PhilanTopic

Weekend Link Roundup (April 21-22, 2012)

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

Civil Society

In the Encyclopaedia of Informal Education, writer, activist, and sometime PhilanTopic contributor Michael Edwards bemoans the lack of clarity around the term civil society and attempts to restore some precision to the debate over its meaning. In the process, he reminds us that "Recognizing that civil society does indeed mean different things to different people is one of the keys to moving forward, because it moves us beyond false universals and entrenched thinking."

Communications/Marketing

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen shares four trends, including the growing popularity of peer networks, likely to shake up nonprofit marketing. "People listen to each other more than us, so we need to stop viewing social media as another form of getting our message out," writes Andresen. "Its primary value is that it allows other people to get the message out, for us."

Entrepreneurship

On the Kauffman Foundation's Growthology log, Dane Stangler looks at the evolution of entrepreneurship and how the very definition of the word entrepreneur has broadened over the years. Writes Stangler: "In its original use by Jean-Baptiste Say, it was someone who undertook economic activities and capitalized on arbitrage opportunities. Joseph Schumpeter ushered in the modern way in which people typically use the term by equating it with newness -- new products, services, combinations, business models, etc. Israel Kirzner saw entrepreneurs as those who targeted and eliminated disequilibria in the economy (for Schumpeter, entrepreneurs created those disequilibria)." Today, however, "the word has come to be so overused as to potentially lose a great deal of meaning...."

Environment

In a guest post on the Knight Blog, Shannon Dosemagen, director of community engagement at the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science, a 2011 Knight News Challenge winner, explains how the decision by Google to license community-created aerial maps from the lab's archive could lead to better policy and replace commercial and government data as a recognized representation of sites of civic and environmental concern.

Higher Education

The New York Times' Room for Debate series takes up the question of whether wealthy colleges deserve their tax breaks, with contributions from economist Sandy Baum; Michael McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation; the American Entreprise Institute's Frederick Hess; Barbara Gitenstein, president of the College of New Jersey; Andrew Coulson, director of the Center for Educational Freedom at the Cato Institute; Osamudia James, an associate professor of law at the University of Miami; and Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.

International Affairs/Development

About.com's Joanne Fritz reminds readers who are thinking about doing a little "voluntourism" this summer to use common sense and follow these tips from the Center for Responsible Travel.

Philanthropy

On his Inside Philanthropy blog, Todd Cohen offers his take on some of the investment strategies that have emerged in recent years to scale up or expand proven nonprofit programs.

Regulation/Oversight

Idealist researcher/blogger Putnam Barber reminds nonprofit organizations, many of which do not have to file their Form 990s until May 15, to make sure they have answers to three important questions:

• When is our filing deadline?
• What do we need to know to be sure we stay current with all the rules and regulations?
• Who is going to file our Form 990-N?

Social Entrepreneurship

Over at Dowser, J. Gregory Dees, a professor in the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and creator of the first course in social entrepreneurship in the U.S., challenges New York Times' columnist David Brooks' characterization of social entrepreneurship as something young people do to "avoid political participation and...[tackle the] 'corruption, venality, and disorder head-on'." Writes Dees:

Social entrepreneurs do not discourage political participation -- they invent new mechanisms for achieving the public good. Quite often solutions to problems require not just mobilizing political support but actually demonstrating how to solve problems that have confounded others.... Social entrepreneurs serve as society"s "learning laboratory," developing, testing, and refining new approaches to problems in ways that government agencies, with all their budgetary, bureaucratic, legislative, jurisdictional, and political constraints cannot do. These innovators represent the kind of decentralized problem solving that Nobel laureate Douglass North identifies as essential for any society to achieve what he calls "adaptive efficiency," the ability to adjust and thrive in the face of new challenges and shifting problems....

Social Media

On her blog, Allison Fine weighs in on the value of a Facebook "like." Writes Fine:

The notion of creating a direct equation of how much it cost to get one person to like a Facebook page and how much that person bought or gave as a result might satisfy the bean counters, but misses the larger point of why social media are so much more powerful than broadcast media. If you’re just looking for one, or ten, or one hundred thousand stand alone customers or donors, then there is no extra value in using social media. You could have just sent out a direct mail piece for that. The value in using social media is that every person, every like, comes with their own network that can be activated in an instant, and at no additional cost, for the organization. And that value, the value of having an army of your most ardent fans, affects far more than the development department....

Transparency

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Mark Hager, associate professor of nonprofit studies at Arizona State University's School of Community Resources and Development, explains how students in his Theory and Practice of Philanthropy course are using Glasspockets indicators to evaluate private foundations and "reflect critically on the value of transparency and how well the Glass Pockets assessment captures the concept." In the coming weeks, Hager will share thoughts from the student who "presented the most interesting observations about foundations, transparency, and the 'Who Has Glass Pockets' indicators." Stay tuned.

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

-- The Editors

Investing in the Environment: A PubHub Reading List

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she highlighted reports that address some of the issues and legal questions raised by the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate.)

Protecting the environment has long been a priority for many philanthropic organizations; the Goldman Environmental Prize, for example, is now in its twenty-third year. But what about public and private investments in the environment? With global climate change threatening to halt and even reverse the social and economic gains we've seen in the developing world since the fall of the Berlin Wall, one would think that policy makers, multilateral agencies, institutional investors, and private philanthropy would be eager to collaborate to help mitigate the worst of its effects. In honor of Earth Day, today we're highlighting two reports that look at aspects of the clean energy landscape.

According to Impact at Scale: Policy Innovation for Institutional Investment With Social and Environmental Benefit (64 pages, PDF), a report from InSight at Pacific Community Ventures and the Initiative for Responsible Investment at Harvard University, the emerging field of impact investing -- investing with the intention of generating measurable social or environmental benefit in addition to financial returns -- will only gain traction when it succeeds in attracting large institutional investors. Indeed, with total assets of more than $20 trillion worldwide, institutional investors (e.g., pension funds, insurance companies, and private endowments) are key players in global capital markets and could do much to legitimize impact investing as a viable alternative to more traditional investment approaches. To unlock the potential of the field, however, public policy must be adjusted to incentivize institutional impact investment by offering, among other things, co-investment opportunities, tax credits, and subsidies for industries and sectors that meet specific impact goals.

For example, the Energy Policy Act of 2005 created incentives for solar energy development that, according to the report's authors, helped boost U.S. solar manufacturing capacity:

The legislation created a federal investment tax credit (ITC) incentive for solar energy equal to 30% of expenditures on commercial and residential solar energy systems. Initially applicable for only two years, the tax credit was extended for an additional year with the Tax Relief and Health Care Act of 2006, and again for eight years in 2008 with the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act. This last version also allowed utilities to qualify for the tax credit. Between the creation of the ITC in 2006 and year-end 2010, U.S. solar manufacturing capacity quadrupled, with the vast majority of growth in 2009 and 2010. While not solely responsible for the market expansion, the ITC was a substantive driver and policy certainty provided by the eight-year extension has helped to catalyze private investment in the field....

Funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the report notes that institutional investors' fiduciary duty to fund beneficiaries can be a constraint:

Institutional asset owners have the potential, through their investments, for delivering social and environmental impacts at scale. But for public policy to help achieve this goal, it must take into account the nature of asset owners as investors and, in the near term, overcome perceptions of impact investing as a new, idiosyncratic, or niche market....

According to the report, targeted engagement of institutional asset owners should include: 1) an "enabling" strategy directed at investors to provide flexibility and "investability" in target markets; 2) an "integrative" strategy directed at intermediaries; and 3) a "developmental" infrastructure-building strategy to support nascent markets.

Where do we stand, then, in terms of investments in clean energy? Global investment in solar, wind, biofuels, and other renewable energy sources, as well as energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies, reached a record $263 billion in 2011, according to Who's Winning the Clean Energy Race? 2011 Edition (56 pages, PDF), a report from the Pew Charitable Trusts and Pew Environment Group, with the G-20 countries contributing 95 percent of the total and more than half of that, some $128 million, going into solar. The report also found that the U.S. reclaimed its global leadership position in 2011 -- after falling to second place in 2009 and third place in 2010 -- with $48.1 billion in clean energy investments, an increase of 42 percent, followed by China ($45.5 billion) and Germany ($30.6 billion). "At the end of 2011, more than 565 GW of clean energy generating capacity was in place globally, 50 percent more than installed nuclear generating capacity," the report notes.

And what role did public investment play in supporting the sector? "In response to the global economic crisis...,

government stimulus plans allocated more than $194 billion for clean energy efforts. By the end of 2011, almost three-fourths of those funds ($142 billion) had reached the sector. More than $46 billion in stimulus funding for clean energy was spent in 2011, more than half of that by the United States and China together. Of the $53 million that remains, 67 percent ($35.7 billion) is expected to be spent in 2012....

But even though the U.S. led in total clean energy investment, as well as investments in solar, energy efficiency technologies, and biofuels, its leadership "is likely to be short-lived"  because of policy uncertainty. Indeed, nothing "appears likely to stem the long-term shift in the clean energy sector's center of gravity as investment swings from the West (Europe and the United States) to the East (Asia) and from the Northern Hemisphere to the Southern."

Both reports suggest there is an urgent need for long-term public policies which incentivize institutional and other private investment in businesses that deliver environmental and social benefit. Without a policy framework to guide those investments and a market infrastructure to support them, however, the U.S. could end up losing the clean energy race and suffer the environmental, social, and economic consequences.

Eager to learn more about investments in clean energy, clean energy technology, and the economic impact of global climate change? Check out these reports, all of which can be found in PubHub:

• The Business of Innovating: Bringing Low-Carbon Solutions to Market
  Pew Center on Global Climate Change
• Clean & Green: Best Practices in Photovoltaics
  As You Sow
• United States Building Energy Efficiency Retrofits: Market Sizing and Financing Models
  Deutsche Bank Climate Change Advisors; Rockefeller Foundation
• Guidelines for Identifying Business Risks and Opportunities Arising From Ecosystem Change
  World Resources Institute; Meridian Institute; World Business Council for Sustainable Development
• Financing Stormwater Retrofits in Philadelphia and Beyond
  Natural Resources Defense Council
• The Economic Impacts of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative on Ten Northeast and Mid-Atlantic States
  Analysis Group
• From Barracks to the Battlefield: Clean Energy Innovation and America's Armed Forces
  Pew Charitable Trusts

Have a report or comment you'd like to share? Use the comment section below...

-- Kyoko Uchida

Weekend Link Roundup (February 25-26, 2012)

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

Communications/Marketing

Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks explains why it might be time to think about retiring your nonprofit CEO as organizational spokesperson. According to the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, for-profit chief executives were trusted by only 50 percent of survey respondents in 2011, and that figure declined by 12 points to 38 percent in 2012. "I don't think nonprofit CEOs have done as much to squander their collective reputation as corporate CEOs have," writes Brooks. "But maybe some of the dirt has rubbed off on our leaders...."

Environment

On the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy blog, NCRP executive director Aaron Dorfman announces the release of a new report, Cultivating the Grassroots: A Winning Approach for Environment and Climate Funders (52 pages, PDF), which suggests that foundations "can be more effective and secure more environmental wins by investing heavily in grassroots communities that are disproportionately impacted by environment and climate harms...."

Health

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has a nice Q&A with veteran Major League Baseball pitcher Jamie Moyer and his wife, Karin, whose Moyer Foundation works to help children and teens struggling with the death of someone close or who live with an addicted or co-dependent family member.

Nonprofit Management

In a piece for the Washington Post, Nonprofit Finance Fund CEO Antony Bugg-Levine argues that many nonprofits, particularly frontline agencies such as homeless service providers, health clinics, and domestic violence shelters that provide essential services to the most vulnerable communities, are facing an "existential crisis." And it's not a short-term crisis resulting from cyclical cuts. "Even if the economy recovers," writes Bugg-Levine,

structural demands on public coffers driven by inexorable demographic trends and the inevitable diversion of public resources to pay off deficits will reduce governments’ capacity to fund essential social services for the next few decades at least....

Once we accept this fact, the typical responses -- blaming the government for its stinginess or blaming service providers for their inefficiency -- will be revealed as increasingly inadequate explanations.

Instead of these default responses, we need to consider a fundamental question: "How will we secure a just and vibrant society now that our old models of sustaining essential organizations are disintegrating?"...

In the wake of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure/Planned Parenthood debacle, Albert Ruesga offers some advice to charities on his White Courtesy Telephone blog. The "time for charities to do their soul-searching is now," writes Ruesga. "Once a campaign against your organization goes viral, it's time for you to step up to the microphones and tell the world who you are and where you stand. Faced with the question, What are you about?, in the wake of an unpopular decision, do you have a clear idea what you would say?"

To help nonprofits still waiting for economic recovery to knock on their door, Social Velocity president Nell Edgington offers a list of things nonprofit leaders can do to create a sustainable financial model.

Philanthropy Journal's Todd Cohen looks at how community foundations are adapting their business model to keep pace with the evolving needs of donors. For example, the recent merger of the Boston Foundation and the Philanthropic Initiative, writes Cohen, has created a hybrid model for community foundations that focuses on generating new funds and providing training and resources for donors. TPI president and CEO Ellen Remmer told Cohen that this type of structure "can help ease a natural tension [TPI] identified in the old model in a study ten years ago...."

Philanthropy

After sharing findings from a recent Blackbaud report on online giving which found that "when large International Affairs organizations are removed from the analysis," online giving increased 13 percent in 2011, Allison Fine says the data confirms what many have known for years: "[O]nline giving is here to stay, most online giving happens when speed is important (year end and natural disasters), building relationships online (e.g. alumni) is a [key] to increasing giving."

Transparency

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Jacob Harold, philanthropy program officer at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, says that transparency, measurement of multiple bottom lines, proactive engagement with stakeholders, and collaboration "offer a framework for foundations to be more effective while avoiding unproductive government intervention. They are not simple boxes to be checked," adds Harold, "each is an attitude that must be embedded across foundation activities and constantly refreshed...."

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

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (December 3 - 4, 2011)

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

Environment

On the Mother Nature Network, author Chris Turner (The Leap: How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy) suggests that the problem with the modern environmental movement is "a maddening combination of Much Too Big and Way Too Little": Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Durban -- "the entire international emissions treaty process...[is] predicated...on convincing essentially the whole world to take [the first step] all at once, in unison," while our individual decisions to use eco-friendly products at home just aren't going to change the world. In his post, Turner offers advice about how to nurture your own activism and points to the solar energy boom in Gainesville, Florida, as an example of right-sizing a community sustainability effort.

As part of Occupy the Future, a forum on lessons to be drawn from the Occupy movement hosted by the Boston Review, Paul and Anne Ehrlich (co-authors, most recently, of The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment) offer a much darker view of the "conflict" between capitalism and the environment. "It is clear that we must redesign governments to regulate the marketplace so that most externalities are internalized for the good of society," write the Ehrlichs. "Everyone should recognize that old-time capitalism, like socialism and communism,

simply has not and cannot generate the sustainable redistribution and material and population shrinkage that are essential to creating an environmentally sound and equitable global society. The challenge is immense and unprecedented, with the dilemma exacerbated by plutocrats buying politicians and funding a powerful and effective disinformation machine programmed to lie about environmental threats. Overcoming that machine will require much cooperation, which won’t likely be achieved without new institutions and a broad increase in social justice. And these will require what the Occupy movement apparently demands: that we step back and consider whether the society we’ve built is indeed the one we want. But we have no choice but to meet the challenge. Either we will change our ways, or they will be changed for us.

Fundraising

Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks explains why the advent of Web 2.0 fundraising tools has not killed direct mail. "Direct mail is the greatest fundraising medium ever created -- after the church collection plate," writes Brooks. "It's changing, getting more complex and more expensive. But it's not dying."

Health

On the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog, Dr. Bart Haynes, head of the NIH NIAID Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI), marks the thirtieth anniversary of the global AIDS epidemic by reflecting on the progress that has been made in developing a safe and effective AIDS vaccine.

In an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal ("No Retreat in the Fight Against AIDS"), George W. Bush recounts the successes over the last decade of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). More than 4.7 million people have received AIDS treatment through the Global Fund and PEPFAR, Bush notes, while some 450,000 children have been born HIV-negative due to the latter's programs to disrupt mother-to-child transmission. And while acknowledging that "in lean budget times the U.S. and developing world must prioritize," the former president closes by urging Congress to think twice before it cuts funding for the programs.

On the same topic, Open Society Foundations program officer Shannon Kowalski gives two reasons why it's unlikely AIDS will be eradicated: "political will and the money to do it." Writes Kowalski:

These two barriers came into painfully clear view last week when the board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced that it was cancelling its latest call for applications for funding and adopted a set of drastic measures so that it could maintain funding for the essential services that it is currently supporting. At precisely the moment we've realized how to curb HIV, donors have left the Global Fund treading water, struggling to keep funding flowing to preserve the lives of those who are already on treatment....

And in "World AIDS Day: The Role of Religion," the Council on Foreign Relations' Isobel Coleman writes that "[t]he obstacles to achieving an AIDS-free generation -- and the benefits of this achievement for humanity -- make the constructive involvement of religious institutions crucial." While religious leaders have "contributed to the epidemic by denying the importance of condoms in HIV prevention and contributing to the stigma that AIDS patients already confront," Coleman writes, USAID is partnering with religious leaders in places like Indonesia to "facilitate the implementation of HIV policy statements" and "share a compilation of fatwa (religious guidance) on HIV prevention."

Journalism/Media

Author, NYU professor, and new media deep thinker Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations) brilliantly rebuts a lengthy piece in the Columbia Journalism Review written by Dean Starkman in which Starkman argues "for the continued relevance of existing news organizations, especially newspapers, in something very close to their current form." It's long, well worth reading, and includes this observation: "No medium has ever survived the indifference of 25 year olds...." Indeed.

Philanthropy

The folks at the BlackGivesBack blog need your help selecting the top ten celebrity philanthropists of 2011. Anyone can vote, as long as they do it before Sunday, December 11.

Social Justice

At the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Sara K. Gould, former president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, shares key findings from Diminishing Dollars: The Impact of the 2008 Financial Crisis on the Field of Social Justice Philanthropy (35 pages, PDF), a new study which she authored with help from colleagues at the Cricket Island Foundation, the Foundation Center, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and the Social Justice Philanthropy Collaborative.

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 (July 9 - 10, 2011)

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

Arts and Culture

The Createquity Arts Policy Library has been revived, with new posts from the library's three fellows -- Aaron Andersen, Jennifer Kessler, and Crystal Wallis -- who take an in-depth look at research on our "cultural rights"; informal arts; and the impact of arts education.

Communications/Marketing

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen explains why listening is the "most underrated skill in the world." Writes Andresen, "The most successful people in the world are all great listeners….They're so good at hearing, they don't just listen to the words being said by others, they also grasp the meaning beneath those utterances. They therefore understand what people want, and they build great companies, amazing nonprofits, and terrific agencies based on that knowledge."

Community Improvement/Development

On his Inside Philanthropy blog, Todd Cohen makes a case for the creation of pooled funds to help nonprofits across the country struggling to make ends meet. "After the economy broke down nearly three years ago, organizations and individuals in some communities stepped up and created pooled funds to support basic and emergency services that nonprofits provide to people in need," writes Cohen. "The creation of those funds reflected true leadership and commitment, and can be a model for establishing funds to provide the operating support that nonprofits desperately need now."

After the Wall Street Journal suggested in a lengthy article that ran over the Fourth of July weekend that the deep-pocketed Kresge Foundation was rethinking its efforts to revive the fortunes of Detroit after run-ins with Mayor Dave Bing and City Hall officials, Jonathan Oosting reports in Mlive.com that the foundation has no plans "to withdraw financial support for either the Detroit Works Project or Woodward Light Rail line."

Environment

Idealist.org's Julia Smith, whom we spoke with in May as part of our "social media for social good" video series, has a few tips for jobseekers interested in "green" jobs.

Fundraising

On his Future Fundraising Now blog, Jeff Brooks shares some reservations about mobile giving campaigns. "Unless you're the Red Cross and have the First Lady and every other celebrity pushing it for you," says Brooks, "the potential is painfully low."

Leadership

Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan takes a closer look at the new Daring to Lead report (18 pages, PDF), which found that 67 percent of nonprofit leaders "plan to leave" their jobs in the next five years. Over the past ten years, the Daring to Lead series, which is produced by CompassPoint and the Meyer Foundation, has predicted a "'wave' of impending transitions in leadership," writes Buchanan. But while the percentage in the 2011 report is "a high number…experience seems to suggest a significant gap between the survey results…and what actually happens."

Philanthropy

On the Tactical Philanthropy blog, Darin McKeever of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation describes how the foundation came up with a new strategy for its Charitable Sector Support initiative.

Regulation/Oversight

Guidestar's Bob Ottenhoff says "it's time to change which kind of organizations are eligible for a tax exemption." College booster clubs and big football bowls are just a couple of the types of organizations that should have their status revoked, says Ottenhoff. To help address the nation's budget crises, Ottenhoff also suggests cutting back tax expenditures: "deductions -- or loopholes -- that lower tax obligations, thereby reducing the amount of revenue going to the Treasury...."

Social Media

On her Nonprofit Tech 2.0 blog, Heather Mansfield has a few tips for nonprofits that are ready to think globally. Writes Mansfield: "The world is getting smaller with each passing day, and nonprofits as the agents of social good, should try to think bigger and stretch their Twitter wings beyond their own time zones."

The launch last week of the Google+ social networking platform generated a fair amount of comment in the nonprofit blogosphere. On the NTEN blog, Amy Sample Ward shared a few thoughts about the platform's privacy settings and how the site might benefit nonprofit professionals and their organizations, while Zoetica co-founder Geoff Livingston warned that yet another new social networking site means nonprofits will be encouraged to "spread the peanut butter a little thinner" instead of focusing "on the networks that have the most impact on their community."

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

-- Regina Mahone

This Week in PubHub: Environment: Green Access

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at reports that highlight the need to protect and invest in the environmental, economic, and cultural benefits of the planet's water and marine resources.)

While the environmental benefits of green spaces are obvious, the issue of equitable green access -- access to parks and open spaces where children can play and communities can thrive -- lies at the intersection of environmental, health, community development, and social justice concerns. This week in PubHub we're featuring four reports that examine how access to green space is inequitably distributed and what it means for racial and economic justice.

City Project has been mapping the distribution of parks and green spaces across Southern California, overlaid with demographic, economic, and historical data, in order to analyze green access by race/ethnicity and poverty rates. Healthy Parks, Schools and Communities: Green Access and Equity in Orange County (24 pages, PDF) finds that disparities in children's fitness, obesity rates, and safe parks are directly linked to race/ethnicity and household income. The report found that a disproportionate percentage of children of color live in areas of concentrated poverty in the northern part of the county, where their access to parks or school fields for play or public transportation connected to open spaces and beaches farther south is limited, and therefore are more likely not to meet physical fitness standards. Areas with the least access to parks and open spaces also have the highest child obesity rates. The implications of such disparities extend far beyond physical health, the report's authors argue, in that physical fitness is also linked to academic performance. The report was funded by the California Endowment, Kaiser Permanente, and the John Randolph Haynes and Dora Haynes, Kresge, Marguerite Casey, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert, Rouben and Violet Jiji, San Diego, Union Bank of California, Whole Systems, and William C. Kenney Watershed Protection foundations.

City Project also found that while San Diego County is 45 percent green space, areas of the county with the highest concentrations of low-income households and people of color are "park-poor" and have the highest child obesity rates. Not only would better access to parks and open spaces provide these communities with environmental, health, and economic benefits, the authors argue, it would also also give the residents of those communities healthier venues in which to celebrate their diverse cultural heritages and foster community pride. Funded by the San Diego Foundation, the Fletcher Family Fund, the Hattie Ettinger Conservation Fund, and REI, Healthy Parks, Schools and Communities: Green Access and Equity for the San Diego Region (46 pages, PDF) suggests a number of ways to ensure more equitable green access in the county, including prioritizing green space projects in low-income areas; developing better public transit to green spaces; implementing joint-use projects that facilitate the public's recreational use of parks, school facilities, and pools; and expanding the Conservation Corps and youth job programs.

Social justice is a central theme in grassroots efforts to secure green access in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Baldwin Hills, which is threatened by expanded oil drilling, a new report from Concerned Citizens of South Central Los Angeles and City Project argues. The report, Keep Baldwin Hills Clean and Green for Generations to Come (56 pages, PDF), notes that the neighborhood is one of the most park-poor areas in California -- due in part to a history of discriminatory land use and economic policies and practices -- and as a result has disproportionately suffered the environmental burdens of local oil field operations. Funded by the California Endowment, the Impact Fund, Kaiser Permanente, and the James Irvine, Kresge, Liberty Hill, and Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert foundations, the report lays out the community's vision for converting the oil field into a 1,200-acre park.

Farther north, a public-private partnership in San Francisco has succeeded in offering residents more recreational space and access by upgrading the city's athletic fields and streamlining its field permit system. In Giving Every Child a Place to Play Ball: A Partnership to Revitalize San Francisco's Athletic Fields (24 pages, PDF), the City Fields Foundation describes its efforts to renovate run-down fields, install lights for night play and practices, and reform the permit system for easier and more equitable field access. The report also details a number of challenges, including concerns about the use of synthetic turf, the vagaries of city politics, and the difficulty of engaging local residents who are more focused on crime and safety concerns than park stewardship.

What are your thoughts about disparities in green access and/or how the disparities relate to social and economc justice? Are you involved in or do you know of any philanthropy-supported projects designed to enhance access to safe parks and open spaces? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

And dont forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse hundreds of reports related to the environment and environmental concerns.

-- Kyoko Uchida

This Week in PubHub: Environment: Water/Marine Resources

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she highlighted several reports that examine how women's roles, both inside and outside the family, are changing and shaping the definition of family itself.)

While discussions of water-related issues in the philanthropic sector tend to focus on the urgent need to improve access to clean water and mitigate the consequences of global climate change in the developing world, the management of water and marine resources in developed countries also has an impact on climate change effects, biodiversity, and the economic vitality of local communities. Japan's crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, for instance, has been forced to dump water contaminated with low-level radiation into the sea-- an emergency measure with potentially harmful long-term consequences. This week in PubHub, we look at reports that examine the need to protect and invest in the environmental, economic, and cultural benefits of the planet's vital water and marine resources.

Concern about damage to coral reefs is hardly new; indeed, the World Resources Institute has published a series of reports on reef degradation in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and other regions. In its latest report, Reefs at Risk Revisited (130 pages, PDF), WRI uses updated data and satellite imagery to map and analyze threats to coral reefs from global climate change effects as well as human activities and notes that threat levels rose dramatically between 1997 and 2007. The damage from overfishing, coastal development, tourism, agricultural runoff, and shipping are compounded by rising ocean temperatures and acidification from carbon dioxide emissions, the report warns, resulting in reduced areas of living coral, increased algal cover, and lower species diversity and fish abundance. Funded by the Roy Disney Family Foundation, the report calls for more effective conservation efforts and steps to mitigate threats at the local, national, regional, and international levels.

The lakes, rivers, wetlands, and peatlands that comprise Canada's vast boreal forest not only help maintain global biodiversity and provide food and cultural benefits to indigenous rural communities in Canada, they also mitigate global climate change effects, a new report from the Pew Environment Group argues. A Forest of Blue -- Canada's Boreal Forest, the World's Waterkeeper (76 pages, PDF) explains how the expanse of forest and bodies of water produce a significant cooling effect while also increasing regional humidity and precipitation, which helps stabilize global temperatures. But Canada's boreal forests are also vulnerable to the effects of mining, oil and gas extraction, forestry, hydropower, and other industrial activities. Indeed, while 12 percent of the boreal forest in Canada is protected, the report recommends additional measures, including the conservation of the entire Mackenzie River watershed.

Valuing the Puget Sound Basin: Revealing Our Best Investments 2010 (102 pages, PDF), a report from Earth Economics, argues for shifting investments from activities that damage the Puget Sound ecosystem to activities that enhance and sustain that ecosystem, including such things as environmental restoration, stormwater retention, green building programs, and improved industrial processes. Funded by the Russell Family Foundation and Social Venture Kids, the report estimates the economic value of ecosystem goods and services provided by the Puget Sound Basin, including drinking water, abundant wildlife, climate regulation, flood protection, and recreation, and calls for further analysis and research to inform public and private investment in the region.

The Public Policy Institute of California report Managing California's Water: From Conflict to Reconciliation (503 pages, PDF) outlines the urgent need to reform the state's management policies with respect to fish and aquatic ecosystems, flood risk management, source quality protection, water supply management, and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, the hub of the state's water supply network. Inaction on any of these fronts, the report argues, could result in the disappearance of native species, an increased likelihood of catastrophic floods, water shortages and degraded water quality, and the decline of the Delta region as a productive ecosystem, with potentially severe economic losses. Funded by the David and Lucile Packard, Pisces, and S. D. Bechtel, Jr. foundations; the Resources Legacy Fund; and the Santa Ana Watershed Project Authority, the report calls for federal and state leadership in reconciling environmental and economic objectives, implementing new approaches to those objectives, and managing water as a public commodity.

What are your thoughts about protecting water and marine resources as a way to secure not only environmental sustainability but economic prosperity? Has your state or region developed creative or innovative approaches to the issue? And what are some of the obstacles preventing us from changing our relationship to these vital resources? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse nearly 350 reports related to the environment and environmental issues.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Weekend Link Roundup (April 9-10, 2011)

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

Communications/Marketing

In a post on her redesigned blog, Katya Andresen offers a few tips to nonprofit marketers looking to convince colleagues they've made the right choices with their copy/design.

Environment

Writing in the Huffington Post, Nature Conservancy CEO Mark Tercek says that the "failure to fully engage minority and urban communities is not only bad for the environmental movement, it also gets in the way of minority communities having a direct say on the future of the lands and waters that provide people food, shelter and income."

Health

The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy's Yna C. Moore shares a video in which NCRP executive director Aaron Dorfman introduces the organization's latest report, Towards Transformative Change in Health Care: High Impact Strategies for Philanthropy (52 pages, PDF).

Impact/Effectiveness

Minnesota Council on Foundation research manager Anne Bauers shares six recommendations from the recent TCC Group webinar "Research and Development: A New Form of Evaluation."

In a post on the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, CEP president Phil Buchanan cautions against believing that something is a trend just because a speaker at a conference or an "expert" blogger says it is. Writes Buchanan:

Our desire for something to be true, or to position ourselves as the chroniclers of a trend, does not make it true. It's a disservice to everyone in the sector when the media, consultants, or academics ignore the data to overstate a case -- or to create one out of whole cloth....

On his Full Contact Philanthropy bog, David Henderson suggests that "Social Impact Bonds and nonprofit market exchanges that mirror the world of finance dance around, rather than address, the core issues facing the social sector."

Leadership

"Once we accept the responsibility to do what we are called to do now...we will begin to see alternative ways in which we can change the world," writes Rosetta Thurman in a recent post on her blog about why she quit a PhD program and eventually started her own business. "We will realize that we do not need any external validation to give us permission to help others. And in the process of living out our own true purpose, we will, in turn, encourage others to do the same."

Philanthropy

Kris Putnam-Walkerly's Philanthropy411 blog is covering the Council on Foundation's 2011 annual conference in Philadelphia with the help of a star-studded blog team. The posts are coming fast and furious, and we'll be sharing some of them here at PhilanTopic over the next few days.

On his Tactical Philanthropy blog, Sean Stannard-Stockton examines a new white paper which "provides evidence that cause marketing results in lower charitable giving and lower happiness."

Philanthropy 2173 blogger Lucy Bernholz offers a thoughtful review of Tom Tierney and Joel Fleishman's new book Give Smart: Philanthropy That Gets Results. While Bernholz "found a lot to like" in the book, she also noticed a few instances where the authors' information fell short. Writes Bernholz:

The book makes no mention of peer networks -- online and off -- critical components of doing everything for just about everybody younger than a baby boomer. It makes no reference to the changing landscape of data on giving. It largely ignores the growth of tertiary products and services that donors navigate even before they begin giving. This is a funny oversight, since Tierney runs Bridgespan, a dominant firm in the advisory services industry....

Give Smart also makes short shrift of the selection process from investing to giving that more and more donors (and foundations) are integrating into their strategies. Whether you're a billionaire philanthropist or one of the 100s of millions of people who make up the long tail of the philanthropic revenue stream, you face daily choices about supporting causes by shopping, giving or investing...That's the new landscape -- and smart givers are navigating it with data, relationships, peer groups, giving circles, and professional advisers. Tierney and Fleishman's book will help them with one important piece of that puzzle. Now if only we had a similarly useful manual for guiding the bigger discussion about public responsibilities and this changing philanthropic landscape....

Social Media

In the latest installment of Allison Fine's Social Good podcast series on the Chronicle of Philanthropy site, Bernholz joins Joel Fleishman to discuss "how age and technology are affecting giving and which foundations have embraced social media."

Last but not least Beth Kanter, who co-authored the Networked Nonprofit with Fine, has some advice for nonprofit communicators interested in creating a social media policy.

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

-- Regina Mahone

Rethinking Nuclear Power: A PubHub Reading List

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her last post, she highlighted several reports that examine how women's roles, both inside and outside the family, are changing.)

With post-quake cooling system failures at Japan's Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex threatening a potentially large-scale nuclear disaster, some are raising the specter of another Chernobyl, while others are questioning whether nuclear power plants in the United States are safe. Since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, nuclear power plant construction in the U.S. has all but stalled. Given rising oil prices and growing climate change fears, however, nuclear power has (re)emerged as an alternative to fossil fuels, especially in energy-starved China. Here are a few reports from our PubHub catalog that explore various aspects of the nuclear energy conundrum.

Common Challenge, Collaborative Response: A Roadmap for U.S.-China Cooperation on Energy and Climate Change (58 pages, PDF), a 2009 report from the Asia Society and the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, outlines the climate change and energy security challenges confronting both nations and proposes a comprehensive program of sustained, high-level collaboration to build low-carbon economies and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. China, as the world knows, has been diversifying its coal-dominated energy supply with nuclear power, hydropower, and renewable energy; indeed, while nuclear power in China comprised just 1 percent of the country's energy mix in 2005, it is on a steady upward trajectory, boosted in part by a 2007 deal in which the U.S. Department of Energy approved an $8 billion contract for the sale to China of four 1,100-megawatt AP-1000 nuclear power plants, to be built between 2009 and 2015.

Ending the Energy Stalemate: A Bipartisan Strategy to Meet America's Energy Challenges (148 pages, PDF), a 2004 report from the Bipartisan Policy Center's National Commission on Energy Policy, provides detailed policy recommendations related to energy independence, climate change, natural gas supplies, the future of nuclear energy, and other long-term energy challenges. At the time of the report's publication, the 103 commercial nuclear power plants operating in the U.S. were responsible for generating about 20 percent of the nation’s electricity, while worldwide some 440 nuclear reactors accounted for about a sixth of the global electricity supply and about half of the carbon-free electricity generation. Funded by the Packard, Energy, MacArthur, and Hewlett foundations as well as the Pew Charitable Trusts, the report calls for expanded use of nuclear energy and includes recommendations in the areas of safety, security, and cost; radioactive waste; and proliferation risks.

The Pew Center on Global Climate Change's U.S. Energy Scenarios for the 21st Century (88 pages, PDF) discusses three divergent paths for U.S. energy supply and use through 2035, as well as the effect of climate policy on energy scenarios in which: 1) abundant supplies of oil and natural gas remain available at low prices; 2) the commercialization of technologies to raise energy efficiency and lower emissions spurs economic growth; 3) the U.S. energy market remains vulnerable and economic growth slows. All three scenarios envision a slight decline in the share of nuclear power, given the high up-front costs for new plants and security concerns. In the third, however, nuclear electric output initially increases as new, smaller, advanced reactor designs are put into service until a terrorist incident deals a blow to public support. 

Needless to say, unchecked proliferation and nuclear terrorism are two of the biggest concerns associated with an increased reliance on nuclear power. The National Academy of Sciences’ 2008 report Internationalization of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Goals, Strategies, and Challenges (160 pages, HTML) presents the recommendations of U.S. and Russian experts vis-a-vis the internationalization of the nuclear fuel cycle, including the provision of nuclear fuel to countries pursuing nuclear as a way of dissuading them from building their own uranium enrichment plants. The report was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

According to the 2010 PPIC Statewide Survey: Californians & the Environment (36 pages, PDF) from the Public Policy Institute of California, Californians are divided over building more nuclear power plants, with 44 percent in favor of the idea and 49 percent opposed. In terms of political affiliation, the survey found that 57 percent of Democrats were opposed to new plant construction, while 67 percent of Republicans and 51 percent of Independents were in favor.

What do you think? Is the ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan likely to shape our views about the future of nuclear energy? And what are the implications for our energy security as well as alternatives to fossil fuel-dependent power generation?

Our thoughts, of course, are with those who have been affected by the quake and tsunami in Japan, as well as those working to contain and mitigate the nuclear crisis there. For more coverage of the relief and recovery efforts as well as updates on the fast-moving situation, click here.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Year in Review: Noteworthy Gifts

For many Americans, 2010 was characterized by continuing economic uncertainty and challenges. It was no surprise, therefore, that charitable giving, even among the mega-wealthy, reflected that uncertainty, with the number of gifts of $100 million or more up only slightly over 2009, when seven such gifts were announced, and way down from 2008, when at least fifteen such gifts were announced.

As they often are, educational institutions were the focus of many of the largest gifts, both eight- and nine-figure. In January, the Lawrenceville School, a four-year co-ed boarding school in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, received a $60 million bequest from the estate of Henry C. Woods, an alumnus, former English teacher, and trustee of the school, and his wife, Janie, for scholarships and other programs. Six weeks later, the first nine-figure gifts of the year were announced by two mid-South institutions of higher education: Oklahoma State University, which received a $100 million challenge gift from energy tycoon and alumnus T. Boone Pickens, and Baylor University in Waco, Texas, which received an anonymous $200 million bequest in support of medical research related to aging.

A number of healthcare institutions also received major gifts in the early part of the year. In January, the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in La Jolla, California, announced a five-year, $50 million endowment gift from South Dakota businessman T. Denny Sanford to expand and accelerate the institute's cutting-edge medical research. In April, the University of California, San Diego Health System received $75 million from the family of Joan and Irwin Jacobs for a medical center at the school's La Jolla campus. And in June, UCSF Children's Hospital announced a five-year, $100 million gift from Salesforce.com founder, chairman, and CEO Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne, to support the construction of a new hospital.

No gift received more attention, however, than the $100 million pledged by Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to launch a foundation that will work closely with Newark mayor Cory Booker to improve the long-troubled public school system in that New Jersey city. The gift was especially noteworthy for being the largest made to-date by the 26-year-old entrepreneur, whose fortune Forbes puts at $6.9 billion, and for being many times larger than any gift ever made to the Newark school system.

Other noteworthy gifts announced in the second half of the year included a $100 million challenge grant from the Open Society Foundations to Human Rights Watch; a $100 million pledge from businessman Henry R. Kravis to Columbia Business School; and $50 million each from Cogent Systems founder Ming Hsieh and the Annenberg Foundation to the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. In addition, Georgetown University received an $87 million bequest from Harry J. and Virginia Toulmin to support medical research at the school, while Cornell University announced an $80 million gift from David and Patricia Atkinson to endow the David R. Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, which they had established with a smaller gift in 2007.

The year came to a close with a bang, as two major arts-focused gifts were announced. In November, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded three grants totaling $50 million to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., for efforts to reach underserved K-12 students, expand research and public programs, and support the design and construction of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which is scheduled to open on the Mall in 2015. And toward the end of the month, the National Gallery of Art announced what was the largest gift of the year: a collection of more than two hundred pieces of early American furniture assembled by George M. and Linda H. Kaufman that is estimated to be worth more than $250 million.

Indeed, despite the uncertain economic climate, many well-off individuals were willing to dig deep into their pockets to support nonprofits and the causes they believe in. The Benioffs, for example, increased the size of their gift to UCSF Children's Hospital from the $20 million they initially planned to give to $100 million because of the difficult economy. "I had never really thought about doing a $100 million gift. That was significantly more than anything we'd done before," Marc Benioff told the Wall Street Journal. "We strongly believe in giving back to the San Francisco community that has given so much to us, and where the majority of the employees at Salesforce.com live. Additionally, given the decline in personal philanthropic giving and reduced government funding, we recognize that we need to do more."

Related:

• Number and Size of Mega-Gifts Fell in 2009 (1/6/09)
• Lawrenceville School Receives $60 Million Gift From Former English Teacher (1/15/10)
• T. Denny Sanford Donates $50 Million to Burnham Institute for Medical Research (1/29/10)
• Oklahoma State University Receives $100 Million Challenge Gift (3/2/10)
• Baylor University Receives Anonymous $200 Million Bequest (3/5/10)
• UCSD Health System Receives $75 Million for New Medical Center (4/6/10)
• UCSF Children's Hospital Receives $100 Million Gift From Marc and Lynne Benioff (6/18/10)
• Human Rights Watch Receives $100 Million From Open Society Foundations (9/8/10)
• Georgetown University Receives $87 Million Bequest (9/15/10)
• Facebook Founder Commits $100 Million to Support Newark Public Schools (9/24/10)
• Kravis Pledges $100 Million to Columbia Business School (10/6/10)
• University of Southern California Receives $100 Million From Alumnus, Annenberg Foundation (10/18/10)
• Cornell University Receives $80 Million for Research (10/29/10)
• Smithsonian Institution Receives $50 Million From Gates Foundation (11/5/10)
• National Gallery of Art to Receive Collection Worth $250 Million (11/15/10)

Year in Review: Gulf Coast Oil Spill Tops List of Environmental Concerns

Climate change, deforestation, species loss
-- all took a back seat, for a few months at least, to the biggest environmental story of the year, the disastrous explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20 and subsequent discharge of oil. Before it was capped in mid-July, the deep-sea gusher pumped more than two hundred million gallons of crude into the Gulf of Mexico -- the worst oil spill in U.S. history -- wreaking havoc on the region's fishing and tourism industries and threatening long-term damage to the region's fragile ecosystems.

Not that the news on the environmental front was all that bright before the Deepwater blowout. In February, a report from the Pew Environment Group suggested that rapid melting of Arctic snow and sea ice could cost the world a minimum of $2.4 trillion by 2050. The urgency of the global warming problem was underscored later in the month when the Boston-based Barr Foundation, New England's largest private foundation, pledged $50 million over five years to help make the metro Boston region a national leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And in July, the New York City-based Ford Foundation made an even larger climate change commitment, pledging $85 million over five years to help rural and indigenous people play a more active role in the stewardship of the natural resources around them and ensure that future global climate change initiatives addressed their needs.

Still, the BP spill dominated headlines for the better part of the year -- which made the lackluster charitable response that followed in its aftermath all the more surprising. Community foundations in the region were among the first to respond, with the Greater New Orleans Foundation establishing a Gulf Coast Oil Spill Fund in early May to support those in the fishing and tourism industries affected by the disaster, while the Gulf Coast Community Foundation of Venice made an early grant to support a Florida marine laboratory monitoring the Gulf's marine life. But six weeks after the explosion, only $4 million had been donated to relief and recovery efforts (compared with the more than $580 million contributed within eight days of Hurricane Katrina's landfall).

A number of corporations eventually did step up with significant donations of cash and/or in-kind goods. They included Pepsi, which contributed $1.3 million through its Pepsi Refresh Project to nonprofits proving support and assistance to people in the Gulf Coast region; Chevron, which gave $750,000 to the National Audubon Society; and BP, which gave $25 million to three research institutions working in the Gulf. In addition, the nonprofit X Prize Foundation launched a $1.4 million competition, the Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge, to encourage the development of solutions to cleaning up oil spills.

If the BP spill overshadowed most other environmental efforts in 2010, it also served, as William Meadows, president of the Wilderness Society, said in June after his organization received a three-year grant from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, as "a tragic reminder of why the transition to renewable energy is so essential."

Meadows was hardly alone in holding that view. In October, David and Patricia Atkinson pledged $80 million to Cornell University to endow the Center for a Sustainable Future they had created on campus in 2007. "The environment, energy, and economic development are heavily interrelated; problems of sustainability can only be addressed with a multidisciplinary approach," said Atkinson, a retired general partner of Philadelphia-based Miller, Anderson, & Sherrerd LLP. "As the pressures of rapid population growth take hold, to avoid a crisis it's important to address issues of sustainability preemptively."

Related:

• Arctic Melting Could Cost $2.4 Trillion by 2050, Report Suggests (2/9/10)
• Barr Foundation Commits $50 Million to Fight Climate Change (2/17/10)
• Pew Environment Group Calls on Congress to Reform Laws Following Gulf Oil Spill (6/16/10)
• BP Awards $25 Million to Gulf Research Institutions Studying Effects of Oil and Dispersant (6/18/10)
• Doris Duke Charitable Foundation Awards $3.1 Million to Facilitate 'Wildlife-Friendly' Renewable Energy Development (6/30/10)
• Ford Foundation Commits $85 Million to Advance Rural Land Rights, Reduce Climate Change (7/29/10)
• X Prize Foundation Launches $1.4 Million Wendy Schmidt Oil Cleanup X Challenge (7/30/10)
• Oil Spill Aid Remains Small, But Some Corporate Donations Trickle In (8/4/10)
• Pepsi Refresh Project Doubles Its Monthly Grant Commitment (9/6/10)
• Cornell University Center for a Sustainable Future Receives $5 Million Gift (10/14/10)
• Cornell University Receives $80 Million for Research (10/29/10)
• Chevrolet Commits $40 Million to Reduce Carbon Dioxide Emissions (11/22/10)
• Princeton Receives $11 Million for Carbon Mitigation Initiative (11/24/10)
• Swiss Billionaire Donates $35 Million to Conserve a Million Acres in Montana (12/14/10)

2010: The Year in Review

The year opened on a horrific note, with a January earthquake in Haiti killing an estimated 250,000 people and leaving millions more homeless. While international aid and humanitarian groups rushed to provide assistance, the scale of the destruction, logistical bottlenecks, and bureaucratic red tape seemed to defeat their best efforts. Indeed, by year's end, the situation on the ground had improved only marginally, underscoring yet again the challenges associated with coordinating and sustaining long-term recovery efforts in poor (and poorly governed) countries.

Just a few months later, bad news from Haiti was crowded out by news of a second disaster, this time in the Gulf of Mexico, where BP's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank in April. As underwater cameras broadcast live video of the busted well spewing crude into the Gulf at the rate of 50,000 barrels a day, BP and the federal government scrambled to contain the damage. It wasn't until mid-July -- too late for the region's fishing and tourism industries -- that they succeeded in capping the well, but even as the UK-based oil giant pledged tens of millions to clean up the mess and make reparations, the long-term environmental impact of the worst marine oil spill in the history of the industry remained an open question.

As if to confirm the old saying that bad things happen in threes, heavy monsoon rains in Pakistan in July coupled with large-scale deforestation in the Himalayan foothills soon led to unprecedented flooding in the world's sixth-most populous country. As the floodwaters rose throughout the month of August, eventually destroying millions of hectares of crops and upending the lives of some twenty million people, the United Nations moved to mount a relief effort. But whether because of Pakistan's distance from Europe and North America, the problematic security situation in the country, or the relatively low number of casualties, donors in the developed world for the most part responded with expressions of sympathy and turned their attention elsewhere.

On a more upbeat note, a campaign by Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates to get billionaires on the Forbes 400 list to pledge half their wealth to charity met with surprising success; a White House initiative to identify and leverage support for innovative social problems was launched and, after a stumble or two, gained its footing; and the U.S. economy continued to recover from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Before we close the books on 2010, the editors of PND look back at some of the important philanthropic stories and personalities of the year just passed.

• Year in Review: Disasters in Haiti, Pakistan Spur Divergent Aid Response
• Year in Review: Economy Continues to Challenge
• Year in Review: Race to the Top and Education Reform
• Year in Review: Gulf Coast Oil Spill Tops List of Environmental Concerns
• Year in Review: 'Giving Pledge' Off to Fast Start
• Year in Review: Microfinance Experiences Growing Pains
• Year in Review: Two Steps Forward, One Back for Social Innovation Fund
• Year in Review: Noteworthy Gifts
• Year in Review: People in the News

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

Weekend Link Roundup (October 16 - 17, 2010)

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

Corporate Philanthropy

"When the Shell Foundation was created 10 years ago, the company was still near the top of the anti-globalization protestors 'hit-list', not least because of the rich resonance of the 'Shell to Hell' slogan," writes Matthew Bishop and Michael Green on their Philanthrocapitalism blog. "Has the Shell Foundation turned the company's reputation around and sent it to heaven? No....But it does show that corporate philanthropy that is run professionally and independently of the PR departments that still dominate much CSR, has a much greater impact...."

Environment

For this year's Blog Action Day, an annual event that this year invited bloggers around the world to weigh in on the global water crisis, Idealist.org's Diana Hsu compiled a list of water-related organizations that are working to assist underresourced communities. A handful of Foundation Center bloggers also contributed posts (here, here, here, here, and here).

Fundraising

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen shares a few takeaways from a recent Seth Godin webinar on what it means to be a "linchpin."

Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks reminds fundraisers not to "mistake your psychology and preferences for your donors."

Philanthropy

On the Deep Social Impact blog, Maureen O'Brien explains why she doesn't think Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg's $100 million donation in support of the Newark public school system is representative of his generation, the Millennials.

In his latest Chronicle of Philanthropy column, Tactical Philanthropy's Sean Stannard-Stockton offers five questions "that donors should ask when they are considering a significant gift."

Social Entrepreneurship

Social Velocity founder Nell Edgington has a few suggestions for next year's Social Capital Markets Conference, including adding a session "about how we educate philanthropists about the need for capacity and growth capital in the nonprofit world."

On the Chronicle of Philanthropy-hosted Money and Mission blog, the Nonprofit Finance Fund's David Greco suggests that "instead of trying to create new models based on the private sector or create for-profit social enterprises that use market mechanisms to address social ills, maybe we should ask, 'How do we release the potential of the social sector?'"

Social Media

In the latest installment of her Social Good podcast series, Allison Fine discusses the power of social media with Jennifer Aaker, co-author (with husband Andy Smith) of the Dragonfly Effect: Quick, Effective, and Powerful Ways To Use Social Media to Drive Social Change.

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

-- Regina Mahone

Blog Action Day 2010: Water

Blog Action Day (#bad10) is an annual event held every October 15 that, according to the Blog Action Web site, unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day with the aim of sparking a global discussion and driving collective action.

This year, the featured topic is water and the worldwide water crisis, and more than 4,600 blogs from 135 different countries -- including our own Philanthropy Front and Center-Cleveland, New York, San Francisco, and Washington, DC blogs -- have registered at the Blog Action Day site.

Back in December, I found this graphic on Adam Singer's Future Buzz blog and re-posted it. It turned out to be very popular with readers, so here it is again.

To learn more, visit the Blog Action Day Web site, where, in addition to browsing hundreds of blog posts, you can donate to two of the best-known water-related nonprofits, charity:water and water.org; sign a petition in support of efforts to achieve UN Millennium Development Goal #7 (halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation by 2015); or download a petition widget for your site or blog.

--Mitch Nauffts