Jennifer Landres, Project Manager

We’ve all heard the term “millennials”—that catchall phrase being used to describe the 50 million Americans from ages 18-29 that are the children of babyboomers. They’re quite different from their parent’s generation—less religious, far more transient and probably much more comfortable integrating new technological advances into their day-to-day life.

Do these differences translate into a different approach to philanthropy?

Like most individual donors and like most younger donors from previous generations, millennials are currently micro-givers, meaning that they give around $50 to $300 a year. While this might sound relatively insignificant compared to the gifts made on the Million Dollar List, there’s power in numbers—if every millennial just gave $50 a year, their collective giving power would be $2.5 billion, which is certainly enough to generate some high impact!

According to Derrick Feldmann, CEO of Achieve, and Dvorit Mausner, Associate Director of the Penn Fund during their Chronicle on Philanthropy’s webinar “How to Attract Next Generation Donors,” millennials often first hear about nonprofits the same way many older donors do: peers. Their peers may be communicating via relatively new tools—e.g., via a text, in an email, or through social media. However, the importance of peers for millennial givers corresponds to the Center’s finding in our I’m Not Rockefeller study where the older donor participants named peers as the single most trusted resource for information. High net worth participants told us that they “obtain the majority of information related to giving from peer networks of friends, business associates, and most importantly, from other philanthropists.”

Feldman also pointed out that while millennials use the web or  mobile technology to learn more about the nonprofits mentioned by peers, the majority of them are not doing their actual giving through these vehicles. According to Feldmann’s 2012 Millennial Donors Engagement Survey (due out next month), 80% use smartphones or mobile devices to connect with and learn about giving opportunities, only 15% are utilizing this same technology or mobile apps to actually give (excluding major disasters such as the earthquake in Haiti). While it’s true that on-the-go micro-giving is a rising trend, both Feldmann and Mausner maintained in the webinar that young donors are still giving the most through in-person exchanges and dynamic, event-style fundraising. Mausner‘s experience with “YPenn,” a group for recent Penn graduates and young alumni, shows the greatest successes in engaging millennial donors start with a conversation, face-to-face interaction, and peer endorsement.

Millennials prefer to “learn alone, but give together.” – Mausner

So while it might be easy to assume that the fastest way to a millennial’s heart is via his or her smartphone, it probably makes more sense to slow down and consider that this younger generation wants that person-to-person connection as much as the next donor. For us though, the real question will be: Can millennials achieve greater social impact than previous generations of donors? Because if they can, that’s a difference all generations can be proud of.

We are updating our schedule to Mondays for News and Events and Wednesdays for our weekly staff series and interview Q & A’s. We’d also like to hear from you about topics of interest for future blogs. Please contact impact@sp2.upenn.edu or post in the comment section with your input.

Tune in to hear Kat Rosqueta on The Business of Giving radio show (WOR Radio 710 AM) this Saturday, June 2nd from 8pm-9pm.

Healthcare and Malnutrition

Realigning Health with Care: A recent SSIR article, co-written by Rebecca Onie, Paul Farmer, and Heidi Behforouz, discusses the problems facing U.S. healthcare while providing examples of alternative health care delivery models. Our Center’s work from the book chapter “Philanthropy and Its Impact on Urban Women’s Health” in Women’s Health and the World’s Cities is highlighted.

Washington University Receives $8.3 Million From Gates Foundation for Malnutrition Initiative: The Breast Milk, Gut Microbiome, and Immunity Project of the Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology at Washington University will explore the relationships between food, intestinal microbes, and the immune system.

Kate Hovde, Senior Analyst

Education Notes from Kate Hovde

District Grant Contest Unveiled: The latest round of the federal Race to the Top competition for education funding was announced this week,. This rounds opens the competition to school districts, and will favor plans that outline ways to increase the individualization of learning, as well as address the needs of particularly at-risk groups, including low income students, those with special needs, and English language learners.

Giving Pledgers Tackle Impact Investing

Spreading gospels of wealth: Members of the Buffett/Gates-led Giving Pledge met in Santa Barbara earlier this month to continue discussions around collective giving and public-private partnerships. This meeting’s hot topic was impact investing.

We’d also like to hear from you about topics of interest for future blogs. Please contact impact@sp2.upenn.edu or post in the comment section with your input.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!

“I first met Flo over 15 yrs ago when she headed the California Association of Nonprofits (CAN), then again when I keynoted the 30th anniversary of the Center for Nonprofit Management; and can attest to her personal energy, commitment and vision to strengthen the field. Her presence, knowledge, and contributions will be sorely missed.”- Kat Rosqueta, Executive Director

A memorial site has been created for those wishing to learn about the life of Flo Green and to pay their respects.

Education Notes from Kate Hovde

Kate Hovde, Senior Analyst

‘Chronically Absent’ Students Skew School Data: A NY Times article this week on student attendance illustrates the importance of not only what data you track, but how you track, and even more importantly, what you do with the information. It is a known fact that students with multiple absences are at risk for falling behind academically and dropping out. Systems and mechanism for identifying those students early on and strategies to get them back in school are key, given the high personal and societal cost of dropout.

The ABCs of Beating Obesity: Continuing the cross-sectoral theme from last week, a report last week from the Institute of Medicine points to the role of schools in combatting the dramatic rise in child obesity by helping to ensure children get sufficient exercise and good nutrition. Meanwhile, under the combined pressures of increasing academic test scores and budget cuts, many districts have been cutting back on physical education and recess. Yet these cuts may in fact be counterproductive to academic performance, as growing research connects exercise with better mental performance and concentration (as any kindergarten teacher can probably tell you). In some cases, parents and other donors are stepping in to try to fill the gap.

News from our Models in Practice

Penn to team up with West Philly KIPP Schools: Penn is first Ivy to formally partner with the KIPP network of charter schools to strengthen college attendance and graduation. Our Center first discussed KIPP’s example of how charter schools can change children’s lives in Pathways to Student Success (p.40), and mentioned again as a successful whole-school reform model in our guide on High Impact Philanthropy to Improve Teaching Quality (p.57).

The KIPP model relies on significantly extended structured learning time, explicit expectations of college degree attainment, character education, and contracts among parents, teachers, and principals to do whatever it takes to ensure student success. KIPP schools serve a predominantly low-income, at-risk student population.

The Power of Nursing: David Bornstein’s Fixes column highlights Nurse-Family Partnership, an organization with a home-visitation model that we have continued to highlight in our guidance.

Nonprofits and Philanthropy

Social Media Use Grows at Nonprofits: The  4^th Annual Nonprofit Social Network Benchmark Report from NTEN, Common Knowledge and Blackbaud reveals stats social media use among nonprofits. Of the more than 3,500 nonprofits surveyed, some key findings are: 98% use facebook, 72% use twitter, while only 44% use LinkedIn.

Corporate Philanthropy Falls Short: The Council on Foundations has released a report, Increasing impact, Enhancing Value: A Practitioner’s Guide to Leading Corporate Philanthropy. The report suggests five ways that corporate philanthropy can improve its impact.

Nonprofit Finance Fund’s State of the Sector Surveys: The Nonprofit Finance Fund has released its second annual survey, this year with responses from more than 4,500 nonprofits, with support from the Bank of America Charitable Foundation. Some key findings: 85% of nonprofits experienced an increase in the demand for services in 2011 and 88% expect an increase in demand for services in 2012.

It’s mid-May, students are graduating and many people are making plans for the summer. In fact, it’s a great time to start preparing your summer reading list and I’d like to recommend It Ain’t What You Give, It’s The Way That You Give It by Caroline Fiennes, a donor advisor and the Director of Giving Evidence, based in the U.K. The book, released in March 2012, is available from www.giving-evidence.com/book.

I’m also pleased to share my interview with the author, as she discusses issues in philanthropy such as why giving based on overhead/admin costs is “bollocks”, the value of systemic impact, and selection bias in evaluation—while also covering things such as her passion for medieval choral music, thoughts on gender imbalance at the World Economic Forum, and what economists can learn from high impact philanthropy.

Are you concerned that readers will read the book’s “10-Minute Guide to Supporting Charities” and assume they don’t need to read the rest of the book?

Fiennes: No. It’s rather the other way round: I know that lots of people only read the first few pages of a book (they’re waiting for somebody in a bookshop, they find it on a friend’s kitchen table etc.) and since I’m keen that even they get the key messages, I put them upfront in the 10-minute guide. There is of course loads more detail in the rest of the book, as well are more stories and jokes.

You make an important distinction between effectiveness (improving the world) and efficiency (lack of waste). Do you think these terms are overused or misused by both donors and organizations?

Fiennes: Yeah, I think that people focus too much on lack of waste (and they conflate “admin” or “overheads” with waste, when actually it’s often totally different), and not enough on what the charity actually achieves: its “effectiveness”, or what an economist might call its productivity.

I’m really angered when I see charities flaunting the low-ness of their admin costs (as WaterAid did) because it feeds the notion that admin = waste and should be minimised: and

• (a) that’s bollocks, and
• (b) it’s dangerous bollocks because converse is true, and
• (c) therefore most charities spend their lives trying to disabuse donors of this dangerous notion.

Of course, reducing waste is important. Of course. But it is impossible to see waste from outside an organisation, so we should never encourage donors to try, and it anyway doesn’t tell you much: a charity with a terrible theory of change, or doing something which doesn’t need to be done, but with no waste isn’t going to do a good job.

In reference to breadth vs. certainty, you encourage donors to support work that has a high risk of failure but has the greatest capacity for impact. Is there a certain donor profile you’re thinking of for this type of support?  For example, a high net worth individual, giving circle, foundation, corporate philanthropy, large service organization, all of the above?

Fiennes: Not particularly. I’ve explained this to people who give £millions and people who give £10—companies and individuals—and they’ve all understood it and liked it. People giving at any scale can understand the value in systemic impact.

For instance, Obama’s Presidential campaign was financed in large part by regular “retail” donors giving a few dollars: without needing to take sides on his presidency, you can see that changing the president is quite a “bottom of the triangle” way to change a nation, and loads of regular people responded.

The triangle is relevant to any donor because they all need to be aware of their options, and the choices they’re making. Same reason I explain what theories of change are.

It also speaks to the point above about waste, actually. People sometimes think that spending on advertising is “waste”. But in the case of charities of charities advertising to get people to avoid getting skin cancer, or to be more aware of the needs of disabled people (or a million other virtuous examples), that isn’t waste at all. It’s an effective intervention.

Source: It Ain’t What You Give, It’s The Way That You Give It (Fiennes, 2012)

What type of market (or other) research did you perform before or during the writing of this book? Did you learn anything particularly surprising or were certain long-held theories or beliefs merely confirmed?

Fiennes: Ha ha. Well, I have worked advising donors and funders for years, and been a charity CEO, so I started out thinking that I knew this stuff and would just write it down. Through my research—which comprised talking to lots of people, and reading quite a lot—I learnt absolutely masses.

Two of the three main influences on this book were people/disciplines I’d never encountered when I started writing: one is Professor Dean Karlan (Innovations for Poverty Action-IPA, MIT’s Poverty Action Lab J-PAL) the whole “movement” to bring scientific, randomised evaluations into development work; and the other was Dr. Ben Goldacre, through whose book about medicine I learnt masses about social science research and where data collection goes wrong (e.g., selection bias, confirmation bias, publication bias). Those areas are obviously related—in fact, Dean, Ben and I had dinner together. In terms of rigorous assessment of the effectiveness of various ways of “doing things to other people”, medicine is way out front, the international development are learning and doing a lot, but the domestic charity sector is at the back.

I’m now genuinely shocked that I thought I was an expert in this stuff and didn’t even know about selection bias—which renders many “evaluations” totally useless. But there are lots of other people in the charity world who also claim to be experts in evaluation/impact who don’t understand it—and that is shocking. Even Goldman Sachs doesn’t seem to understand it.

Completely unrelated to philanthropy: What kind of music are you into these days?

Fiennes: One of my big passions is medieval choral music(!) My husband went away for two months last year, and I bought the complete works of Thomas Tallis and sat down to write! Tallis is even thanked in the acknowledgements, and there’s a reference to cathedral music in the book somewhere.

And my weird attachment to (cheesy 1980s popband) Starship has recently been rekindled, courtesy of the Muppets movie!

There was an interesting Economist article, Mick Jagger’s Davos Top Ten, on last year’s World Economic Forum in Davos at which Mick Jagger was the hot celebrity guest. The article’s author, Matthew Bishop, plays on the Rolling Stones tune “Some Girls” as a commentary on the gender imbalance at the conference. Do you have plans to break into the World Economic Forum or have you already?

Fiennes: I have not been, though would be happy to. Gender is an issue: I remember the Chair of an endowed UK foundation noting that “the trustees are all men in their 50s onwards, but the staff are all women in their 20s and 30s.” Actually, that’s not so much  gender itself as the fact that many boards want trustees with significant business experience, which is a skew against women. (See, that’s selection bias right there! It’s everywhere, honestly.)

What do you think is the most important thing that economists can learn from those of us working on the impact of philanthropy?

Fiennes: I’d like to see much more sophistication in the debate about impact, for which we clearly need people from many disciplines. The philanthro-sector can learn much from economists: it’s not by accident that the rigorous evaluations in development are done by people called “development economists”.

The challenge to economists obviously is that much of what the social sector does isn’t readily quantified / isn’t at all relevant to price / comes in non-interchangeable units (e.g., education advances & cultural deepening) / occurs over a range of timescales.

And we can learn much from medicine and the physical sciences as I’ve mentioned.

Anything you’d like to add?

Fiennes: As BBC Children in Need—a large & progressive UK grant-maker—were kind enough to write on the cover, this is “the book which charities want donors to read” because it explains the importance of all the things we always ask: unrestricted, long-term giving with help but not meddling etc. So many charities are recommending it to their donors.

I’ve had people question the book, disbelieving that donors will really do what I’m asking. To which I’d respond with two observations. One is that donors will do this: I was this morning with a donor I’m advising who, having read it, is doing only unrestricted grants of $00,000s for several years, has ceased looking at admin costs, and is now more than happy to pay for evaluations alongside. And the other is the stream of people who write to me saying things like “I had no idea that this was in the public domain”, or “I’m totally changing my giving now”.

Read more about It Ain’t What You Give, It’s the Way That You Give It at  www.giving-evidence.com/book.

Kate Hovde, Senior Analyst

Two studies mentioned in EdWeek had us thinking about the importance of thinking (and acting) across sectors:

1. The Ongoing Impact of Foreclosures on Children, from First Focus, a Washington advocacy group and written by a Brookings scholar, looks at the ongoing and potential educational effects of home foreclosures. According the report, one in ten children in the U.S. are being directly affected by foreclosures. The stress and dislocation associated with moving, and in some cases homelessness, has been shown to negatively affect children’s educational outcomes and social development.
2. Kindergarten Readiness and Performance of Latino Children Participating in Reach out and Read looked at the Reach Out and Read program, which has pediatricians “prescribe” reading to families with small children during clinic visits starting at six months, in this case for largely a low income Latino population. The program also provides access to books. The study found that despite 37-45% of participating children to be “at-risk” for reading difficulties at the first clinic-based assessment by the end of kindergarten, 60% of participating children were at an intermediate or proficient level of reading and teachers rated 77% of participating children as average or above compared to classmates.

Increasing Young Children’s Contact With Print During Shared Reading: Longitudinal Effects on Literacy Achievement: Recent randomized controlled trials (RCT) that compared programs to teach teachers to make visual connections to text while they were reading to a control group. Program students showed higher levels of literacy two years after intervention—a relatively simple thing to teach parents and teachers to do.

What Strategies Work for the Hard-to-Employ? The research firm MDRC released this week the final results of a ten-year study of eight programs designed to help hard-to-employ populations (including ex-offenders, welfare recipients, and substance abusers). Of the eight programs examined, three showed at least short-term increases in employment, others showed improvements for a sub-group of participants, and three showed no effects. Among the most important findings for donors: programs that combined employment with other services (health services or treatment, training, access to childcare, etc.) did better than those that focussed on employment alone.

Mom’s and Children

Mother’s Day Giving: In case you missed it, we’ve got some ideas on how to make a high impact gift in honor of mom.

• Catch up on Friday’s Mother’s Day tweetchat, hosted by JHPIEGO, by following the #itstartswithmoms twitter hashtag.

Most Deaths In Children Under 5 From Preventable Infectious Causes, Study Suggests: New study reveals that almost two-thirds of deaths in young children around the world are from infectious causes (pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria, measles). Pneumonia is the leading cause of death. 40% of the 7.6 million deaths occur in the first 28 days of life. The vast majority of these deaths could be prevented with existing tools. The study highlights the high need areas for donors to target.

Carol McLaughlin, Research Director

Gift giving can be tricky. Do I give her something she needs? Or something she wants, but won’t—or can’t—ask for?

At a recent TEDxChange event, Melinda Gates made the “uncontroversial” statement that all parents want what’s best for their children. What mothers around the world want is exactly what we all need to prosper: safe, healthy environments where mothers and their children have the opportunity to reach their full potential. So this Mother’s Day, consider one of the following high impact philanthropic gifts. Each enables our communities’ most vulnerable mothers and their children to survive and thrive:

Support New Mothers Through Home Visits

Image Source: Nurse-Family Partnership.

Home visitation by community health workers can play a critical role in breaking down barriers to access prenatal care for mothers in the developing world. For example, in their program called Manoshi, BRAC’s community health workers ensure healthy pregnancies and delivery in the poor areas of urban Dhaka, Bangladesh. (Read an excerpt from this Case Example.)

In the U.S., Nurse-Family Partnership has shown impressive health and development outcomes for vulnerable first-time moms and children. By partnering a trained nurse with a mother during pregnancy until her child’s second birthday, families are empowered to give their children a healthy start to life.

Ensure Access to Tools That Keep Moms Healthy Before, During, and After Pregnancy

Women holding insecticide-treated bednets received during antenatal care in
Madagascar. Image by Alisha Horowitz via Jhpiego

Facilitated mothers groups can supply women with the knowledge and tools to stay healthy during pregnancy. For example, through JHPIEGO‘s supported networks, malaria’s burden is decreased by ensuring that pregnant women have access to prevention measures such as insecticide treated bednets and medications.

Similarly, using a private sector franchise model, groups such as Marie Stopes International (MSI) are enabling families to plan their pregnancies though access to safe, effective contraception. Melinda Gates also discussed the important health and social benefits such access can bring in her TEDxChange talk. Filling the unmet need for contraception access to the more than 200 million women who desire family planning could decrease maternal deaths by 25 percent and neonatal deaths by 18 percent. (See the Family Planning Fact Sheet.)

One last suggestion

Designate your philanthropic gift in honor of your own mother, writing her a note sharing how she inspired your gift. She may never have asked for such recognition. She may say she doesn’t need it. But, if she’s like our mothers, it’s something she richly deserves.

Community Health and Well-Being

U.S. health centers for poor, uninsured see ranks swell: New report shows that nonprofit community health centers continue to see rising numbers of needy patients up from 17 million to 20 million in the last four years. These safety net clinics meet a critical need for low-income and uninsured Americans. See our analysis for how this model delivers care effectively and cost-efficiently.

Science in Action—Teen Violence Prevention Keeps It Real: The Briana and Damon project out of Penn’s School of Nursing is focused on evidenced-based research being deployed in communities.

If I Ran Philanthropy in China, I would __________

“If I Ran Philanthropy:” Dawning Philanthropy in China Poses Interesting Question for U.S.: Dean Gelles of the School of Social Policy & Practice talked with the Philadelphia Inquirer about the rise of philanthropy in China and poses the following questions to donors in the United States:

• If the whole concept and possibility of philanthropy were just dawning in the U.S., what would you want to see done differently?
• What should China look to adopt—or eschew—as it looks at other nations’ approach to philanthropy?

Please respond by commenting on this blog post or by emailing us at impact@sp2.upenn.edu. If you’re up for a challenge of answering in less than 140 characters, tweet your answer to us at @impactsp2 with the hashtag #IfIRanPhilanthropy.

For Chinese, lessons in Philanthropy 101 at Penn: Tianxue Qiu of Beijing, China, and graduate of the Master of Science  Nonprofit/NGO Leadership program in Penn’s School of Social Policy & Practice, hosted groups of Chinese officials eager to learn Philanthropy 101, U.S.-style.

Good Radio

Child Welfare: Protecting children’s interests: Dean Gelles of the School of Social Policy & Practice joins Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane to discuss the tragic death of 6-year-old Khalil Wimes, who was allegedly starved and beaten to death by his parents.

Mark Birdsall, Director of Youth Programs at the Triskeles Foundation will discuss their “Food for All” program with host Mike McGrath on “You Bet Your Garden”, Saturday, May 5th between 11am – 12pm EST.

An Intervention for College Attendance

H&R Block College Financial Aid Application Assistance: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) showed a 29% increase in likelihood of college attendance for two consecutive years. Read the full evidence summary at the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy.

“I had my most fulfilling on-campus job experience at the Center for High Impact Philanthropy.”- Melanie Lei, Health & Societies/English, Penn SAS Class of 2012

“Through my work at CHIP I have learned that simply giving philanthropic dollars is not enough; it is imperative that donors and nonprofits alike think in terms of impact. I’ve especially enjoyed exploring the dynamic between individual and institutional funders and designing forums to foster mutual learning between the two. I am attending NYU Law School beginning this fall and hope to combine my interest in philanthropy with my law studies.”- Alex Zabierek, Philosophy, Politics, Economics/Urban Studies, Penn SAS Class of 2012

Source: Penn Almanac’s Photostream on Flickr

May is always a bittersweet time of year at the Center, as we say goodbye to another crop of graduating students in the Class of 2012.  Since 2006, the year of our Center’s founding, we’ve relied on research help from undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral students—many from the University of Pennsylvania—and others from Temple University and Thomas Jefferson. While our research assistants are majoring in diverse disciplines—economics, business, education, health, English, nursing, social policy—all of their interests seem to converge into one theme: social impact.

Penn is a rich environment to pursue an interest in social impact. Programs such as the School of Social Policy & Practice’s Nonprofit/NGO Leadership Program and the Wharton Program for Social Impact, as well as student groups and organizations such as Givology and the Wharton MBA Social Impact Club provide opportunities for those who wish to learn how their studies and career interests will best serve the needs of disadvantaged communities. Center staff members also lecture for classes in these programs and in doing so often recruit new student members onto our team for various domestic and international research projects. For example, student researchers have been instrumental in developing guidance for donors in the wake of the disasters in Japan and Haiti, and their analytical skills, energy and creativity have enhanced all our work, including in the area of graphic design!

Many of our current and graduating students have gone on to internships and staff positions at an impressive list of organizations, including: Arabella Advisors, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Broad Foundation, Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Co, Abt Associates, Google, and McKinsey & Company. Others have started social enterprises (Numa) and joined new social ventures (UpLift Solutions) around healthy foods. A few have continued their studies in PhD programs in positive psychology, anthropology, and evaluation for education programs. Others are charging ahead in community engagement, such as teaching adolescent and reproductive health in community centers and hospitals.

When we think about our impact as a Center, we think not only about helping dollars flow to where they can do the most good, but also our role in preparing these talented, committed young people to make a positive social impact, no matter their chosen career. To our graduating students and Center alumni, we wish you all the best, and look forward to staying in touch!

And now, a word from our CHIP’s Off the Block!

“CHIP is a gem of an organization where I had the pleasure of learning from brilliant, passionate, and caring people, where I was encouraged to tailor my projects so that I could leverage my skills and knowledge to offer my best to our team, and where, above all, I was respected and loved for who I am. Anyone who has the privilege and honor to work with CHIP can be sure to leave Penn with more meaning, accomplishment, and purpose in their lives.”- Alejandro Adler, Positive Psychology, Penn SAS/Wharton Class of 2010

“During my two years as an intern at CHIP, I not only learned a tremendous amount, but I also felt valued for the unique skills I brought to the team. CHIP’s multidisciplinary perspective on how nonprofits function prepared me brilliantly for the both maddening and exciting nonprofit world where I now work.”- Liore Klein, Planned Parenthood, Penn SAS Class of 2011

“CHIP and I were toddlers together. I watched and helped CHIP stand up with the earliest research team. I watched and helped CHIP toddle forward, step by step, with its first research product, first report. CHIP watched me as I stood and toddled forward into society. I was there for the coldest winter days, and the pancake farewell breakfast. I don’t know what I gave to CHIP. But I know what CHIP gave me: A social awareness and a first-rate education on how to be a human citizen.”- Mickey Jou, Penn SAS Class of 2006

“Working at CHIP as an undergrad helped shape my thinking about post-graduate life in a lot of ways. By working with an inspiring team on important social impact issues, I became more focused on choosing companies and roles that drive a lot of impact.” Lisa Jiang, Google, Wharton Class of 2008

“I miss the camaraderie at CHIP, and the thoughtful discussions during the ’roundtable’ discussions in Kat’s office.”- Minh Chau (Downturn and Haiti cover designer), Harvard Business School Class of 2015, Penn Class of 2011

“The Center for High Impact Philanthropy complemented my graduate coursework by giving me experience with policy-related research—experience that was key when applying for jobs in the evaluation field after school.”- Lizzie Copson, Abt Associates, Penn Design Class of 2009

“My time at CHIP provided a sneak peak into the world of development and public health research. It helped me narrow my focus academically and professionally.”- Jelena Djordjevic, Bain & Company, Penn Class of 2009

“My time at CHIP provided a wonderful opportunity to learn from passionate, warm leaders in the social impact sector.”- James Liu, Google, Wharton Class of 2008

“I shadowed Kat as part of my Master’s in Nonprofit Leadership. Kat and the rest of the CHIP staff ask incisive questions, pursue a deep knowledge of each issue area they explore and have a genuine passion that sets them apart. Kat demonstrates her business acumen and social responsibility with grace and sensitivity. She was a fantastic mentor and is an excellent nonprofit leader.”- Katie Truitt Sharafi, Co-Creator at Mothergood Inc./Numa, Penn SP2/Wharton/Fels Class of 2008, Penn SAS Class of 2002

“I loved the people I met through working at CHIP; my experience there exposed me to a whole new sector of people making impact!”- Mimi Sheng, Urban Studies/Finance, Penn/Wharton Class of 2013

“My internship at CHIP far exceeded my expectations. I learned more than I thought I would about the philanthropic world, and I could not think of a better way to spend a summer.”- Jenna Ackerman, Economics, Penn SAS Class of 2013

Fewer people registering for Susan G. Komen races: Article explores why some longtime nonprofit supporters chose to leave, with comments from our executive director, Kat Rosqueta.

What constitutes good evidence? On Freedom from Hunger’s The Evidence Project blog, Chris Dunford discusses evaluation methodology and how it must extend beyond the standard of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and incorporate more mixed methods approaches, mentioning our 3 circles approach of research, field experience, and informed opinion.

Not all who wander are lost: Every year, our Center must release a few research assistants into the world after graduation—we’re happy to have exposed these emerging leaders to ways in which they can achieve social impact in their respective fields. Melanie Lei, our research assistant graduating with class of 2012, gives the Center a nice mention in the Daily Pennsylvanian.

Education Notes from Kate Hovde

Kate Hovde, Senior Analyst

Studies Test for Ways to Spot Good Teachers: The Gates Foundation’s Measures of Effective Teaching (MET) Study (which we referenced in our report on High Impact Philanthropy to Improve Teaching Quality) continues to offer both hope and frustration for donors, policy makers, and practitioners anxious to find more reliable means of evaluating teachers.

The latest: many if not most existing systems of teacher evaluation, including those that incorporate value-added scores that link teacher performance to student performance on tests, don’t do a great job of distinguishing effective and ineffective teaching practices.

Some hope: research done by Ronald Ferguson at Harvard as part of the MET study indicates that students (at least at the secondary level) may have a better grasp of what’s working. Teachers graded highly by students on a series of seven characteristics and practices had students who made better learning progress than students taught by teachers who were graded poorly.

Social Entrepreneurs Try to Offer Solutions to K-12 Problems: An interesting and accessible article on social entrepreneurship in the education space.

Scaling Local Impact

In Boston, a Fund Seeks Promising Nonprofits to Tackle Social Ills: The GreenLight Fund, founded in Boston in 2003 which 1) identifies critical social needs within local communities and 2) funds nonprofits that address those needs, is now expanding into San Francisco and our own backyard in Philadelphia.

Food Deserts

Time to Revisit Food Deserts: David Bornstein revisits his recent New York Times Fixes column “Conquering Food Deserts with Green Carts” and looks deeper into the issue of whether access to healthy food is as serious a problem due to recent studies by the Public Policy Institute of California and the RAND Corporation which suggest otherwise.