Related Resources

Measuring Impact: An Organizer’s Toolkit to Evaluate Communications Effectiveness

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Crossing Boundaries, Connecting Communities: Alliance Building for Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice

The Black Alliance for Just Immigration (BAJI) has released Crossing Boundaries, Connecting Communities: Alliance Building for Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice. 

Produced with support from the Hill-Snowdon Foundation, Open Society Institute and Public Interest Projects, this new report includes detailed case studies of organizations that are forging effective cross racial alliances between immigrant and native-born communities in order to build power and win just policies and practices in their regions.

To read more about the report, please click here.

Values to Vision to Action: The Hill-Snowdon Foundation Journey

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To commemorate its 50th anniversary since its founding, 10th anniversary of its strategic grantmaking program, and 5th anniversary of becoming an independent, staffed family foundation, the Hill-Snowdon Foundation has documented its experiences in Values to Vision to Action: The Hill-Snowdon Foundation Journey. 

Rockefeller Brothers Fund Youth and Civic Engagement Report

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In 2009, Rockefeller Brother's Fund released its 2009 Civic Youth Engagement Report.  The report, and its recommendations for the Fund's future grantmaking, followed from a series of conversations with grant partners, colleagues in philanthropy, and other stakeholders in the field of youth civic engagement.

Social Justice Organizing In the U.S. South: The Southern Scan Research Project

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What are prospects for change in the South? Is it worth investing time, energy and resources in the region? Can historic obstacles be overcome and momentum shifted to move a social justice agenda in the South?

The Institute for Southern Studies, in partnership with the Hill-Snowdon Foundation and New World Foundation, undertook an 18-month investigation into the political, economic and social landscape in the South and the state of social justice organizing in the region.  This document, Social Justice Organizing In the U.S. South:  The Southern Scan Research Project, presents their findings.

Effective Citizenry: A 15 Year Journey Towards a Social Justice Program

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Robert Sherman, former Program Officer for the Surdna Foundation's Effective Citizenry, reflects on the 15-year journey of the EC program, and social justice philanthropy.

Community Organizing for Stronger Schools Strategies and Successes

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 By Kavitha Mediratta, Seema Shah, and Sara McAlister

From the Publisher...
In cities across America, community organizations are taking up the cause of public school reform. Their efforts are radically transforming the role of young people, parents, and community members in public education. As the results of their campaigns become more visible, community groups are igniting interest and gaining support among education reform advocates, policy makers, and private foundations.

Drawing on a six-year national study, Community Organizing for Stronger Schools offers a richly textured analysis of community organizing for school reform. The authors examine the role of organizing in building social and political capital and improving educational outcomes for students in some of the nation’s most challenged school districts. They delineate the strategic choices and organizational characteristics that foster successful initiatives and consider how community organizing can support increased civic engagement and sustained educational reform. Finally, they discuss the challenges facing this burgeoning field in a new era of American politics.

To read the introduction, click on the link above.  To order the report, click here.

Measuring the Impact of Community Organizing

From the Solidago Foundation:

The story of the work Solidago supports, and the groups that are doing that work at a grassroots level, is the substance of a report ”Measuring the Impact of Community Organizing”, drawing on Solidago’s grantmaking assessment study of 2004.

It is the story of how funding strategically, and working together, can have exponential impact to build a strong, unified movement for social change that is connected across issues. It is the story of building a healthy, sustainable movement that fosters social change, human rights and the re-distribution of resources.

This study found that for every dollar Solidago invested in grantees doing community organizing for social change, these communities received an additional $59 in benefits as a result of this work. It also found that when grantees worked together, the benefits to communities are even greater.

    Work that may appear diffuse and small-scale actually was shown to have a large-scale impact when the accomplishments of independent organizations that collaborated were added together. The study showed that grassroots organizations, which worked in alliance with other organizations, were able to accomplish significantly more for their communities than those that worked in isolation.

~ Solidago Foundation

 

ReGeneration: Young People Shaping the Environmental Justice Movement

by Julie Quiroz-Martinez, Diana Pei Wu and Kristen Zimmerman
Movement Strategy Center, © 2005

ReGeneration examines the powerful visions and strategies of young people in the U.S. environmental justice movement. Movement Strategy Center interviewed groups across the country, and found that youth organizers in the environmental justice movement are creating new ways to expand leadership, build intergenerational alliances, work sustainably and bridge issue areas and communities. The groups profiled in this report offer models and strategies to reinvigorate every sector of the national progressive movement.

To read the full report, click here.

Special Edition of Fall 2003 GCYF Insight

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The FCYO and Edward W. Hazen Foundation jointly guest-edited a newsletter of Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families, a membership association of over 400 grantmaking institutions. The newsletter underscores a paradigm shift, following the emergence of positive youth development, that emphasizes authentic youth leadersip in public life. The publication includes contributions about youth organizing, youth participatory research and youth media from the Southwest Youth Collaborative, Social Policy Research Associates, Youth in Focus and Youth Communication

The Collaborative Fund Model: Effective Strategies for Grantmaking

 Discusses the Collaborative Fund for Youth-led Social Change.