Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

Well Traveled: Strong Relationships And Unique Challenges Are Revealed In “Driving Richmond: Stories And Portraits Of Grtc Bus Drivers”, Laura Browder

English Faculty Publications

Here’s a well-kept secret: The regional GRTC Transit System is among the most progressive organizations in Richmond. The nonprofit plays a major role in reducing pollution, easing traffic congestion and connecting people to jobs. Its reform-minded leadership is eager to play a larger role. Its unionized bus drivers, which included some of the first waves of black and female drivers, help hold it all together.

And those drivers love their jobs — to a degree unusual for workers in any profession. That’s what I learned through interviews with 16 current and former drivers this summer for an exhibition at the …

Accountability In The Church, Professor Ben C Osisioma

Prof Ben Chuka Osisioma

Traditionally, accountability is the obligation to give a reckoning or explanation for one’s actions and responsibilities to a higher authority. However, for the purpose of this paper, we define accountability as the processes through which an organisation makes a commitment to respond to and balance the needs of stakeholders in its decision making processes and activities, and delivers against this commitment. In the church setting accountability involves managing the resources God has entrusted us with, organising for service and mission, and providing programmes to carry out the church’s mandate. The goal is to help people grow in Christ and learn …

Bylaws Of Citizens For Peace (501c4), Ann Abdoo

Citizens for Peace

No abstract provided.

2013 Study On Children Of Seriously Wounded Service Members, Mary Jo Schumann, Erika Nash Cameron, Laura Deitrick, George Reed, Dezaree Doroliat

Military

Over the course of one year, researchers from The Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic at the University of San Diego interviewed a total of 125 participants, including seriously wounded service members, their spouses and children, as well as military, civilian and nonprofit professionals who work with this population. The study included two phases to ensure a comprehensive understanding around the population and its unfulfilled needs: The first phase focused on understanding the specific needs of children of seriously wounded service members through interviews, focus groups, and reviews of existing research; the second phase focused on an assessment of …

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Measuring Dimensions Of Network Functioning: The Knowhow2go Network Survey, Tania Jarosewich, Nushina Mir, Linda Simkin

The Foundation Review

· As foundations more often encourage networks and other interorganizational strategies, they need tools to measure network effectiveness and outcomes. Gathering network members’ perspectives on their engagement with the network can provide insights and avenues for improvement.

· This article describes a network survey that was created for Lumina Foundation’s KnowHow2GO initiative, which focused on strengthening college access networks.

· The network survey measures five dimensions of effective networks: network management; sustainable service systems; data-driven decision making; policy and advocacy; and knowledge development and dissemination.

· The network survey provided useful information for the foundation, initiative partners, technicalassistance providers, network …

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Practical Project Management For Agile Nonprofits: Approaches And Templates To Help You Manage With Limited Resources, Megan Murphy

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

A Matter Of Leadership: Connecting A Grantmaker's Investments In Collaborative Leadership Development To Community Results, Julia D. O’Brien, Jennifer N. Littlefield, Victoria Goddard-Truitt

The Foundation Review

· Foundations are increasingly supporting cross-sector collaboratives that focus on developing collaborative leadership skills, in addition to strengthening collaborative accountability. This article tests the Theory of Aligned Contributions change model, as implemented by the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s Leadership in Action Program.

· Path analysis results show that grantmakers can support cross-sector collaboratives by providing skilled implementation teams that promote public and individual accountability and build strong collaborative leadership skills. Through this support, collaboratives develop effective strategies that affect important social issues.

· This research sheds light on how grantmakers can fund and encourage a process for cross-sector community members …

Four Network Principles For Collaboration Success, Jane Wei-Skillern, Nora Silver

The Foundation Review

· This article identifies a set of four counterintuitive principles that are critical to collaboration success and offers insights for how nonprofit leaders can ensure that their collaborations can have an impact that is dramatically greater than the sum of the individual parts.

· Based on a decade of research developing detailed case studies on a range of successful networks, the authors have identified a common pattern of factors that are essential to effective networking.

· The principles are: focus on mission before organization; manage through trust, not control; promote others, not yourself; and build constellations, not stars.

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Designing For Learning: One Foundation’S Efforts To Institutionalize Organizational Learning, Rosanna Tran, Sanjay Shah

The Foundation Review

· This article explores the California HealthCare Foundation’s internal efforts, inspired in part by the process of design thinking, to institutionalize organizational learning.

· One outcome of this process has been a “grantmaking toolbox,” which represents an attempt to document new, effective, and innovative grantmaking tactics.

· While creating this toolbox, the foundation realized that the process of learning holds as much – if not more – value as the products of learning. Moreover, we gained three valuable insights that may be relevant for other foundations interested in advancing their learning efforts: effective learning is a collaborative, rather than an …

Book Review Of The Generosity Network: New Transformational Tools For Successful Fund-Raising, Terry Horton

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Mapping Out An Age Friendly Singapore: Lessons From Pioneering Work In Ageing And Eldercare, Mary Ann Tsao

Social Space

As the Tsao Foundation celebrates its 20th anniversary in 2013, Social Space catches up with the indomitable Dr Mary Ann Tsao who explains what it means to be a catalyst for change and how the Foundation will continue in transforming the experience of longevity in the community.

Only Connect: How An Investment In Relationships Among Social Change Leaders Is Changing Them, Their Organizations, And Their City, Stefan Lanfer, Patricia Brandes, Claire Reinelt

The Foundation Review

· After years of leading social-sector organizations in an environment where competition is more the norm than collaboration, many gifted leaders are near burnout, unable to maximize their gifts. Since 2005, the Barr Fellowship has been changing that in Boston.

· This network of leaders, created by the Barr Foundation, is based on the hypothesis that recognizing talented leaders and investing in their personal growth and connections with one another will result in individual, collective, and city transformation.

· A longtime funder of networks, Barr designed the fellowship as a “connectivity” network, where collective actions and shared agendas might emerge …

Eyes Wide Open: Learning As Strategy Under Conditions Of Complexity And Uncertainty, Patricia Patrizi, Elizabeth Heid Thompson, Julia Coffman, Tanya Beer

The Foundation Review

· Foundation strategy is hampered by a failure to recognize and engage with the complexity and uncertainty surrounding foundation work. This article identifies three common “traps” that hinder foundation capacity to learn and adapt: 1) linearity and certainty bias; 2) the autopilot effect; and 3) indicator blindness.

· This article urges foundations to alter their mindset, questions, and processes to foster a more committed approach to strategy and adaptation. In essence, it argues for learning as strategy.

· This article draws on literature from systems theory, business strategy, and philanthropic practice as well as data from foundation benchmarking surveys.

Call For Papers

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Managing The Polarities Of Democracy: A Theoretical Framework For Positive Social Change, William J. Benet

Journal of Sustainable Social Change

People around the globe have embraced democracy to bring about positive social change to address our environmental, economic, and militaristic challenges. Yet, there is no agreement on a definition of democracy that can guide social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model is a unifying theory of democracy to guide healthy, sustainable, and just social change efforts. The Polarities of Democracy model consists of ten elements, organized as five polarity pairs: freedom & authority, justice & due process, diversity & equality, human-rights & communal-obligations, and participation & representation. In this model each element has positive aspects and negative aspects and …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Collaboration And Foundation Leadership: Challenges, Opportunities, And Impact, Jennifer Pereira

The Foundation Review

· This article describes a successful collaboration among foundation, city government, and nonprofit stakeholders that leveraged an initial investment of $60,000 to $4.5 million in public and private funding to create a sustainable Green & Healthy Homes Initiative™ for low- and moderate-income neighborhoods in Providence, R.I.

· Through a partnership with the Rhode Island Foundation, the Council on Foundations, and the Coalition to End Childhood Lead Poisoning, the city of Providence developed a comprehensive approach to integrated health, safety, lead-hazard reduction, energy-efficiency, and weatherization interventions for low- and moderate-income families.

· The project was led by a steering committee of …

Weaving An Impactful Network, Anne E. Summers, Linda Honold

The Foundation Review

· The Brico Fund set out to test a common nonprofit theory of change: individual outputs lead to outcomes, leading to systems change. An alternate theory is that systems change happens through collective and strategic action of many organizations working together toward a common goal.

· This case study examines the implementation of this theory and describes the companion development of systems, structures, tools, and processes created in a cross-sector network of nonprofits. The evolution of Brico’s funding strategy is juxtaposed with the development of the network, revealing a unique funder/organization symbiosis, relying on each to provide expertise, thus fostering …

Communicating, Collaborating, And Coordinating To Revitalize New Jersey Neighborhoods, Lois W. Greco

The Foundation Review

· Since 2003, the New Jersey public and private funding community has been organizing and implementing a shared, cross-sector approach to revitalizing the state's low-income neighborhoods that incorporates residents and stakeholders, encourages private investment, leverages corporate resources, and produces measurable results.

· The approach has been shaped by the programmatic alignment of the Wells Fargo Regional Foundation's Neighborhood Grants Program and the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs' Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit program (NRTC) with technical assistance from the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey.

· The combined programs have supported initiatives in 26 neighborhoods, funded by $16 …

When Local Solutions Aren’T Enough: A Strategic Funding Partnership To Restore A Large River System, Pam Wiley, Ken Bierly, Todd Reeve, Kendra Smith

The Foundation Review

· Freshwater ecosystems are increasingly imperiled, and funders, nongovernmental organizations, community groups, and government agencies around the world are working to restore ecological function and resiliency to these critical resources.

· What does it take to structure, support, and implement truly effective, broad-scale watershed restoration? This article will describe the unconventional funding strategies catalyzing collective impact across multiple restoration groups working in a diverse set of watersheds and share the challenges and opportunities encountered while implementing these strategies.

· In Oregon, an experimental 10-year collaboration aimed at improving the health of the Willamette River system is being led by the …

Achieving Synergy With Collaborative Problem Solving: The Value Of System Analysis, Douglas Easterling, Elizabeth Mayfield Arnold, Jessica A. Jones, Allen J. Smart

The Foundation Review

· Collaborative problem solving has a long and important tradition in philanthropy. While there are notable success stories, it is clear that large-scale impact does not occur by simply bringing various stakeholders together around a common agenda and then offering them funding for planning and implementation.

· One of the most critical ingredients is a high-leverage strategy, which in turn requires a coherent understanding of the system that surrounds the problem.

· Reclaiming Futures, a national initiative aimed at promoting juvenile-justice reform at the local level, explicitly promotes system-level problem-solving by offering a conceptual framework that each site uses to …

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Benchmarking Evaluation In Foundations: Do We Know What We Are Doing?, Julia Coffman, Tanya Beer, Patricia Patrizi, Elizabeth Heid Thompson

The Foundation Review

· Evaluation in philanthropy – with staff assigned to evaluation-related responsibilities – began in the 1970s and has evolved, along with philanthropy, in the four decades since. What has not changed, however, is a regular questioning of what foundations are doing on evaluation, especially since the world of philanthropy regularly shifts, and changes in evaluation resourcing and positioning tend to soon follow.

· This article presents new findings about what foundations are doing on evaluation and discusses their implications. It is based on 2012 research that benchmarks the positioning, resourcing, and function of evaluation in foundations, and follows up on …

Moving From Partnership To Collective Accountability And Sustainable Change: Applying A Systems-Change Model To Foundations’ Evolving Roles, Karen W. Linkins, Lynda E. Frost, Becky Hayes Boober, Jennifer J. Brya

The Foundation Review

· In a time of scarce resources and significant needs, funders may seek to maximize the impact of their grantmaking through collaboration. While many foundations move well from identifying a problem to building broader awareness and forging key partnerships, they typically flounder in trying to move beyond collaboration to a sense of mutual responsibility or collective accountability for the greater good, which is a precondition for sustainable systems change.

· This article discusses three complex initiatives that made sustainable changes in integrated behavioral health and primary care. Using a conceptual framework based on the Building Blocks of Systems Change model, …

Getting To Collective Impact: How Funders Can Contribute Over The Life Course Of The Work, Douglas Easterling

The Foundation Review

· Foundations have a long tradition of convening and funding collaborative groups with the hope that this will lead to large-scale impact.

· Although funder-driven collaboration sometimes leads to breakthrough solutions, foundations have also pushed the participating organizations into artificial, awkward, and unsustainable efforts.

· This article argues that funders should support naturally emerging networks and should tailor their support to match the network’s stage of development.

· A five-stage developmental model is introduced and illustrated through a case study of the Central Appalachian Network (CAN).

· Over CAN’s 20-year history, a succession of regional and national foundations have played …