A report from the Brennan Center for Justice compiles proposals from civil society and elected leaders for transforming the criminal justice system to address racial disparities and end mass incarceration. The report, Ending Mass Incarceration: Ideas from Today's Leaders (pages, PDF), includes essays by author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who explores the...

A survey of more than sixty-six hundred Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that 58 percent — including 56 percent of white respondents and 71 percent of black respondents — think race relations in the United States are "generally bad." According to the report, Race in America 2019 (HTML or PDF, 50 pages), 56 percent of...

Seven in ten students at community college and six in ten students at four-year colleges experienced food insecurity, housing insecurity, and/or homelessness during the previous year, a report from the Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice finds. Based on a 2018 survey of nearly eighty-six thousand students at a hundred and...

While the Affordable Care Act has reduced the percentage of uninsured people in the United States from 16 percent to 9 percent, more can be done within its framework to achieve universal coverage, an analysis by the Brookings Institution argues. Published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the policy brief, Building on the ACA to Achieve...

At the end of 2018, there were an estimated 1,471,200 people in state and federal prisons, down 1.3 percent from year-end 2017 — including 1,291,000 people under state prison jurisdiction and 179,900 in the federal prison system, down 1.3 percent and 1.7 percent, respectively — a data brief from the Vera Institute of Justice finds. Funded...

Benton and Washington counties in northwest Arkansas have seen increased "arts vibrancy" since 2013, thanks to an established core of large arts and cultural institutions, a report from SMU DataArts (created in 2018 through the merger of Southern Methodist University's National Center for Arts Research and the nonprofit DataArts) finds....

A report from Bolder Advocacy, an initiative of the Alliance for Justice, outlines the types of advocacy efforts that 501(c)(3) organizations legally can engage in and foundations can fund, including policy research, meetings with reporters, educating the public, and community organizing. According to the report, Foundation Advocacy Grants:...

Interventions for mental health conditions, half of which are manifest by age 14, work best at an early stage when symptoms are less severe, more treatable, and readily prevented from escalating, a report from the Meadows Mental Health Institute finds. Funded by the San Antonio Area Foundation and the Kronkosky Charitable Foundation, the report,...

The number of clean energy jobs across twelve Midwestern states totaled 737,031 in 2018, up 4 percent on a year-over-year basis, a report from the Clean Energy Trust, in partnership with Environmental Entrepreneurs and BW Research, finds. The report, 2019 Clean Jobs Midwest (or executive summary, 6 pages, PDF), a survey of clean energy...

A place-based initiative designed to integrate best practices in adult-child interactions into early-learning systems can support inclusive community change — but also requires shifts in grantmakers' mindsets and away from traditional foundation orthodoxies, a report from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation finds. Published in...

A pilot program launched in 2015 with the aim of supporting artists in the exercise of their creative power and elevating the diversity of communities and artistic practice in Boston resulted in many participants taking risks, career opportunities for some of them, and real community change, a report from the New England Foundation for the Arts...

More than three-quarters (78 percent) of people who volunteer with a nonprofit say that understanding the impact of their efforts keeps them engaged, a report from Verified Volunteers, the service sector unit of background and identity services firm Sterling, in partnership with VolunteerMatch, finds. Based on a survey of more than...

With the freedom to design, staff, and implement school models that appeal to a wide range of families and enroll students from multiple neighborhoods, charter schools have the potential to help advance racial and socioeconomic integration in public schools — yet are not living up to that vision, a report from the Century Foundation finds....

Climate change is causing significant and far-reaching impacts on the Great Lakes and the Great Lakes region, as well as on the more than thirty-four million people who live in their basin, a report from the Environment Law & Policy Center finds. The report, The Impacts of Climate Change on the Great Lakes (74 pages, PDF), found that in...