It’s a milestone birthday for us here at CEP, but I’ll be honest: we don’t really feel like celebrating. More on that later.
Let’s start at the beginning. The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), which I am privileged to lead, received initial funding in 2001, 25 years ago. Actually, it was a project, not the organization, that was funded. The three lead funders — Surdna Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Atlantic Philanthropies — collectively committed $345,000 restricted to a research study, because they were not convinced a new organization was needed.
It was a sort of test.
But it was also enough money for the founding board to hire its first staff member and, looking back, I am very grateful that I was chosen that summer as the fledgling entity’s executive director and first employee.
Listening
It was clear to me and to the first person I, in turn, hired, Kevin Bolduc — who, 25 years later, is also still at CEP (as our vice president of Assessment and Advisory Services) — that to gain any traction, we would need to listen. If we were to be helpful to foundation leaders, we’d need to hear what they thought would be helpful to them.
We interviewed dozens of foundation leaders for our research study, asking what information they needed to understand their foundations’ overall performance — as distinct from (though obviously not unrelated to) the performance of a specific grantee or even a program. We heard, again and again, about the challenge of getting candid feedback from grantees and the difficulty, lacking comparative data, of putting that feedback into context.
We heard other common themes, too, and so we titled our first-ever research report, based on those interviews, “Toward a Common Language.” We were gently pushing back against the idea, which we heard frequently, that “when you’ve seen one foundation, you’ve seen one foundation.” Our findings suggested, in fact, that foundations and their staff could benchmark themselves against each other — and, maybe most importantly, learn from each other.
We were proposing that there might be some universal principles of philanthropic effectiveness.
We passed the test, I guess, because as our initial study progressed, we started to receive funding from other foundations. The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation was the first to give us an unrestricted grant, in the fall of 2001. It was just $50,000, but it felt like $5 million, because it was a signal that someone wanted to support the organization.
By mid-2002, the three initial funders of our study re-upped, too — Atlantic Philanthropies at more than double its initial level of annual support — but now in general support. A couple of years later, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation became a major supporter, then the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Ford Foundation, too. We’re grateful for them and so many others who have joined in support of this work in the years since.
It was the interviews — the listening — that led to our idea to create the Grantee Perception Report (GPR), which launched in 2003 and which has since been used by more than 400 foundations, and a suite of other comparative, survey-based assessments: the Applicant Perception Report (APR); the Donor Perception Report (DPR) for community foundations; the Staff Perception Report (SPR); and eventually a survey and resulting comparative report designed for education funders (and also schools and districts) to hear from students that became our YouthTruth initiative, which has now surveyed more than 3.2 million students.
Our listening had led us to create tools to help funders listen better, and more systematically.
Creating Resources to Inform Funders
Tapping into the comparative data sets we were developing in our work with clients, we soon began to build out a broader research agenda. In addition to our client surveys, we gathered new quantitative and qualitative data for different studies related to philanthropic effectiveness. Here, too, we benefited from the feedback and input of those we hoped would see our research as a resource.
Over time, we would publish dozens and dozens of reports on topics from what makes a good program officer in the eyes of nonprofit leaders to the effects of MacKenzie Scott’s massive, unrestricted gifts on recipient organizations.
It made sense, too, for us to start gathering people at conferences that turned out to be highly valued. Eventually, we started doing more programming online, as well. Other resources followed, including a blog that featured perspectives from both our staff and a range of nonprofit and foundation leaders.
More recently, we have launched the CEP Learning Institute (CLI), for a different kind of more intensive peer-learning experience such as offerings for newer program officers and a CEO learning cohort. We have already enrolled hundreds of foundation staff in CLI offerings.
We have, especially in the past decade, also broadened our audience in various ways. We started working with grantmaking institutions of all kinds (including LLCs and pooled funds and intermediaries). We’ve worked, more and more, with grantmakers all over the world, and especially in Europe. And we began creating resources, including a book and then a podcast, aimed at individual donors, recognizing that they contribute the overwhelming proportion of charitable contributions.
Shifts in Perspectives … and Practice
Data collected by a third party suggests our work is influential and spurs change. Our current strategic plan, approved by our Board of Directors last year, also affirms the value of what we are doing. The plan calls for a bigger commitment to working internationally and commits us to do more to influence the boards of grantmaking institutions with data and insights about effective practice, and we’re undertaking a number of efforts to do just that.
We’re proud, of course, of what we have accomplished. We can point to some real positive shifts in the philanthropy landscape in the past 25 years to which we, among many others, have contributed. There seems, for example, to be more of an understanding among funders of what nonprofits need to be effective, and we have seen (and documented) increases in the provision of multiyear general operating support and reductions in the burden of grantmaking processes. Grantmakers are much more likely to seek and act on rigorously collected feedback than they were in, say, the year 2000. We have seen funders big and small make dramatic changes to — and improvements in — their practices.
I also think the conversation about effective philanthropy is more nuanced than it was, thanks to the work of many at a variety of organizations and institutions. There is less of the kind of damaging embrace of ill-fitting business and investing analogies in philanthropy that were all the rage up until maybe a decade ago (and that, ironically, were embraced by the founding board members of CEP).
The data we have generated, both for individual institutions and in broad-based research, have elevated perspectives of those who might otherwise not be heard — from students to grantees — and have helped their voices and suggestions influence the conversation among funders.
An Organization Created by Many
Today, our staff numbers nearly 60 and any given day finds them working to support funders — as well as school systems through our YouthTruth efforts — around the world or to create research or other resources that will inform them. Our annual budget is now $14 million, more than half of which is fee-for-service.
I am hardly objective, but I am proud of what we have created. I am also proud of the fact that CEP is a good place to work that has attracted and developed terrific talent — a collective accomplishment but something that I credit especially to my colleague of 23 years Alyse d’Amico, who is our vice president of People and Culture.
I am grateful to everyone who has helped us over the last quarter century. The countless nonprofits that have responded to our surveys. The many funders (too many to name) that have engaged with us, trusted us, supported us, challenged us, and given us advice and ideas. The other philanthropy infrastructure organizations that have been collaborators and co-conspirators. The board members and staff, past and present, who have worked tirelessly to help CEP become what it is, and especially the board chairs who have served since our Board essentially rebooted in early 2005: Phil Giudice; Stephen Heintz; Kathy Merchant; Grant Oliphant; Tiffany Cooper Gueye; and, currently, Tony Richardson.
I don’t take for granted the privilege it is to work with some of the same colleagues for so long: three others have been at CEP more than two decades, essentially since the beginning. We have also attracted so many amazing staff, including new, key leaders, in recent years.
But the reality is, we are here to serve a larger philanthropic and nonprofit sector. That’s the point. That’s what matters.
A Sector in Crisis — and an Invitation
To invoke the title of our most recent research report, that sector is in crisis — a crisis unlike anything I’ve seen in my 25 years in this job. The attacks of the current federal government on nonprofits are not something I’d ever imagined I’d see.
Let me be clear: I’d trade any parochial successes of our organization to end the crisis facing our sector. I have written about the unprecedented challenges nonprofits are facing many times over the past year, and I worry deeply about what it means for communities, issues, and fields, as well as for the U.S. and for the world. In the last year, we have pivoted much of our organization’s resources, including most of our research agenda and our programming, to helping funders respond to the extremely difficult realities of the moment for nonprofits and the communities they serve.
This is why we’re in no mood for a party as we turn 25. But we do want to do what has always served us well: listen, so that our response to the current moment of crisis can be as helpful as possible. We always listen, of course, through our broad-based surveys of — and interviews with — nonprofits and funders and through our interactions with our Board of Directors and Advisory Board. But we will also do that this year in other ways, including through a series of small, discussion-oriented events with clients, funders, and other friends in honor of our 25th.
So let me invite you to tell us in what ways we can be most helpful to you as you navigate this perilous context and think ahead to the years to come. Three questions:
- What are your biggest challenges right now?
- What do you need to be more effective?
- How can we help you respond to the challenges of the moment?
Email me at philbuchanan@cep.org. I want to hear from you.
As we mark our 25th birthday, we may not be feeling celebratory, but we are marking this milestone by listening — and we are excited to hear from and learn with you.
Phil Buchanan is president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, author of “Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count,” and co-host of the Giving Done Right podcast.
