Publications & Research

In addition to the original and crowdsourced content featured in our Knowledge Center, NCFP publishes and makes available for purchase a variety of printed guides, books, and research reports.

Featured research and printed publications are gathered here.

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The latest publications and research from NCFP.

November 5, 2024

Trends 2025—Results of the Third National Benchmark Survey of Family Foundations

July 31, 2024

Overcoming Psychological Barriers to Giving

April 22, 2024

A Guide to Meaningfully Engaging Next-Generation Adults in Your Philanthropy

View all publications and research

All Publications & Research

Overcoming Psychological Barriers to Giving

Overcoming Psychological Barriers to Giving, NCFP explores the behavioral science behind the ten most common barriers to giving—such as too many choices, fear of uncomfortable family dynamics, and lack of urgency—and provides effective and actionable ways for donors to overcome those barriers.

A Guide to Meaningfully Engaging Next-Generation Adults in Your Philanthropy

Welcoming next-generation family members at any stage requires careful planning, but formally doing so when they are adults can be particularly complex. This report addresses these challenges and provides a roadmap for successful onboarding of next-generation adults.

The NCFP Guide for Effective Family Philanthropy

In philanthropy, meaningful change is the aim—it’s the purpose and the promise. But in striving for and achieving impact, have we been effective?

Navigating Family Philanthropy—Video Series

A comprehensive introduction to critical concepts in family philanthropy.

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Philanthropy in Complex, Multi-Generational Families

This research examines the ways that families work together in their philanthropy over time. In particular, it considers how the family foundation’s design and operation is informed by—and informs the family’s philanthropic activities that take place outside of it.

Building the Board Your Foundation Deserves: The Governance Checklist

This Passages guide, written by NCFP Founder and Senior Fellow Ginny Esposito, introduces and describes a checklist of governance-related questions you will likely want to address with your board.

Legacy in Family Philanthropy: A Modern Framework

We are pleased to share with you a modern framework for legacy. Within this publication and its companion workbook, you’ll find guidance and strategies, as well as stories from giving families and questions for your own reflection to help bring this framework to life. The workbook now also features a collection of 10 legacy discussion modules, each offering activities and tips for discussing various aspects of legacy and its connection to your current and future philanthropy. We hope you’ll find inspiration, motivation, and practical tools for application.

Splendid Legacy 2: Creating and Re-creating your Family Legacy

Written by thought leader and NCFP founding president Ginny Esposito, Splendid Legacy 2 offers advice and resources from from the field’s foremost experts in family philanthropy. Splendid Legacy 2 is a must-own volume for any family that is looking to build a philanthropic legacy, as well as for advisors and others interested in understanding this special giving vehicle.

CEO Guides

NCFP’s CEO guides were written to help CEOs and family foundation boards better understand the qualities of effective family foundation leadership as well as its special challenges. We hope the guides will support CEOs as they master the complex demands of their position.

Trends 2020

Trends 2020: Results of the Second National Benchmark Survey of Family Foundations shares updated trends on the governance and management practices of U.S. family foundations, and includes new questions relevant to ongoing changes in the field including issues of equity, place-based giving, transparency, the role of the donor, and the question of spend down versus perpetuity.

Pride of Place: Sustaining a Family Commitment to Geography

How has place-based family philanthropy evolved over time? Pride of Place: Sustaining a Family Commitment to Geography is a study of place-based foundations and funds. A place-based foundation or fund is committed—often exclusively—to a particular geographic region of the country.

Balancing Purpose, Payout, and Permanence

This Strategy Guide invites you to reflect more deeply on how your foundation chooses to balance four factors—purpose, conditions and trends, time horizons, and assets for mission—especially in times of greater crisis or opportunity.

The Power to Produce Wonders: The Value of Family in Philanthropy

The first ever in-depth examination of the value of family philanthropy to the family, to communities and to democracy, based on the perspectives of more than 300 family philanthropy leaders through individual interviews, discussions at 14 regional symposia and sessions at a national symposium in Washington, DC.

Generations of Giving: Leadership and Continuity in Family Foundations

Using detailed and comprehensive analysis, Generations of Giving: Leadership and Continuity in Family Foundations examines continuity and leadership over time within family foundations. Based upon a study of foundations in the United States and Canada that have survived through at least two generations, the authors ask probing questions, including: Why were the foundations started? What did they look like at the beginning? How did the families of the founders come to be involved? And how did they organize themselves to do their work from year to year, decade to decade?

Breaking Up: Divorce in Family Philanthropy

This Passages guide is part one of a two-part series on divorce and division in family philanthropy, featuring tips for what board and staff members can do to prepare and cope. This first part includes case studies on family foundations who have navigated divorce, questions to consider when developing board policies, and perspectives on the implications of divorce on assets and grantees.

Breaking Up: Division in Family Philanthropy

This Passages is part two of a two-part series on divorce and division in family philanthropy, featuring tips for what board and staff can do to plan ahead for potential change. The second part includes stories and advice from those who have been through, or advised, families as they divided their philanthropy.

The Family Governance Pyramid: Enhancing and Guiding Your Family Philanthropy

The Family Governance Pyramid provides a model and framework for philanthropic families that is even more relevant and necessary today than when it was first introduced nearly two decades ago. This article provides some perspective on why, and how, families can apply this model to their family and philanthropy, for the good of all.

Demystifying Decision Making in Family Philanthropy

This Passages Issue Brief examines the kinds of decisions that family foundations often face and sets out practical, easy-to-apply guidelines for ensuring that the foundation’s decision-making methods vary appropriately, as conditions and circumstances change. It includes factors to consider when selecting a decision-making method, guidance on how to communicate clearly, simple tools to help make good decisions, and short case studies that illustrate how the tools work.

Death, Legacy, and Leadership Transition

The death of a foundation leader or senior family member is likely the most emotional change a foundation will undergo. Suddenly, or not so suddenly, family members and the board face grief and loss, and also an onslaught of financial, legal, and organizational issues. How can you plan ahead, as a foundation and as a family? And how can you honor your late leader’s legacy while moving the foundation forward?

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