Within each community giving topic, CGR highlights five main strategies you might pursue with your giving. The strategy (or strategies) you follow will flow from your interests, goals and the context in which you give.
Donors support the development of new programs when a new challenge is emerging within a community or when an existing challenge begs for a new approach. The new program might spring from the residents themselves or from a local organization. A new program might also involve the replication or expansion of programs from another community.
Before choosing to support new programs or the replication of a program into a new community, consider the pro's and con's:
Pro's
- New programs offer a clean slate from which to measure progress and guage results.
- Trying a new approach can energize a community, particuilarly when the approach emerges from a community's own experience and ingenuity.
- Replication projects offer a similar burst of new energy, with the benefit of being tested in another area.
- New programs allow a community (and the donor) to experiment while providing opportunities to learn and adapt.
Con's
- Level of risk is inherently higher in new programs and even in replication projects.
- Unless the characteristics of each community are carefully considered, replicated projects can not be relied upon to produce similar results.
- New programs tend to be more costly and to have longer time horizons than existing, tried-and-true approaches.
- When donors only fund new programs, nonprofits and community groups often feel obligated to create new programs, rather than refine or perfect existing ones.
Accessing care: Developing new programs
Nutrition and physical activity: Developing new programs
Mental health: Developing new programs
Violence prevention: Developing new programs
