The Foundation Center

“The center's form 990 is prepared by the outside accounting firm, pkf o'connor davies. The draft form 990 is then reviewed by the organization's vp of financial strategy and president. Subsequently, the audit committee of the center's board of trustees and the full board receive an electronic copy of the form 990 and reviews the return. After responding to all inquiries and making any necessary changes, the final form 990 is provided to all members of the board prior to its filing with the irs.”

“A conflict of interest disclosure statement is obtained annually from all trustees, officers, manager and other key employees who are currently serving the center. A report summarizing the disclosure statements is provided to the board of trustees annually. It is the center's policy that in the event of a conflict the following is done: if there is a conflict relevant to a matter requiring action by the board of trustees, the interested person shall call it to the attention of the board of trustees, and the trustee concerned shall not vote on the matter. Moreover, the person having a conflict may answer questions that shall arise from the board of trustees, but shall retire from the room in which the board is meeting and shall not participate in any deliberation or decision regarding the matter under consideration. When there is doubt as to whether a conflict of interest exists, the matter shall be resolved by vote of the board of trustees or its committee, excluding from the room and the vote the person whose situation will be discussed. When a conflict of interest arises for any staff member except the president, that staff member shall report it to the president in writing. A conflict of interest relating to the president shall be reported in writing to the chair of the board. In addition, if the conflicted party has a substantial financial interest in the matter, the board would need to consider alternatives.”

“The center's board of trustees, consisting of independent persons, establishes compensation for the president and reviews the compensation for the other officer(s) and vice presidents on an annual basis. Prior to making compensation decisions, the board obtains information on the compensation of functionally comparable positions for similarly qualified persons at similarly situated organizations and/or benchmark salaries for select positions obtained from salary surveys. Documentation of the deliberations and decisions made are maintained in the minutes in the corporate secretary's office.”

“The center's audited financial statements and annual report for the past five years are posted on its website and are downloadable. In addition, governance and staffing policies are posted, including the code of conduct (which includes the conflict of interest policy), diversity statement and the executive compensation policy.”

“The center accomplishes its mission by: - operating library/learning centers in five locations-new york city; washington, dc; atlanta; cleveland; and san francisco-that offer free access to information resources and educational programs. - maintaining unique databases of information on more than 140,000 foundations, corporate donors, and grantmaking public charities worldwide and over 9.5 million of their recent grants. Its foundation directory online (fdo) subscription service is the most popular means for searching these databases. - providing a content-rich web site with a variety of free search tools, tutorials, downloadable reports, and other information updated daily, including philanthropy news digest, its daily news service. - conducting research and publishing reports on the growth of the foundation field and on trends in foundation support of the nonprofit sector. - coordinating a network of funding information centers nationwide and around the world - more than 400 funding information network (fin) partners that offer free local access to core center resources and training. Established in 1956, the foundation center is the leading source of information about philanthropy worldwide. Through data, analysis, and training, it connects people who want to change the world to the resources they need to succeed. The center maintains the most comprehensive database on u.s. And, increasingly, global grantmakers and their grants - a robust, accessible knowledge bank for the sector. It also operates research, education, and training programs designed to advance knowledge of philanthropy at every level. Thousands of people visit the center's web site each day and are served in its five regional library/learning centers and its network of more than 400 fin partners located in public libraries, community foundations, and educational institutions nationwide and around the world.”

“Major data collection and publications program accomplishments in 2018 include the following: foundation center has forged deep, substantive relationships with global, regional, and country-level organizations such as worldwide initiatives for grantmaker support (wings) and donors and foundations networks of europe (dafne) to facilitate data-gathering and knowledge-sharing by their memberships. Our recent work with global partners on issue areas such as human rights, peace and security, and the sustainable development goals (sdgs) has dramatically extended our reach and reputation around the world. Global data: foundation center continues to participate in conversations with foreign aid donors, multilateral lenders, and government transparency advocates in pushing to define future data standards. As the leader in philanthropic data collection and dissemination, we assist organizations around the globe in collecting and organizing their region's philanthropy data by sharing what we have learned over the past 60 years about data acquisition and data architecture. In may 2018, we launched a series of resources as part of the facilitating financial sustainability (ffs) program. The ffs program, jointly conducted by linc, peace direct, and foundation center, was launched to develop and test ways that different actors (including donors, policymakers, intermediary organizations, and civil society organizations) can work together to improve financial sustainability in different development contexts. The findings, available in a series of three reports, draw on qualitative interviews with 120 stakeholders from six countries (bosnia and herzegovina, colombia, democratic republic of congo, mexico, philippines, and uganda) and quantitative analyses of more than 16,000 grants benefitting these countries from 2012 to 2017. The reports detail the drivers of financial sustainability for local civil society organizations and include an interactive funding map. In july 2018, sdgfunders.org was re-launched with a new, dynamically updated dashboard. The platform illustrates philanthropy's contributions towards achieving the sdgs and aims to foster improved coordination among those working to build a better future for all. In august 2018, foundation center and the council on foundations released a new report, the state of global giving by u.s. Foundations, 2011-2015. This is the latest in a longstanding collaboration between foundation center and council on foundations to regularly analyze trends in international grantmaking by u.s. Foundations and the tenth jointly published report since the collaboration started in 1997. In addition to a detailed analysis of trends by issue area, geographic region, population group, donor strategy, and more, the analysis also relates these trends to key events and developments around the world. This report was downloaded more than 4,000 times within the first two weeks of its launch. In october 2018, we launched u.s. Foundation funding for latin america, a report that examines grantmaking in 2014 and 2015 for latin america, with a closer look at philanthropy for central america. Foundation center built on its partnership with philanthropy australia to collect and visualize the grantmaking data of australian foundations through the foundation maps platform. In september 2018 we launched foundation maps: australia to display data from australian funders who ereport to us and allow users to see funding trends, identify who else is funding in their areas of interest, and discover potential new partners for collaboration. This tool provides new insights into who is funding what and where specifically in the australian context. Electronic grant reporting: foundation center continues to be a leading driver in establishing data standards for philanthropy and enabling foundations to share their data with us directly. The "get on the map" campaign with united philanthropy forum continues to be successful, helping increase”

“Enterprise knowledge management: as a result of the complete redesign of our enterprise database management system (edms), we are able to bring in at least 10 times more data into foundation center's products and services. In previous years, foundation center staff hand-coded data into our taxonomy at the rate of 300,000 grants per year. In 2018, our edms processed and indexed 3.85 million grants. Our data now includes federal government grants and the addition of foundation grants under $10,000, which provide more possibilities to help small nonprofit and community-based organizations find funding. Bridge: bridge (basic registry of identified global entities) aims to revolutionize social sector information sharing. Led by foundation center, globalgiving, and guidestar, bridge assigns a unique identifying number to organizations and entities from anywhere in the world that contribute to the social sector. The database currently contains more than three million nonprofits, ngos, and charities worldwide. In september 2018, these were released as open data. Each bridge number acts like a numerical fingerprint, allowing organizations to more easily discover what other data exists about entities of interest, integrate that data into their own systems, manage their own data by minimizing the likelihood of duplicate records, be findable to other organizations, share their own data with other organizations, and systematically track information about organizational units (e.g., business branches, departments, chapters of national organizations, etc.) in addition to organizations as a whole. General data protection regulation (gdpr): on may 25, 2018 the european union's gdpr went into effect. The gdpr is designed to harmonize data privacy laws in eu countries, and "to protect and empower all eu citizens' data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy." because foundation center has eu-based users and handles data on european individuals, we worked to ensure that we comply with the regulation. This included: updating our privacy policy, creating a data retention policy, updating our terms and conditions for all products, removing personally identifiable information about eu-based individuals such as foundation staff from our products, changing how we collect or store information about individuals, and more. News scraping: we have been working on building auto-classification technology to scan news articles from around the world to determine whether they are philanthropy related and use it to pull the most current data into our products. Our goal is to provide our users with near real-time data on grants from around the world without having to rely heavily on u.s.-centered tax filings because there is a time lag between when they are filed and when they are made publicly available. In july 2018, we began our news blitz, scraping an average of 200,000 english-language news articles each night. This auto-classification technology currently allows us to process approximately 50 grants per week which are already appearing in our products. We expect to increase that number to 500 grants per week as we continue to improve and enhance the operation of the system. In the future, we also plan to use it to identify rfps from funders, open grantmaking processes, and news about the establishment of new foundations around the world to provide our users with a timelier and more comprehensive view of the sector. Foundation websites: foundation websites is our web design and support services for private foundations and other grantmaking organizations. Surprisingly, only 10 percent of foundations in the u.s. Have websites. With a goal of increasing foundation transparency, foundation center offers to professionally design and maintain customized websites for foundations free of charge or for a modest fee. Grantmakers who have worked with us on their websites reported receiving better proposals and answering fewer”

“Major research and other programs accomplishments in 2018 include the following: knowledge services are data-driven tools and content-rich platforms developed by foundation center for funders and their networks, consultants, advisors, and grantees. They are designed to answer fundamental questions such as: who is funding what and where? How can we know what other funders know? How can we make the most of what we are learning? We work with partners on custom projects to transform our information, analysis, and technology into solutions for the sector. Foundation landscapes: foundation center aims to create knowledge portals that combine multiple resources, including data visualization tools, news, and original research, to illuminate key issues in philanthropy in a comprehensive and cohesive way. These projects, known as foundation landscapes, are designed for ongoing updates and to make it easy for donors to scan the landscape to reveal opportunities, needs, and gaps and see how their past, current, and future efforts fit into the broader field. In june 2018, with support from the w.k. Kellogg foundation, we launched our racial equity landscape [www.foundationcenter.org/racialequity] to aggregate content from across our multiple web properties, making it easily accessible for users who are interested in taking a deeper dive into the subject. The site includes data on who is funding racial equity work and where the money is going, a collection of research, upcoming trainings and webinars, news articles, and blog posts from experts in the field. Philanthropic infrastructure organizations provide essential services such as strategic planning; evaluation, assessment, and feedback; board and staff development; data and research; legal services; business modeling; and support for diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. They form a much-needed backbone for work on our most critical global challenges, enabling change-makers to be more effective in their efforts to build a better future. Also in 2018, with support from the william and flora hewlett foundation, we mapped the composition of and support for the ecosystem of philanthropic infrastructure organizations. The site [www.infrastructure.foundationcenter.org], and its accompanying report, u.s. Foundation funding for nonprofit and philanthropic infrastructure 2004-2015, analyze 21,148 infrastructure-related grants made by 881 funders to 511 organizations over that period. In partnership with early childhood funders collaborative, the heising-simons foundation, and frank porter graham child development institute, in december 2018 we launched the funding for early childhood care and education landscape [www.ecfunders.org/funding-landscape]. Private foundations in the u.s. Have made grants of more than $6 billion towards improving early childhood care and education since 2006. This project provides funders and practitioners with an overview of where that funding has been concentrated, identifies areas in which more support might be needed, and helps find potential partners to move this crucial work forward. We also made enhancements to our existing foundation landscapes projects. In january 2018, our advancing human rights web portal was updated with new trends data, revealing a 45 percent increase in human rights funding worldwide between 2011 and 2015. In addition to the site update, we also launched a blog series featuring human rights funders who provide a behind-the-scenes glimpse into key trends related to their areas of focus. In august 2018, we launched new dashboards on our foundation funding for u.s. Democracy site, our freely accessible nonpartisan data visualization portal featuring tens of thousands of grants. The new dashboards, one for each of the four subject categories (campaigns and elections, civic participation, government strengthening, and media), allow users to browse through granular grants-level information and provide a detailed picture of how institutional”

“Issuelab: issuelab represents one of the largest platforms of social sector knowledge, containing more than 27,000 publicly available resources produced by 6,850 organizations. The platform is increasingly involved in curating and sharing special collections of knowledge to help inform both funders and practitioners. In june 2018, issuelab launched its special democracy collection which contains reports about election and campaign administration, voting access and participation, government performance and perceptions of that performance, the role of the media in democracy, and more. Issuelab also curated a special collection on racial equity which contains more than 100 reports, surveys, policy briefs, and toolkits from experts in the field. During the grant period we added 3,817 reports to issuelab. Glasspockets: glasspockets champions philanthropic transparency by providing the data, resources, examples, and action steps foundations need to understand its value, be more open in their own communications, and shine a light on how private organizations are serving the public good. In 2018, there were more than 45,000 users of glasspockets. Foundations report that glasspockets has helped them to design accountability strategies which have resulted in transparency improvements within their institutions. During the grant period, we promoted our #openforgood campaign through glasspockets to demonstrate the importance of knowledge sharing by featuring examples via its blogs and adding a new widget to each glasspockets profile showing the knowledge each foundation has shared. Approximately, 70 percent of the 96 foundations with "glasspockets" now share their knowledge via their websites in searchable knowledge centers, representing a 20 percent increase over the previous year. Glasspockets continues to grow globally with the latest participants coming from switzerland and new zealand. During the grant period, glasspockets introduced two new blog series. Because of the power of transparency to improve foundation diversity, equity, and inclusion, glasspockets identified grantmakers, practitioners, and social sector experts to weigh in on how transparency can lead to a more inclusive philanthropic field and featured them in our racial equity & transparency thought leadership series [blog.glasspockets.org/racial-equity]. Designed to spotlight knowledge about ways in which philanthropy is working to strengthen american democracy, our democracy funding blog series [blog.glasspockets.org/democracy-funding-series] focuses on highlighting new research and interviewing top funders and recipients working in this area. Eye on the giving pledge: since 2010, 183 of the world's wealthiest individuals and families have joined the giving pledge, publicly declaring their intentions to commit the majority of their assets to philanthropic causes. Glasspockets is keeping an eye on the giving pledge, providing an in-depth picture of the participants, their publicly accessible charitable activities, and the potential impact of this collective effort. We continue to update the information available and maintain detailed profiles on those who have signed the pledge. They range in age from 32 to 95 from across 23 countries with a combined net worth of $994 billion.”

“Major library/learning center and other public services accomplishments in 2018 include the following: the center operates professionally staffed library/learning centers in five locations: new york city; washington, dc; atlanta; cleveland; and san francisco that offer free access to the center's online subscription databases and books, other resources on funders and all aspects of philanthropy and nonprofit management and free educational programs. The center has an online librarian who responds to reference questions from people who prefer to use its resources online. The center provides free in-person programs which give participants a comprehensive understanding of the grant-seeking process. The center also coordinates a network of funding information centers nationwide and around the world more than 400 fin partners that offer free local access to core center resources, including the foundation directory online professional and training. Other major library/learning center accomplishments in 2018 include the following: free access to foundation center resources and training courses: during the grant period, foundation center served six million people through our online properties, our five regional learning centers in new york city, washington, d.c., atlanta, cleveland, and san francisco, and our 400+ funding information network partner locations (fins) located across the u.s. And seven additional countries around the world. In 2018, more than 15,000 attendees visited our in-person trainings and events across our five regional learning centers. In addition to our standard course offerings, each year we update our training content to ensure that our courses address timely issues for social sector professionals. For example, in 2018 we held panel discussions on topics such as the tax cuts and jobs act, reaching audiences in the age of the general data protection regulation, and more. The libraries of our regional learning centers were visited over 7,000 times, where visitors used our subscription-based services at no charge, guided by expert librarians and resource specialists. Foundation center staff also provided 80 offsite trainings at our fins to an additional 1,500 people. As the social sector landscape evolves and more of our users access our services online, we continue to adapt our offerings to meet their needs. In april 2018, foundation center began providing the sector with ebooks on nonprofit management, proposal writing, and fundraising that they can borrow free of charge for two weeks at a time. The launch of our virtual library, which is always open even when our physical libraries are closed, makes our resources more easily accessible to a broader audience and allows us to serve a growing number of people. During the grant period, 390 people registered for accounts, and titles from our collection were borrowed 718 times. To ensure that our capacity-building tools are available to anyone, anywhere, we use an online learning platform to offer new and improved trainings in three core competencies: fundraising, organizational sustainability, and leadership and management. These offerings range from introduction to proposal writing to more advanced skill-building courses such as your board and fundraising. In 2018, nearly 30,000 people registered for our online trainings and self-paced elearning courses. In 2018, we expanded our livestreaming capabilities so that we could share special programs out of our new york headquarters, allowing our online audience to participate and ask questions from anywhere around the globe. We also made these sessions available for replay immediately after the events. In addition to our online learning tools and in-person trainings, our online librarian service made it easy for people who were unable to access our physical locations to engage with our team of experts to get answers to their questions about foundations, philanthropy, fundraising, and nonprofits. In 2018, our online lib”

“Postretirement changes other than net periodic benefit cost 272,306.”

“The organization did not change either its oversight process or selection process during the tax year.”