In 1929, in the grip of a global depression, Americans flocked to theaters to escape the harshness of their lives and catch a momentary peek at the glittering one percent doing well. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s bleak outlook on the concept, “Let me tell you about the very...
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.
Declining Giving Rates Should Catalyze the Philanthropic and Nonprofit Sectors
The American tradition of philanthropic giving should not be taken for granted, in part because it may well be in real jeopardy. “What’s the problem?,” you might ask. After all, charitable giving reached an all-time high in 2020 – some $471.4 billion given, according...
Giving Is Not Like Investing
This post, which originally appeared on Giving Compass, is excerpted and adapted from Phil’s book, Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count. I remember sitting in a second-year elective course as an MBA student at Harvard Business...
Persevering Through Crisis: What Foundation Presidents Should Know About the Pandemic’s Effect on Arts Organizations
CEP’s new report Persevering Through Crisis: The State of Nonprofits illuminates the profound impact of the pandemic on the nonprofit sector, and its exacerbation of existing inequities. Within the sector, arts organizations were hit especially hard. Here are five...
Building Equitable Evidence: It’s Time to Look to Participants as Experts in Their Own Experience
Today, nonprofits and funders alike increasingly use equity-serving and participant-centered approaches in their program design, and it’s time to sharpen the equity lens on building evidence of a program’s impact. The shift calls for making program participants full...
Small Steps in the Right Direction: Making General Operating Support the Norm
This post originally appeared on the INNO blog. In a recent post, I highlighted a gap between foundations’ narratives about making general operating support accessible to grantees and their actual practices. Here, in the hopes that more people in philanthropy join the...
Philanthropy’s Success with Census Needs to Continue
When funders gathered in 2015 to talk about ways to promote a fair and accurate 2020 census, none of us could have imagined perhaps the most fraught decennial census cycle in American history. For six years, a small group of funders working together nationally as the...
CEP’s Definition of Philanthropic Effectiveness
Individual donors and foundations alike seek to be effective in their giving. But what does that actually mean? The Center for Effective Philanthropy – an organization that has effectiveness as its middle name – has grappled with this question since we...
Take It From the Nonprofits: Even in a Crisis, Funders Are Falling Short on Equity
CEP’s latest research report, Persevering Through Crisis: The State of Nonprofits, provides further evidence of the devastating impact of 2020 on nonprofits — and how the crises of the past year hit some nonprofits much harder than others. While many nonprofits...
The Weight We’ve Been Carrying
In March 2020, I was on a call with 15 other nonprofit leaders. As the world was coming to grips with the reality of the pandemic, my peers and I were advised to expect a 40 percent revenue reduction to our organizations in the upcoming 12-24 months. It took years for...
Two and a Half Years of CEP’s Global Expansion: Time to Take Stock
It seems like only yesterday that I announced I’d be moving to Amsterdam in January 2019 to lead CEP’s work with funders in Europe and beyond. Two and a half years and a global pandemic later, the time has come for me to say goodbye to CEP. In August I’ll leave my...
Higher Education Access and Equity: Why a Social Justice Approach Matters
Higher education and social change are inextricably linked: by providing access to education, a scholarship program provides access to knowledge, resources, and opportunity for not only an individual, but a community. With many developing countries experiencing youth...
Five Things I Learned From Helping Set Up a Funder Collaborative
The nature of philanthropy as we know it is changing. It has evolved from direct aid to bespoke outcome-linked programs to a higher systems change aspiration. The nature of philanthropy is also – undeniably – in flux, as this shift in aspirations brings with it a...
Re-Evaluating the Consultant’s Role in Social Change
Consultants have long played a critical role in the work of nonprofits and foundations, helping to facilitate strategy, guide leaders, and serve as outsourced staff. In the future, consultants will continue to play these important roles – likely their importance may...
Moving from Deceit to Trust: The Necessity of Listening
A colleague recently asked me how much has changed since I wrote “The Dance of Deceit,” a 2004 Stanford Social Innovation Review article in which I reflected on my seven years as managing director of REDF and the power imbalances I observed and experienced. In the...
Notes at the Crossroads: Reflections on CEP’s “Persevering Through Crisis: The State of Nonprofits” Survey
In January 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was an abstract concept to most of us. By March, we started experiencing the overwhelming impact caused by COVID-19 in the U.S., affecting every aspect of our lives. Since that time, many social sector organizations have endured...
Theatre Nonprofits and Social Justice: A New Way Forward
After eighteen months of the most tumultuous time in Company One Theatre’s 21-year history as a social justice and arts organization, we have learned that the idealized nonprofit arts business model that encourages an over reliance on earned revenue is both unreliable...
Expanding the Network of Who We Listen To
In the Hewlett Foundation’s Knowledge for Better Philanthropy strategy, we fund the creation and dissemination of high-quality knowledge regarding philanthropic practice for foundations. We recently released an evaluation of the strategy entitled, How Funders Seek and...
Conflict as a Sign of Hope
“Conflict is the midwife of consciousness.” - Paulo Freire In my lifetime, I have never felt more hopeful. The cacophony of unlikely factors that focused our vast nation (and much of the world) on the tragic murder of George Floyd ignited our generation’s...
Heading for the Exit? 5 Considerations for Funders from Collective Conversations
Funder exits are inevitable – whether as a result of a foundation’s strategic realignment, shift in priority countries, budget cuts, poor portfolio performance, or, in the worst case scenario, opaque top-down decisions. No surprise then that funders, and especially...