I’ve used this space in the past to take a critical look at philanthropic practice and what foundations can do better. Well, hold on to your hats…today I’m writing about something they’ve done well. A couple months ago, shortly after the shellacking President Obama took in the polls, I was watching television and came across a familiar face: Oprah’s B.F.F.…

“Deliver on the promise of a quality education.” Thus proclaimed LeShawn Routé Chatmon, Executive Director of The National Equity Project (formerly BayCES), echoing the organization’s mandate at its inspirational re-naming event held on Friday, October 29 in downtown Oakland. Informing Change is proud to have been a supporter of this event; Informing Change Managing Director, Lande Ajose, currently serves on…

On October 17, the film Waiting for Superman opened in 27 cities. It has been hailed as the most significant documentary since Davis Guggenheim directed the Academy Award winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The film is being credited with reinvigorating the national debate about the state of public education. As many efforts get underway and commitments to change are made,…

Recently, I’ve been thinking about new tools that can help present information in a visually engaging way. More than ever before, we are able to easily and cheaply gather and share such information. This has generated vast amounts of visual content; on YouTube alone, 24 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. However, as we know, more of anything doesn’t…

Everyday, information permeates most aspects of our lives. Rapid advances in technology and our resulting ability to collect and share information takes place at a scale that was hard to imagine, even ten years ago. For many of us, this information explosion results in a “love-hate” relationship that oscillates between invigorating and overwhelming depending on the moment. The Economist’s recent…

Capacity building has been a leading issue in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors for over a decade. This is a good thing. The increased focus has provided nonprofits with time and resources to attend to the underlying structures, competencies and processes that enable them to be more efficient and effective in their mission-related work. In the last several years, “greening”…

In liberal California, diverse philanthropic leadership may not appear to be much of a conversation. After all, a quick look at many of our leading foundations—James Irvine Foundation, The California Endowment, the California HealthCare Foundation—as well as some notable community foundations—California Community Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and the East Bay Community Foundation—would suggest that the issue of diversifying leadership…

Coaching, when done well, can result in breakthrough changes for leaders, their organizations and over time the individuals and communities that they serve. It has been used to enhance nonprofit leadership and organizational effectiveness in a variety of ways ranging from renewed commitment to nonprofit work due to better work-life balance, to stronger senior leadership teams and boards due to…

Calls for more and better evidence of programmatic outcomes echo through the nonprofit and philanthropic world. These appeals get louder with the intersection of increased needs in the community during tight economic times and the pressures to accomplish more with fewer resources. When planned and implemented well, evaluation can address the important questions of how supports are used and their…

Good evaluation depends on integration. Integration with what? Integration into the daily and ongoing work of organizations dedicated to addressing pressing social problems and bringing about social change. Evaluation is fundamentally about learning, and it involves much more than just collecting, analyzing and reporting on data. It is not just about accountability; nor is it just about proving assumptions. Yes,…

In the private sector, generally speaking, there is generous room for mistakes. In an R&D function, private companies can spend a lot of money trying and testing a problem, and failing, without the fear of having to make their learning known. Eventually they unearth the positive lessons, bury the negative lessons and move on. For nonprofits dependent on foundations for…