Advisory Services - The Center for Effective Philanthropy

CEP offers data-driven, customized advising to funders —including individuals, foundations, groups, and associations — to help them better understand and improve their effectiveness.

Each advisory engagement leverages CEP’s deep knowledge about philanthropy and what matters to foundation stakeholders. We aim to help funders answer important questions regarding their work, identify and address existing challenges, learn and share with their peers, and hear from their valued constituents.

Drawing from more than a decade of experience designing surveys, building comparative data sets, analyzing and gaining insight from data, conducting interviews, and facilitating discussions, CEP conducts its work with a high level of rigor and a focus on providing actionable insights.

If you’re interested in exploring a customized advisory project, please be in touch with Kevin Bolduc or Mena Boyadzhiev to learn more about how we can support your work.

Customized Surveys of Key Stakeholders

CEP surveys diverse groups of foundation stakeholders on their perceptions of a funder’s impact, communications, grantmaking practice, and more.

Recent Projects

Survey of policymakers and community business leaders about a foundation’s local economic-development strategy
Assessment of a foundation’s advisors’ field and community-focused expertise and perceptions of impact
Review of the perspectives and experiences of members involved in designing and guiding a foundation-funded collective planning effort
Survey of stakeholders from the private, nonprofit, or public sector, including academia and other foundations

Benchmarking

CEP provides groups of peer funders support in collecting and sharing internal operational and structural data.

Recent Projects

Support for a group of leaders from more than a dozen foundations in sharing and understanding the key structures and strategic priorities related to their teams’ roles
Facilitation of the open sharing of organizational structures across a confidential group of close peers; providing profiles, analysis and identification of commonalities and differences in practice

Supporting Implementation

CEP works with boards and staff as they develop plans to implement effective practices.

Recent Projects

Investigation of what it would take for a funder to move from a more responsive to strategic grantmaking approach
Analysis of the level of rigor in a corporate funder’s due diligence process, including comparisons to peer funders
Assistance in the design of a funder’s new general operating support program

Assisting in the Creation of Performance Indicators

CEP structures efforts to develop and use organizational performance indicators to help funders track progress, learn from experience, and modify plans as appropriate.

Recent Projects

Review of organizational scorecards for comprehensiveness and utility
Synthesis of a funder’s comprehensive history of performance feedback from multiple CEP assessments; identification of themes and trends over time; creation of a discussion guide for a board strategic planning retreat
Assistance in identifying the starting points to collect key information to track a funder’s progress across programmatic and organizational initiatives

Building Capacity

CEP designs and delivers workshops and group learning opportunities for boards and staff at one foundation or with groups of foundations.

CEP’s interactive Working Well with Grantees workshop helps foundation staff understand and act on the research-based practices that define and support strong relationships between funders and grantees. Including profiles of exemplars, this workshop is appropriate for affinity groups, regional associations, or individual funders.

Overall Assessment of Effectiveness

Using CEP’s definition of foundation effectiveness as a framework, CEP collects and analyzes the information and examples a funder needs to determine its capacity, effectiveness, and opportunities for improvement.