JON VAN TIL is Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and Community Planning at Rutgers University, Camden. His fourteen books include THE HUNGARIAN PATIENT (2015), RESOLVING COMMUNITY CONFLICTS AND PROBLEMS (2011), BREACHING DERRY’S WALLS (2008), GROWING CIVIL SOCIETY (2008, 2000), CRITICAL ISSUES IN AMERICAN PHILANTHROPY (1990), MAPPING THE THIRD SECTOR: VOLUNTARISM IN A CHANGING SOCIAL ECONOMY (1988), and LIVING WITH ENERGY SHORTFALL (1982).
His recent writings on social movements in Hungary are reported in two co-edited books and in contributed articles in the Huffington Post. Van Til divides his time between homes in Seelyville, Indiana and Budapest. He is married to Agnes Kover-Van Til, the Hungarian human rights lawyer and sociologist.
Van Til is the past director of the Pennsylvania Law and Justice Institute (1972-1974), and served as Editor-in-Chief of NONPROFIT AND VOLUNTARY SECTOR QUARTERLY (formerly the JOURNAL OF VOLUNTARY ACTION RESEARCH) from 1978 through 1992. He was twice elected President of the Association of Voluntary Action Scholars, and is the founding Board Chair of the Center for Nonprofit Corporations (Trenton). Van Til has also served as a Trustee of the George H. Gallup International Institute.
Among the national clients of Van Til's consulting in the area of voluntary and nonprofit action have been the National Service Secretariat, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Health Visions Inc., the University of Colorado, the University of Pennsylvania, the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at Indiana University, and the United Way of Central Indiana.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Swarthmore College with High Honors in Political Science, Van Til received his doctorate in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. In 1991 he was recognized as "Creative Teacher of the Year" at Rutgers for developing his campus' program in Citizenship and Service Education. In 1994, he received the Career Award for Distinguished Research and Service from the Association for Research in Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action.
Van Til was named Fulbright Distinguished Professor at the University of Ulster during the Spring term, 2004, serving in the Magee College’s INCORE and Centre for Voluntary Action Studies. In the academic year 2005-6 he served as Fulbright Senior Specialist at INCORE.
Van Til served as Fulbright Specialist to Hungary (ELTE University) for the academic year 2010-2011, and at the Budapest University of Jewish Studies in 2014. He continues at that university at present, serving as visiting senior scholar and an active pracademic in the Budapest community.
Van Til also served as President of the Philadelphia/Delaware Valley Chapter of the Fulbright Association, and as Anna Deane Carlson Distinguished Visiting Chair in Social Science at West Virginia University from 2003-2005. His biography has been available since 2006 in WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA.
Jon serves as Executive Secretary of the Civil Society Design Network, where senior academic scholars and change agents maintain an ongoing dialogue regarding their practice.
