Alan J. Abramson is a Professor in the Department of Public and International Affairs at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow in the Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation at the Aspen Institute. For more than a decade, Alan directed the Aspen Institute’s nonprofit program, overseeing a broad range of research and leadership initiatives focused on critical nonprofit issues. Before joining the Aspen Institute in 1994, Alan Abramson was on the research staff of the Urban Institute, where he worked on a variety of domestic public policy issues. Alan has served on many national and local nonprofit boards and advisory committees, and is currently a member of the boards of the Nonprofit Roundtable of Greater Washington, and NPower of the Greater DC Region. He has also been an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, and George Washington Universities. Alan Abramson received his Ph.D. in political science from Yale University and his B.A. from Wesleyan University. He is the author and co-author of numerous books and papers, and his work has twice won awards from the American Political Science Association. Alan has also been named among the 50 most influential leaders in the nonprofit sector by the NonProfit Times, one of the leading trade publications for the nonprofit sector. Knowledgeable about a broad range of nonprofit issues, Alan’s current interests are: nonprofit-government relations, foundation policy and practice, and social enterprise and social entrepreneurship.