Although endowments at two-year colleges cannot compare to similar funding at a typical powerhouse university, community college endowments have grown an average of 76 percent over the past 20 years, according to the Center for Community College Advancement at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). Foundation creation among…

Performance measurement and research are key components of the operations of philanthropic organizations (both grant-making [GM] and grant-seeking [GS] organizations)--particularly those in the higher education subsector. Both conventionally and historically, performance measurement and research practices have been portrayed as rational tools that…

When the Carnegie Foundation was established in 1905, universities in Canada and Newfoundland were eligible for grants, on strict conditions that were seen by some as "colonial," "continentalist," or "imperial" intrusions on autonomy; for example, a Carnegie plan to create a federation of Maritime universities. This…

Turnover of major gift officers (MGOs) within university foundations has been a problem for foundations and their affiliated universities. Turnover of MGOs results in less fundraised dollars, fewer donor-fundraiser relationships, and higher incomings costs. Retention of MGOs is vital for foundations' success and directly correlates to the overall…

Between 2010-2014, foundations spent at least $301 million on evaluation of education-related causes. To govern their evaluation practice foundations are developing evaluation policies. Evaluation policies encompass most aspects of evaluation practice and theory, making it a critical area of research on evaluation (Trochim, 2009). They can aid or…

The authoritative ideas of what education should be like under the fourth Sustainable Development Goal (SDG 4) are constructed through discourse among key actors of the "international education community" at large. This article presents the evolution of international education discourse, comparing the periods before and after September…

Purpose: This article gives an overview of the successes and lessons learned to date of the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), one of the leading organizations of the What Works movement. Design/Approach/Methods: Starting with its history, this article covers salient components of the EEF's unique journey including lessons learned and…

Sue Cunningham brings a global perspective to everything she does, and the benefit of this lens is clear in "Global Exchange," in which advancement leaders from around the world address the critical issues facing the sector. With voices from schools, colleges, universities, and foundations, "Global Exchange" represents a…

Drawing on work from environmental education, evaluation, and practitioner research, this paper presents a discussion of programme evaluation practices from the practitioner's perspective. This discussion is informed by a meta-evaluation conducted on ten-years (2008-2018) of data collected from a suite of place-based learning programmes delivered…

Philanthropic foundations are influential policy entrepreneurs in higher education, advocating new ideas, engaging in collaborative activities, and seeding research to inform the decision-making process. Despite occupying this role, the higher education literature has yet to examine how philanthropic foundations promote ideas between entities or…

Over the past several decades large philanthropies have adopted aggressive approaches to education reform that scholars have labeled "venture philanthropy." These efforts focused on broad changes to schooling and education policy, borrowing techniques from the venture capital world. But many foundations have recently become convinced…

Philanthropic initiatives incorporating prescriptive practices have become prominent in K-12 education. This study provides evidence on the reach, character, and impact of the Broad Superintendents Academy, a controversial initiative designed to transform district leadership. A novel data set on Broad trainees linked to data on large districts…

School practices and policies are often influenced by various research, nonprofit, for-profit, and philanthropic organizations. To help understand their influence, this article provides a framework accounting for the variety of school improvement organizations (SIOs) and summarizes debates regarding their benefits and risks. I cluster SIOs as…

This explanatory study explored what graduate programs should embrace in educating public serving professionals to become able to respond to paramount challenges unknown at the time of studies. For conceptual frameworks, the study employed: (1) principal-agent theory on how predominant philanthropic organizations pushed the creation of globalized…

The paper studies the emergence of venture philanthropy in public schools in Australia, focusing on policy networks and policy mobility. It seeks to analyse how policy is mobilised and leveraged via networks, focusing on the initiative of a national education charity with deductible gift recipient status, and a national research education…