Membership Information

Nonprofit organizations and voluntary action are critical to the development and strengthening of democracy and civil society throughout the world. Universities are central institutions for understanding and promoting the structures essential for democratic life. University-based programs that perform research, teaching and public service to strengthen nonprofit/nongovernmental organizations, philanthropy, and voluntary action are critical to helping universities and their communities meet this need.

The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) was founded in 1991 by leaders of nonprofit academic programs who wanted to share information and ideas to strengthen their programs and advance the field of philanthropic and nonprofit sector education within their institutions and beyond. Central to building the field is recognition and support by institutions of higher education that philanthropic and nonprofit sector studies are a vital component of the education, research and community engagement that they undertake. At the same time, there is growing diversity of programs by both academic and non-academic institutions that offer research and scholarship, education, and service to the nonprofit sector.

NACC's newly revised membership categories and criteria for membership maintain a commitment to the advancement of fully realized academic centers focused on the nonprofit sector while also recognizing the increasing diversity of programs and institutions both within and outside the academy that participate in our field.