
State of Nonprofits 2026:Â
What Funders Need to Know
CEP’s fourth annual State of Nonprofits report offers vital insight into how nonprofits are faring amidst unprecedented challenges.
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CEP seeks to influence foundations and major donors to be more effective. We offer assessments that gather essential feedback from key stakeholders, data-driven research, customized advisory services, thought-provoking events, and incisive commentary on the CEP Blog.
Improve Your Effectiveness
CEP’s assessments provide unique insights into your effectiveness by gathering candid and actionable feedback from grantees, donors, and funder staff and benchmarking results with other grantmakers.
Featured Resources
A Sector in Crisis: How U.S. Nonprofits and Foundations Are Responding to Threats
As nonprofits face historic challenges, new data from the Center for Effective Philanthropy reveals how nonprofits are faring and how foundations are responding.
Board Book Insert – State of Nonprofits 2026: What Funders Need to Know
Foundation Governance Today: How Boards and CEOs Are Navigating Risk, Accountability, and a Shifting Landscape
Breaking the Mold: The Transformative Effect of MacKenzie Scott's Big Gifts
AI With Purpose: How Foundations and Nonprofits Are Thinking About and Using Artificial Intelligence
Questions? Connect with us.
Lauren Chan
Senior Coordinator, People and Culture
From the Blog
Navigating the Headwinds: Why Funders Should Lean Into Equity-Centered Evaluation
The philanthropic sector is no stranger to headwinds, but the current storm is testing funders’ commitment to equity in ways we’ve never experienced before — and learning and evaluation is at a high-stakes inflection point. Whether foundations choose to reinforce or...
Capability Scoring: A Model for Capital Allocation That Moves Beyond Capacity as the Goal
Midy Aponte-Vargas has written one of the clearest statements of philanthropy’s core problem I’ve read this year. The operating-system framing is right. Capacity-as-deficit is right. The argument that more flexible funding is only a gentler version of the old system...
When Is AI in the Public’s Interest? Four Questions Philanthropy Should Ask First
When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), these are not merely interesting times. They are disorienting ones. The technology is evolving quickly, the claims around it are louder than the evidence, and much of the public conversation is driven by people with...

