Community Philanthropy

The study offers an overview of the contribution of European community foundations to achieving the SDGs. It includes a reflection on the contributions of community foundations to community sustainability and several case studies regarding the activity of community foundations and community foundation support of organizations to enhance the sustainability of local communities.

This paper provides a conceptual model that explains how competitive and institutional dynamics at the community level influence the ability of welfare-oriented nonprofits to eradicate income inequality. To test our framework, we build a large and unique 7-year panel dataset consisting of data from 245 U.S. communities. We find that an increasing number of welfare nonprofits is beneficial for reducing community inequality but this is so up to a point, after which resource competition decreases their effectiveness. This competition for resources is also present when a high density of elite-oriented nonprofits operates in the same community. Hypotheses focused on the institutional dimension receive mixed support. As predicted, welfare nonprofits are more effective when they operate in communities with strong law enforcement capabilities and less effective in politically conservative local contexts. Contrary to our expectations, however, we found that welfare nonprofits are less effective in demographically heterogeneous local contexts and when the government provides effective social policies, thus indicating a possible substitution effect. Surprisingly, nonprofit effectiveness is increased in highly financialized local contexts. Together, our results indicate that issues of competition, institutional alignment and community support in the context of grand challenges are more complex than originally thought.

Based on the county-level longitudinal data in the USA, this study finds that racial diversity is positively associated with the nonprofit sector size. We further find that the share of children below poverty level is negatively associated with the size of nonprofit sectors. Our findings support the government failure theory. Random effects models also show that federal funding and local funding are positively associated with the size of nonprofit sectors, which confirms interdependence theory. Lastly, we do not find statistically significant relationship between social capital-measured by the number of associations-and the nonprofit sector size.

Based upon the existing literatures surrounding collective action and the environmental justice frame, consciousness-raising is a social tool for community constituents facing the hazards of environmental pollution to community health. Environmental pollution is a complex phenomenon that poses grand societal challenges including global implications and locally situated contexts. We believe that locally situated social problems, such as air pollution emissions, influence the functions of community philanthropy, a means of effective collective civic action. By drawing upon resource mobilization theory and organizational ecology theory, this study aims to examine the direct effects of the social problem of environmental pollution to community health and its impact on collective resource mobilization. This is accomplished by analyzing both the organizational growth of the environmental nonprofit sector in terms of the density and aggregated resources at the community level, conceptualized here as community philanthropy. Collective civic action supports environmental activism and is embodied in the shared beliefs, values, and understandings of a community whom seek a legitimate means of collective action; these opportunities are often provided by the nonprofit sector. We also examine the moderating role of community racial diversity on this relationship. Empirical results demonstrate that in racially diverse communities, community philanthropy is facilitated when facing the social problem of increased environmental pollution. Our problem-driven research implies that community racial diversity may impact the mobilization of collective resources when dealing with locally situated social problems.

There is little doubt that most American cities are currently troubled places because of massive economic shifts that have marked the last two decades. Charitable giving has consistently been seen as the lifeblood of communities around the United States (Backman and Smith 2000). The primary purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between community composition and charitable giving. The impact of community characteristics (community composition, organizational composition, and community deterioration) on charitable revenues will be assessed using revenue data from the 2006-2007, 501(c)(3), 990, charitable organization forms along with United States county census data. One-way ANOVA and regression analysis examine the independent community composition variables as well as each block of variables and their relationships to the level of charitable revenue. Findings suggest there are important philanthropic differences across regions. In addition, independent community chara...

She has worked for nearly twenty years in various leadership roles in the nonprofit sector and within post-secondary institutions. Dr. Conway has served on a number of boards, including the Sierra Club of Canada, Ottawa Riverkeeper and Social Venture Partners Waterloo Region. Clarine Mukendi (CM): When did you first become interested in doing research on community foundations?

Winnipeg Boldness Project, an ambitious social innovation initiative seeking to create large-scale systems change for children and families in the Point Douglas neighborhood. She has worked tirelessly, primarily in Winnipeg's inner city, for initiatives that promote Indigenous People's values and ways of knowing and being. She has led many projects and organizations including as Executive Director of the

The past year has brought into sharp relief the ways in which global trends, phenomena, and crises play out in local spaces. For community foundations, like many civil society groups, this spotlight on the local has had a significant impact on the way they operate and relate to their stakeholders.

Stephanie Procyk is the Senior Manager of Research, Public Affairs, Public Policy & Evaluation at United Way Greater Toronto.  She is an experienced researcher who works on developing implementable evidence-based cross-sector solutions to pressing issues. At United Way, she has led United Way’s work on precarious employment in collaboration with McMaster University and the Poverty and Employment Precarity in Southern Ontario Research Group (PEPSO). Her work includes several high-profile reports including Building Better Business Outcomes Through Workforce Security (2017), The Opportunity Equation (2019; 2017; 2015), Getting Left Behind (2018), The Precarity Penalty (2015) and It’s More than Poverty (2013). Stephanie previously worked in consulting with Open Policy Ontario and in mental health services and labour organizing in Chicago. She completed her BA at McGill University and her Master of Public Policy at the University of Michigan Ford School of Public Policy.

Interview United Way Greater Toronto - Ruth Crammond

Ruth Crammond is the Vice President of Community Investment & Development with responsibility for a broad range of United Way investments and agency partnerships in Community Services, as well as the place-based work in our Building Strong Neighbourhoods Strategy. She joined United Way in 2014 as the Director of Community Services and Capacity Building. In that role, she oversaw the transformation to a new investment model for United Way for the largest portion of United Way investments in the community.

Ruth has many years of experience working in the community services sector in Toronto. She began her career with United Way-funded agencies, working as a summer camp counsellor at Central Neighbourhood House, and a drop-in worker in a program for homeless people at St. Christopher House. She has held several senior management roles in United Way-funded agencies, including Executive Director at Davenport-Perth Neighbourhood Centre and Director of Housing and Shelters at YWCA Toronto. Ruth holds a Bachelor of Arts from Queen’s University and a Masters of Social Work from the University of Toronto.

Based upon the existing literatures surrounding collective action and the environmental justice frame, consciousness-raising is a social tool for community constituents facing the hazards of environmental pollution to community health. Environmental pollution is a complex phenomenon that poses grand societal challenges including global implications and locally situated contexts. We believe that locally situated social problems, such as air pollution emissions, influence the functions of community philanthropy, a means of effective collective civic action. By drawing upon resource mobilization theory and organizational ecology theory, this study aims to examine the direct effects of the social problem of environmental pollution to community health and its impact on collective resource mobilization. This is accomplished by analyzing both the organizational growth of the environmental nonprofit sector in terms of the density and aggregated resources at the community level, conceptualized here as community philanthropy. Collective civic action supports environmental activism and is embodied in the shared beliefs, values, and understandings of a community whom seek a legitimate means of collective action; these opportunities are often provided by the nonprofit sector. We also examine the moderating role of community racial diversity on this relationship. Empirical results demonstrate that in racially diverse communities, community philanthropy is facilitated when facing the social problem of increased environmental pollution. Our problem-driven research implies that community racial diversity may impact the mobilization of collective resources when dealing with locally situated social problems.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between social capital and collective action at the county level in the US while incorporating the moderating effects of community racial diversity and urbanity and to find the changing effects of social capital on philanthropic collective action for community education.
Design/methodology/approach – This paper employs a quantitative research design. The dependent variable measures philanthropic collective action for community education while the independent variable for social capital is measured as a community level index. Moderating variables include a community racial diversity index and urbanity. This analysis tests and interprets interaction effects using moderated multiple regression (MMR), with the baselines of MMR being grounded to multivariate ordinary least squares (OLS) regression. Analyses are carried out in the context of the USA during 2006 and 2010, with US counties employed as the unit of analysis.
Findings – The effects of social capital on philanthropic contributions decline in counties with low- and mid-levels of racial diversity. On the contrary, the effects of social capital increase in highly racially diverse counties. The three-way interaction model result suggests that racial diversity positively moderates social capital on philanthropic collective action for community education where the effect of social capital is strong and positive in highly racially diverse urban communities.
Originality/value – This research complicates the notion that social capital and racial diversity are negatively associated when exploring collective action and community education, and suggests effects of social capital varies with moderating effects on philanthropic collective action for community education.

The deadlocks of the traditional criminal justice systems are reflected in the reproduction of the multiple and complex social inequalities, the high rates of reoffending and recidivism, the underrepresentation of the victims’ voices, and the overpopulated prisons.  In this paper, I thoroughly analyze the Restorative Justice case through an evidence-based perspective. I examine the deadlocks of the criminal justice systems by employing recent statistics from the Council of Europe (SPACE I and II). After I review the state of the art, I present the new trends of positive psychology and positive criminology in corrections. Focused mostly in Restorative Justice, either as social movement or a trend within criminology and the formal criminal justice systems, I identify the strengths and weakness of Restorative Justice on theoretical, methodological and policy level.  I conclude with suggestions of a new model of Restorative Justice that brings together theory, research and practice in the criminal justice policies. The need for inter- and trans- disciplinary approaches and synergies is also stressed in the paper’s conclusions.

The presence of a significant nonprofit sector and social cohesion (the level at which citizens trust, talk to and help neighbors, and socialize with family and friends) are each valuable in preventing unemployment at the level of states and large metro areas.