Business Commons^™

Laying The Groundwork For Equity-First Climate Adaptation, Michelle Robidas, Darbi Berry

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

SDRCC is excited to share the first post of our 2-part Climate Adaptation Blog Series "Laying the Groundwork for Equity-First Climate Adaptation." This blog post gives a high-level introduction to SDRCC and SANDAG's Equity-First Approach to Climate Adaptation guidance document. Readers will learn strategies to identify social equity communities, build community capacity, and link adaptation planning efforts to the four dimensions of equity.

Secured Transactions Law Reform In Japan: Japan Business Credit Project Assessment Of Interviews And Tentative Policy Proposals, Megumi Hara, Kumiko Koens, Charles W. Mooney Jr.

Faculty Scholarship at Penn Carey Law

This article summarizes key findings from the Japan Business Credit Project (JBCP), which involved more than 30 semi-structured interviews conducted in Japan from 2016 through 2018. It was inspired by important and previously unexplored questions concerning secured financing of movables (business equipment and inventory) and claims (receivables)—“asset-based lending” or “ABL.” Why is the use of ABL in Japan so limited? What are the principal obstacles and disincentives to the use of ABL in Japan? The interviews were primarily with staff of banks, but also included those of government officials and regulators, academics, and law practitioners. The article proposes reforms of …

Partnering For Postsecondary Success In Rural Texas, Allison Pennington

The Foundation Review

Although students living in rural areas perform academically on par with their peers, they are less likely to complete a postsecondary credential due to geographic, economic, and other barriers. Greater Texas Foundation, a private grantmaker focused on postsecondary student success in Texas, fosters rural collaborations as part of its philanthropic strategy.

This article reflects on lessons learned by foundation staff from this strand of work. It describes innovative models for postsecondary support developed by the foundation’s rural partners, discusses the need to balance direct program support and capacity building, and emphasizes the importance of visiting rural communities in person.

To …

Building Change Agility Within Teams, Tiffany N. Bersos

Theses and Dissertations

Change is necessary for an organization to be successful. However, poorly executed change, with ill-equipped leaders and unprepared teams, often result in failed efforts. Leaders can have a direct impact on their team's change agility and successful change initiatives. This study looked at team leaders and individual contributors across a variety of industries and explored ways that team leaders can build change agility. This study addressed three research questions: how participants defined the role of a leader, what individuals observed about themselves when at their best during a change, and what practices they believed would aid in building change agility …

Organizational Capacity-Building To Battle Addiction In The Oneida Community, Anita F. Barber

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Oneida Nation community members created a new and developing organization The Healing Society (fictious name) operated by a volunteer board. The board needed strategic direction to build organizational capacity and sustainability to address the lack of awareness in the community about the increase in opioid and heroin abuse after a well-known community member died from an overdose. The purpose of this postpositivist constructionist qualitative case study was to gather empirical data from the perspectives of internal and external stakeholders through a SWOT analysis focused on their perspectives. Their answers addressed: (a) the organizational strengths and weaknesses of The Healing Society …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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 …

A Needs Analysis To Inform Global Humanitarian Capacity Building, Jeroen Breman, Lisa A. Giacumo, Rachel Griffith-Boyes

Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article describes a needs analysis case study to inform the instructional design of a multinational capacity building project in humanitarian logistics. Survey responses from 106 foreign partner non-governmental organizations (NGOs) of international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) were collected to gain insights into organizations’ access to technology, levels of confidence in five logistics process areas, the strengths of previous capacity building projects, and organizational strategies and methods for capacity building. Results show that staff have access to mobile phones and computers and prefer to use the latter for learning. It was also found that not all NGOs implemented all the common …

Reviewing Egyptian Community Social Fund (Village Savings And Loans Association, Vsla) As An Approach For Community Social Fund, Safaa Shaaban

Business Administration

This paper reviews a study of the best approach for women economic empowerment and social cohesion approached by introducing the case in Egypt by using Rotating Savings and Credit Associations (ROSCAs) and Village Savings and Loans Association (VSLA) approaches as interventions for economic empowerment for women and social cohesion in Egypt. ROSCAs and VSLA Approaches aims to empowering marginalized women to live be better community and to be able to improve their socioeconomic conditions, improving their social, and economic situation and strengthening gender equality. These two interventions of ROSCAs and VSLA in Egypt were welcomed by the local community and …

Strategies For Sustainability Of Small And Medium-Sized Enterprises In Ghana, John Kwaku Amaglo

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for 92% of all Ghana firms, providing 60% of citizens' employment and contributing about 70% of Ghana's income from gross domestic products. Within the first 5 years of operation, 40% of new businesses fail. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore strategies used by Ghanaian SME manufacturing leaders in the fruit industry to sustain business for longer than 5 years of operation. The conceptual framework for this study was open systems theory and complexity theory. The population for this study was 5 Ghanaian SME manufacturing business leaders in the fruit industry …

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 …

Knowledge Sharing As A Means For Capacity Building In International Non-Governmental Organizations In Ecuador, Yolanda E. Ledesma Silva

Latin American Studies ETDs

The purpose of this research was to study factors that facilitate technical knowledge sharing internally in international non-governmental organizations (INGOs) in Ecuador. Using a qualitative design, and semi-structured interviews this study examined knowledge sharing practices in four INGOS located in Quito, capital of Ecuador.

The findings supported nine factors identified in the literature as influencing knowledge sharing practices. These factors included (1) organizational culture, (2) role in organization, (3) procedures for managing knowledge, (4) perceived value of knowledge sharing, (5) media used for sharing information, (6) management practices, (7) organizational structure, (8) mission and strategy, and (9) organizational climate and …

2017 Nonprofit Sector Employment Trends And Career Opportunities, San Diego Workforce Partnership In Partnership With The Nonprofit Institute

Nonprofit Sector Issues and Trends

The Nonprofit sector plays a critical, but often unseen role in supporting and promoting activities that improve the lives of county residents, filling gaps in critical social services when needed. This study aims to inform the workforce development system—educational training institutions, Workforce Development Boards and community workforce development organizations—on how to best prepare the future workforce for this sector. The full report analyzes data on job growth, training gaps, hiring challenges and in-demand skills from firms in the Nonprofit sector.

A Context And Stakeholder Focused Exploration Of The Sustainability Of Local Organizations In Development, Brad Tucker

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The design and development of this study emerged as the result of the investigator’s work with local nonprofit organizations (NPOs) in the Global South – particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa. Through experience and study, the investigator observed: 1) The conceptualization and the study of organizational sustainability and effectiveness (OS/OE) – both in scholarship and in practice – are fragmented and, while emphasizing the critical importance of context, do not explain how context impacts sustainability. 2) Existing conceptualizations of OS/OE lack the perspectives of key stakeholders – namely the management and staff of the local NPOs themselves. 3) There is a considerable …

Foundations As Network Strategists, Weavers, And Managers: Learning From One Foundation’S Journey And Results, Clare Nolan, Brian Souza, Michael Monopoli, Marianne Hughes

The Foundation Review

This article shares insights from a five-year evaluation of the Oral Health 2020 network, an effort by the DentaQuest Foundation to align and strengthen efforts in service of a national movement to improve oral health. The evaluation helped to place the foundation’s journey in the context of a broader field seeking new approaches to achieve deep and sustainable social change.

The foundation’s approach was informed by several ideas that have gained momentum in the social sector, including collective impact, networks, systems change, and equity – all of which challenged the foundation to take a nontraditional approach that combined the roles …

Childcare: Impact Recommendation Report, Erin Jemison, Susan R. Madsen

Marketing and Strategy Faculty Publications

Participants: Ann Austin (Center for Women & Gender, USU), Todd Harper (Wee Care Center, UVU), Jennifer Lynn Robinson (Gardner Policy Institute, U of U), Anna Bergevin (Gardner Policy Institute, U of U), Shauna Lower (University of Utah), Bree Murphy (YWCA Utah LEEEC), Kathy Link (Utah Office of Childcare), Anne Burkholder (YWCA Utah), Erin Jemison (YWCA Utah), Susan Madsen (UWLP, UVU), Leah Schilling (USU) Categories Current Resources/Strengths Gaps/Challenges Potential Interventi

A Capacity Building Framework For Community-University Partnerships, Katherine S. Hogan, Jacqueline M. Tynan, Virginia J. Covill, Ryan P. Kilmer, James R. Cook

Collaborations: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice

With a focus on organizational capacity building, community-university (CU) partnerships have the potential to yield valuable resources for community nonprofits, which increasingly have to accomplish more with fewer resources. Although a growing body of literature documents the success of such arrangements, both community agencies and universities often face challenges in managing such partnerships. With a focus on student involvement, this paper describes a framework for conceptualizing CU partnerships around capacity building, with efforts designed to address particular program needs as related to the organization’s capacity goals. These needs can be viewed as involving five levels of capacity building: 1) monitoring …

2017 Two-Legged Stool: New Findings From California On Nonprofits And Overhead, Nancy Berlin, Jan Masaoka, Mary Jo Schumann

Nonprofit Sector Issues and Trends

Nonprofit overhead is a prevalent and controversial topic in the non- profit and philanthropic sector. Online raters (such as Charity Navigator) point to the overhead rate as a key indicator of nonprofit worthiness. Different govern- ment entities use wildly different indirect cost rates when contracting with nonprofits, which translate into billions of dollars of funding being gained or lost. Foundations rarely have explicit guidelines, but most have informal rules of thumb that affect how a nonprofit can use grant funds. Meanwhile, nonprofit executives struggle to make sense of it all as they manage their operations amidst the conflicting requirements of …

Funding Challenges Of Voluntary Welfare Organizations In Singapore's Disability Sector, Joo Lay Isabel Sim, Lye Chye Alfred Loh, Siu Loon Hoe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Singapore government has spent considerable amount of resources in recent years to build new social service capabilities. This exploratory study examines the funding challenges faced by Voluntary Welfare Organizations (VWOs) operating in the disability sector. An analysis of the financial statements of 39 VWOs shows that large VWOs receive the highest proportion of government support as compared to medium and small VWOs. The latter being more dependent on donations. Interviews were conducted with five VWOs and two government funders to gather their views on developing a sustainable funding model. While the government funders provide a high level of financial …

The Capacity-Building Support Activities Of The Integrated Support Center For Nuclear Nonproliferation And Nuclear Security Of The Japan Atomic Energy Agency, Yosuke Naoi, Kalman A. Robertson, Naoko Noro

International Journal of Nuclear Security

International cooperation is essential to support states in building the human resources necessary for maintaining and strengthening nuclear security. As the nation’s only comprehensive nuclear research and development institute, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) has long-standing experience developing and operating nuclear technology in all steps of the fuel cycle. The Integrated Support Center for Nuclear Nonproliferation and Nuclear Security (ISCN) was established within the JAEA in December 2010 as Japan’s Center of Excellence for nuclear security. The ISCN provides assistance with capacity building to states throughout Asia and some other regions. The objective of this article is to describe …

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 Groundwork For Successful Cohort- Based Fiscal Capacity-Building: An Evaluation Of The Strengthening Financial Management Initiative, Nancy Devine

The Foundation Review

This article is based on the findings of an evaluation of The Wallace Foundation’s Strengthening Financial Management initiative, which show that it is possible, with well-designed training and support, to enhance the ability of nonprofit leaders to strategically manage their resources for long-term sustainability and programmatic quality.

The initiative tested two models of capacity building – a relatively high-intensity approach and a lighter, though still substantive, model. While the two shared a common core of content, the amount of resources provided in each of the two models was dramatically different.

In addition to the two main findings – that building …

Embera Drua: The Impact Of Tourism On Indigenous Village Life In Panama, Amy Lethbridge

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

This case study examines the experience of residents of the Indigenous village of Embera Drua, Panama with 20 years of tourism. It addresses the lack of Indigenous voices in tourism literature by telling the story of Embera Drua through the lens of the villagers themselves. The study uses a mix of ethnographic observation and narrative inquiry and finds that the experience of Embera Drua mirrors the experience of other Indigenous villages offering tourism around the globe, particularly the impact of lack of community capacity on management and growth of such tourism initiatives. Findings of this study are relevant to the …

Benefits Of Twinning Programs: The Case Of Macedonia, Jasminka Varnalieva, Violeta Madzova

UBT International Conference

Twinning instrument is used for cooperation and long-term institutional partnership between public administrations of one or more EU Member States and the national authorities of beneficiary country. The purpose of this paper is to examine benefits of twinning programs as instruments for capacity building of public institutions. The paper provides an analysis of the twinning program portfolio in Macedonia per sectors, twinning country providers, and beneficiary institutions. The conclusions are that Macedonian institutions have benefitted a lot from the twinning programs implemented in the last fifteen years; nevertheless, there is still room for significant improvements in the design and implementation …

2015 State Of Nonprofits In Riverside County, Laura Deitrick, Fred Galloway, Dominika Bukalova

State of Nonprofits in California

Within the last year or so, two influential reports produced by the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research at the University of San Diego – 2015 State of Nonprofits in San Diego and Causes Count: The Economic Power of California’s Nonprofit Sector – have helped practitioners, researchers, and government officials better understand both the trends and nuances of this rapidly expanding sector. Continuing that tradition, this report, 2015 State of Nonprofits in Riverside County, provides a much needed and long overdue look at the financial health and demographic profile of nonprofits in Riverside County.

2014 A National Review Of Community Leadership Programs, Caster Family Center For Nonprofit And Philanthropic Research, University Of San Diego

Nonprofit Leadership and Capacity Building

In May 2014, LEAD San Diego commissioned the Caster Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research (Caster Center) to conduct a national review of organizations that support leadership development and civic engagement (i.e., community leadership programs). The Caster Center researched 32 such organizations and conducted phone interviews with 12 of them. The interviewed organizations included nine community leadership programs: six were independent nonprofits, two were nonprofits housed within a Chamber of Commerce, and one was a Chamber of Commerce program. The remaining interviews were with two statewide community leadership programs that were foundation funded and a university research center.

Survey Instruments Used To Evaluate Foundation-Funded Nonprofit Capacity- Building Programs: Considerations For Organized Philanthropy, Catherine H. Brown

The Foundation Review

· Alongside a growing interest in nonprofit capacitybuilding programs has come a growing concern with the impact of these programs, especially by organizations that fund them. This article describes how the McKinsey Organizational Capacity and Assessment Tool and, to a lesser extent, the Abt Associates survey have been used to assess changes in nonprofit capacity as part of nonprofit capacity-building programs.

· Drawing on field experience with both survey instruments in the context of a foundationfunded nonprofit capacity-building program, this article compares the respective benefits and costs of these instruments from the perspective of evaluators as well as survey respondents. …

Raising The Bar – Integrating Cultural Competence And Equity: Equitable Evaluation, Jara Dean-Coffey, Jill Casey, Leon D. Caldwell

The Foundation Review

· Whether implicit or explicit, social justice and human rights are part of the mission of many philanthropies. Evaluation produced, sponsored, or consumed by these philanthropies that doesn’t pay attention to the imperatives of cultural competency may be inconsistent with their missions.

· The American Evaluation Association’s Statement on Cultural Competence provides those who produce, sponsor, and use evaluation an opportunity to examine and align their practices and policies within a context of racial and cultural equity and inclusion. The use of such a lens is paramount when evaluating a program whose goals touch on issues of equity or inclusion. …