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

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

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

1, 2, 3, Stop the Bleed: Analysis of a Bleeding Control Educational Course

Hemorrhaging, or uncontrolled bleeding, accounts for 40% of preventable deaths in the United States that occur after a traumatic injury. The Stop the Bleed campaign was launched in 2015 by the White House National Security Council to educate the public about methods to control and stop bleeding as well as empower individuals to take action if a traumatic accident occurs. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of the “Stop the Bleed” bleeding control course to increase knowledge about the topic as well as increase confidence to take action and use the techniques that were taught during the course appropriately. Data was collected via a cross sectional pre-post survey design. At baseline, the participants were asked basic knowledge questions about bleeding control and techniques to use as well as how confident they felt using those skills. After being presented the bleeding control material and practicing the techniques in the hands-on portion of the course, the participants were asked to complete a post-test with similar questions to that of the pre-test. De-identified responses were collected to analyze the changes in the overall knowledge scores and overall confidence scores with the use of the paired-t statistical test on SPSS. The participants (N=32) were employees within the Thomas Jefferson University Campus Security department. The overall score for the knowledge-based questions were analyzed from pre to post and showed that the changes were statistically significant (8.163,

A Constructive Proof of Luft\u27s Theorem in Case Genus Two.

In Kirby\u27s problem list {R. Kirby: Problems in Low Dimensional Manifold Theory. Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 32, (1978), p.28} is Problem 2.4: (Birman) Let (alpha) be the obvious homomorphism (eta)(,g)(\u27 )(---\u3e)(\u27 )Aut ((pi)(,l)(N(,g))) where (eta)(,g) is the group of isotopy classes of orientation perserving homeomorphisms of N(,g). Is kernel ((alpha)) finitely generated? Here N(,g) denotes the 3-dimensional orientable handlebody of genus g. See {J. Birman: Braids, Links and Mapping Class Groups. Ann. of Math. Studies No. 82, PUP(1975), p.220}. In {E. Luft: Actions of the Homeotopy Group of an Orientable 3-Dimensional Handlebody. Math. Ann. 234 (1978), Corollary 2.3} Luft proves that kernel ((alpha)) is generated by Dehn Twists along properly embedded 2-cells in N(,g). In {J. Birman: Private communication. Aug. 6, 1979} it was suggested that a geometric proof of Luft\u27s result be found since Luft\u27s proof was algebraic in nature. The author gives a constructive geometric proof of Luft\u27s Theorem in the case of a handlebody of genus two