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When starting with family philanthropy, a family can choose a donor-advised fund or establish a private foundation. Each option has different requirements and management issues, including start-up costs, privacy matters, control of grants and assets, and flexibility in impact investing. Serving as a general guidance for you and your experienced advisor, this chart provides comparison data between donor-advised funds and private foundations that can help you choose the option that is best for you and your family.

Philanthropy is changing and evolving more quickly than ever, with new societal challenges, new players, and new strategies. In this time of change, questions of how family foundations can optimize their effectiveness are increasingly urgent. This paper by Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors provides an overview of the Theory of the Foundation, some of its benefits, and a roadmap that enables foundations to address urgent questions, explore fundamental beliefs or implicit assumptions about their work, public benefit, and action.

There is a passionate and growing effort among funders to focus less on change that is short-term or only at the project or program level; such funders are instead using models that reach across different sectors and approaches and dig deep into root causes, leading to more structural, systemic change. Aiming their efforts at more transformational progress on the challenges facing society today, family foundations and funders are moving forward with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

A historic agreement was reached in 2015 when member states of the United Nations came together and signed “Transforming Our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” which included a set of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs charted a way forward to a just, secure, and sustainable future for people and the planet.

The fun and rewarding activities of a family foundation center around determining the causes and organizations the foundation will support. While working together to make a difference, it is important to remember the family foundation is also a business requiring the same effective governance practices as a family business. This is especially critical when multiple generations of family members are involved. There is no one-size-fits-all approach to governing family foundations. However, there are standard practices to incorporate into foundation oversight activities.

If you are a newer family foundation with one or two generations on the board, five generations may seem like a long time away. Yet in family philanthropy, quite a few foundations have been operating and thriving for 50, 75, even 100 years. What’s the secret of these family philanthropies that make it five generations, and across family branches? How do they successfully attract and engage younger family members? Learn from what other thriving family foundations have done—and continue to do—to sustain a successful long-term family philanthropy.

Few, if any, roles are more significant in ensuring a foundation's success than that of the board chair. This may be why many people find assuming this position a daunting project. And yet the successful businessperson who serves as chair of a family foundation dedicated to a cause that was dear to his or her parents' hearts or the community leader who serves as chair of an independent foundation that provides deserving youth with life-changing opportunities will tell you that few roles are more rewarding.