“Our firm prefers to support ‘boots on the ground’,” the president of a major investment firm told me in turning down our funding proposal for an expanded graduate education serving the philanthropic and nonprofit sector. While disappointed, I applauded this interest in supporting service-providing organizations.

Small, grassroots charities dedicated to causes outside the ‘mainstream’ have been hit the hardest by the steady decline in the number of donors who give modest or small amounts (, 2023). In particular, B3 (Black-led, -serving and -focused) organizations historically have received a minuscule amount of philanthropic funding, as revealed by the (on which the MPNL program collaborated).

The Essential Contributions to the Charity Ecosystem

In a 2023 op-ed in The Globe and Mail, Lisa Wolverton (President of the Philanthropy Workshop Canada) admonished philanthropy to change: “Charitable donations must go directly to communities. . . It’s time more donors put funds directly into the hands of local leaders, giving them crucial decision-making power.”

I agree. But, with an addendum – that may not be a popular one.

Community-based, service-providing organizations are part of a larger ecosystem or, in business language, they’re part of and depend upon a ‘supply chain’ that provides a wide range of vital inputs and supports. As with an environmental ecosystem, the charitable/social purpose one has multiple niches, each of which makes distinctive contributions. But, these niche parts of the ecosystem are often invisible to those, including donors, who don’t work in this sector. To name a few of these essential contributions:

• Umbrella and membership organizations and communities of practice facilitate information sharing, so organizations better appreciate what works and what doesn’t, and thus, organizations don’t have to ‘reinvent wheels.’
• Universities and colleges provide professional education and training that help local leaders and employees of community-based groups be more effective in their work and build more vibrant, sustainable organizations.
• Infrastructure organizations, such as , and advocacy groups, such as , lead collective action and advocacy that help local organizations bring about social change.
• Other infrastructure organizations and coalitions are assisting small nonprofits to navigate the digital transformation and make better use of data, leading to more efficient and effective administration and service delivery.
• Community-serving foundations, like the , and place-based community foundations convene and support local leadership and inform key stakeholders about community.
• Research projects, such as ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University’s Charity Insights Canada Project (CICP) and the surveys conducted by national and provincial infrastructure organizations, help community nonprofits and the broader sector understand trends that directly affect their work.

The ‘Boots on the Ground’ Need a Ground, Not to Mention an Infrastructure

Canadian philanthropy tends to overlook this supporting infrastructure or doesn’t appreciate the potential return on investment in it, and thus starves it of funding. This has negative consequences for those with ‘boots on the ground’, as they miss out on sources of professional development and leadership training, learning for innovation, and collaborative efforts for social change.

My case isn’t to divert support from community-based charities and nonprofits, particularly from those focused on causes and communities that are marginalized or historically excluded. Rather, we also need to recognize the value of and direct support to the broader infrastructure for the sector – for collective action and learning, advocacy, digital transformation, and yes, for education and research. Such funding doesn’t need to detract from that which flows to local communities but can amplify its impact.

Foundations, corporations and philanthropists making major contributions are the likely investors in this infrastructure. However, many don’t like to support advocacy, networking, research or professional education (except in medicine and business). While more foundations are indicating they support sector capacity-building, it’s often not clear what this means or how deep and advanced such work is. In many cases, the impediment is a lack of knowledge of who does what in the sector ecosystem. Enhancing this understanding may take some work by the sector and by the media who report in such limited ways about it.

While it’s not popular to seek funding for a university’s part in this ecosystem, as there are so many other immediate needs and worthwhile organizations, I’ll continue to press the case for the value of investing in education and research for the sector – as well as the case for supporting other important parts of the sector’s infrastructure.

Dr. Susan Phillips is on . Banner photo is courtesy of Clay Banks.

As we begin a new year, many Canadians may still be feeling the warm glow from making or catching up on charitable contributions at year’s end or helping out friends and neighbours over the holidays. While philanthropy can produce both individual and societal benefits, it has come under hyper-criticism in recent years: as colonial, built upon and reinforcing inequality, ineffective, selfish, and more.

The criticisms have become so intense that Beth Breeze was prompted to make a positive case for philanthropy in her 2022 book, . While many of the critiques are actually aimed at the inequality of wealth rather than philanthropy per se, there’s no doubt that philanthropy could do much better than it does. Even some supporters of our proposal to establish a school of philanthropy have suggested we not call it ‘philanthropy’ because the term has become so misunderstood.

A Rethinking & Rebranding

Rather than abandon the concept of philanthropy, however, I suggest it would benefit from some rethinking and rebranding to better reflect its potential to be both more diverse and more inclusive.

Read the previous installment of the Building Bridges series “The Benefits of a School of Philanthropy in Canada,” by Dr. Susan Phillips.

The traditional and still very popular view is that philanthropy is ‘the love of humankind,’ a definition that derives from the Greek myth of Prometheus Bound some 2500 years ago. While this promotes a warm glow and can be inspiring, it conflates philanthropy with altruism (or sometimes with generosity). Altruism is certainly an important motivation for philanthropy, but not all philanthropy is driven by altruism. Rather, I may give and volunteer simply because a friend asked me, or I enjoy the social aspects, or I have a desire for recognition with my name on a building.

A more instrumental definition, one that is favoured by academics, is that philanthropy is ‘the intentional use of private resources (time, treasure, talent and things) for public purposes.’  This view is agnostic to motivations. It is inclusive of giving, volunteering and other forms of participation. It does not assume that philanthropy necessarily produces positive outcomes or social good as even well-intentioned philanthropy can produce null or negative results.

While technically precise, this definition is not very catching or inspiring.  As an open-ended concept, however, it facilitates movements that seek to maximize the benefits of philanthropy, either to society or the donor. For instance, “effective philanthropy [altruism – EA]” aims to help donors do the most good by applying ‘scientific’ means of determining which causes will benefit the most people (see the PANL series on EA by Calum Carmichael). ‘Community philanthropy’ seeks to shift power and share decision-making with beneficiaries and historically marginalized communities.  Its conceptual cousin, ‘justice philanthropy,’ addresses social and economic inequities and structural racism through systems change and strives to empower equity-deserving communities. Shifting the focus to the donor, ‘virtue philanthropy’ focuses on enabling donors to lead fulfilled and virtuous lives through their giving.

Philanthropy as a Practice of Citizenship

While these hyphenated forms of philanthropy push philanthropy to do better, my preferred definition is this: Philanthropy is the practice of citizenship – how people engage in and with their communities, however they define ‘community.’ This view of philanthropy has roots in late 18^th century Enlightenment France where philanthropie was positioned as a secular alternative to ‘charity’ (in which the advantaged helped the disadvantaged for love of God) and where it was called upon to encourage collective action to address social ills (, 2020).

Read another installment in the “Building Bridges” series by Dr. Susan Phillips: “Education & Research Infrastructure for the Nonprofit & Philanthropic Sector: Canada as Laggard.”

My roots in the concept of citizenship are more recent, drawing on the work of ‘citizenship regimes’ with my past PhD Supervisor, Jane Jenson (note to PhD students: supervisors never fade). The exercise of citizenship isn’t based on nationality or defined by passports but refers to how citizens relate to each other (as well as to the state). This relationship involves rights and responsibilities and creates a sense of belonging (or negatively, exclusion). Philanthropy as the exercise of citizenship embraces both the individual and collective community; it involves actions of all types (giving, volunteering, helping others and activism) and implies equity among citizens – unless we treat some as ‘second-class’ citizens, which needs to be called out.

In practice, philanthropy often falls short of promoting active citizenship.  One reason is an information deficit: we don’t give or participate because we don’t know which organizations to engage with that will make a difference. This, in turn, is part of an overall ‘data deficit’ in the sector, which is the topic of a future piece. While I’m quite content with the goal of creating a school of ‘philanthropy,’ we need to work on making the practice of philanthropy more accessible, collective, inclusive and impactful.

PS: For those interested in a history of philanthropy, our MPNL colleague, Calum Carmichael, is the only scholar I know who can cover thousands of years of its development in a single lecture. Note this was recorded for an MPNL class during COVID, and thus lacks the ‘bells and whistles’ of a professional production. It’s distinctive for its content: Dr. Calum Carmichael on .

Dr. Susan Phillips is on . Banner photo is courtesy of Arnold Dogelis.

How would Canada benefit from a school of philanthropy? I suggest three primary ways.

Visibility, Credibility & Legitimacy

First, a school would bring visibility and credibility to the philanthropic and nonprofit sector – a sector that lacks public awareness and struggles to be taken seriously in public policy. As any successful nonprofit professional knows, management and leadership within the sector are not the same as in business or government. Instead, nonprofit professionals address a distinctive set of challenges and require a unique set of knowledge and skills. Through graduate education tailored to this sector, we can produce leaders who are better prepared to excel. A school would also create greater legitimacy within academia for the study of the sector, thereby expanding the provision and use of such research, as well as increase the demand for it (Weber & Brunt, 2022).

Mobilizer, Multiplier & Academic Entrepreneurs

Second, a school would be a mobilizer and multiplier to build capacity within this field of study and education. Faculty not only attract and educate undergraduate and master’s students, but also mentor doctoral students and post-doctoral fellows. These in turn go into research and leadership positions, whether in the sector or in other universities, government departments, financial institutions, and consulting firms. A corpus of faculty serving as ‘academic entrepreneurs’ can leverage new resources through research grants, Mitacs collaborations, and philanthropic contributions. They produce research relevant to the sector and to public policy, supervise student experiential learning, and build partnerships with sector organizations. None of this is possible with instructors hired on a temporary contract basis or with project-based funding. It takes a critical mass of permanent positions.

Effectiveness & Impact

Read the next installment of this series: “Education & Research Infrastructure for the Nonprofit & Philanthropic Sector: Canada as Laggard.”

And third, the ultimate benefit of a school would be to enhance the effectiveness and impact of charities, nonprofit and foundations, provide evidence for more informed public policies, and contribute to a more vibrant culture of giving and volunteering.

The need is there. But how do we create a school of philanthropy for Canada? We build on success. We build on the MPNL program. And we partner with individuals, foundations and corporations who recognize and value the work of philanthropy and nonprofits, and who join us in seeking to make that work even better.

Dr. Susan Phillips is on . Banner photo is courtesy of Max Larochelle.

By Dr. Susan Phillips.

Why does Canada lag far behind other countries in supporting graduate education and research for the philanthropic and nonprofit sector? There are numerous specialized centres and programs in Europe and the UK, with a new one recently established at Oxford. China, too, has created a wide range of centres and schools at its top universities and has generated 5,346 doctoral and master’s theses on nonprofit research over the past twenty years (Yang & You, 2020).

A comparison with the US is particularly instructive for understanding not only why Canadian education and research in the field remains under-developed, but also how to strengthen this infrastructure in our country.

The US has 160 graduate programs with a concentration in nonprofit management and philanthropic studies (NMPS) including 35 full Master’s programs (Mirabella et al., 2019). In addition, there are 31 centres or institutes (which have direct reporting lines to a dean or provost) on NMPS that support research as well as professional development (Weber & Brunt, 2022). Canada has only one graduate program – the Master of Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership, at ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University.

Private Investment and Transformative Gifts

Population size does not account for this big difference. Rather, in the US, private investment was an important mobilizer and continues to be a key factor in building the education and research infrastructure. Beginning in the 1980s, foundations supported the creation of graduate programs with the aim of enhancing management practices in the sector and building bridges between practice and academia (Weber & Brunt, 2022).

This initial investment had a multiplier effect. Educational programs hired faculty who brought in graduate students and research funding. These, in turn, led to the establishment of programs and centres at other universities, generating even greater demand. All of this required and received new philanthropic support that made it possible to create centres and research chairs across universities, and through them provide for diversification and specialization – as with, say, the Eileen Lamb O’Gara Endowed Chair in Women’s Philanthropy, the Frey Foundation Chair in Family Philanthropy, and the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation Chair on Community Foundations.

A transformative gift from the Lilly family and Lilly Endowment established the , at Indiana University, in 2012. The Lilly Family School has become the world’s premier academic institution in the field hosting 19 core faculty (among other instructors) and offering a PhD, Professional Doctorate, Master’s and undergraduate degrees in philanthropy.

The recognition of the need to invest in education and research infrastructure for the sector has largely been absent in Canada. An additional constraint has been the absence of a natural academic home for NMPS within universities. The likely disciplines of Political Science and Sociology have long abandoned any interest in philanthropy or nonprofit studies (as opposed to social movement studies) (Skocpol, 2016).

What Happened In Canada?

In the US, a home was found in schools of public administration that were adept at adding nonprofit management to their existing repertoire of public management programs (Saidel & Smith, 2015). While Canada has a large number of well-established schools of public administration, they tend to be more focused on public policy and the study of administration from an institutional perspective, rather than on management. That ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´â€™s MPNL is housed in a school of public administration, which is part of a unique Faculty of Public Affairs, is a function of the initiative by its founding academic entrepreneurs (as will be discussed in a following piece), rather than a welcoming field of public administration comparable to the US. (Note that the School of Public Administration at the University of Victoria has a Masters of Community Development.)

The study of nonprofits and their relationships with governments has been further inhibited by a lack of visibility in Canada both among governments and among scholars who study governance. Neoliberalism and New Public Management became prominent in the 1980s, encouraging governments to contract out or privatize more services. Nonprofits were conceived of simply as alternative service providers – undifferentiated from private sector firms in spite of their distinctive roles in civil society. The government-nonprofit relationship continues to be overlooked in scholarship and in practice.

When Canadian universities have taken an interest in NMPS education, they took an inexpensive route, due in part to fiscal austerity, by offering certificates through continuing education (Mirabella et al., 2022). Because certificate programs are usually taught by temporary contract instructors and are offered on a cost-recovery basis, they are less costly than investing in permanent faculty or degree programs and centres. While this non-degree programming has value for upskilling nonprofit professionals, it cannot act as a mobilizer and multiplier to build the NMPS field. The cycle becomes self-reinforcing: without faculty, no degree programs are created, and without degree programs, there is no investment in faculty.

As the US experience demonstrates, field-building takes:

1. centres or schools with faculty and direct reporting lines to university decision-making authorities, so they are taken seriously;
2. the cultivation of new academic leadership through bringing in new generations of researchers and the succession of retiring faculty; and
3. the strategic pursuit of endowments and other long-term investments (Weber & Brunt, 2020).

Canada failed to build the substantial educational and research infrastructure needed to support the philanthropic and nonprofit sector. And, what had been built has shrunk in recent years. In the late 1990s, the J. W. McConnell Family Foundation generously funded a master’s program at McGill to upskill two cohorts of nonprofit executive directors, but McGill did not continue the program after those two years.

The nonprofit specialization in the MBA at the Schulich School is now defunct following the retirement of the RBC Professorship in Nonprofit Management and Leadership – a position that no longer exists. The Certificate in Philanthropic Management at the Université de Montréal closed in 2022. Humber College has ended its post-graduate certificate in Fundraising Management, albeit with the possibility of eventually reinventing it (note that there is an accelerated pathway into the MPNL for its graduates). Programs that had some NMPS content at Queens, Dalhousie, Grant MacEwan, and Mount Royal Universities have all ceased. Several reasons account for this scaling back: the programs were not fully institutionalized within their universities in the first place, as they were not anchored with regular faculty, retirements were not replaced, or sustained funding was not secured.

Here We Are Today

Read “The Benefits of a School of Philanthropy in Canada,” another installment in the “Building Bridges” series.

And yet at the same time, the demand for education and research in the nonprofit/philanthropic sector is increasing. The 2023 (eleventh) cohort of ĐÓ°ÉÔ­´´ University’s MPNL program was the largest ever, at 36 incoming students, with more than three times that number having applied. It is clear that investment pays off.

The payoff of investment in research is illustrated by the productivity of , a research project housed at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Focused on research on grantmaking foundations and funded by grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and from foundations (a total of $4.8 million), PhiLab has provided funding to scholars across the country to work on issues of relevance to foundations and has been very active in knowledge mobilization. However, PhiLab’s future is also in question when its funding ends in 2024 and its academic lead retires.

Now is the time to recognize and act on Canada’s need to build and support an education and research infrastructure for the nonprofit sector. It’s time for this sector to benefit from a dedicated school, just as the private sector does with business schools.

References

Mirabella, R., Sulek, M. & Teo, T. K. (2022) Mapping the field of nonprofit management and philanthropic studies in Canada: Cross-country comparison of curricular offerings, Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, 12(1): 1-21.

Mirabella, R., Hoffman, T., Teo, T., & McDonald, M. (2019). The evolution of nonprofit management and philanthropic studies in the United States: Are we now a disciplinary field? Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, 9(1), 63–84.

Saidel, J. & Smith, S. R. (2015) Nonprofit management education in schools with public affairs curricula: An analysis of the trend toward curriculum integration, Journal of Public Affairs Education, 21(3): 337-348.

Skocpol, T. (2016) Why political scientists should study organized philanthropy: Introduction, PS: Political Science & Politics, 49(3): 433-436.

Weber, P., & Brunt, C. (2022). Building nonprofit management education in the US: The role of centers in supporting new academic disciplines. Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, 8(1): 96–121.

Yang, L. & You, F. (2020) Research trends in nonprofit graduate studies in China: An inside perspective, Nonprofit Management & Leadership, 31: 175-197.

Dr. Susan Phillips is on . Banner photo is courtesy of Keith Kiselstone.