Roger Lohmann, a West Virginia University professor of social work, has been named editor of the Journal for Nonprofit Management and Leadership, a leading journal in an increasingly important field of scholarship.

The journal is published by Jossey�€Bass and co-sponsored by the Mandel Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Case Western Reserve University and the Center for Voluntary Organization at the London School of Economics. Dr. Lohmann was nominated by the editorial board to replace the founding editor, Dennis Young. Lohmann will serve a three-year term with the possibility of a second term.

A member of the social work faculty at WVU since 1977, Lohmann received his Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1975. His wife, Nancy Lohmann, also a professor of social work, just completed a stint as senior associate provost of academic affairs and has returned to her

faculty position in the Division of Social Work, in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences.

Lohmann said the journal focuses on organizational theory and management issues from an interdisciplinary perspective and accepts manuscripts that use qualitative and quantitative social science research methods. The journal is at the forefront of scholarship in a field that has expanded quickly during the last decade of the 20th century.

“There has been a real explosion of growth in the third sector during the last 10 years, specifically in nonprofit management,”said Lohmann, one of only a few scholars studying the nonprofit sector when he began his career in the late 1970s.

Lohmann said that as recently as 10 years ago his was one of only a few courses offered in nonprofit management, but now there are about 90 programs in nonprofit management nationwide. Most of the programs are emphases within established master’s degree programs in public administration, sociology, business administration or social work. At WVU , graduate students in several degree programs may earn a certificate in nonprofit management through the School of Social Work and Public Administration.

The nonprofit sector is broad, including all organizations that are not private or corporate businesses or governmental agencies. Nonprofit organizations include most college and universities, many hospitals and nearly all charitable organizations, including foundations, which usually distribute funds to other nonprofit organizations.

“There has been a real upsurge in foundations in the last decade,”Lohmann said.”The United States had about 23,000 foundations 10 years ago and now has more than 40,000.”There are more than one million organizations that report to the Internal Revenue Service as being

tax-exempt, known in the IRS Code as 501�(3).

“There is a tremendous research interest in this area because of this tremendous growth,”Lohmann explained. He said the movement is mostly in community-based organizations and stems in part from the increased wealth of the baby boom generation from the boom in the stock market and decreasing social services provided by government.

“It’s really taking place locally,”he said.”There are more than 3,000 nonprofits in West Virginia already, and about 300 in Morgantown.”

Lohmann became involved in the nonprofit sector after college.”I was involved in the war on poverty. I created and ran a three-county community-action organization in rural Minnesota,”he said.”Like many others, I was struck by the 60s, but rather than become a hippy I became a community organizer.”

Lohmann said that his new position as journal editor will be a lot of work, but that”it’s a dream job. It raises the level of the nonprofit program at WVU because it’s a very prestigious appointment,”he said. The position will give him access to the most cutting-edge research developments in the field.

Lohmann is the author of The Commons, an award�€winning theoretical book on the nonprofit sector, published in 1992; and Breaking Even, published in 1980, the first book ever published on the financing of social services.

One of the early issues of the journal under his leadership will focus on social entrepreneurs, people who establish organizations to provide services for society, not for personal financial gain. The issue has developed in reaction to a conference held recently at the Harvard Business School.