Clerkin to Lead Nonprofit Institute

Richard Clerkin has been named NC State’s executive director of the Institute for Nonprofit Research, Education and Engagement. In addition to leading the institute, he will work with North Carolina nonprofit partners to extend NC State research to serve the state.

Clerkin, an associate professor of public administration, has served as interim director for the past year and has been involved with the institute since joining NC State’s Department of Public Administration in 2005. Clerkin conducts scholarship in the area of nonprofit studies and has been heavily involved with the institute’s Community of Nonprofit Scholars.

“Rich Clerkin has earned a strong reputation for his scholarship and for his administrative leadership,” says Jeff Braden, dean of the College of Humanities and Social Sciences. “His experience and scholarship position him to lead the intellectual direction of the institute as it continues to develop its leadership on and off campus.”

Clerkin earned his doctorate at Indiana University-Bloomington, where he was a Chancellor’s Fellow. While at Indiana, he was associated with the Center on Philanthropy (now the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy), a leading academic center for research on the nonprofit sector and philanthropy.

“It was while I was examining the scope and dimensions of Indiana’s nonprofit sector that I learned the important role that centers such as ours can play in informing nonprofit theory and practice in a community, across a state and internationally,” he says. “I look forward to building on the foundations laid by previous Institute for Nonprofit directors Barbara Metelsky and Mary Tschirhart to enhance the capacity and leadership of nonprofit organizations that play such a vital role in addressing society’s grand challenges.”

Clerkin’s award-winning research and teaching interests focus broadly on the nonprofit sector. In particular, he studies motivations for public service and public benefiting activities. Through the Changing Philanthropy Project, he is exploring the impact of geographic mobility and regional philanthropic traditions on individuals’ behavior related to volunteering and donating, as well as how nonprofits can adapt to these changes.

Clerkin is a coauthor of the leading public administration textbook, Public Administration Understanding Management, Politics, and Law in the Public Sector. His research has been published in such leading journals as Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Public Administration Review, American Review of Public Administration, and VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations.