LSUS faculty member chosen as nonprofit early scholars fellow

LSUS faculty member chosen as nonprofit early scholars fellow

SHREVEPORT - LSU Shreveport assistant professor Dr. Chen Ji is one of seven scholars who are nearing completion of the Nonprofit Early Scholars Fellowship Program.

The year-long program, organized by a leading publication in the field "Nonprofit Management and Leadership," is designed to give young scholars an inside look at the publishing process and foster relationships with peers and mentors in the nonprofit academic world.

Ji participated in a series of virtual workshops and academic exchanges this fall and is now refining her research with a mentor scholar to prepare for publication.

"This has been a great honor and a great opportunity to build connections with peer scholars and senior scholars," Ji said. "This experience has provided a chance to discuss my work in depth with these scholars while also gaining an understanding of the publishing process as we are directly working with the leading journal in our nonprofit field.

"I always feel grateful and joyful when exchanging academic ideas with these brilliant people, and we've become a small community that gathers together at conferences."

NML selects early-scholar members, who are late-stage doctoral students or early in their first faculty role, based on their research ideas and academic experience.

Ji is polishing her idea to explore a popular management theory (signaling theory) and integrate those concepts into the nonprofit world of early-stage fundraising.

Signaling theory explains how companies communicate information about themselves or engage in certain behaviors that illustrate their values to external audiences.

"I extended my focus on the social enterprises resource acquisition to include signaling theory," Ji explained. "Compared to the business world, the nonprofit sector has a wider range of stakeholders that include founders, their beneficiaries, volunteers, and so many other different stakeholders - all with different expectations for the organization.

"Signaling theory provides two important practical implications for the organization's communication strategy with those stakeholders. You have to know what kinds of signals that you want to send to different stakeholders that will be beneficial instead of backfiring. And secondly, how are you going to send those signals?"

The 2025 cohort will present their research at the end of the summer, submitting the work for publication.

"The nonprofit sector does use signals, but a lot of times it's about fiscal leanness or low-overhead ratios," said Ji, highlighting nonprofit's desire to be low cost. "But that could have long-term negative consequences for the organization.

"If you focus too much on leanness, then you aren't investing in your capacity building or showing your stakeholders things like how you're innovating and achieving impact. I'm trying to introduce and apply this theory to nonprofit studies and also do some empirical research to provide insights with actual evidence to further scholarship in this field."

While Ji has found an academic community in the program, her decision to start her teaching career at LSUS came from the university's commitment to nonprofit administration as a standalone field.

"Nonprofit studies is usually a very small discipline embedded in public administration programs," said Ji, who completed her doctoral degree at Indiana University's Lilly Family School of Philanthropy after studying in her native China. "(LSUS's) Institute of Nonprofit Research and Administration and its narrow focus on nonprofit studies was the biggest draw for me, and we have devoted faculty and staff in this department.

"I also love LSUS students. You expect nonprofit students to care about grassroots activities and try and really make changes in their local communities. A lot of our students are first generation and have a desire to impact the communities in which they are from. I'm so astonished by all the ideas and insights they have when we're having discussions in classes like community service and civic engagement."