Mirae Kim, a former Posner intern who holds a holds a master's degree in arts management from the Heinz College of Information Systems and Public Policy, was recently recognized with the 2018 Award for Outstanding Article in the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (2017) by the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA).
Her article, 'The Relationship of Nonprofit's Financial Health to Program Outcomes: Empirical Evidence from Nonprofit Arts Organizations,' looks at whether, and to what extent, financial measures used by businesses—measures such as revenue diversification, operating margins and debt ratio—predict program success for nonprofits.
Kim, an assistant professor of nonprofit studies at Georgia State University, examined a unique data set of nearly 5,000 nonprofit arts and cultural organizations and found that, yes, these financial attributes were linked to program outcomes. However, some efforts to maintain financial strength may be made at the expenses of program performance.
As a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University, Kim curated a Posner Center exhibit on the History of Patronage. The exhibit tracked the relationships of authors represented in the Posner Memorial Collection with their patrons and showed diverse types of patronage.