Past Recipients

Members’ involvement in membership associations are important for members, the organization, and the society at large. Such involvement takes different forms including giving money or volunteering. Yet, such involvement is not always easy and varies based on both organizational factors such as leadership and individual characteristics such as gender and race. The goal of this proposed research is to bring together these organizational factors and individual characteristics by examining the identity congruence between members and leaders of membership associations and its association with greater membership involvement—and consequently expected benefits. In other words, does the racial and gender composition of the board and senior management of an organization encourage members with certain gender or racial identity to donate their time and money for the organization? And does such involvement create an unbalanced burden or benefit from some groups than others?

The Physician Diversity Scholars (PDS) Program at Ohio University Heritage College of Osteopathic Medicine is an innovative program which serves to connect under-represented minority medical students with minority physician mentors established in the local medical community and in associations serving minority physicians across America. Through this program, medical students have the opportunity to learn from experienced physicians about how to be leaders in the clinical setting, the community and to gain skills and information regarding prominent associations. The PDS program engages the students in a variety of skill sets but promotes mentoring through one-to-one information sharing. Through the PDS curriculum, many physician mentors encourage their young mentees to become engaged in a variety of civic and non-profit organizations. They themselves are often leaders of these associations, outside of their roles as physicians. This unique brand of leadership is novel to both minority and physician communities. As this is not taught in the formal medical school curriculum, these physicians developed these leadership skills both individually on their own, and together, by forming unofficial, innovative mentoring networks. The transference of this knowledge to the next generation of leaders is the primary focus of this investigation. The first objective is to characterize the experiences of these physician-leaders as it pertains to association management and the development of their leadership skills. The second objective is to articulate the mechanism by which this understanding is transferred from mentors to mentees. Through a Grounded Theory-styled analysis,1 we hope to develop a pedagogical model describing how minority physician leaders can be guided to the skills necessary to excel in association leadership. Once this model is described, it can be replicated on a larger scale to impact programs across the country in order to promote diversity among association leadership, specifically from under-represented minority physician leaders.

On the organizational level, membership associations are recognizing the importance that Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)practices have on its efficiency and effectiveness. Although demographics are changing, many associations struggle with how to increase the number of people of color within their organizations, and how to retain them. This proposal seeks funding in the amount of $7,500 from the ASAE Research Foundation’s Sal Martino Legacy Grant for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Research to examine the DEI strategy of building intentional pipeline programs as a means of recruitment and retention of people of color. To understand this strategy, the researcher will partner with the Association of Research on Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) to conduct a program evaluation of the Diversity Scholars Program, a professional development workshop. According to Center Point, the method of “evaluation refers to a periodic process of gathering data and then analyzing or ordering it in such a way that the resulting information can be used to determine whether [an]organization or program is effectively carrying out planned activities, and the extent to which it is achieving its stated objectives and anticipated results” (https://trust.guidestar.org/the-importance-of-evaluation). Through the collection of both qualitative and quantitative data, several research questions aimed at understanding the effectiveness of this DEI strategy are undertaken. The significance of this study includes providing baseline data for future studies involving the use of pipeline programs as a DEI strategy for associations and to underscore the importance of creating such opportunities for underrepresented people of color as a means of equity and inclusion. Additionally, ARNOVA will receive an evaluation of its program along with what the research hopes will be a deeper understanding of how this program impacts the association and its membership.