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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.
This post from Carol Larson, president and CEO of the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, is the first in a series of eight essays from foundation CEOs reflecting on findings from the CEP research report, The Future of Foundation Philanthropy: The CEO Perspective,...
A week before the election a friend of mine, worried about the outcomes, said she consulted FiveThirtyEight’s updates every day to relieve her anxiety. And I’m sure she wasn’t the only one. During election season, it was just the thing to do, and anyone who was even a...
Bob Dylan reminds us that “the times they are a-changing.” That very change is happening right now for many of us in philanthropy in what has been a wake-up call over the last several months. This summer, Great Britain voted to leave the European Union. Last month,...
This post originally appeared on Medium. “America, you great unfinished symphony, you sent for me, you let me make a difference. A place where even orphan immigrants can leave their fingerprints and rise up.” Two weeks ago, a couple of days after the presidential...
Over the years, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation has formulated a number of grantmaking strategies that seek to improve the lives of children and families. In 2009, the Foundation set out to create a strategy to promote and expand high-quality summer...
“Ultimately, you judge the character of a society not by how they treat their rich and the powerful and the privileged, but by how they treat the poor, the condemned, the incarcerated. Because it’s in that nexus that we actually begin to understand truly profound...
Any time the philanthropic sector has an opportunity to learn more about each other and the work that we do, we all benefit. A perfect example is the latest report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the Center for Evaluation Innovation, Benchmarking...
Among the speakers at the 2017 CEP Conference in Boston will be Douglas Stone, lecturer at Harvard Law School and co-author of two New York Times bestsellers, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most and Thanks...
What would education funders learn if they spoke directly with those whose lives they seek to improve? What would students say when asked about their experiences in school? In 2008, those questions were the driving force behind the creation of YouthTruth. Eight...
The Benchmarking Foundation Evaluation Practices report released last month continues to add to our collective understanding of what happens behind the green curtain in philanthropy as it pertains to evaluation. Started by Patti Patrizi in 2009 and continued by CEI...
Nowhere have concerns about foundations’ policy influence been greater in recent years than in the area of education. While critics of “education reform” like Diane Ravitch have for years warned of the outsized influence of what she terms the “billionaire boys club,”...
Not so long ago, politically left-of-center foundation types frequently pointed — with what felt like envy and a kind of grudging admiration — to conservative foundations as effectiveness exemplars. They would speak of the way foundations like the Lynde and Harry...
There are a lot of interesting data in the recent Benchmarking Foundation Evaluation Practices report, co-authored by the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the Center for Evaluation Innovation. There is useful, practical information on how foundations structure...
When foundation evaluation trailblazer Patti Patrizi conducted the first benchmarking survey of the philanthropic sector’s evaluation practices in 2009, the field was already several years into its embrace of strategic grantmaking and its call for rigorous attention...
So you want to become a more intentional learning organization? For those who are building out a new learning and evaluation function at their foundation, Benchmarking Foundation Evaluation Practices, the new research report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy...
Just because everyone else is doing something does not make it right. We’ve heard this refrain from a young age. But sometimes it makes good sense to follow conventional wisdom or “best practice.” In shaping a foundation’s grantmaking or evaluation approaches, the...
Let the countdown(s) begin! There are only 57 days until Thanksgiving, 95 days until the New Year, and 188 days until the CEP Conference is back — and we’re thrilled to welcome you to our own backyard in Boston this time around! If you are as excited as...
I find it surprising that we are still talking about the role of evaluation at foundations. A quick Google search on “evaluation in foundations” brings up more than 125 million hits — numerous benchmarking reports, articles in scholarly and gray literature, links to...
The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) and the Center for Evaluation Innovation (CEI) have been partnering for the past year to create a comprehensive benchmarking dataset on evaluation practices at large foundations — specifically, U.S. and Canadian foundations...
At effective foundations, the how of grantmaking is everyone’s business. When grantmakers think about their funding strategy, we often focus on where we will give, to what, and to whom. We think about the results we want our funding to spark or enable. But strategy is...