Grantmaking Strategy and Evaluation

Measuring What Counts: Meaningful Evaluation for Family Foundations

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Anne Mackinnon

Family foundations are in business to make a difference. As one family foundation leader put it, creating a family foundation is a “powerful statement about wanting to achieve impact.” Yet family foundations often get painted unfairly as not having impact, perhaps because they aren’t always very good at understanding or describing the impact they have, even to themselves… Read More

Family Giving Beyond Borders for Long-Term Results

Posted on October 14, 2010 by Karen Keating Ansara, Rob Buchanan

How can a family foundation or donor advised fund maintain the long-term focus - and patience - needed to achieve real results in international philanthropy? How can families just getting started in international philanthropy make the most difference, even with small grants, and what are the rules and regulations guiding this work?… Read More

Logic Models: Not Just for Big Foundations Anymore

Posted on January 4, 2010 by Erica V. Ekwurzel

Logic modeling is popular with large foundations, but has not been embraced by many of the smaller ones. One reason is that foundations with few or no staff fear that producing one is complicated and time consuming. It doesn’t have to be. And it can be a crucial tool for small asset foundations looking to make sustained impact, as explained… Read More

The nonprofit starvation cycle

Posted on October 1, 2009 by Ann Goggins Gregory, Don Howard

A vicious cycle is leaving nonprofits so hungry for general operating support for decent infrastructure that they can barely function as organizations—let alone serve their beneficiaries. The cycle starts with funders’ unrealistic expectations about how much running a nonprofit costs, and results in nonprofits’ misrepresenting their costs while skimping on vital systems—acts that feed funders’ skewed beliefs. … Read More

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