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Data and measurement sometimes get a bad rap in philanthropy. Here at CEP, one useful role we try to play is to balance information about timeless topics, like how to build strong funder-grantee relationships, with data that is crucial for smart decision-making on...
In my position at CEP, I have experienced what it is like to navigate funders’ individual guidelines and requirements. I know sometimes selection processes can feel like jumping through a series of irrelevant hoops rather than useful experiences. And I’ve been through...
While a small number of foundations giving $5 million or more annually in grants have made the decision to spend down, there has been much discussion of the topic in recent years. The announcement late last year that the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation would...
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...
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...
CEP’s work focuses on what foundations can do to be more effective in their work through their governance, their staff, their operations, and their work with key stakeholders, including grantees and beneficiaries. Our focus in our work is always on foundation...
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...
Expectations for sharing information in today’s society are high. Before Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest (the list goes on), we didn’t know what our distant relatives were eating for breakfast or have instant access to pictures of a friend’s vacation...
This post delves into findings from CEP’s report, Lessons from the Field: From Understanding to Impact, a series of case studies that provides an in-depth look at how three foundations work to cultivate an understanding of the fields in which they work — and then turn...
The issue of nonprofit performance assessment seems to cause a lot of anxiety among nonprofits and funders. On one hand, there is agreement that assessment is necessary to achieving high performance — a nonprofit cannot improve its work if it’s not assessing how it’s...