Topical Initiatives
In addition to the broad research efforts underway, PACS currently sponsors three topical initiatives that will serve as umbrellas for a variety of activities, including research projects, focused fellowships, seminar series, and conferences.
This project considers the role and consequences of privately sponsored efforts to reform public education and its myriad institutions. Current research efforts examine the institutional, organizational, and human resource implications of entrepreneurial innovations in education, including charter and alternative forms of schooling and emerging professional pipelines that challenge the role of traditional educational institutions. In addition, the Project on Private Initiatives will sponsor research conferences and topical dialogues that bring together leading scholars, practitioners, and philanthropists who work on related topics.
For more information, see the Project on Private Initiatives in Public Education site:
- Metrics with Meaning (Powell)
Measuring nonprofit performance has become commonplace but too often the benchmarks are imposed by outsiders and are quite distant from the realities of daily work. Some nonprofits have begun to develop their own forms of accountability that are resonant with day-to-day practice. This research project focuses on the creation of forms of accountability that can be realistic measures of the challenges of service provision. It will include the development of cases where nonprofits have 'bootstrapped' novel metrics that both reflect the challenges of service delivery and are responsive to marketplace demands. In addition, PACS will host forums to convene leading scholars and practitioners within the sector interested in novel forms of accountability.
- Ethics of Philanthropy (Reich)
What norms should guide philanthropic giving? What public policies should structure, channel, regulate and incentivize philanthropy? This project gathers together research in philosophy, political theory, economics, psychology, and sociology among scholars who have interests in ethics and philanthropy.
Student Testimonial
PACS Undergraduate Lauren Finzer '09 speaks about the influential role PACS had on her Stanford academic career and how PACS is creating the next generation of philanthropic change agents.
PIPE Conference
PACS recently hosted a research conference to launch the project on Private Initiatives in Public Education (PIPE) that brought together leading scholars and practitioners who are working on projects related to emerging trends and cross-sector innovations in public education. Specifically, the conference explored the following themes:
1) The influence of philanthropic and private intermediary organizations in education;
2) Models of organizing diverse providers (charters and district schools) of public education;
3) Innovations in the development of human capital for education;
4) Entrepreneurship in the era of Obama.
The conference also set out to establish an agenda for future research in these areas.
