Nonprofit Tech

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy

Criteria for Philanthropy at Its Best ®

Civic sector organizations are crucial to improving lives and strengthening communities, often fill- ing a void where government and free enterprise fail to adequately meet public needs. To ensure that our sector remains relevant to addressing pressing issues, it’s vitally important for grantmakers to engage in rig- orous self-analysis.

Current philanthropic practice accomplishes many beneficial things, but it’s insufficient to play the sub- stantive role needed to solve the urgent problems fac- ing our nation and the world. Grantmakers simply aren’t delivering as much social benefit as they could. Our sector is not a substitute for the public or private sectors, but foundations must do all they can to ensure that philanthropy meets its potential.

What, specifically, should grantmakers do to max- imize their impact and best serve nonprofits, vulnera- ble communities and the common good? That’s the central question this document seeks to answer. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) developed these criteria to provide grantmak- ers with the tools to ask themselves some long-over- due, perhaps difficult, questions.

As the only independent watchdog of institutional philanthropy, NCRP seeks to bring the voices of non- profits and marginalized communities into delibera- tions about philanthropic priorities and practices. We used an iterative process to develop the criteria—rig- orous research, literature reviews, original data analy- sis and robust debates among some 50 people over 15 months. We intentionally didn’t use a broader process because we didn’t want to produce a “least- common-denominator” set of criteria. We wanted the end result to truly challenge grantmakers to strength- en communities.

Impact is the most important measure for the civic sector. Operating in ways consistent with these crite- ria doesn’t guarantee that a funder will have positive impact, but it makes it more likely. The criteria address values, effectiveness, ethics and commitment—four elements that are essential to better grant- making. The full text highlights these important issues and explains how we established the 10 benchmarks that accompany the criteria. The appendix lists “field leaders”—grantmakers that NCRP knows meet or exceed the measures.

Some funders may view the criteria as overly pre- scriptive, but…

Publishing Details

Author: National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy
Published: 2009
Length: 16 pages
Report Type: Executive Summary
Download: Adobe Acrobat (PDF)
Permalink: http://www.nonprofit-tech.org/reports/article/criteria_for_philanthropy_at_its_best/

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