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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.
What if philanthropy took on structural racism with the dedication it reserves for issues like education or health? It would require seeing structural racism as the problem and the racial disparities and inequities as a manifestation of that problem. After all, as the...
At Global Fund for Children (GFC), our convening practice is key to building long-term partnerships with community-based organizations as they learn, adapt, and lead change. In this blog post, we share our unique approach to convenings, how we shift power to our...
It’s remarkable to reflect on how much has changed since 2019, when big philanthropy was wrapped up in self-critique prompted by a range of high-profile critics. But the pandemic and the racial justice reckoning of 2020, and the sense of urgency they created, rendered...
Trust has become an important concept in global development philanthropy, but we need to really understand it before we preach it. Indeed, sector discussions on the subject can risk stopping short of addressing important questions that are critical to the concept as a...
This summer, 28 New York City high school students spent five weeks at Trinity Commons where they learned the craft of journalism. The student journalists focused on housing issues in their reporting and the cohort included students with lived experience with...
When you think of the word philanthropy, what images come to mind? A building? Stacks of money? Grant checks? Board rooms? Who sits in those places of power? While conducting in-depth interviews with more than 100 high-net-worth donors of color for the qualitative...
When you think of the word philanthropy, what images come to mind? A building? Stacks of money? Grant checks? Board rooms? Who sits in those places of power? When Donors of Color Network (DOCN) was formed to nurture a joyful community prepared to shift the center of...
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. Or so we’ve been told. But what happens when you try building culture through strategy? This is what we attempted to do in the Open Society Foundations’ Economic Justice Program. The program, which sought to articulate the first...
From a global pandemic to the recent invasion of Ukraine, globally impactful disasters are an increasingly frequent part of our reality, and thus an important factor as funders consider grantmaking priorities and the funding landscape in which they operate. In light...
This piece was originally posted in January 2022. It should be obvious that “who” is doing a job or playing a leadership role informs how the job is done. Who we are as people — the experiences that we have, the skill sets and perspectives that we bring, the...
In part one of this blog post, we shared the humbling results of the Overdeck Family Foundation’s 2019 Grantee Perception Report, as well as how the Foundation came together to process that data and formulate a plan to move forward. We suggest you read part one before...
At Overdeck Family Foundation, we aim to open doors for every child in the U.S. by measurably enhancing education both inside and outside the classroom. In our collective work towards our mission, we are guided by three core values, all of which we lean on daily with...
Listen now to the season 3 trailer. Being a wise and effective donor isn’t easy. I’ve spoken with countless individual donors and philanthropic advisors about the challenges of giving in this current moment of economic uncertainty, unending natural disasters, extreme...
There is no group more qualified to lead solutions to our world’s most pressing problems than the communities who directly experience them. For young people in emerging markets — who are disproportionately affected by issues such as climate change, gender inequity,...
From a global pandemic to the recent invasion of Ukraine, globally impactful disasters are an increasingly frequent part of our reality, and thus an important factor as funders consider grantmaking priorities and the funding landscape in which they operate. In light...
A little more than six years ago, Olatunde Sobomehin co-founded the organization StreetCode Academy, a California-based nonprofit that provides technology access, skills learning, and mentorship for communities of color. Since its founding, Sobomehin has led the...
With midterm elections looming on the horizon, many foundations are asking the question: What can we do to get out the vote, educate the voting public, and support our grantees’ important election season advocacy work? The good news is that even during an election...
The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s report, Much Alarm, Less Action: Foundations and Climate Change, reveals that many non-climate funders see climate change as outside the scope of their mission and resources, but still believe that it’s an urgent problem and...
From a global pandemic to the recent invasion of Ukraine, globally impactful disasters are an increasingly frequent part of our reality, and thus an important factor as funders consider grantmaking priorities and the funding landscape in which they operate. In light...
The Hewlett Foundation believes that the climate crisis is one of the most pressing issues of our lifetime and impacts everything we do — it’s why we have dedicated over $1 billion to driving climate solutions and why we’ve been huge advocates to get more money into...