Partnerships and Collaborations
Maximizing Philanthropic Impact Through Associations
They say two heads are better than one … but how about hundreds of heads? All focused on exploring future possibilities and challenges with the goal to create new realities?
For The Patterson Foundation, intentionally connecting with others is essential to our work. What’s one way we accomplish…
Are the Stars Aligned for Successful Collaboration?
Collaborating for greater impact starts with nonprofit leaders who develop wide-reaching social networks, communicate clearly about their missions and objectives, and are flexible about how those objectives are met. Funders are uniquely positioned to recognize these leaders and create greater…
Growing a Local Workforce
Danny Murphy - Coauthor
The opening of the new Louisiana State University and VA Medical complex slated for 2014–2015 in downtown New Orleans is about to open up hundreds of jobs online to service and run these medical centers. Will the unemployed residents of New Orleans get hired? The…
It Takes a Village…
That’s an old saying, but in Cincinnati, the decision to adopt employer-driven career pathways as a workforce strategy had many “parents.”
Career pathways help align training for individuals with employers’ needs, close skills gaps, and develop talent-supply chains for in-demand careers. It takes…
Making Early Childhood Education the Right of Every Child
How should a mid-sized foundation position its initiatives in this age of austerity and how can one county and community foundation influence state-level decisions? These are questions that the Erie Community Foundation asked when it planned an early childhood education initiative more than a year…
Is Getting People Online the “Secret Ingredient” Needed to Achieve Your Mission?
With one-third of Americans still lacking broadband Internet connections at home, access to the internet is often considered an equity issue. Yet programs aimed at narrowing the digital divide may leave their strongest legacies in the areas of community and economic development. Online access is a…
Two Sides of the Same Coin: Outcomes and Collaboration
Part 2: Collaboration
I see collaborative work and outcomes management as two sides of the same “working smarter” coin. I discussed outcomes management in my first post in this series, and my organization, Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), has embraced its importance. VPP is committed to…
Early Education Can Never Start Too Early
On April 18, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Dubuque, Iowa to launch the Together for Tomorrow campaign. I was honored to share the stage with him and highlight the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque’s recent work on a third grade reading initiative with our school district…
The Work of Philanthropy in Crises–Part II
Foundations in New Orleans, Los Angeles, and Detroit have faced conditions before and after crises that are all but unimaginable. For example, Detroit has enough vacant and unused land to fit inside San Francisco, more vacant land than any city in the U.S. except for post-Katrina New Orleans, a…
The Work of Philanthropy in Crisis Conditions—Part I
If there is an epicenter of the decline of a city and its loss of an economic base, the candidates start with Detroit, where the population has plummeted 25 percent in the last decade to 714,000–this for a city whose population was 1.85 million in 1950. The city now has an extraordinarily high…
Paving the Way for Philanthropic and Public Policy Partnerships
This year’s Paul Ylvisaker Public Policy Award winner, Linda Reed, president and CEO of the Montana Community Foundation, delivered a formal talk on the relationship of rural philanthropy and public policy. Given that Reed was talking about Montana, where there are only three communities with…
Equipping Citizens to Make a Difference
Especially in our current funding climate, partnership and authentic engagement with those we seek to serve is critical to ensuring that limited philanthropic resources are invested wisely and deliver the greatest possible impact for those most in need.
The success of Foundation for Louisiana’s…
Flexing the Muscle of Nonprofit Technology
“The nonprofit sector as a whole has the opportunity to harness the power of innovation to improve the quality of service delivery.” That’s one of the key findings from “Unleashing Innovation: Using Everyday Technology to Improve Nonprofit Services,”a new research report from MAP for Nonprofits…
Small California Community Foundations Get Big Results
Over the past six years, I’ve had the privilege of working closely with a set of small, young community foundations in under-resourced parts of California as they aim to grow faster, smarter, and increase the positive impact they are having in their communities. With Irvine’s Community…
Calling all Community Foundations!
In the United States, community foundations serve tens of thousands of people, administer more than $49 billion in charitable funds, and address the core concerns of more than 725 communities and regions.
Not only are these community-based foundations a valuable sources of local wealth held in…
Creating Big Impact in Small Cities
Here in Massachusetts, attention is turning to the lack of philanthropic support for small cities with high poverty rates. The Boston Globe recently profiled Brockton Superintendent Matt Malone, who unsuccessfully attempted to attract private donors to a school system that is both high poverty and…