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Investing for Impact: Lessons from MacArthur Foundation’s Window of Opportunity Initiative

October 1, 2020

As the economic crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded in 2020, nonprofit institutions have stepped up to provide shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, and health care for those in need. Afinancially strong nonprofit organization that can provide this support through economic downturns does not happen by itself, however. It takes planning, investment, skill and hard work. As funders, policymakers, and practitioners consider how to foster financially strong nonprofit institutions that can help with the current and future crises, it is worth reflecting on the effectiveness of past efforts to support the growth of nonprofit institutions.In the early 2000s, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (MacArthur) launched one such effort. MacArthur sought to support the growth and sustainability of a group of nonprofit affordable housing developers through program-related investments (PRIs) that provided long-term flexible equity-like capital. This report summarizes the results of Abt Associates' evaluation of this initiative. Among other conclusions, Abt found that these investments played an important role in helping the developers survive and even thrive during the last major economic upheaval, the Great Recession. The flexible financing provided by the PRIs helped the nonprofit developers achieve larger scale, improve financial and staff capacity, and react creatively to changes in economic and social conditions.

Investing for Impact: Lessons from MacArthur Foundation’s Housing Preservation Initiative

July 1, 2020

As the economic crisis precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic has unfolded in 2020, nonprofit institutions have stepped up to provide shelter for the homeless, food for the hungry, and health care for those in need. A financially strong nonprofit organization that can provide this support through economic downturns does not happen by itself, however. It takes planning, investment, skill and hard work. As funders, policymakers, and practitioners consider how to foster financially strong nonprofit institutions that can help with the current and future crises, it is worth reflecting on the effectiveness of past efforts to support the growth of nonprofit institutions.In the early 2000s, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation (MacArthur) launched an effort to support the growth and sustainability of a group of nonprofit affordable housing developers through program-related investments (PRIs) that provided long-term flexible equity-like capital. This brief summarizes the results of Abt Associates' evaluation of this initiative. Among other findings, Abt found that these investments played an important role in helping the developers survive and even thrive during the last major economic upheaval, the Great Recession. The flexible financing provided by the PRIs helped the nonprofit developers achieve larger scale, improve financial and staff capacity, and react creatively to changes in economic and social conditions.

Evaluation of the Sustainable Employment in a Green US Economy (SEGUE)

January 1, 2013

The Rockefeller Foundation's Sustainable Employment in a Green US Economy(SEGUE) initiative has been a central player in green job discussions since 2009, andeven earlier through the Foundation's Campaign for American Workers. In its earliestdevelopmental stages, the initiative sought "to maximize the 'green' growth areas ofthe economy … while benefiting low- and moderate-income workers" (RockefellerFoundation, 2009b). SEGUE focused on creating jobs by supporting green economicactivities. Initially, the focus was the building energy-retrofit market in the constructionindustry and, later, on water infrastructure and waste management. The demandfor workers became recognized as the bottleneck that needed to be released, in orderto realize the benefits of the green economy.To document and expand upon the learning and exploration that SEGUE has started,the Rockefeller Foundation provided a grant to the research firm, Abt Associates,Inc., in April 2012, to conduct a short-term, developmental evaluation of SEGUE. Theevaluation focused on three areas: learning for the purposes of determining SEGUE'sfuture direction, documenting SEGUE's grant and non-grant outputs for accountabilityneeds, and providing public knowledge on green jobs and evaluations in general.This report provides the results from the evaluation.