FavoriteAs a leadership organization that puts equity at the center and is committed to creating space for reflective conversation, CMF continues to ask the question: Have the market forces and growth in philanthropy—and for CMF, growth in Michigan philanthropy specifically—changed enough to warrant an increase in the 5% rule for private foundations? In 2020 CMF partnered with the Dorothy A. Johnson Center for Philanthropy and Plante Moran Financial Advisors to deepen and expand past research exploring the 5% payout rate to help answer this question, building on the learnings of previous studies we’ve commissioned over the past 20 years. An Evaluation of Read more

Favorite IssueLab: A searchable collection of approximately 30,000 evaluations/reports/white papers, along with our Open For Good GrantCraft Guide, which walks funders through the steps for openly sharing what is learned by foundation knowledge/evaluations.

FavoriteThis toolkit is for seasoned donors, donor advised fund holders, foundation trustees, and staff who are taking steps to significantly ramp up the impact of their giving. No longer content with just “making good grants” or “doing good things for the community,” you have taken a fresh look at your goals, strategies, and outcomes and decided that you could do things differently to achieve even more. We all know that setting bolder, bigger goals for impact is only step one. Implementing strategies and achieving these goals typically involves a winding path full of experiments, iterations, and obstacles. This toolkit is Read more