NEO Philanthropy has enlisted a NYU Wagner Capstone Team to conduct an industry scan of philanthropic intermediaries. Intermediaries bridge the gap that exists between funders and organizations doing the work – they help funders respond more quickly to emerging needs, work more flexibly in complex issue areas or ones in which they have limited expertise, and break out of silos by supporting intersectional work.
Through this survey, the Capstone Team – a research group of graduate students from NYU’s Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service – aims to better understand the programs and services philanthropic intermediaries provide to nonprofits, donors and funders. Specifically, the research team is interested in understanding program management as it relates to staffing, fee and services. By better understanding how intermediaries work, these organizations can better serve grantees, donors, fiscally sponsored projects and philanthropy as a whole.
At the end of their research, the Capstone Team will produce a report from the anonymized data and distribute it to all survey participants. The report will include observed field trends and analysis of the data collected. The goal of the report is to support philanthropic intermediaries in understanding their offerings and where those offerings are situated within the broader space of peer organizations.
As a survey participant, NEO will not receive any data that has not been anonymized. The NYU Capstone Team is a neutral party and all survey responses will remain anonymous, even from NEO Philanthropy. By conducting this survey and producing the final report, NEO seeks to close the information gap in the intermediary field.
More About Capstone
Capstone is a team-based project that is required to graduate from NYU Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service Masters of Public Administration degree program. In lieu of individual research theses, teams of students act as consultants for nonprofits, working on research-based projects related to the students’ specializations. The Capstone Team serves as a neutral party.