On December 1, from 11.30 am to 1.00 pm, Tosca Bruno VanVijfeijken and Hans Peter Schmitz from Syracuse University will lead a seminar on Leadership and Effectiveness of Transnational NGOs: Research Perspectives on Development, Human Rights and Environmental NGOs.  The seminar will be held at Weil Town Hall (Belfer L1) at the Harvard Kennedy School; it is hosted by the Humanitarian & Development NGOs domain at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations.

Hans Peter is Associate Professor of Political Science at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University; he is also Director for Research at the Transnational NGO Initiative at the Moynihan Institute of Global Affairs, which is based at the Maxwell School.  Tosca is Director for Education and Practitioner Engagement in the Transnational NGO Initiative; she also teaches a graduate course on governance and global civil society at the Maxwell School.

In the past several years, the Transnational NGO Initiative has undertaken a data collection effort that involved interviewing leaders in more than 150 transnational NGOs registered in the United States.  The data gathered spans issues of leadership, governance, accountability, effectiveness, collaboration and communication. This interview study was funded by the National Science Foundation.

There are remarkably few data sets in existence that are broad enough to capture the diversity of transnational NGOs.  This makes the Syracuse data set - and the research and reflection it enables - unique and interesting.  The December 1 seminar will explore the leadership and effectiveness dimensions of the findings emerging from this research.  That said, the seminar will be open enough to engage questions and reflections on a range of issues related to transnational NGOs.