Nonprofit Management and Leadership - Editors' Prize 2010

Announcing the 2010 Recipient of The Editors' Prize for Best Scholarly Paper in Nonprofit Management and Leadership

Volume 19

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 19 has been awarded to

Rachel Croson	Femida Handy	Jen Shang

for their article

Keeping Up with the Joneses: The Relationship of Perceived Descriptive Social Norms, Social Information, and Charitable Giving

Using a survey and laboratory experiment, Croson, Handy, and Shang focus on identifying strategies for fundraising practice grounded in the observation that the belief that others make comparatively large contributions tends to prompt donors to make larger contributions themselves. Their prize-winning article looks at the influence of perceived descriptive social norms on subsequent giving behavior to nonprofits, explores how social information can influence these norms, and provides insight for fundraising practice. Informing donors of contributions made by another person influences their perceptions about the descriptive social norm, which in turn influences their giving behavior.

Rachel Croson is the director of the Negotiations Center, professor of economics, and professor of organizations, strategy, and international management at the University of Texas at Dallas. She is a behavioral economist interested in documenting the form and extent to which psychological concerns affect economic decisions. Dr. Croson holds a Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

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

Jen Shang is assistant professor at the School of Public and Environmental Affairs, Indiana University, Bloomington. Her research interests include philanthropic psychology, donor behavior, fund development, and nonprofit marketing. Dr. Shang received a Ph.D. in philanthropic studies from Indiana University.

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 NML’s editorial and advisory boards. Criteria are based on the article’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.