RGK Center for Philanthropy & Community Service

This year, we're for our team of faculty, staff, and students who make the RGK Center a wonderful place to learn and grow! We're grateful to be part of the The LBJ School of Public Affairs community of leaders and changemakers.

The University of Texas at Austin

Are you curious about impact entrepreneurship? Join the Global Sustainability Leadership Institute and RGK Center for Philanthropy and Community Service’s fireside
chat with Multicultural Refugee Coalition and their impact investors! Everyone is welcome to join this chat on November 16 at 12:30 PM to learn how impact entrepreneurship can empower refugees from across the world! Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees. RSVP at: https://bit.ly/ImpactMRC!

Seeking Refuge in Impact Business: A Conversation with MRC How can impact entrepreneurship empower refugees from across the world?

We're excited to welcome back a few of our Nonprofit Portfolio alum to a panel next week! Our panel includes graduates of The LBJ School of Public Affairs and Steve Hicks School of Social Work - UT Austin whose career paths span the nonprofit, public, and private sectors. Special shoutout to Allison Hooks, our newest Kozmetsky Fellowship recipient, who will serve as the moderator for our first event of the fall semester.

Learn more about our panelist and register here: https://bit.ly/3l8ucJ1

We're so excited to announce the collaboration between The LBJ School of Public Affairs and Hobby School of Public Affairs to expand the CONNECT program! Graduate students at University of Houston can apply to join the pilot cohort this fall and gain real-world consulting skills while working on a data challenge with a local nonprofit. Learn more about the expansion here: https://bit.ly/3tbJFvt

Have you read our 2020-2021 annual report yet? We're proud of our 14 graduates of the Nonprofit Studies portfolio program this past year, who served over 2,200 volunteer hours combined during their time as grad students at The University of Texas at Austin. Read the full report: https://bit.ly/3mIHXAn

The RGK Center annual report is now live! Read updates on our CONNECT program, which matched 58 The University of Texas at Austin grad students and community orgs to develop better management practices in the sector. Read the full report: https://bit.ly/3mIHXAn

Using a variation of the Gale-Shapley algorithm, undergraduate students at Cockrell School of Engineering - UT Austin developed a matching algorithm for the CONNECT program to improve the efficiency of the matching process between graduate students and community organizations. Read more about the process behind developing this matching algorithm: https://bit.ly/2VDhdpK

"Nonprofits are positioned to play a necessary and unique role in addressing the climate crisis as innovators, leaders and facilitators for collaboration among communities, governments, corporations, philanthropy, academia and other stakeholders."

Meet Allison Hooks, the newest recipient of our Kozmetsky Fellowship! Allison will be starting The LBJ School of Public Affairs / McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin dual degree program this fall and is interested in sustainability. Read more about Allison here: https://bit.ly/3jnO7CN

"I’ve always had a heart for helping communities that are under-funded, communities that maybe don’t receive as much attention, and for working with youth and students."

Nonprofit Studies portfolio program alum Nick Lebo graduated from The College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin master's program in Sports Management in 2011. While in the portfolio program, Nick took courses in leadership and grant writing, skills he still uses in his teaching and coaching at Austin ISD today.

Read Nick's full highlight here: https://bit.ly/3r7fRiy

“This work will vastly improve our assessment abilities with new clients, create more integrated programs via a shared assessment process, and increase our ability to write more effective grants as we now have unified, trackable outcomes across our programs for the first time.” – Literacy Coalition of Central Texas

Don't miss the deadline to submit your data challenge/project idea to the fall 2021 CONNECT cohort. Submit your data challenge by July 16th: http://bit.ly/Fall2021Orgs

Austin High School graduate Harrison Shunk completed his internship with the RGK Center this year through a new Practicum in Business Management course, taught by Nonprofit Studies portfolio and The College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin alum Nick Lebo. Read more here: https://bit.ly/3xQyBVy
Austin ISD

“The Graduate Portfolio Program in Nonprofit Studies provided an opportunity to coalesce my academic research in educational leadership with my interests in non-profit service and transformational change through engaging coursework, networking opportunities, and rigorous dialogue with scholars across other fields," -- Dr. Sissi Dinh O'Reilly

Dr. O'Reilly graduated with a Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Policy from the The College of Education at The University of Texas at Austin. This spring, she defended her dissertation, “Leadership in School Improvement Networks: Social Network Analysis of Principal Ego-Networks" in front of a committee that included The LBJ School of Public Affairs professor Dr. Patrick Bixler. Read more about Dr. O'Reilly and her research here: https://bit.ly/3gUhL1p