How Foundations Say They’re Responding: What the Data Shows 
CEP’s latest research — distilled in a series of three reports — examines the extent to which staffed foundations say they have changed their practices to meet the compounded crises of the past year. This research series offers insights into how these crises have catalyzed foundation leaders to reconsider how they conduct their work — when it comes to topics like focusing on racial equity, increasing payout, and being flexible and responsive, for example — and what this might mean for the future. Read more.
Three Funders Discuss Their Crisis-Response Approach
In this conversation, CEP’s research team breaks down the data from Foundations Respond to Crisis, followed by a panel discussion in which Ford Foundation’s Chris Cardona, Tufts Health Plan Foundation’s Nora Moreno Cargie, and Brooklyn Community Foundation’s Marcella Tillett share details about how each of their respective foundations have approached their crisis response. The panelists also discuss the bigger picture and what the ongoing crises mean for foundation philanthropy as a whole. Watch here.
Philanthropy’s Role in a Better Future
Following the violence at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, CEP President Phil Buchanan discusses five things those of us in philanthropy — as individuals and as a sector — must prioritize to help build a better future: 1) support grassroots efforts to strengthen democracy; 2) give up resources and power; 3) break out of our bubbles; 4) center racial equity, no matter the issue area; and 5) build on moments of hope. Read more.
Building the America that Never Was, Yet Still Must Be
In a guest post on the CEP blog, Ford Foundation Executive Vice President of Programs Hilary Pennington offers four pieces of advice for philanthropy to help vanquish the elements of racism, patriarchy, and oppression that have been so central in shaping the United States, and to build a truly pluralistic, multi-racial democracy instead. Read more.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Are We Better Off Divided? Philanthropy’s Role in Moving America Forward
Join CEP (virtually) on April 29 for the second installment of our 20th Anniversary Learning Sessions, focusing on strategies for helping overcome the ongoing crisis of intensified polarization and division in the U.S. Featuring Eric Liu (co-founder and CEO of Citizen University), Anthony Richardson (executive director of Nord Family Foundation), Caryl Stern (executive director of Walton Family Foundation), Kristen Cambell (executive director of PACE), and Grant Oliphant (president of Heinz Endowments), this conversation will cover what philanthropy can do to work across lines of ideological difference and address the rifts prevalent in American civic life.
