The United Nations Foundation is a charitable organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., that supports the United Nations and its activities. It was established in 1998 with a $1 billion gift to the United Nations by philanthropist Ted Turner, who believed the UN was crucial for addressing the world's problems. Originally primarily a grantmaker, the UN Foundation has evolved into a strategic partner to the UN, mobilizing support to advance the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and help the UN address issues such as climate change, global health, gender equality, human rights, data and technology, peace, and humanitarian responses. The UN Foundation's main work occurs through building public-private partnerships, communities, initiatives, campaigns, and alliances to broaden support for the UN and solve global problems. The UN Foundation has helped build awareness and advocate for action on, among others, antimicrobial resistance, regional action on climate change, local implementation of the SDGs, as well as global campaigns such as Nothing But Nets against malaria, the Measles & Rubella Initiative, the Clean Cooking Alliance, Girl Up, Shot@Life, and the Digital Impact Alliance, among others. In March 2020, the UN Foundation was also a key founder of the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund on behalf of the World Health Organization (WHO), helping to raise over $200 million USD within the first six weeks to support the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The National Civic League is an American nonpartisan, non-profit organization founded in 1894 as the "National Municipal League”; it adopted its new name in 1986. Its mission is to advance civic engagement to create equitable, thriving communities. To upgrade quality and efficiency of government in cities it enlists the business and professional classes, and promotes greater involvement in government. It also sought create merit-based systems for selecting public officials. The League envisions a country where the full diversity of community members are actively and meaningfully engaged in local governance, including both decision making and implementation of activities to advance the common good. It also promotes professional management of local government through publication of "model charters" for both city and county governments.
The Annie E. Casey Foundation (AECF) is a charitable foundation focused on improving the well-being of American children and youth.
The United Nations defines community development as "a process where community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions to common problems." It is a broad concept, applied to the practices of civic leaders, activists, involved citizens, and professionals to improve various aspects of communities, typically aiming to build stronger and more resilient local communities.
The National League of Cities (NLC) is an American advocacy organization that represents the country's 19,495 cities, towns, and villages along with 49 state municipal leagues. Created in 1924, it has evolved into a membership organization providing education, research, support, and advocacy to city leaders across America. Based in Washington, D.C., it is considered part of the 'Big Seven', a group of organizations that represent state and local governments in the United States. NLC provides training and other resources to municipal officials, holds conferences, and conducts federal advocacy efforts on behalf of cities, towns and villages.
Civic engagement or civic participation is any individual or group activity addressing issues of public concern. Civic engagement includes communities working together or individuals working alone in both political and non-political actions to protect public values or make a change in a community. The goal of civic engagement is to address public concerns and promote the quality of the community.
The California Community Foundation(CCF) is a philanthropic organization located in Los Angeles, California. Foundation Center, an independent nonprofit organization, ranks it among the top 100 foundations in the nation by asset size and total giving. Among all community foundations, CCF is 5th by total giving and 7th by asset size, as of the fiscal year that ended 6/30/12.
Citizen Corps is a program under the Department of Homeland Security, founded in 2002 as part of the USA Freedom Corps, that provides training for the population of the United States to assist in the recovery after a disaster or terrorist attack. Each local Citizen Corps Council partners with organizations, volunteers and businesses to organize responders, volunteers and professional first responders for an efficient response so efforts are not wasted by being duplicated. By training in Incident Command, volunteers know whom to report to and how the incident is organized. This prevents sites from being inundated by untrained and unprepared personnel preventing operation. Citizen Corps also works in conjunction with the Corporation for National and Community Service in promoting national service opportunities for promoting homeland security needs.
The Central Maryland Transportation Alliance (CMTA) is a coalition of Baltimore area business, civic and nonprofit groups intent on improving travel within Central Maryland, which consists of Baltimore City and the surrounding jurisdictions of Anne Arundel County, Baltimore County, Carroll County, Harford County and Howard County. The group's stated objectives are to reduce congestion, limit sprawl, increase job opportunities and make it easier, faster and more efficient for anyone to travel within Central Maryland.
Community indicators are "measurements that provide information about past and current trends and assist planners and community leaders in making decisions that affect future outcomes". They provide insight into the overall direction of a community: whether it is improving, declining, or staying the same, or is some mix of all three.
The United States has a history of citizen, nonprofit, and other non-partisan groups advocating good government that reaches back to the late-19th-century municipal-level Progressive Movement and the development of governmental professional associations in the early part of the 20th century, such as the American Public Human Services Association and the International City/County Management Association. Many of these groups had their genesis at the Public Administration Center at 1313 East 60th Street, at the University of Chicago.
The Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation was an office new to the Obama Administration, created within the White House, to catalyze new and innovative ways of encouraging government to do business differently. Its first director was the economist Sonal Shah. The final director was David Wilkinson.
Anju Bhargava is a retired federal executive, a former senior banker and a pioneering community builder who served as a founding member of the New Jersey Corporate Diversity Network under Governor Christy Whitman, community builder fellow in the Clinton administration and a member of President Barack Obama's inaugural Advisory Council on Faith Based and Neighborhood Partnership. She has provided thought leadership in the public and private sectors, locally and nationally, published papers and received many awards.
Hamilton Community Foundation (HCF) is a Community Foundation that pools donations and Financial endowments into a coordinated investment and grant-making facility dedicated primarily to the social improvement of Hamilton, Ontario. Its current President and CEO is Terry Cooke, the former Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth regional chair and Hamilton Spectator columnist.
A sustainability organization is (1) an organized group of people that aims to advance sustainability and/or (2) those actions of organizing something sustainably. Unlike many business organizations, sustainability organizations are not limited to implementing sustainability strategies which provide them with economic and cultural benefits attained through environmental responsibility. For sustainability organizations, sustainability can also be an end in itself without further justifications.
Collective Impact (CI) is the commitment of a group of actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem, using a structured form of collaboration. In 2021, the Collective Impact Forum changed the definition of collective impact to "Collective impact is a network of community members, organizations, and institutions who advance equity by learning together, aligning, and integrating their actions to achieve population and systems-level change. This definition identifies equity as the North Star for why and how collective impact work takes place, specifically names community members as key actors along with other stakeholders, and emphasizes the importance of systems change in this work." The concept of collective impact was first articulated in the 2011 Stanford Social Innovation Review article Collective Impact, written by John Kania, managing director at FSG, and Mark Kramer, Kennedy School at Harvard and Co-founder FSG. Collective impact was chosen as the #2 philanthropy buzzword for 2011, and has been recognized by the White House Council for Community Solutions as an important framework for progress on social issues.
Ten Thousand Ripples (TTR) is a collaborative public art, civic engagement and peace project formed by Will Tenan. It uses art as a catalyst to promote discussions on peace and non-violence, and develop approaches to address contemporary social issues. Through TTR, artists, neighborhood leaders, and residents are at the heart of community-driven planning and public involvement efforts. At the center of TTR are 100 fiberglass and resin Buddha sculptures, each weighed down with a few hundred pounds of concrete, designed by Indira Johnson and installed in sites in 10 Chicago area neighborhoods.
The White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) is a United States governmental office that coordinates an ambitious whole-of-government approach to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The Initiative collaborates with the Deputy Assistant to the President and AA and NHPI Senior Liaison, White House Office of Public Engagement and designated federal departments and agencies to advance equity, justice, and opportunity for AA and NHPIs in the areas of economic development, education, health and human services, housing, environment, arts, agriculture, labor and employment, transportation, justice, veterans affairs, and community development.
The Hispanic Federation (HF) is a U.S based non-governmental organization focused on supporting Hispanic communities through local, state, and national advocacy. The Federation was founded in New York City in 1990 by a small group of Latino leaders, establishing initiatives to advocate for the interests of the Hispanic community and has expanded to establish programs, and policies in 16 states. The organization's objective is to empower and advance the Hispanic community primarily through service pillars, membership services, advocacy, and community programs. The Federation has formed relationships with a network of 100 Latino grassroots nonprofits, as well as collaborating with organizations, government officials, and private sector partners to enact systemic change related to a variety of socioeconomic issues for Hispanic communities. The Federation has gained national recognition for its work in areas of education, health, immigration, economic empowerment, civic engagement, environment, and organizational development to strengthening Latino institutions to ultimately increase the quality of life within Hispanic communities.
The Youth Café is a not-for profit pan-African youth organization that was founded in 2012 and works with young people in Africa and around the world to foster community resilience, propose innovative solutions, drive social progress, enable youth empowerment and inspire political change. The Youth Café is headquartered at Kitisuru Gardens, in Nairobi, Kenya.
