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Civic and Community Engagement Commons™
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Articles 1 - 11 of 11
Full-Text Articles in Civic and Community Engagement
Preface, Jenna Toplin
Preface, Jenna Toplin
New England Journal of Public Policy
The preface of this journal speaks about the history of the Boston-Haifa Learning Exchange Network and how as teachers and learners, LEN members continue their learning and reflection in these pages. Their stories bring a diverse collection of voices, experiences, and perspectives and capture a shared vision of creating lasting, systemic change and bettering the communities in which we live.
Lessons From The Field, Mary Nee
Lessons From The Field, Mary Nee
New England Journal of Public Policy
Organizational growth can fundamentally undermine the social-change mission of a nonprofit organization if the adaptive responses to growth are not continually checked against mission and vision. As the executive director of a U.S. nonprofit created in response to the crisis of homelessness, I have observed that this danger is particularly acute when an organization evolves from advocacy to service delivery.
Nonprofit Leadership. Introduction: Miracle Workers At The Helm. New Ways Of Exercising Leadership, Kristen Mccormack
Nonprofit Leadership. Introduction: Miracle Workers At The Helm. New Ways Of Exercising Leadership, Kristen Mccormack
New England Journal of Public Policy
Leading a nonprofit organization in today’s world requires nothing less than a miracle worker at the helm. That could be the conclusion one might draw from reading the literature on the traits, skills, and characteristics required to lead a nonprofit organization. Today’s leaders should be honest, competent, forward looking, and inspiring as well as intelligent, fair-minded, broad-minded, courageous, straightforward, and imaginative. Leaders should be of high integrity, dedicated, magnanimous, humble, open, and creative while energizing others. Able to cope with change, leaders must establish direction, align people, motivate, and inspire while effectively communicating their story. He or she must be …
Challenges For Nonprofit Organizations. Introduction: A Theoretical Framework. Civil Society And Challenges Faced By Nonprofits, Amnon Reichman
Challenges For Nonprofit Organizations. Introduction: A Theoretical Framework. Civil Society And Challenges Faced By Nonprofits, Amnon Reichman
New England Journal of Public Policy
This introduction will tackle two issues. The first is theoretical: a framework will be proposed with which to approach the activity of nonprofit organizations within civil society in modern democracies. Whereas the traditional approach posits three sectors in a triangular setting (the top corner occupied by the government, the bottom-right corner occupied by the market, and the bottom left corner by the “third sector”), a better conceptualization defines civil society as a social space between the state (located above) and the individual or the private sphere (located below). This space is where for-profit organizations (usually clustered in one side of …
Management For Growth, Michal Dagan
Management For Growth, Michal Dagan
New England Journal of Public Policy
This article describes the Haifa organization and dealing with a missle crisis. This also deals with how the center took charge of a dire situation and helped many victims of the missle attacks. It talks about the work the organizers had done and the social impact of the organization.
A Story Of Collaboration: Haifa Council Of Volunteer Organizations And Shatil, Hagit Sachar
A Story Of Collaboration: Haifa Council Of Volunteer Organizations And Shatil, Hagit Sachar
New England Journal of Public Policy
The present essay tells the story of a partnership between two organizations: the Haifa Council of Volunteer Organizations (CVO) and the Haifa branch of Shatil (The New Israel Fund’s Empowerment and Training Center for Social Change Organizations in Israel). They have cooperated for many years and, in the last two years, have further tightened their partnership. The first part of this essay presents a theoretical framework that serves as a basis for the case study discussed in the second part. The summary offers a number of open ended questions for further consideration and research.
Concluding Synthesis: Lessons Learned. A Complex Web: A Collective Process To Advance Social Justice, Donna Haig Friedman, Jennifer Cohen, Amnon Reichman, James Morgan
Concluding Synthesis: Lessons Learned. A Complex Web: A Collective Process To Advance Social Justice, Donna Haig Friedman, Jennifer Cohen, Amnon Reichman, James Morgan
New England Journal of Public Policy
In Blessed Unrest, referenced by the opening quotation and several essay authors, Paul Hawken uses the metaphor of the immune system to describe the connectivity of organizations and activists across the world fiercely working to realize local and global social, economic, political, and environmental justice. Just as the invisible but interconnected parts of the body’s immune system jump into concerted action to restore health to an ill body, this social-change movement is organizing from the bottom up and emerging as an extraordinary and creative expression of people’s unstoppable need to reimagine their relationships to the environment and to one another. …
Service And/Or Advocacy: Nonprofit Sector In The Twenty-First Century, Nancy K. Kaufman
Service And/Or Advocacy: Nonprofit Sector In The Twenty-First Century, Nancy K. Kaufman
New England Journal of Public Policy
In both Israel and the United States over the past twenty years, there has been an explosion in the number of nonprofit organizations that live in a space somewhere between government agencies and for-profit companies. While the growth of these organizations may have been stimulated by different factors in each country, there is much to be learned through a cross-cultural exchange like the one between organizations in Haifa and in Boston. In order to analyze some of the challenges facing nonprofit organizations across a wide spectrum of mission, purpose, and size, I have categorized the type of organizations being discussed …
Nonprofits And Social Change. Introduction: An Anchor. Reshaping The Relationship, Jennifer Cohen
Nonprofits And Social Change. Introduction: An Anchor. Reshaping The Relationship, Jennifer Cohen
New England Journal of Public Policy
In response to a variety of internal and external forces, including the recent economic downturn, nonprofit organizations in both Israel and the United States have increasingly been called upon to provide a safety net and serve as central players in the development, strengthening, and maintenance of civil society. These shifts include the privatization of services, blurring of the sectors and their traditional roles in providing services, reduced funding from traditional sources, welfare reforms including devolution, opening of new markets, enhanced role of faith-based people and organizations in service provision, intensified dependency and connectedness of policy makers and stakeholders, and the …
Joining Forces In Boston: Community Development Corporations, Carl Nagy-Koechlin
Joining Forces In Boston: Community Development Corporations, Carl Nagy-Koechlin
New England Journal of Public Policy
In 2005, the Jewish Community Relations Council organized a Learning Exchange in which a group of Boston antipoverty leaders traveled to Israel with the goal of fostering cross-fertilization between the Boston delegation and their counterparts in Haifa. The Exchange achieved that goal remarkably. At the time, I was the director of a Boston-based community development corporation (CDC) that faced challenges related to rapid neighborhood change, and my experience spurred me to seek out opportunities for cross-fertilization and collaboration within greater Boston of the type we experienced in Haifa. Specifically, I brought colleagues together to share our experiences leading CDCs in …
Adaptive Capacity And Social Change. Introduction: A Conceptual Framework. Organizational Learning And Long-Term Stability, Nancy Strichman, Fathi Marshood
Adaptive Capacity And Social Change. Introduction: A Conceptual Framework. Organizational Learning And Long-Term Stability, Nancy Strichman, Fathi Marshood
New England Journal of Public Policy
If there is one kind of certainty for social-change nonprofits such as those participating in the Haifa–Boston Learning Exchange, it is that they will continually be challenged to cope with periods of instability and possible crises. The ability to adapt to changing environments, learn from experience, and perform in conditions of uncertainty are considered critical tools for organizations in order to ensure sustainability. Developing this “adaptive capacity” is a particular challenge for nonprofits at the start-up or growth phase of their organizational development, as are many of the Haifa–Boston Learning Exchange participants. This discussion presents a conceptual framework for adaptive …