Latest Releases from the field - March 2018
Check out the latest releases from around the nonprofit sector featuring items from BoardSource, Council on Foundations, Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Media Impact Funders, National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy and PEAK Grantmaking.
5 Key Steps to Starting an Employee Volunteer Program
America's Charities
Download America's Charities' guide, "5 Key Steps to Starting an Employee Volunteer and Skills Giving Program" for help building an employee volunteer program from scratch, as well as for ideas to ramp up your existing program.
Achieving the Dream's Measuring What Matters
Gallup and Strada Education NetworkSM
Achieving the Dream released its report Measuring What Matters, exploring the extent to which community colleges dedicated to student success make a significant difference in the lives of their graduates after college.
The study, conducted by Gallup with support from Strada Education NetworkSM, shows that institutions affiliated with Achieving the Dream are outpacing peer institutions not associated with the reform network when it comes to helping students get better jobs, live better lives, and have good experiences in college.
Corporate Citizenship Careers: Profile of the Professionals 2018
Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship
This study examines the roles, responsibilities, development, and compensation of corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals. Its findings—based on survey results from 932 corporate citizenship professionals—provide insight into how CSR professionals at all levels assess the skills they need to be effective in their roles and what they perceive as the greatest challenges they must overcome.
Journalism and Media Grantmaking: Five Things You Need to Know and Five Ways to Get Started
Media Impact Funders
With support from the Wyncote Foundation, Media Impact Funders has updated this resource funders about the role they can play in supporting news and community information. Foundations do not need to have a formal journalism program to make grants that support healthy news and information flows. Nor does a foundation need large dollar investments to get started. This booklet provides dozens of examples of successful journalism and media projects that have received philanthropic support, along with highlights of interviews with program staff. It is divided into two main parts: Five things you need to know, and five ways to get started.
As the South Grows: Bearing Fruit
National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
NCRP has released the latest installment in its As the South Grows series with its partner, Grantmakers for Southern Progress. The series explores the challenges and opportunities for progressive change work in the South. This fourth part of the series looks at how Southern cities like Metro Atlanta present opportunities to learn how to confront and break down structural barriers. Atlanta’s civic and business leaders have worked for more than a generation to project an image of a thriving, welcoming city in a region where reactive politics and entrenched poverty are widespread and that strategy has borne fruit. But for whom? How can communities protect, defend and break down barriers to their success? How can these communities build power and resources to expand their work out of Metro Atlanta to make statewide changes?
Grants Management Professional Competency Model
PEAK Grantmaking
PEAK’s Grants Management Professional Competency Model defines the professional knowledge, skills, and abilities expected of grants management professionals, regardless of their area of specialization, the size of their organization, or their role within the field. By identifying both the functional responsibilities and the knowledge needed for success in every area of grants management, the competencies provide a comprehensive look at the profession. This Model offers everyone working in grants management a direction for professional success.
Foundation Board Leadership: A Closer Look at Foundation Board Responses to Leading with Intent 2017
BoardSource
In an effort to better understand the particular dynamics of foundation boards, BoardSource took a closer look at a subset of responses from the 141 foundation leaders who completed the 2017 Leading with Intent survey. Key findings inlcude foundation boards lack racial and ethnic diversity in profound ways — and current recruitment practices demonstrate that is unlikely to change and foundation boards that assess their own performance regularly report stronger board performance, but too few foundation boards have adopted this recommended practice.
The Impact of Diversity: Understanding How Nonprofit Board Diversity Affects Philanthropy, Leadership, and Board Engagement
BoardSource, Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and Johnson, Grossnickle, and Associates
Nonprofit organizations with more women on their boards and more people under 40 are more engaged in charities’ work and are more likely to participate in fundraising and public-policy advocacy, according to this new study. It examines the ways in which diversity is associated with board members’ engagement with the board. It also explores the relationship between a nonprofit’s characteristics—such as the age of the organization, level of revenue, and focus area (nonprofit subsector)—and the diversity of its board members, including their race, ethnicity, age and gender. The report finds that both organizational characteristics and the diversity of the board affect levels of board engagement.
2017 Grantmaker and Salary Benefits Report
Council on Foundations
Racial and ethnic minorities continue to be underrepresented at all levels in U.S. foundations, while significant gender and age gaps also remain according to the Council's latest annual survey. The survey of nine hundred and seventy grantmakers found that the share of racial and ethnic minorities among full-time staff remained essentially unchanged in 2017 at 25.9 percent, with African Americans accounting for 5 percent of full-time staff, Latino/as accounting for 10 percent, and Asian Americans accounting for 7.5 percent. The report also found that women accounted for 76.5 percent of all full-time staff, including 87.6 percent of administrative staff, 75.7 percent of program officers, 73.5 percent of professional staff, and 56.4 percent of CEOs and presidents overall — the latter down slightly from 58 percent in 2016. The full report provides salary, benefits, and diversity data for full-time staff at U.S. foundations to aid in budget planning and personnel practice benchmarking. Information is presented by grantmaker type, foundation type, asset size, and geographic location.
Giving By and For Women: Understanding High-Net-Worth Donors' Support for Women and Girls
IUPUI Women's Philanthropy Institute
This study finds that high-net-worth women who give $1 million or larger gifts to causes that benefit women and girls share certain key characteristics when it comes to their giving - engage in significant education and research before making their gifts, make strategic funding decisions focused on driving systemic change, and are willing to take risks with their philanthropy.