Voices from the Field

At the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation (SHSF), we invest in solutions that expand equitable access to public services and support accountability for abuse of authority. As a small, family foundation with an annual budget of less than $1 million, we look for high-risk, high-impact opportunities to change the public conversation around a particular issue – or drive policy change. Advocacy, research, tech,… Read More

When family foundations recruit a new top executive, they often spend considerable energy screening search firms that will help them identify the right candidate. But they usually pay much less attention to making sure they have the right people on their search committee—the ad hoc team of board members, volunteers, and staff charged with deciding who gets hired for these… Read More

This article was originally published by LEAP Ambassadors and is re-posted here with permission. What are good questions funders can ask prospective grantees about their equity values and practices? When Lowell Weiss, President of Cascade Philanthropy Advisors, asked his fellow Leap Ambassadors, he received a range of responses. First, Are You in a Position to Judge? Several ambassadors brought up the need… Read More

Editor’s Note: This article is part of an ongoing series on the many forms of family philanthropy, in partnership with the National Center for Family Philanthropy, and produced by Inside Philanthropy’s editorial team. It all began at Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio in October 1923. Here, bright young cartoonist Walt Disney and his older brother Roy O. Disney established the upstart… Read More

At the United Nations’ COP26 conference in November 2021, President Biden said climate change is “an existential threat to human existence as we know it.” And qualitative and quantitative data support this claim. Climate hazards—driven by global greenhouse gas emissions—will continue to affect and amplify socioeconomic challenges in nearly all areas for decades to come. And the climate crisis is at… Read More

Earlier this month we shared the Sillerman Center’s ongoing youth philanthropy research as it relates to COVID-19, based on The State of Youth Philanthropy: 2020-2021, and the success of hybrid youth philanthropy program models. In that blog, we also discussed some of the challenges that young people and their adult supporters have faced throughout the pandemic. An additional area we’d… Read More

In this space the primary reason people come together to collaborate is to have a positive social impact and this was readily apparent in our interviews with over 25 innovative philanthropic and socially-minded organizations as part of our series on 21st Century Collaboration. Assuring Impact Nearly everyone we spoke with recognized the importance of defining and measuring impact. Most struggle… Read More

The Families and Workers Fund is a new donor collaborative that includes a mix of private, corporate, and family foundations pooling resources and information to address one of the most pressing issues facing the United States today: how to ensure an equitable recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Rachel Korberg, the Fund’s co-founder and executive director, shares about the goals of… Read More

At the Sillerman Center, we think about youth philanthropy programs as those that support young people making grants directly to nonprofit organizations and projects, while also mentoring and supporting the youth grantmakers. We view these programs as a form of participatory grantmaking and civic engagement in which young people, who are closest to the problems faced in their own communities,… Read More

Grapevine, an online platform for giving circles, interviewed one of its community members to shed light on their origin story, the power of giving together, and how they have built community. We’d love to hear your origin story. How did your giving circle come to be?  The giving circle came as a result of our inaugural Southeast Region EcoWomanist Institute… Read More