ABSTRACT
The purpose of the Six Cities Trusteeship Project was to systematically collect data in such a way as to allow board-level and trustee-level comparisons at different time periods and cross-sectionally for a diverse set of organizations. A pilot study research demonstrated the benefit of establishing research sites in each city of interest in order to elicit aid of local scholars and archivists. The inclusion of the Twin Cities allowed for a slight doubling up of institutions at one city site, as in some cases Minneapolis and St. Paul each contributed organizations of specific types to the overall sample. The largest nonprofit higher educational institution in each city was chosen to represent the educational industry group. Few of the organization types were characterized by different largest organizations in each time period attests to the overall stability and persistence of the original fifteen large organizations in each city.
