ISTR’s Latin America and Caribbean Regional Conference in Sao Paulo, Brazil was another great ISTR event among third sector researchers and practitioners.

As editor of ISTR’s official journal Voluntas (with my colleagues Fredrik O. Andersson and Galia Chimiak), I want to express my enthusiasm for the research I saw presented at the conference. From questioning the definitions and terms used in our field, to continued attention to the influence of populism as well as thinking about how philanthropy can better serve social organizations, and so many topics in between, our colleagues are contributing important ideas about and practical recommendations to the third sector in Latin America.

Our challenge now is to get these developing research projects onto the pages of Voluntas and beyond. Voluntas is an interdisciplinary and international journal, which seeks to provide worldwide forum for research focusing directly and explicitly on issues related to the third sector and civil society; including topics such as volunteering, philanthropy, nonprofit and non-governmental organizations, and social enterprise.

I was able to share thoughts about the need for more authors from the region to submit their work to Voluntas in the session “Strategies to Foster Latin America & the Caribbean Publications in Voluntas and More”. Voluntas editorial board members Patricia Mendonça and Humberto Muñoz Grandé and former editor Ruth Simsa joined me to engage in conversation with a room full of participants on the opening day of the conference. I reminded my colleagues of the resources the Voluntas editors have compiled, such as the Resource Page found here. I also shared that over the last 21 months, Latin American scholars account for only 5% of the submissions to Voluntas.

To my Latin American colleagues, we need to do better! The accepted articles over the last 21 months paint a grimmer picture: only 4% of accepted articles are from Latin American scholars (namely, Brazil, Peru and Mexico). Again (and I want to shout it), we have to do better! 

Susan Appe is an Associate Professor of Public Administration and Policy at Rockefeller College of Public Affairs & Policy at the University at Albany, SUNY. You can contact Susan at sappe@albany.edu.