The notion of lining up resources towards outcomes, irregardless of current organizational structures is a good one.
SFGate
Bay Area charities unite, share aid to survive
Meredith May, Chronicle Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
As the economy continues its tailspin, Bay Area nonprofit leaders are making plans to consolidate their charities in order to survive.
A survey of 326 charities conducted by the San Francisco Foundation found that the majority are buckling under the wave of newly unemployed seeking aid, and the triple-threat of state funding cuts, smaller foundation grants and an alarming drop-off in donations.
“I really see this as the tip of the iceberg,” said Sandra Hernandez, chief executive officer of the San Francisco Foundation.
“Nonprofit executives are starting to be courageous and open up the conversation about whether they should be running a program or giving it to another agency,” she said.
The Bay Area is home to 25,000 nonprofits – one of the highest concentrations in the nation. There are 7,000 in San Francisco alone, although nearly half are small, with budgets below $25,000. The combined budgets of all the region’s nonprofits account for 14 percent of the Bay Area’s gross national product – twice the national average.
Downsizing has become inevitable in today’s economy.
This month, the San Francisco Foundation set aside $1 million in emergency funding to help nonprofits restructure.
Of that, $600,000 was divided equally among 20 nonprofits that provide food and shelter to people about to slip through the safety net.
Another $150,000 was put into a revolving loan fund for charities facing short-term cash flow problems caused by delayed state grants.
The remainder, $250,000, was used to create a “Nonprofit Transition Fund,” to help charities pay for lawyers, planners and facilities managers to help them merge or close.
So far, six charities – providing AIDS services, summer youth programs, arts and family services – have applied for transition fund grants, Hernandez said.
“Everyone is trying to figure out how to do more with less to preserve the frontline services,” Hernandez said.
Tom Nolan, executive director of Project Open Hand in San Francisco, is trying to figure out how to keep delivering 2,600 warm meals a day to seniors and people with HIV, given a projected $750,000 drop in funding in the new fiscal year that starts in July.
His agency was among the 20 that received a $30,000 safety-net grant from the San Francisco Foundation.
“We work closely with Glide Memorial, St. Anthony’s and the San Francisco Food Bank, and we’re trying to buy together in bulk and share kitchen space, whatever we can to consolidate and save money,” he said.
This seems to be the case too often… We’re really interested in outcomes, we do some measurements, but we don’t talk to all the players about it and there’s no follow through. More and more I’m thinking about the need for things like opportunity maps, scenario planning, and focused alignment towards grand challenges…
Assessment Is Widespread
Inside Higher Ed
April 28, 2009
Remember all of that talk from the Spellings Commission about how American colleges were in danger of decline because they didn’t assess learning outcomes and didn’t even know the learning outcomes they favored? A study being released today by the Association of American Colleges and Universities finds that in fact assessment has been well accepted for years at most colleges, and is widespread, complete with learning outcomes.
What isn’t widespread and should be, the study says, is communication with students about curricular goals and how the colleges measure them. And what also isn’t widespread (and this doesn’t bother many of those surveyed) are national comparisons. Much of the activity on assessment and learning outcomes takes place at the departmental level, the survey found. Read more
Tanner Woodford describes being in the College of Design (now the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts), being a part of something big, and tells the brazen story of how he fell in love with CSS.
Tanner Woodford is a graphic designer living in Tempe, Arizona with his wife Amanda Woodford, a vegetarian illustrator. Outside of his work as Web Developer for Arizona State University, Tanner has curated an exhibition with international and domestic poster artists, participated in several juried exhibitions and contributed to numerous publications. During a recent internship with Intel, Tanner helped conceptualize and design a graphical user interface for next generation televisions and co-authored a patent detailing the use of multiple, independent user interfaces for a single audio/video device. He received a bachelor of science in visual communication design from Arizona State University in the Spring 2009, and returned to teach Advanced Motion Design in the School of Design Innovation in the Fall 2009.
International Social Innovation Research Conference
Social Innovation: Reconfiguring Markets, Blurring Sector Boundaries and Challenging Institutional Arrangements
14th – 16th September 2009
Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford.
For further information on the Call for papers, please contact
Dr Alex Nicholls – alex.nicholls@sbs.ox.ac.uk
Professor Alex Murdock – alex.murdock@lsbu.ac.uk
For general information regarding the Conference, please contact
Pippa Hichens – pippa.hichens@sbs.ox.ac.uk
Pippa Hichens|Events Coordinator
Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship
Said Business School|University of Oxford
Park End Street|Oxford|OX1 1HP|UK
Tel – + 44 (0)1865 288491
Fax – + 44 (0) 1865 288959
Jenna Diaz-Gonzalez talks about her dream of progressive rehabilitation for battered women and the delightful surprise of finding small-town community on a large campus.
Jenna Diaz-Gonzalez grew up in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona. She was student body president and Valedictorian at Grand Canyon High School, and is currently a senior in Business Management. She is also pursuing a certificate in Small Business and Entrepreneurship and plans to graduate in May 2009. Jenna is a Leadership Scholarship Program recipient, has held leadership positions in the Hispanic Business Association and volunteers throughout the community. This past summer Jenna interned at the Edwin Gould Foundation through Sponsors for Educational Opportunity and received a job offer at a nonprofit in London, England upon graduation.
Fellowship in University Innovation
Arizona State University
Purpose: The Fellowship in University Innovation at Arizona State University (ASU) is designed to engage early career policy‐makers, analysts, researchers, communicators, writers and leaders in program building processes that can transform higher education institutions. The fellow will develop skills essential to building and communicating programs linked to institutional and societal change.
Overview: During the program, the fellow will engage in program building efforts throughout Arizona State University. Examples of projects that the fellow might conduct include: a workshop on how entrepreneurship might be more integrated in teacher preparation; a presentation that articulates the linkages between universities and economic development; a publication that communicates examples of institutional innovation at ASU; a social innovation blog; working with organizations outside the university to build entrepreneurial/innovative partnerships; working collaboratively to institutionalize a university‐wide tool for communicating and building community partnerships; documenting ASU’s institutional transformation.
The fellow will be a part of ASU’s Office of University Initiatives (UI) and will work directly with the leader of that office. The fellow will spend time gaining a better understanding of how the university works, how the office works, and how meaningful university‐wide programs can be developed. In addition, the fellow will meet with ASU students, faculty, staff and community members to learn more about university and community needs and opportunities. The fellow will have the opportunity to make connections within and outside of ASU, between people, projects and resources. The fellow will have specific projects and responsibilities but will also contribute to the efforts of UI. Read more about UI at http://ui.asu.edu.
The fellowship is for one‐year and is based from ASU at the Tempe campus. The fellowship is full‐time (40+ hours per week) with a salary of $50,000‐$65,000. Additional benefits include health insurance, vacation and sick leave, paid holidays and reduced tuition for self, spouse and dependents. Background: Arizona State University has put forth a vision to become a New American University, focused on excellence, access and impact in everything it does; measured by who it includes, not by whom it excludes; conducting research for the public good; and taking responsibility for the social, economic and cultural vitality of the surrounding community. Read more at http://newamericanuniversity.asu.edu.
Eligibility and Qualifications: Applications for the fellowship are invited from those who are completing their graduate programs in spring 2009 or have completed their graduate studies within the last 5 years. Candidates should exhibit the following qualities in their application materials:
• Ability to connect people, groups and organizations
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills
• Self‐motivation and teamwork‐orientation
• Your interest in the fellowship, your interest in Arizona State University, and your interest in helping to build ASU as an innovative institution (via cover letter)
• Graduate degree that will be completed in spring 2009 or that has been completed within the last 5 years
Applicants must be either a citizen of the United States or be able to maintain work authorization throughout the fellowship year. Arizona State University does not offer visa sponsorship to candidates for the fellowship program.
How to Apply: The initial application deadline is 5:00 p.m. MST Friday, April 24, 2009; if not awarded, fellowship applications will be reviewed weekly thereafter until the search is closed.
Email a single Adobe Acrobat (.PDF) document that includes the following components to dawn.castle@asu.edu by the deadline:
1. Cover letter that addresses your interest in the fellowship, your interest in Arizona State University, and your interest in helping to build ASU as an innovative institution.
2. Writing sample demonstrating your skill in writing, critical thinking, analysis, and synthesis of ideas/information.
3. Resume, including employment listed in month/year format (e.g. August 2005‐July 2008), job title, job duties and name of employing organization for each position. Education should include the month and year each academic degree was received. If the degree has not yet been earned, list the anticipated graduation date.
4. Three professional references, including name, mailing address, phone number and email address for each.
Application materials should clearly exhibit the qualifications listed in the “Eligibility and Qualifications” section above.
Arizona State University is an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer. ASU conducts preemployment screening for all positions which includes a criminal background check, verification of work history, academic credentials, licenses, and certifications. This fellowship is grant funded. Continuation is contingent on future grant funding.
Fellowship application contact:
Dawn Castle
Arizona State University
Office of University Initiatives
PO Box 873203
Tempe, AZ 85287‐3203
480‐965‐0548
dawn.castle@asu.edu
A new $100M Skoll effort is focused on addressing “urgent threats” like water shortages, pandemics and the Middle East conflict. How do you organize and fund to address urgent threats? Do you have a different kind of organization and different funding packages than you might if you were addressing more systemic issues? Aren’t these urgent threats systemic issues as well? What’s the balance between short-term and long-term actions if these are both urgent and systemic? And how will Mr. Skoll use his media efforts as a part of this? One last thought: about a decade ago, there was some talk about multinational corporations acting as our de facto global governors. Have foundations taken their place?
The New York Times
April 15, 2009
New Foundation Takes Aim at Urgent Threats
By STEPHANIE STROM
Jeff Skoll, the first president of eBay, has donated $100 million to start a new foundation to address urgent threats like water shortages, pandemics and the Middle East conflict.
The organization, the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund, will be led by Dr. Larry Brilliant, the iconoclastic public health expert and technology entrepreneur who until February headed up Google’s philanthropic enterprise, google.org.
“That’s just a start,” Mr. Skoll said of the money he has committed from his Skoll Foundation. “I’ll be putting in more money over time.”
Mr. Skoll is fast putting his mark on the world of philanthropy by using a variety of approaches, nonprofit and for profit, to address social problems.
His profit-making film company, Participant Media, is known for producing movies like “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The Kite Runner,” which aim to bring greater public awareness to social issues, while his investment firm, Capricorn Investments, puts money into things like waterless urinals and developing sustainable seafood products.
The Skoll Foundation underwrites the work of social entrepreneurs like Connie K. Duckworth, who founded an organization, Arzu Inc., that provides health care and higher-than-market-rate compensation to Afghan women making rugs in exchange for their pledge to send their children to school and attend literacy classes themselves.
“What I’ve been aiming at all these years is to try and address these big social issues in the world,” Mr. Skoll said, “but in the last five years or so, certain issues have emerged very clearly that, if we don’t get ahead of them soon, all of the other things we’re trying to do, whether improving the lives of women or preservation of species or girls’ education, won’t really matter.”
Dr. Brilliant, who has given up his latest job as Google’s Chief Philanthropy Evangelist, said he hoped to leverage the work of the other organizations Mr. Skoll has supported in pursuing solutions to some of the most complex threats to humanity.
“They are tools in the tool kit,” he said. “We may be using the films and creative talent of Participant, or the social entrepreneurs whose lives and work can inform our work.”
Mr. Skoll said he would like to attract other financial resources to the Urgent Threats Fund.
The Skoll Foundation already has partnered with google.org to put $11 million in total into the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative, a nonprofit group that identified 40 new viruses in Africa by studying blood collected by hunters from the animals they kill and studying the blood of the hunters themselves. The grants will allow the organization to spread its work to other regions of the world.
What’s great about the X Prizes is that they focus on outcomes. And what’s great about this newest Healthcare X Prize is that it also seems to consider the importance of scale.
$10 million prize seeks to transform U.S. healthcare
Tue Apr 14, 2009 4:34pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Organizers of the X Prize, who have set up contests for space travel, DNA research and super-efficient cars, said on Tuesday they are offering $10 million to the winner of a contest to transform the health of people in a small U.S. community.
They invited written ideas for the Healthcare X Prize, and said they would choose five for a three-year trial run in real communities or at employers.
The winner would be chosen based on a “community health index” of measures such as an improved ability to climb stairs, reductions in visits to emergency rooms and health costs.
“We need to show that the innovation works and then that the innovation is scalable. It’s going to be a public solution,” Angela Braly, president and chief executive officer of WellPoint Inc, a major U.S. health insurer that is helping sponsor the prize, told a news conference.
“We are looking for teams to help individuals and communities proactively improve their own health and (that) of their families,” added Dr. Peter Diamandis, chairman and chief executive of the non-profit X Prize Foundation.
“Teams are actually going to have to design and implement a system across a community of 10,000 people that improves health by 50 percent during a three-year trial period.”
The competition and all results will be audited by an independent panel of judges and “trusted third parties,” the group said in offering the prize plan for a 45-day public comment period.
“The Smithsonian would never have funded the Wright Brothers to invent the airplane,” said Newt Gingrich, former speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives who now helps head up the Center for Health Transformation.
“I think this will bring diversity.”
The plan gives teams 18 months to conceive, model, and submit their plans.
Healthcare reform is near the top of the agenda for President Barack Obama, the Congress and U.S. society as a whole. More than 80 percent of Americans have said in several surveys they believe the U.S. healthcare system needs substantial reform.
The United States ranks last among 19 industrialized nations on health outcomes, quality and efficiency, according to a report by the non-profit Commonwealth Fund.
In 2008, the United States fell from 15th to last on measures of preventable death from chronic conditions such as asthma and heart attacks, the report found.
Medical bills cause half of all U.S. personal bankruptcies, most among middle-class workers with health insurance, according to a 2005 study by researchers at Harvard University.
Campus Compact is a national coalition of more than 1,100 college and university presidents who are committed to fulfilling the civic purposes of higher education. Campus Compact envisions colleges and universities as vital agents and architects of a diverse democracy, committed to educating students for responsible citizenship in ways that both deepen their education and improve the quality of community life. We challenge all of higher education to make civic and community engagement an institutional priority.
The director of academic initiatives provides leadership and strategic focus for Campus Compact’s work to embed civic and community engagement within teaching and research activities at the more than 1,100 member colleges and universities. The successful candidate will be deeply committed to engagement and to building and sustaining partnerships with staff at the state and national Compact offices as well as higher education associations, governmental agencies, and community-based organizations. S/he will also understand and be able to work effectively with faculty, academic administrators, center directors, and other campus stakeholders at different types of institutions and with various levels of experience with engagement. S/he must be comfortable with both leadership and management functions related to a wide variety of events, programs, and technical assistance activities designed to support and highlight engagement efforts across the country. Travel is required.
Key responsibilities:
Advises and collaborates with the network of 35 state Campus Compact offices on strategies to promote engaged campuses and the scholarship of engagement, including professional development opportunities for faculty and administrators.
Creates resource materials on research findings, promising practices, and key issues or trends in the field. Communicates regularly with the network, national members, and the field in general about new resources and developments. Works with communication staff regarding the production of materials for the website as well as the framing of the Compact’s academic work.
Oversees and/or collaborates on specific initiatives such as The Research Universities and Civic Engagement Network (TRUCEN), Campus Compact’s Consulting Corps and Engaged Scholars, and the Thomas Ehrlich Faculty Award.
Plans and implements activities related to Campus Compact’s role as Higher Education Program Advisor to the National Service-Learning Clearinghouse.
Creates and sustains collaborations with strategic partners (e.g. AACC, AAC&U, AASCU, Carnegie Foundation, CCNCCE, HBCU Faculty Development Network, NSLC, disciplinary associations).
Manages grants and supervises project interns and graduate assistants.
Represents the organization at conferences, on committees, etc.
Qualifications:
A deep-seated commitment to civic and community engagement.
Excellent interpersonal, oral and written communication skills
Ability to work independently and to think creatively and critically.
A minimum of 8 years of relevant professional experience in higher education institutions and/or associations.
Demonstrated ability to build partnerships, develop initiatives, and manage grants related to service-learning, community-based research, and other aspects of engaged scholarship required; knowledge of and experience with Campus Compact preferred.
Flexibility to travel nationally and to work weekends.
M.A./M.S. required, Ph.D./Ed.D. preferred.
To apply, please provide in electronic format:
Letter of interest.
Current resume or curriculum vita.
A written statement in 3 – 5 double spaced pages that describes your experience in and passion for civic engagement personally and/or professionally and your vision for the academic strategic focus for Campus Compact in the future.
Please submit materials by May 31, 2009 to campus@compact.org.
45 Temple Place
Boston, MA 02111
tel (617) 357-1881
fax (617) 357-1889
www.compact.org
Co-edited by: Kathryn Mohrman, Jian Shi, Sharon E. Feinblatt, King W. Chow
From poverty reduction in Tibet to higher education access in rural Texas, 15 universities in seven different countries address economic, technological, societal, and environmental issues in Public Universities and Regional Development.The case study on Arizona State University focuses on the rapid development of the Downtown Phoenix campus in cooperation with local government.
This volume provides first-hand insight into how each university identified a need in its community, articulated a vision, and implemented its plan.The international scope of this book makes it unique in the growing body of literature on universities and regional development.
This is the first book published by the University Design Institute, co-edited by its director Kathryn Mohrman.The case on of the University of Guadalajara was co-authored by assistant professor Edgar Ramirez de la Cruz of ASU’s School of Public Affairs.
To obtain your copy, contact
Alison Dalton Smith alison.daltonsmith@asu.edu (602) 496-1199
University Design Consortium
411 N. Central Ave, MC 3720 Phoenix, AZ 85003
