Rate My Professor Mary Kay Gugerty

Mary Kay Gugerty is the Nancy Bell Evans Professor of Nonprofit Management & Philanthropy and Associate Dean for Teaching & Learning at the Daniel J. Evans School of Public Policy & Governance, University of Washington. She earned a Ph.D. in Political Economy and Government and an MPA from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, as well as a BA in Political Science and Economics from Georgetown University. In addition to her primary roles, she serves as Principal Investigator for the International Program on Public Health Leadership since 2019 and was Faculty Director of the Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy from 2016 to 2022. Gugerty is an adjunct faculty member in Political Science at the University of Washington and holds faculty affiliate positions at the Center for the Study of Demography and Ecology at UW, the Center for Effective Global Action at the University of California, Berkeley, and Innovations for Poverty Action. She has served on the Board of Directors for the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action from 2015 to 2021 and is a member of the Board of Editors for Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly since 2021 and the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory previously.

Gugerty's research centers on evaluation and impact measurement in the social sector, advocacy, accountability, and voluntary regulation programs among nonprofits and NGOs, and agricultural and rural development in sub-Saharan Africa, including agricultural household decision-making, women’s participation in supply chains, and smallholder productivity. Her publications include the book The Goldilocks Challenge: Right-Sized Evaluation and Monitoring for Social Sector Organizations (2018, co-authored with Dean Karlan, Oxford University Press), which received the 2018 Terry McAdam Award for best book in nonprofit management; Voluntary Regulation of Nonprofit and Nongovernmental Organizations: An Accountability Club Framework (2010, edited with Aseem Prakash, Cambridge University Press); and Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action (2010, co-edited with Aseem Prakash, Cambridge University Press). Key articles feature "Regulation by Reputation: Monitoring and Sanctioning in Nonprofit Accountability Clubs" (2016, Public Administration Review with Joannie Tremblay-Boire and Aseem Prakash, recipient of the 2016 William E. Mosher and Frederick C. Mosher Award), "Delivering Development? Evidence on Self-Help Groups as Development Intermediaries in South Asia and Africa" (2019, Development Policy Review with Leigh Anderson and Pierre Biscaye), and "Husband and Wife Perspectives on Farm Household Decision-Making Authority and Evidence on Intra-Household Accord in Tanzania" (2017, World Development with Leigh Anderson and Travis Reynolds). She received the 2005 Dean’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Service. Gugerty teaches courses on nonprofit and public management, program evaluation and performance measurement, international development management, NGOs in development, and African development. Her scholarship appears in journals such as Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, Regulation and Governance, Public Administration Review, World Development, and Journal of Public Economics.