The Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC)—a membership organization comprised of the directors of 39 academic centers across the United States that focus on the study of nonprofit organizations, voluntarism and/or philanthropy—is relocating to CWRU's Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

Its current home is at the Independent Sector in Washington, D.C. The move will take place in January, 2003.

"As one of NACC's founding members and one of the first university-based nonprofit academic centers in the country, the Mandel Center is uniquely positioned for this partnership," said Edward M. Hundert, president of CWRU.

The NACC was established in 1991 to foster discussion and collaboration among academic centers devoted to the study of the private, nonprofit sector and philanthropy in order to advance education, research and practice in this field. Membership in NACC is limited to those academic centers at accredited colleges and universities that maintain a substantial focus on the private, nonprofit sector or philanthropy, in addition to a significant research component on these topics.

"At a time when philanthropic giving and voluntarism are of primary importance, the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council looks forward to continuing its leadership role in promoting the study of these subjects at universities throughout the country and, in fact, the world," said Naomi Bailin Wish, NACC president and director of the Center for Public Service at Seton Hall University. "We are looking forward to establishing our home at the Mandel Center in Cleveland, one of the leading philanthropic communities in the U.S."

"The Mandel Center is eager to welcome NACC to CWRU and begin to work collaboratively to support its growth regionally as well as nationally," said Susan Lajoie Eagan, executive director of the Mandel Center. "We look forward to a long and productive relationship."

With the growing development of the field of nonprofit studies and the resultant increase in NACC membership, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation awarded NACC a gift of $250,000 to establish, among other things, a new home. The group has selected its first permanent home at the Mandel Center and is in the process of hiring its first executive director.

NACC's strategic plan calls for it to play a leadership role in the continued development of the field of philanthropic and nonprofit management studies. It is engaged in defining the core curriculum for the field, inventorying the knowledge base available and in need of development and setting quality standards for academic programs related to the field.