The Center for Popular Democracy (CPD) is a national organization that promotes equity, opportunity, and a robust democracy by partnering with grassroots organizations to build community power and transform the state and local policy landscape. The Voting Rights and Democracy Program at CPD seeks to expand participation in democracy by defending democratic infrastructure and driving proactive changes such as redistricting reform. As part of that reform, CPD believes in the need for community engagement to ensure that congressional, state, and local districts fairly represent communities. CPD enlisted a Capstone team to conduct an analysis and review of redistricting efforts in 2011 in Minnesota and Virginia—two states that have experimented with efforts to involve individuals and communities in the process. Through research and stakeholder interviews, the team identified lessons learned and developed best practices to create a model for engaging communities in the redistricting process.

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is a membership organization for licensed architects with over 90,000 members and 200 global chapters. The AIA advocates for the value of architecture and provides professional development resources to its members. Many mid-career women architects leave the profession or struggle to rise to leadership positions. As a result, the AIA enlisted a Capstone team to develop new resources and programming that will provide greater membership value to its mid-career women members. The team worked collaboratively with the AIA to put forth recommendations, which include leveraging their national conferences, web portals, educational modules, and network of component offices. The team also delivered an environmental scan of women’s leadership best practices and a final report with recommendations for the AIA to implement over the next two to four years to bring greater leadership training, awareness, and support to their mid-career women members.

Concerned that the full impact of the 2008 financial crisis has not yet been felt in the field of social justice philanthropy, Cricket Island Foundation (CIF), a New York­based foundation supporting youth­led social change, partnered with the Social Justice Philanthropy Collaborative (SJPC), a net­work of national philanthropic organiza­tions that calls on grantmakers and donors to deepen their commitment to funding social change. Together they requested a Capstone team to assess the current asset value, spending rate, and investment strategies of national social justice funders and to project what those might look like through 2015. The Capstone team designed criteria to determine which foundations to study, created an interview tool, conducted background research and financial modeling on the study popula­tion, interviewed a subset of foundations, and highlighted emerging trends. The Capstone team presented its findings to the clients who will use this research to publish a report for national social justice funders and their grantees. The clients will use this data to drive long­term funding strategies and educate grantees about the financial health of the field.