Ellen Friedman Says Farewell

After 24 amazing years of innovative partnerships, working with the world's most cutting edge organizations and watching the organization grow from a handful of people in a downtown office to a 125 person thriving enterprise, today, June 30, 2010 is my last day at Tides.  I am leaving Tides to assume the position of Executive Director of the Compton Foundation (www.comptonfoundation.org). While I am thrilled to be joining a foundation with a deep commitment to social justice and equity, leaving Tides was not a decision I...

The Power of Networks: Effecting Greater Impact in the Social Change Movement

There is a lot of talk in the air these days about networks. At a recent conference, activists discussed how the future of social change movement rests in how we network our individual efforts with one another to create more coordinated and unified action - examples of that power can be seen in the past weekend's successful efforts around Health Reform and the turn out for the Washington Immigration march. Today I'm part of a conversation with a few foundations at Monitor Institute about networks within philanthropy and...

A Defining Moment for Health Philanthropy

Tom David is a Senior Strategist at Community Clinics Initiative, a project of Tides that was started in partnership with The California Endowment and has granted over $100 million to more than 90 percent of California's community clinics. David recently wrote a rousing commentary for last week's Grantmakers In Health annual meeting calling health foundations to act – now. An excerpt of the eight page article is below, or you can read the entire commentary.

From A Defining Moment for Health Philanthropy,...

Why Does Infrastructure Matter?

Collage of tiles from the Peace Wall, courtesy CommunityGrows, a Tides project

I am excited to announce the launch of What's Possible: the Tides Blog – written by and for people interested in creating strong infrastructure for the social change sector. In this sector, what we do (the mission work that gets us up every morning for a vision of a just and equitable world) is interwoven with how we do it (the organizations we create to implement our vision). If we don’t pay attention to the...

Encouraging Charitable Efficiencies More Charitable Than Discouraging Nonprofits - Take Two

The nonprofit sector is a sector of innovation, creativity, and people working for the common good. More than 14 million Americans - 11 percent of American workers - are employed by or volunteer full-time in the nonprofit sector; more than the financial industry and the auto industry combined.

In a recent article entitled, "Charities Rise, Costing U.S. Billions in Tax Breaks," Stephanie Strom of the New York Times raises concerns about an out of control nonprofit sector that is flooding the IRS with frivolous new...