Grantees' Limited Engagement with Foundations' Social Media

It is not surprising that foundations are investing in social media tools. These tools can serve myriad functions for foundations, from promoting a culture of transparency to the public at large, to influencing thought leaders, to connecting with grantees

Normalising corporate counterinsurgency: engineering consent, managing resistance and greening destruction around the Hambach coal mine and beyond

The German Rhineland is home to the world's largest opencast lignite coal mine and human-made hole e the Hambach mine. Over the last seven years, RWE, the mine operator, has faced an increase in militant resistance, culminating in the occupation of the Hambacher Forest and acts of civil disobedience and sabotage. The mine provides a European case study to examine the repressive techniques deployed by RWE to legitimise coal mining in the face of a determined opposition. Drawing on political ecology literature and work on corporate counter-movements, this paper peers into extractive industries and their corporate social responsibility (CSR) engagements through the lens of corporate counterinsurgency. We first provide some background to the mine and RWE's unique position in the German political economy. After explaining the rise of resistance, the paper then discusses counterinsurgency in relation to CSR by outlining the different techniques used to win the ‘hearts’ and ‘minds’ of people around the mine. This includes securing the support of political leaders, lobbying, involvement in social events, infrastructure projects, astroturf groups and ecological restoration/offsetting work, which combine with overtly repressive techniques by public and private security forces that together attempt to legitimise the mine and stigmatise, intimidate and criminalise activists. This paper contents that counterinsurgency techniques are becoming normalised into the everyday operations of RWE, naturalising its image as ‘good corporate citizen’ and legitimising and invisibilising the violence towards (non)human nature inherent in the corporate-state-mining-complex, as mining is becoming part of the ‘green economy’ and made ‘sustainable’

More Than Money: Making a Difference With Assistance Beyond the Grant

Examines foundation efforts beyond grantmaking such as training, advocacy, and new investment strategies to increase grantee effectiveness and impact. Assesses the benefits of such help, grantees' views, and implications. Includes case studies

Rhetoric Versus Reality: A Strategic Disconnect at Community Foundations

Leaders of community foundations agree on the importance of strategy, but evidence suggests that few actually use it in the work of their foundations.That finding is the outcome of new research drawing on interviews with community foundation CEOs, whose organizations are representative of the population of larger American community foundations

Nonprofit Challenges: What Foundations Can Do

Our research shows that only 52 percent of nonprofit leaders believe that their foundation funders are aware of the challenges their organizations are facing. Only 36 percent think funders share the knowledge they have about what other nonprofits are doing to address similar challenges. And less than 33 percent believe foundation funders use their various resources to help nonprofits with their challenges. These findings are not about nonprofits asking for bigger grants -- they are about nonprofits wanting foundations to think more holistically about the resources at their disposal

Foundation Transparency: What Nonprofits Want

Transparency has become an increasingly debated topic among foundation leaders and foundation-watchers. Some, such as the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, argue that foundations have an ethical obligation to be transparent. Brad Smith, president of the Foundation Center, says that transparency is the best means to protect the freedom foundations enjoy. Lucy Bernholz, visiting scholar at Stanford University's Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, argues that foundations should openly share information and data to more effectively pursue their shared goals. Others, like John Tyler and the Philanthropy Roundtable, maintain that foundations should continue to be as private as they like

On the banks of the Tiber : opportunity and transformation in early Rome

Funds for the research were generously provided by the Loeb Classical Library Foundation, Gerda Henkel Foundation, American Philosophical Society, Etruscan Foundation, Fondazione Lemmermann, University of Michigan and University of St Andrews. The lead author wrote this article while supported by an Early Career Fellowship from the Leverhulme Trust.A geoarchaeological coring survey of the Forum Boarium has shed considerable light on Rome's archaic landscape. We present the first empirical evidence that substantiates ancient and modern assumptions about the existence of a river harbour and ford in early Rome. Prior to the growth of the city, the riverbank-reconstructed as a high ledge at the base of the Capitoline Hill and a low-lying shore north of the Aventine-was particularly advantageous for river-related activities. However, the river valley changed significantly in the sixth century b.c.e., as a result of complex fluvial processes that were arguably spurred by urbanisation. Around the beginning of the Republic, Rome's original harbour silted up, and a high, wide riverbank emerged in its place. The siltation continued until the Forum Boarium was urbanised in the mid-Republic. In order to build their city and maintain river harbour operations, the Romans therefore had to adapt to dynamic ecological conditions.Publisher PDFPeer reviewe

Conserving ̶n̶a̶t̶u̶r̶e̶ power: an exploration of biodiversity offsetting in Europe and beyond

This dissertation draws on multi-sited fieldwork to understand the history and development of biodiversity offsetting in Europe and beyond. It situates offsetting as a social technology of governance in the management of resistance and dissent against corporate and state degradation and violence, and as an instrument to flexibilise restrictive legislation imposing limits to industrial expansion in Europe. I analyse offsetting through the lens of corporate and state power and violence, contextualising it in the dominant social economic order, exploring its role in the advancement of social control and accumulation, and in the invisibilisation and entrenchment of the epistemic, physical and slow violence(s) exercised against human and nonhuman nature, in the form of industrialism and extractivism, state control and policing of dissent. While a critical literature on offsetting now contributes to our understanding of the tensions, politics and value struggles around offsetting, it has tended to focus on the ‘novel’ commodification and marketisation aspects of offsetting. It frequently privileges structural explanations rooted in the expansionary market logic unleashed under neoliberal capitalism, while overlooking the long history of the ideology and practice of offsetting, deeply rooted in industrialism, domestication and exploitation of human and nonhuman nature, and the need for corporate and state legitimacy in the face of (increasingly visible) social and ecological degradation and ever-more apparent failures of the green economy. By situating offsetting historically and in its political economic context, this thesis demystifies and denaturalises abstract ideas of the ‘market’. It challenges the emerging hegemony of critical analyses of offsetting that often resort to marketisation and financialisation as explanatory devices and contributes to the theorisation of the ongoing transformation of neoliberal capitalism, statehood and corporate citizenship, as part of wider processes of reconfigurations of governance that are the product of the dialectical relationship between capitalism, the state, and its critics

What motivates students to be sustainability change agents in the face of adversity?

The world faces significant challenges that require transformative changes facilitated by Sustainability Change Agents (SCAs). Universities around the world have explicitly taken up the responsibility of developing in students the skills and knowledge (i.e., competencies) necessary to be successful SCAs. While there is clear convergence around planning competencies, intrapersonal and implementation competencies have recently emerged in the literature. These competencies will have to remain effective even in the face of adversity, yet too little is known about sources of motivation for SCAs and how motivation can be maintained despite these inevitable setbacks. Since the needed transformations will be collective processes, motivation to be a SCA needs to be understood in the social and realistic context in which they would be applied. This study sought to gain specific insights into: 1.) What motivates students to be SCAs? 2.) How do these SCAs maintain their motivation in the face of setbacks? 3.) What can higher education institutions (e.g., universities, colleges) do to better support the motivation of SCAs? In order to gain insights into these questions, 83 aspiring SCAs were surveyed and their responses analyzed using qualitative content analysis. For this group of SCAs, the key source of motivation evolved from a focus on nature, learning, and individual behavior to a more social view with a concern for structural change. Moreover, social networks and intrapersonal skills helped to restore students' motivation following setbacks. Despite being university students, the SCAs surveyed had already experienced significant setbacks and, largely without institutional support, learned strategies to overcome them and maintain their motivation. Motivation and the skills, knowledge, and experience of how to maintain the drive for positive change in the face of setbacks is crucial in order for SCAs to be capable of supporting the critically needed transformations, and universities must play their part in fostering the SCAs' capability.PostprintPeer reviewe

Take it Personally – The Role of Consumers’ Perceived Value of Personalization on Cross-Category Use in a Smart Home Ecosystem

The establishment of a smart home ecosystem – an assemblage of smart technologies across segments in private households – generates value for both companies and customers. However, the complexity of a smart home ecosystem based on data sharing and personalization as a necessity for value perception also generates tensions between the value created by data sharing and the value of privacy. Therefore, this study, based on a survey of 1049 consumers, investigates the acceptance and use of smart home devices and smart home ecosystems by observing drivers of personalization, trust, privacy components and technology acceptance. The empirical analyses show that especially consumers’ perceived value from personalization plays a significant role in smart home ecosystem acceptance. This research offers results for theory development and practical implications by extending existing technology acceptance models to ecosystems and by showing the need for a focus on sophisticated personalized applications within a smart home ecosystem