Archive of Past Events

To register for the webinar, click here or contact Jenny Goff via email or 617-492-0800 ext. 244.

Pursuing Impact: What It Takes to Get Results

Foundation leaders are seeking to maximize their positive impact, but what does it really take? CEP's Phil Buchanan will address this question—drawing on new, not yet published research on what foundation CEOs see as the impediments and barriers to impact, as well as more than a decade of research on foundation effectiveness. He’ll ask whether what seems new and innovative really is either, look at how uncertainty clouds assessment and improvement efforts, and challenge foundation leaders to do the hard work that effectiveness requires, including opening themselves up to regular—and sometimes uncomfortable—feedback from those on the ground.  

To become more effective, nonprofits and foundations are turning to various sources for advice. Some look to experts, others turn to crowdsourcing. Experts and crowds can produce valuable insights, but too often nonprofits and funders ignore the constituents who matter most, the intended beneficiaries: students in low-performing schools, trainees in workforce development programs, or small farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. In bypassing the beneficiary as a source of information and experience, we deprive ourselves of insights into how we might do better—insights that are uniquely grounded in the day-to-day experiences of the very people the programs are created for.

In this webinar Fay Twersky, Phil Buchanan, and Valerie Threlfall will discuss the reasons why surveying beneficiaries is so important, how the feedback can be used, and some of the challenges to doing this and how to overcome them. They will also provide real-world examples of organizations that are effectively surveying beneficiaries, including their own experience trying to elicit the voices of high school students through YouthTruth, a nonprofit that the three of them co-founded. YouthTruth has gathered feedback from close to 150,000 students across the United States.

This webinar is for leaders of nonprofit organizations and government programs which provide products or services to people in need—i.e. beneficiaries. These include homeless shelters, health clinics, job training programs, schools, and a wide variety of other programs.

Webinar registrants will have the opportunity to ask Twersky, Buchanan, and Threlfall questions during the last 20 minutes of the webinar, which will be moderated by Eric Nee, managing editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The webinar will build on the article by the presenters, “Listening to Those Who Matter Most, the Beneficiaries,” which appeared in the spring 2013 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. 

Register here.

Foundations are often isolated from genuine feedback from those on the ground.  

But, more than 200 foundations have received candid and comparative feedback on their strengths and opportunities for improvement by participating in CEP's Grantee Perception Report (GPR) process. And according to subscribers, ninety-five percent of the time the data and insight from a GPR leads a foundation to make changes in how they operate.

Join CEP's Amber Bradley and Grace Nicolette to learn more about the GPR and the process for participation.

This free webinar is intended for foundation staff and board members considering how to best gather feedback from those they fund.

To register for the webinar, click here or contact Laurel Mitchell via email or 617-492-0800 ext. 255. 

Empowerment includes many different aspects of staff experiences, and accurately assessing it through internal conversations or surveys can be difficult. 

Data 360 Using data effectively can lead to innovation, better decision making and solutions to old problems. Find out ways to harness new and existing data to increase impact.

Discussion Leaders: Kevin Bolduc, The Center for Effective Philanthropy; Elizabeth Boris, National Center for Charitable Statistics, Urban Institute; Nancy Lublin, Do Something, Inc.; Rebecca Masisak, TechSoup; Elizabeth Pastor, Humantific; Mayur Patel, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Jake Porway, DataKind; Jennifer Sigler, GlobalGiving Foundation
Facilitator: Fay Twersky, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Blending Profit and Purpose: Game Changer?        
What does the blending of purpose and profit mean for the nonprofit sector? We’ll look at new for–profit vehicles and ventures for serving the public good and discuss what these new approaches mean for our work.

Thought Leaders: Phil Buchanan, The Center for Effective Philanthropy; Jan Masaoka, California Association of Nonprofits; Marc Thibault, American Sustainable Business Council; Robert Wexler, Adler & Colvin
Moderator: Paul Clolery, The NonProfit Times

Join Stanford PACS for an armchair interview with Paul Brest, Stanford PACS faculty co-director and former president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Phil Buchanan of the Center for EffectivePhilanthropy, led by Johanna Mair. The program will run from 5:30pm to 7:00pm.

Click the "learn more" link below to read Paul's recent SSIR piece reflecting on the growing importance of strategic philanthropy over the last decade and its prospects for the future.

Johanna Mair is the academic editor of Stanford Social Innovation Review, a professor of Management, Organization and Leadership at the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, and the Hewlett Visiting Scholar at the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.  

Please email Sam Spiewak to RSVP.

Presenter(s): Kevin Bolduc, Vice President, The Center for Effective Philanthropy; Bobbie Chapman, Director of Business Development, The San Francisco Foundation; Jessica David, Vice President for Strategy, Planning and Special Projects, Rhode Island Foundation; Lesley Martinelli, Director of Donor Services, The Dallas Foundation
Session Designer(s): Susan Knudten, Senior Communications Officer, Rose Community Foundation

Presenter(s): Ellie Buteau, Vice President, Research, The Center for Effective Philanthropy; Antonia Hernández, President and CEO, California Community Foundation; Erica Nicole Joseph , Program and Development Director, Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore
Moderator(s): Kathryn E. Merchant, President and CEO, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation
Session Designer(s): Ellie Buteau, Vice President, Research, The Center for Effective Philanthropy; Shanee Helfer, Manager, Community Foundations, Council on Foundations

Only 16% of grantees we surveyed report using social media created by funders or their staff.

Join us on Thursday, August 9, for a free webinar featuring findings from CEP's latest report, Grantees' Limited Engagement with Foundations' Social Media. Panelists include Ellie Buteau, vice president -research and coauthor of the report; Andrea Brock, research manager and coauthor of the report; Elizabeth Miller, communications associate at the Knight Foundation, and Bruce Trachtenberg, executive director of the Communications Network. 

Participants are encouraged to pose questions to panelists, which will be answered following the formal presentation. A recording of the webinar will be made available on the CEP website. 

REGISTER HERE.

Join Fran Loosen, Knowledge Officer at the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, as she shares her experience with the Strategy Landscape Tool and how it has helped inform the foundation's work. CEP's Vice President - Assessment Tools, Kevin Bolduc, and Strategy Landscape Tool Manager, Mendi Blue, will also be on hand to demonstrate how the tool works and highlight some of its key benefits. 

SO WHAT IS THE STRATEGY LANDSCAPE TOOL?

The Strategy Landscape™ is an online interactive data-visualization tool, developed by the Monitor Institute and delivered by the Center for Effective Philanthropy. This tool can be useful for individual foundations seeking to better understand and communicate current and past strategies, programs, and grants. 

The Strategy Landscape™ has facilitated unprecedented sharing of data about grantmaking and strategies by allowing funders to understand who is funding what by strategy. Tool data is accessible, customizable, easy-to-use, and timely.

Register now to learn more about this exciting new tool.

Research done across the past several years has shown that the extent to which staff believe in and derive value from their work, feel connected to their organization’s goals, and are empowered to do their best work affects the outcomes organizations seek to achieve.

While hearing from grantees, donors, applicants, and stakeholders are all important steps in achieving meaningful impact and increasing foundation effectiveness – foundation staff feedback is often overlooked. Staff offer a unique perspective on the challenges that foundations face, and are funders’ direct link to furthering their intended impact.

Join CEP President, Phil Buchanan, and Vice President – Assessment Tools, Kevin Bolduc for a free webinar on May 30 at 2:00pm ET, where they will discuss the value of gathering candid, comparative feedback from staff, and what makes CEP’s Staff Perception Report a unique tool. Also joining this webinar will be Michael Klompus, Director of Human Resources at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and Hope Lyons, Director of Grants Management at the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, who will share their experience with the process and how the Rockefeller Brothers Fund is using their results to engage staff and enhance internal culture.

To participate in this free webinar register here. 

Note: The Staff Perception Report is intended for use by funders with a minimum of 12 staff members and is intended for foundation leaders and board members considering how to best gather feedback from their staff.

Given the scale and complexity of the problems facing society, foundations increasingly need to communicate and collaborate with each other to mobilize the resources necessary to achieve their goals. Yet working together - or simply knowing what other funders are doing - remains a time-consuming, and often frustrating, challenge.

We invite you to learn about The Strategy Landscape™, an online interactive data-visualization tool that addresses this very challenge.  The Strategy Landscape™ has facilitated unprecedented sharing of data about grantmaking and strategies by allowing funders to understand who is funding what by strategy.  Tool data is accessible, customizable, easy-to-use, and timely.

Join CEP's Vice President - Assessment Tools, Kevin Bolduc, and  Strategy Landscape Tool Manager, Mendi Blue, as they demonstrate how this tool works and highlight some of its key benefits.

Register here.

CEOs of community foundations value the concept of strategy, and report that they are using strategy, according to a 2011 report by the Center for Effective Philanthropy, "Rhetoric Versus Reality: A Strategic Disconnect at Community Foundations." However, the report claims that few CEOs actually use strategy, as CEP defines it, in their donor or programmatic work. In this session, one of the authors of the CEP report, Ellie Buteau, will present some of the report's key findings and engage participants in a conversation around what it means to be a strategic community foundation.

Many foundation leaders know that strategy can be an essential component of effective philanthropy. CEP’s research on strategy suggests a fundamental disconnect between what foundation CEOs believe and the way they approach their work. This finding is the basis of the report Rhetoric Versus Reality: A Strategic Disconnect at Community Foundations, released earlier this fall, which will be the subject of The Challenge of Strategy: From Rhetoric to Reality, a webinar hosted by CEP and the Council on Foundations January 10, 2012, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m. ET.

Webinar panelists will include Ellie Buteau, vice president–research and lead author of the report; Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy; and Spicer Bell, president of the Community Foundation of the Eastern Shore, one of the foundations profiled in the report. Serving as host will be Kathy Merchant president and CEO of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, CEP board chair, and former vice chair of the Council on Foundations board.

Those joining the webinar will have the opportunity to pose questions to be panelist, which will be answered following the formal presentation. A recording of the webinar will be made available on the CEP website. 

Foundations are pressed to be more transparent about how they work and more effective about achieving impact. What is the link between transparency and effectiveness and can these two qualities ever be at cross purposes? Sharing information about performance assessment, diversity, compensation, strategy—all give most foundations pause. Where do you draw the line?

Join a spirited conversation that includes Bradford Smith, president of the Foundation Center, Phil Buchanan, president and CEO of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, as well as a panel of foundation leaders including Christy Pichel, president of the Stuart Foundation, and Emmett D. Carson, CEO and president of the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.

This forum is presented in collaboration with Foundation Center and sponsored by the Irvine Foundation.

It will take place December 6, from 4 to 7 p.m. PST, at 312 Sutter Street, San Francisco, in the  2^nd Floor conference room. 

To reserve a seat, please send an email including your name, organization and title to rsvp@effectivephilanthropy.org.

Foundation leaders know that strategy is an essential component of effective philanthropy. But when it comes to strategy, research suggests a fundamental disconnect between what foundation CEOs and program officers believe and what they do on a daily basis.

What does a coherent, well-implemented strategy actually look like in action? And how do you know that your strategy is working? At the 2011 Leadership Academy, the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s Ellie Buteau will present key findings from CEP’s groundbreaking research on foundation strategy, sharing insights and lessons on becoming more strategic for funders of all types and sizes.

CEP’s research reports have shaped practice and understanding among foundation CEOs and trustees, and its assessment tools have been used by 200 foundations located in the United States, Canada, the UK, and Israel.

The organization has been credited with bringing the voice of grantees and other stakeholders into the foundation boardroom and with contributing to an increased emphasis on clear goals, coherent strategies, and relevant performance indicators as the necessary ingredients to maximize effectiveness and impact.

Eligibility to attend: This meeting is open to GRANTMAKERS representatives and of organizations eligible to become members of GRANTMAKERS.  Individuals with a donor-advised fund at a member organization are eligible to attend as members of GRANTMAKERS of Oregon and Southwest Washington.  GRANTMAKERS events are not open to the public.

When the topic of foundation evaluation practice arises, it is often in relation to foundations conducting or reviewing evaluations of their grantees' work. But what are foundation CEOs doing to evaluate their own foundations' performance? For foundation leaders, answering the question, 'How are we doing?' is anything but simple. In a recent survey of CEOs of foundations with at least $5MM in giving, the majority of CEOs believe that foundations have made great progress over the last decade in being able to assess their effectiveness. Findings from this research indicate that while foundations are making concerted efforts to assess their performance, there is still progress to be made. This paper examines these issues and explores potential ways for foundations to continue to improve their work to assess their own effectiveness.

Donors offer a critical perspective on the challenges and opportunities facing community foundations in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

The Center for Effective Philanthropy brings that perspective to your foundation with the Donor Perception Report.

Join Amy Cheney, Vice President for Giving Strategies at The Greater Cincinnati Foundation, as she describes her experience with the Donor Perception Report and the value of candid, comparative feedback from donors with CEP's Phil Buchanan and Kevin Bolduc.

To participate in this free webinar, please RSVP to Addy Ashiru at rsvp@effectivephilanthropy.org or (617) 492-0800 ext. 207.

Facilitator:

Philip Buchanan, President, Center for Effective Philanthropy

Speakers:

Tracy Austin, Executive Director, Mitsubishi Corporation Foundation for the Americas

Anne Summers, President, Brico Fund

Do you really have a strategy for how to accomplish social change? What is it, how did you design it, and how do you deploy it to ensure you’ve achieved maximum results? Are there mistakes not to be replicated? This session is designed to be provocative, provide a range of perspectives, build on themes from previous EGA retreats, and solicit audience input. You will hear from the Center for Effective Philanthropy, as well as from an array of funder colleagues. Themes include: 1) what is a funder’s role in achieving meaningful social change; 2) challenges we encounter and how to overcome them; 3) how funders can adapt to an everchanging social, political, and biological context, and; 4) best practices in our roles as grantmakers. (Additional materials will be available for those wanting to dig deeper into certain aspects of the plenary.)

This interactive session highlights foundations that have used comparative feedback from their donors. What did they learn? What did they do differently as a result? What does new research tell us about how community foundations can be more strategic in their donor-focused work?

Presenter(s): Amy L. Cheney, Vice President for Giving Strategies, The Greater Cincinnati Foundation; Terence Mulligan, President, Napa Valley Community Foundation; Sarah Nelson, Chief Philanthropy Officer, Communities Foundation of Texas
Moderator(s): Kevin Bolduc, Vice President—Assessment Tools, The Center for Effective Philanthropy
Session Designer(s): Kevin Bolduc, Vice President—Assessment Tools, The Center for Effective Philanthropy; Sindhu Knotz, Manager, The Center for Effective Philanthropy; Terence Mulligan, President, Napa Valley Community Foundation

Meeting Room: Yerba Buena Ballroom, Salon 1-3, Lower B2 Level

CEP's 2011 conference will provide foundation CEOs, trustees, and senior managers with resources and knowledge to maximize their philanthropic impact.

Highlights will include:

• The latest CEP research
• Presentations by thought leaders within and outside the sector on ways to use data to affect change
• Tactics for implementing strategies and leading organizational change
• Interactive sessions and opportunities for networking

The Project Streamline Grantmaker Assessment Tool is a free online survey that generates a comparative report about funders’ grantmaking processes. This tool enables funders to compare their grantmaking processes to those of other funders, as well as to the principles described in the Project Streamline report,Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose. The tool helps funders determine the costs of grantmaking processes to both their own organization and to grantseekers. 

In this interactive session, attendees will be among the first to gain insights from the field-wide data now being gathered by the tool. 

Amber Bradley, Assessment Tools Manager at The Center for Effective Philanthropy, will share an overview of the tool and its principles, will present field-wide findings gathered from initial users, and will discuss how this data is relevant to you and your grantees.

Attendees will have the opportunity to take the assessment in advance of the session, receive a full comparative report, and discuss their own experiences with their peers.

Click here to begin your online assessment: Grantmaker Assessment Tool.

Travis Manzione will deliver the Keynote Address, focusing on the theme of the conference: how grantees and funders can work better together – as partners – to assure positive outcomes. Travis will begin the day-long discussion about how overall success can be achieved, not only through the lens of funders but in partnership with the very nonprofits who funders depend upon to achieve impact. 

To achieve their intended impact, grantmaking foundations need strong, productive relationships with grantees. But foundation leaders and program officers often struggle to determine how to build these relationships and to understand what matters most to those they fund.

New research from CEP identifies the keys to success. Drawing on this analysis, and on in-depth interviews with five program officers among the top performers in CEP's dataset, Vice President - Research Ellie Buteau, PhD will share CEP's findings. President Phil Buchanan will facilitate an interactive discussion in which attendees reflect on their own experiences.

A networking reception will follow the presentation. 

The event is free of charge, but space is limited. Please RSVP to Whitney Ivie at whitneyi@effectivephilanthropy.org.

This event is sponsored by the James Irvine Foundation.

CEP Manager Travis Mansione will present the Grantmaker Assessment Tool, which can teach attendess how to reduce cumbersome grant application and reporting processes. The Grantmaker Assessment Tool allows grants managers to assess current practices against flaws identified in the Drowning in Paperwork report, calculates the costs of application and reporting processes; gathers data and creates a report for use in advocating for change; and tracks the application and reporting improvements a funder makes over time.

Foundations often critique nonprofits for not being focused enough on assessing and improving their impact.  Nonprofits complain that funders aren’t clear about their own goals and strategies – and make time-consuming requests for data and information that distract them from mission.  What differentiates those funders and nonprofits that have worked most effectively together to generate powerful, positive results? This session will tap into the research of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, including surveys of tens of thousands of grantee organizations and analysis of foundation CEO and program officer decision-making approaches.  It will explore what is required of the leaders of foundations and nonprofits in order to generate meaningful impact.  Participants will have the opportunity to learn from exemplary foundation and grantee leaders and to share what works – and what doesn’t – in their funding relationships.

Spitfire President Kristen Grimm will share highlights and answer questions about Spitfire's newest report, From Big Ideas to Big Change: A Communications Guide for Grantmakers. CEP's research has shown that grantees continue to give funders low marks when it comes to fostering a clear understanding of what the foundation is trying to accomplish and where grantees fit in.  Spitfire set out to find out why this is happening - despite foundations committing more resources than ever before to communicating about their work and missions - and what can be done to close this gap.

From Big Ideas to Big Change includes tips and lessons from the field for how foundations can create internal clarity and consistency in the way they talk about their change strategies and then share those messages with their grantees, their chosen agents of change. The report includes a tool foundations can use to plan their own strategies for improving communications with grantees.

To participate in the webinar, please e-mail bigideas@spitfirestrategies.com or call Adam Rankin at (202)-293-6200.

Assistance Beyond the Grant: What Works, What Doesn’t
Recent CEP research explores the questions of how foundations approach – and grantees experience – the provision of assistance beyond the grant. How do foundations decide what to do and for whom? What do grantees actually value? What are the characteristics of more, and less, successful approaches to the provision of nonmonetary assistance? This interactive session will begin with a presentation of CEP’s findings by Senior Research Analyst Andrea Brock and then segue into an interactive discussion about the best ways to provide assistance beyond the grant.

Paul Hamlyn Foundation is one of only a few UK foundations that has received a Grantee Perception Report (GPR) from the Center for Effective Philanthropy. This session looks at the survey process; what the findings told the Paul Hamlyn Foundation about its grantmaking, communications and impact; and how the foundation has changed its practices in response to the GPR.

A recording of the webinar is now available:

Over the past decade, foundations have taken new steps to hear from those outside their walls.  Yet, despite this progress, the voices of those who should matter most – intended beneficiaries – remain largely unheard.

The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) has sought to fill this void with YouthTruth, a national survey project that develops comparative data on high school students’ perceptions of their experiences. The goals of YouthTruth, developed in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, are to demonstrate the power of rigorously collected comparative data from high school students  and to create insights that will enable school, education, and foundation leaders to collectively increase their effectiveness and impact.  

To date, more than 20,000 students from 86 schools comprising 12 networks and districts have participated in YouthTruth. The Project has already spurred tangible improvements at many schools, ranging from new student orientations to improved professional development efforts, programs, and policies. CEP is currently recruiting schools, districts, networks, and funders to participate in YouthTruth 2010-2011.

Join CEP’s Valerie Threlfall, Director of YouthTruth, as she discusses the Project’s process, lessons learned, and its potential to allow you to understand the relative performance of the schools your foundation funds. Dr. Darian Jones from Carver High School of Health Sciences & Research will share his school’s experiences with YouthTruth, discussing insights gained from the data and changes his school made as a result of the Project. The Stuart Foundation’s Vice President of Programs and Strategy, Rhonnel Sotelo, will also be on hand to explain why his foundation became involved in YouthTruth.

To participate in this free webinar, register through WebEx or contact Addy Ashiru at addya@effectivephilanthropy.org or 617-492-0800 ext. 207. Please contact Addy with any questions about the webinar or the registration process.

Foundation leaders often say strategy is essential for achieving impact.  But how strategic are they, really, in their day-to-day work?  What specific characteristics differentiate the more strategic from the less strategic? What is the role of consultants in developing strategy – and ensuring that it is actually implemented? This webinar will explore these – and other – questions about foundation strategy, drawing on the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) report, Essentials of Foundation Strategy.  It will also include a demonstration of CEP’s new online strategy self-assessment.  This tool allows foundation staff to get an instant read on whether their approach to their work corresponds with what CEP’s research has shown to be the characteristics of strategic foundation staff – offering a basis for reflection and improvement.

Phil Buchanan, president of CEP, will present the research findings and demonstrate the self-assessment. Melissa A. Berman, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., will provide the consultant's perspective on the research and tools, and will suggest best practices for incorporating them into work with clients. 

Director of West Coast Office Valerie Threlfall will help lead roundtable discussions with nonprofit practitioners, funders and analysts on metrics and evaluation, discussing the range of approaches in a ‘fish bowl’ format. Conference participants and principals of family foundations will listen in on the conversations and offer their comments. Information that falls short of “proof” but enhances learning and allows for mid-course correction (such as beneficiary feedback) will also be discussed. White House OSI will take part with an eye toward assuring that public grant-making meets similar standards, and does not place an undue burden. Platforms for knowledge sharing will be included.

Assessing Foundation Performance
Foundation performance assessment is notoriously difficult.  How should foundations decide what – and how – to assess?  When is formal evaluation called for and when is it a waste of time and money?  How can foundations tap into multiple data sources to assess effectiveness and drive toward higher impact?  This session, led by CEP President Phil Buchanan, will examine these and other related questions, arming participants with practical, cost-effective ideas for assessing and improving foundation performance.

The Essential Elements of Foundation Effectiveness
There is much talk of foundation “effectiveness,” but what is it?  What are the key characteristics of effective foundations, and why does it matter?  In this session CEP President Phil Buchanan will draw on research and highlight exemplars, helping participants understand how their own practices compare.

Stakeholder Engagement: Strengthening Nonprofits Beyond the Grant
Sustained economic uncertainty and the reality of dwindling foundation assets are prompting foundations to seek out new opportunities for supporting their grantees and strengthening the nonprofit community beyond financial grants. Foundations are examining how to creatively and pragmatically employ non-financial resources, such as convening, advocacy, training and leadership development in order to maintain current commitments to grantees. Paramount to funders’ efforts is a renewed focus on improving relations with their grantees to ensure success and meaningful results both for foundations and the nonprofits they serve.

During this session, CEP's Director-West Coast Office Valerie Threlfall will provide funders with a more nuanced understanding of the value of non-grant support and how funders can harness their resources to strengthen their grantees while operating with fewer assets. Join us in learning how supporting grantees beyond the grant can help strengthen relationships between funders and grantees to increase impact both within nonprofits and the community at large.

Some of the questions that will be addressed include:

• What are the attitudes and behaviors of funders regarding assistance beyond the grant?
• What types of assistance are grantees receiving?
• How do grantees view this assistance – and under what conditions do they communicate that their organizations or programs have been strengthened?
• How can foundations most effectively approach assistance beyond the grant?

Your grantees can tell you more about how the downturn has affected them than the headlines can. New CEP data based on a survey of grantees shows how well foundations are communicating about the downturn, and the degree to which they are helping grantees weather the economic storm.  CEP’s Kevin Bolduc will draw on this and other data to show what foundations are doing right – and wrong – in responding to the challenges presented by the current environment.  What should drive resource allocation choices in an era of new constraints?  How has the quest for greater foundation effectiveness changed – and what do foundation leaders need to know? How are you working with your staff, your grantees, and other key stakeholders to maximize your impact?

We invite grantmakers to join us in San Francisco and Los Angeles to learn from CEP's new information. These events are co-sponsored by Northern California Grantmakers and Southern California Grantmakers.

October 20, 2009: 4:00 — 7:00pm, Le Meridien, 333 Battery St, San Francisco, CA
October 31, 2009: 3:30 — 6:30pm, Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

If you have any questions, or would like more information, please contact Programming and Communications Coordinator, Kacie Sherman at 617-492-0800 *230.

Your grantees can tell you more about how the downturn has affected them than the headlines can. New CEP data based on a survey of grantees shows how well foundations are communicating about the downturn, and the degree to which they are helping grantees weather the economic storm.  CEP’s Kevin Bolduc will draw on this and other data to show what foundations are doing right – and wrong – in responding to the challenges presented by the current environment.  What should drive resource allocation choices in an era of new constraints?  How has the quest for greater foundation effectiveness changed – and what do foundation leaders need to know? How are you working with your staff, your grantees, and other key stakeholders to maximize your impact?

We invite grantmakers to join us in San Francisco and Los Angeles to learn from CEP's new information. These events are co-sponsored by Northern California Grantmakers and Southern California Grantmakers.

October 20, 2009: 4:00 — 7:00pm, Le Meridien, 333 Battery St, San Francisco, CA
October 31, 2009: 3:30 — 6:30pm, Skirball Cultural Center, 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd, Los Angeles, CA

If you have any questions, or would like more information, please contact Programming and Communications Coordinator, Kacie Sherman at 617-492-0800 *230.

CEP's West Coast Office Launch Party and Special Presentation of Nonmonetary Assistance Research
Foundations spend tens of millions of dollars providing assistance beyond the grant to the nonprofits they fund. What if it's not making a difference?

CEP's groundbreaking new research on assistance beyond the grant, based on the most comprehensive surveys of foundation CEOs, program officers, and grantees ever conducted on the topic was presented at these two events. The launch of our West Coast office was celebrated.

Beyond the Rhetoric: Foundation Strategy
How do foundations maximize their impact? What is the role of strategy? Is your foundation strategic? Are you?  This interactive workshop, led by CEP's former Vice President—Research, Lisa Jackson, PhD., and based on CEP's groundbreaking research on decision making at foundations, helped answer these questions and more.

Racial Equity Grantmaking
CEP's Vice President—Research and others discussed the age-old question: “what’s race got to do with it?” and how racially diverse boards, leadership, staff and cultural competency can increase grantmakers’ effectiveness and ability to serve racially diverse communities.

The Advantage of Sharing Failures
Foundations can enhance their effectiveness by sharing their mistakes and failures as well as their successes. In fact, learning directly from foundation leaders about their experiences is one of the most powerful ways to improve effectiveness. CEP President Phil Buchanan, James Canales, and Eugene W. Cochrane Jr. led attendees in a discussion of how foundations can disclose information from the lessons they have learned and shift foundation culture toward one that embraces change.

In Search of Impact
This session provided real-life examples of grantmaking effectiveness, presented by CEP President Phil Buchanan and GEO Executive Director Kathleen Enright. A variety of approaches to better understand and improve foundation performance, including advice on how to get started were presented. 

Race Matters in Grantmaking: Unequal Opportunities or a Level Playing Field?
CEP’s former Vice President-Research, Lisa Jackson, Ph.D, discussed grantmaking effectiveness and how the inclusion of racially diverse boards, leadership, staff and cultural competency can improve grantmakers' ability to serve racially diverse communities more effectively.

Foundation Governance: Inside the Boardroom
CEP has conducted the largest-scale study of foundation boards, surveying more than 600 trustees of 60 foundations since 2004 and interviewing dozens of trustees. How do foundation members define board effectiveness? In what areas do they want more board involvement? What are the keys to strong CEO-board relationships? Phil Buchanan discussed the answers to these and other questions, drawing on CEP's research and experience providing board self-assessment results to foundation trustees.

In Search of Impact: Funder-Grantee Relationships
CEP has surveyed tens of thousands of non-profit grantees of more than 200 foundations, analyzing what contributes to grantees’ sense that foundations are making a positive impact on their organizations – and on the fields and communities they fund. President Phil Buchanan described what nonprofits value in their foundation funders.

Beyond the Rhetoric: Foundation Strategy
How do foundations maximize their impact? What is the role of strategy? Is your foundation strategic? Are you?
CEP hosted a special presentation of our new research findings on foundation strategy and a celebration of the release of our forthcoming report, Beyond the Rhetoric: Foundation Strategy. Research findings revealed how foundation CEOs and program officers view strategy - and the extent to which strategy guides their decision making as they seek to achieve their impact goals.

CEP President Phil Buchanan and Vice President Kevin Bolduc shared results from this groundbreaking research and highlight practical implications for CEOs, trustees, and program staff.

Assessment to Action: Creating Change
CEP's conference, Assessment to Action: Creating Change, focused on the challenges foundation leaders face as they implement changes within their foundations in order to achieve desired social outcomes.
Highlights included:

• Leadership expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who holds the Ernest L. Arbuckle Professorship at Harvard Business School, on overcoming the challenges facing foundation leaders in creating change
• John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation President Jonathan Fanton on the promise, and pitfalls, of focusing on foundation effectiveness
• Spelman College President and nationally recognized expert on race relations Beverly Tatum on race in the foundation boardroom

Presentations from CEP staff featured the latest practical insights drawn from groundbreaking research studies on foundation strategy, foundation governance, and foundation grantmaking choices.