Nonprofit Management and Leadership - Editors' Prize 2008

Announcing the 2008 Recipient of The Editors' Prize for Best Scholarly Paper in Nonprofit Management and Leadership

Volume 17

The editorial and advisory boards of Nonprofit Management and Leadership, the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations, and Jossey-Bass Publishers, Inc., are pleased to announce that the Editors' Prize for Volume 17 has been awarded to

Femida Handy, Bhagyashree Ranade, and Meenaz Kassam

for their article

To Profit or Not to Profit: Women Entrepreneurs in India

Entrepreneurial individuals have played an important role in India's economic development. Nonprofit organizations have catered to the needs of the marginalized and poor, and businesses have fueled economic growth and prosperity. As founders of many of these enterprises, women have achieved economic independence and risen above the shackles of a caste- and male-dominated traditional society. This entrepreneurial role has given women in India an opportunity to enter the social and political spheres in ways previously denied to them. Handy, Ranade, and Kassam's research compared women founders of nonprofit organizations with women founders of comparably sized for-profit businesses. "Our findings," the authors wrote, "show that certain factors differentiate nonprofit and for-profit women entrepreneurs in India: ideology, professional standing, previous experience, income, caste, age, family background, and a willingness to take risks. . . . The salient factor in our study is that all nonprofit women entrepreneurs share feminist beliefs and a desire to help others."

Femida Handy is an associate professor at the School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania, and on the Faculty of Environmental Studies at York University, Toronto. An expert in nonprofit sector economics, she holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies from York

Bhagyashree Ranade is the CEO of Marketing and Market Research Consultants in Pune, India, and the founding member of the Institute for Women Entrepreneurial Development, Pune.

Meenaz Kassam is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto and in the Department of International Studies, American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto.

The Editors' Prize is awarded annually for the best paper published in NML during the preceding subscription year. Winners receive a $1,000 cash prize courtesy of the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations and $1,000 in books from Jossey-Bass.

Winners are selected by the members of the editorial and advisory boards of NML. Criteria are based on the author's contribution to knowledge in the field of nonprofit management, the quality of the writing and analysis, and the usefulness of the information for the practice of nonprofit management and leadership.