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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.
On the CEP blog this week and next, CEP President Phil Buchanan is discussing, in a series of eight posts, recent critiques of large, staffed foundations and assertions that recently-established, “lean” foundations are paving a promising new path without being saddled...
On the CEP blog this week and next, CEP President Phil Buchanan is discussing, in a series of eight posts, recent critiques of large, staffed foundations and assertions that recently-established, “lean” foundations are paving a promising new path without being saddled...
On the CEP blog this week and next, CEP President Phil Buchanan is discussing, in a series of eight posts, recent critiques of large, staffed foundations and assertions that recently-established, “lean” foundations are paving a promising new path without being saddled...
On the CEP blog this week and next, CEP President Phil Buchanan will discuss, in a series of eight posts, recent critiques of large, staffed foundations and assertions that recently-established, “lean” foundations are paving a promising new path without being saddled...
This post, which is part of our new Blog Rewind series, originally appeared on the CEP blog in March 2014. As part of the opening plenary at this year's CEP Conference, I had the privilege to speak to a few hundred foundation leaders about the ways in which...
For the past few decades, a large and narrow country in South America has been calling international attention for its political and economic progress. Chile has shown democratic stability and the highest degree of social progress in Latin America in areas like...
In the second post of our series of profiles of funders that are exemplary in their provision of non-monetary support to grantees, as assessed by the Grantee Perception Report, we take a look at the S.H. Cowell Foundation. Based in San Francisco, the Foundation works...
School’s out for summer. At YouthTruth, that means time for reflection, innovation, and preparation for the year ahead — including taking a deeper look at the aggregate student perception data we’ve accrued from surveys of hundreds of thousands of students around the...
This post originally appeared on the Social Velocity blog. When it comes to the debate about the social impact of endowment investments, college and university campuses — not foundations — seem to be where the action is. Foundations have hundreds of billions of...
This post originally appeared on the blog of Giving Evidence, which encourages and enables charitable giving based on sound evidence. Most charities hate the reporting which funders make them do. Notionally a learning process, it’s often just compliance,...
One of the recent trends in philanthropy we’ve been most excited about is the growing conversation about the importance of looking to history to inform decisions of the present and future. HistPhil has emerged as an engaging space providing thoughtful commentary and...
“We assume that they feed everything to a giant fiery furnace.” This was the best guess of a frustrated nonprofit executive in the first round of Project Streamline research when I asked what foundations did with the reports he wrote for them. Over the years, I’ve...
On June 2, Don Matteson, chief program officer at The Peter and Elizabeth C. Tower Foundation, joined CEP’s Naomi Orensten for an informative and lively webinar about the Grantee Perception Report® (GPR). In the conversation, Don discussed what The Foundation has...
The Ford Foundation’s recent decision to shift funding focus entirely to inequality has sparked further conversations about foundations’ responsibility to fund programs and initiatives combating socioeconomic and racial inequality. Recent events from Ferguson to South...
Impact investing at independent foundations is a mile wide and an inch deep. I think that’s a fair summary of CEP’s latest research report released in May, Investing and Social Impact: Practices of Private Foundations, based on a benchmarking survey of private...
Last week my organization, the Social Innovation Research Center, released a report on the progress of the Social Innovation Fund (SIF), the Obama administration initiative that funds community-based programs in low-income areas and provides the necessary evaluation...
A young donor behind a large, new foundation said something recently that really struck me — and in a good way. It happened in May in a session at CEP’s conference that I moderated on “new models in philanthropy” (some of which of course are not so new at all), and...
We’re excited to share that videos of several talks from May’s CEP Conference are now posted on our YouTube channel! During the conference and over the past month, we’ve heard from several attendees asking if we had recordings of their favorite talks so they...
The funder-grantee relationship is one of the major thematic areas covered by CEP’s grantee survey, which asks about interactions — staff responsiveness, the foundation’s approachability, and grantee perceptions of being treated fairly — as well as the clarity and...
There’s been a great deal of turnover at the biggest foundations, prompting us to revisit our 2012 analyses of the backgrounds of CEOs of the largest 100 foundations by asset size. We reported last month on the professional backgrounds of foundation CEOs — noting a...