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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.
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...
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...
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...
A recent report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) titled Overlooked (Part 1): Foundation Support for Asian American and Pacific Islander Leaders and Communities highlighted, as one of its key findings, that AAPI nonprofit leaders report having less...
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...
Within my first couple weeks of starting college, my Junior Advisor (Williams College’s student equivalent of a dorm parent) gathered a dozen of my “entry” mates for our Welcoming Williams session, which I now recognize was my first ever formal diversity, equity, and...
In the past few years, there have been a lot of urgent conversations about the need to center work on communities, commit to equity, and rethink how systems like philanthropy and services are carried out. However, in some circles these conversations have avoided...
We’ve spent a ton of time in foundation board rooms, for better and for worse. We’ve also been board members and guest speakers at operating nonprofits and one of us staffed two college boards decades ago. Many of those experiences have been engaging and positive....
As a leader of a global anti-human trafficking organization serving some of the most underserved populations, I am energized by my sensitivity to others’ needs. This empathy compels me to form strong relationships with not only the clients I serve through Nomi...
The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) recent report on funding disparities faced by Native-serving nonprofits highlights what many of us in the equitable philanthropy movement have long known: Indigenous communities are not receiving the support that we...
As program officers at the Ford Foundation who helped commission CEP’s two-part study, Foundations Respond to Crisis, we’re heartened to see that many funders plan to maintain the more flexible practices they adopted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and racial...
This past spring, we were in Chinatown San Francisco visiting low-income Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) youth who live in 150 square foot tenements with their families, sharing bathrooms and a kitchen with a dozen families on the same floor. Their families are...
This is part three of a CEP blog series in which leaders from eight foundations shared — in their own words — the most important changes they have made at their foundation since 2020 that they plan to sustain going forward. These funders’ stories, which can be read in...
Not so long ago, the word “race” was something that many people shied away from — a four-letter word not to be spoken in polite company. Similarly, “racial equity” and “racial justice” were terms mostly used by advocates and experts. Today, these terms come up in...
The new Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) report, Overlooked (Part Two): Foundation Support for Native American Leaders and Communities, sheds further light on the experiences of Native American nonprofit leaders when it comes to their interactions with funders...
This is part two of three in a CEP blog series in which leaders from eight foundations shared — in their own words — the most important changes they have made at their foundation since 2020 that they plan to sustain going forward. These funders’ stories, which can be...
One of the founding ideas of our work at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) was that funders could — and should — learn from each other’s experience — not just in an anecdotal way, but systematically. Today that doesn’t sound like such a wild idea, but back...
The shocking uptick in violence against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs) in 2021 has catalyzed new attention, support, and action from grassroots activists to national philanthropy and the most prominent AAPI leaders in the country. Within this context,...
This is part one of three in a CEP blog series in which leaders from eight foundations shared — in their own words — the most important changes they have made at their foundation since 2020 that they plan to sustain going forward. These funders’ stories, which can be...
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 communities and contexts we call home — all of these things...