Professor of Public Administration and Policy

Curriculum Vitae

Rebecca Nesbit is a Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Georgia. She received her Ph.D. in Public Affairs from Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs in 2008, specializing in nonprofit management, volunteerism and philanthropy. She also holds a Master of Public Administration degree from Brigham Young University.

Education
  • B.S., Brigham Young University 1999, Mathematics
  • Master, Brigham Young University 2001, Public Administration
  • Ph.D., Indiana University, Bloomington 2008, Public Affairs
More About

Dr. Nesbit teaches classes on the nonprofit sector, nonprofit management and governance, managing volunteers and other special topics.  She also teaches statistics.

Dr. Nesbit’s research explores issues of philanthropy and volunteerism, public policy and management in the public and nonprofit sectors.  In particular, she conducts research on volunteer programs in public and nonprofit organizations, situational influences on volunteers’ characteristics and motivations, and volunteer management in public and nonprofit organizations.  Her work has appeared in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Nonprofit Management and Leadership, Public Administration Review, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Administration & Society.  In 2013, Dr. Nesbit was invited by the U.S. State Department to deliver a series of programs on voluntarism and volunteer management in conjunction with the U.S. Embassy in Romania.

Areas of Expertise
  • Nonprofit management
  • Voluntarism
  • Volunteer management
  • Nonprofit governance
  • Philanthropy
Honors, Awards, and Achievements
  • RGK Summer Fellowship.  RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service, University of Texas at Austin.  Awarded to attend a summer seminar at the RGK Center, May 27-June 20, 2008.
  • Invitee.  President’s Remarks on Volunteering on the White House South Lawn.  September 6, 2008, Washington, DC
  • Minnowbrook III Phase One Invitee.  Attended the Minnowbrook III conference for young scholars in Public Administration.  September 3-5th, 2008, Blue Mountain Lake, New York.
  • Emerging Scholar Award. Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Awarded to attend and present a paper at the 35th Annual ARNOVA Conference 2006.
  • Best Empirical Paper. International Association for Conflict Management (IACM), Awarded at 17th Annual Conference, June 6-9, 2004
  • Conference Scholarship. Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Awarded to attend and present a paper at the 32nd Annual ARNOVA Conference 2003.
  • Emerging Scholar Award. Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Awarded to attend and present a paper at the 31st Annual ARNOVA Conference 2002.
  • Chancellor’s Fellowship. Indiana University. Awarded in recognition of academic achievement, 2001-2004.
Course Instruction
Research Interests
  • Philanthropy
  • Volunteerism
  • Public policy and management in the public and nonprofit sectors
  • Situational influences on volunteers’ characteristics and motivations
  • Volunteer management in public and nonprofit organizations
Selected Publications

Rimes, Heather, Nesbit, Rebecca, and Christensen, Robert K. (forthcoming) “Giving at Work: Exploring Connections between Workplace Giving Campaigns and Patterns of Household Charitable Giving in the USA” Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations.

Haslam, Allyson, Nesbit, Rebecca, and Christensen, Robert K. (forthcoming) “The Dynamic Impact of Nonprofit Organizations: Are Health-Related Nonprofit Organizations Associate with Improvements in Obesity in the Community?” Nonprofit Policy Forum, 10.1515/npf-2018-0040

LePere-Schloop, Megan and Nesbit, Rebecca (forthcoming) “Political Theories of the Nonprofit Sector: What are They?  What do They Tell Us? Where do We Go from Here?” Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership

 Nesbit, Rebecca, Paarlberg, Laurie E., and Compton, Mallory. (forthcoming) “Who is My Neighbor? The Effect of Community Racial In-Group Representation and Residential Isolation on Volunteering.” Politics, Groups, and Identities.  https://doi.org/10.1080/21565503.2019.1584747

Paarlberg, Laurie E., Nesbit, Rebecca, Clerkin, Richard M., and Christensen, Robert K. (forthcoming/online first). “The Politics of Donations: Are Red Counties More Donative Than Blue Counties?” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, DOI: 0899764018804088.

 Nesbit, Rebecca, Robert K. Christensen, and Jeffrey L. Brudney (2018) “The Limits and Possibilities of Volunteering: A Framework for Explaining the Scope of Volunteering Involvement in Public and Nonprofit Organizations.” Public Administration Review, 78(4): 502-513. https://doi.org/10.1111/puar.12894
*One of the top 20 downloaded articles from PAR 2017-2018

Paarlberg, Laurie, Robert K. Christensen, Rebecca Nesbit, Seung-Ho An, and Justin Bullock.  (2018) “A Field Too Crowded? How Measures of Market Structure Shape Nonprofit Fiscal Health.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 47(3); 453-473. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764018760398

Heather Rimes, Rebecca Nesbit, Robert K. Christensen, and Jeffrey L. Brudney (2017) “Exploring the Dynamics of Volunteer and Staff Interactions: From Satisfaction to Conflict.” Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 28(2): 195-213. https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.21277

Christensen, Robert K, Rebecca Nesbit, and Justin M. Stritch.  (2018) “The Role of Employees’ Public Service Motives and Organizational Commitment in Workplace Giving Campaigns.” American Review of Public Administration, 48(7): 644-658. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074017701223

Nesbit, Rebecca. (2017) “Advocacy Recruits: Demographic Predictors of Volunteering for Advocacy-Related Organizations.” Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations, 28(3): 958-987. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11266-017-9855-z

Michael A. Walton, Richard M. Clerkin, Robert K. Christensen, Laurie Paarlberg, Rebecca Nesbit and Mary Tschirhart. (2017) “Means, Motive, and Opportunity: Exploring Board Volunteering.” Personnel Review, 46(1): 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1108/PR-01-2015-0012

Christensen, Robert K., Nesbit, Rebecca, and Agypt, Brett. (2016) “To Give or Not to Give: Employee Responses to Workplace Giving Campaigns Over Time.” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, 45(6): 1258-1275. https://doi.org/10.1177/0899764015619704

Robert K. Christensen, Richard Clerkin, Nesbit, Rebecca and Laurie Paarlberg. (2016) “Are Parent Teacher Groups Leading?  An Exploratory Study Assessing Nonprofits’ Financial Support of Public Schools.” Journal of Nonprofit Education and Leadership, 6(1): 47-59.

Nesbit, Rebecca, Heather Rimes, Robert K. Christensen, and Jeffrey L. Brudney (2016) “Inadvertent Volunteer Managers: Exploring Perceptions of Volunteer Mangers’ and Volunteers’ Roles in the Public Workplace.” Review of Public Personnel Administration, 36(2): 164-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0734371X15576409