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Programs

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.

Media and Philanthropy Fellowship

There has long been a dearth of research and writing on the media’s coverage of foundations, nonprofits, and individual donors – and in particular their impact on society, policy, and democracy. Likewise, there is virtually no thoughtful research and writing on how mainstream and new media discourse might best explore the role, successes, and shortcomings of the philanthropic enterprise. In a separate but related development, journalists and struggling media enterprises are increasingly turning to private donors to provide an alternative business model for news gathering and analysis.

This fellowship is designed to further research and inform practice on questions at the intersection of the media, philanthropy, and democracy in the United States. The fellowship is aimed at producing a new generation of scholars who conduct original research on any important questions related to philanthropy and the media and to translate their findings for media and philanthropy, policymakers, and scholars.

Teaching Case Writing Program

The goal of the Teaching Case Writing Program of the Center for Strategic Philanthropy and Civil Society is to create a library of decision-forcing case studies similar to those used at Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government as well as other professional schools. CSPCS teaching cases describe critical decision points in the lives of foundations, dramatizing the kinds of challenges, conflicts, and dilemmas foundation executives encounter in the real world. Through analysis and discussion of cases, students gain a clearer understanding of how, why, and to what extent foundation grantmaking strategies have succeeded or failed in their intended purposes.Case studies produced by the Teaching Case Writing Program are available, for free, through the Center’s Case Study Database. Case notes are available, also for free, to verified instructors upon request.