Cao_Thesis.pdf

This study examines the role of grant professionals in the bureaucratic structures that make up philanthropy and the nonprofit sector. Through frameworks of organizational theory, bureaucracy, and genre theory, I examined themes such as power dynamics, funding practices, grant applications, and networks within the nonprofit sector. Interviews with grant professionals were qualitatively analyzed to examine how they view their position within the nonprofit field, what issues with the grant process are most prominent, and what solutions are there to change the future of the sector. This study argues that the understanding of bureaucratic structures and the actors within them is essential to the concerns of and the changes to philanthropy and the nonprofit sector.