Six Cities Trusteeship Project: Trustee Biographical Dataset, 1931, 1961, 1991 [Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Philadelphia] (ICPSR 35239)
Version Date: Jul 15, 2016 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Rikki Abzug, Yale University. Program on Nonprofit Organizations;
Paul DiMaggio, Yale University;
Bradford Gray, Yale University;
Peter Dobkin Hall, Yale University;
Michael Useem, University of Pennsylvania;
Chul Hee Kang, University of Pennsylvania;
Joseph Galaskiewicz, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis;
Elizabeth Turner Sosin, University of Minnesota;
Ann Deetz, University of Minnesota;
David Hammack, Case Western Reserve University;
Diane Grabowski, Case Western Reserve University;
Yuan Li, Case Western Reserve University;
Todd Michney, Case Western Reserve University;
David Swartz;
Lisa Buxbaum;
Richard Roth;
Judith R. Blau, University of North Carolina;
Charles Heying, University of North Carolina;
Joe Feinberg, University of North Carolina;
John C. Lammers, University of California-Los Angeles;
Christy L. Beaudin
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35239.v2
Version V2
Alternate Title View help for Alternate Title
Summary View help for Summary
The Six Cities Trusteeship Project was designed to chart and understand the changes in the scope, scale, diversity, growth, and role of nonprofit trusteeship in the United States from 1931 to 1991. The data collection was divided into six discrete projects centered around each of the cities of interest: Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Each research team was responsible for identifying the 15 organizations in their city that fit the criteria of largest 501(c)(3): secular hospital, Protestant hospital, Catholic hospital, Jewish hospital, art museum, symphony orchestra, United Way, institution of higher education, Junior League, community foundation, YMCA, YWCA, secular family services, Catholic family services, and Jewish family services. The process resulted in a board-level data set of about ninety organizations that would be directly comparable across cities; researchers then collected demographic information on the trustees of each organization during the years 1931, 1961, and 1991. Researchers collected data on 8,926 individual trustees from 289 separate boards (approximately 15 organizations' boards for each of six cities over three different time periods). The data set archived at the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA) was missing data for 22 entire boards (see Collection Note 2).
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Smallest Geographic Unit View help for Smallest Geographic Unit
city
Restrictions View help for Restrictions
Users of the data must agree to the Terms of Use presented on the NADAC Website and available through the link in each codebook.
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Data Collection Notes View help for Data Collection Notes
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The study was conducted by Program on Nonprofit Organizations at Yale University. The research involved in this data collection effort was organized by Rikki Abzug, then based at the Program on Non-Profit Organizations at Yale University. Memoranda were mailed to the local research teams for each city to ensure that collection methodologies were standardized. The local research teams included: Lisa Buxbaum, David Swartz, and Richard Roth in Boston; Diane Grabowski, David Hammack, Yuan Li, Todd Michney, and Nancy Erdy (of University Hospitals) in Cleveland; Joseph Galaskiewicz, Elizabeth Turner Sosin, and Ann Deetz in the Twin Cities; Judith Blau, Charles Heying, and Joe Feinberg covering Atlanta (though located at the University of North Carolina); John C. Lammers and Christy L. Beaudin in Los Angeles; and Michael Useem and Chul Hee Kang in Philadelphia.
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This data collection was previously distributed by the Cultural Policy and the Arts National Data Archive (CPANDA). The CPANDA Identification Number (study number) is a00190. CPANDA conducted the following processing steps for release of this collection: produced a codebook, checked for undocumented codes, performed consistency checks, provided frequencies, performed recodes, and reformatted the data.
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Research sites were established in or near each city of interest in order to elicit the aid of local scholars and archivists.
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Organizations varied greatly in their internal archiving and in their cooperation with researchers. Some organizations did not retain their annual reports, while others had institutional libraries. Some organizations consented to interviews and provided trustee resumes and biographical sketches; others were unwilling to cooperate at all with researchers. The data collection challenges resulted in extensive missing data for some organizations and time periods.
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Researchers are encouraged to collect data on trustees in other cities by using the survey format and questionnaire from this study.
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Data from the board codesheets have been removed from the data set due to the authors' concerns about the data, particularly the large amount of missing financial data.
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Information regarding data processing for this data collection is in the "Codebook Notes" page(s) in the ICPSR Codebook. Most notably:
- For this data collection, no documentation was provided for the following variables: RESPOSH and ORGSIZE.
- For this data collection, no documentation was provided to describe how data were coded for the following variables: BOARD1-BOARD4 and CORP1-CORP4.
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
This data collection was designed to chart and understand the changes in the scope, scale, diversity, growth, and role of nonprofit trusteeship in the United States from 1931 to 1991.
Study Design View help for Study Design
For this study, researchers examined the composition of 15 types of not-for-profit boards of trustees: secular hospital, Protestant hospital, Catholic hospital, Jewish hospital, art museum, symphony orchestra, United Way, Junior League, community foundation, institution of higher education, secular family service, Catholic family service, Jewish family service, YMCA, and YWCA, and focused on three separate time periods: 1931, 1961, and 1991. Trustee lists were either obtained from the organization itself, annual reports, or the IRS 990 forms. Once the trustee lists were acquired, the study team in each city began background research on the trustees in order to provide answers on the trustee code sheets. The project coordinator provided research teams in each city with codesheets indicating the information to be collected. Memoranda were sent to researchers with instructions as questions arose or coding procedures changed. The research teams collected biographical information on trustees through print sources, Nexis searches, and interviews. They completed the codesheets as thoroughly as possible given the information available. There is extensive missing data in this study due to factors such as a lack of adequate records from 1931 and uncooperative organizations. The trustee biographical study collected data on 8,927 individual trustees from 289 separate boards (approximately 15 organizations' boards for each of six cities over three different time periods). The data set archived at CPANDA was missing data for 22 entire boards.
Researchers collected biographical information on trustees through the use of local, public, university, and foundation libraries; personal interviews; historical societies; archives; and other depositories of historical data.
Sample View help for Sample
Each research team was responsible for identifying the fifteen organizations in their city that fit the criteria of largest 501(c)(3) secular hospital, Protestant hospital, Catholic hospital, Jewish hospital, art museum, symphony orchestra, United Way, institution of higher education, Junior League, community foundation, YMCA, YWCA, secular family services, Catholic family services, and Jewish family services.
Time Method View help for Time Method
Universe View help for Universe
Trustees of the largest non-profit organizations (in terms of operating expenditures) in eight industries or purpose groups in Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Philadelphia, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Los Angeles during the years 1931, 1961, and 1991
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
- Who's Who in America
- Standard and Poor's Register of Corporations, Directors, and Executives
- The Social Register
- regional and specialized Who's Whos, such as Who's Who Among Black Americans and Who's Who in American Jewry
- regional and local Blue Books (locally published lists of socially prominent people)
- community, business, and professional biographies and directories (such as the Directory of Directors and the American Medical Directory)
- newspaper articles and obituaries
- alumni directories of universities and preparatory schools
- local archivists
- personal interviews with board members and executive directors
- Who Rules America Now
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Mode of Data Collection View help for Mode of Data Collection
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2015-02-06
Version History View help for Version History
- Abzug, Rikki, Paul DiMaggio, Bradford Gray, Peter Dobkin Hall, Michael Useem, Chul Hee Kang, Joseph Galaskiewicz, Elizabeth Turner Sosin, Ann Deetz, David Hammack, Diane Grabowski, Yuan Li, Todd Michney, David Swartz, Lisa Buxbaum, Richard Roth, Judith R. Blau, Charles Heying, Joe Feinberg, John C. Lammers, and Christy L. Beaudin. Six Cities Trusteeship Project: Trustee Biographical Dataset, 1931, 1961, 1991 [Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, and Philadelphia]. ICPSR35239-v2. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2016-07-15. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR35239.v2
2016-07-15 Data Lead-in documentation was added to highlight subjects and variables related to arts and culture.
2015-02-06 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Created online analysis version with question text.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
This study is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Data on Arts & Culture (NADAC). NADAC is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.