As director of the Campbell Institute's growing Nonprofit Studies Program, Arthur Brooks has helped establish Maxwell as a national center for teaching, research, and professional training on nonprofit organizations. He used faculty project grants to help get it done.

"Nonprofit studies are an important part of policy schools these days," notes Brooks, an economist (and former professional classical musician). "About a third of our students say that one of their core areas of interest is nonprofit studies, and that's going up and up."

The Maxwell School dean's office has given a series of modest faculty project grants to help Brooks tie together and expand offerings for academics and practitioners in nonprofit organizations. Thanks to the extra push those grants provided, the Nonprofit Studies Program was launched in 2003. It encompasses executive leadership training; high-profile symposia and publishing projects; and service to nonprofit organizations locally, nationally, and even internationally (through projects such as a collaboration with Moscow State University).

"Funding from the dean's office has given us the ability to enhance our core competency in this area," says Brooks. "The program now has three full-time professors, and that's allowed us to go from No. 10 in nonprofit studies in the country to No. 1 in three years [according to U.S.News & World Report]. The Maxwell School has spent strategically and intelligently and has gotten a really good return."