Fund my Dissertation Research: Experiential Education within Nonprofit Management and Leadership Education

My committee has approved my dissertation proposal so now I can begin my dissertation study!

As with any study, there are costs associated with doing my dissertation. I am currently looking for foundations, corporations, and/or individuals who will fund my dissertation study.

I've developed a proposal that outlines the specific costs associated with this research. If you are interested, or know of anyone who might be interested in funding this type of research, please let me know and I will forward you/or them the proposal. Email me: hcarpenter at sandiego dot edu Thanks!

EXPERIENTIAL EDUCATION IN NONPROFIT MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP EDUCATION: AN EXAMINATION OF MASTER’S DEGREE PROGRAMS ASSOCIATED WITH THE NONPROFIT ACADEMIC CENTERS COUNCIL

Currently there is no comprehensive picture of the various experiential education strategies employed in nonprofit management education programs in the United States. A comprehensive picture is not even available for the master’s degree programs associated with the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC), the organization that supposedly includes the country’s trend-setting nonprofit programs. This preliminary study will document (a) the types of experiential education approaches offered in master’s degree programs associated with NACC-affiliated institutions; (b) the programmatic contexts in which the different types of experiential education occur; and (c) the larger organizational settings and the different levels of institutional support associated with the use of different experiential education approaches.

A two-phase mixed method exploratory design (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2007) will be employed to accomplish the three goals listed above. In the first phase, qualitative interviews will be conducted in order to explore the phenomenon of experiential education within a limited number of purposefully-selected master's degree programs. Once the phenomenon has been explored and common themes and definitions have been identified with representatives from a limited number of sites, a second phase of the research will focus on the development and administration of a survey instrument. The survey instrument will be administered to representatives from all eligible NACC institutions and will be used to confirm or disconfirm common themes that emerged during the qualitative interviews.

This study will aid in creating a better understanding of the pedagogy and curricula employed in master's degree programs associated with NACC member centers. The study also should reveal how a variety of contextual factors influence these programs. This information, in turn, should provide empirical grounding for the nonprofit field’s ongoing discussion and debate about the form and function of nonprofit management and leadership education.