Corporate Philanthropy

This Field Resource Book profiles nine foundations that provide general operating support to arts organizations. The featured foundations reflect geographic and institutional diversity, as well as myriad grantmaking approaches. The chapters are the result of research and interviews with senior staff at each of the nine foundations.

Each chapter includes six sections:

Investing in Capacity Building: A Guide to High-Impact Approaches Improving management practices—the most challenging aspect of capacity building—is essential to increasing the impact of a nonprofit's limited resources. Author Barbara Blumenthal helps grantmakers and consultants design better methods of helping nonprofits, while showing nonprofit managers how to get more effective support.

Author Paul Firstenberg challenges grantmakers to proactively assist their grantee's management in maximizing the nonprofit's social impact, showing grantseekers how potential funders increasingly emphasize organizational capacity building.

Authors Barbara Kibbe and Fred Setterberg explain how the appropriate use of consultants can generate exciting methods of forwarding your organization's goals.

John Nason, drawing on years of experience as a trustee, guides foundation officials and their boards through difficulties and provides insights into critical areas of concern.

The Foundation Center, March 1989, 173 pp.

Available online from The Foundation Center.

2007, 114 pages. Urban Institute, 2100 M Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20037, 202-833-7200, www.urban.org

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001175_asd_financing.pdf

As a program officer at The San Francisco Foundation, I say “No” to artists and arts organizations daily. I try to soften the blow, detailing the reality of limited resources and an overabundance of projects, seldom discussing quality or appropriateness, thinking I am kinder in vagueness.

2007, 56 pages. Urban Institute, 2100 M Street NW, Washington, D.C., 20037, 202-833-7200, www.urban.org

http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/1001176_asd_case.pdf

2008, 33 pages. The Atlantic Philanthropies, 125 Park Avenue, 21st Floor, New York, NY, 10017, 212-916-7305, www.atlanticphilanthropies.org

http://www.atlanticphilanthropies.org/content/download/
6739/103341/file/ATLP_farmworkers_report.pdf