Resource Library
Browse helpful resources for funders, including evidence-based reports, profiles of funders making change, case studies, and blog series.
State of Nonprofits 2025:
What Funders Need to Know
In CEP's 2025 State of Nonprofits report, nonprofit leaders share the challenges they are facing, including that: The polarized and unpredictable political climate poses risks to their funding, their organizational mission and values, and the communities they...
Challenging Times: How U.S. Nonprofit Leaders are Experiencing the Political Context
This Research Snapshot examines how nonprofits are experiencing the rapid shifts in policy and the current U.S. political climate under a new presidential administration. Drawing on responses from 585 nonprofit leaders collected from February 3 to 21, 2025, the report...
Breaking the Mold: The Transformative Effect of MacKenzie Scott’s Big Gifts
The third and final report in CEP’s study on the impact of MacKenzie Scott’s gifts on nonprofit recipients.
Transformative Gifts: Inside Organizations That Received MacKenzie Scott Grants — A Companion to CEP’s Three-Year Study
This companion piece to the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s three-year research study on the impact of MacKenzie Scott’s large, unrestricted giving presents in-depth profiles of seven organizations that received Scott grants. Going beyond the data presented in...
Bridging the Gap: Grantee Perspectives on Intermediary Funders
What are grantees’ experiences with intermediary funders? Read CEP’s research on the topic – the largest study of grantee experiences with intermediary organizations to date.
How Foundations Are Supporting Grantee Staff Well-Being
CEP Research Snapshots are brief, data-informed research reports.
State of Nonprofits 2024: What Funders Need to Know
In the four years since the COVID-19 pandemic began and movements for racial justice gained widespread public attention, nonprofits across the United States have demonstrated their pivotal role in meeting their communities’ needs and advocating for those they serve. Individual and institutional funders, too, have responded to calls for change. Given the vital role nonprofits play in communities across the U.S., we sought to understand how they are faring now and to shed new light on their experiences with funders.
Emerging Impacts: The Effects of MacKenzie Scott’s Large, Unrestricted Gifts
In just three years, MacKenzie Scott gave more than $14 billion in unrestricted support to more than 1,600 organizations. Her gifts have often come as a surprise to recipients, with no restrictions on how or when they must be used, and with few, if any, reporting requirements. These gifts have been transformational for recipient organizations.
State of Nonprofits 2023: What Funders Need to Know
Nonprofits across the United States played a vital role during a period of crisis that began in March 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic and was followed by a nationwide racial justice reckoning that summer. As nonprofits experienced heightened demand coupled with marked uncertainty about revenues, they responded with resiliency and imagination, while many funders also stepped up, increasing philanthropic giving in a time of urgent need. Following this intense period of trial and turmoil, we wanted to take stock of current nonprofit perspectives and understand their evolving experiences with funders.
Giving Big: The Impact of Large, Unrestricted Gifts on Nonprofits
In late July 2020, MacKenzie Scott shocked the philanthropic and nonprofit worlds with the announcement that she had given $1.7 billion to 116 nonprofit organizations. The gifts came in the form of massive, unrestricted grants, with a significant proportion targeted to organizations focused on issues of equity, and were made with no restrictions – only an expectation of an annual three-page letter back to the donor for the three years following their receipt.
Overlooked (Part One) – Foundation Support for Asian American and Pacific Islander Leaders and Communities
Across four research studies the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) has conducted in the past two years, we’ve noticed two concerning trends emerge for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Native American nonprofit leaders and communities (trends that...
Overlooked (Part Two) – Foundation Support for Native American Leaders and Communities
Across four research studies the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) has conducted in the past two years, we’ve noticed two concerning trends emerge for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) and Native American nonprofit leaders and communities (trends that...
FOUNDATIONS RESPOND TO CRISIS: Lasting Change?
Calls for changes in foundation practice have come for decades from philanthropic and nonprofit leaders and others in the sector. The ways in which foundations responded to these calls at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 have been well-documented and...
Persevering Through Crisis: The State of Nonprofits
As the COVID-19 pandemic spread in the United States in 2020, many nonprofit organizations grappled with its devastating impacts on public health and the global economy—and the ways in which it deepened longstanding disparities along racial, ethnic, socioeconomic, and...
FOUNDATIONS RESPOND TO CRISIS: Toward Equity? – The Second in a Series of Three Reports
The disproportionate public health and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on certain communities, along with nationwide protests against police violence and racial injustice, have intensified the calls for foundations to focus on equity and reckon with...
FOUNDATIONS RESPOND TO CRISIS: Towards Greater Flexibility and Responsiveness? – The Final in a Series of Three Reports
Nonprofits and funders alike have long called on foundations to be more flexible and responsive, to provide more unrestricted funding, to reduce what they ask of grantees, and to build more trusting relationships. In 2020, these calls for change only intensified in a...
FOUNDATIONS RESPOND TO CRISIS: A Moment of Transformation? – The First in a Series of Three Reports
How are foundations responding to 2020’s unprecedented challenges? What high-level changes in practice are they making — and will these changes be for the long term? CEP turned to foundation leaders for answers to these pressing questions. As Foundations Respond to...
Making it Happen: A Conversation Guide
This companion piece to New Attitudes, Old Practices: The Provision of Multiyear General Operating Support provides resources for foundation leaders and boards seeking to start providing, or provide more, multiyear general operating support (GOS) grants. It shares...
Making the Case: Foundation Leaders on the Importance of Multiyear General Operating Support
This companion piece to New Attitudes, Old Practices: The Provision of Multiyear General Operating Support features profiles of the California Wellness Foundation, the Claneil Foundation, Foundation for a Just Society, the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, and the...
New Attitudes, Old Practices: The Provision of Multiyear General Operating Support
Multiyear general operating support (GOS) provides nonprofits with the flexibility to use funds to fulfill their missions and the ability to plan for the long-term sustainability of their organizations, programs, and services. Nonprofit leaders have long called for...