Foundation Center

(Press release, March 3, 2015) — The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) released "Cultivating Nonprofit Leadership: A (Missed?) Philanthropic Opportunity," part two of the "Smashing Silos in Philanthropy" series. The report tackles the philanthropic sector's chronic underinvestment in leadership development, with less than 1 percent of total grant dollars going toward developing and supporting grassroots leaders, according to data from 2003-2012.

Is there a place for secrecy and anonymity in philanthropy? Some argue that there probably should be a place for anonymous giving and for privacy when setting and executing grantmaking strategy. It has become clear that secrecy isn’t really possible anymore. Technology and a shift in societal expectations have completely changed the game. Gone are the days when foundations and other donors could operate quietly below the radar. Those who give away large sums must get on board the transparency train or expect to get run over by it.

(Press release, Dec. 11, 2014) — Foundation Center, the leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide, and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP), the only full-time resource devoted to disaster philanthropy, released a new report to help donors, NGOs, government agencies and media gain an increased understanding of how much foundation funding is spent on disasters each year, by whom and for what activities. Measuring the State of Disaster Philanthropy 2014: Data to Drive Decisions presents an analysis of funding for disasters by the largest U.S. foundations. It finds that, in 2012, 234 foundations made 884 grants totaling $111 million for disasters.

(Press release, Nov. 18, 2014) — Major U.S. charitable foundations made grants for Latin America totaling $1.7 billion from 2010 to 2012, according to a report released by Foundation Center, Hispanics in Philanthropy and Seattle International Foundation. The report, titled “U.S. Foundation Funding: Latin America, 2010 to 2012,” also details grants made specifically for Central America. From 2010 to 2012, 138 foundations awarded 909 grants for Central America totaling $488.4 million. These grants were awarded to organizations in Central America for work in the region or other parts of the world, as well as to recipients located outside of Central America with international programs targeting Central America.

(Press release, Nov. 5, 2014) — According to the new edition of Foundation Center's Key Facts on U.S. Foundations, the country's 86,192 foundations held $715 billion in assets and distributed a record $52 billion in 2012. This annual research study estimates 2013 giving at $54.7 billion, and the outlook for 2014 is for growth to continue ahead of inflation, with independent and family foundations growing at a higher rate than other types of foundations.

Two years after Superstorm Sandy pounded coastal communities from southern New Jersey to Connecticut, nearly six hundred foundations, corporations and other institutional donors have contributed more than $380 million in cash and in-kind gifts for relief, recovery and rebuilding efforts, a report from Foundation Center finds.

Developed in partnership with Philanthropy New York, the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy, the report, found that corporations accounted for the largest share of the $328.4 million in cash pledged to relief and recovery efforts, donating a total of $136.4 million.

It is clear that foundation opportunities exist, but many FQHCs lack the grant sophistication to identify, target and secure these funds. To mitigate these barriers to funding, relying on grant professionals to prospect for key grantseeking priority areas, develop research-based programs, and submit competitive proposals will be critical to FQHCs' long-term grantseeking success in the post-ACA era.

GuideStar announced an important new initiative to monitor the diversity of the nonprofit sector. It plans to work with the D5 Coalition and a range of other partners to collect diversity data about staff, board and volunteer demographics in nonprofits and philanthropy. Saying that past sporadic attempts to collect such information were inadequate, Kelly Brown, director of the D5 coalition, said that the end game of the project is diversity in the sector that is reflective of current demographics but also inclusion and equity.

For at least a decade, movers and shakers in philanthropy have been trying to persuade donors to behave more like data-driven investors. But the so-called effective-philanthropy movement suffered a significant setback last month when the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, a prominent champion of the idea, announced that it was ending an eight-year, $12 million effort to get donors to rely as much on their heads as their hearts.

A strong stock market helped boost the assets last year of big foundations to their highest levels since the Great Recession gutted endowments six years ago, according to a new Chronicle of Philanthropy survey. Yet grant makers still aren’t as well off as they were before the downturn, and that continues to put a damper on their giving. What it’s not doing, though: crimping ambitious new grant-making efforts to deal with vexing problems.