Topic Archive
Assessing Performance
Design Thinking and Philanthropy: Are You Ready for It?
May 23rd, 2013
Peter Sims, author of Little Bets: How Breakthrough Ideas Emerge from Small Discoveries, recently spoke at a plenary session moderated by Grant Oliphant, president & CEO of The Pittsburg Foundation, during CEP’s national conference on Tuesday, May 21. Little Bets breaks down the elements of design thinking by sharing stories and revealing the mindsets and practices of some of the most creative thinkers we know, from Beethoven to Pixar Studios. ...
Data Point: Consistency Among Foundation Funders
May 8th, 2013
In our 2012 report Room for Improvement, we explored the grantee perspective on foundations’ support of nonprofit performance assessment. Almost half of nonprofit leaders—48 percent—reported that there is not much consistency across the types of information different foundation funders seek from them. ...
Data Point: Why Conduct an Overall Foundation Assessment?
April 4th, 2013
This weekend, CEP president Phil Buchanan, advisory board member Fay Twersky, and board member Anne Warhover will discuss the topic of overall foundation performance assessment at the Council on Foundations Annual Conference in Chicago. As a primer for this session—being held Sunday, April 7 from 4:30 to 6:00 pm—here’s a data point from our archives on why foundations conduct overall assessments. ...
Foundations and Impact Investing: What Is Really Going On?
April 2nd, 2013
Impact investing has been hailed as potentially transformational by nonprofit sector, corporate, and foundation leaders. Elizabeth Littlefield, President and CEO of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation, has called it “the game-changer we need in the quest to end poverty” that will allow us to “solve many of the world’s social problems while making attractive financial returns. ...
Chasing Staff Satisfaction
March 20th, 2013
After reading our latest research report, Employee Empowerment: The Key to Foundation Staff Satisfaction, and discussing CEP’s own Staff Perception Report results from 2012, I found myself asking the question, “Can staff satisfaction ever be fully achieved?” I don’t mean this to suggest that the pursuit of staff satisfaction isn’t achievable or important. ...
Sifting Through the “Research”
March 14th, 2013
An op-ed in The New York Times on March 8 titled “Does This Ad Make Me Fat?” points out that a recent journal article in BMC Public Health that established a correlation between advertising for junk food and obesity rapidly made an unjustified causal leap. ...
Opportunity in Communities: Developing the Whole Picture
March 7th, 2013
Three years ago, Opportunity Nation brought together a coalition of over 250 nonprofits, businesses, educational institutions, faith-based groups, community organizations, and individuals with a ten-year goal of expanding economic opportunity and closing the opportunity gap in America. We kicked off our campaign with a listening tour, where we heard from hard-working young people who feared their zip code would affect their lives more than the their GPA. ...
Building Through Collective Experience
February 27th, 2013
Philanthropy tends to work on big problems, where the way forward isn’t necessarily clear and even the end point is up for debate. Given that ambiguity and the scope of work required to make meaningful progress, it can be hard to know where to start or how to keep yourself focused on moving forward. ...
Appreciating an Underdeveloped Source of Insight
February 21st, 2013
Amidst a flurry of recent talk about the opportunities and challenges presented by the application of “big data” in philanthropy, one aspect of the conversation that is often overlooked is beneficiary feedback. Yet, with a growing body of research that demonstrates a link between beneficiary perceptions and outcomes, there is both a moral and an effectiveness argument to be made for listening to those we seek to help. ...
The Hidden Power of Measurement
February 14th, 2013
In case you haven’t read it yet, the 2013 Annual Letter from Bill Gates “makes the case for using a tool of business to improve the health and welfare of the world’s people.” That tool is measurement, embodied in the letter by the “Lord Chancellor,” a micrometer that allowed inventors to fine tune the performance of steam engines during the early 1800s. ...
assessing performance
beneficiary feedback
beneficiary perceptions
communications
community foundations
comparative data
conferences
developing strategy
Donor Perception Report
economy
effective philanthropy
Essentials of Foundation Strategy
foundation effectiveness
foundation governance
foundation performance
foundation staff/program officers
foundation strategy
foundation transparency
Funder/Grantee Relationships
funder/grantee relationships
funder effectiveness
giving strategy
goals
Grantee Perception Report
grantee perspectives
Grantee Voice
indicators
leadership
nonprofit sector
overall foundation performance assessment
performance assessment
performance measurement
philanthropy
role of philanthropy
social media
Staff Perception Report
stakeholder engagement
strategy implementation
youth
YouthTruth
Lessons from a Risk Taken
I really appreciate your willingness to share this and your assessment of what didn't work out as planned or anticipated. Thanks.
I really appreciate your willingness to share this and your assessment of what didn't work out as planned or anticipated. Thanks.
Lessons from a Risk Taken
Jon, thanks for the comment. If there’s one thing we learned, it’s that the cost in time and effort and dollars were all higher than...
Jon, thanks for the comment. If there’s one thing we learned, it’s that the cost in time and effort and dollars were all higher than...
Lessons from a Risk Taken
Thanks for sharing the lessons learned, and what I sense are second thoughts about the cost/benefit of the whole enterprise. I appreciate the thirst for...
Thanks for sharing the lessons learned, and what I sense are second thoughts about the cost/benefit of the whole enterprise. I appreciate the thirst for...
Foundations and Impact Investing: What Is Really Going On?
Great insight. Sometimes it's great to invest in multiple countries as security as the economy in one country might decrease and increase in another.
Great insight. Sometimes it's great to invest in multiple countries as security as the economy in one country might decrease and increase in another.
Foundations and Impact Investing: What Is Really Going On?
Great questions. It is likely still too early to get a handle on whether the (potential) results reflect the hype meaningfully. However, I will be...
Great questions. It is likely still too early to get a handle on whether the (potential) results reflect the hype meaningfully. However, I will be...
