Indiana’s Two Programs Prepare Charity Executives and Researchers

January 8, 2004 | Read Time: 11 minutes

For four years after she earned her undergraduate degree, Ann Harris worked as an administrator in a soup

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kitchen in North Carolina — and did a lot of soul searching.

“I learned that social work was not right for me, but I still liked being in nonprofits,” she says. “I felt that I was going to need more education to be able to continue in progressively responsible positions.”

She set her sights on a public-affairs degree, and eventually returned to her home state in 2001 to enroll in the master’s program at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. There, she worked on a dual degree — a master’s in public affairs with a concentration in nonprofit management and a master’s of arts in philanthropic studies.

“The mix of liberal-arts classes with very practical, hands-on classes was very attractive to me,” she says.

Her immersion in nonprofit education, she says, paid off: In November — a month before her graduation — Ms. Harris accepted a job as a donor-relations manager at the Indiana chapter of the Nature Conservancy. “I believe that my education shone through in the interview,” she says. “The interview made it clear that I have a good theoretical framework for fund raising. I was able to communicate with them at a high level about their fund-raising goals and their strategic plan.”

Indiana has staked out a niche in the nonprofit-management field by offering the two degrees Ms. Harris received. Both are collaborative efforts between schools at the university and the Center on Philanthropy, which opened in 1987 and has provided the nonprofit world with some of its most authoritative research, including its annual “Giving USA” report. The center has also just added a doctoral program in philanthropic studies, the first of its kind in the nation.

Although not every student seeking a career in charities would opt for a program so immersed in theory and academic research, Indiana vies with Case Western Reserve University as the most frequently cited by nonprofit-management educators as a model in the field.

“They’ve attracted really senior faculty, and they do great research there, and they have become a voice for the whole country in nonprofit studies,” says Robert Glavin, who teaches in the University of San Francisco’s nonprofit-administration program and does management consulting for Bay Area charities.

Indiana’s status lies in its roster of researchers, says Naomi Wish, director of the Center for Public Service at Seton Hall University. The center not only excels in its scholarly research, she says, but also maintains strong ties to grass-roots organizations.

Grant makers seem to agree with this assessment, and their support over the years has helped build Indiana’s Center on Philanthropy and its academic offerings. For example, the Lilly Endowment, in Indianapolis, has long supported Indiana. Since 1987, it has given about $30-million to the Center on Philanthropy, says Gretchen Wolfram, the endowment’s communications director. “The hope is that these graduates will eventually be more effective in the field,” says Ms. Wolfram. “Of course, you don’t need a master’s to be effective in the field, but it’s an added dimension to the whole operation of the nonprofit sector.”

Courses of Study

About half of all master’s of public-affairs candidates at Indiana take the nonprofit-management concentration, which was created in 1991. Indiana’s public-affairs program is growing rapidly, fueled in part by the concentration’s popularity, says Debra Mesch, director of graduate programs at the university’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs: In 2000, the 48-credit master’s program had 133 enrolled students, and three years later, it had 236. The school also offers a nondegree certificate in nonprofit management, which is available in-person or online, with 165 students currently enrolled.

The public-affairs courses, she says, broaden students’ understanding of the charitable field. “Any student who graduates wanting to work in the nonprofit sector will also have to understand the public and private sectors,” says Ms. Mesch. “No sector is discrete — there’s not a silo effect anymore.”

Philanthropic studies, the 36-credit master’s program created in 1993, encompasses 21 academic departments and includes courses on the history of giving and charities, the role of religion and ethnic traditions, and the boundaries imposed by the legal system. “We believe that the nonprofit sector is an important part of the U.S. economy, and all of that requires academic preparation and research so we can understand why some nonprofits make it and some don’t,” says Constance M. Baker, director of graduate programs at the Center on Philanthropy. Although philanthropic-studies degree holders work in a variety of nonprofit jobs, she says, the largest numbers work in fund raising and at foundations.

Jill Robinson Kramer, who earned the philanthropic-studies degree in 1999, says that while she has found the practical courses, such as those in the law or budgeting, useful, the liberal-arts bent of the philanthropic-studies major has helped her develop her analytical capabilities. “Being a critical thinker and a problem solver, those are the skills most beneficial to my job now,” says Ms. Kramer, who is an associate program officer at the Lumina Foundation for Education, in Indianapolis.

Twenty-five students are currently enrolled in a credit program that enables them to earn both the philanthropic studies degree and the master’s in philanthropic studies.

“It’s a strength that we have the philanthropic studies option here,” says Ms. Harris. “The theory classes will really serve me well in the long run. The practical courses help in the short run, but the theory classes help you see the bigger picture. I think they really enhance the students’ ability to become true nonprofit professionals.”

The dual degree, Ms. Mesch says, can give students a career edge.

“Our students are very well trained to go in either route,” she says. “If they want to be a practicing manager, they have those tools and practical skills. If they want to go on for a Ph.D., they have that strong foundation in theoretical background research and writing a master’s thesis. It gives them a different perspective than you would get in most M.P.A. programs.”

The university also offers an executive master’s degree in philanthropic studies that is partially completed online. Last year, the university added a 90-credit Ph.D. program in philanthropic studies, which will begin enrolling students this fall. The Center on Philanthropy, looking toward the future, is also planning dual-degree programs that combine philanthropic studies with information technology and with library science, says Ms. Baker.

Before enrolling at Indiana to pursue her dual degree in philanthropic studies and public affairs, Wendy L. Chun-Hoon worked at the Children’s Media Project, a small nonprofit group in Poughkeepsie, N.Y. “I loved the work I was doing, but I was quickly going to burn out,” she says. “And that was really the sentiment of a lot of young people I was working with in the field.”

Frustration with the limits a small charity faces in carrying out its mission drove her — and, she notes, many of her Indiana classmates — to seek out more education about their field.

Ms. Chun-Hoon, who finished her dual degree in 2001 and now works as a program associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, in Baltimore, says Indiana’s programs are equally accessible to recent college graduates, businesspeople who are curious about the nonprofit world, and charity veterans.

Also, she says, the institution is generous with financial aid: “Whether they are fellowships, university scholarships, or work-study stipends, almost every student is covered.”

From Theory to Practice

The university looks to local charities to help extend students’ learning experience, says Ms. Mesch, and considers the city a prime location for furthering that goal.

“Indianapolis is a wonderful city for nonprofits,” she says. The city is home to two of the nation’s largest foundations, the Lilly Endowment and the Lumina Foundation, and of the National Committee on Planned Giving.

The institution works hard to maintain ties with Indianapolis charities, an effort Ms. Mesch largely credits to the Center on Philanthropy, which organizes conferences and workshops, and offers courses to working professionals via its Fund Raising School and its executive master’s program.

“The Center on Philanthropy is not just seen as an academic community housed at Indiana University,” says Ms. Mesch.

Students serve as interns at local organizations, providing extra labor that many groups need in a time of budget cuts and layoffs. (Nonprofit work experience — gained either through students’ previous jobs or via internships — is a requirement of both the nonprofit-management and philanthropic-studies programs.)

Teresa Rhodes, vice president of development and marketing at Keep Indianapolis Beautiful, praises the Indiana students who have done work for her civic group as interns or as part of class projects. One group of students, for example, designed the organization’s Web site, and interns most often perform prospect research and grant-proposal writing tasks.

She says that the students are uncommonly mature and directed. “Lots of times — and I’ve worked with hundreds of interns over the years — people come in not sure what they want to do. And that’s a very valid reason to do an internship, to explore the fields that are out there for them,” she says. “But students who come here from Indiana have already determined this is the track that they’re taking. They’re more focused. Their map is drawn.”

Growing Pains and Promise

However well-regarded and multifaceted Indiana’s programs are, say alumni, prospective students should still carefully consider their personal needs before applying. As much as Ms. Kramer felt rewarded by her choice of philanthropic studies, she allows that it is not for every nonprofit-minded student.

“The program’s strength — the fact that it’s a broad-based liberal-arts program — could also be a weakness from someone else’s perspective,” she says. “I look at it as a strength, because I was using the master’s program as a way to explore a wide range of opportunities, to sort of help build my career path. But if a student has a clear idea of where he or she wants to go in the nonprofit sector, the philanthropic-studies program may not be the best fit because you don’t specifically focus on finances, or management, or something like that.”

More financial support of the academic programs would improve the quality of the experience, says Ms. Harris.

“Some of our classes, especially on the M.P.A. side, are too large,” she says. “We’d benefit from having more classes with under 20 students, and many are 30 or more.”

Online Programs

The university, says Ms. Mesch, hopes to expand its online curriculum in the near future, recruiting students for its Web-based certificate program in nonprofit management nationally and internationally as well as regionally.

And it has pinned hope on its new doctoral program, she says, betting it will confer greater authority on the field overall. “The field of philanthropic or nonprofit studies is going to be more of a recognized discipline,” says Ms. Mesch. “We are creating and answering the research questions through Ph.D. and master’s dissertations and theses.”

In the coming years, she says, more graduates may turn to academe rather than nonprofit practice as a career path.

“The Center on Philanthropy has many more resources than many academic units on the campus, so they draw in faculty to work on research with them,” she says. “And we’ve just collected some wonderful databases, which are going to help our students, especially on developing our Ph.D. program. Our Ph.D. students can really dig around in there and create some wonderful dissertations.”

INDIANA UNIVERSITY-PURDUE UNIVERSITY

Program: Master of public affairs in nonprofit management

Offered by: School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis, and School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University at Bloomington

Location: Indianapolis, Bloomington

Number of enrolled students: 260 (Indianapolis campus), 319 (Bloomington campus)

Average number of M.P.A. students admitted each year: 150 (Indianapolis), 684 (Bloomington)

Percentage of M.P.A. students who apply who are admitted: 51 (Indianapolis), 42 (Bloomington)

Tuition costs: $186.65 per credit for Indiana residents, $538.60 for nonresidents (Indianapolis); $247.55 per credit for Indiana residents, $671.20 for nonresidents (Bloomington)

Percentage of students who receive financial aid: 40 (Indianapolis), 30 (Bloomington)

Percentage who attend full time: 62 (Indianapolis), 98 (Bloomington)

Age range of students: 27 to 49 (Indianapolis), not available (Bloomington)

Average class size: 30 to 40 students (both campuses)

Web site: http://www.philanthropy.iupui.edu

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Program: Master of arts in philanthropic studies

Offered by: School of Liberal Arts, Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis

Location: Indianapolis

Number of enrolled students: 108

Average number of students admitted each year: 47

Percentage of students who apply who are admitted: 59