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To help connect people across various subsectors and fields, Cynthia sends out periodic "must reads" and other resources--including trend information, data/research studies, and important reports--to a large list of contacts. Emails are segmented to reach: 1) folks who are working on those issues or are in those fields and 2) folks who are in other spaces but might appreciate the information/articles.
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Click on the titles below to reveal a list of articles in each category. Once revealed, simply click on any article title to read it in full.
Nonprofits
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      New report challenges assumptions about nonprofit capacity building The great nonprofit downsizing A Pattern of Lavish Spending at a Leading L.G.B.T.Q. Nonprofit Would a Nonprofit Group Opposed to Police Blow the Whistle on Its Founder? A Nonprofit Tried to Fix Tech Culture But Lost Control of its Own Significant New Federal Grant Rules for Nonprofits Are We Mistaking Collaboration for Commoning? Funders: A Note of Gratitude & Word of Warning from Nonprofits Growth of Social Sector Infrastructure Organizations Poses Challenges Funding for Small Nonprofits: State Surpluses Lead to Creative Thinking and Advocacy Are Charities/DAFs Unwittingly Promoting Misinformation? 14 Job Boards for Nonprofit Professionals Worldwide Another Uncomfortable Conversation—Part I: Foundation Funding of Nonprofit Infrastructure Another Uncomfortable Conversation—Part II: The Risks of Underfunding Nonprofit Infrastructure 
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      The growing pains of America’s nonprofit sector Nonprofit employment report 2024 How recent executive orders will hurt nonprofits More Women Work in Nonprofits. So Why Do Men End up Leading Them? The State of Diversity in the Nonprofit Sector 2024 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report The Top 10 Cited Articles in Nonprofit & Voluntary Sector Quarterly Has the Fiscal Cliff Arrived for Nonprofits? REPORT: Fiscal Sponsorship is on the Rise Communities Suffer as Nonprofit Workforce Shortage Crisis Continues As Pandemic-Era Funding Slows, Nonprofits Face Greater Demands Washington Post Tries to Break Down Nonprofit Employment Data Where is More Infrastructure Needed to Support the Real Needs of All Nonprofits? Americans Know Little About Charities — and Very Few Think Nonprofits Can Solve Problems, Poll Finds 
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      A Sil Con Valley Funder Diversified its Board. Big Changes Followed Let's Have Better Board Meetings Board passages: Three stages in a nonprofit board's life cycle Good governance policies for nonprofits Nonprofit board responsibilities: The basics Resource library - Governance & leadership Trustees & Staff Don't Always See Eye to Eye: Two Efforts Trying to Bridge that Gap 
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      50 fundraising statistics for nonprofits 2024 Reports Find That Decline in Charitable Giving is Due to Tax Policy Generational giving report 2024 Gen Z Donors are Coming. Here's What Nonprofits Need to Know Local Govt's with More Staff & Big Budgets More Likely to Receive Federal Grants Giving is Flat, but Fundraisers are Missing Opportunities to Solicit What's the Current State of Fundraising? (June 2024) Spare Change Donated at Checkout is Adding Up to Millions for Charities Chronicle of Philanthropy: 50 Biggest Donors Issue - March 2024 How the Next Generation of Mega Donors Will Give 2024 Cause Awareness & Giving Day Calendar for Nonprofits Outlook 2023: Perspectives on Year-End Giving It’s Real: Charitable Giving Plummeted Last Year 5 Fundraising Trends to Watch for in 2024 18 Year-End Giving Statistics with Surprising Facts [2023] Why I Stopped Donating to Your Organization (and fundraisers’ responses) What's Behind the Drop in Charitable Giving? Fundraising Guide for Nonprofits (Nonprofit Finance Fund) 
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      14 digital marketing & fundraising research reports for nonprofits Nonprofit Branding Cheat Sheet 12 Communications Traps Democrats & Independents Should Avoid 9 Signs of a Successful Media Strategy for Nonprofits Top 10 Digital Marketing, Social Media & Fundraising Posts in 2023 10 Digital Marketing & Fundraising Trends to Prioritize in 2023 The Difference Between Branding and Marketing: A Nonprofit’s Introduction 
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Philanthropy
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      Matching Fund Requirements Hurt Small Nonprofits Spare Change at Donated at Checkout Counters Adding up to Millions for Charities A Canadian Perspective on Philanthropic Intermediaries Is it Time to Rethink the Concept of Philanthropy? Philanthropy Needs to Trust the Real Experts—the People it Supports (Rebuttal to City Journal critique of TBP Beyond Regranting: Working With Intermediaries Strategically & Reciprocally Philanthropy in America is Broken Patagonia’s Profits are Funding Conservation — and Politics Foundations & the 5% Payout Rule: An Overview Is it Time for Philanthropy to Invest in People Power? A Family Fund’s Response to the Racial Reckoning: Give All Its Assets to One Black-Focused Nonprofit 
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      Trends in the distribution of family wealth Giving environment report 2024 Five Charitable Giving Trends to Watch Philanthropy Outlook Report 2024 What's Behind the Drop in Charitable Giving? The Greatest Wealth Transfer in History is Here W/Familiar (Rich) Winners The Future Is Now: Young Donors Are Challenging What It Means to Be a Philanthropist 11 Trends in Philanthropy for 2023 
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      Deep examination of the country’s largest report on DAFs An Alternative Approach to the DAF Debate? Philanthropy Spent $11 Million to Prevent Changes to DAF Rules What’s the Latest on Regulating DAFs? SURVEY: Public Wants More DAF Reform The $10 Billion Charity No One Has Ever Heard of A Short History of the Fast and Furious Rise of DAFs More than Half of America’s 20 Top Public Charities Are Donor-Advised Funds A Guide to Donor Advised Funds Three Questions We Have About a Philanthropic Future Dominated by DAFs 
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      New book makes clear-eyed case for participatory grantmaking Case study (RWJF): Who says big foundations can’t do participatory grantmaking? This Foundation Ended a Bold, 8-year Experiment in Participatory Philanthropy. What Did It Learn? Group of Citizens PIcks 77 Charities to Receive Heiress's Fortune How to give away a fortune & the power to decide where it goes Philanthropy Needs to Trust the Real Experts—the People it Supports Participatory Grantmaking Breaks Through with Mega Donor ‘Just Trust Us’: A Critique of Trust-Based & Participatory Grantmaking Participatory Grantmaking: Has Its Time Come? Women's Funding Network Gave $600M Through Participatory Grantmaking Evaluating the Anti-Racist Grantmaking Model of an Experienced Participatory Grantmaker Family Philanthropy and Participatory Grantmaking What Does it Look Like to Truly Shift Power in Philanthropy? Here Are 3 Real World Examples Philanthropy: We Need to Talk About Power How This Omaha Foundation Embraced Community-Led Participatory Grantmaking Sharing Power? The Landscape of Participatory Practices & Grantmaking Among Large U.S. Foundations Can Philanthropy Ever Truly Be Democratized? What Does it Look Like to Truly Shift Power in Philanthropy? Here Are 3 Real World Examples Thinking Differently about “Conflict of Interest” Deciding Together Shifting Power and Resources Through Participatory Grantmaking The Historical Case for Participatory Grantmaking Participatory Grantmaking Resources (Candid) A Primer for Participatory Grantmaking A Tool for Grantmakers to Assess Participatory Practice Participatory grantmaking resource database (PGM community of practice) 
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      The Deaths of Effective Altruism The Case for Less Effective Altruism Big Philanthropy Is a Scam That Makes the Rich Look Better, Conceals Their Crimes Woman-Led Philanthropy is Cutting Billionaires out of Climate Funding Decisions Foundation to Redistribute Assets Because if of its "Role in Colonial Capitalism" MacArthur Foundation withholds $625K grant from San Francisco — DA charges racism Four Increasingly Dubious Reasons Funders Are Still Not Giving Unrestricted Support 
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      Get ready for the first trillionaires Has the Long Friendship of Bill Gates & Warren Buffett Reached Its Final Act? How to Get Billionaires to Pay Their Fair Share US Trust 2024 Report on Multi-Millionaire Giving Forbes 2024 Richest People in the World List is Out 
 The Bill Gates and Big Philanthropy problems—and oursMacKenzie Scott: Please Stop Ignoring Small Nonprofits Like Mine MacKenzie Scott Announces ‘Open Call Winners More charity money is coming from the ultra-wealthy Elon Musk’s Self-Serving Philanthropy How the Next Generation of Mega Donors Will Give What the Data Tell Us about MacKenzie Scott’s Grantmaking Giving Pledge Billionaires’ Charity is Decreasing How's Jeff Bezos Doing as a Philanthropist? Inside MacKenzie Scott’s Zillion-Dollar Giving Machine The Young Billionaires Who've Pledged Away Their Wealth Behind the Scenes of MacKenzie Scott's Open Funding Call Is MacKenzie Scott the Leading Social Justice Funder? Yes and No. Bill Gates Has Perfected Managerial Philanthropy Billionaire philanthropy is a ‘PR scam,’ says CEO who raised his workers’ minimum pay to $70,000 MacKenzie Scott: What We Know About Her Priorities 
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Arts
Class/ Meritocracy
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      Want to Help Trump? Keep up the White Rural Rage Stereotyping Democrats, Let Me (Re)Introduce You to the Working Class What Does the Working Class Really Want? I Am Forming a New Political Party for Smug Elites Like Me What Trump Gets Right about Harvard Polarity Reversal: The Socioeconomic Reconfiguration of Partisan Support in Knowledge Societies The problem with America’s upper-middle class and meritocracy What Killed the Blue-Collar Struggle for Social Justice A Simple Theory of Why Trump Did Well A Belief in the Meritocracy is Not only False; It's Bad For You Race or Class – the Debate Continues Ivy League Democrats and State School Republicans These are the Americans Who Live in a Bubble How McKinsey Destroyed the Middle Class The 9.9 Percent is the New Meritocracy Disdain for the Less Educated is the Last Acceptable Prejudice 
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Democracy
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      The Constitution is sacred. Is it also dangerous? Is It Time to Change the Constitution? Politicians: Voters Know our System is Broken Two Riots Shake Democracy. Two Very Different Results Expert Congressional Testimony: Harnessing AI to Improve Gov't Services & Customer Experience Why Fewer Voters Matter in 2024 Presidential Race Are We Sleepwalking Toward a Dictatorship? The Atlantic: 24 Writers on the Perils of a Second Trump Presidency Voters See Democracy in Peril, but Saving It Isn’t a Priority 
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      US Census/Labor Bureau report on volunteering in the U.S. 2024 Unique Process Explores How to Defend Against an Authoritarian President Top individuals & donors pumping millions into the 2024 presidential election PEW DATA: Culture Issues and the 2024 Election Views of Representative Democracy Around the World The State of Pro-Democracy Institutional Philanthropy Americans’ Views of Government What do Americans Really Think of Politics? Polarization, Democracy & Political Violence in the US: What the Research Says Mapped: The State of Democracy Around the World How Democratic are Ordinary Citizens in Western Democracies? DATA: Social Media & Democracy 
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      Philadelphia is Increasing Civic Engagement by Letting the People Decide Will Civic Dialogue be More Integrated into News? RESEARCH: Participatory Budgeting Practitioner Tips for Avoiding the Pitfalls of Public Decisionmaking/Citizen Assemblies Are We Mistaking Collaboration for Commoning? Who's Making Land-Use Decisions? The Usual Suspects, Mostly Is it Time for Philanthropy to Invest in People Power? Free Speech of Out of Order: Officials Try to Tame Public Content Community Input is Bad, Actually Power to the People: New Process Gives Providence Residents a Real Voice 
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      PEW DATA: Culture Issues and the 2024 Election DATA: Changing Partisan Coalitions in a Politically Divided Nation Catholic Charities & Three Major Nonprofits Team up to Counter Polarization in the US America is Fractured into Four Parts: Is Reconciliation Possible? Polarization, Democracy & Political Violence in the US: What the Research Says Showcasing Solutions for Better Campus Discourse The Country has Come Apart. Rural America Has a Cure? Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid America Pulls Back From Values That Once Defined It, WSJ-NORC Poll Finds Reducing Polarization: What's Not Working & Why? Authentic Connections Among Strangers Still Happen - A Fun Story 
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Economic/Community Development
(Urban & Rural)
Education
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      Elite Private Colleges are Losting Esteem and They Deserve It Showcasing Solutions for Better Campus Discourse Why Americans don't trust university researchers Donating to Ivy League Schools Is Ineffective and Unnecessary, and It Reinforces Inequality New National Campaign to End Elite School Legacy Preferences for Alumni Children The Admissions Scandal and the Meritocracy Trap What Could Wealthy Colleges Do to Promote Equity? Give Money to Poor Ones Student Loan Forgiveness Program Nonprofit Workers Need to Know About 
Environment
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      OVERVIEW: Why you & everyone should care about climate change How to rescue climate change from the culture wars Where is climate change funding going? A Climate Change Success Story? Look at Hoboken. How Hot Is It Around the World (& Some Resources for Dealing w/it)? Woman-Led Philanthropy is Cutting Billionaires out of Climate Funding Decisions The Case for Caring about Climate Change Climate Change Pushing One-Third of Humanity Out of Livable Environments Inside the Little-Known Group Setting the Corporate Climate Agenda Young People Bring Landmark Lawsuit To State Gov't on Climate Change The audacious PR plot that seeded doubt about climate change Quantifying the human cost of global warming In Montana, It’s Youth vs. the State in a Landmark Climate Case Who's Funding Disruptive Climate Protests? Oil Heirs, Mostly. 
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      5 of the most frustrating health insurer tactics & why they exist Gaslit by Doctors, Patients are Turning to a Shadow System of DIY Tests Advancing Racial Equity in U.S. Healthcare An Important Comic about Empathy in Health/Medicine Safer Childbirth for Black Mothers Faces Obstacles in New York US Dept. of HHS Report: Addressing Health-Related Needs in Communities Across the Country The Top 10 Articles from Health Affairs 2022 The Overlap Between (Mis)Trust in Healthcare and Journalism 
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      Are We Happy Yet? An Overview of Happiness Research 2023 Scorecard on State Health System Performance Is This the Future of Elder Home Care? How the health care sector contributes to climate change: a research roundup and explainer NIH Study Shows Financial Toll of Health Disparities in the US States With Abortion Bans Are Among Least Supportive for Mothers and Children 
Health
Journalism/Media
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      Confused about all Those Digital News Platforms? Here’s a Map Billionaires Wanted to Save the News Industry. It’s Not Working. The News About the News Business is Geting Dimmer Will Civic Dialogue be More Incorporated into News? Press Forward Will Award $500M+ to Revitalize Local News Local News is Flourishing but its Survival Depends on All of Us Debate RE: “Objective” Journalism: Increasing Polarization? YES NO Journalism fails miserably at explaining what is really happening to America 
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      Predictions for journalism 2025 Americans Changing Relationships with Local News Audiences are declining for traditional news media in the U.S. – with some exceptions American’s Trust in Science Continues to Decline Local News is Flourishing but its Survival Depends on All of Us What About Philanthropy for For-Profit News? Some Noteworthy Research Journalists: How to Report on Research (tip sheets re research/data analysis) 
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      Local News is Dying But Not in San Francisco. Is it a Model for Rest of the Country? What's the Status of Nonprofit News? (June 2024) Could the Local News Get Any Worse? Just Look at Scranton Why All Funders/Donors Need to Give to Nonprofit News Outlets The Country has Come Apart. Rural America Has a Cure? More Funding Flowing to Local Journalism, Study Finds Engagement Journalism Grows Newsroom Revenue/Strengthens Relationships A Tiny Paper Broke the Santos Scandal But No One Paid Attention 
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      Want to fight misinformation? Teach people how algorithms work Stanford's Top Disinformation Research Group Collapses Under Pressure Are we Losing the Battle Against Misinformation? Did the Battle Against Misinformation Go Too Far? The Overlap Between (Mis)Trust in Healthcare and Journalism Ford Foundation-Backed Network is Focusing on Resisting Online Threats Online Fact-Checking Efforts are Stalling Misinformation research is buckling under GOP legal attacks Why Americans Don’t Trust University Researchers (or Journalists) Fewer Voters Visited Untrustworthy Sites In 2020, Study Finds The 2023 Edelman Trust Barometer is Out When it comes to misinformation, partisanship overpowers fact-checking, over and over again 
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      9 Charts about Wealth Inequality Results Are In From One of the World’s Biggest Experiments in Fighting Poverty Poverty Experts : Where You Grew Up Determines How You Do in Life Preventing housing displacement: What works & where more research is needed Vast New Study Shows a Key to Reducing Poverty: More Friendships Between Rich and Poor Large-Scale, Myth Shattering Study on Homelessness Released Cash Payment Programs To Curb Poverty are Spreading, City by City 
Poverty
Racial Equity/Justice
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      Black Americans Aren’t Enthusiastic About Reparations Yet: Here’s Why Foundation to Redistribute Assets Because if of its "Role in Colonial Capitalism" The Differences Between Race & Ethnicity & Why They're Hard to Define Does the DEI Industry Need to Check its Privilege? How a 75-Yr-Old Foundation Increased Funding for Groups Led by People of Color 
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Social Justice/Movements
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      How liberals might approach the next four years Are Progressive Organizations Hurting Themselves? 12 Communications Traps Democrats & Independents Should Avoid Are Internal Meltdowns & Strife Bringing Down Progressive Organizations? Movement Building: How Much Discomfort is Worth the World? 
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Technology
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      Expert Congressional Testimony: Harnessing AI to Improve Gov't Services & Customer Experience Social Media’s Influence on Young People is no Simple Matter Modern Day Redlining? How Maps and Monopolies are Killing ‘Internet for All’ What if Ordinary Citizens Could Control A.I.? Everything You Wanted to Know About AI But Were Afraid to Ask Have We Finally Realized the "Metaverse" Isn't Going to Solve Complex Social Problems? 
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Women & Girls
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      More Women Work in Nonprofits. So Why Do Men End up Leading Them? Women's Freedom: The Most Terrifying Thing to a Patriarchal Society? How Women's Brains Change in Midlife Real women are still missing from the movies — the Bechdel Test proves it Brands Find a New Way to Reach Older Women Women, Liberate Yourselves from Caring About Getting it All Done Women Say Effective Altruism Has Toxic Culture of Abuse & Sexual Harassment 
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Miscellaneous
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      Are We Happy Yet? An Overview of the Research on Happiness Pew Research: How Americans View 10 Major Issues (SOTU) March 2024 Pew Research: Most Striking Research Findings 2023