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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.
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...
It can often be difficult to explain everything that an organization does in a succinct and easily-accessible way. This is something we’ve been thinking about for a while here at CEP. So we decided to take the plunge earlier this year to create a communications piece...
Our tagline at Fund for Shared Insight is “Philanthropy. Open for improvement.”* Founded in July 2014, Fund for Shared Insight (“Shared Insight”) is a funder collaborative working to improve philanthropy by increasing foundation openness. We are betting that if...
This post originally appeared on the New York PhilanthroPost‘s Insights column. You are a Board member of a private foundation. Your president has been bringing up the possibility of retirement for six months and she will reach age 70 next year. Your CIO is very...
This post originally appeared on the blog in March 2012 and delves into findings from CEP’s report, More Than Money: Making a Difference with Assistance Beyond the Grant. It is re-posted here as part of our Rewind blog series. Believing that their...