Jun 30, 2017

Foundation Review, The; ScholarWorks@GVSU;

In 2013, the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving began to offer unrestricted general operating support grants in response to grantees' expressed need. The foundation hired Technical Development Corp., a Boston consulting firm, to evaluate the process and implementation. This article shares early indicators of the impact of the new grantmaking approach on both grantees and the foundation. Grantee outcomes include enhanced infrastructure and financial health, continued progress on strategic plan goals, and more creative thinking about programs. Beyond the adoption of a new funding option, the decision led the foundation to modify its overall grantmaking process. The greatest challenge – which appears to be a factor across the sector – has been determining how best to capture the impact of the investment for grantees. Partnering from the outset provided data that helped both the foundation and TDC to assess the benefits of general operating support.

Oct 01, 2014

Greater New Orleans Foundation;

Stand Up for Our Children is an initiative of the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF) to foster civic participation and empower parents and families to improve the quality of life for the region's most vulnerable children. The initiative was made possible through a $1.5 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. A fundamental belief of both foundations is that solutions to community problems emanate from local citizens working individually and collectively toward the common good and that people have the inherent capacity to solve their own problems. In that spirit, the Stand Up for Our Children initiative focused on three key outcomes: increasing parent engagement in advocating for vulnerable children 0-5 years old, strengthening nonprofits through organizational capacity building and fostering collaboration among participating organizations. The initiative's Year One evaluation sought to learn about changes in participants' awareness, knowledge and acquisition of skills. The Year Two evaluation looks at how participants began to apply these knowledge and skills and take action as individuals, organizations and networks. This evaluation considered the Stand Up initiative's activities and impact from September 2013 to August 2014.

Oct 01, 2014

Greater New Orleans Foundation;

Stand Up For Our Children is a W.K. Kellogg Foundation-funded initiative to foster civic participation to empower our parents/families to improve the quality of life for our region's most vulnerable children and to increase the organizational capacity of nonprofits funded. The initiative's Year One evaluation sought to learn about changes in participants' awareness, knowledge and acquisition of skills. The Year Two evaluation looked at how participants began to apply these knowledge and skills and take action as individuals, organizations and networks. This evaluation considered the Stand Up initiative's activities and impact from September 2013 to August 2014.

Nov 01, 2013

Greater New Orleans Foundation;

Stand Up for Our Children (Stand Up) is a grant initiative of the Greater New Orleans Foundation (GNOF), made possible through funding by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation Civic Engagement Innovation Fund (Kellogg), to support the work of organizations in New Orleans focused on engaging parents of children between the ages of zero and five. This initiative is based on a belief (shared by both GNOF and Kellogg) that solutions to community issues and problems emanate from local citizens working individually and collectively toward the common good and that people have the inherent capacity to solve their own problems. In turn, Stand Up empowers parents/families in the community to improve the conditions facing the region's most vulnerable children. This initiative funds nonprofit organizations committed to inclusion, innovation, and impact in solving systemic early childhood problems through engagement by parents/families and others in the community through dialogue, issue identification, leadership development, collaboration, data driven planning and community mobilization. The expected outcome of this initiative is two-fold: More engaged parents advocating for vulnerable children 0-5 years old, andStrengthened nonprofits through organizational capacity buildingThe original objective of the Year One evaluation of the Stand Up for Our Children initiative was to assess: to what extent participation in the Stand Up initiative yielded an increase in the capacity of parents to be leaders, andwhether there was an increase in the funded organization's capacity to engage parents.

Sep 12, 2011

TCC Group;

In 2008 TCC Group was retained by the Oregon Arts Commission (OAC) to help determine the need and desire for capacity-building assistance among its grantee organizations across the state, and to conduct an assessment of those grantees' organizational capacity using TCC's Core Capacity Assessment Tool (CCAT). One hundred and ten grantees were invited to take the CCAT, and 70 organizations ultimately did so. Beginning in June 2009, TCC Group worked with OAC to design and implement the Sustaining Oregon's Arts capacity-building initiative, which provided workshops, webinars, an annual convening, and a peer exchange that organizations could voluntarily participate in free of charge. The Initiative's kickoff convening for arts nonprofits across Oregon took place on October 1, 2009. The keynote speaker at that convening, Holly Sidford, President of Helicon Collaborative, spoke about the dramatic changes taking place in nonprofit organizations' operating environments: Increasingly, nonprofit cultural institutions represent only one "cultural" or "creative" option among many, and – for increasing numbers of people – not the most compelling one … the explosion of cultural options beyond the nonprofit model, and people's growing appetite to participate in, rather than passively "consume" the arts, are the two most important strategic issues facing nonprofit cultural organizations today. And they represent our greatest sources of possibility. Members of the nonprofit arts sector ignore these trends at their peril. The offerings of the Sustaining Oregon's Arts Initiative over the course of 2009 – 2011 helped nonprofit arts organizations to strengthen organizational capacity and adapt to the "paradigm shift," as Sidford referred to it, facing the sector. As the Initiative came to its conclusion in June 2011, OAC asked TCC to administer the CCAT to identify if any changes in organizational capacity among its grantees had taken place during the course of the initiative. This report presents the findings of the 2011 administration of the CCAT, comparing the results to those of 2008. The report also presents the findings of an analysis of organizational budget data gathered from the CCAT as well as from funding requests submitted to OAC in May 2011.

Aug 31, 2011

California Wellness Foundation; Weingart Foundation; Harder+Company Community Research;

Examines the impact, promising strategies, and lessons of the California Wellness and Weingart foundations' grants to the Liberty Hill Foundation to fund a capacity-building program for health and human services organizations serving mainly minorities.

Apr 05, 2011

Monitor Institute; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation;

Based on surveys and interviews, explores how network-centric practices will affect citizen engagement and community information, with case studies and scenarios for 2015. Offers grantmakers suggestions, tips, and tools for supporting networks for good.

Nov 02, 2010

TCC Group;

Examines organizational capacity of Los Angeles nonprofits; capacity-building services provided to and needed by; and funders' roles in shaping nonprofit performance. Lists recommendations.