Resource Library
Browse helpful resources for funders, including evidence-based reports, profiles of funders making change, case studies, and blog series.

Greater Good: Lessons from Those Who Have Started Major Grantmaking Organizations
With more than 30,000 new private foundations established in the U.S. in the past 20 years, it is vital that early-stage grantmakers learn from the wisdom of those who have gone before them so they can avoid common mistakes and position their grantmaking organizations...

Family Ties: Multigenerational Family Foundation Board Engagement
Based on interviews with CEOs and family board chairs at seven large, multigenerational family foundations, this publication spotlights the governance practices and structures that these family foundations have created to maintain family involvement; select, orient,...

A Date Certain: Lessons from Limited Life Foundations
The limited life approach in philanthropy has received increased attention in recent years. But across foundations, perpetuity is often still seen to be the default, and there is considerable uncertainty about the practice of spending down. To learn more about limited...

A Date Certain: Case Studies of Three Limited Life Foundations
Accompanying A Date Certain: Lessons from Limited Life Foundations, this companion publication includes case studies of three of the spend-down foundations featured in the report: S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, the Lenfest Foundation, and the Brainerd Foundation. March...

Benchmarking Foundation Governance
On a typical foundation board, what are its members’ most common areas of expertise? How common is it for an original donor — or a family member — to sit on a board? To what extent are board members involved in grantmaking?

Beyond Compliance: The Trustee Viewpoint on Effective Foundation Governance
Beyond Compliance is based on the largest-scale research on foundation boards ever conducted and builds off CEP’s earlier governance report, Foundation Governance.