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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.
In writing about the ways in which philanthropy can give voice to our communal optimism, I recently shared my belief that the wide array of goals across funders is not only inevitable; it’s also important. The problems on which foundations focus are interconnected....
There was a time when families who were establishing private foundations rarely thought about an end to the foundation. They assumed what they had created would last (as intended) in perpetuity from generation to generation. What they discovered, as John D....
Giving and receiving feedback doesn’t come naturally to me, and I’m on a journey of sorts with it. Like many, I appreciate receiving direct feedback as long as it’s delivered in a helpful way, but I tend to dread giving feedback to others. For years, I was a...
John Oliver. Peter Thiel. The Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. We were catching up on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver when my husband leaned over to me and asked, “So, is that philanthropy? Is that what it’s for?” John Oliver had just finished, in his typical...
Three weeks ago, CEP and 21 other organizations published an open letter to foundations making the case for nonprofit infrastructure organizations and their crucial importance to helping foundations and nonprofits be as effective as they can be in their work. The...
This post originally appeared on the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers website. I am honored to be among a diverse group of 22 nonprofit and philanthropy leaders who have signed a letter to thank foundations that have invested in the “nonprofit...
At CEP, we help all types of funders get feedback from grantees. As we’ve highlighted in previous posts, there is no one “right” approach to building strong relationships with grantees. One of the many approaches funders choose is one identified as “high-touch” or...
I often find myself facing a series of pretty consistent questions when I begin a conversation with one of the 47 percent of funders that a recent Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) survey found are not soliciting feedback from grantees....
This post is the seventh and final in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. Over the past few weeks, I...
This post is the sixth in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. After a period in which grantees were...
This post is the fifth in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. Lately, the position that...
I did a little jig down 42nd Street in midtown Manhattan, clad in a suit and tie, briefcase in hand. It wasn’t pretty, and I got some odd looks. But sometimes you’ve got to dance. I had just left Joel Fleishman’s office, then head of U.S. grantmaking at Atlantic...
This post is the fourth in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. As sociologist Linsey McGoey points out...
This post is the third in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. For the past century, foundations have...
This post is the second in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. Relative to other sectors, the nonprofit...
This post originally appeared on Education Week's "Finding Common Ground" blog. Education is one of the few industries, perhaps the only one, in which everyone has a firsthand experience and a valid opinion. That translates into lots of ideas from various stakeholders...
This post is the first in a series of seven excerpting CEP President Phil Buchanan’s new essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, which explores five pressing issues facing U.S. foundation leaders and boards at this moment in time. There’s a lot of talk of “reinvention” in...
This post originally appeared on The BUILD Health Challenge blog. What does successful collaboration look like within philanthropy? How can funders best pursue emergent opportunities to work together to tackle complex problems? Philanthropic leaders have...
Berlin’s former mayor, Klaus Wowereit, was fond of calling the city “poor but sexy.” His phrase was inspired by the creative economy and start-up scene, which are defining features of the post-Cold War city. And since the influx of refugees into Europe in 2015, Berlin...
CEP’s new report on transparency is a very valuable tool for introspection for individual foundations — and the wider field of philanthropy — to think about how we define and deliver on our pledges to become more transparent. As many other writers on this blog have...