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.
From Zero to Sixty: One Foundation’s Start-Up Story
The Crucial Role Collaboratives Can Play for New Philanthropies
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]Imagine the following scenario: an entrepreneur has achieved tremendous success and, finding herself a billionaire, is motivated to give back to help change the world. She contributes billions to endow a new foundation...
Does Love Scale?
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]The flight was delayed due to bad weather in Washington, and I found myself bumped to standby. Boarding the shuttle flight late out of Logan, coach looked full. A stewardess saw me floundering and gestured toward first...
Lessons Every New Grantmaker Should Know
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]The Kenneth Rainin Foundation is celebrating our 10th anniversary of formal grantmaking this year. We’ve been thinking a lot lately about where we’ve been and where we’re going, so we were delighted with...
We Love Peer Pressure
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]The two of us were reminiscing recently about the first time we sat down with the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) team. It was in 2003, just a few years after CEP got its start. We immediately saw CEP’s big...
Giving Done Right
[vc_row el_class="sixtysix-thirtythree"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]It’s time to take back the discussion of effective philanthropy from those who don’t really know what they’re talking about. It needs to happen — and there’s...
A Long Overdue Guide for New Philanthropic Organizations
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]This year marks the Helmsley Charitable Trust’s tenth year as an active grantmaker. During these last 10 years, we have discovered that when it comes to ramping up a new foundation or grantmaking organization, there...
Doing Greater Good for the Greater Good
[vc_row el_class="sixtysix-thirtythree"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]Philanthropy alone cannot solve the problems our society faces, but it has a vital role to play. We know this because it has historically played such a role, even as we can all agree that...
Leading from Behind to Address the Affordable Housing Crisis and Homelessness
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]The affordable housing crisis isn’t new. It isn’t even an “emerging” crisis. Our country has been in the midst of it for decades and neighbors in our communities who are living in poverty are...
Shaping Policy through Advocacy: One Funder’s Story
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]In a way, we did things in reverse. Compared with how funders usually enter into policy work, our order of operations was the opposite. In the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation’s work on substance use prevention,...
How Partnerships and Policy Fuel Emerging Trends in Education Philanthropy
Charting a New Course for a Funder Collaborative
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]In 2014, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation and the J.B. and M.K. Pritzker Family Foundation assembled 12 of the country’s leading funders focused on early childhood development into a new collaborative. We set...
Giving Is Not Like Investing
[vc_row el_class="sixtysix-thirtythree"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]This post, which originally appeared on Giving Compass, is excerpted and adapted from Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count, the forthcoming book from...
Looking Beyond Leadership: Why Funders Should Support Grantees’ Entire Staff
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]There is a vast chasm between the perspectives of foundation and nonprofit leaders when it comes to the state of investing in the people who make up grantee organizations. The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s...
Philanthropy, Transparency, and Indigenous Relationships
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]This post by Kate Frykberg originally appeared on GlassPockets as part of its "Road to 100 & Beyond" series. It is re-posted here as part of CEP’s blog series on international perspectives on philanthropy....
Grantee Voice: Relationships Matter
[vc_row el_class="sixtysix-thirtythree"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]This is the final post in a six-part series on what nonprofit leaders think foundation funders could improve upon in their work. Findings are based on survey responses from 244 nonprofit...
Grantee Voice: Provide Multiyear, Flexible Funding
[vc_row el_class="sixtysix-thirtythree"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]This is the fifth post in a six-part series on what nonprofit leaders think foundation funders could improve upon in their work. Findings are based on survey responses from 244 nonprofit...
A Changing Civic Landscape in Minnesota and Beyond
[vc_row][vc_column width="3/4"][vc_column_text]I love working in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, and what is sometimes affectionately called the "Land of 10,000 Nonprofits.” We’re an increasingly diverse state with more than 100 languages spoken and home to 11...
Grantee Voice: Provide More Assistance Beyond the Grant
[vc_row el_class="sixtysix-thirtythree"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]This is the fourth post in a six-part series on what nonprofit leaders think foundation funders could improve upon in their work. Findings are based on survey responses from 244 nonprofit...