Paper on philanthropic strategies wins editors’ prize for three SP2-affiliated authors

An analysis of philanthropic decision making has earned the Nonprofit Management & Leadership journal’s 2024 Editors’ Prize for Best Scholarly Paper for three authors affiliated with Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice (SP2). The first author of the paper is Dr. H. Daniel Heist, a graduate of SP2’s PhD in Social Welfare Program. He is joined by SP2 Professor Ram Cnaan and fellow SP2 PhD graduate Dr. Megan M. Farwell. 

The award-winning paper was published in volume 33, issue 4 of the Nonprofit Management and Leadership journal, whose mission is to publish “the field’s best conceptual advances in understanding management, leadership, or governance of private nonprofit organizations.” The award is made on behalf of the journal and publisher Wiley and is sponsored by the School of Public Affairs at American University. The coauthors were recently recognized as 2024 Award Recipients at the annual conference of ARNOVA, the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action, in Washington, DC.

The paper responds to an increase in the use of donor-advised funds (DAFs) for philanthropy.  Established by a donor at a sponsoring organization, a DAF allows a donor to disburse charitable gifts over time. Seeking to understand the factors that donors consider when making such gifts, the paper’s authors conducted 48 in-depth interviews with DAF donors. This qualitative research allowed them to create three models to account for different strategies of giving — tubs, tanks, and towers.

“Some donors use the DAF almost immediately after funding it and then repeat regularly, like filling and draining a bathtub,” the authors write. “Some DAF donors add lump-sum amounts that are larger than what they can immediately use and then grant out the funds over a period of years, like a water tank supplying multiple uses of water. Some donors put large amounts into the DAF and then regulate the flow of money so that the DAF can sustain long-term philanthropy, like a water tower that exists to sustain long-term needs of a community.”

In addition to professor, Dr. Cnaan’s role at SP2 as director of the Program for Religion and Social Policy Research he is also a Global Eminent Scholar at Kyung Hee University Graduate Institute of Peace, South Korea.

During their time in SP2’s PhD program, Dr. Heist and Dr. Farwell were advised by Dr. Cnaan and Professor Femida Handy respectively.  Dr. Heist is an assistant professor of nonprofit management and social impact at the George W. Romney Institute for Public Service and Ethics at Brigham Young University. Dr. Farwell is a researcher on Meta’s Central Social Impact team and was previously a researcher at Stanford’s Effective Philanthropy Learning Initiative. The paper’s coauthors also include Benjamin F. Cummings, an associate professor and faculty director of the Master of Financial Planning & Analytics program at Utah Valley University, and Erinn Andrews, vice president and incoming president of the National Board of Advisors in Philanthropy and founder and CEO of GiveTeam.

The authors hope that their framework may help nonprofit managers, fundraisers, fund managers, donors, and policymakers. “Those who work with or interact with DAF donors may find that customized approaches may be needed for fundraising, managing, or regulating this increasingly popular way to give,” they write.