Could you use more help thinking through how to use data to help your organization make decisions? If so, you’re not alone. Our recent report on how nonprofits are using data showed that although some organizations are relying heavily on data, a number were doing very little to actually measure their work or use the data to inform other decisions.

Measuring may not be as difficult as you suspect. When we talked to experts, they agreed that simply starting to track a few strategic metrics was a huge step toward a more data-driven culture. Once your staff has data that they can use to make decisions, they will often start to want more. A few, straightforward metrics can start the snowball to a more broad-based program.

Getting started isn’t a trivial process, however. What metrics will be useful and actionable—but not require a ton of time to collect and understand? How do you define and communicate data in order for your organization to make decisions?

This workbook will help you with those questions.

This handbook is a practical tool that will help you think through the pros and cons, the ins and outs, and the nuts and bolts of developing and supporting a healthy giving circle.

This resource contains useful advice and a number of ready-to-use tools for you to write on, share with your board and your (potential) giving circle members, modify, and adapt. More tools, sample documents, and information are available at the Forum’s Giving Circles Knowledge Center: www.giving forum.org/givingcircles. This online resource is continually updated with stories and resources from giving circles across the country. We hope you will visit the Knowledge Center and share your story with other giving circles.

The National Council of Nonprofits has created a nonpartisan Voter Engagement Guide, which provides a roadmap of permitted nonpartisan activities and highlights how charitable nonprofits can effectively engage in elections on a nonpartisan basis, leverage their networks for greater impact and build relationships with elected officials. 

This guide introduces young people to strategic, thoughtful philanthropy, and inspires them toward giving with impact. Families and adults who work with youth can use these guides to facilitate peer discussions and fun activities around giving.

W.K. Kellogg Foundation has launched a web-based, racial equity resource guide. This interactive resource guide provides individuals and organizations with access to extensive learning materials, tools, and data on racial inequities, their impact on communities of color, and the process for healing racial wounds so that communities can work together across differences.  The resources include articles, organizations, studies, books, media strategies, and training curricula and the website allows users to customize their own packages of materials on specific topics.

Project Streamline helps grantmakers reduce the burden of grantmaking requirements, so grants management professionals can obtain the information they need to make good grantmaking decisions and help their organizations and their grantseekers dedicate more time to mission-based work.

Project Streamline addresses the cumulative impact of grantmakers’ distinct and often laborious application and reporting requirements, which can undermine nonprofit effectiveness. Often, grantseekers devote excessive, untold time to pursuing funds (many times without a payoff) and reporting on grants (many times without benefit) at the expense of helping those they serve.

This collection of resources from the Chronicle of Philanthropy spans guidance on board development, strategies for overcoming common challenges, building diversity, and implementing effective practices for board members & trustees. 

The legal staff at the Packard Foundation, Gates Foundation, Hewlett Foundation and Moore Foundation developed this free, first-of-its-kind resource, which covers the basic legal rules around what staff are allowed to fund and engage in at a private foundation.

The goal of this collaboration is to create online, web-based trainings to supplement existing in-person training programs. The Foundations identified a shared need for this type of instructional resource, and a common desire to collaboratively develop a training system that speaks to a variety of learning styles and organizational training needs.

As a result, the Foundations developed Learn Foundation Law, a free first-of-its-kind resource for private foundations (and others who are interested), to host e-trainings and tools related to the basic legal rules for private foundations. Most e-learnings developed by the Foundations take less than one hour to complete and feature a program officer named Maya who leads participants through each course. Participants can return to any training at any time for a refresher and click on individual modules to refer back to specific topics. In addition, other e-learnings developed by any one of the Foundations may also be hosted on this site.

The toolkit helps communicate the exciting giving opportunities available to donors.