Blog | Voices from the Field

A ‘Balancing Test’ for Foundation Spending

March 10, 2020 | Dimple Abichandani
Editor’s Note: This article, by Dimple Abichandani, executive director of General Service Foundation, was originally published by Stanford Social Innovation Review on February 10, 2020 with the headline: “A ‘Balancing Test’ for Foundation Spending.” One of the most important decisions a foundation makes is how much to spend each year. As distinct from budgetary decisions, spending policies are the invisible architecture shaping Read More

Vicki Andrews

March 3, 2020
Vicki Andrews is the Director of Donor Relations for the North Texas Community Foundation. Vicki loves getting to be part of something bigger and working in service of others in her role at the Community Foundation. For more than 6 years, she has helped honor our fundholders’ intentions, with previous experience as a small-business owner, a preschool director, and a Read More
Blog | Voices from the Field

Successful Generational Transitions: Building Trust and Flexibility into Your Work with Families

Generational transitions are a natural part of family philanthropy—trusting the next generation to honor established values and traditions while asserting their own leadership. Many families seek guidance from philanthropic advisors to find the right balance of implementing changes and maintaining the status quo. In the webinar Successful Generational Transitions, staff members from the Seattle Foundation and the Community Foundation for Read More

Ellen Grill

February 26, 2020
Ellen Grill is the Vice President for Advancement & Philanthropic Services at The Foundation for Delaware County (PA), a new community foundation created in 2016 as a healthcare conversion foundation.  The foundation is Delaware County’s largest independent public foundation, serving more than 560,000 county residents. Read More
Blog | Network News

March 2020: News and Notes from NCFP’s Friends of the Family Network

February 25, 2020
Friends Focus highlights updates from members of our Friends of the Family network and their cutting edge work. This month features updates from the Bainum Family Foundation; Brindle Foundation; The Clowes Fund; Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund; J. M. Kaplan Fund; McKnight Foundation; The Russell Family Foundation; Surdna Foundation; and Zellerbach Family Foundation.  Are you a current Friend or Leadership Circle Read More
Blog | Voices from the Field

How Claneil Foundation Puts Relationships into Practice

February 22, 2020 | The Whitman Institute
Claneil Foundation has valued the importance of relationship since its inception. Over the last four years the foundation has deliberately reexamined its practices with this lens – and it’s been transformational. The Trust-Based Philanthropy Project’s Shaady Salehi sat down with Executive Director Mailee Walker to get the scoop on why they did this and what they’re learning along the way: Read More

Deborah Dauber

February 20, 2020
Deborah Dauber is an experienced strategist with over fifteen years of advising in private and public sectors.  Her consulting practice, Dauber Consulting, provides information and frameworks for strategic planning for both for-profit and non-profit clients. She is a Director for the Dauber Foundation, member and former chair of the Women’s Catalytic Fund of the East Bay Community Foundation, and a Read More

David La Piana

February 18, 2020
David La Piana is the Managing Partner at La Piana Consulting. David helps social sector executives to develop powerful strategies while becoming better leaders for their staffs, boards, and communities. He helps clients quickly home in on their most important strategic issues and begin to develop real, practical solutions. He has authored a number of popular books, including The Nonprofit Read More
Blog | Voices from the Field

Values Lead to Decades of Kindness

February 12, 2020 | Heather Fust
Editor’s note: In this excerpt, Heather Fust writes about putting values into practice through staff culture at Foundant Technologies. The full article was originally published on Foundant Technologies’ website and appears with permission.  As I wrote at the beginning of 2019, “Choose Kind” remains front and center to every interaction and every thought in our day-to-day lives at Foundant. As Read More

San Francisco Foundation

February 12, 2020
Founded in 1948, the San Francisco Foundation is one of the nation’s largest community foundations — a grantmaking public charity dedicated to improving life within a specific local region. Our mission is to mobilize resources and act as a catalyst for change to build strong communities, foster civic leadership, and promote philanthropy in the San Francisco Bay Area. Together with Read More