Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

Giving Circles In Asia: Newcomers To The Asian Philanthropy Landscape, Robert John

The Foundation Review

Amid the rapid development of philanthropy across Asia, over the past 10 years a number of giving circles have appeared in the region.

This form of philanthropy, where individuals pool resources and provide grants to nonprofit organizations in their community, is well known and studied in the U.S. This article examines the phenomenon in Asia, and finds giving circles there to be either indigenous or based on models transplanted from the United States or Europe.

While ancient traditions of charitable giving have existed for centuries in Asia, the concept of organized philanthropy in order to effect specific societal benefit is …

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Teri Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Incentivizing Employees Through Benefits And Recognition Programs At Pace University, Diana Dumitru

Master in Public Administration Theses

The nonprofit sector has seen a 20% increase in the number of higher education institutions over a period of 10 years, from 2000-2010, (Blackwood et al. 2012), which had a big impact on the public charity revenues and expenses. In this fast-paced growing environment, employees working in higher education are directly influenced by the changes and increase in the number of students. Motivating employees in such an environment can be challenging, therefore finding a comprehensive package that includes fair compensation levels, benefits, awards and recognition ceremonies and other incentives such as promotions and opportunities for growth are important for the …

Development Discourse And Practice: Alternatives And New Directions From Postcolonial Perspectives, Paul Donnelly, Banu Ozkazanc-Pan

Books/Book Chapters

Development and aid programs, such as those aimed at promoting economic growth and prosperity in ‘Third World’ nations and transition economies, often arise out of Western and neo-liberal policy ideologies and practices. These programs may, in some cases, provide useful guidelines for restructuring institutional structures and governance mechanisms in nations that have long struggled with poverty, economic instability, health crises, and social and political turmoil. However, a growing number of critical voices are raising concerns over the guiding assumptions and inclusiveness of these policies and programs in their aims to promote economic development and social well-being in non-Western nations. We …

Using A Priority Grid As A Tool For Shaping Strategy And Building Impact, Lori Fuller

The Foundation Review

· This article describes the priority grid – an analytic tool to assess grant proposals – and how it has fundamentally changed and improved the work of the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust.

· Developed by the Trust, the priority grid focuses staff attention on key strategic elements: alignment with focus areas, depth of impact, and scope of impact. It has also served as an agent to develop, disseminate, and implement a foundation’s grantmaking strategy, helping program officers understand how specific projects serve the larger goal and cultivate projects and applications that align with the foundation’s long-term mission.

· With …

Ripple Effects Of Process Change, Rebekah Usatin, Nancy Herzog, Myriam Fizazi-Hawkins

The Foundation Review

· Decisions to change processes in one area have the potential to cause ripples throughout the entire grantmaking process, impacting both donor and grantee. Recognizing this, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) thoroughly examines and/or tests any changes before they are integrated into the grantmaking practice. In 2009, NED launched a pioneering grantee self-evaluation process that significantly altered its grantmaking processes.

· This article describes how NED tasked a team of staff from the different sections of its grantmaking program to determine the most effective way to capture the information needed to determine whether a grant should be recommended for …

Executive Summary

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Climbing The Mountain: An Approach To Planning And Evaluating Public-Policy Advocacy, Sam Gill, Tom Freedman

The Foundation Review

· This article proposes a new methodology for planning and evaluating public-policy advocacy. The methodology is designed around a series of stages, each with a different set of strategic planning and assessment requirements.

· The article suggests that both planning and evaluative approaches that fail to take account of the necessary stages required to develop and then implement an advocacy strategy will likely assign the wrong indicators of success.

· This analysis is based on direct experience working with both policy processes and a wide range of foundations and nonprofits that have invested in public-policy advocacy, including the Rockefeller, Ford, …

Financial Analysis For Measuring And Comparing Risk In Grantmaking Portfolios, Sheena Ashley, Lewis Faulk

The Foundation Review

· Risk has not been treated in a systematic way that allows for a rich understanding of the extent to which foundations are, or should be, incorporating or evaluating risk in philanthropy.

· In this article, we conceptualize and develop a tool to evaluate the levels of philanthropic risk that foundations maintain through their grant portfolios.

· We create an index of aggregated risk at the portfolio level using several financial indicators based on previous theory and literature. Then, we test the index on a sample of foundations and their grantees in the state of Georgia and compare risk levels …

The Impact Grants Initiative: Community-Participatory Grantmaking Modeled On Venture Philanthropy, Adin Miller, Elisa Gollub, Ilana Kaufman, Adina Danzig Epelman

The Foundation Review

· The Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund (JCF) launched the Impact Grants Initiative (IGI), a model of grant making based on venture philanthropy, but offering high engagement opportunities for previously unaffiliated local donors and community leaders.

· Before adopting the IGI model, the JCF used a community-participatory grantmaking approach that had become stale in engaging its donors, community leaders, and professional staff. Younger existing and potential donors were developing interests in documented outcomes, metrics, and impact, and those interests did not align with JCF’s grantmaking approach.

· IGI builds on the concepts of venture philanthropy, combining theories and techniques …

Editorial, Michelle Greanias

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

In Other Words, The Budgets Are Fake: Why One Funder Eliminated Grantee Budgets To Improve Financial Due Diligence, Molly Schultz Hafid, Carol Cantwell

The Foundation Review

· In 2013, the Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock eliminated budgets from its application requirements. Over the last 18 months, it has worked to overhaul the financial information it requests and the ways in which it is used.

· This article examines the role of financial information in the grant application process, the practice of developing and reviewing funder budgets, and the ways in which they too often fail to provide information relevant to a thorough review of the financial health of a nonprofit organization.

· The Veatch Program provides a case study in how to engage board …

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Study The Differences On Maritime Search And Rescue System Between China And Britain, Weizheng Chen

Maritime Safety & Environment Management Dissertations (Dalian)

No abstract provided.

Foundation For An Independent Tomorrow: Treatment Effects Of The Stages Of Employment Job Readiness Program On Program Completion And Employment Outcomes For Ex-Offenders, Michael Hammer, Stephanie Pocchia, Stacy Howell

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Foundation for an Independent Tomorrow (FIT) is a local not for profit organization that seeks to assist residents of Southern Nevada by providing workforce development services (e.g., interviewing skills, job searching techniques, resume assistance) to increase a program participant’s opportunities to obtain and maintain employment. FIT is currently being federally funded through the Department of Labor’s Workforce Investment Act (WIA) grant, with a specific goal of serving the re-entry, or ex-offender, population. This population presents with a very unique set of barriers to obtaining employment, and in order to combat these barriers, FIT created the Stages of Employment job readiness …

The Importance Of Community Resilience: Developing The American Red Cross International Services Department In The New Hampshire Region, Sarah Romac

Capstone Collection

Disaster management and humanitarian aid organizations have had to reevaluate how communities and individuals can better adapt and prepare for future disaster events. One concept organizations are incorporating into their overall framework is strengthening community resilience. Increasing a community’s resilience level increases its ability to cope with the changes that affect it. Creating awareness of the vulnerabilities in an area, addressing these vulnerabilities with preparedness training, disaster risk reduction (DRR), and sustainable changes made over the long-term can develop a community’s adaptive capacity to be more resilient.

For my practicum, I was given the opportunity to be the International Services …

Public-Philanthropic Partnerships: A Review Of Recent Trends, Alan Abramson, Benjamin Soskis, Stefan Toeopler

The Foundation Review

· The last decade has seen a surge of interest in public-philanthropic partnerships (PPPs), due not only to these collaborations’ notable successes but also to the 2008 election of Barack Obama. The Obama administration unveiled a series of initiatives that looked to philanthropy to help identify innovative programs.

· To explore the issues involved in PPPs, this article looks at two key federal initiatives, Michigan’s Office of the Foundation Liaison, and the involvement of foundations in state and local responses to the 2007 financial crisis and the implementation of the federal economic stimulus package.

· The growth of public-philanthropic partnerships …

Shifting From ‘Evaluation’ To Valuing: A Six-Year Example Of Philanthropic Practice Change And Knowledge Development, Angela Frusciante

The Foundation Review

· Knowledge development is an emerging field in philanthropy and sits at the convergence of movement toward engagement, data-based decision-making, and networked learning for social and policy change.

· This article explores five knowledge-development trajectories at one family foundation that has funded a long-term change initiative. The trajectories include tools and frames that have been developed for increasing organizational learning, beginning network learning, and informing both program and operations for enhanced strategy implementation.

· Making the organizational shift from entrenched notions of third-party evaluation to creating a diversified knowledge development approach opened up new opportunities to think and talk about …

Editorial, Teri Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Improving Care And Service Coordination For Vulnerable Populations Through Collaboratives: One Funder’S Approach, Impact, And Implications For The Field, Lisa Payne Simon, Amber Slichta, Ann F. Monroe

The Foundation Review

· Improvement collaboratives are short-term learning systems that bring together teams from multiple organizations to seek improvement on a focused topic within the organizations. Most commonly applied in clinical settings, improvement collaboratives are less frequently applied in social-service settings or across agencies to support coordination of care and services for vulnerable populations.

· This article describes findings from four collaboratives conceived and funded by the Health Foundation for Western & Central New York. It examines the foundation’s collaborative structure (a modified Breakthrough Series model in which health and social-service organizations work together in multi-agency teams to implement best practices and …

Where Heart Meets Smart: The Making Of A Grantmaker, Elizabeth A. Castillo, Mary B. Mcdonald, Christina P. Wilson

The Foundation Review

· Graduate programs in nonprofit management increasingly include philanthropic studies in their curricula. However, these programs generally focus on a grant seeker's point of view.

· This case study describes a graduate philanthropic studies course at the University of San Diego developed from a grant maker's perspective. Students partner with a local private foundation to serve as its program officers for a special initiative.

· By becoming grant makers the students experience the intellectual, emotional, and practical challenges of effective grant making. They develop grant making competencies and an appreciation for the art and science of philanthropy. The foundation benefits …

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. …

Transparency, Performance Assessment, And Awareness Of Nonprofits’ Challenges: Are Foundations And Nonprofits Seeing Eye To Eye?, Ellie Buteau, Mark Chaffin, Ramya Gopal

The Foundation Review

· In order for nonprofits and foundations to work most effectively together, they must understand each other’s perspectives.

· This article discusses the alignment between the perspectives of nonprofit and foundation chief executive officers on four aspects of foundation practice: transparency with the nonprofits they fund, support for nonprofit-performance assessment, awareness of nonprofits’ challenges, and the degree to which foundations use their resources to help address nonprofits’ challenges.

· Nonprofit and foundation CEOs are aligned when it comes to the degree to which foundations are seen to be aware of nonprofits’ challenges and use their resources to help address them. …

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. …

From Citywide To Neighborhood-Based: Two Decades Of Learning, Prioritization, And Strategic Action To Build The Skillman Foundation’S Youth-Development Systems, Della M. Hughes, Marie Colombo, Laura A. Hughes, Sara Plachta Elliott, Andrew Schneider-Munoz

The Foundation Review

· This article explores the Skillman Foundation’s shift in its approach to fulfilling its mission to improve the lives of children and youth and to making grants – moving from a traditional grantmaker to a place-based investor and change-maker.

· Three aspects of Skillman’s approach have directly shaped the evolution of its youth-development investments: recognizing Detroit’s economic, social, political, and environmental challenges; articulating overarching goals to provide direction and setting priorities for the scope and focus of its programmatic work; and using rapid learning to inform strategic decisions and social-innovation practices designed to tackle deeply entrenched problems.

· This article …

Executive Summary

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.