Welcome to Research Friday! This week Nonprofit Leadership and Management student Rosela Martinez discusses her research on the role of Ethnic Identity in positive youth development.

Research Friday will return January 6th. Thank you to all our contributors and readers.

No matter what mission a nonprofit is dedicated to, be it health care, housing, conservation, etc., its mission will directly or indirectly impact youth. Likewise, youth undoubtedly have a role in the fulfillment of the mission of any organization. This is why I believe that supporting youth development is crucial for the entire nonprofit sector. In order to provide the best support to youth in diverse communities, I’d like to encourage nonprofit professionals to reflect on an important aspect of youth and human development: ethnic identity.

Adolescence is a critical time when youth develop their own personal identities (their own concepts of who they are and what makes them unique) and social identities (based on what groups they belong to and their interactions with others). Part of this process is developing an ethnic identity, which involves the exploration of one’s ethnic background (i.e., through oral tradition, cultural activities, and culture-specific behaviors), developing a sense of membership within an ethnic group, and (hopefully) developing positive…

I had the pleasure of serving as Principal for a Day at Arizona School for the Arts (ASA) on October 27 via a program put on by HandsOn Greater Phoenix. The newly revived/revamped program this year paired about 25 business leaders and principals, and is designed to foster more meaningful, longer-term relationships between the participants

I became aware of this opportunity through my participation in Valley Leadership and was delighted to be selected and paired with Leah Fregulia Roberts, head of school/CEO of ASA. This pairing speaks directly to my passion for the arts – my day job is as manager for individual giving at the Musical Instrument Museum, and I serve on several music-related boards, as well as perform as a flutist and singer. My Principal for a Day experience began with a great training session led by HandsOn Greater Phoenix president & CEO Rhonda Oliver and youth program manager Sharifa Rowe which covered everything from the similarities and differences within the operating frameworks of schools and businesses to education in Arizona today to the building blocks of an effective partnership.

During my day at ASA, I had the pleasure of meeting not only with Leah but also with arts director…

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

When he visited America in 1831, French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville was impressed with the way Americans from all walks of life gathered together in associations. Tocqueville declared in Democracy in America that these associations were indispensable to a functional democracy and that the knowledge of how to work together was the “mother of all forms of knowledge” in a democratic country.

We have long known that civic engagement strengthens democratic systems. The question this blog post addresses is: does civic engagement strengthen the economy? A recent report authored by several partner organizations, including the National Conference on Citizenship, CIRCLE, Civic Enterprises, the Saguaro Seminar, and the National Constitution Center suggests that there may be a correlation between civic engagement and the unemployment rate.

Welcome to Research Friday! As part of a continuing weekly series, each Friday we invite a nonprofit expert to highlight a research report or study and discuss how it can inform and improve day-to-day nonprofit practice.

At Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), we use financial data every day in our work with nonprofits and their funders. One source of data informing this work is our annual State of the Sector Survey. Throughout the year, I’ve been blogging about key trends from our 2011 survey, which was completed by nearly 2,000 nonprofit leaders nationwide. They told us about their organizations’ financial outcomes from 2010 and speculated on what 2011 would bring. As we look back on what was certainly a challenging year, I thought it would be interesting to revisit some of their expectations.

Nonprofit leaders told us about planned changes to their service offerings in 2011:

Although contributed revenue was generally down from public and private sources alike, a majority of nonprofits indicated that they actually planned to add or expand their offerings in 2011. Many anticipated expanding the geography they serve or partnering with another organization in order to meet the…

In the business world, mergers and acquisitions are fairly commonplace. Those that are successful tend to benefit all involved, but the process is usually long and most will face problems and resistance along the way. The same is true for nonprofits.

The following is a combination of results from analysis I conducted last year on the 50 Collaboration Prize submissions that related to mergers, as well as two case studies from recent church mergers in the metro Phoenix area.

Redemption Merger: Similar Vision, Differing Models & Audiences

East Valley Bible (EVB) was a large, well-established 20-year-old church located in the East Valley which comprised a single campus with multiple services. EVB had well-established programs for children, families, and older adults.

Praxis was a rapidly growing church with campuses in Tempe and a brand new one in Arcadia. Praxis was not only a young organization (5-years-old at time of merger), but it also had congregations primarily made up of people in their 20s and 30s. Initially, Praxis had been moving the Sunday speaker back and forth between both its locations every Sunday. Due to the logistical challenge, they were exploring a video campus model. They ended up going with a model which used separate live speakers at each of their two campuses but which had a single support and administration team.

Jake Johnson, Praxis' Executive Pastor,…