Exponent Philanthropy is proud to release the latest edition of the Foundation Operations and Management Report (FOMR). This premier benchmarking resource offers mission-critical statistics on grantmaking, boards and governance, investments, and administration—including salary and benefits—for foundations with few or no staff. This blog has an interesting or important finding from each section of our 2024 report. We encourage you to read the entire report, and as always, please contact us with questions.

Equity and Inclusion

The 2023 Foundation Operations and Management Survey (FOMS) showed that very few funders supported disability inclusion. A handful of foundations (i.e., fewer than 5%) implemented any disability inclusion strategy.

Of those that did, the most common strategies were:

  1. Foundations surveying grantees to learn what disability-inclusive work they were already engaged in (4%)
  2. Inviting disability activists focused on issues the foundation supports to share their work, challenges, and opportunities with leadership and program staff (4%)

Foundations and philanthropy-serving organizations must center the perspectives of people with disabilities and deepen our understanding of this part of the human experience. Check out the Disability & Philanthropy Forum’s resources and action items to learn more.

A major component of Catalytic Leadership in Philanthropy (CLIP) is developing skills around deep listening, building strong relationships, and understanding one’s ecosystem to better leverage nongrant assets in support of a foundation’s mission. One key tactic to support these skills is conducting site visits with nonprofits.

The vast majority (85%) of participating foundations conducted site visits in their previous fiscal year. Our data showed that site visits are vital to help foundations build stronger relationships with grantees. The foundation’s primary goal when conducting site visits was to build a stronger relationship with grantees (55%).

Read the full article about understanding foundations' benchmarking by Brendan McCormick at Exponent Philanthropy.