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.

Education

"Despite its evidently strong [Head Start] program, there is scant empirical evidence supporting Portland's success at improving the academic futures of its graduates beyond that first year of kindergarten entry. The same is true of Head Start as a whole. And lacking hard numbers, political thinking as to whether or not children's futures could be affected positively by Head Start has vacillated between certainty and skepticism." The Hechinger Report's Lillian Mongeau does a deep dive on the Great Society program so many people love to hate.

How big is the the “teacher pay penalty" — the difference between what teachers make compared to other public-sector employees? In 2015, writes Washington Post blogger Valerie Strauss, "the weekly wages of public school teachers in the United States were 17 percent lower than comparable college-educated professionals — and those most hurt [were] veteran teachers and male teachers."

Higher Education

What do billionaires sound like when they try to explain why they donate huge sums to wealthy universities? Don't ask Malcolm Gladwell.

Impact/Effectiveness

In the fourth installment of a six-part series for the Huffington Post, Mauricio Lim, founder and CEO of the Family Independence Initiative, argues that the days of  "picking one strategy, implementing it and then evaluating it years later" is over. The social sector, he adds, is at a point in history "where ongoing learning, iterating and learning again should be the norm. Business already has the techniques we need. What is needed now is continuous analysis and adjustment to changing conditions for low-income populations."

International Affairs/Development

More than 60,000 people were murdered in Brazil last year, making it the homicide capital of the world. And many of the victims were young people. The Open Society Foundation's Robert Muggah reports on what one nongovernmental organization is doing to address the conspicuous lack of information concerning violence against children and youth in Latin America's most populous country.

Nonprofits

On the Nonprofits Assistance Fund blog, Curtis Klotz, CPA, argues that it's time to retire the "tired old view" of nonprofit overhead in favor of a more holistic view that takes into account "true program costs."

Philanthropy

In his monthly column for the Denver Post, the DeBoskey Group's Bruce DeBoskey explains why philanthropy continues to be a bright spot in disheartening and divisive times like these.

In the latest issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the Center for Effective Philanthropy's Kevin Bolduc argues that the internal practices and culture of of foundations ripple out to grantees in meaningful ways and can directly accelerate or impede their effectiveness.

Sarah Bahn, a knowledge services fellow here at Foundation Center, explains how the center's new YouthGiving.org portal helps connect "members of the youth giving movement, elevates the stories of incredible young leaders, and provides a gathering place to propel the movement forward."

Poverty Alleviation

Data scientists at Stanford are applying machine learning to satellite images to identify and map poverty-stricken regions of Africa. The Center on Food Security and the Environment's Michelle Horton reports. 

Social Entrepreneurship

"The truth is, while we've seen numerous good ideas in the philanthropy and nonprofit space, we've seen very few of them break through to capture the interest and action of the masses." Jean Case, president of the Case Foundation, explains how the foundation has, over time, come to focus its efforts on two major movements — impact investing and inclusive entrepreneurship.

Social Media

Are you stumped about what to post or tweet next? This little tool from M+R might just be what the doctor ordered.

(Photo credit: Scott Threlkeld / AP)

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