Mapping NACC Centers: The Past and Future Trajectory of Academic Nonprofit Centers

Abstract

Nonprofit and philanthropic studies (NPS) as an academic field grew over the past four decades. Academic centers are more flexible entities than traditional academic structures and as such play a central role in the field’s growth. Our study maps members of the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) with specific attention on centers’ establishment and development. We survey NACC centers and review archival records to study NPS’s evolution. We find center creation clustered in the period 1999-2003, when a combination of external funding and academic growth created a favorable environment for academic entrepreneurs to establish academic centers. We illustrate two trends over the past decades. Academic centers increasingly emphasized a NPS disciplinary focus, while, in the same period, traditional university structures absorbed several centers. These two trends suggest contrasting narratives emphasizing either the field’s successful institutionalization or these centers’ loss of independence.

Building Nonprofit Management Education in the US: The Role of Centers in Supporting New Academic Disciplines

“…1249(Clausen et al, -1250. As nonprofit studies education grew, and academia retained a research focus, centers provided a venue through which to address community needs through service-learning projects and program-community partnerships (Weber & Brunt, 2021).…”

“…Data on NACC membership shows a growth from 43 in June 2006 (Young & Chapman, 2006) to 54 as of June 2019. This data, however, hides a change in composition, as a growing number of NACC members are academic programs rather than centers, with 21 out of 54 identifying as center or institute in 2019 against the 34 out of 43 in 2006 (Weber & Brunt, 2021). Indeed, much of the available research on NACC members fails to distinguish between academic programs and academic centers (as the most recent example, see Lough, 2021).…”

“…Research on nonprofit academic centers typically explores financial sustainability and activities, without fully focusing on centers' roles in institutionalizing NPS. Scholars and practitioners engaged in the building of NPS described the diversity of centers (Young & Chapman, 2006) and analyzed factors supporting the long-term success of the field's infrastructure organizations, pointing to the crucial intersection of financial sustainability and academic credibility (Larson & Long, 2000;Rooney & Burlingame, 2020;Weber & Brunt, 2021). While initially disconnected from the more practice-oriented management support organizations providing technical assistance to the nonprofit sector (Smith, 1997), centers today successfully bridge the practice-academia divide, true to their nature of boundary spanning institutions (Prentice & Brudney, 2018), although still maintaining strong and diverse research foci (Sommerfeld & Austin, 2014).…”

“…Despite nonprofit academic centers' centrality in the history of NPS, most studies fail to clearly distinguish between academic centers and academic programs (Weber & Brunt, 2021). Here we focus exclusively on academic centers, which we differentiate from degree-granting academic programs and non-degree granting academic programs.…”

“…Here we focus exclusively on academic centers, which we differentiate from degree-granting academic programs and non-degree granting academic programs. We define nonprofit academic centers as academic units outside faculty governance involved in a combination of research, outreach, and teaching activities (Weber & Brunt, 2021). By contrast, academic programs are based in departments and can be either degree granting programs (masters programs at the graduate level, or undergraduate majors awarding a BA or BS) or non-degree granting programs (a combination of courses, typically at least three, forming a graduate or undergraduate certificate, specialization, concentration, or-at the undergraduate levelacademic minor).…”