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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.
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.
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
“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...
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...
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...