As I read “What’s Not Changing (Much) in Funder Practice: Multiyear GOS” on the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) blog, I found the advice for foundations considering multiyear general operating support (GOS) really resonated with our experience at the Sewall...
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.
In Conversation with Allison Fine and Beth Kanter, Authors of “The Smart Nonprofit”
Smart technology, which refers to AI and other digital technologies that replace human decision-makers, is on the rise. While smart technology has obvious implications in sectors like the automotive industry, personal electronics, home automation, and more, the...
We Need Many Champions to Shift Foundation Listening Practices
This is the third in a series of posts contributed by the Feedback Incentives Learning Group, a group of funders convened by Feedback Labs that are dedicated to encouraging peer funders to listen to the people most harmed by the systems and structures they seek to...
After Removing Grantee Burden, What Next?
As we reach the time when many grantees have submitted final grant reports for the previous year’s efforts, what better time to reflect and elaborate on the problems with grantee reporting requirements discussed by Kevin Bolduc’s post on the Center for Effective...
How We’re Listening, Learning, and Looking Forward
Part of my work on the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) assessment and advisory services team is to help funders listen and learn by raising up the voices of grantees, declined applicants, donors, staff, and a variety of other stakeholders.
Two Years Later, Part Three: Observing Eight Traits of Effective Leaders
I’ve been thinking recently about what’s changed since March 2020 when it comes to the nonprofit sector; foundation and individual giving; and my take on leadership. In this final post of a three-part series, I reflect on what I have learned — or re-learned — about...
When it Comes to Foundation Leaders, Prior Nonprofit Experience Matters
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...
Two Years Later, Part Two: Who Trusted, and Why It Matters
I’ve been thinking recently about what’s changed since March 2020 when it comes to the nonprofit sector; foundation and individual giving; and my take on leadership. This is the second post in a three-part series. While the general public’s trust in nonprofits has...
How Do Funders Encourage Grantees to Listen?
This is the second in a series of posts contributed by the Feedback Incentives Learning Group, a group of funders convened by Feedback Labs that are dedicated to encouraging peer funders to listen to the people most harmed by the systems and structures they seek to...
Amid War, a Clear and Collective Call to Support Public Interest Media in Ukraine
This post originally appeared on the Media Impact Funders blog. It is reposted here with permission. Every day, as the Russian invasion of Ukraine grinds on, we are witness to bloody crimes against Ukrainian civilians and crimes against humanity, in a growing...
Two Years Later, Part One: Nonprofit Heroism Up, Trust Down
I’ve been thinking recently about what’s changed since March 2020 when it comes to the nonprofit sector; foundation and individual giving; and my take on leadership. In a three-part series over the next three weeks, I’ll discuss each in turn. By mid-March of 2020, it...
Leadership Development Programs Need an Upgrade: Five Ways to Advance Racial Equity
As the nation grapples with “the great resignation” across a range of job industries since the start of the pandemic, employment challenges extend to the nonprofit sector as well. Nonprofits are experiencing high rates of burnout and turnover, and many are struggling...
The Miracle is You: An Argument for Continuing to Reimagine the Reporting Process
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...
Using our Power to Recenter Voice
This is the first in a series of posts contributed by the Feedback Incentives Learning Group, a group of funders dedicated to encouraging peer funders to listen to the people most harmed by the systems and structures they seek to change and to supporting their...
Investing in the Strength of People and Organizations in Times of Crisis
At the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, we believe one of the most powerful pathways to transformational change is investing in the strengths and capacities of leaders and organizations to adapt to a quickly changing world and amplify their impact. Over the past...
Who Chooses? Shifting and Sharing Power with People Most Impacted by Philanthropy’s Decisions
“The power in this approach is that we get to pick our own champions.” Billy Kinney, one of the Native members of Fund for Shared Insight’s participatory grantmaking group for the “Kolea region” — an area encompassing Alaska and Hawai’i and named for a bird that...
Beyond ‘Overlooked’: The Opportunity of the Moment
First, if you are reading this, I’d like to commend you on your commitment to this work, our world, and our relatives with whom we have shared the most challenging and unnatural experience of a generation. This pandemic has verified the Indigenous teaching that we...
Start by Asking: How One Funder Elevates Non-Grantmaking Support
As a funder supporting organizations that create and provide Jewish learning opportunities, the Jim Joseph Foundation is inherently in a position of power in the funder-grantee relationship. While we acknowledge this reality, we also try to minimize this “power...
Moving Together Towards Abundance
I write to you today from Mni-Sota Makoce — the homeland of the Dakota and Anishinaabe people. I acknowledge the ancestors, past, present, and emerging, of all the land we work and live on and their Ancestral Spirits with gratitude and respect. How often have you...
What We Learned from Black and Latino Nonprofit Leaders About Countering Racial Bias in Our Grantmaking
In philanthropy, research shows that race is a factor in determining which organizations get funded and at what levels. For example, a 2020 report from Echoing Green and The Bridgespan Group found that unconscious bias, the limited networks of largely white...