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Articles 1 - 27 of 27
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Lost Causal: Debunking Myths About Causal Analysis In Philanthropy – With 2024 Prologue, Jewlya Lynn, Sarah Stachowiak, Julia Coffman
Lost Causal: Debunking Myths About Causal Analysis In Philanthropy – With 2024 Prologue, Jewlya Lynn, Sarah Stachowiak, Julia Coffman
The Foundation Review
Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2022, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates. What if philanthropic evaluations told us that changes in the world had occurred, as well as how and why they occurred, including whether what foundations funded and grantees did contributed to those changes? What if evaluations made change pathways more visible, tested hypotheses and assumptions, and generated new insights based on what happened in the “black box” of systems change strategies? This type of learning comes from causal analysis — inquiry that explores cause-and-effect relationships. Yet currently in …
Donor-Advised Funds And Impact Investing: A Practitioner’S View – With 2024 Prologue, Sam Marks
Donor-Advised Funds And Impact Investing: A Practitioner’S View – With 2024 Prologue, Sam Marks
The Foundation Review
Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2022, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates.
Any discussion of foundations embracing impact investing must include some discussion of one of the largest — and growing — sources of philanthropic capital: donor-advised funds. These philanthropic accounts allow donors of all sizes to access many of the functions of a private foundation, including the potential to invest for impact. Sponsors of these funds, however, face unique challenges in catalyzing impact investments.
Like the larger institutional foundations that have led the way as mission investors, sponsors must …
Systems Thinking For Social Change: A Practical Guide To Solving Complex Problems, Avoiding Unintended Consequences, And Achieving Lasting Results, Hilda Vega
The Foundation Review
Editor’s Note: This article, first published in print and online in 2015, has been republished by The Foundation Review with minor updates.
A Framework For Creating Systems Change, William Brown, Wynn Rosser
A Framework For Creating Systems Change, William Brown, Wynn Rosser
The Foundation Review
This article draws on a system-change framework developed by the Nicholson Foundation as part of a 20-year initiative to substantively change the state of New Jersey’s health and social welfare systems, and modifies and expands a single case study on system change to align with related ideas and concepts. A results-based accountability approach is integrated into the model to draw attention to the importance of monitoring and evaluation of population-based outcomes.
Drawing on extensive literature from systems change and performance management, the discussion provides insight and perspective on contemporary frameworks in systems change and the role of grantmaking foundations. The …
Systems-Change Philanthropy: It’S Essential, And It’S Our Responsibility, Emily Bhandari, Alison Mohr Boleware, Octavio N. Martinez Jr.
Systems-Change Philanthropy: It’S Essential, And It’S Our Responsibility, Emily Bhandari, Alison Mohr Boleware, Octavio N. Martinez Jr.
The Foundation Review
The Hogg Foundation for Mental Health’s mission is to transform how communities promote mental health in everyday life. Policy engagement — fundamental to improving the social and structural determinants of mental health — has always been a strategic priority for the foundation, which has become a trusted resource for mental health and substance use policy issues in Texas. Yet, the state’s mental health and substance use policy community is limited in size, capacity, and training.
To address that reality, the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health Policy Academy and Policy Fellow Initiative was launched to invest in a mental health policy …
Donor-Advised Funds And Impact Investing: A Practitioner’S View, Sam Marks
Donor-Advised Funds And Impact Investing: A Practitioner’S View, Sam Marks
The Foundation Review
Any discussion of foundations embracing impact investing must include some discussion of one of the largest — and growing — sources of philanthropic capital: donor-advised funds. These philanthropic accounts allow donors of all sizes to access many of the functions of a private foundation, including the potential to invest for impact. Sponsors of these funds, however, face unique challenges in catalyzing impact investments.
Like the larger institutional foundations that have led the way as mission investors, sponsors must often educate and inspire governance boards and investment committees. Unlike foundations with professional program staff, decisions regarding philanthropic resources at sponsors of …
Editorial 14.1 And 14.2, Teresa R. Behrens
Editorial 14.1 And 14.2, Teresa R. Behrens
The Foundation Review
No abstract provided.
Editorial 14.1 And 14.2, Teri Behrens
Immediate Needs And Systemic Solutions: Harnessing A Collective Crisis Response By Regional Philanthropy Alongside Systemic Change, Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, Nancy M. Blaschak
Immediate Needs And Systemic Solutions: Harnessing A Collective Crisis Response By Regional Philanthropy Alongside Systemic Change, Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, Nancy M. Blaschak
The Foundation Review
On March 13, 2020, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo invited the John R. Oishei Foundation, the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York, and United Way of Buffalo & Erie County to convene all funders in western New York to respond collectively to the impending COVID-19 crisis. Funding was raised swiftly and, using a racial equity lens, more than $14.2 million was granted in 18 months to more than 400 nonprofits of all sizes serving on the front lines in eight counties.
While emergency funding was the first priority for the collective group of more than 60 foundations, …
Where To Start? A Tool For Thinking About The Sdgs And Community Foundation Work, Katie Leone, Tessa Lesage
Where To Start? A Tool For Thinking About The Sdgs And Community Foundation Work, Katie Leone, Tessa Lesage
The Foundation Review
The merits of advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are widely agreed upon by the global community, but designing and applying strategies to do so at the local level can be challenging. This article aims to support community foundations in moving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development forward in practical ways by exploring the use of a point-of-entry wheel to create a shared language that can help community foundations align their local efforts with the global goals.
Since 2012, Collaboratory has been exploring the potential for integrating sustainability — encompassing economic, social, and environmental pillars — as a strategic …
Lost Causal: Debunking Myths About Causal Analysis In Philanthropy, Jewlya Lynn, Sarah Stachowiak, Julia Coffman
Lost Causal: Debunking Myths About Causal Analysis In Philanthropy, Jewlya Lynn, Sarah Stachowiak, Julia Coffman
The Foundation Review
What if philanthropic evaluations told us that changes in the world had occurred, as well as how and why they occurred, including in what ways foundation funding and grantees contributed to those changes? What if evaluations made change pathways more visible, tested hypotheses and assumptions, and generated new insights based on what happened in the “black box” of systems change strategies? This type of learning comes from causal analysis — inquiry that explores cause-andeffect relationships.
Yet currently in philanthropy, particularly for strategies and initiatives that feature high complexity, few evaluations use robust techniques for understanding causality. Instead, philanthropic evaluation tends …
Placing Bets In A Complex Environment: One Foundation’S Approach To The Opioid Epidemic, Jill Yegian
Placing Bets In A Complex Environment: One Foundation’S Approach To The Opioid Epidemic, Jill Yegian
The Foundation Review
Across the globe, foundations grapple with how to tackle complex, cross-sector societal problems. A major effort by the California Health Care Foundation to reduce opioid-related morbidity and mortality, launched just as opioid use was becoming understood as a problem that could reach epidemic proportions, presents an instructive case study of impact.
Starting in 2015, the foundation placed several “big bets” on initiatives aimed at stopping overdose deaths and preventing new addiction. That early investment had dramatic returns, laying the groundwork for scaling pilot projects statewide as hundreds of millions of dollars in government funding became available to address the crisis. …
Overcoming The Systemic Challenges Of Wealth Inequality In The U.S., David Peter Stroh
Overcoming The Systemic Challenges Of Wealth Inequality In The U.S., David Peter Stroh
The Foundation Review
The galvanizing public murder of George Floyd and the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on Black and Hispanic people have put structural racism and its influence on wealth inequality in the U.S. into stark relief. As multiracial groups express outrage at these visible disparities, we risk missing the other side of the coin: that wealth inequality in turn fans structural racism. Moreover, as they reinforce each other, these two factors erode the social, economic, and political viability of our democracy. Understanding and then breaking this vicious cycle are essential to realizing our renewed commitment to a country that works everyone.
This …
How Can Foundations Promote Impactful Collaboration?, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee
How Can Foundations Promote Impactful Collaboration?, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee
The Foundation Review
Funders are increasingly looking to interagency and cross-sector collaboration as a strategy to solve complex, large-scale issues, but many collaborative groups fail to generate an impact with their work. This is due in part to funders’ own practices, such as pre-specifying the problem to be solved or limiting their grantees’ ability to adjust their strategy.
The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts has been intentional about facilitating the effectiveness of the collaborative groups it supports. Its Health Care & Health Promotion Synergy Initiative provides long-term funding and assistance with planning, evaluation and sustainability to groups that define the problems they want …
Pci: A Reflective Evaluation Framework For Systems Change, Beverly A. Parsons, Huilan Krenn
Pci: A Reflective Evaluation Framework For Systems Change, Beverly A. Parsons, Huilan Krenn
The Foundation Review
Systemic change involves deep shifts in social norms, beliefs, power, and privilege — and seldom, if ever, follows a straightforward, predictable path. Such change also requires incremental, long-term action and evaluation. To better support systemic change, how might a foundation reframe its approach to evaluation?
This article explores the interconnected dimensions of the PCI Reflective Evaluation Framework, an approach now in prototype form which is grounded in practical thinking about working within complex social systems. This article focuses on its use in advancing racial equity, describing possible applications to integrate a racial equity lens in unpacking and addressing the complexity …
Becoming Strategic: Finding Leverage Over The Social And Economic Determinants Of Health, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee
Becoming Strategic: Finding Leverage Over The Social And Economic Determinants Of Health, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee
The Foundation Review
While a number of observers have offered advice to foundations on how to be more effective with the implementation, evaluation, and adaptation of their strategies, there is little guidance on how foundations should go about designing their strategies.
This study fills that gap by analyzing the strategic thinking of health conversion foundations when they determined how they would address various social determinants of health. Based on interviews conducted with the leaders of 33 foundations across the U.S., we identified four strategic pathways: expanding and improving relevant services, creating more effective systems, changing policy, and encouraging more equitable power structures.
In …
Generative Philanthropy: Long-Term Investments In Economic Opportunity, Bob Giloth
Generative Philanthropy: Long-Term Investments In Economic Opportunity, Bob Giloth
The Foundation Review
Generative philanthropy is a collaborative investment practice that tests prototypes and identifies new opportunities that, over time, can focus direction and generate momentum for change. It is an incremental, decentralized approach to investment in communities.
This article’s purpose is to clarify the theory and practice of generative philanthropy and contrast it with other approaches. It provides an in-depth discussion of the meaning of generative philanthropy, offers five examples of the approach related to economic opportunity, and draws lessons for future practice.
Generative philanthropy offers a framework for understanding and enriching philanthropy’s long-term role and collaboration with partners from a developmental …