To Truly Reform Criminal Justice, Policy Makers Must Listen to Crime Survivors

The 2016 election campaign season has exposed the deep and bitter divides in our political system. Candidates have put forth vastly different views, and the list of what they agree on seems to be getting shorter by the day. Yet criminal justice reform has become that rare thing — an issue on which many Democrats and Republicans can agree.

State and federal policy makers are in the midst of an important conversation about how to reform the criminal justice system. After decades of growth in prison populations and prison spending, it is a conversation that is long overdue. Notably absent from this dialogue, however, are data or research on crime victims' experiences with the criminal justice system or their views on safety and justice policy. Given that politicized perceptions of the best way to protect victims has, in part, driven prison expansion, this absence is glaring. Now is the time to correct the misperceptions that drove the failed policies of the past in order to truly reform the system.

A primary goal of the justice system is to protect and help victims, so any reform effort must incorporate the voices of the victims themselves. That's why the Alliance for Safety and Justice decided to conduct a national survey of crime victims, including those who have suffered extreme violence such as rape or the murder of a family member.

While one might expect victims to overwhelmingly support the "lock 'em up and throw away the key" approach, we found something different. Victims were clear that rehabilitation and crime prevention, not more incarceration, is needed to ensure that fewer people become victims of crime.

Nearly three out of four victims we surveyed told us they believe that time in prison makes people more rather than less likely to commit another crime. Two out of three victims support shorter prison sentences and increased spending on prevention and rehabilitation over long sentences. And by a two-to-one margin, a majority of those surveyed were in favor of policies that emphasize rehabilitation over punishment. Crime survivors also overwhelmingly support investments in new safety priorities that can stop the cycle of crime, such as programs for at-risk youth, mental health treatment, drug treatment, and job training. These views cut across demographic groups, with wide support across race, age, gender, and political party affiliation.

How to Get the Public Behind Your Cause

If you've followed me on this blog or through my series of articles here, you're familiar with my take on the need to move potential supporters from mere interest to deep engagement with your cause over time. There are lots of people out there who want to do good, who stand up for what is right, and who even devote most of their time to organizing others, but in general nonprofits are not doing all they could to tap into that interest and energy.

If you're a nonprofit executive, what can you do to get the public involved in your issue or cause? Are you talking to the right people, the people most likely to become an advocate for your organization?

I was asked this question recently by a reporter who wanted to know why why so many legacy nonprofits (that is, those that have been around a while) struggle to stay relevant and keep the interest of their donors and supporters. Her sense was that younger people don't really connect with legacy organizations because of the way those organizations raise money or talk about what they do, and that the public in general isn't interested in the work of these nonprofits because of a perception that they long ago stopped caring about the public and instead focus most of their efforts on high-net-worth donors.

While those assumptions may have some basis in reality, my answer wasn't what the reporter was expecting.

Really great nonprofit executives today, I said, those who succeed at getting the public engaged in their cause, tend to focus their time and energy on four key stakeholder groups: people who can tell their organization's story, people who are innovating in their organization's space/issue area, people who organize and bring others to their issue, and people who challenge the way their organization approaches an issue. In many cases, nonprofits that have lost the attention of John and Jane Q. Public may have focused on these groups in the past, but somewhere along the way they fell out of  the habit or simply forgot why John and Jane are important. Does that sound like your nonprofit?

To truly get the public to move from interest to engagement to action, nonprofits need to create intentional conversations and, where possible, actual partnerships with these key stakeholder groups. Here's how:

Perfecting Peer-to-Peer Fundraising: Tips for Your Next Event

If you've been paying attention, you know the future of philanthropy includes peer-to-peer fundraising.

It makes sense. Peer-to-peer fundraising (P2P) is one of the best ways for nonprofits to involve their supporters in the fundraising process, raise significant amounts of money, and acquire new donors — all at the same time.

Below, I cover the five steps that every nonprofit looking to run a successful peer-to-peer event should consider. In order, they are:

1. Establish your budget and goals;
2. Identify the best peer-to-peer fundraising platform;
3. Enlist your most enthusiastic supporters;
4. Equip your supporters with the right tools; and
5. Gamify your event or campaign.

1. Establish your budget and goals.

As is the case with any fundraising campaign, you need to establish a budget and financial goals for your peer-to-peer fundraiser before you dive into planning the event itself.

While your goals should be achievable and realistic, don't underestimate the power of peer-to-peer fundraising.

Let's say you have a hundred supporters who are willing to reach out and ask their friends, family members, and co-workers to make a donation to your organization. If each person solicits only two people, you've essentially tripled your potential donor base at a fraction of the acquisition cost associated with other methods.

Don't forget, though, that because most peer-to-peer fundraisers are tied to events like walkathons, marathons, or other group activities, you'll need to factor the cost of the event itself into your budget.

Other costs you may need to consider include:

• marketing materials
• merchandise (water bottles, t-shirts, etc.)
• snacks and drinks for participants
• staff time
• set-up and tear-down costs
• unexpected surprises!

How this helps: Any fundraising event or campaign needs a budget and a revenue goal. Make sure your peer-to-peer fundraiser has both and be clear-eyed about the costs.

2. Identify the best peer-to-peer fundraising platform.

Before online fundraising became commonplace, peer-to-peer fundraising was done at the office or door-to-door by supporters who would ask you for a donation or sponsorship for the event they would be participating in. Peer-to-peer fundraising platforms have changed all that.

With peer-to-peer software, your nonprofit can enlist the help of supporters in your local community or halfway around the world — and they can use it to solicit donations from anyone, anywhere, as well.

The best peer-to-peer platforms enable your supporters to:

5 Questions for...Kim Laughton, President, Schwab Charitable

The first donor-advised fund was established by the New York Community Trust in 1931, but it would be almost forty years, and the passage of the Tax Reform Act of 1969, before donor-advised funds received formal regulatory recognition from Congress. A decade and a half later, the Tax Reform Act of 1986 — which imposed, in some administrative areas, "more stringent reporting obligations and payment deadlines on private foundations" — established DAFs as an attractive giving vehicle for a certain kind of donor. Then, in 1991, Fidelity Investments established the Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund as an independent public charity, and the DAF landscape was changed forever.

Over the course of the 1990s and 2000s, the debate over donor-advised funds grew more heated, with critics of commercially sponsored DAFs arguing that because "charitable donations can be held in a DAF for decades or even centuries," they should be more tightly regulated, while others defended them as "an efficient, 21st-century alternative to the private foundations that dominated philanthropy in the 20th century...easy to set up and inexpensive to manage."

Recently, PND spoke with Kim Laughton, president of Schwab Charitable, a nonprofit donor-advised fund provider established with the support of Charles Schwab & Co., about her fund's results for the fiscal year just ended and what she makes of the persistent criticism of commercially sponsored donor-advised fund providers. Prior to joining Schwab Charitable, Laughton held a variety of leadership, strategy, and general management positions at Charles Schwab & Co., served as a vice president for Citibank-Asia/Pacific, and worked as a Consultant for Bain & Company. 

Philanthropy News Digest: In a report released at the end of July, Schwab Charitable announced that for the fiscal year ending June 30, it distributed more than $1.2 billion in grants to charities from its donor-advised funds under management. That's a 12 percent increase over the amount it distributed in the prior fiscal year, and the second consecutive year in which it has distributed more than a billion dollars in grants to nonprofits and charities. Given the volatility in the stock market over the last year and a half, were you surprised by the results?

Kim Laughton: I wasn't. The markets were volatile over that period, yes, but from beginning to end, they were fairly flat. In between, there were two swings of 15 percent or more, in August last year and then again in January this year. Whenever that happens, there is going to be uncertainty, and you do find that people tend to become more cautious in terms of their charitable giving. But the wonderful thing about donor-advised funds is that people have already set aside an amount of money for future giving, and we find that giving from our funds stays pretty robust, regardless of the economic climate.  

Factoring in the Great Recession and its aftermath in the 2008 to 2010 period, we saw increases in granting as well. Not much as the 12 percent we saw in fiscal year '16, but in the worst of that period, between fiscal year '09 and '10, our granting actually increased about 2 percent. And, again, that underscores how donor-advised funds tend to stabilize giving in difficult times while being a great way for clients to be thoughtful and proactive in their giving in good times.

PND: What was the average payout for the donor-advised funds under your management in fiscal year 2016, and how does that compare to the previous year?

KL: The average payout for our funds for the last two fiscal years has been fairly steady at around 20 percent. It was slightly higher this last year because our assets actually grew a bit less than our granting. Of course, we're extraordinarily proud of those rates. As you know, private foundations operate with a mandated 5 percent payout, so we've been averaging four times the mandated minimum that foundations pay out. The other statistic that's important to think about is that our clients, over a fifteen-year period, grant out 90 percent of what they put in to their funds, and over a five- to ten-year year period they grant out something like 76 percent. In other words, a lot of our clients are contributing to their funds on a regular basis, and they're granting dollars from those funds at a very active rate.

Black Philanthropy Month: An Opportunity to Give More Than Money

We focus on the money too much.

At least, that's true when we're talking about philanthropy and what it means for us and for our communities. In examining the needs of African-American organizations and communities, however, we must dig deeper when defining both the resources needed and those we can offer. We agree that these communities need hard dollars to create true equity on a host of indicators. But they also need our time and our talent.

August is Black Philanthropy Month, and we want to use the occasion to ask each of us to consider what we have to give. The leaders of Chicago African Americans in Philanthropy (CAAIP) are dedicated to spreading that message, not only among African Americans but among all those who understand that investing in our communities is critical to creating a vibrant region that works for all of us. Chicago isn't healthy unless all its children receive a high-quality education and are prepared to enter the workforce. It can't succeed unless every family has safe and affordable housing. And it cannot thrive with the levels of violence and incarceration that disproportionately affect African-American communities. We all bear the cost of the lost opportunities, and lost lives, that are the result of these inequitable conditions.

This is why CAAIP is dedicated to creating a culture of investment that supports the critical, innovative work aimed at transforming these communities. As part of that effort, CAAIP is partnering with Forefront, formerly known as the Donors Forum, to convene grantmakers and nonprofit leaders to participate in racial equity conversations, trainings, and to share resources for greater effectiveness.

Weekend Link Roundup (August 20-21, 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....

Civic Engagement

On the Carnegie Corporation website, the corporation's Geri Mannion and Jay Beckner of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation chat with Carnegie Visiting Media Fellow Gail Ablow about how foundations can support voting rights litigation.

Community Improvement/Development

The Rockefeller Foundation and Unreasonable Institute, which works to identify entrepreneurs with the potential to address social injustice at scale, have announced the launch of the Future Cities Accelerator, a $1 million urban innovation competition aimed at spurring next-generation leaders to develop solutions to complex urban problems. Though the competition, ten winners will receive $100,000 each and will participate in a nine-month intensive program giving them access to business leaders, investors, and technical support. Details here.

The Knight Foundation is bringing back its Knight Cities Challenge for a third iteration and will offer $5 million in grant funding for the best ideas in three areas that are crucial to building more successful cities – attracting and retaining talent, increasing economic opportunity, and promoting civic engagement. The competition, which is limited to the twenty-six Knight communities, opens Monday, October 10, at knightcities.org and will close on Thursday, November 3, with winners to be announced next spring.

As part of Generocity's "Leaders of Color" series, Tony Abraham profiles David Gould, a program office at the William Penn Foundation, who has a plan for leveling the playing field for people of color in Philadelphia. You can check out the rest of the series here.

What can we learn about creative placemaking from Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities)? As the Saint Luke's Foundation's Nelson Beckford reminds us, pretty much everything.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Think the concept of sustainability is a little too fuzzy to serve as a pillar of one's corporate strategy. Think again, argues the Environmental Defense Fund's Tom Murray.

Giving Days Can Be a Community Win When Foundations Focus on the Big Picture

At a time when charitable organizations are vigorously competing to gain the attention — and ultimately the support — of individual donors, giving days offer a powerful tool to drive community philanthropy. In fact, the amount raised through these days is impressive — including more than $116.3 million alone for the eighteen communities studied by Knight Foundation since 2012. But these online fundraising campaigns are about much more than the dollars, a new Knight report, the culmination of a three-year initiative, found: Over time, when organizers purposefully align the campaigns with their missions, giving days have helped to strengthen community foundations that organize them.

That's not to say that giving days are without risks or that the significant investment of community foundation resources and staff time is always worth it. Certainly, community foundations have been doing a lot of thinking about how to and even whether to continue theirs. Some of this contemplation follows the tech failure during this spring's nationwide Give Local America, when the donation-processing technology provided by Kimbia broke down. Online donations slowed to a halt for two-thirds of the 24-hour campaign, leaving donors, nonprofits, and community foundations in fifty-four communities across the country in crisis-mode and scrambling for a Plan B. It was not the first giving day tech failure, but it was the largest. Consultant Beth Kanter took a deeper look at what happened for KnightBlog, and considered the implications of the debacle for the future of giving days. In an upcoming blog series, we'll hear directly from community foundations about why they are and aren't continuing with these campaigns.

But despite what happened on Give Local America, we hope that community foundations also pay attention to the progress made through their investments. Having spent considerable time tracking giving day successes and challenges across the country over the past three years, we have seen the long-term value they can provide to both community foundation organizers and the communities they serve. Here are four examples from our new report, Beyond the Dollars: The Long-Term Value of Giving Days for Community Foundations, of what that change looked like.

Giving days, the report found:

Generation Indigenous: Why Native American Youth Can't Wait

Over the past decade, philanthropy has become increasingly responsive to the needs of young boys and men of color. The philanthropic community has mobilized to coordinate and partner on efforts like the Obama administration's My Brother's Keeper initiative. More recently, the field has turned its attention to addressing the needs of girls and young women of color. While I applaud these efforts, I'm reminded daily of the pressing and unmet needs of Native communities. And that invariably causes me to think about how much more needs to be done to ensure that all youth — regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender — have equal access to quality education and health care and the opportunity to grow up in safe and thriving communities.

Like other youth of color, Native American and Alaska Natives in cities and communities across the United States face challenges. Natives Americans have endured a history of racism and colonialism that has resulted in multi-generational trauma. Suicide is the second-leading cause of death among Native youth between the ages of 15 and 24 — and that rate is two and a half times the national average. Native youth are five times more likely to end up in the criminal justice system than whites, where they receive disproportionately harsher sentences, and are more likely to be killed by police than any other racial group. Moreover, Native Americans are often categorized in data and reports as "statistically insignificant" or "other," erasing their very existence as a disadvantaged minority. As a result, too many programs, policies, and systems — not to mention philanthropy — ignore or overlook them.

The philanthropic community is well aware of these challenges, and yet foundation funding for Native issues and communities remains disproportionately low, consistently accounting for less than 0.5 percent of annual foundation grant dollars, even though Native Americans are 1.7 percent (5.4 million) of the U.S. population. Institutional philanthropy may blanch at the size of the problem or feel paralyzed by its lack of understanding of Native peoples and cultures, but philanthropy can make a difference. While the challenges are real, the resilience and hope in Native communities has resulted in innovative, high-impact solutions to many of these problems. And the most promising solutions have been driven by and for Native youth.

4 Steps for Fostering Innovation

Too often foundations ask their grantees for "innovative ideas" but fail to deliver the same thing themselves — or even bother to define what "innovation" means. The assumption is that it "just happens." That lack of definition has come to imply that innovation must involve a dramatic, game-changing, disruptive new idea or practice: the iPhone of early childhood education, the Post-It note of economic development.

As a result, the expectations for innovation are both so high and so fuzzy that most people feel intimidated, not realizing that they too can create innovations and that innovation is not the exclusive domain of those who are smarter or more creative. After reading a book called The Innovation Formula: How Organizations Turn Change Into Opportunity by business gurus Michel Robert and Alan Weiss, I now realize the opposite is true. Most people, in a supportive environment and with proper supervision, can generate, vet, test, and implement innovative ideas. Here's what I learned from their book, and how I've applied it when working with my clients.

Supportive environments for innovation are created when:

• Leadership – especially the CEO – serves as champions for the process.
• Leadership believes that everyone can be innovative.
• Leadership is willing to regularly identify, test, pilot, and implement potentially innovative ideas.
• Leadership prudently monitors risk (not every innovative idea is a good one!).

Once these conditions are in place, there are four steps a foundation can take to generate innovations on an ongoing basis. They are:

Weekend Link Roundup (August 13-14, 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....

African Americans

In a review of Mychal Denzel Smith’s new memoir, Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watchingfor the New Republic, Jesse McCarthy reflects on "what has changed in our politics over the course of the Bush and Obama years, and in particular on the reemergence of an activist consciousness in black politics (and youth politics more broadly)."

In Fortune, a seemingly nonplussed Ellen McGirt reports on the Ford Foundation's investment in the Black-Led Movement Fund (BLMF), "a pooled donor fund designed to support the work of the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)...." And be sure to check out this profile of the Ford Foundation-led #ReasonsForHope campaign by Fast Company's Ben Paynter.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Is anyone in corporate America measuring the impact of their CSR programs? In Forbes, Ryan Scott shares a few considerations for companies that are approaching impact measurement for the first time.

Data

Intrigued (and a little alarmed) by the decision of the Australian department that manages that country's census to collect and store real names with its census data, Philanthropy 2173's Lucy Bernholz has some good questions for all of us.

Education

Committed reformer or Department of Education apparatchik? Newsweek senior writer Alexander Nazaryan, himself a former New York City school teacher, tries to make sense of the puzzle wrapped in an enigma that is New York City public school chief Carmen Fariña.

In The Atlantic, Emily Deruy reports on the nascent efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement to reshape K-12 education policy at the local, state, and federal levels.

At its recent annual convention, the NAACP approved a resolution that included language calling for a moratorium on the expansion of privately managed charter schools. The Washington Post's Valerie Strauss takes a closer look at the issue on her Answer Sheet blog.

Vikki Spruill, President/CEO, Council on Foundations: Philanthropy and the SDGs

The United Nation’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development was adopted by world leaders at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit on September 25, 2015. The agenda includes more than a dozen Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also known as the Global Goals, designed to stimulate action in areas of critical importance for humanity and the planet. More ambitious than the Millennium Development Goals, on which they build, the SDGs include a hundred and sixty-nine targets to be achieved over the next fifteen years, from eradicating extreme poverty for all people everywhere, to ensuring that all girls and boys complete free, equitable and quality primary and secondary education, to halving per capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and reducing food losses along production and supply chains.

Led by large, globally oriented foundations such as Ford and Hilton and key infrastructure groups like Foundation Center and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, philanthropy has rallied around the SDG agenda. In July, the Council on Foundations, another key infrastructure group, released a report that details how philanthropy can help achieve the SDGs in the United States. Based on lessons the council has learned from its members and other national and local partners over the last year, the report shares examples of how funders are using the SDG framework to structure their work domestically and offers suggestions for how others might use the goals to advance their mission.

Recently, PND spoke with Vikki Spruill, president and CEO of the council, about the report, the council’s efforts to promote the SDG framework to its members, and why she believes the SDGs are good for philanthropy and the world.

Philanthropy News Digest: The council has released a report aimed at raising awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goals among foundations and philanthropists in the United States. For readers who may not have heard of them, what are the SDGs, and why, as you put it in the foreword to the report, do they have the potential to be “revolutionary” for people around the world?

Vikki Spruill: The Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs, represent a historic global consensus about the shared responsibility that all nations have in advancing a global development agenda. They tackle seventeen areas of develop­ment and set aspirational targets for the global development community to achieve over the next fifteen years so that "no one is left behind." The seventeen goals, which cover everything from eradicating hunger and poverty, to advancing environmental sustainability, to reducing inequality, to improving education and health, were agreed on by a hundred and ninety-three countries in September 2015, including the United States, which, with President Obama's encouragement, agreed to pursue the goals both here at home and through our development activities around the globe.

As you know, the SDGs emerged from a previous United Nations initiative, the Millennial Development Goals, or MDGs, which were more narrowly focused on human development, whereas the SDGs cover all dimensions of development, including the economic, social, and environmental. And they're not just intended for developing nations, as the MDGs were, they're meant to be guidelines for all nations, including the United States.

I think the SDGs have enor­mous potential. We all recog­nize that government can't solve the world’s problems by itself — the MDGs showed us that. To change the world, to fully realize philanthropy's goals, we have to work across sectors, and the SDGs contribute to that by more specifically calling out the philan­thropic and private sectors. That's very exciting.

PND: What kind of role did the private sector, and foundations specifically, have in developing the SDG framework?

VS: Founda­tions that are part of the global development community played a critical role in developing the goals and in stressing the importance of philanthropy to advancing the SDGs. There's a group called the SDG Philanthropy Platform that's led by the United Nations Development Program, your own organization, the Foundation Center, and Rocke­feller Philanthropy Advisors, and it has made enormous progress in raising awareness of the SDGs, increasing the resources available to support them, and helping to forge new partnerships.

Likewise, the Council on Foundations is working to raise awareness of the SDGs. In fact, our report grew out of meetings we had in three cities, and we're planning to hold several more over the next few months. It's important to note that the meeting that took place in Addis Ababa in 2015, the Financing for Development summit, specifically stated that the private sector, including philanthropy, is needed to achieve the SDGs. So, it's really a historic moment for philanthropy, which hasn't been recognized as a partner in the same way by the United Nations before and now is being engaged in UN development activ­ities in new ways. At the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul, Turkey, in May, for example, three hundred and fifty different companies were represented, and because of the SDGs there is now a real opportunity for philanthropy to join in and shape these conversations going forward.

Get Open: Leaders Reflect on Glasspockets' Impact

The Foundation Center's Glasspockets website is dedicated to the proposition that sharing philanthropic knowledge, processes, strategy, and best practices is a win-win for everyone – from grantmakers to grantees and the communities they serve.

But don't take our word for it....

In a new video, Glasspockets: Making the Case for Transparency, philanthropy leaders – including representatives from the Barr Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, and others – reflect on the positive impact that Glasspockets, and working more openly, has had on their work.

What are you waiting for? Take our "Who Has Glass Pockets?" transparency self-assessment and join the "Glass Pockets" movement today!

– Melissa Moy

Using Television and Film to Advance Your Cause (No Ad Budget Required)

A well-told story can help people understand an issue in a visceral way, enabling them to feel fear, stress, elation, and other strong emotions as it unfolds. When characters in the HBO drama Treme showed us the courage of New Orleanians struggling to stabilize their lives and rebuild their city after Hurricane Katrina, the importance of resilience and economic inclusion felt less hypothetical — and more like real issues affecting real people.

At the Rockefeller Foundation, we understand the power of stories to influence opinions, change attitudes, and motivate people to work for the good of their communities. In 2014, we deepened our investment in cause-focused storytelling with the launch of Hatch for Good, a suite of tools and resources designed to help social-change organizations share stories that drive social impact.

Of course, no one tells stories better than Hollywood. That's why we're supporting AndACTION, a pop culture hub that gives social-change organizations a heads-up on film and TV shows in production related to their causes, allowing them ample time to develop campaigns designed to stimulate discussion and drive action. We're intrigued by the idea of leveraging popular entertainment to encourage interest in topics like resilience and inclusive economies. And with AndACTION, social-change organizations now have an opportunity to tap into the passions generated by compelling stories delivered via screens large and small and ride the wave of public enthusiasm — because they know ahead of time the wave is coming.

Most Popular PhilanTopic Posts (July 2016)

Sort of like that great little farm stand that pulls you in every time you drive by, our roundup of the most popular posts here on PhilanTopic in July offers lots of delicious food for thought. So pour yourself a tall glass of iced tea or lemonade and dig in!

• [Infographic] A New Generation of Giving (MobileCause)
• 8 Tools Grantmakers Frequently Forget to Use (Kris Putnam-Walkerly)
• 5 Questions for…June Wilson, Executive Director, Quixote Foundation (Kyoko Uchida)
• Requesting a Flexible Work Arrangement (Molly Brennan)
• The Strategic Thinker-Leader (Ami Nahshon)
• The Legacy of Berta Cáceres: What Environmentalists Can Learn From Human Rights Groups (Frank Smyth)
• How to Talk to Your Donors About Funding Outreach and Awareness (Derrick Feldmann)
• Weekend Link Roundup (July 23-24, 2016) (Mitch Nauffts)

What did you read/watch/listen to in June that got your juices flowing? Feel free to share with our readers in the comments section below. Or drop us a line at mfn@foundationcenter.org.

Why Collaborate?

Collaboration in the social sector takes many different forms and can be approached in a variety of ways, but before nonprofits address the what and how of organizational partnerships, they should consider the most important question of all: Why?

Everybody loves collaboration — in theory. I mean, who doesn't believe that two or more nonprofits working together to achieve common goals is a good thing? To not think that would be churlish, right? But put aside the feel-good factor for a moment and let's be honest: collaboration is not a good in itself unless it serves a definite purpose.

Nor is collaboration always the answer. A nonprofit has any number of strategies to choose from to advance its mission, and partnering with others is just one of them. But when considering which strategies to pursue, it can be helpful to think about certain kinds of partnerships as lending themselves to certain types of goals.

Collaboration

Although I've already used the term "collaboration" in a broad sense to refer to organizations that agree to work toward a common goal or purpose, it can also refer more specifically to the most common types of partnership, which tend to be limited in duration and degree of organizational integration. Some of the goals that can be advanced through collaboration include:

• Pooling expertise or resources in co-sponsored or shared support of a time-limited effort.
• Amplifying a policy message around a shared cause or issue through joint advocacy.
• Creating and sharing collective wisdom and knowledge through collaborative learning.
• Leveraging networks of like-minded organizations to tackle social issues requiring sustained, coordinated action.

Alliance

Alliances tend to be more formal and longer term than collaborations (though they need not be permanent), while still allowing a significant level of organizational autonomy. This type of partnership can be useful for advancing goals such as: