5 Receive Nation’s 1st Undergraduate Degrees in Philanthropic Studies

As a sophomore studying anthropology at a college in southern Indiana, Mark Lighthizer took a spring-break trip to build houses in the Dominican Republic. He saw a lot of needy people, but he didn’t know how he could help them.

Back at school, it gnawed at him until he discovered a new major starting in the fall of 2010 at the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, in Indianapolis. He was one of the first to apply.

In May, the 22-year-old became one of the first five graduates of what is believed to be the first-ever bachelor’s degree in philanthropic studies, a liberal-arts program based at the center. The program, say its organizers, is intended to produce future nonprofit leaders who are not only well-versed in the nuts and bolts of nonprofit management but also comfortable weighing the philosophical questions they will encounter on the job.

During the degree program’s first two years, 21 students have declared philanthropic studies as a major. By 2015, Indiana expects that number to reach 75. “This is part of an explosion of undergraduate nonprofit programs,” says Ben Nemenoff, an official at the Nonprofit Leadership Alliance (formerly American Humanics), in Kansas City, Mo., which offers a nonprofit certificate at about 50 colleges and universities nationwide, designed to prepare students for careers at social-service and youth organizations.

He points to other academic programs in nonprofit studies around the country as evidence of the trend, as academic institutions are stepping up to meet charities’ demand for more trained professionals.

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