Tag Archive
foundation performance
Mission Driven Investing: Philanthropy’s Surprising Returns
February 20th, 2013
“We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship. We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own. ...
Our Starry-Eyed Idealization of Markets
May 17th, 2012
This is the first in a series of six blog posts. One of the great puzzles of the day is that we increasingly look, starry-eyed, to business and markets to address or even solve our social problems. ...
A Step Forward for Charting Impact
February 22nd, 2012
One of the most common questions I get from friends and acquaintances when I tell them I work at the Center for Effective Philanthropy is this one: “I was asked to make a donation to XYZ Charity. How do I know if they’re very good at what they do? ...
To Judge or Not to Judge: The Brainstorming Myth
February 14th, 2012
I hate it when that happens. In the final hour of a cross-country flight last week, I shut down my laptop as the battery flickered out and opened a New Yorker from a couple of weeks back. ...
Making Transparency Matter
December 8th, 2011
There has been lots of talk lately about foundations and “transparency.” Perhaps the most prominent foundation transparency initiative is a website called Glass Pockets, launched about a year ago by Foundation Center. ...
What Foundations are Doing to Understand their Effectiveness
September 7th, 2011
One of the first research projects undertaken by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) after it was founded 10 years ago was an effort to understand what foundations were doing to assess how effective they are. What we learned in 2001-2002 was that foundation leaders were frustrated by how limited their ability was to determine how well the foundations they lead were doing. ...
The State of Performance Assessment, 10 Years Later
September 6th, 2011
A decade ago, I started my job at CEP and we launched a study on performance assessment at large foundations. It’s not as if we were the first to think the question of whether a foundation was achieving its desired results was important. ...
Assessing Foundation Performance
April 15th, 2010
At last year’s CEP conference in Los Angeles, I presented on the Irvine Foundation’s approach to assessing foundation performance, joined by David Colby from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I think it’s fair to say that David and I were presenting approaches used by our respective foundations that remain works in progress – Irvine’s even more so than RWJF’s given its focus on this area for many more years. ...
Has Anything Really Changed in Philanthropy?
April 12th, 2010
Sean Stannard-Stockton, CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, and founder of the terrific blog Tactical Philanthropy, invited me to join a team of bloggers sharing thoughts on the GEO conference this week in Pittsburgh. What follows are some musings on what’s changed since the first GEO conference I attended in 2002. ...
Can Foundations Be Learning Organizations?
January 19th, 2010
Nobody dislikes learning, at least in the abstract. It ranks right up there with apple pie, baseball, and foundation partnerships – almost everyone is in favor of it. ...
2013 Conference
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 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
Will What Was Said in Detroit Stay in Detroit?
While I unable to attend the conference, I was interested in this edition of your blog. As someone who has moved in and out of...
While I unable to attend the conference, I was interested in this edition of your blog. As someone who has moved in and out of...
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.
