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.
High-Engagement Funders & Strong Funder-Grantee Relationships: Are They Mutually Exclusive? (Hint: No.)
Three Foundation Execs Give Inside Scoop on Grantee Feedback
I often find myself facing a series of pretty consistent questions when I begin a conversation with one of the 47 percent of funders that a recent Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) survey found are not soliciting feedback from grantees....
The Big Issues: OK, So What Did I Miss?
This post is the seventh and final in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. Over the past few weeks, I...
Big Issue 5: A New Sophistication in Considering how to Support Nonprofits Effectively
This post is the sixth in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. After a period in which grantees were...
Big Issue 4: The Embracing of — or Return to — Aligned Action
This post is the fifth in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. Lately, the position that...
Investing in Infrastructure
I did a little jig down 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan, clad in a suit and tie, briefcase in hand. It wasn’t pretty, and I got some odd looks. But sometimes you’ve got to dance. I had just left Joel Fleishman’s office, then head of U.S. grantmaking at Atlantic...
Big Issue 3: Evolving Notions of Strategy and Measurement
This post is the fourth in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. As sociologist Linsey McGoey points out...
Big Issue 2: Questioning the “Traditional” Approach to Endowment Management
This post is the third in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. For the past century, foundations have...
Big Issue 1: Fundamental Questions about the Role of Philanthropy
This post is the second in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. Relative to other sectors, the nonprofit...
3 Questions to Guide Educators’ Use of Student Feedback
This post originally appeared on Education Week's "Finding Common Ground" blog. Education is one of the few industries, perhaps the only one, in which everyone has a firsthand experience and a valid opinion. That translates into lots of ideas from various stakeholders...
Timeless Dimensions of Effectiveness
This post is the first in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. There’s a lot of talk of “reinvention” in...
Five Lessons on Successful Philanthropic Collaborations
Philanthropy and Migration: Europe Drawing on Innovations From Around the World
Transactional vs. Transformative Transparency
CEP’s new report on transparency is a very valuable tool for introspection for individual foundations — and the wider field of philanthropy — to think about how we define and deliver on our pledges to become more transparent. As many other writers on...
CEP in 135 Seconds: Debuting Our New Video
Foundations for Openness
Our tagline at Fund for Shared Insight is “Philanthropy. Open for improvement.”* Founded in July 2014, Fund for Shared Insight (“Shared Insight”) is a funder collaborative working to improve philanthropy by increasing foundation openness. We...
For Foundations, Succession Planning Should Be a High Priority
Finding Out Whether Your Assistance to Grantees Makes a Difference
This post originally appeared on the blog in March 2012 and delves into findings from CEP’s report, More Than Money: Making a Difference with Assistance Beyond the Grant. It is re-posted here as part of our Rewind blog series. Believing that their...
Assessing the Assessment: The Grantee Perception Report
Feedback really does fuel change. That’s why we created the Grantee Perception Report (GPR) – to allow funders to hear from grantees and continually improve based on their unbiased, comparative feedback. And that’s why it’s important that funders actually can, and do,...