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Philanthropy Southeast’s online Research Library is regularly updated with the latest reports relevant to Southern philanthropy. Members can browse over 500 research reports, websites, case studies, and other resources we have cultivated to help funders stay abreast of trends in the field and learn about emerging best practices in philanthropy.

Below are some of the key findings and highlights of the newest additions to the Research Library. If you would like to suggest a resource or have other feedback, contact Stephen Sherman, Philanthropy Southeast’s Director of Research and Data, at stephen@philanthropysoutheast.org or (404) 524-0911.

Philanthropy’s New Voice: Building Trust with Deeper Stories and Clear Language
Council on Foundations, Center for Public Interest Communications (2024)

This report examines the lack of a clear narrative about what the philanthropic sector does and how this impacts Americans' views of foundations and their work. Based on a multi-method approach including a survey of more than 3,500 Americans and interviews with practitioners, this study found that despite generally positive perceptions of foundations, most Americans don't have a good understanding of the role of the charitable sector in their lives. The study shows a need for a shared narrative around the work of foundations and better transparency from funders to demonstrate how philanthropy works. The authors provide a set of six recommendations for foundations and philanthropy to build more trust and promote a more positive narrative around the sector.

The 2024 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Survey is open to participants now through May. Since 1980, the annual Grantmaker Salary and Benefits (GSB) Survey has provided the philanthropic sector with the most comprehensive data on foundation staff and board compensation. The annual GSB report is an invaluable tool for grantmakers to inform budgeting, talent recruitment, retention strategies, and personnel policies and practices.

Your participation in the GSB survey is needed – the greater the participation, the greater the insights for the sector and for your fellow Philanthropy Southeast members. Through a partnership with the Council on Foundations (COF), Philanthropy Southeast uses data from the GSB to provide custom salary tables for grantmakers from our region each fall (typically early October).

What are the benefits for participating organizations?

All survey participants (both COF members and non-members) will receive:

• Free access to the GSB Report
• Early access to the report’s data tables
• Access to create custom benchmark reports

Reports and data are expected to be released in fall 2024.

How can your foundation participate?

Visit the COF website to learn more and for detailed instructions on how to complete the survey.

First time completing the GSB survey?

See this page for answers to frequently asked questions as well as a list of documents you’ll need to complete the survey. The Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Survey live in Benchmark Central. If you have never participated in a GSB Survey, email your first and last name, title, and email address to communications@cof.org in order to obtain a Benchmark Central account. 

Thank you in advance for your participation!

Philanthropy Southeast’s online Research Library is regularly updated with the latest reports relevant to Southern philanthropy. Members can browse over 500 research reports, websites, case studies, and other resources we have cultivated to help funders stay abreast of trends in the field and learn about emerging best practices in philanthropy. 

Below are some of the key findings and highlights of the newest additions to the Research Library. If you would like to suggest a resource or have other feedback, contact Stephen Sherman, Philanthropy Southeast’s Director of Research and Data, at stephen@philanthropysoutheast.org or (404) 524-0911.

Philanthropic Support for the Nursing Profession: Priorities and Potential for Transforming Nursing and Achieving Health Care Quality and Equity
American Nurses Foundation (2023)
This report documents, for the first time, overall philanthropic investments in the U.S. nursing profession as well as the specific funding priorities of a subset of leading private, public, and community foundations. It also shares the perspectives of a set of nursing funders and other experts on the state of philanthropic support for the nursing profession and concludes with recommendations for funders seeking to unlock the transformative power of nurses. Overall philanthropic support for nursing totaled an estimated $573.9 million in 2022 and a combined $3.2 billion from 2015 through 2022. While these figures represent substantial support for all aspects of nursing, they amount to merely one cent of every dollar in private contributions given for health care during this period.

The Southern Trends Report, Philanthropy Southeast’s dashboard on Southeast foundations, has recently been updated with 2021 data on foundations and grantmaking. Developed in partnership with Candid, the site provides a year-by-year look at trends in foundation growth and giving in our region The latest figures show a number of key findings:

• Assets of Southeast foundations rose to more than $190 billion in 2021, more than doubling over a ten-year period
• Giving by Southeast foundations topped $11 billion in 2020 and 2021
• Education, human services and health are the top areas of focus for grants awarded by Southeast foundations.
• A clear majority of grant dollars awarded by Southeast foundations (61 percent) went to recipients within the region.

This year's update also includes revised and expanded data for 2019 and 2020 – reporting for these years had been slowed by the pandemic. The latest updates now present a much fuller picture of philanthropy in the region during that critical time.

Each year, Philanthropy Southeast partners with the Council on Foundations (COF) to produce salary benchmarking reports for foundation staff and CEOs in the Southeast. These reports include the average, median, minimum and maximum salaries for a range of 38 staff positions at all levels in foundations based in the 11 Southeast states and U.S. Caribbean territories. Salary tables are organized by both grantmaker type and asset size to provide quick access to benchmarking data for foundations of all shapes and sizes.

Salary information for 2023 is drawn from data on more than 10,000 full-time paid staff at nearly 1,000 grantmaking organizations. The South region accounted for approximately 26 percent of all respondents. We wish to thank all Philanthropy Southeast member organizations that responded to the 2023 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Survey earlier this year, providing the valuable benchmarking data that informs these reports.

The 2023 salary tables for Southeast foundations are available exclusively to Philanthropy Southeast members under the For Members section of our website – or you can click this link to access them directly (login required). 

What did this year’s survey reveal? Here are some of the key findings:

Philanthropy Southeast’s online Research Library is regularly updated with the latest reports relevant to Southern philanthropy. Members can browse over 500 research reports, websites, case studies, and other resources we have cultivated to help funders stay abreast of trends in the field and learn about emerging best practices in philanthropy. 

Below are some of the key findings and highlights of the newest additions to the Research Library. If you would like to suggest a resource or have other feedback, contact Stephen Sherman, Philanthropy Southeast’s Director of Research and Data, at stephen@philanthropysoutheast.org or (404) 524-0911.

Philanthropy and HBCUs: Foundation Funding to Historically Black Colleges and Universities
ABFE, Candid (2023)
This report, developed in partnership between ABFE and Candid, examines U.S. foundation funding to historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) in the United States. It explores the relationship between foundations and HBCUs through a quantitative analysis of Candid's grants data and qualitative interviews with HBCU staff, students and funders. The study showed that large U.S. foundations steadily decreased their support of HBCUs between 2002 and 2019. They awarded $65 million to HBCUs in 2002; by 2019, giving decreased 30 percent to $45 million (not adjusting for inflation). In contrast, the average Ivy League institution received 178 times more foundation funding than the average HBCU. The report also finds that HBCUs received, on average, about two-thirds of what foundations paid out to similarly situated institutions.

This post is the first in a series that continues to explore the themes and ideas in our report, Leading with Courage: Reshaping Southern Philanthropy for New Era.

The 2024 presidential election is still 18 months away, but already the temperature is rising.

With a potential rematch looming between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, America’s deep political divide will be on full display for the foreseeable future.

The implications of growing political polarization on Southern philanthropy, and the communities it serves, was one of the emerging trends highlighted in Leading with Courage, a recently released report by Philanthropy Southeast.

Polarization touches nearly every aspect of American society – and it is increasingly affecting the work of philanthropic organizations. Polarization has challenged foundations on how to frame and execute on equity initiatives, in some instances leading to a chilling effect on equity training programs that had gained momentum in the wake of the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer in May 2020.

Molly Talbot-Metz, president of the Mary Black Foundation in Spartanburg, South Carolina, notes that nearly every aspect of the health foundation’s work – advocating for preventative practices related to the pandemic, Medicaid expansion or access to contraception – has increasingly been viewed through a political lens.

As a partner on the Get on the Map campaign, Philanthropy Southeast works with Candid to promote data sharing in the philanthropic sector. We invite our members to join this effort by sharing your grants data with Candid. By doing so, your organization will help inform resources like the Southern Trends Report and interactive tools like Foundation Maps. These resources are used daily by your peers to assess gaps in funding, seek out potential partners, and determine where and how to target their investments.

Your participation is also critical to ensuring that researchers, sector leaders, policymakers, and others have the most complete and accurate picture of Southern philanthropy’s contributions. Delays in IRS processing of Forms 990-PF have made eReporting an even more vital source of current data on foundation grantmaking. Sharing your grants data directly with Candid also offers the opportunity to add enhanced descriptors that ensure grants are presented accurately in Candid’s many resources. We need your help to provide the full picture of philanthropy in our region.

If your organization is already an eReporting partner, thank you! You should have received instructions from Candid for reporting FY21 and FY22 data. Please remember to share your data by June 30, 2023.

If your organization is new to eReporting, it’s easy to share your grants data. You can follow the instructions on this page, or simply email your grants data to egrants@candid.org.

As an added benefit, organizations that participate in eReporting receive an interactive map that visualizes their foundation’s grantmaking (see a sample here). Grants data is also incorporated into our regional giving map, available exclusively to Philanthropy Southeast members.

For additional information, visit the Candid website or contact Stephen Sherman, director of research and data, at stephen@philanthropysoutheast.org.

The 2023 Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Survey is open to participants now through May. Since 1980, the annual Grantmaker Salary and Benefits (GSB) Survey has provided the philanthropic sector with the most comprehensive data on foundation staff and board compensation. Grantmakers rely on this annual report to inform budgeting, talent recruitment, retention strategies, and personnel policies and practices.

Your participation in the GSB survey is needed—the greater the participation, the greater the insights for the sector and for your fellow Philanthropy Southeast members. Through a partnership with the Council on Foundations (COF), Philanthropy Southeast provides custom salary tables for grantmakers from our region each fall (typically early October).

What are the benefits for participating organizations?

All survey participants (both COF members and non-members) will receive:

• Free access to the GSB Report
• Early access to the report’s data tables
• Access to create custom benchmark reports

Reports and data are expected to be released in fall 2023.

How can your foundation participate?

Visit the COF website to learn more and for detailed instructions on how to complete the survey.

First time completing the GSB survey?

See this page for answers to frequently asked questions as well as a list of documents you’ll need to complete the survey. The Grantmaker Salary and Benefits Survey lives in Benchmark Central. If you have never participated in a GSB Survey, email your first and last name, title, and email  address to communications@cof.org in order to obtain a Benchmark Central account. 

The deadline to complete this year’s GSB survey will be May 16, 2023. Thank you in advance for your participation!

Philanthropy Southeast’s online Research Library is regularly updated with the latest reports relevant to Southern philanthropy. Members can browse over 500 research reports, websites, case studies, and other resources we have cultivated to help funders stay abreast of trends in the field and learn about emerging best practices in philanthropy. 

Below are some of the key findings and highlights of the newest additions to the Research Library. If you would like to suggest a resource or have other feedback, contact Stephen Sherman, Philanthropy Southeast’s Director of Research and Data, at stephen@philanthropysoutheast.org or (404) 524-0911.

Giving Big: The Impact of Large, Unrestricted Gifts on Nonprofits: Results from Year One of a Three-Year Study of MacKenzie Scott’s Giving
Center for Effective Philanthropy (2022)

In late July 2020, MacKenzie Scott made the shocking announcement that she had given $1.7 billion to 116 nonprofit organizations. The gifts came in the form of large, unrestricted grants with few reporting requirements. CEP has undertaken a three-year research study examining the impact of these large, unrestricted gifts on the recipient organizations. The study shows that these gifts have been transformational for the organizations and their leadership. The recipient nonprofits have used funds to increase their capacity and expand their existing work. A majority believe that the gifts are bringing them closer to achieving their mission, have strengthened their organization’s financial stability, and expanded their long-term organizational capacity. Despite concerns about the recipients’ ability to absorb such large gifts, few organizations have reported any challenges or disruptions to their work as a result of the contributions.