Time flies when you are doing good work. The Danville Regional Foundation launched its Make It Happen! (MIH!) program in November 2010 to show that everybody can make a difference through incremental changes, no matter how small. Now, approximately 18 months later, we just awarded our 50th MIH!…

It’s been about a month since I returned from Los Angeles, where I attended the Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) National Conference and the Council on Foundations Annual Conference. I am extremely grateful that those organizations partnered to provide “Stay in L.A.” scholarships to…

I recently had the opportunity to connect with several young nonprofit professionals at a lunch meeting. After learning about issues several were facing that ended up complicating work with grantees, I immediately suggested several free technology tools that could streamline their current work.…

With one-third of Americans still lacking broadband Internet connections at home, access to the internet is often considered an equity issue. Yet programs aimed at narrowing the digital divide may leave their strongest legacies in the areas of community and economic development.  Online access…

It was suggested in a half-joking manner that I should write a blog on my last day at the Council. At first I dismissed it, thinking it would be cheesy. I could write about the great colleagues I worked with, the knowledge of philanthropy I gained, or the numerous relationships I developed in the…

On May 15, the San José City Council approved a strong municipal ordinance that will curb the impact of predatory payday lending on residents of America’s 10th largest city. The vote, on a motion by Councilman Ash Kalra, is the latest and largest victory in Silicon Valley Community Foundation’s…

Part 2: Collaboration I see collaborative work and outcomes management as two sides of the same “working smarter” coin. I discussed outcomes management in my first post in this series, and my organization, Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), has embraced its importance. VPP is committed to…

Part 1: Outcomes Management At Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP), we talk a lot about one number: $31 million. Well, $31.4 million to be exact, the amount of money we raised for our first fund of nonprofits in the National Capital Region. We are proud of this number, but there is another number…

What business does a community foundation have hawking for-profit deals to its donors and other community members?  How does it improve the quality of life in their community?  How does it promote the spirit and practice of philanthropy and service?   Well it turns out, some…

I recently attended the 2012 Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) and the Council on Foundation conferences in Los Angeles. I must say that attending both of them were turning points in my career. I’m in the process of changing from a career in fashion to a career in philanthropy. Although…

As the CEO of the Community Foundation of Louisville, I travel to Washington, D.C., each year and make the rounds as part of Foundations on the Hill, supported by the Council on Foundations and the Southeastern Council of Foundations. For most of us, this journey is a sprint, since we visit dozens…

For today’s post, we’ve asked two leaders to weigh in on topics of interest to young, growing community foundations. Their organizations—Kern Community Foundation and The Community Foundation of Mendocino County—participated in Community Foundations Initiative II, a multiyear initiative by The…

Recently, I had the pleasure of attending the Center for Digital Information’s session on philanthropy and the digital public dialogue at theCouncil on Foundations Annual Conference in Los Angeles. Jeff Stanger, director of the center, arranged a session that brought together 21st century thought…

Yesterday, I wrote a bit about how funders, like all humans, are programmed by millions of years of evolution to hate failure. But our DNA hasn’t kept pace with the changing times. If our brains were adapted to the modern world instead of the prehistoric reality of the first apes with opposable…

Last year, influenced by the hype around Darwin’s 150th anniversary, I developed an interest in evolutionary theory. I read a few books about it, including the masterful Darwin’s Dangerous Idea, and since then I’ve been kind of obsessed. I usually find myself in odd moments trying to analyze human…

“The movement towards outcomes-driven philanthropy has done a lot to diminish creativity,” concluded one CEO at a recent GMA Foundations’ NPO Conversation on creativity. At this regular lunchtime forum, leaders of seven Boston-area nonprofits were asked to open up about their organization’s most…