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Grantmakers for Effective Organizations
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations is a coalition of grantmakers committed
to building strong and effective nonprofit organizations. Understanding that
grantmakers are successful only to the extent that their grantees achieve
meaningful results, GEO promotes strategies and practices that contribute to
grantee success. |
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General Operating Support
Grantmakers for Effective Organizations, 2007
What is general operating support? How are grantmakers providing it? This
document includes quotations from a spirited listserve discussion, as well as
anecdotal information from participating grantmakers who shared their
experiences and insights. |
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Back to Basics
Chronicle of Philanthropy, 5/1/08
(requires paid subscription)
A small but growing number of charities that have managed to persuade
foundations to provide them with unrestricted grants that can pay for basic
operating costs. |
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Not All Grants Are Created Equal: Why Nonprofits Need
General Operating Support from Foundations (PDF)
National Center for Responsive Philanthropy, September 2005
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. |
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In Search of Impact: Practices and Perceptions in
Foundations' Provision of Program and Operating Grants to Nonprofits (PDF)
Center for
Effective Philanthropy, 2006
This report examines how support type varies among foundations, how foundations decide which type of support to
provide and how support type influences grantees' perceptions of foundations.
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Paying for Overhead: A Study of the Impact of Foundations'
Overhead Payment Policies on Educational and Human Service Organizations (PDF)
The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, March 2007
This study found that most foundations fund nonprofits' overhead expenses,
mostly within program grants. Large foundations and those that fund locally were
statistically more likely than smaller foundations or those that grant
nationwide to fund nonprofits' overhead expenses, controlling for other factors.
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Nonprofit Overhead Cost Study
National Center for Charitable Statistics
How
well do organizations track and report expenses? What are the consequences for
nonprofits that seek to keep their administrative and fundraising costs to a
minimum? Some of the main findings of this study are contained in research
briefs and guides with such titles as “The Pros and Cons of Financial Efficiency
Standards” and “Special Issues in Nonprofit Financial Reporting.” |
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Strengthening Nonprofit Performance:
A Funder's
Guide to Capacity Building
Fieldstone Alliance, $41.95
Synthesizes the most recent
capacity-building practice and research into a collection of strategies, steps,
and examples that funders can use to get started on or improve their funding to
strengthen nonprofits. |
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Funder's Guide to Organizational Assessment: Tools,
Processes, and Their Use in Building Capacity
Fieldstone Alliance, $48.95
Shows how grantmakers can
use assessment to build capacity, enhance grantmaking, measure funder
effectiveness and more. The guide includes four grantee and two foundation
assessment tools. |
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Guidelines for the Funding of Nonprofit Organizations
Independent Sector, April 2004
The Washington, D.C. organization calls on funders to provide general operating
support over project support whenever it is appropriate, feasible and the goals
of the foundation and nonprofit are closely aligned. |
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Building Capacity in Nonprofit Organizations (PDF)
John S.
and James L. Knight Foundation, Human Interaction Research Institute, Center on
Nonprofits and Philanthropy at The Urban Institute, April 2001
Offers perspective on how
nonprofits and funders can build capacity in nonprofit organizations and the
sector as a whole. |
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The Capacity Building Challenge (PDF)
Practice Matters: The Improving Philanthropy Project, April 2004
This document
details the capacity-building efforts of eight funders and proposes a system of
measurement, then shows how one grantmaker applied those lessons. |
