David Horton Smith

Acclaimed as a “titan of volunteerism scholarship,” many regard David Horton Smith as the father of the field of nonprofit and voluntary action research. Smith founded the international Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) in 1971 and served as the association’s first president (1971 – 1973).  As part of this effort, he co-founded and served as the first Editor-in-Chief of the Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly (NSVQ), the world’s first and largest circulation academic journal. 

During the 1970s Smith also served as Research Director at the Center for Voluntary Society (CVS), a global research and education center focused principally on nonprofit sector/civil society issues, based in Washington, D.C.  While there, he was a member of the Donee Group of the influential Filer Commission, which founded the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy. 

Although these various groups were global in focus, the dearth of involvement outside of their largely Anglo-nation membership base prompted Smith to co-found the International Voluntary Action and Voluntary Associations Research Organization (IVA-VOIR) based in Brussels, Belgium (1978-1983); he became its Secretary General. He actively supported founders of similar associations in more than 25 world regions developing what Smith referred to as “voluntaristics” – the study of the nonprofit/civil society field. 

In 2010, Smith continued this work as founder, President and CEO of the International Council of Voluntarism, Civil Society, and Social Economy Researcher Associations (ICSERA).

The author or editor of 27 books and 200+ journal articles and book chapters (including 11,  invited, international encyclopedia substantive entries), Smith made several significant contributions to our understanding of the full scope and depth of Volunteer Engagement.  For example, in the early 1970s, he wrote and spoke about the distinction between the volunteer-run (nonprofit associations) and paid-staff organization (nonprofit agencies) as subsectors of the nonprofit sector that function very differently. In the early 21st century, his research demonstrated the large magnitude and societal-historical impacts and importance of grassroots (local, volunteer-run) and national voluntary associations in America and worldwide – activity previously ignored as the “dark matter” of civil society!

From 1968 to 2004, Smith was a professor of sociology at Boston College. Preceding his academic career, Smith received his undergraduate degree at the University of Southern California, graduating magna cum laude. He earned his master and decorate degrees at Harvard University from the Department of Social Relations.