Thanks to the "justice gap" — the difference between the civil legal needs of low-income Americans and the resources available to meet those needs — low-income Americans received inadequate or no legal help for 86 percent of their civil legal problems in the last year, a report from the Legal Services Corporation finds. Based on a survey...

The cost of operating and maintaining school principal pipelines in large urban districts averages about $5.6 million a year, or just 0.4 percent of annual expenditures, a report commissioned by the Wallace Foundation finds. Conducted by the RAND Corporation, the study, What It Takes to Operate and Maintain Principal Pipelines: Costs and Other...

The Latino community is helping to drive the growth and demographics of the population in the greater Boston region as well as its economy, a report from the Boston Foundation and the Boston Planning and Development Agency finds. According to the report, Powering Greater Boston's Economy: Why the Latino Community Is Critical to Our Shared Future...

Although police departments often face unique challenges in building trust-based relationships with recently resettled refugees, case studies show that proactive officers can bridge those gaps, a report from the Police Executive Research Forum finds. Funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the report, Refugee Outreach and Engagement...

Passed by the U.S. House of Representatives in May, the American Health Care Act (AHCA) could result in as many as 14.8 million people losing Medicaid coverage, a report from the Urban Institute and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation finds. The report, The Impact of the AHCA on Federal and State Medicaid Spending and Medicaid Coverage (24 pages,...

There is a substantial and consistent correlation between arts participation and civic engagement, a report from the James Irvine Foundation finds. Based on a literature review, the report, Hearts and Minds: The Arts and Civic Engagement (21 pages, PDF), found that people who participate in the arts are more likely than those who don't to...

Cuts in state funding for public flagship universities are forcing many schools to admit more out-of-state students who pay higher tuition — to the point of shutting out moderate- and low-income in-state students, a report from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation finds. The report, State University No More: Out-of-State Enrollment and the Growing...

Financial returns on so-called real asset impact investments funds focused on real estate, timber, and infrastructure are comparable to returns on conventional real asset funds, a report from the Global Impact Investing Network finds. The report, The Financial Performance of Real Assets Impact Investments (34 pages, PDF), analyzed fifty-five...

A report from Polaris identifies twenty-five types of human trafficking in the United States — each characterized by its own "business" model, recruitment strategies, and methods of control. Based on an analysis of more than thirty-two thousand cases of labor and sex trafficking cases documented between December 2007 and December 2016, The...

While philanthropic organizations play a crucial role in supporting research that advances our understanding of the world, many face the challenge of assessing the effectiveness of their investments, an issue brief from Mathematica Policy Research and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation finds. According to the brief, Evaluating Basic Science...

Medicaid plays a larger role in providing health coverage to families living in small towns and rural communities than it does in metropolitan areas, a report from Georgetown University's Center for Children and Families and the University of North Carolina's North Carolina Rural Health Research Program finds. Funded by the Pritzker Children's...

The ethic of "giving while living," championed in recent decades by Atlantic Philanthropies founder Chuck Feeney, is a complex phenomenon of intertwined — and sometimes competing — transactional, donor, and institutional imperatives, a report commissioned by the foundation finds. According to the report, The History of the Giving While Living...

The window of opportunity to stabilize marine ecosystems and mitigate the impact on them of climate change, coastal development, shipping, overfishing, and pollution is narrowing, a report commissioned by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation from the California Environmental Associates warns. According to the report, Our Shared Seas: A 2017...

While thirty-five states have progressive school funding formulas designed to target districts serving primarily low-income districts, poorer districts in nearly half of those states still receive less local and state funding per student than richer ones, a report from the Urban Institute finds. The report, Do Poor Kids Get Their Fair Share of...