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Ellie Buteau

Director of Research Projects and Special Advisor on Research Methodology and Analysis

Ellie manages research projects and supports research design and analysis training and work across CEP’s teams. Ellie is managing CEP’s Big Gifts study, a three-year research project designed to understand how nonprofit organizations are using large, unrestricted gifts and what the impact of those gifts has been. She is a leading authority on foundation strategy, foundation performance assessment, and foundation-grantee relationships, as well as an expert in research design and statistical analysis. She has authored or co-authored numerous reports, articles, opinion pieces, and blog posts on issues related to foundation effectiveness, including Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting ChangePersevering Through Crisis: The State of Nonprofits, and Crucial Donors: How Major Individual Givers Can Best Support Nonprofits.

Ellie is also a Certified Professional Coach (CPC). She has coached professionals in the United States, Canada, China, and India. She is a graduate of the International Coach Academy and credentialed by the International Coach Federation as an Associate Certified Coach. Ellie volunteers with The Women’s Impact Alliance, a nonprofit that provides coaching to young women leaders of high potential impact.

Before joining CEP in 2004, Ellie led the design and analysis of education and health-related research projects at Cornell University, Tufts University, and a variety of nonprofit organizations. She taught courses on statistics at Tufts University and published research in a number of journals. She received a PhD in Social-Personality Psychology from City University of New York Graduate Center and a BA in Psychology, awarded with Great Distinction, from McGill University in Montreal.

Ellie Buteau's Blog Posts

4 Lessons from MacKenzie Scott’s Unconventional Approach

Discussions of MacKenzie Scott’s unconventional approach to giving tend to devolve into binaries. Scott’s doling out of massive, unrestricted gifts — some $14 billion to 1,600 nonprofits so far — is presented by some as the philanthropic holy grail, to be emulated by...

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