Assessing Philanthropic Impact: How the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Building Bridges Initiative Supported the Field of Philanthropic and Nonprofit Studies

In the 1990s, nonprofit management education was an emerging discipline with few established academic centers seeking to increase connectivity, build out the field, and gain financial sustainability. While organized philanthropy supported this development, foundations’ impact on individual programs and the field more broadly is unclear. The W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Building Bridges Initiative, a $13.5 million, five-year program to fund nonprofit academic centers as a strategy to increase the nonprofit sector’s capacity, exemplifies the potentials and limits of a private foundation’s engagement with emerging academic disciplines. This article assesses the long-term sustainability of grant investments and to what degree successful projects were integrated into the ongoing operation of universities, and examines the achievements and limitations of this philanthropic effort. This analysis finds that the initiative advanced the institutionalization of nonprofit management education by legitimizing grantees both within and outside universities, supporting program delivery and expansion, and fostering collaborative networks. However positive those outcomes, the strategy raises broader issues concerning philanthropic impact, as grantees struggled to ensure long-term sustainability, connections to practice, and expanding the field beyond U.S. borders. This study is intended to help foundations understand their impact on large-scale institutions like universities and colleges as well as on narrowly focused program areas. It concludes by offering alternative strategies for collaboration between the foundation sector and academia

Results from the Farm Behaviour Component of the Integrated Economic-Hydrologic Model for the Watershed Evaluation of Beneficial Management Practices Program

This report summarizes preliminary results from the Farm Behavior component of the South Tobacco Creek Integrated Modeling Project (STC Project) which is being undertaken as part of the Watershed Evaluation of BMPs (WEBs) Program. WEBS is a partnership between Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC) and Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC) established to evaluate the economic and environmental performance of BMPs for water quality at the watershed scale. Water draining from South Tobacco Creek eventually enters to Lake Winnipeg which is degraded from the cumulative effects of nutrient loading, particularly phosphorous. Many jurisdictions across the world, including Canada, use payments programs to encourage land owners to change land management practices in order to reduce non-point source pollution. BMP incentive programs in Canada, such as Greencover, rely on fixed payment schemes which pay producers a set amount for BMPs, regardless of costs or benefits. In order to improve the performance of payment programs many jurisdictions have instituted auction type mechanisms. The purpose of the Farm Behavior component of the STC project is to examine the performance of various types of payment programs for BMPs relative to reducing phosphorous loads from STC. Theoretical and empirical evidence from conservation auctions suggest that the performance of auctions depends on several factors which affect the bidding behavior of producers during the auction, and therefore the cost-effectiveness of auctions over other types of payment programs. In particular, some producers actually benefit from BMPs, however under certain auction rules these producers would be paid the same amount as high cost producers; alternatively, producers with low costs of adopting BMPs may not always provide the greatest benefits in terms of pollution abatement depending on their location in the watershed, and physical features of their land. We assessed the relative performance of different payment programs by developing producer response functions for adoption of Beneficial Management Practices (BMPs). Producer adoption responses under different incentive schemes were tested using experiments with student subjects and limited trials with producers. We examined four BMPs: construction of holding ponds, riparian management, forage conversion, and conservation till. The results of the adoption response experiments conducted under WEBS were used to draw preliminary observations on BMP policy design and form the basis for recommendations for further research. The farm behavior project focuses on addressing the following two questions: 1. Does BMP adoption at a given farm make the individual farm household better or worse off from an economic perspective? 2. How much will it cost the government to get farms to adopt BMPs under different payment programs? Since producer heterogeneity is key to understanding the performance of conservation auctions, we examined the costs and benefits of BMPs at the individual farm level and developed on-farm costs for each BMP for each producer in the watershed. The basic components of the model are described below, however the details including underlying assumptions regarding baseline farm behavior, are outlined within the body of the report. We used the on-farm cost model to generate aggregate cost functions for BMPs for the watershed and to parameterize the policy experiments related to conservation auctions. Preliminary estimates of environmental benefits of individual BMP adoption were provided by Dr. Wanhong Yang using results from a SWAT model developed under a separate component of the South Tobacco Creek WEBS project. Based on this information, we were able to evaluate the performance of various auction formats in terms of cost effectiveness, distribution of payments amongst producers, and environmental benefit. The results from the Farm behavior component of the South Tobacco Creek project are preliminary, and are currently being refined. Therefore it is difficult to draw generalized conclusions at this point. Further experiments are being conducted to complete the data collection during FY 08-09 through Interim WEBS funding. Nonetheless main findings to date are summarized below: 1. The four BMPs assessed differ in terms of their cost as well as their ability to deliver environmental benefits. Unfortunately, there is no BMP that dominates across farms at all abatement levels. Farms have heterogeneous costs in terms of BMPs, and some farms are cost effective at supplying abatement using one BMP, but not another. 2. This suggests that if water quality benefits (e.g. phosphorous reduction) can be quantified through modeling by BMP and by farm, then water quality should be the contracting unit for the auction rather than the BMP. This would allow producers to select the most cost effective BMP for supplying water quality benefits, and then decision makers could allocate contracts based on ranking the costs of abatement. 3. At the next stage of the research we will test for synergies between farms – ie., whether the joint production function for water quality between farms differs from the sum of individual production functions. This will have implications for how the payment scheme should be designed. 4. Incorporating „fairness‟ types of allocation rules for conservation dollars, such as maximum participation in conservation programs is inefficient in terms of cost and environmental benefits. If fairness, or using conservation payments as a form of extension to learn about on farm costs of BMPs is the goal of the auction, then fixed payment programs which are open to everyone may be more desirable. 5. The performance of the auction depends on the shape of the cost function for BMPs and/or pollution abatement, as well as whether uniform (pay everyone the highest bid) or discriminatory pricing (pay everyone their own bid) rules are applied. In future research we will be investigating to what extent we can generalize results about the performance of uniform versus discriminatory pricing rules in this context. In conclusion, this research has allowed us to investigate individually the performance of incentive payments for individual BMPs. The results of the analysis provide us with a baseline of information by which we can begin to assess more complex conservation program issues, such as how to optimally select multiple BMPs within the watershed, and whether/how to spatially target BMPs.watersheds, South Tobacco Creek, water quality, Environmental Economics and Policy, Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy, Q12,Q52,D44,

Hydropower production and river rehabilitation: A case study on an alpine river

Despite the numerous benefits of hydropower production, this renewable energy source can have serious negative consequences on the environment. For example, dams act as barriers for the longitudinal migration of organisms and transport of particulate matter. Accelerated siltation processes in the receiving river reduce the vertical connectivity between river and groundwater. Hydropeaks, caused by short-term changes in hydropower operation, result in a negative impact on both habitat and organisms, especially during winter months when natural discharge is low and almost constant. In this study, we report the current deficits present in the River Rhone from two different scientific perspectives - fish ecology and hydrology. Potential rehabilitation solutions in synergy with flood protection measures are discussed. We focus on the effects of hydropeaking in relation to longitudinal and vertical dimensions and discuss local river widening as a potential rehabilitation tool. The fish fauna in the Rhone is characterized by a highly unnatural structure (low diversity, impaired age distribution). A high correlation between fish biomass and monotonous morphology (poor cover availability) was established. Tracer hydrology provided further details about the reduced permeability of the riverbank, revealing a high degree of siltation with K values of about 4.7 × 10−6m s−1. Improving the hydrologic situation is therefore essential for the successful rehabilitation of the Rhone River. To this end, hydropeaks in the river reaches must be attenuated. This can be realized by a combination of different hard technical and soft operational measures such as retention reservoirs or slower up and down ramping of turbine

Beware the Boojum: Caveats and Strengths of Avian Radar

Radar provides a useful and powerful tool to wildlife biologists and ornithologists. However, radar also has the potential for errors on a scale not previously possible. In this paper, we focus on the strengths and limitations of avian surveillance radars that use marine radar front-ends integrated with digital radar processors to provide 360° of coverage. Modern digital radar processors automatically extract target information, including such various target attributes as location, speed, heading, intensity, and radar cross-section (size) as functions of time. Such data can be stored indefinitely, providing a rich resource for ornithologists and wildlife managers. Interpreting these attributes in view of the sensor’s characteristics from which they are generated is the key to correctly deriving and exploiting application-specific information about birds and bats. We also discuss (1) weather radars and air-traffic control surveillance radars that could be used to monitor birds on larger, coarser spatial scales; (2) other nonsurveillance radar configurations, such as vertically scanning radars used for vertical profiling of birds along a particular corridor; and (3) Doppler, single-target tracking radars used for extracting radial velocity and wing-beat frequency information from individual birds for species identification purposes

Vanadium dioxide : A Peierls-Mott insulator stable against disorder

Vanadium dioxide undergoes a first order metal-insulator transition at 340 K. In this work, we develop and carry out state of the art linear scaling DFT calculations refined with non-local dynamical mean-field theory. We identify a complex mechanism, a Peierls-assisted orbital selection Mott instability, which is responsible for the insulating M$_1$ phase, and furthermore survives a moderate degree of disorder.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures. Supplementary material 8 pages, 4 figures. This version (v2) matches that accepted for Physical Review Letters on 16th May 201

Qualität in der arbeitsweltlichen Beratung - eine Untersuchung von Qualitätsmerkmalen, Qualitätsmodellen und eines Netzwerks zu deren politischen Implementierung in Europa unter Berücksichtigung der Theorie der Selbstorganisation

Die aktuellen Entwicklungsaufgaben in der arbeitsweltlichen Beratung machen die Zusammenarbeit verschiedener Disziplinen und Akteure nötig. Ähnlich wie im Bildungsbereich ist es auch für die Beratung nicht sinnvoll die aktuellen Fragen aus nur einer wissenschaftlichen Perspektive zu bearbeiten. Diese Erkenntnis wird in der Arbeit durch die Wahl der Synergetik als metatheoretischem Konzept aufgegriffen. Ziel ist es, Struktur und Musterbildungen auf den verschiedenen hier relevanten Systemebenen (Beratungsprozesse, Qualitätsentwicklungsprozesse, Politikprozesse) besser zu verstehen und die Bedeutung der Selbstorganisation auch für Humansysteme in diesem Kontext herauszuarbeiten. Kerngedanke des entwickelten Qualitätskonzeptes ist die Fundierung von Qualitätsaktivitäten (bspw. Qualitätsmanagement oder Qualitätsentwicklung) durch inhaltliche Qualitätsmerkmale, die sowohl theoretisch als auch empirisch begründet sind. Für die Qualitätsentwicklung in Beratung anbietenden Organisationen wird vorgeschlagen, jede Art der Interventionen aus der Situation der einzelnen Organisation und ihrem Angebot abzuleiten. Damit richtet sich der Ansatz gegen die unbegründete Übernahme von vorgefertigten Qualitätssystemen und spricht sich für eine breite, aber begründete Nutzung verschiedener Instrumente aus. Herausgearbeitet werden hierfür zwei zentrale Prämissen. Zum einen müssen Organisationen, die hochwertige Beratung anbieten wollen, immer eingebettet in die politischen und gesellschaftlichen Umweltsysteme verstanden werden, die ebenfalls zur Veränderung angeregt werden müssen. Wird Qualität zum anderen als Ergebnis selbstorganisierter Prozesse verstanden, so kommt den Akteuren, die diese Verantworten und realisieren, eine besondere Rolle zu. Eine angemessene Professionalisierung des Personals ist hierfür grundlegend. Im empirischen Teil wird diese theoretische Konzeption (Inhaltliche Qualitätsmerkmale, Qualitätsentwicklung als organisationale Aufgabe und Weiterentwicklung der politischen Systeme) in drei Teilstudien, die maßgeblich auf einer qualitativen Inhaltsanalyse von Dokumenten beruht, ausgearbeitet. Diese Untersuchung hat einen explorativen Charakter. Es kann gezeigt werden, dass bisher (vor allem im europäischen Raum) entwickelte Modelle von Qualitätsmerkmalen oder Standards in der Beratung nur ansatzweise den formulierten Anforderungen genügen. Insbesondere fehlt meist ein Beratungsbegriff, der dann in solchen Modellen aufgegriffen wird. Dies zeigt sich zum Beispiel daran, dass Beratung nicht als Förderung von Selbstorganisationsfähigkeit konzipiert wird, obwohl eine verbesserte Selbstorganisationsfähigkeit häufig als Ziel der Beratung formuliert ist. Die parallel vorgenommene Untersuchung von Qualitätsmodellen ergibt, dass vielfältige Ansätze verfolgt werden, wobei die Übernahme standardisierter Modelle einerseits und die Etablierung von Modellen, die auf Systemevaluation setzen andererseits dominieren. Es werden jedoch auch Beispiele für die Förderung der Selbstorganisation auf organisationaler Ebene identifiziert und beschrieben. Im dritten Teil der Untersuchung wird ein politischer Prozess in Europa (ELGPN) untersucht, der unter anderem zum Ziel hat, die Qualität von Beratungsangeboten nachhaltig zu verbessern und die beteiligten Nationalstaaten zu selbstorganisierter Veränderung anzuregen. Die Kernfrage ist hierbei, inwiefern es gelingt aus einer übergeordneten Ebene die nationalen Systeme zur Veränderung der Rahmenbedingungen für arbeitsweltliche Beratung anzuregen, welche Faktoren dies positiv beeinflussen können und inwiefern der Prozess bereits seine Ziele erreicht hat. Die Arbeit schließt mit der Formulierung von weiterführenden Hypothesen für die drei genannten Forschungsperspektiven ab. Diese zeigen, wie eine Orientierung am Modell der Selbstorganisation weiterhin als sinnvolle Perspektive gewählt werden kann und welche forschungsmethodischen und konzeptionellen Fragen der weiteren Bearbeitung bedürfen

The Praxis of Civil Society: Associational Life, the Politics of Civility, and Public Affairs in the Weimar Republic

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)This dissertation analyzes the efforts to develop a pluralistic political culture and democratic practices of governance through the training of democratic leaders in Germany's first school of public affairs, the German School of Politics. The investigation of the thought-leaders that formed this school illustrates two main points. First, through the prism of the School, I detail the efforts to develop a conception of civil society that, by being grounded in civility, could retie social bonds and counter the brutalization of politics characteristic of the post-World War One years. By providing practical knowledge, courses in public affairs could not only free Germans from the blinders of ideologies, but also instill in them an ethos that would help viewing the political enemy as an opponent with an equal right to participate in the political process. Secondly, I point to the limits of trans-national philanthropy in supporting the development of civil society in young democracies. By analyzing the relationship between U.S. foundations and the School, I focus on the asymmetry that existed between American ideals of democracy and the realities of the German political system. This study thus focuses on the dynamics between the actions of institutions and organizations, and the broader social behaviors that constitute public life

Unravelling the Dodecahedral Spaces

The hyperbolic dodecahedral space of Weber and Seifert has a natural non-positively curved cubulation obtained by subdividing the dodecahedron into cubes. We show that the hyperbolic dodecahedral space has a 6-sheeted irregular cover with the property that the canonical hypersurfaces made up of the mid-cubes give a very short hierarchy. Moreover, we describe a 60-sheeted cover in which the associated cubulation is special. We also describe the natural cubulation and covers of the spherical dodecahedral space (aka Poincar\'e homology sphere).Comment: 15 pages + 6 pages appendix, 7 figures, 4 table