September represents the start of a new school year, and at the Council our global program has been incredibly busy this month, from disaster response to major programming alongside the United Nations General Assembly in New York. During this 2017 hurricane season, we have witnessed several storms…

Tax practitioners love “safe harbors” or specific guidelines that can be followed to ensure a taxpayer or exempt organization is in compliance with applicable tax law. For charitable organizations making grants internationally, September 14, 2017 was a good day because the IRS issued Revenue…

Zero, in the context of a healthy world, is the most ambitious number of all. If the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were about making progress to achieve a healthy planet and people, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are about getting to zero, or as close to it as possible. The Global…

It has been an eventful month with back to back hurricanes causing extensive damage in Florida,Texas, and the Caribbean. The Council has been in contact with community foundations in the affected areas to offer our thoughts and has set up some valuable resources which I am sharing in this issue.…

Government, charities, and businesses are stepping up to respond to Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Jose. In the last week, a flood of new or updated resources were released just in time for National Preparedness Month. Here are some that the Council on Foundations is using to work with our members.…

When people think of the myriad of partnerships in which the Council engages, the legal team may not come first to mind. But the fact of the matter is, the legal team regularly engages with other organizations, particularly our regional partners, on behalf of the sector. Recently, I, along with my…

I hope you have been enjoying a relatively mild summer, using the time to explore the outdoors and hopefully take a much needed vacation. As the end of summer draws near, we are fully in planning-mode. This September marks two years since we began supporting the Sustainable Development Goals at the…

In the Council’s recently published Community Foundation Business Model Disruptions in the 21st Century, Kevin Murphy cited a debate simmering in the community foundation field about the future of community foundation business model. At the Council, we have seen a growing trend in community…

Editor’s Note: As our Summer 2017 Intern Class wraps up, we asked Communications Intern Meghan Ervine to track down past interns and see where they are now and what they gained from the Council internship experience. Details on the Council’s Fall 2017 internship opportunities and how to apply can…

This spring I traveled to Japan, where I had the opportunity to visit the Hosoo textile company in Kyoto. The company was founded in 1688 and has been passed down through 12 generations of the same family, still sitting on the same site. Formerly focused on textiles for traditional garments used in…

Recently, Council staff traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico to join more than 50 funders to discuss how the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are relevant to local challenges facing communities across the Southwest. The gathering was the sixth city in a series of national conversations about the…

At the Citi Foundation, we believe that success is a combination of the impact we can generate directly through our grant making and the influence we can have on others by amplifying what works (or what isn’t working)—and most importantly why success matters. Earlier this year, on behalf of Citi…

First, a bit of exciting personal news: my family is anticipating the arrival of our second child any day now—thus, I will eventually be on paternity leave until early September. During this time, I will have an away message with an array of ways for you to connect with the right person. We are…

Say hello to Armature, the new technical software designed specifically to collect data for program accreditation. As I uploaded my foundation documents and data to apply for accreditation, I couldn’t help but to smile due to the ease of entering data and uploading documents to the system. As a…

The Council and the San Diego Grantmakers are teaming up to support the Veterans Philanthropy Exchange by co-hosting a mid-year convening in San Diego on November 29 and 30. The Veterans Philanthropy Exchange is a network of grantmakers that support nonprofits providing services and resources to…

By Meghan Irvine It is truly mind boggling to think that my time at the Council is wrapping up. It seemed like just yesterday, or six short weeks ago to be exact, that I was nervously entering a new internship in an unfamiliar city, with little knowledge about foundations and having no idea what…