Candid and the Council on Foundations (COF) have entered into a partnership categorized by the Associated Press (AP) as “rare” for the nonprofit sector.

In June, Candid transferred control of CF Insights—a benchmarking platform for community foundations—and the staff that ran the site and gathered its information to COF. The shift, which has no financial incentive, will free Candid to focus on diversity, transparency, and effectiveness in the sector and expand the audience for the community foundations in the membership group. It is a rare move in the nonprofit sector, as the AP put it, given that "nonprofits don’t generally go looking for synergy through mergers and acquisitions or restructuring." Both Candid CEO Ann Mei Chang and COF president and CEO Kathleen Enright said they view the deal as a benefit to the nonprofit sector as a whole.

“We are really trying to take a field-first approach, thinking about what’s best for the field,” Chang told the AP. “There’s no financial upside for us in making these deals. And there is a cost, so it’s a hard equation to square for organizations.”

“It starts with putting the needs of those that we serve before ours,” Enright added. “That is really core to what we did here.”

(Photo credit: Getty Images/Luka TDB)