Community Foundation

2007, 29 pages. Creative Trust, 215 Spadina Avenue, Suite 129, Toronto, ON, M5T 2C7, (416) 506-9047, www.creativetrust.ca

http://www.creativetrust.ca/download/CT_Evaluation_Report_Year3.pdf

2008, 33 pages. CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, 731 Market Street, Suite 200, San Francisco, CA, 94103, (415) 541-9000, www.compasspoint.org

http://www.meyerfoundation.org/downloads/ready_to_lead/ReadytoLead2008.pdf

2008, 271 pages. The Aspen Institute, One Dupont Circle, NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C., 20036, (202) 736-5800, www.aspeninstitute.org

This book is a comprehensive analysis of the results of the Strengthening Nonprofit Advocacy Project, a joint research effort of OMB Watch, Tufts University, and the Center for Lobbying in the Public Interest. It calls on foundations to create initiatives for advocacy activities, increase their use of general operating grants and remove language restricting lobbying from grant letters.

2005, 5 pages. TCC Group, 31 West 27th Street, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10001, (212) 949-0990

http://www.tccgrp.com/pdfs/per_brief_outsourcing.pdf

This paper argues that private companies are not the only organizations outsourcing key functions, but that funders are, as well. Some believe that these external helpers can do the work more efficiently or effectively. The paper asks what types of funders are outsourcing, why they are doing so, and what functions can best be "farmed out."

2007, 235 pages. National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts, 520 8th Avenue, Suite 302, New York NY, 10018, (212) 268-3337, www.nationalguild.org

2008, 9 pages. New York Innovative Theatre Foundation, (212) 465-3347, www.nyitawards.com

Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, New Jersey, and London, 2008, 297 pages, Edited by Diane Grams and Betty Farrell.

2007, 103 pages. University of New South Wales Press Ltd, Sydney, Australia www.unswpress.com.au (publisher); Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Paddington NSW (sponsor). Available through Hopkins Fulfillment Services, University of Washington Press, (800) 537-5487

2008, 328 pages. Published by University of California Press

Working at a busy foundation involves a lot of reading and listening to smart people who are working hard to improve the world we live in. One thing comes across loud and clear: how little value added is being contemporaneously realized from the definitional leaps of our unsustainably complex verbiage.

In other words, it's time for us nonprofit people to learn to MAKE IT PLAIN.