What makes a foundation effective? The Baring Foundation has just published The Effective Foundation – a literature review, which looks at recent work on various elements of effectiveness by, among others, Julia Unwin, Helmut Anheier, Diana Leat, Matthew Bishop, Jed Emerson and Joel Fleishman. Topics dealt with include convening and brokerage, evaluation and dissemination, and sustainability. Effective foundations are defined for the paper’s purposes as achieving the ends a foundation has set for itself.