For Immediate Release

CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PHILANTHROPY’S COMPARATIVE BOARD REPORT NOW BROADLY AVAILABLE

Cambridge, MA…The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s (CEP) new assessment tool, the Comparative Board Report (CBR), is now broadly available to foundations seeking to assess and improve their boards' effectiveness.

The CBR, which has been received during a pilot earlier this year by more than 50 foundations, presents comparative data on board structure and practice as well as board member perceptions on a range of questions related to board focus, effectiveness, and group dynamics. The data in the CBR is gathered through in-depth, confidential surveys of a foundation’s CEO and trustees and is presented in a comparative context against two cohorts: all foundations surveyed and a selected cohort of similar foundations. The CBR provides a basis for CEOs and trustees to have informed and guided conversations about their own performance.

“CEP’s Comparative Board Report offered an extremely useful launching point for an in-depth discussion with our board regarding effective governance,” said James E. Canales, President and CEO of The James Irvine Foundation. “In addition to providing a vehicle for board members to offer confidential feedback on perceptions of the board’s performance, the survey was especially helpful in contextualizing the data within a broader universe of other foundations.”

Boards have made significant changes based on their discussions, including expansion of a board to bring on needed, relevant skills; refocusing of agendas to free up time in key areas, such as strategy development, where boards frequently want more engagement; and re-examination of board dynamics in the face of evidence of a lack of comfort opposing staff and/or other board members.

“We were about to hold a retreat for the board and staff to discuss our mission, governance, and our strategy for the next few years. CEP’s Comparative Board Report provided an excellent backdrop to carry out in-depth discussions on how we govern today and how we might want to govern in the future. The confidential nature of the input and the comparative analysis with the other participating foundations was very helpful to us,” said Thomas E. Baker, President of The John R. Oishei Foundation.

The CBR process takes approximately 10 weeks and can commence at any time. Individual CEO and Trustee responses are confidential and are presented in the aggregate. To learn more about the CBR, please contact Sarah Di Troia, Associate Director, at 617-492-0800 ext. 212 or visit www.effectivephilanthropy.org.

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.