Report

Reimagining Capacity Building: Navigating Culture, Systems & Power

Posted on October 3, 2021 by Grantmakers for Effective Organizations

Strengthening nonprofit organizations is not just a nice-to-have but an essential part of our work as grantmakers to ensure that nonprofits have the resources they need to address today’s most pressing social concerns. Indeed, the vast majority of staffed foundations — 86 percent — do just that, invest in organizational strengthening in areas such as leadership, fundraising, evaluation, communications and… Read More

Innovating Place-Based Grantmaking: An Evaluation of the Annie E. Casey Foundation “Strategic Co-Investor” Approach

Posted on August 25, 2021 by Annie E. Casey Foundation, TCC Group

When the Annie E. Casey Foundation launched Family-Centered Community Change™ (FCCC) in 2012, the Foundation set out to make improvements to their approach to place-based grantmaking. The programmatic aim was to support local partnerships to help parents and children succeed together in what is known as a “two-generation approach.” Rather than creating something new, Casey joined existing partnerships—located in Buffalo, New… Read More

Water of Systems Change

Posted on June 4, 2021 by Mark R. Kramer

Foundations involved in systems change can increase their odds for success by focusing on less explicit but more powerful conditions for change, while also turning the lens on themselves… Read More

Impact Investing: Mapping Families’ Interests & Activities in 2020

Posted on June 4, 2021 by The ImPact

Impact Investing: Mapping Families’ Interests and Activities is part of a multi-year effort to study a problem that many ultra high net worth (UNHW) families have identified as critical, timely, and important: the existing impact investing opportunity set does not fully match their specific investment interests. The 2020 version of the survey, the second of three planned annual surveys, added… Read More

Legacy in Family Philanthropy: A Modern Framework

Posted on May 16, 2021 by Shira Saperstein, Janice Simsohn Shaw

Adult hand holding child's hand - legacy
Legacy is a fundamental consideration in the practice of effective family philanthropy, yet it remains one of the most ambiguous and often overlooked concepts in our field. Many families approach legacy with a retrospective lens—one that reflects on a philanthropic effort across a number of years or even generations. However, legacy is emergent and iterative. It ought to be considered… Read More

Sooner Rather Than Later, Prologue: 1957-2008

Posted on January 7, 2021 by S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation

In 2009, following five decades of Foundation growth and impact, the Board of Directors for this family philanthropy chose to spend down all assets. In the words of its founder, this decision reflected a commitment to finding lasting solutions to California’s critical challenges “sooner rather than later.” The spend-down horizon was initially set for eight years and then adjusted to… Read More

Open For Good: Knowledge Sharing to Strengthen Grantmaking

Posted on December 15, 2020 by GrantCraft

Knowledge has the power to spark change, but only if it is shared. In this GrantCraft guide, grantmakers share how and why their foundations openly share knowledge as an integral and strategic aspect of philanthropy. Learn from their firsthand experience how to grow organizational capacity and culture for knowledge sharing, address common concerns, and use knowledge exchange to advance your… Read More

Racial Justice Sourcing Report

Posted on November 30, 2020 by CapShift

CapShift and TheCaseMade partnered in developing a framework to help investors understand how to invest in a more equitable future. You can read more about this in our report, Getting Started: Investing in an Equitable Future. This sourcing report highlights investments and recoverable grants that fall into three categories… Read More

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