What's Happening
Foundation Impact Research Group
The Foundation Impact Research Group (FIRG) is a seminar series hosted by the Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society. FIRG seminars explore the relationship between strategic choice-making and impact measurement in foundations and not-for-profit organizations. Unless otherwise indicated, the seminars are held in the Rhodes Conference Room of the Sanford building at 4:30 p.m. The seminars are open to the public. If you would like to attend a FIRG seminar, contact Mary Collins at 1-919-613-7432.
Speakers for the Spring 2012 semester are:
Project on spend-down at the AVI CHAI Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies
Under a grant from the Atlantic Philanthropies, and with the cooperation and assistance of the AVI CHAI Foundation and the Atlantic Philanthropies, Center Faculty Chair Joel L. Fleishman and philanthropy consultant and writer Tony Proscio are documenting the experiences of AVI CHAI and Atlantic as they spend down their endowments. Starting in 2010, Fleishman and Proscio will issue annual updates on the foundations' progress.
Professor Fleishman's second annual report on spend-down at the AVI CHAI Foundation examines the changes brought about by the board's determination to begin governing the institution less from the perspective of individual grants and more with an eye to the sustainability of its overall fields of interests, the likelihood of future funding for these fields, the durability of their leading organizations, and the odds that future philanthropists would see opportunity in, and derive inspiration from, the work that AVI CHAI had set in motion. The report, titled "Gearing Up to Spend Down: A Foundation in the Midst of Paradigm Shifts: Year Two Report on the Concluding Years of the AVI CHAI Foundation," is available at http://cspcs.sanford.duke.edu/sites/default/files/Fleishman-Second-Report-2011-FINAL.pdf.
Fleishman's first report, titled "First Annual Report to The AVI CHAI Foundation on the Progress of its Decision to Spend Down," is available at http://cspcs.sanford.duke.edu/content/first-annual-report-avi-chai-foundation-progress-its-decision-spend-down-joel-l-fleishman.
Proscio's first report, titled "Winding Down the Atlantic Philanthropies," is available at http://cspcs.sanford.duke.edu/sites/default/files/Winding_Down_Atlantic_First_Eight_Years.pdf.
For more information about the Center's spend-down project, including links to other resources, click here.
Scaling Social Impact: New Thinking
This volume grew out of a conference titled "Scaling Social Impact: What We Know and What We Need to Know" hosted by CSPCS, the Fuqua School's Center for the Advancement for Social Entrepreneurship, and the Bridgespan Group. With a Foreword by Bridgespan's Jeffrey L. Bradach and an Introduction by the editors, Scaling Social Impact presents twelve essays by a variety of scholars and practitioners. The central issue that animates all the essays is the meaning, opportunity, and cost of "scaling up" enterprises that apparently are running successfully. How do we do this? When is the right time? What principles of success can be distilled and shared? There are no clear answers yet, but what we do know is that if system change is to be achieved, then successful but isolated, largely unknown, and smallish ventures—and the ideas that underpin them—will need to grow in resources, operating capacity, and demonstrable impact in order to thrive.
Bloom, Paul N., and Edward Skloot, 2010. Scaling Social Impact: New Thinking. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Disrupting Philanthropy by Lucy Bernholz with Edward Skloot and Barry Varela