Funders, make a plan to gather vital feedback on your work in 2026!
Contact Us
Search
Recently, I used AI to review a contract for a new client engagement. What started as a "quick" review turned into a 10-plus hour project. Instead of asking AI to just "review this contract," I developed a comprehensive legal analysis prompt to explain each section in...
To accompany CEP’s new report on AI, Cascade Philanthropy Advisors President Lowell Weiss interviewed 15 leaders from foundations, nonprofits, and affinity groups. In the first post in this two-part series, Weiss shared his conversation with Chris Lehane, head of...
To accompany CEP’s new report on AI, Cascade Philanthropy Advisors President Lowell Weiss interviewed 15 leaders from foundations, nonprofits, and affinity groups. In this post, Weiss shares his conversation, edited for clarity and length, with Chris Lehane, head of...
We are in a volatile, uncertain, and complex time. In philanthropy, our response is often to have a meeting about holding more meetings, at which we’ll discuss the next meetings we need. This is understandable — we hold a lot of responsibility, we want to make...
Over the last few years, I’ve had hundreds of conversations with nonprofit leaders and funders about artificial intelligence. One theme keeps coming up: most funders don’t know how to evaluate AI projects. This isn’t a controversial statement, but it’s one of the...
Every year, like many peers at other foundations, I partner with grantmaking teams to draft learning plans. We revisit assumptions, reflect on lessons, identify questions for the year ahead, and map out data sources — like PRAMS and ACS — that will help us answer...
Twenty years ago, on August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the surrounding area. That disaster made the reality of climate change visible, and it revealed how disasters expose and amplify existing inequities. It also revealed how critical it is that...
In 1956, the U.S. passed the Federal Highway Act, promising widespread public benefits. However, these highways tore through thriving Black neighborhoods, devastating generational economic and cultural vitality. In Durham, North Carolina, where I live, Highway...
Nonprofit organizations are in a state of crisis: facing safety, legal, and funding threats, as documented in the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s most recent “State of Nonprofits” report, which reveals nonprofit leaders are finding it difficult to pursue their...
The release of “Voices That Matter” from the Center for Effective Philanthropy affirms what many in the sector have long hoped: funders recognize that listening to the people at the heart of their work is not only the right thing to do, but essential to making good...