You may have noticed that NCFP recently updated its website with a new look and navigation. Throughout the years, NCFP has remained dedicated to keeping its network informed on best practices and trends in the field. As a result, our resource library accumulated more than 2,500 resources with some dating back to when NCFP first opened its doors. When our team began the project of refreshing our website more than a year ago, we decided to do a deep dive into our resource library with the goal of simplifying the user experience to ensure visitors could find relevant and useful resources.
Using NCFP’s Principles of Effective Family Philanthropy, which outlines four core principles—accountability, equity, reflection and learning, and relationships—as a touchstone, our team assessed each resource for how up to date it was, its relevance to family philanthropy, and its alignment to the four principles. The process underscored that family philanthropies have always strived to make an impact, and that the topics they are most curious about and the issues they are grappling with have not changed over the decades. However, the methods and practices they use to achieve impact have changed, as has the practices of the field.
Responding to a Changing Landscape
Despite the shifting landscape and needs of communities over time, it’s clear that some of the issues families are challenged by are evergreen. For example, family foundations have long questioned how to define and align their values to their philanthropic practice—something that has long been a feature of our most foundational resources.
However, the focal point has since shifted, with family philanthropies looking more broadly at the systems they employ to achieve impact, using innovative tools, and becoming increasingly community-centric. Families are talking more about trust-based philanthropy practices, listening to community, and honing their strategies with their partners’ needs at the center.
One simple way this shows up today is how families select their giving vehicle(s). In reviewing our library, we noticed NCFP’s early content often referred only to family foundations. However, as funders take a more comprehensive approach to their giving, more families are using alternative vehicles (e.g., donor-advised funds, LLCs) or a mix of vehicles to ensure that their structure supports their giving goals. As a result, NCFP’s resources reflect this shift, often using “family philanthropies,” to be more inclusive of funders who are using other vehicles and using “family foundation” when we are specifically referring to that vehicle. This is just one of many examples of the ways that our content and language, and that of the field, have evolved to be more precise and better guide the field. (Our primer on Impact Vehicles & Structures is a great example of this.)
New Practices
Practices such as trust-based philanthropy, impact investing, and participatory grantmaking have taken greater prominence. While many funders have used these strategies for years, the field has been steadily building greater infrastructure to that better allow funders to implement these methods. With more frameworks and networks available, funders can use shared language to communicate how these new practices have furthered their impact.
NCFP’s Trends 2025 report affirms this shift in practice, finding that more family philanthropies are centering community needs and becoming more grantee focused. As NCFP updates and creates the resources in our library, we continue to do so with a lens toward better aiding our readers in centering community and encouraging donors to reflect on how they are listening to and including those most affected by their work.
Looking Ahead
Our work to ensure our resources are as effective as possible is far from finished. We will continue to evaluate our resource library with the principles of effective family philanthropy as a guiding framework. As we move forward, we’re eager to continue to share impact stories and develop new resources to support effective family philanthropy practices. We invite you to share your stories or let us know what kind of resources would be most helpful and look forward to sharing new materials with you this year.