Sharing Power with Communities: A Field Guide
Posted on August 1, 2025
This field guide offers practical tips and examples to help you authentically engage and share power with the communities most impacted by your work… Read More
Listening, feedback, and community engagement
Small But Mighty: A History of the Pierce Family Foundation
Posted on November 29, 2023 by Pierce Family Foundation
In advance of sunsetting at the end of 2023, the Pierce Family Foundation published this document outlining the foundation's history and what they’ve learned over 18 years of grantmaking… Read More
Effective Family Philanthropy: Roy and Patricia Disney Family Foundation
Posted on May 17, 2023 by Ade Adeniji
How Multiple Generations of the Disney Family Come Together to Fund Social Justice in LA and Beyond It all began at Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in October 1923. Here, bright young cartoonist Walt Disney and his older brother Roy O. Disney established the upstart studio in Hollywood, California. Walt arrived in Los Angeles from the Midwest after his previous effort,… Read More
Four Imperatives for Centering Communities in Philanthropy
Posted on March 10, 2023 by National Swell
This briefing provides strategic guidance to funders — anchored around four imperatives — for shifting philanthropic power toward communities… Read More
Your Impact Strategy Doesn’t Stop at Your Grantmaking
Posted on December 15, 2022 by LaTonya Penny, D.Div, Meg Baesmith, Tony Macklin
While grantmaking is often the main tool funders think about in terms of impact, there are many other innovative ways to use your time, relationships, and resources to support your nonprofit partners and the communities you serve. Funders can leverage their established platform to spread the word about needed support and convene important partners, or can provide additional capacity to… Read More
Listening and Feedback: Tools to Assess Your Philanthropy
Posted on December 15, 2022 by C. Davis Parchment, Yvonne Belanger, Brenda Solorzano
How can you elicit and act on feedback from your grantees and other external stakeholders? For all funders, gathering feedback is a helpful practice to understand how your work is impacting your grantees—and how you can more deeply incorporate the perspectives and experience of your partners and communities you serve. There are a number of tools available to facilitate this… Read More
In Practice: How Foundations Can Compensate Stakeholders for Their Time
Posted on May 15, 2022 by Lowell Weiss
If a foundation convenes key stakeholders, including grantees, to inform a project like its strategic plan, should it compensate interviewees for their time and knowledge?… Read More
Pluralism in Family Philanthropy: Navigating Tensions and Bridging Divides for Impact
Posted on January 19, 2022 by Uma Viswanathan, Tegan Acton, Heather Templeton Dill, Brian Hooks, Nicholas A. Tedesco
In an increasingly divisive society, people are facing complex, challenging dialogues around politics, ethics, and social issues, struggling to manage perspectives across the political aisle and facilitate healthy discourse with multiple viewpoints. What is taking place on a macro scale is mirrored within individual families—difficult conversations, distinct political and cultural divides, and in many cases gridlock or an inability to… Read More
Whole Philanthropy: Chicago Beyond’s Approach to Operationalizing Transformation
Posted on August 30, 2021 by Chicago Beyond
Whole Philanthropy is Chicago Beyond's approach to operationalizing transformation. The foundation seeks to build a deep foundation of trust and solidarity with its partners to achieve our mutual aspirations for Chicago’s young people. This document shares more about the approach and partnership model… Read More
Listening & Feedback: A Funder Action Menu
Posted on May 5, 2021 by Fund for Shared Insight
This menu from Fund for Shared Insights offers a conversation-starter to help foundations think in a systematic way about how they can promote listening and feedback across the many dimensions of their work… Read More