What we’re reading: 5 popular Issue Lab reports from 2024 

Every day, social sector organizations publish reports, case studies, surveys, toolkits, and more to share the knowledge they’ve gained through the work they do. You can download over 35,000 such resources at Candid’s Issue Lab, an open-access library dedicated to collecting, preserving, and sharing that knowledge.  

So far in 2024, more than 123,000 users have accessed this rich body of shared knowledge through Issue Lab. Here are just a few of the most popular resources published in 2024. These Issue Lab reports cover a variety of topics—from AI to renewable energy—and showcase the ideas and efforts of organizations working to improve the lives of people in their communities and beyond. 

Lighting Up the Future for Children: Balancing urgent needs and future opportunities by Institute for the Future and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. To help those working to improve the lives of children learn from the efforts of others, this report presents the knowledge and insights of more than 2,000 community partners WKKF interviewed in 2023. It offers a collaborative strategic planning tool to help funders, nonprofits, and communities center the needs of children over the next decade, including a “foresight framework” that highlights how a strategic action taken now can make a long-term impact. 

Data Science, AI and Data Philanthropy in Foundations: On the Path to Maturity by Philanthropy Europe Association (Philea) and Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo. With the importance of data growing in every sector, many are looking for ways to harness AI to improve our understanding of the social sector, its needs, and its impacts. This report offers an early perspective on the state of data and AI adoption among foundations in Europe. 

The state of diversity in the U.S. nonprofit sector by Candid. How diverse are nonprofit staff, leaders, and board members? Based on data shared on Candid profiles since 2019, this report provides an overview across four demographic categories—race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability status. To benchmark and gauge progress toward a more transparent and diverse sector, it analyzes representation by organizational size, subject area, state, and region. 

Views on Offshore Wind in New England by the Barr Foundation and Hart Research. As the effects of climate change intensify around the globe, many communities are turning to more sustainable and renewable sources of energy, including wind. This brief captures the results of a 2024 survey of registered voters in Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island about offshore wind farms as a renewable source of electricity. It highlights the considerations necessary to ensure that energy needs are met without negatively impacting oceans and marine life, and echoes conversations happening in coastal communities worldwide. 

National Study on Donor Advised Funds by the DAF Research Collaborative (DAFRC). While DAFs are increasingly popular among philanthropic individuals, publicly available information such as IRS Forms 990 don’t always provide a full understanding of DAFs. To offer a more complete and nuanced view, this inaugural report examines information about DAFs from 2014 to 2022, including account size, succession plan, and donor demographics.  

You can find these reports and many others, including Candid’s own research, in Issue Lab’s main collection. If you’re looking to learn more about a specific subject, our special collections offer deep dives on topics like democracy, climate change, and more.  

Know of a report, case study, survey, or toolkit Issue Lab is missing? Lend your own expertise to the collection! Check our collection policy and sign up for a free account to add a resource—and help strengthen the sector’s collective knowledge and impact.