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New Jersey Center for Nonprofits in partnership with Nonprofit VOTE and the National Council of Nonprofits has developed a nonpartisan Voter Engagement Guide that outlines allowed nonpartisan activities and demonstrates how charitable nonprofits can participate in elections, strengthen their networks, and build relationships with elected officials, all while maintaining neutrality.
In Abundance: An Analysis of the Thriving Landscape of Collective Giving in the U.S. explores the transformative impact of collective giving on philanthropy. Practiced in cultures all around the world, collective giving brings people together to pool their resources, including time, talent, treasure, testimony, and ties — often referred to as the 5Ts. Groups like giving circles, SVP chapters, giving projects, and nonprofit-led circles have long served as democratic and philanthropic learning hubs — bringing historically marginalized voices into philanthropic decision-making spaces, challenging preconceived notions of who is considered a philanthropist, and elevating members as integral actors in our sector’s efforts to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in giving.
A partnership between the Johnson Center, Colmena-Consulting, and Philanthropy Together, this report underscores collective giving groups’ role in reshaping philanthropic practices, fostering social connections, and amplifying the voices of marginalized communities.
This document promotes more effective funder partnerships for social justice. The report highlights lessons from grantee collaboration and aims to inspire philanthropy rooted in equity and justice.
The trust-based philanthropy movement has been gaining momentum recently, but there are still some misconceptions about this approach and its ambitious goal of creating a fairer and more democratic society. This supplement, published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, aims to clarify what a trust-based approach truly entails, why it is crucial for effective philanthropy and what kind of progress we can make if more funders adopt this approach.
Adopted by CNJG”s Board of Trustees in October 2023, these eight Principles offer philanthropy a source of direction for their own equity journey. Each principle begins with a common understanding followed by developmental steps, and the aspiration for each principle. These principles are intended to promote continuous learning, vulnerability, and reflection for how philanthropy can evolve from its historical roots to a more trusting, accountable, and equitable model.
Alexis Bivens, Vice President of Strategic Initiatives and Managing Director of the Supporting Organizing Work Funders Collaborative, Connecticut Council on Philanthropy, presents the process and progress of how an affinity group transformed into a funders collaborative, how it was resourced, and challenges along the way.
This project represents the most extensive independent study on DAFs to date.
Thanks to the collective efforts of 111 DAF programs that voluntarily provided anonymized data to the research team, the dataset covers nine years of activity from more than 50,000 accounts, with over 600,000 inbound contributions to DAFS and more than 2.25 million outbound grants from DAFs.
The DAFRC research team hopes this data will be used to improve best practices, inform relevant regulation, or enhance the field’s use of DAFs as a philanthropic tool for donors, DAF sponsoring organizations, and other sector partners.
At a recent Ocean & Monmouth Funders Roundtable, the group discussed all of the different databases and lists of nonprofits available to philanthropy to be able to research new and different nonprofits.
Funders want to be the best versions of themselves. A critical step on that journey is getting feedback from grantees. However, not every foundation has the time or capacity to collect grantee feedback.
Exponent Philanthropy helps lean funders collect feedback from their communities through the Grantee and Applicant Perception Survey. Over the past 2 years, they’ve worked with six foundations to survey more than 400 nonprofits to learn what lean funders do well and where they can improve..
In this publication, they’ve compiled feedback from those surveys to try and help lean funders understand what nonprofits want them to learn. We’ve organized that feedback into two main sections:.
1. How nonprofits think funders should increase their impact
2. How nonprofits think funders should improve their processes.
Throughout this publication, you’ll find data from our surveys and direct quotes from nonprofit leaders. We provide additional context and data from the 2023 Foundation Operations and Management Report (FOMR) and links to additional resources to learn more about these topics.
ValuesAdvisor, a nonprofit online platform, helps you find the financial expertise needed to implement a mission-aligned investment strategy. Access to ValuesAdvisor is provided at no cost as a benefit of your membership in CNJG.
ValuesAdvisor offers a searchable database of values-oriented investment advisors, who have been suggested by other trusted affinity groups and philanthropy-supporting organizations. The platform offers a simple and dynamic interface that allows you to filter advisor information on data points such as minimum account size, amount of values-aligned AUM, impact themes, service offerings, asset classes, diversity, and other key information. Note: the platform does not collect user data and is committed to preserving the anonymity of the asset owners who use the platform.
To join, visit the ValuesAdvisor website and enter 'CNJG' at checkout to claim your free access.
To Get Started/Questions:
Kate Simpson, Head of Outreach, ValuesAdvisor
Email: [email protected]
If you have an advisor you’ve worked with who has helped your foundation align your investments with your mission, and believe your peers would benefit from working with, you can suggest them for the ValuesAdvisor platform in their short, “Suggest an Advisor Form.”
For more information, please watch this video or download the infographic below.
As society grapples with the increasing prevalence of AI tools, the "Responsible AI Adoption in Philanthropy" guide provides pragmatic guidance and a holistic evaluation framework for grantmakers to adopt AI in alignment with their core values. The framework emphasizes the responsibility of philanthropic organizations to ensure that the usage of AI enables human flourishing, minimizes risk, and maximizes benefit.
The framework includes considerations for AI adoption in three key areas – Organizational, Ethical, and Technical – each essential for grantmakers considering the use of AI.
This document provides strategies for high-impact philanthropy, including examples of nonprofits using effective approaches. It also includes resources for due diligence, advancing equality, crisis-grantmaking, and tips for avoiding fraud.
Prorated dues for Grantmakers joining after July 1 and future dues investment amounts.
The 2023 New Jersey Philanthropy Benefits & Salary Summary Report provides a valuable benchmarking resource for CNJG members on the benefits offered to employees and trustees and salaries for employees. Developed and compiled exclusively for CNJG members, the report presents comprehensive benefits data specific to New Jersey's grantmaking community, alongside data from the Council on Foundations' annual salary survey. Produced every three years, this benchmarking report is a highly anticipated and valued benefit of your CNJG membership.
The first section, 2023 CNJG Benefits Summary Report, includes benefits data for the 2023 calendar year and covers employment numbers, leave benefits, insurance benefits, and more. Within this section, we are pleased to also present demographic data on the board and staff of those that responded. Thank you to the members that completed our benefits survey earlier this year enabling us to produce this report.
The second section, 2023 Grantmaker Salary Tables: National, Mid-Atlantic and New Jersey provides data on compensation across a wide range of positions and grantmaking entities. Thank you to the CNJG members that completed the Council on Foundations’ annual survey on salaries that enabled us to produce this section of the report. Thank you to the Council on Foundations for compiling and sharing this data with us for free to use our report.
CNJG’s first-ever Policy Agenda that includes our approach to the policy work, and five policy priorities.
Shifting Power to Shift Systems: Insights and Tools for Funders is a new report from Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors (RPA) that summarizes insights relating to power dynamics from leaders and experts on driving systems change.
Over the course of three months in early 2022, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors’ Shifting Systems Initiative hosted a series of eight workshops focused on power and equity in philanthropy. During these workshops, an invited group of funders and other partners discussed the role of power dynamics in effectuating the systems change needed to address increasingly complex global challenges. The honest and rich conversations during those workshops surfaced several important themes and insights on how to balance power in a way that drives rather than inhibits change. RPA’s new report, Shifting Power to Shift Systems: Insights and Tools for Funders, distills some of the practical actions that funders can take in order to reduce that power imbalance.
A corporate funder asked our corporate funder listserve about how the corporate foundation is funded either through an endowment or through periodic transfers, or though a share of the profits? This document is a compilation of the responses on the listserve.
Foundations are systems. They have their own cultures and related assumptions, norms, standards, and practices. All of these personal, social, and structural factors affect our ability to learn.
This tool is to help foundations take stock of their learning needs and opportunities with a dispassionate (evaluative) look at themselves as systems and how people work within them.
The tool is based on the work of systems theorist Donella Meadows. Her work resonates because it recognizes both systemic constraints and possible leverage points for addressing them. Meadows identifies a series of leverage points for changing a system, ordered from least to most powerful. We adapted her work to show how each lever can reinforce learning in an organization or system.
Use the tool to examine the list of 12 leverage points, ordered in terms of their power for shifting a system to support learning, from weakest (1) to strongest (12). Higher leverage points produce stronger, broader, more durable change.
According to Meadows, we often are disappointed in the results of systems change efforts because we tend to tweak the least powerful levers in the system — such as skill building or the flow of resources or information. We find this can be true with learning in philanthropy, where many foundations support learning with tools and training alone.
Which leverage points are you currently using to support learning in philanthropy? Where else can you push to make that support stronger?
CNJG COVID-19 Liability Waiver for in-person events.
The Council of New Jersey Grantmakers’ 2023 – 2027 Strategic Plan reimagines the future for CNJG. As a result of the extensive strategy development process, the plan includes a renewed vision, mission, core values, and goals. The work is informed by previous efforts, and current issues and trends impacting philanthropy and society.
The 2023 - 2027 Strategic Plan is a roadmap for the next five years, built upon CNJG's past strategic plans and learnings. We look forward to executing this plan, the additional learnings and opportunities it will bring, and delivering on these goals to move us into the future.