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“There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson. What’s behind the research you consume is not one of those things. It seems every other day there is a new article or blog delivering solutions or guidelines for what to...
Nonprofit leaders have a sober assessment of foundations’ understanding of those they seek to help. CEP’s latest research shows that only 38 percent of nonprofit leaders believe that most or all of their foundation funders have a deep understanding of their intended...
The following is an excerpt from the new research report, Hearing from Those We Seek to Help: Nonprofit Practices and Perspectives in Beneficiary Feedback. ONE DC was one of three randomly selected nonprofit organizations whose leaders rated them in the CEP survey as...
Nonprofit and foundation leaders have starkly different views about the importance of foundations being transparent. That’s what we learned when we surveyed nonprofit and foundation CEOs about their attitudes on this issue. Nonprofit CEOs value foundation transparency...
For foundations and nonprofits to work effectively together, they need to understand each other’s perspectives. But do they? Drawing on data from CEP surveys, Ellie Buteau, Mark Chaffin and I compared foundation and nonprofit perspectives on four aspects of foundation...
It is no secret that nonprofit organizations are facing increasing pressure to measure and assess their progress toward their goals. In our 2012 report on nonprofit performance assessment, CEP found that 81 percent of nonprofits say that understanding the progress...
In recent years, various experts and observers have discussed the value of engaging donors at community foundations.1 The knowledge and connections community foundation staff have, and their ability to educate donors about a community’s greatest needs, have long been...
In our newest report What Donors Value: How Community Foundations Can Increase Donor Satisfaction, Referrals, and Future Giving we explored why donor satisfaction matters at community foundations and what donor perceptions best predict it. We noted that, while not the...
In recent years, broad societal trends have affected community foundations and the way they engage potential donors. Increased access to data and analysis about nonprofit organizations—fueled by the growth of online resources like GuideStar, GiveWell, and Charity...
A recent article in the Wall Street Journal headlined “Spending Down the Family Foundation” suggests that more philanthropists are choosing to donate all their wealth within their lifetimes, instead of holding it in perpetuity. The story cites Bridgespan’s analysis of...