Bridges-Karr Consultancy (BKC) was launched in 2003 with the goal of supporting scholars, educational institutions, and organizations with a wide range of academic and professional services, specializing in the areas of volunteers, volunteer organizations, and volunteer management. The founder and director of BKC is Linda Bridges Karr.

Linda holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of South Carolina. The title of her dissertation is Association and Organization: An Examination of Issues Relating to Cooperation in the Context of a National Volunteer-Run Membership Organization. She also holds a Master of Public Administration, with a specialization in non-profit organizations.

As a research consultant, Linda in involved in facilitating and carrying out explorations, elaborations, evaluations, and other types of research that are embedded in substantive projects. She also works to reinforce non-profit and other socially oriented organizations and associations. Her expertise focuses primarily on topics relating to volunteers and volunteering, collaborating with organizational consultants and practitioners to apply theoretical concepts in order to gain insight into current issues in the field.

Linda’s dissertation involves the effects of various combinations of volunteers and paid staff within volunteer organizations. She also has extensive experience with questions related to volunteer motivation and its management. She collaborates with practitioners to conduct research through a variety of methods, including questionnaires, interviews, and focus groups, content analysis and interaction research.

In her training and in her professional experience, Linda has always sought to integrate theory and practice. She is active in the “Pracademics” section of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), which focuses on bringing together scholars and practitioners with the goal of developing usable theory and grounded practice.

BKC conducts projects for a wide range of companies, including the Rotterdam School of Management Erasmus Universiteit, the Netherlands Ministry of Education, Culture & Science, Partoer CMO Fryslân, svwo/Arcon and MOVISIE.