Featured Article

Editor’s note: This month’s feature story is an excerpt from the new edition of our Passages issue brief series: Discretionary Grants: Engaging Family… Or Pandora’s Box? If you asked at a gathering of family foundation folks whether using discretionary grants is a good idea, you’d never reach consensus. Many family foundations don’t use them. Those that do have widely varied… Read More

Milestone birthday celebrations are momentous events in all families. For many, this tradition carries over directly to the philanthropic institutions they create. A growing number of families celebrating their 40th, 50th or 60th anniversaries have found ways to honor the giving legacy of the donor and subsequent generations, while also celebrating the importance and potential of their nonprofit partners. In… Read More

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of reports on NCFP’s Leadership Symposium for Family Foundation CEOs held March 23-24 in Washington, DC. The unique role of the family foundation chief executive often involves a very complex relationship in which the CEO serves the public good and the foundation’s mission, and at the same time, helps a private… Read More

Among the most important tasks that any board confronts is the choice of head staff person. If anything, this decision has even greater significance in family foundations. Whether the position is vacant because of the retirement of a beloved CEO or the departure of a problematic one, CEO transitions in family foundations typically have three major stages: clarifying the foundation… Read More

The passionate generosity of countless American families has inspired – and continues to inspire – extraordinary gifts. Indeed, we may know many of these families more by their philanthropy than by the business successes that made their largesse possible. What is most remarkable is the very phenomenon of American family philanthropy itself. An astonishing number of families make record-setting, private contributions… Read More

Like a lot of smaller funders, the 20-year-old McCarthy Family Foundation operated out of Treasurer Tim McCarthy’s home office. He learned a lot of important lessons about disasters the hard way after his home was among the hundreds of properties destroyed in the October 2007 San Diego wildfires. The foundation had no disaster evacuation or recovery plan. And it is… Read More

“At a time like this, we need to stop investing in treasuries and bonds and start investing directly in our communities.” —Tom Parker, Hutton Foundation As a family fund these days, you might feel like crawling into a corner and licking your endowment losses. But look on the bright side. Trying times can inspire positive change—and a chance to get… Read More

After considering the factors that shape succession decisions and sharing important lessons from the family business world, Alice Buhl introduces the creative possibilities of shared leadership as well as tips for both senior and next generation members… Read More