This year, Equal Pay Day—which indicates how far into the year a woman must work to receive the same wage that a man received the previous year—fell on March 12. The National Partnership for Women & Families marked the day by drawing attention to the persistent wage disparities that hamper millions of working women, along with the steps that we and our allies can take to close this pay gap once and for all.   According to U.S. Census data, among both full-time and part-time workers, women are paid just 78 cents for every dollar paid to men. Every year, gender pay gaps rob women of mor ..read more

It’s not uncommon for nonprofits to struggle with securing funding despite the strength of their programs. Often, the reason a foundation declines a grant has nothing to do with you. But if you want to stand out in a crowded applicant field, it’s essential to communicate your impact clearly and compellingly. (“Impact,” “results,” and “outcomes” all refer to evidence that your program is effective and will be used interchangeably here.) But what do funders want to see, and how can you convey program impact in a compelling way? Funders seek a return on investment With so many applicants and limi ..read more

A report from Giving Gap, State of Black Nonprofits Report: 2024: Shining a Light on What Donors and Funders Need to Know, highlights the critical role of Black-founded organizations as service providers, catalysts for positive change, and champions for equity. Combining survey data from leaders of 168 Black-founded nonprofits and Candid’s 990 data, the report delves into the unique strengths of these organizations and their leaders, showcasing their resilience and commitment in the face of funding disparities, limited growth opportunities, and the need for equitable support and investment.&nb ..read more

Since 2020, we’ve seen a greater sense of urgency to address racial inequities in the social sector—especially around access to power and resources. As the largest source of nonprofit demographic data, at Candid we’re often asked whether this push has resulted in actual change. Are more people of color serving in nonprofit leadership roles? Have we closed the racial leadership gap?   The answer is…yes and no. For this article, we use our archival demographic data to examinei whether there has been an increase in racial diversity among nonprofit leaders between 2020 and 2023. Here are ..read more

As you may have heard, we’re building new Candid tools to help those working in the social sector to do good even more efficiently and effectively in a fast-changing world. To understand how Candid products can best serve our users, we need to know what problems those users are trying to solve.  With the combined resources of Foundation Center and GuideStar, we at Candid have a unique opportunity to build the most effective solution for providing information for and about nonprofits and funders. We believe that the only way to succeed is to be in continuous dialog with our users as we cre ..read more

Traditionally, nonprofit governance has been perceived through a hierarchical lens, with board members primarily overseeing and guiding the organization’s direction while staff execute the operational tasks. However, in the dynamic landscape of contemporary social change, there is a growing recognition of the need to evolve from this conventional approach toward a more collaborative and inclusive model—one grounded in partnership.   As someone deeply committed to the principles of good governance, I eagerly accepted the opportunity to serve on Candid’s board as Governance Committee c ..read more

The number of U.S. news organizations, specifically local news outlets, has been rapidly dwindling. The wave of layoffs following the Great Recession, compounded by the loss of print ad revenue, has made it harder for outlets to bounce back. The COVID-19 pandemic brought more challenges for the industry, as demand for local news grew but revenue and outlets shrank. In 2023, an average of 2.5 newspapers closed each week, up from two a week in 2022. Funders including the John S. and James L. Knight, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur, and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations have recognized the ..read more

Imagine a world in which philanthropy professionals are focused on improving their practices to transform philanthropy through centering communities, lightening the burden on nonprofit organizations, and holding themselves accountable to their values. PEAK Grantmaking’s “Reimagining Philanthropy” conference in March exploring these themes was a fitting setting for a session Candid organized about advancing systems change via data collaboration at scale.   In addition to Candid’s vice president of influence Aleda Gagarin, the session featured Ellen Dickenson, senior vice president for ..read more

In my last article, I examined some of the key findings from the latest CF Insights survey, conducted annually by the Council on Foundations to track trends in community foundation activity and growth. The data—looking at fiscal year 2022—showed that, although community foundation assets and fundraising revenues were both down from the previous year, grantmaking was up, demonstrating the resilience of community foundation giving. When we dig a bit deeper into the data, it becomes clear that a significant portion of that activity was driven by donor-advised funds (DAFs) hosted by community foun ..read more

For the last eight years, Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors has led the Shifting Systems Initiative, which encourages funders to provide longer-term, less restrictive funds to help grantee partners scale their solutions and impact to support positive systems change.  We’ve seen many funders emphasize grants to organizations that can scale successfully. At some point, the proliferation of too many pilot projects was identified as a problem by both funders and organizations themselves, without enough of them making a significant dent in the overall problem. So, effective scaling of successf ..read more