How do you measure impact or potential impact when deciding how to be most effective?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Melanie Audette, Tomer Inbar, Tony Wells

How do you measure impact or potential impact when deciding how to be most effective, particularly when comparing the strategy of maximizing investment returns to having more money for grants versus impact investing? Melanie Audette:This starts with where you are in the process. You should think about your mission and how you are evaluating your grants, and take the same… Read More

What Are Recoverable Grants?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Tony Wells

Recoverable grants may be used to address concerns of non-profit boards that are hesitant to take on any type of debt. Some boards may have a policy that they’re not willing to take on debt, no matter what the upside is. We’ve had several situations where we became creative with our approach. We would say, “Okay, we really believe in… Read More

How Can I Help My Board Members Understand the Long- Term Nature of Impact Investing?

Posted on October 9, 2014 by Tomer Inbar, Tony Wells

Tomer Inbar: To start with a short anecdote, a client of mine and I were talking about their first program-related investment (PRI) that was going to go under. Although they had a successful program-related investment portfolio, she had to go to the investment committee where her PRIs were managed and tell them that they believed that this company was going… Read More

Sample CEO Performance Reviews

Posted on October 8, 2014 by National Center for Family Philanthropy

A collection of sample CEO performance reviews collected in the NCFP Guide, Performance Review: The Complete Guide to Evaluating the Family Foundation CEO. CEO reviews are provided from the following family foundations: The Clowes Fund Max M. & Margorie S. Fisher Foundation Knott Foundation Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation Roy A. Hunt Foundation  … Read More
Voices from the Field

Susan Packard Orr on the legacy of her parents, David and Lucile Packard

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Cole Wilbur, Susan Packard Orr

Editor’s note: the following is reprinted from Living the Legacy: The Value of a Family’s Philanthropy Across Generations, published by the National Center for Family Philanthropy in 1999. In a family foundation there is no question as to the importance of learning from the donors and carrying out their legacy. David and Lucile Packard left our foundation their estate as… Read More