Catalyzing Collaboration: The Developing Infrastructure for Federal Public Private Partnerships

There is growing interest on the part of government, philanthropy and business to work together to achieve greater impact. Partnerships that span the sectors have the potential to achieve more than any sector can achieve on its own by leveraging the strengths of each. However, such partnerships also give rise to added costs and entail greater risks. To address these challenges, offices of strategic partnerships are emerging at the federal level to provide an infrastructure to catalyze cross-sectoral partnerships. This report examines 21 such offices in federal departments and agencies whose purpose is to facilitate and accelerate partnerships with philanthropy and business -- ranging from the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Department of Education, to the Department of State and the Agency for International Development, to the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The formation of these offices has been driven by champions within government -- many with prior experience in philanthropy or business -- that have witnessed the power of working collaboratively with other sectors. Their actions have often been reinforced by executive orders and other directives conducive to their growth. In the case of those offices that have been created in the last few years, they have also been encouraged by the examples of their more established counterparts

The Entrepreneurial President: Proceedings from the Conference “The Entrepreneurial President”

[Excerpt] Each year, the Institute for Community College Development offers a leadership program on critical issues for community colleges. In August 2005, the issue was entrepreneurship. The Entrepreneurial College was a great success, but when it ended, the participants agreed that “if entrepreneurship education is going to succeed at community colleges, presidents need to hear this message.” Therefore, we held a similar program for CEOs, The Entrepreneurial President, in February 2006. What follows are highlights of the presentations and small group discussions from the CEO conference, with some additional materials from the August 2005 program. In this time of increased competition for scarce resources, entrepreneurial community colleges will have an edge. We hope you will use the ideas in this publication, generated by your colleagues, to support entrepreneurship on your campus. The possibilities are limitless, from certificate and degree programs, to business incubators, to “Entrepreneurship Halls of Fame.” The rewards include improved economic opportunities for the community, new donors for campus initiatives, and increased enrollment

The Rise of Mobile and the Diffusion of Technology-Facilitated Trafficking

In this report, researchers at the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP) reveal how those involved in human trafficking have been quick to adapt to the 21st-century global landscape. While the rapid diffusion of digital technologies such as mobile phones, social networking sites, and the Internet has provided significant benefits to society, new channels and opportunities for exploitation have also emerged. Increasingly, the business of human trafficking is taking place online and over mobile phones. But the same technologies that are being used for trafficking can become a powerful tool to combat trafficking. The precise role that digital technologies play in human trafficking still remains unclear, however, and a closer examination of the phenomenon is vital to identify and respond to new threats and opportunities.This investigation indicates that mobile devices and networks have risen in prominence and are now of central importance to the sex trafficking of minors in the United States. While online platforms such as online classifieds and social networking sites remain a potential venue for exploitation, this research suggests that technology facilitated trafficking is more diffuse and adaptive than initially thought. This report presents a review of current literature, trends, and policies; primary research based on mobile phone data collected from online classified sites; a series of firsthand interviews with law enforcement; and key recommendations to policymakers and stakeholders moving forward

Leveraging Social Networks in Direct Services: Are Foundations Doing All They Can?

· Social networks are critical to physical and mental health, and they shape how people see themselves and their possible futures. · Social networks represent an under-leveraged resource in social services’ efforts to alleviate poverty and other social challenges. · Foundations may be unintentionally creating barriers to practice that leverages social networks by incentivizing individually-focused, highly specific services delivered in standardized, replicable ways. · “Network-oriented” practice can help craft a new way forward that threads the needle between everything-is-different-for-everyone and everything- is-the-same-for-everyone. · By focusing funding on efforts that build and support social networks, foundations can deepen and sustain the impact of their funding

Virtual Teams: Work/Life Challenges - Keeping Remote Employees Engaged

Remotely located employees are quickly becoming a norm in the modern workplace in response to evidence that telecommuters save on costs and produce more efficiently. There are many intangible benefits also felt with the increasing prevalence of remote employees. Telecommuters are more satisfied with their work/life balance and report lower rates of job burnout. Though there are also many well-identified setbacks remotely located managers and employees may face. Employers see the most success with telecommuting by first recruiting the people best fit to fill these remote roles. However, the process of developing remote employees is a process that requires constant monitoring. The purpose of this paper is to identify the best practices being used by companies to keep remote employees engaged while simultaneously avoiding burnout

Using Information and Communication Technology to Support Women\u27s Entrepreneurship in Central and West Asia

Key Points • In several Central and West Asian countries, women are less likely to become entrepreneurs, and their businesses are more likely to be informal, stay small, generate less revenue, and employ fewer people. • Information and communication technology (ICT) tools not only improve business performance but can also be used to overcome challenges specific to women entrepreneurs—time and mobility constraints; access to formal financial services, information, skills, and personalized advice; and participation in business networks. • However, lack of ICT skills, lower purchasing power, and cultural barriers hinder women entrepreneurs from accessing and using ICT. • Governments, financial service providers, and business development service providers have room to more effectively leverage ICT to serve women entrepreneurs. • Women represent an unmet market opportunity for the private sector, opening up public–private partnership options to develop sustainable initiatives and services

Banking on Shared Value: How Banks Profit by Rethinking Their Purpose

This paper articulates a new role for banks in society using the lens of shared value. It is intended to help bank leaders, their partners, and industry regulators seize opportunities to create financial value while addressing unmet social and environmental needs at scale. The concepts included here apply across different types of banking, across different bank sizes, and across developed and emerging economies alike, although their implementation will naturally differ based on context

Helping People and Places Move Out of Poverty: Progress and Learning 2010

Presents a mid-course review of a ten-year program to help the poor build economic security in the Southeast. Examines impact, lessons learned, factors that facilitated or impeded progress, how resources were leveraged, changing contexts, and next steps

Understanding and Developing Emotional Intelligence

{Excerpt} Emotional intelligence describes an ability, capacity, skill, or self-perceived ability to identify, assess, and manage the emotions of one\u27s self, of others, and of groups. The theory is enjoying considerable support in the literature and has had successful applications in many domains. The intelligence quotient, or IQ, is a score derived from one of several different standardized tests to measure intelligence. It has been used to assess giftedness, and sometimes underpin recruitment. Many have argued that IQ, or conventional intelligence, is too narrow: some people are academically brilliant yet socially and interpersonally inept. And we know that success does not automatically follow those who possess a high IQ rating. Wider areas of intelligence enable or dictate how successful we are. Toughness, determination, and vision help. But emotional intelligence, often measured as an emotional intelligence quotient, or EQ, is more and more relevant to important work-related outcomes such as individual performance, organizational productivity, and developing people because its principles provide a new way to understand and assess the behaviors, management styles, attitudes, interpersonal skills, and potential of people. It is an increasingly important consideration in human resource planning, job profiling, recruitment interviewing and selection, learning and development, and client relations and customer service, among others

Overcoming Poverty through Digital Inclusion

A growing body of research is showing how digital inclusion can help communities overcome poverty and injustice. The main challenge lies in how best to achieve this goal. The authors argue that digital inclusion must occur in two distinct stages. The first stage is digital literacy, accomplished with the Symbiotic Computer (SC)-smartphones and tablets. The second stage will be professional capacity-building, accomplished with the more traditional Personal Computer (PC)