PhilanTopic

How Are Foundations Tackling the Global Water Crisis?

(Seema Shah is director of research for special projects at the Foundation Center. She can be reached at sms@foundationcenter.org.)

It's World Water Day. And for those of us lucky enough to be able to take clean drinking water for granted, the numbers can be difficult to wrap our heads around. Nearly one billion people globally do not have access to safe water and more than two billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. The implications for the physical, economic, and educational well-being of communities, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa and Asia, are far-reaching. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asserted during last year's World Water Day events, "The water crisis is a health crisis, it's a farming crisis, it's an economic crisis, it's a climate crisis, and increasingly, it is a political crisis."

Given the scope and scale of the crisis, what are foundations doing to address the situation?

A year ago, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, which has a twenty-year history of supporting safe water initiatives, awarded a grant to the Foundation Center to create a Web portal that would serve as a data and information hub for grantmakers working on water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) issues.

Launched in October, the portal, WASHfunders.org, seeks to promote greater coordination among established WASH funders, while also serving as a resource for new funders in the sector. The centerpiece of the site is a robust mapping tool that helps funders minimize duplication of effort by identifying other foundations that are working on similar issue areas or in the same geographic region. Funders visiting the site also are able to share lessons learned through case studies that highlight both challenges and successes in the WASH arena. And they can access the latest WASH-related research, aggregated in one place. All these resources are designed to help funders work more efficiently and effectively, allowing them to maximize the impact of their grant dollars. (In fact, the portal has become a model for funders working in other issue areas, as they seek to become more strategic and use data-driven decision making and peer-to-peer insights to strengthen their grantmaking.)

In conjunction with its work on WASHfunders.org and this week's World Water Day events, the Foundation Center has released a new research brief that summarizes foundation investments in water, sanitation, and hygiene. Among other things, our findings show that support for WASH issues has been on the rise since 2003. Between 2003 and 2010, the number of funders making WASH-related grants jumped from 24 to 78, and that growth was accompanied by a nearly five-fold increase in the number of organizations receiving grants. In 2009-2010, U.S. foundation funding for WASH issues totaled $144 million, up from $11 million in 2003-2004. At the same time, WASH funding, having grown from 0.2 percent in 2003 to 1.7 percent in 2010, remains a very modest portion of international giving by U.S. foundations overall.

The research brief also highlights the top funders of WASH initiatives. Among private foundations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation continues to be the largest funder of WASH programs, with the foundation's grantmaking comprising half of all WASH funding in 2009-2010. Among corporate foundations, the PepsiCo Foundation leads the way, awarding grants of more than $12 million in 2009-2010.

Philanthropic investments to address safe water, adequate sanitation, and hygiene education are poised to increase in the coming years, with several foundations, including the Margaret Cargill Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Skoll Global Threats Fund, beginning to develop strategic initiatives focused on WASH issues.

Indeed, although the number of people lacking access to safe water and adequate sanitation is far too high, we are beginning to see evidence that the collective efforts of foundations, governments, and NGOs are making a difference. In fact, just last week UNICEF and WHO announced that the Millennium Development Goal for water had been met, the first of the MDG targets to be achieved.

For more data on foundation support for WASH issues, see the full research brief here. And feel free to use the comments section below to share how your organization is observing World Water Day.

-- Seema Shah

This Week in PubHub: Affordable Housing

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at four reports that explore the role played by the arts and culture in our civic life, community economic development, and sense of place.)

The collapse of the housing bubble and the ensuing recession have affected renters as well as homeowners, with the supply of affordable housing shrinking even as incomes have fallen. This week in PubHub we're featuring four reports that examine the impact of the Great Recession on rental housing and what philanthropic institutions are doing to address the crisis.

According to Rental Market Stresses: Impacts of the Great Recession on Affordability and Multifamily Lending (69 pages, PDF), a report from the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University, the proportion of renters paying more than 30 percent of their incomes to cover "gross" rent (rent plus tenant-paid utilities) increased from 41.2 percent in 2001 to 48.7 percent in 2009, mostly due to falling real incomes and rising rents and energy costs. Moreover, as of 2009 only sixty-four affordable rental units were available per hundred low-income renters. And making matters worse, loan delinquencies among multi-family rental property owners also were up. Funded by the Annie E. Casey, Ford, MacArthur, Kresge, Rockefeller, and Surdna foundations, the report notes that a major risk for financially stressed renters is deteriorating housing quality due to lack of maintenance and investment.

In New York City, the share of multi-family properties in physical and/or financial distress increased from 3.3 percent in late 2009 to 5.5 percent in early 2011, a report from the University Neighborhood Housing Program finds. Based on UNHP's Building Indicator Project database, New York City's Multifamily Housing in Distress (39 pages, PDF) examines demographic trends and levels of distress among multi-family properties in the Bronx as measured (in part) by the disconnect between sales prices and net operating income. Funded by the Charles H. Revson Foundation and Enterprise Community Partners, the report calls for policy reforms to include such data in evaluations of loan quality and in banks' responses to distressed properties in their portfolios.

What is philanthropy's role in addressing the affordable housing issue? Based on interviews with foundation leaders, The Potential for Public-Private Partnerships: Philanthropic Leaders Considering Housing as a Platform (49 pages, PDF), a report from the What Works Collaborative (whose partners include the Brookings Institution, the Furman Center for Real Estate and Urban Policy at New York University, the Urban Institute, and the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard University), found little consensus on theoretical models for and approaches to supporting housing as a platform for programs and services designed to improve quality of life. Funders also expressed concerns about forming public-private partnerships with government agencies, citing the need to maintain their independence and grantmaking priorities, and emphasized the potential of targeted collaborations. A case study of a partnership to develop a ten-year community plan to end homelessness in the Minneapolis area highlights a number of accomplishments, including doubled prevention efforts, a street outreach system in collaboration with the local police department, and new housing opportunities for low-income families, as well as lessons learned.

What about supporting affordable homeownership through shared equity programs? Balancing Affordability and Opportunity: An Evaluation of Affordable Homeownership Programs With Long-Term Affordability Controls (41 pages, PDF), a report from the Urban Institute and NCB Capital Impact, examined the outcomes of seven programs that enable low-income families to purchase homes at below-market prices with resale restrictions and found that they succeeded in helping families accumulate assets while also creating a sustainable supply of affordable housing. The report also found that very few "shared equity" homeowners in the programs ended up being foreclosed on and that a large majority were still homeowners five years later, with two-thirds of those who resold their homes moving into owner-occupied market-rate housing. Funded by the Ford and Surdna foundations, the report suggests that shared equity programs could play an important role in advancing sustainable homeownership for lower-income families.

What are your thoughts on the philanthropic and policy responses to the shortage of affordable housing in the U.S.? Are you aware of any programs or successful public-private partnerships that have worked to boost the supply of affordable housing, especially for low- to moderate-income home buyers? Feel free to share your comments below.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse more than seven hundred reports about community improvement/development and nearly a hundred specifically related to affordable housing.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Spotlight on Economic Development Grantmaking in Ohio: An Update

(This post originally appeared on the Philanthropy Front and Center - Cleveland blog.)

Three years ago, we spotlighted key facts about economic development grantmaking in Ohio. Earlier this month, we released an update to the original report (Spotlight on Economic Development Grantmaking in Ohio, 2011) which found that grant dollars for economic development increased from $24.5 million in 2005 to $62 million in 2008, a 152 percent increase. As a share of total giving in Ohio, economic development grants doubled, from 7 percent to 14 percent.

Giving to two major subcategories, employment and training services and urban development, accounted for nearly three-quarters of all giving for economic development in Ohio. A significant increase in giving for employment training and services can be attributed to a major gift of $20 million from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to the University of Akron Foundation's Austen BioInnovation Institute; the gift is expected to create 2,100 jobs.

The report also identified the top ten foundations awarding grants in Ohio for economic development as well as the top 10 recipients of economic development.

A special area of the Foundation Center's Web site provides access to the report, free online resources including an interactive map of economic development grants in Ohio, a video highlighting the report's findings (see below), audio and video recordings of local leaders in the field talking about Ohio's funding landscape, and links to other published reports.

To read or download the report (2 pages, PDF), click here.

The report and web page were funded in part by the Cleveland Foundation, the Generation Foundation, the George Gund Foundation, and the Burton D. Morgan Foundation.

Philanthropy and...Job Creation

Whether you interpret the jobs report that was released Friday by the Labor Department as promising or disappointing, the fact remains that the country is still mired in a joblessness crisis, with an unemployment rate of close to 9 percent. Amidst the talk of how the job market is faring in the business community, nonprofits in the U.S. are quietly creating jobs by cultivating entrepreneurship, ensuring that new jobs are both environmentally sound and pay a living wage, testing (and proving) the viability of worker-owned businesses, and advocating for the necessity of subsidized employment programs.

The Foundation Center and IssueLab joined together to interview six nonprofit and foundation leaders working on the urgent issue of job creation. Learn more about their unique perspectives on the issue and what they think is missing from the national discourse.

Links:

• Related Research in IssueLab
• Related Research in Pub Hub
• Related News from PND
• Related Grants

_____________________________________________________________________________

Dane Stangler
Research Director
Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

The Kauffman Foundation's Approach:
Support and develop programs that make entrepreneurship a more viable option and commission research measuring the impact of entrepreneurs in the United States and the global economy.

Q: What's missing from the discourse?

A: "We've come a long way, but we still have a long way to go. One reason for that is that policy makers often frame private sector job creation exclusively in terms of the size of businesses. Research increasingly shows, however, that the age of businesses is much more important in terms of net new job creation. Young firms — particularly those that grow — are the most essential piece of job creation in this country. Researchers at the Census Bureau have done an outstanding job of sorting data on firm creation and job creation by age. This has contributed to precision in terms of understanding data but also illuminated larger questions about the nature of entrepreneurship. We are only at the beginning of understanding this phenomenon, which is critical to economic growth."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Ted Howard
Executive Director
Senior Fellow for Social Justice at the Cleveland Foundation
Democracy Collaborative, University of MD College Park

Democracy Collaborative's Approach:
Work with the Cleveland Foundation to create worker-owned cooperative businesses that build longer-term wealth for residents of low- and moderate-income communities.

Q: What's missing from the discourse?

A: "At the federal level the discourse is feeble....We are in a situation where if we don't watch out as a country these eight million jobs that we lost are going to be lost for good. This 9 percent employment is going to become the new norm.

"We have systemic problems in this country that are going to require something other than tinkering at the margins....The issue of job creation and local economic development is not just an economic issue but is a very fundamental issue about the future of our democracy. A lot of democratic theorists agree that the future of a democratic state becomes deeply imperiled when you have tens of millions of people frozen out of the system and that's what we've got. It's a very serious situation, and so we have got to try new approaches to not only create jobs but also to create wealth."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Joanne G. Walz
Community Philanthropy Officer, Promoting Economic Vitality
Minneapolis Foundation

The Minneapolis Foundation's Approach:
Fund with an equity lens, supporting initiatives that address barriers for employment for African Americans, women and refugees, and bringing the public and private sectors together to align funding efforts.

Q: What's missing from the discourse?

A: "I haven't seen evidence of the level of creativity and innovative thinking needed to make changes as rapidly as warranted. Unless we can get some synergy with the changes in education in terms of higher education and postsecondary options and begin to blend that with internship options and mentorship programs from not just big business but middle-size businesses and little businesses and entrepreneurs, especially in our more diverse communities, we're not going to adapt as quickly as we need to.

"There's a significant opportunity with the retirement of the baby boomers. We haven't done enough to create strategies to transfer knowledge and empowerment from baby boomers to the younger generation, who are going to take the hit and the responsibility of moving forward. So the national discourse has helped, but we really need to speed it up and get it on multiple tracks in order to make the changes we need."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Sarah Shanley Hope
Director of Strategic Growth
Green for All

Green for All's Approach:
Employ a bold strategy that leverages public dollars, attracts private investment, and mobilizes civil society to create an inclusive green economy in which everyone has access to opportunity and the earth is sustained.

Q: What's missing from the discourse?

A: "What's missing is the immediacy. There is no question that we must take a long view — focusing on good jobs and a healthy environment for all — but the immediate, deep crisis afflicting Americans seems to be lost. Even with a righteous mission, if you're not talking about job creation today and relieving the crisis facing poor and working families, it's hard to get people engaged on your agenda. Looking at want ads is more urgent to folks than e-mailing members of Congress."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Sharon Alpert
Senior Director, Programs and Strategy and
Program Director, Sustainable Environments
Surdna Foundation

Surdna's Approach:
Support the development of a new energy economy by funding national, state, and local policies and projects that are creating jobs in the energy efficiency, manufacturing, and transportation sectors and playing a bridge-building role between those places of innovation and national policymakers.

Q: What's missing from the discourse?

A: "The national discourse around the green energy economy has focused a lot on renewables and less on energy efficiency until recently. We think energy efficiency is a key area because it's ready to go -- the jobs can be created today and can begin to help businesses and homeowners and consumers immediately reap the savings of a more energy efficient home or a more energy efficient place of business. The savings goes back into the economy, but more importantly, it is one way we can create champions for the new energy economy. We're very interested in having a better national conversation about the mismatch between skills and current job openings out there for the Americans that are out of work. I'm heartened when I hear the national discourse look at the jobs that can be created in a new energy economy and in infrastructure investments, in particular. I get disheartened when I hear that the jobs are not out there or that they are not 'new jobs', which really misses the point. There is plenty of evidence to point to across the states -– from Massachusetts to Ohio to California –- of new economic value and real jobs and new businesses being created in the new energy economy."

_____________________________________________________________________________

Amy Rynell
Director
National Transitional Jobs Network and Social IMPACT Research Center

The National Transitional Jobs Network's Approach:
Ensure that publicly supported job-creation programs serve those that need them most by advocating for strategies that help the hardest to employ; document and evaluate these job-creation efforts.

Q: What's missing from the discourse?

A: "The large gap between available jobs and people in need of work requires continued discussion about the role of subsidized employment programs to support disadvantaged workers and struggling businesses through the recovery. There is widespread agreement among economists that people with low incomes are very good stimulus engines because they will spend their earnings, thereby supporting local businesses and helping to preserve other jobs. We are very concerned that a very successful job-creation effort for disadvantaged workers, funded through the TANF Emergency Fund, was not extended and allowed to continue. Given the lackluster recovery on the jobs side, those dollars would have continued to bolster low-income communities in key ways."

Those are just a few perspectives from nonprofit and foundation leaders working on job creation. What do you think is missing from the national discourse? What efforts are your organizations undertaking to foster job creation?

Chart of the Day: 'The Kindling of Change' (NY Times)

Was Tunisia the first domino in a chain reaction that results in the fall of authoritarian governments across North Africa and the Middle East? No one can say for sure, but New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow has assembled a fascinating statistical portrait of the region that sheds light on some of the socio-political variables likely to influence the outcome.

(Click for larger version.)

 

And how about that income inequality number for the U.S.?

Philanthropy Chat: Jan Masaoka and Robert Jaquay

To help celebrate the "official" launch of GrantSpace, the Foundation Center's new learning community for the social sector, we're pleased to share two recent Philanthropy Chat podcasts.

In the first, Janet Camarena, director of the center's San Francisco office, talks with Jan Masaoka, editor-in-chief of the online magazine Blue Avocado and co-author of Nonprofit Sustainability: Making Strategic Decisions for Financial Viability, about how nonprofits can ensure their sustainability in a tough economy and into the future.

(Running time: 19:53)

And in the second, Cindy Bailie, director of the center's Cleveland office, chats with Robert Jaquay, associate director of the George Gund Foundation, about the foundation's strategic priorities, its investments in regional economic development, and its efforts to improve the quality of life for Northeast Ohio residents through collaborations with other grantmakers and community partners.

(Running time: 19:48)

Is there someone you'd like to see featured in the Philanthropy Chat series? Share your suggestions in the comments section below....

Year in Review: Microfinance Experiences Growing Pains

It was a year characterized by change, and controversy, in the world of microfinance.

In January, microfinance institutions (MFIs) were put to the test when a 7.0-magnitude earthquake struck Haiti, leaving millions of people homeless and countless livelihoods shattered. In a country where, pre-earthquake, 80 percent of residents lived on less than $2 a day, MFIs have always been important as "banks to the poor," and have always faced challenges. After the quake, however, they provided an indispensable lifeline to millions of people trying to rebuild their lives and businesses, even as the financial health of many became as precarious as that of the customers they serve.

Indeed, in the year since the quake, the share of microcredit clients in Haiti who have defaulted or are at risk of defaulting has more than doubled, to 18 percent (compared with the international rate of almost 3 percent), while fully a quarter of the $38 million in microcredit loans outstanding could end up in default. And with only a third of the $6 billion pledged for reconstruction efforts at a United Nations donors conference in March having been committed to specific projects, coupled with fresh travails like the recent cholera outbreak and post-election violence, MFIs in Haiti will continue to be challenged.

Elsewhere, MFIs experimented with new approaches, often funded by foundation and corporate dollars. In January, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a total of $38 million to eighteen MFIs to make savings accounts available to the rural poor in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, while in February the Grameen Foundation announced a three-year, $3 million grant from the JPMorgan Chase Foundation to expand its program to increase microfinance volunteerism among senior working professionals.

That same month, Global Partnerships, which provides capital and expertise to "social enterprise" MFIs, announced that it had launched a modest expansion into Mexico, where lack of competition had kept microfinance interest rates high, while Grameen announced an effort to better target poor clients in Mali and Senegal.

By mid-year, however, many longtime proponents of microfinance had begun to lament the growing commercialization of the field, as a number of for-profit banks began to take advantage of market discontinuities to charge exorbitant interest rates and impose steep fees on clients. Grameen Bank founder Muhammad Yunus, widely credited with developing the microcredit concept, even argued that microcredit interest rates should be no more than 15 percent above the cost of capital — a "test" that 75 percent of MFIs worldwide would fail, according to data from the Microfinance Information Exchange.

The profits-versus-altruism debate heated up over the summer, when one of the world's largest microlenders, India-based SKS Microfinance, went public, raising $358 million. Eyebrows were raised when it was revealed that the company's founder, Vikram Akula, and other investors, including a number of prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists, stood to profit handsomely from the IPO. Also embroiled in the controversy was Seattle-based Unitus, an international nonprofit that works to accelerate the growth of microfinance. In July, the organization, whose stake in SKS was worth millions after the IPO, shocked the nonprofit community when it announced it was laying off its forty-person staff and exiting the microfinance field. The announcement led many to question the motives of the organization's board members, at least four of whom had invested personally in SKS and stood to realize sizable profits from its going public.

By the end of the year, reports started to emerge that Indian microfinance institutions were facing many of the same difficulties as struggling MFIs in Haiti. Indeed, in November it was reported that almost all borrowers in Andhra Pradesh, one of the country's largest states, had stopped repaying their loans — egged on by local politicians who accused the microcredit industry in India of profiting on the backs of the poor. The SKS public offering and for-profit MFIs charging sky-high interest rates helped fuel public outrage, and by year's end legislators had passed a law that restricts how companies can lend and collect money.

"We created microcredit to fight the loan sharks; we didn't create microcredit to encourage new loan sharks," Yunus told a group of financial officials at the United Nations back in the spring. "Microcredit should be seen as an opportunity to help people get out of poverty in a business way, but not as an opportunity to make money out of poor people."

Related:

• Gates Foundation Announces $38 Million to Help MFIs Provide Savings Accounts (1/14/10)
• Grameen Foundation Receives $3 Million From JP Morgan Chase Foundation to Expand Volunteer Program (2/5/10)
• Global Partnerships Expands Support for Affordable, Mission-Related Microfinance to Mexico (2/15/10)
• Grameen Foundation Announces Initiative to Boost Microfinance Effectiveness in Africa (2/22/10)
• Big Banks Draw Scrutiny for Profiting From Microloans (4/16/10)
• Citi Pledges $1 Million to Microfinance Institutions in Haiti (5/7/10)
• Unitus to Dissolve Microfinance Operations, Lay Off Staff (7/8/10)
• Controversy Stirred Over SKS Microfinance's Multi-Million Dollar Stock Offering (8/2/10)
• In Haiti, Microcredit May Be a Fragile Lifeline (11/20/10)
• Haiti Rebuilding Efforts Struggle to Gain Traction (11/30/2010)
• India's Microfinance Industry Suffers as Poor Indians Stop Repaying Loans (11/22/10)

World AIDS Day 2010

The Wikipedia entry for World AIDS Day states right up front that AIDS has killed more than
25 million people since 1981, making it one of the most destructive epidemics in recorded history.

As we pause to remember the millions whose lives have been cut short by the scourge of HIV/AIDS, consider these facts (courtesy of UNAIDS and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation):

• There were 33.3 million people living with HIV at the end of 2009, up from 28.6 million in 2001.
• A total of 1.8 million people died of AIDS in 2009, down from 2.1 million in 2004.
• The global prevalence rate (percent of people between the ages of 15 and 49 who are infected) has leveled off since 2001 and was 0.8% in 2009.
• New HIV infections are believed to have peaked in the late 1990s and to have declined from 3.1 million in 2001 to 2.6 million in 2009. HIV incidence fell by more than 25% in 33 countries between 2001 and 2009.
• Most new infections are transmitted heterosexually, although risk factors vary.
• Women represent slightly more than half of all people living with HIV worldwide and 60% in sub-Saharan Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, the HIV prevalence rate among young women (ages 15-24) is more than double that of their male counterparts.
• There were 2.5 million children living with HIV in 2009, 370,000 new infections among children, and 260,000 child AIDS deaths. There are approximately 16.6 million AIDs orphans (children who have lost one or both parents to HIV), most of whom (89%) live in sub-Saharan Africa.

As grim as these statistics are, they offer some hope. Indeed, as former President Bill Clinton notes in an op-ed in the London-based Independent, there's reason for optimism. Writes Clinton:

On World AIDS Day ten years ago, as I was preparing to leave office, the world was only beginning to grasp the severity of the AIDS crisis. Nearly 36,000,000 men, women and children were living with the disease, but only about 200,000 were receiving the treatment they needed. Funding was nowhere near the levels needed to prevent the disease from reaching pandemic levels.

Over the last decade, we have seen dramatic progress in both treatment and funding. In 2008 alone, $15 billion was invested to fight AIDS in developing countries, up from $6 billion just three years earlier, due in large part to the U.S. Government’s PEPFAR (President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) program.

This summer, I witnessed one of the greatest examples of this progress when I attended the World Cup in South Africa, which has the largest number of people living with HIV/ AIDS in the world. For too long, the South African government did too little, but this year it committed to testing tens of millions of South Africans and to more than double the numbers on treatment. I'm honored that they have invited the Clinton Health Access Initiative to work alongside them to reach this goal.

South Africa's new actions reflect a sense of urgency and shared purpose in Africa -- and in other parts of the world
-- that didn't exist ten years ago. Donor nations, the Global Fund on AIDS, TB, and Malaria, and non-governmental organizations, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation, the Gates Foundation, and many others, have provided indispensable contributions to raising the level of consciousness, concern, and commitment to a level that will save millions of lives....

As is the case in so many areas of need, fallout from the economic crisis has strained public- and private-sector budgets around the world and threatens to slow the progress made over the last decade in the fight against AIDS. To make sure that doesn't happen, writes Clinton, donor nations, national governments, and philanthropy must "do more with less." That means:

• saving money on commodities and promoting better coordination of funding between donors and national governments;
• better coordination of funding flows between donors and national governments to ensure that resources are aligned withe the most pressing national priorities;
• maximixing return on investment by ensuring that low-cost/high-impact interventions are adopted on a wider scale; and
• urging donor nations to review their own HIV/AIDS budgets with a view to reducing overhead.

Worlds AIDS Day is a powerful reminder of all that has been done -- and all that remains to be done -- to end the death and suffering caused by AIDS. It's a battle we're winning and that can be won. We owe it to the future to make sure we do.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Sir Ken Robinson on Changing Education Paradigms

I'm still plowing through dozens of posts that were written for the Day of National Blogging for Real Education Reform this past Monday. The brainchild of Michigan State University researcher Ira Socol, the blogfest was a rousing success and even generated a post in response by U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

I hope to post my own thoughts about the day and its themes in the next week or two. But in the meantime I thought I'd share this animated version of a recent talk given by educator and creativity expert Ken Robinson at the London-based Royal Society of Arts.

Sir Ken, whom PhilanTopic readers got to know in this TED Talk, is nothing if not passionate about education reform, and he is as dismayed by most countries' continued insistence on "trying to meet the challenges of the future by doing what they've done in the past" as he is by the "misplaced, fictitious epidemic of ADHD." Whether you agree with him or not, it's hard to argue with a man who can draw as fast as he speaks. (That's a joke.)

What do you think? Are developed countries in general, and the United States in particular, still wedded to a production-line model of education? Are we penalizing our children, who are living "in the most intensely stimulating period in the history of the earth," for being distracted? And what, in the twenty-first century, is the purpose of education?

-- Mitch Nauffts

This Week in PubHub: Advocacy

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her last post, she looked at four reports that examine issues related to immigrants and their children.)

The midterm elections may be behind us, but the question remains: What role should philanthropy play in promoting civic participation, educating voters, and shaping public policy? As we highlight foundation practices and some of the year’s philanthropic trends in conjunction with National Philanthropy Day, we start with a group of reports that consider various aspects of civic engagement and advocacy, which can include community organizing, grassroots leadership development, needs assessments and polling, research into critical issues and potential solutions, and systemic reform.

A growing number of people would argue that advocacy and civic engagement are essential aspects of strategic philanthropy. Foundations for Civic Impact: Advocacy and Civic Engagement Toolkit for Private Foundations, a publication issued by the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest, highlights the rationale for private foundation support of advocacy and civic-engagement efforts: Such support enables foundations to advance their missions, promote systemic social change, strengthen democracy, and protect their interests. With a clear understanding of the types of lobbying and voter-engagement activities they can and cannot fund, combined with effective communications materials, grantmakers can do much to empower citizens and grantees and deepen the latter's impact. (Community and public foundation leaders should refer to CLPI’s Toolkit for Community Foundations).

Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing, and Civic Engagement in Los Angeles, a report from the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, offers a number of advocacy-related success stories. Among other things, the study found that between 2004 and 2008, every dollar invested in the advocacy, organizing, and civic engagement activities of fifteen Los Angeles-area community groups returned $91 in benefits for marginalized communities. Using a range of creative strategies -- from organizing to ballot initiatives to coalition-building -- these groups also made progress on a variety of non-monetary benefits, including improved air quality and working conditions, greater access to higher education, and enhanced services for LGBTQ and limited English proficiency residents. To further increase the impact these groups are having in their communities, the report recommends that foundations provide additional funding for advocacy efforts, engage more directly with grantee boards and donors, do more to support collaboration and foster shared learning, invest in capacity building, and provide more general operating support and multiyear grants.

Five years after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated the the Gulf Coast, a new culture of civic engagement is taking hold in the region, the Alliance for Justice reports in Power Amidst Renewal: Foundation Support for Sustaining Advocacy After Disasters. Despite ongoing challenges, the region is seeing efforts to organize low-income communities, develop coalitions, and advocate around environmental, educational, criminal justice, housing, and infrastructure issues. Indeed, advocacy work across the region has become broader, more collaborative, and more integrated into nonprofits' missions and day-to-day operations, the report's authors note. Moreover, local foundations such as the Foundation for the Mid South and the Greater New Orleans Foundation (as well as national foundations) are playing a critical role in boosting the capacity and effectiveness of nonprofits in the region to engage with and shape public policy. The report concludes that continued support for post-disaster advocacy should be flexible and for longer grant periods; include advocacy training and technical assistance; involve local partners; be adaptable to the emergence of coalitions and collaboratives; and focus on strengthening community-based foundations.

Even a healthy culture of civic engagement cannot thrive without the participation of younger generations. Just as the 2008 elections showcased the power and potential of youth civic engagement, non-college youth, who comprise almost half the nation's young adults, were largely absent on Election Day. The question of how to engage youth who are disconnected from educational opportunities and jobs is the focus of Youth Civic Engagement Grantmaking: Strategic Review, a 2009 assessment of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund's youth civic engagement program, which supports organizing activities led by low-income youth and youth of color with the aim of establishing a robust infrastructure for sustained engagement and leadership development in the broader progressive movement. Conducted by Mosaica: The Center for Nonprofit Development and Pluralism, the review includes a number of recommendations for improving the program: supporting collective organizational capacity-building strategies, investing in national and regional convenings, building infrastructure in regions and communities with gaps in youth civic engagement, and developing a knowledge base for the field.

How do you see the role of foundations evolving vis-à-vis policy advocacy and civic engagement? What strategies have worked in your issue area or region? And what other emerging strategies show promise? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse reports on philanthropy and voluntarism by sub-category, including capacity building, governance, performance/failure analysis, program evaluation, and volunteerism. Or browse all the reports related to philanthropy and voluntarism — more than 1,300 of them!

-- Kyoko Uchida

NYC’s New Summer Playground Will Have Winter Tenants: A Conversation With Robert Pirani

Robert Pirani is executive director of the Governors Island Alliance, a coalition of organizations and individuals working to realize the recreational and cultural potential of the 172-acre island and former military base in New York Harbor. The island, ownership of which was transferred to New York State and the National Park Service in 2003, received a record 443,000 visitors over the summer, a more than 60 percent increase over 2009. Innovative and largely free public programs, plenty of historic charm, and spectacular harbor views are transforming the island from a well-kept secret to one of New York’s most exciting civic spaces.

The following Q&A with Pirani was conducted by Laura Cronin, director of the Toshiba America Foundation.

Laura Cronin: For those who have not yet had the pleasure of taking the ferry out to Governors Island, can you give a brief description of what people will find there?

Robert Pirani: Governors Island is just a seven-minute ferry ride from Lower Manhattan or Brooklyn, but it truly is a world apart. The National Landmark Historic District on the island features massive stone forts that defended New York after the Revolution and nineteenth-century Federal and Victorian-style buildings that housed generations of military families. The two-mile waterfront esplanade is a mecca for car-free walking and biking, and offers fantastic views of the Statue of Liberty, the Manhattan skyline, and rest of the harbor. Acres of shady lawns make it a great spot for a lazy summer picnic.

The Trust for Governors Island -- a city-led development corporation -- and the Governors Island National Monument have invited a wide range of partners to help create programming for the island. As a result, the island is becoming a venue for innovative art and creative public events. It's also an ideal platform for programs that showcase the harbor and its evolving role in shaping New York's economy and ecology.

LC: Nonprofits and private grantmakers seem to have had a rather large role in shaping the still-evolving plan for the island. Can you summarize that history for our readers and explain where the Governors Island Alliance fits in?

RP: The Regional Plan Association created the Governors Island Alliance when the Coast Guard announced it was quitting the island in 1995. Since then, we've worked with our coalition partners to help ensure that the island is returned to New York and is reinvented as a great civic space. We raised the island's profile at a time when few people were aware of its value and helped define the public interest through community workshops, hearings, and advocacy.

Our initial catalytic role is evolving. The terrific work of the Trust for Governors Island and the National Park Service in planning and programming the island's park space has already made the island a part of the city's recreational fabric. And the alliance contributes to the process by creating opportunities for visitors to become a constituency in their own right through on-the-ground stewardship as well as supporting continued public and private investment. For example, our volunteers and interns -- including students from the Urban Assembly New York Harbor School -- greet visitors to the island and survey them about their experiences on the island. We host corporate outings and day camps, and we introduce these groups to partners like the Added Value community farm and the EarthMatter compost operation.

Our work is complemented by the wealth of nonprofit talent attracted to the island's unique setting. Arts groups like Figment and the Children's Museum of the Arts, environmental organizations like NY-NJ Harbor Baykeeper and the Metropolitan Waterfront Alliance are just some of the groups bringing exceptional programs to the island -- and building the visibility and brand identity critical to the island's future.

Special credit is due to the J.M. Kaplan Fund, which made several early investments in the Alliance, the Harbor School, and many other nonprofit partners located on the island. Creative grantmaking, the fund's ability to convene other stakeholders, and its willingness to stick with the project over time have leveraged an enormous public and private commitment to transform the island into an a treasured amenity for future generations of New Yorkers.

LC: Although weekend visits ended on October 10, there's still regular ferry service to the island and many of those passengers will be students and artists. Can you describe what the island's winter tenants will be up to and how those projects are supported?

RP: A terrific sign of progress on the Island are the first of what we expect to be dozens of year-round tenancies. Last March, the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council established a suite of year-round artist studios at their Art Center in Building 110, a former munitions warehouse. And this September, the Harbor School, a high school with a maritime curriculum, opened its doors to four hundred students in what had been the island's McKim, Mead & White-designed Island hospital. The New York Harbor School Foundation is now working on their next project: the completion of a Marine Science and Technology Center that will showcase the school's aquaculture and boat-building activities for the public. These projects exemplify what the island should be about: Programs and uses that welcome the public, connect people to the harbor, and repurpose priceless historic buildings. We're hopeful that over the next few years other donors and visionaries will step forward with similar creative proposals.

LC: What's the status of the public park? Is the plan for the park set? And when do you expect it to open to the public?

RP: In reaching an agreement with the state to take full control of the island last summer, Mayor Bloomberg signaled his intention to make the transformation of the island one of his most important legacies. The Trust for Governors Island is now working with the Dutch firm West 8 to develop plans for the island's almost ninety acres of future parkland and public spaces. A draft concept plan has been released, schematic designs should be complete by February, and an environmental review process will get under way this winter. At the same time, the National Monument folks are moving forward in implementing a General Management Plan, and we're all really excited about the 2011 opening of Castle Williams, right in time for its 200th birthday. For the first time, the public will be able to access the roof of the fort and its spectacular harbor views. The alliance worked with Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) to secure the funding needed for the renovation.

Just like Central Park or Battery Park City, we expect the island to take shape over a generation. But we're hopeful that the mayor and other political leaders will be able to secure the capital funding needed to move ahead on the first phase of park improvements as well as the infrastructure needed to support additional tenancies in the historic district over the next three years.

LC: How can funders concerned about New York City, or parks, or schools get involved?

RP: One of our real delights is being able to introduce people to this unique and beautiful place. We're always happy to take people on a tour and introduce them to the island and the many hands at work in its rebirth. In addition to the organizations I've mentioned, a quick look at the alliance’s or trust’s event calendars will provide a shapshot of the other nonprofit partners active on the island this past summer.

-- Laura Cronin

UN Millennium Development Goals Summit (part 1)

Overwhelmed. That's how one feels if s/he is in New York City this week and trying to cover the UN Millennium Development Goals Summit, the sixth annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative, or events at the UN Week Digital Media Lounge at the 92nd St Y. The sessions are non-stop, the traffic brutal, and security is tighter than a tick.

Fortunately, I've been able to attend multiple sessions at all three venues thanks to the Web and the miracle of streaming technology. Right now, for example, I'm watching a keynote session from the Y setting the stage for the announcement of "Every Woman, Every Child," the UN's new strategy to save the lives of 16 million women and children by 2015 and improve the health of women and children around the world. UN Secretary-General Ban-Ki moon will formally announce the strategy -- and $40 billion in commitments to support it -- at 2:30 EST. (You can watch a live stream of the speech here.) After Ban's speech, President Obama will address the general assembly and, among other things, will unveil a new U.S. development strategy for meeting the eight Millennium Development Goals by 2015.

That strategy, as described in Celebrate, Innovate & Sustain: Toward 2015 and Beyond (34 pages, PDF), "fully embraces the MDGs" and recognizes development as "a moral, strategic, and economc imperative." It will focus the U.S. government

on achieving sustainable development outcomes by making broad-based economic growth and democratic governance top priorities, investing in game-changing innovations that have the potential to solve long-standing development challenges, and building effective public sector capacity to provide basic services over the long term. The policy also puts a premium on selectivity, on leveraging the expertise and resources of others, on empowering governments, and on driving our investments with evidence of impact....

The multilateral approach to development exemplified by the MDGs has long had critics who decry its top-down nature and lack of accountability mechanisms. Just an hour ago, for instance, Oxfam, the UK-based humanitarian organization, blasted the UN's announcement of $40 billion in commitments for the three health-related MDGs (with a focus on women and children):

Looking at the numbers so far, it’s clear that rich countries are putting old promises with a seemingly big price tag in a new shiny UN wrapper, rather than announcing anything new for the world’s poorest people. Almost half of the cash has already been pledged elsewhere, including at the G8 Summit in Canada this year. At a crucial turning point for the MDGs, we can’t be distracted by a big figure, and we need details now on where countries are going to find this money and how they will spend it to save lives....

Debate is healthy, and we'd all like to see details -- now and as efforts to meet the MDGs by 2015 are ramped up. In that spirit, we'll try to dive a little deeper into some of these issues over the next day or two. Stay tuned.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Weekend Link Roundup (September 4 - 5, 2010)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications

On her Getting Attention blog, Nancy Schwartz counsels nonprofits who want to increase their engagement with supporters to give supporters a "chance to go beyond -- whether behind the scenes, after the show, or standing in the shoes of."

"Many...nonprofits describe themselves in dull, bloodless, jargon-laden deadweight statements that will never move anyone to action," writes Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks. Instead, says, Brooks, "Why not be lively, interesting, personable, and outward facing...[e]ven on your half-buried Web pages."

Disaster Relief

On the Nonprofit Blog at About.com, Joanne Fritz looks at a recent disaster giving survey which found that "people who never give to causes can be persuaded to give during an emergency; and that minorities are heavily involved in emergency giving."

Zoetica co-founder Geoff Livingston shares a few lessons from the CitizenGulf Day of Action, an effort launched by Zoetica and other organizations to assist families affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill.

Economic Development

On the Chronicle of Philanthropy site, Council on Foundation CEO Steve Gunderson looks at some of the tools organized philanthropy can use to help create jobs in a job-starved economy.

Nonprofit Management

On her new Money and Mission blog, the Nonprofit Finance Fund's Clara Miller deconstructs the myth of revenue diversification.

Philanthropy

The Nonprofiteer explains why she's not impressed by the Giving Pledge, the campaign launched by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage the nation's billionaires to give at least half of their fortunes to charity. "Even the best-intentioned best-directed private donations are a way for moneyed people to work their will on the public, while the rest of us have nothing but the vote," she writes. "And when the level of contributions is discussed in fractions of $1B, it's no longer charity within a democracy: it's benevolent dictatorship...."

Social Media

The Case Foundation's Joshua Tabb has some advice for organizations looking to host a nonprofit video contest.

Social media expert Beth Kanter suggests that good data collection "is like going to the gym."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org and enjoy the long weekend!

-- Regina Mahone

This Week in PubHub: Views of the United States’ Global Role

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her last post, she wrote about international economic development.)

A few years ago, I heard a story about aid workers in Africa who were appalled by the U.S. government's decision to have the words "From the American People" stamped on all USAID-funded humanitarian aid supplies. A well-intended attempt to boost America's image abroad could backfire in certain contexts, they argued, exposing other aid workers and/or aid recipients to misdirected anger and resentment. So how does the world view the United States and its global impact in 2010? And how do Americans view their country's role in the world?

While the Pew Global Attitudes Project's 25-Nation Pew Global Attitudes Survey (2009) shows an improvement in favorability ratings for the U.S. since the election of President Barack Obama in 2008, anti-U.S. sentiment remains strong in Turkey, Pakistan, and the occupied Palestinian territories. Support for American foreign policy was widespread, with the exception of sending more troops to Afghanistan, which a majority of those surveyed opposed.

U.S. and coalition engagement in Afghanistan post-9/11 is a key driver of America's image abroad, and the Open Society Institute and the Afghan nongovernmental organization The Liaison Office take a close look at the Afghan view of international forces operating in that country in Strangers at the Door: Night Raids by International Forces Lose Hearts and Minds of Afghans. Interviews with civilians in the southeastern provinces of Paktia and Khost, for example, reveal how the ongoing practice of night-time search and seizure operations causes deep trauma within Afghan communities, alienating the very people whose trust and cooperation are essential to creating some semblance of stability in -- and the eventual withdrawal of troops from -- the country.

How do American elites and Americans themselves see their country's role as the world's sole superpower? In America's Place in the World 2009: An Investigation of Public and Leadership Opinion About International Affairs, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press reports that only 32 percent of the American public thought that the number of troops in Afghanistan should be increased, whereas 50 percent of Council on Foreign Relations members did. When asked to name America's most important international problem, the public ranked Afghanistan and Iraq third and fifth, respectively, while CFR members ranked them first and ninth. And only 3 percent of the public said "AIDS/health problems" was the country's top foreign-policy priority (ranking it eighth), while for CFR members the issue did not rank among the country's top dozen foreign policy priorities.

Views on the U.S. Role in Global Health Update: Summary, a report from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, examined the American public's support for U.S. international aid at a time of economic uncertainty and found that 47 percent of respondents believe the U.S. spends too much on foreign aid. At the same time, the percentage saying it is more important than ever for the U.S. to increase funding to improve health in developing countries rose from 23 percent (in March 2009) to 33 percent (in October 2009). Perhaps not surprisingly, those who think the U.S. is spending too little on global health are more likely to say that funding global health initiatives also helps protect Americans' health and that more funding will lead to meaningful progress in developing countries.

Where -- and how -- do you think international aid, foreign policy, and perceptions of America's role in the world intersect? And what role might foundations play in determining and/or shaping how the U.S. is viewed overseas? Share your thoughts in the comment section below. And be sure to visit PubHub regularly to check out new additions to the almost 350 reports on various aspects of international affairs/development already catalogued there.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Will BP Oil Spill Affect Charitable Giving?

It's clear to those who have been following events closely (and who hasn't?) that the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill will devastate significant portions of the Gulf ecosystem -- and cost tens of thousands of people their livelihoods -- for years, if not generations, to come. The 165 million gallons of crude that have already poured from the wellhead are a fraction of the total that will have spilled by the time one of the relief wells currently being drilled is able to intercept the damaged well and stop the flow of oil. (And many experts only give the relief-well operation a 60 percent chance of success.)

Given the potential loss of fauna, marine and coastal habitat, and economic activity from what is already the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, one can understand why the spill's impact on charitable giving isn't top of mind for most people. But the folks at Philanthromax, a small nonprofit management company with a roster of products that "provide analysis, evaluation, program design, and accountability-based management," think otherwise.

Based on a new forecasting tool it has developed, the company estimates that nonprofits in the U.S. received charitable contributions of $133.82 billion between January and May 2010 -- an increase of 9.2 percent over the same period in 2009. That's the good news.

The not-so-good news is that as the oil continues to wash up on beaches and barrier islands from Louisiana to Florida -- and perhaps is carried by the Loop Current to states on the Eastern seaboard -- the negative impact on economic activity in the affected states will result in a $200 million to $300 million reduction in charitable contributions in 2010 -- and as much as a $600 million reduction in 2011.

That's not a lot when you consider that, for the last three years, charitable giving in the U.S. topped $300 billion. But if one assumes (as I do) that the reduced giving will be concentrated in the states most affected by the spill -- states whose social safety-nets were already thin and inadequate -- then you're talking about a bad situation becoming worse.

Even before Katrina and the Deepwater disaster, the Gulf region was this country's red-headed stepchild: ignored when it wasn't exploited, celebrated for its entertainments and scolded for its lack of seriousness, treated one minute as a national treasure and the next as a national joke.

So what, if any, is our obligation here? Is this BP's problem? Or is it time for the private sector to create a billion-dollar Gulf Coast Development Fund whose dual mandate would be to generate new jobs in the region to replace the ones lost to this disaster and, longer term, help build the foundation of a more sustainable, less oil industry-dependent regional economy for the twenty-first century?

Would love to hear your thoughts...

-- Mitch Nauffts