The Center for Effective Philanthropy

Last updated
The Center for Effective Philanthropy, Inc.
TypeNon-profit research institute
04-3523528
Location
Coordinates 42°13′21″N71°03′50″W / 42.2225°N 71.0638°W / 42.2225; -71.0638
Key people
Phil Buchanan
President
Website cep.org

The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization focused on the development of comparative data to enable higher-performing philanthropic funders.

Contents

CEP's mission is to provide data so that philanthropic funders can improve their effectiveness. CEP believes that improved effectiveness of philanthropic funders can have a positive impact on nonprofit organizations and the people and communities they serve.

CEP pursues its mission through data collection that fuels:

History

CEP received initial funding in 2001, produced its first publication in 2002, and conducted its first Grantee Perception Reports and Applicant Perception Reports in 2003. [4] Since then, CEP has produced 34 research reports [5] on foundation performance assessment, foundation strategy, foundation governance, and foundation-grantee relationships. More than 285 foundations, most among the largest in the United States, have used CEP's assessment tools, and many have implemented significant changes on the basis of what they have learned. [6]

CEP has created data sets relevant to foundation leaders, surveying foundations' staffs, [7] boards, grantees, stakeholders, donors, and even beneficiaries and applicants. CEP hosts programming [8] focused on issues related to funder effectiveness.

CEP's work was reported on in a 2004 article in The New York Times, "Charities Surprise Donor Foundations with Bluntness" [4] and The Chronicle of Philanthropy profiled CEP in their 2005 article "Giving Charities a Voice". [9] In June 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy highlighted CEP's work with the Gates Foundation developing a survey for students attending Gates-funded high schools [10]

CEP has a staff of 36 and has offices in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, and San Francisco, California, United States.

Research

CEP's research projects delve into issues of funder effectiveness, examining common practice, and challenging conventional wisdom. [11]

Publications

Related Research Articles

The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death of the two founders, the foundation owned 90% of the non-voting shares of the Ford Motor Company. Between 1955 and 1974, the foundation sold its Ford Motor Company holdings and now plays no role in the automobile company.

Tides Foundation

Tides Foundation is an American public charity and fiscal sponsor working to advance progressive causes and policy initiatives in areas such as the environment, health care, labor issues, immigrant rights, LGBTQ+ rights, women's rights and human rights. It was founded in San Francisco in 1976. Through donor advised funds, Tides distributes money from anonymous donors to other organizations, which are often politically liberal. It manages two centers in San Francisco and New York that offer collaborative spaces for social ventures and other nonprofits.

Philanthropy Roundtable

The Philanthropy Roundtable is a nonprofit organization that advises conservative philanthropists.

Fundraising Process of gathering voluntary contributions of money or other resources

Fundraising or fund-raising is the process of seeking and gathering voluntary financial contributions by engaging individuals, businesses, charitable foundations, or governmental agencies. Although fundraising typically refers to efforts to gather money for non-profit organizations, it is sometimes used to refer to the identification and solicitation of investors or other sources of capital for for-profit enterprises.

Charity Navigator Charity assessment organization that evaluates charitable organizations in the U.S.

Charity Navigator is a charity assessment organization that evaluates hundreds of thousands of charitable organizations based in the United States, operating as a free 501(c)(3) organization. It provides insights into a nonprofit’s financial stability, and adherence to best practices for both accountability and transparency. It is the largest and most-utilized evaluator of charities in the United States. It does not accept any advertising or donations from the organizations it evaluates.

In the United States, a donor-advised fund is a charitable giving vehicle administered by a public charity created to manage charitable donations on behalf of organizations, families, or individuals. To participate in a donor-advised fund, a donating individual or organization opens an account in the fund and deposits cash, securities, or other financial instruments. They surrender ownership of anything they put in the fund, but retain advisory privileges over how their account is invested, and how it distributes money to charities.

A giving circle is a form of participatory philanthropy where groups of individuals donate their own money or time to a pooled fund, decide together where to give these away to charity or community projects and, in doing so, seek to increase their awareness of and engagement in the issues covered by the charity or community project. Many circles, in addition to donating their money, also contribute their time and skills to support local causes.

The New York Community Trust is the community foundation for New York City, with divisions in Westchester and Long Island. It is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the United States and one of the largest funders of New York City's nonprofits.

California Community Foundation

The California Community Foundation(CCF) is a philanthropic organization located in Los Angeles, California. Foundation Center, an independent nonprofit organization, ranks it among the top 100 foundations in the nation by asset size and total giving. Among all community foundations, CCF is 5th by total giving and 7th by asset size, as of the fiscal year that ended 6/30/12.

Global Integrity is an independent, nonprofit organization tracking governance and corruption trends around the world using local teams of researchers and journalists to monitor openness and accountability. Global Integrity's reporting has been cited by over 50 newspapers worldwide, and is used by the World Bank, USAID, Millennium Challenge Corporation and other donor agencies to evaluate aid priorities. Global Integrity's methodology differs considerably from existing metrics of governance and corruption by using local experts and transparent source data, rather than perception surveys. Unlike traditional charities, Global Integrity is a hybrid organization that seeks to generate earned revenue to support its public-interest mission.

Until 1969, the term private foundation was not defined in the United States Internal Revenue Code. Since then, every U.S. charity that qualifies under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Service Code as tax-exempt is a "private foundation" unless it demonstrates to the IRS that it falls into another category such as public charity. Unlike nonprofit corporations classified as a public charity, private foundations in the United States are generally subject to a 1% or 2% excise tax or endowment tax on any net investment income.

New Philanthropy Capital

New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) is a charitable organisation based in London, United Kingdom. It describes itself as "the think tank and consultancy for the social sector." NPC aims to help charities, foundations, philanthropists, impact investors, social enterprises, corporates, and the public sector to maximise social impact in the lives of the people they serve.

GiveWell is an American non-profit charity assessment and effective altruism-focused organization. GiveWell focuses primarily on the cost-effectiveness of the organizations that it evaluates, rather than traditional metrics such as the percentage of the organization's budget that is spent on overhead.

Candid is an information service specializing in reporting on U.S. nonprofit companies. In 2016, its database provided information on 2.5 million organizations. It is the product of the February 2019 merger of GuideStar with Foundation Center.

National Philanthropic Trust(NPT) is an American independent public charity that provides philanthropic expertise to donors, foundations and financial institutions. NPT ranks among the largest grantmaking institutions in the United States.

Donors Trust is an American non-profit donor-advised fund. It was founded in 1999 with the goal of "safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative donors". As a donor advised fund, Donors Trust is not legally required to disclose the identity of its donors, and most of its donors remain anonymous. It distributes funds to various conservative and libertarian organizations, and has been characterized as the "dark money ATM" of the right.

Philanthrojournalism is the practice of journalism as a non-profit organization. Like all non-profit organizations, NPJs depend on private donations or foundation grants to pay for operational expenses. This branch of journalism is not to be confused with other types of nonprofit news media organizations in the non-investigative field. Although they have existed for decades, the proliferation of the World Wide Web and internet have helped create a booming industry of non-profit investigative centers. Their existence has sparked widespread debate over their ability to remain neutral, especially when their revenue depends on ideologically-skewed funding organizations or donors. In times of a large decline in newspaper revenue and crises in the newspaper industries, other scholars have also argued whether this is, in fact, a sustainable initiative. Still others have claimed their support for philanthrojournalism, and its ability to maintain high quality, and be less constrained by advertisers.

In philanthropy, donor intent is the purpose, sometimes publicly expressed, for which a philanthropist intends a charitable gift or bequest. Donor intent is most often expressed in gift restrictions, terms, or agreements between a donor and donee, but it may also be expressed separately in the words, actions, beliefs, and giving practices of a philanthropist. Donor intent is protected in American law regarding charitable trusts, and trustees' primary fiduciary obligation is to carry out a donor's wishes.

The Nonprofit Marketplace Initiative (NMI) was an initiative of the Effective Philanthropy Group of the Hewlett Foundation launched in 2006. Its closure was announced in the Chronicle of Philanthropy in April 2014.

Charity assessment is the process of analysis of the goodness of a non-profit organization in financial terms. Historically, charity evaluators have focused on the question of how much of contributed funds are used for the purpose(s) claimed by the charity, while more recently some evaluators have placed an emphasis on the cost effectiveness of charities.

References

  1. The Center for Effective Philanthropy Research
  2. The Center for Effective Philanthropy Assessment Tools
  3. The Center for Effective Philanthropy Conferences & Events
  4. 1 2 The New York Times Charities Surprise Donor Foundations With Bluntness
  5. The Center for Effective Philanthropy Publications
  6. "Home-GDR Season 2 Launch-mygos FR".
  7. The Center for Effective Philanthropy Listening to Your Staff: An Interview with Doug Kridler, CEO of the Columbus Foundation
  8. Alliance Conference Report Center for Effective Philanthropy Conference
  9. The Chronicle of Philanthropy Giving Charities a Voice
  10. Chronicle of Philanthropy Gates Foundation Seeks to Work Better With Grant Recipients
  11. The Center for Effective Philanthropy Annual Reports