GCIP Resources

Resource List for Funding Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement

 

Affinity Groups

Association of Small Foundations
ASF and the Alliance for Justice co-authored a primer, Funding and Engaging in Advocacy: Opportunities for Small Foundations. Information about the publication can be found on the website.

Council on Foundations
COF has a publication available entitled Top 10 Ways Private Foundations Can Influence Public Policy that provides information about ways foundations can legally influence public policy through such activities as educating legislators, funding advocacy organizations, educating the public about issues and promoting civic participation. Information about the publication is available here.

EDGE Funders Alliance: Engaged Donors for Global Equality
EDGE addresses the systemic nature of the social, economic and ecological crises threatening the future of our planet. By supporting reflection and collaboration among members and forging strategic partnerships in and outside philanthropy, EDGE works to increase resources for community well-being and transnational organizing in ways that promote justice and build lasting, meaningful change. EDGE was formed from a merger of the Funders Network on Transforming the Global Economy and Grantmakers without Borders.

Environmental Grantmakers Association
EGA works with members and partners to promote effective environmental philanthropy by sharing knowledge, fostering debate, cultivating leadership, facilitating collaboration, and catalyzing action. Recognizing the importance of diverse perspectives, the organization values ecological integrity, justice, environmental stewardship, inclusivity, transparency, accountability, respect and balancing pragmatism with idealism.

Funders Committee for Civic Participation
FCCP promotes civic participation as a key to making our democracy work. It serves leaders in the philanthropic community working to further this vision with heightened attention to issues of equity and historically disenfranchised and underrepresented communities. Our members support non-partisan efforts to engage voters, eliminate structural barriers to voting, advance reforms to improve government and electoral systems, and inspire public involvement in civic life. FCCP’s publications offer legal guidance and best practices in supporting non-partisan civic engagement.

Funders’ Collaborative on Youth Organizing
The mission of the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCYO) is to substantially increase the philanthropic investment in and strengthen the organizational capacities of youth organizing groups across the country. FCYO has produced a series of papers on youth organizing and leadership development.

Grantmakers for Education
Grantmakers for Education’s mission is to strengthen philanthropy's capacity to improve educational outcomes for all students. In 2005, GFE held an institute on public policy for education grantmakers, and published a report: Foundation Strategies For Influencing Education Policy: A Seminar For Education Grantmakers. GFE’s recent report, Benchmarking 2010: Trends in Education Philanthropy highlights the growing use of policy engagement strategies among its members.

Grantmakers in the Arts
The mission of Grantmakers in the Arts (GIA) is to provide leadership and service to advance the use of philanthropic resources on behalf of arts and culture. The goals of GIA include providing information, research, communication and convening opportunities. Additionally, GIA has a goal of public policy and advocacy, serving as a source to nationally disseminate information on why artists and arts organizations are valued tools for community economic, educational and cultural revitalization. In December 2011, Grantmakers in the Arts presented an online Forum on Equity in Arts Funding (http://blogs.giarts.org/equity-forum/) to expand the dialogue around funding equity in the arts and to encourage a response to the systemic issues of equity identified during sessions at the GIA national conference and in NCRP’s Fusing Arts, Culture and Social Change. The forum remains live through 2012 and beyond for ongoing comment and dialogue.

Grantmakers in Health
GIH is dedicated to helping grantmakers improve the health of all people. GIH works to build understanding between health grantmakers and policymakers and helps support grantmakers in their efforts to fund policy-relevant projects. GIH communicates with health grantmakers about the relevance of public policy to their work, provides opportunities for grantmakers to learn more about specific health policy issues, and provides training and technical assistance to grantmakers about funding policy-related work. Grantmakers in Health published Strategies for Shaping Public Policy: a Guide for Health Funders by Malcolm V. Williams (2000).

Grassroots Grantmakers
Grassroots Grantmakers is a network of place-based funders in the United States and Canada who are working from a “we begin with residents” perspective – supporting active citizenship and building civic capacity at the block level in their communities with scale-appropriate grants, a highly relational style of grantmaking, and a learning orientation. Funders in this network are working to strengthen resident-controlled associations, and help people that come together because of a shared interest in improving their block, their neighborhood, or their community to be a stronger voice for change and community vitality.

Interfaith Funders
Interfaith Funders (IF) is a network of faith-based and secular grantmakers working to advance the field of congregation-based community organizing (CBCO) in order to strengthen democracy and justice. In Fall 2012, IF released Building Bridges, Building Power: Developments in Institution-Based Community Organizing, by Richard L. Wood, Brad Fulton and Kathryn Partridge. (http://www.soc.duke.edu/~brf6/ibcoreport.pdf) This report shares the findings of a national census of all institution-based community organizing efforts in the United States. The study shows the geographic spread of organizing, its growing influence in state and national political arenas, and the complex changes occurring in the religious and racial/ethnic diversity of its institutional base, leadership core, and professional staff. The report is a tool for understanding how this major social movement is addressing funders’ specific issue areas, geographic focus, and leadership development interests.

National Center for Family Philanthropy
The mission of the National Center for Family Philanthropy is to promote philanthropic values, vision, and excellence across generations of donors and donor families. NCRP seeks to ensure that these donors and their advisors have access to the highest quality information and the encouragement needed to: articulate, pursue, and achieve their charitable missions; understand and meet their governance and management needs; and have a significant, positive impact on the lives and work of those they support.

Neighborhood Funders Group
NFG’s mission is to strengthen the capacity of organized philanthropy to understand and support community-based efforts to organize and improve the economic and social fabric of low-income urban neighborhoods and rural communities. The NFG Working Group on Labor and Community Partnerships offers funders an opportunity to learn about unions and community organizations working together to create better conditions for workers and communities. In 2001 NFG produced a comprehensive, easy-to-read guidebook, Community Organizing Toolbox: A Funder’s Guide to Community Organizing, by Larry Parachini and Sally Covington, available online at: http://www.nfg.org/index.php?ht=d/Contents/contenttype_id/15/pid/2366/order/rt.

Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace
Philanthropy for Social Justice and Peace is a global network of philanthropy practitioners working to increase the impact of grantmaking for social justice and peace by: developing tools and practices to advance this field of work; shifting the narrative in philanthropy to place social justice and peace at the center; supporting a community of practice for practitioners across the globe. See Michael Seltzer’s article for the Grants Managers Network, “The Case for Using a Social Justice Lens in Grantmaking.”

Resource Generation
Resource Generation organizes young people with financial wealth to leverage resources and privilege for social change. Through community building, education and organizing, RG helps young people with wealth bring all they have and all they are to the social change movements and issues they care about. RG organizes to transform philanthropy, policy, and institutions, and leverage its members’ collective power to make lasting structural change.

Resources on Coalitions, Networks and Movement Building

Akonadi Foundation -- Ecosystem Grantmaking: A Systemic Approach to Supporting Movement Building, by Cassandra Shaylor.

Blueprint Research and Design -- Building Fields for Policy Change, by Lucy Bernholz.

Bridgespan Group -- Needle Moving Community Collaboratives: A Promising Approach to Addressing America’s Biggest Challenges, by Wilda Seldon, Michele Jolin, Paul Schmitz.

California Civic Participation Funders – Bolder Together, by William H. Woodwell, Jr.

Community Partners -- Networks That Work: A Practitioner’s Guide to Managing Networked Action by Paul Vandeventer and Myrna Mandell.

The Foundation Review -- Social Movements and Philanthropy: How Foundations Can Support Movement Building, by Barbara Masters and Torie Osborn.

Institute for Conservation Leadership -- Working Together: A Toolkit for Cooperative Efforts, Networks and Coalitions.

Management Assistance Group -- Unstill Waters; The Fluid Role of Networks in Social Movements, by Robin Katcher.

TCC Group -- What Makes An Effective Coalition? Evidence-Based Indicators of Success, by Jared Raynor.

USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity -- Transactions–Transformations–Translations: Metrics That Matter for Building, Scaling, and Funding Social Movements, by Manuel Pastor, Jennifer Ito, Rachel Rosner.

USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity -- Connecting at the Crossroads: Alliance Building and Social Change in Tough Times, by Manuel Pastor, Jennifer Ito and Rhonda Ortiz.

 

Infrastructure Groups

Alliance for Justice
The Alliance for Justice has a special website dedicated to its advocacy tools and resources, bolderadvocacy.org. These include web-based state law resources on campaign finance and ballot measures, lobbying, and voter registration issues. AFJ has produced several publications that help foundation leaders understand the tax code and legal issues related to nonprofit advocacy and provide tools for funding and evaluating advocacy and organizing, including:

 

Center for Evaluation Innovation
The Center was formed to help build the field of evaluation in multiple areas that are challenging to measure and where traditional evaluation approaches are not a good fit. This includes advocacy and policy change efforts, systems change and communications. Currently the main focus of the Center is advocacy evaluation. The Center conducts new research, shares developments in the field, develops trainings, convenes funders, advocates and evaluators, and identifies helpful resources. Publications available on the website include:


Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest
CLPI and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation jointly produced the online publication, Effective Advocacy at ALL Levels of Government.

In 2010, a new pair of resources, Foundations for Civic Impact: Advocacy and Civic Engagement Toolkit for community foundations and private foundations was jointly produced by CLPI, Council on Foundations, Rockefeller Brothers Fund and CFLeads. These toolkits provide resources a funder may need to begin funding advocacy in one easy-to-read, short document. Each toolkit contains:

  • Basic legal rules for funding advocacy and for directly engaging in advocacy;
  • Sample grant guidelines drawn from real foundations;
  • Sample grant agreement letters;
  • A grantee advocacy capacity checklist; and,
  • Funder success stories.

 

Foundation Center
In conjunction with the Center on Philanthropy & Public Policy at the University of Southern California, the Foundation Center published Foundations and Public Policy: Leveraging Philanthropic Dollars, Knowledge, and Networks for Greater Impact, James M. Ferris, editor (2009). In 2005, the Foundation Center and Independent Sector published Social Justice Grantmaking, a thorough analysis of the extent of giving for social justice in the United States. An updated report, Social Justice Grantmaking II, was released in 2009.

GrantCraft
Relevant publications include the following advocacy and organizing publications, as well as grantmaking guides on gender inclusion, racial equity and funder collaboration:

  • Advocacy Funding: The Philanthropy of Changing Minds, by Tony Proscio (2005).
  • Funding Community Organizing: Social Change through Civic Participation, by Craig McGarvey and Anne Mackinnon, produced in partnership with the Linchpin Campaign (2009).
  • Speaking Up! Foundations and Advocacy in Europe, by Lucia Montanaro (2012)

Fieldstone Alliance
Fieldstone Alliance published Power in Policy: A Funder's Guide to Advocacy and Civic Participation, edited by David F. Arons and written primarily by foundation practitioners for foundations. This book shares insights, lessons, and perspectives from foundation leaders and legal and philanthropic experts on how to engage in, talk about, and incorporate advocacy into philanthropy. It presents clearly and concisely key policy principles, legal rules, and evaluation methods and provides a toolkit for foundations to develop the capacity to engage in advocacy at their own speed and resource level. Information is available at: http://www.fieldstonealliance.org/productdetails.cfm?PC=138

Independent Sector
In 2012 Independent Sector released Beyond the Cause: The Art and Science of Advocacy, a study that identifies five essential approaches to successful advocacy and analyzes the effectiveness of advocacy on issues facing the entire nonprofit and philanthropic sector. The Nonprofit Lobbying Guide, by Bob Smucker (1999)  demonstrates the many ways charitable organizations can use lobbying to advance their causes in federal, state and local legislatures.

The Linchpin Campaign
The Linchpin Campaign, a former project of the Center for Community Change, published the book: Change Philanthropy: Candid Stories of Foundations Maximizing Results through Social Justice. The Campaign also released Untapped: How Community Organizers Can Develop and Deepen Relationships with Major Donors and Raise Big Money. A companion piece to Untapped is Seizing the Moment: Frank Advice for Community Organizers Who Want to Raise More Money.

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
In March 2009, NCRP released the Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best: Benchmarks to Assess and Enhance Grantmaker Impact, by Niki Jagpal. The chapter on Values discusses the importance of funding advocacy, organizing and civic engagement that benefits marginalized communities, broadly defined. Information about NCRP’s related Grantmaking for Community Impact Project (GCIP), including reports documenting the impact of advocacy, organizing and civic engagement, are available at http://www.ncrp.org/gcip. Other resources include the ten-page project summary, Leveraging Limited Dollars: How Grantmakers Achieve Tangible Results by Funding Policy and Community Engagement  and an online searchable directory of policy impacts. NCRP’s series of Philanthropy At Its Best reports, include:


National Council of Nonprofits
This umbrella organization for state nonprofit associations and individual nonprofits has an advocacy section of its website http://www.councilofnonprofits.org/nonprofit-advocacy/power-information with links to resources and information about advocacy, as well as a public policy section http://www.councilofnonprofits.org/policy with information about policy issues that affect the nonprofit sector.

Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity
The goal of the Philanthropic Initiative for Racial Equity (PRE) is to increase the amount and effectiveness of resources aimed at combating institutional and structural racism in communities through capacity building, education, and convening of grantmakers and grantseekers. PRE’s website offers many tools and publications to support and assess grantmaking with a racial equity lens.

Public Interest Projects
Public Interest Projects (PIP) brings together and strengthens the work of philanthropic institutions, nonprofit groups and other public interest organizations sharing a vision of a society that ensures justice, dignity and opportunity for all people. PIP manages six collaborative funds: American Dream Fund, Communities for Public Education Reform, Four Freedoms Fund, Fulfilling the Dream Fund, Racial Justice Collaborative and U.S. Human Rights Fund.

Redstone Strategy Group
In collaboration with the Western Energy Project, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and others, Redstone Strategy Group has built off of existing advocacy evaluation tools to develop a new framework for grantmakers and advocates to plan and evaluate advocacy projects. The method focuses on nine conditions that experts view as essential to a successful advocacy campaign. The methodology is described in an article, http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/assessing_advocacy?utm_source=Enews&utm_medium=email&utm_content=1&utm_campaign=from_mag. More information about the tool is available at http://www.redstonestrategy.com/advocacysupport.

TCC Group
The TCC Group develops strategies and programs to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of nonprofit organizations, philanthropies and corporate citizenship programs to achieve social impact. In January, 2009 the TCC Group published What Makes an Effective Advocacy Organization: A Framework for Determining Advocacy Capacity for the California Endowment. The paper is intended to guide nonprofits seeking to engage in advocacy, foundations that want to expand their advocacy grant making, and evaluators that assess advocacy efforts. http://www.tccgrp.com/pdfs/EffectiveAdvocacy_final.pdf

Women’s Funding Network
Women's Funding Network developed Making the Case™, a tool to measure and evaluate social change, in response to an increasing demand among member funds. The evaluation tool was field tested and refined with member funds and grantees, and the latest public version was launched in 2005.

 

Resources from Foundations

Annie E. Casey Foundation
A Guide to Measuring Advocacy and Policy, by Reisman, Gienapp, and Stachowaik, jointly published by Organizational Research Services and Annie E. Casey Foundation in 2007, can be downloaded from the website. The guide was developed to determine meaningful ways to measure and evaluate the impact of the foundation’s advocacy and public policy grantmaking.

This guide also serves as a broad call to grantmakers to build and advance the field of evaluation in this area. Past issues of AdvoCasey, a quarterly newsletter formerly published by the foundation, are available on the website, as well as other advocacy tools related to children and family issues.

The Atlantic Philanthropies
In 2008, The Atlantic Philanthropies issued a report, Investing in Change: Why Supporting Advocacy Makes Sense for Foundations. It is available for download at: http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/learning/atlantic-report/investing-change-why-supporting-advocacy-makes-sense-foundations

The California Endowment
The California Endowment has an advocacy toolkit on its website http://www.calendow.org/Article.aspx?id=1800 as well as links to two reports it commissioned, written by Blueprint Research and Design: The Challenge of Assessing Advocacy: Parts I and II. In January 2009, the foundation hosted Advocacy Evaluation Advances, a national convening on advocacy and policy evaluation attended by funders, advocates and evaluators. Materials from the convening are also available http://www.calendow.org/Article.aspx?id=3774.

Hill-Snowdon Foundation
In 2010, the Hill-Snowdon Foundation published Making the Case: Supporting Community Organizing in the Nation’s Capital.  The report introduces organizing as an effective strategy for addressing the District’s severe social challenges and calculates a return on investment for recent policy impacts achieved in DC. The foundation’s website includes other publications and videos related to social justice philanthropy.

Learn Foundation Law
In 2010, legal staff at the Packard Foundation, Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and Moore Foundation joined together to develop a comprehensive training program for their program staff on legal issues in grantmaking. The first online training module, Advocacy and Lobbying Rules for Private Foundations, is free and covers the basic legal rules for funding and engaging in advocacy at a private foundation. It takes less than an hour to complete and features “Maya,” a new program officer that leads participants through the course. Participants can also return to the training at any time for a refresher and click on the individual modules to refer back to specific topics.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation (WKKF)
W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest jointly produced the online publication, Effective Advocacy at ALL Levels of Government. It can be found at: http://www.wkkf.org/knowledge-center/resources/2008/09/Effective-Advocacy-At-All-Levels-Of-Government.aspx


Advocacy and Organizing Infrastructure Groups and Networks

Alliance for a Just Society (formerly Northwest Federation of Community Organizations)

Center for Community Change

Center for Third World Organizing

Direct Action Research and Training Center

Gamaliel Foundation

Industrial Areas Foundation

The InterValley Project

Leadership Center for the Common Good

National Organizers Alliance

National People’s Action / National Training and Information Center

People Improving Communities through Organizing

Pushback Network

Right to the City

Western Organization of Resource Councils

Western States Center

 

Academic Resources

Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University
The Annenberg Institute for School Reform (AISR) at Brown University is a national research and reform support organization. AISR promotes quality education for all children by building capacity for systemic education reform among policy-makers, district leaders, educators, parents, and community groups, especially those serving low-income neighborhoods and communities of color. AISR provides research, data analysis, capacity building, and other supports for adult and youth organizing groups working for education reform.

  • The 2009 series Organized Communities, Stronger Schools examined the impact of urban community and youth organizing on school and district capacity to promote student learning.
  • The 2011 Community Organizing as an Education Reform Strategy series further builds on this research agenda. The Strengths and Challenges of Community Organizing as an Education Reform Strategy: What the Research Says, by M. Renée and S. McAlister, was prepared for the Nellie Mae Foundation.


Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy
Housed at the University of Southern California School of Policy, Planning and Development, the Center has produced numerous relevant publications under its director, Professor James M. Ferris. These include the book Foundations and Public Policy: Leveraging Philanthropic Dollars, Knowledge and Networks for Greater Impact, published by the Foundation Center (2009) and the paper Foundation Strategy for Social Impact; A System Change Perspective (May 2009). The paper explores what system change means in the context of foundation strategy and examines how foundations can design strategies that create transformative rather than incremental change. The paper can be downloaded on the center’s website.

COMM-ORG
COMM-ORG is a website managed by Randy Stoecker at the University of Wisconsin that provides a wealth of information about community organizing theory and practice, including listings of organizations, funders, scholarly papers and book reviews, and other resources. The COMM-ORG listserve is an email forum to share updates, spark discussions, and ask questions about the field of organizing.

Harvard Family Research Project
A User’s Guide to Advocacy Evaluation Planning, by Julia Coffman (Fall 2009) http://www.hfrp.org/evaluation/publications-resources/a-user-s-guide-to-advocacy-evaluation-planning was developed for advocates, evaluators, and funders who want guidance on how to evaluate advocacy and policy change efforts. This tool takes users through four basic steps that generate the core elements of an advocacy evaluation plan, including what will be measured and how.

The Foundation Review
Housed at Grand Valley State University, The Foundation Review is the first peer-reviewed journal of philanthropy written by and for foundation staff and boards, and those who work with them implementing programs. Its mission is to share evaluation results, tools, and knowledge about the philanthropic sector in order to improve the practice of grantmaking and yield greater impact and innovation. Numerous articles touching on advocacy evaluation have been published to date.

National Conference on Citizenship
NCoC produces an annual Civic Health Index, which measures a wide variety of indicators relating to Americans’ engagement in civic life. Each year NCoC’s report explores a topical aspect of civic health. In 2011 and 2012 NCoC issue briefs on Civic Health and Unemployment found that several measures of civic engagement, as well as the density and types of nonprofits in a community, are important predictors of a community’s ability to withstand unemployment in a recession. The index and report are a cooperative effort of the NCoC, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University, and Harvard University’s Saguaro Seminar: Civic Engagement in America, as well as a Civic Health Index Working Group.

The Urban Institute
Drawing on existing resources, The Urban Institute and The Center for What Works assembled an outcome measurement tool for advocacy http://www.urbaninstitute.org/center/met/projects/upload/Advocacy.pdf, which includes an outcome sequence chart and candidate outcome indicators.


 

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