Our campaigns and reports have pushed independent, corporate and community foundations to adapt practices that lead to increased accountability.
As the only independent watchdog of foundations, we used reports, testimonies and statements, and exposés to highlight questionable or egregious behavior, and promote ethical practices that serve the public good instead of private interests. These have pushed independent, corporate and community foundations to adapt practices that lead to increased accountability.
In 2004 we provided the first ever check list to help monitor foundation accountability. Standards for Foundation and Corporate Grantmaking, challenged the prevailing notion that foundations knew best.
And in the midst of the Great Recession, the country’s mega banks were using philanthropy to offset the bad press and threat of regulations that resulted from the key role they played in the great financial crisis of 2008. In Take and Give: The Crimes and Philanthropy of Bank of America, Wells Fargo Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase, we analyzed the philanthropic claims of these banks based on transparency and verifiability, quantity and quality of their giving.
We also have served as resource to reporters investigating possible abuse and misuse of philanthropy such as the case against Jack Abramoff’s Capital Athletics Foundation, and authored exposes such as the one on Otto Bremer Foundation.
Interested in learning more? Contact community@ncrp.org to receive free digital copies of the following publications:
• Standards for Foundation and Corporate Grantmaking (2004)
• Building Solid Foundations: New Approaches to Substantive Philanthropic Accountability (2006)
• Other corporate philanthropy publications