Funders, make a plan to gather vital feedback on your work in 2026!
Contact Us
Search
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.
Private U.S. foundations give around $10 billion a year to organizations that work on social and environmental problems outside of the country, particularly in Africa, South Asia, and other low-income parts of the world. Since the early 2000s, international...
As you consider your charitable donations this #GivingTuesday — and throughout the rest of the end-of-year giving season — it’s important to think about how you can make the most of your giving as you seek to affect change in communities and on topics you care about....
This post originally appeared on the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation website. As you read this, a nonprofit organization is keeping a mother and children safe from domestic abuse. An elder knows that someone from Meals-on-Wheels will be coming to check on him —...
The world of private philanthropy is often an enigma in the eyes of nonprofit leaders. We create confusion and frustration for nonprofit organizations. We are a puzzle. We speak in riddles and leave breadcrumb trails of paradox. Nonprofit staff spend countless hours...
This is a challenging time to be involved in social change, whether as a funder, activist, or nonprofit leader. Rural communities are crumbling from a lack of jobs, civil society is more polarized than ever, democracy is under attack, and we continue to struggle with...
When donors look for ways to make a positive difference in the world, direct service organizations are a logical starting point — whether it is the nonprofit empowering girls in Nepal or distributing antimalarial nets in affected areas around the world. Donors in the...
This post first appeared on India Development Review. A lot of people today talk about how philanthropy needs to be more business-like, about how we need to incorporate principles from the for-profit business sector into the nonprofit and traditional grantmaking...
A new generation of donors is asking some critical questions before making a gift — but possibly not the questions you might be imagining. At the Learning by Giving Foundation, we have a front-row seat to watching 700 of our country’s emerging leaders direct...
This post is adapted from remarks Phil Buchanan delivered to a gathering of nonprofit leaders at the Sanford Institute of Philanthropy at John F. Kennedy University’s 2019 Philanthropy Summit in Pleasant Hill, California on October 28, 2019. I have spent the last six...
The moments that foundations set aside to develop program strategies are exciting opportunities for expansive and deep thinking about how to make sustained system change and how to contribute optimally to solving a major social or environmental problem. In the...
In her recent post on the CEP blog, Melinda Tuan of Fund for Shared Insight makes the case for the connection between feedback and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI). She writes from the perspective of Shared Insight’s work with more than 400 nonprofits and nearly...
Foundations are grappling with how to address societal challenges deeply rooted in complex systems. At the same time, many foundations are trying to center equity in their work and to be more accountable to the communities they fund. They are doing all of this while...
The success of a partnership depends on more than its collective capital, issue expertise, or institutional efficacy. Take the Mars Climate Orbiter for example: a $125M satellite burned on Mars’ surface because – if you can believe it – NASA was calculating in meters...
"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed;persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed."2 Corinthians 4:8-9 We barely had time to grieve the loss of life in Gilroy when the news of the El Paso shootings emerged. It was beyond devastating. As...
In July 2014, a small group of funders came together to form Fund for Shared Insight, a collaborative focused on promoting listening and feedback to elevate the voices of those least heard in our field: the beneficiaries of nonprofit programs and services. We wanted...
The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) most recent research report, Crucial Donors: How Major Individual Givers Can Best Support Nonprofits, reveals in its key findings that “relationships matter,” and “understanding is a key component to any kind of strong...
At Fidelity Charitable, we are often asked by nonprofit organizations, “How can we better work with major donors to make more of an impact?” And my reply is always the same: the best way to make an impact with major donors is to engage with them. Nonprofits often face...
This post originally appeared on the blog in March 2015, and is reposted here as part of our Rewind series. CEP is currently in the process of renewing its membership with AAPOR's Transparency Initiative. “There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be...
When most people hear the word “philanthropy,” they often think of large foundations such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation or the Ford Foundation, but individual donors are the lifeblood of the nonprofit sector. Foundations direct less than 20 percent of the...
There is tremendous opportunity for philanthropy to contribute significantly to progress against the toughest social problems that defy government and market solutions. While philanthropy alone cannot solve all of the world’s complex social problems, it can take on...