Jodi Sandfort

Dean and Professor

Biography

Jodi Sandfort joined the Evans School of Public Policy & Governance as dean in January 2021. Dean Sandfort’s scholarship focuses on improving the implementation of social policy, particularly those policies designed to support low-income children and their families. Her leadership uses participatory methods to activate others to address systemic biases that are reproduced through practices and processes.

At the Evans School, Dean Sandfort leads the staff and faculty, overseeing the operation of our $13.8 million budget in alignment with our mission. She is focused upon expanding pathways to public service, including developing and supporting a range of new under-graduate initiatives such as our Junior Summer Institute and NextGen Civic Leader Corps and broadening the school’s educational programs. She brings background in human centered design that is helping the school to center community voice in policy and implementation, including the development of the Evans Policy Innovation Collaborative (EPIC). Throughout, she is committed to innovation that allows the school to realize its commitment to addressing historical biases in organizational operations.

Formerly a professor at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, Dean Sandfort is building upon a foundation of similar initiatives. She was the founder of the Future Services Institute that supported government redesign of programs and services through citizen engagement and leadership development. She founded and was academic director of the Hubert Project, a global community focused on improving public policy education through development and sharing of multimedia learning materials, such as e-cases and video briefs. Dean Sandfort powered that work – and much of the new activities at the Evans School – from her engagement in the international Art of Hosting and Harvesting Conversations that Matter community of practice.

Sandfort is an elected member of the National Academy of Public Administration, a distinguished honor recognizing her innovative leadership in the field. She has authored books, many academic articles, chapters, and reports about social welfare system design, organizational effectiveness, early childhood education, welfare reform, nonprofit management, and philanthropy. She is currently a nationally elected Executive Council member of the Network of Schools of Public Policy & Public Affairs. She serves on the editorial boards of Asia Pacific Journal of Public Administration; American Review of Public Administration, and Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. She is pleased the Evans School will be the host of 2024 international conference of the Public Management Association.

In the early 2000s, Sandfort directed the human services program at the McKnight Foundation in Minneapolis, where she managed a portfolio of $20 million in annual giving. She also worked as a senior strategy consultant and trainer with national and statewide foundations, think tanks, and other nonprofit human service organizations. Sandfort served as a Family Self-Sufficiency Scholar funded for five years by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Dean Sandfort is an active member in a number of University of Washington collaborative initiatives including Earth Lab, Center for American Indian and Indigenous Studies, and the Board of Dean’s University Initiatives Committee. Originally from Wisconsin, she is now living in Seattle with her husband. She is the mother of two young men of whom she is exceedingly proud and loves gardening, skiing, and scuba diving.

Professional Service

Selected Recent Activities

National Academy of Public Administration, Social Equity Standing Committee member, 2018 – present.

Expert Consultant, Child Trends, “Human Centered Design for Human Services,” January 2018 – July 2021.

Expert Consultant, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, U.S. Department of Human Services, Conference on “Rapid Learning Methods for Testing and Evaluating Change in Social Services,” October 2018.

Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management (APPAM): Policy Council, (national elected position) 2013 – 2016; Strategic Planning committee, (appointed position), 2015. Regular member of Conference Committee.

Public Management Research Association (PMRA): Co-chair, annual conference in Minneapolis, 2015. Regular conference session chair and discussant.

Association for Research on Nonprofit and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). Early Scholars Research Roundtable facilitator, 2016 – 2019.

National Expert Panel, Community Services Block Grant Evaluative Capacity, Urban Institute, 2017 – 2018.

National Expert Panel, Assessment of TANF implementation at the frontlines, MDRC, 2017.

Chair, Humphrey School’s Executive Council, 2015 – 2018 (elected office); Member, 2009 – 2010, 2015 – 2018 (elected office).

Co-designer and co-host Nonprofit Leadership Conference with Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, Minneapolis, Minnesota 2006 – 2018.

Chair, Leadership & Management Area, 2010 – 2012, 2014 – 2019.

Awards

Fellow, National Academy of Public Administration, national elected position, 2017 – present.

Fulbright Fellow, U.S. Fulbright and Danish Commissions, 2020.

Dugan Research Award on Philanthropic Impact, with Trupti Sarode, from Charity Navigator and Association for Research on Nonprofits Organizations and Voluntary Action, 2019.

External Examiner, Masters of Social Science in Nonprofit Management, Department of Social Work and Social Administration, Hong Kong University, 2019 – 2021.

Family Self-Sufficiency Scholar, U.S. Department of Human Services, Administration for Children & Families, 2013 – 2018.

Outstanding Faculty Award, Council of Graduate Students (only University award nominated and selected by students), University of Minnesota, 2011.

Meredith Award for Teaching Excellence, Syracuse University, 2001.

Publications

POLICY & PROGRAM IMPLEMENTATION

Jodi Sandfort and Stephanie Moulton. 2020. “Replication or Innovation? Structuration in Policy Implementation,” Perspectives on Public Management and Governance. Advanced access.

Jodi Sandfort, Sook Jin Ong, and Catherine McKay. 2019. “Performance Management Regimes in Practice: Examining the local agencies implementing Temporary Assistance for Needy Families,” American Review of Public Administration 42(2): 145-158.

Stephanie Moulton and Jodi Sandfort. 2017. “The Strategic Action Fields Framework for Policy Implementation Research.” Journal of Policy Studies. 45(1): 144-169.

Stephen Roll, Stephanie Moulton, and Jodi Sandfort. 2017. “A Comparative Analysis of Policy & Program Implementation Literatures.” Journal of Public & Nonprofit Affairs, 3(1), 3-22.

Worksheets to Support Practice
(Appendices) from Sandfort and Moulton (2015) Effective Implementation in Practice (Jossey-Bass).
Policy Field Audit
Policy Field Visual Diagrams
Program Process Flow Diagrams
Organization – Program Integration Audit
Front-line Interactions Audit
Target Experiences Analysis

Jodi Sandfort and Stephanie Moulton, 2015. Effective Implementation in Practice: Integrating Public Policy and Management. Jossey-Bass (John Wiley & Sons): San Francisco, CA.

Jodi Sandfort. 2014. “Analyzing the Practice of Nonprofit Advocacy: Comparing Two Human Services Networks,” Nonprofits and Advocacy: Engaging Community and Government in an Era of Retrenchment, edited by Robert J. Pekkhanen, Steven Rathgeb Smith, Yutaka Tsujinaka. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland, 222-253.

Backwards Mapping (with Shannon Evans), Video Brief 2014.

Multilevel Implementation Analysis (with Kassira Absar), Video Brief 2014.

Implementing an Alternative to Refund Anticipation Loans at Accountability Minnesota (with Jackie Aman and Kate Connors), Multimedia Simulation, 2011.

Jodi R. Sandfort. 2011. “Implementing the Earned Income Tax Credit at Accountability Minnesota,” Teaching Case – A, B, and C segments. Winner of the Snow Foundation Award for Case in Collaborative Public Management. Maxwell School of Public Affairs, Syracuse University.

Policy Fields (with Micah Intermill), Video Brief, 2011.

Jodi Sandfort. 2010. “Nonprofits within Policy Fields” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Summer. 29(3), 637-644.

Jodi Sandfort. 2010. “Designing a Safety-Net that Supports Low-Income Workers,” CURA Reporter, Spring/Summer. 40:1-2, 29-36.

Jodi Sandfort. 2009. “Human Service Organizational Technology: Improving Understanding and Advancing Research,” Human Services as Complex Organizations, 2nd edition, edited by Yeheskel Hasenfeld. Sage Publications. 269-290.

Jodi Sandfort, Sally Coleman Selden, and Jessica Sowa. 2008. “Do the Tools Used by Government Influence Organizational Performance? An Examination of Early Childhood Education Policy Implementation,” American Review of Public Administration. December. 38:4, 412-43.

Jodi Sandfort R. and H. Brinton Milward. 2008. “Collaborative Service Provision in the Public Sector,” Handbook of Inter-Organizational Relations, edited by Steve Cropper, Mark Ebers, Chris Huxham, and Peter Smith Ring, Oxford University Press, 147-174.

Sally Coleman Selden, Jessica Sowa, and Jodi Sandfort. 2006. “The Impact of Nonprofit Collaboration in Early Care and Education on Management and Program Outcomes,” Public Administration Review, 66:3, 412-425.

INNOVATION

Stephanie Moulton, Jodi R. Sandfort, and Weston Merrick, forthcoming, “Enabling Social Policy Innovation: Trends and Promising Directions,” Oxford International Handbook of Public Administration for Social Policy: Promising Practices and Emerging Challenges, edited by Karen Baehler, et al.

Robin Phinney and Jodi R. Sandfort. 2020. “Discover Together: Attempting to alter understanding and practices in governments’ work with citizens,” Palgrave Handbook on Co-Production, edited by Elke Loeffler and Tony Bovair.

Jodi R. Sandfort. 2018. “Theoretical Foundations and Design Principles to Improve Policy and Program Implementation,” The Handbook of Public Administration, edited by Edmundn Stazky and H. George Frederickson.

Jodi Sandfort and Laura Bloomberg. 2012. “InCommons: Supporting Community-Based Leadership,” Community Development. 43(1): 12-30.

Jodi Sandfort. 2010. “Reconstituting the Safety Net: Principles and Design Elements that Support Low Income Workers,” Old Assumptions, New Realities: Ensuring Economic Security for Working Families in the 21st Century, edited by Robert Plotnick, Marcia Meyers, Jennifer Romich, and Steven Rathgeb Smith. Russell Sage Foundation, New York.

Eichers Penkert, Catherine, Nicholas Dobbins, and Jodi Sandfort. 2009. “Kujichagulia: Actively Building a Public-Nonprofit-Community Partnership.” Teaching Case – A and B segments. 1st place winner of international, double-blind peer-reviewed competition, Maxwell School of Public Affairs, Syracuse.

Melissa M. Stone and Jodi R. Sandfort. 2009. “Building a Policy Fields Framework to Inform Research on Nonprofit Organizations,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. December. 38(6), 1054-1075.

Jodi Sandfort. 2008. “Using Lessons from Public Affairs to Inform Strategic Philanthropy,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. September. 37:3, 537-552.

Jodi R. Sandfort. 2004. “Trying to Dance to Syncopated Rhythm: The Dynamics of Government Funding for Nonprofits,” Nonprofit Quarterly, Fall.

Jessica Sowa, Sally Coleman Selden, and Jodi Sandfort. 2004. “No Longer ‘Unmeasurable?’: A Multidimensional Integrated Model of Nonprofit Organizational Effectiveness,” Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly. 33:4, 711-728.

SOCIAL POLICY

Sook Jin Ong and Jodi Sandfort. 2014. Workforce Development in Minnesota. Report for MSPWin (philanthropic funders collaborative). Minneapolis, MN.

Jodi R. Sandfort. 2014. Book review of “Work and the Welfare State: Street-Level Organizations and Workfare Politics”, edited by Evelyn Z. Brodkin and Gregory Marston (Georgetown University Press, 2013) in Social Service Review.

Office of Economic Opportunity: Capitalizing on a Nonprofit Network (with Ahna Minge), multimedia e-Case, 2013.

Asset Inequality, Curated Case, 2011.

Bridge to Benefits (with Maura Schramko), multimedia e-Case, 2011.

Implementing an Alternative to Refund Anticipation Loans at Accountability Minnesota (with Jackie Aman and Kate Connors), multimedia Simulation, 2011.

Jodi R. Sandfort 2011. “Implementing the Earned Income Tax Credit at Accountability Minnesota,” Teaching Case – A, B, and C segments. Winner of the Snow Foundation Award for Case in Collaborative Public Management at E-PARC. Maxwell School of Public Affairs, Syracuse University.

Jodi R. Sandfort. 2010. “Designing a Safety-Net that Supports Low-Income Workers,” CURA Reporter, Spring/Summer. 40:1-2, 29-36.

Jodi Sandfort. 2010. “Nonprofits within Policy Fields” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. Summer. 29(3), 637-644.

Jodi R. Sandfort, Sally Coleman Selden, and Jessica Sowa. 2008. “Do the Tools Used by Government Influence Organizational Performance? An Examination of Early Childhood Education Policy Implementation,” American Review of Public Administration. December. 38:4, 412-43.

“Learning from the Master Gardeners: Promoting Family Economic Security with the Tools of Community Action,” Major address, National Association for State Community Service Programs annual fall conference, Portland, OR (October 2005).

Jodi R. Sandfort. 2004. “Why is Human Service Integration so Difficult to Achieve?” Focus (a publication of the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Research on Poverty), 23:2, 35-8.

Gina Adams, Kathleen Snyder and Jodi Sandfort. 2002. Getting and Retaining Child Care Assistance: How Policies and Practices Influence Families’ Experiences. Assessing New Federalism project (Occasional Paper Number 55) at the Urban Institute, Washington DC, March.

Gina Adams, Kathleen Snyder and Jodi Sandfort. 2002. “Navigating the Child Care Subsidy System: Policies and Practices that Affect Access and Retention.” Policy Brief. Urban Institute, Washington DC, March.

Laura Kaye, Demetra Nightingale, Jodi Sandfort, and Lynne Fender. 2001. “Recent Changes in Massachusetts’ Welfare and Work, Child Care and Child Welfare Systems (State Update No. 5)” Urban Institute’s Assessing New Federalism project, Washington DC, July.

Jodi R. Sandfort and Sally Coleman Selden. 2001. “Blurring Boundaries in Early Childhood Education: Local Collaborations between Head Start, Preschool and Child Care Programs.” Policy and Practice (journal of the American Public Human Services Association), March.

HOSTING CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT

Jodi Sandfort and Kathryn Quick. 2017 “Deliberative Technology: A Holistic Lens for Interpreting Resources and Dynamics in Deliberation.” Journal of Public Deliberation, 13(1). Also available at http://www.publicdeliberation.net/jpd/vol13/iss1/art7.

Jodi Sandfort and Kathryn Quick. 2015. “Building Deliberative Capacity to Create Public Value: The Practices and Artifacts of Art of Hosting,” Valuing Public Value, edited by John Bryson, Laura Bloomberg, and Barbara Crosby. Georgetown University Press, Washington, DC.

Kathryn Quick and Jodi Sandfort. 2014. “Learning to Facilitate Deliberation: Practicing the Art of Hosting,” Critical Policy Studies 8:3 and “Learning to Facilitate: Implications for Skill Development in the Public Participation Field,” in The Professionalization of the Public Participation Field, 2017 edited by Laurence Bherer et al. Routledge: New York.

Leah Lundquist, Jodi Sandfort, Cris Lopez, Marcela Sotela Odor, Karen Seashore, Jen Mein, and Myron Lowe, editors. 2013. “Cultivating Change in the Academy: Practicing the Art of Hosting Conversations that Matter within the University of Minnesota.” e-Book University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy.

Jodi R. Sandfort, Nicholas Stuber, and Kathryn Quick. 2012. “Practicing the Art of Hosting: Exploring what Art of Hosting and Harvesting Workshop Participants Understand and Do.” University of Minnesota’s Center for Integrative Leadership: Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Helen Lui and Jodi Sandfort. 2011. “Open Source Platforms for Citizen Engagement: Examining Ashoka’s Design and Implementation,” Nonprofit Policy Forum. 2:2.

PUBLIC AFFAIRS LEARNING

Julia Carboni, Todd Dickey, Stephanie Moulton, Sean O’Keefe, Rosemary O’Leary, Suzanne Piotrowski, and Jodi Sandfort (alphabetical). 2019. “State with the Problem: Establishing Research Relevance with Integrative Public Administration,” Perspectives on Public Management and Governance: Advanced Access. 267-274.

Jodi Sandfort and Kevin Gerdes. 2017. “T he Design, Pedagogy, and Practice of an Integrated Public Affairs Leadership Course,” Teaching Public Administration. 35(1): 1-16.

Susan Kilonzo, Jodi R. Sandfort, and Helen Liu. 2016. “Using Multi-Media Learning Objects in Public Affairs Classrooms: Global Experiences with Hubert E-cases & E-Studies” (U.S, Kenya, & Hong Kong) Journal of Public Affairs Education.

“The Hubert Project: Where Interactive Teaching Meets Interactive Technology,” December 2014. APPAM invited blog.

“State of the Art of Teaching in Public Policy,” keynote with Gregor Walter-Drop, August 2014. Program for African Governance and Social Science Research, MRPP Professional Development Workshop, Nairobi, Kenya.

“Using Multimedia Learning Objects to Enhance Public Affairs Education,” 2014. Roundtable at Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management spring conference, Washington, DC (April 2014).

Christopher Brooks and Jodi Sandfort. 2013. “Trial and Error: Iteratively Improving Research on Blended Learning” Research Perspectives in Blended Learning, edited by Chuck Dziuban, Charles Graham, and Anthony Picciano. Routledge/Taylor and Francis Publishing.

Featured Presenter, “Integrative Leadership,” April 2012. TedxUMn, Minneapolis, MN.

Charles Schweik, Ines Mergel, Jodi Sandfort, and Zhirong Zhao. 2011. “Toward Open Public Administration Scholarship” Journal of Public Administration, Research and Theory. 21: 175-198.

Lisa Blomgren Bingham, Jodi R. Sandfort, and Rosemary O’Leary. 2008. “Learning to Do and Doing to Learn: Teaching Managers to Collaborate in Networks” Big Ideas in Collaborative Public Management, edited by Blomgren and O’Leary. M.E. Sharpe. 270-285.

Jodi R. Sandfort and Melissa M. Stone. 2008. “Analyzing Policy Fields: Helping Students Understand Complex State and Local Contexts,” Journal of Public Affairs Education. 14(2), 129-148.

Theresa A. Flynn, Jodi R. Sandfort, and Sally Coleman Selden. 2001. “The Three-Dimensional Approach to Learning in Public Management,” Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. 20:3, 551-564.