McAdam Book Award

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Award Committee

Previous Winners

Terry McAdam Book Award is an annual program established in 1989 by the Nonprofit Management Association (NMA) and now overseen by the Alliance for Nonprofit Management.  The award was designed to commemorate NMA board member and The New York Community Trust Vice President, Terry McAdam, who devoted his life to improving the nonprofit management field and urged us all to write about the sector so that we may better understand it.  The Terry McAdam Book Award is supported by a grant from the New York Community Trust and is co-sponsored by the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation and the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

Each year the Alliance forms a diverse Award Committee, which seeks nominations for the most inspirational and useful new book published which makes a substantial contribution to nonprofit management.  Through the Terry McAdam Book Award, thousands of technical assistance providers, and hundreds of thousands of nonprofits staff and board members, benefit from the very best thinking and ideas in management and governance. 

The McAdam award includes a $1,000 stipend, underwritten by the New York Community Trust and a commemorative plaque.  The award is presented to the winner during an award ceremony at the Alliance Annual Conference.  To be eligible for an award nomination, books must specifically address issues of nonprofit management, management consultancy or advancement of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit sector.  Only first editions of books published the year before or during the year the award is given can be considered.  The books must be actively marketed to the national or a specific nonprofit community.

The growth of publications across the nonprofit sector has been extensive and exciting.  As that growth continues, the Terry McAdam Book Award plays an important role in bringing attention to the best and the most useful writings to strengthen our knowledge about nonprofit management to a wide range of professionals devoted to improving the management and governance capacity of nonprofits – to assist nonprofits in fulfilling their mission.  The Alliance wants to supply strong technical assistance that prompts an evolution of new, powerfully led, resource-sustained nonprofits, effective in their vision and mission of social change and the common good – all within the seismic shifts now occurring in communities, and all resulting, ultimately, in strong, healthy civic engagement.  The Terry McAdam Book Award supports our mission by providing timely and substantive reviews of nonprofit management literature for the field, while engaging our members to be avid readers and learners as they work with nonprofit organizations on today’s most challenging issues.