Business Commons^™

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 …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

International Programming, Local Development, And Youth: An Experience In Northeast Brazil, Frances Hansford, Andrés Thompson

The Foundation Review

· The W. K. Kellogg Foundation funded a 10-year program of local development work in selected geographic areas in Northeast Brazil from 1997 – 2007.

· This article reports on program achievements and difficulties, and examines the ways in which the practices of the foundation facilitated and obstructed advances in the local development initiatives.

· Two main strategies were used: direct funding granted to organizations in the targeted regions and the creation of a comprehensive support system (e.g., youth projects funds, capacity-building in leadership and evaluation, and transfer of expertise from organizations).

· A team of foundation staff and consultants …

Trends In Global Philanthropy Among U.S. Foundations: A Brief Review Of Data And Issues, Anne C. Petersen, Gail D. Mcclure

The Foundation Review

· International grantmaking has increased dramatically in the past two decades, at a rate faster than domestic grantmaking.

· The increase in international grantmaking, stimulated by increased interest in global issues, was fueled by increased foundation assets and especially by new foundations created since 1990.

· While many of the issues confronting international grantmaking exist with domestic grantmaking, they have special aspects and increased importance because of the global context.

· Many foundations have now accumulated information about how best to work in partnership with other foundations, governments, and business; these lessons would benefit all foundations.

· Thoughtful collective action …

Editorial, Chris Tebben

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Developing A Master Data Sharing Agreement: Seeking Student-Level Evidence To Support A Collaborative Community Effort In Education, Neil E. Carlson, Edwin Hernández, Chaná Edmond-Verley, Gustavo Rotondaro, Eleibny Feliz-Santana, Susan Heynig

The Foundation Review

· A private foundation, a public school system, and a state university joined forces to address a difficult, long-standing challenge: closing the academic achievement gap between urban and suburban students.

· All parties agreed that sharing of longitudinal, student-level data was required to drive and evaluate multiple efforts to close the gap, but significant technical, regulatory, and political obstacles stood in the way.

· The parties worked through multiple challenges and forged a Master Data Sharing Agreement (MDSA) that will facilitate both daily intelligence for program staff and powerful post-hoc research capacity.

· This MDSA text has been released online …

Next-Generation Philanthropy: Examining A Next-Generation Jewish Philanthropic Network, Stephanie Lerner

The Foundation Review

· As a result of mobility, philanthropy among a Millennial group of Jewish donors is becoming divorced from the communities in which their parents live.

· This group’s members generally perceive themselves as thinking and acting more strategically than past generations. They expect philanthropic organizations to operate with increased transparency, and those entities will need to adapt to these expectations in order to thrive.

· The characteristics that define the Millennial generation – open-mindedness, a desire for meaningful employment and philanthropic activity, technological adeptness, innovation – are changing philanthropy.

· Despite those changes, philanthropic priorities among families remain substantially constant …

Enrolling The Eligible: Lessons For Funders, Beth Stevens, Sheila Dunleavy Hoag, Judith Wooldridge

The Foundation Review

· Many social programs have a gap between the number of individuals eligible for services and the number enrolled.

· The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation implemented Covering Kids & Families to increase enrollment in Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

· Grantees sought to increase enrollment by raising awareness among low-income families, simplifying the application process, and coordinating among programs.

· Funders are encouraged to consider the lifecycle of programs and organizations, the skills in coalition-building and working with public officials that are needed, and the need to fit political strategies with the local culture.

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Learning-Circle Partnerships And The Evaluation Of A Boundary-Crossing Leadership Initiative In Health, Claire Reinelt, Dianne Yamashiro-Omi, Deborah Meehan

The Foundation Review

· Leadership development approaches that are focused on individual knowledge and skill development do not suit the leadership needs of lowincome communities and communities of color in addressing the multiple factors that influence health disparities.

· Boundary-crossing leadership is rooted in a socialjustice perspective and seeks to address the isolation and fragmentation faced by those who are working to address systemic inequities.

· A multicultural approach to evaluation honors different ways of knowing, recognizes that groups have different learning questions, acknowledges and addresses power dynamics that exist between funders and grantees, and ensures that evaluation is culturally relevant and constructive …

Philanthropy: Are We A Profession? Should We Be?, Karl Stauber

The Foundation Review

· When philanthropy is assessed against seven standards for what constitutes a profession, it meets only 3 of them.

· Questions remain about the core concepts of the field, and how the field builds and disseminates knowledge.

· There is much discussion about “scientific philanthropy,” but the inability to answer these questions limits the field’s ability to function scientifically.

· Wisdom, rigor, and learning may be better approaches to philanthropy that a scientific approach.

Foundation Evaluation Startup: A Pause For Reflection, Jill M. Yegian

The Foundation Review

· This article reports on the accomplishments, challenges, and lessons learned in creating a new Department of Research and Evaluation at the California HealthCare Foundation.

· Different tools were developed to address each of three key areas: performance assessment, organizational learning, and program evaluation.

· These new processes and tools have been wellreceived by both staff and the board, and have become increasingly important as resources become more scarce, making understanding and maximizing the impact of investments even more critical.

· Fostering a culture of evaluative inquiry in a fast-paced, payout-oriented environment is a significant challenge – program staff often …

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Paradigm Shift: A Foundation/Grantee Partnership Using Data To Drive Neighborhood Revitalization And Assess Impact, Lois W. Greco, Margaret Grieve, Maggie Mccullough

The Foundation Review

· The Wachovia Regional Foundation spearheaded the formation of a partnership to create a participatory outcome evaluation framework for its neighborhood revitalization work.

· The framework integrates the use of primary and secondary data and has been modified and improved to strengthen a variety of the foundation’s comprehensive neighborhood revitalization efforts.

· Forty-one community-based organizations have utilized the framework as a key tool to craft and implement neighborhood plans in a 62-county region.

· The framework has enabled grantees and residents to better understand and capitalize on market dynamics, enhance their participation in revitalization activities and begin to demonstrate the …

Building The Bridge For Diversity And Inclusion: Testing A Regional Strategy, Vicki Rosenberg, Lynn Perry Wooten, Mary Mcdonald, Kimberly Burton

The Foundation Review

· Transforming Michigan Philanthropy Through Diversity & Inclusion (TMP) is a six-year research and development effort of the Council of Michigan Foundations (CMF). A unique experiment, TMP is the only statewide, comprehensive effort to promote diversity and inclusiveness among foundations in the country.

· Organizational excellence through diversity and inclusion requires an organization to find a goal that resonates with its stakeholders and then create collaborative communities that focus on achieving that goal. This strategy positions an organization to use the full diversity of those stakeholders for tasks such as problem-solving, innovation, quality initiatives, and the acquisition of resources.

· …

Going Deeper: Can Investigative Reporters Add Value To Assessment And Evaluation?, Larry Meyer

The Foundation Review

· The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation supplemented its standard evaluation approach by engaging professional journalists to elaborate on evaluation findings.

· The resulting reports are more direct, even critical, than any prior Knight Foundation attempt to evaluate and assess.

· It produced deeper looks into the intent and outcome of major initiatives, analyzing and addressing flaws in the theories of change underlying initiatives.

· The goal of reaching external audiences was not achieved.

Moving Diversity Up The Agenda: Lessons And Next Steps From The Diversity In Philanthropy Project, Jessica Bearman, Henry A. J. Ramos, Anna-Nanine S. Pond

The Foundation Review

· The Diversity in Philanthropy Project (DPP) was a three-year, voluntary effort of foundation trustees, senior staff, and executives of philanthropysupport organizations committed to increasing diversity and inclusive practice across organized philanthropy’s boards, staff, grantmaking, contracting, and investing.

· DPP had significant achievements, including mobilizing greater commitment among foundation leaders to voluntary action on diversity and enhancing both the knowledge base and data methodologies available for understanding diversity, inclusion, and equity in foundation work.

· The initiative also faced its share of challenges, including difficulty assessing the impact on the diversity performance of foundations, slow adoption of recommended principles and …

Strategic Communications For Influence: Lessons From The Annie E. Casey Foundation And Its Kids Count Initiative, Anne Gienapp, Jane Reisman, Kasey Langley, Carolyn Cohen, Tony Cipollone, Tom Kelly, Don Crary, Sue Lin Chong

The Foundation Review

· This article describes how the Annie E. Casey Foundation is using the KIDS COUNT Network in a new way: as a strategic communications tool in its focused efforts toward policy change, broad social change, and improved conditions for vulnerable children and families. An outcome map illustrates links between this strategy and the intended outcomes.

· Case illustrations of KIDS COUNT grantee activities surrounding the release of the 2008 KIDS COUNT Data Book describe the efforts of grantees in six states where the quantity and quality of media coverage surrounding the national data book reflected the kind of coverage that …

Speak Your Peace: A Communications Strategy For Changing Community Culture, Douglas Easterling, Holly C. Sampson, Beth Probst

The Foundation Review

· Strategic communications can play a crucial role in advancing tangible community-wide impacts.

· “Speak Your Peace: The Civility Project” (SYP) was developed by The Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation and the Millennium Group to improve the civility of public discourse, under the premise that this would strengthen community decision making, expand civic engagement, and increase residents’ interest in elected office.

· The SYP campaign promotes nine principles (or “tools”) adapted from Forni’s book Choosing Civility (e.g., pay attention, take responsibility, apologize, give constructive criticism).

· City councils, county commissions, and school boards in the region adopted the nine tools …

Philanthropy, Evaluation, Accountability, And Social Change, John Bare

The Foundation Review

· Many foundations have substituted process accountability for accountability for contributing to social change.

· While process accountability is important, it sets a floor, not an aspirational ceiling.

· There are tools—such as risk analysis, systems approaches, and game theory—that can help philanthropy engage in work on complex social problems that cannot be deconstructed into a series of small, linear projects.

· Seeking to extend basic human rights to more individuals around the world, seeking to reduce racism in a given city, or seeking to change publichealth norms in small town—all of these aspirations require first a willingness to take …

Leveraging Grant-Making—Part 2: Aligning Programmatic Approaches With Complex System Dynamics, David Peter Stroh, Kathleen A. Zurcher

The Foundation Review

· The purpose of this two-part article is to enable foundations to increase the leverage of their grantmaking resources by working effectively with the dynamics of complex social systems.

· This article examines how foundations can align planning, implementation, and evaluation efforts with the behavior of the social systems they seek to improve.

· Asking powerful questions of staff, board, grantees, and other stakeholders helps to transform how they think about their goals and strategies.

· In addition to using the power of questioning, foundations function more systemically by suspending their assumptions about their effectiveness and what is possible, creating …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Constructing Collaborative Success For Network Learning: The Story Of The Discovery Community Self-Assessment Tool, Angela Frusciante, Carmen Siberon

The Foundation Review

· Despite conversations about the importance of community collaboration, foundations continue to struggle with how to best frame and support collaborative success.

· Existing tools to assess collaboration may not fit with either a foundation’s values or a specific program strategy.

· From a foundation perspective, developing a community self-assessment tool reinforced the idea that collaborative functioning is crucial and deserves attention.

· This article shares a story of the development and initial use of the Discovery Community Self-Assessment Tool as a process of social construction critical to collective action and a possible indicator of network learning.

Assessing Nonprofits’ Communications Capacity: An Online Self-Assessment Tool, Anne Reisinger Whatley, R. Christine Hershey, Julia Coffman, Andre Oliver

The Foundation Review

· Foundations increasingly recognize the importance of strategic and effective communications to advance their social-change goals. This article provides a framework that helps foundations to better understand the communications capacity of their grantee partners.

· Based on a detailed analysis of a survey of 529 foundations, universities and nonprofits, the authors created a six-point index that identifies the characteristics and practices of organizations that are ranked as highly effective at using communications to advance their goals.

· The six indicators are: Involvement of organization leadership in communications, communications planning and organization-wide planning, staffing and the use of outside expertise, donor …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Designing An Evaluation Of A New Initiative: A Practical Approach To Ensure Evaluation Use, Linda M. Bosma, Chris Matter, Jaime Martinez, Nicole Toves, Joanne D'Silva

The Foundation Review

· This article describes the process of planning an evaluation of the Tribal Tobacco Education and Policy initiative.

· The initiative was launched in 2007 to reduce tobacco use among American Indians, who disproportionately suffer the negative health effects of tobacco use.

· The work of the initiative and the evaluation had to incorporate an understanding of tribal structure as well as of the traditional use of tobacco in American Indian sacred ceremonies. The theory of change was conceptualized as circular, rather than linear, in keeping with American Indian philosophical traditions.

· The planning process, utilizing evaluators familiar with community …

Sustainability Is Made, Not Born: Enhancing Program Sustainability Through Reflective Grantmaking, Ann L. Mccracken, Kelly Firesheets

The Foundation Review

· This article explores how reflective grantmaking can lead to enduring changes in the communities that foundations serve.

· The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati's approach to evaluating and improving the sustainability of grant-funded projects is reviewed as an example.

· Their grantmaking framework includes policy and advocacy work, evaluation support, communications support, and technical assistance in addition to traditional funding of projects.

· This framework promotes sustainability of the funded work.

Who Becomes A Foundation Ceo? An Analysis Of Hiring Patterns, 2004-2008, Renée B. Branch, Michael P. Moody, Sue Marx Smock, Donna N. Bransford

The Foundation Review

· This study provided baseline data about the professional and individual characteristics of 440 candidates selected to be the top executive in a grantmaking institution during a five-year study period (2004-2008), and about the hiring patterns of the diverse institutions making these appointments.

· Most new chief executive officers (79.5 percent) were not hired from within the same foundation. The percentage of external appointments grew in each successive year of the study period.

· Most new foundation CEOs (67 percent) were not working for a grantmaking institution when they were appointed. This majority made the transition from fields outside of …

Factors Influencing Donor Partnership Effectiveness, Danièle St-Pierre, Lisa Burley

The Foundation Review

· The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) produced six case studies on jointly funded programs related to the environment, global health, and information technologies in developing regions around the world.

· A two-dimensional tool probing eight factors that influence donor (funder) partnership performance and interinstitutional communication was developed and used in conjunction with a Partnering Process Model to guide the preparation of the case studies.

· The case studies demonstrated that communication is important externally, that is, among donor partners, and internally, that is, within the various divisions of IDRC. With the use of this tool, it was possible to …

Are We There Yet? How To Know Whether Your Communications Are Effective, Edith Asibey, Justin Van Fleet, Toni Parras

The Foundation Review

· This article describes the results of a study on current knowledge and practices in evaluating foundation communications. The study consisted of three parts: an online survey of practitioners, a series of in-depth key informant interviews, and an extensive literature review.

· The study found that while most practitioners agree that evaluating communications is necessary to make decisions about their communication strategy, more than half did not regularly do so. Lack of experience or skills was the second top barrier cited, after lack of human/financial resources.

· Those who have more experience with evaluation were more likely to feel that …