Public Policy Commons^™

Politisasi Anggaran Bantuan Keuangan Oleh Petahana Pada Pilkada Serentak Di Indonesia, Austin Nalsalina Sinaga

Jurnal Kebijakan Ekonomi

This study aims to inquire the Political Budget Cycle (PBC) by examining the relationship between the presence of an incumbent during the simultaneous district/city level elections in 2015, 2017, 2018, 2020 and village financial assistant. Using the village financial assistant data in 2013-2021, this study conducts a random effect model. The results showed that the existence of an incumbent is significantly correlated with an increase in village financial assistant in one or two years prior to election. Meanwhile, in the election year, there is no significant relationship between variables. The PBC took place in the years prior to election.

Housing Crisis Outlook In Mountain West Metros, 2023, Kian Parikh, Yiselle Olivas Ruiz, Ivan Sun, Olivia K. Cheche, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet presents 2023 data on housing market conditions in seven large metros across the five Mountain West states of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah. The Lending Tree report, “Portland, Ore., Has Worst Housing Crisis Outlook – Here’s Why,” includes data on the 100 largest metros in the U.S. This fact sheet focuses on housing crisis outlook data for Mountain West metros appearing among the largest 100 metros in the nation: Phoenix, AZ; Tucson, AZ; Colorado Springs, CO; Denver, CO; Las Vegas, NV; Albuquerque, NM; and Salt Lake City, UT.

Enhancing Client Intake Efficiency In The Removal Defense Program: A Nursing-Led Quality Improvement Initiative, Johnny Linares, Julia Tran Ngo, Daniel Orea, Atheana Yadira Lopez

Master's Projects and Capstones

This quality improvement project focuses on optimizing the intake process for the Removal Defense Program at a nonprofit immigration legal office serving asylum-seeking clients. The existing intake relied on unstructured, phone-call-based intake interviews that gathered incomplete information, leading to inconsistent documentation, reduced efficiency, and significant client processing delays. A structured, multilingual, and multiplatform new-client admission protocol coupled with the implementation of a client-facing resource guide for waitlist clients were co-developed and implemented using the Lippitt Change Theory framework. Utilizing a mixed methods approach, the study involved staff interviews and observational assessments with staff members from the program. Baseline intake process …

Centering Community Voice In Strategic Design: The Build Health Challenge Model, Melissa Monbouquette, Jessica Mulcahy

The Foundation Review

It is commonplace today for philanthropies to require grantee partners to have a community engagement strategy to ensure that the institution reflects the community that it serves. It is also incumbent on foundations to embrace the same intent. Alongside participatory practices, listening is an opportunity to level the power dynamics inherent to philanthropic practice.

The BUILD Health Challenge® (BUILD) is an innovative funder collaborative designed to support local cross-sector action to address the root cause of health inequities. Established in 2015, BUILD supports participants from across the U.S. to engage in partnerships including residents, community-based organizations, health departments, and health …

Leaning Into The Messiness Of Authentic Engagement: Fostering Reciprocity In Foundation Strategy, Learning, And Evaluation, Sonia Taddy-Sandino, Jennifer Ho, Kim Ammann Howard, Clare Nolan

The Foundation Review

Over the last several years, numerous foundations have endeavored to forge deeper relationships with grantees and challenge the status quo in strategy development and evaluation design. Encouraged by efforts such as the Trust-Based Philanthropy Project and the Equitable Evaluation Initiative, some funders are seeking to redefine how they engage grantees and field partners by navigating the nuances of power dynamics, mutual interests, and genuine collaboration. While there are encouraging signs of progress, there are also plenty of examples of foundation and nonprofit leaders getting stuck or reverting to the modus operandi. Competing agendas, the lack of sustained political will, and …

Front And Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Listening As An Adaptive Practice To Transform Philanthropy, Nitya Venkateswaran, Kate Szczerbacki, Jay Feldman

The Foundation Review

A growing number of grantmaking institutions (GMIs) recognize that listening to communities in which they invest—especially those to, and most affected by, the challenges being addressed—is crucial to achieve their equity goals. Despite investments and intent to listen, there is a gap in implementation.

Genuine listening for equity requires that foundation leaders view the shift as adaptive and not merely technical. A technical change entails adoption of specified methods whereas adaptive changes require a fundamental shift in values and beliefs. Solely implementing new “listening” techniques without shifting values and beliefs could leave gaps between intention and action. But current resources …

The Trouble With Community Engagement: From Power Sharing To Power Shifting Through The Community Bill Of Rights, Jessica Lee, Patrick Mcneal, Malikah Garner, Katya Fels Smyth, Tanya Tucker, Shemekka Stewart Isaacs, Jasmaine Shaphon Henry, Miranda Rabuck

The Foundation Review

Reflecting a growing consensus that meaningful change doesn’t come without the involvement of those most impacted, funders have signed on to efforts to “listen,” “get proximate,” and “empower.”

In this article, the authors draw on their lived expertise and research to describe how even well-intentioned community engagement efforts can become extractive, tokenizing, and undermine existing community assets. As a meaningful alternative, the authors suggest “centering community” as an orientation to all philanthropic work and the Community Bill of Rights (CBR) as a tool to guide the required change (Black et al., 2022).

Drawing on case examples from healthcare, urban planning, …

Funder Listening To Shift Power: Definitions And Context, Melinda Tuan, Rick Moyers, Gita Gulati-Partee

The Foundation Review

Listening in the context of philanthropy is a common colloquial term that can have many definitions, ranging from everyday conversations that inform foundation work to more formal opportunities for community engagement. Most foundations say they listen, but all forms of listening are not equally beneficial, and listening alone does not inherently advance equity. Listening, done poorly, can be performative and extractive. Listening well, in ways that advance equity, is done in partnership, requires a response from the listener to acknowledge what’s been heard and what will be done as a result, and ultimately shifts power to the community.

Fund for …

A New Opportunity For Funder-Nonprofit Partnership: Advancing Shared Listening Efforts To Learn From Community, Valerie Threlfall

The Foundation Review

Funders lack scalable tools and processes for advancing their community listening efforts. As foundations explore this work, there is an opportunity to leverage the nonprofit sector’s experience in listening and to partner more actively with grantees to learn from community.

Nonprofits have embraced community listening more rapidly than funders over the past 10 years. Over 40,000 organizations have affirmatively described their listening practices via How We Listen, a feedback self-assessment that is part of Candid and Charity Navigator’s nonprofit profiles, and approximately 1,400 organizations have participated in Listen4Good’s capacity-building programs. This momentum has enabled the development of tools such as …

Listening And Responding Lead To Better Outcomes: Building The Evidence Base For High-Quality Listening Practice, Penelope Huang

The Foundation Review

In 2019, Fund for Shared Insight made grants to six research teams to test the hypothesis that if direct-service organizations gain a deeper understanding of how well their programs are serving clients by listening and actively responding to client feedback, they can increase the likelihood of positive outcomes. This body of research explores the case for incorporating participant voice to improve program effectiveness.

As philanthropy seeks to become more responsive to the people and communities most impacted by their decisions, this research has important implications for philanthropic practice, including the selection of grantees, learning in partnership with grantees and community, …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Julia Coffman

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Tfr 17.2 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Community Engagement: A Core Practice On The Journey To Power Sharing, Elizabeth Jordan, Tryphena A. Clarke, Raquel R. Robinson

The Foundation Review

In this article, the authors posit that equity and power-sharing are foundational considerations for responsible philanthropy given the inherently unequal balance of wealth. These considerations may be magnified for family and place-based foundations where philanthropy has an outsized impact within a particular community.

Community engagement is a core practice tied to equity and power-sharing that can bring philanthropy into closer alignment with democratic and social equity values. This article examines the 15-year journey of a place-based family foundation as a reflection on how grantmaking organizations may shift their governance, giving priorities, staffing model, and operating practices to support the tenets …

Listening And Participation Prime Funders To Honor And Build Community Ownership, Gita Gulati-Partee, Katy Love

The Foundation Review

Funder listening is an essential complement to community participation to disrupt white dominant culture habits that entrench the status quo of hierarchy and power. Community-centered listening, combined with participatory processes, offers funders an opportunity to shift in deep and sustainable ways from an individualistic, “power over” orientation to interdependent relationships with community partners.

In this article, two practitioners of equity and participatory philanthropy share how funder listening and community participation form a potent combination to help funders confront their own power and use it intentionally to honor and bolster community ownership and agency.

Drawing on the authors’ direct experience, this …

Evaluating Efforts To Shift Power Through Listening: Defining Power And Listening To All Sides, Sarah Stachowiak, Juan Clavijo

The Foundation Review

There are a variety of ways funders and nonprofits are trying to shift the power dynamics between those who typically have held it (i.e., funders and organizations) to those who have unique and important expertise: those most affected by the problems the social sector is trying to solve.

In this article, we share lessons from two evaluations that sought to understand how those who were being listened to experienced the listening process, exploring the degree to which people felt heard and their experiences of how, and in what ways, power shifted for them. One evaluation focused on the experiences of …

2025 Legislative Update, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

The 2025 Nebraska state Unicameral dealt with major state budget challenges but also managed to enact four bills affecting Nebraska agriculture and holding three other bills over for possible action in the 2026 legislative session. Enacted legislation dealt with a ban on laboratory-grown meat, the merger of state natural resource and environmental agencies, amending the 2024 paid sick leave initiative, and establishing a School Financing Review Commission. Agricultural-related bills carried over to the 2026 legislative session include modifying cattle feedlot brand inspection fees, inheritance tax reductions, and modifying the 2022 minimum wage initiative.

New Building Permits In The Mountain West, 2024, Taylor Volk, Mohit Pande, Kristian Thymianos, Caitlin J. Saladino, William E. Brown Jr.

Housing & Real Estate

This fact sheet examines data on new build permits from January 2023 to January 2024 in the five Mountain West States of Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.“New Home Construction Statistics,” published by This Old House, reported percent changes on new builder permits and construction manufacturing costs and statistics across all 50 states.

The Startup Ecosystem In Southern Nevada: Growth, Energy, And Emerging Entrepreneurship In 2025, Len Jessup, Sean Curry

Policy Briefs and Reports

The startup ecosystem in Southern Nevada has undergone significant transformation during the past decade, evolving from a fragmented and nascent environment into a dynamic and increasingly coordinated landscape. This study examines the growth of the Southern Nevada startup ecosystem, analyzing key components such as funding sources, incubators, accelerators, and public-private collaborations. Utilizing both quantitative and qualitative data, including investment trends, economic impact reports, and interviews with over 100 stakeholders, this policy brief provides a comprehensive assessment of the strengths and gaps within the ecosystem. Key findings indicate that while the region has made substantial progress, particularly in fostering early-stage investments …

Ai Governance In The Gaming Industry: A Proposal For A Use Case Registry, Cesar D. Lozoya Martinez

Student Research

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly integrated into everyday life. From customer service chatbots and marketing strategies to player protection tools and surveillance systems, casino operations are embracing the trend. However, without a systematic framework to track the current and emerging use cases across the industry, concerns about transparency, ethical use, and potential consumer harm continue to grow. Rather than aiming to establish binding regulatory practices for an industry and technology that are both quickly evolving, this policy brief advocates for the creation of an AI-use case registry. The registry would comprehensively track gaming companies that are using AI. The growing …

Recent U.S. Government Policy Literature On Critical And Strategic Minerals, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Critical and strategic minerals have become increasingly important in U.S. government civilian and military policymaking in recent years. This is demonstrated by the heavy use of such minerals in many critical civilian and military infrastructures. This work will discuss how this subject has been addressed in laws, presidential documents, and works by government agencies along with congressional oversight committees and support agencies. It will stress how the United States is heavily dependent on strategic minerals from adversarial foreign countries such as China and will examine U.S. efforts to increase its ability to produce such materials in the United States by …

Are Community Philanthropic Organizations Planning For Climate Change?, Beth Gazley, Rachel Cash, Laurie Paarlberg

The Foundation Review

Although their role is sometimes overlooked, an Indiana statewide study confirms that most community foundations and United Way agencies directly contribute to meeting local disaster response needs.

Although half of all community foundations and United Ways report past service disruptions due to the more severe weather caused by climate change, the majority have not discussed the need to plan for disasters with their boards of directors to assure business continuity.

Community foundations lag behind United Ways and direct service nonprofits in risk mitigation, and their leaders are more likely to downplay the potential impacts of climate change on state residents. …

Front And Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Emergent Models Of Place-Based Philanthropy: A Review Of Six Foundations’ Initiatives, Douglas Easterling

The Foundation Review

Traditional approaches to place-based philanthropy, including comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs), are characterized by four design features: 1) a centralized stakeholder group that serves as the primary nexus for the foundation’s engagement; 2) an extensive planning process on the front end; 3) the planning group’s initial strategy serves as the basis for the foundation’s investments throughout the initiative; and 4) foundation staff play a largely transactional role in reviewing proposals, awarding grants and monitoring progress. This linear, structured approach to community change has had only limited success over 30 years of foundation practice.

In response, a growing number of foundations have …

Strengthening Evaluation Contracting Partnerships: Fostering Stronger Relationships Between Funders And Small, Proximate Evaluation Firms, Hippolyt Pul, Carlisle Levine

The Foundation Review

Foundations often support initiatives in multiple countries and cultures, including within the United States, with limited access to or familiarity with the people and local contexts in which activities occur. To gain a deep and nuanced understanding of their investments’ relevance, effectiveness, and sustainability, foundations are often eager to partner with evaluators close to the contexts and people who participate in and are most affected by their investments.

Yet, foundations’ procurement and contracting systems may not be built for these partnerships. Through the Strengthening Evaluation Contracting Partnerships Initiative, we are addressing this challenge by helping foundations, small and proximate evaluation …

Editorial, Julia Coffman

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Engaging Youth In Philanthropic Practice: Field-Building Strategies And The Promise Of Youth-Possible Philanthropy™, Kimberlin D. Butler

The Foundation Review

Traditional philanthropy has largely been top-down, with communities — including youth — having limited decision-making power. Despite philanthropy’s recent shift toward participatory approaches, young people in these historically excluded communities are often ignored as contributors to philanthropic strategy.

Youth-Possible Philanthropy™ (YPP) offers a new, emerging theoretical framework that proposes to shift this dynamic by positioning youth as co-creators and possibility catalysts in philanthropic governance and strategy. YPP is grounded in possibility development, participatory approaches, and trust-based philanthropy.

The article provides strategies for operationalizing YPP. Case examples illustrate how YPP can foster authentic power-sharing and bridge gaps in philanthropic practice.

Tfr 17.1 Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Disrupting Foundation Culture: Lessons In Learning To Share Power And Decision-Making, Sonia Caus Gleason, Tina Eshaghpour

The Foundation Review

There is much discussion of shifting organizational culture in philanthropies to share power and decision-making. However, examples of foundation learning endeavors to disrupt culture in service of systems change, racial equity, and responsiveness are less common.

Our article provides a window into the demanding work at The California Wellness Foundation and how internal collaboration and learning have led to progress in racial equity and power-sharing with communities. We focus on the introduction of Learning Labs, an action research model that framed and scaffolded the investigation of philanthropic terms and practices. This catalyzed collaborative decision-making within cross-functional teams while senior leaders …