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E-News

December 2005  

E-Newsletter

Featured Research

Activity Update

People in Action

Hauser People in the News

New Hauser Working Papers

 

 

 Featured Research

Spotlight on Advancing the Overhead Debate

Elizabeth Keating, who heads the Financial Stewardship Initiative, is undertaking research to Advance the Overhead Debate.  The overhead project aims to start a more informed, constructive debate among nonprofits and foundations about overhead.  Based on fieldwork, focus groups and presentations, the project has identified key concerns regarding the management and funding of overhead.  A software tool is now under development that would allow nonprofits to produce program and grant budgets and actual reports in both internally and externally designed formats.  It would identify overhead costs and determine the cost recovery from particular grants.  The project is also working to identify and promote methods to reduce the high transaction costs associated with restrictive grant funding.  These approaches include common grant applications and reporting, new overhead-related financial disclosures, and techniques for computing overhead rates.  The software and a report are expected to be available in the late spring or early summer.

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Activity Update

Practicing Democracy Project  
Marshall Ganz
is developing the Practicing Democracy Project to: (1) develop an ongoing venue through which academics and practitioners can form relationships, compare experience, support each others learning, discover opportunities for collaboration; (2) create more opportunities for teaching organizing in colleges and universities; and (3) support effective organizing by community based organizations by creating internships, identifying organizers, contributing to training, etc.  The practicing democracy network was officially launched on October 11th.  A second meeting of the network occurred on November 16th during which 45 educators and practitioners from the greater Boston area committed to the project's success and formed three working groups to develop immediate next steps for taking action.

Governance and Accountability Faculty Seminar
The
Nonprofit Governance and Accountability Project, jointly sponsored by Harvard Law School and the Hauser Center (shepherded by Bill Ryan), hosted a faculty seminar on October 17th, at which David W. Kennedy, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School and Director of the European Law Center, presented his work on the role of experts and expertise in global governance.  Participants discussed the merits and implications of Kennedy's argument that some issues are inappropriately protected from political deliberation because they are presented as uncontestable matters of expertise, when in fact they may rest on deep values-based assumptions that should be examined as part of global governance.  Kennedy has received a grant from the Project's Research Fund to explore how nongovernmental organizations may contribute to or help solve this problem.

WIEGO
The WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing) Steering Committee held a retreat in Accra, Ghana October 21st-23rd to plan for WIEGO's upcoming General Assembly in April 2006 in Durban, South Africa, as well as discuss WIEGOs research agenda for the upcoming year.  Marty Chen, Mary Beth Graves, Suzanne Van Hook and Marais Canali participated in the event.  Following the retreat, on October 24th, WIEGO co-convened a seminar in Accra with the National Statistical Service of Ghana on the informal economy in Ghana .  The seminar brought together activists, researchers and governmental officials from Ghana and abroad to examine recent data on the informal economy and evaluate current responses to the informal economy.  Featured speakers at the event included Marty Chen (WIEGO), Grace Bediako (Ghana Statistical Service), James Heintz ( University of Massachusetts ), Rudith King (Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology), Kofi Asamoah (Ghana Trade Union Congress), and Mary Mabel Tagoe (Kuapa Cocoa Cooperative).  

Religion, Politics and Public Life Faculty Seminar Series
The Program on Religion and Public Life (PRPL) is continuing with a second round of its Religion, Politics and Public Life Faculty Seminar Series in 2005-06.  The program is conducting another round of five seminars this academic year (2 in the Fall and 3 in the Spring), bringing together scholars and practitioners from throughout Harvard and the larger community for conversations that enhance understanding of the changing role of religion in politics and public life, both nationally and internationally.  This (by invitation only) series is co-convened by Profs. J. Bryan Hehir and Mary Jo Bane.  The first seminar for this academic year was held on October 31st, titled, Religion and International Politics: Changing Patterns of Analysis, during which three scholars of international relations discussed the traditional method of separating the role of religion from the standard analysis of world politics and the recent resurgence of interest in relating the two areas of study.  The distinguished panelists were Professors Stanley Hoffmann, Karl Kaiser, and Daniel Philpott.  To view a transcript, please click here.  

Innovations in Governance Program
From October 30th November 4th Mark Moore and Dave Brown conducted workshops for the Innovations in Governance Executive Education Program.  This program is part of an ongoing collaboration with the Ash Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation of the Kennedy School of Government and the Warwick Business School s Institute of Governance and Public Management.  The program convened government and community officials and academics from around the world to examine how to create and evaluate important innovations in democratic governance.

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People In Action

In the interest of space, the E-News does not include titles for Hauser faculty, researchers or staff.  For titles and bios, please click here.

Mark Moore was a plenary speaker at the CLAD (Latin American Center of Administration for Development) International Congress on State and Public Administration Reform, held in Santiago, Chile, October 18th-21st.  Moores plenary session was entitled Creating public value through private/public partnerships.

On October 28th, Elizabeth Keating hosted a roundtable with foundation executives to discuss with them their thinking in funding nonprofit overhead.  The meeting provoked an exciting discussion about how nonprofits can provide more transparency about their overhead and ideas that help lower the transaction costs of applying for and reporting on restricted grants.  

Several Hauser faculty and researchers participated in the Independent Sector Annual Conference Reshaping the Social Compact, held October 23rd-25th in Washington , DC Bryan Hehir moderated a panel called Religion, Society and the Future of the Social Compact, and Christine Letts presented on a panel called Profits, the Public Good and Tax Exemption.  Additionally, the book Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards, co-authored by Richard P. Chait, Bill Ryan and Barbara E. Taylor, won Honorable Mention for the annual Virginia Hodgkinson Research Prize, awarded by Independent Sector.

Bill Ryan delivered both lecture-style presentations and one- and two-day workshops for several groups of nonprofit executive directors and their boards on the concepts and practices from his recent book Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards.  The various venues included the Ohio Grantmakers Forum Annual Conference (October 20th), the Institute for Nonprofits at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina (November 1st), the CEO Dialogue Group of Raleigh , North Carolina (November 2nd), and a special meeting of the YMCAs of Ontario, Canada (November 4th-5th).

On November 17th, Marty Chen presented a session on workforce development for the working poor at the annual meeting of the Ford Foundation's Affinity Group on Development Finance in Polowane , South Africa .

Several Hauser faculty and researchers participated in the ARNOVA (Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action) Annual Conference in Washington, DC, November 17th-19th.  Dave Brown, Frances Kunreuther and Gabriele Bammer co-chaired and participated in a colloquy on Civil Society and Social Change: Links among Research, Practice and Policy.  Bill Ryan participated in a colloquy on The Performance Challenge in Nonprofit Organizations.

On November 17th-18th, in Denver, CO, Mark Moore conducted the second Creating Public Value in the Arts seminar, in collaboration with the Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF).  At the seminar, 50 state and local arts agency and arts advocacy leaders from throughout the West explored ways in which relatively small entities such as state arts agencies can leverage change and catalyze networks within large state administrative and political systems.

From November 22nd-29th, Marshall Ganz was in Jerusalem, Israel to initiate the second session of an organizer training program with collaborators Shatil (seedling), the New Israel Funds training and advocacy center, as well as Tel Aviv College, and other supporters.  The 18-month training program works with 24 participants who work as full time community advocates drawn from both Jewish and Palestinian communities.  The purpose of Ganzs visit was to collaborate in developing more effective tools of organizing, advocacy, and civic engagement, which are of value both to academic institutions and community based organizations.

Marty Chen was a panelist at the Committee of Donor Agencies for Small Enterprise Development's international conference, Reforming the Business Environment: From Assessing Problems to Measure Results in Cairo, Egypt, November 29th -December 1st.  At the conference, Chen and WIEGO Social Protection Director Francie Lund (University of KwaZulu Natal) spoke on a panel on informal enterprises.

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Hauser People in the News


Xavier de Souza Briggs
, Research Fellow of the Hauser Center, co-authored an Op-Ed piece with Margery Austin Turner in the October 5th edition of The Boston Globe entitled"Fairness in New Orleans." Link to the
full text here.

On October 5th, Tiziana Dearing, executive director of the Hauser Center, commented on BBCs The World on a report about Red Cross aid in disaster zones.

Tiziana Dearing, was quoted in the October 13th edition of The Chronicle of Philanthropy.  The article, entitled Sharing a World of Experience; Foreign aid groups offer advice in hurricanes aftermath, looked at how Hurricane Katrina triggered an unprecedented domestic response by nonprofit organizations that traditionally work abroad.

In the October 31st online edition of Newsweek, Marion-Fremont Smiths studies of misconduct by US nonprofits were highlighted in the article Where the Money Goes; The $1.6 trillion nonprofit sector behaves (and misbehaves) more and more like big business.   Link to the full text here.

Peter Dobkin Hall was quoted in the October 28th edition of The Washington Post in the article Red Cross Borrowing Funds for Storm Aid; Loan of $340 Million Comes as Nonprofit Draws New Scrutiny.  In the article, Dobkin Hall commented on the need of the Red Cross to open itself up to greater outside scrutiny and address its shortcomings.   Link to the full text here.

Paul Hodge was quoted in the November 6th edition of the Ashville Citizens Times in the opinion article Our society owes women a right to age with dignity; With a coming tide of baby boomers, now is the time to make critical choices.  The article quoted a segment of his testimony to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging about preparing our nation to help aging women financially.  Link to the full text here.

In the November 18th edition of The Chronicle of Philanthropy, and reprinted in BusinessWeek Online, Paul Hodge was quoted in the article Nonprofit Groups Brainstorm Aging Issues; Delegates to the upcoming White House Conference on Aging are charged with guiding national policy on issues affecting older people.  In the article, Hodge is recognized and quoted as an expert advisor to the conference.   Link to the full text here.

In November, The Progress of the Worlds Women 2005: Women, Work and Poverty, co-authored by Marty Chen, was featured on the Kennedy School of Governments Virtual Book Tour.  The report is a flagship publication of the United Nations Development Fund for Women.  The link to the virtual tour here.

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New Hauser Working Papers

The following Hauser Center Working Papers have recently been released:

Hauser Center Working Paper No. 28
Civil Society Actors as Catalysts for Transnational Social Learning
by L. David Brown and Vanessa Timmer (November 2005)
Abstract
Download Paper No.28

Hauser Center Working Paper No. 29
Corruption and Inequality as Correlates of Social Trust: Fairness Matters More Than Similarity

by Jong-Sung You (November 2005)
Abstract
Download Paper No.29

Hauser Center Working Paper No. 30
A Question of Empowerment: Information Technology and Civic Engagement in New Haven, Connecticut

by Peter Dobkin Hall (November 2005)
Abstract
Download Paper No.30

The full list and copies of all Hauser Center Working Papers can be found here.  

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This edition of the Hauser Center E-News highlights activities and events from October-November 2005.

The Hauser Center E-News provides bi-monthly updates of Hauser Center events, activities, people and publications.  Past issues of the E-News can be found here.  The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations is a University-wide research center based at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government (KSG). The Center is not a degree granting institution.  Please email Laura Ax with E-News questions and feedback.

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