Participatory Action Research Grants

whitePaper | August 8, 2021

Recent years have seen a rise in anti-democratic extremism, hate speech and violence in the U.S. As concern about these problems has grown, the search for solutions has led to questions about how hate groups are funded. Many in the philanthropic sector have echoed these concerns, and have taken steps to prevent the funding of hate and extremism, while others are interested in doing so. Values-Aligned Philanthropy is a Council on Foundations project that digs into the issue of funding hate and extremism, documenting the problem and the response of the sector to date. This first phase report was created to support foundations concerned about this issue.

whitePaper | October 28, 2021

A recent survey sent to over 1,000 foundations and nonprofits showed that both stakeholders agree that collaboration is the key to tackling complex issues. However it also illuminated a lack of alignment around key outcomes of collaboration and the advantages it can offer. So how can we create an optimal approach to collaboration, reaping its potential benefits, if we aren’t all approaching partnerships with the same goals? Learn more about the findings of the survey in this new report from UpMetrics, and get your next steps to set your organization up for success with future collaborative efforts.

whitePaper | April 13, 2020

Nonprofits make a significant contribution to both the quality of life and the economy in this country. From chambers of commerce and hospitals to churches, disaster relief organizations, environmental advocacy groups, homeless shelters and labor unions, it would be difficult to find an American who is not touched in some way by one of the nearly 1.5 million nonprofits.

whitePaper | May 10, 2021

Our 2021 Nonprofit Technology Trends Report highlighted some of the specific challenges nonprofits faced this year including decreasing funding, canceled fundraisers, and virtual programming. The survey also highlighted the myriad of innovations nonprofits have developed as a result of the pandemic.

whitePaper | March 25, 2020

In their seminal article, "Nonprofit Starvation Cycle", Ann Goggins Gregory and Dan Howard exhort nonprofit finance professionals to report to funders the real costs of running nonprofit organizations. The authors explain that the popular trend to restrict funding to specific programs without accounting for infrastructure expenses leads to an unintended consequence, a "nonprofit starvation cycle", where charities cease to function because they can't pay for overhead costs, such as administrative employees, computers and electric bills. To break this unhealthy cycle, the article encourages nonprofits to recalibrate funder expectations by providing accurate financial reports and other supporting information to reflect the true costs of nonprofit operations.

whitePaper | November 19, 2019

Another widely cited definition of content marketing (published both by HubSpot and the Content Marketing Institute) is: “a strategic marketing and business process focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience, and ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” But that’s clearly a business-oriented definition.