Turning the Table on Assessment: The Grantee Perception Report

This book chapter describes the origins of the GPR, illustrates lessons learned, and provides examples of changes made by foundations that have used this tool. It also reports on some of the broadly applicable insights gained from CEP's large-scale surveys of grantees. (This material is excerpted from the Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) book, A Funder's Guide to Organizational Assessment.

Lessons in Funder Collaboration: What the Packard Foundation Has Learned about Working with Other Funders

As the Foundation approached its 50th anniversary this year, it asked The Bridgespan Group to assist in taking stock of what Packard can learn from its many collaborations. When it comes to the structure of collaborations, Bridgespan has identified five main models: knowledge exchange, coordination of funding, coinvesting in an existing entity, creating a new entity, and funding the funder. As with all taxonomies, these five categories are meant to serve as signposts along a continuum. Each collaboration differs in a variety of ways, whether it is the flow of funds, decision making, expectations and roles of funding partners, or legal structure. Bridgespan focused on Packard's collaborations that require alignment and more intensive coordination by program staff. Six case studies provide an in-depth look inside examples of all four types of collaboration that venture beyond exchanging knowledge

Foundation Communications: The Grantee Perspective

Foundation Communications: The Grantee Perspective reveals the key components of effective foundation communications with grantees. Based on analyses of thousands of grantee surveys, this issue paper argues for a more holistic approach to foundation communications than is often practiced today. This report highlights best practices and provides practical management implications for foundation leaders

In Search of Impact: Practices and Perceptions in Foundations' Provision of Program and Operating Grants to Nonprofits

In Search of Impact informs the debate on operating support with new data about current foundation practices, attitudes underlying those practices, and the impact on grantees of foundation choices. The report explores what motivates foundation CEOs in their decision-making, examining the tension between CEOs' sense of what is best for their foundations and what they believe will make the most positive impact on grantee organizations. In Search of Impact also probes the grantee perspective through an analysis of thousands of survey responses and a set of interviews with nonprofit leaders, revealing the importance of other grant attributes that have been overshadowed in the debate about type of support

Indian Monsoon Depression: Climatology and Variability

The monsoon climate is traditionally characterized by large amount of seasonal rainfall and reversal of wind direction (e.g., Krishnamurti 1979). Most importantly this rainfall is the major source of fresh water to various human activities such as agriculture. The Indian subcontinent resides at the core of the Southeast Asian summer monsoon system with the monsoon trough extended from northern India across Indochina to the Western Tropical Pacific (WTP). Large fraction of annual rainfall occurs during the summer monsoon season, i.e., June – August1, with two distinct maxima. One is located over the Bay of Bengal with rainfall extending northwestward into eastern and central India, and the other along the west coast of India where the lower level moist wind meets the Western Ghat Mountains (Saha and Bavardeckar 1976). The rest of the Indian subcontinent receives relatively less rainfall.https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/modern_climatology/1001/thumbnail.jp

Cryo-Electron Ptychography: Applications and Potential in Biological Characterisation

There is a clear need for developments in characterisation techniques that provide detailed information about structure-function relationships in biology. Using electron microscopy to achieve high resolution while maintaining a broad field of view remains a challenge, particularly for radiation sensitive specimens where the signal-to-noise ratio required to maintain structural integrity is limited by low electron fluence. In this review, we explore the potential of cryogenic electron ptychography as an alternative method for characterisation of biological systems under low fluence conditions. Using this method with increased information content from multiple sampled regions of interest, potentially allows 3D reconstruction with far fewer particles than required in conventional cryo-electron microscopy. This is important for achieving higher resolution for systems where distributions of homogeneous single particles are difficult to obtain. We discuss the progress, limitations and potential areas for future development of this approach for both single particle analysis and in applications to heterogeneous large objects

Fine needle aspiration of primary mediastinal synovial sarcoma: Cytomorphologic, immunohistochemical, and molecular study

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/102691/1/dc22912.pd

What Ambitious Donors Can Learn From The Atlantic Philanthropies' Experience Making Big Bets

By the time The Atlantic Philanthropies closes its doors in 2020, it will have distributed more than $8 billion—its entire endowment—to advance opportunity and lasting change for disadvantaged and vulnerable people worldwide. Founded in 1982, it was Founder Chuck Feeney's intention to champion "giving while living" and when the foundation closes, Atlantic will make history by becoming the largest foundation to complete its giving in the donor's lifetime.In its grant making, over 60 percent of Atlantic's overall giving ranks as big bets, investments of$10 million or more. Thirty percent of those bets went to social change causes, including gifts to human services, the environment, and international development. Such big bets have the potential to have big impacts on advancing social change goals. Yet as Bridgespan reported in the December 2015 Stanford Social Innovation Review article, "Making Big Bets for Social Change," investments of this size for social change are rare. Just 20 percent of philanthropic big bets went to social change causes between 2000 and 2012.Why? A number of barriers exist: it's hard to find and structure big bets, "shovel-ready" opportunities are few and far between, personal relationships between donors and nonprofit leaders can take years to nurture, and the long time horizons required for change and often-murky results make it difficult to measure success. In short, big bets on social change can feel risky.The story of Atlantic, however, illustrates what can happen when donors take that risk. This report, What Ambitious Donors Can Learn From The Atlantic Philanthropies' Experience Making Big Bets, looks at a number of big bets Atlantic made and how those achieved significant results. It identified four themes that ran through Atlantic's work and that were particularly evident in its most influential big bets:Pick distinctive investment spots and funding gaps in the landscape.Support organizations and strong leaders, often with unrestricted or capacity-building funding.Pursue advocacy in a complex social, policy and legal environment, and use both traditional grant funding and 501(c)(4) funding as tools.Give with the foundation's end in sight and sustainability in mind.The report also highlights the challenges and failures Atlantic faced along the way. Despite the inherent risk in big bets, Atlantic held the belief that a big bets strategy would be the best way to achieve lasting impact. It is a promising path that is yielding strong results, and Atlantic's experience offers potential strategies for other donors seeking similar goals