Author Biographies
Aya Okada
is Associate Professor at Kanazawa University Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences in Japan. Her research focuses on communication processes used by nonprofits as they seek to sustain their voluntary support in societies undergoing economic, social, and political change. Okada is interested in how information affects people’s motivation to take voluntary action, and explores how nonprofits frame and present messages to prospective supporters. Trained in sociology and policy science, her work falls in the fields of nonprofit marketing, strategic communication, and social marketing.
She holds a Ph.D. in Public and International Affairs and a Master of International Development (
Since 2015, Okada has been involved in a project examining nonprofits’ use of social media in encouraging voluntary action. Funded by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, she has made a series of presentations on this topic at
Yu Ishida
is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Project Design, Miyagi University (since October 2016) in Japan. Previously, he was Associate Professor at the Division of Social Studies at National Institute of Technology, Akashi College (April 2009 to September 2016) and a researcher at the Hyogo Earthquake Memorial 21st Century Research Institute (September 2006 to March 2009) in Japan.
He received his Ph.D. in International Public Policy from Osaka University, and an
Ishida has published more than 15 peer-reviewed articles, several book chapters, and articles for non-academic audiences. His representative works include “Local charitable giving and civil society organizations in Japan” in Voluntas: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations Vol. 26 (co-authored), “Public Private Partnership between Local Government and Nonprofits in Japan” in Nonprofit Policy Forum Vol. 1 (co-authored), “Factor Analysis of Diversity of Revenue Sources in Nonprofit Corporations: From a Perspective of Self-Sustainability of Nonprofit Organizations” in The Nonprofit Review Vol. 8. His research has been funded by grants from Zenrousai Kyoukai Foundation, Japan Institute of Country-ology and Engineering,
He is a board member of the Japan
Takako Nakajima
is a Lecturer at Faculty of Business Administration, Osaka University of Commerce, Japan. Her research focuses on financial management and fundraising by nonprofit organizations. She serves as the Managing Editor of The Nonprofit Review, the journal of Japan
She holds a Ph.D. and an
Nakajima has worked for the International House of Osaka (public interest incorporated foundation) and the Kansai Association of Corporate Executives (Kansai Keizai Dōyukai, general incorporated association). Between 2005 and 2007, she was the local program chief of international exchange and youth development programs hosted by the Cabinet office, Government of Japan and Osaka Prefectural Government.
She currently leads the Research Project on Fundraising in Nonprofit Sector, an initiative to understand and compare nonprofit fundraising in Japan and the United States. Selected publications include (a) Nakajima, Takako and Hideaki Baba. (2012). “Empirical analysis of growth and stability of nonprofit organizations: financial analysis using panel data of specified nonprofit corporations” Journal of Association for Research on NPOBP, vol. 14, pp. 69–79. [In Japanese], (b) Nakajima, Takako, Hideaki Baba, and Yu Ishida. (2017). “How information asymmetry affects the donors’ behavior toward disaster support funds at 3.11.2011 Japan Earthquake” Kansai University Review of Business and Commerce, no.17, pp. 1–25.
Yasuhiko Kotagiri
is an Associate Professor at Tokushima University Faculty of Integrated Arts and Sciences in Japan. He teaches courses on public policy, public management, public administration, and theories of the nonprofit sector. His research focuses on the fields of cross-sectoral partnerships and inter-organizational collaboration in public policy processes, government-nonprofit relations, and network governance. He is particularly interested in collaboration, advocacy, and citizen participation—issues that link nonprofit organizations to government, public agencies, and the policy process.
Ongoing projects include research on: collaborative failure in public policy, impact of government-nonprofit relationships, discourse of local governance networks, evaluation of public-private partnership, democracy and local government efficiency, and collaborative management in nonprofit organizations. His book, Assessing the Performance of Government-Nonprofit Collaborations: Empirical Approach (Horitsu Bunkasha, 2014) [In Japanese], explores the impact of government-nonprofit contractual relationships in the context of resource dependence theory, using the case of local government-nonprofit partnership programs in Japan.
Kotagiri received his Ph.D. and
Kotagiri is a board member of the Japan