Nothing focuses the mind more than knowing your time is limited.

Like a small but growing number of foundations, the Kendeda Fund will sunset at the end of 2023, concluding three decades and more than $1 billion of grantmaking. The decision by our founder (and Dena’s mother) Diana Blank to give away most of her resources was the right choice for Kendeda for a host of reasons. Paramount among them are the urgent, existential challenges facing our planet and all who call it home. But there is more to it than just “the fierce urgency of now.”

In many ways, Diana’s discomfort with her own wealth led her to make a number of structural and operational choices that initially informed, and ultimately defined, how she approached her philanthropy. Fortuitously, these same choices positioned Kendeda well for an efficient, and hopefully graceful, spend-out process.

The Center for Effective Philanthropy’s 2017 report A Date Certain: Lessons from Limited Life Foundations captured many of the considerations and complexities foundations commonly wrestle with during a spend down process. Our own journey, punctuated by a 2023 CEP Grantee Perception Report (GPR), illuminates these, plus a few more. What follows are five insights that we hope other funders — including, perhaps surprisingly, organizations who aren’t sunsetting — might find instructive.

  1. Visibility Enhanced Our Impact
  2. Intermediaries and Collaboratives Provided Natural Partnerships
  3. Our Approach to Grantmaking Fostered Resilience
  4. A Values-Based Operating Model Eased Our Spend Out
  5. Our Investment Approach Adjusted with the Times

Read the full article about spending out by Dena Kimball and David Brotherton at The Center for Effective Philanthropy.