A Note from the Editor …

As I am now days away from my one-year anniversary at the Council, I thought it would be a good time to reflect on the state of the Re: Philanthropy blog and where we go from here.

First, I want to thank all of those who contributed over the course of the last year. You have made my job so much easier. We went from having to actively solicit blog entries to having a backlog as bloggers now submit on their own. From the live blog teams at the conferences to special theme weeks to individual topics, the content has been rich, entertaining, educational, and provided a great way for the field to connect.

I also wanted to recognize some of the blogs and bloggers that were the most read in 2011:

• The Council’s John Harvey had the most overall read blog: Top 10 Predictions for Global Philanthropy in 2012
• Sophia Guevara, a regular contributor to the Consortium of Foundation Libraries blog, had the most cumulative readers
• Corporate philanthropy shared the most read blogs by a sector
• Britany Jenkins, summer associate for the Council’s Community Foundation Team, had the most well-read blog by a member of NextGen for The Impact of Youth Philanthropy
• Robyn Schein of The Minneapolis Foundation had the most readers for a live conference blog with Having the Talk: Talking to Your Kids About Wealth and Philanthropy from the 2011 Family Philanthropy Conference

I also wanted to offer a special thanks to all of our readers. In 2011, Re: Philanthropy reached nearly 30,000 unique visitors, an increase of more than 70 percent from the previous year.

In 2012, we hope to continue growing and expanding Re: Philanthropy, both on the backend and in content so as to be a bigger and better asset to Council members and the field. We encourage your suggestions on what we can do to make improvements and, as always, we are constantly looking for great content to share with the field. If you would like to submit a blog, email me at mark.carpenter@cof.org.

Thanks again for reading.

Mark Carpenter is manager, public relations at the Council on Foundations.