The Harvard University Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, located in Harvard University

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

's John F. Kennedy School of Government

John F. Kennedy School of Government

The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University is a public policy and public administration school, and one of Harvard's graduate and professional schools...

, promotes teaching, scholarship, and service to the nonprofit sector across the university. The Center's concerns include philanthropy

Philanthropy

Philanthropy etymologically means "the love of humanity"—love in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, or enhancing; humanity in the sense of "what it is to be human," or "human potential." In modern practical terms, it is "private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of...

, nonprofit organizations, voluntarism

Voluntarism

Voluntarism is a descriptive term for a school of thought that regards the will as superior to the intellect and to emotion. This description has been applied to various points of view, from different cultural eras, in the areas of metaphysics, psychology, sociology, and theology.The term...

, and civil society

Civil society

Civil society is composed of the totality of many voluntary social relationships, civic and social organizations, and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society, as distinct from the force-backed structures of a state , the commercial institutions of the market, and private criminal...

. The Center provides an intellectual home to faculty, research fellows, visiting scholars, and students throughout the university who share interests in these topics. It was established by Rita Hauser

Rita Hauser

Rita Eleanor Hauser is an international lawyer known for persuading Yasser Arafat and the Palestine Liberation Organization to renounce violence in 1988. She also served as United States Ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights from 1969 to 1972. George W...

 and her husband Gustave M. Hauser.

The Center hosts several regular seminars during the academic year, supports a working paper series, and maintains a reference library. It hosts special events beyond Harvard, such as the "emerging issues" series of conferences on legal and policy issues in the nonprofit sector, co-sponsored by the Urban Institute

Urban Institute

The Urban Institute is a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that carries out nonpartisan economic and social policy research, collects data, evaluates social programs, educates the public on key domestic issues, and provides advice and technical assistance to developing governments abroad...

. It also brings leaders of nonprofit institutions to Harvard, such as its senior research fellows William F. Baker

William F. Baker

William Franklin Baker is an American television executive. He is Executive in Residence at Columbia University School of Business, Journalist in Residence at Fordham University and the Claudio Aquaviva Chair at the Graduate School of Education, and President Emeritus of Educational Broadcasting...

, Peter Bell, Steve Lawry, and Peter Dobkin Hall

Peter Dobkin Hall

Peter Dobkin Hall is an American author and historian. He is Professor of Public Affairs at Baruch College, CUNY], and Senior Research Fellow at the , Harvard University....

, as well as the participants in its 2008-09 series of talks by new leaders in philanthropy. Christopher Stone became Faculty Director in 2008, the same year in which Aviva Luz Argote became Executive Director. Other notable faculty members include Mark Moore, L. David Brown, Marion Fremont-Smith, Marshall Ganz

Marshall Ganz

Marshall Ganz is a lecturer in public policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. He worked on the staff of the United Farm Workers for sixteen years before becoming a trainer and organizer for political campaigns, unions and nonprofit groups...

, Christopher Winship

Christopher Winship

Christopher Winship is Diker-Tishman Professor of sociology at Harvard University, and principal of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard. He is best known for his contributions to quantitative methods in sociology and, since 1995, has served as editor of Sociological Methods...

, Archon Fung, Herman "Dutch" Leonard, Christine Letts, and Bryan Hehir.

The Center is host to three important blogs: Humanitarian and Development Nonprofit Organizations, Nonprofits in China http://hausercenter.org/chinanpo and Nonprofit News & Comment http://hausercenter.org/npnews.