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Want Equity? Then It’s Time to Break the Rules!
Back in June, we wrote about the need for nonprofits to better understand what it really costs them to deliver services, and on a related note, how funders can adapt their grantmaking practices to better support work around equity, inclusion, and oppor …
The New Fundraising Frontier: Impact Investing
Capital campaigns can be a slog! Most organizations face similar challenges: donor fatigue, the time it takes to raise funds, rising development costs, and concerns about falling short of your fundraising goals. But what if there were another way to ra …
Point-Counterpoint: Too Much Influence or Not Enough – Should Nonprofits Be Allowed to Support Political Candidates
After signalling his intentions to do so at the National Prayer Breakfast in February, on May 4, President Trump signed an executive order aimed at weakening the Johnson Amendment, an act that has received mixed reaction from the nonprofit world …
After 25 Years of Grant Making, I Worry We Have Lost Sight of Nonprofit Struggles
A lot of people write about grantmaking, but this essay in the Chronicle of Philanthropy in September is the best we’ve have seen at summarizing the problems with foundations and the way they fund nonprofits. It’s worth your time to read. Elspet …
The Founding Fathers Write a Grant Proposal
“Just look at this second sentence!” groaned Samuel Adams. “‘We hold these truths to be self-evident . .’ This flies in the face of ‘evidence-based practice’! We’ll never get funded!” Another delegate had a different complaint: “This mission sta …
The Philanthropic-Consultant Industrial Complex . . . editor notes issue #74
You’ve probably heard of the 5% payout requirement for foundations . . . but most people mistakenly believe this means that foundations must grant out 5% of their assets each year. Actually, foundations must spend 5% of their assets each year . …
Contract Wizardry: Conjuring Impact from Government Contracts
Have you ever tried to piece together eleven government contracts for overlapping programs, trying to make them fit together to fund all the costs? Or have you had six foundation grants, all for the same program area, but each requiring different …
Foundation-Nonprofit “Partnerships” — Fact or Fiction?
We are pleased to publish this article simultaneously with the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy: The question posed to me by NCRP for this article: “Is it possible for a foundation and a grantee to have an honest, real partners …
How to Hire Your First Development Director
The only thing worse than not having fundraising staff is having bad fundraising staff. To help you avoid the mistakes many others have made in hiring development staff, we’ve stolen a script of a scene with consultant Leyna Bernstein as she talk …
Grantseeker’s Guide to Foundation Affinity Groups
Like the mysterious Freemasons and their Grand Lodges, foundation affinity groups feel open and warm to insiders, but to outsiders they appear to be secretive, cloistered societies with their own coded languages, titles, and hierarchies. Rick Cohen fir …
