Rate My Professor David Berlan

David Berlan, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor in the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy at Florida State University, a position he has held since 2013, beginning as Assistant Professor and later promoted. He earned his Ph.D. in Public Administration from Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in 2013 and holds an MPA. Prior to academia, he worked in the nonprofit sector, notably for a landmine eradication organization. Berlan serves as Ph.D. Program Director in the Askew School. He teaches courses such as nonprofit management, public and nonprofit financial management, fundraising and fund development, and intergovernmental management.

Berlan’s research explores the role of ideas like mission, identity, culture, and goals in organizational change within voluntary organizations, especially those serving less advantaged groups. His interests include nonprofit management, international development, public administration and management, global public health, policy networks, philanthropy, volunteerism, and disaster governance. He leads a project surveying community responses to Hurricane Michael, measuring aid and recovery to inform disaster planning. His work has nearly 1,000 citations. Select publications are: “Holding health providers in developing countries accountable to consumers: a synthesis of relevant scholarship” (Health Policy and Planning, 2012); “A framework on the emergence and effectiveness of global health networks” (Health Policy and Planning, 2016); “The emergence and effectiveness of global health networks: findings and future research” (Health Policy and Planning, 2016); “Evaluation and evaluative rigor in the nonprofit sector” (Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 2016); “Understanding nonprofit missions as dynamic and interpretative conceptions” (Nonprofit Management and Leadership, 2018); and “Evaluation in nonprofit organizations: An empirical analysis” (Public Performance & Management Review, 2018). In 2025, he received the College of Social Sciences and Public Policy Faculty Research Award.