UPDATE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

Dear Colleagues,

I write to update you on the work of The Center for Effective Philanthropy and enlist your support and participation in our efforts. In a climate of uncertainty, diminished resources, and increased public scrutiny, maximizing the effectiveness of foundations is both increasingly difficult and increasingly important. Our purpose is to serve as a resource to foundation leaders as they seek to define, assess, and improve overall foundation performance.

CEP has made considerable progress since it was funded in the summer of 2001.

Publishing Practical Reports

Drawing on a series of interviews with foundation CEOs and trustees, a survey of CEOs, analysis of publicly available data, and the first-ever national, comparative survey of grantees, we have produced two major reports on the state of foundation performance assessment, describing current practices and future possibilities in assessing and improving foundation performance and testing new foundation performance measures. We have been heartened by the response our research has received. Most importantly, we are pleased it has been put to practical use by foundations that have, for example, structured board discussions of performance indicators around the assessment framework we propose in Indicators of Effectiveness (our August 2002 report).

Our seminar, Assessing Foundation Performance: Current Practices, Future Possibilities held last November further explored the themes discussed in our reports - highlighting different approaches to performance assessment with presentations by leaders in the field. Our report on Lessons Learned from a Gathering of Foundation Leaders, released in February, summarizes this seminar.

Developing Useful Management Tools

Building on our research, we have developed practical performance assessment tools. Our Grantee Perception Report (GPR) allows a foundation to understand grantee perceptions along a variety of performance dimensions on a comparative basis - because we have developed the field's most comprehensive data set of grantee perceptions of foundations. In the first four months of 2003 we have surveyed 5,500 grantees of 29 foundations (receiving more than 2,500 responses). In total, we have now surveyed grantees of 52 foundations over the last 16 months: many we have surveyed independently to build our data set; others have opted in to the process in order to receive a GPR. We are also piloting a new survey of declined applicants with several foundations, called the Applicant Perception Report (APR).

To see a sample of a GPR or APR and to find out more about being included in the next round of surveying, contact me or Kevin Bolduc, CEP's Associate Director, at (617) 492-0800. The deadline for participation in our next round of surveying is June 15, 2003. As part of a partnership between the Center and Grantmakers for Effective Organizations (GEO) to encourage foundations to take practical steps to assess their own effectiveness, a discount is available for GEO members.

The relationship between the GPR effort and our field-wide research is mutually reinforcing. The data we are developing through our survey research will provide new insights on the state of foundation-grantee relationships which we will make available in published reports for those in the field.

Facilitating Learning Among Colleagues

While we seek where we can to develop performance assessment data, we also recognize that we can contribute significantly to achieving our mission simply by highlighting promising practices and convening leaders in the field to learn from each other. To that end, we are preparing case studies that will be made broadly available to those in the field.

In addition, we will be hosting a seminar on October 9-10 in New York on Foundation Effectiveness - with particular emphases on strategy selection, foundation governance, performance assessment, and understanding and improving the foundation-grantee relationship. Mike Bailin, CEO of the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, will be the keynote speaker. We'll send you more information in the coming months.

Launching a Foundation Governance Initiative

Our CEO survey of last year revealed that only 20 percent of boards are substantially engaged in questions of foundation impact assessment, compared to 76 percent of Boards that were described by CEOs as substantially engaged in assessing investment performance. This, and a series of interviews we conducted with trustees, suggested the need for a major initiative to understand more fully the distinctive challenges of foundation governance. As the first step in this effort, we will be surveying foundation CEOs again in more depth regarding their perspectives on governance. Later, we will convene trustees to discuss challenges, and we intend to conduct a large-scale survey of foundation trustees - in an attempt to better understand current practices as well as opportunities for improvement in foundation governance.

Seeking Ever-Wider Participation and Support

The success CEP has achieved is a direct result of the support and engagement we have received from leaders in the field. Our Advisory Board members have served as invaluable colleagues and advisors. We have also, in the past 9 months, added three respected foundation leaders to our Board of Directors: Alexa Culwell of the Charles and Helen Schwab Foundation; Joel Fleishman of The Atlantic Philanthropies; and Ricardo Millett of Woods Fund of Chicago. They join founders Mark Kramer and Michael Porter along with Jonathan Cohen, Mark Fuller, and Founding Fellow Phil Giudice in what is an increasingly active, engaged, and powerful Board of Directors.

Our initial funders, The Atlantic Philanthropies, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and Surdna Foundation have been joined by others - including Rockefeller Brothers Fund and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation - that recognize the importance of supporting an independent, nonrtisan organization that develops frameworks, tools, and data to help foundations enhance their effectiveness. In addition, we have benefited from the support of the growing number of foundations that are our Grantee Perception Report (GPR) subscribers - and have learned a tremendous amount in the process of serving them.

I hope you will support the efforts of CEP through your continued engagement, use of CEP's research materials and performance assessment tools and, if appropriate, a contribution to support our work.

Please don't hesitate to be in touch with me to discuss how you can become more involved in this important work.

Yours sincerely,

Phil Buchanan
Executive Director

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PHILANTHROPY

The Center for Effective Philanthropy is a nonprofit research and educational organization whose mission is to provide foundation executives and trustees the management and governance tools needed to define, assess, and improve overall foundation performance. Major funders of CEP include The Atlantic Philanthropies, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Surdna Foundation, and Rockefeller Brothers Fund.