Read what others are saying about the importance of resident voice and civic engagement - and why grantmaking investments that support the creativity and energy of community residents are an essential part of a funder's community change strategy:
In this fascinating report from The Case Foundation, a call is made for "a broader civic renewal movement - one that moves beyond the tactics of civic engagement (voting or volunteering) or outcomes (number of trees planted or people served) to the process of civic engagement - especially the ability and incentive for ordinary people to come together, deliberate, and take action on problems or issues that they themselves have defined as important and in ways they deem appropriate."
In yet another provacative article from Bowling Alone's author and scholar, Robert Putnam presents research that suggests that in the short run, immigration and ethnic diversity tend to reduce social solidarity and social capital. Putnam presents new evidence from the US that suggests that in ethnically diverse neighbourhoods, residents of all races tend to ‘hunker down’. Trust (even of one’s own race) is lower, altruism and community cooperation rarer, friends fewer.
In the long run, however, immigration and diversity are likely to have important cultural, economic, fiscal, and developmental benefits. Successful immigrant societies have overcome short-term fragmentation by creating new, cross-cutting forms of social solidarity and more encompassing identities.
To listen to Putnam's com audio commentary on this article, click here.
In The Good Work, Harry C. Boyte and Nancy Kari say that in public work, citizens take center stage. The proper role of government, foundations, and related institutions in such undertakings is to equip citizens with tools and resources for problem-solving. This is a far cry from the role that such institutions have increasingly assumed for themselves: that of professing to "solve" our problems for us. Click here to read more.
This issue brief on embedded funders and community change, published by Chapin Hall Center for Children in 2007, provides the research teams' current perspective on embedded philanthropy.
Embedded Funders and Community Change: Profiles, published by Chapin Hall Center for Children in 2006, provides descriptions of twelve foundations included in a second cohort of funders.
In Moving Forward While Staying in Place, published by the Chapin Hall Center for Children in 2004, the embedded funders research team drew preliminary generalizations based on an initial cohort of embedded funders and profiled those eleven funders.
Reports from the Field: Community and Place-Based Foundations and the Knight Community Information Challenge, a new report from FSG Social Impact Advisors produced in collaboration with the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, looks at how the quality and delivery of information will affect the health and vitality of communities. It also examines how place-based foundations are responding to Knight's $24 million Community Information Challenge to incorporate their communities' information needs into their missions.
Read this collection of "on the ground" reflections from funders about what it takes to work effectively with low-income communities, prepared for Grassroots Grantmakers by The Diarist Project.
Check out the report this new report, written by Matt Leighninger for Grassroots Grantmakers, to explore what we are learning from local governments about the intersection between government and community.
The Harwood Institute for Public Innovation's Standards of Excellence in Civic Engagement provides some helpful insights for funders who are committed to strengthening civic engagement at the block level. Check it out!
Check out The Great Neighborhood Book - the newest addition to Project for Public Spaces' wonderful library on "placemaking", the PPS term for the process of transforming public space.
Read this collection of "on the ground" reflections from funders about what it takes to work effectively with low-income communities, prepared for Grassroots Grantmakers by The Diarist Project.
Check out the report this new report, written by Matt Leighninger for Grassroots Grantmakers, to explore what we are learning from local governments about the intersection between government and community.
