Trends in Family Philanthropy: Learnings for Effectiveness and Impact

Posted on November 19, 2024

What do the latest trends in family philanthropy tell us about effectiveness and impact?  Join us to dive into select findings from the Trends 2025 report. You will hear from family foundations about how these trends relate to their impact and effectiveness.   We’ll cover topics including relationships, accountability, and equity, and ask questions like:   How are family relationships changing, especially… Read More

Equitable Data Collection, Evaluation, and Sharing

Posted on November 19, 2024

How can funders reduce the burden on grantees when requesting demographic data? What information are funders collecting from their nonprofit partners, and what information is needed to make informed decisions and build trusting relationships?   Funders are increasingly requesting demographic data from nonprofits to better understand the types of organizations and leaders that they are—and are not—supporting. Due to the lack… Read More

Internal Evaluation and Learning

Posted on December 15, 2022 by Brittany Green Daniels, Arturo Garcia, Bruce Karmazin, Prentice Zinn

A family philanthropy has a much better chance of success if there is an intentional culture that values continuous improvement, feedback and professional development, and an integrated approach of learning and assessment across governance, philanthropic strategy, succession, and more. The assessment process asks organizations to evaluate their philanthropic purpose, governance, team, accountability, finances, and family—to answer how you can continually… Read More

Listening and Feedback: Tools to Assess Your Philanthropy

Posted on December 15, 2022 by C. Davis Parchment, Yvonne Belanger, Brenda Solorzano

Listening and Feedback: In Family Philanthropy
How can you elicit and act on feedback from your grantees and other external stakeholders? For all funders, gathering feedback is a helpful practice to understand how your work is impacting your grantees—and how you can more deeply incorporate the perspectives and experience of your partners and communities you serve. There are a number of tools available to facilitate this… Read More

Grantmaking Reporting Best Practices: Delivering Insights from Your Data to Your Leadership

Posted on June 13, 2022 by David Hazeltine

stacks of papers with blue and gray charts and graphs
This webinar is presented by Blackbaud in partnership with NCFP. Many funders have staff leaders who request robust data and reports to make informed, forward-looking decisions. It can be challenging to balance the information needs of staff leaders with the desire to be a grantmaking institution that limits the administrative burden and reporting requirements of its grantees. When selecting a… Read More

Direct Philanthropy Starter Kit

Posted on March 14, 2022 by Article Group Org

Shift power to local hands, work with the most effective movement leaders, and build long-term community power from the ground up. Our goal is to help new and experienced funders incorporate direct philanthropy as a living practice. We created this starter kit as a lightweight crash course, so you walk away confident and ready to partner directly with communities… Read More

Community Foundation Spark Session: Strategy Conversations with Donors

Posted on January 10, 2022 by Kim Montez, Melinda Mosier, Tony Macklin

Across income brackets, most donors are satisfied with philanthropy as an expression of personal commitment, belonging, or faith. Some start asking questions about intentionality and impact, seeking advice from peers and experts. What tools and techniques do community foundations use to help these donors move from discovery to intent, intent to strategy, and strategy to action? How might those tools… Read More

Practicing the Equitable Evaluation Framework™

Posted on December 8, 2021 by Katy Pelissier, Kimberlee Salmond, Henriët Hendriks, Marcia Coné

As philanthropy evolves and moves to centering equity, assessment, research, learning, and evaluation strategies must also evolve. What is the Equitable Evaluation Framework (EEF) and how do we engage with the EEF? Join your colleagues in a conversation about how they are seeding and growing a field of EEF practitioners to shift the paradigm. About this Series The monthly Fundamentals… Read More

Why Am I Always Being Researched?

Posted on August 30, 2021 by Chicago Beyond

In this publication, Chicago Beyond offers “how” we can begin to level the playing field and reckon with unintended bias when it comes to research. This guidebook was created to help shift the power dynamic and the way community organizations, researchers, and funders uncover knowledge together. It is an equity-based approach to research that offers one way in which we… Read More