Weekend Link Roundup (November 10-11, 2018)

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

Civil Society

On the twenty-ninth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, Richard Marker reflects on "the fragility of civil society, the brevity of memory, and the destructive hubris of leaders motivated by xenophobic rage."

Criminal Justice

In the New York Times, Michelle Alexander, author of the acclaimed The New Jim Crow, hails "the astonishing progress that has been made in the last several years on a wide range of criminal justice issues." But she warns that "[m]any of the current reform efforts contain the seeds of the next generation of racial and social control, a system of 'e-carceration' that may prove more dangerous and more difficult to challenge than the one we hope to leave behind."

Environment

The world is drowning in stuff, writes Elizabeth Seagran, PhD, a staff writer for Fast Company. Isn't it time for nonprofits and foundations to do the environment a favor and just say no to all the cheap swag they hand out at conferences and events?

Giving

Nice post on the Charity Navigator blog about philanthropically minded celebs who have turned giving into an art.

Governance

On the GuideStar blog, Bill Hoffman, CEO of Bill Hoffman & Associates, LLC, a Tampa-based consulting firm, shares six things individual nonprofit board members can do to support their CEO's success.

Grantmaking

In part two of a new series on the PEAK Grantmaking site, Dr. Streamline looks at the role human nature plays in any change effort and offers this advice: "When you embark on a streamlining effort, it makes sense to plan for resistance so that it doesn't surprise you. Think about who to engage up front, what the likely fears and losses will be, how and when you’ll communicate, and the support and training you will offer."

Health/Healthcare

The votes (most of 'em) have been counted, and the "results, both federal and state, will have important consequences for health care," write Donald Moulds, Sara R. Collins, Rachel Nuzum, Akeiisa Coleman, and Shawn Bishop on the Commonwealth Fund's Turning Point blog. With roughly four in ten Americans turning out to vote across the country choosing health care as the most important problem facing the country, and more than seven in ten saying the nation's health care system needs major changes, the stakes are high.

Work is a powerful determinant of health and well-being. But in an economy where the nature of work and job security is changing rapidly, Americans are paying the price. David Adler and Paul Tarini report for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Culture of Health blog.

Nonprofits

Are national charity watchdog groups up to the job of thoroughly vetting the hundreds of thousands of active nonprofits in the U.S.? Nonprofit Chronicles blogger Marc Gunther is not convinced, and he thinks it's a pretty big problem for the sector.

It can start innocently enough with a simple misunderstanding about priorities and a testy conversation or two, but if a nonprofit leader isn't careful, things can go downhill quickly from there. On his Nonprofit AF blog, Vu Le takes a closer look at the Wheel of Disillusionment and how it can destroy workplace relationships and organizational cultures.

Philanthropy

Are foundations living up to the expectation that they be transparent about their successes and failures and share with each other what they are learning? asks Ellie Buteau on the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog. Two new CEP reports suggest that foundations are not being as transparent about what they are learning and offer some reasons why they may not be sharing more about what they are learning.

And on the Transparency Talk blog, our Foundation Center colleague Janet Camarena chats with Yvonne Belanger, director of learning and evaluation at the Barr Foundation, about the foundation's efforts to gauge its impact and support ongoing learning among staff, grantees, and the fields in which it works.

That's it for this week. Got something you'd like to share? Drop us a note at mfn@foundationcenter.org.