Grant Supports Donor Study by Maxwell Colleagues Minjung Kim and Jiahuan Lu

A person seated at a round table is using a laptop. The screen displays the word "DONATE" above an illustration of hands holding a heart, with a "Send" button below.

Grant Supports Donor Study by Maxwell Colleagues Minjung Kim and Jiahuan Lu

By Catherine Scott

June 5, 2026

Minjung Kim

Jiahuan Lu

Public Administration & International Affairs Department

Campbell Public Affairs Institute

Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict & Collaboration

East Asia Program

Grant Awards

Non-governmental Organizations

The $27,000 Wilson C. “Bill” Levis Fundraising Research Grant will support survey-based research into what motivates donors to give nonprofits maximum flexibility.

Minjung Kim

Jiahuan Lu

Two Maxwell School faculty members have received a grant from the Association of Fundraising Professionals Foundation for Philanthropy to study how nonprofits can increase unrestricted donations—gifts that give organizations the flexibility to direct funds where they are needed most.

Using survey-based research, Minjung Kim and Jiahuan Lu will use the $27,000 award to examine the factors that affect donors’ willingness to give without restrictions, with findings intended to benefit both scholars and fundraising practitioners. Unrestricted gifts can be directed toward operations, emerging needs or long-term priorities rather than a specific program or project, making them among the most valuable and hardest to secure donations a nonprofit can receive.

We’re excited to partner with local nonprofit organizations on this research to identify the factors that encourage or discourage flexible giving, so that fundraising professionals can apply those insights in practice.”

Minjung Kim

assistant professor of public administration and international affairs

The grant is named for Wilson C. “Bill” Levis, a longtime leader in the field of fundraising research, and is administered by the Association of Fundraising Professionals Foundation for Philanthropy which supports the advancement of ethical and effective fundraising worldwide.

“Unrestricted giving is essential to a nonprofit’s ability to respond to changing circumstances, yet we know relatively little about what drives donors to give this way,” says Kim. “We’re excited to partner with local nonprofit organizations on this research to identify the factors that encourage or discourage flexible giving, so that fundraising professionals can apply those insights in practice.”

Kim is an assistant professor of public administration and international affairs and a senior research associate for the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration. She is also affiliated with the Moynihan Institute’s East Asia Program. Her research focuses on public and nonprofit management, organizational behavior and charitable giving. Her work has been published in numerous journals, including Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, and Public Management Review. She is a visiting researcher at the Gradel Institute of Charity at Oxford University’s New College and received the Emerging Scholar Award from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action in 2022.

Lu is an associate professor of public administration and international affairs as well as a senior research associate for the Campbell Public Affairs Institute and a research affiliate for the Program for the Advancement of Research on Conflict and Collaboration. His research focuses on public and nonprofit management, with particular attention to government contracting, government-nonprofit relations and nonprofit financial management. He has published more than 40 articles in leading public administration journals, including Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Public Administration Review, and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory. He received the RGK-ARNOVA President’s Award from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action in 2022.