Great Leaders Empower Strategic Decision-Making Across the Organization. Your job as a leader isn’t to be the smartest person in the room; it’s to make the room smarter than any one person. Instead of shifting from doing to delegating, you’re shifting from directing to designing systems. That’s how you move from default to design, from bottleneck to builder. Read more…
How 106 People Got Together to Stop a School Shooting Before It Happened. A threat on a school bus from an alienated young man united dozens of agencies to answer a single question: Is it possible to stop potential mass shooters before they commit a crime? Read more….
The Hidden Toll of Meeting Hangovers. Over one quarter of workplace meetings leave employees with lingering negative effects such as lowered engagement and productivity that can last hours. This is called a meeting hangover. To avoid the effects of a meeting hangover, check out the tips in this article. Read more…
Why Leaders Should Bring Their Best Self — Not Their Whole Self — to Work. Few corporate mantras have spread more widely—and aged worse—than the exhortation to “bring your whole self to work.” Initially coined to promote psychological safety and inclusion, the phrase has since morphed into a rallying cry for radical transparency and unchecked self-expression. While often well intentioned, this advice becomes not just misguided but actively dangerous when applied to those in senior leadership roles. Read more…
Favorite Management Tips on Strategic Thinking. When you’re told you need to be more strategic, it’s tempting to feel defensive. But it’s more productive to take the feedback in stride and demonstrate your skill proactively. Here’s how to make this integral part of your leadership more visible to others. Read more..
Humble Leaders Inspire Others to Step Up. Humble leaders are celebrated for fostering
teamwork, building trust, and enhancing employee well-being. However, our research uncovers a previously undocumented benefit: humble leaders do not just model gracious behavior among their subordinates; they ignite leadership ambition in them, too. Read more…
3 Ways to Make Sure High Performers Feel Valued. Psychologists call it “anti-mattering”: the experience of feeling insignificant that comes from feeling unseen, unheard, and unvalued. When people experience anti-mattering, they withdraw, languish, or leave. When it comes to top talent, it’s common to cite a lack of pay growth and external opportunities as reasons for quitting. However, for high performers, the experience of not mattering is a hidden driver of preventable turnover. And unlike increasing pay or competing with other job prospects, showing people how they matter is always under a leader’s control. Read more…
How to Give Busy People the Time to Innovate. There are many ways a leader can rally
workers around innovation, from launching experiments to rolling out initiatives to running hackathons. But any one of these efforts must contend with the reality of the modern-day workplace — everyone is really busy. Workers are inundated with communication, with some people reporting that they spend nearly nine hours a week on email and 7.5 hours a week in meetings. People are working more hours, and for some, busyness has become a status symbol.These factors may be killing a culture of innovation. Read more…
A Better Way to Measure Social Impact. All impact investors report the financial returns from their funds and investments, and many provide metrics on intended social outcomes, such as numbers of individuals served, or quality jobs created. But investors do not supply metrics about their impacts on individuals’ and families’ lives, and until they do, social impact reporting is unlikely to approach the level of robustness associated with financial and environmental reporting. The authors of this article describe how Bayer’s Crop Science division has developed reliable stakeholder reported measures of the social impact of its inclusive growth projects based on an approach first pioneered in the healthcare sector. Read more….
How to Avoid Strategy Myopia. Myopia comes from what we expect from a new strategy.
Strategy is not a plan. A plan might come with a guarantee: “If we do this, we win.” A strategy, on the other hand, comes with the motto: “This might not work.” Strategy is a philosophy of becoming, a chance to create the conditions to enable the change we seek to make in the world. When the boss demands a strategy that comes with certainty and proof, we’re likely to settle for a collection of chores, tasks, and tactics, which is not the same as an elegant, resilient strategy. To do strategy right, we need to lean into possibility. Read more…
Exploring the Link Between Housing Stability and Mental Health. Millions of people in the United States living with mental health challenges face barriers to finding and maintaining stable housing. Mental health encompasses emotional, psychological, and social well-being, and mental health illnesses are some of the most common health conditions across the country. There are myriad causes of mental health illnesses and challenges, however, there is evidence that the accessibility of stable and affordable housing can improve mental health. As much as the benefits of stable housing can help uplift mental health, the repercussions of a lack of stable and affordable housing can exacerbate mental health challenges. Read more…
How AI Could Help Reduce Inequities in Health Care. 
AI generates excitement and trepidation in equal measure within health care circles. Optimists see the obvious potential for revolutionizing the efficiency and quality of care. Cynics worry that prioritization of these tools for the wealthiest and healthiest may widen the already stark health inequities observed across society. Are these fears well-founded? Read more…
Is Your Organizational Transformation Veering Off Course? There comes a moment in almost every organizational transformation — even the successful ones — when the program goes off course and leaders need to intervene. As researchers who study transformations, we are often approached by C-suite executives, who ask questions like: What do I do when things go wrong? How can I detect when things may be going off track? Is there a way to use these pivotal moments to my advantage? Read more…
Is It Time to Pivot Your Strategy? One of the only certainties of management is that all
projects and strategies will, at some point, require a pivot or course correction. New technologies emerge, competitors do the unexpected, and plans are never perfect. That’s why agility and rapid adaptation are such critical leadership skills…But how do you know that implementing the change you are contemplating is indeed the right thing to do — that it will help you achieve the goal faster or more effectively? Read more…
Serving, Organizing, and Empowering Communities of Color. Improving economic opportunities and well-being in communities of color requires more than data and research. It requires grassroots groups that reject the transactional nature of electoral campaigns in favor of humility, deep listening, year-round engagement, and love. Only by questioning assumptions and organizing people around the issues they prioritize can you build trust and lasting change. Read more…
3 Things Great Leaders Do Differently. Encourage Collaboration, risk-taking, and learning from failure. learn how to incentivize internal collaboration, rather than competition—and why that approach often leads to stronger innovation. You’ll also learn how to inspire your team to take risks, share bold new ideas, and embrace learning from failure. This is a podcast from Harvard Business Review. You can read the transcript here.
Listen. Learn. Act: One Funder’s Lessons from a Participatory Strategy Process. What
are the most important issues in your community and how do you think your foundation can make a difference? Would your answer to those questions be the same as the answers from residents of the community you serve? Community leaders provided eye-opening, direct feedback. Read more…
Leadership Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: Ethical and Impactful Leadership. Today, ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility (CSR) have become critical components of organizational success. In this article, we delve into the intertwined concepts of leadership ethics and corporate social responsibility, highlighting the importance of ethical leadership in driving positive impact and sustainable growth. Read more….
When an Active Pause Is the Best Strategic Choice. 
In the face of competitive threats, managers are tempted to do something, because being active feels better than being passive. In fact, an active pause can make the most sense. This is especially true in industries facing a big technological change, when going “all in” on a nascent technology may have larger long-term costs than benefits. Read more…
What We Know So Far About Sets of Principles for Evaluating Systems of Change Efforts. despite this mainstreaming of principles-based approaches to evaluation, there has been relatively little work on creating principles to guide the evaluation of systems change efforts. The reason is simple: evaluation practitioners are a few steps behind the social innovators’ rapid and widespread adoption of system change strategies. It’s a big game of “catch up.” Read more…
The Matrix Map: A Powerful Tool for Mission-Focused Nonprofits. The Matrix Map is a 
a visual tool that plots all of the organization’s activities—not just its programs—into a single, compelling image. By illustrating the organization’s business model—through a picture of all activities and the financial and mission impact of each one—it supports genuinely strategic discussions. Read more…
If You Want People to Follow You, Stop Being a Boss — 8 Steps to Truly Effective Leadership.
Understand the key differences and embark on the journey from boss to leader with these eight vital steps. This article unveils how to inspire and lead teams with passion and purpose. Read more…
The Power of Selfless Leadership. If you’re trying to become a more self-aware leader, this episode is for you. Listen here…
what makes leaders great or companies successful. Our collective obsession with vision is a trap that glorifies leaders grasping to maintain control for themselves. Read more…
Too Many Meetings Is Not Your Problem. Recently, Shopify decided to kill all its meetings, and somehow it was newsworthy. I’ve personally been a part of multiple efforts to combat meetings. A few years back Airbnb declared a “calendar amnesty.” With new guidance, everyone’s calendars were summarily wiped clean. It was well intentioned, and it was beautiful — for a hot minute. Read more…
Don’t Salaries Matter? Imagine a workplace where everyone comes into the office. (This
story is set in 2019.) It’s a totally normal office, except that for some mysterious reason, the company has always kept a group of weasels as office pets. The weasels have a special area in the back with their food and nesting materials and they are also free to wander the office. Read more to learn what happens to the weasels…
Lessons Learned from Selfless Leadership. It’s important that as. the workplace transforms and a new generation enters the workforce, leaders not only cultivate their own leadership philosophy but learn how to grow and evolve it. A key underpinning of [the author’s] personal leadership is the idea of servant leadership, and it’s expressed by a personal motto that [he likes] to call “unself yourself.” Read more…
4 Reasons Why Leaders Should Embrace the Power of Ambiguity. Ambiguity ain’t all bad
for organizations. In fact, for the reasons outlined in this article, leaders should look to embrace the benefits Ambiguity can bring to their teams and organizations. 1. Ambiguity prevents destructive conflict and increases collaboration. Read more…
How Your Company’s Social Purpose Can Also Drive Profit. Purpose-driven strategies
focus on relationships with multiple stakeholders and seek to solve higher-order problems for society. To be successful, these strategies also have to achieve top-and bottom-line growth. The question is: How can companies achieve both of these goals? Read more…
Wielding Philanthropic Power with Accountability. By speaking up about money and acknowledging the many choices they have, funders can more effectively channel their full spectrum of resources to achieve change. How can we most effectively leverage all the assets we have at our disposal given so many choices and so little oversight. Read more…
Current Trends in Philanthropy. A growing chorus is questioning the foundation model, even as some donors are looking to experiment with new forms of philanthropy. A handful of younger philanthropists (Mark Zuckerberg, Pierre Omidyar) have opted to create limited liability corporations instead of setting up private foundations and have declared that their investments in social good will be directed to a broad spectrum of organizations and vehicles. Still, the predominant organizational form for U.S. philanthropy is the private grantmaking foundation. Read more…
Philanthropy’s Ultimate Power-Sharing Opportunity: Governance. One of the most 
important responsibilities for any board chair and chief executive is to ensure that their board remains connected to the realities in its communities, open to new ideas, inclusive of divergent perspectives, and responsive to a changing world. Power sharing at the board level is instrumental to ensuring three essential governance functions: Accountability, Rootedness and Adaptability. Read more…
Revitalizing Community Connection. Reimagining the Civic Commons claims it has built the first comprehensive set of metrics that connect the impact of revitalization to things like trust between people, neighbors’ perceptions of safety, and a community’s ability to draw together people of different incomes, races, and backgrounds. Treating plazas and hiking trails as a linked portfolio tied to social outcomes marks a simple yet significant shift. Read more…
Funders that Don’t Seek Feedback Are Out of Excuses. In a Telegraph interview several 
years ago, Lisa Marie Presley said, “Something happens to people around fame and power and money – it can bring out the worst and best in people; it’s a monster you have to tame.” In the world of philanthropy, this plays out in different ways: the lack of voice and representation of nonprofits and community leaders in strategy- and decision-making in foundation boardrooms, grantees being treated like contractors to execute the “expert” bidding of the grantmaker, and other practices that put funders’ perspectives first. Read more…
Evaluation with the End in Mind. Most organizations use evaluation to determine outcomes, refine current efforts, and set future direction. But what purpose does evaluation serve when the clock is ticking down, and there is a heightened sense of urgency to accomplish your mission before the doors close? It requires re-positioning evaluation as a tool to drive progress toward the end goals and to measure the enduring impact of the efforts.Read more…
Just Say No: The Art of the Turndown. If your foundation is known to have financial resources 
and you’ve given to nonprofits before, you’re likely to face requests for donations time and time again. In today’s information age, it is increasingly easier for grantseekers and fundraisers to see the foundation’s name attached to various charities and put you on their list of prospects. In other words, by making gifts to others, particularly sizable donations, you invariably attract attention. Hiding is not a viable long-term solution. Read more…
Ready! Fire! Aim? Every day, nonprofits find ways to further their missions with a mix of intelligence, creativity and gumption. So, how can the philanthropic sector look to technology for solutions to help in this (often daunting) endeavor? Because those of us in the tech sector believe that’s what technology should be… a solution. Read more…
Foundations Partnering to Raise the Next Generation of Philanthropists. From a community foundation standpoint, “Teaching philanthropy at a very early age is part of donor development,” says September McConnell. “We are creating the DNA of the consciousness of giving back. If we are here to create a better quality of life, what better way than to help people make a difference?” Read more…
Pioneering a People-Centered Approach to Corporate Philanthropy. Exploring investments beyond philanthropic dollars takes a thorough assessment of corporate assets and strengths. It also requires that we have a healthy commitment to collaboration, and to building meaningful partnerships with nonprofits, governments, intergovernmental agencies, and civil society. A smart, skilled, and dedicated employee base has the power to create a ripple effect. Read more…
National Funder, Local Influence: How to be Mindful of Your Playing Field. I work for a 
foundation that is modestly young in the national grantmaking sector. At about four years into its current field, we can’t quite say we’re the new kid on the block anymore, but we’ve certainly seen a rapid amount of structural change since we first launched. Transitioning from a scholarship fund to an organizational grantmaker got tricky. Read more…
Adaptive Boards Don’t Stop at Technical Solutions. I want to urge boards and nonprofit leaders to thoughtfully plan for adaptive solutions even if they’re hard to name or messier to approach. For boards of directors to genuinely develop to meet changing needs, we need to change as individual leaders, change as governing groups, and pair technical solutions with adaptive ones. Read more…
Social Change IS More Complex than Rocket Science. Unlike rocket science, which can be 
precisely replicated anywhere in the world, change that is successful in one social context will unlikely work in exactly the same manner elsewhere. In fact, it is highly likely that conducting the exact same activities elsewhere will produce a different outcome. Theoretically every funder is facilitating mini-experiments. Read more…
How Corporate Social Responsibility Connects Us to Consumers. Long gone are the days of disengaged consumers, whose allegiance is garnered merely through coupons and loyalty programs. Today’s customers are increasingly sophisticated and selective. They like to keep their finger on the pulse of the companies with which they have chosen, or are thinking of choosing, to do business. Does the business align with their values? Is it engaged with the community, and what is it doing for the greater good? Read more…
Does Collective Impact Really Make an Impact? If you Google “collective impact critique,” 
you’ll find many articles describing collective impact’s limitations: It’s too top down; it’s not focused enough on community, social justice, and equity; and it’s too simplistic for entrenched social problems. Critics argue it doesn’t adequately acknowledge the work that preceded and informed it; it wasn’t backed by adequate research and evaluation; and it branded and “consult-ified” work that communities, organizers, and other researchers had been engaging in for decades. Read more…
Philanthropic Risk: It’s Personal. Philanthropy has an uncertain relationship with risk. Foundations big and small couch their strategies around innovation – often complemented by statements about their willingness to take risks in pursuit of those strategies. However, given funders’ current interest in evidence-based work and easily quantifiable results, most haven’t demonstrated an actual willingness or ability to embrace risk. Read more…
The Funder’s Role in Data Collection: Insights from Peer Funders. As a funder, you can 
have a role in supporting the data collection efforts of your grantees. This doesn’t mean all efforts fall to you, nor does it mean your grantees should be tasked with overly cumbersome data tracking processes. The key is balance. We’ve been chatting with our grantmaker community and have some tips directly from their experiences to share with you. Read more…
A Good Enough Grant Application Process. I have to be honest here: I don’t know of any foundation that has a really great application process. I think the process is inherently a bit tedious. In my experience, different foundations’ processes lie on a continuum of better to worse. But the good news? After writing about a dozen applications in the last six months, most online, I found that the majority were on the ok-to-better end of the spectrum. A couple were worse. None was fantastic. But good enough was truly good enough. Read more…
Ten Reasons Not to Measure Impact — and What to Do Instead. Impact evaluations are an important tool for learning about effective solutions to social problems, but they are a good investment only in the right circumstances. In the meantime, organizations must build an internal culture in which the right data are regularly collected, analyzed, and applied to manage implementation and improve programs. Read more…
Funder Collaboration: It’s Not Always What You Think. It is clear that an individual funder (and a small-staffed one no less!) will not solve the world’s intractable problems alone. In fact, it will take a whole network of funders — including grant partners and others — at the same table if we want to make progress. Read more…
Demystifying Corporate Citizenship Rankings and Indices. Which CSR and sustainability 
rankings should you prioritize as a company? The seemingly inexhaustible list of ratings, rankings and indices can puzzle even the most seasoned corporate citizenship professionals. They are as varied as the industry itself – from the Best Corporate Citizens and the Best Places to Work lists to the Environmental Performance index. Read more…
Foundations Should Fund What Nonprofits Really Need. For-profit and nonprofit organizations obviously measure success and impact differently. A company’s board would invest in information technology because all the benefits could lead to an improved product and thus more money. While it is easy for a company’s board to measure how successful their investment is by looking at the bottom line, it is not as easy for funders to do that with nonprofits. As such, funders should give deference to the nonprofit leaders who often have a better understanding of their organizational needs and direction. And while some nonprofits are uncomfortable asking for what they need, and thus apply for what they think funders want to support, the proverbial “funder-knows-best” style of grantmaking is not conducive to forming or sustaining relationships with a servant leadership ethos. Read more…
Worse Than Wasteful. Philanthropy isn’t just expression of public-spiritedness 
and compassion-if only! Philanthropy also provides a vehicle for exerting personal influence over a community’s collective will and democratic process, an avocation pursued by billionaires that can be corrosive to the organizations, communities, and individuals it targets. Read more…
Six LIttle Questions. Here are six critical questions that grantmakers can (and should) use as a filter when designing or refining our application and reporting processes – something that we recommend you do regularly. These questions can help you take a fresh look at your requirements and think hard about what to keep and what to toss. Read more…
Significant Impact. I recently met with a wealthy man who created a family foundation 15 
years ago. He is looking for new board members and has asked me to consider joining. Among other things, he told me that the foundation makes general operating grants only when a contribution will (1) have significant impact and (2) not create dependency. I don’t know a lot about nonprofits, but have some questions. What kind of impact do you think a foundation can have when its grants average $7,000 and go to organizations with budgets of $1 million or more? He said that grantees assure the board in their grant requests that the contributions do have significant impact. Also, does there seem to be much risk of fostering dependency in this situation? He said that only a few groups funded have gone out of business. Read more…
Philanthropy Is Booming, But Foundations Mostly Isolated, Study Finds. Philanthropy globally is growing rapidly, but philanthropic resources are highly concentrated and coordination between grantmaking foundations is limited. Fifty-eight percent of the foundations identified do not collaborate with other philanthropies. This report also found that 72 percent of foundations have been established over the past twenty-five years. Read more…
Advice from Your Grantmaking Peers: Avoid These Pitfalls. The philanthropic sector 
is a strong community, and always willing to share experiences and help peers. Our grantmaker community did just that when they spilled about their own experiences. Take a tip from your peers and avoid these pitfalls. Take time to identify how you can make things a little simpler for yourself or others. Read more…
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The Consequences of Small Failures in Learning. It was the worst U.S. maritime disaster in three decades, involving an experienced captain with a reputation for safety. What went wrong and what can this teach us about the often-overlooked factors that affect our learning and decisions?Read more….
The Risky Business of Foundation Opacity. From the lack of foundation websites and 
annual reporting, to perpetual insider control, and a desire to keep a low public profile, the author’s research confirms what many of us have been saying for years–that there is much room for improved transparency in the field. Sending a message that transparency or opacity are operational approaches of choice is dangerous and much higher risk than encouraging donors to discover and tell their own story, lest others tell it for them.Read more…
Fear, Tradition, and Serendipity: The Unacknowledged Drivers of Governance Strategy. Nearly every nonprofit is faced with the responsibility of balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders, and nonprofits do this with varying degrees of insight and success. The implicit assumption in much of this work, however, is that these roles compete for attention, and board members select, prioritize, or implicitly favor one role over the other.Read more…
How Planning to Close Her Foundation’s Doors Was the Right Business Model. When
Fran Sykes, founder and president of Pascale Sykes Foundation, tells people she is purposely closing her foundation’s doors in four years as a conscientious business strategy, people seem puzzled. Why would anyone purposely go out of business? Like many foundations, Pascale Sykes was originally established in perpetuity.Read more…
How Funders Can Support Nonprofits Now. It has never been easy to be a nonprofit leader-and it certainly isn’t easy now. Forces like globalization, the rise of technology, new forms of online organizing, and growing inequality have been disrupting the work of social change and creating new capacity-building needs for nonprofit leaders. In recent years, it has also become clear that achieving large scale, lasting change requires much more than just building effective nonprofit organizations. It also requires developing agile leaders, creating new networks, catalyzing social movements, and changing larger systems.Read more…
Foundation Transparency: Opacity – It’s Complicated. The perception that private 
foundations lack accountability has led to calls for greater transparency. The literature, however, suggests that transparency is neither a panacea nor achieved without cost, and that its positive influence on the conduct of philanthropy may be less than straight-forward. Does opacity exist in private philanthropy? Have foundations and grantees developed strategies for overcoming challenges related to opacity?Read more…
It’s Time for Companies to Imbed Social Purpose in their Business Strategy. Now more than ever, social purpose has become a business imperative. The pressures that keep corporate leaders up at night, if harnessed correctly, have the power to change the world. What are these pressures? Competition for talent. Customer expectations and social norms. Investor pressure.Read more…
Early, Patient, Nimble Philanthropy Can Make or Break Public-Private 
Partnerships. Advocates for “strategic philanthropy” argue that charitable foundations should set explicit goals and measure results against them. Advocates of an “emergency model” of philanthropy resist command-and-control governance structures in favor of flexibility. But perhaps we can all agree on the highly catalytic value of early, patient, and nimble investments, especially when it comes to public-private partnerships.Read more…
Knowledge Sharing to Strengthen Grantmaking.Knowledge has the power to spark change, but only if it is shared. Many grantmakers instinctively like the idea of sharing the knowledge they generate with others. But in the face of competing priorities, a stronger case must be made for foundations to devote time and resources to sharing knowledge. The truth is that when foundations share knowledge generated through evaluation, strategy development and thought leadership, they benefit not only others but also themselves.Read more….
Clydesdales in a World of Unicorns. I might be going out on a limb. Hanging by a thread. Treading on thin ice. But that’s how I feel poking a bit of fun at Vu Le and Nonprofit AF, whose Monday morning musings often give me a chuckle while raising important issues about the ways that funders and grantees work together. But this is a post about metaphors, and there’s one recurring theme in Vu’s writing I just can’t get behind.Read more…
(Re)thinking Funder Networks and Collaboratives. Funders created PSOs (philanthropy-serving organizations) and funder collaboratives. Yet, in conference rooms, ballrooms, and even restrooms, we have heard them question the value of their ongoing support for these entities: Why do we keep creating new affinity groups focused on ever-narrower priorities? What point does my regional association serve beyond hosting a pricey annual meeting I’m too busy to attend anyway? Read more…
Impact Philanthropy: Making Changes from Within.As foundations embrace ever 
more ambitious and complex approaches for creating social change, they are taking an intentional approach to rethinking their organizational structures to achieve the greatest impact. They recognize that you can’t make change “out there” if you don’t make change “in here” to achieve impact philanthropy. Read more…
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 Can Corporations Inspire Social Good? Understanding the strategies needed to catalyze cultural change, as well as the advantages and limits of benefit corporations, are critical in guiding enterprises to inspire social good. A B Corp is a valuable template for moving beyond shareholder priorities, I argue that creating true social good requires deeper business and cultural transformations to help organizations effectively navigate market constraints. Read more…
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Beyond the Checkbook: The Power of Transformative Giving. Transformational giving isn’t easy, and it’s not something any grantmaker should enter into lightly. But I believe it’s also some of the most enlightened and effective work that foundations can do to begin to make the changes we’ve all been seeking for decades. [Identify] an issue and following the trail all the way to the source-and to other tributaries that may feed the problem along the way. Read more…
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 12 Common Criticisms of Philanthropy — and Some Answers. An older article but still worth reading: Critics have argued that charitable giving isn’t focused enough on the poor, isn’t sufficient to make a difference, is undemocratic, and more, but research-and history-show otherwise. Cramped definitions of philanthropy that limit donors to approved areas would suffocate many valuable social inventions. Read more…Essential Responsibilities of Foundation Governance. Governance matters across
 sectors, of course. But within the nonprofit sector, foundation governance is especially crucial. After all, foundations have a significant impact on nonprofits, fields, and communities. But, unlike for an operating nonprofit, there aren’t a lot of naturally occurring feedback loops for private foundations if the CEO or executive director – and/or his or her staff – have significant weaknesses (AKA “areas for growth”) or, worse, are just mailing it in. Read more… |
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Business Leaders, Consumers and Employees Find Value in Enhanced Philanthropy.
 Businesses must play a more strategic and integral role in efforts to solve the most pressing problems of our local, national and global communities. So believes Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of international asset management and investment giant Blackrock. Read more…
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 Our Opportunity for More Data-Driven Nonprofit Program Evaluation. To accelerate the ethical use of sensitive data, governments and universities are setting up new systems to give secure access to their researchers. However, if they want to be able to evaluate the full range of social service programs, they also need to make sure this data is useful to nonprofits. Read more… |
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We Need More Checkbook Philanthropy. Twenty years ago, before I worked in |
philanthropy, if you had asked me to explain the fundamental purpose of a foundation, I would have given a simple answer: to give money to nonprofits. That was naive. After joining the Eugene and Agnes E. Meyer Foundation in 2003, I quickly came to understand that the foundation had a mission beyond giving away money — and a vision for
 Charting the Learning Journey of New Donors. In The Giving Journey: Guiding New Donors to Actualized Philanthropy, the new report at Open Impact, they look into the mindsets and motivations of new ultra-high-net-worth donors. Specifically, they wanted to know: why do Silicon Valley’s “new donors” give? What barriers get in their way? And how can philanthropy experts, foundations, and nonprofits help address these obstacles so that donors can give more – and more effectively? Read more… |
Closing the Feedback Loop. Last year, the Colorado Health Foundation received a number of recommendations from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) that were designed to help us achieve greater impact with our grantmaking. CEP’s recommendations were part of a Grantee Perception Report that is an important data point as we work to increase our impact through grantmaking. Read more…
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Answers on Grant Proposals If Nonprofits Were Brutally Honest with Funders. The imbalance of power between funders and nonprofits leads to a lot of no-good, very bad things such as the lack of honest communication and feedback between funders and nonprofits. One area where this shows up is on grant applications. It’s not that we nonprofits lie when writing proposals, it’s just that…we’ve been trained to tell funders exactly what we think they want to hear, sugarcoating everything in jargon and BS. Read more…
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Responsible Business Leadership is an Evolving Story. It is the responsibility of business to create sustainable change by providing the education, skills, and training communities will need to build and develop the workforce locally. Think of Responsible Business Leadership as a give and get approach, creating an entirely new cycle around the way contributions are made to local communities. Creating a strategy for business success that simultaneously delivers societal impact is not merely a good thing for businesses to do, it’s essential. Read more…
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Why We Accept Proposals Written for Other Funders.From the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation: “We ask for a document that describes their leadership development work, but we don’t even require them to do a search and replace to insert ‘Robert Sterling Clark’ where ‘Foundation X’ used to be. The ‘apply’ section on our website asks: Please submit a recent grant application that represents your organization well, and reflects our funding interests. Feel free to share one that you’ve used to apply to another funder. Read more…
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A Mismatch in Philanthropic Interest and Support. Donors say that organizational governance and competence are critical factors in determining where their grants flow. So why aren’t they putting their money where their mouths are? If philanthropists genuinely believe that the best-performing nonprofits have outstanding governance capabilities, then we must see greater investment in helping all nonprofits improve in that area. Read more…
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How the Concept of Effectiveness Has Screwed Nonprofits and the People We Serve. A program officer said that his organization does provide gen-op support, but they are concerned about whether these investments are effective. “When the bread tastes bad, people stop buying it,” he said. Fair enough. No one likes stale bread. Foundations don’t like giving money to ineffective organizations, and they shouldn’t have to. Read more…
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Larry Fink’s Annual Letter to CEOs: A Sense of Purpose. Without a sense of purpose, no company, either public or private, can achieve its full potential. It will ultimately lose the license to operate from key stakeholders. It will succumb to short-term pressures to distribute earnings, and, in the process, sacrifice investments in employee development, innovation, and capital expenditures that are necessary for long-term growth…We must be active, engaged agents and it means investing the time and resources necessary to foster long-term value. Read more…
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Three Levels of Listening. Listening is an essential skill for effective philanthropy. Deep listening helps our members truly understand the needs of their community and cultivate connected and impactful relationships with others. At the same time, listening is a skill that very few of us are ever trained to do well. What does it take for you to shift into the other levels of listening-so that you can hear and understand others more deeply? Read more…
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Is Anybody Listening? One Funder’s Foray into Social Media. The Johnson Scholarship 
Foundation decided to get into the social media business three years ago. Prior to that, the foundation’s only communication interest was transparency. It maintained a website and published an annual report. When it decided to grow its communications efforts, the objective was to increase the impact of the foundation’s grantmaking. The hope was that it would bring people together to learn, compare, and discuss their work. Read more…
We Need to Talk About Failure. To say that failure is an undesirable outcome for most people is an understatement. And at the same time there’s a growing body of wisdom that supports the notion that the pathway to success is often paved with failures – they are, in fact, inevitable. The fact is, it’s not always possible to assign a definitive point of failure. Read more…
Open Source Software is Philanthropy. When properly supported, open source software can
spark innovation, accelerate social good, and ultimately help change the world. While many open source volunteers lead by example by giving code back to their communities, the majority of open source contributions remain at the individual level and at the level of corporate-sponsored projects. Read more…
Beyond the Backbone. Three alternatives to the backbone organization — a fundamental aspect of collective impact efforts — that can help ground collaborations focused on systemic change. It is generally heralded that such efforts can benefit from a backbone organization — a superstructure that provides coordination, planning, facilitation, reporting and administrative skills to participating organizations. In research on food insecurity in Houston, however, it was observed that the backbone organization is neither the only feasible nor even the best structure for grounding multi-organization collaborative initiatives. Instead, it is one of four possible structures on which collaborative efforts can hang. Read more…
Why Aren’t Foundations Actually Helping Their Grantees Like VCs? Venture Capital firms 
don’t invest in industries to disrupt — they invest in industry disruptors, and many now support them operationally. Foundations should consider following suite. Ideas are cheap. Execution is where the game is played, and talented, passionate teams that are well-supported play it best — delivering the greatest impact, no matter the sector. Foundations should be bending over backwards to support their grantees’ vision and their execution, yet this is rarely the case today. Read more…
7 Types of Successful Philanthropists. By now, it is safe to assume that at least one person in the philanthropic industry has advised you that achieving your funding goals is greatly based on your ongoing funder-fundee relationship…and they are right. But truly understanding the type of funder you are, and matching with similar-minded nonprofit leadership, is one of the most important fundamental building blocks to enabling mission success and satisfaction. Read more…
For Funders and Nonprofits: Excellent Nonprofit Management is Mission Critical. 
Nonprofit missions help us rally around various societal challenges. However, while nonprofit missions garner attention from funders, the management of the organization is where attention is critical. The challenge is that some funders may make their funding decisions based on nonprofit missions and nonprofits may direct more of their attention to mission rather than management. Read more…
Top 5 Ways to Make an Impact Beyond Grantmaking. While grantmaking remains one of the most powerful ways for philanthropists to create an impact, new ways of thinking have inspired philanthropists to leverage additional strategies. Grantmakers have the ability to impact grantees in a number of ways beyond providing funds. Read more…
Overcoming New Nonprofit Challenges through Leadership Investment. Nonprofit 
organizations are particularly vulnerable to changing conditions, yet their work is needed more than ever. Philanthropy can help nonprofits build the strength they will need in these changing times. There are two distinct ways our changing world is creating new challenges at nonprofits – and an investment in leadership may just be philanthropy’s most strategic response to both. Read more…
Increase Your Impact: Invest in Nonprofit Staff. Nonprofit organizations will always need good people. And these people will always need support to successfully do their work. As a funder or grantee, you need to determine which investments will make the biggest difference. And you need to move past fads, shiny objects, and other noise in the social sector to improve your efforts. There’s even a toolkit to help you! Read more…
Philanthropic Arrogance (and How to Avoid It).Research has shown that power literally 
causes brain damage. This means that the same qualities that made us want to be philanthropic in the first place start eroding as we are propelled into a position of communal power. We become less and less connected with the realities of the people we are trying to serve, and we become less and less permeable to their feedback (in the rare cases when they dare to give real and honest feedback). Little by little, we start believing we are infallible and we react badly to criticism and challenges. Read more…
Scaling Science. Science delivers innovations that can spark social progress. But the common approaches to scaling up these innovations are based on commercial endeavors in which the goals are growth, expansion, and maximizing profit. There is, however, a different way forward where the goal is scaling for the public good.Read more…
Time to Revisit Reporting. Over time, streamlining has become a common concept in 
philanthropy. Along with the internet and widespread use of online grantmaking systems, the basic principles and recommended practices of streamlining have helped many grantmakers to reduce the burden on nonprofit grantseekers. But it’s crucial that we turn back to the other end of the grantmaking sequence, to a question that has nagged one initiative since the start: what if grant reporting is our field’s missed opportunity?Read more…
Audacious Philanthropy.Many of today’s emerging large-scale philanthropists don’t want to fund homeless shelters and food pantries; they want to end homelessness and hunger. Steady, linear progress isn’t enough; they demand disruptive, catalytic, systemic change-and in short order. Even as society grapples with important questions about today’s concentrations of wealth, many of the largest philanthropists feel the weight of responsibility that comes with their privilege. But a growing number of these donors privately express great frustration.Read more…
nonprofit leaders, the good news is not in the findings themselves, but in that they are being offered by foundation leaders, who are beginning to recognize that much of the responsibility for change lies on their shoulders. Still, unintended consequences loom.Read more…
CSR: A Strategic Imperative for Long-Term Value. The material impact that CSR initiatives have on corporate performance has resulted in a sea of change. CSR has evolved from simple corporate giving and employee volunteer programs into comprehensive environmental, social, and governance (ESG) programs thatintegrate sustainability into business strategy. Study after study shows that the financial benefits of CSR are significant.Read more…
Philanthropy. For the last decade or so, the philanthropic sector has been struggling to adapt to changing external conditions and by extension reckoning with its very purpose. What makes this sector unique is not that it wrestles with these questions, but that such a large segment of it struggles to align practice with purpose. For instance, according to arecent studyby the Center for Effective Philanthropy, fully two-thirds of foundation CEOs believe it is possible for foundations to make a significant difference in society — but few think they are actually doing it. Why?Read more…
Social Purpose as a Place of Competition — Yes or No? Companies, if they are genuine about their goal to become a responsible business, should look at the whole spectrum of their operations and impacts and look to address all of them. Social purpose can deliver a competitive advantage…and it might make us lose focus on delivering real impacts.Read more…
grantmakers’ strategies are a set of assumptions that guide implementation. These assumptions are laid out early in the development of the strategyand are based on a combination of current context, data, and hunches about how the work will unfold. Here are four “fail forward” examples of our mistaken assumptions and subsequent corrective actions, which funders of all stripes planning and implementing strategies may find insightful.Read more…
The Promise of Skills-Based Volunteering.One of the fastest-growing corporate citizenship programs is skills-based volunteering — in which a team of corporate employees works for an extended period of time to help a nonprofit solve a complex operational problem. The benefits of the program for both parties are clear, but it’s also tougher to implement than many initially think.Read more…
atheory of changehas been widely embraced in recent years, and funders have helped drive the momentum. In fact, many funders now require that nonprofits submit a theory of change document with grant requests. But funder demand is certainly not the only reason to engage in the process. Developing a theory of change really is a means of assuring that your organization is actually doing the right things in the right ways. Follow these five steps.Read more…
and how to communicate them. Whatever the content and form, they should be dynamic, reciprocal learning tools that engage family members and beneficiaries. Extreme care needs to be applied so donor intent is not a one-way, power relationship. At its best and most effective, it is a shared connection that embodies cooperation, mutual exchange, and honest give-and-take.Read more…
Shared Gifting: Shifting Funding Power to Nonprofits. When nonprofits dole out grant money to peers, the result is a transformative experience that fosters innovation, collaboration, and learning. They challenge traditional power dynamics, and demonstrate how the act of giving a gift can transform relationships and create new value through the process of giving it away.Read more…
How to Succeed on a Nonprofit Board.Serving on a nonprofit board is immensely rewarding, and everyone should consider doing it. But the rewards come only to those who participate fully and use all they’ve got to further the missions they really believe in. Great board members ask who, what, when, where, how, how much, and why?Read more…
oversee countless activities, from setting direction and selecting grantees to reviewing policies and investing assets. Several foundation tasks — some mandatory, some voluntary — call for additional care. All are worth your careful consideration to help you be financially savvy and legally compliant, and to help you take full advantage of your foundation’s flexibility.Read more…
General Support and Myths about New Funders. There are a lot of statements made about “new” donors and how they differ from more “established,” older ones. Some are probably true. Many, alas, are myths. It’s not about new donors versus old. It’s about what it takes to achieve your goals. And more funders, new and old and in between, need to recognize that strengthening organizations strengthens impact.Read more…
ation has been placing early philanthropic investments in a broad range of new initiatives in the environment and sustainability fields.Read more…
Center for Effective Philanthropy recently releasedBenchmarking Program Officer Roles and Responsibilitiesreport you can almost hear program officers crying out: “We want to build and maintain strong relationships with our grantees, but we needmore time and resources to be able to do it!” We all know that strong relationships with grantees are important for productive partnerships that lead to greater impact. But when it comes down to it, do foundations really walk the walk?Read more…
Patient Philanthropy: How a Small Foundation Got Big Results. Philanthropy often seems to be reinventing itself. Strategicplans are undertaken; old priorities get restated; new buzzwords develop. While there is an ongoing argument about how much this kind of churn may actually help the ultimate beneficiaries, a small foundation doesn’t often take the time or budget for that kind of contemplation. Yet small size can enable a certain flexibility and responsiveness that can drive change perhaps even more effectively than the most competent big budget efforts. Read more…
Time to Reboot Grantmaking. Social sector organizations need a “healthy diet” of funding to achieve maximum impact. Nonprofits need to build strong foundational capabilities. Non-profits need organizational resilience based on financial health.Read more…
sector- the bottom line can only be driven by company-centered investments and business strategy. Today, however, the conversation has shifted from company-centered to stakeholder-centered, from bottom-line to triple-bottom line. And as CSR becomes more deeply integrated into core business strategy, a clear fact is emerging: Profit and Purpose should NOT be divorced.Read more…
Unleashing Large-Scale Change. The current political moment has attracted activists at 
unprecedented levels. For those who seek to convert initial engagement into meaningful social change, the question is how do we increase and sustain it? There are eight characteristics that are usually present when large numbers of people join together to make the world measurably better. Read more…
2017 Cone Communications CSR Study. 2017 will be remembered as the year that corporate social responsibility (CSR) was redefined. Although CSR will always be grounded in business operations – from water conservation to supply chain transparency – recently, the stakes have gotten a lot higher. Companies must now share not only what they stand for, but what they stand up for. Read more…
Friend or Foe? Philanthropy Should Welcome New Styles of Giving. One point within a 
recent philanthropy debate that incited passion — and perhaps frustration — was a discussion about the ways in which this new set of donors seek to engage with grantees. The perspective shared by Dr. Emmett Carson of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation was that these high net-worth donors often seek to become subject area experts on the issues they’re addressing, they desire a deep level of engagement with the leadership of the nonprofit organizations that they support and they are willing to make larger grants and take significant risks. Read more…
Show Me: Why Your Data Should Be Seen (and Not Just Read). Let’s talk about data. Nonprofit organizations are lousy with it – participant data, program data, financial data, sales data, fundraising data. Nonprofits are drinking from a fire hose and the water pressure is building. We are scrambling just to find enough bandwidth to store our data. And like secretive hoarders, we are reluctant to admit how little of this data we actually use. Read more…
Benchmarking Data on Foundation Program Officers. The role of program officer atfoundations is an important one – especially to the grantees whose experiences with funders are greatly shaped by their interactions and relationships with their program officers. Yet, relatively little is known about the intricacies of the program officer role. What are program officers’ backgrounds? On which responsibilities do they spend more of their time? How do they think of their relationships with grantees? Read more…
Risk Culture and Risk Management in Philanthropy. The Rockefeller Foundation and Arabella Advisors recently published a white paper entitled, “Risk Management for Philanthropy: A Toolkit.”The report reminds us that the most fundamental aspects of risk management lies within the funder-grant recipient relationship, and the primary barrier to successful risk management is the lack of transparency and trust between funders and nonprofits. A useful lesson for any type of organization and its stakeholders. Read more…
Against “Big Bets.” Strategic philanthropy should reject the latest fad of large grants in favor of long-term steadfast commitments to the many organizations making progress on our most important problems. It is not about pushing lots of cash out the door while looking for speedy results, but about becoming part of and helping to nurture an ecosystem of grantees, beneficiaries, and other funders whose efforts, cumulatively and over time, help make progress. Read more…
A Whole Lot of Good: Making the Case for More Pro Bono and Skills-Based Volunteering in the Workplace. What if, instead, it was a “yes, and” scenario, whereby employees focused on their work, yes, and focused on using their skills and expertise to drive change? Just imagine the ripple effects – think of the impact on the employees, the company, and our global society.We can shape the future we want by bringing more societal engagement into the workplace, leveraging our companies’ unique resources, and taking action for good. Read more…
From the Mouths of Funders and Nonprofits: 20 Ways to Build Better Relationships. Morethan 200 funders and nonprofits participated in candid conversations in Los Angeles and San Francisco in early May to describe what a great funder-nonprofit relationship looks and feels like. Both funders and nonprofits expressed similar characteristics that contribute to true partnerships. Read more…
Shifting Winds: Foundations Respond to New Political Context. A recent study by the Center for Effective Philanthropy reveals that the reactions and responses of U.S. foundations to the recent shift in national political context vary widely, but most foundations are changing their practices or shifting their emphases. This report provides a snapshot of foundations at this moment in time that is helpful to funders as they consider how their own work may or may not be affected by changes in Washington, D.C. Read more…
Barriers to Funder Collaboration and the Will to Overcome Them. Anythoughtful observer of philanthropy will note that, when working on stubborn societal problems, no single actor-even the wealthiest of foundations-can accomplish much by itself. This is both a historical fact and a present day reality. Foundation leaders know the social sector needs more and better collaboration for impact, but four barriers often get in the way. Read more…
Systems Thinking: A View from the Trenches. In recent years, systems thinking — a discipline that helps us understand interdependent structures of dynamic systems — has emerged as a powerful force for change in the philanthropic world. Borne out of the realization that significant and sustainable social change requires more than discrete interventions, systems thinking has become de rigueur for any foundation looking to create impact at scale. But what does systems thinking and change look like in the trenches? Read more…
Why Foundations Should Reconsider Warren Buffett’s Advice. It is a risky proposition to 
take issue with any advice offered by Warren Buffet. Clearly, for a foundation to continue making a positive impact toward its stated mission in perpetuity, investment gains are a necessary component to support operations and grantmaking. When considering investment options for a foundation’s endowment, fees should absolutely be a factor, and index funds are a low-cost option. But index funds largely replicate the broader markets and hold hundreds of securities. As a result, mission alignment is nearly impossible through these passive strategies. Read more…
My “Mission Sabbatical” and Why Your Foundation Needs One Too. I went on “sabbatical!” I was still working every day, but my wonderful board gave me “mission time.” Yes, you heard correctly. I was given 3 months to think about our foundation’s mission, its work, and our processes. I’m convinced that other foundations must follow suit, because it is so healthful to a single-staffed organization like mine. Read more…
Solving the World’s Biggest Problems: Better Philanthropy Through Systems 
Change. It’s one of the perennial questions facing the nonprofit world: Why, despite the sector’s collective resources and best efforts, do so many social problems remain so persistent? This stubborn gap between intentions and outcomes is drawing increased attention from across the philanthropic community. Many within the sector are coming to a shared conclusion: For too long, nonprofit boards and donors have emphasized the creation and growth of long-life organizations with ever-growing staffs and budgets. Read more…
3 Ways Businesses Can Help Struggling Nonprofits. How would you like to be in PBS’ or Meals on Wheels’ shoes right now? These two organizations alone stand to lose hundreds of millions of dollars in funding if U.S. President Donald Trump’s proposed budget passes. Many other nonprofits face funding cuts as well. Those not yet affected by cutbacks are scared they’ll be next. Here are three suggestions on how businesses can step up right now to support the missions of worthy organizations. Read more…
What is Behind Great Funder-Nonprofit Relationships? Often in the complex funder-
nonprofit relationship, it seems nonprofits do the asking, reporting, and proving, while donors sit in positions to say yes or no, how much, when, and what’s required. Achieving a different, deeper relationship takes more than just good intentions — it takes flexibility, finesse, and a sincere desire to acknowledge and address the power dynamics at play. Read more…
The CSR Effect: Social Media Sentiment and the Impact on Brands. When companies contribute their time, talent, and financial support to communities, they strengthen their brands as well. That’s why the U.S. Chamber Foundation partnered with IBM on a breakthrough analysis of social sentiment as it relates to the practice of corporate citizenship. This first-of-its-kind study demonstrated conclusively that engagement in corporate social responsibility (CSR) does impact an organization’s reputation — in some surprising ways. Read more…
What Role Should Philanthropy Play in Local Communities? What obligations – if any
– do foundations and new donors have to local communities in which they are based? And what role should they play in addressing rising income inequality? Many would argue that the issues donors care about – often a personal decision – should be the only determinant of a foundation’s grantmaking. Read more…
people and communities help themselves out of poverty. Their strategy calls for us to address root causes and invest in organizations poised to help us achieve our mission, regardless of sector or tax status. Back in 2012, the Foundation determined that the challenges they were trying to address demanded every resource they could muster. So they decided to invest 100 percent of their endowment towards fulfilling its mission, by fiscal year end 2017. Read more…
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. The Center for Effective Philanthropy conducted in-depth interviews with leaders of 11 limited life foundations to learn the ways in which they grapple with several important issues along their journey to pursuing their goals in a finite period of time. Read more…
New Report Examines Risk in Philanthropy Through Two Lenses. Risk is the likelihood of an undesirable outcome. Every action includes an element of risk. Philanthropy is no exception to this rule. In fact, charitable donations – because they seek to solve seemingly intractable problems – are often referred to as society’s ultimate “risk capital.” Bill Gates has said, “Philanthropy should be taking much bigger risks than business.” Read more…
Adding Value: 3 Ways to Increase the Value of Your Grants. We have come to think of 
our grants as investments, similar to those we make in the financial markets. When we invest in a new organization or idea we are, in effect, venture investors. Like our counterparts in the financial marketplace, we can usually add value by giving our grantee something in addition to money. The idea of adding value seems good. But there are at least two competing policy considerations. Read more…
The Civic Media Crisis and What Philanthropy Can Do. The media, civil society, and democracy are under unprecedented duress around the world. It is important to see these phenomena as interconnected-to understand that the decline of the civic media poses a threat to civil society and, ultimately, to the democratic process itself. And it’s vital that philanthropy responds to this threat. Read more…
variety of political beliefs and philanthropic missions have reached out to express their concerns. They see that the diversity they have championed, the social safety net they have built, the environment they have preserved, and the American values they have defended are now at grave risk. This is a time for donors to resist the temptation to treat our current trajectory as the new normal. Now is a time to act. Here are five things donors resisting the direction our president is taking America should do. Read more…
Philanthropy & Complex Problems: Being Real, Stepping Into Leadership. In the wake of the recent election campaign, I’ve been thinking about our country being divided, and things being “stuck.” We know that by collaborating we could accomplish big things, but we still don’t come together. Sometimes it seems like humanity, in the words of one popular songwriter, is a “bunch of whining, fighting shmoes.” The important work of many small funders-to build opportunity, promote health, reduce hunger and suffering, and protect the environment-is often undercut or compromised by disagreements between competing factions. Read more…
mistakes and fallen short. When he has, he has always been grateful for the caring individuals who are willing – even courageous enough – to tell him so. However, these kinds of frank, honest conversations are too rare. Because of the inherent power dynamic, between foundation and nonprofits, he lives with a nagging suspicion that people won’t tell him what they really think out of fear of curtailing the prospect of securing the foundation’s resources. Read more…
Corporate Social Responsibility for a Data Age. Proprietary data can help improve and save lives, but fully harnessing its potential will require a cultural transformation in the way companies, governments, and other organizations treat and act on data. Read more…
Peer to Peer: At the Heart of Influencing More Effective Philanthropy. A new study of how foundations access and use knowledge for effective philanthropy found that foundation leaders are more likely to go to their peers when gathering information. Read more…
Is CSR Changing Business? New Angles and Early Strategies are launching a pioneering study to investigate whether the past decade’s intensive activity in Corporate Social Responsibility has produced change in the way companies do business. This research will provide new insight into how managers perceive CSR and sustainability, and how CSR has changed the organizations they work for. It seeks to understand managers’ challenges to incorporate CSR in business and the impacts they think are already noticeable. Read more…
New Report Details Shifts in Foundation Operations. More small-staffed foundations are engaging in activities beyond traditional grantmaking, according to Exponent Philanthropy’s 2017 Foundation Operations and Management Report released yesterday. The only study that captures benchmarks for foundations that operate with few or no staff, which comprise the vast majority of the philanthropy sector, the report details trends in foundation grantmaking, operations, investments, and governance. Read more…
Deepening Engagement: The Road Map to 100%. Earlier this year, Berkshire Bank announced a 100% participation rate in its corporate employee volunteer program. The secret sauce or silver bullet to double or even triple participation in your program doesn’t exist. Are you looking for a collection of best practices, tips and my insights on what it takes to improve participation (and impact)? Read more…
ends in 2017. Tim McClimon, President of the American Express Foundation predicts this year’s top CSR trends. He is up front about the fact that 2017 seems like a particular difficult year to make predictions, given the recent Presidential election, the Brexit vote and continuing turmoil across the world. Read more…
are ramping up their efforts to help tackle several social and environmental challenges facing the U.S., including conservation, immigration, and education reform. It takes a bold commitment to confront some of the world’s most intractable social problems. And while big bets don’t always yield big advances, small bets rarely do. Read more…
Building Fundraising Capacity Means Changing Organizational Culture. Over the past six years, the Eugene & Agnes E. Meyer Foundation has supported 28 organizations in adopting the Benevon approach. Those organizations have raised $7.1 million from individual donors — much of it in the form of multi-year pledges. In simple terms, that represents a tenfold return on the Foundation’s investment of $650,000. And that return will compound as donors continue to give in future years. While pleased with the results, the Foundation has also learned some important lessons about their role in building fundraising capacity — lessons that will shape their future work and can help inform how other grantmakers might approach building fundraising capacity. Read more…
Company, Achieving Breakthrough Results in Sustainability, that only 2 percent of corporate sustainability programs achieve or exceed their aims, compared to 12 percent of other corporate transformation programs…despite the fact that many CEOs want to play a positive role in environmental stewardship and social development. Read more… 
Why Our Community Foundation Partners With State Legislators to Improve Policies and Address Needs. A foundation describes its experience leading a policy briefing on foster care for legislative staffers. More than 75 staffers from some of the most influential senators and representatives had gathered to learn what they could do to improve policies impacting the most vulnerable children in Texas. They were not lobbying. They were educating their state legislators about the real conditions in their districts and about solutions that have been tested with their private dollars. Read more…
Gay, President and CEO of the Delaware Community Foundation: “It’s clear from The Future of Foundation Philanthropy that I’m not the only person to point out the incredible privilege of working in a foundation.We have the luxury of sitting back on a lofty perch where, merely by dint of our position, we are assumed to be smarter than we probably are, and are given more deference than we probably deserve.” Read more…
Trust Is Essential to Changemaking; Funders Must Take the First Step. The lack of trust between funder and grantee remains one of the biggest barriers to impact in philanthropy. Without open, honest conversations, funders can’t learn what nonprofits really need to deliver outcomes desired by funders, grantees, and most of all-people and communities in need. Read more…
unwittingly be leading funders to perpetuate the inequities they’re trying to eliminate. In their effort to ensure that grant dollars go toward effective organizations, many philanthropists have adopted grantmaking practices that can actually perpetuate the unequal distribution of funds. Read more…
Taking a Stand: How Corporations Speak Out on Social Issues. Major corporations are facing growing pressure to weigh in on social issues — and this pressure is coming from both internal and external sources. The nonpartisan Public Affairs Council conducted a survey of major corporations to better understand how and why companies speak out on social issues such as discrimination, the environment, human rights and access to quality education. Learn more about which issues companies are advocating for and what specific actions they have taken. Read more…
to reconsider how they can make the most of the dollars they invest in grantee leadership development, but they must start by better understanding the leadership challenges nonprofits face. Read more…
A Practical Guide to Help Companies Measure the Social Return of their Pro Bono Service Programs. Companies want to do good for their nonprofit partners through their pro bono programming. But, many companies know that they need an improved approach to social impact measurement to better assess the value of their services. Taproot Foundation and True Impact recognized the lack of pro bono program measurement standards and common confusion over how to measure the effects of pro bono service. Together, with support from Mastercard, they demystified this issue by developing a practical guide for corporate social responsibility (CSR) professionals. This new resource will help corporate pro bono practitioners seize opportunities to better tell the story of their impact on the nonprofits they serve, validate their investment, and continuously improve their offerings. Read more… 
Responsive Philanthropy report finds that philanthropy did not respond adequately to the needs of underserved communities in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008. In the decade that included the worst global economic crisis in 70 years, America’s philanthropic sector ballooned. Foundation assets grew by 70 percent; the charitable American upper classes channeled almost half a trillion dollars to their coffers. And America’s marginalized communities saw what little wealth and stability they had hollowed out. Read more…
Foundation CEO Angst: Moral Imperatives and Insomnia. More than two-thirds of the CEOs of large, staffed foundations in the United States believe foundations have the potential to make a significant difference in society. That’s the good (and perhaps hardly surprising) news in a new report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP). But there is bad news, too, and some may find it more surprising. A much smaller proportion – just 13 percent – of the 167 foundation CEOs responding to a survey we fielded believe that foundations are making a significant difference today. Instead, most characterize the current difference foundations make as “moderate” and cite a number of barriers that impede foundation impact. Read more…
Good governance and effective, efficient management are never more important than when facing a sudden or impending period of instability. As we head into a transition of the presidency, we will surely see substantive changes to our operating environments. Is your board on point? Boards must take these next few weeks and months to consider the what-ifs — not in a fright-filled way, but as an organizational stress test. Read more…
The Business ROI of Social Investing. ACCP and IO Sustainability just launched a landmark initiative to help companies identify how corporate social responsibility (CSR) supports both the financial bottom line and social objectives. The initiative focuses on developing tools that enable managers to structure social investments to deliver measurable benefits for the business and society; determining which investments will deliver strategic value; and measuring results. Read more…
this campaign season? Over the past decade, foundations across the political spectrum have embraced the notion of “strategic philanthropy,” tying funding to specific societal goals. It is of course logical to devote resources toward desired outcomes. However, organized philanthropy can magnify and sustain societal divisions. While many organizations espouse a bipartisan ideal, most institutions approach bipartisanship as either a separate project disconnected from their policy priorities or as a tactic of last resort designed to increase support for their desired positions. Read more…
So You Want to Become a More Intentional Learning Foundation? For those foundations that are building out a new learning and evaluation function, Benchmarking Foundation Evaluation Practices, the new research report from the Center for Effective Philanthropy and Center for Evaluation Innovation, is a welcome resource. Here is some advice for those foundations beginning this organizational change journey: (1) Know your history; (2) Link strategy, learning and evaluation; (3) Set a priority for… Read more…
The link between a company’s business strategy and their engagement with society is ever more vital, as are the people within the company leading this connection. With the growing recognition that long-term business performance is tied to social responsibility, companies are allocating bigger budgets to the community engagement team, elevating giving officer roles and responsibilities, and ensuring that both employees and customers are able to show their commitment to giving back through the brand. Read more… 
Let’s Talk About My Money. Hiding my wealth in social justice circles has become exhausting. My feelings swing from indignation born of imagined judgments of me, to heavy guilt and the desire to divest our personal portfolio of all that is harmful as if to make the money clean. At the cost of being judged and condemned, I’ve decided I will not be less than who I am. Read more…
ecutive, senior program officer, and advisor to foundations for the past several eons. I’ve reviewed hundreds of proposals, recommended tens of millions of dollars in funding, developed grant strategies and evaluations, and partnered with public and private funders of all shapes and sizes. And through it all, the illusion of nonprofit sustainability persists. I own up to being guilty of contributing to this illusion, and I think it’s about time to bust the myth. Read more…
Voices of Board Chairs: A National Study on the Perspectives of Nonprofit Board Chairs. There is relatively little research that investigates the topic of nonprofit board chair leadership, but this role is pivotal in many organizations. It helps to structure, uphold, and revise the container for dialogue and disciplines for managing conversation, and to establish the atmosphere for deliberation. This takes a measure of sophistication as well as self-awareness regarding the match between one’s own personal leadership characteristics and the needs of the board, the organization, and the community served. But do nonprofits honor this leverage point with the attention it deserves? Maybe not. Read more…
think creatively and develop a strong strategic plan. Learn about four possible approaches employed by other organizations that might help build your organization’s brand, breathe new energy into the organization, and access new sources of funding — all in a fiscally responsible and sustainable way. Read more… 
Three Ways to Get People to Read Your Corporate Responsibility Report. Your employees, consumers, shareholders and others are demanding more corporate responsibility (CR) information from companies, but they probably aren’t reading your CR report. As expectations continue to increase around transparency and responsibility, there remains a disconnect. Although 88 percent of global consumers say they want companies to tell them what they’re doing to operate more responsibly, only 25 percent report they’ve read a CR report in 2015. This article provides three tips to increase engagement, accessibility and relevancy of your next report. Read more…
Grants Management and the Foundation of the Future. When grantmakers think about their funding strategy, we often focus on where we will give, to what, and to whom. We think about the results we want our funding to spark or enable. But strategy is supported (or not) by operations: the way in which grantmaking programs are structured and how grants are introduced, applied for, screened, decided, made, monitored, reported upon, assessed, and learned from. These funder practices are what we call “the how.” Read more…
evaluating corporate citizenship efforts are critical steps in managing and improving programs. Increasingly, your stakeholders expect that the results of corporate citizenship investments can be quantified. Careful planning and evaluation can strengthen corporate citizenship performance, and deliver benefits such as improved reputation, higher employee engagement, and better resource management. Read more…
Privilege is a Blind Spot that We Need to Recognize and Confront to Do Philanthropy Well. Privilege can be a barrier to good philanthropy in a number of ways and it often shows up as attempts to do for instead of with those most affected. In order to do philanthropy well, we must work hard to recognize and confront privilege. Read more…
think of the intersection of corporate philanthropy and brand, we typically think about the positive benefits companies receive through their commitments to community development or enrichment projects. However, a recent study conducted by researchers from Kings College and Vlerick Business School suggests that corporate branding of social initiatives might also have unintended, negative impact on the nonprofit recipients themselves. Read more…
Giving Challenge: Check Your Assumptions, Change Your Approach, Increase Your Odds of Success. The release of Giving USA 2016: The Annual Report on Philanthropy for the Year 2015, brought encouraging news: at an estimated $373.25 billion, charitable donations hit a record for the second year in a row. That amounts to more than $1 billion a day contributed to charitable causes by America’s individuals, corporations and foundations. The impact corporate giving had on that total is explored in this guest post. Readers might be surprised to learn some long-held assumptions aren’t backed up by the report’s data. Read more…
Owning Power in the Social Sector. A flux of power structures over time reflects the social sector’s underlying discomfort with power, which makes sense given that social sector organizations view the abuse of power as the cause of many injustices they aim to eliminate. This discomfort shows up culturally as an unstated belief that only the “many,” not the “few,” should exercise power. Those working in the sector are thus caught between job descriptions that require the use of power and an organizational culture that distrusts it. Read more…
Putting Grantees at the Center of Philanthropy. Research shows that grantmakers that are more connected to their grantees-those that have an ear to the ground-are more likely to provide the support that nonprofits need to be successful; they are five times as likely to offer capacity-building support and two times as likely to offer multiyear support. We also know that tapping the knowledge and perspective of grantees and community members builds trust and helps shape more-effective solutions.This new series, produced in partnership with Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, explores why and how grantee inclusion is key to effective philanthropy, from both the funder and nonprofit perspectives. Read the first two parts:Effective Marketing Tips for Your Corporate Philanthropy Programs. Marketing is 
obviously a very important aspect of business, yet few entities do an effective job of leveraging it for corporate philanthropy programs. For some reason, the idea of exposing philanthropy seems awkward and forced to many – but do not let this scare you. The value of corporate philanthropies, while often started for the purpose of enjoying tax breaks, extends far beyond financial benefits. Want to know the missing ingredient to success? Read more…
When Innovation Goes Wrong. Efforts by social enterprises to develop novel interventions receive a great deal of attention. Yet these organizations often stumble when it comes to turning innovation into impact. As a result, they fail to achieve their full potential. Here’s a guide to diagnosing and preventing several “pathologies” that underlie this failure. Read more…
Ready to ACT? 3 Steps to EffectiveFoundation Communications. An effective 
communications strategy can amplify a foundation’s impact by lifting up the successes of its grantees and other partners, elevating the causes that matter most to the organization, and connecting ideas, people, and resources around a common purpose. Every foundation, regardless of the size, can read the rewards of integrating a strategic communications approach into its mission. Three steps can help foundations ACT on an impactful communications plan. Read more…
Collaborate or Compete? When it Comes to Corporate Responsibility, How about Both? We would all like to think that companies collaborate on social responsibility –after all, combining the resources of corporations can increase the impact they can have on social issues. And for the most part, they do. But, let’s not sugarcoat this, companies use their corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts as a source of competitive advantage. And, as CSR rises in importance, the competition over being responsible is heating up. Read more…
In Case of Emergency. In the nonprofit sector, unpredictability is a fact of life. There are a variety of ways in which unexpected circumstances can stall or halt a project. Nonprofits and their funders need to plan for — and budget for — unforeseen events that can disrupt worthy projects. Read more…
Corporate Philanthropy: Totals Up, Skepticism Down? “Corporate philanthropy” may sound like an oxymoron to some, yet according to a Fortune article, twenty Fortune 500 companies are demonstrating that deep private-sector investment in charitable causes might not be so farfetched. As giving totals across all funding sources increase, the nonprofit sector as a whole remains reliant on its loyal individual benefactors, while gaining confidence that their corporate friends will continue to stick around. Read more…
Up for Debate: Pay-What-It-Takes Philanthropy. A new grantmaking approach is needed — one that provides enough money for nonprofits to pay for all their operations, not just programs and services. The first step toward achieving that is for grantmakers to realize that different types of nonprofits have different cost structures. Read more…
Reporting on Meaningful Change. In the past few years, it has become increasingly clear that the efforts of the public and private sectors are inextricably linked. To meet ambitious social and environmental targets, progress must be tracked and evaluated by all the estates and actors of society. It is clear in contemporary society that most stakeholders see companies as the actors that have the resources, know-how, and efficiency to achieve the social and environmental improvements necessary. Read more…
Stronger Nonprofits, Stronger Communities. The nonprofit sector is a vital partner in building healthy, vibrant, stable communities where businesses and people can be successful. Across the nation, local nonprofit organizations are working every day to strengthen communities, provide critical services, and advance the causes of equality and opportunity for all. Read more…
Owning Power in the Social Sector. Power has a mixed history in the social sector. Early on, many organizations addressing issues like poverty, health, or the environment adopted internal processes that reflected the inclusion and collaboration they sought to create in the world. Today, many of these organizations are modifying their structures as they shift power from headquarters to their staff in the regions and communities where they work. Read more…
Demonstrate Your Value Through Strategic Measurement. When done right, corporate citizenship is a serious investment of money, resources, and time. To ensure that your CSR programs continue to receive the funding and attention they deserve, you must be able to demonstrate-to your leaders, your partners, and broader stakeholders-the return on that investment, or the ROI. What do your efforts offer the business? How do they advance the missions of your nonprofit partners? How are they benefiting your employees, customers, and shareholders? Read more…
approaches funders choose to build strong relationships with grantees is one identified as “high-touch” or “high-engagement.” This can entail closer and more active relationships with grantees, iterative and time-consuming grant processes, highly detailed plans for the funded work, capacity assessments, intensive evaluation requirements, and more. It’s an approach often associated with venture philanthropists, but really it’s used by a wide variety of self-identified strategic funders, or simply in the context of funders providing large, multi-year grants. Read more…
Corporate Citizenship Reporting Advances ESG Issues and Your Business. Today’s corporate citizenship reports are more engaging and relevant, and are communicating the positive environmental, social, governance, and business value that companies are creating. A corporate citizenship report was once a nice to have; now approximately 93 percent of the Global 250 issue them. Read more…Demanding that Nonprofits Not Pay for Overhead is Preventing Them from Doing Good. A new report from Bridgespan, a consulting firm for nonprofits and 
philanthropists, says not supporting indirect costs is incredibly damaging. The result is a “starvation cycle” in which foundations are crippling the outfits they’re trying to support. In the commercial world, investors have come to expect that companies in different spaces require different overhead. There is no boilerplate expense sheet. That’s a lesson nonprofit funders have failed to learn. Read more…
For Sunsetting Foundations, a Limited Life but a Perpetual Contribution. There was a time when families who were establishing private foundations rarely thought about an end to the foundation. They assumed what they had created would last (as intended) in perpetuity from generation to generation. What they discovered, as John D. Rockefeller observed years ago, is that “perpetuity is a very long time.” Read more…
e Citizenship Impact Extends Beyond a Company’s Headquarters. A company’s corporate citizenship impact extends beyond its headquarters. To address environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues effectively, CSR professionals today must look beyond their own operations and deep into their supply chain. Read more…
12 Common Criticisms of Philanthropy — and Some Answers. Critics have argued that charitable giving isn’t focused enough on the poor, isn’t sufficient to make a difference, is undemocratic, and more, but research — and history — show otherwise. Read more…
5 Issues Foundations Must Confront to Stay Relevant. What it takes for a foundation to be
effective is difficult to master, yet timeless. At the same time, however, there are current trends that foundation leaders and boards must pay attention to if they want to be as effective as possible. In this essay, Big Issues, Many Questions, CEP President Phil Buchanan explores the five most pressing issues facing U.S. foundations in 2016. From growing dissatisfaction with the so-called establishment to embracing collaboration and aligned action, these are the trends that foundation CEOs and boards cannot overlook or ignore. Read more…
How Philanthropy Can Address Barriers to Social Mobility. New research has provided greater insight into the inter-related factors that create barriers to upward mobility for low-income people, including how access to higher education, racial inequality and structural racism, and the neighborhood in which you live affect your socioeconomic trajectory. But how do we address these barriers and create effective ladders of mobility out of poverty? How do we find and implement solutions that will work? Read more…
face long arcs of work to tackle problems, and the illusion in the sustainability conversation hampers our collective work. And through it all, the illusion of nonprofit sustainability persists. In this article, Jeffrey M. Glebocki owns up to being guilty of contributing to this illusion, and he thinks it’s about time to bust the myth. Read more…
Looking Good by Doing Good. Hundreds of studies have evaluated the link between “doing good” socially and “doing well” financially. Many firms and managers continue to underinvest in doing good. Meanwhile, there is an oft overlooked factor that can enhance the benefits of Corporate Social Responsibility: media attention. Learn about four ways corporate philanthropists can do better by their beneficiaries – and themselves. Read more…
Three Shifts Toward Changing Philanthropy’s Advocacy Narrative. Advocacy is the single most 
effective strategy to achieve social impact. Without advocacy, achieving real social transformation is not possible. It provides both the scale and pathway to implement the solutions foundations fund. Focusing on possibilities and changing the narrative is imperative for advancing social change. Read more…
What’s the Best Way for Your Business to Give Back? Learn how a start-up company used the most powerful tool they had to combat inequality for people living with disabilities: entrepreneurship. They have seen an incredible outpouring of support for their mission. Learn about how they have harnessed the power of Corporate Social Responsibility to create and cultivate support for their company’s calling. Read more…
For Foundations, Succession Planning Should Be a High Priority. If you sit on a Board of 
Directors, should you wait until you are formally notified to start thinking about how you would go about replacing your foundation’s president? Rational thinking would say don’t wait. You should already have a well-considered plan in place to deal with both planned and emergency departures. By taking the time to establish a succession plan, the Board can ensure that an organization remains unharmed by either the anticipated or unexpected loss or retirement of a key leader. Read more…
Volunteer Projects Engage Employees and the Community. In corporate volunteerism, a company’s employees and retirees work together with local young students and residents to revitalize a community in need. Schools are cleaned up, fresh flowerbeds are planted in parks and colorful murals are painted in children’s play areas. But there is more to the project than the short-term satisfaction of people from different backgrounds working together for a day. Mentoring relationships and future volunteer collaborations are born. Read more…
The Lazy Funder’s Guide to High-Yield Philanthropy. You can do a lot with a small team and still 
maintain a high standard. It doesn’t necessarily require a combination of brilliant systems and preternatural instincts, but mostly it’s simply about sticking to a set of core practices that have evolved over time. The good news is that these same practices are available to anyone looking for the optimal impact-to-effort ratio. Read more….
What Might 
“Transformative Transparency” Look Like? As a funder, being clear about grant guidelines and grant decisions means that grantees understand your rules and how to play by them in order to get the money. That’s a purely transactional relationship. Take it a step further, and say that your foundation is also very transparent about a specific initiative it funds. You’ve had many conversations with stakeholders as you shaped the initiative, and you’ve gone above and beyond to include their input in the design of your new program. That’s laudable, but it’s still a transactional kind of transparency. They helped to build it, but you own it – and ultimately, it’s still a relationship in which you make the rules. Read more…
A Must-Read: Risk Management for Government-Funded 
Nonprofits. This article provides a concise and clear description of the frailties of government-funded nonprofits. It includes two calls for action: one for better advocacy to protect the health of nonprofits contracted with government, and one for execs and board members to educate themselves about the financial dynamics of the enterprise they are guiding. Read more…
Survey Says: Foundations Should Improve Transparency. A new study by the Center for Effective Philanthropy analyzing survey data from 145 foundation CEOs and more than 15,000 grantees on the transparency of foundations reveals that most believe that grantmakers could become more effective and credible if they were more open to the public about their failures and shortcomings. A shortage of staff and resources to focus on such efforts were cited as deterrents to full transparency. Read more…
AmEx Foundation President Discusses the Millennial Loyalty Challenge. Tim McClimon, 
president of the American Express Foundation, examines the challenges facing many CSR professionals today in keep millennial leaders engaged. Forbes says that the future of our work industries lies in inspiring Millennials. But it’s hard to do when many are busy planning their job exits. Read more…
Systems Grantmaking: Make Real Change Happen. Solving today’s pressing problems requires impacting the bigger picture – the systems we live and work in. Management Assistance Group and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations have assembled this guide of powerful tools and resources to help you make real change. Read more…
Sparks Fly on E Street: Radical Change in the Future of CSR. Who knew that there is a 
correlation between Bruce Springsteen and CSR? This article argues that companies make CSR partnerships almost exclusively with charities and nonprofits, and insists that this must change. The author suggests that we must base corporate social investment decisions on outcomes, not on tax status. Read more….
How a New Generation of Business Leaders Views Philanthropy. Today, business leaders are not only trying to address
community and global problems earlier in their lives; they are also questioning the traditional divide between commerce and philanthropy. The author conducted a number of interviews, and a few themes emerged: invest for impact in both non- and for-profits, measure results (but not at the expense of taking risk), and shape your existing business around social good. Read more…
Evaluating Grantees: Learning from a Top Performing Funder. One funder’s unusual reporting and evaluation system is proving very helpful to grantees. Spoiler alert: it’s all about letting the grantees choose metrics and being really engaged. Read more…
can really work. We also learned that how we structure the matching program matters. And so when we took this approach and applied it to our current initiative, the “Ah-Ha Project: Creative Solutions to Real Programs,” we used what we learned through our pilot program to build in an ongoing evaluation channel. Read more…
hip in a modern world. It’s a marriage full of promise. But does our culture’s celebration of the male-dominated tech world end up overshadowing critical skills like empathy that are required for social change? Read more…
Could Giving Circles Rebuild Philanthropy from the Bottom Up? At a time when conventional philanthropy is being criticized for being distant, overly hierarchical, and out of touch with grassroots realities, giving circles might provide some of the building blocks of a healthier and more effective system of funding for social change. But is this really true? Read more…
PricewaterhouseCoopers, 64 percent of global CEO respondents cited corporate social responsibility as “core to their business rather than being a standalone program.” The report also shows that CEOs think of social responsibility as key to attracting the most talent and garnering greater trust. Read more….
opportunity to help a funder with a major grantmaking change: a shift to provide more organizations with longer, larger, general operating support grants. CEP shared insights from other grantmakers who had undergone similar processes as the funder moved through the internal conversations and implementation challenges accompanying such a transition. Read more…Six Family Philanthropy Trends to Watch in 2016. The National Center for Family Philanthropy presents six family philanthropy trends to look 
out for in 2016. There is an expectation to focus even more on impact, a growth in transitional forms of philanthropy, and a louder voice from Millennials. Read more…
2016 Trends in Corporate Social Responsibility. Tim McClimon, President of the American Express Foundation, shares his 2016 predictions for CSR trends. His forecast includes CSR going from voluntary to required; companies will focus on materiality assessments; and the continued ambiguity around for-profit and non-profit models to give money away. A philanthropist’s dilemma! Read more…
Supporting Nonprofit Collaboration: Helping Your Grantees Accomplish More Together. Funders are uniquely positioned to cultivate and support nonprofit collaborations. This article explores what makes a successful nonprofit collaboration, and specific ways in which funders can be supportive. Spoiler alert: It’s hard! Read more…
Three Stakeholder Groups, Three Stakeholder Strategies. Read how EY, Salesforce, and Northwestern Mutual create strategic corporate citizenship programs by engaging three core audiences: customers, employees, and communities. The engagement process helps companies determine the issues for which they are most likely to be held responsible, those that are associated with their business in the minds of their customers and critics alike – and those they are most suited to address. Read more…
New Report Details How Foundations Create Change. Exponent Philanthropy released their 2016 Foundation Operations and Management Report, detailing how foundations work to create change, and the seven strategies their members use to bring about outsized impact, resulting in more than a single dollar’s worth of impact. Read more….
Integrating Sustainability for Maximum Business and Social Value. Environmental sustainability is a critical business issue for companies 
across the globe. As businesses are often seen as some of the greatest contributors to pollution, waste, and environmental problems, they are increasingly pressured to not just reduce waste or use less energy, but to develop sustainable practices and policies that will preserve and even improve the environments around them. Read more…
Nonprofits. Size and impact are not always correlated as far as nonprofits are concerned. There is always something impressive about a small nonprofit that punches well above its weight class. What creates that kind of magic? Read more…
Strategy. The 2015 Community Involvement Study conducted by the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship finds that nearly all companies have a community involvement strategy or are in the process of setting one up. The most effective are those that align their programs with overall business objectives-bringing the unique skills and expertise of employees to bear on some of society’s toughest challenges. Nearly 90% of the companies that measure the connection between volunteer participation and employee engagement found a positive correlation between participation and engagement scores. Read more… 
with the opportunity to learn firsthand some important lessons, and today I share a key one: Publishing your guidelines, and generally being transparent about your grantmaking process, will save you time, energy, and money, and increase the impact of your giving.” Read more….
You Want Nonprofits to Act More Like Businesses? Then Treat Us As Such. If funders and donors and society want nonprofits to be like businesses, Nonprofit with Balls suggests that nonprofits need significant funding investments, faster decisions from funders, the acceptance of risks and failures, among other things. Read more…
Reshaping the Business of the Board: Grantpickers or Strategic Thinkers? If the job of the foundation board is to oversee strategy and determine the effectiveness of the 
organization in achieving its goals, isn’t it also the board’s job to pick the right grantees? Probably not. For large foundations that want to achieve big audacious goals, selecting individual grantees is probably not the best use of their wisdom. Therein lies one of the strange dichotomies of foundation board governance — a tension that has to be carefully managed by foundation CEOs. Read more…
With the Nonprofit Community, Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder. I just 
returned to the U.S. after five years of living in Singapore and working with philanthropists and NGOs across Asia. As I resettle and reconnect, friends ask how I’ve changed since I left. While there are many things I learned in Asia, I am overwhelmed by how much I missed the “nonprofit-ness” of the U.S. I missed the way the third sector in the U.S. is understood to be a vibrant part of society. I missed the way nonprofits create public spaces for caring, inclusion, and recovery. Read more…
Corporate Citizenship Measurement and Progress. Corporate citizenship professionals are becoming increasingly adept at tying CSR programs to overall business strategy, 
creating programs that make the most of their employees’ unique skills and their companies’ products and services, and tackling the problems that are most relevant to their stakeholders and operating contexts. In this way, they are addressing environmental, social, and governance issues while contributing to important business goals. To ensure that they are efficiently investing their time, skills, and financial resources, effective CSR professionals are relying on careful measurement and evaluation tactics. Read more…
Bench
marking Foundation Governance. The Center for Effective Philanthropy released a report, Benchmarking Foundation Governance, that shares data on topics related to foundation boards – including composition, member expertise, structure, involvement, and characteristics of meetings based on survey responses from CEOs at 64 private, U.S.-based foundations giving at least $10 million annually. Read more…
Achieving a Circular Economy: How the Private Sector is Reim
agining the Future of Business. Companies are actively pursuing alternative approaches to the take-make-waste model that decouple economic growth from resource constraints–such as the circular economy. This concept has captured the attention of many companies that see the economic opportunities of a viable model to successfully tackle sustainability challenges; drive performance competitiveness, and innovation; and stimulate economic growth and development. Read more….
Five Guidelines for Successful Funder Collaborations. What does it take to assemble 
and manage a successful collaboration among philanthropic funders? It’s a timely question as more funders pursue collaboration to address complex social problems. The “good governance” agenda pursued by California Forward and Climateworks’ emphasis on collective action to address climate change are just two examples. Now the Packard Foundation shares lessons on how funders can work together to amplify their resources and impact. Read more…
Is Playing It Cool Holding Us Back in Philanthropy? We have all heard the warning: In philanthropy, following the heart will lead you astray. 
Hunger, homelessness, children who lack opportunity, disasters, etc., all touch us deeply. And we give to organizations that have served us. But before long, the dollars and attention get used up. Year after year we give, and needs don’t seem to go away; some only get bigger. We are counseled to do smarter, more educated giving. But are we also limiting ourselves? Read more….
Foundation CEOs as Artful Jugglers. Wondering about the unique challenges of being a foundation CEO? Fay Twersky, director of the Effective Philanthropy Group at the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and a member of the Center for Effective Philanthropy Board of Directors, found that the CEOs she interviewed tended to say that, upon looking back, they felt they had under-invested their time and energy in creating a “healthy organization.” Read more…
The Philanthropy of a Corporate Cheat: Volkswagen. If you’ve been the 
beneficiary of philanthropic support from Volkswagen, the news that the company has brazenly lied — for several years — to car-buyers, the public, and the U.S. government as a whole about the emissions levels of its diesel cars might make you question exactly what Volkswagen was trying to achieve with its corporate giving. Read more…
The Importance of a Funder’s Humility. A funder questions if he and his colleagues sometimes lose sight of what is most important in philanthropy. Maybe there needs to be more focus on grantees, and a better understanding of what their partners need in order to thrive. Read more…
Securing a Sustainable Supply Chain: Lessons from CSR Research. A 
company’s corporate citizenship impact extends beyond its headquarters. To address environmental, social, and governance issues effectively, CSR professionals must look beyond their own operations and deep into their supply chain. How and where are materials sourced? How are the components of products developed? What are the environmental and human rights ramifications of those processes? Social issues can only be effectively tackled when a company’s commitments to corporate citizenship and reporting are adopted by their suppliers and partners. Read more…
The Source Codes of Foundation Culture. Grantmakers for Effective Organizations has released a new publication, The Source Codes of Foundation Culture, a resource exploring the organizational culture of foundations and what it takes to modify the values and practices deeply ingrained in their work. Funders can use this document to support conversations among board and staff members to articulate and understand the origins of organizational assumptions, examine beliefs and behaviors, and identify aspects of culture that drive or impede effective work. Read more…
The Building Blocks of Corporate Reputation. Some boards may be better 
positioned to navigate complex environmental issues and prioritize the long-term benefits of environmental performance. Firms with larger, more independent boards, comprised of directors that have specialized knowledge of potential environmental impacts (CEOs of other companies, lawyers), have better environmental performance. Read more…
Nonprofit Board Service Should Be Accompanied By Donations. Service on nonprofit boards provides business executives and professionals with a unique oppor
tunity to develop as leaders. In fact, nonprofit board service is the ultimate experience in ethics, accountability, leadership, group dynamics, crisis management and communications. On a nonprofit board, board members engage around a mission of common interest to imagine and achieve the organization’s greater potential together with the CEO. But the question of whether companies should be supporting these nonprofits financially as well is often a challenging one. Read more…
What is Your Investment Yielding for Your Company and Your Cause? Are th
ere bad corporate citizenship programs? Aesop said that no act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. Whether your company is in the very beginning stages of corporate giving, or you have developed a sophisticated corporate citizenship program with integrated ESG (environmental, social and governance) impact metrics, every investment is an opportunity to start a virtuous cycle. Read more…
Why Every Philanthropist Should be Active on Twitter. The Ruderman Family 
Foundation explains how to get closer to your target audience in order to practice sound philanthropy. Spending more time with the end-users of your dollars and getting to know their challenges can result in making a bigger difference. Read more…
Corporate Citizenship Efforts Improve Consumer Perception & Reputation
. When consumers perceive a company’s corporate citizenship efforts to be robust and focused on stakeholder well-being, instead of just company well-being, they are more likely to view a company’s product positively and use the product more. (Note: To read the full article requires a small payment to the American Marketing Association.) Read more…
MacArthur and Ford Foundations Diverge on Strategy. The Chronicle of Philanthropy 
recently took a look at how two major foundations – The Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation -are taking very different new approaches to their grantmaking. Read more…
Trends from The Global Reporting Initiative: Value, Digital, and Ethics. The c
orporate citizenship reporting space continues to evolve through voluntary and regulatory pressures. The Boston Center for Corporate Citizenship is encouraging companies across the globe to take an active role in shaping recently identified trends for the benefit of businesses, communities, and the planet. Read more…
Five Barriers to Focus and Ways to Push Past Them. It’s not easy for funders to hone in on a giving focus and yet it is one of the most fundamental steps to take toward fulfilling philanthropy. Focus lies at the intersection of values and passions, community needs and the unique dollar and non-dollar resources. This article provides ways to overcome some of the barriers to finding your focus. Read more…
Rethinking Endowment Spending Rates within a Foundation. Endowment spend
ing rates are at the heart of every foundation and should hold deep connections to mission alignment, values, and governance. The “norm” for spending rates is five percent, but this article questions whether that is enough in order for foundations to invest in research as well as build infrastructure and internal capacity. Read more…
Rural Philanthropy Is Still Underfunded. Despite receiving attention from the Council on Foundations and the federal government, a new report releas
ed by USDA reveals that there is still a need to boost rural philanthropy. Rick Cohen of The Nonprofit Quarterly suggests that this could be a public policy issue (and opportunity), not just a matter of persuading foundations to do more. Read more…
Communicating Social Impact Stresses the Need to Publicize CSR 
Programs. If Corporate Social Responsibility is really going to make an impact on a business, as well as on society, a company’s social policies and impacts must be effectively communicated. This is the premise of Communicating Social Impact, a new report that presents the findings of a 12-company research working group convened by The Conference Board. Read more…
Today’s Problems Need 3-Sector Solutions. The lines between government, nonprofits and business are increasingly blurring 
and, in some cases, vanishing altogether. As David Miller of The Denver Foundation points out, there was a time when the distinctions among the private, public and nonprofit sectors were clear and distinct, but those days are gone. Read more…
In Search of the Magic Formula for Philanthropy. Foundations are most effective 
when they match their approaches to their goals and to the contexts in which they are working, driven by a focused logic about what could lead to what. And let’s remember that progress will rarely come easily. Read more…
JetBlue Moves People. JetBlue’s mission is to inspire humanity, and to achieve it they begin with their crewmembers — the company’s term for its employees. By listening and acting strategically, the airline has developed corporate citizenship programs that effectively drive crewmember engagement; now the next step is increasing awareness externally. Read more…
Actionable Approaches for Grantmakers. Grantmakers for Effective Organizations’ newest publication, Learning Together, examines open learning and evaluation practices among grantees, other funders, community members, government agencies and more, along with some informative case studies. Read more…
Ever Wonder Who Is Your Most Important Corporate Citizen Client? Leaders must be sure that every person in their company is c
ontributing to a corporate citizenship strategy that helps to deliver business value and social value. This article advises companies on the most essential business strategy and supports the priorities that are most central to-and most affected by-company operations. Read more…
Improving Relationships Between Grantmakers and Their Grantees. 
Foundations are tackling increasingly complex challenges with sophisticated models for both grant giving and evaluation. While most foundations make good faith efforts to resolve grant-related difficulties, there remains the simultaneous accumulation of less flattering grantee perceptions. The Center for Effective Philanthropy offers some advice on how to improve the relationship between grantmakers and their grantees. Read more…
Philanthropy Surges 5.4% to Record $358 Billion, Says ‘Giving USA.’ Accordi
ng to the newly released 2015 Giving USA: Annual Report on Philanthropy, charitable giving is estimated to have risen to a record $358.4 billion last year. That means that the 2009-to-2014 recession recovery is the fastest on record in the past 40 years. Read more…
Chal
lenging the Orthodoxies of Philanthropy. Are traditional assumptions about how we “do” philanthropy preventing us from finding new and better ways of working? As the world around philanthropy changes rapidly, it’s important to consciously examine the orthodoxies that guide practice and determine whether these old assumptions are still valid, and whether we ought to carry them forward or flip them on their heads-partially or completely. Read more…
6 Ways to Champion Change Within Your Foundation. If you are looking to catalyze change at your foundation, this article can 
help you explore how your fellow trustees and staff can champion change successfully from the inside out. Read more…
4 Rules to Make You Smarter, Your Networks Stronger, and Your CSR Programs Better. The principles described are not unique. They are the underpinnings of Design Thinking — ch
ampioned by IDEO — and Appreciative Inquiry, taught widely at the Carroll School of Management. The approach encourages innovation and creativity and is particularly relevant to the field of corporate citizenship. Read more…
How Should Community Foundations Define ‘Community?’ Emmett Carson, CEO and president of Silicon Valley Community Foundation, provides a thoughtful examination of fundamental questions facing U.S. community foundations today. Acknowledging that a key characteristic of community foundations is their leadership and civic engagement within their stated geographies, Emmett explores how these institutions are engaging with donors who have a wide range of interests in diverse geographic areas. Read more…
Foundations are Engaging in Impact Investing & Negative Screening. The Center for Effective Philanthropy has released their new report entitled, “Investing and Social Impact: Practices of Private Foundations.” The report analyzes responses from CEOs of large private foundations on their current state of operations. Read more…
What Happens When You Google “Social Innovation?” What comes to mind when 
you try to do a quick word association with Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)? Philanthropy, Volunteering, Accountability, Reporting, Sustainability, and maybe the Triple Bottom Line – these are the usual suspects. But what about Shared Value? Read more…
Data Quality Can Help Further Philanthropy’s Mission. Corporate philanthropy has a dual mission of pursuing public welfare and supporting the values of parent corporations. Assessing the alignment of philanthropic activities with these missions can be challenging, but today’s data-rich environment provides prospects for meeting that challenge. Taking advantage of these opportunities requires access to high-quality data. Read more…
A Helpful Guidebook for Nonprofits (Regardless of Your Location!) The Colorado Nonprofit Association recently released “Principles & Practices for Nonprofit Excellence in Colorado.” This guidebook is a support mechanism to enable nonprofits to address issues of capacity and accountability as they strive to build the foundation for true mission achievement. Read more…
Nonprofits (a
nd Foundations) Want More Data But Need More Resources. The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) has released a new report, entitled Assessing to Achieve High Performance: What Nonprofits are Doing and How Foundations Can Help, which aims to understand more about which nonprofits are assessing performance, how they are approaching this work, and what they are looking for from their funders to support it. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of it comes back to data. Read more…
A Response to the CEP Study: A Call to Rethink How We Support Grantees. After digging into the CEP report (see above), the Director of Research, Evaluation and Strategic Learning at The Colorado Trust asks: Can we as foundations commit to providing not only operating support, but enough operating support for nonprofits to improve and enhance their evaluation work? We need to ask critical questions of grantees: what are your evaluation questions? What do you want to know to improve your work? How will you use these results? Read more…
Impact Investing Can Help Foundations Avoid Obsolescence. The intersection of private wealth and public accountability is getting more complicated, prompting many in the foundation world to operate in new ways – and with approaches that could eventually turn the entire way philanthropy operates upside down. Read more…
What’s the Best Way to Engage, Aid, and Support Your Community? Philanthropy
and community engagement have become integral parts of business, but there are many ways and means by which companies can organize and manage such efforts. Read more…
Build an Effective CSR Strategy. During a recent conversation, a member of the Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship mentioned that they felt their strategy was frozen in place. They wanted to know: How do other companies thaw out their corporate citizenship strategy each year? How do they keep it from getting frozen in the first place? Read more…
The Top Five Most Promising Trends in Philanthropy. Impact investi
ng is seen as the most promising trend by most philanthropists. But did you know that the Middle East stands out by giving the highest ranking to philanthropy aimed at eliminating the root cause of a problem instead of alleviating symptoms? Read more…
Three Questions and ACTIONS for Envisioning a Better Corporate Citizen Strategy. “Be a surfer. Watch the ocean. Figure out where the big waves are breaking and adjust accordingly,” wro
te Jason Fried and David Hansson, founders of internet company 37 Signals, when asked to describe their approach to strategy. As you scan the corporate citizenship ocean, what big waves do you see? These three questions and actions can help identify your company’s big corporate citizenship “waves.” Read more…
In Pursuit of Better Outcomes Through Transparency-Fueled Adaptability. If you’re a small foundation aiming to achieve greater philanthropic impact, 
transparency can be a tool to drive impact through better project management and improved grantee relationships: transparency for adaptability rather than accountability. Read more…
The Civic 50: A Roadmap for Corporate Community Engageme
nt in America. This report identified the 50 most community-minded companies in the United States each year and showcases examples of how companies use their time, skills, and other resources to improve the quality of life in their communities. Read more…
Reconstructing Philanthropy from the Outside In. A funder-to-funder take on how to create breakthrough social change. Read more…
A Framework for Successful Corporate Citizenship. The most successful corporate citizens invest in more than compelling programs. What sets these companies apart? Read more…Last