Learn about just-collected data on how foundations and nonprofits are experiencing the current context.
Contact Us
Search
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’s the story on foundations? A simple question, with surprisingly many answers. A story is the way we interpret the meaning of actions and events. We tell stories about actions to make sense of intentions. Inevitably, stories are subjective and rooted in context....
Many argue that no recent act of giving has impacted the field of philanthropy more than MacKenzie Scott awarding more than $14 billion in less than two years. In addition to the breadth and amount of dollars gifted, Scott’s philanthropy has been remarkable because of...
Here in New England, the leaves are all on the ground, the trees are bare, and the air is sharp (and the wind sharper). Just like that, it’s late November — and Giving Season is upon us. It would be easy to focus on the negatives as we approach this season; there is a...
Philanthropy and the nonprofit sector are changing. There have been signs of shifts for years, but nothing as significant as the transformation we are experiencing now. And this is good. The issues we are addressing are deep and complex. They require fundamentally new...
To many nonprofit organizations that have received an unexpected gift from MacKenzie Scott it has been like going from living paycheck-to-paycheck to winning the lottery. Most nonprofits live on the edge, with no more than a few months’ worth of reserves to cover...
We’ve been researching foundations and donors, and the way they interact with the nonprofits they fund, for two decades. We have heard many funders announce their arrival by declaring they’re taking a new, innovative approach to philanthropy: charting a new path and...
Donors have often told me that their north star is impact. But my experience, during nearly three decades on the “doer” side and now more than four years as a donor representative, has indicated otherwise. Often, what donors actually want is impact delivered on a...
The dust is finally starting to settle after a wild roller-coaster of a ride for U.S. climate policy. When all is said and done, three bills with major climate implications (IIJA, CHIPS, IRA) have passed the 117th congress. In a previous post on this blog, I argued...
If there is one thing we have learned at the Chinese American Service League (CASL), it’s that data has the potential to revolutionize the way we look at philanthropy and change the landscape for years to come. No longer are heartfelt appeals for funding and support...
Our latest economic crisis has inflation raging throughout the global economy. While foundations respond to reductions in their asset values and damage done to stakeholders, this crisis could yet wreak more havoc — a lot more. And that means the nonprofit sector faces...
Over the years, I have worked with incredible funders across Europe and globally. My entry point has been in supporting the monitoring, evaluation and learning needs of their grantees; I carried out evaluations, built and supported the implementation of measuring,...
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...