ICYMI: What’s New at Foundation Center (January)

There's a lot happening in the philanthropy world, and we’re doing a lot here at Foundation Center to keep up. This year, we're going to do a better job keeping you posted on what we're learning, where we're speaking, what data we're collecting, and how you can contribute to that story. Each month, I'll be posting a roundup; no better time to start than now with what we were up to at the end of 2017.

Projects Launched

• A new version of the Global Philanthropy Data Charter, in collaboration with the Worldwide Initiative for Grantmaker Support (WINGS) and 40+ organizations in 20+ countries. The charter is a global framework designed to leverage data to help strengthen civil society and tell the story of philanthropy's impact worldwide. Help us spread the word with a tweet!
• A new 2017 edition of the report Quantifying Hope: Philanthropic Support for Black Men and Boys, an analysis of U.S. foundation funding trends for black men and boys. Help us spread the word with a tweet!
• An infographic illustrating what we know about how foundations use and share evaluations as part of a broader campaign. Help us spread the word with a tweet!
• A new report on the outcomes of a scoping meeting in Ghana to develop a dedicated platform and framework for collecting, sharing, and analyzing data on philanthropy in the region. (If you're curious, you can learn more about our global work here.) Help us spread the word with a tweet!
• A new guide and a new infographic about using data in the youth giving movement from YouthGiving.org. Both of these resources show the value of using data to build capacity and drive decisions in an accessible way, and we're hoping to use these as templates to create similar resources for other projects and encourage our broader audiences to more proactively use and share data. Help us spread the word with a tweet about the infographic and/or the guide!
• A new Solutions Bank featuring proposals submitted for 100&Change, the recently concluded MacArthur Foundation prize competition that awarded a $100 million grant to a single proposal with the potential to make measurable progress in solving a significant problem. While the competition itself had only one winner, the Solutions Bank site allows users to explore all of the proposed solutions submitted to the competition, with the goal of bringing greater visibility to these ideas and sparking more collaboration and learning among organizations tackling the same problems. Help us spread the word with a tweet!
• A campaign to recruit more on-the-ground organizations to partner with us to share Foundation Center resources in communities around the world.

Content Published

• A new blog post published in partnership with the Human Rights Funders Network that gives a sneak-peek at our first-ever trends analysis of human rights funding.
• A new blog post detailing insights from a 2017 survey of our audience.
• New blog posts here on PhilanTopic that explore the role of philanthropy in conflict prevention, the impact of tax reform on the nonprofit sector, and next-generation leadership in global development.
• New Glasspockets blog posts on topics like the MacArthur #100andChange competition, philanthropy in India, and our ongoing #OpenForGood series, which explores how and what foundations are doing to share their knowledge for the benefit of the philanthropic sector.
• New blog posts on GrantCraft about the relationships between funders and activists and, in partnership with the Open Road Alliance, an ongoing series on risk management in philanthropy.
• New WASHFunders blog posts on innovations in WASH emergency settings and efforts to combat the spread of cholera in cities.

A Few Projects in the Pipeline

• A GrantCraft guide on participatory grantmaking
• A research project on facilitating financial sustainability in partnership with LINC

For more on these projects or how to work with us, send us an email.

What We're Excited About

• Five of our conference session proposals were accepted for the PEAK Grantmaking annual conference in March! Topics include mapping changemaking campaigns, participatory grantmaking, opening up grants data, and how the SDGs facilitate foundation transparency. We hope you'll look for us there!
• A spotlight on Foundation Center in the Carnegie Reporter. The article is especially meaningful to us given that Foundation Center was founded in 1956 with support from the Carnegie Corporation to bring the work of philanthropic organizations to light.
• Our Cleveland and San Francisco offices turning 40!
• This story from the Johnson City Library Foundation, one of our Funding Information Network (FIN) partners.

Upcoming Conferences and Events

Our staff will be speaking at these upcoming events — reach out to learn more!

• Webinar: Sharing Data Made Easy: eReporting with Foundant, January 24
• Special Program: Cybersecurity for Non-Techies: What Nonprofits Need to Know, January 24, New York, NY
• Webinar: Reach New Audiences and Get Donors to Come to You, February 1
• Mapping the Money: A Changing Landscape of Human Rights Funding, February 14, San Francisco, CA, in partnership with the Human Rights Funders Network
• Webinar: Funding Arts Programs: How to Articulate Your Impact, February 15
• PEAK Grantmaking Conference, March 19-21, Orlando, FL

Data Spotlight

• 1,011,471 new grants added to Foundation Maps since November 1, of which 6,608 grants were made to 4,579 organizations outside of the U.S.
• New data sharing partners: The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, Gobioff Foundation, Jasper Foundation, Inc. & Newton County Community Foundation, St. Louis Mental Health Board, Smithville Charitable Foundation and Greenville Health System.

Tell your story through data so we can communicate philanthropy's contribution to making a better world - learn more about our eReporting program.

If you found this update helpful, feel free to share it or shoot us an email! I’ll be back next month with another update.

Jen Bokoff is director of stakeholder engagement at Foundation Center.