Dynamic Families: Small Family Foundation Making a Big Difference Through Public Policy

The Sillerman Center for the Advancement of Philanthropy at Brandeis University released a new report, Dynamic Families: How Small Family Foundations Decide to Make Big Changes Through Public Policy, that explores the policy philanthropy potential for small foundations.

The philanthropic sector has focused considerable attention on how or why large national foundations can influence public policy, but rarely has it dealt with the policy efforts of small family foundations. Since small family foundations dominate the foundation world, the Sillerman Center decided to address this gap. The report profiles numerous small family foundations doing ground-breaking and influential policy work and analyzes how they came to engage in that work. It also compiles lessons learned about policy work by small family foundations.