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In September 2023, a group of 15 foundations joined 20 bilateral donors in signing a Donor Statement committing to advancing locally led development. After recent global shifts in foreign assistance and the dismantling of USAID, the Council on Foundations wanted to understand how philanthropy has…
Foundations have been partnering with USAID in a variety of ways to advance locally led development, and below are how some of those partnerships are being executed. For member foundations interested in working with USAID on their own locally led development initiatives, Council on Foundations…
The Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy recently completed a study on American attitudes and knowledge about philanthropy. The findings, in short: Americans have favorable impressions of charitable giving and nonprofits, but many are unfamiliar with the sector itself,…
The challenges of the recent financial downturn have inspired many community foundations to find new paths to business model innovation. Alliances, affiliations, and mergers offer one path to “shared success.” Seeking shared success with other community foundations is one intriguing way to innovate…
The report explores the ways in which infrastructure organizations think about the value and the mechanics of collaboration—the drivers and barriers to collaborative work—and determine ways to encourage more effective partnerships. The publication features a framework for understanding…
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Community Foundations around the country recognize that they must deploy capital beyond financial assets to improve their regions. At the same time, our community leadership has grown frustrated by the pace of change. Most of these leaders have come to understand that…
One of the greatest challenges encountered in thinking about evaluation is that there usually is more than one acceptable way to evaluate a given grant, project, or program.
The form that an evaluation takes and the products that it yields will depend on choices made about the following issues…
As different as foundations can be from one another, they all share the need to know what works and, especially, what works well. The more foundations can show how their grants are making a difference, the more value they can bring to their communities.
To know what works, foundations must…
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…