Dr. Virginia A. Hodgkinson, Vice President for Research of Independent Sector, has become the best-known person in her field. Although it is under her direction and with her personal effort that Independent Sector publishes important reports on the condition of philanthropy, it is through Virginia's Work in Progress that she finds herself at the center of a rapidly expanding network of research. The following essay gives a clear indication of the encouraging array of scholarship and empirical work under way in this field.

The year 1987 marked the Independent Sector's fifth Spring Research Forum. The first forum "Since the Filer Commission" was held in the spring of 1983 to assess the condition of research since the Commission on Private Philanthropy and Public Needs had completed its work in 1975 and published its Research Papers in 1977. This forum also launched the research program of the Independent Sector (IS). The goal of this research program was and is to stimulate the development of an identifiable and growing research effort that produces the body of knowledge necessary to accurately define, describe, chart, and understand the sector and the ways it can be of greatest service to society.

The purpose of this progress report is to provide a broad review of research activity on philanthropy and the independent sector, the support for such research, and the achievement of progress toward the broad goals of the IS research program. It is not designed to provide a critique of the scholarly work completed or in progress, but rather to point out where significant scholarly activity is occurring, some commitment made by academic institutions or major research organizations to research and academic programs on nonprofit organizations and philanthropy, and to note where major gaps still exist. Because one of the major functions of the Independent Sector research program is to encourage and document ongoing research, this review is organized according to the plan approved by the IS Research Committee to accomplish that function. As such, this essay looks at the sector as a whole, and more particularly at the efficacy of the IS research program to achieve its goals to encourage, support, and document a growing research effort.

The IS Research Program is guided by a Research Committee under the chairmanship of Robert Payton, former President of the Exxon Education Foundation and, more recently, a Scholar in Residence at the University of Virginia. Under his leadership, this committee developed a series of strategies designed to stimulate research and to increase the support of research on this sector. These strategies include:

1. Establishing a research community through the annual research forums and publication of the Working Papers from the forums and Research-in-Progress to document work in progress

2. Stimulating the development of bibliographies and searches through former literature

3. Encouraging the development of the bookshelf on philanthropy, voluntary action, and nonprofit activity by encouraging and documenting the publication of works relating to this sector

4. Building the resource base on the independent sector in order to stimulate social science research

5. Identifying major research gaps, and encouraging research to fill those gaps

6. Encouraging the establishment of endowed chairs and academic centers to maintain intergenerational support for both teaching and research on the sector across the humanistic disciplines, the social sciences, and in professional schools of public administration, business management, and law

7. Increasing support for research and teaching on the independent sector

Establishing a Research Community

Because the Independent Sector represents over 600 national voluntary organizations, foundations, and corporate responsibility programs, it essentially works through the voluntary service and commitment of its members to achieve its program goals. The research program not only needed to seek the support of IS members, but also the interest of the academic community at colleges and universities across the United States and abroad.

An important element of developing a body of knowledge in any area is to provide opportunities for scholars to meet with persons of similar interests and to have a regular process of publishing new research, usually through journals and books. Such a situation is more difficult in an area where most of the research is multidisciplinary in character, and very few scholars are scattered across several disciplines, each with its own scholarly professional association and journals. In order to address a major gap in the ability scholars to know and to communicate with each other, the annual research forums were established. Since 1984, the forums have been co-sponsored by the United Way Institute.

These annual forums have been very well received by the scholarly community as well as the leaders from nation voluntary organizations and donor organizations. They provide scholars with an opportunity to present their research and representatives of voluntary and donor organizations to learn about current research. Furthermore, they provide an opportunity for all three groups to discuss future research needs, to ask new questions, and to refine older questions.

Each year the quality of research, and the number and variety of new researchers in the field who are invited to present papers, have measurably improved. Since 1982, over 150 scholars have been invited to present papers at these Spring Research Forums, but where the early sessions primarily focused on the research that needed to be done, since 1985, a substantial part of the programs of these forums have been devoted to reporting findings from current research. The limited publication of Working Papers containing the paper for discussion at each of the forums have been purchased by researchers, libraries, and other voluntary and donor organizations for further use. Many of the papers included in the annual Working Papers are published later as articles in journals or as chapters in books.

Another strategy that is used to build a research community is the annual publication of Research-in-Progress. This volume includes an annual compilation of current research on philanthropy, voluntary action, and not-for-profit activity. Its purpose is to identify researchers and describe current research on issues of concern to the independent sector. Our goal in publishing this series is to provide an avenue for sharing information among researchers in the sector. These researchers may have common interests, but currently there are very few scholarly publications and little opportunity through professional associations to meet one another. Research-in-Progress covers research across a great range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary endeavor, from theoretical research on the role and functions of the nonprofit organizations to analyses of the motivations of giving, to special industry studies on particular sub-sectors of the independent sector, such as hospitals and schools. As such, it provides researchers, students, and practitioners with a convenient compendium of work underway, as well as recently published articles, papers, and books.

Since the first edition of Research-in-Progress was published in 1983, over 1,800 research projects have been summarized: 282 in the 1982-1983 edition, 403 in the 1983-1984 edition, 511 in the 1984-1985 edition, and 441 projects in the 1985-1986 edition. Although multi-year projects are re-listed each year with a progress report, over 60% of the projects listed in each addition are new projects, for a total of about 1,100 new research projects over this period. As such, the volume stands as a record of research activity on the sector for any particular year.

Research-in-Progress has rapidly become a basic reference in the field for researchers, voluntary organizations, and donor organizations. Originally, donor organizations were concerned about funding duplicative research efforts. Researchers, on the other hand, had to start from scratch with each study because they had difficulty in knowing or in accessing research currently underway. This document has provided a handy starting point for researchers and practitioners alike. It has led to several collaborative efforts in research; and it has provided a reference point for determining the amount of or the lack of research on a topic in various areas.

Opportunities for more scholarly meetings also have increased. The Program on Non-Profit Organizations has offered weekly seminars on current issues that many researchers have attended. Other academic centers also are providing seminar series and planning conferences, such as the Institute for Nonprofit Management at the University of San Francisco and the Center for Philanthropy at the Graduate Center at the City University of New York. As these and other new centers develop their programs, they will provide more opportunities for scholars to meet together.

In 1985, the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars expanded its mission to include membership of scholars broadly interested in research in volunteering, citizen participation, philanthropy, and nonprofit organizations. The expanded mission will provide scholars in the field with access to a professional association that holds a yearly conference. This association also has expanded the purpose of its journal, edited by Jon Van Til of Rutgers University, to include scholarly papers on the wider topics of philanthropy and nonprofit organizations. The title of the journal has been changed to Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly to reflect this wider interest and to provide researchers in the field with more opportunity to publish articles within their scholarly interest.