Community Philanthropy

Better Outcomes, Lower Costs:
How Community-Based Funders Can Transform U.S. Health Care

Mark Kramer, Dr. Atul Gawande

Mark Kramer and Dr. Atul Gawande discuss the untapped potential for community-based funders to transform the cost and quality of healthcare in the United States.

Report

Catalytic Philanthropy In India

Nidhi M. Reddy, Lalitha Vaidyanathan, Katyayani Balasubramanian, Kavitha Gorapalli, Sharad Sharma

This collaborative report from FSG and the Indian School of Business explores how India's largest givers can help solve critical social problems.

Report

Collaboration and Connection: How Foundations Partner Effectively to Address Their Community’s Information Needs

Ellen Martin, Katelyn Mack, Hallie Preskill, John Kania

This report highlights the strategies and approaches that Knight Community Information Challenge grantee foundations have used to develop and maintain productive partnerships.

Report

Infographic

Developing a Master Data Sharing Agreement: Seeking Student-Level Evidence to Support a Collaborative Community Effort in Education

Neil E. Carlson, Edwin Hernández, Chaná Edmond-Verley, Gustavo Rotondaro, Eleibny Feliz-Santana, Susan Heynig

How the development of a data sharing agreement was key to providing the longitudinal, student-level data required to drive and evaluate multiple efforts to close the achievement gap in an urban neighborhood.

Article

Opportunities for Leadership: Meeting Community Information Needs 2011

Katelyn Mack, Ellen Martin, with Leslie Crutchfield

This report from the Knight Community Information Challenge highlights three organizations that have taken distinct pathways beyond grant making to incorporate information needs into their work.

Report

Columbus Survey 2010 Results: Guideposts Point to Growth

Rebecca Graves, Hollie Marston

What changes in assets, gifts, and grants did community foundations experience in 2010 given the economic recovery? This report is an analysis of 2010 data gathered through the Columbus Survey.

Report

FSG's New Book: Do More Than Give

Leslie Crutchfield, John Kania, Mark Kramer

This book provides a blueprint for foundation leaders, trustees, and individual donors who want to catalyze change in the world.

Book

Video

Seeking Shared Success: Business Model Innovation Through Mergers, Affiliations, and Alliances

Rebecca Graves, Hollie Marston

Learn how alliances, affiliations, and mergers represent a path to enhanced sustainability and greater impact for community foundations.

Report

2011 Reports from the Field: Place-based Foundations and the Knight Community Information Challenge

John Kania, Katelyn Mack, Ellen Martin, Marina Pol Longo, Hallie Preskill

This second annual report highlights lessons learned from the Knight Community Information Challenge.

Report

Opportunities for Foundation Leadership

Jeff Cohen, Nathalie Jones, Leslie Crutchfield

These three case studies show how community foundations, working to create more informed and engaged communities, contributed to transforming their own institutions.

Report

IMPACT: A Practical Guide to Evaluating Community Information Projects

Katelyn Mack, Ellen Martin, Hallie Preskill, John Kania

Four essential steps to collecting useful information about the effectiveness and impact of community-based information and media efforts.

Report

Gaining Perspective:
Lessons Learned From One Foundation’s Exploratory Decade

Veronica Borgonovi, Fay Hanleybrown, Hallie Preskill, David Zapol

Ten years after launching an ambitious strategy, the Northwest Area Foundation asked FSG to identify lessons learned from a decade of community-based work.

Report

Executive Summary

Collective Impact

Mark Kramer, John Kania

Large-scale social change requires broad cross-sector coordination, yet the social sector remains focused on the isolated intervention of individual organizations.

Article

Video

Event

Measuring the Online Impact of Your Information Projects

Dana Chinn, Ellen Martin

The goal of this primer is to build a better understanding of how funders and their implementation partners are reaching and engaging audiences online through websites and social media.

Report

Community-Based Philanthropy and the Knight Community Information Challenge

Justin Bakule, John Kania, Ellen Martin, Hallie Preskill

Community and place-based foundations transform into high impact catalysts for change, by engaging with a broad range of community stakeholders.

Report

Multiplying Impact through Philanthropic Collaboration

Marc Pfitzer, Mike Stamp

Philanthropic collaboration is essential in order to assemble sufficient assets, expertise and influence to create social impact.

Report

From Crisis to Opportunity: Learning from One Region’s Response to the Economic Downturn

Rebecca Graves, Fay Hanleybrown, Veronica Borgonovi

Funders in one region of the U.S. demonstrate how difficult times spur innovative strategies by doing more with less. 

Report

Toolkit

Benchmarking Beyond Asset Size: New Top 100 Lists

Rebecca Graves, Melissa Scott, Diana Esposito

Benchmarking community foundations beyond asset size provides a more holistic view of how these organizations operate.

Report

Toolkit

Community Foundation Economic Scenario Planning (ESP) Tool

John Kania, Rebecca Graves, Melissa Scott, Diana Esposito, Valerie Bockstette

A new interactive tool allows community foundations to test the impact of changes in market conditions on their business.

Toolkit

Fueling Impact: A Fresh Look at Business Model Innovation and New Revenue Sources

Rebecca Graves, Samira Rahmatullah

Difficult economic times in 2008-2010 were an important wake-up call for community foundations – a reminder that diversifying revenue sources is an essential component of a strong business model.

Report

Raising Money While Raising Hell: Catalytic Community Leadership and Successful Fundraising for Community Foundations

John Kania, Emily Gorin, Valerie Bockstette

Several foundations built their fundraising efforts by leading advocacy efforts, debunking the myth that these activities are naturally at odds.

Report

Catalytic Philanthropy

Mark Kramer

Despite vast spending, philanthropists have fallen short. What we need: Catalytic Philanthropy.

Article

Video

Webinar

Taking Informed Action in Challenging Times

Wendy Horton, Valerie Bockstette, Melissa Scott, Diana Esposito

New research uncovers how community foundations are weathering the economic storm and “making lemonade” from difficult times.

Report

Making Informed Decisions in Uncertain Times

Wendy Horton, Valerie Bockstette, Melissa Scott

How do community foundations respond to volatile financial markets and bearish economic indicators? This report identifies strategies and recommendations for responding to the economic downturn.

Report

Growing Smarter: Achieving Sustainability in Emerging Community Foundations

Eva Nico, Rebecca Graves, Tracy Foster, Fay Hanleybrown

This report focuses on solutions to a striking paradox: as community foundations grow their assets, their sustainability is often threatened.

Report

Executive Summary

Toolkit

Strengthening Community Foundations: Redefining Opportunities

John Kania

Community foundations should examine their strategy and operations on a product-by-product basis, taking into account their mission-driven priorities, internal costs, customer preferences and the competing donor alternatives for each type of product or service they offer.

Report

Interactive Strategy Model

The Interactive Strategy Model (ISM) helps community foundations model the impact of strategic changes on their economics. The materials, hosted on the CF Insights website, include a User Guide, Tools and Surveys.

Toolkit

Helping a Small Family Foundation Think Big - Rediscovering the Field of Transformational Housing

Mindy Oakley, Owen Stearns

When the Foundation first approached FSG, the Board had little common agreement about its current and future purpose, and no consensus about how to choose a focus or select grantees.

Report

Becoming the Community's Foundation - Insight and Change in New Haven

John Kania, Matthew Clark

This article describes the process of developing a new donor development strategy based on FSG's work with the Community Foundation of Greater New Haven.

Report

Measuring Success in Donor Development

Rebecca Graves, Owen Stearns

If community foundations are to learn from each other’s success, they must find ways to create truly comparable performance data.

Report

Allocating Resources in a Time of Scarcity

Mark Kramer, John Kania

In tough times foundations should concentrate their giving in those areas in which their expertise, relationships, and grantees create the greatest value.

Article

A Different View on Community Funds

Mark Kramer

In this letter to the editor, Kramer takes exception to an article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy--and argues that the most successful community foundations will be those that respond simultaneously to the needs of their community and their donors.

Article

Paying the Price of Innovation

Mark Kramer, John Kania

Our communities would be poorer were community foundations to forego the rich range of services they provide. On the other hand, community foundations cannot be expected to sustain these services without paying for them somehow.

Article

Mixed Motives

Mark Kramer

Any donor's giving has multiple motivations. In this piece, Kramer argues that there are three primary motivational categories of giving and that by establishing budgets for each type and consciously considering one's motivations, donors can improve their impact.

Article