Civic and Community Engagement Commons^™

Belonging's Influence On Volunteer Motivation In Faith-Based Nonprofit Organizations: An Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, Adam Stockton

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Nonprofit organizations often overlook psychological belonging as a driver of volunteer retention and recruitment (Hurt, 2025; Mochin, 2022). The purpose of this qualitative Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) study was to explore how a sense of belonging influenced the intrinsic motivation of nine adults volunteering with a faith-based nonprofit organization in the southern United States. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews and analyzed using IPA best practices to identify themes from participants' experiences. The study was grounded in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, self-determination theory, and organizational identification theory—frameworks that describe how individuals connect personal values and identity to the values and …

Ai-Powered Logistics For Small Nonprofits: A No-Code, Sub-$10 System For Real-Time Distribution Across 41 Locations, Rishi D. Chundury

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Small nonprofits often struggle to coordinate multi-site distribution campaigns with limited staff, tight budgets, and little access to technology. This article describes how Eye on July Corp., a 501(c)(3) nonprofit in Omaha, Nebraska, built an AI-powered system to manage the distribution of 20,000 free safety glasses across 41 community locations for July 4th. The system was built without any coding using three commercially available tools, where Airtable stores the data, Make.com runs the automation, and Anthropic's Claude API provides the intelligence, all at a total cost of under $10. The platform collects stock counts from partner locations, analyzes inventory to …

Building Adaptive Capacity In Community Engaged Nonprofits, Lena Hatchett, Kenneth E. Steinkruger, Laundette P. Jones

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Nonprofit organizations face ongoing challenges related to uncertain funding, staff burnout, and increasing community needs. This article describes adaptive capacity as a proactive form of resilience that can help nonprofits prepare for unexpected challenges before they occur.  Drawing on examples from a small community-engaged nonprofit, the current article presented activities and tools for strengthening adaptive capacity through both longer-term capacity-building practices and everyday organizational decisions.  We used the McKinsey 7S framework to organize adaptive capacity opportunities across strategy, structure, systems, shared values, skills, style, and staff.  The examples suggest that, despite unanticipated challenges, community-engaged nonprofits may strengthen resilience by adopting …

Summary & Discussion On United Nations Preliminary Report On Ai: Benefits And Harms Of Artificial Intelligence For Civil Society, Angie Holzer

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

In July 2026, the United Nations' newly formed Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence released its first Preliminary Report, offering the first global, scientific assessment of AI's capabilities, risks, and impacts. This article examines the report's findings through the lens of civil society, organizing the Panel's evidence around three questions of direct relevance to nonprofit leaders and researchers: how rapidly AI capability is advancing, who controls its development, and where its benefits and harms are concentrated. Drawing on the Panel's data across societal applications, economic implications, human rights and information integrity, cultural flourishing and child safety, and AI governance, …

Academic Summaries - Artificial Intelligence, Angie Holzer

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Social Emotional Learning In Utah’S Implementation Of Essa, Sharon Walles

Transforming Communities

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), as a policy, offers an additional tool to address the escalating adolescent mental health crisis. By acknowledging the critical link between student well-being, academic success, and evidence-based practices, this policy analysis explores how funding from ESSA can be leveraged to integrate Social Emotional Learning (SEL) within Utah’s schools. Experts, educators, and parents can be voices to combat misinformation surrounding the recent politicization of SEL and its implementation. This analysis connects Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory, which highlights the interconnectedness of the environment, with the importance of prioritizing mental health within schools to help adolescents with issues …

Nh Ece Research Consortium One-Pager, Jess Carson, Evan England

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The New Hampshire Early Care and Education (NH ECE) Research Consortium is a network of researchers and research users committed to strengthening the state's ECE landscape through the use of data. This one-pager briefly describes what the Consortium does, who is involved, and how to learn more.

Advocacy For Inclusive Play In South Dallas: Expanding Access For Children In Underserved Areas, Aryanna Fellows, Mary Jan Greer

Summer 2026 OTD Capstone Symposium

This capstone project aimed to advocate for more inclusive and accessible playgrounds for children of all abilities in underserved communities in South Dallas. Guided by the Person-Environment-Occupation-Performance (PEOP) Model, the project evaluated playground accessibility and identified environmental barriers that limit participation for children with disabilities. Methods included a community needs assessment, playground observations using a standardized accessibility assessment tool, surveys, and stakeholder collaboration. Participants included community members, caregivers, organizational stakeholders, and children who utilize local playgrounds. Findings were synthesized to develop evidence-based recommendations and educational resources to support future playground improvements. The expected outcomes included increased awareness of inclusive playground …

July 2026 Nh Ece Research Consortium Newsletter, Jess Carson, Evan England, Harshita Sarup

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The July 2026 NH ECE Research Consortium Newsletter includes a link to the newly released statewide ECE research agenda. Also find the latest research publications, Consortium resources, upcoming events, opportunities, and more.

Nh Ece Research Consortium Community Stakeholder Map, Jess Carson, Evan England, Rachel Filippone, Elizabeth Belsito

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

New Hampshire's early care and education (ECE) ecosystem is complex and includes a broad, dynamic community of people and organizations who contribute to and rely upon ECE research. This visual stakeholder "map" documents the community-based organizations that support NH ECE. These maps rely on contributions, updates, and refinements from the field and are meant to be a shared resource reflecting the complexity of partnerships in NH's ECE ecosystem.

New Hampshire Families' Ece Needs And Preferences Project Summary, Jess Carson

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

No abstract provided.

Nh Ece Research Consortium Research & Evaluation Stakeholder Map, Jess Carson, Evan England, Lisa Bauer

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

New Hampshire's early care and education (ECE) ecosystem is complex and includes a broad, dynamic community of people and organizations who contribute to and rely upon ECE research. This visual stakeholder "map" documents the organizations that contribute to research and evaluation in NH ECE. These maps rely on contributions, updates, and refinements from the field and are meant to be a shared resource reflecting the complexity and partnerships in New Hampshire's ECE ecosystem.

Nh Ece Research Consortium State Government Stakeholder Map, Jess Carson, Evan England, Briana Ermanni

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

New Hampshire's early care and education (ECE) ecosystem is complex and includes a broad, dynamic community of people and organizations who contribute to and rely upon ECE research. This visual stakeholder "map" documents the areas of state government that support the NH ECE field. These maps rely on contributions, updates, and refinements from the field and are meant to be a shared resource reflecting the complexity of partnerships in NH's ECE ecosystem.

Nh Ece Research Consortium 2026 Activity Timeline, Jess Carson, Evan England

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

The New Hampshire Early Care and Education (NH ECE) Research Consortium is a network of researchers and research users committed to strengthening the state's ECE landscape through data. Discover what Consortium staff have accomplished so far this year in the 2026 Activity Timeline.

Nh Ece Research Consortium Research Funder Stakeholder Map, Jess Carson, Evan England, Kamala Nasirova

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

New Hampshire's early care and education (ECE) ecosystem is complex and includes a broad, dynamic community of people and organizations who contribute to and rely upon ECE research. This visual stakeholder "map" documents the research funders that support NH ECE. These maps rely on contributions, updates, and refinements from the field and are meant to be a shared resource reflecting the complexity of partnerships in NH's ECE ecosystem.

Factors/Conditions For Nh Home-Based Providers Operations Survey Recruitment Flyer (Spanish), Child Trends

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

No abstract provided.

Factors/Conditions For Nh Home-Based Providers Operations Survey Recruitment Flyer (English), Child Trends

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

No abstract provided.

Cultural Effectiveness In Early Care And Education Systems In New Hampshire Project Summary, Evan England

New Hampshire Early Care and Education Research Consortium

No abstract provided.

Expanding The Cognitive Attentional Standards Platform Through Artificial Influence Assessment (Aia): Rationale, Development, And Measurement Design, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Artificial intelligence is increasingly shaping how individuals access information, make decisions, and interact with digital environments. The Cognitive Attentional Standards Platform (C.A.S.) was developed to assess attention related harms, cognitive safety, digital autonomy, and platform influence across digital systems (Clark, 2026). However, the growth of generative AI, conversational agents, and algorithmic decision support technologies has introduced new forms of influence that may not be fully captured by existing assessment domains. This paper proposes the Artificial Influence Assessment (AIA) as an expansion of the C.A.S. framework designed to measure AI mediated influence on cognition, behavior, autonomy, and information processing. Drawing on …

Governing Algorithmic Attention: Attention Safeguard Models And The Cognitive Attentional Standard As System Level Interventions In Human Computer Interaction, Behavioral Economics, And Artificial Intelligence, Delante Clark

Graduate Scholarship and Creative Works

Algorithmic recommendation systems and interface designs shape attention by combining visually salient cues with uncertain reward timing and low friction interaction. These conditions can sustain anticipatory checking, extend time on task, and reduce natural disengagement points through patterns such as infinite scrolling and autoplay. This paper synthesizes research across neuroscience, human computer interaction, behavioral economics, and artificial intelligence to argue that attention capture is a predictable outcome of incentive driven design rather than an individual failure of self regulation. It advances the Attention Safeguard Models and the Cognitive Attentional Standard as system level interventions that regulate exposure conditions, pacing, and …

“Cool People Doing Good Work”: A Rights-Based, Relational Model For Research, Teaching, And Outreach Rooted In Urban Settings, Saúl López, Gabriel Velez, Melissa Gibson, Robert Smith

Jesuit Higher Education: A Journal

Urban Catholic institutions of higher education are being challenged to do more when it comes to working with communities that surround them at the same time as they face multiple external pressure and must clearly define the value of their mission. In this article, we present a model for community-engaged practices that emerge from the ground up to move these institutions more in line with Catholic Social Teaching. “Cool People Doing Good Work” is an adaptable model centered around relationship building and authentic engagement with local experts, stakeholders, and community members that then builds to institutional change. This model places …

Balancing Our Capacity To Serve: A Phenomenological Exploration Of Black Women Navigating Personal, Professional, And Community Leadership Roles, Shemeka K. Brathwaite

Student Theses

This phenomenological study explores the lived experiences of Black women community leaders as they navigate a balance between their professional, personal, and community leadership roles. The research design uses the theoretical frameworks of Black Feminist Intersectionality and Role Theory, specifically addressing the cultural burdens imposed by the Strong Black Woman archetype, which adds additional role strain. The study began with a questionnaire completed by 54 Black women community leaders, followed by 20 in-depth, semi-structured interviews selected from this pool. The study’s key findings are illustrated in a Black Women’s Sustainable Community Leadership Framework. Black women community leaders exude high self-efficacy, …

Building Bridges: The Reference Interview As A Mechanism For Social Capital In School Libraries, Jessica M. Lilly

Learning Hub

Building Bridges: The Reference Interview as a Mechanism for Social Capital in School Libraries

Abstract

School librarians occupy a unique position within schools, interacting across all stakeholder groups and serving as a conduit between students, teachers, administrators, and the broader learning community. This article examines the reference interview not merely as a transactional information-retrieval tool but as a relational practice through which school librarians generate, sustain, and distribute social capital. Drawing on the foundational theories of Putnam (2000), Coleman (1988), and Bourdieu (1986), and on the reference transaction model grounded in Jesse H. Shera's foundational work (Coleman et al., …

Gendered Justice: The Role Of Women’S Civil Society Organizations In Shaping Chile’S Truth Commissions, Frankie Stroud

Undergraduate Theses, Capstones, and Recitals

Scholarly literature has increasingly recognized that the inclusion of women and gender in formal transitional justice processes is essential for addressing the gendered nature of mass atrocities. This thesis seeks to contribute to the existing literature on how and why some transitional justice processes have come to address women and gender by specifically studying Chile’s Rettig Commission and Valech Commission. Several hypotheses have emerged from the literature for why the Valech Commission addressed gender to a greater extent, including that women’s civil society organizations, diffusion of international norms, and shifting domestic politics each played a role. Grounded in an anti-reductionist …

Who Tells Our Stories?: An Analysis Of Lgbtqia2s+ Community-Museum Collaboration In Northeastern Wisconsin, Frances Kerkhof

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, histories of LGBTQIA2S+ individuals have been excluded from mainstream conversations and censored from public records. This exclusion was evident in how LGBTQIA2S+ history is retold in museum spaces. Over the past few decades, public institutions have shifted how LGBTQIA2S+ histories are communicated, with efforts to include more diverse histories and perspectives. During the summer of 2025, I conducted a museum ethnography of the Neville Public Museum’s Telling Our Stories: LGBTQ+ Voices of Northeastern Wisconsin to answer the research question: How does community engagement enhance the representation of the LGBTQIA2S+ community in a local museum in Northeastern Wisconsin? Through this …

Defying Impossibility: Critical Qualitative Reorientations To Black Lgbtqia+ Sense Of Belonging, Olivia H. Hunte

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Belonging is a human need central to survival and can be cultivated within all spheres of life. Social environments are vital for experiencing a sense of belonging. In some social environments, Black LGBTQIA+ people encounter greater impediments to their daily lives with consequences for survival, including threatening their belonging needs. Within the United States, systems of oppression create and inform conditions within social environments that can potentially thwart pathways to belonging for Black LGBTQIA+ people. Thus, fulfillment of belonging needs for Black LGBTQIA+ people is one of nuance, pain, resilience, hope, harm, trauma, resistance, and healing; scant research is available …

Examining Data Access Gaps For Tribal Epidemiology Centers: Qualitative Interviews And A 50-State Syphilis Data Audit, Kathleen P. Conte, Ashley Hoover, Levi Mattoon, Brigg Reilley, Jessica Leston

Homelessness Research & Action Collaborative Publications and Presentations

Context: Federal law establishes American Indian and Alaska Native Tribes and Tribal Epidemiology Centers (TECs) as public health authorities with rights to state data to conduct public health activities. Tribal authorities, however, struggle to access public health data.

Objectives: To examine TECs’ access and barriers to public health surveillance data, and using syphilis as a case study, to assess data availability and timeliness nationwide.

Design: In-depth qualitative interviews and a desk audit of syphilis data by states.

Setting: All 12 TECs who collectively provide epidemiologic and public health support to 574 Tribes and 41 Urban Indian Centers nationwide.

Participants: Sixteen …

Beyond Emergency: Charting Pathways To Sustainable Development In Fragile And Conflict-Affected Settings: A Case Study Of Yemen, Sharif Abdurabu Salem Farid Alsahbool

Theses and Dissertations

For nearly a decade, Yemen's eastern governorates of Hadramawt, Shabwah, and Al‑Mahrah have been relatively stable, yet the international aid system has kept delivering short‑term humanitarian relief like food baskets and water trucking instead of shifting to sustainable development that could rebuild people's lives, create jobs, fix infrastructure, and strengthen local government. This thesis investigates why this transition has taken so long. Based on 21 interviews with government officials, international NGO staff, and local NGO managers in these three governorates, the study develops a new way of understanding the problem. It introduces three ideas: the 'emergency mentality', which is a …

Many Hands Make Light Work: Restoring Edu-Economical Debts For Black Males, Joyice Robinson Myers

VA Engage Journal

A college degree is closely linked to economic stability, yet only 20% of Black men in the United States hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. These disparities are not accidental; they are the cumulative result of systems that have systematically denied Black males equitable access to educational and economic opportunity across generations. This systematic review examines the compounding relationship among family structure, educational attainment, and economic standing for Black males, and considers what restoring that relationship could look like in practice. I integrate three theoretical frameworks—Education Debt (Ladson-Billings, 2006), African American Male Theory (Bush & Bush, 2013), and the R³ISE …

Fostering Developmentally Nurturant Relationships To Promote Character And Thriving: Perspectives Of Program Practitioners In Rural South Africa, Jonathan M. Tirrell, Alexa Hasse, Margaret Mackin, Elizabeth Dowling, Kirsten Olander, Roya Abbasi-Asl, Katherine Mcconnel, Thobeka Kwela, Raah Msimango, Justine Mccarthy-Martin, Tyler Howard, Angela Larkan, Richard Lerner

Journal of Youth Development

Developmentally nurturant relationships are fundamental to enabling children to thrive across contexts, including homes, schools, and communities. Such relationships are also a central feature of effective positive youth development (PYD) programming. As strengths-based PYD programs are increasingly being adopted in majority-world countries, a better understanding of how to foster and promote developmentally nurturant relationships is needed. As part of the Thanda Study of Character and Health, we interviewed 15 program practitioners about their understandings of and approaches to fostering developmentally nurturant relationships with children enrolled in Thanda programs in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Phenomenological analysis indicated that practitioners’ understanding of …