What's New at Foundation Center Update (September)

Hurricane season is upon us, and we'll be regularly sharing data here on PND with you about where funding for rebuilding is going. Grace Sato from our knowledge services team will also be speaking about disaster funding along with special guests from philanthropy on Tony Martignetti's radio show later this month. We've been working on sharing data and knowledge about other timely topics as well:

Projects Launched

• We released a new report, The State of Global Giving by U.S. Foundations: 2011-2015. The report is the latest in a decades-long collaboration between Foundation Center and the Council on Foundations focused on analyzing trends in international grantmaking by U.S. foundations and is the tenth jointly published report since the collaboration began in 1997. In addition to a detailed look at trends by issue area, geographic region, population group, and donor strategy, the analysis also relates these trends to key events and developments, including the launch of the Sustainable Development Goals campaign, the emergence of Ebola in West Africa, repeal of the global gag rule, and the increasing legal restrictions faced by civil society organizations in countries around the world. Check out features in FastCompany and Alliance magazine, and this Slate Money podcast!)
• Just in time for the midterms, our Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy site has a new look, making it easier to navigate from the funding tool to the IssueLab research collection to a collection of infographics. Check it out at foundationcenter.org.
• It's Nonprofit Radio Month! The third episode of Nonprofit Radio Month at Foundation Center aired September 21 and was focused on building relationships with family foundations. The episode features Tony Martignetti in conversation with our most popular fundraising expert, Senior Social Sector Librarian Susan Shiroma; Stuart Post, executive director of the Meringoff Family Foundation; and a Meringoff Foundation grantee, Read Alliance executive director Danielle Guindo. Check it out, and join us every Friday in September from 1:00-2:00 pm ET for more Nonprofit Radio.
• Foundation Center Northeast (NY) will host Arts Month in October, featuring a variety of panels, programs, and networking opportunities for artists and arts organizations.

Content Published

• Natalie Ross, vice president for external relations at Council on Foundations, Lauren Bradford, Foundation Center's director of global partnerships, and research analyst Inga Ingulfsen wrote a joint blog post, “What surprised us (and what didn't) about U.S. Foundations' Global Giving” for Alliance magazine.
• New posts on GrantSpace include one about keeping donor trust and another on how the Funding Information Network helps nonprofits thrive.
• New posts on our WASHfunders platform include "Taps and Toilets Aren't Enough: Designing WASH Programmes That Strengthen the System" and "Mobile Communities in Ethiopia Seek Fixed Solutions to Their Water and Sanitation Challenges."
• New posts on PhilanTopic include "Congress Introduces Bill to Revolutionize Philanthropy," "The Ultra Rich Won't Drive Innovative Philanthropy — Trusting Community Will," and "It’' Time to Invest in Youth Power."
• New posts on Glasspockets include an interview with the first New Zealand foundation to join the Glasspockets movement, a staff pick from the Democracy Funding series, and a blog post about overcoming challenges to collecting demographic data for grantmaking.
• New posts on GrantCraft include "Shifting Grantmaking and Evaluation Practices in the Pursuit of Equity" and one about using an R&D framework to philanthropic giving.
• Eight hundred and eighty new resources added to IssueLab in August, including this report on gender roles and the care economy in Uganda. (IssueLab now makes available the full-text versions of more than 25,000 publications. Check it out!)

In the News

• "Growing number of big US funders based on the West Coast," by Catherine Cheney, Devex
• "New report shares insights on global giving by U.S Foundations," Alliance magazine
• "Foundations are spending more and more on international aid," by Ben Paynter, Fast Company
• "Foundations' Overseas Giving Rises by 29%: Report," by Michael Fischer, ThinkAdvisor
• "Donor-Advised Funds: How to Make Sure They Strengthen Our Communities," Good NonProfit
• "Study of US Foundation Giving Abroad Raises Key Questions for the Field," by Steve Dubb, Nonprofit Quarterly

What We're Excited About

• Our president, Brad Smith, was named to the 2018 NPT Power & Influence Top 50.
• CF Insights has launched a new publication on CEO professional development.
• Foundation Center has a robust portfolio of custom training for organizations (and/or grantees of foundations). Now is the time to invest in building the capacity of your staff/grantees. Email us at [email protected] for more info.
• On September 25, in partnership with GlobalGiving and GuideStar, Foundation Center will launch BRIDGE (Basic Registry of Identified Global Entities) information as open data, making it easier to identify and share information on social sector entities around the world.

Upcoming Conferences and Events

Our staff will be attending these upcoming events:

• International Open Data Conference 2018, September 27-28, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• United Chinese Americans Convention, September 27-29, Washington, D.C.
• Exponent Philanthropy National Conference, September 27-30, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• The annual conference for our Funding Information Network, October 4-5, Austin, Texas
• Enactus World Cup, October 9-11, San Jose, Puerto Rico
• Proposal Writing Boot Camp, October 9-11, Atlanta, Georgia
• ComNet18: The Communications Network Annual Conference, October 10-12, San Francisco, California
• National Conference for Growing Community Foundations, October 14-16, Wichita, Kansas
• Reimagining Human Rights: Human Rights Funders Network Conference, October 15-18, Mexico City, Mexico
• Opportunity Collaboration Global, October 14-19, Cancun, Mexico
• Philanthropy Forward, October 22-24, Columbus, Ohio
• Foundation Center will be hosting an exclusive, invite-only "friends in philanthropy" reception in Austin on October 4. Interested in nominating a foundation executive to attend? Please contact [email protected].

Services Spotlight

• 158,719 new grants added to Foundation Maps in August, of which 17,063 grants were made to 2,059 organizations outside the U.S.
• Update Central is back in Foundation Directory Online Professional! Register for monthly alerts to ensure you're up-to-date on grantmaker leadership changes and new foundations.
• New data-sharing partners: Bennelong Foundation; Buhl Regional Health Foundation; Community Foundation for Monterey County; Connecticut Health Foundation, Inc.; English Family Foundation; LA84 Foundation; Light a Single Candle Foundation; Perpetual Trustees; SumOfUs; Woodward Hines Education Foundation; and Wyoming Community Foundation. Tell your story through data so we can communicate philanthropy's contribution to making a better world — learn more about our eReporting program.
• Eighteen new organizations have joined our Funding Information Network in 2018, including the Puerto Rico Science Technology and Research Trust, First Community Foundation Partnership of Pennsylvania, and the Roswell Public Library in Georgia.

Data Spotlight

• As the country gears up for the midterms, we're looking at who's funding U.S. democracy. Did you know that more than 3,000 funders have made grants totaling $1.7 billion in support of civic participation? Learn more at foundationcenter.org.
• Funders have granted nearly $400,000 in 2018 to organizations working in Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Rwanda. Learn more about funding for this region at equal-footing.org.
• We completed custom data searches for the Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership and the Executives’ Alliance for Boys and Men of Color.

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.