MORE TO EXPLORE: Inequality, Race, and Poverty

EXPLORING THE CURRENT STATE OF DIVERSITY IN HEALTHCARE

Client
DIVERSITY IN HEALTHCARE
Faculty
Brian David
Team
Jennifer DiPaula, Julia Kaplan, Jordan Laib, Lisibeth Payano

Many healthcare organizations are working to improve their diversity efforts and outcomes, but ensuring that best practices are effective and sustainable has proven difficult. Many healthcare organizations have adopted DEI initiatives, but is this truly leading to a paradigm shift in diversity management? With an aging American demographic and an increasingly diverse population, it is crucial to prioritize culturally competent strategies in cultivating a more equitable system for both patients and practitioners. The team undertook a literature review that outlined the current state of diversity in healthcare in the following categories: care, educational opportunity, cultural competency, executive-level involvement, and best practices. The team recommended making efforts to increase accessibility to healthcare education in minority communities and honoring these communities through appropriate cultural competency.

Capstone Year

DEVELOPING THE STRATEGIC DIRECTION FOR A UK-BASED FISCAL HOST FOLLOWING BREXIT

Client
GLOBAL DIALOGUE
Faculty
Paul Smoke
Team
Yuliya Antipova, Honor Donnie, Madeline Flaherty

Global Dialogue is an independent, international platform for philanthropic partnership, enabling funders to work together to advance human rights and social change within countries in the European Union (EU). Fiscal host organizations offer incubation and operational support for grants and small funders. Global Dialogue engaged a Capstone team to help determine its strategic direction as a UK-based fiscal host following Brexit. The team was tasked with evaluating the potential costs and benefits of partnering with an EU entity, establishing its own operation in an EU jurisdiction, or maintaining its current status. Using information obtained from desktop research and stakeholder interviews, the team prepared a final report outlining strategic options for Global Dialogue in the context of broader trends within the philanthropy and fiscal host sector.

Capstone Year

INVESTIGATING URBAN FINANCE AND THE FORM OF THE CITY IN INDONESIA

Client
UNITED NATIONS CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT FUND
Faculty
Paul Smoke
Team
Rochelle Brahalla, Taylor Disco, Costanza Tremante

The United Nations Capital Development Fund’s (UNCDF) Local Development Finance team is committed to facilitating effective urban infrastructure financing solutions in the world’s least developed countries (LDCs). As LDCs experience rapid urbanization, municipalities face mounting pressures to deliver a variety of public services. As urban inequality increases, LDCs also encounter additional challenges to providing basic infrastructure to marginalized communities living in informal settlements and slums. UNCDF enlisted a Capstone team to create strategies to improve and democratize access to basic services through urban form. The team conducted research on proven practices for creating livable cities that prioritize human connection and mobility, and for urban development that promotes health, prosperity, and sustainability. The team also investigated existing financing mechanisms that prevent municipalities from realizing the ideal urban form and proposed alternative solutions for community development finance. The team’s findings inform new efforts by UNCDF to create localized and specialized urban development funds.

Capstone Year

ANALYZING THE IMPACT OF NYC HIGH SCHOOL ADMISSIONS POLICY ON SCHOOL FUNDRAISING

Client
SCHOOL CHOICE AND FUNDRAISING
Faculty
Ali Ahmed & Kristina Arakelyan
Team
Charlotte Hsu, Julia Konrad, Jolly Luo, Xiangyu Ren

New York City implemented an open enrollment policy for high school admissions in 2004, allowing schools to set their own admissions policies and students to apply to schools outside their geographic zone—leading to an increase in admissions screenings based on factors such as student attendance and past academic performance. The Capstone team explored the impact of this policy on public school fundraising, hypothesizing that families seek out “opportunity hoarding” within screened schools. The team examined fundraising by school-supporting organizations as one measure of opportunity hoarding, constructed an original dataset linking publicly available tax records to school-level data to identify the change in per-pupil fundraising by school, and conducted a difference-in-difference analysis comparing the NYC school system to zoned districts within Long Island’s Nassau County. While the team found that overall fundraising increased after the 2004 policy change, the small sample of available data limits the statistical significance of the findings. The final report presents a model for linking fundraising data to individual schools and suggestions for improving data availability.

Capstone Year

ADVANCING MUSIC EDUCATION IN SOUTHEAST QUEENS

Client
A BETTER JAMAICA
Faculty
Erica Foldy
Team
Leah Adelson, Brittany Edghill, Katerina Patouri

A Better Jamaica (ABJ) is a nonprofit organization founded in 2007 that is dedicated to offering a broad range of programs, from arts and culture to educational support, to strengthen the community of Jamaica, Queens. ABJ engaged a Capstone team with the goal of increasing access to local music education. The team reviewed data to identify relevant trends in existing music education offerings in middle schools in three school districts. The team held task force meetings with eight experienced music educators and conducted a qualitative analysis, which highlighted the stark dropoff in the availability and quality of local music education and means of implementing change. The team created a final report that included a literature review synthesizing the significance and impact of music education, qualitative data on the state and history of music education in the community, quantitative data visualizations showing the rates of offerings and engagement, and funding sources to support increased music education. The team presented its research to key stakeholders—task force members, educators, principals, and elected officials—at a final meeting to further the client’s vision and collaborate on potential solutions.

Capstone Year

SUCCESSFUL ESTABLISHMENT OF A NEWLY-FORMED NONPROFIT

Client
ATTACHMENT AND BIOBEHAVIORAL CATCH-UP
Faculty
Veronica Manning
Team
Jonathon McCoy, Danyte Reisinger, William Thompson, Homer Wanamaker Jr.

Attachment and Biobehavioral Catch-up (ABC) is a Delaware-based nonprofit organization that disseminates a worldwide parenting program fostering strong, healthy relationships in families with infants or toddlers facing adversity. As ABC establishes itself as a nonprofit entity, its executive leadership is challenged with harnessing the program’s exponential growth, revenue potential, and highly committed staff in order to address the fiduciary, legal, and operational challenges that jeopardize the organization’s longevity and success. The team’s interdisciplinary research included an academic review of current literature, as well as an environmental scan of best practices used across the sector and by client peers. The team also conducted supplemental field research—through staff engagement in a series of one-on-one interviews and custom surveys—to assess the internal climate for change and knowledge around the transition process. The team produced a report that includes its research findings and analysis of key issue areas facing ABC, as well as effective recommendations and tools that ABC can utilize throughout the organization’s transition process and beyond.

Capstone Year