CEP has released a report encapsulating key insights from its 2009 conference, Aligning for Impact: Connecting the Dots. A video of highlights of the conference, which was held in Los Angeles on March 31 – April 1, is also available.

The more than 250 conference attendees used the gathering to discuss ways to meet their most pressing challenges. Comparing the current economic situation with treacherous conditions on Mt. Everest, keynote speaker Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, echoed a sentiment heard several times throughout the event, “The good news is that, properly framed, these are wonderful times because it is precisely in times like these when opportunities for massive and lasting contribution go up.”

In addition to Collins, participants heard from a distinguished roster of speakers that included Jim Berk, Chief Executive Officer, Participant Media; Gara LaMarche, President and CEO, The Atlantic Philanthropies; Carol Larson, President and CEO, David and Lucile Packard Foundation; and Robert K. Ross, M.D., President and CEO, California Endowment.

Download (free) or order a copy of the conference report, and watch a video (below) of excerpts from key sessions.

A new chapter in CEP’s case study, Aiming for Excellence at the Wallace Foundation, documents the Wallace Foundation’s continuing progress as it pushes to improve its performance. The original case study, released last year, left off with the Foundation still working to improve its grantees’ perceptions of the Foundation’s interactions and its clarity of communications of goals and strategy.

The update, "Breaking Through: The Wallace Foundation’s 2008 GPR," describes the dramatic improvements the Foundation has made in those dimensions. Wallace’s leaders believe that repeating the GPR four times has helped deepen their grasp of the data and motivate a sustained improvement effort.

“Because we cannot achieve the impact we seek without having our grantees as strong, engaged partners, the quality and candor of our relationships with them is crucial,” Wallace President Christine DeVita said. The Foundation plans to repeat the GPR again in 2010.

Download (free) the full case.

Funders Collaborative Helps CEP Strengthen Foundation Performance

A three-year, $300,000 grant from the Atlantic Philanthropies earlier this year pulled CEP over the finish line in its effort to raise $7 million in operating support for a four-year period from 2007 – 2011.  The Funders Collaborative was led by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which each committed $2 million.

Other participants in the Funders Collaborative, in order of funding level, are:

The Edna McConnell Clark Foundation
The James Irvine Foundation
The David & Lucile Packard Foundation
Charles Stewart Mott Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation
Lumina Foundation for Education
Surdna Foundation
Stuart Foundation
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

The funding supports the expansion of CEP’s research agenda, development of new assessment tools, and investment in organizational infrastructure. CEP reports back to the collaborative on key performance metrics as well as efforts to diversify its funding sources and increase the organization’s earned revenue as a proportion of total revenue. Today, earned revenue accounts for 50 percent of total revenue.

“Support of CEP by this group of foundations is incredibly important as we push to improve the effectiveness of foundations in pursuit of greater impact,” said CEP President Phil Buchanan.  “It also sends a powerful message about the importance of investing in strengthening the performance of foundations. Funders talk a lot about strengthening grantee effectiveness, but they need also to look at their own effectiveness.”

“This approach to collaborative support frees up time for CEP to focus on its core work,” said Alyse d'Amico, vice president – programming, communications, and development. “We’re seeing more and more examples of this model as we work with foundations, and it’s great to be on the receiving end of something that makes such good sense.”

In addition to the members of the Funders Collaborative, who made multi-year commitments at a minimum level of $50,000 in annual support, CEP receives support from more than 35 foundations. A full list of funders can be found in CEP’s annual report (pdf).

Ellie Buteau, PhD Named Vice President – Research

Ellie Buteau, PhD has been named CEP’s Vice President – Research, effective October 1. Buteau, an expert in research design and quantitative and qualitative analyses, has been at CEP for over five years – initially as a consultant and as an employee since 2006 – and has co-authored and led analyses for all major CEP research reports during that time.

Most recently, she led the research that culminated in the release of More than Money: Making a Difference with Assistance Beyond the Grant, which she co-authored. She has presented the results of that research, as well as other CEP research, at international, national, and regional conferences of foundation leaders.

“Ellie Buteau is an extraordinary researcher who has been involved in nearly every significant research effort this organization has undertaken,” said CEP President Phil Buchanan. “Her standards for rigor of analysis and fidelity to data are unparalleled and have helped CEP earn the trust of the philanthropic leaders who look to our research reports to shape their practice.”

Buteau will be responsible for overseeing all CEP’s research efforts, which include a major research project focused on foundation strategy and a new initiative to develop a comprehensive guide to funder-grantee relationships that is rooted in CEP’s data on grantee perceptions of foundations. She will also define CEP’s research agenda for the future, working closely with Buchanan and CEP’s Board of Directors and Advisory Board. In addition, she will continue to serve as an advisor and resource to CEP’s assessment tool team. “Ellie is responsible for ensuring that CEP always lives up to the highest standards of quality and integrity in all of our analyses,” said Buchanan.

Buteau will lead a research team at CEP that includes Senior Research Analyst Andrea Brock and research analysts Tim Chu and Shahryar Minhas.

Buteau has taught statistics at Tufts University, lead analyses for research projects at Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Tufts University, and a variety of nonprofit organizations, and published research in a number of journals. She has a PhD in Social-Personality Psychology with a focus on Methodology from City University of New York Graduate Center and a BA from McGill University in Montreal.

Christine James-Brown, President and CEO, Child Welfare League of America, Joins the Center for Effective Philanthropy's Board of Directors

Christine James-Brown, president and chief executive officer of the Child Welfare League of America (CWLA) has been elected to a three-year term on CEP’s Board of Directors. Her term began on July 1.

James-Brown assumed leadership of CWLA in 2007. A champion for children since 1920, CWLA is the nation’s oldest and largest membership-based child welfare organization.  It strives to make children a national priority and works to engage all Americans in promoting the well-being of children and young people and protect them from harm.

Before joining CWLA, James-Brown was president and CEO of United Way International where she was responsible for the worldwide network of United Way nonprofit member organizations which spanned six continents, five regions, and served communities in 45 countries and territories. Prior to that she served for 10 years as President and CEO at United Way of Southeastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia where she guided Philadelphia’s largest private nonprofit organization for health and human services.

“Christine James-Brown is a remarkable leader who brings an important perspective to our Board,” said CEP President Phil Buchanan. “She leads a vitally important national nonprofit organization and also brings to the table her experience as a funder.”

The Virginia G. Piper Trust Uses CEP's Assessment Tools to Create Change

Since opening nine years ago, The Virginia G. Piper Trust has listened to, and acted upon, information from its applicants, grantees, and board. Results included some exceptional ratings — and some that were below the standards the Trust had set. At CEP’s 2009 conference, Piper President and CEO Judy Jolley Mohraz, PhD explained how using multiple CEP assessment tools helped the Trust both build off of its success and improve upon its weaknesses.

Virginia G. Piper Charitable Trust: An Excerpt of "From Data to Insight: Using CEP's Assessment Tools to Create Change"

As the president and CEO of Virginia G. Piper Trust, a private foundation based in Phoenix, Arizona, Judy Jolley Mohraz may have been starting with a blank slate when she opened the Trust’s doors in 2000, but she had some definite goals in mind. “We said from the very beginning that we were going to make this place-based foundation user friendly and that we would be here to serve this community,” she said. Not only was Piper a new foundation, but it had few peers in Phoenix, a city that is also relatively young. “We didn’t have a lot of comparative data,” she said. “There weren’t a lot of people in Arizona to compare notes with.”

Using CEP’s Grantee Perception Report^® (GPR) and Applicant Perception Report (APR), Piper first surveyed its grantees and declined applicants in 2004. Piper’s ratings for its impact on grantees’ fields were below the 25th percentile and at the median for declined applicants. “We knew this was an area we could improve,” said Mohraz.

The Trust’s ratings on grantee satisfaction, interactions, and impact on grantees’ local communities were more encouraging. These ratings were at or above the 75th percentile. Yet Mohraz wasn’t about to let the Trust rest on its laurels. “You have to be sure when you get a result like this the first time that you don’t allow yourself to sit back and say ‘we’re above the median and we’re doing fine and there’s not more that we can do to be effective in the community,’” she said.

In fact, when the Trust repeated the GPR and APR in 2008, it was rated even more highly for grantee satisfaction and in its impact on grantees’ local communities. “We were really happy to see this result in 2008 because the same amount of dollars was going into the community,” Mohraz said. “A lot of it was due to some shifts that we made as a more mature foundation in how we did our grantmaking. We were more strategic, more multi-year, and more initiative driven.”

The Trust also improved its ratings for impact on grantees’ and declined applicants’ fields in 2008 with grantees rating it above the 75th percentile and declined applicants near the top of the range.  Between 2004 and 2008, Piper formed more relationships with private and government entities as a way to strengthen its impact on the field. For example, it partnered with the state and another foundation to establish a new research institute.

“The Trust made a $35 million commitment to support the development of personalized medicine,” said Mohraz. “It takes a while to develop the threshold for that kind of risk and investment. As a young foundation trying to make its way in a new terrain, the GPR was really helpful.”

Also helpful, said Mohraz, was the Trust’s participation in CEP’s pilot of its Comparative Board Report (CBR) in 2005. The report showed that the Board had a good understanding of the Trust’s strategy, but that their comfort in opposing each other was significantly lower than that of the typical board.

“They worked very well together, but were reluctant to challenge each other,” said Mohraz. Once that weakness was exposed, trustees changed their behavior.  “There’s a lot more vigorous discussion as a result,” she said. “This was a breakthrough point in creating the kind of constructive deliberation we all are looking for.”

Read the rest of this article, and others, in the full Aligning for Impact conference report.

CEP Welcomes New Members to its Advisory Board

CEP has added new members to its Advisory Board, which provides guidance on CEP’s research initiatives. “All of CEP’s research efforts have benefitted from the counsel and feedback we received from members of our Advisory Board,” said CEP President Phil Buchanan.

CEP’s Advisory Board has thirty-one members and includes foundation CEOs and program staff as well as consultants to foundations and nonprofits. Newly added members include:

About this Newsletter

Effective Matters is a quarterly newsletter published by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP), a nonprofit organization focused on the development of comparative data to enable higher-performing foundations. CEP's mission is to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness and impact.

If you have questions about this newsletter or would like general information about CEP and its activities, please contact Kacie Sherman at 617-492-0800 ext. 230.

Permission to use, copy, and/or distribute this document in whole or in part for noncommercial purposes without fee is hereby granted, provided that this notice and appropriate credit to the Center for Effective Philanthropy is included in all copies.