Often, when I hear talk about funders and the ways they can achieve impact, the conversations tend to revolve around the same few groups: program staff, senior leadership, and boards. No doubt, these roles are essential for driving impact in philanthropy. But, in my...
Assessment & Advisory Services
What the Music of Taylor Swift Can Teach Us About Great Philanthropy
Great music is more than the sum of its parts. A certain combination of notes, chords, and lyrics may create an exquisite gem of a song — or a barnburner of a jam — but what’s required to elevate music to the level of greatness is something else: an artist’s specific...
Your Questions About Demographic Data Collection, Answered
In recent years, CEP’s analysis of demographic data from its Grantee Perception Report and research datasets found that both Native American nonprofit leaders and Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) nonprofit leaders were having less positive experiences with...
Silently Shrinking Grants: Is Inflation Reducing the Value of Your Grant?
In philanthropy, we have been talking a lot about the crucial need for funders to provide more multiyear, general operating support. That’s important, and I also think we need to talk more about the size of grants. Why? At least from what I can see in CEP’s Grantee...
Practicing What We Preach: Acting on Donor Feedback
Over a decade ago, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) created the Donor Perception Report (DPR) in response to requests from community foundations for help to better understand and support their donors, recognizing that they play an essential role in...
10 Things Your Grantees Might Be Saying About You
In a CEP blog post published earlier this week, I offered up a list of 10 Grantee Perception Report participants who had made their assessment results public in 2023 as a way to both thank our many partners in the last year and reflect on what role feedback...
A Year-Commencement List and a Note of Thanks
Of all the rituals we associate with the new year — stowing away the suitcases from holiday travel, returning unwanted gifts, tacking a new calendar onto the fridge — for many of us, the moments of introspection and reflection are what hold the most meaning. The...
10 (Additional) Lessons Learned for Funders Considering the Grantee Perception Report
In 2020, Luminate, a global philanthropic organization, commissioned CEP to survey its grantee partners through the Grantee Perception Report (GPR). In 2023, Luminate commissioned a second Grantee Perception Report. This blog is a follow-up to the “10...
Good News for Change Champions: CEP’s Learning Institute Offers Cohorts and Workshops
At CEP, we’ve advised hundreds of foundations. Through the years, many have made real headway shifting ways of working, significantly improving grantee experiences, and advancing their effectiveness as funders. Still, many struggle with how to implement changes —...
How Gender Differences Show Up (and Don’t) in CEP’s Grantee Perception Report
Philanthropy and foundations exist and work for change within systems pervaded with racism, sexism, homophobia, and ableism, among other harmful “-isms.” In fact, some foundations have amassed their wealth precisely because of these inequitable systems. These forces...
2022 in Review: A Note of Thanks to Our Partners
This winter, I celebrated my 10th year at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP). Many of the foundations I worked with in my earliest few years here were first-time partners who had signed up for their first CEP assessment — and in some cases, their...
Staffing for Success: What We Know about Staffing for Strong Funder-Grantee Relationships
The beginning of a new year is a wonderful time for reflection, and this year connection has been front of mind for me. I’m grateful for renewed opportunities to connect with my family, my community, and my work. Core to connection, of course, are people and the...
Asking the Right Questions on Funder Effectiveness
Over the years, I have worked with incredible funders across Europe and globally. My entry point has been in supporting the monitoring, evaluation and learning needs of their grantees; I carried out evaluations, built and supported the implementation of measuring,...
One Foundation’s Journey from Feedback to Action, Part Two: Positive Action
In part one of this blog post, we shared the humbling results of the Overdeck Family Foundation’s 2019 Grantee Perception Report, as well as how the Foundation came together to process that data and formulate a plan to move forward. We suggest you read part one before...
One Foundation’s Journey from Feedback to Action, Part One: Humbling Lessons
At Overdeck Family Foundation, we aim to open doors for every child in the U.S. by measurably enhancing education both inside and outside the classroom. In our collective work towards our mission, we are guided by three core values, all of which we lean on daily with...
From Survey Questions to Action: One Foundation’s Approach To a Targeted Review of Stakeholder Feedback
In my conversations with funders who engage with the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) on assessments and advisory engagements, I’ve heard that what many of our foundation partners find most challenging are the “Now what?” discussions that come after an...
How We’re Listening, Learning, and Looking Forward
Part of my work on the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) assessment and advisory services team is to help funders listen and learn by raising up the voices of grantees, declined applicants, donors, staff, and a variety of other stakeholders.
Demographic Data Collection: The Personal, the Practical, and the Potential for Impact
Within my first couple weeks of starting college, my Junior Advisor (Williams College’s student equivalent of a dorm parent) gathered a dozen of my “entry” mates for our Welcoming Williams session, which I now recognize was my first ever formal diversity, equity, and...
Looking Back with Gratitude, Moving Forward Together
One of the founding ideas of our work at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) was that funders could — and should — learn from each other’s experience — not just in an anecdotal way, but systematically. Today that doesn’t sound like such a wild idea, but back...
Two and a Half Years of CEP’s Global Expansion: Time to Take Stock
It seems like only yesterday that I announced I’d be moving to Amsterdam in January 2019 to lead CEP’s work with funders in Europe and beyond. Two and a half years and a global pandemic later, the time has come for me to say goodbye to CEP. In August I’ll leave my...