Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

Is The Policy Win All? A Framework For Effective Social-Justice Advocacy, Barbara Klugman

The Foundation Review

· This article offers a theory-of-change framework to help those engaged in social-justice advocacy to reflect on whether social-justice values are being retained in the process.

· A reproductive rights effort in South Africa provides an example of how social justice values can be lost in the advocacy process.

· The failure to sustain work on the ground pointed to the need to maintain a base of support even after a policy victory.

· Strategies must be revisited as social and political contexts change.

· One of the critical social-justice values that supports the establishment and maintenance of alliances is …

Reframing Assessment Of Grantee Perceptions: Reconsidering Effectiveness With Broader International Stakeholder Engagement, Laurel Pendleton, Michael Y. Moon

The Foundation Review

· Stakeholder engagement is important in philanthropy because it allows grantmakers and grantees to pool their respective resources more effectively to address their shared target issues.

· As more and more foundations and other grantmaking entities venture into the expansive world of self-evaluation, it is prudent that these methods be examined in light of international funding relationships.

· In order to better understand how these tools and methods can be used internationally, we outline the opportunities presented when using frames as one basis for decision-making in complex situations.

· Using the hypothetical case of a U.S. funder seeking to understand …

Leadership Development In The Social Sector: A Framework For Supporting Strategic Investments, Grady Mcgonagill, Claire Reinelt

The Foundation Review

· While much of the research on leadership and leadership development has historically studied private sector settings, recent work has begun to build knowledge about leaders in public and community settings.

· New models of leadership, including collective leadership, are being developed and implemented by foundations.

· A framework for identifying the level of intervention (individual, team, organization, network, or system) and the level of impact (individual, team, organization, community, or field of policy and practice) is proposed as a tool for more strategic investing in leadership development.

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Achieving Foundation Accountability And Transparency: Lessons From The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’S Scorecard, David C. Colby, Nancy W. Fishman, Sarah G. Pickell

The Foundation Review

· The purpose of this article is to help foundations in their accountability and transparency efforts by sharing lessons from one foundation’s journey to develop a scorecard.

· A commitment to funding and sharing the results from rigorous evaluations set the tone for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) accountability.

· The Scorecard is a powerful tool for RWJF to set goals, track organizational effectiveness, and motivate responses to shortcomings.

· Foundations can tailor their scorecard to include what best serves their needs.

· With its Scorecard, RWJF found that comparative and quantitative measures are the most powerful forces to motivate …

Evaluation Of Greater Mankato Area United Way's Annual Allocations Process From The Partner Agencies' Perspective, Erin A. Trytten

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This project aims to provide information to GMAUW about the annual allocations process and level of engagement with partners from the partner agencies/programs themselves. GMAUW values their relationship with their partners and realizes the importance of evaluating their own practices to ensure that the relationship remain strong and mutually beneficial. GMAUW has never had the internal capacity to complete an evaluation of this nature and will use the findings to improve their processes.

Research Question: How do GMAUW’s partners view the annual allocations process?

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Lexington Humane Society: Analysis Of Volunteers, D'Arcy Robb

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

The Lexington Humane Society depends substantially on volunteer labor yet suffers from a high volunteer attrition rate. Using data from the organization’s database and a survey of volunteers, this project paints a demographic picture of the volunteer population and identifies traits that affect volunteer longevity.

The evidence shows that the organization’s volunteers are overwhelmingly likely to be pet-owning women with no children at home who are motivated to volunteer because it allows them to act on their values. Middle-age individuals are more likely than those under 25 or over 65 to become long term volunteers, and individuals who have recently …

Funding Source Impact On Nonprofit Advocacy Activity, Sean Patrick Naylor

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

Nonprofit organizations are often a tool by which citizens can engage in the policy process. Many nonprofit organizations engage in issue advocacy. For some nonprofit organizations issue advocacy is the purpose for their existence. For others, issue advocacy is a means of meeting organizational goals. Many nonprofits avoid issue advocacy altogether. The IRS places a financial limit on how much issue advocacy a nonprofit organization may engage in. However, most nonprofits won’t ever come close to this limit. Most simply don’t have as great a need for advocacy, while some will self regulate to avoid losing funding sources. Some literature …

Understanding Non-Profit Organizations In States With Appalachian Counties: Where They Locate And The Missions They Serve, Rebecca E. Tucker

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

No executive summary.

The Power Of Service Work: Developing A Consumer Volunteer Program For The House Of Hope, Inc., Darcy Wennes

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

House of Hope, Inc. (HOH) is a rural residential chemical dependency treatment center serving adults over the age of 18. HOH is a non-profit non-sectarian agency. Many clients at HOH have a dual diagnosis of chemical dependency and mental illness. Consumers at HOH are encouraged to volunteer, but are given limited support to do so. They have several hours in their day where there is no programming, and many consumers feel bored and unproductive. The literature suggests that there is a relationship between volunteer work carried out by consumers and their personal feelings of empowerment (Cohen, 2009) . Consumers’ feelings …

Socially Responsible Investing: A Comparative Analysis For The Bluegrass Community Foundation, Andrew Hedrick

MPA/MPP/MPFM Capstone Projects

In the fall of 2010 the Blue Grass Community Foundation began considering whether an updated investment strategy that included Socially Responsible Investing would be advantageous and in line with the mission of the organization. The question was raised whether this type of investing meant that the return on investment from securities currently held in the Foundation’s portfolio had to be sacrificed in order to incorporate this type of investment philosophy into the existing criteria used to invest the organization’s assets.

This paper examines literature relevant to the topic and conducts an analysis of a sample of mutual funds currently available …

Predicting Intentions To Donate To Human Service Nonprofits And Public Broadcasting Organizations Using A Revised Theory Of Planned Behavior, Bobbie Brinkerhoff

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Different types of nonprofit organizations including human service nonprofits like homeless shelters, public broadcasting organizations, and the like thrive on donations. Effective fundraising techniques are essential to a nonprofit’s existence. This research study explored a revised theory of planned behavior to include guilt and convenience in order to understand whether these factors are important in donors’ intentions to give. This study also examined the impact of two different kinds of guilt; anticipated guilt and existential guilt to determine if there was any difference between the types of guilt and the roles that they play as predicting factors in a revised …

Foundations In Wisconsin: A Directory [30th Ed. 2011], Mary C. Frenn, Jeremy Blackwood, Anne Carpenter, Nathan Lunsford, Sarah Martin

Foundations in Wisconsin: A Directory

The 2011 edition of Foundations in Wisconsin marks the 30^th production of the print directory and the 11^th year of the online version (www.wifoundations.org). The directory is designed as a research tool for grantseekers interested in locating information on private, corporate, and community foundations registered in Wisconsin. Each entry in this new edition has been updated or reviewed to provide the most current information available. Most of the data was drawn from IRS 990-PF tax returns filed by the foundations. Additional information was obtained from surveys, foundation Web sites, annual reports, and newsletters.

While the national economic downturn …

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

The Real-Time Evaluation Memo: A Tool For Enabling Evaluative Thinking And Learning In Foundations And Nonprofits, Melanie Hwalek, Mary Grcich Williams

The Foundation Review

· Real-time evaluation memos provide data-based feedback in a timely manner to inform decision making.

· Memos must be concise and include both data and expert synthesis and interpretation.

· The foundation must have a learning culture if the memos are to most useful; there must be time to reflect on the content and implications.

· The balance between data quality and timeliness must be managed and will be dependent on the topic.

· While useful for program management, these memos do not provide the kind of summative information that board members and other stakeholders may require.

The Quest For Quality: Lessons From A Certification Pilot Project For College Access Providers, Tania Jarosewich, Nushina Mir

The Foundation Review

· Certification programs can provide a way for nonprofits to ensure adherence to generally accepted standards.

· The KH2GO Certification Pilot Project, supported by the Lumina Foundations, developed a set of standards for high-quality college access services, including standards for programming, operations, and organizational effectiveness.

· The project was implemented in two states with an evaluation designed to assess the quality of the assessment tools and the ease and rigor of implementation.

· The more clarity that applicants had about the goals of the process, potential benefits, and details about procedures, the more benefits they perceived.

· Many applicants felt …

Embedded Foundations: Advancing Community Change And Empowerment, Paula Allen-Meares, Larry Gant, Trina Shanks

The Foundation Review

· Embedded funders are foundations that have made long-term commitments to the communities in which they are located or work.

· Foundations have a long history in funding community development, often with few concrete results.

· Political conditions, the increasing divide between rich and poor, inaccessibility of education, lack of housing, and continued segregation and racial discrimination are issues that need be addressed concurrently and resources need to be drawn from a variety of sources, particularly the neighborhoods themselves. This complexity has created an impetus for embedded philanthropy.

· Embedded funders work participatively with the community and frame evaluations in …

Beyond The Grant: How The W. K. Kellogg Foundation Went Beyond Grantmaking To Contribute To A Major Early Childhood Initiative, Stephen Greeley, Beth Greeley

The Foundation Review

· The seven-year SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids) initiative, created by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), aimed at systemically linking the pre-K and kindergarten worlds as a way to position vulnerable children for greater success in the early grades.

· At the foundation, the initiative served as a departure point for WKKF to move from its traditional grantmaking role to a changemaker role.

· To create change, a foundation must articulate – and commit to – a point of view about how change can occur. A theory of change can be a powerful tool to guide ongoing …

Evaluative Tools For Articulating And Monitoring Foundation Strategy, Helen Davis Picher, Sandra Yetman Adams

The Foundation Review

· Research shows that while foundation leadership and staff value strategy and foundations largely perceive themselves as strategic, they often struggle to articulate, implement, and track strategy. The William Penn Foundation has developed a collection of tools to articulate and assess its progress toward strategic goals.

· Each tool employs a structured format to promote standardization; flexibility, though, is encouraged in the application of each tool to ensure that form does not dictate function. Each tool provides a template for organizing information that should be tweaked as needed.

· The speed and breadth of adoption of each tool varies and …