Global grantmaking and international issues remain a priority for the Council, from our leadership on the Board of WINGS, to programming and resources for global grantmakers and our continued commitment to working on the SDGs. To help lead this work, we welcomed a new Atlas Corps Global Fellow in late March—Caroline Needles—from Canada who will spend more than a year at the Council, helping lead our international program. I hope you’ll connect with her during her time here at the Council!
Global Philanthropy
Join us - the Council on Foundations, Foundation Center and Global Alliance for Community Philanthropy - at this special event for the launch of a new GrantCraft Leadership Series paper which introduces the concept of community philanthropy: both as a form of, and force for, building local assets, capacities, and trust.
Learn about the changing incentives and barriers that individuals and organizations face when donating to social causes and organizations globally, as well as diving deep into the changing philanthropic environment in Hungary, Nigeria, and Venezuela.
Following upon the first-ever North American Community Foundations Summit held in Mexico City February, we invited nine travel scholarship recipients who attended to write about their experiences and observations. This is the second compilation of blogs in that series.
This month, work on public policy that impacts philanthropy has been a large focus across the Council. Most relevant to global grantmakers, I’ve been working with partners on the US Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). There are more than seven bills currently proposed in the House and Senate that will impact FARA, which could have significant impacts on US foundations working with global partners.
As part of the North American Community Foundations Summit, we were joined by nine travel scholarship recipients who represented diverse U.S. communities. This compilation of blogs is part of a series in which they share their experiences and observations.
The Council on Foundations wrote to the Department of Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to urge them to take measured care in drafting proposed regulations so as not to penalize appropriate uses of donor advised funds (DAFs).
The Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) is front page news in the wake of Russian involvement in the 2016 U.S. Presidential election. Since its enactment in 1938, FARA has been rarely enforced, but Congress is currently considering six bills to increase its implementation. This online briefing, cosponsored by the Council on Foundations and the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ICNL), will discuss these concerns, recent legislative action in Congress, and proposed fixes that would enable stronger enforcement of FARA without the unintended impacts on non-profits.
Last week in Mexico City, the Council co-hosted the first ever North American Community Foundations Summit, which brought together more than 200 leaders to discuss how we can truly leave no one behind and achieve the SDGs in North America by 2030.
Coming out of a historic meeting that brought together philanthropic leaders from Canada, Mexico and the United States, more than 80 philanthropic leaders have joined in solidarity and pledged to work to reduce poverty and increase opportunity for all across North America. This commitment marks the first multinational pledge of philanthropic leaders in North America to connect, learn, and exchange across borders in order to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).