How does a board of directors influence within‐ and cross‐sector nonprofit collaboration?

Board members play a significant, yet largely unexamined, role in nonprofit collaboration. Processes, such as finding prospective partners, creating common ground with a partner, and establishing appropriate collaborative governance implicate nonprofit board members. In contrast to the scholarship of the role of interlocking directorates as potential networks for nonprofit collaboration, this paper examines the role of board members' social and human capital on nonprofit collaboration with other nonprofits, businesses, and government agencies. Drawing on online survey data from 636 nonprofit organizations, this paper finds that board social capital—but not board human capital—is positively related to the presence and number of within‐sector and cross‐sector nonprofit collaboration. However, board human capital enhances nonprofit‐government collaboration, when board social capital is also high. The results provide a novel perspective in nonprofit collaboration and board management research.     

The complexity of diversity and importance for equitable philanthropy

The current U.S. climate of racial and social injustice has prompted a renewed call for diverse and equitable ways to rethink community philanthropy. Community foundations are vehicles for community philanthropy which offer vast benefits for social improvement and community development. The board of directors ensures these organizations fulfill their mission, making decisions on funding priorities and holding the organization functionally and fiscally responsible. Drawing on constructs of diversity and representative bureaucracy and a case study of Florida community foundations, we suggest that diversity is understood in different ways and the presence of diverse board members may be linked to advancing the interests of diverse communities and in achieving outcomes that assist in the needs of certain social groups. Increased understanding of diversity can improve foundation and philanthropic effectiveness and bring broader social change by promoting equity and social justice among community‐based philanthropic organizations.     

Philanthropy without borders: US private foundation activity in Eastern Europe

Worldwide disillusionment with governmental problem-solving, decline in governmental resources, increasing prominence of multinational corporations, and the collapse of communism act as powerful stimuli to international philanthropic activity. US private foundations in particular have been highly motivated by the collapse of communism to act as venture capitalists in seeking grant-making opportunities and philanthropic partners in Eastern Europe. International philanthropy of private foundations can provide expertise in and resources for global as well as regional or local problem-solving. However, resources available must be viewed realistically. This paper puts available foundation resources in perspective. Further, international philanthropy by private foundations is no panacea for the world's problems, and may only be effective at the margins. But to the extent it can be an effective problem solver, it should not be artificially limited by boundaries and laws of any one nation, as it is at present. While reviewing some trends towards increasing activity of larger US private foundations in Eastern Europe, this paper also illustrates small segments of the existing legal, tax and other barriers to international philanthropy. In many instances, simple awareness of some of these barriers will enable potential grantees and philanthropic partners to surmount these barriers. But within the larger context of globalisation of philanthropy, all such barriers to the free movement of philanthropic capital and expertise should be identified and ultimately removed so that international philanthropy, like international trade and free movement of capital and goods, can emerge to an optimal level.Susan Flaherty is a partner in the law firm of Roha & Flaherty, 1900 L. Street N.W., Washington, DC, 20036-5002.     

Social capital and nonprofit leaders

The concept of social capital seems to be a very compatible, useful, and important one for nonprofit organizations. Nonprofits must sustain and enhance the original social capital with which they were formed and broaden it into a variety of key areas. Nonprofits and their leaders must foster social capital in order to recruit and develop board members, raise philanthropic support, develop strategic partnerships, engage in advocacy, enhance community relations, and create a shared strategic vision and mission within the organization and its employees. Nonprofit executives have a pivotal role in carrying out these functions, but they do so through relationships and networks with others. These activities are time‐consuming and demanding, and they require planning. This article provides a focused literature analysis on the concept of social capital as it applies to nonprofit management and leadership. The author views the literature with respect to definitions of social capital and the way nonprofits generate and mobilize social capital in order to achieve organizational goals. The author also cites methods for measuring social capital.     

Community Foundations: A Growing Resource for Community Development

Like many nonprofit organizations, community development corporations (CDCs) rely on various sources of funding and support for their activities in poor and distressed neighborhoods. Funders often include the federal government, state and local government agencies, financial institutions, and philanthropic organizations. The author explains how community foundations are different from other philanthropic organizations and describes the various mechanisms that community foundations use to support community development. She suggests that there is a natural fit between the purpose of community foundations and the philosophy of community development, concluding that it is important for CDCs, as well as other nonprofit organizations, to understand how community foundations are different from other philanthropic organizations so that they may better position themselves to take advantage of the many resources that community foundations bring to their communities.     

Social Entrepreneurship in Communities

The United States ranks low on many measures of population health. In addressing this societal problem, nonprofit health conversion foundations are emerging as important, local social entrepreneurs. We investigated the processes by which these organizations create and implement locally situated innovative approaches to promote health and wellness. Using an inductive, qualitative approach, we identified central themes by which conversion foundations, as social entrepreneurs, developed collaborative solutions to health. We found that they defined the social problem, generated social capital in the community, and educated potential partners. These mechanisms helped build a groundwork for collaboration among community actors. Conversion foundations then convened partners with complementary competencies to develop creative solutions. This research contributes to the literature on social entrepreneurship and nonprofits by expanding understanding of how foundations can foster community collaborations to develop innovative solutions to social problems. Further, this study sheds light on the activities and processes of nonprofit health conversion foundations as actors with the potential to improve population health.     

Organizational Identity and Philanthropic Institutions

This article proposes a framework for viewing the behavior of philanthropic institutions through the lens of organizational identity via semi‐structured interviews with twenty‐seven grantmakers representing seventeen foundations, along with content analyses of these foundations’ public documents. This empirical investigation revealed three identity profiles: agenda setter, supporter, and community builder, which capture distinct patterns in foundation strategy, operational structure, and grantmaking practices. For theory, these findings provide an alternative to the conventional view of foundation behavior along an active to passive continuum to one that suggests a role for organizational identity. For practitioners (grantmakers and grantseekers), this perspective demonstrates that there are multiple pathways through which foundations create social value, not just one definition of “best practices.” Understanding these different perspectives on social value creation can help grantmakers identify internal inconsistencies in their strategies and operations and can help grantseekers identify foundations most likely to fund their work. The article concludes with suggestions for further research to explore the extent to which this framework can advance understanding of institutional philanthropy as the field moves to challenge traditional boundaries between nonprofit foundations and private social change initiatives.     

An unseen lens: The relationship between philanthropists’ developmental meaning making and philanthropic activity

To solve complex problems such as poverty, nonprofit leaders must think in increasingly complex ways. Research on philanthropy has not yet explored the complexity of philanthropists’ thinking while making philanthropy‐related decisions. Developmental psychology indicates that adults develop an increasingly complex mental map over the course of a lifetime and that this map emerges as a series of successive stages. This study asked: How, if at all, does this mental map inform philanthropy? This four‐phase mixed‐methods multi‐case study (n = 11) used constructive developmental theory to empirically assess philanthropists’ developmental levels and, then, compare identified levels with data about the donor's philanthropic activities such as donations and board memberships. The contributions of the study are twofold: (a) the findings suggest philanthropists’ developmental levels are related to their thinking processes about charitable giving and the rationales they employ to make decisions about their philanthropic activities (specifically, how they form ideas about the problem and how they engage in empathy), and (b) this study makes a methodological contribution by demonstrating a novel (and apparently useful) approach to researching philanthropic giving. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Foundations as investment managers part 1: The process

Foundations in the United States manage more than $130 billion in investment resources. In managing these assets, foundations must balance the competing goals of promoting charitable good deeds through the distribution of grants and stewarding the assets that can support such grants in the future. This paper examines how foundations perform the function of managing their financial assets and whether they follow modern practices of portfolio management in doing so. The data presented here provide reason to suspect that many foundations are giving insufficient attention to preserving and enhancing the available philanthropic resources under their control. Analysis of actual investment performance is the subject of a sequel article in the next issue of Nonprofit Management and Leadership.     

Ties That Bind: Public Foundations in Dyadic Partnerships

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Public Ancillary Funds (PubAFs) are grantmaking philanthropic foundations, largely held to be independent. However, some...     

Evaluating a private foundation's health program

Public policy decisions in health are increasingly difficult and expensive. Although there will never be enough information available, private foundations can help to bridge the most important gaps in knowledge. Larger foundations may also wish to respond to those who doubt the value of foundation activities. This article reviews the experiences over the past eight years of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation in employing evaluation and related social research procedures in the planning and implementation of a major philanthropic effort to improve the health and medical care of Americans. Discussed are the still evolving Foundation evaluation framework, the unanticipated problems in undertaking specific evaluations, and the substantive findings of some of the studies.     

The Geography and Disparities of Community Philanthropy: A Community Assessment Model of Needs,Resources, and Ecological Environment

VOLUNTAS: International Journal of Voluntary and Nonprofit Organizations - Community foundations exemplify a growing form of place-based philanthropic efforts for addressing public problems....     

Access to Philanthropic and Commercial Income Among Nonprofit Community Service Organisations

Governments depend on nonprofit, voluntary sector organisations to deliver social and community services, and public funding is the sector’s most important income source. However, in many countries, public funding for social services is becoming more limited, conditional and precarious, and governments are encouraging nonprofits to diversify their funding base, and shift their reliance to income from market activity and private donations. This article is concerned with access to philanthropic and commercial funding among nonprofits, and the factors affecting it. It firstly discusses an emerging policy agenda to promote private funding among nonprofit community service providers. Then, multivariate analysis of survey data from 521 Australian nonprofits shows which organisations access income from client fees, business activities, community fundraising, and philanthropic foundations. By exploring inequalities in the distribution of these main sources of private funding, the article helps identify the types of organisations that face challenges in establishing and sustaining streams of private income, and which are likely to require ongoing public support.     

Fidelity in philanthropy: Two challenges to community foundations

Two recent court cases have raised doubts about how faithful community foundation officials must remain over time to the donor's charitable intent. For trustees of community foundations, nonprofit managers, and potential donors, the two cases discussed in this article raise three critical questions: Under what conditions can and should a donor's charitable intentions be modified? Do nonprofit organizations have legitimate claims to funds in community foundations earmarked for their organizations by donors? Should donors consider disbursing their philanthropic funds themselves rather than seek to have them held in perpetuity in a foundation? In addition to addressing these questions, the author suggests that the two court cases examined here reveal something important about the broader evolution of philanthropy over the past three decades.     

Religion and community philanthropic organizations: The case of the United Jewish Appeal‐Federation of New York

This article explores the processes that occur when community philanthropic organizations develop religious expressions and practices by examining the shifts that took place within the United Jewish Appeal‐Federation of New York between 1990 and 2014. As the findings indicate, the gradual integration of ethnoreligious practices, norms, and expressions into the Federation's missions, routine, activities, and distribution of resources, as well as among staff and volunteers, reshaped the Federation's identity and faith‐based orientation. This process led the Federation to move beyond being a faith‐background organization toward becoming a faith‐affiliated organization, expressing Jewish beliefs through its charitable work and philanthropic activities. The article highlights the resulting dilemmas and obstacles faced by the Federation and concludes with a discussion of the implications for understanding the process of increased religion among community philanthropic organizations.     

Developing the field of youth organizing and advocacy: what foundations can do

For more than a decade, the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund has seeded many San Francisco Bay Area youth organizing and advocacy programs. Now that the field is maturing, argues the fund's vice president of programs, foundations have a critical programmatic and capacity-building role to play. The author offers analysis and strategies for integrating youth development grant making across foundation interest areas. The programs described illustrate the diversity of youth organizing and advocacy programs that could be supported by funders, whether or not any particular philanthropic institution has a grant-making focus on youth development or youth organizing. The article ends with an in-depth portrait of the self-reported needs of youth organizing and advocacy programs and concrete strategies for foundations seeking to more effectively enable youth organizing and advocacy to play an important role in bringing about a more vibrant, diverse, and effective democratic culture.     

Knowledge Transfer between For‐Profit Corporations and Their Corporate Foundations

This article investigates the impact of knowledge transfer (Goh 2002) from founder firms to the corporate foundations (CFs) on the CFs’ effectiveness. Starting from a typology of CFs’ effectiveness (Ostrower 2006a), we conducted a survey addressed to a sample of Italian CFs to address the impact of different knowledge transfer methods (KTMs) on three dimensions of CFs’ orientation to effectiveness: proactive orientation, social advocacy, and capacity building. The research identified four different KTMs and, using a linear regression, pointed out that the methods adopted by founder firms have a significant influence on proactivity, competences, and on social advocacy of CFs.     

The Hospital Foundation Strategy and Performance Relationship

Attracting philanthropic donations is a strategic imperative for many hospitals. A hospital can manage the giving process most effectively by developing a well‐managed hospital foundation. This study examines the hospital foundation strategy and performance relationship. Using a sample of 258 hospital foundations we identified different strategies and significant performance differences among them.