What's New at Foundation Center Update (August)

As teachers prepare their course outlines and program leaders pause to reflect on insights from the first two quarters, we also have been getting ready for an exciting back half of our year. And, as you'll see below, our Annual Report has been released, which offers our team a great reminder of what our collective work looks like. Here's our July roundup:

Projects Launched

• Our 2017 Annual Report is now available! This was a personal labor of love, so do give it a look to learn how we're strengthening the social sector inside/out. We highlight work we did in sharing knowledge, strengthening the global philanthropic sector, servicing the needs of community foundations, and much more. You can even take a look "under the hood" of our staff here at Foundation Center in our highlight reel.
• Thanks to generous funding from Borealis Philanthropy's Racial Equity in Philanthropy Fund, we recently launched a new monthly webinar series to further a variety of conversations on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the social sector. This specific webinar series is free and open to the public. Webinar recordings can be found here and upcoming webinars can be found here.

Content Published

• Our president, Brad Smith, wrote a great blog Philanthropy in the War Zone, and I published an article in Alliance Magazine in response to the United Philanthropy Forum conference.
• Two new blogs on our WASHfunders platform, one on the politics of groundwater and one on flexible funding.
• New blog posts on PhilanTopic including Every Person Counts: Why Philanthropy Must Help Save the Census, and Disrupting Arts Philanthropy: Five Lessons Learned.
• New blog posts on GrantSpace including making authentic connections at conferences, the results of our 2018 GrantSpace survey, and key strategies to measure organizational impact.
• New blog posts on GlassPockets from last month covering topics like philanthropy and open government data, and this spotlight on the C&A Foundation.
• New blog posts on GrantCraft about investing in nonprofit talent to build capacity and a reflection on what philanthropy can learn from the World Cup!
• And 142 new resources added to IssueLab in June, including this profile on DACA recipients, surveys highlighting challenges of voter knowledge and participation, and learnings from the Kessler Foundation on employing people with disabilities.

In the News

• Helping Philanthropy Understand and Connect With Native American Communities, by Tate Williams, Inside Philanthropy
• Over $250K in Funding Secured to Build Technology to Help Grantmakers Invest More Effectively in Native Communities, Native News Online.net

What We're Excited About

• Foundation Center and the Council on Foundations launched a report with trends about US foundations working globally on August 14. (More to come in next month's update!) Watch this free webinar recording to learn more about how U.S. foundations are engaging globally and what these trends mean for our sector!
• Foundation Center West (in San Francisco) will host an interactive live discussion with unicorn professionals (foundation and nonprofit leaders), in conversation with two of Unicorns Unite's authors — Jane Leu and Jessamyn Shams-Lau. This event will be livestreamed.
• What might our communities look like if we didn't have to struggle for justice? What does liberation/freedom look like for our communities? Foundation Center South (in Atlanta) is creating space for the visualization of communities on the other side of oppression. Join our community conversation on August 29 to identify the role of art and artists in the reflection of the times as well as its ability to point to a future that dares to see the world differently than now.
• We'll be launching a new GrantCraft guide on participatory grantmaking next month! Check out these videos from funders already engaged in the practice answering commonly asked questions about shifting the power in decision-making.
• The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation has awarded Foundation Center an 18-month grant to develop and launch a nonprofit startup assessment tool. Scheduled for a formal unveiling in Q2 of 2019, this diagnostic tool will help individuals assess their readiness, capacity, and capability for starting a nonprofit prior to taking the leap.

Upcoming Conferences and Events

Our staff will be attending these upcoming events:

• Philanthropy Australia Conference, September 5-6, Melbourne
• Innovations in International Philanthropy Symposium, September 6-7, Boston
• Rural Philanthropy Days, September 12-14, Cortes, Colorado
• 2018 Conference for North Carolina's Nonprofits, September 12-14, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina
• Exponent Philanthropy 2018 National Conference, September 28-30, Philadelphia
• International Open Data Conference 2018, September 27-28, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Services Spotlight

• 212,203 new grants added to Foundation Maps in July, of which 20,162 grants were made to 3,122 organizations outside the U.S.
• Did you know that in 2017, we reached a record of 9.5 million grants coded in Foundation Directory Online? Check out 2017 By the Numbers to learn more about what Foundation Center was up to last year!
• Earlier this summer, we posted a survey to our GrantSpace community to gather feedback on how the re-launch of our website was received. Nearly 600 people responded. When asked about the greatest challenge they face, respondents said "finding grants for my nonprofit" (42 percent), "diversifying my funding sources" (15 percent), and "writing compelling proposals and fundraising pitches" (15 percent).
• New data sharing partners: Australian Communities Foundation; Jack Brockhoff Foundation; Tim Fairfax Family Foundation; Foundation for Rural & Regional Renewal; John Villiers Trust; Myer Foundation; NAB Foundation; Grace S. and W. Linton Nelson Foundation; Irene W. and C.B. Pennington Foundation; James & Diana Ramsay Foundation; The Henry and Ruth Blaustein Rosenberg Foundation, Inc.; Trustee for the Bryan Foundation; and Wyatt Benevolent Institution (AKA Wyatt Trust). Tell your story through data so we can communicate philanthropy's contribution to making a better world — learn more about our eReporting program.

Data Spotlight

• Total reported gifts received by the largest 100 community foundations have reached a new high for the third year in a row. Learn more at columbussurvey.cfinsights.org.
• Recent research shows only 5 percent of foundation funding went to supporting the financial sustainability of civil society organizations in 6 researched countries.

If you found this update helpful, feel free to share it or shoot us an email! (And, I'm curious: did you read through to the end? If you did, tweet your favorite Foundation Center resource to @fdncenter with the hashtag #FCLove and you'll be entered to win some swag!) I'll be back next month with another update.

Jen Bokoff is director of stakeholder engagement at Foundation Center.

Comments

[L Towery]

The NC Center for Nonprofit's conference has been cancelled due to Hurricane Florence.