From System Budgets to Lived Bonds: Reimagining Nonprofit Education Through an Autoethnographic Journey in Three Acts of Care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18666/JNEL-2026-13478Abstract
This autoethnography examines the child welfare system, nonprofit leadership, and nonprofit education through a three-act narrative of foster care. Drawing on the author’s roles as a public sector budget analyst, foster and adoptive parent, and scholar of nonprofit management, the manuscript explores how systems intended to protect children often reproduce harm through administrative burdens, fragmented accountability, and inequitable policy and service structures. Act One reflects on equity-oriented public budgeting and the central role of nonprofit organizations in preventive child welfare services. Act Two brings the system home, interrogating foster care, disability, and transracial adoption through an intersectional lens. Act Three situates these experiences within the evolution of nonprofit education, emphasizing critical pedagogy, reflexivity, and experiential knowledge. Together, the acts argue for reimagining nonprofit education and leadership as ethical praxis rooted in care, social equity, and lived experience, offering guidance for preparing future public and nonprofit leaders and educators to confront and transform systems of care.
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