Posts Tagged: philanthropy - (21 found)

The Support Report: An In Depth Analysis of the Changing Face of Giving in Australia

philanthropy

The Support Report: An In Depth Analysis of the Changing Face of Giving in Australia, soon to be released by JBWere, explores how philanthropy is evolving in Australia, looking at each of the different giving areas and the types of givers who support each cause.

It found that there is a dramatic difference in who, why, where and the way support is provided across donor segments and highlighted a need for not for profits, particularly in certain cause areas, to evolve rapidly to continue to attract support.

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Funding advocacy and policy change | Atlas learning project

action research advocacy evaluation philanthropy

Over the course of two years and hundreds of interviews with foundations, advocates, evaluators, and other experts, a consistent theme emerged around the need for foundations to be more aggressive and adaptive in their support for advocacy and policy change.  This theme runs through more than 20 different reports, publications, and other resources. In each case, what arises from all this research is a clear sense that grantmakers should better understand their roles in the broader advocacy ecosystem, and foundations that do engage in supporting advocacy should consider a wider range of bolder and more effective approaches. 

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State of Evaluation 2016: Evaluation Capacity and Practice in the Nonprofit Sector

advocacy evaluation philanthropy research

Recent findings (from 2016) about how nonprofits engage in evaluation, and the capacities and characteristics of their organizations. “Funding for evaluation is also moving in the right direction, with more nonprofits receiving funding for evaluation from at least one source than in the past”… but…  “In most organizations, pivotal resources of money and staff time for evaluation are severely limited or nonexistent.”

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Legal advocacy as a strategy

advocacy evaluation legals philanthropy strategy

TCC Group has been examining how advocacy organizations use legal advocacy as a strategy and how funders can best support that work. Here, they share the results of their work to help inform funders, legal advocates, non-legal advocates, and evaluators about the field of legal advocacy.

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Oh for the love of sticky notes: The Changing Role of Evaluators Who Work with Foundations

advocacy evaluation facilitation learning organisations philanthropy

Julia Coffman (Director and founder of the Center for Evaluation Innovation) writes: “I’ve been an evaluator for 25 years now, and I love it. I love the opportunity to apply research skills to important questions. I love helping people to think about their hypotheses and assumptions and then testing them. I love informing strategic decisions at critical times…”

 

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evaluation capacity building: Funder Initiatives to Strengthen Grantee Evaluation Capacity and Practice (report)

advocacy evaluation philanthropy

Evaluation Capacity Building (ECB) is the process of improving an organization’s ability to use evaluation to learn from its work and improve results. Organizational learning is incredibly important. Organizations that are adept at learning from mistakes and adapting to new challenges are more likely to be successful, and in the nonprofit sector, more likely to make significant progress toward mission-related outcomes.

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Why the environmental movement is not winning

environment philanthropy research

This searing 2012 report says the environmental movement is not winning and lays the blame squarely on the failed policies of environmental funders. The movement hasn’t won any “significant policy changes at the federal level in the United States since the 1980s” because funders have favored top-down elite strategies and have neglected to support a robust grassroots infrastructure. Environmental funders spent a whopping $10 billion between 2000 and 2009 but achieved relatively little because they failed to underwrite grassroots groups that are essential for any large-scale change, the report says…

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The elusive craft of evaluating advocacy

advocacy evaluation philanthropy

Advocacy evaluation is a craft, one in which tacit knowledge, skill and networks are more useful than the application of a rigid methodology. It is an exercise in trained judgment. The evaluator, rather than the formal qualities of the evaluation, is what matters.

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Assessing advocacy

advocacy evaluation philanthropy strategy

This new framework provides a methodical and organised approach to managing some of philanthropy’s most complicated endeavours. The framework evaluates projects for nine conditions, from the presence of effective champions to favourable timing. It complements and enhances expert judgment when funders are comparing and choosing investments… A bit of structure can go a long way toward overcoming biases and fairly evaluating an advocacy campaign’s chances of success.

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Transformative Scale: The future of growing what works

learning organisations philanthropy

Jeffrey Bradach and Abe Grindle describe nine strategies to deliver impact at a scale that truly meets needs… nine approaches that hold real promise for addressing at a transformative scale a number of major social problems:

1. Distribute through existing platforms
2. Recruit (and train) others to deliver the solution
3. Unbundle and scale up the parts that have the greatest impact
4. Use technology to reach a larger audience
5. Don’t just build organizations and programs, strengthen a field
6. Change public systems
7. Embrace the need for policy change
8. Don’t ignore for-profit models for scale
9. Alter people’s attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors

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