Lehn Benjamin

Lehn Benjamin’s work has been principally concerned with inequity. She worked in South Africa during the democratic transition, on the Senate Banking Housing and Urban Affairs Committee as a Congressional Fellow, and for the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund. Prior to joining the faculty at the school, she spent 10 years on the faculty at George Mason University, where she taught courses on nonprofit management, public management, and performance measurement. Her research examines issues of accountability and effectiveness in the nonprofit sector. Her current projects explore these issues by looking at the daily work of frontline staff in nonprofits and the experience of the people they serve. In this work she seeks to understand how participating in these nonprofits affects the health and political efficacy of citizen-clients. Although most of her current research focuses on human service organizations, as an urban planner who has worked in both governmental and grassroots organizations as well as at a policy level, she is also interested in broader community development and governance questions.

Education

• Ph.D., City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, 2004
• M.R.P., City and Regional Planning, Cornell University, 1998
• B.A., Summa Cum Laude, Speech Communication, University of Minnesota, 1990

Professional Experience

• Associate Professor, Nonprofit Studies, Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, 2010–2013
• Assistant Professor, Nonprofit Studies, Department of Public and International Affairs, George Mason University, 2004–2010

Highlights

• That’s Interesting! Award, First place, Best Paper Award, Second place. Measuring Social Impact Track, European Group for Organizational Studies (2019)
• Contribution to Diversity and Inclusion, ACM-Human-Computer Interaction (2019)
• Best Article, Voluntas (2018)
• Best Article, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (2016)
• Best Article, Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (2009)