Mirae Kim

Mirae Kim is an associate professor of Nonprofit Studies at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University. Before joining George Mason, Mirae Kim was a faculty member (tenured in May 2020) at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies (Georgia State University) between 2017 and 2020. She was also a tenure-track faculty member at Harry S Truman School of Public Affairs (University of Missouri) between 2014 and 2017. She earned her PhD in 2014 from Rutgers School of Public Affairs and Administration (advisor: Gregg G. Van Ryzin) and a master’s degree from Carnegie Mellon University. Before coming to the United States, she earned her bachelor’s degree in English Literature from Seoul National University in South Korea. She spent over a year at the University of Auckland in New Zealand as an exchange student.

Her research interests include nonprofit financial management, nonprofit advocacy and lobbying, arts management, and the role of nonprofits in addressing racial and ethnic diversity. Widely published in leading academic journals, Dr. Kim leads the Nonprofit Organization Research Panel (NORPanel), providing essential data for nonprofit practitioners and scholars. In collaboration with colleagues at American University and the Urban Institute, Dr. Kim conducts a multi-year panel study, the National Survey of Nonprofit Trends and Impacts, which offers nationally representative insights on nonprofit operations, fundraising, finances, and government engagement. She also served as the third visiting scholar at Independent Sector, where she collaborated on multiple projects. Most notably, Independent Sector commissioned Dr. Kim and her colleagues to lead a groundbreaking study that fills a 20-year gap in data on nonprofit advocacy and civic engagement. This research examines how advocacy efforts vary by organizational size, geography, leadership demographics, and other organizational characteristics.

During her doctoral years at Rutgers, she served as a managing editor of Civic Engagement Magazine, which seeks to deepen the discourse about and underscore our shared commitment to public service. She was also a member of the Penn Social Impact Doctoral Fellows Program under the direction of Dr. Peter Frumkin. She served as an associate editor for both the Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs (JPNA) and the International Review of Public Administration (IRPA). Currently, she is one of the co-editors of the Nonprofit Policy Forum.

Please feel free to contact her via email (miraekim7@gmail.com or mkim216@gmu.edu) should you have any questions about her research.