Robert F. Long, Ph.D.

Title: Instructor

Program: The Grantmaking School

Bio

Dr. Robert F. Long is Visiting Distinguished Professor of Nonprofit Leadership at Murray State University, in Murray, Ky. Bob’s commitments include teaching in the Youth and Nonprofit Leadership Program, service dedicated to growing civic engagement and philanthropy across the region, and scholarship focused on the relationship between youth development and community development and its impact on the capacity of young people to become contributing members of society.

Bob holds academic appointments with the Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership at Grand Valley State University, the Lodestar Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Innovation at Arizona State University, and the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Prior to joining Murray State University, Bob retired from a 16-year career with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation where he served as vice president for programs. His portfolio included the areas of philanthropy, nonprofit leadership, civic engagement, and traditions of giving across age, gender and culture. The Foundation supports children, families, and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.

Before joining the Foundation in 1993, Bob served as the endowed McElroy Professor of Youth Leadership Studies at the University of Northern Iowa where he also directed the graduate program in Youth and Human Service Administration. Bob started his career as a community youth development specialist with the Cooperative Extension Service in Illinois and Nevada.

Born and raised in rural Illinois, Bob received his Doctor of Philosophy degree in educational leadership and evaluation from the University of Illinois. Bob has developed programs and published extensively in the areas of youth leadership, nonprofit leadership and management, and philanthropy. Bob was a member of the Carnegie Commission on Youth Development and Community Programs in the early 1990s, a member of the board (serving as chair for three years) for Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families, and one of the co-founders of Grantmakers for Effective Organizations. He has a long track record of scholarship and publication, including two new textbooks in 2010. He co-authored, with Dr. Roger Weis, Leading and Managing Nonprofit Organizations, made available by Eddie Bowers Publishing, and authored Advanced Grant Portfolio Management published by The Grantmaking School at Grand Valley State University in Grand Rapids, Mich.

Bob and his wife Patricia and his mother Dorothy live in Murray, Ky. Their daughter Chayo is the Director of Programs with HOPE in Tucson, Az., their son Paco lives and works in Murray, and the youngest son Beto is in his final semester at Central Michigan University preparing for a career in secondary education.