Jesse Lecy is the director of the National Center for Charitable Statistics, a senior research associate, and a data scientist at the Urban Institute. He is also an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University and teaches management, statistics, program evaluation, data science, geographic information systems, and urban policy.

Lecy’s research focuses on the life cycle of nonprofits and nongovernmental organizations, including the entrepreneurial and start-up process, environmental conditions that support scale and sustainability, and dimensions of competition that lead to organizational decline or failure. A central theme in the work is how the dynamics of economic markets for grants shape nonprofit behaviors and affect program quality. He also examines how public- and nonprofit-sector organizations conceptualize, measure, and report on effectiveness.

Lecy has worked to promote open science in academics and data science in the public and nonprofit sectors. He is a cofounder of the Nonprofit Open Data Collective, Data Science for Public Service, and the ARNOVA Data and Analytics Section. He launched a new MS in program evaluation and data analytics at Arizona State University, and he is part of a team funded to build a data science consortium for public affairs.

Lecy received a bachelor’s degree in peace studies and theology from the University of St. Thomas, an MS in public policy and management from Carnegie Mellon University, and a PhD in social science from the Maxwell School at Syracuse University.