2025 Nonprofit Early Scholars Fellowship Program

Nonprofit Management & Leadership, American University’s School of Public Affairs, and ARNOVA’s Early Scholars Section invite early-career nonprofit scholars to apply for the 2025 Nonprofit Early Scholars Fellowship Program.

About the Program: The goals of the fellowship program are to help early-career scholars navigate the publishing process, gain recognition for their work, and interact with senior scholars in the nonprofit research community. Fellows selected into the program will be matched with NML board members to receive feedback on a manuscript and help them successfully navigate the peer review process. Fellows are expected to submit manuscripts developed during the fellowship to NML for review, with support from their fellowship mentor. If a manuscript is accepted for publication, it will be published in an upcoming issue of NML and in an NML virtual special issue showcasing the work of early-career nonprofit scholars.

Commitment: If selected into the fellowship program, fellows are expected to attend a series of virtual meetings in May 2025. These virtual meetings will be followed by commitments to review other fellows’ work in summer 2025 and to participate in a series of one-on-one virtual meetings with fellowship mentors through fall 2025. The due date for finalising and submitting fellowship manuscripts to NML will be December 31, 2025. Once the manuscript is under review, fellows will continue to work with fellowship mentors through the revise and resubmit process. If the manuscript is accepted for publication in the peer review process, publications of final manuscripts are anticipated to begin in summer 2026.

Eligibility: Early-career scholars who are currently enrolled in a doctoral program or have received a PhD within the last five years before the deadline (i.e., PhD completion dates as early as March 2020) are eligible to apply.

Submission deadline: Submit by clicking the link at https://umbc.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_6Q19KynNd19lxum or scanning the QR code below by February 1, 2025.

Submission requirements: Submissions should include the applicant’s current CV and a draft research paper (unpublished) on a topic related to nonprofit management, leadership, or governance, including a full title page with all authors listed. The submitted paper must be a complete research paper within 10,000 words. Single-authored papers will be strongly preferred, but co-authored pieces will be considered if the applicant is the lead author.

Admissions decisions will be announced in April 2025

Questions? If you have any questions, please email Dr. Lewis Faulk (faulk@american.edu) or Dr. Jessica Berret (jberret@uccs.edu) for additional information.