Online fundraising in the human services

This paper examines emerging possibilities for use of the Internet in human service fundraising. Human service managers must compete for limited funds with their counterparts in educational, religious, health, and other nonprofit organizations. There is enormous potential for raising funds over the Internet; yet, this approach to resource development may not be appropriate or effective in some instances for certain human service agencies. The selection of fundraising approach must be consistent with the organizational context in which it is used. This paper provides examples of cases where use of the Internet may prove to be an effective method for human service fundraising. It also examines cases where use of the Internet may not be a good match for the organizational context, whether in terms of ethics or dollars raise

University-State Child Welfare Training Partnerships: The Challenge of Matching Dollar Contributions

Universities are uniquely positioned to provide the very best training opportunities to public child welfare workers. However, university–child welfare agency training partnerships require a significant commitment of time and resources by university personnel at a time of extensive state cuts to public higher education. This national survey of university partnership administrators found significant differences among university respondents involving length of the contractual relationship, matching dollar requirements, and overall satisfaction with the training partnership

What motivates African-American charitable giving: findings from a national sample

Given the growing wealth of minority families in America, including that of African-American families, the potential for charitable donations from these households is much greater. The purpose of this secondary analysis is to examine those variables that may influence African-American charitable giving patterns. This study uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) data to analyze the effects of multiple factors on the giving habits of African-Americans. Based on this study\u27s findings, social workers employed as executive directors or fund-raisers in private nonprofit organizations may want to identify and cultivate individual African-American donors directly, instead of relying on United Way and other federated campaigns

Developing brokered community transportation for seniors and people with disabilities

Communities are exploring ways to increase transportation coordination to improve access for seniors. One such effort is a brokered transportation system in which one agency serves as the central point of contact for ride information or actually arranging transportation for clients of multiple programs by use of a combination of transportation services. A team of social work faculty and students from the University of New Hampshire (UNH) Social Work Outreach Center, a center that provides service learning opportunities to students, collaborated with a local coalition to investigate the specific transportation needs of the region\u27s senior citizens. A total of 641 people participated in the survey. Results indicate that the study population experiences problems reliably meeting daily living needs due to inconsistent or unavailable private and public transportation options. Study findings also indicate the promising potential of brokered transportation systems, particularly for isolated seniors in rural and suburban areas with relatively limited public and private transportation options

Nonprofit governance: Improving performance in troubled economic times

Nonprofit management is currently pressured to perform effectively in a weak economy. Yet, nonprofit governance continues to suffer from unclear conceptions of the division of labor between board of directors and executive directors. This online survey of 114 executive directors aims to provide clarification and recommendations for social administration

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Corporate strategic philanthropy: implications for social work

Corporate contributions to health and human services have declined from a high of 42.0 percent of total corporate giving in 1972 to 25.3 percent in 1994. At the same time, “strategic philanthropy” has become the state of the art in corporate contributions management. Strategic philanthropy is defined in this article as the process by which contributions are targeted to meet both business objectives and recipient needs. This concept represents the integration of philanthropy into the overall strategic planning of the corporation. This article describes a national survey of corporate philanthropy programs that examined the activities that characterize the strategic management of corporate philanthropy. Results suggest that corporations do not frequently evaluate their philanthropy programs. Social work professionals may use this information to increase their opportunities to provide evaluative input and to increase corporate funding of health and human services

Corporate philanthropy and United Way: challenges for the year 2000

This article reports the results of a national survey of corporate philanthropy programs in which the influence of strategic philanthropy on corporate contributions to United Way was investigated. The results indicate that highly strategic philanthropy programs gave a lower percentage of total direct contributions to United Way than less strategic programs. Strategic philanthropy was defined in this study as the process by which contributions are targeted to meet both business objectives and recipient needs. Based on the results of the study, the author encourages United Way staff and other nonprofit managers to work more closely with corporate contribution managers to develop measurable criteria regarding the impact of health and human services contributions on strategic business goals and objectives