Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

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 …

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Summaries

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 …

Funding Leadership-Development Training For Cultural Activists: A Reflective Essay, Susan J. Erenrich

The Foundation Review

· Throughout history, artists have led grassroots movements of protest, resistance, and liberation that have culminated in transformational change. Often, these artists have been overlooked or given too little attention by funders, even though the consequences of their courageous crusades include censorship, imprisonment, torture, and even death.

· There are a number of models for leadership-development training for cultural activists.

· Opportunities for these cultural activists to engage in special leadership-development training can enhance individual campaigns for social justice; provide opportunities for them to network, strategize, and reflect in safe spaces away from the turmoil of day-to-day organizing; and allow …

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 …

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

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, …

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

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.

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

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Call For Papers

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Talent Philanthropy: Investing In Nonprofit People To Advance Nonprofit Performance, Rusty Morgen Stahl

The Foundation Review

· This article argues that people are the primary asset that drives performance in the social sector, but that despite their importance they are undersupported. Funders could make major strides in their own effectiveness and in the performance of their grantees by explicitly investing in grantee talent and talent-support systems. Such support could build a critical mass of diverse leadership in society and dramatically improve the ability of the social sector to advance social change.

· The first part of this article reframes the talent challenge facing the nonprofit sector, highlighting urgent issues and chronic structural flaws.

· The second …