Discover Our Alumni
Photo Credit: College of Education |
Innovator in Philanthropy Robert Long, Jr., an Urbana native and a Vice President for Programs at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Michigan, has a career-long interest and commitment to volunteerism and philanthropy. He is nationally respected for his creative and strategic program leadership, direction, design, and implementation. For three consecutive years, he was named one of the top 50 most influential individuals in the nonprofit sector. Dr. Long joined the Kellogg Foundation in 1993 as a program director, where he managed more than 250 projects with a financial commitment to the nonprofit sector of nearly $80 million. He launched three innovative programs, one of which, “Building Bridges between Practice and Knowledge in Nonprofit Management Education,” has grown immensely. The initiative started with a dozen emerging programs, now consists of over 200 academic programs, a range of curricula, a professional association, and a refereed journal. His career in philanthropy and his leadership responsibilities have not kept him from the classroom, however. He continues to be an active scholar, serving as Distinguished Professor of Philanthropic Studies at Michigan’s Grand Valley State University and Senior Fellow at the Center for Nonprofit Leadership and Management at Arizona State University. Dr. Long regularly welcomes numerous groups of young people to the Foundation to learn more about the world of philanthropy and the role it can play in contributing to the common good. He describes his 30-year career as a “commitment to human development deeply rooted in my family’s history of social responsibility and civic engagement.” Dr. Long has a B.A. in program administration from Western Illinois University and an M.S. from the College of Applied Life Sciences at the University of Illinois. |
