IU Indianapolis ScholarWorks :: Browsing by Author "Lenkowsky, Leslie"

Browsing by Author "Lenkowsky, Leslie"

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The 2022 Global Philanthropy Environment Index United States
(IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, 2022-03-30) Lenkowsky, Leslie
Biden’s goal to permanently boost support for families echoes a failed Nixon proposal from 50 years ago – will it take off this time?
(The Conversation US, Inc., 2021-06-23) Lenkowsky, Leslie; Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
Country Report 2018: United States
(2018) Lenkowsky, Leslie
Americans generally have a considerable degree of freedom in forming POs, including Constitutional protection of “freedom of association.” People wishing to act collectively do not need to obtain legal recognition in advance, and hundreds of thousands of such “informal” groups are estimated to exist. Anyone can found one.
Democracy aid in post-communist Russia: case studies of the Ford Foundation, the C.S. Mott Foundation, and the National Endowment for Democracy
(2015-05-01) Wachtmann, Jenna Lee; Lenkowsky, Leslie; Smyth, Regina A.; Witkowski, Gregory R.
The collapse of communism and the fall of the Soviet Union offered an unprecedented opportunity for the international community to support transitions to democracy in a region that had long known only totalitarian rule. Among the key players engaged in supporting efforts were U.S. grantmaking institutions, including both non-state and quasi-state aid providers. This thesis explores the motivations and evolving strategies of three different types of grantmaking institutions in a single country, Russia, with a particular focus on democracy aid provision from 1988-2002. The three types of grantmaking organizations examined through case studies include: the Ford Foundation, a private foundation with a history of international grantmaking spanning several decades; the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, a private foundation known primarily for its domestic focus with a much shorter history of international grantmaking; and, finally, the National Endowment for Democracy, a U.S. government-created and heavily taxpayer-funded organization established as a private nonprofit organization to make grants specifically for democracy promotion. Motivating factors for initiating or expanding grantmaking in Russia in the late 1980s included a previous history of grantmaking in the region, a previously established institutional commitment to democracy promotion, international peace and security concerns, and interest from a top institutional leader. Over the course of the fourteen year period studied, five grantmaking features are identified as influencing the development of grantmaking strategies: professional grantmaking staff; organizational habit; global political, social, and economic environments; market and other funding source influences; and physical presence. Though subject to constraints, the non-state and quasi-state grantmaking institutions included in this study were able to avoid weaknesses identified with private philanthropy in other research and demonstrated a willingness to experiment and take risks, an ability to operate at the non-governmental level, and a commitment to long-term grantmaking, informed by expertise.
The Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley: How Church Leaders Became Involved in the Steel Business
(2008-07-07T17:18:22Z) Grzesiak, Michael P.; Burlingame, Dwight F.; Lenkowsky, Leslie; Pallante, Martha I.
Youngstown, Ohio was devastated by the closing of three major steel mills in three years: In all, more than 15,000 steelworkers and another 35,000 in related industries lost jobs in this period. The purpose of this thesis is to study the response of the local nonprofit sector to the closing of the Campbell Works, a mill located just outside the city of Youngstown that employed approximately 4,100. The activities of traditional nonprofit organizations are briefly reviewed; however, much of this study focuses on the story of the Ecumenical Coalition of the Mahoning Valley, a diverse group of religious leaders whose mission evolved into a campaign to garner the resources necessary to purchase the Campbell Works and reopen it as an employee-owned company. Additional analysis is made of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Weirton, West Virginia; two nearby steel centers that faced similar economic downturns in the 1980s and used the lessons learned from the Ecumenical Coalition. The final chapter of this thesis examines the work of two researchers, Vaughn Grisham, Jr. and Richard Cuoto, and their work studying Tupelo, Mississippi and Appalachia, respectively. In these works, we see cities and regions laid bare by stark economic conditions and the collective action taken by a wide variety of constituencies to not only survive but to thrive.
The Effects of Social Information, Social Norms and Social Identity on Giving
(2008-06-09T19:41:30Z) Shang, Yue; Sargeant, Adrian; Burlingame, Dwight F.; Gunderman, Richard; Lenkowsky, Leslie
This philanthropic studies thesis aims to “increase the understanding of philanthropy, improve its practice, and enhance philanthropic participation” (Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University Overview) by studying the effects of social information, social norms and social identity on giving. It connects philanthropic studies research with theoretical developments in motivations for giving in economics, nonprofit management, nonprofit marketing, consumer behavior, and social psychology. It utilizes personal observations as well as quantitative methods including experiments and surveys on multiple samples including donors, undergraduate students and samples of the U.S. population. It generates actionable and efficacious knowledge to improve the practice of philanthropy. It contributes to the formation and growth of the young field called philanthropic studies - in theory, in methodology and in practice. This thesis includes five chapters. Chapter I will explain how the research question, philosophy and methodology are selected. This discussion will be for the entire thesis. Specific research questions, hypotheses, research designs, findings and implications will be explained in the subsequent chapters. Chapter II demonstrates the immediate and long-term effects of social information on donations and its boundary conditions in existing nonprofit donors in two field experiments. Chapter III shows that the psychological mechanism through which social information influences subsequent giving is perceived descriptive social norms in one field survey of donors and one laboratory experiment on undergraduate students. Chapter IV investigates how social identity congruency moderates the effect of social information on donations. It reports three field experiments on donors and samples of the general U.S. population and two laboratory experiments on undergraduate students. It shows that donors give more money to a public radio station if told that a previous donor with a similar identity also made a large contribution. This effect is more likely to occur when donors have high collective identity esteem and when attention is focused on others. Each chapter provides original fundraising techniques developed from these studies. Chapter V concludes with a discussion of the theoretical, methodological and practical contributions of this thesis and suggests directions for future research in philanthropic studies, and philanthropic psychology in particular.
Exploring philanthropic aspects of public communication campaigns: an analysis of Smokey Bear
(2017-09) Flaxbeard, Helene; Lenkowsky, Leslie; Grace, Kittie; Herrold, Catherine
The Smokey Bear Campaign is one of the most popular and recognized public communication campaigns in the United States. The Advertising Council began the Smokey Bear campaign in 1944 and it is the longest running public communication campaign in the United States. Through a rhetorical narrative methodology, this study analyzed Smokey Bear advertising pieces from its inception through the present. The analysis of the advertising pieces was organized by narrative elements of the campaign, such as narration, themes, characters, and major and minor events with a focus on philanthropic composition relating to awareness and behavior change messaging. The following question is answered: what kind of messaging focus does the Smokey Bear campaign deploy and what aspect of philanthropy does the Smokey Bear campaign seem to be achieving? Conclusions on the philanthropic aspects of public communication campaigns are drawn based on the analysis of the Smokey Bear campaign.
Family foundations : balancing family and social impact
(2017-01-16) Palus, Joseph P.; Tempel, Euegene; Lenkowsky, Leslie; Gunderman, Richard B.; Mesch, Debra
This dissertation examines perceptions of purpose in family foundations and the impact of differences in those perceptions on family foundation board composition/function and on grant making activities. One of the primary decisions facing the donor who creates a private foundation relates to governance. Here, the donor arguably faces a deeply personal choice: to what extent should the donor’s family be involved? Related to this choice is the question of the degree of focus on the mission-related aspects of the organization or the family-related aspects of the organization. This dissertation explores whether family foundation trustees view family purposes and social impact purposes as meaningful for the foundation they represent and whether trustees differ with regard to the degree to which they emphasize one or the other. If family foundation trustees do meaningfully differ in this regard, what difference does an emphasis on family or social impact purposes make on board composition, grant making focus and stability, similarity to one’s peers, and other factors? Through a combination of survey, interview, and review of publicly available material, this dissertation explores this question for a sample of family foundation trustees in two Midwestern states.
Local Foundations and Medical Research Support in Indianapolis after 1945
(2019-07) Lupton, Suzann Weber; Robertson, Nancy Marie; Badertscher, Katherine E.; Kaefer, Martin; Lenkowsky, Leslie; Schneider, William H.
Philanthropy plays an important and often publicly visible role in modern medicine. Names like Carnegie, Rockefeller, and Gates are associated with medicine both personally and through the foundations they created. This phenomenon also played out on a local level, where communities are dotted with hospitals, university laboratories, and medical schools bearing the names of families who contributed to build, literally and figuratively, the institutions of medical research. Little is known about these local philanthropists, including why they decided to support research and how they organized and carried out the work of grantmaking. Consequently, there is no deep understanding of the value of their contributions. I seek to remedy that omission through this study of the history and work of three small foundations dedicated to medical and scientific research and located in a single, midsized American city. Ultimately this work considers a question fundamental to medical research philanthropy: Can smaller foundations make a meaningful contribution to modern medical research given the scale, complexity, and cost of the work as well as the dominance of federal government funding? This work concludes that the primary value of the foundations under study was not their financial support for research per se, but their flexible and sustained contributions to the local research infrastructure, including philanthropic investments that helped launch research projects and the careers of individual scientists; provided capital for needed physical space; and supported recruiting efforts to bring innovative and productive faculty members to staff new research and patient care departments. The foundations in this study, both individually and collectively, served as valuable strategic allies to the research institutions in their community. As a result, the foundations contributed directly and meaningfully toward the expansion and improvement of the research institutions. The resulting growth in the size and reputation of these programs and facilities generated economic gain that benefitted the broader community. This finding supports a call for the development of a more nuanced and complete understanding of the potential impact that smaller funders can have in a large and complicated system.
Networked Civil Society: Three Essays on the Government–Nonprofit Relationship in China
(2018-11) Ma, Ji; Steinberg, Richard; Pasic, Amir; Lenkowsky, Leslie; Ottoni-Wilhelm, Mark
This dissertation has two goals: 1) Introducing data science methodologies to nonprofit studies; 2) Examining the impact of social relations on nonprofits’ social and economic behaviors. Ultimately, this dissertation provides empirical evidence for a new paradigm which is just in formation by a few scholars: a holistic network theory of government–nonprofit relationship. Chapter 2 establishes a robust and generalpurpose database which has the potential to support the development of a research topic. It also introduces the methodology for data management in contemporary quantitative social science. Based on the database established, Chapter 3 approaches the research question on nonprofit’s autonomy using network theory and finds that, although nonprofit organizations in China may lose their autonomy because of government officials on board, these organizations still enjoys a substantial level of freedom in the organizational network. The Chinese nonprofit sector suggests the existence of autonomous order theorized by political philosophers and observed in liberal societies. Chapter 4 reconsiders a classic research question in public economics – the crowd-out/in effect of government funding on private donations to nonprofits. This chapter proposes an innovative theoretical perspective for understanding the role of social relations in crowding mechanism: compensating mode and amplifying mode. Analysis suggests that, although government funding to a nonprofit may crowd out the private donations to the same organization, private donations are not reduced but redistributed to other nonprofits in the organizational network. This chapter also uses standardized data workflow to boost the research life-cycle, information extraction techniques to construct structured dataset from semi-structured raw data files, demonstrates how data science methodologies can help causal inference in classic econometrics.

Browsing by Author "Lenkowsky, Leslie"

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