Featured Article

Lessons from Family Philanthropy: Rockefeller Brothers Fund at 75

Posted on March 30, 2017 by Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Barbara Shubinski

Launching family foundations is often the expression of donors’ desires to establish a lasting legacy and to instill in future generations the importance of giving. But family foundations face certain common pitfalls as well. The RBF is often held up as an example of a family foundation that has weathered these storms successfully. How might the ingredients of its success be described? What lessons can it offer?… Read More
Voices from the Field

How Can I Be 1% More?

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Philanthropy Northwest, June L. Wilson

I believe that Quixote Foundation’s reflective practices allowed us to hold multiple truths while engaging in internal and often uncomfortable racial equity training. Our ability to do this work at every level of the organization made a tremendous difference in our final year of grantmaking and grantee engagement… Read More
Voices from the Field

What is Overhead, Anyway?

Posted on March 15, 2017

Overhead is one of the first concepts any philanthropist learns. It includes all of those administrative and fundraising costs that we secretly wish our nonprofit colleagues didn’t have to worry about. But what exactly is overhead, anyway?… Read More
Voices from the Field

Donor Collaboratives: Maximizing Your Philanthropic Impact

Posted on February 22, 2017

NCFP’s 2015 Trends in Family Philanthropy study found that more than 90 percent of respondents cited the “impact of their giving” as the top motivation for their participation in family philanthropy. This same study found that just 45 percent of family foundations participate in efforts with other funders. If grant makers are interested in increasing the impact of their giving, they should give serious consideration to participating in a donor collaborative. … Read More