Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

Applying Agile Project Management To Art Museums: A Proposal For Implementing A Generalist Scrum Master, Vincent Sulit

Master's Projects and Capstones

This capstone project examines organizational change, along with its challenges, through case studies in museums and businesses in the private sector, subsequently providing a possible solution for museums to adapt to the current global market economy through the use of Agile Project Management (Agile). I cite recent case studies of art museums implementing Agile for digital product development. This project proposal aims to introduce Agile outside of digital departments, including Exhibitions and Education, with the goal of developing better visitor-centered offerings from museums. This may be achieved through the proposal of a job description for a new museum position of …

Cultivating Cultural Exchange: Improving University Study Abroad Programs, Katherine Crawford

Honors Theses

My affinity for culture, both foreign and domestic, has greatly shaped my life and future career path. As I have been frequently reminded, I did not take the “typical” exchange route. However, I accredit this atypical experience to my passion towards the subject. My first immersive cultural experience occurred during a yearlong, high school, Rotary led exchange to Bourges, France. Simply put, it changed my life. I encountered the culture first hand, accepting a new normal: bisous greetings, daily baguettes, and a well-structured hierarchy. Within six months, I considered myself fluent in the language. I lived with French families, was …

2017 Food, Friendship, And Health: Working Together To Serve Seniors In North County San Diego, Michelle Ahearne, Meghan Kelly, Mary Jo Schumann

Seniors

This report, prepared by the Caster Center, is a three-year evaluation of the North County Senior Connections Thyme Together Food Truck Lunch Program.

Canines For Disabled Kids, Erin Jerrett, Margarita Mnatsakanyan, Colleen Reynolds, Yin Wang

School of Professional Studies

Canines for Disabled Kids have been working on behalf of children and their families to educate communities and promote service dog partnerships for almost twenty years. Their advocacy with local legislatures, business owners, and community leaders highlighted the difficulties encountered when differentiating service dogs from emotional support/comfort dogs. Service dogs are entitled to access by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), while emotional support/comfort dogs are not protected under the federal statute or to the same rights. Canines for Disabled Kids proposed a study to obtain a current count of licensed service dogs in the Commonwealth and investigate the feasibility …

The Nonprofit Nerd (December 2017), The Nonprofit Institute At Portland State University

The Nonprofit Institute Newsletter

This edition of the Nonprofit Nerd features research highlights, Nerds at Work, and news from the Nonprofit Institute.

Editorial, Teri Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Considerations For Measuring The Impact Of Policy-Relevant Research, Megan Collado, Lauren Gerlach, Caroline Ticse, Katherine Hempstead

The Foundation Review

Philanthropy, and the research and analysis it supports, has an important role to play in informing policy and making government more effective. Yet all too often, foundations and other research funders struggle to understand whether and how their investments have affected policy.

This article highlights the findings of an 18-month pilot project conducted by AcademyHealth to help the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation better understand the impact of a subset of the foundation’s research grants, across investment types, on health insurance coverage and health reform, and to help inform how the foundation may more systematically track and measure the impact of …

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 …

Book Review: Generation Impact: How Next Gen Donors Are Revolutionizing Giving, Elenore Garton

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Transforming Coalition Leadership: An Evaluation Of A Collaborative Leadership Training Program, Jung Y. Kim, Todd Honeycutt, Michaella Morzuch

The Foundation Review

Effective coalitions need leaders who are able to reach beyond individual, group, and sectoral boundaries to advance a shared vision for healthy and thriving communities. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation partnered with the Center for Creative Leadership to create a one-year pilot, the Community Coalition Leadership Program, to test a new approach to providing training in collaborative leadership.

This article discusses the program, whether and how it improved participants’ individual and coalition leadership skills, and the implications for foundations and other entities seeking to increase interdependent leadership capacity within community coalitions. This article does not, however, intend to describe progress …

Looking In The Mirror: Equity In Practice For Philanthropy, Ashlee Young, Jaime Love, Nancy Csuti, Christopher J. King

The Foundation Review

Philanthropy still needs to be reminded that there is no such thing as a post-racial America, and that systemic racism continues to underlie the problems foundation funding attempts to address. While many foundations have found it challenging to address equity in their grantmaking, they have found that process far more comfortable than addressing equity within their own organizations.

This article will describe the efforts of three foundations in various stages of seeing themselves through an equity lens: the Consumer Health Foundation, The Colorado Trust, and Interact for Health. This article will discuss why these foundations are on this journey, what …

Community Foundation-Led Giving Days: Understanding Donor Satisfaction And Philanthropic Patterns, Benjamin S. Bingle

The Foundation Review

This article examines Give Local America 2016, a giving day beset by a technology failure that created challenges for donors and community foundations throughout the United States, and explores the experiences of donors as giving day participants.

Philanthropic giving days have gained popularity as opportunities for community foundations to engage new donors, create excitement about organized philanthropy, and democratize charitable giving. This article, examining survey data collected after a giving day led by a community foundation in northern Illinois, provides unique insight into donor satisfaction levels, opinions, and giving patterns.

Data suggest that giving days are not crowding out donations …

Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Funder Collaborations — Flourish Or Flounder?, William Porter, Kelly James, Robert Medina, Barbara Chow

The Foundation Review

Funders regularly collaborate to leverage their influence, channel their funding, and mobilize grantees in the same direction. Our sector’s default assumption is that more collaboration is better — even as too many collaborations end with a whimper instead of a bang. Why do some funder collaborations flourish, and others flounder?

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Education First participated in a half-dozen joint funding efforts to support the success of the Common Core State Standards in the nation’s K–12 public education system. Looking critically at these efforts, we learned lessons about why some collaborations are more effective.

Funder collaborations …

Philanthropy: Evidence In Favor Of A Profession, Heather L. Carpenter

The Foundation Review

Philanthropic employees have been cautious in implying that they are pursuing a career in philanthropy. Karl Stauber (2010) presented an argument in support of such caution: that philanthropy failed to meet all seven standards posited by Burton J. Bledstein, that when met, define a profession.

This article presents a literature review and findings from a survey of 500 members of the Council on Foundations that offer evidence for the counterargument that philanthropic work requires specialized education and training to master a set of core competencies.

While this article does not argue for or against the question, determining whether philanthropy as …

Inside The Black Box: Investigating Philanthropic Foundation Strategies In A Dynamic Environment, Amanda Stewart

The Foundation Review

Foundations have been described as black boxes — implying that we know very little about what happens between inputs and outputs. We do know that they operate in dynamic environments and must adopt strategies to be effective in the face of change. This article, which examines the strategies of 29 foundations operating in one southeastern state, provides fresh insights into how foundations fulfill their missions.

The article is based on a research study that used semistructured interviews to explore how foundations approached grantmaking. Interviewees discussed the multiple and simultaneous roles played by grantmakers in addition to their traditional check-writing function. …

Voluntary Changes In Accounting Principle: Literature Review, Descriptive Data, And Opportunities For Future Research, Marsha B. Keune, Timothy M. Keune, Linda C. Quick

Accounting Faculty Publications

Voluntary changes in accounting principle represent explicit and fundamental decisions by managers to exercise accounting discretion. This paper develops an organizing framework to review prior literature on voluntary changes, provides descriptive insights on contemporary changes, and identifies opportunities for future research on voluntary changes. The voluntary change literature is robust and has examined many questions using data prior to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). We find that contemporary voluntary changes often vary across the pre-SOX, post-SOX, and post-SFAS No. 154 periods by the materiality of their income effect, issue type, and justifications provided by managers, suggesting that manager use …

Cause-Related Marketing: The Effect Of Checkout Charity Requests On Consumer Donation Behavior, Brian R. Kinard, Minerva Lacal Pardo

Atlantic Marketing Journal

The aim of this research was to understand better consumer reactions to donation requests when making point of purchase decisions. A between-subjects full factorial design manipulated product type (goods/services), consumption experience (frivolous/practical), and product/cause fit (strong/weak). In line with prior research (e.g., Chang, 2008; Savary et al, 2015; Strahilevitz & Myers, 1998), a scenario-based approach was employed to assess responses to the CRM manipulations. A total of 241 subjects participated in the study. Our results mirror extant research evidence on the positive effects of pairing frivolous products with donation requests. In that, positive donation behavior largely results as consumers compensate …

2017 Nonprofit Sector Employment Trends And Career Opportunities, San Diego Workforce Partnership In Partnership With The Nonprofit Institute

Nonprofit Sector Issues and Trends

The Nonprofit sector plays a critical, but often unseen role in supporting and promoting activities that improve the lives of county residents, filling gaps in critical social services when needed. This study aims to inform the workforce development system—educational training institutions, Workforce Development Boards and community workforce development organizations—on how to best prepare the future workforce for this sector. The full report analyzes data on job growth, training gaps, hiring challenges and in-demand skills from firms in the Nonprofit sector.

2017 The Role Of Books And Reading In Stem: An Overview Of The Benefits For Children And The Opportunities To Enhance The Field, Vitaliy Popov, Tessa Tinkler

Youth, Education, and Literacy

In April 2017, STEM Next, in partnership with the Hoag Foundation and the Molina Foundation, commissioned the Institute for Entrepreneurship in Education (IEE) and the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research at the University of San Diego to provide an overview of literacy learning within the disciplinary context of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). This overview includes (1) a literature review on the benefits of integrating literacy and STEM for elementary and middle-school-aged children, (2) an environmental scan of reading programs, organizations, and materials that focus on Literacy in STEM, and (3) a set of criteria for …

Project Management Office To The Rescue: Aligning Workforce And Resources With Library Vision And Delivering Results, Anastasia Guimaraes, Zheng (John) Wang

Charleston Library Conference

Many libraries today are inundated with increasing number of tasks, projects, and initiatives through which they hope to achieve their mission and strategic vision only to find themselves losing focus and drowning in the volume of work. Hesburgh Libraries at the University of Notre Dame struggled with absorbing an exponentially growing number of projects and aligning them with institutional strategic initiatives and goals. The increasing number of projects and the relatively stable size of the workforce significantly impacted the institution’s ability to complete projects in a timely fashion and within the budgetary allocation.

Self-Determination And Human Resource Retention: Employee And Volunteer Motivation To Stay In Rural Oregon Nonprofit Organizations, Nicole Richman

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

The present study used an existing model, the Volunteer Functions Inventory, to test the functional motives of volunteers and employees to engage in or continue service with a rural nonprofit organization. Self-Determination theory provides the underlying framework for the Volunteer Functions Inventory and the six motivational functions: understanding, values, enhancement, career, social, and protective. The model was tested using a sample of 168 employees and volunteers from Area Agencies on Aging located in rural Oregon. The results indicated that the protective function, reducing personal guilt by serving others in the community with less means, similarly motivates employees and volunteers to …

2017 Fostering Whole Person Care Through A Care Coordination Network: Community Information Exchange San Diego, The Caster Family Center For Nonprofit And Philanthropic Research, University Of San Diego

Seniors

2-1-1 San Diego commissioned the University of San Diego’s Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research to conduct the Community Information Exchange (CIE) Cohort 2 evaluation, which focused on the senior (defined as ages 60+) population in the San Diego region.

Using a technology platform where agencies can enter and share client data, CIE strives to foster whole person care for the populations it serves (e.g., homeless, seniors, military), as well as reduce duplicative intakes and services provided by healthcare and social service agencies. By consenting into CIE, clients give permission for data sharing and may receive multiple referrals …

2017 The Impact Of Reading Aloud To Children: An Evaluation Of The Words Alive Read Aloud Program, Caster Family Center For Nonprofit And Philanthropic Research, University Of San Diego

Youth, Education, and Literacy

This report, prepared by the Caster Center, is an evaluation of the Words Alive Read Aloud Program. Words Alive is a nonprofit organization focused on creating opportunities for life success by inspiring a commitment to reading.

2017 Annual Report: State Of Nonprofits In San Diego, Laura Deitrick, Jon Durnford, Emily Young

State of Nonprofits in San Diego

The 2017 State of Nonprofits in San Diego report showcases current statistics on what nonprofits and philanthropy look like in the San Diego region, as well as the critical trends in organizational readiness, workforce development, fundraising, and public policy directly related to the sector’s ability to fulfill their social purpose mission.

The Nonprofit Nerd (October 2017), The Nonprofit Institute At Portland State University

The Nonprofit Institute Newsletter

This month’s theme is Equity in Evaluation!

If you’ve been following along the past few months you may have seen that NPI is working with the latest cohort of our Professional Certificate in Nonprofit Program Evaluation to bring evaluation tools into their organizational equity work. Measuring progress toward our goals is a critical part of every organization’s learning, improvement and accountability to the communities we serve.

But what about the equity implications of how we actually do evaluation? What does it mean to employ an equity lens in our approach to evaluation itself—the questions we ask, the data we collect, …

Cash Versus In-Kind Transfers: Comparative Differences And Individual Best Practices To Benefit Recipient Communities, Sarah Wicker

Senior Honors Theses

This research paper seeks to compare cash and in-kind transfers in the context of foreign poverty aid to determine which transfer style is most beneficial and to evaluate long-term best practices of each kind to more positively benefit the recipient communities. It does this by comparing arguments for and against each transfer model. The first argument discusses the differences in distribution costs between the two models. The second compares the cash transfer’s strong concept of choice with in-kind transfer’s typical style of controlled consumption of goods. The second argument discusses the timing and impact of targeting communities in connection to …