The Aspen Institute
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3
"Up" is the number of experts who agree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in the
field. "Down" is the number of experts who disagree that the nonprofit has had the most impact in field.
Headquarters Location: Washington, D.C.
Founded: 1950
Mission: The Aspen Institute mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues.
Tags:
national, workforce development, leadership development, policy, advocacy, fellowship programs
Summary
Stories
Expert Reviews
Leadership
From the Nonprofit
Leadership
Walter Isaacson.
Walter Isaacson is the President and CEO of the Aspen Institute, a nonpartisan educational and policy studies institute based in Washington, D.C. He has been the Chairman and CEO of CNN and the editor of Time Magazine. He is the author of Einstein: His Life and Universe (April 2007), Benjamin Franklin: An American Life (2003), and Kissinger: A Biography (1992),…
See full bio.
Financial Data
Overhead Ratio:
19.84%
Total Revenue:
$73,720,045
From the Nonprofit
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Contact Info
Website:
E-Mail:
info AT aspeninstitute.org
Phone:
202-736-5800
Facebook:
Address:
PO Box 222
Washington, D.C. 20036, USA
Twitter:
Story:
Here’s the story of how the The Aspen Institute got started:
Chicago businessman Walter Paepcke (1896-1960), chairman of the Container Corporation of America, first visited Aspen, Colorado in 1945. Inspired by its great natural beauty, he envisioned it as an ideal gathering place for thinkers, leaders, artists, and musicians from all over the world to step away from their daily routines and reflect on the underlying values of society and culture. He dreamed of transforming the town into a center for dialogue, a place for "lifting us out of our usual selves," as one visitor to Paepcke's Aspen would put it.
To make this dream real, in 1949 Paepcke made Aspen the site for a celebration of the 200th birthday of German poet and philosopher Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The 20-day gathering attracted such prominent intellectuals and artists as Albert Schweitzer, Jose Ortega y Gasset, Thornton Wilder, and Arthur Rubinstein, along with members of the international press and more than 2,000 other attendees.
The next year, Paepcke created what is now the Aspen Institute.
Today the Aspen Institute’s mission is twofold: to foster values-based leadership, encouraging individuals to reflect on the ideals and ideas that define a good society, and to provide a neutral and balanced venue for discussing and acting on critical issues. The Aspen Institute does this primarily in four ways: seminars, young-leader fellowships around the globe, policy programs, and public conferences and events. (Source: http://www.aspeninstitute.org/about/history)
Expert Reviews of The Aspen Institute
Evidence of Impact Summary:
The Aspen Institute is noted for its demonstrated ability to improve workforce development outcomes through sector-based strategies.See expert comments.
Organization Strengths Summary:
The Aspen Institute received praise for its staff and leadership from a majority of respondents.See expert comments.
Areas for Improvement Summary:
Experts consider program design and capacity building to be a main areas for improvements.See expert comments.
Expert Comments: Evidence of Impact
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Impact |
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The Aspen Institute delivers high quality research and evaluation for practitioners and policymakers as well as manages "communities of practice" to help workforce practitioners continue to improve performance. | ||
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They helped to further sector and community college practices via timely research. | ||
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Their recent report on construction programs has been very helpful. | ||
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Their Sector Skills Academy has provided workforce development professionals from policy to practitioner levels with tools and information to implement successful sector-based strategies that assist low-income workers. Their focus on process and outcomes research is also an important aspect of the impact they have had as it lends credence to their ideas and methods. | ||
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They have an impact in a number of states and focus upon community colleges and workforce boards. | ||
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They provide quality research on sector programs; they have developed new initiatives on community college, community based organizations partnerships that have had an impact on how those partnerships are seen, understood, and the influence they have. | ||
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Their research of evidence based practices and applied research in the form of high impact demonstrations are evidence of impact. | ||
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The Aspen Institute's Work Skills Initiative team played a leading role in defining an entire field of strategy within workforce development sector strategies and has helped articulate this field and grow the capacity of practitioners and policy makers to engage in it. | ||
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Issuing well written reports, providing testimony, and presentations all based on extensive, longitudinal studies combining qualitative and quantitative approaches to inform both practice and policy in the workforce development area. The creativity and depth of their analysis increases impact. | ||
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The Aspen Institute has helped to focus policy makers and regional practitioners on the need to develop sector based strategies in our workforce development activities. | ||
Expert Comments: Organization Strengths
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Staff |
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Their staff is smart and very thoughtful. | ||
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It has deep staff knowledge. | ||
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It has a strong staff and broad reach issue-wise. | ||
Staff & Communication |
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The staff seems to be very strong and their communication to nonprofits is strong. | ||
Reputation & Impact |
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The Aspen Institute is a large, well-known organization for other reasons and has leveraged its position well to make an impact in workforce development. | ||
Leadership |
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Their leadership and creativity are strengths. | ||
Leadership & Program Design |
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They have good leadership, solid research, careful program development, attention to costs, and implementation. | ||
Leadership & Evaluation |
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They have strong leadership; they understand the nuances of what works in workforce development and what does not; they have a strong focus on evaluation. | ||
Research & Program Design |
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One key strength is the production of high quality written materials (books, papers, etc.) that are clear in theme, rich in example, and quantitatively rigorous. A second key strength is their consistent clarity of focus on both subject matter (sector strategies) and the levers of change in which they are engaging. They experience little, if any, mission creep. | ||
Research & Staff |
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Independence and objectivity of approach are strengths. Their hard-working dedicated staff drilling down and asking/exploring the tough questions in order to generate high quality policy and practice recommendations. | ||
Expert Comments: Areas for Improvement
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Foundation Professionals (F)
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Researchers and Faculty (R)
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Nonprofit Senior Staff (N)
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Other (consultants, journalists, policy makers) (O)
Program Design |
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They could provide more tools for the workforce practitioners in the field. | ||
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They should think about taking a broader view of workforce development and sector strategies, focusing on workers at multiple skill and income levels and paying closer attention to the role of community colleges and higher education in preparing workers for jobs. | ||
Capacity |
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This is a small shop - it would benefit from further growth. | ||
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Aspen's Workforce Skills Initiative team is small and must bound its work pretty tightly as a result. | ||
Partnerships |
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They need to focus more effort on involvement of companies. | ||
Operations |
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Marketing, dissemination, and policy impact are areas for improvement here. | ||
Diversity |
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They need to diversify staff in terms of racial/ethnic make-up, and take the extra steps necessary to insure inclusion. | ||
Leadership
Walter Isaacson
President and CEO
President and CEO
From the Nonprofit
The nonprofit has not added any comments yet. If you are a representative of this nonprofit and would like to leave a comment, please email us at
feedback@myphilanthropedia.org
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