Arts

Recreating Fine Arts Institutions

The fine arts in America are on a perilous path. Attendance at opera, theater, jazz, symphony, and ballet performances has dropped precipitously in recent decades. Just as worrisome, the median age of people attending these events has increased dramatically. If the fine arts are to survive as a living, creative, and significant force in American life, arts institutions need to radically recreate themselves.

Public-Private Alliances Transform Aid

The dual goals of scalability and sustainability have eluded many development projects. In recent years, however, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has reached out to corporations, nonprofits, and even private citizens to build alliances that are making large-scale, long-term change. In this article, the former head of USAID describes the public-private partnership model that his agency forged, the successes that the model has won, and the struggles that it continues to face.

The Nonprofit Starvation Cycle

A vicious cycle is leaving nonprofits so hungry for decent infrastructure that they can barely function as organizations—let alone serve their beneficiaries. The cycle starts with funders’ unrealistic expectations about how much running a nonprofit costs, and results in nonprofits’ misrepresenting their costs while skimping on vital systems—acts that feed funders’ skewed beliefs. To break the nonprofit starvation cycle, funders must take the lead.

Human Rights

In Their Own Words

A social media campaign aims to increase awareness of areas that reduce health risks for domestic workers and employers alike.

Social Entrepreneurship

Embracing Practical Solutions

A $25 baby warmer might stop the tragedy of 450 low-birth-weight babies dying every hour in the developing world.

Urban Development

Banking on Change

Express Credit Union reopens in Seattle to serve the unbanked, underbanked, and want-to-be-banked.

Behind the Curve

Corrupt governments cash in on the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s outdated metrics.

The Answer Is on the Ground

The solutions to seemingly impossible problems already exist in the communities facing those problems.

Funding the Future in China

Qifang, an online peer-to-peer lending platform, expands access to education for the world's largest student population.

The Madoff Philanthropic Implosion

With many in the community losing their savings in the Madoff scandal, Jewish philanthropies took a hard hit.

Great Teachers on the Fast Track

To save the nation, the United States needs alternative teacher training.

A Nature State of Mind

True restoration—environmental and economic—will not come from congressional legislation, top-down stimulus money, or EPA rulings.

Microfinance for the Most Marginalized

Small loans are tipping the social scales for Roma people.

Medicare Saves Lives

Patients insured by Medicare are less likely to die within a week of hospital admission than their slightly younger counterparts.

Human Rights

Diversity Brings the Dollars

More diverse workplaces have higher revenues, more customers, larger market shares, and greater relative profits.

Why They Stayed

New research reveals the economic hardships that Katrina's "stayers" were battling and the abundance of negative opinions about them.

How to Survive the Recession

The current recession has left few nonprofits unscathed and has hit theaters particularly hard. Creative entrepreneurial changes have proven more effective than the traditional belt-tightening.

Rethinking Human Nature

Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life by Dacher Keltner

Staying Vibrant and Curious

Self-Renewal: The Individual and the Innovative Society by John Gardner

Good Guy vs. Good Guy

Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year-Conflict Between Global Conservation and Native Peoples by Mark Dowie