A look back at Issue Lab’s top philanthropic resources in 2022

Candid’s Issue Lab provides access to more than 33,000 philanthropic resources, which include reports, studies, surveys, and toolkits that cover a variety of issue areas and are contributed by social sector organizations from around the world.  
 
With all these options, we wanted to look back and highlight some of the Issue Lab community’s most popular publications in 2022, featuring a wide array of topics ranging from education to participatory grantmaking and beyond. 

• Expanding Equity: Inclusion & Belonging Guidebook, by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation 
   
  This resource helps answer a key question on many leaders’ minds: How can leaders and companies create a culture that embodies a feeling of inclusion and a sense of belonging for all employees? Read this guidebook to discover the steps philanthropic leaders and organizations can take to create a more racially diverse, inclusive, and equitable workplace.  
• Philanthropy and COVID-19: Examining two years of giving, by Candid and the Center for Disaster Philanthropy (CDP)  
   
  As a follow up to their 2020 and 2021 studies, this report delves into data to explore philanthropic giving from the first two years of the pandemic. Read the report to discover how COVID-19-related funding flowed in 2021 compared to 2020 and learn why today’s funders will be key to philanthropy’s long-term recovery from the pandemic. 

• Creating Cultures and Practices for Racial Equity: A Toolbox for Advancing Racial Equity for Arts and Cultural Organizations, by Race Forward 
   
  This toolkit aims to help artists, arts advocates, culture bearers, and cultural workers to imagine, plan, and implement racial equity strategies in their organizations. Discover the four steps Race Forward recommends for developing racial equity policies, practices, and cultures and use their toolkit’s resources to help you put them in place at your organization.
• Acting Together to Lift up Philanthropy: WINGS Guidance on How to Build a Supportive Ecosystem, by Wings 
   
  This philanthropic resource expands on the wisdom of Helen Keller, who said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” This guide illustrates how philanthropy support organizations (PSOs)—in partnership with funders, individuals, and nonprofits—can come together to better build global philanthropic support ecosystems that increase the social sector’s collective impact. 
   
• Indicators of School Quality, by Springpoint  
   
  If you’re interested in supporting positive youth development and educational equity, this resource may be for you. This framework not only breaks down the components of the key seven indicators of school quality, but it also serves as a practical guide for educators who are designing and operating school models to fulfill a community’s shared vision of student success. 
• Advancing Racial Equity in Maternal-Child Health and Addressing Disparities through a Reproductive and Birth Justice Lens, by W.K. Kellogg Foundation in partnership with the University of New Mexico  
   
  This report examines how W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s investments in reproductive health strategies impacted maternal-child health in New Mexico. It also highlights how its grantee organizations are addressing, advocating for, and implementing actions to advance equity to improve maternal-child health outcomes throughout the state.  
   
• Funding For a Healthier Civil Society: Lessons from an OSF Program, by Open Society Foundations and Revolution Impact 
   
  This issue brief summarizes successes and lessons learned from the Economic Justice Program of the Open Society Foundations’ first-ever strategy dedicated to fighting economic injustice and its innovative approaches to grantmaking—including their demand-driven support for existing grantees to fund specific, short-term capacity gaps, organizational challenges, or unexpected needs. 

• Child and Youth Participation in Philanthropy: Stories of Transformation, by Philanthropy Europe Association (Philea)  
   
  This study explores the importance of including the voices of children and young people in philanthropic initiatives aimed at supporting their demographic. Read this report to find out the benefits of this strategy and learn how this collaborative approach can be adapted to encourage participatory grantmaking more broadly. 
• Secondary Education in Africa, by the Mastercard Foundation 
   
  This resource summarizes a research project, initiated by Mastercard Foundation and their strategic partners, which was conducted to examine the role of secondary education in Africa. The report highlights best practices and key considerations for how to best prepare African youth for success in the today’s dynamic and globalized labor market.  
• Advancing Human Rights: Annual Review of Global Foundation Grantmaking, 2019 Key Findings, by Candid and the Human Rights Funders Network (HRFN)  
   
  To better understand gaps, changes, and new possibilities for funding human rights, this report uses data from Candid to surface insights on the human rights philanthropy landscape across the globe. Read this report to see how funding to support human rights has increased and why this points to several surprising and hopeful trends for the future.  
   

Candid’s mission is to get you the information you need to do good, and Issue Lab aims to do that by collecting, preserving, and sharing the knowledge produced and funded by the social sector.   
 
We encourage you to utilize Issue Lab’s philanthropic resources and lend your own expertise to the collection—as we all work together to strengthen the social sector’s collective knowledge and impact.