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The Silicon Valley Out-of-School-Time Collaborative invested in a cohort of regional nonprofit organizations to sustain and strengthen their ability to serve more students with stronger academic and social-emotional programming. Partners in the collaborative included three family foundations that together made an initial $1.6 million pooled investment over three years, and eight nonprofits that collectively served more than 7,000 low-income middle and high school students outside normal school hours. From the start of the partnership, funders and grantees held regular meetings focused on shared learning, trust building and dialogue. A midcourse evaluation of the collaborative showed that grantees were stronger, programs were better and are reaching more students, and funders had adopted new, collaborative grantmaking practices. The funders invested another $900,000 into a second phase of the work and committed to more flexibility –– letting grantees drive the group’s planning and learning efforts, and manage consultants, budgeting and group communications. Grantees also opted to redirect the focus of the collaborative from capacity building to program development and evaluation, with the added goal of sharing effective afterschool and summer program models with others, both inside and outside the region.
A new nonpartisan resource, Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy, provides data about foundations and their democracy-related grantmaking in a structured, contextualized, and visual format. Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy was created through a partnership of eight funders in the field, including the Rita Allen Foundation, and is being developed by the Foundation Center.
The tool allows funders, nonprofits and other interested parties to sift through data on the $1.7 billion (and counting) granted by foundations to strengthen civic engagement in the United States since 2011. For the first time, we have an open tool for visualizing who gave how much to whom for what. While the tool and the data will continue to develop, it already gives a tremendously useful view of opportunities for greater partnerships and knowledge in the field—both for funders and for the organizations, small and large, established and emerging, working to strengthen our democracy. As Kelly Born of the Hewlett Foundation, another of the project partners, writes in a post introducing the tool: “As useful as this data set and visualization will be for foundations already working in the field or new funders considering entering it, the real killer app for this work will be to help grant seekers.”
Philanthropy can be defined in many ways. The word comes from the Greek, meaning "love for humanity." Modern definitions include the concept of voluntary giving by an individual or group to promote the common good and improve the quality of life.
Here in the United States, the term "philanthropy" is also used to describe the granting of money to nonprofit organizations by foundations and corporations. This type of giving is often called organized philanthropy or grantmaking.
This popular, fast-paced video offers a realistic — and often humorous — glimpse of how the public views philanthropy, using a series of "people in the street" interviews shot in the Twin Cities plus interviews with local donors. Discover the true, and often not so true, meaning of philanthropy.
Co-produced by the Minnesota Council on Foundations, The Minneapolis Foundation and the Minnesota Community Foundation and The Saint Paul Foundation.
Impact100 South Jersey announced that it will award $200,000 in grants to local nonprofits as a result of its fall 2020 collective giving membership drive. Members gathered virtually on Wednesday, Jan 6th for the Big Reveal and celebration. The event was held to share the number of members who have joined and the total raised for grantmaking in 2021. This brings the total funds raised collectively by Impact100 South Jersey members to over $624,000 since 2017.
“With such a tremendous increase in need in our region, it’s been very rewarding to see how our generous members have responded, in a year that has been very challenging for many,” said Membership Co-Chair Angela Venti. “On behalf of the Impact100 Leadership Council, I’d like to express our deep appreciation for the way our new and existing members embraced coming together virtually in lieu of in person events, which we miss so much. We look forward to the time soon when we can bring our members together in person again to strengthen the bonds within our collective women’s giving community.”
The barriers to everyone in America having a fair shot at living their healthiest life are too great to address through grantmaking alone.
For decades, we’ve worked to change systems and policies in order to make the healthy choice the easier choice, especially for those facing the greatest obstacles to good health. Another approach is to shift capital markets—and we can do that through impact investing. Impact investing can create both bottom-line financial returns for investors and improve health, well-being and equity through investments in the community finance system.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has reaffirmed its commitment to impact investing through a $200 million allocation for social investments and by appointing Kimberlee Cornett as director of impact investments to lead this strategy.
As part of the $200 million effort, RWJF has already completed several impact investments to respond to the COVID-19 crisis and to support the community development finance system.