Browse philanthropy Resources
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LearnPhilanthropy LearnPhilanthropy's Knowledge Library is a resource for people who are new to grantmaking or those seeking new ideas and tools to improve their grantmaking practice. Here you will find essential learning and new research on a range of common issues and key challenges in philanthropy. Working with leading organizations across the field, LearnPhilanthropy regularly updates this centralized library with reports, tools, and other resources. Author: LearnPhilanthropy Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Sep 23, 2014 Point K Pick Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Making an Impact: Impact Measurement among Charities and Social Enterprises in the UK Ten years ago, critics dismissed impact measurement as too difficult, misleading, or simply not important. Today, 75% of UK charities measure some or all of their work, and nearly three-quarters have invested more in measuring results over the last five years. Making an impact offers the first representative picture of the charity sector’s response to the challenge of impact measurement.
NPC surveyed 1,000 charities in the UK with incomes over £10,000 to understand what has changed in charities’ impact measurement practices, the drivers behind measuring impact, and the benefits and challenges that it brings.Author: Eibhlín Ní Ógáin, Tris Lumley, David Pritchard Type: Research & Reports Date: Oct 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (726.51 KB) -
Measuring What Counts: Meaningful Evaluation for Family Foundations Family foundations are in business to make a difference. As one family foundation leader put it, creating a family foundation is a “powerful statement about wanting to achieve impact.” Yet family foundations often get painted unfairly as not having impact, perhaps because tthey aren’t always very good at understanding or describing the impact they have, even to themselves.Author: Anne Mackinnon Type: Research & Reports Date: Nov 1, 2011 Be the first to review this resource! Download (569.13 KB) -
Nonprofit Good Practice Guide This free online guide captures and organizes good practices for nonprofits and foundations. Literally thousands of effectiveness-building tips and resources are available here, searchable by topic. Topics include:
- Advocacy,
- Evaluation,
- Financial management,
- Fundraising,
- Governance,
- Marketing and communications,
- Organizational management,
- Technology, and
- Volunteer management.
Author: Morales-Barias, Susan, et al. Type: Websites & Online Tools Date: Jan 18, 2008 Point K Pick
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Philanthropic Freedom: A Pilot Study Hudson Institute’s Center for Global Prosperity (CGP) is pleased to announce the publication of Philanthropic Freedom: A Pilot Study, the first time that the ease of giving has been fully measured and compared across 13 countries. The pilot study and each of the detailed country reports can be downloaded for free from www.Hudson.org/PhilanthropicFreedom.
Author: Hudson Institute Center for Global Prosperity Type: Research & Reports Date: Mar 28, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.31 MB) -
Philanthropy and Mistakes: An Untapped Resource This article discusses how foundations and their nonprofit partners might think about failure and share their hard-learned lessons. The authors first distinguish among different types of mistakes and how they relate to specific types of foundation investments. The authors then discusses three examples that represent different types of mistakes that foundations and their nonprofit partners make. Finally, the authors offer lessons to foundations about adapting, learning, and sharing in the face of failure.
Author: Robert Giloth and Susan Gewirtz Type: Research & Reports Date: Jan 1, 2009 Be the first to review this resource! Download (520.58 KB) -
Philanthropy and the Social Economy: Blueprint 2015 Philanthropy and the Social Sector 2015 is an annual industry forecast about the social economy -- private resources used for public benefit. Each year, the Blueprint provides an overview of the current landscape, points to major trends, and directs your attention to horizons where you can expect some breakthroughs in the coming year. This year I'm excited to broaden my horizons to include insights from 14 countries other than the United States. This is possible due to a new working relationship with betterplace lab in Berlin.
Author: Lucy Bernholz Type: Research & Reports Date: Dec 1, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Download (2.36 MB) -
Room for Improvement: Foundations' Support of Nonprofit Performance Assessment Amidst growing pressure for nonprofits to measure and assess their performance, the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) finds that nonprofits sorely lack the support they need. CEP finds that 81 percent of the nonprofits surveyed believe that nonprofits should demonstrate the effectiveness of their work by using performance measures.
CEP also finds that:
» Nonprofits very much want to be able to understand their performance and are taking steps to do so. Nonprofits want more help in performance assessment efforts than they are currently receiving from their foundation funders.Author: Brock, Andrea; Buteau, Ellie; Herring, An-Li Type: Research & Reports Date: Sep 1, 2012 Be the first to review this resource! Download (1.04 MB) -
Social Movements and Philanthropy: How Foundations Can Support Movement Building Building on research conducted for the California Endowment, this article describes five core movement-building elements and provides a framework for activities that foundations can support to foster movement building. Movement building presents unique challenges to foundations. Because movements, by definition, must be driven by the people who are most affected, foundations cannot determine the goals and timetables of a movement. Foundation investments in movements are just that – investments for the long term. Author: Barbara Masters, M.A., and Torie Osborn, M.B.A. Type: Newsletters & Periodicals Date: Oct 2, 2010 Be the first to review this resource! Download (326.55 KB) -
State of Evaluation in the Social Sector Measurement, evaluation, and learning are hotter than ever in the social sector. Foundations and nonprofits are focused on answering the question What difference are we making? And the field of evaluation has advanced in promising ways, developing meaningful evaluation approaches to better fit the latest philanthropic and nonprofit strategies. Author: Johanna Morariu and Will Fenn Type: Templates & Samples Date: Mar 21, 2013 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
Success and Failure in the Evaluation Process What do the terms "success" and "failure" really mean in the philanthropic world? Funders have taken different approaches to learning from initiatives that haven't gone quite as they had hoped. Some funders want to learn from their mistakes, some provide technical assistance to lagging grantees, and some want to focus their light on "bright spots" and grantee successes.
Author: Kat Athanasiades Type: Presentation Slides Date: Mar 1, 2015 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link -
The Challenge of Assessing Policy and Advocacy Activities The paper is designed to outline an approach to policy change evaluation grounded in the experience of experts and foundation colleagues. (See Appendix A for the research methodology.) This paper first posits three key priorities in evaluating policy change work, drawn from interviews with grantees and staff from The California Endowment on their needs concerning policy change evaluation. It also discusses the challenges inherent in monitoring and assessing these types of grants.
Author: Commissioned by The California Endowment. Researched and Written by Blueprint Research and Design, Inc. Type: Research & Reports Date: Oct 1, 2005 Be the first to review this resource! Download (2.84 MB) -
Using Evaluation to Become an Effective Learning Organization Philanthropists have an obligation to learn. The best way to make smarter philanthropic investments over time—and get better results from those investments—is to generate good information about what’s working, what’s not working, and why. And evaluation is key in this process.
Author: Grantmakers for Effective Organizations and PhilanthroFiles Type: Research & Reports Date: Sep 24, 2014 Be the first to review this resource! Web Link