November 11, 2026
This month's selections examine three connected questions: Who has authority to decide? What evidence informs those decisions? And can an organization manage the responsibilities that come with new resources?
The settings differ: public education, civic data, and opioid-settlement funding. Each offers a useful perspective on how leaders can assess whether an initiative's governance, information, and capacity support its purpose.
"The case for co-governance for public education"
James Haslam, Leigh Kennedy, Mike Matsuda, and Mike Woodward
Nonprofit Quarterly | November 10, 2026
In this extended discussion, education practitioners examine what changes when teachers, students, families, and community members gain a meaningful role in institutional decisions. Examples include participatory budgeting, union–district collaboration, and teacher-led governance. The central distinction is between asking people for their views and giving them authority over what happens next.
For a complex initiative, stakeholder engagement and governance are different tasks. A listening session can inform a decision without changing who makes it. A collaborative structure can distribute authority without making responsibility clear.
The article prompts questions that extend beyond education: Which decisions should participants share? Which responsibilities remain with a board or executive? Who resolves disagreement? And who must carry out the decision?
Our takeaway is not that every initiative needs shared governance. It is that leaders should make decision rights explicit. When participants understand their authority, responsibilities, and limits, they have a clearer basis for working together.
The contributors advocate co-governance and draw on their own professional experience. Their examples offer ideas to examine, not proof that one governance model suits every institution.
"The Data We Deserve: Reimagining Our Civic Data"
Yewande O. Addie and Jamila M. Porter
Stanford Social Innovation Review | November 10, 2026
Addie and Porter examine weaknesses in public data systems and argue for a greater community role in deciding what information institutions collect and how they use it. They connect concerns about federal data with longer-standing questions about whose experiences count and whether information leads to action.
An initiative can produce extensive reports without giving its leaders the evidence they need to make a decision.
This essay invites a more practical starting point: What decision should the information change? From there, leaders can ask what they need to know, whether the available evidence answers the question, and who has responsibility to act.
We would extend that inquiry to the claims an initiative makes about its progress. Measures of activity, changes in organizational practice, and changes in people's lives answer different questions. A useful assessment should keep those distinctions visible rather than combine them into a single claim of success.
The essay advances a particular vision of community-governed data. Readers need not accept every prescription to examine its underlying question: Does the information system serve the decisions and people it is meant to support?
"When opioid-settlement grants turn nonprofits into public contractors"
Brandon Burley
Nonprofit Quarterly | November 12, 2026
Drawing on public records, interviews, and agency responses, Burley examines what happens when nonprofits receive substantial public funding. Tennessee's opioid-settlement grants provide the setting for a broader investigation of cash flow, financial controls, staffing, board oversight, and accountability.
The reporting makes several important distinctions: reimbursement approval is not a transaction-level audit; financial compliance is not program performance; and small organizational size does not inevitably mean weak administration. It also considers whether monitoring identified problems early enough to support correction.
A funding commitment can advance an organization's mission while creating obligations it has not previously managed.
Before accepting a major grant, leaders should examine more than the proposed services. Can the organization cover expenses while waiting for reimbursement? Who owns documentation and financial controls? What does the board need to review? Does the budget include the capacity required to administer the work?
Funders face a related question: Does their oversight merely identify failure, or does it help recipients recognize and address risks early?
The article does not resolve every question in the cases it examines. Its value lies partly in preserving that uncertainty. Financial-control findings do not, by themselves, establish that services failed, just as funding approval does not establish organizational readiness.
Our reading of these pieces points to a common discipline: examine the arrangements behind an initiative's promises. Clarify who decides, identify the evidence the decision requires, and assess whether resources come with the capacity to use them responsibly. Those questions become especially important when an initiative grows, changes direction, or faces scrutiny.