Ruth Hansen
Assistant Professor

Ruth K. Hansen is an Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's College of Business and Economics. She has more than 20 years’ professional experience as a fundraiser, and has developed and taught professional development workshops on ethics in fundraising. At UW-W, she teaches the Foundations of Nonprofit Organizations undergraduate course, Organizational Behavior, and Business Ethics & Social Responsibility. Dr. Hansen is fascinated with the dynamics of organizational mission, resource availability, and helping others. Specifically, her research focuses on the practice of fundraising, popular support for unpopular causes, and policy affecting charitable organizations. Her dissertation, The Role of Stigma in Writing Charitable Appeals, uses a dramaturgical framework and mixed research methodologies to examine how fundraisers write appeal letters for nonprofits that serve groups of clients with different levels of perceived stigma. It incorporates issues of perception and decision making, communication and persuasion, and social and personal identities. A recent project, “Gary Neighborhood House: Managing Mission and Uncertainty in the Civil Rights Era,” will be included in the upcoming volume, Hoosier Philanthropy, due out in 2019.