Connect with Us
Teresa Harrison, PhD
Academic Director of the Center for Nonprofit Governance
tdh28@drexel.eduGerri C. LeBow Hall 1021
The Raj & Kamla Gupta Governance Institute (GGI) is recognized as a premier research center of effective and responsible nonprofit governance
The research conducted among our world-renowned faculty is the core focus of GGI. Our research is published in top journals and informs and influences thought leaders in the nonprofit sector at a variety of high-level events throughout the year.
Current Nonprofit Research
The 2025 Census Project
Increasing Diversity in Nonprofit Boardrooms
A collaboration between the Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative and Drexel University’s Raj & Kamla Gupta Governance Institute
Board diversity enhances institutional performance and is a crucial enabler of good governance for large public-serving nonprofits. Transparency about board composition is fundamental to stakeholder accountability, yet this transparency is rare. Unlike public companies, nonprofit organizations are not required to disclose such information. Furthermore, though some boards voluntarily include photos and biographical information on their websites, many list only the trustees’ names, and some provide no information on the board at all. Consequently it is challenging, even for researchers, to obtain accurate information on nonprofit board demographics.
The Women’s Nonprofit Leadership Initiative (WNLI) and Drexel’s Gupta Governance Institute (GGI) seek to fill that gap in understanding. Through the 2025 Census Project, leading academics and nonprofit governance experts will collect, analyze and report the demographic composition of governing boards at the region’s largest nonprofit higher education and healthcare institutions (eds and meds), and engage in outreach and advocacy efforts to highlight gaps in diversity and support change. The project’s four key pillars—research, knowledge sharing, programming and advocacy—align with WNLI’s goal for governing boards of nonprofit healthcare and higher education institutions to reflect the diversity of their stakeholders and GGI’s mission to positively impact nonprofit governance across the sector.
Highly Visible Dissemination of Results
The report will launch in November 2025 during Nonprofit Directors Dialogue: GGI’s premier annual event for nonprofit executives and boards, which will include a panel discussion of key census findings and recommendations. In addition, the featured speaker during an end-of-day reception will tell the story behind the numbers and offer specific recommendations for increasing board gender and racial diversity.
Support the Research
Our goal is to raise $75,000 to support research, writing, publication, outreach and advocacy. The lead sponsor of this initiative will be recognized as a contributor alongside WNLI and GGI in the report and related events and marketing and communications campaigns.
Project expenses include:
- $15,000: Undergraduate and graduate research assistants to assist with research and writing the report
- $12,500: Graphic design, including infographics and data visualization optimized for print and digital distribution
- $15,000: Launch event, which will generate media coverage, drive audiences toward the report and encourage action based on the report’s findings
- $25,000: Digital content development, editing and production, and targeted digital and social media campaigns to maximize the report’s visibility and reach across multiple platforms and amplify key messages and calls to action
- $7,500: Educational events throughout the region including presentations to educate and engage stakeholders, and roundtable discussions with boards to better understand and help navigate specific challenges to diversification
To support increasing board diversity in Philadelphia’s anchor institutions or to learn more, contact:
Lisa Woods
Executive Director
Raj & Kamla Governance Institute
lw883@drexel.edu
610.812.0248
Steve Rudenstein
Assistant Vice President of Development
Office of Institutional Advancement
sr3669@drexel.edu
215.571.3531
Past Nonprofit Research
- How can data help with assessing food insecurity?
COVID-19 has brought a perfect storm of challenges to many nonprofits, especially human service nonprofits, such as food relief providers, due to: (i) increased demand/greater food insecurity; (ii) strain on resources; (iii) greater difficulty in logistics and distribution of food. Nonprofits need better tools to assess need and then direct services to the hardest hit areas.
Teresa Harrison, PhD, and Neville Vakharia, PhD, collected information on all known food distribution sites operating in the summer of 2020 in the five-county Philadelphia metropolitan region and key demographic data, particularly data related to food insecurity. They developed a more accurate index of food insecurity: number of residents in need per food distribution site to simultaneously account for need AND food relief providers in the local community.
Summer 2020 Food Relief Need and Identified Gaps
In the five-county Philadelphia region, Harrison and Vakharia found¹:
- 815 food distribution sites with eight sites per zip code
- Of the eight, there were on average two food cupboards, 3.5 for student distribution, one for senior distribution and the remaining a variety of neighborhood distribution sites
- 6,500 individuals per zip code living in SNAP households, which is a strong measure of food insecurity
- This implies there are 434 people in need for every food distribution site
- Urban and suburban settings tell a surprising story
- Need is around two times as high in urban areas but there are approximately nine times more food providers/distribution sites in Philadelphia proper
- This may suggest a shift to more provision in suburban areas but more analysis would be needed
- The food insecurity heat density map shows considerable geographical variation: the areas of Coatesville and Northeast Philadelphia may need additional support relative to other areas
Next Phase of Project
Harrison and Vakharia seek to build out this tool and its subsequent analysis with the following goals in mind:
- Develop an online platform to ensure usability and accessibility for funders, executives and boards and sharing of information between providers
- Refine our diagnostics to increase relevance and impact for identifying underserved areas
- Identify specific service corridors through a survey of food relief providers
- Secure funding to both support this phase of the project and adapt this platform to expand to other nonprofit service areas or other locales
¹Data was collected from multiple websites and confirmed through independent queries of government programs. The sample includes food cupboards and all known actively operating food distribution sites in the Philly region.
- 815 food distribution sites with eight sites per zip code