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Research-Practice Partnerships Writing Guide

September 15, 2023

Research-Practice Partnerships are long-term, intentionally organized, and mutually beneficial collaborations that seek to improve education across the lifespan, broadly defined. This writing guide includes information on the features of the program, details about what reviewers look for in proposals, and tips for common missteps to avoid.

Emerging Practices in Funding Nonprofit Technology

July 28, 2023

As the nonprofit sector continues to embrace the transformative power of technology, the landscape of funding opportunities is evolving to meet the unique needs and challenges faced by organizations in this digital age. This whitepaper aims to shed light on the emerging practices in funding nonprofit technology, providing valuable insights and guidance to grantmakers, philanthropic organizations, and stakeholders invested in the nonprofit sector.Since 2020, the Technology Association of Grantmakers (TAG) has been at the forefront of fostering discussions and facilitating knowledge sharing on the evolving practices in funding nonprofit technology. Through a series of meetings, webinars, and publications, TAG members have identified the pressing need for effective funding strategies in this digital era. These ongoing conversations have created a vibrant forum for industry professionals to exchange ideas, experiences, and innovative approaches. Leveraging the insights gained from these interactions, this whitepaper identifies and explores the leading practices that have emerged as innovative approaches to funding nonprofit technology.

A Guide to Writing Proposals That Engage Research With Youth, Families, and Community-Based Organizations

July 11, 2023

Spencer supports research on learning wherever it occurs, across diverse settings and ways of learning. Motivated by our commitment to support strength-based research, this guide offers suggestions for writing high-quality community-engaged proposals.

Ensuring Access to Food Resources for Students Experiencing Homelessness

June 30, 2023

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, 10.2% (or 13.5 million) of households were food insecure at some point during 2021. These households were uncertain of having or were unable to acquire enough food for all members of the household due to financial hardship or lack of food resources. Families experiencing homelessness often face additional barriers to accessing food due to high mobility or lack of transportation. Homeless liaisons play an important role in ensuring that students have access to free school meals and referrals are made to provide the family access to food resources in the community.

A Guidebook for Religious Literacy Evaluation: Resources for Planning and Design

June 27, 2023

At present, many scholars and programs make large claims about the impacts of religious literacy education, but do not have empirical evidence or clear models to demonstrate those impacts to funders, school administrators, educators, students, or other practitioners in this field. This guidebook is intended to support religious literacy educational initiatives. It is not a complete primer on evaluation and does not dictate a particular methodology or approach to evaluation. Rather, with guiding questions at each step, it provides an introductory evaluation framework to help educators and researchers engaged in religious literacy educational initiatives.The companion report, The Imperative for Religious Literacy Evaluation: Context, Key Insights, and Recommendations, provides more detail and background about the need for evaluation in religious literacy education and a review of current practices and literature.

Lights, Camera, Change: A Filmmaker’s Guide to Private Foundation Funding for Social Impact

June 17, 2023

This guide is a comprehensive resource that empowers social justice filmmakers and creatives to navigate the complexities of foundation funding. Securing grants can be daunting for filmmakers, sometimes hindered by federal regulations on lobbying and political messaging.With the aim of making a difference through film, this essential guide equips filmmakers and creatives with the necessary information and guidance to navigate the world of foundation funding. While it primarily targets non-501(c)(3) tax-exempt entities with compelling educational or charitable stories to share, 501(c)(3) filmmaking organizations and those within public charities can also benefit.

Freedom to Learn Freedom to Vote

June 12, 2023

Following the Democratic 2020 presidential election win, we began to see conservative backlash occur at the state level. One of these tactics included targeting education, particularly, the diversification of school curriculums that emphasize the significance of racial and gender identities in the United States. This resource guide serves as our way to bring awareness to the stifling of academic freedom. Black women scholars and authors' writings have become a pinnacle target of these state and local directed efforts to limit knowledge on race in America. In response, this resource guide is our form of solidarity with Black women and femme scholars whose work and livelihoods have been targeted by relentless, misogynoir-led ideological attacks, both politically and socially. We provide a brief history and timeline of the issue, resources to support efforts to combat it, the names and works of the Black women and femme scholars being targeted, and practical ways to get involved–both nationally and locally–to push back against these heinous attacks. As Black Girls Vote continues its mission of advocating and protecting the political rights and well-being of Black women and girls on all fronts, we unwaveringly join the fight to protect and ensure academic freedom for all!

How Nonprofits and NGOs Can Get Real Value from Strategic Planning

June 1, 2023

Strategy is all about getting critical resource decisions right. The strategic planning process is a rare chance for a nonprofit's leaders to step back and look at their organization and its activities as a whole—to understand what success looks like and to allocate time, talent, and dollars to the activities that can help achieve it.When strategic planning is done well, it not only clarifies the path forward for teams and stakeholders, but also informs resourcing decisions and sets in motion key organizational changes. To be sure, it doesn't always go well; we expect some readers may have had negative experiences with strategic planning. The practical advice we offer in this article will help leaders avoid the pitfalls and get real value from the process.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics for Nonprofits: Toolkit

June 1, 2023

The goal of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Ethics for Nonprofits toolkit is to build capacity in the social impact sector to design, deploy and use AI responsibly and ethically.This first installment of the AI Ethics for Nonprofits toolkit provides the materials you need to host an AI Ethics Workshop focused on the ethical considerations related to the principle of Fairness, including:Facilitators GuideWorkshop deckSupporting materialsIn this workshop, participants will learn some of the fundamentals of AI ethics and then immediately get to practice applying ethical considerations related to the principle of Fairness in the context of several humanitarian and international development use cases. The workshop includes a significant practical segment because those of us in the nonprofit sector who are on point to conceptualize, build, manage, and deploy AI solutions need to know how to operationalize the ethical principles like Fairness.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Suitability Toolkit for Nonprofits

June 1, 2023

The goal of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Suitability Toolkit is to increase NGOs' internal expertise and capacity to evaluate, develop, procure, and use AI / Machine Learning (ML) in their work so they can make informed decisions, do their work better, anticipate issues that might arise from AI, and ensure that people in need are aware of the technologies that affect them and their communities.This toolkit includes 'AI Workshop for Nonprofits' Facilitators Guide and Master Deck, and AI Suitability Framework.The workshop and accompanying materials are designed to provide participants with an introductory overview of AI / ML capabilities and how to evaluate suitability of AI/ML for their programs and projects. 

Círculo de herramientas para la integración de la perspectiva de género en el diseño, implementación y evaluación de proyectos comunitarios

June 1, 2023

The toolkit Círculo de herramientas para la integración de la perspectiva de género en el diseño, implementación y evaluación de proyectos comunitarios, was created through a collaborative process that integrates the visions, experiences, work and voice of fourteen women representatives of seven community foundations participating in COMUNALIA´s network. The tools guide a first step towards the integration of the gender perspective in the design, implementation, and evaluation of community projects.

Framework to Decolonize Child & Youth Philanthropy

June 1, 2023

In 2022, ECFG commissioned Degan Ali and her team to lead us through a decolonizing grantmaking journey that included learning webinars, collective learning and reflection, the identification of promising practices, and the development of a framework that funders could use to elevate equitable grantmaking. After developing an understanding of our network's needs and goals, our decolonizing philanthropy working group engaged in deep partnership design with DA Global to create The Decolonizing Child and Youth Philanthropy Framework. This framework recognizes that our members and partners are at different stages of their journey in tackling colonialism within their organizations and grantmaking. While there are universally relevant lessons gained from existing decolonization efforts in the philanthropic and charity sectors, this framework is designed to support the different types, sizes and needs of the funders who belong to this group. This is not a magic solution, but a tool in our decolonizing child and youth philanthropy toolbox. This tool is intentionally focused on supporting those who have embarked on a change process within their organizations, those who want to make additional adjustments, and those who are grappling with how to get started.