980 results found
Closing the "Gap" Between Competency and Commitment in Minnesota: Ideas from National Standards and Practices in Other States
January 9, 2018In Minnesota, a "gap" exists in the justice system for defendants with mental illness. Defendants in criminal cases are found incompetent to stand trial, yet do not meet the higher standard for civil commitment. Commitment is the only way to receive competency restoration treatment, so individuals who do not meet the standard are unable to resolve their criminal cases or to receive treatment. The Robina Institute conducted research see how other states address incompetency.
Project Turnkey 2020–2023: Report to the Oregon Legislature
March 2, 2024Project Turnkey is an unprecedented investment in our shared future — a swift, smart, statewide response to the crises of 2020 that has turned underused or vacant real estate into safe shelter and a fresh start for thousands of unhoused Oregonians.In just over three years, this public-private initiative has delivered powerful returns on the state's investment:* More than 121,000 nights of refuge and stabilizing services for over 2,000 adults and children.* Locally owned assets designed to meet unique community needs in 27 cities and 18 counties.* A cost-effective, equitable and replicable model for shortterm shelter and transitional housing that helps people navigate personal challenges and return to permanent housing.
Measuring Youth Development: How Out-of-School Time Programs Collect and Use Data
February 27, 2024Out-of-school-time (OST) programs and their funders rely on sound data to make decisions about everything from professional development and student recruitment to the selection of activities to offer students. Programs operate at a range of times (before and after school, weekends, summer) and in a variety of locations (e.g., schools, community-based organizations, city parks and recreation centers), are run by a variety of entities (e.g., government agencies, private community organizations), and receive funding from a variety of sources (e.g., government, philanthropy)—each of which may be interested in a different set of data and come with its own reporting requirements. This means there is a great deal of variation in the types of data programs collect.In 2019, The Wallace Foundation (Wallace) commissioned Child Trends to conduct a study of the kinds of youth outcomes OST programs are interested in measuring, the tools they use to measure those outcomes, and the challenges they experience in doing so. The study included a literature scan and interviews with leaders and staff members at 28 OST programs. Twelve of the 28 also completed surveys; a separate group of 10 provided information by survey only. The study expands on past research by a) focusing on programs that work in specific content areas (e.g., the arts, civic engagement and social justice, career and workforce development) and b) covering both quantitative approaches (i.e., tracking numerical data) and qualitative approaches (gathering descriptive information through surveys, interviews, etc.) to data collection.While its findings apply to OST programs in general, the study focused on particular types of programs (i.e., afterschool, summer, online) and particular content areas, as well as programs that serve school-age children and adolescents from marginalized communities, those that support students' social and emotional learning (SEL), those that serve systems-involved youth, and those that focus on promoting equity—for example, by training staff to recognize and overcome personal biases or by recruiting and retaining leaders and staff who reflect the diversity of the participants served.
How Foundations Are Responding to the U.S. Supreme Court Affirmative Action Rulings
February 21, 2024In June 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against university policies that take race directly into account for admissions. In the wake of the rulings, there was concern that the Supreme Court decisions could have a "chilling effect" on philanthropic efforts that support racial equity. This CEP Research Snapshot sets out to determine whether foundations are walking away from — or continuing to support — these efforts. We find that most foundations are having discussions about the rulings, but few are making changes as a result of the discussions regarding the rulings. Our data were collected on 280 foundations between September and November 2023, and therefore represent a snapshot in time. They nonetheless suggest that the repercussions of the Court's decisions had not, at least at the time of the survey, significantly changed foundations' work.Our findings should be read with two important caveats in mind. The first is that the repercussions of the Supreme Court's decision are still playing out, and foundations' responses may change over time. The long-term effects of the decision on philanthropy will of course only be fully visible in grantmaking and strategy decisions that will play out over time. The second is that there may be some nonresponder bias at play in our survey: it is possible that those that have shifted their grantmaking in response to the decision were less likely to respond.
In Search of the Magic Bullet: Results from the Building Audiences for Sustainability Initiative
February 21, 2024National statistics show stagnant or declining attendance at multiple art forms in which nonprofit organizations work. The Wallace Foundation's Building Audiences for Sustainability initiative (BAS) awarded nearly $41 million in grants between 2015 and 2019 to explore audience-building challenges and the connection between building audiences and financial sustainability. The Foundation awarded grants to 25 large nonprofit performing arts organizations from different artistic disciplines to try to engage new audiences while retaining existing ones and to see whether audience-building efforts contribute to organizations' financial health.Organizations' projects differed, as did the audiences they sought to recruit, which variously included millennial and Gen X audiences; more racially and ethnically diverse audiences; audiences for new and less familiar works; geographically based audiences; infrequent attendees (hoping to motivate them to attend more often); and others. All organizations worked within the initiative's continuous learning framework, involving an iterative process of project design, analysis, and assessment of changes needed for improvement. Within that framework, many approached grant funding as risk capital for experimentation with new and varied approaches.What insights do the results of their efforts and experimentation offer for other nonprofit performing arts organizations facing similar challenges? After awarding the BAS grants, The Wallace Foundation awarded a grant to The University of Texas at Austin to independently study the implementation and outcomes of the organizations' audience building projects. To provide an empirically grounded and multi-faceted account, the study included three major data collection efforts between 2015 and 2022: Conducting hundreds of interviews with organizational leaders and staff; conducting audience surveys; and compiling data from organizational ticket databases.When organizations completed their projects in 2019, little could anyone have imagined that performing arts venues would soon be shuttered by a global COVID-19 pandemic. As performing arts organizations have re-opened, the challenges of audience and financial sustainability remain all too relevant. We hope findings from this study and the initiative can help inform conversations about addressing these challenges. That said, it should also be kept in mind that the BAS organizations were large, established nonprofits. Their issues clearly resonate more widely with those of similar organizations but not necessarily with those of others.
American Jewish Philanthropy 2022: Giving to Religious and Secular Causes in the U.S. and to Israel
February 20, 2024This report examines American Jewish giving and volunteering in 2022, with a strong emphasis on religious giving and giving to Israel-focused organizations. The analyses that make up the findings of the report are based on a survey developed for this study which was conducted by SSRS in March 2023. The survey and these analyses are enhanced by prior studies of Jewish philanthropy.The subsequent analysis explores how certain factors—household income and wealth, marital status, educational attainment, children living at home, and age—influence philanthropy as demonstrated by prior research (Bekkers & Wiepking, 2011; Rooney et al., 2018; Wiepking & Bekkers, 2012) and how those effects differ as compared to non-Jewish households.This report also contributes to the body of philanthropic research by examining factors that are specific to Jewish philanthropy, including religiosity, engagement in and affinity for the Jewish faith, affiliation with different Jewish denominations, Jewish ethnic backgrounds, and concerns toward and experiences with antisemitism. It delves into motivations for giving and provides detailed information about the largest gifts given by Jewish households. In addition to its contribution related to giving to Israel-focused organizations, the report also details the allocation of gifts to specific types of organizations or causes.
Assessing Child Care Access: Measuring Supply, Demand, Quality, and Shortages in the District of Columbia
January 29, 2024This report, "Assessing Child Care Access: Measuring Supply, Demand, Quality, and Shortages in the District of Columbia," was commissioned in response to our early childhood partners in D.C. who wanted to:* Understand the current supply of and demand for child care in D.C. so that decisions and investments — by early childhood professionals, federal and local governments, philanthropic organizations, and the private sector — can be intentional and thoughtfully targeted for maximum impact* Reflect on the social and demographic changes that affect families and their child care decisions* Examine current realities, pivot, and explore new possibilities
The LGBTQ+ Corporate Citizen: A Framework for Emerging Best Practices in Allyship
January 25, 2024In a new report that builds on decades of work with businesses in the fight for LGBTQ+ equality, the Human Rights Campaign examines how corporations can work across all of their business operations as allies to advance inclusion, safety and flourishing of LGBTQ+ people within and outside their organizations.In a challenging and dangerous political and cultural landscape for LGBTQ+ people, businesses are uniquely positioned to live out their stated values – and benefit their bottom lines – by activating their core business operations in service of inclusion and belonging. HRC has identified six pillars of business operations where businesses can make significant impacts. This report explores how businesses can lean into these pillars, identifying examples and leading practices to inspire even more businesses to step in:1. Workforce2. Supply Chain3. Products & Services4. Marketing5. Corporate Philanthropy6. Advocacy & Political Engagement
Conversion Therapy Online: The Ecosystem In 2023
January 23, 2024In January 2022, the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (GPAHE) published extensive research on the online conversion "therapy" ecosystem. GPAHE looked at searches for terms related to conversion therapy in six countries and in four languages: Australia, Colombia, Germany, Ireland, Kenya in English and Swahili, and in the United States in English and Spanish. Conversion therapy materials were assessed on Google, Bing, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, and in some cases, PayPal and Alexa. In a separate report, the research also documented those conversion therapy providers that surfaced prominently in online searches. The list of terms used in this research can be found in the appendix. GPAHE's 2022 research was successfully used to educate tech companies on how they were failing users regarding disinformation about conversion therapy. Though some social media companies already supposedly banned or downgraded this material, it was still widely prevalent in 2022 and a significant number of providers had accounts on the major platforms. After GPAHE's report, many providers were deplatformed on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, PayPal and Apple, and the algorithmic rabbit holes, the paths driving searchers to more and more disinformation, were mitigated. Search engines Google and Bing also made improvements to their algorithms. An effort spearheaded by GLAAD but employing GPAHE's 2022 research led TikTok to ban promotion of conversion therapy on the platform, and today the platform seems relatively clear of such material. These were considerable successes in protecting the public from online conversion therapy disinformation. But challenges remain particularly in the context of non-English languages, in the enforcement of the rules banning conversion therapy online, and in the skill with which promoters use social media to spread their dangerous messages while circumventing social media content moderation rules.This 2023 report is a follow up GPAHE's 2022 research and examines the same material in Brazil, Benin, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Mali, Mexico, South Africa in isiZulu, and the U.S. in English and Spanish. In the case of West Africa, French results were collected, and though local languages were tried, they rarely appeared in search results because of the lack of online material in languages such as Dioula. GPAHE has also added TikTok to its research in some cases.
Space for Identity Exploration: Through the Lens of Gender
January 22, 2024For this study we sought to answer the question, "What impact (if any) do gender-inclusive and gender-affirming measures have on young people, their caregivers, and their camp experience?" By framing our research question broadly, we attempted to allow participants to guide the conversation and to share what was true for them. What we found was that young people experienced high levels of belonging, community, relief, and pleasure during their time at camp because of the intentional space that was created. Youth had access to a community that embodied a commitment to inclusion and belonging, and for some young people, this contrasted with the isolation and judgment they encountered outside of camp. Some young people were better able to participate in camp as a result of the implementation of affirming practices such as: offering gender-neutral cabins and bathrooms, sharing pronouns, and providing the support of affirming adults. Caregivers largely described feeling a sense of relief that there was a safe and affirming space available to their child. This has implications for the camp and youth development fields and requires further study to better understand the long term impacts of an inclusive camp experience on 2SLGBTQIA+ youth.
11 Trends in Philanthropy for 2024
January 17, 2024This year's trends share a familiar wealth of examples, data, quotes, and research publications that can help us all anticipate the vectors of change. But at the core of 11 Trends in Philanthropy for 2024, readers will find a set of questions rather than answers. Each trend poses a number of moral, economic, equity-related, tactical, and other questions that the sector will have to answer.In some cases — such as in the use of artificial intelligence in the workplace, or the adoption of new federal protocols for race and ethnicity data — those answers will come due very soon. In others — such as how institutional philanthropy addresses the glass cliff crisis among leaders of color or shifts resources to account for the U.S. South's booming population — it may be years before we understand whether and how choices are made.What we see most clearly for philanthropy in 2024 and beyond is that the field will wrestle with these questions. We look forward to the work ahead.
Social Connectedness and Generosity: A Look at How Associational Life and Social Connections Influence Volunteering and Giving (and Vice Versa)
January 11, 2024What effect does social interaction have on the decisions people make about making contributions of money or time? Generosity is fundamentally about doing work that helps other people, but volunteering and giving do not need to have a social component at all. However, interpersonal relationships are very important to the maintenance of the national donor pool and volunteer workforce: personal requests to volunteer or give are still the most persuasive appeals people receive.The Do Good Institute (DGI) has prepared two separate reports for the Generosity Commission about the determinants of generosity. The first, Understanding Generosity: A Look at What Influences Volunteering and Giving in the United States, which was published in November 2023, attempts to measure the individual-level and community-level influences on giving and volunteering in the United States. After estimating multilevel models of both behaviors, we find that individual-level (or micro-level) factors have much more influence than community-level (or macrolevel) factors.In this report, we investigate the degree to which social connectedness influences giving and volunteering. The literature on social capital – which can be described as the collective value of all the mutually beneficial relationships generated by participants in social networks – frequently argues or assumes that social connectedness leads to charitable behaviors: that general connection to the community, even controlling for socioeconomic status and demographic characteristics, can encourage residents to dedicate their time and energy to solving community problems.
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