Blog | Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

Declining Applications and Inquiries: How Funders Can Do Better

March 6, 2024 | Peter Marks
Peter Marks, executive director of The L.B. Research and Education Foundation, received positive feedback from grant seekers who were not selected to move forward in the foundation’s application process. The feedback affirmed Peter’s own experience as a nonprofit grantseeker: funders often fail to provide helpful information in their declination letters. Here, Peter shares a template for other funders to employ. Read More
Blog | From NCFP, Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

Improving Philanthropic Practice by Prioritizing Reflection & Learning

February 6, 2024 | Emerald Adeyemi, Don Chen
Family philanthropy done well can achieve lasting and meaningful change in the world and within the families themselves. To be effective, NCFP believes funders must employ four principles: accountability, equity, relationships, and reflection and learning. Despite being essential to impactful funding, a commitment to reflection and learning is often the first practice to be left behind when the day-to-day is Read More
Blog | From NCFP

Preparing for Bold Leadership

January 26, 2024 | Nicholas A. Tedesco
As I look back at the past few years, it’s clear that the challenges we faced as a society and as a sector have been unrelenting. It’s also been a time of great promise. Many families have shifted their philanthropic practices to respond to urgent and entrenched problems. They have taken bigger risks, leaned into trust, listened to communities, and Read More
Blog | From NCFP

Beyond the Family: An Ecosystem Approach to Family Philanthropy

December 12, 2023 | Nicholas A. Tedesco
The success of family philanthropy is dependent on the willingness of the family to embrace an ecosystem of partners. In fact, the most effective philanthropic leaders recognize that the family operates in relationship to many others—most importantly community and staff members. Embracing an ecosystem approach to philanthropy, which focuses on building and respecting relationships to others in the system, is Read More
Blog | Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

How PRIs Can Help Maximize Impact and Approaches for Getting Started

December 5, 2023 | Mary Ann Weiss
In 2018, Mary Ann Weiss wrote a post for NCFP about program-related investments (PRIs), their advantages, and the barriers to using them. Since then, the philanthropic landscape has shifted and Mary Ann has built her own experience with PRIs. Learn more about use cases for PRIs and how to get started using the tool to amplify your impact. In the Read More
Blog | Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

Collectively Reducing Nonprofit Burden through Data Standards

October 24, 2023 | Aleda Gagarin
As more and more funders request demographic data from their nonprofit partners to ensure that they are funding equitably, grantee burden to provide the data has increased. In an effort to centralize data and mitigate grantee burden, Candid’s data1x initiative has introduced Demographics via Candid. To understand the makeup of the nonprofits they support, individual funders increasingly request demographic information Read More
Blog | Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

How to Interrupt the “Vicious Cycle of Inherited Wealth:” A Conversation with Iris Brilliant

October 17, 2023 | Britt Benavidez, Iris Brilliant
For wealth inheritors, having access to a large sum of money they did not earn is a privilege, but often comes with mixed emotions and a deep sense of responsibility. Acknowledging and building a healthy and transparent relationship to wealth can help improve personal and family relationships, deepen connections in community, and ultimately promote greater, and more equitable redistribution of Read More
Blog | From NCFP, Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

The Benefits—and Challenges—of Adding an Equity Lens to Philanthropy Practices

October 10, 2023 | Diana Tyler Heath, June L. Wilson
Philanthropy is rooted in and continues to operate within inequitable systems and structures. Philanthropists have long sought to address these inequities in their grantmaking, and in recent years many have begun to examine how they can further address inequities in their practices. At NCFP, we see equity as a core principle of effective family philanthropy. We believe that equity begins Read More
Blog | Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

Fostering Connection for More Effective Philanthropy

October 2, 2023 | David Weitnauer
NCFP Distinguished Fellow David Weitnauer notes the importance of personal connection among family, board, and staff members in the context of their philanthropy and introduces his research on the concept of giving related. In the drive to improve our philanthropy practices and contribute to greater impact, we often overlook the very characteristic that sets our field apart: family ties. Cultivating Read More
Blog | Network News

August 2023: News and Notes from NCFP’s Members and Partners

August 31, 2023
Network News highlights updates from NCFP’s members and network partners. Current NCFP members or network partners are encouraged to email us with news they would like shared with the community.  David Farren Announces Forthcoming Retirement Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation Executive Director David Farren announces his plans to retire at the end of the year after an 11-year tenure at Read More