Foundation Strategy for Social Impact: A System Change Perspective (original) (raw)

Philanthropy and Social Impact: A NPF Mini-Symposium

Nonprofit Policy Forum

Over the last generation, there has been an evolution in philanthropy with an emphasis on strategies for achieving greater impact. Over the same period, there has been a focus on the intergenerational transfer of wealth, what it might portend for philanthropy, and the implications for the nonprofit sector and more generally society. Ultimately, the future of philanthropy and the sector will be determinednot by the transfer of wealth itselfbut by the dollars that find their way into philanthropy, and the strategies that are pursued to leverage them. 1 Despite this growth in philanthropy, the pace of scholarship focused on philanthropy and its social impact has not kept pace. To call attention to this deficit and to highlight the opportunities for examining emerging trends in philanthropy, The Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy hosted a research symposium in March 2019. Its purpose was to explore our understanding of the role of philanthropy in creating and scaling social impact by taking stock of intellectual developments and research contributions at the intersection of philanthropy, nonprofits, and social innovation, and to assess the most promising avenues for future work.

Leveraging Nonprofit and Voluntary Action Research to Inform Public Policy

Policy Studies Journal, 2016

The field of nonprofit and voluntary action (NVA) studies in the United States originates in the 1970s and has since grown to encompass multiple scholarly associations around the world and graduate degree programs producing faculty with NVA as their primary scholarly focus. This article introduces readers to the NVA field by describing the development of the field, its scholarly associations and publication venues, and education programs. The second section discusses three areas of foundational research: why nonprofit organizations exist, why people give, and nonprofit relations with government. Each of these areas can be drawn upon by public policy scholars to more fully understand how individuals and nonprofit organizations participate in the policy process. The final section identifies three nexuses with policy process: policy design, advocacy, and the role of foundations. These are three areas that have significant potential for research collaborations to connect NVA with policy process literature.

Editor’s Introduction: Highlighting Strategies of the Nonprofit Sector

Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, 2021

In this new issue of Journal of Public and Nonprofit Affairs, we offer a collection of Research Articles focused on the nature and implications of nonprofit higher education programs, the communication strategies and evidence-based information used by different types of organizations in the nonprofit sector, and the volunteering behaviors of nonprofit association members. Our Social Equity Section article highlights the important issue of re-entry and reintegration programs for ex-offenders to reduce recidivism and provide greater access to opportunity. Finally, we offer two Book Reviews related to these topics of important recent work focusing on higher education programs in public administration and advancing social equity.

State of Nonprofits Annual Report: 2013

2013

Housed within the Institute for Nonprofit Education and Research at the School of Leadership and Education Sciences at the University of San Diego, the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit and Philanthropic Research studies issues of strategic importance to the nonprofit sector, with the goal of identifying and advancing best practices in nonprofit research and evaluation metrics. The Caster Center offers resources and products that are grounded in systematic research and have direct applicability to the field. We work in collaboration, and under contract, with nonprofits and philanthropic organizations on a wide range of projects, including needs assessment, program evaluation, theory of change or logic model development, grantmaking impact reports, and board development. We regularly analyze funding, public policy, and environmental trends affecting the nonprofit sector, and publish data about public charities and foundations in California. The Caster Center also serves as an important training facility that enables doctoral students to engage in a variety of nonprofit sector research projects.

Philanthropy's Civic Role in Community Change

The Foundation Review, 2009

Comprehensive community initiatives (CCIs) require a large number of institutional actors to work together on behalf of a neighborhood. The range of civic, social, economic, and physical development outcomes that CCIs seek cannot be achieved without collaboration and partnership. The CCIs of the 1990s taught us that although high-quality programmatic interventions are necessary for positive community change, attending to the nonprogrammatic dimensions of community change-especially individual and institutional capacities, roles, and relationships-is also an essential part of the process. In fact, weak implementation capacity and ineffective management have been found to undermine many otherwise promising initiatives whose community-level activities may have been well-theorized, welldesigned, and well-planned (Brown & Fiester, 2007; Kubisch et al., 2002; Potapchuk & Kopell, 2005). As the field has matured, it has become clear that creating effective working relationships among neighborhood organizations and then be

Nonprofits within policy fields

Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 2010

Arguably, nonprofit organizations are more prominent in public policy and the delivery of public services than ever before, despite the current economic crisis. State and local governments contract with thousands of nonprofit agencies to provide valued public services. Community service programs such as AmeriCorps and VISTA help support countless nonprofit and public agencies. The Obama Administration has consistently supported community organizations, voluntarism, and community service, and the administration's new Office of Social Innovation is likely to champion nonprofit organizations and their potential to offer creative and effective solutions to social problems. In recognition of the prominent role of nonprofit organizations in the delivery of public services, JPAM has organized a symposium on the government-nonprofit relationship. Importantly, this symposium differs from previous symposia in the Professional Practice series. With the support and encouragement of the outgoing