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Proposal Review Flowchart
Sample Document
This sample proposal review flowchart may be useful for establishing your foundation's processes for grant review.
Sample Grant Proposal Application Checklist
Sample Document
This sample grant proposal application checklist can be customized to your foundation's processes, allowing you to check off each step of the grant application process.
Stewardship Principles for Corporate Grantmakers
Publication
The Stewardship Principles for Corporate Grantmakers are a set of governance best practices that embody how corporate philanthropies can reflect fundamental values including honesty, integrity, fairness, and trust, in their board governance, management, and grantmaking.
Sample Proposal Acknowledgment Letter
Sample Document
This sample grant proposal acknowledgment letter will allow you to let prospective grantees know that their application has been received.
Sample Post-Grant Self-Evaluation
Sample Document
This sample post-grant evaluation can be customized to your foundation and provided to your grantees to submit at the conclusion of their grant.
Sample Grant Agreement – No Expenditure Responsibility
Sample Document
This document is an editable grant agreement for grants not requiring expenditure responsibility.
This sample document is being provided for informational purposes only and is not to be shared without the permission of the Council on Foundations. Use of the sample document does not create an…
Managing Your Family Foundation: Consider These Options
Fundamentals
Looking for the single best way to manage a family foundation? You may be looking for a long time. Because family foundations are unique within the foundation world, there is no one-size-fits-all answer to management. Each family creates its own rules and structures for its foundation, allowing for…
Knowing How and When to Monitor, Assess, and Evaluate Grants
Fundamentals
A family foundation's legal responsibilities for monitoring, assessing, or evaluating the grants it makes to organizations with 501(c)(3) tax exempt status are minimal. The IRS requires little in the way of detailed reporting on the outcome of specific grants—except for grants to organizations that…
Sample Foundation Investment Policy
Sample Document
This document is an editable foundation investment policy template.
This sample document is being provided for informational purposes only and is not to be shared without the permission of the Council on Foundations. Use of the sample document does not create an attorney-client relationship, and…
Stewardship Principles for Independent Foundations
Legal Compliance Guidance
The Stewardship Principles for Independent Foundations are a set of governance best practices that embody how independent foundations can reflect fundamental values such as honesty, integrity, fairness, and trust in their board governance, management, and grantmaking.
How to Avoid Self-Dealing for Family Foundations
Legal Compliance Guidance
Slide presentation reviewing the basics of avoiding self-dealing as a family foundation.
Hiring An Archival Consultant
Legal Compliance Guidance
The services of a consultant may prove beneficial to an organization considering the creation of a records management or archival program.
From a consultation, those who oversee the records and archives project should derive a general sense of the existing historical record of the organization —…
Sample Grant File Index
Sample Document
This sample grant file index allows you to see the types of information which your foundation may need to keep on each of your grantees.
Family vs. Nonfamily Management: The Castle Foundation Shares Its Story
Sample Document
By Al Castle, Executive Director Samuel N. and Mary Castle Foundation
Al Castle is a family trustee of the Samuel N. and Mary Castle Foundation in Honolulu. After serving on the board for several years, he was hired as the first executive director of the foundation by his fellow board members. He…
Stewardship Principles for Family Foundations
Legal Compliance Guidance
The Stewardship Principles for Family Foundations are a set of governance best practices that embody how family foundations can reflect fundamental values (including honesty, integrity, fairness, and trust) in their board governance, management, and grantmaking.
About Council Resources
As a benefit of membership, the Council on Foundations attorneys and legal staff provide information and education to Council members regarding a variety of topics related to foundation operations and legal compliance. All information on this website, and all publications, articles, e-mail correspondence and telephone consultations provided by Council attorneys and legal staff are intended for informational purposes only and not as part of an attorney-client relationship. Council attorneys are not licensed in every state and cannot provide legal representation.
The information is not a substitute for expert legal, tax or other professional advice tailored to your specific circumstances, and may not be relied upon for the purposes of avoiding any penalties that may be imposed under the Internal Revenue Code. Council members may e-mail legal@cof.org with inquiries and for more information.
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