Weekend Link Roundup (February 6-7, 2016)

Our weekly round up of noteworthy items from and about the social sector. For more links to great content, follow us on Twitter at @pndblog....

Arts and Culture

In The Atlantic, Andy Horwitz, founder and publisher of Culturebot, examines the recent history of funding for the arts in America and concludes that while the arts themselves aren't dead, the system by which they are funded is increasingly becoming as unequal as the country itself.

Criminal Justice

On the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy blog, Ben Barge, a field associate at the NCRP, shares highlights from a recent panel discussion, "Mass Incarceration: The Rural Perspective," featuring Lenny Foster, director of the Navajo Nations Correction Project; Nick Szuberla, executive director and co-founder of Working Narratives & Nations Inside; Kenneth Glasgow, executive director of the Ordinary People Society and co-chair of the Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted People's Movement; and asha bandele, director of grants, partnerships and special projects at the Drug Policy Alliance.

Giving

A new report from the Women’s Philanthropy Institute at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy finds that "women give more than their male peers at virtually all income levels, even though women in general earn less and have less money in retirement than men." In a piece for the Wall Street Journal, Debra Mesch, Eileen Lamb O'Gara Chair in Women's Philanthropy and director of the Women's Philanthropy Institute, discusses the findings.

Health

Good post by Marc Gunther (Nonprofit Chronicles) on why this Super Bowl is likely to be the last one he ever watches.

International Affairs/Development

On Monday, the World Health organization declared the outbreak of Zika virus a global public health emergency. The New York Times' Sabrina Tavernese and Donald G. MacNeil, Jr. report.

According to UNICEF, more women and children are now migrating to and through Europe than adult males -- and many children are traveling alone. In related news, organizers of the annual Syria pledging conference are requesting a record $9 billion from the international donor community by the end of 2016. In comments to the New York Times, Jan Egeland, a former Norwegian diplomat who heads the Norwegian Refugee Council, characterized the humanitarian response to the Syrian refugee crisis as grossly inadequate and said, "What we are witnessing now is a collective failure to deliver the necessary support to the region. We are witnessing a total collapse of international solidarity with millions of war victims."

"If social scientists and policy makers have learned anything about how to help the world's poorest people, it's not to trust our intuitions or anecdotal evidence about what kinds of antipoverty programs are effective, write Dean Karlan,a professor of economics at Yale and founder of the nonprofit Innovations for Poverty Action, and Annie Duflo, the organization's executive director, in the New York Times. Rigorous randomized evaluations, on the other hand, "can show us what works and what doesn't....Hope and rhetoric are great for motivation, but not for figuring out what to do."

There was some good news on the global public health front in January. The UN Foundation's Jenni Lee has a roundup.

Leadership

On the Fast Company site, Dan Hoffield breaks down the proven habits of charismatic leaders.

Nonprofits

What are you doing to be happier and healthier in 2016? Hosted by Beth Kanter, the January Nonprofit Blog Carnival is chock full of great advice, including posts from Kathy Naylor, Lori Jacobwith, Suzette Annan, Joyce Lee-Ibarra, Erik Anderson, and Megan Keane.

Philanthropy

"You would be hard-pressed to find anyone who doesn't credit the Barr [Foundation] for its enormous largesse, as the left-leaning charity funds causes that are dear to the city's liberal residents. But you would also be hard-pressed to find a grantee who will critique the foundation publicly. No big surprise," writes Patti Hartigan in a Boston Magazine profile of Jim Canales, the foundation's new president. "Barr makes its grants by invitation only. Those who receive funding want to keep it, and those who don't want to get it."

The L.A.-based Weingart Foundation has announced that, due to a recent surge in requests for capital funding, "effective immediately and until further notice, the foundation will not be accepting any new Letters of Inquiry (LOIs) for [such] funding."

On Fast.Co.Exist, staff writer Ben Schiller reviews Linsey McGoey's No Such Thing As a Free Gift: The Gates Foundation and the Price of Philanthropy, which he finds a little "mean-spirited" but fundamentally sound in its critique of philanthrocapitalism and philanthrocapitalists.

Public Affairs

In a post on the Ford Foundation's Equals Change blog, Jean Ross, program officer for civic engagement and government at the foundation, argues that the crisis in Flint, Michigan, is about more than poisoned water. "In the short term, we know what to do about the water crisis: Distribute bottled water, and change the water source," Ross writes.

But once those most immediate problems are addressed, we're left with the same system that helped create the problem, and it continues to reinforce inequalities that shape the lives of people in Flint. The use of emergency managers has been largely reserved for cities with majority-black populations, where residents find their lives presided over by officials who are more concerned with financial health than public well-being. That's what led to the water crisis. Emergency manager control has also limited residents' ability to participate in decisions about how to fix public schools in Detroit and other communities that are close to financial collapse...

Social Innovation

Last but not least, be sure to check out Nell Edgington's ten best social innovation reads from January, including articles by Markets for Good blogger David Henderson, CauseWired president Tom Watson, and nonprofit leadership expert Tom Klaus.

That's it for now. What have you been reading/watching/listening to? Drop us a line at mfn@foundationcenter.org or via the comments section below....