This autoethnography examines the child welfare system, nonprofit leadership, and nonprofit education through a three-act narrative of foster care. Drawing on the author’s roles as a public sector budget analyst, foster and adoptive parent, and scholar of nonprofit management, the manuscript explores how systems intended to protect children often reproduce harm through administrative burdens, fragmented accountability, and inequitable policy and service structures. Act One reflects on equity-oriented public budgeting and the central role of nonprofit organizations in preventive child welfare services. Act Two brings the system home, interrogating foster care, disability, and transracial adoption through an intersectional lens. Act Three situates these experiences within the evolution of nonprofit education, emphasizing critical pedagogy, reflexivity, and experiential knowledge. Together, the acts argue for reimagining nonprofit education and leadership as ethical praxis rooted in care, social equity, and lived experience, offering guidance for preparing future public and nonprofit leaders and educators to confront and transform systems of care.
This autoethnography interrogates nonprofit praxis in U.S. child welfare systems through the author's lived experience of repeated placements and aging out. It contends that benevolent narratives obscure cumulative, state-produced harms that pathologize difference, sever relationships, and reduce youth to deliverables. Bridging scholarship on social equity, administrative burden, and psychological safety with storytelling, the analytical autoethnography reframes foster care as a system of power in which nonprofits function as paradoxical actors-at times reproducing bureaucratic harm, at others serving as lifelines that restore agency, access, and belonging. Advancing radical hope as praxis, the author calls for trauma-responsive practice; leadership by people directly impacted by the system; and funding, metrics, and pedagogy aligned with healing, family preservation, and flourishing. Reimagining nonprofit praxis in foster care requires rejecting case processing as a proxy for success and building organizations that help young people not merely survive, but thrive. This manuscript also curates accessible resources for readers working in contexts where equity content is restricted.
Throughout a 75-year history, the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance (NLA), formerly American Humanics (AH), introduced nonprofit management and leadership as a field of study, promoted professionalization of the nonprofit sector, and created awareness for nonprofit sector careers. This article traces the history of NLA and examines the organization’s competency-based learning model, the importance of experiential learning, key institutional decision factors, as well as the impacts of the organization’s work. The concluding section focuses on the future of NLA, specifically the transition of its primary target audience of college students to professional learners, the recommendation to accredit the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) and Advanced Certified Nonprofit Professional (ACNP) credentials, and the opportunity to create new types of partnerships to support the continued professionalization of the nonprofit sector.
Adoption is a complex process that includes multiple actors, including birth parents, adoptive parents, children, lawyers, and multiple nonprofit organizations. Using autoethnography, I explore the process of adoption from my experience. I then use this process to explore the ethics of adoption. To conclude, I explore the ways that nonprofit studies and public administration can contribute to adoption studies with our unique perspective. Through this study, we are able to see the complexities of adoption and discuss next steps for the field.
Competency-based educational testing is essential for ensuring that credentialing reflects actual skill mastery and readiness for professional practice. Continued questionlevel analysis is critical to maintaining exam integrity and ensuring that assessments accurately measure intended learning outcomes. This article examines student perforcredentialing exam from 2021 to 2024, across its ten core competencies. Using R and Python, exam records and question-level statistics were cleaned and analyzed across CNP tracks and collapsed groups. Results show consistently high performance, with mean scores ranging from 0.819 to 0.883. Professional Track candidates outperformed collegiate participants across all competencies, likely due to their work experience. Six questions were identified as atypically difficult, prompting further review for potential bias or misalignment with learning objectives. The article will explore an example of this type of question. Overall, these findings suggest the exam is stable and balanced across competencies.
This autoethnographic manuscript traces the author’s lifelong journey through the U.S. child welfare system—from growing up as a sister in a foster family to becoming a system reformer shaping state policy and practice. Drawing on decades of professional experience in county and state child welfare administration, the narrative foregrounds connections—to family, kin, place, culture, and story—as both a personal lifeline and an ethical cornerstone for child welfare and nonprofit practice. Through concrete initiatives such as “The Adoption Option,” “Families for Kids,” and statewide Family Finding, the manuscript illustrates how centering children’s relational ties can transform foster care, adoption, and permanency planning away from practices that sever identity toward approaches that honor belonging, openness, and children’s voice in their own journeys. Interweaving intimate stories of love and loss with reflections on policy debates, organizational culture, and collaboration between governments and nonprofits, the piece advances practice-oriented recommendations for expanding adoptive eligibility, elevating lived experience in leadership, and designing child welfare systems that treat connection—not removal, compliance, or data systems—as the guiding principle for decisions affecting children and families.
This study analyzes how 24 Nonprofit Leadership Alliance (NLA) partner institutions structure their programs and student organizations to prepare students for the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) credential. Using comparative analysis of campus materials, the research identifies variation in program formats, credit requirements, and academic homes, yet consistent emphasis on experiential learning and community engagement. Over 90% of campuses support student organizations that serve as high-impact learning environments, reinforcing leadership development and competency growth. Four institutions integrate these organizations directly into credit-bearing courses, demonstrating innovative models that blend academic instruction with applied practice. Findings highlight the adaptability of NLA programs and offer transferable strategies for strengthening nonprofit education through intentional co-curricular design.
This qualitative study aims to explore how different types of adoption openness relate to the lived experiences of 25 U.S. adult individuals who were adopted as children. A deductive qualitative coding approach was used to analyze transcripts of 25 semi-structured interviews with adult adoptees. The interviews were analyzed using concepts of adoption openness, including both structural and communicative openness, and perceived psychological safety. Using a thematic analysis, this study found that openness in adoption, especially communicative openness, is deeply relevant to positive adoptee identity development and the strength and quality of family relationships. Openness was also positively related to adoptees’ reported sense of psychological safety. These findings suggest that nonprofit executives, program officers, social workers, and others who work to provide appropriate adoption education, regulation, and support, should encourage openness among the adoption triad.
This autoethnography offers a personal and professional reflexive analysis of the U.S. foster care system from the perspective of a former foster youth, and current social worker and kinship guardian. Through narrative and critical analysis, it exposes how the system—though intended to protect—functions as a carceral regime that perpetuates racialized surveillance, intergenerational trauma, and systemic harm, particularly for Black, Latino, and Indigenous families. The piece argues that reform is insufficient, arguing instead for a radical reimagining of care grounded in community, dignity, and restorative. This analytical autoethnography critiques the complicity of nonprofits, educators, and policymakers in sustaining harm and urges a collective shift from paternalistic intervention to solidarity-driven support. It calls for the centering of lived experience, structural courage, and policies that prioritize family preservation, healing, and equity. This is not just a critique—it is an urgent call to action for a system of care that affirms rather than erases.
This article examines the value of integrating professional credentialing programs with traditional academic degree pathways using the Certified Nonprofit Professional (CNP) credential as a case example. The authors explore how the CNP credential complements undergraduate and graduate programs by enhancing students’ professional readiness and specific competencies for the nonprofit sector. Findings from a survey of campus directors, the primary liaison between the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance and the college or university, provide insight into their perspectives on the importance of professional credentialing. In addition, drawing on case studies from three universities that have implemented the CNP in varied contexts and timeframes, the article analyzes institutional motivations, student outcomes, and effective strategies for credential implementation.
This manuscript delves into the lived experiences of a child who was kidnapped and taken across the border, ultimately being placed in foster care upon her return to the United States. Employing an autoethnographic approach, the author weaves personal reflections with broader societal themes, exploring the psychological, social, and emotional impacts of these traumatic experiences on youth and the administration of the child welfare system. The narrative underscores the pressing need to bolster the social safety net, ensuring that out-of-home placements in foster care are readily available when necessary. The author’s journey is characterized by resilience as she navigates the complexities of entering and exiting foster care after the trauma of kidnapping. This manuscript serves not only as a testament to survival but also as a call to action for policymakers, practitioners, and communities, particularly considering the rising incidence of international child abductions.
The nonprofit sector is characterized by multiple overlapping dimensions, each anchored in distinct institutional logics that generate specific social norms and expectations. The most discussed dimensions are the expressive and instrumental. Scholars and practitioners have occasionally suggested a third dimension, the affiliative dimension; however, little work has been done to define this third dimension or the institutional logics associated with it. This article aims to explicate the affiliative dimension and introduce the philanthropy logic, arguing that it is the institutional logic that gives the affiliative dimension its meaning.
For over a decade, headlines have claimed that there is an impending crisis in nonprofit leadership due to the retirement of the baby boomers. While previous economic downturns have delayed retirements, the pandemic-related recession accelerated people leaving the workforce (Fry 2021). Given these changes, it is critical to understand nonprofit organizations' current and projected needs. These include anticipated staffing changes, along with the types of skills that are valued in prospective employees. This information can be used to update or create curricula for university degree programs and professional development. Using a survey of nonprofit organizations, focus groups, and interviews, we have gathered information that identifies where the largest anticipated gaps are expected, along with the general and specific skillsets that nonprofits are looking for both now and in the future.
Recent research confirms that a typology characterizing the challenges faced by nonprofit leaders, known as the Five Nonprofit Leadership Challenges, encompasses the academic research published in the top three nonprofit and voluntary action academic journals. During this content analysis, subthemes emerged for each of the leadership challenges. We believe a better understanding of these subthemes could help refine the leadership challenges typology and further its use as a tool for research and practitioners. Using content analysis, the authors examined 453 abstracts from three major nonprofit journals published between 2005 and 2017 to identify and quantify the subthemes associated with each leadership challenge. We identified 29 subthemes across the five leadership challenges. Our results indicate that the subthemes are present in 99% of the abstracts in the literature, providing a more nuanced approach to organizing and thinking about nonprofit research and practice.
I report on adopting a portfolio-based assessment model in a NASPAA member program. As part of the capstone experience, students articulate their NASPAA-required skills and construct professional e-portfolios to reflect on their competencies at the start and end of the program. Student receptivity and initial resistance to the new assessment model were among the early implementation challenges. I present a baseline study of these attitudes, including student uncertainty over the value of e-portfolios. I also examine how public service professionals' participation in assessing student learning outcomes can help clarify e-portfolio benefits. These findings can serve our peer MPA programs as a means for making sense of the nuanced nature of institutionalization of reflection via competency-based e-portfolios while embracing their board members as assessment partners in institutionalization efforts.
