Tell the TSPPPA community about your project.
For our capstone project, we teamed up with the CCS Fundraising’s Baltimore office to provide them with an overview of the city’s philanthropic landscape. CCS Fundraising is a consulting agency that works with nonprofits to increase capacity and ensure each organization has the tools to achieve long-term success. CCS Fundraising has access to extensive national data on the giving landscape, but to better serve their clients, they wanted more focused data. We had four key research questions: 1) What is the current state of philanthropy in Baltimore?, 2) What priorities have emerged among nonprofits and grantmaking entities?, 3) How do historical and emerging trends shape today’s landscape?, and 4) What insights can help us understand the future of philanthropy in Baltimore? To answer these questions, we used a mixed-methods approach, including interviews with 10 nonprofit development leaders in Baltimore and analysis of IRS Form 990s to assess the financial health of the organizations. These methods revealed a landscape in transition. We recommend that CCS Fundraising continue to analyze this landscape by launching the survey we created, informed by the findings of our report.
What surprised you most about Capstone?
- Sophia: I was surprised to learn how interconnected the private, public, and nonprofit sectors are when considering the financial health of organizations. If one sector is struggling, there are rippling effects across the other sectors. I was also interested to learn about the different reporting requirements of nonprofits dependent on their size and sector. I enjoyed learning directly from nonprofit leaders about their successes and challenges in development and seeing how they mapped onto discussions from classes.
- Daniel: I’ve done long-form group projects before, but this was truly one of the fastest semesters of my life. I think our team was incredibly organized and mission-driven, so we were always on top of our assignments every week. It really made the workflow well and kept us busy; time just flew by.
- Justin:Thinking about our capstone and others this semester, I was surprised by the variety of projects and how many opportunities there were for us soon-to-be-graduates to apply the things that we've learned throughout our program in the real world. GW prepared me to be a critical thinker and an effective problem solver.
- Caroline: I was pleasantly surprised by how willing nonprofit leaders were to be interviewed by us! Not only were they willing to take part in our research, but they were also generous with their responses and time. I found this to be extremely encouraging and heartening.
Capstone takes place in the final semester of your program. How have you used the skills that you have gained throughout your MPA journey in this course?
- Sophia: I used so many skills from past classes in the completion of my capstone. I am especially grateful to have taken Managing Fundraising and Philanthropy with Professor Worth, Program Evaluation with Dr. Newcomer, and Public Budgeting, Revenue, and Expenditure Analysis with Dr. Yang. These courses taught me crucial skills that I utilized during the project. I was also thankful for the development of my critical thinking and problem-solving skills in all my TPPPA classes!
- Daniel: I feel like my statistics courses helped so much with understanding our own internal bias and ensured we were putting the project first instead of ourselves, avoiding any questions of validity issues. So many of the courses at GW are designed to make students reflect on their perspective of what it means to be a public servant, and I always went into drafting and editing sections of our paper with that mindset.
- Justin: For this specific Capstone project, I was able to explore further a range of topics I had learned about in my budget and public finance concentration coursework, namely ‘Managing Fundraising and Philanthropy’ with Prof. Michael Worth. While the field of fundraising has evolved significantly and been professionalized over the years, I saw just how much more work remains to advance the practice further.
- Caroline: I leveraged many of the skills I learned over the course of our MPA studies for this capstone project. In particular, the required program evaluation and statistics classes were especially helpful when conducting the data analysis portion of our report. In Program Evaluation specifically, I learned how to design and execute the same kind of qualitative interviews we used in our research on the Baltimore Philanthropic Landscape. I found these two classes to be some of the most challenging for me, which made putting them to good use particularly rewarding.
How has working with an actual client shaped the course for you?
- Sophia: CCS Fundraising was an excellent capstone client! They provide excellent critique and encouragement. They also allowed us to attend their Baltimore Philanthropy Forum, where I learned from development experts about the challenges faced by nonprofits of all sizes.
- Daniel: Expectations are always high but you get to see how working professionals react to your progress in the research being conducted in real time as they learn with you, and that really brings an extra layer of depth to the project. It does not feel like earning a grade at that point.
- Justin: Working with CCS Fundraising has allowed me to see that organizations don’t always have the answer to every question, and that’s okay. Additionally, this capstone project has shown me that the answers to some of the most challenging questions cannot be reached individually, by one organization, or in silos. Oftentimes, it requires collaboration, partnership, and teamwork.
- Caroline: Working with an actual client allowed us to get real-time feedback throughout the semester whenever questions arose. It was rewarding to know that our research would potentially make a tangible impact on their strategy going forward in Baltimore. I am grateful CCS Fundraising placed their trust in us and hope this report and survey prove helpful to them!
Anything to add?
- Sophia: The culminating capstone project was an excellent experience where I got to hone my team collaboration skills and work with a client. I am grateful to Dr. Emas, CCS Fundraising, and my teammates for making this a good experience.
- Daniel: I much prefer doing a Capstone that highlights the importance of teamwork in social research to an independent research thesis. Though most of us are already working professionals, I believe this project is perfect for reinforcing our reputation in the public administration community.
- Justin: I’m excited to see if future capstone groups can expand upon the foundation that we’ve been able to lay with CCS Fundraising. While we were able to accomplish a lot with our project and limited timeline, additional research would be beneficial to ensure that the emerging trends and patterns are not lost as new developments continue to arise.
- Caroline: I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with CCS Fundraising and my teammates on this project. The nonprofit sector, in Baltimore and beyond, serves as a vital pillar of the community, stepping in to meet needs where government and the private sector fall short. I hope our research contributes, even in a small way, to supporting this important work!
Thank you to Daniel Biggins, Sophia Boyer, Caroline Motley, and Justin Williams!
