Giving Done Right

Effective Philanthropy and Making Every Dollar Count

Phil Buchanan

PublicAffairs, April 2019

A practical, inspirational guide to philanthropy, at all levels of giving.

Charitable giving in the U.S. reached a new high in 2017 of more than $400 billion, with the majority of American households giving to charity. And every giver, from the tech titan to the everyday middle class citizen, needs to answer the same question: How do I channel my giving effectively to make the greatest difference? It’s the fundamental question at the heart of philanthropy, whether givers want their donation to improve schools, prevent disease, or protect basic freedoms, and whether they are in a position to give $1 million or $1.

Giving Done Right, by Center for Effective Philanthropy (CEP) President Phil Buchanan, arms donors with what it takes to do more good, more quickly, and to avoid predictable errors that lead too many astray. This is a crucial manual that will reveal the secrets and lessons learned—some painful, some powerful—from some of the biggest givers. It will bust commonly held myths and demystify an opaque industry—setting donors up with both the practical “how-tos” and the inspiration that is needed for success.

Giving Done Right offers the intellectual frameworks, data-driven insights, tools, and practical examples to allow readers to understand exactly what it takes to make a difference.

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About the Author

Phil Buchanan is founding chief executive of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, a seventeen-year-old nonprofit that conducts research and advises the largest foundations in the country, including Ford, Hewlett, Packard, MacArthur, and Rockefeller. He is also co-founder of YouthTruth, a national student survey provider. He is a columnist for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and his op-eds and articles have appeared in the New York TimesStanford Social Innovation Review, and Financial Times. In 2016, the Nonprofit Times named him the nonprofit “influencer of the year,” and he has seven times been among the newspaper’s “power & influence top 50.” He speaks around the country on philanthropic issues and lives in Lexington, Massachusetts with his wife and two daughters.