Funders, make a plan to gather vital feedback on your work in 2026!
Contact Us
Search
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.
It may be the time of year for resolutions, but, to start, I have a confession: openness is tough. In my role as project manager for Fund for Shared Insight (“Shared Insight”), a collaborative effort among funders to make grants that improve philanthropy, I think a...
Does spending more on evaluation provide “more meaningful” insights? Last year I completed a survey for the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) and the Center for Evaluation Innovation (CEI) on evaluation practices at the Hewlett Foundation, where I support staff...
This post from Nicky Goren, president and CEO of the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation, is the seventh 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,...
This post from Kevin Jennings, executive director of the Arcus Foundation, is the sixth 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, commissioned by...
This post from Kelvin Taketa, president and CEO of the Hawai’i Community Foundation, is the fifth 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,...
As we approach the end of 2016, I want to take a second to thank the many funders that entrusted CEP’s Assessment and Advisory Services team this year to help them grapple with important questions about their effectiveness. Every year at this time we take a look back...
No matter where you personally stand on the results of our recent elections, one thing is clear: we in the nonprofit sector — grantees and funders alike — are entering a moment of significant change in the context for our work. For some (voucher and charter advocates,...
This post from Kate Wolford, president of The McKnight Foundation, is the fourth 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, commissioned by the...
This post from Judy Belk, president and CEO of The California Wellness Foundation, is the third 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,...
This post from Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, is the second 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, commissioned by the William...
More than two-thirds of the CEOs of large, staffed foundations in the United States believe foundations have the potential to make a significant difference in society. That’s the good (and perhaps hardly surprising) news in a new report from our...
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...