Foundation management

2004, 283 pages. Lexington Books Lanham, MD, 20706

Based on a study of thirty multi-generational Canadian and U.S. family foundations, this book looks at "stages and transitions" in the lives of these foundations. It puts them into historical context, illustrates foundation development and transition, and focuses primarily on topics of governance, continuity, and how families organize themselves to reach their goals. Academic in tone, it is more an overview of how family foundations have evolved over time than a practical guide.

April 2005, 6 pages. Wallace Foundation, Two Park Avenue, 23rd Floor, New York, NY, 10016, 212-251-9700

PDF available for download at the Wallace Foundation website.

Wallace President M. Christine DeVita discusses the Foundation's experiences and early lessons in measuring its own effectiveness, as presented at the 2005 Council on Foundations annual conference. This straightforward approach and simple set of questions provides a useful resource for the small or family foundation wanting to address the question, "How are we doing?"

As grantmakers, we have choices. Finding the right tool for the job and experimenting with tools to learn the range of their usefulness is what grantmakers do.

The summer 2005 issue of the GIA Reader contained an article consisting of excerpts from a group blog discussion on ArtsJournal.com titled, "Is There a Better Case for the Arts?"² The blog was inspired by Gifts of the Muse: Reframing the Debate about the Benefits of the Arts, a study commissioned by the Wallace Foundation "to improve the current understanding of the arts' full range of effects in order to inform public debate and policy."³ Twelve individuals participated in the online d

2005, 20 pages. The Urban Institute, The Foundation Center, GuideStar.org, Washington, DC, 20037 www.urban.org

PDF available at The Urban Institute

2002, 235 pages, ISBN 1-873667-16-7. Comedia, The Round, Bournes Green, Near Stroud, GL6 7NL, UK, www.comedia.org.uk

March 2004, 40 pages. The Foundation Center, 79 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY, 10003, 212-620-4230, http://foundationcenter.org

Download pdf: http://www.foundationcenter.org/gainknowledge/research/pdf/practicematters_06_paper.pdf

As one of the three vice presidents of the Ford Foundation who issued the January 8, 2004 memo, I am fascinated and impressed by Ruby's description of Creative Capital's process for dealing with the memo. She and her colleagues correctly understood that Ford was not operating in a vacuum. We were responding to new Federal legislation that required us to review our own grantmaking and monitoring processes to insure that they conform to the new law. Importantly, we chose to make our values explicit in the memo rather than repeat the exact language of the legislation.

2004, 256 pages, ISBN 0-471-44852-4. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, New Jersey, 210-748-6011, www.wiley.com

More Information: www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471448524.html

2004, 9 pages. Published by the Council on Foundations, 1828 L Street, NW, Washington, DC, 20036, 202-466-6512, www.cof.org

This supplement to Foundation News and Commentary examines foundations' use of the Internet through case-studies of four foundations that employ varying degrees of sophistication in their use of online technologies to support their work.