Steven Rathgeb Smith is the Waldemar A. Nielsen Chair in Philanthropy at the Georgetown Public Policy Institute. He is on leave from the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington where he is the Nancy Bell Evans Professor of Public Affairs and director of the Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits & Philanthropy. Dr. Smith was the editor of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NVSQ), the journal of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) from 1998-2004. From 2006-2008, he was also president of ARNOVA. His publications include Nonprofits for Hire: The Welfare State in the Age of Contracting (with Michael Lipsky) and Public Policy for Democracy (with Helen Ingram), and “The Challenge of Strengthening Nonprofits and Civil Society,” Public Administration Review (December 2008). His current research focuses upon the regional variation in foundations, the government-nonprofit relationship in the U.S. and abroad, and the advocacy role of nonprofit organizations.