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...
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.
How Place-Based Funders Build Better Community Partnerships
It was late 2007, the eve of the Great Recession. With the foreclosure crisis already leaching the life out of many neighborhoods across Detroit, the Kresge Foundation launched an ambitious effort to help re-stitch the city’s physical and economic fabric, primarily by...
Intentional Relationship Building is Integral for Effective Philanthropy
For Native-led nonprofits, the integrity with which funders build relationships and invest resources directly affects their ability to make community impact. The weight of this power dynamic between funder and nonprofit underscores the need for funders to address...
Elevating the Conversation
“Nuance.” That was investor and donor Liesel Pritzker’s straightforward answer to the question of what giving done right looks like to her when my colleague Grace Nicolette asked — as she does all our guests — at the end of an interview for our Giving Done Right...
5 Hopes for Philanthropy and Nonprofits
This post originally appeared in November in The Nonprofit Times and has been lightly edited for re-publication here. Nonprofits continued to be under enormous stress in 2021 as the pandemic continued and national and global crises — from attacks on democracy to...
From Weeping to Rejoicing
Weeping may last for the night but rejoicing comes in the morning....
Philanthropy Must Widen the Lens on Racial Equity Work
I became CEO of Boston Chinatown Neighborhood Center (BCNC) in June 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise in xenophobia and anti-Asian hate, and two weeks after George Floyd was murdered. Within 48 hours of starting my role, I worked with others to...
Why We Must Prioritize Bridging Our Divides
“That’s so nice.” When I tell people about our work at Einhorn Collaborative — a foundation dedicated to addressing America’s growing crisis of connection — I often receive this response. The implied subtext is, “That’s all well and good, but how are you actually...
Top 10 Most-Read CEP Blog Posts of 2021
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...
Guiding Principles: How Philanthropy Can Uplift AAPI Communities
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...
Tackling Equity: Building Relationships with Native Communities
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...
AAPI and Native American Communities Overlooked by Foundations
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,...
In Conversation: Phil Buchanan Interviews Dr. Beth Breeze, Author of “In Defence of Philanthropy”
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...
What Funders Can Learn From the New Deal for Recovery in Our Time
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...
Philanthropy with Purpose Drives Lasting Change
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?)...
Building Board Support on Issues of Racial Equity: A Conversation with Sector Leaders
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...
Creating Lasting Change Will Require Collaboration
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...
Foundations Respond to Crisis but Continue to Ignore Disability
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...
Harnessing Momentum for Change
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...
Why Do We Bother? The Tragedy of Foundation Reporting Requirements
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...