On April 18, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan visited Dubuque, Iowa to launch the Together for Tomorrow campaign.  I was honored to share the stage with him and highlight the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque’s recent work on a third grade reading initiative with our school…

I recently signed a check for our 2012 Council on Foundations dues. Since I’m the chair of the Council that is probably not surprising. But that’s not my day job. My paycheck comes from being the CEO of Berks County Community Foundation. I was the first employee hired by the foundation, and, like…

In 2009, Lumina Foundation set a goal: we wanted to help 60 percent of Americans obtain a high-quality postsecondary degree or be credential by 2025. We began reporting on progress toward the “big goal” in a series called A Stronger Nation through Higher Education. At the time, setting a national…

I never imagined that I would actually be the inaugural winner of the Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award until my name was announced during the awards ceremony in Las Vegas. My immediate reaction was to make the “I Love You” sign, because love is the reason I was there in the first place. My…

On the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots, the opening plenary session at the Council’s Annual Conference, “Realization, Rethinking, and Reinvention in the Wake of Crisis,” looked at how crisis has become a catalyst for change in Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Detroit. While these communities…

With input from IBM and nine other leading companies, the Council on Foundations just launched an ambitious initiative to revitalize and redefine the roles of corporate foundations and philanthropy. Increasing Impact, Enhancing Value: A Practitioner’s Guide to Corporate Philanthropy establishes a…

How can a foundation CEO set a tone and culture that strike the right balance between rational, disciplined, and quantitative grantmaking and passion-driven, responsive, and intuitive approaches?  A packed room of CEOs grappled with this question at the Council’s Annual Conference during the “…

Funders, nonprofit journalists and academics gathered this week at the Council on Foundations convention in Los Angeles to discuss challenges nonprofit news outlets face in getting charitable 501c3 status. It’s part of a project called the Nonprofit Media Working Group, a partnership between…

The closing plenary session at the conference, “What’s the Big Idea? Vignettes About Philanthropy,” rocked! I was very impressed with each of the presenters, as well as with the refreshing approach the Council and the session developers took in designing the session. Absent were the drawn…

I am one of the fortunate recipients of a Stay in LA scholarship, a partnership between Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy (EPIP) and the Council on Foundations to allow Next Gens and emerging leaders (the new affectionate term for young people) to attend the two organizations’ annual…

During “Supporting Our Military Families: Partnerships, Innovation, and Entry Points,” a session at the Annual Conference, Bess Bendet of the Blue Shield of California Foundation shared that the she has tried to convene funders who support programs for military families and veterans, but turnout…

One of the best panels at the Council on Foundations Annual Conference, “Supporting Our Military Families: Partnerships, Innovation, and Entry Points,” addressed how philanthropy can most effectively address the needs of military families. Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have this challenge, if U.…

I’m writing this on May Day and, like every other day, too many working families in south Los Angeles are spending up to 50 percent of their earnings on housing. This amount compares poorly to a recommended maximum expenditure of 30 percent of income on housing. Stable, affordable housing requires…

If you haven’t already, you should start thinking about how transparent you want your organization to be. The Philanthropy Roundtable began looking at this topic and is about to publish a short book, by John Tyler of the Kauffman Foundation, about all of the intricacies involved. So why are we…

Feeling stagnant? Overwhelmed with today’s societal problems? Concerned we’re not making progress and reaching our full potential? Well, please find solace in knowing that global philanthropy is growing by leaps and bounds. In fact, we’re giving birth to a new and improved philanthropy that will be…

At the end of the morning discussion about the power of celebrities in support of causes they care about on day two of the conference, we got a beautiful surprise:  the high, sweet, and brilliant tones of Robert Vijay Gupta’s violin reverberating throughout the ballroom. When he concluded his…