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Articles 1 - 30 of 52
Full-Text Articles in Business
The Cultivation Approach To Place-Based Philanthropy: Evaluation Findings From The Clinton Foundation’S Community Health Transformation Initiative, Douglas Easterling, Sabina Gesell, Laura Mcduffee, Whitney Davis, Tanha Patel
The Cultivation Approach To Place-Based Philanthropy: Evaluation Findings From The Clinton Foundation’S Community Health Transformation Initiative, Douglas Easterling, Sabina Gesell, Laura Mcduffee, Whitney Davis, Tanha Patel
The Foundation Review
Cultivation is a decentralized approach to place-based philanthropy where the foundation seeks to activate local stakeholders and assist them in translating their ideas into action. Rather than convening a strategic planning process, cultivation presumes that the seeds of high-payoff solutions are already circulating somewhere in the community. The foundation’s role is to support local stakeholders in developing and implementing their own ideas in ways that produce meaningful impacts.
This article describes the cultivation approaches taken by the Clinton Foundation, Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, and The Colorado Health Foundation, and presents findings from an evaluation of the Clinton Foundation’s Community …
Can Coaching Help Community Partnerships Promote Health Equity, Community Engagement, And Policy, Systems, And Environmental Changes? Results From An Evaluation, Jung Y. Kim, Lisa Schottenfeld, Michael Cavanaugh
Can Coaching Help Community Partnerships Promote Health Equity, Community Engagement, And Policy, Systems, And Environmental Changes? Results From An Evaluation, Jung Y. Kim, Lisa Schottenfeld, Michael Cavanaugh
The Foundation Review
Foundations and other entities have increasingly funded coaching and technical assistance to support multisector community partnerships to promote health and health equity. However, much remains to be learned about how coaching can best support these partnerships.
As part of its efforts to build a culture in which everyone in the United States has a fair opportunity to be healthy, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation partnered with the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute to provide structured coaching to strengthen the capacities of community partnerships. The foundation contracted with Mathematica to evaluate the coaching program, focusing on whether it had an …
Building Nonprofit Capacity To Achieve Greater Impact: Lessons From The U.S.-Mexico Border, Meg Loomis, Shirly Thomas, Carla Taylor
Building Nonprofit Capacity To Achieve Greater Impact: Lessons From The U.S.-Mexico Border, Meg Loomis, Shirly Thomas, Carla Taylor
The Foundation Review
Foundations often rely on strong relationships with grantees doing frontline work in marginalized communities. Yet these nonprofits typically face myriad financial and policy pressures that must be managed amid increasing need for their services. Helping them expand their impact requires funders to invest in their grantees’ organizational health and capacity.
This article discusses the capacity-building funding experiences of Methodist Healthcare Ministries of South Texas, which saw firsthand the needs of grantees when it partnered with eight community-health organizations through its Sí Texas initiative and, in response, created a $1.5 million capacity-building program for those organizations.
This article also shares the …
Making Health Equity Real: Implementing A Commitment To Engage The Community Through Fellowships, Saphira M. Baker, Mark D. Constantine
Making Health Equity Real: Implementing A Commitment To Engage The Community Through Fellowships, Saphira M. Baker, Mark D. Constantine
The Foundation Review
Between 2016 and 2019, Richmond Memorial Health Foundation jumpstarted its transformation from a health legacy foundation committed to increasing access to health care to one promoting regional health equity through a racial and ethnic lens. A central component of this new focus was the trustees’ decision to invite community members to inform and advance the health equity strategy through two distinct community fellowship programs — the Equity + Health Fellowships. These programs ultimately provided the foundation with a new language, benchmarks, and structure for welcoming broader community engagement.
This article highlights the outcomes of both programs, how the experience with …
Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens
Moving Upstream: An Intersectoral Collaboration To Build Sustainable Planning Capacity In Rural And Appalachian Communities, Laura Milazzo, Holly Raffle, Matthew Courser
Moving Upstream: An Intersectoral Collaboration To Build Sustainable Planning Capacity In Rural And Appalachian Communities, Laura Milazzo, Holly Raffle, Matthew Courser
The Foundation Review
As part of an effort to address health inequities in Appalachian and rural Ohio, the state’s Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services developed an upstream intersectoral health innovation that specifically addressed the lack of infrastructure and other capacity issues that create barriers to obtaining federally funded prevention services among communities with the highest need for those services.
The department partnered with two nonprofit organizations and a university to create a performance-based, stepping-stone investment strategy that provided monetary awards to community organizations and included intensive, customized training and technical assistance that promoted capacity- building for data-driven strategic planning.
This article …
Capacity-Building Catalysts: A Qualitative Assessment Of Nonprofit Capacity Building By Community Foundations In Illinois, Benjamin Bingle
Capacity-Building Catalysts: A Qualitative Assessment Of Nonprofit Capacity Building By Community Foundations In Illinois, Benjamin Bingle
The Foundation Review
Community foundations have the potential to promote collaborative learning in a variety of ways as conveners, funders, and, in some instances, as nonprofit capacity builders. Yet little is known about what community foundations are doing to support capacity building. This article focuses specifically on nonprofit capacity building that is funded, organized, or led by community foundations in Illinois.
First, this article identifies the capacity-building efforts of those community foundations. Next, it summarizes results from a qualitative survey to share insights from leaders of the foundations that offer capacity-building opportunities. These data shed new light on our collective understanding of how …
Balancing The Competing Demands Of Strategic Philanthropy: The Case Of The Delaware River Watershed Initiative, Edward W. Wilson, Carol Bromer, David Laroche
Balancing The Competing Demands Of Strategic Philanthropy: The Case Of The Delaware River Watershed Initiative, Edward W. Wilson, Carol Bromer, David Laroche
The Foundation Review
Strategic philanthropy requires striking a balance between two extremes. On one side is unilateral agenda-setting by the foundation and excessive reliance on its own intellectual frameworks and methods. On the other side is too much deference to competing voices from the field, with the risk that funding will be haphazard and incoherent. This article describes how the Delaware River Watershed Initiative, supported by the William Penn Foundation, has struggled to position itself between these two extremes.
Based on an evaluation conducted during the first four years of the initiative, the article examines four interrelated tensions: upfront planning versus emergent strategy, …
Strengthening The Ecosystem Of Capacity-Building Service Providers: A Case For Why It Matters, Caroline Altman Smith, Carla Taylor
Strengthening The Ecosystem Of Capacity-Building Service Providers: A Case For Why It Matters, Caroline Altman Smith, Carla Taylor
The Foundation Review
Nonprofits frequently find it challenging to find providers best suited to meet their capacity-building needs. This can be especially true when looking for providers to strengthen racial equity capacity. Many nonprofits lack the time, networks, or expertise to identify what’s available and vet various options for cost, relevance, and quality.
When the Kresge Foundation designed a program to build leadership capacity through a racial equity lens among its grantees, it wanted to strengthen the marketplace of offerings as well. Kresge’s Fostering Urban Equitable Leadership program sought to build leadership capacity and add value for grantees by offering a curated menu …
Growth Of Community-Based Giving Days In The United States: The Landscape And Effects, Catherine Humphries Brown, Abhishek Bhati
Growth Of Community-Based Giving Days In The United States: The Landscape And Effects, Catherine Humphries Brown, Abhishek Bhati
The Foundation Review
Over the past decade, local and regional community foundations across the United States have adopted “giving days” as a means to build awareness, bolster community pride, and raise money for local nonprofit organizations. Despite the increasing prevalence of giving days, little scholarly research has empirically examined this phenomenon and its impact, particularly at the local and regional levels.
To address these gaps, this article shares the findings of a study that examined similarities and differences across communities’ giving days and sought to evaluate the extent to which those days led to more giving at the community level.
While the study …
How Can Foundations Promote Impactful Collaboration?, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee
How Can Foundations Promote Impactful Collaboration?, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee
The Foundation Review
Funders are increasingly looking to interagency and cross-sector collaboration as a strategy to solve complex, large-scale issues, but many collaborative groups fail to generate an impact with their work. This is due in part to funders’ own practices, such as pre-specifying the problem to be solved or limiting their grantees’ ability to adjust their strategy.
The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts has been intentional about facilitating the effectiveness of the collaborative groups it supports. Its Health Care & Health Promotion Synergy Initiative provides long-term funding and assistance with planning, evaluation and sustainability to groups that define the problems they want …
Using A Decision-Making Placemat To Inform Strategy, Christine Baker Mitton, Adrienne Mundorf, Kris Putnam-Walkerly, Susanna Krey
Using A Decision-Making Placemat To Inform Strategy, Christine Baker Mitton, Adrienne Mundorf, Kris Putnam-Walkerly, Susanna Krey
The Foundation Review
Strategic planning in philanthropy allows board and staff to articulate and commit to their priorities and set a plan for how to accomplish a foundation’s goals. To do so requires the processing and sharing of complex internal and external information amid the competing priorities and commitments of multiple stakeholders.
This article explores the development and use of a decision-making placemat tool to inform the strategic shift of the Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland's place-based program area. The foundation has focused its work on housing, health, education, and disparities in outcomes for Cleveland, Ohio, residents who are living in poverty, …
Leveraging Effective Consulting To Advance Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In Philanthropy, Stephanie Clohesy, Jara Dean-Coffey, Lisa Mcgill
Leveraging Effective Consulting To Advance Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In Philanthropy, Stephanie Clohesy, Jara Dean-Coffey, Lisa Mcgill
The Foundation Review
In 2018, the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers launched an initiative to sharpen the impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work in grantmaking by increasing the capacity of consultants and grantmakers engaged in these efforts. Network researchers used a systematic protocol to interview consultant members about their most effective partnerships with grantmakers. Case studies drawn from those interviews yielded valuable lessons for advancing DEI in philanthropy.
In sharing some of these lessons, this article advises consultants to be prepared to help grantmakers define or refine the meaning of DEI and understand where equity fits into their values and …
Strengthening Support For Grantees: Four Lessons For Foundations, Anna J. Bettis, Susan Pepin
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 …
Publicness And The Identity Of Public Foundations, Alexandra Williamson, Belinda Luke
Publicness And The Identity Of Public Foundations, Alexandra Williamson, Belinda Luke
The Foundation Review
This article investigates understandings of publicness in the context of public foundations in Australia by examining how perceptions of publicness inform and influence the practice and conduct of those grantmaking foundations. As part of a broader study on perceptions of accountability and identity in Australian foundations, the article provides empirical evidence from interviews with managers and trustees from a diverse group of public foundations suggesting that understandings and applications of two dimensions of publicness were significant: donations, or public money; and grantmaking, or public benefit. Further elements of publicness were expressed around foundations’ visibility and the transparency of their operations. …
Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens
Scaling Programs With Research Evidence And Effectiveness (Spree), Nan Maxwell, Scott Richman
Scaling Programs With Research Evidence And Effectiveness (Spree), Nan Maxwell, Scott Richman
The Foundation Review
Foundations can serve more people by identifying and supporting effective interventions that are ready to be scaled. This article describes a process called SPREE — Scaling Programs with Research Evidence and Effectiveness — that can help funders and their grantees scale successfully. Implementing this process can assist foundations in using evaluation research as a tool to determine which interventions are likely to produce desired outcomes, and to identify which organizations are ready to scale them. The SPREE process is grounded in evaluation and implementation science frameworks and has been applied since 2016 by the Corporation for National and Community Service. …
Designing For Emergence: The Mccune Charitable Foundation Grows Agency Across New Mexico, Marilyn Darling, Heidi Sparkes Guber, Jillaine Smith, Wendy Lewis
Designing For Emergence: The Mccune Charitable Foundation Grows Agency Across New Mexico, Marilyn Darling, Heidi Sparkes Guber, Jillaine Smith, Wendy Lewis
The Foundation Review
The impact of the inherent power imbalance in the grantmaker/grantee relationship has come into particular focus as equity and justice have become a greater priority for philanthropy. This article looks at the example of the McCune Charitable Foundation, which deliberately designed an emergent strategy approach that establishes clear goals and then created a platform to permit a reversal of that power dynamic, so that leadership for priorities comes from those closest to the work.
The authors launched a two-year project to research what emergence might look like in seven complex social-change initiatives, and how the strategy could grow agency and …
Better Together: Engaging Stakeholders In Learning And Leadership To Guide Foundation Resources Toward Adaptive Systems Change, Nadine Long, Kimber P. Richter, Jennifer Elise Avers, Rick Cagan
Better Together: Engaging Stakeholders In Learning And Leadership To Guide Foundation Resources Toward Adaptive Systems Change, Nadine Long, Kimber P. Richter, Jennifer Elise Avers, Rick Cagan
The Foundation Review
In 2014, the Kansas Health Foundation brought together a group of knowledgeable stakeholders from a multitude of specialties to focus on reducing tobacco use specifically among Kansans with mental illness. Over 15 months, the group and the foundation worked to learn deeply about the issue and inform action that could be taken on individual, organizational, and systemic levels.
The wealth of knowledge and experience brought by each participant to the discussion and learning about this complex issue, together from a range of perspectives, resulted in a more productive dialogue. The model proved very effective, as evidenced by the group’s success …
Full Issue #11.2 On Collaborative Learning
Full Issue #11.2 On Collaborative Learning
The Foundation Review
No abstract provided.
Learning Together: Cohort-Based Capacity Building And The Ripple Effects Of Collaboration, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, Mary Gray, Danielle Scaturro
Learning Together: Cohort-Based Capacity Building And The Ripple Effects Of Collaboration, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, Mary Gray, Danielle Scaturro
The Foundation Review
Foundations frequently commission evaluations and are the primary audiences for findings. Grantee organizations, however, often don’t see the results, or they find in them limited value and relevance to their own work. Funders like the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation are quietly disrupting this status quo by exploring ways to fully engage grantees, co-funders, technical consultants, and evaluators in collective learning and reflection.
The foundation’s comprehensive, cohort-based capacity-building program, PropelNext, was designed to enhance the performance of promising nonprofits that serve America’s disadvantaged youth. With a combination of financial support, individualized coaching, and peer-learning sessions, grantees engage in a test-and-learn cycle …