In collaboration with WNC Nonprofit Pathways, the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits is hosting a Nonprofit Policy Conversation.
Policy Conversations bring together nonprofit leaders and local elected officials (mostly state legislators) to discuss public policy issues that are important to charitable nonprofits and the people and communities they serve. The Center will provide a briefing on nonprofit sector trends and potential public policy solutions and challenges for nonprofits in 2025 and beyond. The Nonprofit Policy Conversation will also include discussions about state and federal public policy issues of interest to local nonprofits.
Additionally, Dr. Chris Cooper, Professor of Political Science and Public Affairs at Western Carolina University, will discuss the current political climate and its implications for nonprofits. Drawing on his extensive research in state politics, political behavior, and policy trends, Dr. Cooper will discuss key legislative developments, shifts in voter dynamics, and how upcoming elections could shape policies affecting the nonprofit sector. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how these changes might impact funding, advocacy efforts, and nonprofit operations in the year ahead.
A buffet lunch will be provided.
Center-Hosted Event435 Smokey Park Hwy, Asheville, NC 28806
All Others: $35
About the Presenters:
David Heinen has been with the North Carolina Center for Nonprofits since 2007, leading the Center’s public policy and advocacy work and providing non-answers (and occasional useful information) about legal compliance, trends in the nonprofit sector, and advocacy to hundreds of nonprofits. He has served on boards of a variety of local and national nonprofits. David is a graduate of Duke University and the William and Mary School of Law. Before returning to North Carolina to work for the Center, David spent seven years as an attorney with a Washington, D.C. law firm serving the nonprofit community. He lives in Raleigh with his wife and three children, the oldest of whom describes her dad as “weathered.”
Christopher A. Cooper is Robert Lee Madison Distinguished Professor and Director of the Haire Institute for Public Policy at Western Carolina University. He has received Western Carolina University’s highest awards for research (University Scholar, 2011) and teaching (Board of Governors Teaching Award, 2013) and was named the 2013 North Carolina Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching.
Cooper’s published academic research features over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on American politics, southern politics, state politics, NC politics, and elections in journals such as American Politics Research, Election Law Journal, Political Research Quarterly, Public Opinion Quarterly, Public Administration Review, and State Politics and Policy Quarterly. He is also co-author of The Resilience of Southern Identity: Why the South Still Matters in the Minds of its People, co-editor of The New Politics of North Carolina, and author of the Anatomy of a Purple State: A North Carolina Politics Primer (all three published by the University of North Carolina Press).
Cooper is a frequent source for news stories about North Carolina and national politics and he has been quoted hundreds of times in a variety of media including the New York Times, Washington Post, New Yorker, Raleigh News and Observer, National Public Radio, CNN, FOX News, and other outlets. His public writings have appeared in the Washington Post, Time, USA today, The Assembly, the News and Observer, the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and other outlets.