Resources

Grants & Awards
In its debut grant cycle, the Funders' Collaborative on Youth Organizing (FCY), a coalition of local, regional and national foundations, made $600,000 in grants to 26 youth organizing groups across the country. The grants will support people under the age of 20 in low-income communities who are actively organizing around issues of educational reform, environmental justice, community improvement and the criminalization of youth. The Funders' Collaborative has 19 partners who are pooling their resources to make grants to youth organizing efforts and to assist the growing field in a variety of ways. For more information, contact FCYO project director Vera Miao c/o Jewish Fund for Justice, 260 Fifth Ave., Suite 701, New York, NY 10001 212-213-2113.

The James Irvine Award for Leadership in Building Immigrant Civic Involvement has been created to honor an immigrant who has displayed exemplary leadership in fostering civic involvement in California's Central Valley. The prize was established after Irvine Foundation Program Director Craig McGarvey donated the $10,000 he received as part of the Council on Foundation's Robert W. Scrivner Award for Creative Grantmaking, was combined with other Irvine Foundation resources to create a $50,000 endowment for the award. The award will be developed and administered by the Central Valley Partnership for Citizenship (CVP.) (Information on CVP is included in NFG's Community Organizing Toolbox.)

Publications
Building to Last: A Grantmaker's Guide to Strengthening Nonprofit Organizations is a briefing paper from the Conservation Company. It describes why funders invest in capacity building and the range of methods they use to support nonprofit organizational effectiveness. The 12-page paper is available online at www.consco.com or by calling 888-222-2283.

Dry Bones Rattling, Community Building to Revitalize American Democracy by Mark R. Warren (Princeton University Press) documents the growth of progressive faith-based politics in the U.S. and offers a realistic, yet hopeful, account of how this rising trend can transform the lives of people. Drawing on six years of fieldwork, the in-depth look at the Industrial Areas Foundation shows how it works with religious congregations and other community-based institutions to cultivate the participation and leadership of residents most left out of politics. Contact dennis_m@pupress.princeton.edu for more information.

The State of the Nation's Housing 2001 was released by the Joint Center for Housing Research of Harvard University. It has information on the housing market, housing affordability for renters and owners and future projections based on population trends. Findings include the continued strength of the housing market in terms of starts and fixed investments despite the recent economic uncertainty; pervasiveness of housing affordability problems; and continued decentralization of people and jobs. The report notes that the number of American households that depend on two incomes to pay for housing is on the rise, and the loss of affordable rentals is in part contributing to the squeeze on affordability. The report is online at www.gsd.harvard.edu/jcenter.

Paycheck to Paycheck: Working Families and the Cost of Housing in America is a new report from the National Housing Conference. Author Barbara J. Lipman describes the number and characteristics of working families with critical housing needs, then examines whether working families who earn prevailing wages for selected occupations are able to pay reasonable costs for housing in their communities. Findings show that, of the selected occupations used in the analysis - janitors, elementary school teachers, police, licensed practical nurses and retail salespersons - most would have difficulty affording median-priced rental or homeownership units. In fact, janitors are able to rent a one-bedroom apartment on 30 percent of their income in just six of the 60 metropolitan areas analyzed, while retail salespersons can afford only three of 60 localities. The report is online at www.nhc.org.

When Work Just Isn't Enough is a new report from the Economic Policy Institute that examines the hardships families experience on and off welfare. Many families that have left welfare rolls to join the workforce experience hardships even when they find work. This means that millions of working families that once relied on welfare often find themselves without enough food, sufficient access to health or child care, or affordable, decent housing. This Briefing Paper contains state-level data for 13 states. The report is online at www.epinent.org/briefingpapers/hardships.html.

Win-Win: Competitive Advantages Through Community and an Expert Media Resource Guide have been released by the Ford Foundation's Corporate Involvement Initiative. Win-Win highlights successful community investment strategies of top companies including Enron, Dell, DreamWorks SKG, Pfizer, IBM, Chevron, Sears, Bank of America, MetLife, Xerox and Salomon Smith Barney. It is available online at www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/winwin.cfm . The guide, which lists national nonprofit academic and business institutions that have expertise in issues related to corporate involvement in community and economic development, is online at: www.fordfound.org/publications/recent_articles/winwin_rg.cfm.

Evaluation Updates
The Evaluation Exchange is a quarterly publication of the Harvard Family Research Project. The Spring 2001 issue features information on the James Irvine Foundation's Communities Organizing Resources to Advance Learning (CORAL) initiative. More information is available online at www.gseweb.harvard.edu/~hfrp.

Outcome Measurement in Nonprofit Organizations: Current Practices and Recommendations is a new report from Independent Sector and the Urban Institute. The Executive Summary is available online at www.IndependentSector.org.

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