April 21

April 28

May 12

May 19

Instructions for Remote Access

Downloadable calendar

Lilly Family School of Philanthropy social media channels