ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
Contacting Hard-to-Find Youth: Strategies for the Post-School Survey
Author: National Post-School Outcomes Center
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Graduate Surveys,High School Graduates,Disabilities,Focus Groups,Outreach Programs,Change Strategies,Familiarity,Emotional Intelligence,Incentives,Interpersonal Competence,Consciousness Raising

Yearly, approximately 100,000 former students who had an individual education program (IEP) when they left high school are contacted to participate in a post-school survey. Efforts are made to contact youth who represent a variety of disabilities, as well as, minority youth and those who left high school with a diploma or dropped out of high school. Nevertheless, there are groups of youth who are difficult to contact and who are routinely underrepresented in the post-school survey data (e.g., those students who leave school early). To learn strategies for contacting youth who are hard-to-find, the National Post-­School Outcomes Center conducted six focus groups with young adults and their family members in four states. This document summarizes the strategies recommended by youth and their families. Strategies are organized by five common themes which are the following: (1) Provide Pre-Notification; (2) Create Familiarity; (3) Show Interest When Conducting the Survey; (4) Provide Incentives, and (5) Making Contact.
Tip Sheet for SEAs: Engaging Parents and Family Members in Postschool Outcome Stakeholder Groups
Author: National Post-School Outcomes Center
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Guides - Non-Classroom
Subjects: State Departments of Education,Disabilities,Parents,Interviews,Surveys,Focus Groups,Stakeholders,Transitional Programs,Outcomes of Education,Family Relationship

Involving parents and other family representatives in the Indicator B-14 Post-School Outcomes (PSO) Survey activities can help State Education Agencies (SEAs) develop strategies to increase annual response rates, communicate results to stakeholders, and build support for program improvement and systems change. Perspectives expressed by families of transition-age youth with disabilities offer valuable information and a unique consumer viewpoint to State data collection efforts. With firsthand experience, parents and youth know how well in-school experiences prepare youth with disabilities for successful PSO (e.g., enrolling in further education, working). Input from family focus groups, parent advocates, parent centers, and family organizations can help states design more user-friendly, accessible survey tools. These groups can also help the State develop (a) approaches for contacting hard-to-reach youth, and (b) marketing strategies to encourage youth and families to take part in the PSO survey. Parent centers and family organizations can also help SEA personnel organize, disseminate, and use State PSO data with families and other stakeholders at the state and district levels. Parents and family members do not need to be education experts to ask good questions and provide quality input. Informed parents and families can also play a key role as advocates who can identify issues, influence policy decisions, and help improve school programs. This document provides ideas for interviewers to consider when looking at the graduation dropout and PSO data from the state and sample questions to ask parents. Strategies to find parent and family representatives interested in serving on SEA committees related to secondary transition and PSO are also discussed. Tips for retaining parent/family representatives on committees are offered.
Endowment Spending: External Perceptions and Internal Practices
Author: Lapovsky, Lucie
Date: 2009-03-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Endowment Funds,Scholarship Funds,Higher Education,Expenditures,Educational Finance,Budgets,Retrenchment

During the economic expansion of the past several years, interest in the subject of spending broadened as public interest groups, the media and the Senate Finance Committee voiced concerns about whether colleges and universities were distributing enough from their endowments each year. Critics argued that after many years of strong investment returns, accompanied by rising tuitions, college and university endowments had grown too large and that educational institutions were hoarding money that should properly be spent. Even after the calamitous final three months of calendar 2008, when some of the largest endowments saw their value reduced by billions of dollars, the expressions of concern have continued. By comparison, relatively little has been written about the other side of the equation--how educational institutions actually use the funds they draw from their endowments. This topic is important on its own, but in the existing environment in which the fairness, and even the desirability, of large educational endowments are being questioned, it becomes even more timely and relevant. How do endowment funds influence the operational priorities of educational institutions? How do they affect the way in which institutional operating budgets are developed and funds are distributed? This paper examines spending from two different perspectives. The first perspective is external--what outside observers see. The research for this section is drawn from 102 of the letters submitted by colleges and universities in early 2008 in response to a request from the Senate Finance Committee to the 136 educational institutions with endowments of $500 million or more. The second part of the paper, an examination of endowment spending from an internal perspective, focuses on the annual budgeting and spending practices of colleges and universities, and reviews how these practices differ in institutions of varying types, endowment sizes and other characteristics. Contrary to the external perception that all spending is fundamentally the same, this analysis reveals that, in practice, there is a range of approaches to budgeting and spending decisions and they have consequences for the programs and missions supported by the endowment. Appended are: (1) United States Senate Committee on Finance, Letter to 136 Colleges Seeking Details of Endowment Pay-0uts, Student Aid; (2) Interview Questions for Study on Endowment Spending; (3) About the author; and (4) About Commonfund Institute and Commonfund.
Tips for Parent Centers and Families: Help Your State Make the Most of Post-School Outcome Surveys
Author: National Post-School Outcomes Center
Date: 2013-00-00
Type: Guides - Non-Classroom
Subjects: Individualized Education Programs,High School Graduates,Graduate Surveys,School Districts,Data Collection,Parent Participation,Family Involvement,Community Information Services

Since 2004, U.S. states have collected information from former students with disabilities about their employment and further education activities in the first year after leaving high school. About one year after they leave school, young adults who had Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) are asked some very important questions: Are they enrolled in college? Have they found a job? Are they pursuing job training? Although a youth's personal information is kept confidential, states compile a report summarizing the education and employment outcomes of all of the youth they have interviewed and include this information in their Annual Performance Report (APR) to the U.S. Department of Education. How can Parent Centers and families assist in the collection of this data: (1) learn more about what their state is currently doing; (2) read the Indicator 14&quot; sections of their state's State Performance Plan (SPP) and APR; and (3) ask how the outcome data is used to strengthen accountability, decision making, and program improvement systems as it relates to improving postsecondary outcomes for special education students? Also ask to see a copy of the state survey. Parent Centers can also arrange activities that include: Inviting their State Transition Coordinator to present information on survey results at a staff meeting, family forum, or annual transition conference; use the National Post-School Outcomes Center's (NPSO) &quot;Be a Superstar&quot; YouTube video at parent center transition workshops, and embed a copy on their website along with state contact information for those who want to learn more; hand out flyers developed by their state or NPSO to promote survey participation at transition workshops; include an article on their state's post-school outcome survey activities in their newsletter or on listservs, before annual survey activities begin in April; and in collaboration with their State Department of Education, post a tutorial on their center's Website explaining the State's data collection activities, how to find survey information on the state agency website, and provide guidance for interpreting annual survey results.
Outsourced Investment Management: An Overview for Institutional Decision-Makers
Author: Griswold, John S.
Date: 2013-11-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Outsourcing,Investment,Institutional Characteristics,Decision Making,Money Management,Financial Services,Financial Policy,Definitions,Organizational Objectives,Organizational Theories,Strategic Planning,Fees,Endowment Funds,Nonprofit Organizations,Higher Education,Performance Factors,Influences

Outsourcing of investment management is a growing trend among institutional investors. With a broad range of institutions using or exploring the outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO) model, portfolio size is no longer the determining factor driving the outsourcing decision. For all but the largest institutional investors--those with deep staff and technology resources as well as wide-ranging investment expertise--outsourcing is increasingly an option meriting serious consideration. Institutions that decide to outsource are basing their decision on the desire to: (1) optimize management and oversight of increasingly complex investment portfolios; (2) enable timely decision-making; (3) make more efficient use of limited staff resources; (4) allow trustees to better fulfill their fiduciary duties by focusing on policy and strategic oversight; and (5) deal with a more rigorous regulatory environment. The OCIO concept offers a broad range of implementation models, enabling different types and sizes of organizations to identify a model that works well for their particular needs and preferences. As institutions face the twin challenges of portfolio complexity and resource scarcity, the OCIO model seems likely to grow in popularity among long-term investors. This white paper provides the rationale behind outsourcing, and discusses the deciding factors and fees associated with using the OCIO model.
Strive for the Best: Building and Maintaining an Excellent Board
Author: Griswold, John S.
Date: 2014-05-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Trustees,Governance,Governing Boards,College Administration,Measures (Individuals),Educational Finance,Federal Legislation

The nature of trusteeship has changed markedly in the new century. In addition to the mission-related and financial issues with which fiduciaries have always dealt, trustees of nonprofit organizations are now regularly required to make decisions in response to media scrutiny, challenges from regulators, demands from stakeholders and constituents, the requirements of increasingly complex investment strategies, the priorities of donors, and reputational threats to board members and the organizations they serve. In contrast with the past, boards are being held to an ever-higher standard in which &quot;getting by,&quot; &quot;muddling through&quot; or &quot;preserving the status quo&quot; no longer suffice. Board seats are no longer viewed as honorary rewards for service or financial contributions, nor can the trustee's oversight role be viewed as one of passive observation. How well a board functions determines, in large measure, the fortunes of the organization it governs. Mediocre or middling performance may enable an organization to survive, but rarely to thrive, while weak or dysfunctional boards may jeopardize their organization's very existence. Governance may have been a subject of less prominence in the past, but the current era is one in which regulators, the media, whistleblowers and dissatisfied constituents are quick to bring potentially harmful issues into sharp focus, scrutinizing both activity and inactivity. Only a high level of board performance can create and sustain the energizing, inspiring and motivating environment in which the organization and its constituencies can excel. This paper asserts that all boards should, in general, aspire to a place in this upper tier of governing bodies. But what does excellence mean for a nonprofit board, and how is it measured? More importantly, how does a board map a path to that goal? This paper serves as a guide for trustees and boards that aspire to excel, with particular emphasis on the board's fiduciary role. It identifies the practices and policies of excellent boards and the steps that nonprofits can take to put them into practice. While reviewing the functions of a board and its members, the paper also shows what boards look like when they are at the top of their game. A bibliography is included.
The Investment Policy Statement
Author: Griswold, John S.
Date: 2011-08-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Investment,Financial Policy,Position Papers,Strategic Planning,Trustees,Organizational Effectiveness,Institutional Mission,Program Descriptions,Models,Endowment Funds,Donors,Grantsmanship,Fund Raising,Responsibility,Outsourcing,Money Management,Risk,Risk Management,Guidelines,Design Preferences,Higher Education

Successful investing for long-term funds requires a strategic plan. This is true despite--indeed, because of--the fact that the future is unknowable. The plan must be specific, embodying in concrete terms the best thinking of the board of trustees about the investment pool, its goals and purposes; but it also needs to be sufficiently flexible to guide the board through environments that may be very different from those prevailing at the time of its adoption. This paper reviews the key features of such a plan--the investment policy statement. Since investment policy statements are as varied as the organizations they serve, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The authors include an appendix with two templates that may serve as examples for those who find it helpful to work from an existing model.
Legislating the Normative Environment: Nonprofit Governance, Sarbanes-Oxley and UPMIFA
Author: Jarvis, William F.
Date: 2015-05-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Governance,Nonprofit Organizations,Investment,Federal Legislation,Trusts (Financial),Income,Money Management,Financial Services,Federal Regulation,Endowment Funds,Higher Education,Accounting,Accountability,Educational Finance

A phenomenon with far-reaching effects on nonprofit investment management and governance has become a little-noticed yet powerful force in boardrooms over the past decade. Despite its wide-ranging implications, this development has largely gone undocumented. This paper seeks to draw attention to this change and its implications, and to trace a transformation in thinking that has gained momentum in recent years.
Commonfund Study of Responsible Investing: A Survey of Endowments and Their Affiliated Foundations
Author: Commonfund Institute
Date: 2015-04-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Investment,Responsibility,Endowment Funds,Higher Education,Financial Policy,Educational Finance,Private Colleges,Public Colleges,Attitudes,Online Surveys,Geographic Distribution

The Commonfund Study of Responsible Investing analyzes policies, practices and attitudes with respect to responsible investing among 200 U.S. colleges and universities, constituting 24.0 percent of the 832 institutions that participated in the 2014 National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO)-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE). These respondents, whose chief business officers volunteered to participate in this follow-up Study, comprised 123 private and 77 public institutions with a total of $88.8 billion in endowment assets as of June 30, 2014, or 17.2 percent of the $516.0 billion total included in the NCSE, and encompassed a wide range of endowment sizes and geographic locations across the U.S. Data-gathering took place in December 2014 and January 2015 using an online survey instrument. Of the 200 participating institutions 53, or 26.5 percent, reported that they currently have an investment policy statement that permits or refers to at least one of the responsible investing practices defined in the box on page 2. The first analytical section in this report, therefore, reviews the responsible investing practices of this group of &quot;adopters&quot;. The remaining three sections analyze responses from both the 53 adopters and the 147 &quot;non-adopters&quot;--the latter being institutions which, while they do not currently engage in any of the four practices, may have policies and procedures in place that relate to responsible investing, may have views on the topic, or may be considering future changes to their portfolio. An appendix presents: Responsible Investment Practices: Excerpted from the 2014 NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments® (NCSE).
Essential Not Optional: A Strategic Approach to Fund-Raising for Endowments
Author: Griswold, John S.
Date: 2012-08-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Fund Raising,Strategic Planning,Endowment Funds,Institutional Advancement,Institutional Mission,Organizational Objectives,Financial Support,Investment,Finance Reform,Educational Research,Research Reports,Expertise,Best Practices,Grantsmanship,Private Financial Support,Nonprofit Organizations,Higher Education,Educational Finance

This overview of the state of endowment giving comes at a time of urgent need in the nonprofit sector. With market returns uncertain, and spending restraint difficult, the moderate but measurable increase in donations in the previous year invites institutions to consider elevating fund-raising to a more strategic position within the organization. For institutions that have historically viewed fund-raising tactically, the tasks can seem daunting: building donor records; prioritizing institutional needs; and recruiting staff. The long-term potential rewards from such efforts are strategic, and go beyond the issue of the immediate amounts raised. The formation of strong mutual commitments and ties between the institution and its supporters enhances its ability to articulate institutional goals, promotes honest and deep understanding of donor interests and institutional needs, and ultimately strengthens its ability to fulfill its mission. While the current state of fund-raising may be uncertain, its role is not. No longer optional, an effective fund-raising program, consistently implemented, can become a central pillar of support for the institution.
Assessing Your Board's Risk Tolerance
Author: Griswold, John S.
Date: 2014-06-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Governing Boards,Risk Assessment,Trustees,Committees,Portfolio Assessment,Financial Exigency,Investment,Expenditures,Administrative Policy,Decision Making,Policy Formation,Group Dynamics,Information Utilization,Educational Finance,Alignment (Education),Goal Orientation,Outcomes of Education,Risk Management

In the wake of the financial crisis, trustees of many endowed nonprofit institutions realized that their portfolio was riskier than they thought and their own ability to tolerate loss wasn't as strong as they imagined. What can board and investment committee members do to improve their ability to assess their--and their institution's--capacity for risk? The authors of this paper assert that understanding a board's risk tolerance is not an exercise with a precise beginning and end. It is an ongoing, continuous process, both qualitative and quantitative. In times of stress fiduciaries should strive to avoid reactions that undermine their settled policies and thus are contrary to the organization's long-term interest. A candid and thoughtful evaluation of their own ability to accept risk can help them to be strong stewards of the assets that have been placed in their charge. This paper is intended for trustees and investment committee members who want to: (1) understand their own level of risk tolerance; (2) take steps to align the risk in their portfolio with their comfort level; and (3) strive to achieve a balance between risk and return that is appropriate for their institution.
Ethics and the Nonprofit
Author: Boucher, Toni
Date: 2013-03-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Nonprofit Organizations,Ethics,Policy,Governance,Compensation (Remuneration),Conflict of Interest,Disclosure,Compliance (Legal),Governing Boards,Taxes,Reputation

The American nonprofit sector is large, effective and influential, but with influence comes responsibility. Ethical lapses, whether real or perceived, can draw the attention of regulators and the public, leading to financial and reputational damage that can impair an organization's ability to carry out its mission. Written ethics and compliance policies, when consistently followed, can provide a first line of defense. This paper, written for nonprofit trustees and staff, outlines the major ethical issues facing U.S. nonprofits and describes policy norms and governance mechanisms designed to address them. It reviews the topics that a code of ethics should cover, including compensation, conflicts of interest, financial controls and disclosure. Compliance with applicable laws and regulations is an area of particular focus. The paper closes by describing the governance structures, including oversight by the organization's board and ongoing committee review, that form the foundation for implementation of a consistent and transparent ethics framework.
Does Active Management Benefit Endowment Returns? An Analysis of the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE) Data
Author: Belmont, David
Date: 2014-04-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Endowment Funds,Money Management,Longitudinal Studies,Investment,Investigations,Income,Fees,Financial Services,Institutional Role,Hypothesis Testing,Risk Management,Administrator Characteristics,Administrator Role,Audits (Verification),Data Analysis,Self Disclosure (Individuals),Higher Education,Outsourcing,Best Practices,Input Output Analysis

We conduct a longitudinal analysis of the NACUBO-Commonfund Study of Endowments (NCSE) results from 2006-2013 to evaluate if active management is related to higher endowment returns in U.S. equities over time. We also analyze the data to evaluate the endowment characteristics that are related to higher levels of performance over time. We find that active management for endowments is significantly positively related to higher returns net of fees from U.S. equity allocations over the evaluation period. In addition, endowments with CIOs or OCIOs are better able to earn incremental positive returns from active management than those without. Larger endowments are better able to earn incremental positive returns from active management than the smallest endowments but the effect appears to diminish as endowments increase in size. A bibliography is included.