For Immediate Release

IN ADDRESS TO FOUNDATION LEADERS, CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PHILANTHROPY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR CALLS FOR A NEW ‘LANGUAGE OF ASSESSMENT’

San Francisco, CA… In an address to 230 foundation CEOs, trustees, and senior executives, Center for Effective Philanthropy Executive Director Phil Buchanan argued that a significant group of foundations are creating a new “language of assessment” to inform improved performance.

Buchanan, speaking to a group that included leaders of many of the country’s largest foundations, said the current debate on foundations was focused on issues of “asset growth, administrative expenses, and abuse and regulation.”

“But today, I want to tell a very different story about foundations,” Buchanan told the audience attending CEP’s two-day seminar, Higher Impact: Improving Foundation Performance. “It’s a story about an effort underway, an effort you are helping to lead, to improve foundation performance. … This language of assessment can allow foundations to do more good – and to speak much more powerfully about what they are doing.”

In his talk, Buchanan argued that precise measurement of foundation impact relative to resources expended was unattainable, and that what is needed is instead is a “well-chosen assortment of indicators that are likely to be linked to impact achievement.”

“No one data set has all the answers,” Buchanan argued. He cited significant evidence of foundations taking new steps to assess and improve, drawing on examples from the 77 foundations that have commissioned Grantee Perception Reports from the Center for Effective Philanthropy in the past two years, and noting that more than 50 foundations participated in CEP’s Foundation Governance Project.

He laid out four reasons that a new language of assessment is needed. He noted, for example, that foundations’ response to the increased scrutiny they face had been insufficient, and that substantive steps to assess and improve provide a more powerful story for foundations to tell. He also noted that, in the absence of better performance measures, “all assessment will be driven by what is currently easily quantified and compared,” such as administrative expense ratios.

The most important reason, Buchanan suggested, for a new language of assessment, is that foundations “need to be able to confirm strengths and highlight areas for improvement” so they can maximize their chances of “creating impact.”

For a full text of Buchanan’s remarks, click here.

ABOUT THE CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PHILANTHROPY

The Center for Effective Philanthropy is a nonprofit organization focused on providing management and governance tools to define, assess, and improve overall foundation performance. CEP received initial funding in 2001 and is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. For more information on CEP's work, including its research, publications, and assessment tools, see www.effectivephilanthropy.org.