Nonprofits come in all different shapes and sizes. They have different program and geographic areas, staff and budget sizes, and approaches to their work. They also have something important in common: the need to be a healthy organization to effectively provide services, conduct research, and adapt to emerging needs. But what is the best way…
Launched in 2014, the Hewlett Foundation’s Madison Initiative focuses on strengthening democracy and its institutions – Congress, in particular – to be more effective in a polarized age. The initiative is nonpartisan in approach and supports grantees across the ideological spectrum – think tanks, advocacy groups, academic researchers and civic leadership organizations – who seek…
Leave it to Duncan Green, development expert at Oxfam Great Britain and author of “How Change Happens,” to spur me to action. Recently he put a challenge to funders in an essay, “Local think tanks are natural allies in ‘Doing Development Differently’ so why not support them better?” Yes! That is just what I was …
Ryan Alexander joined Taxpayers for Common Sense as president in 2006, after serving on its board for more than seven years. Founded in 1995, the organization acts as a nonpartisan budget watchdog that serves as an independent voice for American taxpayers. With a grant from our Cyber Initiative, Taxpayers for Common Sense recently produced a Cyber Spending Database …
“We really appreciate that the whole world is here, and that we are all supporting OER development,” Dr. Maja Makovec Brenčič, Slovenia’s minister of education, science and sport, said to me recently at the 2nd World OER Congress. It was the second morning of a three-day convening held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which drew over 550 …
Today the Trump administration proposed to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the nation’s first carbon regulations for power plants. It’s the wrong direction for our country, for our economy, and for the public’s health and welfare. It’s also out of step with what the public wants. The problem of climate change is real and urgent. …
When you invite young people to the table, be prepared for some serious truth-telling. This is what happened when I attended the creative youth development national stakeholder meeting in Boston this summer. Shoulder to shoulder with teachers of art, the humanities and science, we gathered to craft a policy agenda for a newly-defined field — …
Editor’s note: On September 28, 2017, the U.S. Agency for International Development hosted “Evidence Day,” as part of Global Innovation Week. The Hewlett Foundation was one of several sponsors for the event, which drew approximately 1,700 participants from across government, academia, policy research organizations and social enterprises. Following are remarks offered at the closing session by …
On September 20, 2009, I walked into the Hewlett Foundation as a brand new program officer in our Global Development and Population Program. Exactly eight years and some 265 grants later, I would “graduate” from the position and the foundation. The Hewlett Foundation is pretty unique among foundations to set term limits for program staff. …
TripAdvisor, Yelp and Amazon have made profitable businesses out of crowdsourcing information and opinions, while FixMyStreet, U-Report and Map Kibera have barely made it out of the starting gate in their efforts to channel citizen pressure to improve public services, like health, education, water and sanitation. Are there lessons that private digital review platforms can teach organizations working to increase social good? That’s what we’re …