Benchmarking Philanthropy

The CEO's question of "How are we doing?" can strike fear into the hearts of executives responsible for corporate philanthropy. Unlike almost every other area of corporate activity, there are no tried and true methods for benchmarking philanthropic performance. Beyond counting the volunteer hours and dollars given away, companies are left to determine the value and impact of their philanthropy in a vacuum.Yet FSG has found that benchmarking philanthropic performance against industry peers is possible -- and extremely helpful in finding ways to increase both the business and social benefit of every dollar the company contributes. Many of the same principles that make benchmarking so important to other corporate activities, such as marketing, product development and sales, can be extended to a company's philanthropy -- and knowing how you are doing relative to your competitors turns out to be just as important in making good social investments as it does in making other kinds of investment decisions

Becoming the Community's Foundation: Insight and Change in New Haven

FSG helped the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven to develop a new donor development strategy based on an understanding of three critical questions: What motivates different segments of donors? Which services and offerings would be most attractive to each segment? How does the community perceive CFGNH?This article describes that process and features an interview with Will Ginsburg, CFGNH's CEO

Allocating Resources in a Time of Scarcity

In response to declining investment returns, many foundations are implementing across-the-board cuts for grantees. This 2002 article argues, that there is a better approach. Particularly in tough times foundations should concentrate their giving in those areas in which their expertise, relationships, and grantees create the greatest value. It also makes the case that foundation-level, rather than grant-level, evaluation is the way to identify those areas with the greatest potential for social impact

Collective Impact

Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations. Substantially greater progress could be made in alleviating many of our most serious and complex social problems if nonprofits, governments, businesses, and the public were brought together around a common agenda to create collective impact. Published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011

Design for Giving: Understanding What Motivates Corporate Philanthropy

What motivates corporate philanthropy? Since corporate giving is often fragmented, both in the sense of where grants originate within a company and where they are distributed, corporations typically lack a clear and comprehensive picture of their overall philanthropic expenditures and investments. In examining the giving patterns of corporations and other foundations, we have found that the vast majority of grants can be explained by three motivational clusters. Maximizing impact means managing the mix

Channeling Change: Making Collective Impact Work

Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations. Substantially greater progress could be made in alleviating many of our most serious and complex social problems if nonprofits, governments, businesses, and the public were brought together around a common agenda to create collective impact. Published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011

Understanding the Value of Backbone Organizations in Collective Impact

Effective backbone support is a critical condition for collective impact. In fact, it is the number one reason that collective impact initiatives fail. In this publication, we provide communities and organizations engaged in collective impact with guidance on the role of the backbone and how to understand and support its effectiveness.In the Greater Cincinnati region, collective impact has become the "new normal," and The Greater Cincinnati Foundation (GCF) has made a commitment to support the infrastructure of collective impact - the backbone organization itself - in an effort to sustain and scale long-term systemic change and impact in the community. However, the role of the backbone organization in collective impact is complex and can be difficult to explain.In early 2012, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation and FSG began a partnership to define the value of backbone organizations and better understand back-bone effectiveness by working with six local backbone organizations and collective impact initiatives

The Promise of Citywide Charter Strategies

Charter school enrollment is on the rise in many urban areas. In fact, 56% of all public charter schools are located in urban areas, and 10 of our nation's largest school districts now have 20,000 students enrolled in public charter schools. With this growth in the charter movement, there is an increasing need for local infrastructure support through technical services, advocacy, and coordination. This report examines the potential for citywide charter strategies as a key leverage point for increasing charter school quality

Changing the Game

Companies today understand that corporate social responsibility (CSR) forms an inextricable part of their reputations and brand identities. They spend ever-increasing amounts of corporate resources on improving the social, human, and environmental conditions under which companies operate. Yet the world's problems seem as intractable as ever, and very few global companies have managed to rise above the public relations din to truly distinguish themselves through their CSR activities. One of the primary reasons CSR has not yet significantly improved society is that the nonprofit and business sectors are for the most part still stuck in their old stereotypical roles. By ceding responsibility for solving social problems to nonprofits, companies have forsaken their ability to intervene directly in healing the world's woes. As a result, some of the most sophisticated and powerful organizations in the world remain on the sidelines of social progress. Companies that get into the game and play to win will reap disproportionate social impact, economic rewards, and reputational benefits

Best in Class: How Top Corporations Can Help Transform Public Education

This FSG white paper, released in May 2007 and sponsored by Ernst and Young LLP, provides a critical assessment of opportunities for corporations to help transform the U.S. public education system through innovative corporate philanthropy. Based on six months of research and dozens of interviews with corporate philanthropy leaders, education nonprofit executives and educators, the paper maps the myriad of opportunities available for corporations to engage in education reform and details a range of lessons learned. In addition, it includes a call to action for corporations to raise their own expectations of corporate philanthropy in education to adopt systemic thinking, replicate and scale effective initiatives, and take collective action. By any measure, the U.S. education system faces daunting challenges. Among developed countries, the U.S. ranks 20th out of 28 in math scores, and a shockingly high number of students don't finish high school. However, the situation is far from hopeless. In fact, some leading corporations have decades of experience helping to turn around the most intractable problems in education. They have recognized that to remain competitive in today's global economy, schools must produce graduates who are prepared for the 21st century workforce