Aspen Institute Announces Latest Grants to Support Research on Non-Profit Issues

When the Aspen Institute’s Nonprofit Sector Research Fund was set up in 1991, its backers saw it as a way to enhance the scope, quality, credibility, and independence of scholarly research on the non-profit world.

Pooling grant money into a single, centralized source would make it easier and more efficient for scholars to finance high-quality research, the fund’s supporters believed. That, in turn, would help the field of philanthropic studies break free of its stereotype as a fringe discipline, an image held by many universities and foundations.

In addition, by setting up an arms-length mechanism for foundations to dole out research grants, the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund would help dispel the perception that foundations directed the research that they paid for, the fund’s supporters believed.

Many scholars say the fund, which has distributed some $5.7-million in grants, has succeeded in those tasks.

Some observers say it did not get off to a fast start, however.

“At the beginning, they tended to fund research that lobbied for the position of non-profits as a group,” says Bucknell University sociologist Carl Milofsky, “and the people who got money were more likely to be well known.”

More recently, adds Mr. Milofsky, editor in chief of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Aspen grants have been going to a new crop of scholars. And, he says, “the projects are interesting.”

The institute recently released its latest round of grants. Following are the projects and researchers that received support:

Non-profit research. To provide additional support for a study examining the revenues and expenditures of American Indian non-profit groups, the types of services they provide, their role in local economies, and their relationships to tribal governments: $15,000 to Sherry Salway Black of the First Nations Development Institute (Fredericksburg, Va.).

— To assess the role, impact, and effectiveness of Latino non-profit groups in developing, adopting, and implementing “Work First N.J.,” New Jersey’s welfare-restructuring plan: $35,000 to Maria Canino of Rutgers U. (New Brunswick, N.J.).

— To examine the contributions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and socialism in shaping non-profit groups and foundations in East Asia; to track the region’s existing and emerging foundations; and to assess the current and potential contribution of private foundations and non-profit groups to economic, social, and political reform in the region: $20,000 to Richard Estes of the U. of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia).

— To analyze the effect of El Salvador’s post-1989 transition to democracy on popular social movements in the country and their changing relationships with non-governmental organizations: $20,217 to Adam Flint of the State U. of New York at Binghamton.

— To develop the Georgia Nonprofit Information Database, which will maintain statistics on the number, type, and location of non-profit groups in the state, as well as data on staff and volunteer levels, services offered and recipients, and distribution of resources: $25,000 jointly to Thomas Holland of the U. of Georgia (Athens) and Suzanna Stribling of the Nonprofit Resource Center (Atlanta).

— To assess the characteristics of successful community-development corporations, to analyze why some neighborhoods have greater levels of “social capital” than others, and to study the effects that social capital and community-development corporations have on the quality of life in inner-city neighborhoods: $20,000 to Gibbs Knotts of Emory U. (Atlanta).

— To assess the financial status of non-profit organizations in Illinois, with an emphasis on small to medium-sized human-services and economic-development groups that serve low-income people, and to issue recommendations on what tools and investments are needed to insure the future financial health of those groups: $40,000 jointly to Trinita Logue and Marianne Philbin of the Illinois Facilities Fund (Chicago) and Valerie Lies of the Donors Forum of Chicago.

— To measure public awareness of the degree to which various types of non-profit groups rely on government support, to examine how public opinion about non-profit sources of income relates to the financial status of non-profit groups, and to analyze the effect that financial-disclosure requirements and greater public education about government support might have on the public’s willingness to make charitable contributions: $35,000 jointly to Jon Pratt and Chris Sullivan of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits (St. Paul).

— To analyze the proliferation of non-profit policy-research institutes since 1970, to examine how and why “think tanks” constitute a distinct and politically influential type of non-profit organization, and to assess the ways in which contemporary think tanks shape and influence American politics and public policy: $20,000 to Andrew Rich of Yale U. (New Haven, Conn.).

— To document the role and efficiency of charitable efforts in fighting hunger in America, using data collected from the Second Harvest food-bank network: $20,000 to David VanAmburg of the VanAmburg Group (Erie, Pa.).

— To study international non-governmental organizations, their electronic networks, and the ways in which those networks have promoted the development of “international communities” focusing on areas of shared interest: $13,430 to Craig Warkentin of the U. of Kentucky (Lexington).

For more information, contact the Aspen Institute Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, 1333 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W., Suite 1070, Washington 20036; (202) 736-5800; World-Wide Web: http://www.aspeninst.org/dir/polpro/NSRF/NSFRF.html