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Special features
Can philanthropy be networked and strategic?
It is a feeling many of us know well. The idea of working through networks has appeal, but real life gets in the way. For non-profit leaders, the day-to-day challenges of running organizations, competing for …
From CEO to CNO: becoming networked is the key to success
Bruce Lesley is the president of an NGO in the US called First Focus, an organization dedicated to making children and families a priority in US policy and budget decisions. He has more than 20 …
The biggest foundation you’ve never heard of
Despite the best intentions, funders often inadvertently sabotage their own efforts to support collaboration. When it comes to getting grants, non-profit leaders are often rewarded for organizational achievements and building their own brand rather than …
Using networks to tackle complex problems
In 2003, Garfield Foundation board meetings focused on the impressive impact of our individual grantees while at the same time lamenting the seemingly insurmountable challenges of moving society towards greater ecological and social sustainability. We …
Worth the membership dues?
Other articles in this special feature have emphasized the value of networks in the natural world. Can a similar case be made for philanthropy networks – by which we mean here membership associations? They are …
Networking among the urban poor
Networking is seen as the apple pie in development … everyone says it’s good and organizations are urged to do it, regardless of what categories of association or organization they are part of. In development, …
AGN – marching on optimistically
In the world of philanthropy networks, the African Grantmakers Network (AGN) is a very new one. What is its vision and what is needed to realize it? What will it take to make this new …
Beyond networks
Networks are about relationships, or, to be more precise, they are a language to describe and graphically model flows and interactions, in our case mainly between humans or organizations. Historically this language borrows its vocabulary …
Why VPP decided to experiment with networked philanthropy
Venture Philanthropy Partners (VPP) was founded on a novel concept in 2000: to improve the lives of disadvantaged young people in the National Capital Region by building the capacity of a select set of non-profits …
Data resources
‘For data to be useful in philanthropy they have to be known, accessible, and compoundable (able to be mixed and combined).’ So wrote Lucy Bernholz in a post on her Philanthropy 2173 blog in July. …