Public Affairs Commons^™

Our Streets: Increasing Equity In Active Transportation Planning Through Community Outreach, Jordan Hoy

Master's Projects and Capstones

ABSTRACT Significant research has demonstrated that active transportation infrastructure is essential for the growth and livability of San Francisco: it increases access to economic opportunities, promotes overall improved public health, encourages mobility without contributing to roadway congestion, prevents traffic injuries and fatalities, and supports the sustainability goals of the city. Despite the fact that communities of color will benefit the most from active transportation infrastructure development, historical disenfranchisement in tandem with a lack of diverse representation within public participation contributes to an inequitable distribution of walking and biking investments throughout the city of San Francisco. While research shows that Black …

Lost Causal: Debunking Myths About Causal Analysis In Philanthropy, Jewlya Lynn, Sarah Stachowiak, Julia Coffman

The Foundation Review

What if philanthropic evaluations told us that changes in the world had occurred, as well as how and why they occurred, including in what ways foundation funding and grantees contributed to those changes? What if evaluations made change pathways more visible, tested hypotheses and assumptions, and generated new insights based on what happened in the “black box” of systems change strategies? This type of learning comes from causal analysis — inquiry that explores cause-andeffect relationships.

Yet currently in philanthropy, particularly for strategies and initiatives that feature high complexity, few evaluations use robust techniques for understanding causality. Instead, philanthropic evaluation tends …

Learning Amid Disruption: Bouncing Forward Into A Changed World, Rachel Reichenbach, Jewlya Lynn, Jen Heeg

The Foundation Review

The philanthropic sector has come to recognize the importance of bringing a systems lens to its work, seeking to influence upstream drivers of complex problems, and being adaptive in its approaches instead of implementing static, multiyear plans. Yet, integrating these concepts into practice continues to pose a challenge.

Humanity United — a foundation dedicated to cultivating the conditions for enduring freedom and peace — had been grappling with this charge when the disruption caused by COVID-19 led it into a crisis response mode in 2020, similar to many other philanthropic institutions. That disruption also challenged our old ways of being, …

Exploring Needs For Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion Practices In Arts And Culture Nonprofits In Denver, Colorado, Christina Mcclelland

The Foundation Review

To foster a more welcoming, inclusive, and effective arts and culture community in the metropolitan Denver area, the Bonfils- Stanton Foundation seeks to promote promising practices in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) among nonprofit arts organizations. The foundation partnered with a researcher to explore how local organizations are implementing such practices and to learn how it could best support these efforts.

This article summarizes the findings of a qualitative survey of leaders from 10 Denver arts and culture nonprofits and discusses them within the context of a review of literature on diversity efforts among other arts organizations in North America. …

Measuring The Effectiveness Of Equitable Economic Development Strategies, Amy Minzner

The Foundation Review

There is anecdotal evidence that equitable economic development activities can foster inclusive growth and unlock the full potential of local economies by dismantling barriers and expanding opportunities for low-income people and communities of color. These strategies are being used with increasing frequency, and advocates and funders are pressing for their use throughout the country. Because of this, there is a need to better understand the link between equitable economic development activities and their ability to foster equitable opportunities and resulting impacts.

Establishing this link will require a new measurement strategy because traditional measures of economic development effectiveness focus on communitywide …

Moving The Needle Or Spinning Our Wheels? A Framework For Long-Lasting, Equitable Change In Education, Heather Mccambly, Eleanor R. Anderson

The Foundation Review

In the quest for equitable and lasting reform in postsecondary education, philanthropy’s great strength is its flexibility to make use of multiple strategies. However, as most grantmakers know firsthand, not all strategy combinations lead to lasting systemic change.

This article offers an actionable approach for designing and analyzing philanthropically funded movements in order to remake an area of educational policy or practice. It begins with a review of philanthropic literature that identifies the primary change strategies used by funders in the education sector. It then introduces a tool, rooted in organizational research, to understand and predict the circumstances under which …

Analysis Of Homeownership Outcomes In The Dallas-Fort Worth Region And Growing Disparities An African American Perspective, Gwendolyn Isokpan

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Since the housing bust and Great Recession, in the United States, the homeownership gap between black and white households has widened to its largest levels in 50 years (Choi, McCargo, Neal, Goodman & Young, 2019). With overall inequality continuing to grow, policy decisions must be implemented to begin to mitigate the decreasing levels of homeownership. I argue decreased levels of homeownership are one contributing factor to inequality. More specifically, for African Americans, the homeownership rates have decreased back to the levels during the Civil Rights Era. Within the United States, owning a home is considered an important social and economic …

Panel Discussion: The Right To Education: With Liberty, Justice, And Education For All?

Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy

No abstract provided.

Leveraging Effective Consulting To Advance Diversity, Equity, And Inclusion In Philanthropy, Stephanie Clohesy, Jara Dean-Coffey, Lisa Mcgill

The Foundation Review

In 2018, the National Network of Consultants to Grantmakers launched an initiative to sharpen the impact of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) work in grantmaking by increasing the capacity of consultants and grantmakers engaged in these efforts. Network researchers used a systematic protocol to interview consultant members about their most effective partnerships with grantmakers. Case studies drawn from those interviews yielded valuable lessons for advancing DEI in philanthropy.

In sharing some of these lessons, this article advises consultants to be prepared to help grantmakers define or refine the meaning of DEI and understand where equity fits into their values and …

Equity For All: Building The Infrastructure For Change Through Community-First Funder Collaboratives, Ellen Braff-Guajardo, Kaying Hang, Leslie Cooksy, Monica Braughton, Fontane Lo

The Foundation Review

Foundations increasingly recognize that improving conditions in many communities requires addressing inequities in access to rights and resources. Yet there are challenges to effective investment in underresourced regions, especially when foundations have limited familiarity with the region and may assume limited local capacity to leverage philanthropic investments.

This article discusses how Sierra Health Foundation partnered with other California and national foundations to establish the San Joaquin Valley Health Fund, a collaborative whose grants focus on strengthening the capacity of communities and organizations in the Valley to advance policy and systems changes that promote health and racial equity.

This article highlights …

Emerging Grassroots Energy Communities: An Assemblage Theory Analysis, Ali Mohammed Adil

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

In context of the federal leadership vacuum in the United States on climate action and sustainable energy development and consequent subnational policy and regulatory variations, the rise of citizen-led grassroots energy communities (GECs) is increasingly considered as a countervailing civic force in the mainstream energy system. However, as grassroots attempts to transform the carbon-intensive, centralized energy system gain in prominence, attracting broad-based support and generating a multitude of social organization and governance models, citizen advocacy, activism and on-the-ground local projects encounter varying socio-cultural, policy and regulatory support structures across urban and regional landscapes leading to disparate outcomes. Yet, the advent …

Assessing Cumulative Barriers To Transportation: An Integrated Framework Of Equity Analysis For Housing Choice Voucher Families In The Dallas Fort Worth Region, Myriam Igoufe

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Transportation is said to be affordable if it does not consume more than fifteen percent of a household’s budget. The widespread normative threshold of transportation affordability, becomes increasingly problematic as households slide down the income spectrum. Most fundamentally, low-income households have vastly different financial capabilities to purchase transportation services, hence to travel. Yet, little is known about the financial capabilities of very-low income households, and the use of a normative cost-to-income-ratio-threshold of transportation affordability obscures our understanding of travel capacities, in monetary terms, of these populations. Failure to comprehensively conceptualize and evaluate transportation affordability inevitably inhibits the formulation of adequate …

Looking In The Mirror: Equity In Practice For Philanthropy, Ashlee Young, Jaime Love, Nancy Csuti, Christopher J. King

The Foundation Review

Philanthropy still needs to be reminded that there is no such thing as a post-racial America, and that systemic racism continues to underlie the problems foundation funding attempts to address. While many foundations have found it challenging to address equity in their grantmaking, they have found that process far more comfortable than addressing equity within their own organizations.

This article will describe the efforts of three foundations in various stages of seeing themselves through an equity lens: the Consumer Health Foundation, The Colorado Trust, and Interact for Health. This article will discuss why these foundations are on this journey, what …

Swimming Against The Tide? Teaching In An Anti-Teacher Policy Environment, Sarah Hainds

Public Policy and Administration Lecture Series

Sarah Hainds is a researcher at the Chicago Teachers Union, where she focuses on equity issues in school planning and funding, fighting against school privatization, advocating for state policies that support strong public schools, and helping the public and politicians understand best practices in educational policy. Ms. Hainds holds a master’s in urban planning and policy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She is a co-author of several CTU reports available at www.ctunet.com