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Browsing by Author "Lenkowsky, Leslie, 1946-"
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Item Comparative Study of Indiana University Foundation and Peking University Education Foundation: Why they are different and what to learn?(2010-07-19T20:29:06Z) Xu, Zheng; Burlingame, Dwight F.; Plater, William Marmaduke, 1945-; Lenkowsky, Leslie, 1946-The thesis made a comparative study of two university foundations, namely Indiana University Foundation, the United States, and Peking University Education Foundation, China, from a historical approach. Many theories influenced the author’s thinking about the issues, such as nonprofit organizations, elite philanthropy, and civil society. The paper seeks to: (1) make an overview of the development of the two foundations; (2) analyze and compare their differences in nature, structure, and fundraising practices, etc.; (3) examine the underlying reasons which may involve social, political, economic and legal factors; and (4) explore the future development of university foundations in China. In an era of accelerated globalization, the boom of diaspora giving and growth of nonprofits set the stage for the development of philanthropy in China. While continuing to draw from the extensive experiences of its American counterparts, the Peking University Education Foundation needs to reflect on its own actual situation and explore a road tailored to Chinese-style university foundations.Item Do Nonprofit Networks Contribute to the Effectiveness of State-Level Free-Market Think Tanks?(2012-02-29) Fitzgerald, Ann C.; Lenkowsky, Leslie, 1946-; Reingold, David; Piereson, JamesThink tanks are generally described as nonprofit institutions made up of experts who achieve change by offering policy prescriptions to lawmakers and by strategically marketing their ideas in the media. They have been part of the American political landscape since the turn of the 20th century, and there are now hundreds of such organizations across the country. This study was directed to state-based groups on the conservative side of the political spectrum that produce policy research in support of their political philosophy of a limited role for government, free enterprise in the marketplace, and greater individual liberty. The purpose was to examine the effectiveness of state-level, free-market think tanks, using some of the same criteria that have been applied to national think tanks; evaluate their use of nonprofit networks and the types of social capital they generate; and provide new insights into this relationship.Item Government Funding and Failure in Nonprofit Organizations(2011-03-15) Vance, Danielle L.; Bielefeld, Wolfgang; Lenkowsky, Leslie, 1946-; Steinberg, RichardFor nonprofit organizations, securing and sustaining funding is essential to survival. Many nonprofit managers see government funding as ideal because of its perceived security (Grønbjerg, 1993; Froelich, 1999). However, there is little evidence to support the claim that such funds actually make nonprofits more sustainable, and some research has even suggested that nonprofits receiving “fickle” government funds are more likely to fail (Hager et al., 2004). The primary purpose of this work is to examine the relationship between government funding and nonprofit failure. Its secondary purpose is to understand the relationships between failure, government funding, and the causes for failure suggested by previous research—instability of the funding source and low funding diversification. To examine these relationships, I chose to use survival analysis and employed the Cox regression technique. Here, I analyzed the NCCS-Guidestar National Nonprofit Research Database, which archives nonprofit IRS filings from 1998 to 2003. This data set is noteworthy for its level of detail and its comprehensive nature. I found that organizations receiving government funding are less likely to fail, especially if this funding is part of a balanced portfolio. Organizations with higher percentages of nonprofit funding and organizations with less diversified overall portfolios do not. Furthermore, nonprofit organizations with less diversified portfolios were more likely to fail, and, among organizations receiving government funding, those with the highest percentage of their revenue from the government were more likely to fail than their counterparts with less funding.Item The Praxis of Civil Society: Associational Life, the Politics of Civility, and Public Affairs in the Weimar Republic(2014) Weber, Peter C.; Witkowski, Gregory R.; Cramer, Kevin; Lenkowsky, Leslie; Gemelli, Giuliana; Burlingame, Dwight; Lenkowsky, Leslie, 1946-This dissertation analyzes the efforts to develop a pluralistic political culture and democratic practices of governance through the training of democratic leaders in Germany's first school of public affairs, the German School of Politics. The investigation of the thought-leaders that formed this school illustrates two main points. First, through the prism of the School, I detail the efforts to develop a conception of civil society that, by being grounded in civility, could retie social bonds and counter the brutalization of politics characteristic of the post-World War One years. By providing practical knowledge, courses in public affairs could not only free Germans from the blinders of ideologies, but also instill in them an ethos that would help viewing the political enemy as an opponent with an equal right to participate in the political process. Secondly, I point to the limits of trans-national philanthropy in supporting the development of civil society in young democracies. By analyzing the relationship between U.S. foundations and the School, I focus on the asymmetry that existed between American ideals of democracy and the realities of the German political system. This study thus focuses on the dynamics between the actions of institutions and organizations, and the broader social behaviors that constitute public life.Item Representational roles of nonprofit organizations in policy advocacy(2014-01-29) Yoshioka, Takayuki; Lenkowsky, Leslie, 1946-; Carmines, Edward G.; Hershey, Marjorie Randon; Perry, James L.This research explores what roles nonprofits play in political representation by applying the concept of the representational role to nonprofits. The representational role consists of representational focus and style. Representational focus shows those whom nonprofits aim to serve: members, constituents, or the general public. Representational style denotes the ways nonprofits advocate for their focal groups: the delegation, trusteeship, and educational styles. The survey and regression analysis results demonstrate that nonprofits serving their members are most likely to convey their members’ voices directly to policy makers: the delegation style. In contrast, nonprofits advocating for their constituents are likely to pursue what they independently identify as the interests of their constituents: the trusteeship style. Finally, nonprofits speaking for the general public are most likely to work toward educating the general public: the educational style. These results suggest that nonprofits play different roles in political representation, depending on the types of their focal groups.