Nancy Stutts

  

Nancy Stutts is a pracademic whose focus is learning about and fostering community-driven change through academic and practical approaches to building knowledge. Following 15 years working primarily in the youth-serving nonprofit sector (i.e., program, community and fund development; marketing and communications), Stutts returned to school to learn about how change happens beyond the organizational level. While a student, Stutts developed a nonprofit online network of civic hubs to strengthen nonprofit capacity in three Virginia communities, now known as ConnectVA, for which she served as executive director for 10 years. She earned her doctorate in public policy and administration from VCU, where she currently serves as interim chair of the MPA Program, teaches courses in nonprofit and philanthropic studies and is a frequent adviser regarding issues affecting nonprofit organizations. She has been principal investigator on two, three-year foundation evaluations: the Jessie Ball duPont Fund’s capacity-building strategy for youth-serving organizations in Jacksonville; and the Cameron Foundation’s nonprofit capacity building initiative in an economically distressed Virginia region (summarized in, Restringing Kites in Windstorms: Reflections of Capacity Building During Challenging Times (2011), coauthored by Dr. Kevin Allison).