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The funder-grantee relationship is one of the major thematic areas covered by CEP’s grantee survey, which asks about interactions — staff responsiveness, the foundation’s approachability, and grantee perceptions of being treated fairly — as well as the clarity and...
Nonprofit, mission-driven organizations overwhelmingly want to assess their impact — and, generally, they put effort into doing so. The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s recent report, Assessing to Achieve High Performance, underscores the importance nonprofits...
We need to rethink our understanding of power. And by “we,” I mean all of us engaged in promoting social change and supporting efforts to move our communities forward, especially those of us inclined to believe we still have a greater hold on the reins to power than...
This post originally appeared on the President’s Blog on the Philanthropic Foundations Canada website. At a recent conference of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, Phil Buchanan, the president of CEP, posed a pointed question to the assembled foundation...
As I read CEP’s Assessing to Achieve High Performance report, several thoughts came to mind. First, “Ooh, these graphics are so pretty!” Second, “Yeah, funders need to provide more money to nonprofits so we can do more and better evaluation.” Third, “Data needs to be...
In a toughly-worded op-ed in Sunday’s New York Times headlined “Who Will Watch the Charities?”, Inside Philanthropy founder and editor David Callahan argues that philanthropy “is a world with too much secrecy and too little oversight” and...
Being a foundation CEO isn’t so easy if you’re going to do it well, as I noted in my last blog post. There are tough decisions to be made and today — in the opening plenary of CEP’s biennial conference in San Francisco — we at CEP will share data about three areas in...
Foundations are in the business of making the world a better place. Preserving the environment, reducing violence, and improving education are a few examples among the many philanthropic objectives that foundations may pursue. But are we applying ourselves as...
Sometimes even the hottest technologies can move slowly. Big Data is a prime example. Consider the case of Pacific Gas and Electric (PG&E), the main utility provider in Northern California. As of 2011, PG&E had equipped 80% of the homes it serves with...
I started my career in the nonprofit field nearly 20 years ago. I worked in the basement of our founder’s house doing everything from leading programs, writing curriculum, hiring staff, applying for grants, and collecting and analyzing data. I had trays and trays of...