Weekend Link Roundup (December 8-9, 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....

Children and Youth

Here on PhilanTopic, the Heising-Simons Foundation's Barbara Chow, and Shannon Rudisill, executive director of the Early Childhood Funders Collaborative, discuss  the results of a joint effort to map the last ten years of philanthropic giving in the field of Early Childhood Care and Education. 

Climate Change

On the Surdna Foundation site, Helen Chin, director of the foundation's Sustainable Environments program, explains how a recent rethinking of the program was an "opportunity to build community resilience...in partnership with grantees working at the frontlines in communities of color — communities hardest hit by climate change, disinvestment, and racist planning practices."

A caravan of Central American migrants "seeking relief from a protracted drought that has consumed food crops and contributed to widespread poverty," hundreds of millions of people in India at increased risk of not having enough water, prolonged drought in the Horn of Africa that has "pushed millions of the world's poorest to the edge of survival" — all, writes Landesa's Karina Kloos, "are stark reminders that the most severe consequences of climate change are being inflicted upon people living in the Global South...."

Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg traveled to Iowa this week to take the temperature of Democratic primary voters and while there vowed to make climate change "the issue" of the 2020 presidential race. Trip Gabriel reports for the New York Times.

Criminal Justice

A new report funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation found that the arrest rate for California has dropped 58 percent since 1989, reaching a historic low of 3,428 per 100,000 residents in 2016. The report also found that individuals who are arrested tend to be nonwhite, younger, and male; that racial disparities in arrests have narrowed; that overall declines are mainly due to plummeting arrest rates for juveniles and young adults; and that women account for nearly a quarter of all arrests.

Giving

Carolyn Kenyon and Judith Jones, both of Ithaca, New York, raised $12,500 and sent it to  R.I.P. Medical Debt, a New York-based debt-forgiveness charity, which then purchased a portfolio of $1.5 million of medical debts on their behalf. Sharon Otterman reports for the New York Times.

Nonprofits

Forbes contributor Afdhel Aziz has a nice Q&A with Robert Egger, founder of D.C. Central Kitchen, Campus Kitchens, and the recently shuttered L.A. Kitchen, who tells Aziz that he is "dedicating the rest of my career to 'taking a knee' so that younger [social sector] leaders can climb up on my shoulders, see the future coming, and react with their own ideas."

Is your organization thinking about scaling a program or initiative? Forbes contributor Eric Griswold has some good advice for boards and management teams about the areas they should focus on.

Two new reports, one from the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the other from Open Road Alliance, "suggest that nonprofits need to speak up and be more direct in their communications with foundations. After all," writes Open Road's Maya Winkelstein on the CEP blog, "funders can't solve problems they don't know exist."

What is decision fatigue and how can you avoid it? Nonprofit AF's Vu Le and his team at Rainier Valley Corps have stumbled into an alternative that just might be the answer.

Social Good

"With a growing number of indicators pointing towards the coming end of the business cycle," writes Avi Deutch, a a principal at Vodia Capital, "it's worth considering how ESG and thematic impact investing strategies will fare during the next recession."

(Photo credit: Associated Press)

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