Through its research and advocacy work, NCRP highlights concrete practices that foundations and other grantmaking institutions can use to more effectively empower those nonprofits on the ground that are working towards meeting the needs of marginalized people and communities.
Our Effective Grantmaking Practices program includes:
- Promoting the importance of general operating support and multi-year funding and bringing the voice of grassroots nonprofits into the discussion;
- Demonstrating the important role of advocacy, organizing and civic engagement in bringing about social change;
- Researching and documenting philanthropic activity in specific corporate sectors, beginning with the impact of bank mergers on bank philanthropy; and,
- Continuing and expanding our research on the strategies and impacts of conservative foundations' public policy grantmaking as a follow-up to our Axis of Ideology report, issued in spring 2004, in areas such as education and religion.
NCRP recently initiated the Grantmaking for Community Impact Project (GCIP), a research effort in different parts of the country that seeks to demonstrate how foundations investing in advocacy, community organizing and civic engagement can lead to sustainable social change. The first report was released in December 2008.
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Related Publications
Seizing the Moment: Frank Advice for Community Organizers Who Want to Raise More Money
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November 2009
NCRP's Aaron Dorfman and Marjorie Fine, director of the Center for Community Change's The Linchpin Campaign, offer useful and pragmatic tips that can help community organizers dramatically increase funding from institutional grantmakers and major individual donors.
Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in Minnesota
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September 2009
This report examines data from 15 Minnesota nonprofits, which shows high return on investments and non-monetary gains on a range of issues including housing, civil rights, transportation and access to medical care.
Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in North Carolina
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May 2009
This report looks at 2003-2007 data from 13 North Carolina nonprofits, which shows high return on investments and non-monetary gains on a range of issues including poverty, worker rights, education, health care, housing, environment and civil rights.
Strengthening Democracy, Increasing Opportunities: Impacts of Advocacy, Organizing and Civic Engagement in New Mexico
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December 2008
Lisa Ranghelli looks at 2003-2007 data from 14 New Mexico nonprofits, which shows high return on investments and successful policy changes that benefit New Mexicans, such as anti-predatory lending laws, minimum wage increases and homeless trust funds.
Strategic Grantmaking: Foundations and the School Privatization Movement
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November 2007
This NCRP report examines how foundations, many of whom are considered "conservative," are promoting the school choice agenda, primarily school vouchers and tax credits.
Banking on Philanthropy: Impact of Bank Mergers on Charitable Giving
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June 2007
This NCRP report examines how mergers have reshaped corporate giving practices in the banking industry. It looks at charitable giving of seven banks before and after recent mergers. It answers the questions: Did the levels of giving by these banks increase or decrease after the merger? Which region of the country benefited the most?
A Call to Action: Organizing to Increase the Effectiveness and Impact of Foundation Grantmaking
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March 2007
Many nonprofit organizations are constantly struggling to find enough resources to make their organizations more effective and sustainable. A Call to Action illustrates how the lack of core operating support is at the center of this struggle. It tells of the needs and aspirations of nonprofits by enabling them, in their own words, to share their stories.
Not All Grants Are Created Equal: Why Nonprofits Need General Operating Support from Foundations
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September 2005
Not All Grants Are Created Equal explores the debate on foundations providing project support versus operating support. The report investigates the types of organizations that receive the most general operating support and lays out the case of why nonprofits need general operating support and why foundations are often reluctant to provide it.
The Waltons and Wal-Mart: Self-Interested Philanthropy
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September 2005
This report reveals more than just charitable intentions in Wal-Mart’s seemingly generous, but systematically self-interested charitable and political giving. The Waltons and Wal-Mart: Self-Interested Philanthropy chronicles the philanthropic and political activities of the Walton family through their family foundation and through their Wal-Mart corporate empire, painting the picture of a family and corporation with increasing financial and political prowess.
Axis of Ideology: Conservative Foundations and Public Policy
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February 2005
NCRP's Axis of Ideology details the effective philanthropic strategies that 79 conservative foundations have used to support the activities of 350 public policy-oriented right-wing think tanks at the federal, state, and local levels.
Funding the Culture Wars: Philanthropy, Church and State
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February 2005
NCRP's report explores the connections between conservative foundation grantmaking and the politically influential evangelical movement.
Serving Time…on Foundation Boards
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Summer 2004
A review of corporate CEOs who, despite their being charged and convicted of serious corporate malfeasance, are still serving on foundation governing bodies. NCRP called for extending the Securities and Exchange Commission penalty that prohibits convicted corporate felons from serving on the boards of publicly traded corporations to cover service on foundation boards as well.
The Core of the Matter
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July 2003
The Core of the Matter is a meeting of local, regional and national nonprofits convened by NCRP in Washington to discuss the importance of operating support grantmaking for the sustainability of the sector. The agenda was to articulate the importance and need for operating support in the voices of nonprofits themselves as opposed to academic observers or foundation funders.
