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Power-Sharing Under Pressure: What A Decade Of Community Partnership Reveals For Philanthropy Today, Clare Nolan, Pilar Mendoza

The Foundation Review

Between 2017 and 2024, U.S. philanthropy experienced a period of significant innovation as many foundations reconsidered long-standing assumptions about control and began taking steps to share power more directly with the communities they fund. This article draws on community leaders’ reflections, alongside the authors’ perspective as long-term evaluators, to examine how these commitments were experienced in practice.

The article focuses on the David and Lucile Packard Foundation’s Starting Smart and Strong Initiative (S3I), a 10-year effort to strengthen early learning systems across East San Jose, Fresno, and Oakland, California. Drawing on interviews with grantees and technical assistance partners, along with …

Defining Community Philanthropy: Principles And Dimensions Of A Transformative Practice, Michael D. Layton

The Foundation Review

Community philanthropy is increasingly promoted as an alternative to institutional, top-down philanthropy, yet the term remains contested. In the Global North, it is typically associated with community foundations, while in the Global South the emphasis is on community itself.

This article offers a definition of community philanthropy as a practice rooted in context and power rather than a single institutional form. It identifies five transformative characteristics that distinguish community philanthropy from conventional giving and translates these principles into seven dimensions that can be used to identify and assess community philanthropy in practice.

For practitioners, evaluators, and funders, this framework offers …

Engaging Youth In Philanthropic Practice: Field-Building Strategies And The Promise Of Youth-Possible Philanthropy™, Kimberlin D. Butler

The Foundation Review

Traditional philanthropy has largely been top-down, with communities — including youth — having limited decision-making power. Despite philanthropy’s recent shift toward participatory approaches, young people in these historically excluded communities are often ignored as contributors to philanthropic strategy.

Youth-Possible Philanthropy™ (YPP) offers a new, emerging theoretical framework that proposes to shift this dynamic by positioning youth as co-creators and possibility catalysts in philanthropic governance and strategy. YPP is grounded in possibility development, participatory approaches, and trust-based philanthropy.

The article provides strategies for operationalizing YPP. Case examples illustrate how YPP can foster authentic power-sharing and bridge gaps in philanthropic practice.

Seeding Impact: Shifting From Orchestration To Emergence, Marilyn Darling, Veena Pankaj

The Foundation Review

The 2016 Foundation Review article “Emergent Learning: A Framework for Whole-System Strategy, Learning and Adaptation” talked about what an emergent strategy promises — to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Has this prediction played out in practice? Since it appeared in 2016, what has the growing community of Emergent Learning practitioners learned about what it takes to seed and grow impact?

This article addresses those questions, drawing on interviews with Emergent Learning Community members to illustrate what EL looks like in practice and how it is producing results that are emergent in nature. It …

Reconciling Philanthropy’S Role In Disruption And Revolution: Hard Lessons From A Community-Driven Power-Building Strategy To Achieve Health Equity, Kien S. Lee, Courtney Ricci, Mia Ramirez

The Foundation Review

This article shares The Colorado Trust’s experience with Community Partnerships for Health Equity (CPHE) after initiating a resident-led strategy for systems change and encountering the myriad challenges to its implementation that ultimately led to exiting the initiative.

The CPHE strategy intended to fund community members directly instead of working through the nonprofit sector in the state, and thereby shift power from nonprofit organizations to residents. It eventually involved more than 20 communities across Colorado and created change in certain communities — from filling service gaps and creating local partnerships to shifting local systems.

The Trust had good intentions in its …

Tfr 15.2 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Community Building As A Philosophy, Not An Initiative, Anne C. Kubisch, Kasi Allen, Max Gimbel

The Foundation Review

What happens when a foundation invests in community building for the long haul? The Ford Family Foundation, a rural embedded funder in southern Oregon, has made that transition over the past decade. The result is a transformed organization with a 10-year strategic plan focused on helping rural communities build the futures that they want to see — places where children and families can thrive.

The foundation is pursuing community building not as a stand-alone strategy or “initiative,” but as a philosophy that guides local community development efforts based on capacity building and grantmaking based on partnerships. The shift to a …

Tfr 15.1 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Achieving Sustainability In Community Health Initiatives: Follow The Money, Jo Z. Carcedo, Jessica Pugil, Shao-Chee Sim, Bret Sinclair

The Foundation Review

The U.S. health system’s “sick care” model — as designed — currently spends $4.3 trillion annually to treat its people once they become ill, yet it has done little to meaningfully advance their health and well-being. In fact, research consistently demonstrates that socio-environmental factors and individual behaviors — the social determinants of health — have a far greater impact on health outcomes. Responding to this research, in 2017 the Episcopal Health Foundation launched the Texas Community-Centered Health Home Initiative. The $10 million, multiyear investment was a proactive, developmental effort to build the capacity of community-based clinics to go beyond clinical …

A Promising Place-Based Collaborative Impact Investing Fund Strengthens Community And Informs Philanthropic Practice, Benjamin Kerman, Clara Miller

The Foundation Review

A recent evaluation of the Western New York Impact Investment Fund adds to the proof-of-concept literature regarding “doing good and doing well” while pointing to experience-based best practices in philanthropic impact investing. Born of a collaboration between regional and national philanthropies, the fund brings together corporate, individual, and philanthropic investors to deliver an inclusive impact investment mechanism. Founded in 2017, the fund evolved from concept to operating entity, focusing on mitigating capital gaps, longterm economic decline, and wealth divides.

Evaluation at Year 5 describes how the professionally managed, collaboratively governed fund has attracted and deployed capital, contributing to ecosystem improvements …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Learning As We Go: How Emergent Process Supports Sustainable Community And Philanthropic Change, Elizabeth Myrick, Rachel Mosher-Williams, Laurie Zierer

The Foundation Review

Beginning in 2014, PA Humanities, one of 56 state and territorial humanities councils across the country, drew upon the work of Orton Family Foundation to deploy the Community Heart & Soul method, which centers community planning and civic engagement around connecting people to each other, and to the many assets of the places they live, through individual storytelling and collective narrative building.

Between 2015 and 2018, PA Humanities awarded matching grants to three locations in Pennsylvania — Greater Carlisle, Meadville, and Williamsport — to pilot PA Heart & Soul, a humanities-based, resident-driven community planning process that cultivates a shared sense …

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Tfr 14.3 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Walking The Talk On Sustainable Development Goals: The Case Of Community Foundations In Canada, Marta Rey-Garcia, Rosane Dal Magro

The Foundation Review

The United Nations 2030 Agenda creates an opportunity for philanthropic foundations to become more collaborative and transformative in their work toward global goals. Thus, since 2016, the extent to which foundations adopt the Sustainable Development Goals framework in their functioning has become a topic of interest. Although survey- and case-based research shows increased rates of self-reported adoption and several tools are available to help foundations to act toward the goals, there is a lack of systematic evidence about the purposes of and processes for adopting the goals among foundations.

This void is particularly relevant for community foundations, as they have …

Localizing The 2030 Agenda With Community Data: Lessons From The Community Foundations Of Canada’S Vital Signs Program, Beth Timmers, Alison Sidney

The Foundation Review

Drawing on case studies in Canada, this article analyzes the critical role that community indicators can play in philanthropy’s ability to localize the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the associated Sustainable Development Goals to address complex societal and environmental challenges.

Measurement is an integral component of Agenda 2030, and communities are increasingly using indicators to align their plans, inform granting decisions, and track equity and sustainability outcomes. Canada’s most extensive community-driven indicator program, Vital Signs, uses different types of data to measure the vitality of a community and support action toward improving collective quality of life; and …

Lessons From The Assessment For Learning Project: Strategies For Building An Authentic Learning Community, Heather Lewis-Charp, Daniela Berman, Sarah Lench, Tony Siddall

The Foundation Review

This article explores findings from an evaluation of the Assessment for Learning Project, a grantee engagement strategy led by the Center for Innovation in Education focused on creating a learning community founded in continuous reflection and safety for risk-taking. The article shares the project’s model and approach, grounded in the core design elements of a field-facing learning agenda, grantmaking that leads with learning, and collective leadership.

This article highlights the Assessment for Learning Project’s practices, such as a Request for Learning rather than traditional Request for Proposals; a requirement that grantees provide formative feedback to each other; and public demonstrations …

Strengthening Support For Grantees: Four Lessons For Foundations, Anna J. Bettis, Susan Pepin

The Foundation Review

As society becomes more interconnected, the problems nonprofits are tasked with addressing require systems work. It is imperative for funders to adapt not only to the challenges faced by the organizations they fund, but also to the dynamic social systems within which they aim to effect change. This requires new approaches that are responsive to community needs and address the known challenges in grantor-grantee relationships.

This article offers a new perspective on the role of private foundations and four key lessons for strengthening funder support. These learnings build upon existing research and were gleaned from a qualitative analysis of data …

Below The Waterline: Developing A Transformational Learning Collaborative For Foundation Program Officers, Annie Martinie, Jaime Love, Michael Kelly, Kirsten Dueck, Sarah Strunk

The Foundation Review

Learning from fellow grantmakers is imperative in today’s ever-changing world. In late 2016, four health legacy foundations partnered to launch the Health Legacy Collaborative Learning Circle, creating an opportunity to understand not just the participating foundations’ visible investments and programs, but also the underlying behaviors, structures, and mindsets that ultimately explain why certain results were or were not achieved.

This article describes the yearlong process of creating the collaborative, and presents a new learning framework — based on the iceberg metaphor — that can be used to create learning environments that test and expand assumptions about promising approaches to common …

Executive Summary

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

By Us And For Us: A Story Of Early Childhood Development Systems Change And Results In A Rural Context, Lisa Payne Simon, Kirsten Scobie, Phoebe Backler, Catherine Mcdowell, Charles Cotton, Susan Cloutier, Clare Nolan

The Foundation Review

Since 2007, the Neil and Louise Tillotson Fund — a donor-advised fund of the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation — has invested in early childhood development in Coös County — New Hampshire’s largest and most rural and economically disadvantaged county. Community providers from a range of disciplines formed strong professional relationships and agreed on common goals and evidence-based strategies to improve services for children and families.

This article describes how local community members joined forces with the fund to create an integrated early childhood development system for Coös’ children and families. It provides background on the investment and initiative strategy, summarizes …

Thriving Communities: A Model For Community-Engaged Grantmaking, Mary Francis, Colleen Desmond, Jeffrey Williams, Jennifer Chubinski, Jennifer Zimmerman, Ashlee Young

The Foundation Review

Interact for Health is a health conversion foundation serving the three-state region of Greater Cincinnati, Ohio. Its current community change initiative, Thriving Communities, is a community-learning model that helps embed health promotion and advocacy work in communities while those communities build an equitable infrastructure with stakeholders to more rapidly spread evidence-based practices.

This article explores the three tools developed for the Thriving Communities initiative: Success Markers, the Developmental Pathway, and Relationship Mapping. Interact for Health has found that these tools build core competencies and confidence among grantees as well as a process for community engagement that produces results at the …

Pci: A Reflective Evaluation Framework For Systems Change, Beverly A. Parsons, Huilan Krenn

The Foundation Review

Systemic change involves deep shifts in social norms, beliefs, power, and privilege — and seldom, if ever, follows a straightforward, predictable path. Such change also requires incremental, long-term action and evaluation. To better support systemic change, how might a foundation reframe its approach to evaluation?

This article explores the interconnected dimensions of the PCI Reflective Evaluation Framework, an approach now in prototype form which is grounded in practical thinking about working within complex social systems. This article focuses on its use in advancing racial equity, describing possible applications to integrate a racial equity lens in unpacking and addressing the complexity …

Aligning Evaluation And Strategy With The Mission Of A Community-Focused Foundation, Claudio Balestri

The Foundation Review

Foundations are commonly recognized as having a comparative advantage in supporting forward-looking projects and programs. In this sense, the long term represents the natural horizon in which the foundations are called to fulfill their mission to plan and develop philanthropic activities and, therefore, the time reference for assessing results.

When a mission is focused more on improving the quality of life in a specific community than on addressing a specific social problem, evaluation of outcomes becomes more challenging. While available methods can provide valuable support to measuring the impact of a foundation’s specific program, they are unlikely to provide an …

Building Vietnamese Community Philanthropy: Understanding The Experiences And Expectations Of Donors To The Lin Center For Community Development, Dana Doan

The Foundation Review

Vietnam’s steady economic growth over the past two decades interacted with existing patterns of inequity, social exclusion, and geographic disparities to widen the gap between those who can and cannot obtain quality education, a stable income, and access to quality basic services. Meanwhile, after the World Bank classified Vietnam as a lower middle-income country in 2010, several international and bilateral donors announced plans to gradually decrease their development assistance.

It was under these circumstances that Vietnam’s first community foundation, the LIN Center for Community Development, was established in Ho Chi Minh City in 2009. Its mission is to build a …

Exiting From Large-Scale Initiatives: Lessons And Insights From A National Scan Of Philanthropy, Hanh Cao Yu, Moninder-Mona K. Jhawar, Daniela Berman

The Foundation Review

This article shares insights and lessons from a research project commissioned by The California Endowment in early 2016 to inform the planning for its transition out of Building Healthy Communities, a 10-year, place-based, policy- and systems-change initiative. The goal of the nationwide study, which included literature reviews and interviews with 30 executives and directors from 17 foundations, was to tap into philanthropic leaders’ accumulated wisdom about exiting out of similar initiatives.

In generalizing the study’s findings for the broader philanthropic audience, this article presents a guiding framework for exit and sustainability planning in the form of a set of recommendations …

Community Innovation Network Framework: A Model For Reshaping Community Identity, William P. Moore, Adena M. Klem, Cheryl L. Holmes, June Holley, Carlie Houchen

The Foundation Review

The REACH Healthcare Foundation created its Rural Health Initiative to encourage the development of innovative strategies to improve access to health care and reduce health inequities in three rural counties in Missouri and Kansas. The intent was to develop a systematic, sustainable, and coordinated approach to community change that would increase the odds of breaking through the persistent barriers to health care access for the rural poor and medically underserved in these counties.

This article discusses the foundation’s original approach to the initiative and how it adjusted that approach in response to its rural partners’ experiences. It reflects on the …

The Art And Science Of Place-Based Philanthropy: Themes From A National Convening, Giannina Fehler-Cabral, Jennifer James, Hallie Preskill, Meg Long

The Foundation Review

This article shares insights and implications generated at a convening titled Is This a Better Place? The Art and Science of Place Evaluation. Participants included funders, evaluators, and community partners who came to discuss and share effective learning practices and the role of evaluation in place-based work.

Place-based work requires a long-term investment in collaborative partnerships to create, nurture, and sustain local and systemic changes. In order to support this complex work, partners have to incorporate approaches that are nimble, iterative, and responsive to the changing needs of a “place” over an initiative’s life span.

The convening produced a number …