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Ginny’s Governance Checklist Part 2: Clarifying Foundation Needs and Board Member Expectations

Posted on August 27, 2021 by Virginia M. Esposito

The first installment of this blog series on building and maintaining your board focused on which principles will inspire and guide your governance policies and practices. These principles articulate critical issues of attitude and approach to governance and provide invaluable context for all board work. And while you likely are more than ready to start picking people, what are you… Read More
Voices from the Field

Are Foundation Trustees Perpetuating Climate Injustice? Here’s How We Can Change That.

Posted on August 24, 2021 by Kelly D. Nowlin, Ernest Tollerson

This article was originally published by Inside Philanthropy and is re-posted here with permission. The recent IPCC report couldn’t be clearer: The world needs wide-scale, transformative action, swift action, to ensure we don’t blow past the critical 1.5 degrees Celsius rise in average global temperatures. Mobilizing nations and market forces to achieve this goal, however, should not blot out America’s real-time responsibility to… Read More
Voices from the Field

Every Collaboration Needs Some Structure (Part 2 of 4)

Posted on August 23, 2021 by Debi Blizard, Zoe True

Courtesy of Kindel Media from Pexels As the second part of our series on 21st Century Collaboration, we explore a common tension that often arises for family foundations caught between a desire for open collaboration and a need for a clear governance structure. Our interviews with over 25 innovative philanthropic and socially-minded organizations (some of whom are listed at the… Read More
Voices from the Field

Takeaways Blog on Impact, Measurement, and Evaluation

Posted on August 18, 2021 by Jen Crino

Courtesy of Adeolu Eletu on Unsplash  This blog summarizes key notes from our August Fundamentals of Family Philanthropy Webinar. Impact is often an elusive concept in philanthropy. Giving families want to understand the impact of their investments, as well as the most effective way to assess progress, how to define and measure success for challenging and long-term problems, and ways… Read More
Voices from the Field

Five Ways Your Grants Management System Can Activate Trust-based Philanthropy

Posted on August 17, 2021 by David Goldsmith, Eric Jones

Courtesy of Mikhail Nilov from Pexels If the last tumultuous year has taught us anything, it’s that future-proofing your foundation’s grants management system (GMS) is more critical than ever. Core GMS capabilities like cloud-based access for staff and trustees, paperless processing, grantee portals, and electronic payments are now baseline must-haves for family foundations of almost any size. All indications are… Read More
Voices from the Field

Why and How Family Foundations Can Advance Equity Through Participatory Measurement

Posted on August 13, 2021 by Lymari Benitez, Yessica Cancel, Mary Marx, Katie Smith Milway, Teddy Thompson

Courtesy of Pace Center for Girls  The recent investment by MacKenzie Scott and Dan Jewett in funder coalitions Fund for Shared Insight and Equitable Evaluation Initiative—both dedicated to increasing participant feedback in evaluation—is the latest vote of support for gathering evidence of program impact in ways that engage program participants as experts in assessing their own experience. Participatory evaluation (PE),… Read More
Effective Family Philanthropy in Action

Family Philanthropy Speaks: A Conversation with Lisa Graustein

Posted on August 4, 2021 by Lisa Graustein, Nicholas A. Tedesco

Lisa Graustein, a trustee of the William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund in Connecticut, brings her experience as a public school teacher and her passion for building an equitable society to the boardroom. In this Family Philanthropy Speaks conversation, Lisa talks with NCFP President and CEO Nick Tedesco about the Fund’s evolution and her own philanthropic journey. Lisa also debunks assumptions… Read More
Network News

August 2021: News and Notes from NCFP’s Friends of the Family Network

Posted on August 4, 2021

Friends Focus highlights updates from members of our Friends of the Family network and their work. This month features updates from the Castellano Family Foundation, Cherng Family, Christopher Family Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, Laughing Gull Foundation, Lumpkin Family Foundation,  James B. McClatchy Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and Sobrato Philanthropies. Are you a current Friend or Leadership… Read More
Featured Article

Building and Maintaining a Highly Functioning Board: Ginny’s Governance Checklist

Posted on August 3, 2021 by Virginia M. Esposito

About this Series In the early days of a family foundation, the donors and other enthusiastic family members tend to turn first to the excitement of grantmaking and, soon thereafter, to the practicalities of management and investment needs. Governance doesn’t often make it into the conversation right away— and that makes a certain sense. Early governance tends to be informal… Read More
Voices from the Field

Turning Aspiration into Action: A New Report Illustrates Equity in Action at the McKnight Foundation

Posted on July 26, 2021 by Na Eng

Before Covid-19, the McKnight Foundation invited grantees and partners to reserve meeting space in its Minneapolis office. Photo courtesy of the McKnight Foundation. This article was originally posted by the McKnight Foundation and is re-posted here with permission. Ever since the McKnight Foundation released the organization’s first diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statement in 2018, our board and staff have… Read More

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