Watch the recent Bill Moyers and Company show including a segment with  Marshall Ganz of the Hauser Center on why social movements matter.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-how-people-power-generates-change

The video of the recent panel debate sponsored by the Ash Institute and co-sponsored by the Hauser Center, featuring Christine Letts from the Hauser Center, is now posted here.  What Are Foundations For ?

Judge Richard Posner suggests that foundations are “total scandals” because they lack market or electoral accountability. Foundations also operate without significant transparency requirements, elevate the preferences of wealthy individuals across generations, and are recipients of generous tax breaks.  In this final Ash Center Democracy Seminar of the Spring 2013 semester, Rob Reich explored the role of foundations in democratic societies. He argued that foundations can gain legitimacy in spite of their plutocratic power, through their work in supporting pluralism and in long-run social policy innovation. Phil Buchanan, Christine Letts, and Eric Beerbohm offered remarks and Archon Fung served as moderator.

Social Innovation and Government: Approaches from the UK

 Executive Director, Government Innovation Group,

UK Cabinet Office

Please join us May 8 2013 for an event hosted jointly by the Initiative for Responsible Investment at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University and the Center for Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

12:00 – 1:30 PM

Belfer Building, Weil Town Hall, Lobby Level

Harvard Kennedy School

Light refreshments will be served

FRONTLINE WITH FACULTY SERIES

Designing International NGO Governance

The video of this session is now available for viewing.  Please click here to access the recording.

ALNOOR EBRAHIM | Associate Professor of Business Administration, HBS

Thursday, Apr 25 | 4:15 – 5:15 pm
Belfer, Weil Town Hall, Lobby Level, Harvard Kennedy School

Alnoor Ebrahim will speak on the challenges of designing the governance structures of international NGOs engaged in policy advocacy. He will discuss cases of ten global organizations that have restructured the relationships between their international headquarters and their national units or members over the past decade. In doing so, they have innovated with the core problem of how to increase central authority while maintaining local legitimacy. This work is part of a research project jointly conducted with colleagues L. David Brown and Srilatha Batliwala.

Alnoor Ebrahim is an Associate Professor in the General Management Unit, and in the Social Enterprise Initiative, at the Harvard Business School. His research and teaching focus on the challenges of performance management, accountability, and governance facing social sector organizations. He is also a principal of Harvard University’s Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations. For Professor Ebrahim’s full bio and publications, click here.

Frontline with Faculty video recordings:
Video recordings of Frontline with Faculty sessions will be available on the Hauser Center’s Vimeo channel approximately one week after the session date. Please click here to access the recordings.

All Frontline with Faculty seminars are open to the public.

The Frontline with Faculty Series is a venue for Harvard faculty affiliated with the Hauser Center to share their work and research with faculty colleagues, as well as students in an informal setting that will allow for spirited discussion, debate and exchange. The seminars link faculty experts from Harvard Schools and beyond on a wide range of topics.  The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University seeks to expand understanding and accelerate critical thinking about civil society among scholars, practitioners, policy makers and the general public, by encouraging scholarship, developing curriculum, fostering mutual learning between academics and practitioners, and shaping policies that enhance the sector and its role in society.

FRONTLINE WITH FACULTY SERIES

The Role of Religiously-Based Nonprofits in US Social Policy

The video of this session is now available for viewing.  Please click here to access the recording.

BRYAN HEHIR | Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life, HKS

Thursday, Apr 18 | 4:15 – 5:15 pm
Belfer, Weil Town Hall, Lobby Level, Harvard Kennedy School

The objective of the session will be to explore where such agencies “fit” in the social system, how they differ among themselves and how they conflict and produce specific policy challenges.

J. Bryan Hehir is the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Religion and Public Life. He is also the Secretary for Health Care and Social Services in the Archdiocese of Boston. His research and writing focus on ethics and foreign policy and the role of religion in world politics and in American society. He served on the faculty of Georgetown University (1984 to 1992) and the Harvard Divinity School (1993 to 2001). His writings include: “The Moral Measurement of War: A Tradition of Continuity and Change; Military Intervention and National Sovereignty; Catholicism and Democracy;” and “Social Values and Public Policy: A Contribution from a Religious Tradition.”

Frontline with Faculty video recordings:
Video recordings of Frontline with Faculty sessions will be available on the Hauser Center’s Vimeo channel approximately one week after the session date. Please click here to access the recordings.

All Frontline with Faculty seminars are open to the public.

The Frontline with Faculty Series is a venue for Harvard faculty affiliated with the Hauser Center to share their work and research with faculty colleagues, as well as students in an informal setting that will allow for spirited discussion, debate and exchange. The seminars link faculty experts from Harvard Schools and beyond on a wide range of topics.  The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University seeks to expand understanding and accelerate critical thinking about civil society among scholars, practitioners, policy makers and the general public, by encouraging scholarship, developing curriculum, fostering mutual learning between academics and practitioners, and shaping policies that enhance the sector and its role in society.

FRONTLINE WITH FACULTY SERIES

University Endowments and Universal Owners: The Sustainability Challenge

The video of this session is now available for viewing.  Please click here to access the recording.

JAMES HAWLEY | Professor, School of Economics and Business Administration;
Director, The Elfenworks Center for the Study of Fiduciary Capitalism, Saint Mary’s College of California

Tuesday, Apr 16 | 12:00 – 1:00 pm
Belfer, Weil Town Hall, Lobby Level, HKS

This session puts the controversies of some university endowments into the larger context of existing and emerging U.S. and global corporate governance standards. These standards, while in flux and varying somewhat from country to country, include transparency, accountability and accounting not only for financial performance, but also for the not as yet fully financial factors. These factors are often referred to as ESG (environmental, social and governance), and increasingly a focus on financial and economic sustainability. The idea of the universal owner as a large institution with a diversified portfolio which owns a cross section of assets classes that are more or less representative of the economy, and thereby internalized some proportion of externalities generated by the assets it owns, making it a reasonably proxy for the ‘public interest’.

James Hawley is Director of the Eflenworks Center for Fiduciary Capitalism and has held the rotating endowed Transamerica Chair of Business Strategy and Policy twice at Saint Mary’s College. He is co-author of The Rise of Fiduciary Capitalism: How Institutional Investors can make Corporations more Democratic (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000); co-editor of Corporate Governance Failures: The role of institutional investors in the global financial crisis (University of Pennsylvania press, 2011); and is co-editing two handbooks on responsible investment and on fiduciary duty. He is the author (or co-author) of over 30 scholarly articles on a variety of topics, including corporate governance, responsible investment, the international monetary and financial system, and environmental issues. He is frequently quoted in the media on corporate governance issues. Prior to Saint Mary’s, he worked at Wells Fargo Bank as a country risk analyst and previously taught at the University of California, Davis. He served as a member of the Academic Advisory Board of the Institute for Responsible Investing, and has been co-chair of the Principles of Responsible Investment Academic Network. He was a member of the UN Environmental Programme-Financial Initiative’s Expert Panel on Responsible Investment. He received his BA from the University of Wisconsin, MA, from the University of California, Berkeley, and Ph.D. from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. For further information, click here.

All Frontline with Faculty seminars are open to the public.

Frontline with Faculty video recordings:
Video recordings of Frontline with Faculty sessions will be available on the Hauser Center’s Vimeo channel approximately one week after the session date. Please click here to access the recordings.

The Frontline with Faculty Series is a venue for Harvard faculty affiliated with the Hauser Center to share their work and research with faculty colleagues, as well as students in an informal setting that will allow for spirited discussion, debate and exchange. The seminars link faculty experts from Harvard Schools and beyond on a wide range of topics.  The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University seeks to expand understanding and accelerate critical thinking about civil society among scholars, practitioners, policy makers and the general public, by encouraging scholarship, developing curriculum, fostering mutual learning between academics and practitioners, and shaping policies that enhance the sector and its role in society.

The Open Society Foundations is partnering with the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University to offer an Open Society Presidential Fellowship. This fellowship is offered to Masters students graduating in 2013 in the field of public policy, public administration, international affairs, or a closely-related specialty.

Based in New York City, fellows pursue work related to their area of study in human rights, good governance, and justice through a one-year residence within the Office of the President at the Open Society Foundations. Fellows will work with staff, grantees, and other fellows on special initiatives that address the legal, business, policy, and organizational issues confronted by the Foundations’ various programs and projects. They will gain exposure and connections to the Open Society Foundations’ leadership and partner organizations, and cultivate knowledge about open society strategies.

Though this fellowship is administered by the Hauser Center at Harvard, graduates from all public policy schools will be equally considered for the opportunity. Non-US students will be responsible for maintaining their visa status during their fellowship year.

Applications are due April 9th by midnight.

Click here to download the Open Society Presidential Fellowship Application Form  and the Presidential Fellowship description.  Completed applications should be sent to voop@post.harvard.edu.  For any other questions on this opportunity please email voop@post.harvard.edu.

Two fundamental forces are changing and shaping the environment in which nonprofit organizations operate: changes around social media and the proliferation of partnerships. Our research suggests that these two forces are leading to an essential paradigm shift in the perception and management of brand in nonprofit organizations, away from a purely fundraising and PR tool, to that of a critical strategic asset focused on mission implementation. Instead of thinking of the brand as a logo and tag-line, organizations operating under the new paradigm understands brand as the embodiment of the organization’s mission and values. Rather than focusing on fundraising as the objective of the brand, the new paradigm places brand in service of the mission and as the driver of social impact for many nonprofits today. Instead of having responsibility for the brand reside within the marketing, communication, or development department, as a key strategic asset, responsibility for the brand resides with the entire executive team and the board.

In the new brand paradigm, brand has less to do with gaining a competitive advantage and more to do with clarifying the organization’s positioning which can help in determining which collaborations and partnerships to pursue in order to maximize impact. Brand communications have less to do with the one-way projection of a controlled image and more to do with establishing a dialogue and a process of participative and authentic engagement, in both the development and the communication of the brand. The brand audience used to be thought of as the donors (both individual and institutional) but in the new paradigm, the brand must address a whole spectrum of both internal and external audiences that are ready and willing to support the organization in different ways and become brand ambassadors.

This brand IDEA framework builds on this paradigm shift and incorporates the fundamental differences between the sectors to provide nonprofit organizations with a new framework for thinking about and managing their brands to maximize social impact.

Professor Alnoor Ebrahim,  associate professor at the Harvard Business School and faculty affiliate of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, recently published this interesting blog post on impact measurement. Read it here on the Harvard Business Review website.

FRONTLINE WITH FACULTY SERIES

The Gettysburg Project: Understanding and Revitalizing Civic Engagement

The video of this session is now available for viewing.  Please click here to access the recording.

ARCHON FUNG | Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship, HKS
MARSHALL GANZ | Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, HKS

Wednesday, Apr 10 | 3:00 – 4:00 pm
Belfer, L-4, Hauser Center Conference Room, Lobby Level, Harvard Kennedy School

For centuries, American democracy has been built by ordinary people standing up in the town square and using the tools available to them—from the printing press to blogs—to build organizations and social movements for change. The work of citizens engaging with each other to organize, debate, struggle, and decide created a politics of common purpose and democratic accountability – a sharp contrast with the market-based approaches that have come to dominate public policy today. As American politics becomes increasingly corrupted by those who command the most money, the only hope for shared prosperity and real democracy lies in mobilizing millions of Americans from all walks of life to be participants in shaping our collective futures on the issues most important to them. Marshall and Archon will convene leading organizers, activists, and academics in the first meeting of The Gettysburg Project, an effort to develop understandings to reinvigorate meaningful and consequential civic engagement for the 21st century.

Archon Fung is Ford Foundation Professor of Democracy and Citizenship. His research examines the impacts of civic participation, public deliberation, and transparency upon public and private governance. His Empowered Participation: Reinventing Urban Democracy examines two participatory-democratic reform efforts in low-income Chicago neighborhoods. Current projects also examine initiatives in ecosystem management, toxics reduction, endangered species protection, local governance, and international labor standards. His recent books and edited collections include Deepening Democracy: Institutional Innovations in Empowered Participatory Governance; Can We Eliminate Sweatshops?; Working Capital: The Power of Labors Pensions; and Beyond Backyard Environmentalism. His articles on regulation, rights, and participation appear in Political Theory; Journal of Political Philosophy; Politics and Society; Governance; Environmental Management; American Behavioral Scientist; and Boston Review. Fung received two SBs and a PhD from MIT.

Marshall Ganz, Senior Lecturer in Public Policy, entered Harvard College in the fall of 1960. In 1964, a year before graduating, he left to volunteer as a civil rights organizer in Mississippi. In 1965, he joined Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers; over the next 16 years he gained experience in union, community, issue, and political organizing and became Director of Organizing. During the 1980s, he worked with grassroots groups to develop effective organizing programs, designing innovative voter mobilization strategies for local, state, and national electoral campaigns. In 1991, in order to deepen his intellectual understanding of his work, he returned to Harvard College and, after a 28-year “leave of absence,” completed his undergraduate degree in history and government. He was awarded an MPA by the Kennedy School in 1993 and completed his PhD in sociology in 2000. He teaches, researches, and writes on leadership, organization, and strategy in social movements, civic associations, and politics.

Frontline with Faculty video recordings:
Video recordings of Frontline with Faculty sessions will be available on the Hauser Center’s Vimeo channel approximately one week after the session date. Please click here to access the recordings.

All Frontline with Faculty seminars are open to the public.

The Frontline with Faculty Series is a venue for Harvard faculty affiliated with the Hauser Center to share their work and research with faculty colleagues, as well as students in an informal setting that will allow for spirited discussion, debate and exchange. The seminars link faculty experts from Harvard Schools and beyond on a wide range of topics.  The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University seeks to expand understanding and accelerate critical thinking about civil society among scholars, practitioners, policy makers and the general public, by encouraging scholarship, developing curriculum, fostering mutual learning between academics and practitioners, and shaping policies that enhance the sector and its role in society.