Francie Ostrower holds a joint appointment as Professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. Prior to joining the University in 2008, she was a Senior Research Associate at the Urban Institute, and prior to that was a Sociology faculty member at Harvard University. Professor Ostrower received her Ph.D. in sociology from Yale University, where she also was associate director of the Program on Nonprofit Organizations.
Dr. Ostrower's research has focused on philanthropy, cultural policy and participation, and nonprofit governance. She is the author of books on Trustees of Culture and Why the Wealthy Give, and co–author of Race, Ethnicity and Participation in the Arts. Among her articles and monographs are "Attitudes and Practices Concerning Effective Philanthropy," "Nonprofit Governance in the United States," and "The Diversity of Cultural Participation." She received ARNOVA's 1996 Award for Distinguished Book in Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research, and received Independent Sector's Virginia A. Hodgkinson Research Prize in 1996 and 2006.
In recent years, she has been on the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly editorial board, the advisory committees of the Aspen Institute's Community Foundation Initiative and the National Endowment for the Arts' 2007 SPPA Planning Study, and vice president for publications and board member of the Association for Research on Voluntary and Nonprofit Action. Dr. Ostrower is an Associate Scholar at the Urban Institute Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy.
