News
Research • 11 Apr 2012
The new frontiers of philanthropy - new actors and tools bringing private investment capital into support for social and environmental purpose activities
Biographical Sketch
Lester M. Salamon
Director, The Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies
Dr. Lester Salamon is a Professor at The Johns Hopkins University and Director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies. He previously served as Director of the Center for Governance and Management Research at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C. and as Deputy Associate Director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget in the Executive Office of the President.
Dr. Salamon pioneered the empirical study of the nonprofit sector in the United States and has extended this work to other parts of the world. His book, America's Nonprofit Sector: A Primer, is the standard text used in college-level courses on the nonprofit sector in the United States. His Partners in Public Service: Government and the Nonprofit Sector in the Modern Welfare State won the 1996 ARNOVA Award for Distinguished Book in Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research. Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector, produced in collaboration with an international team, won the Virginia Hodgkinson Award for best publication in the nonprofit field in 2001. More recently, he was involved in the publication of the United Nations’ Handbook on Non-Profit Institutions in the System of National Accounts and the International Labour Organisation’s Manual on the Measurement of Volunteer Work.
Author of more than a dozen books, Dr. Salamon’s most recent publications include Rethinking Corporate Social Engagement: Lessons from Latin America (Kumarian Press, 2010), The Tools of Government: A Guide to the New Governance (Oxford University Press, 2002) and The Resilient Sector: The State of Nonprofit America (Brookings Institution Press, 2003).
Dr. Salamon received his B.A. degree in Economics and Policy Studies from Princeton University and his Ph.D. in Government from Harvard University . He is Chairman of the Board of the Community Foundation of the Chesapeake and serves on the Social Science Research Council’s Committee on Philanthropy and the Nonprofit Sector.