April 2016 - Exponent Philanthropy

April 2016 Resources

Sabbaticals for Nonprofit Leaders and Their Funders

Funders are supporting sabbaticals for nonprofit leaders—and taking sabbaticals themselves—as a way to step back from professional identity, let go of routine, and restore their energy for the long haul. The Durfee Foundation has been a leader in funding nonprofit executive sabbaticals for 20 years. “Since the beginning, our board has focused on leadership and... Read More

Foundation Openness: A Critical Component of Foundation Effectiveness

We created the Fund for Shared Insight—a funder collaborative with diverse support from 30 different funders—to increase foundation openness. We believe that if foundations are more open—which we define as how they share about their goals and strategies; make decisions and measure progress; listen and engage in dialogue with others; act on what they hear;... Read More

Find Out What It’s Like on Your Grantees’ Side of the Table

Eager to pilot our new Grantee and Applicant Perception Survey with her grantees, Meg Ramsey (The Ramsey McCluskey Family Foundation, Lincoln, MA) was especially interested to learn what her grantees were thinking about the foundation’s grant process, reporting, and site visits. Anonymity was key, so her grantees did not feel that providing constructive criticism or... Read More

The Case for Investing in Nonprofit Talent

Adapted from materials created by Jessica Bearman, Mark Sedway, and Rusty Stahl for the Talent Philanthropy Toolkit (Version 1.0) Between 1992 and 2011, according to research by Talent Philanthropy, foundations devoted less than 1% of grant dollars toward supporting the recruitment, retention, compensation, development, or retirement of nonprofit talent. In fact, the signals grantmakers send often... Read More