Committed to helping Texas nonprofits thrive, the Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy at Texas A&M University’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, in conjunction with Bank of America, hosted the second Nonprofit BRIDGE Conference in early February. The conference was designed to forge cross-sector connections to drive societal changes and identify community-based solutions.
Building on the Bush School’s Bank of America Program on Volunteerism endowment that was created over 20 years ago, the Nonprofit BRIDGE Conference is held biennially.
“The goal was to complement what the OneStar Foundation does with their partners, by hosting a conference that intersects with nonprofit professionals, scholars, and universities to improve our communities and research on the nonprofit and philanthropic sector,” said Robbie Robichau, Ph.D., a faculty fellow at the Bush School’s Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy and director of the school’s graduate certificate in nonprofit management. “It’s important that Texas A&M takes a leading role in creating space for conversations around Texas’s nonprofit sector. We can drive social change through being active listeners to our community partners, bringing our expertise and our students’ desire for experience in the field, and working on innovative solutions to challenges organizations are facing.”
This year’s event hosted 85 attendees from the nonprofit and higher education sectors. Participants attended keynote presentations that addressed funding and volunteering. Afterwards, participants had a choice of breakout sessions designed to delve deeper into specific topics around funding, policy changes and advocacy, as well as learning from some of the state’s leading partnerships between nonprofits and higher education institutions. Attendees also had the opportunity to participate in a listening session that will inform the Points of Light Foundation’s new national volunteering strategy.
Attendees appreciate how the conference establishes an environment conducive to forming both new and deepening relationships between nonprofit practitioners, higher education researchers and college students. “The nonprofit sector is collaborative by nature, but those collaborations are often scattered. As researchers and educators, we’re focused on teaching and scholarship, while nonprofit leaders are busy with day-to-day work,” said Hanjin Mao, Ph.D., an assistant professor of nonprofit management and political science at the University of Houston-Downtown. “What BRIDGE does really well is bring everyone together to learn from each other and reflect on how collaboration actually works in practice. Ultimately, that helps keep our research and teaching grounded in real-world needs and strengthens both the nonprofit sector and higher education.”
Analyzing Nonprofit Funding
One of this year’s conference keynotes addressed nonprofits’ current funding challenges. In that presentation, Jennifer Chandler, Bank of America’s managing director and president-Dallas head of Philanthropic Solutions, pointed out that the percentage of households that give to charity has steadily declined from 2014 to 2024. As of 2024, 81% of affluent households gave to charity as compared to 91% a decade ago. Additionally, less than 50% of general households now donate to charity, as compared to 56% in 2014.
Chandler stated that high-net-worth households tend to support nonprofits that serve basic needs but also are drawn to those that work around religion, health, youth, and animals. However, she also noted that between 2022 and 2024, almost every nonprofit category – with the exception of those organizations working in disaster relief – experienced declining philanthropic support from high-net-worth households.
In comparison, affluent individuals continued to consistently support religious nonprofits during this time frame. However, these individuals have shifted their other philanthropic priorities. Their support of higher education dropped from 24% in 2022 to 14% in 2024, but increased for nonprofits serving basic needs, arts and culture, K-12 education, and the environment.
Chandler pointed out that this group of donors primarily supports local/community nonprofits. Additionally, they base their philanthropic decisions on specific criteria, including personal values/beliefs, a personal interest in an area, firsthand experience, the nonprofit’s reputation, or perceived need.
The Bank of America executive also shared a snapshot of Texas’ philanthropic landscape, which has grown 22% between 2015 to 2022 and now includes over 130,000 nonprofits. Texas donors primarily support their local nonprofits, especially in the areas of human services, housing, faith-based causes or education. They often base their philanthropic decisions on being able to see a visible community impact from their gift.
Making Volunteering Essential
In the conference’s second keynote, Megan Singer, the senior vice president of strategy and organization effectiveness for the Points of Light Foundation, spoke on the changing future of volunteerism. “Volunteering is essential for realizing social impact, but there is a cycle of underinvestment that limits its potential,” Singer said. “And there is a role for everyone to play in breaking that cycle.”
Singer noted that while the impact of volunteers is enormous, it hasn’t been sufficiently quantified. While nonprofits track outputs such as volunteer hours, they lack the resources to measure deeper outcomes. Additionally, the full cost of volunteer engagement – including recruitment, training, deployment, recognition and retention – hasn’t been sufficiently quantified. As a result, some nonprofits struggle to justify these costs.
This gap can prove challenging when approaching funders. Singer pointed out that while 72% of nonprofits believe volunteers improve service quality, only one in four funders agree. As a result, a nonprofit may not be able to secure the necessary investments to implement volunteer strategies.
Corporate funders tend to be more open than foundations in providing philanthropic support for volunteering; however, that financial support still is very limited. Instead, many companies prioritize volunteerism as a way to engage their own employees.
This misalignment limits financial support from institutional funders, which leads to a cycle of underinvestment. As a result, less than 1% of total funding from U.S.-based foundations and public charities was directed specifically to support volunteer engagement.
To counter this paradigm, Singer believes there needs to be better data, stronger infrastructure, more dialogue and a shared agenda. To that end, the Points of Light Foundation is focused on creating a national strategy to transform organizational infrastructure in order to double volunteering by 2035.
Singer believes that the creation of this strategy is important for the future of the United States. The nation is at a civic crossroads since volunteer participation is stagnant and nearly half of nonprofits struggle with recruitment. The goal of the Points of Light Foundation’s national strategy is to embed volunteerism into civic life and create a more connected nation that is powered by community action.
Enhancing Nonprofit Leadership
In addition to creating an important learning environment, the Nonprofit BRIDGE Conference extends the Bush School’s influence in the state’s widespread nonprofit arena. “BRIDGE offers a unique opportunity to bring various nonprofit sub-industries together, whether it’s people working in education, housing, water policy, member-serving agricultural groups, youth in foster care, or health care. Finding ways to demonstrate how these nonprofits add value to their communities is critical to the future of our state’s civic health,” Robichau said. “What excites me most about bringing stakeholders from across Texas together is translating research knowledge into practical tools and insights that support nonprofit leaders, often providing critical frontline work, in their communities.”
The conference supports the formation of relationships that benefit both nonprofits and higher education. “Nonprofit organizations typically need to prove effectiveness and impact to those funders and do so by bringing in higher education researchers to design evaluation studies around if a particular program supported by the funder’s grant is achieving its intended purpose,” said Kenneth Taylor, Ph.D., the director of Outreach and Professional Development at the Bush School’s Center for Nonprofits and Philanthropy. “Another way academics and nonprofits work together is via strategic planning. Several Bush School faculty members, including myself, have facilitated board planning retreats on behalf of a variety of nonprofit organizations. These sessions are mostly focused on setting the long-term strategy of these organizations and addressing the organizational capacity to achieve identified goals.”
The conference also is an opportunity for former Bush School students, such as OneStar Foundation President and CEO Chris Bugbee, to reconnect to Texas A&M as well as a chance for current Bush School students to see how to apply their studies and to network. “The Bush School makes a major contribution to the nonprofit sector by preparing young men and women to go out and lead in the public service space,” Taylor said.
Those working in the nonprofit world believe that these types of efforts, which are encouraged through the Nonprofit BRIDGE Conference, are critical for the sector’s future. “The Nonprofit BRIDGE Conference spotlights one of the most underutilized yet powerful resources available to nonprofits: academic institutions. Building partnerships with colleges and universities can fundamentally transform how efforts to address community needs are designed, implemented, and scaled – deepening impact and strengthening the sector’s ability to respond to change,” said OneStar Foundation Vice President for Strategic Partnerships Millicent Boykin. “BRIDGE convenes nonprofit, academic, and community leaders to exchange ideas, build connections, and ask the questions that move our work forward, at a time when collaboration is more important than ever. The possibilities for partnership are limitless, and this conference elevates the cross-sector collaborations already driving meaningful, community-based solutions across Texas.”
