Arizona-Indiana-Michigan Alliance (AIM)
Research

The AIM Alliance engages in collaborative research and dissemination and also in continued discussions on provision of cost-effective, comparative, and replicable research for the nonprofit and philanthropic field.

Giving and Volunteering
The collaboration's first partnership research venture is the study of giving and volunteering in Arizona, Indiana and Michigan conducted in 2007. There exists such a wide array of protocols to gauge philanthropy across the sector that we feel it a good precedent to turn to a common research protocol and analysis, with an intention of creating consistency and comparative results. A standardized approach to giving studies was piloted that accentuates the strength of IU's research design in this topic.

Nonprofit Sector Research
Learnings from the tri-State giving and volunteering research project utilizing a standardized protocol were presented and disseminated across the sector through panel presentations at the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council (NACC) in 2009, Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) in 2008 and 2009, and the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) in 2008.

• Click here to view the "Collaborative Research and the Building of a Research Agenda" PowerPoint presentation from the 2008 International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR).
• Click here to view the "Volunteer Motivation and Behavior: A Regional Comparison" PowerPoint presentation from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).
• Click here to view the "Formal and Informal Giving in Arizona, Indiana and Michigan" PowerPoint presentation from the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).

Nonprofit Data Conference
In November 2009, the alliance organized the AIM Alliance Nonprofit Data Conference as a parallel session within the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) conference. The AIM Alliance Nonprofit Data Conference provided a venue for students, researchers and faculty from the Midwest to discuss nonprofit sector data, research and research methodologies. The goal is to increase understanding of the sector's state, impact and effectiveness by creating a venue for robust discussion on data and research methodologies. Graduate students presented their topics at the research conceptualization panel discussions.

• Click here to view the agenda from this conference (PDF)

Philanthropy Among Communities of Color
One of the main goals of the collaboration is to increase understanding of philanthropy among diverse communities. Below are links to research conducted by the various centers and through the AIM Alliance to add to this growing area of work.