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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.
If we started this year with optimism, sure that stability was within grasp, that sense of confidence and security was swiftly snatched away. From an attack on the Capitol to the pandemic’s resurgence to continued polarization within and outside of our borders, 2021...
In 2017, after joining my family’s foundation as the Director of Programs, I had the opportunity to participate in a “Meet the Funders'' event hosted by the Asian Pacific Community Fund. At the time, I wasn’t the most seasoned grantmaker, but it had long been a desire...
The Overlooked: Foundation Support for AAPI/Native American Leaders and Communities project and its findings must serve as an abrupt wake-up call for foundations and the philanthropic industry as a whole. While we are not entirely surprised by the findings and...
Racial equity has been a more explicit consideration for foundations, as CEP documented in a report released last month, but our data suggests that some communities continue to be overlooked. Across four research studies that CEP has conducted in the past two years,...
This interview originally appeared on Philanthropy New York, News. It is reposted here with permission. Criticism of philanthropy is not new and, of course, thoughtful critique is essential to improvement. In my own career, I have focused for 20 years, as...
As we confront the many inequities exposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, The New Deal, the Roosevelt administration’s sweeping policy response to the Great Depression of the 1930s, should be an inspiration. Its policies demonstrate that in mending the economy — the work...
Change is borne of experience. Lasting change is borne of enlightenment. The divide between the two is often quite significant. Change is the subject of the recent report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) (Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting Change?)...
Foundation and nonprofit leaders came together to discuss changes made to philanthropic practice in response to the crises of the last two years at CEP’s third 2021 Virtual Learning Session. In this excerpt, the panelists respond to one of the findings of CEP’s new...
In the middle of the 19th century, the likelihood of death during childbirth was extraordinarily high. In Vienna, two maternity wards, one staffed by male doctors and one staffed by female midwives had vastly different mortality rates: the ward staffed by male doctors...
In its recently released report, “Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting Change?,” the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) shared new research in which foundations reported working differently now than in early 2020 — and indicated plans to sustain most of these...
Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest, or moving at a constant speed in a straight line, will stay that way unless acted upon by a force. Staying at rest and moving at a constant speed in a straight line aren’t all that different in Newtonian...
There’s essentially nothing a foundation must do when it comes to asking most nonprofits to provide reports on the grants they’ve received. In fact, there’s no regulation that requires a funder to have a reporting process at all. (Expenditure responsibility grants are...
This year-end season, let’s pause and consider how we can put the “Philo” (love in Greek) at the center of our philanthropy. Instead of our usual approach to philanthropy as the love of humanity, the end beneficiaries of our grants, I encourage funders and others in...
“Move the money.” Community organizers in social movements have repeated this call to action for philanthropy for years. As a longtime organizer, I used to be the one expressing this refrain. Now, as the CEO of a new family foundation, the Kataly Foundation, I’m on...
As nonprofits, and the people and communities they serve, faced compounding challenges over the past year plus, individual donors have provided crucial support. In fact, increased financial support from individual donors — in addition to foundations and the government...
As nonprofits, and the people and communities they serve, faced compounding challenges over the past year plus, individual donors have provided crucial support. In fact, increased financial support from individual donors — in addition to foundations and the government...
Program officers have a tremendous influence on their grantee’s happiness. CEP’s seminal report on the importance of relationships between program officers and grantees documents that program officers can be a more important determinant of a grantee's experience than...
Two years ago, in September 2019, the World Education Services (WES) Mariam Assefa Fund awarded its first grants to organizations working to build more inclusive economies for immigrants and refugees in the United States and Canada. We were excited to begin our...
With the effects of climate change becoming starker, climate philanthropy is taking off as never before. New players like the Bezos Earth Fund are making a splash and overall funding is rising each year; a report from the ClimateWorks Foundation estimates climate...
This piece was originally posted in January 2020. The past two decades have seen a shift in the conversation about philanthropy. We entered the 2000s being told that what philanthropy needed was a “business” or “investor” mindset, with less clarity of course about...