Center for Effective Philanthropy

The CEP is funded partly by its survey and advisory fees, but the Center also receives regular funding from several large, left-of-center foundations including the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, and the Duke Endowment. The John D. and Catherine T. Macarthur Foundation awarded CEP $705,000 between 2003 and 2020. Aside from block grants, the CEP has also received several one-time grants to conduct individual studies. ^{2 3}

The CEP’s daughter initiative, YouthTruth, does similar survey work within schools, conducting surveys to gauge student and family perceptions of classrooms, school programs, and teacher effectiveness. ⁴ The CEP is also affiliated with the Council on Foundations. ⁵

Activites

YouthTruth is a survey and advisory organization founded in 2008 by Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan and Hewlett Foundation vice president Fay Twersky, in collaboration with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. YouthTruth creates and conducts surveys for children enrolled in K-12 schooling, their families, and school staff to evaluate the effectiveness of classes, school programming, and teaching methods. YouthTruth has already surveyed over 1.5 million students in five countries. In addition to fees from surveys and advising services, YouthTruth is funded by gifts from the Walton Family Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.  ⁶

In 2026, the Center for Effective Philanthropy released survey data indicating growing financial strain across the U.S. nonprofit sector amid federal funding reductions and increased demand for services. The survey, conducted among leaders of 380 nonprofit organizations receiving foundation funding, found that 66 percent of respondents expressed concerns about their organization’s financial stability, while 39 percent reported operating deficits, up from 22 percent in 2022. Nearly three-quarters of surveyed nonprofit executives also reported increased demand for services. ⁷

Issue Stances

In February 2024, then-Center for Effective Philanthropy board vice-chair Anthony Richardson wrote a blog post detailing how philanthropy could respond to the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision eliminating affirmative action in university admissions. Richardson wrote, “All throughout U.S. history, there has been a backlash (or as some people say, a white lash) that seeks to erode or eliminate any advances for historically marginalized groups, following a civil rights breakthrough or any form of socio-political-economic progress.” Richardson also wrote, “For many of us, SCOTUS’ affirmative action rulings in 2023 are a part of that long history to disrupt and impede progress. In this instance, following the murders of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and other people of color in 2020, we saw an unparalleled uprise in public support and stances against racism. Foundations increased payout to fund racial justice efforts; local and state governments declared racism a public health crisis; and many companies deployed hundreds of millions of dollars in support of race-based initiatives and projects.” ⁸

Richardson stated, “In an era of heightened misinformation, news deserts and media manipulation, it is vitally important for foundations to support media literacy programs, journalism, and democracy building. Without reliable and truthful news and information, we will never be able to achieve racial justice, climate justice or a full-fledged, multi-cultural democracy.” Richardson urged foundations and other nonprofits to support groups “who may need support amid push back from other funders, government, private citizens, anti-DEI antagonists, etc.” He also urged funders to support university programs which help first generation college students and to put money into, “democracy building efforts, including — but not limited to — power-building, community engagement, civic leadership development, voter education, voter registration, and voter mobilization in BIPOC and historically marginalized communities.” ⁸

In June 2026, CEP president Phil Buchanan published a blog post denouncing the idea of institutional neutrality calling it a “fallacy.” He also condemned donor-advised funds that stopped allowing their clients to donate to the Southern Poverty Law Center after it was indicted by a federal grand jury. ⁹

In June 2026, the CEP published a blog post by Kresge Foundation president and CEO Rip Rapson and managing director of the environment program Shamar Bibbins, which criticized the federal government’s decision to move away from regulating greenhouse gas emissions. They urged nonprofits to provide greater support for environmentalism, writing, “It has long been assumed that federal policy is the primary driver of combatting climate change. No longer. When federal environmental policy has not just left the building, but seeks to deconstruct it and sell it for scrap, local action must step in to protect, to preserve, and to build anew — and philanthropic funders have a vital role to play in spurring local action.” They urged funders to support local efforts to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. ¹⁰

Leadership

Mark Kramer is the founder of the Center for Effective Philanthropy. Kramer is the former president of the venture capital firm Kramer Capital Management and also founded FSG Social Impact Advisors, a nonprofit charitable consulting service. Kramer is also a member of the steering committees for the United Nations Global Compact and the left-of-center Rockefeller Foundation’s Framework for Action program. Kramer is also a member of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development and a senior fellow with the Harvard Corporate Social Responsibility Initiative.  ¹¹

Anthony Richardson is the chairman of the CEP board. He is the president of the George Gund Foundation. Before becoming president of the George Gund Foundation, he was the executive director of The Nord Family Foundation. He is a former city council member for the City of Lorain, Ohio. He is also the board chair for Funders Together to End Homelessness and a board member for the Corella and Bertram F. Bonner Foundation. ¹²

CEP President Phil Buchanan is the author of Giving Done Right: Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count. Buchanan is also the co-founder of YouthTruth and sits as a board member of Philanthropy Massachusetts and the National Council on Aging. ¹³

CEP Methodology

For its initial survey pool, the Center for Effective Philanthropy offered services to 200 donor foundations, only thirteen of which responded. To work with the CEP, donors pay up to $30,000 for an assessment of their recipient charities’ perception of the donors’ effectiveness and working relationships. Grant recipients reported that they were often afraid to push back against donor requests due to fear of retaliation, including the potential loss of funding. ¹⁴

In a survey funded by the S.D Bechtel Jr. Foundation and the Raikes Foundation, the CEP revealed that most nonprofits that received grants from donor foundations were frustrated by the amount of pressure donor foundations exerted upon their grant recipients. Recipients also complained about a lack of transparency regarding the terms and guarantees of multi-year funding. To alleviate these problems, the CEP advocates for increasing unrestricted giving by donor organizations as opposed to funds earmarked for a specific purpose. The CEP also encourages large donor foundations to connect nonprofits directly with individual major donors. ¹⁵¹⁴

In another study on racial, gender, and sexuality diversity funded by the left-of-center Rita Allen Foundation and W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the CEP surveyed 205 nonprofit organization leaders. The study showed that 42 percent of nonprofit leaders would prefer that their donors were “not involved or not very involved” in diversity efforts within their individual organizations, while only 17 percent reported that they would like to see donors “very involved” in diversity efforts. ¹⁶