Gates Foundation and Partners Working to Eradicate Neglected Tropical Diseases by Leah Goldstein Moses

The Gates Foundation and several partners, including the U.S. and U.K. governments and pharmaceutical companies, have joined forces for research and programs that will aim to eradicate several diseases in less than a decade. Research has been slow, as the people most effected by lymphatic filariasis, blinding trachoma, sleeping sickness and leprosy, and control of soil-transmitted helminthes, schistosomiasis, river blindness, Chagas disease and visceral leishmaniasis are among the world’s poorest with the least access to advocacy tools.

Our client, Research!America, has been working for several months to increase support and investment in health research. We’ll be working with them in the months ahead to measure how support for research has changed over the years. As the Gates Foundation press release quotes, improved health research leads to better treatment, which in turn leads to many improved outcomes for people – including better health allowing children to attend school and parents to provide for families.

Funders Collaborating to Build Capacity of Arts Organizations by Leah Goldstein Moses

Five foundations,  McKnight Foundation, in partnership with the F.R. Bigelow, Mardag, Saint Paul, and Bush, have recently renewed support for Arts Midwest’s ArtsLab program. The program builds on Minnesota’s rich arts environment by bringing together several small arts organizations to learn from each other and strengthen their work. For example,  Springboard for the Arts, used funds and financial support from ArtsLab to engage us to help them develop a learning and evaluation strategy that reflected their values of outreach, engagement and fun.

Planned Creativity Indices in Several States Aim to Foster More Opportunities by Leah Goldstein Moses

A recent article in Education Week describes efforts in Massachusetts, California and Oklahoma to create new measures of creativity. While each state is taking a different approach, they are all trying to address three problems:

• Business and political leaders have said they need a more creative, innovative workforce, that can think quickly and launch new products, services and ways of doing business, including large companies like  IBM and Proctor and Gamble.
• Creativity does not lend itself to easy measures. A classic scholarly article put measures into ten different categories; since then, academics have pointed to the weaknesses in each.
• School leaders and advocates are concerned about over-emphasis on math and reading, and too little emphasis on subjects that are not tested.

Several interviewed for the article mentioned that they hope the assessments identify ways to improve arts and other creative expressions, without being punitive. I’m interested to see in the coming months what these states develop for their assessments, and how they can inform work in other states.

Improve Group Guests Mix Fun with Philathropy

Guests Ben Van Hunnik and Elissa Schloesser

Last night we celebrated the Improve Group’s new home in a celebratory style: by throwing a big party, welcoming friends and colleagues, enjoying food and drink, and honoring people who do good work in the community. We also honored our value of giving back; every guest was given a ticket for a $5 contribution to one of three nonprofits:

•  MN Literacy Council – selected by 26 people for a total donation of $130
• The Bridge for Youth – selected by 21 people for a total donation of $105
• Second Harvest Heartland – selected by15 people for a total donation of $75

 Thanks to everyone who visited us; you can see more fun pics of the event on our Facebook page.

http://www.theimprovegroup.com/blog/2012/02/03/improve-group-guests-mix-fun-with-philathropy/

HUD Incentivizes Regional Planning through SCRG by Eric Wong

An interesting piece of news I learned through the Connecting to Markets: Neighborhoods and Housing Markets symposium I attended is that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is actively incentivizing collaborative regional planning efforts through Sustainable Communities  Regional Planning Grants (SCRG).  According to Raphael Bostic, Assistant Secretary for Policy Development and Research at HUD and a panelist at the symposium, the goal of SCRG is to “facilitate and incentivize regional planning and more coordinated development of housing that is more sustainable, more walkable, closer to jobs and helps to make living easier, which should translate into real health benefits.”A priority for the program is to create nontraditional partnerships (e.g., arts and culture, recreation, public health, food systems, regional planning agencies and public education entities) to develop and implement strategies for planning and reinvestment in local communities.  Using an approach like the Improve Group’s recent work in opportunity mapping to assess local nutrition needs and gaps could help in establishing partnerships and priorities.  The process allows stakeholders to describe and learn about the resources and identify opportunities to enhance their local communities.  Opportunity mapping offers a transparent process that enhances collaboration and provides for innovative solutions that can be beneficial to achieving the goals of SCRG.

GRANT GAZING 1.31.12 by Susan Murphy

The Ford Foundation offers grants that  address issues of social justice in the following areas: Educational Opportunity and Scholarships, Democratic and Accountable Government, Economic Fairness, Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, Sustainable Development, Sexuality and Reproductive Health and Rights, Metropolitan Opportunity, and Social Justice Philanthropy. Submissions by nonprofits are accepted anytime.

More information can be found at: http://www.fordfoundation.org/grants

Connecting to Community Development by Eric Wong

Recently I attended a symposium titled Connecting to Markets: Neighborhoods and Housing Markets at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.  The focus of the symposium was to discuss current challenges in community development due to the difficult times in the housing market.  Since the inner economist in me was curious about the causes of the depressed housing market and how the public, private and nonprofit sectors are attempting to revive the housing market, I was excited to attend this event.

The symposium was split between two different panel discussions, one conducted nationally via webcast and another discussion conducted locally with local leaders in community development, including the Metropolitan Council.  The topics and ideas discussed during the symposium were enlightening.  Here are a couple things that were covered:

-          The uniqueness of the current housing market: according to Robert Weissbourd, an expert on urban issues at the Brookings Institution, the current conditions of the housing market are not part of the expected cyclical trend, but a fundamental shift  to a housing market that puts greater emphasis on connecting knowledge and innovations to economic opportunities in the local area;

-          The disconnection between stakeholders: the struggle in collaborating between neighborhoods, cities and regions due to the asymmetric understanding of available resources (economic, legal, institutional, etc.) and political control over community development decisions; and

-          The ineffectiveness of current policy: current policies such as tax credits for development of affordable housing in cities have limited or no effect in the current economic environment due to the inability of developers to make a profit.  Combined with the decreasing availability of public resources at the federal, state and local level, it is clear that the policy tools that have worked in past housing downturns are ineffective in the current housing market.

Despite the difficulties that were discussed during the symposium, I see great opportunities where nonprofits, community development corporations (CDCs), government and private sector can work together to address many difficulties in housing and community development.  For example, public-private partnerships are a concept worth exploring due to the lack of resources available for separate entities in the nonprofit, public and private sector.  Other opportunities worth exploring include CDCs working with private and public partners to assess available assets and opportunities available in a specific neighborhood to create a common understanding of the tools they have available for policy-making and resource allocation.

A Community Lightning Rod Matures into a Center for Learning, Arts, Well-being and Service by Leah Goldstein Moses

In 2007-2008, we had the pleasure of working with the Business, Arts and Recreation Center in Windom. Three big issues launched the organization:

• A crisis. The large old Windom 1931 school building was being shut down, and was scheduled for demolition in 2000. Community members, and those who had grown up and attended school in the building, were not ready to lose it.
• An opportunity. With the needs and crisis, people came together, were willing to donate their time, and come up with a vision and a solution. They did some legwork, and ran a major fund-raising campaign which raised more than $100,000 to purchase and renovate the facility in 2001.  The group was able to purchase the facility for $1, and begin refinishing and repurposing the school building. BARC also became a non-profit organization in 2002.
• A need. One of the goals of the new board of directors was to have an educational component as part their programming. The local community had education and arts needs that weren’t being met by existing systems; local employers needed resources for staff training; community members needed a place to learn new technologies and ideas; and people needed a place to channel their creativity, get messy, and make things. In 2007, they successfully received a grant from the Bush Foundation to offer a variety of arts-focused classes.

We helped the Business, Arts and Recreation Center to do a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis for this new education component. We learned that over its first several months, community members came to think of the Center as a place to learn, grow and build community; that the class offerings were meeting local needs; and that there was on-going opportunity for collaboration. Since that time, the Windom Education & Collaborative Center (WECC) was developed that began offering technology, skills development and business training classes in the BARC facility in 2008. A twelve station computer lab was installed as part of the WECC program.

What’s happened since? Now over 40 classes are offered each quarter at the Center, and the Center has become a hub of activity. More of the spaces are in use, including a major recent lease back to the school district that has opened an early childhood learning center in the building. All of the activity lends economic stability and opportunity for re-investment in the building. This process could be replicated in other communities, as crises are turned into opportunities and old assets are renewed. The BARC Coordinator, Cathy Peterson, who also serves as the WECC Coordinator, has been reflecting on her work and the successes of the Center in convening people, bringing more dollars to the region, and building a local treasure. If you’d like to hear her lessons learned, contact her on LinkedIn.

Report Cards: A Tool for Programs, Their Clients, and Evaluation by Leah Goldstein Moses

Recently, we worked with Nonprofits Assistance Fund to increase the value of their Financial Needs Assessment by presenting results in a report for nonprofits. Before developing the report, the practice of Nonprofits Assistance Fund was to review the results of each assessment individually and prepare reports, presentations or summaries when asked by client organizations. We intended the report to be a more consistent tool, and to:

1. Be easy and fast for staff to create
2. Deliver individualized information to each nonprofit
3. Support an existing collaborative relationship between Nonprofits Assistance Fund and the nonprofit
4. Promote positive change by giving usable, clear information

The report format can also be used in different ways by Nonprofits Assistance Fund. For example, they could aggregate assessment results from a group of organizations – such as charter schools – and see how they perform as a group. They could prepare very similar information about all assessments they conducted over a period of time or in a region, to review trends and information.

Finally, the report can be used for evaluation purposes as well. In planning for the report, we had the opportunity to discuss benchmarks and criteria of success. In future years, Nonprofits Assistance Fund can determine what proportion of their client organizations are performing at different levels, and use the information to generate ideas about new education, outreach, or coaching efforts.

Other organizations have implemented similar report cards as an accountability tool. For example, Minnesota’s Department of Human Services has a dashboard that shows measure and targets in a few key areas. Considering the vast amounts of data gathered and generated by the Department, the dashboard is a remarkably concise overview of the Department’s performance. If you think your organization could benefit from a similar tool, here are some things to take into consideration:

• How will you, your clients, and the broader public use the information? What questions do you want to be able to answer?
• How much explanation does your information need? Can you tell most of the story in a nice visualization or graphic? Our partner, Visual Voice, has some ideas for making great visualization.
• How easy is it to take your data and condense it down to the key points you need? While Nonprofits Assistance Fund data was relatively straightforward, the Department of Human Services likely had several discussions to decide what items were most important and simple, to share.

When is the Right Time to Invest in Children? – by Leah Goldstein Moses

During the United Front Children’s Briefing last week, #kidsbrief2012, one of the panelists mentioned a study that explored when investments are made and the types of outcomes you can predict based on those investments. Flavio Cunha and James Heckman’s results, described in Investing in our Young People, show that the different types of investments make a greater difference at different stages of youth development. Investments in young children, whether focused on their cognitive or noncognitive (social) skills, have a strong payoff, but that those noncognitive skills may be of increasing importance in later years.