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Articles 31 - 57 of 57
Full-Text Articles in Business
Designing For Emergence: The Mccune Charitable Foundation Grows Agency Across New Mexico, Marilyn Darling, Heidi Sparkes Guber, Jillaine Smith, Wendy Lewis
Designing For Emergence: The Mccune Charitable Foundation Grows Agency Across New Mexico, Marilyn Darling, Heidi Sparkes Guber, Jillaine Smith, Wendy Lewis
The Foundation Review
The impact of the inherent power imbalance in the grantmaker/grantee relationship has come into particular focus as equity and justice have become a greater priority for philanthropy. This article looks at the example of the McCune Charitable Foundation, which deliberately designed an emergent strategy approach that establishes clear goals and then created a platform to permit a reversal of that power dynamic, so that leadership for priorities comes from those closest to the work.
The authors launched a two-year project to research what emergence might look like in seven complex social-change initiatives, and how the strategy could grow agency and …
Better Together: Engaging Stakeholders In Learning And Leadership To Guide Foundation Resources Toward Adaptive Systems Change, Nadine Long, Kimber P. Richter, Jennifer Elise Avers, Rick Cagan
Better Together: Engaging Stakeholders In Learning And Leadership To Guide Foundation Resources Toward Adaptive Systems Change, Nadine Long, Kimber P. Richter, Jennifer Elise Avers, Rick Cagan
The Foundation Review
In 2014, the Kansas Health Foundation brought together a group of knowledgeable stakeholders from a multitude of specialties to focus on reducing tobacco use specifically among Kansans with mental illness. Over 15 months, the group and the foundation worked to learn deeply about the issue and inform action that could be taken on individual, organizational, and systemic levels.
The wealth of knowledge and experience brought by each participant to the discussion and learning about this complex issue, together from a range of perspectives, resulted in a more productive dialogue. The model proved very effective, as evidenced by the group’s success …
Full Issue #11.2 On Collaborative Learning
Full Issue #11.2 On Collaborative Learning
The Foundation Review
No abstract provided.
Learning Together: Cohort-Based Capacity Building And The Ripple Effects Of Collaboration, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, Mary Gray, Danielle Scaturro
Learning Together: Cohort-Based Capacity Building And The Ripple Effects Of Collaboration, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, Mary Gray, Danielle Scaturro
The Foundation Review
Foundations frequently commission evaluations and are the primary audiences for findings. Grantee organizations, however, often don’t see the results, or they find in them limited value and relevance to their own work. Funders like the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation are quietly disrupting this status quo by exploring ways to fully engage grantees, co-funders, technical consultants, and evaluators in collective learning and reflection.
The foundation’s comprehensive, cohort-based capacity-building program, PropelNext, was designed to enhance the performance of promising nonprofits that serve America’s disadvantaged youth. With a combination of financial support, individualized coaching, and peer-learning sessions, grantees engage in a test-and-learn cycle …
From Idea To Initiative: Real-Time Learning For A Funder Collaborative On Nonprofit Strategic Restructuring, Way-Ting Chen, Lynn Alvarez, Carrie Harlow, Shannon Johnson, Jennifer Price-Letscher
From Idea To Initiative: Real-Time Learning For A Funder Collaborative On Nonprofit Strategic Restructuring, Way-Ting Chen, Lynn Alvarez, Carrie Harlow, Shannon Johnson, Jennifer Price-Letscher
The Foundation Review
Evaluation and learning is often seen as a high-stakes, formalized process of comparing an effort at its conclusion against some standard or benchmark. More recently, formative and developmental approaches to evaluation have been created to accommodate the need for more adaptability and ambiguity in an effort.
The Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative, a multiyear collaboration of 17 funders in Los Angeles County, California, supports nonprofit organizations to collaborate and restructure in a variety of forms. As the initiative evolved, its evaluation and learning system had to have the ability to evolve with it. Real-time learning informed initiative design and refinement, aligned funders …
Learning About Neighborhood Change Through Funder-Grantee Collaboration, Debra Dahab, Brooke Finn, Lois Greco, Nancy Kopf
Learning About Neighborhood Change Through Funder-Grantee Collaboration, Debra Dahab, Brooke Finn, Lois Greco, Nancy Kopf
The Foundation Review
NeighborWorks America and the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation support change in communities through a rigorous and structured collaborative learning framework that places the resident voice and experience at the center of learning. Both funders regularly engage in collaborative learning processes with their grantees and partners to support local revitalization practices and inform program and grantmaking strategies.
This article examines the key ingredients and processes needed to develop and sustain collaborative learning among grantee organizations, community residents, and other stakeholders and funding partners, as well as the critical role played by technical assistance providers.
The authors reflect on their experience with …
Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens
Evaluating For The Bigger Picture: Breaking Through The Learning And Evaluation Barriers To Advancing Community Systems-Change Field Knowledge, Thomas Kelly, Prudence Brown, Hanh Cao Yu, Marie Colombo
Evaluating For The Bigger Picture: Breaking Through The Learning And Evaluation Barriers To Advancing Community Systems-Change Field Knowledge, Thomas Kelly, Prudence Brown, Hanh Cao Yu, Marie Colombo
The Foundation Review
Foundations investing in community systems change often fail to prioritize field-level and cross-initiative evaluation questions in building initiatives. As a result, many of the documented evaluations of such investments lack translatable lessons specific and influential enough to drive related decisions and actions of others in the field.
This article developed from ongoing, multiyear peer learning across several foundations that collectively compiled recommendations for community systems-change funders and evaluators to implement more powerful evaluations. They are intended to help funders and evaluators engaged in these efforts build sectorwide knowledge capable of informing improved work across initiatives and communities. This article also …
Book Review: Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy And Making Every Dollar Count, Paul G. Putman
Book Review: Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy And Making Every Dollar Count, Paul G. Putman
The Foundation Review
No abstract provided.
Communicating For Project Management Success: Pro-Tips From Accidental Project Managers, Annie Bélanger, Preethi Gorecki, Jesus Espinoza
Communicating For Project Management Success: Pro-Tips From Accidental Project Managers, Annie Bélanger, Preethi Gorecki, Jesus Espinoza
Presentations
Library professionals are often asked to lead projects; yet, few are given the training to proceed with confidence. This session will address major aspects of a successful project communication and management: understanding how to propose projects; skills and tools to initiate, plan, and manage projects efficiently and effectively; and knowing how to wrangle the tasks that make up projects. We will also cover how to communicate and lead through influence within a project team setting.
Strategic Learning In Practice: A Case Study Of The Kauffman Foundation, Matthew Carr, Brett Hembree, Nathan Madden
Strategic Learning In Practice: A Case Study Of The Kauffman Foundation, Matthew Carr, Brett Hembree, Nathan Madden
The Foundation Review
Increasingly, foundations and nonprofits are seeking to engage their staff in learning and reflection activities that assess successes and challenges, and then generate insights that can improve programs and funding strategies. Yet, despite the intuitive benefits, there are common challenges that often stand in the way of promoting strategic learning for continuous improvement.
For the past year, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has been focused on creating more systematic and intentional strategic learning across our organization. As part of this work we cultivated a select cohort of staff to be “learning champions,” created simple tools and processes that can more …
Building A Culture Of Learning: Teaching A Complex Organization How To Fish, Tiffany Clarke, Hallie Preskill, Abigail Stevenson, Pamela Schwartz
Building A Culture Of Learning: Teaching A Complex Organization How To Fish, Tiffany Clarke, Hallie Preskill, Abigail Stevenson, Pamela Schwartz
The Foundation Review
Many social sector organizations are looking to balance their strategic plans with an ability to respond more quickly to change as it unfolds in their communities. For many years — but gaining particular urgency in 2015 — Kaiser Permanente Community Health saw a need to better understand the progress and impact of its portfolio and use its data to adapt strategy in response to its changing context.
To increase its capacity for strategic learning, Community Health worked with FSG to develop and implement a system called Measurement and Evaluation for Learning and Outcomes. While this process was tailored to Community …
Knowledge Translation To Enhance Evaluation Use: A Case Example, Alison Rogers, Catherine Malla
Knowledge Translation To Enhance Evaluation Use: A Case Example, Alison Rogers, Catherine Malla
The Foundation Review
Knowledge in the form of information suitable for decision making or advocacy by foundations is not always readily available — a situation unacceptable for those who need such information for accountability, learning, and influencing policy and practice. This article addresses how essential information about monitoring, evaluation, and lessons learned can be made available to foundations.
The Fred Hollows Foundation identified a gap in this area through an evaluation capacity-building readiness assessment, and introduced the concept of participatory, real-time monitoring, evaluation, and learning bulletins grounded in the principles of knowledge translation. This article describes how those bulletins were developed and used …
Building Principle-Based Strategic Learning: Insights From Practice, Kelci M. Price, Chera Reid, Suzanne Kennedy Leahy
Building Principle-Based Strategic Learning: Insights From Practice, Kelci M. Price, Chera Reid, Suzanne Kennedy Leahy
The Foundation Review
Strategic learning is a powerful tool for foundations to achieve greater impact, yet foundations have struggled to create practices and behaviors that effectively support them in learning about strategy. Given that many foundations are engaged in strategic philanthropy, where they have specific conditions in the world they are trying to change, it is critical that they have the capacity to effectively learn about and improve their strategies.
This article offers three principles for strategic learning, informed by the field of strategic learning and insights from practice across three foundations. Each principle is explored in terms of what it means and …
Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens
Shifting Mindsets: How Meaningful Accountability Systems Can Strengthen Foundation Learning And Improve Impact, Marc J. Holley, Marcie Parkhurst
Shifting Mindsets: How Meaningful Accountability Systems Can Strengthen Foundation Learning And Improve Impact, Marc J. Holley, Marcie Parkhurst
The Foundation Review
This article explores what it looks like when a foundation attempts to integrate accountability and learning practices, and presents a framework for the unique and complementary contributions that accountability and learning can make to the work of foundations.
The article also looks at the tensions that can arise when a foundation’s internal evaluation staff attempt to design, implement, and make use of accountability systems. Specifically, it identifies three problematic perspectives that can hold foundations back from full engagement in internally driven accountability initiatives, and offers practical guidance on how to shift these mindsets to more productive practices.
It concludes by …
Evaluators As Conduits And Supports For Foundation Learning, Clare Nolan, Meg Long, Debra Joy Perez
Evaluators As Conduits And Supports For Foundation Learning, Clare Nolan, Meg Long, Debra Joy Perez
The Foundation Review
Evaluators play a critical role in supporting philanthropic learning, programming, and strategy, but evaluation and learning in philanthropy is often limited in ways that impede deeper resonance and impact.
Most philanthropic evaluation is focused on the needs of individual foundations, knowledge sharing with the broader field is limited, and foundations struggle to integrate evaluation and learning as a management tool. This article makes the case that evaluators and funders can do more to build the collective capacity of evaluators working in philanthropy in order to enhance their contributions to community change.
This article also examines the ways that evaluation in …
Challenges And Opportunities In Philanthropic Organizational Learning: Reflections From Fellow Grantmakers, Jennifer Chubinski, Kelley Adcock, Susan Sprigg
Challenges And Opportunities In Philanthropic Organizational Learning: Reflections From Fellow Grantmakers, Jennifer Chubinski, Kelley Adcock, Susan Sprigg
The Foundation Review
As the field of philanthropy has matured, increasing attention has been paid to evaluating the impact of philanthropic investments. In recent years, the scope of evaluation has expanded to include an intentional focus on organizational learning with the goal of learning from ongoing work, informing decision-making, and ultimately improving impact.
With this momentum to carry out organizational learning strategies and share successes, the sector has not yet stopped to reflect on challenges and lessons learned in the process of building the capacity for organizational learning — the messy yet meaningful middle between a desire for learning and the implementation of …
Reflective Practice For Learning From Experience: Navigating The Back Roads At Work, Jan Jaffe
Reflective Practice For Learning From Experience: Navigating The Back Roads At Work, Jan Jaffe
The Foundation Review
What are the roadblocks that limit reflective practice in the field of philanthropy? Between the desire to move the needle on social change and the pressure to be productive, philanthropy as a field is understandably driven to focus on doing and resistant to taking time to reflect on practice. This article is designed to help foundations encourage leadership and staff to put their expertise into play as a learning strategy.
This article defines reflective practice and traces roots and research that can inform its use. It also reports on interviews with philanthropy practitioners about how they use various reflective practice …
Economic Impact Study: Downtown Market Grand Rapids, Grand Valley State University, Christian Glupker
Economic Impact Study: Downtown Market Grand Rapids, Grand Valley State University, Christian Glupker
Other Faculty Publications
Purpose of study This study focuses on the economic impact of the Market from four perspectives:
- Visitors who traveled for the express purpose of visiting the Market
- Visitors who visited the Market while already in Grand Rapids
- Tenant activity within the Market
- The Market’s impact on local business revenue and job creation