Resources | The Center for Effective Philanthropy

Investing and Social Impact: Practices of Private Foundations

There’s been a lot of discussion about aligning investment practices and mission at foundations, but to what extent are foundations engaging in practices like impact investing and negative screening? To dig beneath the talk and better understand the current state of practice at large private foundations, CEP surveyed CEOs at those foundations to learn more. Analysis of responses from 64 chief executives suggests that the rhetoric seems to be outpacing the reality.

Assessing to Achieve High Performance: What Nonprofits Are Doing and How Foundations Can Help

For foundation leaders to most effectively support grantees, more needs to be understood about the extent to which nonprofits are assessing performance, how they are approaching this work, and what they are looking for from their funders to support it.

Hearing from Those We Seek to Help: Nonprofit Practices and Perspectives in Beneficiary Feedback

For nonprofit organizations, hearing from the beneficiaries they seek to serve is an important practice for planning, implementing, and evaluating their programs and services. But does this feedback and an understanding of intended beneficiaries’ needs reach foundation funders and influence their funding and strategic decision-making?

What Donors Value: How Community Foundations Can Increase Donor Satisfaction, Referrals, and Future Giving

To better understand how community foundations can best respond to the current environment, CEP asked donors about how satisfied they are with the community foundations with which they work. What matters most to them? What do these donors want from their community...

How Far Have We Come? Foundation CEOs on Progress and Impact

Few foundation CEOs believe that a lot of progress has been made overall toward the goal receiving the greatest proportion of their organization’s resources.

Nonprofit Challenges: What Foundations Can Do

Our research shows that only 52 percent of nonprofit leaders believe that their foundation funders are aware of the challenges their organizations are facing.

Foundation Transparency: What Nonprofits Want

Well-intentioned talk about foundation transparency is a good start, but according to new CEP research, nonprofit leaders want more.

Employee Empowerment: The Key to Foundation Staff Satisfaction

This report is based on survey responses from 1,168 staff members at 31 foundations. The surveys were conducted from 2007 to 2011 as part of CEP’s Staff Perception Report (SPR), which analyzes feedback from foundation staff about their work experiences and views of the foundation’s overall operations.

Room for Improvement: Foundations’ Support of Nonprofit Performance Assessment

Amidst growing pressure for nonprofits to measure and assess their performance, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) finds that nonprofits sorely lack the support they need.

The State of Foundation Performance Assessment: A Survey of Foundation CEOs

Over the past decade foundations have worked to assess their performance in the fields and communities they seek to address. Data-driven forms of measurement have become more widely used to judge the results of programs, as part of a broader range of information used, as CEOs place great importance on assessing their foundations’ effectiveness.