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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

ExpandED Schools is an education nonprofit that provides after-school programming in New York City, and has served over one million children since 1998. Its mission is to close the learning gap by increasing access to enriched education experiences. Since its current data collection processes are not formally coordinated across the organization, ExpandED Schools enlisted a Capstone team to create an organization-wide strategy to measure its overall impact across all programs. The team conducted a literature review, analyzing best practices in the after-school industry, and developed and implemented a survey to investigate ExpandED School’s current program goals and data collection activities. Following this research, the team designed a roadmap for strategic goal-setting and data collection to measure organization-wide impact in the near term and beyond.

Established in 2014, RIP Medical Debt has eradicated over $5.6 billion in medical debt to date, providing financial and mental relief for over three million people. Despite significant legislative changes like the Affordable Care Act, the national medical debt crisis persists, often destroying the financial stability of America’s most vulnerable communities: the sick, the elderly, and the poor. RIP Medical Debt engaged a Capstone team to provide a comprehensive overview of the medical debt crisis, including extensive research to determine the scope of the crisis, how medical debt is created, why it persists, and who is most impacted. The team conducted a landscape analysis, interviewed key stakeholders, and surveyed existing efforts to decrease medical debt. The final report includes the team’s analysis of the current state of medical debt as well as specific recommendations to guide RIP Medical Debt’s emerging public policy agenda.

New York Building Congress (NYBC) is a membership association of contractors, architects, engineers, unions, real estate managers, developers, and owners who comprise the building community of New York City. NYBC enlisted a Capstone team to develop policy recommendations for reimagining the public realm of the Broadway artery running through the Inwood neighborhood in northern Manhattan. The team conducted research on existing conditions, designed a community engagement strategy, and delivered a report with recommendations for interventions to create a safe and equitable space for all users. The team’s final report will be utilized by NYBC in its advocacy efforts with policymakers for improving safety and enhancing the quality of life in the neighborhood.

Médecins du Monde (MdM) is a medical and humanitarian organization providing care to the most vulnerable populations in the world. For over 30 years, MdM has supported Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) projects, and is especially committed to providing SRH services in crisis and development settings. MdM engaged a Capstone team to identify telehealth approaches to improve SRH education and promote accessibility to SRH services for adolescents in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. In order to assess SRH interventions and specific needs in Kinshasa, the team conducted qualitative and literature-based research, created an environmental scan, and interviewed youth and institutional stakeholder groups. Using its research, the team created two digital survey tools and developed an annotated bibliography with existing scientific and operational studies on SRH interventions in low-resource settings. Based on its findings, the team proposed contextualized recommendations for MdM to guide future SRH strategy and efforts.

Participatory budgeting is a process in which community members decide how a portion of public funds should be spent. Participatory budgeting in New York City (PBNYC) began with four City Council districts in 2011 and has expanded to 31 of the 51 districts in 2019. One of the goals of PBNYC is to make public spending more equitable. Using publicly available data, the team conducted a difference-in-difference analysis to determine whether PBNYC results in a reallocation of capital project funds within districts and the extent to which these effects are moderated by neighborhood income level, gentrification, and political engagement. The team’s findings provide insight into whether PBNYC actually increases resources where most needed and are particularly relevant for policymakers and other stakeholders planning for PBNYC implementation citywide.