“Giving is about who we are as people. Our lived experiences inform whom we give to and how we seek to help others. For example, women and LGBTQ individuals and couples approach giving differently and give to different causes than straight, white men. Philanthropy and generosity come back to a core belief that if you believe in a cause, you can personally effect change.
My work is about challenging conventional ideas of what it looks like to give and raise money. Who is considered a philanthropist? What forms of generosity are overlooked when we talk about philanthropy? I’ve always been interested in ways of giving that are more informal and harder to study: people helping their neighbors, volunteering, and serving their communities in ways that don’t appear in tax records.”
Biography
Elizabeth J. Dale is program director and an associate professor in the Nonprofit Leadership Program at Seattle University. Elizabeth received her Ph.D. in Philanthropic Studies from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Her research focuses on the philanthropic practices of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals and couples, women’s giving and funding for women’s and girls’ causes, and the intersection of gender and philanthropy.
She has presented nationally and internationally on her research as well as on service learning and online teaching methods to both research and practitioner audiences. She has been interviewed and quoted in The New York Times, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Atlantic, The Guardian, Inside Philanthropy, and The Nonprofit Times among others. She teaches courses in philanthropy, governance, fundraising, and marketing and communications. She enjoys integrating new technologies and learning platforms in her classroom to enhance student engagement, whether teaching in-person or online.
Prior to beginning her Ph.D., Elizabeth served as Director of Development at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, a large community hospital in Chicago, and as a campaign manager for the YWCA Metropolitan Chicago’s transformative capital campaign to launch street-level centers and economic empowerment programs for women. Elizabeth also served as Board Treasurer for the Chicago Women’s Health Center, a women’s health collective, where she participated in a collective governance structure. She achieved the Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE) designation in 2012. Elizabeth also holds an M.A. in Women’s Studies from The Ohio State University and a B.A. in Journalism and Women’s and Gender Studies from Ohio Wesleyan University.
Curriculum Vitae
CV available upon request.