PhilanTopic

'The Art of Being Unreasonable' Launches in New York City

I had the pleasure Sunday evening of attending "A Conversation With Eli Broad" at the 92nd Street Y, an hour-long event marking the launch of Broad's memoir The Art of Being Unreasonable. At the event, Broad chatted with broadcast journalist Charlie Rose about his long and successful career (highlights of which are shared in the book's appendix). Broad, who turns 79 this summer, has helped build two Fortune 500 companies, KB Home and SunAmerica, and created with his wife, Edythe, the Broad Foundations, which focus on public education reform, scientific and medical research, art and culture, and civic projects in Los Angeles.

Rose began his interview by asking Broad for thoughts on the state of the economy, which Broad said will not recover until the housing market improves (in 2013?), before shifting gears to focus on the book.

While Broad doesn't consider himself to be unreasonable -- as he told the audience, "I don't think I'm unreasonable; other people think I'm unreasonable" -- he writes in his memoir that he believes "being unreasonable has been the key to my success." Throughout his career, he took chances that many said he was foolish for taking -- building homes without basements at a time when such a thing was unheard of, for example -- and succeeded because he and his partners did their homework and found a "niche where we could flourish."

During the Q&A portion of the event, one of my colleagues asked Broad -- who was instrumental in creating the first biomedical research institute in the world devoted to genomics, launching the largest urban education prize in the country, and has done much to nurture the burgeoning contemporary art scene in Los Angeles -- to share some of the ways in which his foundations assist nonprofit organizations and social causes other than through grants or philanthropic investments. "Foundations have to be innovative," said Broad, especially during tough economic times. The Broad Foundations, for example, offer their grantees lots of advice and counsel and, through the Broad Superintendents Academy program, provide business leaders with the training needed to make a successful transition to leadership positions in urban school districts.

That said, the one constant in Eli Broad's long career, which has spanned five decades and four industries, is a paperweight he received from his wife inscribed with this quotation from George Bernard Shaw:

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world. The unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

And sometimes that means asking "Why not?" instead of accepting "no" for an answer.

Were you at the event? What did you take away from the conversation? And what do you think foundations should be doing, beyond awarding grants, to address the many social, political, and economic challenges we face? Use the comments section to share your thoughts...

-- Regina Mahone

The L.A. Riots, Twenty Years Later: A PubHub Reading List

Last Sunday, April 29, was the twentieth anniversary of the start of what became known as the Los Angeles Riots -- four days of civil unrest and violence sparked by the acquittal of white LAPD officers who had been captured on video in March 1991 brutally beating Rodney King after a high-speed car chase through the San Fernando Valley. In the days that followed the verdict, Reginald Denny, a white truck driver, and a Guatemalan immigrant were brutally beaten by a mob in the South Central neighborhood, home to many of the city's low-income African Americans; buildings were torched; stores were looted; and more than fifty people lost their lives. The prevailing view at the time, as captured by New York Times reporter Don Terry, was that "the acquittal...was only a spark put to a tinderbox of anger constructed from years of deep poverty, governmental neglect, racism, charges of police abuse and high unemployment."

Twenty years later, how much has -- and has not -- changed?

According to Reparable Harm: Assessing and Addressing Disparities Faced by Boys and Men of Color in California (126 pages, PDF), a report from the RAND Corporation, African-American and Latino men and boys continue to be negatively affected by structural racism and a variety of socioeconomic, health, and education disparities. Young African-American and Latino boys are more than three times as likely, for example, to live in poverty as their white counterparts; almost seven and more than three times as likely to have HIV/AIDS; more than five and almost three times as likely to end up in prison; more than sixteen and five times as likely to be a victim of homicide; and nearly twice and almost seven times as likely to drop out of high school. Funded by the California Endowment, the report calls for a range of targeted interventions, including more effective foster care and prisoner-reentry policies; community-based zoning laws that address the social determinants of health; and mentoring and school-based programs for children traumatized by violence. The California Endowment itself has funded the National League of Cities Institute's Gang Prevention Network and the Healthy Returns Initiative.

One nonprofit that has worked with disadvantaged and at-risk youth in Los Angeles since before the riots is the PUENTE (People United to Enrich the Neighborhood Through Education) Learning Center, which offers preschool, kindergarten, tutorial, and college preparation programs as well as job and computer skills training, English as a second language, and literacy programs for adults. Of, By, and For the Community: The Story of PUENTE Learning Center (21 pages, PDF), a report from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, describes how the family-focused organization -- which had a thriving center in the Boyle Heights neighborhood -- was offered the site of a burned-out ARCO station by the ARCO Foundation in the wake of the riots. "The embers were still warm, and the total damage had not been tallied," recalled former ARCO Foundation president Russell Sakaguchi. "We wanted somebody to provide hope and relief to that very visible corner. We wanted an organization that wasn't going to flounder, that was sensitive to the shock in that community [and] had faith in its ability to deliver."

Starting with two trailers, PUENTE eventually built a state-of-the-art facility with ten classrooms serving a thousand students of all ages, one-third of whom are African-American and two-thirds Latino. (As of 2005, the population of South Central was 45 percent African-American, 47 percent Latino.) One of the organization's keys to success, the report notes, is its sharp focus on its educational mission, which enables it to address issues even more fundamental than racial disparities or cultural differences. "Our mission," says PUENTE vice president Luis Marquez, "is not about any particular ethnic group; it's about people. It goes way beyond ethnicity and race. It's about humanity."

Among other things, the riots highlighted the serious racial/ethnic tensions that existed between long-established African-American communities in Los Angeles and the more recently arrived Korean and Latino communities. The influx of immigrants into historically African-American neighborhoods has continued in the two decades since, and racial/ethnic tensions have become more pronounced as unemployment rates have climbed. All Together Now? African Americans, Immigrants, and California's Future (66 pages; 7.15MB; PDF), a report from the Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration at the University of Southern California, examines the potential of inter-ethnic alliances to address tensions created by demographic and economic changes. But bringing the various communities together first requires a forward-looking agenda. To that end, the report notes,

• A number of community-based organizations have developed new mechanisms to both manage tensions and build toward a common ground. Leadership development is key, but the first step is creating the space for new and honest dialogue about what is shared and what is different.
• Seemingly specific issues can be effectively connected to both populations. The criminalization of black (and Latino) youth has its parallel in the excessive enforcement of a broken immigration system; the racial profiling embodied in Arizona's 2010 immigration law echoes an experience all too familiar to African Americans. If [minority groups] pursue economic opportunity and fair treatment for all residents, the [focus on] difference[s] can give way to a concert of common interest.
• A common and unifying agenda should be based on a vision of everyday social justice. "Everyday" means three things: address[ing] daily needs around education, the economy, and the social and physical environment; ensur[ing] that dialogues go beyond a more comfortable middle-class and multi-ethnic elite and reach grassroots participants; and realiz[ing] that this will require effort every day and over the long haul.

Funded by the Evelyn & Walter Haas, Jr. Fund, James Irvine Foundation, and John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes Foundation, the report calls for an approach which recognizes that "African Americans have laid the groundwork for America's commitment to equality and fairness" and "that immigrant rights will be insecure as long as African Americans remain vulnerable to racial profiling and economic despair."

All three reports suggest that twenty years after the L.A. riots and almost fifty years after the Watts riots, the City of Los Angeles, the state of California, and the nation still have a long way to go in addressing the racial and socioeconomic disparities that made South Central such a tinderbox on the eve of the Rodney King verdict. At the same time, all three reports suggest that we have only begun to tap the potential of civic engagement, advocacy, and community organizing efforts to bring communities together and advance the cause of social justice. And, of course, funders have a role to play here. Funded by the California Endowment and the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the NCRP report Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing, and Civic Engagement in Los Angeles notes that for every dollar invested in the advocacy, organizing, and civic engagement efforts of fifteen Los Angeles County nonprofits between 2004 and 2008, $91 in benefits were generated for marginalized communities.

To learn more about the factors contributing to enduring socioeconomic, health, and education disparities in Los Angeles (and across the country), the demographic shifts that sometimes exacerbate racial/ethnic tensions, and efforts to address these and other problems, see also:

Why Place & Race Matter
PolicyLink; California Endowment

State of Metropolitan America: On the Front Lines of Demographic Transformation Brookings Institution

Critical Condition: Examining the Scope of Medical Services in South Los Angeles
California Endowment

Restoring Prosperity: The State Role in Revitalizing America's Older Industrial Cities
Brookings Institution

Shared Prosperity, Stronger Regions: An Agenda for Rebuilding America's Older Core Cities
PolicyLink

What do you think? Have we made as much progress, as a country, as we should have in the twenty years since the L.A. riots? And if not, what is holding us back? Use the comments section to share your thoughts....

-- Kyoko Uchida

Weekend Link Roundup (March 10-11, 2012)

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

Education

Social media guru Seth Godin has released "Stop Stealing Dreams: What Is School For?", a free 30,000-word manifesto and experiment in what Godin calls "firestarting." As he writes on his blog,

I'm hoping that removing friction from the sharing of this idea will help it spread. If you're interested in the topic (and I hope you are), please tweet or like the project page, download the files, post mirror copies on your own blog and if you can, email them to every teacher, parent and citizen who should be part of the discussion about what we do with our kids all day (and why). If just a fraction of this blog's readers shared it with their address book, we'd reach a lot of people....

Governance

Based on his organization's research and his own observations, Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan offers a sharp take on the 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Foundation Boards.

Human/Civil Rights

In a guest post on the Open Society Foundations blog, filmmaker Doug Liman calls on ordinary Americans to fight torture by participating in his current project, Reckoning With Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the “War on Terror". "What I'm asking people to do is both simple and profound," writes Liman. "[T]o film themselves reading one of the eleven documents that make up the script of the movie and send me the footage." The documents in question were among the 140,000 the ACLU uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act request, and to date actors, writers, a former CIA officer, a former interrogator, and the chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo have been among those who participated in the project.

Impact/Effectiveness

In a new post on the GiveWell blog, Holden Karnofsky considers the case of mothers2mothers, a nongovernmental organization based in South Africa that has been criticized for publishing what Karnofsky calls erroneous figures about the number of women it serves. Writes Karnofsky:

We certainly don't think the anomalies we've found show that m2m isn't doing great work, or that its support and awards are undeserved (and we are still considering the possibility of further investigating m2m as a potential GiveWell-recommended group). Still, seeing this sort of problem from an organization that gets as much attention as m2m seems significant. It's another piece of evidence that the philanthropic world -- including many of the largest and best-resourced funders -- is not asking all of the critical questions that it could be asking....

On his Harvard Business Review blog, Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta offers a "unified theory of social change" for nonprofits and institutions seeking to "change the world." The plan, in three parts, looks like this: 1) set big, hairy, audacious goals and deadlines for each problem you want to tackle; 2) collaborate and communicate like there's no tomorrow; and 3) invest in fundraising to dramatically increase the capital available to solve those problems. "It's not rocket science," adds Pallotta. "So let's get on with it."

Philanthropy

Philanthropy 2173 blogger Lucy Bernholz has released a new toolkit for foundations and nonprofit organizations based on Philanthropy and Social Investing Blueprint 2012, her annual look at the trends shaping the philanthropic and social change landscape.

Social Media

Beth Kanter looks at the role of transparency in the incredibly viral response to -- and debate over -- the KONY 2012 video, which was posted to YouTube on Monday and quickly racked up fifty million views. Although the video quickly galvanized tens of thousands of young people to pledge to "stop" Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony, whose guerrilla army filled with child soldiers terrorized Ugandan villagers for the better part of two decades, the video also generated a backlash among African journalists and others who question its accuracy and the intentions of Invisible Children, the U.S.-based NGO that produced and released it.

Women

Allison Fine celebrated International Women's Day on Thursday by reflecting on a recent development in the human rights arena: the fact that in most cases "protests were started by individuals [on social media channels], not organizations." And while there may be no "Nelson Mandalas or Lech Walesas speaking on behalf of protestors," writes Fine, "social networks aren't leaderless, as critics say, but leaderfull with individuals defining their own roles, uploading videos, [and] posting news without being asked or tasked or targeted...."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

This Week in PubHub: Race, Place, and the Wealth Gap

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at four reports that addressed the topic of protecting the rights of people with disabilities.)

Research shows that racial/ethnic disparities in a variety of areas, including wealth, health, and educational attainment, have worsened over the past two decades. This week in PubHub, we highlight four reports that examine the extent of these disparities, as well as how they are linked and reinforce one another.

According to the Pew Research Center report Wealth Gaps Rise to Record Highs Between Whites, Blacks and Hispanics (39 pages, PDF), the median net worth of white households in 2009 was twenty times that of African-American households and eighteen times that of Latino households -- a wealth gap, in both cases, nearly double what it was in 1984, thanks in part to the bursting of the subprime mortgage bubble and the recession that followed. Indeed, since 2005 Latinos and African Americans -- many of whom live in states characterized by housing market volatility and/or who derive more than half of their net worth from home equity -- saw their median household wealth fall by 66 percent and 53 percent, respectively, compared to only 16 percent among whites.

What factors other than the housing boom and bust are driving disparities in household wealth and asset accumulation? The Urban Institute report Private Transfers, Race, and Wealth (36 pages, PDF) examines the role of financial support from extended family members and friends, large gifts, and inheritances in asset accumulation and finds that African Americans and Latinos are much less likely to receive large gifts and inheritances than whites -- a fact that contributes significantly to racial and ethnic wealth gaps. Funded by the Annie E. Casey and Ford foundations, the report also found that large gifts and inheritances are a bigger factor in wealth accumulation among African Americans than among whites or Latinos, and that the disparity in private transfers of wealth accounts for an estimated 12 percent of the black-white wealth gap.

Does the wealth gap influence racial/ethnic disparities in child development, health, and economic mobility? And if so, how? According to Diverging Pathways: How Wealth Shapes Opportunity for Children (16 pages, PDF), a report from the Insight Center for Community Economic Development based on 2007 data, 32 percent of white households with young children were income-poor while 14.2 percent had no assets, compared to 69 percent of Latino and 71 percent of African-American households that were income-poor and 40 percent (for both groups) that had no assets. Lacking the financial resources to pay for high-quality early childhood education or college tuition, children in income- and asset-poor households face a future of limited economic opportunity, the report argues. Indeed, racial/ethnic disparities in child outcomes related to health status and skills development appear as early as the age of 2. The report also notes that while there is an inverse correlation between a mother's educational attainment, economic insecurity, and child outcomes, the wealth gap between households headed by white and African-American mothers with bachelor's degrees increased fivefold between 1994 and 2007. Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development, the Michigan Center for Urban African American Aging Research, and the National Institutes of Health, the report calls for helping economically vulnerable households of color build wealth and accumulate assets as a way to improve child well-being.

Would narrowing the wealth gap in and of itself eliminate disparities in health status and child outcomes? Any effort to mitigate the former must first address the links between location, race/ethnicity, and socioeconomic status as well as the physiological effects of bias and discrimination, Why Place & Race Matter (113 pages, PDF), a report from the California Endowment and PolicyLink, argues. According to the report, race/ethnicity is a greater determinant of health status than income, while structural racism continues to shape the economic, social, and physical environments of low-income communities of color -- which, in turn, affects the health status of residents of those communities. Among other things, the report argues that strategies for building healthy, thriving, sustainable communities must be race-conscious and focus on addressing both community conditions and individual interventions simultaneously.

To mitigate racial/ethnic wealth gaps, these reports suggest, policy makers and funders first need to address disparities in health, environmental justice, educational achievement, neighborhood safety, and other areas. Do you agree? And, if so, what strategies are working and deserve more attention and support? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse more than two hundred and sixty reports on topics related to minorities.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Weekend Link Roundup (January 28-29, 2012)

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

Civil Society

Writing on the White Courtesy Telephone blog, Greater New Orleans Foundation president Albert Ruesga urges grantmakers to invest less money in white papers and candidates' forums this election season and more on "helping advocates introduce democracy to the United States." Writes Ruesga: "While foundations might not have the resources to shift the political discourse in this country [in] the coming year, they can at least help liberate us from the illusion of free and fair elections...."

Communications

In a post on the Communications Network blog, Commnetwork board chair Mitch Hurst suggests that grantmaking organizations need to do a better job of monitoring social networks, blogs, and the mainstream media if they hope to understand "how their issues are being influenced in online conversations."

Corporate Social Responsibility

In a post on the Harvard Business Review blog, Rosabeth Moss Kanter argues that great companies are about more than a single-minded focus on the bottom line. Truly great companies, writes Kanter,

believe that business is an intrinsic part of society, and they acknowledge that, like family, government, and religion, it has been one of society's pillars since the dawn of the industrial era. Great companies work to make money, of course, but in their choices of how to do so, they think about building enduring institutions. They invest in the future while being aware of the need to build people and society....

Education

Philanthrocapitalism authors Matthew Bishop and Michael Green argue against the idea, suggested last week by former British prime minister Gordon Brown, of a Global Fund for Education to help address education funding cuts and boost the number of young people globally who attend and graduate from high school. Unlike fighting malaria -- which, write Bishop and Green, is "a finite task that can be achieved even where governments are weak" -- "educating the children of the world will need sustained investment indefinitely...."

Fundraising

Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks explains why it's important to "keep your eye on the ball" in fundraising -- and life in general.

Impact/Effectiveness

The Nonprofit Quarterly has published a fascinating exchange between the Hudson Institute's William Schambra and Wallace Foundation president Will Miller on the use of metrics in "the development and dispersion of knowledge" as a driver of the foundation's grantmaking. A must read for anyone who works in the sector.

Technology

On the Impatient Optimists blog, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Deborah Jacobs considers how the surge in tablet and e-book reader ownership presents "huge opportunities in an increasingly digitized society where information access plays a critical role in building knowledge and skills," as well as a challenge, in that the trend threatens "to exacerbate the digital divide that is already perpetuated across the U.S."

Transparency

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Meyer Memorial Trust communications director Marie Deatherage discusses the foundation's "road to transparency," a decade-long journey that included the early and active embrace of the Web and other online communications channels.

Volunteerism

Last but not least, CauseShift managing director Scott Henderson offers a few ideas for folks interested in changing the world one good deed at a time.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

Bill Gates' Fourth Annual Letter

As he has every year since 2009, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates has put his thoughts about the scourge of extreme poverty and the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world's largest, to improve the lives of millions around the globe into a letter and posted it to the foundation's Web site.

In addition to outlining the foundation's key priorities in 2012, this year's letter focuses on the need for continued investments in innovations -- agricultural and otherwise -- that are accelerating progress against poverty in the developing world. Or as Gates puts it in the letter's opening section:

The world faces a clear choice. If we invest relatively modest amounts, many more poor farmers will be able to feed their families. If we don't, one in seven people will continue living needlessly on the edge of starvation. My annual letter this year is an argument for making the choice to keep on helping extremely poor people build self-sufficiency.

My concern is not only about farming; it applies to all the areas of global development and global health in which we work. Using the latest tools -- seeds, vaccines, AIDS drugs, and contraceptives, for example -- we have made impressive progress. However, if we don't make these success stories widely known, we won’t generate the funding commitments needed to maintain progress and save lives. At stake are the future prospects of one billion human beings....

To read or download the letter (which is available in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, German, and Spanish), click here.

Weekend Link Roundup (January 14-15, 2012)

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

Disaster Relief

On the two-year anniversary of the earthquake that killed more than 200,000 people and left over a million Haitians homeless, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has an updated look at how sixty aid groups spent the money they raised for relief and recovery efforts. (Requires subscription.)

And Sandra Miniutti advises those who donated to relief and recovery efforts to "check back" with the organization(s) to which they gave. "Find out what the charity been able to accomplish. If you like what you hear and the charity says it has ongoing needs, then consider making a follow-up donation to support those ongoing efforts."

Education

A recent post on the Give2Asia blog profiles the Afghan Institute of Learning, a Give2Asia grantee, and its founding executive director, Dr. Sakena Yacoobi. Established surreptitiously during the early days of Taliban rule, AIL organized and operated a network of eighty underground schools that educated three thousand girls across the country. Today, Yacoobi's organization operates in the open and has touched more than 8 million Afghans through its network of schools, teacher and nurse training programs, and healthcare services.

Impact/Effectiveness

Using findings from the Ford Foundation-sponsored report Transactions, Transformations, Translations: Metrics That Matter for Building, Scaling and Funding Social Movements, Beth Kanter considers the opportunities and challenges involved in measuring the impact of social change movements and networks.

Philanthropy

The Bridgespan Group's Alison Powell reviews a recent Foundation Center report that examined the center's own grantseeking processes as a way to highlight some of the costs of capital that donors impose on all grantseekers.

On the Philanthropy Potluck blog, Naomi Pesky, director of marketing and communications at Minnesota Philanthropy Partners, shares a recent video created by the organization as part of its ongoing efforts to make its grantmaking processes more transparent.

In a post on her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz looks at at a handful of recent reports on giving, including one from the Pew Center for the Internet & American Life and Harvard's Berkman Center that looks at mobile giving in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. According to the report, the majority of people who used their cell phones to give to relief and recovery efforts made a spur-of-the-moment decision to do so and then told their family and friends to donate via text message as well. In her post, Bernholz wonders how this type of "tech-enabled" giving might change how and why philanthropic research is conducted.

About.com's Joanne Fritz shares a new infographic from Frugal Dad that highlights the impact of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates's philanthropic work.

Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan takes a close look at Oliver Zunz's new book Philanthropy in America and uncovers "seven examples of things [in philanthropy] that are often portrayed as new -- or not done -- despite the fact that this is not, historically, the case."

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's Kevin Laskowski shares his new year’s resolution for philanthropy: increase funding for community organizing among lower-income communities and "Emerging Majority" communities. Writes Laskowski:

I’m sure you're shocked to hear this from someone here at NCRP. However, one thing we saw in 2011 and we will likely continue to see in 2012 is the robust participation of some philanthropists in important public policy debates. Bill Gates, Eli Broad and others have played a large role in shaping the discussions about education reform efforts. A number of conservative philanthropies, such as the Koch brothers and the Bradley Foundation, have had an outsized influence on national debates for some time. Some see this involvement as a pernicious force in our democracy, but my concern is not that the wealthy participate in politics. My concern is that they're increasingly the only ones who do or can....

Scince/Technology

And on the Credit Writedowns site, Rick Bookstaber looks at the role computers and technology are playing in the destruction of the middle class.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

'Freedom Riders': Lessons for a New Generation

(Kathryn Pyle is a frequent contributor to PhilanTopic. In October, she spoke with Orlando Bagwell, director of the Ford Foundation's recently launched JustFilms initiative. She first blogged about Freedom Riders in February of 2010.)

Writing from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival about the civil rights movement as captured in documentary films, I highlighted Freedom Riders, a documentary directed by Stanley Nelson that premiered at the festival. The film tells the story of the hundreds of courageous people, most of them young, who participated in the 1961 "freedom rides" that helped end segregation in the South.

Freedom Riders aired on PBS this past May; the film went on to earn three Emmy Awards and the New York Times, calling it "beautifully constructed," selected it as one of the ten best programs of the year. The broadcast was preceded by a ten-day reenactment of the original 1961 campaign that was organized by American Experience, the PBS program which had commissioned and broadcast the film. "Get on the Bus" brought together forty college students from around the country to reenact the rides -- from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans -- and interact along the way with some of the original freedom riders, various historians of the period, and community activists. As they made their way south, the kids shared their experience via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media tools.

"The re-creation campaign had high visibility and great partnerships with state humanities councils, colleges and universities, and museums around the country," says Sonya Childress, community engagement specialist at Firelight Media, the nonprofit partner of Firelight Films, Nelson's for-profit production company. The former organizes audience outreach programs -- a letter-writing campaign for Nelson's film The Murder of Emmett Till helped reopen a criminal investigation into that 1955 case -- and supports emerging documentarians through a producers' lab.

" 'Get on the Bus' was very successful," Childress adds, "but we at Firelight wanted to do something different. We saw our job as bringing the film to a different audience -- particularly youth, and including African-Americans, but people who weren't necessarily connected to the civil rights movement. In targeting youth groups, we immediately thought of the Dream Act, because the story of Freedom Riders is a story about multi-ethnic organizing. We wanted to reach people working on immigration reform who do not see the civil rights movement as part of their history or as relevant to their activism. And we wanted to help them use the film in their own campaigns."

Atlantic Philanthropies, the Open Society Foundations (through its Campaign for Black Male Achievement), and the National Black Programming Consortium were approached and ultimately funded the Firelight Media project.

"Many funders could have said the freedom ride reenactment was sufficient as an audience engagement component," notes Childress. "But these three organizations saw value in bringing the history to a new community. They understood that Firelight Films makes historical documentaries, but that we want to show that the lessons of the past can be dissected and discussed and applied to today. Also, the funders recognized that, being an independent entity, Firelight Media had the latitude to work with a wider variety of community groups than had been involved in 'Get on the Bus', and that was seen as a complement to the American Experience project."

Engaging foundations that are not "media" funders is a new strategy for many documentary filmmakers; the challenge is in helping private and corporate foundations see that film can further their grantmaking priorities, and that there are many points of entry for support beyond a film's production phase.

At the same time, as foundations become more engaged in distribution there is more concern around evaluation of the project's goals. In Social Justice Documentary: Designing for Impact, a new Ford Foundation-supported publication from the Center for Social Media, Jessica Clark and Barbara Abrash put it this way:

In an environment of information overload and polarized sparring, social issue documentaries provide quality content that can be used to engage members of the public as citizens rather than merely media consumers. As a result, they have gained in visibility, influence and number over the past decade.

But despite the box-office and critical success of high-profile examples such as An Inconvenient Truth or Supersize Me, the social impacts of such expensive, long- range projects have been hit-or-miss. As a result, investors and filmmakers are asking tough questions about how best to plan for and assess the impact of such films and related engagement strategies, and to create models and standards for a dynamic field....

The report proposes a systemic approach based on early and continuous community participation that combines quantitative and qualitative indicators and continuous feedback into the evaluation design. The best indicators measure "evidence of [the film's] quality, increased public awareness, meaningful partnerships, increased public engagement, and collective action."

Firelight Media's plan for Freedom Riders incorporated many of those elements, though as noted by the Center for Social Media report, each documentary project is distinct.

Firelight began by convening a small group of civic organizations to help develop ideas for a year-long project; by the time Freedom Riders was broadcast, the project was ready to go. (An agreement with American Experience required that the Firelight project not overlap with "Get on the Bus," which took place immediately before the film aired.)

Sixteen community-based organizations and student groups -- some national and some local -- were selected as formal partners. Seven of the smallest groups received stipends to carry out their activities. All agreed to screen the film and use an online guide, United in Courage (available on the Firelight Media site), to help plan events and facilitate discussions. Their experiences are being disseminated via an e-news broadcast to other partners, funders and filmmakers, and through Firelight Media’s newsletter; in effect, the partners provide ongoing feedback as a way to strengthen the project.

The groups include established organizations like the NAACP, which is bringing some of the original freedom riders to college campuses in the South for screenings and conversations. Puente Arizona has invited some of the freedom riders to discuss immigration reform strategies with members of the migrant communities with which it works. At a workshop on audience engagement earlier this fall in San Francisco, another partner, Bay Area-based Youth Speaks, described using the film at its annual Brave New Voices event, which brings young poets and youth development organizations together: five hundred spoken-word artists attended the screening and a subsequent conversation, later broadcast on Pacifica Radio, with two freedom riders. And New York City-based Brotherhood/Sister Sol showed the film in New York and Ghana and trained youth facilitators to lead post-screening talks. (A complete list of partners and their plans can be found on the "United in Courage" site.)

Recognizing that short films can be useful for community organizing and in educational settings, especially those involving children, Firelight Media produced a twenty-minute version of the film (available only to project partners) and also commissioned three ten-minute films on key issues in the current immigration policy debate. Immigration: Beyond the Headlines was supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and can be viewed on the Firelight Media site. Though apprehensive at first that the films would be seen as standalone media, Firelight staff now consider them to be useful vehicles for driving interested viewers to the longer and more comprehensive film.

Today, halfway through the year-long audience engagement effort, Firelight's independent evaluator is tracking how the full-length documentary is being used and the kind of impact it is having through pre- and post-screening interviews with various partners. The partners also submit formal reports on how they are using the film to enhance their work, in the process creating a repository of "best practices."

"Community organizations have varying levels of comfort with documentary films that are not 'advocacy' films, that are not prescriptive in terms of what to do about a particular issue," says Childress. "Freedom Riders is not a 'call to action'; it's an occasion for reflection. We're interested in knowing how community groups navigate that, how they challenge themselves and how they incorporate films into their programs. We want to know how this particular story resonates, especially within the immigrant rights movement that's looking for stories and trying to build relationships with other movements. The big question for us is: Can historical documentaries move the meter; can this content help people understand the current world?"

The anecdotal evidence is encouraging. Last month, as reported by the Montgomery Advertiser, "Two Freedom Riders who risked their lives to integrate Montgomery's bus station 50 years ago are back in the Capital City with a new cause: repealing Alabama's immigration law. The Rev. C.T. Vivian and Catherine Burks-Brooks joined a rally on the Capitol steps and a children’s march to the governor's mansion."

Some of the Firelight project's results to date are posted on its Web site in the form of testimony from the partners. We'll check back at the end of the year to see what lessons were learned and how they can inform the marriage between documentary film and community activism.

-- Kathryn Pyle

Weekend Link Roundup (December 17 - 18, 2011)

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

Communications/Marketing

In a post on her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Network for Good's Katya Andresen weighs in on a new Silverpop white paper that looks at where digital marketing trends are headed. Among other things, writes Andresen, nonprofit marketing staff should expect their work to become more personal, "human," and mobile in 2012.

Disaster Relief

On Oxfam International's From Poverty to Power blog, Chris Anderson, Oxfam's global adviser for disaster risk reduction, makes the case for more investment in disaster preparedness, noting that investment in DRR accounts for less than 1 percent of official humanitarian assistance to the world's twenty biggest recipients of such assistance.

Diversity

Rosetta Thurman shares a new article from the Nonprofit Professionals Advisory Group in which Katherine E. Jacobs and Andrew Grant-Thomas explain that when it comes to recruiting there "is no such thing as a diverse candidate."

Education

Writing about federal education policy in the New York Times ("Class Matters. Why Won't We Admit It?"), Helen Ladd, a professor of public policy and economics at Duke, and Edward B. Fiske, a former education editor at the Times and the author of the Fiske Guide to Colleges, pose what they believe is a critical question: "Why do presumably well-intentioned policy makers ignore, or deny, the correlations of family background and student achievement?" Ladd and Fiske propose that rationales for ignoring such correlations range from a belief that schools are capable of offsetting the effects of poverty, to not wanting to lower expectations for poor students, to the huge challenges posed by tackling poverty as a whole. "Let's agree," they write in closing, "that we know a lot about how to address the ways in which poverty undermines student learning. Whether we choose to face up to that reality is ultimately a moral question."

Global Health

On his Humanosphere blog, Tom Paulson has some nice things to say about Seattle-based PATH's acquisition of the nonprofit drug company OneWorld Health.

Philanthropy

On his Inside Philanthropy blog, Todd Cohen commends foundations and corporations for "moving beyond grantmaking and investing more of their assets to address critical social and global problems." "[T]hat kind of innovation," adds Cohen, "is critical to help make the social economy more productive in serving people and places in need."

Philanthropy 2173's Lucy Bernholz shares her annual list of new buzzwords and phrases, including evidence based, shapeshifting, and disruption.

Social Media

Nonprofits shouldn't confuse content curation -- "the organizing, filtering and 'making sense of' information on the web" -- as aggregation, writes social media expert Beth Kanter in a recent post on her blog. "The debate in content curation circles [right now]," adds Kanter, "is that [if] we treat content curation as aggregation, then we’ll miss the point and just create noise. We don't need more content but a human point of view guided by intelligent tools that can help others find and make sense of the information and resources out there."

Transparency

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Bill Somerville, executive director of the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, offers his take on the relationship between transparency and effectiveness that was the subject of recent event in San Francisco co-hosted by the Foundation Center and the Center for Effective Philanthropy. Writes Somerville:

Does transparency and glass pockets help effectiveness? I don't know. What difference does it make for people to know foundation salaries? If it does make a difference, then we are talking about accountability not effectiveness. Is the foundation accountable in being efficient, frugal, responsible, responsive and productive?

Foundations have a special place in the community in that they are answerable to themselves. They are independent and have maximum latitude to do their work. They have a unique asset in that their money is not political, not in competition with anything or anyone, and they have no ax to grind. So, what are the factors of excellence in the exercise of philanthropy? A question foundation personnel should ask themselves every day....

One is leadership. Foundations should exercise leadership in their willingness to venture where others haven't gone, to take risks, to think into the future rather than indulge themselves in endless paper. A leader is one who brings out the best in others. Isn't this what foundations should be doing?

Another factor of excellence is modesty. Money is the tool of philanthropy and money is power. Foundation personnel must understand that it is not their money nor is it their power. Foundations are investing funds in people and programs worthy of the investment. They are not "giving money away."

Somerville concludes by noting that his comments are meant to "create a dialogue and stimulate other people to add their thoughts on what makes for effectiveness." Here's your chance to join that conversation. What do you think an "effective" foundation looks like? And what is the relationship between transparency and accountability? Use the comments section to share your thoughts....

That's it for now. With the holidays looming, most of our shopping still be done, and miles to go before we sleep, we'll be posting a little less frequently over the next couple of weeks. Here's hoping you get to spend time with friends and loved ones. Have a great holiday!

-- The Editors

Poverty in America: A Conversation With David R. Jones, President, Community Service Society of New York

(On Thanksgiving Day, the New York Times noted in a lead editorial that "one in three Americans -- 100 million -- is either poor or perilously close to it." The editors at the Times based that assertion on an analysis of recent U.S. Census Bureau data. Two days earlier, D.C.-based Wider Opportunities for Women published an even higher figure -- 45 percent -- as the percentage of the nation's residents lacking economic security. Whatever the exact number, it's clear that millions of Americans are stranded on islands of economic desolation marked by failing schools, sub-standard housing, inadequate healthcare services, and rampant crime.)

Struggling to make ends meet has been a characteristic of life in the United States since its founding. Recent Census figures suggest, however, that the number of Americans living in poverty has reached "an historic high of 46.2 million." According to another study from the Brookings Institution, the number of Americans living in communities where poverty is "extreme" -- neighborhoods in which at least 40 percent of the population is poor -- soared by one-third between 2000 to 2009. Brookings, which based its study on 2000-2009 income data from the census, notes that the increase over the last decade erases all the economic gains of the 1990s.

Regular contributor Michael Seltzer recently spoke with David R. Jones, president of the Community Service Society of New York and one of the nation's leading advocates on behalf of the poor, about his thoughts on poverty in America and what the growing ranks of low-income New Yorkers can do to escape their predicament.

Michael Seltzer: According to a Brookings Institution study released on November 3, the number of Americans living in poverty has grown by more than a third over the past decade. In New York City alone, 1.6 million people -- approximately one in five New Yorkers -- are living below the poverty line. What are the consequences of that for New York?

David Jones: Those statistics are terrifying on a number of levels. The poverty level is the same in Manhattan as in rural Mississippi. However, the housing costs in rural Mississippi, obviously, are dramatically lower than in New York. A family of three can buy a lot more goods and services in Mississippi on $17,500 dollars a year than can a family living in Manhattan.

MS: What is the role of the Community Service Society in addressing the economic problems faced by low-income New Yorkers?

DJ: Throughout our hundred-and-seventy-year history, poverty has been our exclusive focus. Our founders perceived poverty in urban areas as a potential danger to civic order. They understood that as more and more people drift into poverty, key elements of the economy and our democracy are undermined. They believed strongly that if you didn't provide low-income people with economic opportunity, you were endangering the civic fabric. And in a multi-ethnic city like New York, keeping the civic fabric in good repair is vital. For those reasons and others, we have always taken a three-pronged approach to our work: research, service, and public education.

MS: What accomplishments can you point to to illustrate the importance of that work?

DJ: Our approach is to put forward unassailable arguments based on serious research, statistical evidence, and cost effectiveness. Through our research, we give ammunition to policy makers and elected officials who are confronted with what would otherwise be an avalanche of anecdotal information. At other times, our moral voice is a much-needed contribution to the conversation. Our intent is to shape public policies and encourage affordable interventions that promote better lives for all New Yorkers.

MS: Do we have the necessary knowledge to effectively address the problems of people living in poverty today?

DJ: Absolutely. For example, CSS focuses on employment strategies that are grounded in today's fiscal realities. Beginning in 2004, we issued a groundbreaking series of reports on black male unemployment and disconnected youth. Seven years later, we find that the problems facing both poor and working people in America are universal and affect people of all colors.

For many people, making the transition into the world of work is neither simple nor easy. This is especially true for young people or people who have been incarcerated. Many need a GED and job-preparedness training. They need help in securing an actual job that pays a living wage. Once they are working, they typically require additional support such as day care and benefits like paid sick leave. And as they establish themselves in the workforce, they need opportunities to climb a career ladder within a trade. We also believe that low-wage workers need the collective bargaining power of a union to ensure that they receive adequate health care, access to reliable credit, and other benefits that the rest of us take for granted.

MS: How important is a solid education?

DJ: It's vital. Each year, after having failed them in elementary and junior high school, we fail to graduate hundreds of thousands of young people from high school. As a result, there's an enormous cohort of young people who lack a high school credential. In New York City alone, over eight hundred thousand working-age adults lack a high school diploma. That's why we are now focusing on helping young people secure their GED.

MS: What argument do you think is most effective in galvanizing public support for pro-poor policies?

DJ: Simply this: In New York, and across the country, we are falling way behind in terms of our economic competitiveness. We are at risk of turning into a second-rate power within a generation. It is a huge cost to our economy when we fail to provide a top-notch education to all Americans. That's the case that advocates for the poor across the country should be making to their elected officials.

MS: What is your greatest hope at the moment?

DJ: My greatest hope is that our business and political leaders recognize that we cannot afford to fall any further behind other global economic powers. We need to put America back on track. Things that might provide a path out of poverty for the working poor and their children are not being addressed with the intensity that is needed to really have a measurable impact on the problem. We need to work together to create a groundswell in support of lifting the most disadvantaged among us out of poverty.

MS: Many nonprofits are fighting the good fight on behalf of the nation's poor. What message can you share with those organizations?

DJ: It's not enough anymore for human service agencies to simply provide services. They must educate the public and advocate for better policies for their constituents. Providing services alone cannot and will not make a lasting impact on the problem. We all need to draw on our own firsthand experiences to advocate forcefully for the critical interventions that we know work.

MS: Where is the funding for this kind of advocacy work going to come from when organizations already are suffering the loss of state and city contracts? One organization I visited a few weeks ago said it had to disband its advocacy efforts due to funding cutbacks. Can foundations play a role here?

DJ: Absolutely. We must make a stronger case to foundation officers that their grant dollars can drive change, real change, when earmarked for advocacy efforts.

MS: Do you see this moment as ripe for a new social movement that puts the concerns of the poor front and center in the public discourse?

DJ: Yes, I do. Its outlines aren't yet clear, but I believe it will emerge sooner rather than later. But to be successful, it will have to provide a meeting ground for people with diverse life experiences.

MS: I hear a sense of hope in your voice.

DJ: America's youth inspire in me a sense of confidence in the future of our country. When I talk to them, certainly in urban areas like New York City, I hear a yearning. They're excited by new ideas, new investments, new technology, and they want everyone to share in the bounty of this great country.

-- Michael Seltzer

Weekend Link Roundup (November 19 - 20, 2011)

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

Communications/Marketing

Writing on the Communications Network blog, Rebecca Reyes, a communications associate at Everyday Democracy, shares an eight-step plan for measuring digital media.

Current Affairs

Have Fun Do Good blogger Britt Bravo, who is based in Oakland, explains why the Occupy Wall Street movement makes her "sad, and a bit tired." Writes Bravo:

The Occupy movement feels like the human race is screaming, "Help! Something is not right! Life is out of balance!" Thing is, there isn't anyone there to hear us, except us.

Only the 99% can help the 99%. Only we can help each other. How are we going to do it?...

In a brilliant post, The Atlantic's Alex Madrigal shares a few thoughts along those lines and, in the process, articulates what may be the best metaphor yet for the Occupy movement: social protest as API.

Education

What does the American dream look like for the current generation of college students? On December 1 in Atlanta, the Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation will host a panel discussion on that topic featuring Bob Herbert, former columnist for the New York Times and now a senior fellow at nonprofit think tank Demos; Deborah Bial, president and founder of the Posse Foundation; and Pulitzer Prize-winning historian David Garrow, who will moderate. Students from several area colleges and universities -- including Agnes Scott, Clark Atlanta, Emory, Georgia Tech, Morehouse, Oglethorpe, and Spelman -- are invited to participate. "The nation's future depends on the next generation gaining full access to the American dream," says Blank Foundation president Penelope McPhee. "A world-class education is the key that unlocks the American dream for millions of young people." The talk will be Webcast live starting at 6:00 p.m. EST.

Impact/Effectiveness

On the FSG blog, FSG managing director Mark Kramer "suggests that while investing in small to mid-size enterprises (SMEs) that provide a new solution to a social problem can indeed deliver social impact, "the high transaction costs, limited liquidity, and scarcity of good managers sets a ceiling on [the] ultimate scale of [that] impact." Instead, such investments should be augmented, Kramer argues, with new financial instruments like the $3.5 billion in vaccine bonds issued by the International Finance Facility for Immunisation or social impact bonds. "As the field matures," adds Kramer, "funders will realize that innovative financing structures, rather than individual social enterprises, offer the greatest chance for large-scale leverage."

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Paul Connolly, chief client services officer at the TCC Group, suggests that foundations should not only support individual nonprofits but provide funding to foster the development of issue-focused networks.

Leadership

Rosetta Thurman has some advice for young nonprofit professionals looking to grow their network "the old-fashioned way." For starters, says Thurman, join a professional association, which, among other benefits, will "provide you with a ready-made network as soon as you pay your membership fee."

Nonprofit Management

Kim Cook of the Nonprofit Finance Fund shares some notes from the Theatre Communications Group's fall conference, which was dedicated to issues of governance.

Philanthropy

In a post on the Fast Company blog, Nathaniel James, founder of the Awesome Foundation's Seattle chapter, talks with "well-respected philanthropy wonk" Lucy Bernholz about the emergence of the "open philanthropy" movement, which Bernholz describes as a "little revolution" that aims to encourage foundations to embrace transparency and use the "vast repositories of information" at their disposal to help solve stubbornly persistent social problems.

Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene

On Oxfam's From Poverty to Power blog, WaterAid senior policy analyst Daniel Yeo wonders why more NGOs aren't working on water issues. While diarrhea is the biggest child killer in sub-Saharan Africa and preventable diarrhea associated with dirty water and poor sanitation "kills more children than AIDS, malaria, and TB combined," Yeo notes, WASH issues just aren't perceived as being "sexy" or a high priority in developed countries. And that, says Yeo, is a tragedy.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great Thanksgiving!

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (November 12 - 13, 2011)

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

Education

On the Guardian's Global Development blog, Brookings Institution senior fellow Kevin Watkins criticizes Bill Gates for ignoring international education in his speech to world leaders at last week's G20 Summit. "Education in the world's poorest countries does not figure high on Bill Gates's list of development priorities," writes Watkins. "[And]...applying his market-based strategy in the poorest countries is a prescription for social inequality. At risk of over-generosity, we award him a C- on education, with the hope that he will come back next year and do better."

Fundraising

In a recent post on the Nonprofit Finance Fund's Social Currency blog, Andrew Schwalm argues that nonprofit orgnizations which are able to clearly and accurately articulate their financial story and resource needs are in "a better position to make a...case for support." To that end, Schwalm and his NFF colleagues have created a self-assessment worksheet to help nonprofits assess their stengths and weaknesses.

Innovation

Harvard Business Review blogger Dan Pallotta argues that before an organization can think outside the box, it needs to figure out what kind of box it's in. "Zune was Microsoft trying to think outside the box, which they saw as the lack of a product to compete with the iPod," writes Pallotta. "The doomed MP3 player became a monument to the real box, which was Microsoft's inability to innovate. It was screaming so hard 'Look, we're innovative' that it never had a chance of being anything but the antithesis of innovation...."

In a wide-ranging interview, Forbes contributor Rahim Kanani spoke with Paul Carttar, director of the federal government's Social Innovation Fund, about the nature of the social innovation sector in the U.S., the fund's milestone achievements, its priorities moving forward, and the future of social innovation. You can read part one here; part two is here.

Social Velocity blogger Nell Edgington has an interview with Robert Egger, founder and president of DC Central Kitchen, the country's first "community kitchen," that touches on some of the things nonprofits need to do to demonstrate how they are actually driving change. The tireless Egger has just launched CForward, "a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization that champions the economic role of the nonprofit sector and supports candidates who include the sector in their plans to strengthen the economy."

Leadership

On the Venture Philanthropy Partners site, VPP chairman Mario Morino poses six questions that "every nonprofit board and executive team must ask to prepare for rough financial straits ahead."

Philanthropy

Earlier this week, Tactical Philanthropy blogger Sean Stannard-Stockton announced that, after five years, he and his widely read blog will be taking a sabbatical. "I have learned so much from the Tactical Philanthropy community," writes Stannard-Stockton, "and have become only more convinced that the field of philanthropy is rushing forward toward a Second Great Wave of philanthropic activity that is fundamentally different from the philanthropy of the last century." We've been admirers of Sean's work from the beginning and wish him great success in his future endeavors.

Poverty Alleviation

Deep Social Impact blogger Joanne Duhl wonders why Americans have accepted and become complacent about growing poverty in their country, and offers a few suggestions for funders working to improve the lives of those in need.

Social Entrepreneurship

In the Washington Post’s new On Giving section, "Social Entrepreneurship and the Next Generation of Giving" features interviews with Kiva.org's Premal Shah and Ashoka's Bill Drayton about the fundamentals, evolution, diversity, and challenges of social entrepreneurship, including the difficulties of applying universal effectiveness metrics to a diverse range of activities. "[Social entrepreneurs'] goal is to get the system to evolve in the fundamental pattern-change ways that will help the children, the parents, the society -- the whole thing," Drayton says. "They see a problem, and they can't imagine stopping and being happy in life until they've changed the pattern in the field."

Social Media

In conjunction with the launch of Google+ Pages, Social Media for Social Good author Heather Mansfield offers step-by-step instructions for nonprofits looking to establish a presence on the social networking platform.

Transparency

And on the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Meyer Memorial Trust communications director Marie Deatherage explains why her perception of "foundations as moated fortresses that operate by a secret rich-people code" was wrong.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (October 30 - 31, 2011)

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

Communications/Marketing

When it comes to telling a good story about your organization, Katya Andresen recommends that nonprofit marketers follow the advice shared by Marvel Comics legend Stan Lee in this video.

Economy

On the Deep Social Impact blog, Joanne Duhl wonders what role philanthropy should play in fostering an opportunity-for-everyone approach to not just education but also employment.

GuideStar president and CEO Bob Ottenhoff wonders on his blog what philanthropy is going to do about Occupy Wall Street. "At its core," writes Ottenhoff, "[OWS protestors] are asking some fundamental questions: what kind of society do we want the United States to be? How do we give people the freedom and incentives to grow wealth, build a strong and resilient economy, create new jobs, and do it in a way that benefits the greater good?"

The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Council on Foundations co-hosted a real-time Twitter chat last week on the topic of what, if anything, philanthropy can do to help revive the limping economy. For those who may have missed the conversation, the council has "storified" the chat here.

Impact/Effectiveness

On the Stanford Social Innovation review blog, the Bridgespan Group's Matthew Forti and Peter Kim have a few tips for nonprofit organizations looking to "more intentionally find the 'natural funders' that align with their outcomes, and to determine how best to communicate their outcomes in a way that inspires and influences the decision-maker."

Leadership

In a series of posts on her blog, Rosetta Thurman takes a look at the kinds of nonprofit leaders we need now and identifies four types: true believers, ruthless innovators, ambassadors of diversity, and courageous advocates.

Philanthropy

On her About.com blog, Joanne Fritz weighs in with a positive review of Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen's new book Giving 2.0, which delivers, according to Joanne, "its juice through well-crafted chapters that address just about anything any of us needs to know about charitable giving with impact in today's connected, charged, globally knit landscape...."

After reviewing the results of a new study from the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University which concluded that the Obama administration's proposals to reduce the charitable deduction from 35 percent to 28 percent for wealthy households and to increase the marginal income tax rate for high-income earners would have a modestly negative effect on charitable giving -- essentially the same conclusion arrived at by a 2010 Congressional Research Service study -- the Nonprofiteer writes:

So whether we take the IUPUI findings that charitable giving is likely to decline modestly if these tax reforms are enacted, or the CRS findings that it might actually go up, we should realize that everyone who's hyperventilating about the impact of these changes on their poor struggling private school, museum, or hospital should just take a deep breath. Given that the reforms will support many of the social programs, environmental protections, educational institutions, and health care options the nonprofits themselves seek to provide, it's about time for the community to stop whining and agree to pony up....

Transparency

At the Foundation Center’s Transparency Talk blog, Michael Remaley, director at Public Policy Communicators NYC and president of HAMILL REMALEY breakthrough communications, takes a closer look at Don’t Count Us Out: How an Overreliance on Accountability Could Undermine the Public’s Confidence in Schools, Business, Government and More (52 pages, PDF), a new report from Public Agenda and the Kettering Foundation that highlights how the public's take on accountability differs from that of leaders at public- and private-sectors organizations.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- Regina Mahone

Geeking Out With the New York Community Trust

(Laura Cronin is a frequent contributor to PhilanTopic. Her last post was about the metrics individual donors use to make giving decisions, and she has also written here about the role of technology in K-12 education.)

There is probably no more familiar outlet for foundation, corporate, or individual giving than educational television. We are reminded of the medium's appeal to donors each time we watch the closing credits on a favorite PBS show. But it wasn't always thus. Before the late '60s and the research-based programming of the Children's Television Workshop, television rarely was seen as a grant-worthy vehicle for donors concerned about education or children.

These days, donors and parents might be forgiven for thinking about digital media in the way critics thought of television before the arrival of Joan Ganz Cooney, the Carnegie Corporation, and Big Bird. Beyond Google and Wikipedia, how educational is the Internet? What happens when young people go online? What does it mean for a 14-year-old to have eight hundred friends on Facebook? How good is the content they find while hanging out in cyberspace?

Few educators and other experts would hazard a guess as to where we will be forty years from now, but many are eager to find ways, right now, to use digital media for learning.

The New York Community Trust's Hive Digital Media Learning Fund is an effort to help create high-quality educational opportunities using digital media. Launched in 2011 by the trust and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the fund will make grants totaling $1.5 million this year to museums, libraries, and community groups interested in exploring how digital media can be used to get young people excited about their own education and deepen their knowledge.

Considerable philanthropic effort has gone into getting state-of-the-art hardware into the hands of students. While thousands of U.S. schools still struggle with outdated computers, progress has been made, and even low-income teens today are using mobile phones and laptops to communicate, game, and study. But with the growing popularity of Facebook and Twitter, figuring out how to offer interesting educational content to kids through their social media networks requires the same kind of philanthropic support.

According to Hive Digital Media Learning Fund adviser Catherine Fukushima, the research behind the initiative, much of it funded by the MacArthur Foundation, reveals that:

This is not about kids working in isolation using technology -- that happens, of course -- but the research shows that kids who go the farthest and learn the most are in social networks, either supported by mentors or peers, and those relationships happen both online and in person. That is the sweet spot. Technology and social networks allow kids to connect with other people. Say you're really interested in geology and you start fooling around online and learning about it online. The people who go the farthest are people who meet other people either online or in person, who get really excited about the same topic. It's other people who can say, "Have you thought about this?" "Have you tried that?" "Have you tried writing a piece about this?" "Or I saw what you wrote about this." "Did you think about X, Y and Z?" That's what pushes young people. This is very different than a fear that a lot of people have which is that everybody is just sitting alone at their computer and not actually talking to anyone or interacting socially....

First-round grantees include prominent arts and culture organizations like the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum, WNYC, the New York Hall of Science, the Museum for African Art, and the New York Public Library. The fund is encouraging its grantee organizations to let young people take the lead in discovering what digital learning looks like in different institutional contexts and figuring out how that learning can help prepare them for academic and career success.

For example, teens taking part a New York Hall of Science partnership with the youth group Iridescent are creating mobile phone applications based on museum exhibits that will make the exhibitions "pop" for their peers and younger students. Another group of students working with the Hall of Science (and City Lore and Bank Street College) is studying air pollution and finding ways to use smartphones to collect data on carbon monoxide and particulate levels in their neighborhoods. Early use of the prototype they helped develop revealed that idling school buses cause unnecessary spikes in polluted air. Armed with the data, students immediately lobbied to get bus drivers to shut down their offending engines.

According to Kerry McCarthy, program officer for the arts and historic preservation at NYCT, the project has helped to boost the impact the trust's arts grants while also helping its nonprofit grantees, large and small, better relate to younger audiences.

In addition to creating a growing cadre of city youth who are engaging with nonprofit content providers in new ways, the fund also has galvanized a network of professionals who come together regularly -- both virtually and in person -- to share lessons learned and talk about how they can become ambassadors for the broader adoption of digital media in their home institutions.

Fittingly, the Joan Ganz Cooney Fund is an early supporter of the effort, which, according to McCarthy, has made it possible for any number of grantees to do interesting and innovative work at a time when grant dollars are limited. It is a way, she adds, to amplify one's giving, reach multiple groups, and explore the world of digital media. No password required.

-- Laura Cronin

This Week in PubHub: Children and Youth: Juvenile Justice

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at four reports that examine how well the rapidly evolving news business is serving local communities.)

After nearly twenty years of widespread "zero tolerance" school discipline policies, questions are being raised not only about their effectiveness but about their fairness and long-term effects. This week in PubHub, we are featuring four reports that explore how school discipline policies affect students' academic performance and involvement with the juvenile justice system, as well as efforts to reform that system.

According to Breaking Schools' Rules: A Statewide Study on How School Discipline Relates to Students' Success and Juvenile Justice Involvement (124 pages, PDF), a report from the Council of State Governments Justice Center and the Public Policy Research Institute at Texas A&M University, suspending or expelling students for disciplinary reasons increases the likelihood of their failing academically and/or becoming involved with the juvenile justice system. Funded by Atlantic Philanthropies and the Open Society Foundations, the report found that 54 percent of students in the state were suspended or expelled at least once between seventh and twelfth grade, with students of color and those with specific educational disabilities disproportionately at higher risk. The report also found that students who had been suspended or expelled were nearly three times more likely to come into contact with the juvenile justice system during the subsequent academic year, that 31 percent of those who were disciplined repeatedly were held back a grade, and that 10 percent of those who were disciplined repeatedly dropped out.

Suspended Education: Urban Middle Schools in Crisis (25 pages, PDF), a 2010 report from the Civil Rights Project, also argues that frequent suspensions and expulsions do not contribute to better school safety or student behavior but instead reduce opportunities for academic success and increase the risk of incarceration. The report examines the widening race and gender "discipline gaps," finding that while K-12 suspension rates for all students nearly doubled, from 3.7 percent to 6.9 percent, between 1973 and 2006, the 2006 suspension rate for African-American middle school boys was 28.3 percent. Indeed, with such policies resulting in minority students being separated from opportunities to learn at a disproportionately higher rate and facing greater risk of incarceration than their white peers, the issue is as serious a problem as low test scores and high dropout rates, the authors argue. Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Poverty and Race Research Action Council, the report offers a number of recommendations, including better data collection and analysis, providing alternative strategies and technical assistance to schools with high suspension rates, and taking measures to address unlawful discrimination in the use of suspensions and expulsions.

When students do get into trouble with the law, they often are tried as adults -- with negative consequences for the community (not to mention the students themselves) in terms of both public safety and economic prosperity. The Campaign for Youth Justice report State Trends: Legislative Victories From 2005 to 2010 Removing Youth From the Adult Criminal Justice System (52 pages, PDF) examines the unfairness of trying teenagers in the adult criminal justice system (where they are often housed in adult jails and prisons) given their still-developing brains and the (usually) minor nature of their offenses; the grave consequences (including higher recidivism rates and lifelong barriers to employment); and the social implications of a disproportionately high rate of minority youth being tried as adults. The authors also highlight encouraging trends at the state and local level, including raising the age of juvenile court jurisdiction, changing transfer laws, and revising youth sentencing laws. The report was funded by the Casey, Eckerd Family, Meyer, Falk, Ford, JEHT, MacArthur, Public Welfare, Tow, and Open Society foundations; Atlantic Philanthropies; the  California Endowment; the Fund for Nonviolence; the Moriah, Rockit, and Chasdrew funds; the Carter & Melissa Cafritz Trust; Covington and Burling LLP; DHO Consulting, Gladys Jensen; and Julie Jensen.

The JustPartners report Bridges to Manhood: A Multifaceted Probation Strategy That Incorporates Fatherhood Development (28 pages, PDF) addresses a different issue: how to help young men complete their probation while learning to become responsible fathers and family members. Funded by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the report argues that because many young men who go through the juvenile justice system have either no relationship or a damaged relationship with their fathers, helping them become better fathers can help prevent recidivism and may contribute to breaking the negative intergenerational cycle of father absence.

What do you think? Are school disciplinary actions counterproductive? Are racial/ethnic disparities in suspensions and juvenile justice involvement indicative of a larger problem? Do you know of any programs that have been effective in addressing those disparities? Use the comments section to share your thoughts.

And be sure to check out PubHub, where where you can browse more than 765 reports on topics related to children and youth.

-- Kyoko Uchida