Public Policy Commons^™

Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Splendid Legacy 2: Creating And Re-Creating Your Family Foundation, Ashley Blanchard

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Michael Moody

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Leading With Values: Grants Management And The Case For More Consistent, Effective Grantmaking Practices, Elizabeth Myrick, Nikki Powell, Tonia Bain

The Foundation Review

This article identifies and explores a set of philanthropic priorities and aspirations that are widely shared by grantmakers today, and examines how the notion of shared values might inspire a fieldwide pursuit of more consistent, effective, values-driven grantmaking practices.

To study the relationship between grantmaker values and grantmaking practices, a survey of more than 300 organization members of PEAK Grantmaking, a national association of specialists in grants management, asked how the respondent foundations’ values influence their work. The results of the survey not only provided an overview of common values, but also captured reports from grantmakers on how their organizations …

Unplanned Donor Legacies: How To Avoid Them, And How One Family Foundation Corrected Course With An Evaluation, Saphira Maude Baker, Kelly Chopus, Casey Cox, Anita Mcginty

The Foundation Review

As funders turn to community change, intentionally addressing the unique power differential between funder and grantee partners and structuring ways to mitigate this imbalance is essential to honest communication. Funder relationships with their grantees impact the legacy of major community initiatives. This article explores this relationship and its effects through the lens of the recent evaluation of one family foundation — the Robins Foundation in Richmond, Virginia — and its follow-up actions.

Through a participatory evaluation process, we derived three principal approaches for this donor, and others, to consider in contemplating funder-grantee partnerships and the way these may influence the …

A Visionary Organization: From Donor Intent To New Horizons Of Race And Gender Equity, Carolyn Chernoff, V Varun Chaudhry

The Foundation Review

This article documents the unique trajectory of the Leeway Foundation and its transition from sole-director family foundation to an independent foundation. Over 25 years, Leeway shifted in structure and grantmaking, yet has remained in line with its founder’s original mission: to fund women artists in the Philadelphia region.

This article focuses on the shift from the founder’s initial intentions to what is now an organization informed by models of racial and gender equity, funding women, trans, and gender nonconforming artists working for social change. Leeway thus serves as a case study for examining transformational shifts in mission, vision, and constituency …

From Charitable Giving To Strategic Impact: The Fremont Area Community Foundation, Carla A. Roberts

The Foundation Review

In 2011, the Fremont Area Community Foundation launched a community investment strategy, focused on education, poverty, and economic development, that shaped corresponding aspirational goals aimed at improving the quality of life for residents of rural Newaygo County, Mich.

While there had been significant community involvement and input into foundation planning for a number of years, the announcement of these strategic goals and their implementation created some apprehension among the local nonprofits. The new funding paradigms were a big change, and it took several years for many of the grantees, with assistance in the form of backbone services and tools to …

Bringing Legacy To Life: How Video Storytelling Inspires Multigenerational Involvement In Family Philanthropy, Kelly C. Medinger, Debbie M. Brodsky

The Foundation Review

Most family foundations go through some sort of process to define donor intent and formalize their values, whether at the beginning of their life span or after their founders’ passing. Video is a powerful tool in that process, vividly bringing stories to life for family members, older and younger alike. So how can video help foundations capture the important story of their donor intent and legacy, and use it to inspire future involvement in their mission?

With the experience of the Marion I. & Henry J. Knott Foundation serving as the backdrop, this article examines how a donor legacy video …

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Teri Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Less Is More: How Grantmakers Are Using Simple Financial Metrics, Hilda H. Polanco, Luther K. Snow

The Foundation Review

This article explores how the Financial Health Analysis Tool can bridge the gap between the capacity of grantmakers to conduct financial analysis and the need to incorporate financial considerations into both grantmaking and ongoing engagement with grantees.

The tool presents four years of key financial indicators in graphs and charts that create a kind of dashboard of a nonprofit's financial health over time. This small set of simple metrics highlights patterns and trends that can help grantmakers and nonprofits see how the financial management of an organization is advancing its mission and strategy.

Using a series of interviews with a …

Resilient Funders: How Funders Are Adapting To The Closing Space For Civil Society, Chris Allan, A. Scott Dupree

The Foundation Review

The closing space of civil society around the world over the last decades has created profound challenges for funders. Many analyses of how to respond to this reality focus on advocacy and promoting enabling policy environments. Few consider key practices of resilient funders that enable them to continue to operate under shifting political circumstances.

Increased adaptive capacity along three dimensions – varied procedures, multiple strategies, and an adaptive environment – promotes the flexibility to weather the shocks and stresses of tightening restrictions and increasing violence. Within those dimensions, funders are finding that three characteristics of resilience are especially critical: flexibility; …

Executive Summary

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Cricket Island Foundation: A Case Study Of A Small Foundation’S Impact Assessment, Anna Pond, Seema Shah, Elizabeth Sak

The Foundation Review

In 2015, the Cricket Island Foundation conducted a multimethod assessment of its grantmaking portfolio to examine its impact and inform future decision-making and strategy. The foundation, which supports youth-led social change using a cohort-based model, focuses on emerging and medium-sized organizations and provides capacity-building supports to help organizations achieve greater organizational sustainability.

The assessment focused on two of the foundation's three cohorts and found positive trends in five key areas of desired impact: organizational capacity, youth leadership, nonprofit executive leadership, grantee collaboration and learning, and funder policy and practice. The assessment also identified areas for improvement to strengthen future impact, …

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Unpacking The Role Of Data In Philanthropy: Prospects For An Integrated Framework, R. Patrick Bixler, Marisa Zappone, Lin Rui Li, Samer Atshan

The Foundation Review

This article reports qualitative research that explores the role of data in philanthropy and proposes an integrated framework. Interviews with charitable foundations in central Texas, including members of a regional evaluation and learning collaborative, reveal an orientation toward data that is becoming increasingly institutionalized.

The research suggests that data are generated and used in a multiplicity of ways, including identifying populations and geographies in need of investment, informing funding decisions for service delivery as well as policy research and advocacy; evaluation and learning; and measuring community impact.

This article discusses these thematic findings, notes specific practices, and presents six principles …

Developmental Evaluation Of A Collective Impact Initiative: Insights For Foundations, Glenn Landers, Kelci Price, Karen Minyard

The Foundation Review

The 2011 publication of John Kania and Mark Kramer’s influential paper, "Collective Impact," caught the attention of organizations across sectors, including nonprofit organizations and philanthropies. The Colorado Health Foundation was one of the organizations that saw the potential of collective impact to help tackle the state's complex, systems-level health issues.

This article describes a collective impact initiative and the role that developmental evaluation – and a realist framework – played in aiding both the initiative’s steering committee and the Colorado Health Foundation in making decisions about the initiative's accomplishments and future.

The article highlights the developmental evaluation approach, how that …

Partner-Centered Evaluation Capacity Building: Findings From A Corporate Social Impact Initiative, Lisa Frantzen, Julie Solomon, Laura Hollod

The Foundation Review

Funders can play a proactive role in helping to fill the gap between funders’ expectations and nonprofits’ ability to evaluate grant results. Using a partner-centered design, Johnson & Johnson piloted an evaluation capacity-building initiative that supported eight grantees in strengthening their ability to measure and use findings concerning health-related outcomes, by focusing on key evaluation challenges identified by the grantees.

Grantees’ approaches to capacity building naturally grouped around the areas of evaluation- framework development, data-systems strengthening, and staff training. Through individualized projects, grantees increased their ability to both do and use evaluation.

This article describes the design, implementation, and results …

Learning From The Opportunities And Challenges Of A Philanthropy-Private Sector Partnership, Victoria C. Scott, Andrea Lamont, Abraham Wandersman, Leslie Snapper, Mona Shah, Erik Eaker

The Foundation Review

Cross-sector partnerships are essential for addressing such complex social issues as improving population health. Among such partnerships, a philanthropy-private sector partnership is rare in practice; they may seem incompatible due to differences in their missions and cultures. However, these collaborations can yield positive returns for philanthropy organizations and businesses, as well as the broader community.

This article draws upon an evaluation of a partnership between the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Humana Inc. to highlight key insights for forming and implementing a formal partnership between a philanthropy organization and an investor-owned business.

Establishing and maintaining a philanthropy-private sector partnership is …

Back Matter

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 …

Full Issue

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

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 …

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 …

Front Matter

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Editorial, Teri Behrens

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

Executive Summaries

The Foundation Review

No abstract provided.

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 …