Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

Using Input From Administrative Staff To Make Cost-Effective Decisions For Telecommuting, Technology, And Productivity During The Covid-19 Era, Chika Egemba

West Chester University Doctoral Projects

The purpose of this research was to examine if collaborative technologies enhance productivity in the face of remote work during the COVID-19 era using the diffusion of innovation framework. Dothan Housing is a Moving to Work (MTW) Expansion Agency under the Landlord Incentive Cohort #3. This means the agency was granted certain flexibility to pursue innovation. This research study used a post-positivist philosophy and a quantitative research design to investigate the thoughts, opinions, and feelings of Dothan Housing administrative staff about their experience with telecommuting during the COVID-19 pandemic. The participants were selected from among Dothan Housing staff who were …

A Promising Place-Based Collaborative Impact Investing Fund Strengthens Community And Informs Philanthropic Practice, Benjamin Kerman, Clara Miller

The Foundation Review

A recent evaluation of the Western New York Impact Investment Fund adds to the proof-of-concept literature regarding “doing good and doing well” while pointing to experience-based best practices in philanthropic impact investing. Born of a collaboration between regional and national philanthropies, the fund brings together corporate, individual, and philanthropic investors to deliver an inclusive impact investment mechanism. Founded in 2017, the fund evolved from concept to operating entity, focusing on mitigating capital gaps, longterm economic decline, and wealth divides.

Evaluation at Year 5 describes how the professionally managed, collaboratively governed fund has attracted and deployed capital, contributing to ecosystem improvements …

Leveraging Foundation Balance Sheets For Greater Impact: Piloting A Pooled Guarantee Program, Jane Reisman, Jim Baek, David Newsome, Christine Ryan

The Foundation Review

A guarantee instrument is a credit enhancement tool that can enable philanthropies to unlock millions or billions of dollars for societal impact. The Community Investment Guarantee Pool, created in 2019 by a collaboration of philanthropies and allied impact investors, or guarantors, is a novel initiative that uses guarantees to leverage the balance sheets of foundations and other institutional investors for enhancing the credit of intermediaries in the affordable housing, small-business, and climate markets. As the guarantees are unfunded, foundations continue to keep their endowment invested in the conventional market.

This article describes the Community Investment Guarantee Pool, details its theory …

Defining Your Double Bottom Line: Philanthropy And The Investment Landscape, Stephane Ligonde, Garrett De Temple, Tuokpe Ajuyah

The Foundation Review

Grantmaking traditionally has been at the heart of philanthropy, whereas impact was the exclusive expectation of any desired result. While there is still a place for this kind of pure push for change, many investors today expect more, leveraging the power of the markets to invest in a way that is both impactful and able to maximize their financial rewards. This is particularly true of foundations with an eye toward supporting the perpetuity of their missions and organizations.

This approach also offers a range of innovative mission-based benefits, including extending the utility of philanthropic capital and generating more capital to …

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Using Foundation Capital For Good: Opportunities In The Balance Sheet, John Sherman, Veronica Olazabal

The Foundation Review

Foundations increasingly use their full balance sheets to unlock more of their capital for good. They look beyond conventional grantmaking to pursue their charitable purposes in many ways that exemplify innovative, full-balance sheet approaches: investing in nonprofit and for-profit companies that offer clear social and financial returns; investing their corpus in companies whose products and services align with their missions; using social bonds to inject new resources into their programs; offering guarantees to help grantees manage risk; and avoiding companies whose practices run counter to their grantees’ efforts.

This article looks at the structures, pathways, and tools for foundations wanting …

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Donor-Advised Funds And Impact Investing: A Practitioner’S View, Sam Marks

The Foundation Review

Any discussion of foundations embracing impact investing must include some discussion of one of the largest — and growing — sources of philanthropic capital: donor-advised funds. These philanthropic accounts allow donors of all sizes to access many of the functions of a private foundation, including the potential to invest for impact. Sponsors of these funds, however, face unique challenges in catalyzing impact investments.

Like the larger institutional foundations that have led the way as mission investors, sponsors must often educate and inspire governance boards and investment committees. Unlike foundations with professional program staff, decisions regarding philanthropic resources at sponsors of …

The Field-Building And Grantee Experimentation Role Of Foundations In Impact Investing As Illustrated By A Gender-Lens Investing Case Example, Courtney Bolinson, Laura Allan

The Foundation Review

This article argues for foundations to play two critical roles in the impact investing ecosystem: to commission and/or support research that helps build more equitable and socially just impact investing and to fund grantee-specific experimentation in areas of impact investing and social enterprise that are nascent or developing.

To illustrate what this can look like, this article presents action research conducted on gender-lens investing, describing in detail a 2019 Mastercard Foundation grant to Engineers Without Borders Canada. The project involved two main goals: testing and developing gender-lens investing tools and processes with seed-stage investees during pre- or post-investment phases and …

Tfr 14.4 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

The Ford Foundation’S Work To Build The Field Of Impact Investing, Margot Brandenburg, Abeda Iqbal

The Foundation Review

Impact investing has grown dramatically over the past 15 years, with foundations playing a critical role through their program-related and, increasingly, mission-related investments. A smaller number, including the Ford Foundation, have dedicated grant and other programmatic resources toward growing the field. Without this funding, the metrics, engagement, policies, and norms needed to underpin capital markets at scale will be slow to materialize.

This article looks back at the long history of aligning financial investments with social values; touches on the Ford Foundation’s pioneering role in the emergence of PRIs as a tool to stretch grantmaking budgets; and details the impact …

Looking Through Their Lenses: An Analysis Of Virginia Environmental Nonprofits' Roles And Challenges In Shoreline Management For Coastal Resilience, Taiwo C. Olanrewaju Lasisi

School of Public Service Theses & Dissertations

Environmental nonprofit organizations have emerged to attend to the environmental needs of individuals and communities. Some of these needs are usually those that have been neglected, given insufficient attention, or cannot be singularly handled by the government. In advocating for coastal resilience, environmental nonprofits have been identified as actors who address coastal issues like sea-level rise, flooding, and shoreline management.

Shoreline management involves building setbacks and formulating short and long-term defense strategies such as building living shorelines, ripraps, bulkheads, and tree plantings. These strategies formed the basis of coastal defense in coastal zones. Shoreline management is a significant area of …

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Advancing Philanthropic Strategy Through Evaluative Thinking: One Foundation’S Approach, Christine Baker, Margaret Eigsti, Kathryn Racine, Laurence O’Connell

The Foundation Review

The Sisters of Charity Foundation of Cleveland supports Catholic sisters and their ministries in northeast Ohio through the grantmaking, partnership, capacitybuilding, and evaluation efforts of its Catholic Sisters Program Area. The decline of sisters actively engaged in ministry, due both to their rising median age and a decades-long decline in their overall numbers, called for a reconsideration and likely revision of the CSPA existing theory of change.

Unlike other strategic approaches at the foundation, such as ending homelessness or improving health equity, transitioning from sister-led to lay-led leadership of ministries remained largely unexplored: Basic research was lacking, and model practices …

Engaging Community To Build A Community Dashboard, Tanya Upthegrove Gregory, Liz Gordillo

The Foundation Review

The Ruth Mott Foundation’s mission is to advocate, stimulate, and support community vitality in our community of Flint, Michigan. The goal of the foundation’s 2016–2025 strategic plan is that residents of north Flint neighborhoods create and sustain opportunities to contribute and thrive. As a place-based grantmaker, the foundation uses community-level data internally to establish baseline data. Those data, in combination with local relationships and knowledge of other community initiatives, guide the foundation’s grantmaking strategy in the community’s context and assist with data-driven decision-making. Externally, the dashboard supports community engagement through access to local data. The foundation partnered with the Dorothy …

The Yin And Yang Of Equity-Centered Philanthropy, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee, Sabina Gesell

The Foundation Review

Foundations face two competing imperatives when they commit to advancing equity. On the one hand, they are counseled to support and follow the lead of community-based groups that are on the front lines of social change. On the other hand, they are also being challenged to use their power and influence to act boldly to change inequitable structures, policies, and institutions. These two orientations, yin and yang, can take a foundation in different directions and thus cause confusion and internal conflict.

The challenge for a foundation is to balance and integrate the two orientations into a comprehensive and effective approach …

Media Relations Strategies Of Philanthropic Foundations: A Longitudinal Analysis Of News Releases Produced By Top U.S. Foundations, Richard D. Waters, Giselle Auger, Kelly Husted

The Foundation Review

Given their role in funding programs and services provided by nonprofit organizations, foundations have a critical role as advocates for social change. However, grant money is by itself not enough to create that change. Agenda-setting theory highlights the critical role of organizations in bringing change issues to the attention of the media and, therefore, the public. This article uses content analysis to compare two sets of a random sample of news releases from 20 of the largest foundations in the United States. The two sets are seven years apart, from 2014 and 2021, to allow comparison of the maturation of …

The Soft Stuff Doesn’T Have To Be Hard: Foundation Investments In Grantee Workers Are Necessary, Valuable, And Measurable, Rusty Stahl

The Foundation Review

There is an urgent need for funder investments in the ability of grantee nonprofit organizations to support their staff. Such investments, when done well, can yield significant value for individuals, organizations, and fields of work or movements. Furthermore, the value of these investments can be evaluated and communicated.

This article explores the reasons for and implications of the inadequate response by funders, offers a path forward for designing investments in grantee staff, and documents how funders can capture and communicate the value of these “talent investments.”

Powerful myths serve as barriers to widespread funder investment in grantee staff, and the …

Book Review: In Defence Of Philanthropy, Nabih Haddad

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Learning As We Go: How Emergent Process Supports Sustainable Community And Philanthropic Change, Elizabeth Myrick, Rachel Mosher-Williams, Laurie Zierer

The Foundation Review

Beginning in 2014, PA Humanities, one of 56 state and territorial humanities councils across the country, drew upon the work of Orton Family Foundation to deploy the Community Heart & Soul method, which centers community planning and civic engagement around connecting people to each other, and to the many assets of the places they live, through individual storytelling and collective narrative building.

Between 2015 and 2018, PA Humanities awarded matching grants to three locations in Pennsylvania — Greater Carlisle, Meadville, and Williamsport — to pilot PA Heart & Soul, a humanities-based, resident-driven community planning process that cultivates a shared sense …

Tfr 14.3 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Between The Public And The Private Interest: The Interrelationship Of Intermediary Roles Of Environmental Nonprofits In Coastal Resilience, Marina Saitgalina, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Taiwo Olanrewaju-Lasisi

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

Government regulators cannot mitigate the loss of wetlands and coastal erosion alone. Nonprofits, uniquely situated between coastal property owners with personal interests and governments with regulatory interests, are positioned to mediate the interests of different parties while considering local context and individual circumstances. However, it is unclear what roles environmental nonprofits play within the network of actors. This study asks: (1) What roles do environmental nonprofit organizations play in local stakeholder network arrangements for wetlands conservation and shoreline management? (2) How are these roles interrelated? We use two frameworks describing the roles of nonprofits to examine the roles of environmental …

How A Community Foundation’S Disaster Framework Guided Rapid Pandemic Response, Steven W. Mumford, Isabel Barrios, Kellie Chavez Greene

Political Science Faculty Publications

Disasters create opportunities for philanthropy to rebuild equitably by prioritizing the most vulnerable community members in disaster response and addressing existing disparities and structural inequities in the recovery phase. As intermediaries between donors and local communities, community foundations are well-positioned to lead transformational disaster response.

Through its experience with Hurricane Katrina and subsequent disasters in the region, the Greater New Orleans Foundation developed a flexible disaster framework that emphasizes four broad principles — resilience, sustainability, civic participation, and equity — and specific practices in each area to guide rapid and long-term disaster response and preparedness. This article describes how the …

Respectful Tribal Partnership: What Philanthropy Can Learn From The Navajo Nation’S Collaborative Response To The Covid-19 Crisis, Nancy Petersen, Karletta Chief, Toni M. Massaro, Nikki Tulley, Crystal Tulley-Cordova, Jonelle Vold

The Foundation Review

The gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic and its disparately harsh impact on Indigenous peoples are now well known. U.S. death rates normalized by population, for example, have been far higher for Native Americans than for the white population in the United States. Many funders, realizing that basic human services are lacking for many Native American and Indigenous communities, have responded to the crisis. While this desire to act is laudable, many fail to grasp the complexities and necessity of applying trust-based collaborative principles that respect tribes as sovereign nations.

This article describes a successful model for collaboration among a tribal …

Front Matter 14.1 And 14.2

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.