Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

Voices From The Field Iii: Lessons And Challenges For Foundations Based On Two Decades Of Community-Change Efforts, Anne Kubisch, Patricia Auspos, Prudence Brown, Emily Buck, Tom Dewar

The Foundation Review

· Building upon a previously published volume on Comprehensive Community Initiatives, this article focuses upon the implications for foundations of what has been learned about CCIs.

· CCIs can demonstrate increased community capacity and improved outcomes for some residents in their target neighborhoods, but they cannot demonstrate population-level change in key indicators of well-being.

· Five key questions about the role of funders and how they engage in community change are posed and discussed.

· Deep engagement in the community; thoughtful collaboration among funders of various types and sizes; the willingness to use other resources, capacities and tools in addition …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Teresa R. Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Beyond The Grant: How The W. K. Kellogg Foundation Went Beyond Grantmaking To Contribute To A Major Early Childhood Initiative, Stephen Greeley, Beth Greeley

The Foundation Review

· The seven-year SPARK (Supporting Partnerships to Assure Ready Kids) initiative, created by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF), aimed at systemically linking the pre-K and kindergarten worlds as a way to position vulnerable children for greater success in the early grades.

· At the foundation, the initiative served as a departure point for WKKF to move from its traditional grantmaking role to a changemaker role.

· To create change, a foundation must articulate – and commit to – a point of view about how change can occur. A theory of change can be a powerful tool to guide ongoing …

Editorial-Open Access, Teresa Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Reframing Assessment Of Grantee Perceptions: Reconsidering Effectiveness With Broader International Stakeholder Engagement, Laurel Pendleton, Michael Y. Moon

The Foundation Review

· Stakeholder engagement is important in philanthropy because it allows grantmakers and grantees to pool their respective resources more effectively to address their shared target issues.

· As more and more foundations and other grantmaking entities venture into the expansive world of self-evaluation, it is prudent that these methods be examined in light of international funding relationships.

· In order to better understand how these tools and methods can be used internationally, we outline the opportunities presented when using frames as one basis for decision-making in complex situations.

· Using the hypothetical case of a U.S. funder seeking to understand …

The Real-Time Evaluation Memo: A Tool For Enabling Evaluative Thinking And Learning In Foundations And Nonprofits, Melanie Hwalek, Mary Grcich Williams

The Foundation Review

· Real-time evaluation memos provide data-based feedback in a timely manner to inform decision making.

· Memos must be concise and include both data and expert synthesis and interpretation.

· The foundation must have a learning culture if the memos are to most useful; there must be time to reflect on the content and implications.

· The balance between data quality and timeliness must be managed and will be dependent on the topic.

· While useful for program management, these memos do not provide the kind of summative information that board members and other stakeholders may require.

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 …

Leadership Development In The Social Sector: A Framework For Supporting Strategic Investments, Grady Mcgonagill, Claire Reinelt

The Foundation Review

· While much of the research on leadership and leadership development has historically studied private sector settings, recent work has begun to build knowledge about leaders in public and community settings.

· New models of leadership, including collective leadership, are being developed and implemented by foundations.

· A framework for identifying the level of intervention (individual, team, organization, network, or system) and the level of impact (individual, team, organization, community, or field of policy and practice) is proposed as a tool for more strategic investing in leadership development.

Lessons (Not Yet) Learned, Marilyn J. Darling, Jillaine S. Smith

The Foundation Review

· Despite a significant influx of charitable dollars over the last 10 to 20 years, solutions to complex social problems remain elusive, while philanthropy has been facing growing pressure to account for its tax-free dollars; to demonstrate, replicate, and scale success; and to be transparent about failed social investments.

· When foundations and their nonprofit partners ignore a failure and move on, whether it is to protect their own reputation or the reputations of valued partners or simply because of the pressure to keep going, it is too easy to toss out the baby with the bathwater – to toss …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Is The Policy Win All? A Framework For Effective Social-Justice Advocacy, Barbara Klugman

The Foundation Review

· This article offers a theory-of-change framework to help those engaged in social-justice advocacy to reflect on whether social-justice values are being retained in the process.

· A reproductive rights effort in South Africa provides an example of how social justice values can be lost in the advocacy process.

· The failure to sustain work on the ground pointed to the need to maintain a base of support even after a policy victory.

· Strategies must be revisited as social and political contexts change.

· One of the critical social-justice values that supports the establishment and maintenance of alliances is …

Peer Networking And Community Change: Improving Foundation Practice, Thomas E. Backer, Ralph Smith

The Foundation Review

· This article brings together the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 15 years of experience with peer networking— examining through two research studies the process of peer networking and its impact, both with community-based and funder groups.

· Peer networking helps people with common interests to exchange information, disseminate good practices, and build a leadership structure for work they do together, such as a community change initiative.

· Casey’s research identified 10 good practices for effective peer networking, as well as 10 challenges that can affect its success; a four-level model was created to provide context for these findings.

· The …

Funding Cultural Adaptations To Promote Effective And Efficient Mental Health Service Provision, Lynda E. Frost, Rick Ybarra

The Foundation Review

· Given the changing demographics of the U.S. and documented racial and ethnic health disparities, behavioral health service providers must look at adapting their services to better meet the needs of their diverse client populations.

· Grantees implemented three types of cultural adaptations: sociocultural/organizational, structural/ service delivery, and clinical.

· Most adaptations were not directly related to the specific evidence-based practice and would be relevant in many service-provision settings.

The Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, And Powerful Ways To Use Social Media To Drive Social Change: Book Review, Sophia Guevara

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

What Is A Family Foundation?, Michael Moody, Allison Lugo Knapp, Marlene Corrado

The Foundation Review

· Family foundations are important institutions, making up a significant portion of the foundation universe and having both local and global impact. Yet we have no shared definition of this diverse and evolving category. Clarifying the definition will help challenge persistent misconceptions, get perspective on the diversity, and improve foundations’ understanding of their own family dimensions.

· This article surveys the different definitions of family foundation that are, and have been, used by key organizations in the field and by researchers. It also reviews examples of the variations and complicating factors that make answering the title question difficult.

· A …

Editorial, Michael Moody

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

The Education Collaboration Fund: Possibilities And Limitations Of Pooled Funds, Lisa Philp

The Foundation Review

· Raising money for a pooled fund is time consuming and requires expertise with the funding topic and the target audience. Yet the process of shopping around a pooled fund or collaborative concept can be valuable in its own right, even if most do not participate.

· Shared interest around a topic or community is a necessary but insufficient reason for participating in a pooled fund. A pooled fund provides an opportunity for individuals and family foundations to learn and grow as donors.

· Someone with passion, organizational skills, and persistence needs to drive the process forward or it will …

Leveraging Social Networks In Direct Services: Are Foundations Doing All They Can?, Katya Fels Smyth

The Foundation Review

· Social networks are critical to physical and mental health, and they shape how people see themselves and their possible futures.

· Social networks represent an under-leveraged resource in social services’ efforts to alleviate poverty and other social challenges.

· Foundations may be unintentionally creating barriers to practice that leverages social networks by incentivizing individually-focused, highly specific services delivered in standardized, replicable ways.

· “Network-oriented” practice can help craft a new way forward that threads the needle between everything-is-different-for-everyone and everything- is-the-same-for-everyone.

· By focusing funding on efforts that build and support social networks, foundations can deepen and sustain the …

The Family Difference? Exploring The Congruence In Grant Distribution Patterns Between Family And Independent Foundations, Jasmine Mcginnis, Shena Ashley

The Foundation Review

· Using a broad group of family and independent foundations from a representative sample of Georgia foundations, the authors examined differences in giving patterns between family and independent foundations.

· Findings confirm the result of previous work that studied large foundations.

· There are no substantial differences between family and independent foundations’ preferences even when controlling for a nonprofit’s location and size.

· These findings are relevant for discussions about the role of non-family members on boards.

A Hedgehog Moment: The Roles And Pitfalls Of Strategic Philanthropy For Family Foundations And Donors: Book Review, Charles H. Hamilton

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

Challenges And Strategies For Family Foundations With Geographically Dispersed Board Members, Melanie A. Mckitrick, Deborah Hirt

The Foundation Review

· This article, based on interviews with leaders of 10 family foundations, investigates the impact of geographic dispersion on governance, administration, decision making, and grantmaking activities.

· The greatest challenges for family foundations with dispersed boards involve assembling an appropriate staff, ensuring strong communication between staff and board members, and focusing the organization’s mission. Maintaining family board member interest in the foundation’s geographic area and bridging and strengthening ties between generations were also concerns.

· In order to maintain family legacies, all case-study foundations found unique ways to overcome challenges and were deliberate in ensuring that board members stayed actively …

Achieving Foundation Accountability And Transparency: Lessons From The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’S Scorecard, David C. Colby, Nancy W. Fishman, Sarah G. Pickell

The Foundation Review

· The purpose of this article is to help foundations in their accountability and transparency efforts by sharing lessons from one foundation’s journey to develop a scorecard.

· A commitment to funding and sharing the results from rigorous evaluations set the tone for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) accountability.

· The Scorecard is a powerful tool for RWJF to set goals, track organizational effectiveness, and motivate responses to shortcomings.

· Foundations can tailor their scorecard to include what best serves their needs.

· With its Scorecard, RWJF found that comparative and quantitative measures are the most powerful forces to motivate …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.

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.