Princeton Project 55, Inc.
Center for Civc Leadership
12 Stockton Street
Princeton, NJ 08540

Telephone: (609) 921-8808
Fax: (609) 921-2712
Contact: Kathleen Reilly, Executive Director
E-mail: kreilly@project55.org
Website: www.project55.org

Organization Description and Mission
Princeton Project 55 (PP55) is an independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to providing opportunities for college alumni to improve our society. By bringing alumni together with students and recent graduates, Princeton Project 55 provides many opportunities for building the commitment, leadership, and mentoring needed to solve critical issues affecting the public interest.

Princeton Project 55 believes that there is a vast untapped resource of energy and expertise among college alumni that is available for the public good. We accomplish our mission through a variety of approaches including matching recent graduates with year-long fellowships in public-service organizations, providing mentors and professional development; supporting alumni from other universities engaged in similar initiatives; and collaborating with on-campus programs to raise the profile of civic engagement among current undergraduates.

So far, Princeton Project 55's Fellowship Programs have placed more than 1,100 students and recent Princeton graduates in paid fellowships and internship programs around the country. More than 20 other colleges and universities have developed similar programs based on the Princeton Project 55 model and are supported by The Alumni Network, our outreach initiative.

Princeton Project 55 was founded in 1989 by the Princeton Class of 1955 and their spouses. Today, Princeton Project 55 is a multigenerational organization led by a Board of Directors consisting of Princeton alumni in classes ranging from 1955 to 2006. Opportunities exist for substantial involvement by both undergraduates and alumni from all classes.

Community and Population Served by the Organization
Princeton Project 55 serves Princeton University’s alumni and undergraduate community and, by extension, hundreds of nonprofit organizations and communities across the country where fellows work.  Project 55 also supports alumni of other institutions collaborating in the public interest.    

Research Questions

• Project 55 serves a population that consists primarily of young, non-profit professionals. What kinds of information (in the form of educational programming) do these new professionals need? Students could formulate curriculum focusing on the most relevant information for this group of upcoming non-profit leaders.

• What do fellows do once they have completed their yearlong fellowship? What can Project 55 do to ease their transition from fellowship to the next step? What are previous Project 55 fellows doing now? A student could do a literature review of available research on this transition as well as look at PP55 alumni to get a sense of what would have been helpful to them.

• How can PP55 best evaluate and track the success of our fellowship program? Help PP55 to conduct and analyze a longitudinal survey of program participants.

• Apply theories of an organizational life cycle to Project 55 as a case study. 

• What is the cost of living in cities where Project 55 fellows have been asked to work, and how should fellows be compensated for the cost of living in base pay or stipends depending on their locations?  Show how non-profit sectors and their pay schedules are different across cities and communities.

• Project 55 is always looking for students to do journalistic work for them – write letters to the editor, press releases, etc. Project 55 is also looking for a student or students who are skilled in photography to take pictures and video (for publicity) of the projects they run at any of their affiliate organizations.

• How has technology changed the way non-profits are run? How has online advocacy, engagement, networking and fundraising impacted the non-profit sector? How do these organizations use it, and how effective is it? A student could research online trends with Project 55 as an example. What kinds of resources are most useful to non-profits?

• Project 55 is looking for someone to produce a DVD treatment of the Project or participate in the process of its creation.  This project would be for the fall semester. 

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