The Art and Science of Place-Based Philanthropy: Themes From a National Convening

The Foundation Review, Jul 2016

This article shares insights and implications generated at a convening titled Is This a Better Place? The Art and Science of Place Evaluation. Participants included funders, evaluators, and community partners who came to discuss and share effective learning practices and the role of evaluation in place-based work. Place-based work requires a long-term investment in collaborative partnerships to create, nurture, and sustain local and systemic changes. In order to support this complex work, partners have to incorporate approaches that are nimble, iterative, and responsive to the changing needs of a “place” over an initiative’s life span. The convening produced a number of considerations, presented in this article, for how funders, and their investments in evaluation, can support the design, implementation, and overall success of place-based efforts

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The Art and Science of Place-Based Philanthropy: Themes From a National Convening

National Convening Giannina Fehler-Cabral 0 1 Meg Long 0 1 Harder+Company Community Research 0 Part of the Nonprofit Administration and Management Commons, and the Public Affairs , Public Policy 1 Fehler-Cabral , G., James, J., Preskill, H., & Long, M. (2016). The Art and Science of Place-Based Equal Measure Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/tfr and Public Administration Commons Recommended Citation Philanthropy: Themes From a National Convening. The Foundation Review, 8(2). https://doi.org/10.9707/ - FSG S E C T O R Key Points • This article shares insights and implications generated at a convening titled Is This a Better Place? The Art and Science of Place Evaluation. Participants included funders, evaluators, and community partners who came to discuss and share effective learning practices and the role of evaluation in place-based work. • Place-based work requires a long-term investment in collaborative partnerships to create, nurture, and sustain local and systemic changes. In order to support this complex work, partners have to incorporate approaches that are nimble, iterative, and responsive to the changing needs of a “place” over an initiative’s life span. • The convening produced a number of considerations, presented in this article, for how funders, and their investments in evaluation, can support the design, implementation, and overall success of place-based efforts. As our understanding of the complex, interre lated, and systemic issues affecting place has led to more sophisticated conceptual frameworks (Ferris & Hopkins, 2015) , it has also resulted in a resurgence of interest in place by multiple affinity groups (e.g., Grantmakers for Effective Organization’s Place-Based Philanthropy Community of Practice, the Neighborhood Funders Group’s Working Group on Place-Based Community Change), large-scale public-sector initiatives (e.g., Promise Neighborhoods), and as evidenced by the importance of place within the national collective impact movement. Nationally and locally, we have not leveraged the collective knowledge of this work and established a strong place-based field. In many cases, multiple and parallel place-based investments in the same community are not intentionally integrated, and in some cases conflict with one another. The Art and Science of Place-Based Philanthropy: Themes From a National Convening In response to this trend, the Aspen Forum for Community Solutions and the Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG) decided to collaborate on Introduction a series of convenings about place-based initiaFor more than 50 years, philanthropic and pub- tives in 2014 and 2015. Aspen’s interest in this lic-sector organizations have invested in numer- topic stems from its national Opportunity Youth ous place-based initiatives to address persistent Incentive Fund, which is supporting 21 comand pervasive poverty in communities around munities across the U.S. in improving education the country. Place-based initiatives use a com- and employment for young adults. The NFG is a prehensive and intentional set of strategies to network of foundations and other philanthropic address the social, health, and economic needs oforganizations working to improve economic and a neighborhood, city, or region. Place-based work social conditions in low-income communities. requires a long-term commitment to a particular community, development of ongoing relation- The first event was Towards a Better Place: A ships with multiple community stakeholders, Conversation About Place-Based Philanthropy and supports and resources beyond grantmaking. (Aspen Institute & NFG, 2015) . It sparked 1. to share effective, innovative learning p-rac tices for dynamic, complex environments; various topical thread1 si,ncluding interest in learning more about the role of evaluation and evaluators in supporting place-based work (Aspen Institute & Neighborhood Funders 2. to identify appropriate questions and m-et Group, 2015) . In response to this interest, Aspen rics at different developmental stages of and NFG collaborated with the Jacobs Center for place-based initiatives; and Neighborhood Innovation, a community development organization working in San Diego’s 3. to explore evaluation’s role in the power Diamond neighborhood, and a national planning dynamics of place. committee to develop a follow-up convening, Is This a Better Place? The Art and Science of Place Based Evaluation (Aspen Institute, 2016). The convening’s organizers sought to create a unique experience by inviting triads of funders, evaluators, and community representatives This article shares key insights and implications engaged in place-based initiatives to anchor from this convening and subsequent reflection a semistructured, conversation-based format by the authors (who also facilitated convening aimed at fostering understanding among the sessions) about how funders and their inve-st roles2. It was attended by 125 people, (...truncated)


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Giannina Fehler-Cabral, Jennifer James, Hallie Preskill, Meg Long. The Art and Science of Place-Based Philanthropy: Themes From a National Convening, The Foundation Review, 2016, Volume 8, Issue 2,