Business Commons^™

Diving Deep On Equity And Power: Exploring Shifts In Philanthropic Practice With The Iceberg Model, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, Kim Ammann Howard, Lori Nascimento

The Foundation Review

Lessons from the events of this historic time — from a national reckoning with systemic racism to a global pandemic and its economic and social fallout — have deep implications for philanthropy that go beyond grantmaking and include fundamental questions about the sector’s role, power, and influence in advancing equity and social change. Confronting those questions requires a look inward at the practices, policies, structures, mindsets, and cultural norms that govern how foundations operate.

The experience of The California Endowment and The James Irvine Foundation shows what can be learned from this period of crisis and disruption. Through specific examples …

Immediate Needs And Systemic Solutions: Harnessing A Collective Crisis Response By Regional Philanthropy Alongside Systemic Change, Clotilde Perez-Bode Dedecker, Nancy M. Blaschak

The Foundation Review

On March 13, 2020, the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo invited the John R. Oishei Foundation, the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York, and United Way of Buffalo & Erie County to convene all funders in western New York to respond collectively to the impending COVID-19 crisis. Funding was raised swiftly and, using a racial equity lens, more than $14.2 million was granted in 18 months to more than 400 nonprofits of all sizes serving on the front lines in eight counties.

While emergency funding was the first priority for the collective group of more than 60 foundations, …

Respectful Tribal Partnership: What Philanthropy Can Learn From The Navajo Nation’S Collaborative Response To The Covid-19 Crisis, Nancy Petersen, Karletta Chief, Toni M. Massaro, Nikki Tulley, Crystal Tulley-Cordova, Jonelle Vold

The Foundation Review

The gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disparately harsh impact on Indigenous peoples are now well known. U.S. death rates normalized by population, for example, have been far higher for Native Americans than for the white population in the United States. Many funders, realizing that basic human services are lacking for many Native American and Indigenous communities, have responded to the crisis. While this desire to act is laudable, many fail to grasp the complexities and necessity of applying trust-based collaborative principles that respect tribes as sovereign nations.

This article describes a successful model for collaboration among a tribal …

An Entheogenic Endeavor: Exploring Indigenous Healing In Modern Times, Samantha J. Deboer

Honors Projects

There are thousands of years of practice and tradition surrounding the use of entheogens as medicine in indigenous cultures around the world. While our modern western culture methodically dives into this research whilst exploring these medicines for pharmaceutical usage, this work delves into indigenous and shamanic cultures uses of these plants.

Faith-Based Public Foundations: Identifying The Field And Assessing Its Impact, Allison K. Ralph, Brad R. Fulton, Samuel Allen

The Foundation Review

Charitable activity is a core tenet of most faith traditions, and many charitable organizations have a religious identity. However, little is known about the prevalence and scale of faith-based foundations, and how they differ from secular foundations.

This article identifies the field of public foundations, differentiates between faith-based and secular foundations, and compares their characteristics by analyzing Form 990 data. An analysis of these data estimates that 24% of all public charities operate as foundations and that 17% of public foundations are faith-based. These findings are used to generate first-ever estimates for the entire field of public foundations.

This analysis …

Giving With Pride: Considering Participatory Grantmaking In An Anti-Racist, Lgbtq+ Community Foundation, Elizabeth J. Dale, Nicole J. Plastino

The Foundation Review

Institutional racism is woven into organizations, processes, and practices in complex ways that inhibit transformational change. Participatory grantmaking and trust-based philanthropy are two paradigms that can shift such power dynamics in foundation giving. This article examines how Pride Foundation, a regional LGBTQ+ community foundation in the Pacific Northwest, restructured its grantmaking as part of a broader organization-wide commitment to racial justice.

Through an embedded case study, the authors followed Pride Foundation in the first year of transforming its grantmaking to address two questions: the factors foundations should consider when exploring participatory grantmaking, and how a foundation can best navigate a …

Grassroots Environmental Justice Work And Philanthropy: Challenges And Opportunities, Jennifer S. Ramirez, Ana I. Baptista, Molly Greenberg, Adrienne Perovich, Anna Yulsman, Antonio Lopez, Andrew Rosenberg

The Foundation Review

Across the United States, grassroots groups within the environmental justice movement are leading important work on the front lines of the climate crisis, especially in marginalized communities. Despite the importance of these organizations, the philanthropic sector has devoted the lion’s share of environmental funding to more mainstream nonprofits.

Building Equity and Alignment for Environmental Justice and the Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School conducted a landscape assessment study of environmental funders and grassroots environmental justice organizations in the Gulf South and the Midwest. The study had four research aims: gain a greater understanding of environmental justice funding, …

Lead, Advise, Witness: Shifting Mindsets To Achieving Impact At Scale, Jeffrey Sunshine, Bernadette Sangalang

The Foundation Review

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation created Starting Smart and Strong, a 10-year, place-based initiative in three California communities, to develop and test solutions that support parents, caregivers, and educators as they prepare young children to be healthy and ready for school. The initiative brings together public and private partners to create comprehensive early learning systems, with a focus on impact at scale.

Seven years into Starting Smart and Strong, we offer key insights into our experiences as program staff managing this complex initiative and how our approach to scaling impact has shifted over the course of the strategy. Listening …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.