The Advocacy Capacity Tool (ACT), International ACT (IACT), PowerCheck: Community Organizing Capacity Tool, and Resources for Evaluating Community Organizing (RECO) are powerful tools for foundations that want to understand and evaluate the skills and readiness of their grantees, identify gaps and opportunities in their own advocacy portfolios, and focus resources where they matter most.
On January 1, 2018, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act went into effect, providing significant tax reductions for both individuals and corporations and doubling the amount of the standard deduction that individuals can claim in their tax returns. How are nonprofit and foundation leaders viewing the implications of this legislation? What role can funders play in helping grantees respond to it? In January and February 2018, CEP surveyed nonprofit and foundation leaders to gain insights into these questions. Based on survey responses from 170 nonprofit CEOs and 187 foundation staff who hold the highest level of responsibility for programmatic work at Read more
There is overwhelming evidence that general operating support grants can have significant impact on nonprofits and communities. This guide provides an introduction for trustees and boards on general operating support grants. Foundation leaders can use this piece as a way to broach this topic and have candid conversations with their boards.
Foundations can advance their strategies and goals by investing in grantee staff and the nonprofit workforce. Nonprofit professionals thrive when they are well supported and developed by their organizations. So investing in the people-systems of grantee organizations can and should be a vital part of the job of every foundation trustee and program executive. We created this Toolkit to provide funders practical guidance, promising practices, and data on the value of investing the in nonprofit workforce.
Below are several resources that introduce capitalization concepts and their relationship to organizational health and sustainability. Capitalization in Nonprofit Organizations: A Shared Challenge Commissioned by the McGregor Fund, this presentation provides an overview of nonprofit capitalization concepts and what nonprofit capitalization looks like in Detroit and introduces key concepts in creating a capitalization strategy. Capitalization Terms and Definitions An overview of types of capital.
In this publication, we look at how funders approach building capacity with grantees. Through examples from foundations ranging in size, mission, and geography, we explore various strategies for capacity building and the types of awareness that funders can choose to incorporate in decision making to facilitate informed, thoughtful judgments about strengthening organizations.
A collection of peer-to-peer resources focusing on work being done to strengthen communities. Includes community foundation models, and civic and community capacity resources.
This study looks at capacity building from a strategic, statewide perspective and provides a framework for thinking systematically about capacity-building investments at a state or community level; an assessment of the capacity building landscape; and opportunities for investment.
The California Endowment implemented the Clinic Consortia Policy and Advocacy Program to expand grantee advocacy capacity to support the policy and operational needs of California’s community clinics. Funders of advocacy and policy change initiatives are encouraged to consider the resources needed to build and sustain advocacy capacity, including grantee technical expertise, partnerships with stakeholders, and time required to expand advocacy capacity.
The California Endowment’s Community Action to Fight Asthma Initiative (CAFA) took a non-traditional approach to reducing asthma disparities that funded treatment programs. CAFA fostered community activity to effect change in the areas of education, housing and environmental policy. In this article, authors discuss the CAFA’s theory of change and grant making strategy included assistance in 1) Local, regional, and state-level coalition building 2) Prevention concepts, environmental asthma policies, policy advocacy 3) Evaluation, using continuous feedback to fine-tune strategy.
This is a case study of how the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s initiative to support choice of program provider for developmentally disabled adults uses some advanced statistical techniques to demonstrate the impact of the foundation’s funding. This study suggests that to get the greatest impact on policy change, foundations should consider offering modest competitive grants to governmental departments; spending the funds in regional groupings; and focus on jurisdictions that have demonstrated interest in the policy area by spending their own funds.
