In recent years, the U.S. philanthropic sector has faced an increasingly challenging and polarized political landscape. Equity initiatives are experiencing increased scrutiny, with a growing number of political and legal threats to the work of nonprofits and...
Blog
The CEP blog aims to offer a range of perspectives, experiences, and opinions related to effective philanthropic practice. We welcome submissions that address crucial issues facing individual and institutional donors and are not self-promotional in nature. The views expressed in these posts are not necessarily CEP’s own.
Listening to Nonprofits in Moments of Political Uncertainty: Five Suggestions from Grantees
In moments of great uncertainty, it can be easy to freeze. However, as the pandemic taught us, funders have a crucial responsibility to support nonprofits to weather moments of rapid change and continue to serve communities effectively for the long term. As Election...
Engaging Youth in the Future of Democracy: One Foundation’s Vision
At the approach of a high-stakes election, voter turnout is top of mind for many, including which segments of the population are likely — or unlikely — to turn in a ballot in the coming days. Low rates of youth voter turnout often take center stage in these...
Perspectives on Intermediaries: Responding to ‘Bridging the Gap’
Introducing CEP's research on grantee experiences with intermediary funders, lead author Emily Yang notes "a significant rise in both the interest in and number of intermediary organizations." Accompanying this rise in interest in funding through intermediaries –...
If Intermediaries Are to Be a Viable Tool for Equity, Then They Must Be Funded Accordingly
According to the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s recent report on grantee experiences with intermediary funders, 33 percent of intermediary grantees report receiving multiyear funding, compared to 58 percent of grantees of other traditional funders. I find this...
Putting Partnership and Community First: One Intermediary’s Approach
I came to GreenLight Fund after leading Fresh Lifelines for Youth, a direct service and advocacy nonprofit that works with a variety of philanthropic partners. I’ve been struck by how much GreenLight as an intermediary works to align with grantees to support community...
Centering the Grantee Experience: A Path to Differentiation for Intermediary Funds
A new report from CEP looks at the grantee perceptions of “intermediary funders” — which it defines as a variety of “entities that are regrantors of philanthropic dollars.” It asks two main questions: how do grantee experiences with intermediaries differ from those...
In the Wake of DEI Attacks, Philanthropy Must Stand with Black Women
The recent settlement reached in the case against the Fearless Fund, which provides grants to businesses led by women of color, should not deter funders from supporting racial and gender equity initiatives. As I recently wrote in TIME Magazine: “Targeted efforts like...
Revisiting Big Questions for Philanthropy: When to Bridge and When to Fight
This is the third and final post in a series in which I revisit some of the big questions for philanthropy I discussed in a post published in the fall of 2022. The first dealt with whether changes in philanthropic practice made in the wake of the pandemic would be...
You Know What They Say About Assumptions: A Reflection on New Research About Intermediary Funders
CEP’s new research, Bridging the Gap: Grantee Perspectives on Intermediary Funders, makes one very clear point: Grantee experiences with intermediary funders mirror their experiences with originating funders (those that are often supporting intermediaries). As we’ve...
Knowing What We Don’t Know: Assessing Intermediaries’ Impact on Grantees
When I was approached by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) to serve on the advisory group for a research project on intermediary funders, I was immediately keen to participate. From two decades of first-hand experience, I know how valuable it can be to...
Unmatched Influence: Remembering Joel Fleishman
Joel Fleishman, who died September 30 at the age of 90, is rightly being remembered as a man who was, in the words of the New York Times, “an unparalleled influencer among the nation’s wealthy and powerful.” Many of the beautiful obituaries and reflections on Joel’s...
How Collaboratives Can Advance Impact at Scale
For the past several years, my colleagues and I at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have been working with donors who are choosing collaborative funds — those that pool the donations of multiple funders to amplify the impact that any one donor could have — to...
‘Words Matter’: An Interview with Houston Grantmaker Long Chu
A funder’s choice to collect grantee feedback by partnering with CEP on the Grantee Perception Report (GPR) signals a commitment to learning, improvement, and ultimately, effectiveness. This is particularly true of the many funders who repeat the GPR and observe their...
The Power of Partnership: Insights from the CORE Collective Program
In the organizing world, a key tenet of power is that "power is the product of relationship," meaning people in strong relationships with one another produce power. At EdTrust-West, we embrace this principle of power-building through one of our signature programs, the...
A Moonshot for Disaster Prevention: Building a Framework for Transformative Change
The frequency and intensity of natural hazards, including hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, are reaching unprecedented levels and devastating communities across the globe. Just last year, we witnessed the destruction caused by Hurricane Idalia, which left thousands...
Catalyzing Civic Change: It’s Time for Philanthropy to Elevate Youth Voices
America’s public schools were founded with a clear mission: to prepare each generation anew for the responsibilities of citizenship. Over the last year, YouthTruth, an initiative of the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), set out to evaluate how well schools are...
Unlocking the Transformative Potential of Intermediary Funds
One of the fastest growing philanthropic practices in recent years is the use of collaborative, or pooled, funds — one form of intermediary funding, the subject of a recent CEP report. Like many others, the Ford Foundation participates in multiple funder...
Building the Intermediary Ecosystem: Three Core Tenets
Philanthropy has experienced an explosion in intermediaries in the past decade and I was privileged to have a front-row seat to that growth during my tenure at Arabella Advisors, a leading provider of fiscal sponsorship services to some of philanthropy’s largest...
What Do Grantees Think of Intermediary Funders?
Over the past decade, there has been a significant rise in both the interest in and number of intermediary organizations — those that primarily regrant funds from institutional sources on their behalf, including nonprofits that act as regrantors, collaborative or...