Academic centers are similar to academic departments in several ways. They often have similar missions centered on research, teaching, and outreach. Centers and departments are both primarily staffed by faculty members or personnel with advanced degrees. Both also often rely on a mix of internal and external funding (Sharp-Pucci et al., 1994). As members of the broader academic community, both departments and centers are influenced by the culture of higher education.

In other ways, however, academic departments and academic centers are quite dissimilar. Center activities tend to be more precisely defined and task-oriented than departments. Centers tend to be interdisciplinary–drawing on faculty and literature from more than one university department or discipline. Departments, in contrast, are typically organized around a single discipline. Centers also typically rely less on institutional funding than do academic departments.

Centers have become a mechanism through which higher education institutions can become more responsive to the communities they serve and move beyond the boundaries and traditions that often constrain departments. Centers tend to be boundary-spanning organizations–facilitating the flow of information between the university and its environment.

Centers are more flexible organizational structures than are academic departments. While departments are bound by policies, practices, and traditions, centers are expected to respond more quickly to the needs and requirements of research patrons and sponsors (Stahler and Tash, 1994). Thus, centers may change their staffing, their programs, perhaps even their mission, in response to societal demands for new knowledge (Geiger, 1990). Related to this point, Sharp-Pucci et al. (1994) describe an "atmosphere of impermanence" about centers because staff, programs, funding support, and other resources are likely to be in flux.

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• Academic centers and academic departments often have similar missions, are staffed by faculty, and influence the culture of higher education.

• Centers tend to be more task-focused and interdisciplinary than academic departments.

• Centers tend to be boundary-spanning organizations that connect academic interests with external stakeholders.

• Centers are flexible organizations that can change staffing and programs in response to societal demands for new knowledge.

What gives rise to the creation of a nonprofit center? We found that nonprofit centers develop from the interests of individual faculty members and university administrators, and through the influence of external funders–primarily family, private, and community foundations.

The push for forming academic nonprofit centers typically comes from within the university and consists of faculty interests coalescing with support from key administrative leaders. One nonprofit center director told us, "I got this idea to start a center on nonprofit studies, and went to two deans who knew me and had confidence in my ability to bring off the program." Faculty interest and administrative support came together at another nonprofit center where the director said that a couple of faculty got "excited about the idea of starting a center" and the provost at the time "loved the vision, loved everything, would come to every meeting" and supported the idea. At another nonprofit center, the internal push "actually came from the administration; the president and provost at the time decided this was an important idea." The administrators then brought the director into the center.

External funders–particularly family, private, and community foundations–can be catalysts in the development of a nonprofit academic center. One nonprofit center director said the idea for his center, and the impetus for its development, "originally came from a local family foundation that got other funders involved in the notion." These external funders provided the capital and the university supplied the space and human resources to start the center. A similar story is told by another director who said that the original idea or push for the center came from a foundation program officer. This same foundation later became the major funder for that center.

In some cases, though not typically, demands by students and practitioners for more training and information may jump-start the creation of an academic nonprofit center. One nonprofit center director said that the push for his center came, more or less, from "a group of professionals whose special education needs were not being provided by any other graduate educational programs." The educational interests and needs of students and practitioners are often used by nonprofit center directors as one way to validate the need for the center and sometimes as a way to show how the program can connect the university with the community. However, student and practitioner demand alone does not give rise to the creation of nonprofit centers. The bigger push for nonprofit center development comes from faculty and administrators, and from external funders.

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"Two private foundations have helped us and we have had some very good support from a department chair. But centers also need a president or a provost or a dean who understands what is going on and the value of this field."

The study of nonprofit management is closely linked to the study of public administration (Mirabella and Wish, 2001). This finding is consistent with the location of many nonprofit centers. Of the 34 universities associated with the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC)1 , 15 are in or affiliated with colleges or departments in public administration, public policy, or government. For example, the Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Grand Valley State University is in the School of Public and Nonprofit Administration; the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University is located within the School of Government; and the Institute for Nonprofit Management at Portland State University is in the School of Public Administration. The second most common disciplinary affiliation among the NACC members is schools of business or management. For example, the Center for Nonprofit Management at Northwestern University is in the School of Management, and the Center for Nonprofit Management at St. Thomas University is in the Graduate School of Business. Several NACC centers affiliate with more than one college or department. For example, the director of the Mandel Center at Case Western Reserve University reports to the deans of the Colleges of Applied Social Science, Management, and Law; and the Program on Nonprofit and Public Management at the University of Michigan is a collaboration among the Colleges of Business, Public Policy, and Social Work.

Several of the NACC members are free-standing units where the director does not report to a dean, but to a provost or vice president of the university. For example, the nonprofit program at Tufts University is now the University College of Citizenship and Public Service. At The Union Institute, the director of the Center on Public Policy reports to the Office for Social Responsibility. The director of the Center for Community Partnerships at the University of Pennsylvania reports to the Office of the Vice President for Government, Community and Public Affairs and to the provost. A couple of NACC members are affiliated with schools of social work, schools of professional studies, law programs, or continuing education offices.

Young (1998) points out that nonprofit centers within a single school have the difficult task of convincing their colleagues in a relatively homogeneous disciplinary area of the importance of the field of nonprofit studies, though it may be an easier case to make in an area like public administration. A center within a single school may, however, have a better chance of getting its priorities taken seriously because it competes within a relatively smaller unit and relates more directly to the interests of that unit. Young also points out the advantages and challenges of freestanding, interdisciplinary centers. These centers can define programs on their own terms without having to conform to the interests of a particular school or discipline. They may also be able to more easily draw together faculty with interests in nonprofit studies. However, they cannot "command the priorities of the schools on which they draw, and they must operate purely on a quid pro quo basis in order to secure faculty participation and other needed resources" (Young, 1998, p. 130).

The variety of disciplinary arrangements and reporting lines suggest that there is no one disciplinary affiliation or organizational model that is "right" for a nonprofit center. Public administration, public policy, and government affairs may be the most common disciplinary affiliation, but it would not be unusual to see nonprofit centers affiliate with other social science or health and human oriented disciplines. Each organizational model (e.g., a unit within a department or college, a freestanding unit) has advantages and disadvantages. Young (1998) suggests that to overcome organizational or structural difficulties, nonprofit centers may need to transform into more traditional academic units such as schools or colleges, but he also says that such a transformation may be a long time coming.

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The Missions of Nonprofit Centers

Although nonprofit centers share a common mission–to understand and improve the third sector–they each focus on varying aspects of this mission. Under the umbrella of the third sector, some academic nonprofit centers focus on philanthropy and civic engagement while others focus on management and policy issues. Taken as a whole, these centers often complement rather than compete with each other. One nonprofit center director said he saw no reason to offer a nonprofit management program because another school "right down the street" was doing so and "there is no reason to duplicate that." The distinctions and complementary missions among nonprofit centers are not accidental. It seems that in this new area of study, key players–such as the center directors of the initial academic nonprofit centers–looked for unique niches within the field so that their contributions were not redundant and helped to expand the knowledge base of the field.

Academic nonprofit centers typically begin with narrow missions, perhaps focused on a single activity such as teaching or a single topic such as fundraising. However, their missions often expand over time as directors and staff broaden the scope of activities a center undertakes. One nonprofit center director said, "Initially, the center was focused on instructional outreach. But you can’t really have a great center without a good research program and a great community service. So we broadened the mission of the center." Missions also change over time by nonprofit centers expanding the range of topics they address. One center director said that with his appointment to the position, his nonprofit center "moved away from the focus of citizen participation and towards an emphasis on nonprofit leadership and management."

Nonprofit centers appear to become more inclusive of activities and topics, overtime. This is a "uniqueness" of academic centers–the ability to make changes to meet societal demands and environmental opportunities. Yet there is a consistency of mission across the nonprofit centers and that is their focus on the third sector.

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Academic-Practitioners

Most nonprofit center directors have doctoral degrees. Their degrees are from disciplines such as engineering, urban studies and planning, public administration, education, and business administration. For some nonprofit center directors, their involvement in nonprofit studies began early in their careers. One director told us that since graduate school she had been "facilitating a lot of consulting with nonprofit boards, sitting on nonprofit boards, my research was on nonprofit boards, and I was just simply interested in nonprofits." For other center directors, their involvement in nonprofit studies and philanthropy was happenstance. One nonprofit center director said:

After I got my Ph.D., I went to a research institute. Most of the projects developed there were about privatization and new ways to provide public services and different institutional arrangements. That got me interested in the economics of public service. In the context of those projects, nonprofits sort of popped up–so that was kind of the genesis of it. I then had in the back of my mind that at some point I might want to try academia and was recruited to a university.

Many nonprofit center directors have had careers outside of academe. To varying extents, many were working in the nonprofit, governmental, or commercial sectors. Center directors we talked with had held positions in public and private K-12 education, nonprofit organizations such as the Peace Corps and youth camps, and one had been the president of an international corporate foundation. The diversity in the education and work experiences of directors may contribute to the building and expansion of centers as they draw on management and personnel skills developed in non-academic arenas. It is also possible that the prior nonprofit work experiences help these directors to empathize with practitioners and develop responsive programming. The diverse backgrounds of many directors, oftentimes rooted in nonprofit practice, may provide the grounding for centers to be more responsive to community concerns than might be the case if the directors came from a more traditional academic career path.

Boundary Spanners and Networkers

Nonprofit center directors straddle many environments–networking and linking with people on- and off-campus to garner financial and human resources to meet the challenges of building centers. Center directors engage in what the literature refers to as boundary spanning.

Boundary spanners are concerned with representing or protecting the integrity of their business or academic center. They are always monitoring, scanning, and being a gatekeeper of their environment; and always building, linking, and coordinating different types of relationships (At-Twaijri and Montanari, 1987). The interdisciplinary nature of academic nonprofit centers and their close connection with communities also often requires center directors to play a boundary-spanning role. In addition, center directors must work with faculty members from different disciplines and bring them together to carry out the mission and objectives of the center–they are constantly maintaining and building good relationships with faculty members, and fulfilling their needs, while keeping the integrity of the program intact.

One nonprofit center director describes his role as "an interesting inside-outside role where I am dealing with diverse constituents in many institutions and bridging with significant local and national external constituents … so what you learn in the process of that is helpful with other challenges." When asked how the challenge of building an academic nonprofit center was met, one center director said, "I boundary span within the institution–with the president’s office, with the development office, and with some other divisions of the college. But," he added, "my focus is also external." A third center director says of her role:

There’s a lot of relationship building that has to be done. You have to find and cultivate potential allies when you start building these centers and programs. … It could be a university administrator, it could be a faculty member, and it could be a friendly development officer with the university.

Consistent with networking and boundary spanning, building effective relationships requires the center directors to believe in their "cause." One director talks about the importance of relationships in the development and subsequent sustainability of nonprofit academic centers:

It starts with the notion that there’s something of value here to be achieved and a pretty strong commitment to that notion. Then there’s this ability to enthuse other people of the same thing. That’s really the basis for the relationship building.

Academic Entrepreneurs

In many instances, center directors are similar to corporate or social entrepreneurs. Nonprofit center directors are highly committed to an idea or cause, are innovative, draw from a set of varied work and professional experiences, and take risks. Perhaps these directors can be best described as "academic entrepreneurs."

Nonprofit center directors are not always the ones to conceive of the need for an academic center. Sometimes it is a university administrator or external funding agent who gives rise to the creation of the nonprofit center, but it is center directors who expand the missions of centers, develop partnerships with communities, and link the centers with the larger network of nonprofit researchers and academicians. Center directors are entrepreneurial–finding ways to address and overcome funding problems, while encouraging faculty involvement, support of university leadership, and the visibility of the field. Sometimes they use managerial strategies, such as negotiating tuition returns with university administrators or using money to recruit faculty. But oftentimes they champion these challenges by relying on their interpersonal relationships both within and outside of the university.

Part 1 - How Centers Work

Part 3 - How Centers Work

• Academic nonprofit center directors typically have doctorates. Their advanced degrees cover a range of disciplines including engineering, urban studies and planning, public administration, education, and business administration.

• Nonprofit center directors often have experience working in the nonprofit, governmental, or commercial sectors prior to their roles in academe. Thus, many center directors have experience that traditional academics may lack.

• Nonprofit center directors’ educational and professional on-the-job experiences help them to empathize with practitioners and develop programs that are responsive to community concerns.

• Nonprofit center directors are boundary spanners and must network and build relationships with key constituents–within and external to the university. These relationships contribute to both institutional and financial support.

• Center directors are academic entrepreneurs–they are innovators, risk takers, and highly committed to the field.