Peter Frumkin

Angesichts globaler Finanzprobleme und angespannter Staatshaushalte ist die Fähigkeit privater Philanthropie, zur Lösung öffentlicher Probleme beizutragen – und auch lebenswichtige private Einrichtungen zu unterstützen –, vielleicht noch nie so wichtig gewesen wie heute. Doch wie können Philanthropen und Spender sicher sein, dass ihre Beiträge auch eine Wirkung erzielen? Und wie können sie sicherstellen, dass ihr Engagement ihren eigenen Bedürfnissen entspricht und einen gesellschaftlichen Mehrwert bietet? Dieses Buch – aus dem Amerikanischen übersetzt und adaptiert von Georg von Schnurbein – bietet allen in der Philanthropie involvierten Akteuren, von Philanthropen über Fundraiser bis hin zu Non-Profit-Managern, einen praktischen und kompakten Leitfaden zur wirkungsorientierten Umsetzung. Es werden fünf Herausforderungen definiert, die zu berücksichtigen sind, wenn ein Engagement mehr als eine flüchtige Spende sein soll. Dazu gehören das Klären des zeitlichen Umfangs eines Engagements, die Formulierung der erwünschten Wirkung und die Übereinstimmung der Spende mit der Identität und dem persönlichen Stil des Gebenden. Die Berücksichtigung dieser grundsätzlichen, strategischen Aspekte des Gebens erlaubt es Philanthropen, ihre Ziele effektiver zu erreichen und gleichzeitig eine dauerhafte Beziehung zu den unterstützten Institutionen und Destinatären aufzubauen. Gerade für die nächste Generation von Philanthropen, die vor der Herausforderung steht, das, was Andrew Carnegie als “überschüssigen Reichtum“ bezeichnete, effektiv zu verteilen, ist dieser Wegweiser eine unverzichtbare Hilfe mit praktischen Fallbeispielen, Empfehlungen und Methoden.

Over the past two decades, the arts in America have experienced an unprecedented building boom, with more than sixteen billion dollars directed to museums, theaters, symphony halls, opera houses, and centers for the visual and performing arts. Among the projects that emerged from the boom were many brilliant successes. Others, like the addition of the Quadracci Pavilion to the Milwaukee Art Museum, brought international renown but also tens of millions of dollars of off-budget debt while offering scarce additional benefit to the arts-and embodying the cultural sector's worst fears that the arts were being displaced by the big, status-driven architecture projects built to contain them. With Building for the Arts, Peter Frumkin and Ana Kolendo explore how artistic vision, funding partnerships, and institutional culture work together - or fail to - throughout the process of major cultural construction projects. Drawing on case studies and in-depth interviews at museums and other cultural institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago, Atlanta Opera, and AT&T Performing Arts Center in Dallas, they analyze the decision-making challenges and identify four factors whose alignment characterizes the most successful of the projects discussed: institutional requirements, capacity of the institution to manage the project while maintaining ongoing operations, community support, and sufficient funding. How and whether these factors are strategically aligned, the authors argue, can lead an organization to either thrive or fail. Grounded in the latest scholarship on nonprofit strategy and governance, Building for the Arts will be an invaluable resource for arts staff and management, trustees of arts organizations, development professionals, and donors, as well as those who study and seek to understand them.

The Strategic Management of Charter Schools addresses the challenges facing such schools by mapping out, in straightforward and highly pragmatic terms, a management framework for them. The first charter school law in the United States was enacted in Minnesota in 1991. In the twenty years since that modest beginning, the movement has burgeoned and spread across the country: there are now more than five thousand charter schools attended by nearly two million students. Yet due to this rapid growth in the number of charter schools and to their generally independent character, the nature and quality of these institutions vary greatly. The promise of charter schools is great, but so are the organizational and educational challenges they face. Organized around three crucial challenges to charter school leaders—managing mission, managing internal operations, and managing the larger stakeholder environment—the book provides charter school leaders with indispensable tools and insights for achieving educational and organizational success. In its elucidation of these managerial challenges, and in its equally helpful and detailed examinations of particular schools, the book offers a clear, credible approach to the efficient and sustainable management of what are still young and experimental educational institutions. The Strategic Management of Charter Schools is a volume in the Educational Innovations series.

The Strategic Management of Charter Schools addresses the challenges facing such schools by mapping out, in straightforward and highly pragmatic terms, a management framework for them. The first charter school law in the United States was enacted in Minnesota in 1991. In the twenty years since that modest beginning, the movement has burgeoned and spread across the country: there are now more than five thousand charter schools attended by nearly two million students. Yet due to this rapid growth in the number of charter schools and to their generally independent character, the nature and quality of these institutions vary greatly. The promise of charter schools is great, but so are the organizational and educational challenges they face. Organized around three crucial challenges to charter school leaders—managing mission, managing internal operations, and managing the larger stakeholder environment—the book provides charter school leaders with indispensable tools and insights for achieving educational and organizational success. In its elucidation of these managerial challenges, and in its equally helpful and detailed examinations of particular schools, the book offers a clear, credible approach to the efficient and sustainable management of what are still young and experimental educational institutions. The Strategic Management of Charter Schools is a volume in the Educational Innovations series.

In the face of global financial problems and stressed government budgets, the ability of private philanthropy to step in and help solve public problems - and support vital private institutions as well - has never been more important. But how can donors be sure their contributions will be effective? And how can fundraisers make their case for support in a way that is compelling and productive? With "The Essence of Strategic Giving", Peter Frumkin distills the lessons of his comprehensive, award-winning study, Strategic Giving, into a concise, practical guide for everyone involved in private philanthropy, from donors to managers of nonprofits to fundraisers. He defines five critical challenges that all donors must address if their philanthropy is to amount to more than indiscriminate charity, including being aware of the time frame that guides a gift, specifying the intended impact being pursued, and recognizing how a donation fits with a donor's own identity and style. Acknowledging and understanding these fundamental, strategic aspects of giving, Frumkin argues, will help ensure philanthropy that more effectively achieves its aims - and at the same time builds a lasting relationship between donors and the institutions they support. As the next generation of donors wrestles with the challenge of effectively distributing what Andrew Carnegie called 'surplus wealth', Frumkin's road map will be an indispensable resource for years to come.

The United States has a long history of citizens rendering service to their communities. Examples of government-sponsored voluntary service organizations include the Civilian Conservation Corps, the Peace Corps, and Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA). During the Clinton administration, the national service movement was advanced by the establishment of AmeriCorps, a large-scale national service program designed to place young people in community service positions across the country. More recently, the Obama administration has set in motion a major program expansion of AmeriCorps over the coming decade. Many decades, billions of dollars, and hundreds of thousands of volunteers after the creation of the first national service programs, it remains unclear who benefits from service, under what conditions these programs work best, and how exactly these service efforts contribute to the strengthening of communities. Serving Country and Community answers each of these questions through an in-depth study of how service shapes the lives of young people and a careful analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of these programs. Based on years of field work and data collection, Serving Country and Community provides an in-depth examination of the aims and effects of national service and, in the process, opens up a conversation about what works and what needs reform in national service today.

The philanthropic landscape is changing dramatically as a new generation of wealthy donors seeks to leave its mark on the public sphere. Peter Frumkin reveals in Strategic Giving why these donors could benefit from having a comprehensive plan to guide their giving. And with this thoughtful and timely book, he provides the much-needed framework to understand and develop this kind of philanthropic strategy. After listening for years to scores of individual and institutional funders discuss the challenges of giving wisely, Frumkin argues here that contemporary philanthropy requires a thorough rethinking of its underlying logic. Philanthropy should be seen, he contends, as both a powerful way to meet public needs and a meaningful way to express private beliefs and commitments. He demonstrates that finding a way to simultaneously fulfill both of these functions is crucial to the survival of philanthropy and its potential to support pluralism in society. And he goes on to identify the five essential elements donors must consider when developing a philanthropic strategy—the vehicle through which giving will flow, the way impact will be achieved, the level of engagement and profile sought, the time frame for giving, and the underlying purpose of the gift. Frumkin’s point is that donors must understand strategic giving as the integration of these five critical dimensions to giving. Essential reading for donors, researchers, and anyone involved with the world of philanthropy, Strategic Giving provides a new basis for understanding philanthropic effectiveness and a promising new way for philanthropy to achieve the legitimacy that has at times eluded it.

This concise and illuminating book provides a road map to the evolving conceptual and policy terrain of the nonprofit sector. Drawing on prominent economic, political, and sociological explanations of nonprofit activity, Peter Frumkin focuses on four important functions that have come to define nonprofit organizations. The author clarifies the debate over the underlying rationale for the nonprofit and voluntary sector's privileged position in America by examining how nonprofits deliver needed services, promote civic engagement, express values and faith, and channel entrepreneurial impulses. He also exposes the difficult policy questions that have emerged as the boundaries between the nonprofit, business, and government sectors have blurred. Focusing on nonprofits' growing dependence on public funding, tendency toward political polarization, often idiosyncratic missions, and increasing commercialism, Peter Frumkin argues that the long-term challenges facing nonprofit organizations will only be solved when they achieve greater balance among their four central functions. By probing foundational thinking as well as emergent ideas, the book is an essential guide for nonprofit novitiates and experts alike who want to understand the issues propelling public debate about the future of their sector. By virtue of its breadth and insight, Frumkin's book will be an invaluable resource for anyone interested in understanding the complex interplay of public purposes and private values that animate nonprofit organizations.