Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons^™

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The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Aligning Evaluation And Strategy With The Mission Of A Community-Focused Foundation, Claudio Balestri

The Foundation Review

Foundations are commonly recognized as having a comparative advantage in supporting forward-looking projects and programs. In this sense, the long term represents the natural horizon in which the foundations are called to fulfill their mission to plan and develop philanthropic activities and, therefore, the time reference for assessing results.

When a mission is focused more on improving the quality of life in a specific community than on addressing a specific social problem, evaluation of outcomes becomes more challenging. While available methods can provide valuable support to measuring the impact of a foundation’s specific program, they are unlikely to provide an …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

In A Good Way: Advancing Funder Collaborations To Promote Health In Indian Country, Linda M. Bosma, Jaime Martínez, Nicole Toves Villaluz, Christine A. Tholkes, Laraye Anderson, Sarah Brokenleg, Christine M. Matter

The Foundation Review

Funders continue to be challenged by how to best promote work in American Indian communities that builds health equity, addresses community context, and reduces the disproportionate impact of commercial tobacco.

In particular, public health programs that address substance abuse and tobacco control promote the use of evidence-based practices that tend to emphasize a one-size-fits-all approach and that are rarely researched among American Indian populations. These practices, therefore, lack cultural validity in those communities.

This article examines how three organizations collaborated on work to control commercial tobacco use in Minnesota’s Indian Country, and shares lessons learned on how they came to …

Crisis Philanthropy: Two Responses To The Pulse Tragedy In Orlando, Cindy T. Rizzo

The Foundation Review

This article examines two philanthropic responses to the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on June 12, 2016, a tragedy that particularly impacted the region’s growing Latinx LGBT community.

The Central Florida Foundation’s Better Together Fund and the Our Fund Foundation’s Contigo Fund, while organized and operating in different ways, looked to best practices in crisis philanthropy and, in the wake of the massacre, provided the region with resources to address both short- and longer-term needs.

Better Together practiced strategic philanthropy focused on addressing systemic issues. Contigo lifted up new and diverse leadership from the grassroots. Each …

Family Foundation Development In China: Two Case Studies, Shuang Lu, Chien-Chung Huang

The Foundation Review

Amid the accumulation of private wealth in China, family foundations have begun to emerge in recent decades. Little research, however, has explored this nascent phenomenon. This article examines the development of two Chinese family foundations — the Lao Niu Foundation and the Lu Jiaxiang Foundation — using document analyses and semi-structured interviews with foundation leaders.

While detailed data on program effectiveness and efficiency is lacking because of underdeveloped methods of evaluation, it is evident that both foundations have generated positive impacts on social development despite an overall lack of support for the foundation sector from Chinese government policy.

The case …

Pci: A Reflective Evaluation Framework For Systems Change, Beverly A. Parsons, Huilan Krenn

The Foundation Review

Systemic change involves deep shifts in social norms, beliefs, power, and privilege — and seldom, if ever, follows a straightforward, predictable path. Such change also requires incremental, long-term action and evaluation. To better support systemic change, how might a foundation reframe its approach to evaluation?

This article explores the interconnected dimensions of the PCI Reflective Evaluation Framework, an approach now in prototype form which is grounded in practical thinking about working within complex social systems. This article focuses on its use in advancing racial equity, describing possible applications to integrate a racial equity lens in unpacking and addressing the complexity …

Becoming Strategic: Finding Leverage Over The Social And Economic Determinants Of Health, Douglas Easterling, Laura Mcduffee

The Foundation Review

While a number of observers have offered advice to foundations on how to be more effective with the implementation, evaluation, and adaptation of their strategies, there is little guidance on how foundations should go about designing their strategies.

This study fills that gap by analyzing the strategic thinking of health conversion foundations when they determined how they would address various social determinants of health. Based on interviews conducted with the leaders of 33 foundations across the U.S., we identified four strategic pathways: expanding and improving relevant services, creating more effective systems, changing policy, and encouraging more equitable power structures.

In …

Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Foundation Transparency: Opacity — It’S Complicated, Robert J. Reid

The Foundation Review

The perception that private foundations lack accountability has led to calls for greater transparency. The literature, however, suggests that transparency is neither a panacea nor achieved without cost, and that its positive influence on the conduct of philanthropy may be less than straightforward.

This article seeks to examine transparent and opaque practice in private philanthropy, studying the literature as well as findings from interviews with foundation staff, trustees, and grantees that sought answers to two relevant questions: Does opacity exist in private philanthropy? Have foundations and grantees developed strategies for overcoming challenges related to opacity?

U.S. tax law affords private …

Review -- Design Thinking For The Greater Good: Innovation In The Social Sector, Brenda Sipe

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

The Pine Street Project, Molly Mcgrail

Lesley University Community of Scholars Day

At the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year a group of my classmates and I worked together to help solve a problem for Pine Street Inn, the largest homeless shelter in New England. We planned two major events and raised $500 for hot meals. After raising the $500 over the time of our class I decided to set a personal goal. I plan on raising $5,000 for Pine Street in total by the time I graduate with my masters degree in three to four years. I wanted to be able to help change something within my community for the better …

Trusting Harvard: The Cost Of Unprincipled Investing (2014), Marcy Murninghan, Robert A.G. Monks

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article provides a framework for answering two questions: How can Harvard fulfill its fiduciary obligation as an investor in ways that advance its beliefs, values, and commitments? How can Harvard take the lead in creating a curriculum for students, professionals, and the general public about the civic moral obligations of wealth? While aimed at Harvard, the issues covered are relevant to other universities and tax-exempt institutional investors, because they have a special duty to advance the public interest. Commissioned and co-authored by the noted corporate governance and responsible ownership guru Robert A. G. Monks, it calls on Harvard to …

A Framework For Good Ownership And Good Governance (1999), Marcy Murninghan

New England Journal of Public Policy

This article encapsulates a more extensive analysis that was commissioned by The Boston Foundation’s board of trustees in December 1998 to investigate its investment practices and identify ways in which its asset management decisions might be brought into fuller alignment with its charitable purpose—without conceding earnings or undermining its philanthropic fiduciary responsibility. The undertaking was spurred by the leadership of Robert A. Glassman, co-founder and co-chair of Wainwright Bank and a trustee of The Boston Foundation (TBF) since 1985, who took the reins from David Rockefeller Jr. in 1995 as chair of TBF’s investment committee. The research project built on …

Newfoundland And Labrador’S Vital Signs: Portrait Of A Foundation-University Partnership, Ainsley Hawthorn, Sandra Brennan, Robert Greenwood

The Foundation Review

Vital Signs, a national program of Community Foundations of Canada, produces annual reports of the same name that examine the quality of life using statistics on fundamental social issues. With these reports, community foundations are able to present a comprehensive and balanced picture of well-being in their communities.

The Vital Signs report for Newfoundland and Labrador is produced in partnership between the Community Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development, a university research unit with expertise in both promoting community-based research and making academic information accessible to the general public.

This article …

Regional Economic Vulnerability To Sea Level Rise In San Diego County, San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative, Center For The Blue Economy At The Middlebury Institute Of International Studies At Monterey

San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative

The San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative engaged the Center for the Blue Economy of the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey to investigate the potential effects from climate change and projected sea level rise, and coastal storms on the economy of San Diego County. The importance of assessing these vulnerabilities arises because San Diego County is the 17th largest metropolitan area in the country and the 5th largest in California. San Diego County has a GDP that is larger than 25 other states.

The Nonprofit Nerd (February 2018), The Nonprofit Institute At Portland State University

The Nonprofit Institute Newsletter

This month's topic is Opinion Research.

We recently sent out a survey about using data in nonprofit work. We received a lot of great feedback from many of you -- thank you! We are working hard to analyze the data from the survey to inform our decision making on our upcoming Nonprofit Data Lab project.

One of the many interesting things you had to tell us involved the challenge of learning about (and getting feedback from) people you aren’t currently reaching through your programs. So, we are devoting this month’s newsletter to a discussion of opinion research as one …

Queer Repurposed Artifacts: The State Of New York City’S Contemporary West Village Bars, Stephanie Debiase

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In recent years, there has been a shift in queer bar culture in New York City’s West Village, and this thesis aims to explore what these changes are and why they are happening now. How do West Village bars survive when queer populations are forced out? While there are various ways to consider how and what survives in the Village, three variables will be addressed: queer history, or the history queer-identified groups using activism, safety measures, or collaborating with outside sources to secure their rights and overall wellbeing; (post)gentrification, beginning with the 90s when mainstream LGBT groups teamed up with …

Exploring The Relationship Of Burnout, Retention, And Tenure Between Full-Time Professors Teaching In A Traditional Brick-And-Mortar Environment And Full-Time Professors Teaching In A Fully Online Environment, Scott Dunbar

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of educational delivery as it related to burnout in full-time college professors in a Southern California Christian university. The problem addressed was examining the relationship of full-time faculty burnout between two educational delivery methods, traditional brick-and-mortar educational delivery and fully online educational delivery, in a Southern California Christian university. This study was significant as the phenomenon of burnout in relation to brick-and-mortar full-time professors and online full-time professors had yet to be researched in a Southern California Christian university. In addition, burnout in online faculty members had rarely been studied …

Philanthropy And Immigration Enforcement: The Role Of Grantmaking On Nonprofit Influence During Secure Communities, Apolonia Calderon

Latino Public Policy

Uniquely positioned in our American democracy, foundations hold private resources they leveraged to promote their private values within our public arena. The independence of foundations, primarily private and family foundations, allows them to exert influence over public policy down to the local delivery of public good and services. An understudied policy area pertains to understanding how philanthropic funding impacts immigration policy and local enforcement. This report focuses on studying how philanthropic funding for immigration services is associated with reducing the identification of deportable immigrants, during Secure Communities. As foundations leverage their private resources to help fund nonprofits that promote their …

Better Together: Leadership That Enhances Ministry Collaboration, Kristine K. Bjorke

Doctor of Ministry Theses

This project is an exploratory case study research project of three different collaborative efforts consisting of one or more congregations working together or a congregation and agency working together. Each entity operated independently prior to working together. Collaboration was understood through the theoretical lenses of adaptive leadership and collaboration theory as well as a biblical and theological understanding of the body of Christ and perichoresis. Qualitative research using interviews and focus groups was used to identify how leadership enhances ministry collaboration. Three findings emerged with regard to leadership: flexibility, proactive communication, and external support, each with internal and external indicators.

Great Members, Great Churches: Adaptive Change And Missional Theology In The Local Church, Christopher Jacobsen

Doctor of Ministry Theses

An Action Research (AR) project focusing on congregational participation in ministries within the church and outside it. Theological lenses of Trinitarian theology, missional theology, and spiritual practices. Theoretical lenses of adaptive change theory, consumerism and social capital, and organizational theories of relationship, four-frame model, and open source model. Identifies adaptive challenges faced by a small Reformed Church in America church in northern New Jersey, with a strong emphasis on the tension between living busy lives and active participation in the ministry of the triune God. Reframes leadership through the lens of writing the church’s story.

Faith-Based Social Entrepreneurship: The Integration Of Faith And Business For Sustainable Social Impact, Christine Beech

Business as Mission Theses and Dissertations

Faith-based nonprofit organizations face myriad challenges in securing a sufficient donation base within a restricted pool of donors. This funding challenge often limits their ability to conduct their mission. To offset this challenge and model self-sufficiency, many faith-based organizations are looking to evolve into hybrid platforms that operate as faith-based social entrepreneurial ventures and manage to a triple bottom line of social good, financial impact, and spiritual mission. Yet even with the best of intentions, successfully merging a for-profit business model into a preexisting nonprofit organization often fails, even before the faith-factor is in play. This study of social entrepreneurship …

A Nonprofit Board Development Plan For The Cleveland County Abuse Prevention Council, Barbara Bass Romich

Education Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this consultancy was to assist in the transformation of the Cleveland County Abuse Prevention Council (CCAPC) from a director-led organization (governance model) to a board-directed (support model) organization through the development of an active, effective Board of Directors . The mission of CCAPC is, “to serve as a bridge between being a victim to becoming a survivor of domestic violence, sexual assault and homelessness through the provision of safe shelter, advocacy, support services, and preventive education.” After 4 years of securing grants, loans, and private donations through a “Building Hope capital campaign,” CCAPC was poised to break …

Graduate Admissions Recruitment Project, Kevin Anderson, Chiemela Dike, Yixin Du, Arvinder Kaur, Amanda Popp, Huizhong Yang

School of Professional Studies

In this project, several comparison schools were interviewed and disclosed to have used search lists to find candidates. The organizations that have valuable search lists which may be of good use for the School of Professional Studies include Educational Testing Service (ETS) and the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC). By choosing criteria such as demographics, location, academic performance, educational history provided by search lists, we believe there are many quality candidates for SPS programs. However, as we further investigated the functionality and cost-efficiency or return of investment of GRE search list, we spotted many uncertainties and few solid and successful …

The Preventive Effects Of Whistleblowers On Fraud In Nonprofits, Elizabeth Evankovich

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Worcester Center For Crafts: A Transition To Online Sales, Monica Gow, Carly Branconnier, Srilatha Prodduturi, Ekaterina Shusharina, Alberta Yamoah

School of Professional Studies

The Clark University School of Professional Studies created a capstone team consisting of Monica Gow, Carly Branconnier, Iana Matkovskaia, Srilatha Prodduturi, Ekaterina Shusharina, and Alberta Yamoah to assist Worcester Center for Crafts (WCC) with the launch of their new online store. Worcester Center for Crafts wanted to showcase their beautiful American handmade crafts on an online platform, Shopify, in order to increase their sales and expand their market reach. The capstone team created a charter that outlined the scope of the project and what the team would deliver to WCC by the end of the project. The team agreed to …

Audubon Data Project Final Report, Askhat Beygenov, Valinur Kutlambetov, Shrikant Patel, Phoebe Roberts, Ulfat Sayyed, Shriram Sivaraman

School of Professional Studies

The Audubon Data Project was initiated as a Clark University Capstone project. The project’s client, Mass Audubon’s Shaping the Future of Your Community program, had identified a need to improve their data management methods and make better use of their data. The Capstone team, composed of Clark University graduate students, met with the client regularly to review the current state of the data and potential improvements to be made. The process began with a data review. During the review we worked with the client to explicitly define the purposes and requirements of the data, the current process for updating and …

2017 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 2017 San Diego Regional Climate Collaborative Annual Report.

Cacao Together: A Model For True Sustainability In The Chocolate Industry, Kerstin Roos

Capstone Collection

This Course Linked Capstone provides a critical analysis of the concept of sustainable development and then uses this analysis to create a social venture plan for a non-profit called Cacao Together. This capstone project will identify challenges in the sustainable use of cacao by first critiquing the mainstream sustainable development initiatives of certification schemes and corporate sustainability programs. It then offers an alternate framework through the 5 Capital Livelihood assessment tool which when applied, shows the gaps in cacao sustainability initiatives generally. I then propose a social venture that will addresses the needs of many parts of the chocolate supply …