Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting Change?

Calls for changes in foundation practice have come for decades from philanthropic and nonprofit leaders and others in the sector. The ways in which foundations responded to these calls at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 have been well-documented and widely discussed, including in a series of three reports released late last year by the Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP). However, whether foundation leaders would continue these changes beyond 2020 was an open question.

Data released in CEP’s new report Foundations Respond to Crisis: Lasting Change? found that foundations have indeed continued to change many practices and that they plan to continue most of these changes in a post-pandemic future. Among these changes are a reduction in administrative burdens for grantees, including grant application and reporting requirements, increased unrestricted funding, and new efforts to advance racial equity.

Read the full report here.