What's New at Candid (August 2019)

Although it’s still officially summer, we've been busy here at Candid, releasing new research, continuing the consolidation of our regional offices, expanding our Funding Information Network, and more. If there's anything you'd like me to cover in these monthly updates, shoot me an email. My colleagues and I are anxious to hear your thoughts!

Project Highlights

• In the wake of tragic mass shootings in California, Texas, and Ohio and newly urgent conversations about gun control and the Second Amendment, understanding the full impact of gun violence in America is imperative. Our IssueLab colleagues have created a Gun Violence Special Collection that brings together evidence and insights from nonprofits, foundations, and research organizations working to understand that impact. In 1996, the U.S. Congress passed an amendment to a spending bill that banned the Center for Disease Control (CDC) from using any of its budget for gun violence research, leading to a dearth of data that could help inform the gun control debate. In the more than twenty years since, the social sector has produced over two hundred reports that explore policy models, provide data and statistics, and examine a range of sub-topics. Feel free to reach out to the IssueLab team if you have questions about the resources in the collection.
• The surge in fires in the Amazon basin is a fresh reminder of the destructive impact that humans can have on ecosystems that are critical to life on the planet. Philanthropy continues to support efforts to ensure the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment, including the rights of Indigenous, marginalized, or other communities to the unspoiled natural resources that enable their survival; the right of Indigenous and marginalized communities to share in and determine the distribution of lands, territories, and resources; and the protection of these natural resources from destruction, overdevelopment, and/or pollution. To learn more about what funders are doing to support the environmental and resource rights of Indigenous and marginalized communities, check out this dashboard courtesy of the Advancing Human Rights initiative, a collaboration between Candid and the Human Rights Funders Network, in partnership with Ariadne: European Funders for Social Change and Human Rights and Prospera: International Network of Women's Funds.
• Candid and the Human Rights Funders Network also have released a report that details foundation grantmaking for human rights globally. Conducted in partnership with Ariadne and Prospera, Advancing Human Rights: 2016 Key Findings highlights the scale and scope of funding for human rights, and sheds light on tough questions such as: Where is the money going? What are the gaps? And who is doing what?
• CF Insights, a service of Candid, has launched the 2018 Columbus Survey Results Dashboard — the most up-to-date, comprehensive data set focused on financial trends and operational activity among community foundations in the United States. The data and findings provided in the dashboard are based on FY2018 survey responses provided by 251 community foundations and are supplemented by publicly available data.
• Be sure to check out the new infographic on Foundation Funding for U.S. Democracy that looks what foundations to combat the decline in local journalism.

You can learn more about other projects we’ve been working on in the Gain Knowledge section of our website.

Thought Leadership Highlights

• "Rooted in Research, Handwashing Stations Designed to Encourage Kids to Wash Their Hands," by Rob Goodier (WASHfunders.org)
• "Family Funders: Always Important in Rural Communities," by Allen Smart (PhilanTopic)
• "Transparency Levels Go Live on GlassPockets," by Janet Camarena (GlassPockets)
• "U.S. Community Foundation Asset Growth Stalls While DAF Giving Outpaces Trends," by David Rosado (GrantCraft)
• IssueLab added 123 new resources in May and June, including Building Youth Life Skills and High Impact Giving Guide.

For more great content, follow Candid on Twitter.

Upcoming conferences and events

Our staff will be attending these upcoming events:

• Association of Baltimore Grantmakers - Shifting Power Through Participatory Grantmaking: September 10, Baltimore, Maryland
• 14th Annual Grants Training Seminar, College of Southern Maryland. Event sponsored by the Nonprofit Institute, Charles County Charitable Trust, and the Maryland Governor's Grants Office, September 12, La Plata, Maryland
• Croatia Philanthropy Academy: September 10-11, Croatia
• Native Americans in Philanthropy - 30th Anniversary Summit & Celebration: September 18-19, Chicago, Illinois
• Foundations for Peace: September 19, Brussels, Belgium
• Training Works - A Day of Capacity Building: September 20, Atlanta, Georgia
• UN General Assembly: September 23-27; New York, NY
• East Africa Philanthropy Network Annual Conference: September 25-26; Arusha, Tanzania
• Nonprofit Capacity Building Series, in partnership with Williamsburg Health Foundation: September 25-26, Williamsburg, Virginia

Candid in the News

• "NPT Power & Influence Top 50 (2019)," NonProfit Times
• "New Study of Community Foundations Reinforces Donor-Advised Fund Trends," Ruth McCambridge, Nonprofit Quarterly

For more coverage of Candid in the news, visit our press room.

Services Spotlight

• We added 578,881 grants to Foundation Maps in July, 5,714 of which were made to 3,106 organizations outside the U.S.
• Foundation Directory Online unveiled a new feature designed to help streamline prospect research. You can now search for grantmakers or peer organizations by location: https://eyeonfdo.foundationcenter.org/2019/08/new-feature-search-for-grantmakers-in-a-specific-location.html.
• Our Funding Information Network is growing! We now have 403 FIN partners across the U.S. and internationally, with seven new partners joining in August, including one in Plano, Texas. Learn more about accessing Candid's services for free through our network of partners.
• Following the relocation of our public offices in Atlanta and San Francisco and a shift in focus in our service strategy to more on-the-ground outreach, Candid staff have been more visible in local communities in the South and West. In Atlanta, staff have regular on-site engagements with members of the public at Ponce de Leon Library, assisting them with their nonprofit and grantseeking questions. And in the Bay Area, staff have been out and about at partner sites such as the Oakland Public Library and the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL). Here's a preview of an upcoming free introductory course we’ll be presenting at SFPL in September.
• On September 18, Candid staff will host an in-person + livestreamed event: Social Sector Unite!, featuring NonprofitAF blogger Vu Le and the co-authors of last year’s bestselling Unicorns Unite: How Nonprofits & Foundations Can Build Epic Partnerships, one of several recent books that call for a fundamental rethinking of the philanthropic contract.
• Candid staff in Washington, D.C., including EVP Jacob Harold, invite you to help Celebrate the Future of Candid on October 1.

Data Spotlight

• Funding by a matched subset of grantmakers for environmental and resource rights grew by 39 percent in 2016, a sign of growing international pressure to address the challenge of climate change.
• We completed a number of custom data searches for the University of New South Wales.
• New data sharing partners include: Alzheimer's Disease Research Foundation, American Friends Service Committee, the Cape Cod Foundation, the Climate Justice Resilience Fund, the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation, the Goizueta Foundation, the Greater Worcester Community Foundation, the Klarman Family Foundation, the Libra Foundation, the New Coast Foundation, the Richard and Susan Smith Family Foundation, the Washington Square Health Foundation, the Wettenhall Environment Trust, and the Women's Fund of Western Massachusetts. Tell your story through data so we can communicate philanthropy's contribution to making a better world — learn more about our eReporting program.

Jen Bokoff is director of stakeholder engagement at Candid.