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In the final weeks of a year, when content calendars slow and we collectively begin to reflect on the year nearly gone — and plan, with some level of disbelief, for the one to come — we editors indulge in a favorite past-time: the curation of the year-end ‘best of’...
When putting together year-end lists, it’s hard to avoid a slight feeling of déjà vu; after all, you’re not only looking back on the year that was, but repeating an annual exercise of reflection. Yet in wrapping up 2024, I’m not sure if my colleagues and I on the...
It will surprise no one that at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), we’re big fans of feedback. For more than two decades, we’ve been encouraging funders to seek confidential feedback to get a clearer sense of their impact, build stronger relationships, and...
In moments of great uncertainty, it can be easy to freeze. However, as the pandemic taught us, funders have a crucial responsibility to support nonprofits to weather moments of rapid change and continue to serve communities effectively for the long term. As Election...
CEP’s new research, Bridging the Gap: Grantee Perspectives on Intermediary Funders, makes one very clear point: Grantee experiences with intermediary funders mirror their experiences with originating funders (those that are often supporting intermediaries). As we’ve...
America’s public schools were founded with a clear mission: to prepare each generation anew for the responsibilities of citizenship. Over the last year, YouthTruth, an initiative of the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), set out to evaluate how well schools are...
Over the past decade, there has been a significant rise in both the interest in and number of intermediary organizations — those that primarily regrant funds from institutional sources on their behalf, including nonprofits that act as regrantors, collaborative or...
Listen to the trailer here. I’m thrilled to announce that the Giving Done Right podcast is returning for another season! This summer, CEP’s president Phil Buchanan and I have been busy in the recording studio, and we’ll be bringing you 16 new episodes...
Burnout within nonprofit organization staff is a growing concern within the sector, as seen in the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s new research, State of Nonprofits 2024: What Funders Need to Know. The research shows that 95 percent of nonprofit leaders expressed...
Part protest, part commemoration, and part celebration, Pride Month joyfully invites us all to see the rich and diverse lives of queer folks — and to recognize that as far as we’ve come (at least here in the U.S.), we still have a long way to go to achieve a world in...
“We are in what feels like daily crisis mode. Our staff is small and overtaxed. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to run the organization, and we haven’t had the luxury of much down time.” The sentiment above was shared by a respondent to a CEP survey of nonprofit...
Burnout is top of mind for nonprofit leaders in 2024, despite relative consistency in nonprofit organizations’ finances and relationships with funders. This is one of the key insights in a new CEP report, State of Nonprofits 2024: What Funders Need to Know, released...
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...
One of the most frequently asked questions I receive from grantmakers after they complete a Grantee Perception Report (GPR) with CEP is, “How would you recommend sharing these findings back to our grantees?” While we encourage all funders to, at the minimum, thank...
[vc_row el_class="sixtysix-thirtythree"][vc_column width="2/3"][vc_column_text]In my many years working with funders at the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), one of the most common phrases that comes up in discussions of results is “we’re different” — and there...
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...
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...
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...