2018
The Center for Effective Philanthropy
$50,000
Improving Philanthropic Performance through Data + Insight: The Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) is a nonprofit organization focused on the development of data and insight to enable higher-performing funders. CEP’s mission is to provide data and create insight so philanthropic funders can better define, assess, and improve their effectiveness — and, as a result, their intended impact. (For a short video introduction to CEP, please visit https://youtu.be/grxy8B3K__A) Foundations can take on pressing challenges that other actors in society cannot, or will not. Given this unique opportunity, they have a moral imperative to maximize their effectiveness. Living up to that imperative requires funders to assess their performance, gathering the relevant data to fuel continuous improvement. Since its founding in 2001, CEP has led the movement to improve philanthropy through a powerful combination of dispassionate analysis and a passionate commitment to improving lives. Today, more than 300 foundations and philanthropic entities have used CEP’s assessments to gather honest feedback from their stakeholders in an effort to learn how to be even more effective. As your chosen agents of change, the effectiveness of grantees relies on your effectiveness. Years of data and research suggests that the quality of your work with grantees matters deeply in the impact any funder is able to create. Grantees are a crucial link between funders and their intended impact. But given the power dynamic that is inherent in the funder-grantee relationship, seeking honest, actionable feedback is far from easy.