1) The governance model we propose to preserve, protect and strengthen the American River Parkway is that of a public private partnership between a Joint Powers Authority (JPA) of the local governments adjacent to the Parkway and a nonprofit organization to manage the Parkway and secure supplemental funding through philanthropic development.
Our primary model for this is the Central Park Conservancy (CPC) which has been managing Central Park in New York under contract with the city of New York for many years.
An excerpt from the CPC website:
“The Central Park Conservancy is a private, not-for-profit organization founded in 1980 that manages Central Park under a contract with the New York City Department of Parks & Recreation. Thanks to the generosity of many individuals, corporations, foundations, and the City of New York, the Conservancy has invested more than $450 million to date into the Park making it a model for urban parks worldwide. The Conservancy provides 85% of Central Park's $27 million annual operating budget and is responsible for all basic care of the Park.”
2) A central aspect of the nonprofit organization would be its adoption of the principles of social enterprise for funding beyond philanthropy and the base funding from the JPA—much as the CPC has done so successfully—and this research paper, The Future of Social Enterprise, from Harvard examines the social enterprise field.
Here is an excerpt from the abstract, and a link to the paper is at the jump:
“The Future of Social Enterprise considers the confluence of forces that is shaping the field of social enterprise, changing the way that funders, practitioners, scholars, and organizations measure performance. We trace a growing pool of potential funding sources to solve social problems, much of it stemming from an intergenerational transfer of wealth and new wealth from financial and high-tech entrepreneurs. We examine how these organizations can best access the untapped resources by demonstrating mission performance and then propose three potential scenarios for how this sector might evolve:
“Consolidation: In this scenario, funding will keep growing in a gradual, linear fashion and organizations will compete for resources by demonstrating performance, with a focus on efficiency. The sector will consolidate, with some efficient organizations gaining scale, some merging and then growing, and some failing to achieve either scale or efficiency and eventually shutting down.
“Entrepreneurial: In a more optimistic future, existing and new enterprises will apply strategies to achieve and demonstrate performance, improving efficiency and effectiveness and attracting new funding sources. More organizations will enter a reformed, competitive field of social change with new entrepreneurial models, established traditional organizations, and innovative funding strategies fueling widespread success.
“Expressive: Rather than focusing exclusively on performance, funders and organizations may view their investment as an expressive civic activity. As much value is placed on participating in a cause as on employing concrete measures of impact or efficiency. In this scenario, funding will flow as social entrepreneurs experiment with new models based on a range of individual priorities and relationships.”
