Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

Sandag’S Regional Climate Action Planning, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Brenda Castruita

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG) is the regional planning agency responsible for transportation planning, public transit development, and environmental planning in the San Diego metropolitan area.1 Beyond these focus areas, SANDAG aims to promote sustainable growth, enhance mobility, and improve the quality of life of local citizens through comprehensive planning and collaboration with local governments, communities, and various partners. SANDAG is governed by a Board of Directors made up of elected officials from each of the region's local city councils and County Board of Supervisors. In addition to developing plans for how people and goods will move …

Conservation Communication In Web 2.0: A Mixed Methods Analysis Of Alveus Sanctuary's Strategies On Twitch.Tv, Hope Denison

Senior Theses

This thesis examines how environmental creators can effectively transmit conservation messages in the evolving Web 2.0 media environment. The case of Alveus Sanctuary, a virtual sanctuary and education center on Twitch.TV, is used to explore the strategies currently used to engage audiences and raise ecological awareness online. Thematic analysis of interviews with the sanctuary’s founder revealed that Alveus combines traditional environmental education with an influencer business model to engage online audiences, leveraging parasocial behavior, interactivity, and collaboration to garner support. A quantitative content analysis of social media posts revealed that these strategies effectively induce parasocial engagement in online spaces. These …

2025 San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative Annual Report, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative is a network for public agencies that serves the San Diego region to share expertise, leverage resources and advance comprehensive solutions to facilitate climate change planning. By partnering with academia, nonprofits, and businesses, the SDRCC also works to leverage the profile of regional leadership. This is the 2025 San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative Annual Report.

Connecting Business Innovation & Climate Impact, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Alexander Pourfard, Aranza Ruvalcaba, Fowzia Farah

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The La Mesa Green Business Network (GBN) is a City-led initiative developed in partnership with the San Diego Regional Green Business Network to advance local climate goals by engaging the business community in practical, measurable sustainability actions. Launched in 2022 as part of La Mesa’s Climate Action Plan, the GBN addresses common barriers faced by small and medium-sized businesses such as limited capacity, resources, and technical expertise by providing free, industry-specific consulting, certification, and public recognition. Through tailored guidance on energy efficiency, water conservation, waste reduction, and transportation practices, the program translates citywide climate objectives into on-the-ground action while delivering …

Building Resilience Against Coastal Climate Risks, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Brenda Castruita, Marius Van Dongen, Brandi Upshaw

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The South Carlsbad Climate Adaptation Project (Project) is an initiative led by the City of Carlsbad (City) designed to address the growing risks of coastal erosion and sea level rise within the city. The Project focuses on a one mile segment of South Carlsbad Boulevard that runs directly along the coast and has experienced decades of coastal erosion, shoreline retreat, and recurring flooding–all of which are expected to intensify due to climate change. In an effort to protect critical infrastructure, natural resources, and public safety, the City has been evaluating the long-term viability of the current roadway and exploring various …

Digital Infrastructure For The Regenerative Movement: A Case Study Of The Mycelium Learning Network, Abigail Karparis

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

The regenerative movement is gaining momentum worldwide, driven by communities working to restore ecological and social systems through place-based, culturally rooted action. Yet many of the groups leading this work, especially in the Global South or in hyper-local contexts, remain digitally invisible due to structural barriers, including limited access to appropriate technology, funding constraints, and misalignment between available tools and local values. Conventional digital infrastructures often exclude or marginalize these efforts, leaving regenerative practitioners disconnected from each other and from potential sources of support.

This article explores these challenges and presents a case study response: the co-creation of accessible, relational …

Amplifying Climate Action: San Diego’S Climate Action Plan (Cap) Dashboard, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Courtney Chinn, Marius Van Dongen

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The City of San Diego boasts a strong tourism and recreation industry, partly attributed to the City’s temperate climate. In recent years, extreme weather events tied to climate change have led to an even stronger focus on mitigation and resilience. In 2015, the City adopted a Climate Action Plan (CAP), which was most recently updated in 2022. The CAP established the goal for the community to reach net zero emissions by 2035. In the fall of 2024, to boost the efforts of the CAP, the City of San Diego published their online Climate Action Plan platform, the CAP Dashboard. The …

Understanding California’S 2025 Energy Code, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Caroline Stillitano

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

California’s 2025 Energy Code is set to take effect in January 2026. Triannual updates to the Energy Code advance the state’s clean energy and climate resilience goals. For 2025, key updates include expanded heat pump requirements, electric-ready requirements, enhanced ventilation standards, and updated solar and battery storage regulations. These updates aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, lower energy costs, and improve public health in California. This case study outlines the main components of the 2025 updates to the California Energy Code (Title 24, Part 6), highlights expected impacts, and identifies financial incentives and programs available to support compliance and facilitate …

Understanding California's Climate Zones, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Caroline Stillitano

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

California’s diverse geography led the California Energy Commission (CEC) to divide the state into 16 Climate Zones, each reflecting local weather patterns and energy demands. These zones guide energy-efficient building standards by setting energy budgets tailored to regional conditions. This fact sheet explains the role of climate zones in shaping energy policy, using San Diego County’s four distinct zones as an example of how local climates influence building code requirements.

Building Climate Resilience Through Food Recovery, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Alexander Pourfard, Aranza Ruvalcaba

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

In an effort to combat GHG emissions from food waste, California passed Senate Bill 1383 (SB 1383) into law in 2016. The bill contains key provisions aimed at increasing edible food recovery. By rescuing food that would otherwise go to the landfill, California entities have been able to help save precious food and advance sustainable solutions to address climate change in their local communities. Since the food recovery requirements took effect in January of 2022, over 217,000 tons of unsold food have been recovered annually, providing more than 700 million meals to food-insecure Californians.

A Machine-Learning Tool-Supported Methodology For Nonprofit Donor Analysis, Corbin Weiss

Campus Research Month

We developed a machine-learning tool-supported methodology for modeling the nonprofit donor relationship. This approach was demonstrated in the case of a US-based nonprofit. Conclusions were drawn from this example and tool-support provided for use by other nonprofits.

2024 San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative Annual Report, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative is a network for public agencies that serves the San Diego region to share expertise, leverage resources and advance comprehensive solutions to facilitate climate change planning. By partnering with academia, nonprofits, and businesses, the SDRCC also works to leverage the profile of regional leadership. This is the 2024 San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative Annual Report.

Understanding The Challenges And Satisfaction Among The Medical Professional Preceptors, Cornelia Ko

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

This study evaluates the Penn Medicine Family Medicine Clerkship program through a mixed-methods approach, exploring the challenges and factors influencing the satisfaction of medical professional preceptors when precepting students. A quantitative survey with 54 preceptor participants reveals the top challenges preceptors face: workload, conflicts with patient care, and limited clinical space. Despite this, there is strong support for the program, with 89% of preceptors enjoying the role and 85% expressing willingness to continue to precept for the next three years. Finally, data analysis shows no statistical correlation between preceptor motivation with gender, ethnicity, age group, years of serving, or total …

Impacts Of Climate Change In The United States, Nathan T. Thompson

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Climate change, a shift in long-term climate patterns primarily driven by anthropogenic factors, poses a super wicked problem impacting every sector and region globally, including the United States. This paper explores the scientific basis of climate change, its contributing factors, and the myriad consequences on terrestrial and aquatic systems, as well as mental health. Notably, the emission of greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and agricultural activities is the primary cause, exacerbated by ideological division and psychological distance. The U.S. has seen some progress with a 7% decrease in emissions over the past 30 years and a growing shift toward renewable …

Uplifting The Critical Value Of The Lgbtq+ Climate Workforce, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Brenda Castruita, Nicole Fassina

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

As the world faces unprecedented environmental challenges, the need for a robust and diverse environmental workforce has never been more critical. Historically, marginalized communities are at the forefront of these challenges and often bear the brunt of impacts from our changing climate. It is vital that the climate workforce reflects the diversity of our communities and is inclusive of individuals with lived experiences that can inform equitable and effective solutions. Among these marginalized communities, the LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer or Questioning, and others) community is particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.¹ Research underscores how LGBTQ+ individuals …

The Port Of San Diego's Maritime Clean Air Strategy: Enhancing Public Health With Innovative Clean Air Strategies, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Gabriela Yamhure, Alexis Padilla

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The Port of San Diego (The Port), established in 1962 under the Port act, is the Maritime agency that manages and stewards the thirty-four miles of coastal working waterfront along the San Diego Bay. The Port develops and promotes commerce, navigation, recreation, a healthy environment and fisheries around the San Diego Bay, contributes billions to San Diego’s economy, and is home to international cargo and trade operations. In a concerted effort to lessen greenhouse gas emissions impact of operations on local, often underserved communities, the Port developed and is implementing a Maritime Clean Air Strategy (MCAS), an update to the …

Health And Healthcare: Designing For The Social Determinants Of Health And Blue Zones In North Nashville, Rebecca Tonguis, Honor Thomas, Olivia Hobbs

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Owned by North Nashville’s First Community Church, a now empty site in the Osage-North Fisk neighborhood of North Nashville has been identified as a potential site for a new location of The Store, in addition to a community-centric architectural development based on the social determinants of health and informed by the principles behind Blue Zones, the locations with the highest lifespans in the world. Opened by Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, The Store is a free grocery store that “allow[s] people to shop for their basic needs in a way that protects dignity and fosters hope”, for which North Nashville …

Transformative Policies Supporting Equitable Workforce Progress, India Shiroma Perreira, Eo Hanabusa, Leaders 20/20

San Diego Regional Quality of Life Dashboard

As the need for Green Workforce jobs rises, it is essential that companies are transparent about pay. The California Pay Transparency Law (SB 1162) enforces job descriptions that explicitly outline employee compensation, which is also a step towards closing gender and race-based pay gaps. It also prohibits employers from using hiring practices that may be discriminatory against certain groups of people. SB 1162 builds honesty, trust, and equity in the workplace for job seekers today and for generations to come.

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

2023 San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative Annual Report, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative is a network for public agencies that serves the San Diego region to share expertise, leverage resources and advance comprehensive solutions to facilitate climate change planning. By partnering with academia, nonprofits, and businesses, the SDRCC also works to leverage the profile of regional leadership. This is the 2023 San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative Annual Report.

Identifying Accessibility Improvement Opportunities For Global Environmental Communication Websites, Alicia Mason, Josh Compton, Sakshi Bhati

Faculty Submissions

Digital environmental information presented with low web accessibility reduces parti-cipation in environmental advocacy and information seeking behaviors for many people with disabilities, creating a consequential digital divide. We use WEB AIM computer automated analysis of web accessibility to assess the general accessibility of online environmental communication messages. Results show 95.3% of the popular websites in our sample had indicators of potentially critical accessibility errors. Our findings highlight the importance of addressing digital environmental information accessibility shortcomings so that educational, informational and persuasive environ-mental messages can increase environmental literacy of vulnerable populations and help to bridge the digital divide.

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

Management Of Operations In Projects Including Planning, Organization And Control From The Beginning To The End Of Implementation, Burim Isa Berisha Dr.Sc

International Journal of Business and Technology

The project usually arises as soon as the client’s need is identified, and goes through all the extensive phases and sub-phases to take its true form and put into operation. The project is divided into two main parts that include Planning and Implementation that are separate in these stages: definition, planning, organization, control, completion. Planning involves a detailed calculation of the project. This includes known facts, admissible facts and risk calculation. Activity model used by IKOMs Planning as a process involves the cost that accompanies it. The manager must strike the balance between cost and benefit. Project control uses data …

Long-Term Auditor-Client Relationship And Its Effects On The Audit Quality, Burim Isa Berisha Dr.Sc

International Journal of Business and Technology

Apart from this, the long-term Auditor client relationship has been the center of attention in most of the discussions and debates as well. Numerous studies have been conducted by the academic researchers, financial and professional analysts, regulatory authorities and governing bodies, and in some cases by the Auditors and the firms as well regarding the effects of long-term Auditor-client relationship on audit quality, equity risk premium, financial reports quality, audit pricing etc. These studies provide us with different results, both with the positive and negative associations and effects of long-term Auditor-client relationship on the basis of different factors and contexts. …

Management Of Small Enterprises And Family Businesses In The Republic Of Kosovo, Burim Isa Berisha Dr.Sc, Burim Berisha B.B

International Journal of Business and Technology

Small businesses represent the driving force of an economy. They are the key that enables the production and marketing of thousands of products and services thus becoming the basis for a sound economic development. Consequently, small businesses are of vital importance to the economy.

Small business is a generator of innovation and a source of new jobs. The trend shows that small businesses are the backbone of all developments and movements in the economic system.

The small business scope is present in almost every pore of social and economic life.

According to the Statistical Register for Businesses, there are 9,358 …

The Process Of Adapting Innovations In Banking Services By Businesses In Kosovo, Burim Isa Berisha Dr.Sc, Burim Berisha B.B

International Journal of Business and Technology

This dissertation addresses the importance of a business model from businesses in Kosovo, which is able to adapt innovations from the banking sector such as digital services, and through which become part of a global market where such developments occur step by step. very fast At the beginning of this paper will be given definitions related to the main concepts that are addressed such as business model, innovations in banking services - digitalization of services and the role and importance of linking a business model with banking services of the time. After the theoretical part, from which the main concepts …

Agency Theory And Audit Quality, Burim Isa Berisha Bb

International Journal of Business and Technology

Auditing plays a vital role in reducing both: information asymmetry by empirically confi rming the validity of fi nancial statements and agency problems. The principal- agent confl ict illustrated in agency theory, where principal (owner) lack reasons to believe their agents (managers) because of information asymmetries and contradictory motives. Information asymmetry deals with the study of decisions in transactions where one party has more or superior information than other. Agents (either directors or auditors) may be trustworthy without further incentives to align interest or monitoring strategies such as audit or increased regulation. However, the simple agency model would recommend that …

The Process Of Adapting Innovations In Banking Services By Businesses In Kosovo, Burim Isa Berisha Dr.Sc, Burim Berisha B.B

International Journal of Business and Technology

This dissertation addresses the importance of a business model from businesses in Kosovo, which is able to adapt innovations from the banking sector such as digital services, and through which become part of a global market where such developments occur step by step. very fast At the beginning of this paper will be given definitions related to the main concepts that are addressed such as business model, innovations in banking services - digitalization of services and the role and importance of linking a business model with banking services of the time. After the theoretical part, from which the main concepts …

The Value Of Stem As An Educational Tool For Enhancing Cognitive Development, Leaders 20/20, Alessandra Olmedo Robles

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

STEM is an acronym for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. The focus of STEM education is to provide a holistic approach through hands-on, problem-based learning where students are able to take what they learn in the classroom and apply it to real world problems.

Why Reach Codes: Local Players Driving Statewide Building Standards, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Gabriella Medina, Darbi Berry, Gabriela Yamhure

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

Reach codes are local energy ordinances that employ various technologies, strategies, and integrated systems that go above California Building Standards Code (CA Building Code, Title 24) standards and support greenhouse gas emission reduction efforts. A reach code is a mandated energy performance requirement for the built environment, typically incorporated as part of a city’s climate action plan, local hazard mitigation plan, or climate adaptation plan. Not only do reach codes help local jurisdictions remain in compliance with state mandates, they enable local climate leadership by signaling support for the future direction of state Building Code standards. This blog provides a …