Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert from our academic faculty to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice. We welcome your comments and feedback.

Thanks to the 100 people who took our nonprofit sector quiz! In the quiz, we asked a few questions about Arizona's largest nonprofit organizations, in terms of assets, grantmaking, and donations. Some of the answers may have surprised you, so let's talk about a few of those trickier questions.

Who grants the most?

The term grantmaker typically refers to a nonprofit organization that grants money to other nonprofits. Most of the grantmakers in Arizona are private foundations. Even though they're nonprofits, private foundations are a little bit different, legally, than other nonprofits. They file a different 990 form (the 990 PF) and are also subject to additional rules and taxes.

Arizona is home to over 1,000 private foundations, and, as most people answered correctly in the quiz, the largest is the Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust. It's the biggest both in terms of assets and grants made in the past several…

"Your board is your destiny." You could have heard a pin drop when this simple, yet elegant answer was given to an apparently complex question.

When fundraising legend Jerry Panas was the featured presenter to a small group of nonprofit CEO's and board chairs in Phoenix, those in the room hung on his every word. I mean, why wouldn't they? Mr. Panas has raised something like a gazillion dollars through the years. In fact, with over thirty years of proven fundraising success, he certainly knows a little something about that complex question: "So, what is the board's role in fundraising?"

Your board is your destiny.

It's brilliant. It's brilliant because it's so true. It's also brilliant because it's compelling. Whatever your past accomplishments, whatever your organizational journey, be assured that the makeup of the group sitting around your board table is a direct precursor to where your organization will end up — for better or for worse.

Your board is your destiny.

It's shocking to me how many nonprofit boards are unaware of the power and importance they possess. Worse, some are outright shirking their primary responsibilities, leaving all faith (and important decisions) in the hands of their CEO. I mean all due respect to the abundance of massively talented leaders in the nonprofit community. But left alone, even the most…

There is no leadership, as typically defined, today! The models, theories, and approaches to leadership that have been espoused over the past 100 years have steadily lost effectiveness around the globe. While many will suggest that the traditional frameworks for leadership have never worked, I only suggest here that they no longer work for the changing contexts in which people find themselves. The failures of leadership are found at every turn — from the need for attention of those who aspire to lead to the need to control those who do take the lead.

The "great man theory," among others, is irrelevant in modern context. So, for purposes of this post, let's focus on what leaders should and shouldn't do. I will leave it to you to see the differences in those who you've identified as leaders. Let's talk about what the world needs of future leaders.

Leaders should listen — not talk. They should ask questions and listen all the way to the end of what others have to say. They shouldn't have "the" answers and be valued for being "right." Instead, leaders should have the capacity to discover great answers and amazing ideas. They should also be skilled at helping those ideas become a reality.

Great leaders shouldn't be the ones solving the problems, but should help others generate new notions of what's possible, as well as helping find creative and smarter alternatives. Of course, leaders ought to have good ideas to contribute,…

Welcome to Research Friday! This week we welcome Mary McGillicuddy, one of the researchers who worked with the ASU College of Public Programs on a project that analyzed and mapped the social network of downtown Phoenix nonprofit organizations.

I've heard that the ASU Lodestar Center gets a ton of calls from nonprofit organizations looking to partner with other organizations. The Center works like a hub in that way, connecting the dots between the sector. In fact, the Arizona sector works that way, too — we often connect to each other through hubs.

Contrary to popular belief, social networks and social network analysis (SNA) both existed long before Facebook. SNA is a visual, quantitative measurement tool that has been used across disciplines since the 1950's. Recently, ASU's College of Public Programs used SNA to assess its impact on nonprofit organizations in the downtown Phoenix area. This kind of analysis fascinates me, and I think it can really help others understand what's really going on in the Arizona nonprofit sector. But, before diving headfirst into the research findings, there are a few important terms that merit a little explanation.

Very simply, a social network depicts patterns of social interaction between entities (Tichy Tichy, Tushman, and Fombrun, 1979). These entities, also called "nodes," can be individuals, groups, and/or organizations. An identified…

Fact: In the Political Views section of my Facebook profile, it says, "Idealist. Group Hugs. Love."

Other fact: It's very, very true.
There's no way around it — I, Katie Elizabeth Hawkes, am an idealist through and through. I have a hard time assuming the worst about anyone, and I have difficulty comprehending why there isn't a political party I can subscribe to called "Sharing and Caring" or "Everyone Just Hold Hands and Sing." I once tried to explain to an economics major why, logically, we could just print more money to give to all the people in need without messing up the economy, simply by choosing not to change the value of the dollar.

That didn't go over so well.

And, OK, I'm not truly that naive. As I become increasingly involved in the nonprofit sector, I've engaged in conversations with a few critics along the way about how much good all these organizations actually accomplish. And each time, the little starry-eyed hippie inside me wanted to hold my ground and proclaim the beauty of all things serviceable in the world.

However, it's a fact that not every do-gooder cause I come across is actually accomplishing what it claims. Business is business, nonprofit or otherwise. There are funds to be managed, overheads to maintain, and a quota to fill. And just like any other business, there are successes, and there are failures. There is honesty, and…