Category Archives: Media

Council on Foundations Conference

April 16, 2008 – 7:47 am

On May 2-7 I’ll be at the Council on Foundations annual conference. Last year was the first year that the Council issued media credentials to bloggers and I covered the conference in Seattle. I enjoyed being a full time blogger for a couple days, but was frustrated that I could not cover more sessions. So to that end I’d like to extend an invitation to Tactical Philanthropy readers who will be at the conference to help me cover some of the sessions. If you’ll be in attendance and are interested in writing a couple of blog posts about particular sessions or about the conference in general, please shoot me an email and we’ll discuss the possibilities.

You can read my coverage of the 2007 conference by clicking here. To get a sense of the type of session posts I’m interested in, read Demonstrating Impact: Philanthropy’s Urgent Call to Action. This post from last year’s conference is one of the most frequently read posts I’ve ever written.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Foundations, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Donors Want Impact?

April 9, 2008 – 9:43 am

In response to my recent Financial Times column about new approaches to funding growing nonprofits, the following letter to the editor appeared in the April 5 edition of the FT.

Sir, Sean Stannard-Stockton (“Non-profits look to invest in themselves”, March 29) errs when he concludes his interesting column by saying that “while yesterday’s donors were content to give to a non-profit based on emotional appeal, today’s donors want to know their money is really going to have an impact”.Since the late Renaissance and the Reformation era when the conceptual and applied shift towards “modern philanthropy” with its pursuit of rationalised solutions to systemic problems occurred, donors have sought to optimise the outcome of their investments. Today’s “venture philanthropists” promise greater results and more accountability by borrowing from the practices of venture capital, just as “scientific philanthropists” of the late 19th century did by adopting the principles of the reigning intellectual framework of science.

In order to grapple honestly with the strengths and weaknesses of beneficence, it is important to recognise that new and better practices are often old methods that have been revived - because the problem of an unequal distribution of resources endures - and that perpetual frustration with the limits of philanthropy is a prime reason for the continual reworking of ideas.

Amanda B. Moniz,
Department of History,
University of Michigan

Michael Edwards of the Ford Foundation responded to the same sentence in my column saying, “[you] assume that impact considerations are new, when in fact they have been around for fifty years or more - just not expressed in the ways you
think are satisfactory.”

I agree that the concept of impact (attempting to give in ways that can do the most good for your dollar) is not new within institutional philanthropy. Because a lot of my readers work at institutional foundations, consult for these foundations, or work at nonprofits that receive grants from these foundations, I often address issues of institutional philanthropy. But I’m not an expert in institutional philanthropy. My firm, Ensemble Capital, serves individual philanthropists. When I talk about The Second Great Wave of Philanthropy, I’m talking about major shifts going on with individual donors. When I write for the mass audience of the Financial Times, I’m writing for individual donors. But given how my writing on this blog veers into issues of institutional philanthropy on a regular basis, I can see how it is my fault if people perceive that I’m declaring “impact” as a new concept to foundations. It is not.

Individual donors have always been aware of the idea that their donations could do more or less good depending on which nonprofits they funded. While they might not often use the word “impact”, the concept makes sense if it is explained to them. But I reject the idea put forth by Moniz and Edwards that “donors” (and that was the word I used, not “foundations”) have embraced impact considerations for half a century.

If in fact donors understood impact, which at its core assumes that some donations do more than others, than you would assume that these donors would strive to achieve higher levels of impact. Yet there are almost no mass market books that discuss this issue, almost no articles in print or online, almost no organizations that help donors achieve impact.

Now before you send me emails pointing to Inspired Philanthropy or Don’t Just Give It Away, before you point out that I’m writing a mass market column on these very issues at the Financial Times, before you tell me about excellent consultants like The Philanthropic Initiative, Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors, or my own firm Ensemble Capital, let me just say that all of that adds up to just a bit more than zero.

Individual donors have access to almost nothing compared to individual investors. Every bookstore in the country has a whole section devoted to personal finance (books on which generally ignore charitable giving while lavishing pages of copy on other obscure financial issues). Every daily newspaper devotes space to advising individual investors and we have many mass market publications targeted directly to the individual investor. Investors issue with investment advisors is not so much finding one (believe me, there are thousands of advisors trying to find you right now), but picking from amongst the many qualified professionals.

Most individual donors don’t even know the difference between a nonprofit and a foundation. Institutional philanthropy actual is making a effort to let people know what they do since most Americans cannot even name a single large foundation. Individual donors with a portfolio of appreciated assets still mostly write checks to charity instead of transfering assets or setting up a philanthropic account (this is similar to saving for retirement in a checking account because an investor had never heard of a 401k).

I could go on and on.

I actual have my own criticism of the sentence in my column that Edwards and Moniz call out. When I wrote “while yesterday’s donors were content to give to a non-profit based on
emotional appeal, today’s donors want to know their money is really
going to have an impact,” I actually overstated the case in the opposite direction of the way they saw it. Edwards and Moniz argued that the statement was false because they believe yesterday’s donors were focused on impact. I would say that my statement was flawed because in fact, not even “today’s donor” knows what impact is. “Tomorrow’s donor” will be the ones deeply concerned with impact. But at least today we have real movement in that direction.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Foundations, Grantmaking, Impact Measurement, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy | Comments (12)

Financial Times Philanthropy Guest Column

March 24, 2008 – 8:29 am

As part of the series of guest columns being published by my editor at the Financial Times (see details about how to submit your own column here), the following article appeared this weekend.

Give with the stars – but make it count
The Emergence Of An Online Philanthropic Marketplace
By Randall J. Ottinger

Celebrity philanthropy is all the rage. Everyone from Bono to Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt are splashed across the press and appearing on talk shows, raising awareness for their pet causes.

Stars of the corporate world are following suit, focusing on their charitable legacies. And not to be overshadowed, former President Bill Clinton has written a book on the virtues of giving.

The overwhelming growth in the popularity of philanthropy has to be a good thing, right? Not necessarily. The truth is, the popularity of philanthropy has little correlation with the effectiveness of philanthropy.

In 2006, more than 65 per cent of households with annual incomes of less than $100,000 made charitable contributions. Most of the activity, though, is what the professionals call “chequebook philanthropy”. What we are seeing, inspired by the celebrities and buoyed by the benefit of being “trendy”, is philanthropy on demand – giving inspired by request.

Charitable giving today is part social networking, part giving from the heart, but not necessarily thoughtful. It is philanthropy without a plan.

Though there is some good that emanates from this activity, chequebook philanthropy will ultimately be seen as a lost opportunity unless fundamental changes are made. The trillions of dollars of baby-boomer wealth that are expected to transfer to worthy causes will, without some overhaul of the system, be sprinkled around with a troubling lack of focus. It will lead to duplication, fragmentation and waste.

And while the number of non-profits will continue to grow, having more than doubled since 1990 to 1.5m charities, their impact will be hampered. Why?

First, there is precious little co-ordination between these sometimes like-minded organisations focused on similar issues. Second, there are few trained advisers to help individuals develop a philanthropic plan because it is not part of the curriculum for trust and estate attorneys or financial advisers. In addition, information does not flow freely but is held in “silos” and not shared.

As a result, good charities are hard to distinguish from poorly run ones, and can spend 24 cents out of every dollar just to raise money to keep their doors open. Unfortunately, random philanthropy appears to be winning out over strategic philanthropy.

The unprecedented accumulation of wealth requires a new philanthropic paradigm. The time has come for a true global philanthropic marketplace, modelled on the world’s financial marketplace, where sources of capital intersect with top charitable organisations seeking capital.

Although there is no central philanthropic marketplace today, there are signs of one emerging. Efforts are under way to build a Morningstar-like rating system for charities by the Better Business Bureau and Charity Navigator, among others. Industry analysts are studying investment opportunities in global issue areas from malaria to microfinance, and in cities from Boston to Seattle. Just as the world of commerce is flat, as famously pointed out by Thomas Friedman, the philanthropic world will follow suit and the shift will be facilitated by technology that improves the free flow of information.

The trend towards online philanthropy is under way – internet giving increased 51 per cent to $6.87bn in 2006, according to the ePhilanthropy Foundation. In addition, more than 65 per cent of donors visit a non-profit’s website before giving. As a result of improved online information, individuals will be able to more easily identify good philanthropic investment opportunities.

Ultimately, the global philanthropic marketplace will guide individuals and their dollars to organisations and causes that yield the highest and best results for society. And technology will make investment opportunities accessible to the masses.

If history is a guide, in the coming years a handful of players will dominate online giving, just as Amazon dominated online shopping in the 1990s. These organisations will help individuals make better choices about where and how to give. They will connect people who care about the same issues around the globe. They will likely accomplish their mission with a profitable business model.

In the process, they may just turn a hot trend into an emerging market, and help advance the field of philanthropy in an unprecedented way.

The writer is author of ‘Beyond Success: Building a Personal, Financial and Philanthropic Legacy’ and founder of LMR Advisors, where he advises individuals, financial advisers and corporations on strategic philanthropy

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Investors vs Donors III

February 29, 2008 – 9:41 am

To recap, my questions from my earlier post were:

  1. Why do investors take credit for picking great investments (”look how smart I am, I bought XYZ stock!”), while philanthropists, especially foundations, claim that the credit goes to the nonprofits they fund (”the grantee did all the work”).

  2. Why is it acceptable for investors to talk about investments they think are bad (”Don’t buy ABC stock, their management is terrible!”), while philanthropists never badmouth nonprofits, even if they think they are ineffective?

  3. Related to #2: Why do public companies generally ignore all the talking heads who say negative things about them, while nonprofits find it intolerable to have a prominent person speak negatively about them in public?

The responses from readers can be found here.

The primary response to Question 2 was that funders/donors do say negative things about nonprofits behind closed doors and within private circles. But that they do not do the same publicly for fear of damaging their relationship with grantees. The point was made that funders (unlike investors in public companies), must maintain a healthy relationship with grantees to do their job well. Most readers seemed to appreciate the positive long term impact on the sector of public criticism and general truth telling, but worried that in the short term it would be a large negative.

I think this is an entirely solid argument. Philanthropy is currently much more like venture capital than investing in the stock market (it is no coincidence that venture philanthropy approaches have gained a lot of credence in recent years). Venture capitalists invest in private companies where funding comes primarily from a small set of large funders. They also have an active role and continuing relationship with the companies they fund. This is different from stock market investing where most investors are passive holders of stock and do not interact with the company at all.

Within the context of philanthropy as a private marketplace, I think the arguments for why public criticism does not work are valid.

I don’t think philanthropy is going to be a private marketplace for much longer.

Individuals already give seven times the amount that foundations give each year. Combining the Fidelity and Schwab donor advised funds (representing organized individual giving) gives you an annual grantmaker that rivals the Gates Foundation. Most high net worth individuals are only in the early stages of realizing that giving is something they can approach with a strategy that maximizes impact and tactics that make the most of what they have.

Public criticism of publicly traded companies is no big deal because the shareholder base is so broad. But a venture capitalist going on TV and knocking a private startup might cause it to go bankrupt as funding dried up.

Philanthropy is not yet a public market. The arguments presented against public criticism are all valid and correct today. We need to be preparing for tomorrow.

Venture Capitalists do talk about startups that they think are great. So do some foundations. Note the constant promotion of Nurse-Family Partnership by the venture philanthropy focused Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. You can read a great article about their approach here (note the reporter labels it as “controversial”). Maybe this positive commentary is a bridge to future criticism. Reader “young staffer” writes:

Foundations and donors actually don’t do enough to tout their successes and to make a strong, public case championing the relative effectiveness and strength of their best grantees. It’s not just that the grantees did all the work; it’s that we talk only about how our grantees do good things and yours do too. I think it would be way easier to get the ball rolling towards more criticism if it started from a place of making a case for the best social investments rather than highlighting the worst.

So why then don’t more “expert grantmakers” (mainly large foundations) publicly promote their knowledge? Reader Renata Rafferty writes:

Philanthropy in our society is frowned upon if it is considered self-serving. Therefore, to boast about one’s wise philanthropic investment “picks” would be, well, boastful and self-serving.

Look, if you have a billion dollar endowment and 30 employees working on a focused set of issues, it is not “boastful and self-serving” to talk about your “wise philanthropic investment picks”. If you are not making wise philanthropic investment picks there is something seriously wrong. I assume that large foundations are smart grantmakers. I’m not suggesting that they shout from the rooftops how great they are in an attempt to convince people. I just want there to be a public conversation about social investing the way we have a public conversation about the stock market.

Don’t forget that we’re talking about all of this within the context of a country where most people think nonprofits waste donations. It is hard to imagine that criticism could be all that damaging. You can’t fall very far once you’re already laying on the floor. Maybe Americans would have a better view of nonprofits if they heard experts talk negatively about some of them and positively about others. Realize that the underlying assumption that donors who want low “overhead expenses” from nonprofits is that the nonprofits are a value destroying entity that just gets in the way of the money going to the actual cause.

When a hedge fund manager goes on CNBC and talks about her favorite stocks, it is not “boastful and self-serving”. She is an acknowledged expert and the public appreciates (whether they agree or disagree with her picks) the opportunity to hear her thoughts.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Grantmaking, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (13)

Best of Stanford Social Innovation Review

February 16, 2008 – 10:58 pm

The Stanford Social Innovation Review is a must read if you care about philanthropy. They manage to straddle the line between offering academic journal type articles while at the same time offering up compelling, engaging writing. They even play host to a large group of philanthropy bloggers (including me).

You have to subscribe to the magazine to read most of the articles. But the SSIR is currently offering their five most read articles of 2007 for free:

Creating High-Impact Nonprofits

Conventional wisdom says that scaling social innovation starts with strengthening internal management capabilities. This study of 12 high-impact nonprofits, however, shows that real social change happens when organizations go outside their own walls and find creative ways to enlist the help of others.

Microfinance Misses Its Mark

Despite the hoopla over microfinance, it doesn’t cure poverty. But stable jobs do. If societies are serious about helping the poorest of the poor, they should stop investing in microfinance and start supporting large, labor-intensive industries. At the same time, governments must hold up their end of the deal, for market-based solutions will never be enough.

How Nonprofits Get Really Big

Since 1970, more than 200,000 nonprofits have opened in the U.S., but only 144 of them have reached $50 million in annual revenue. Most of the members of this elite group got big by doing two things. They raised the bulk of their money from a single type of funder such as corporations or government—and not, as conventional wisdom would recommend, by going after diverse sources of funding. Just as importantly, these nonprofits created professional organizations that were tailored to the needs of their primary funding sources.

Social Entrepreneurship: The Case for Definition

Social entrepreneurship is attracting growing amounts of talent, money, and attention. But along with its increasing popularity has come less certainty about what exactly a social entrepreneur is and does. As a result, all sorts of activities are now being called social entrepreneurship. Some say that a more inclusive term is all for the good, but the authors argue that it’s time for a more rigorous definition.

A New Era for Business

More and more business leaders recognize that their company’s future is increasingly intertwined with the needs and demands of society. What many executives don’t understand is how best to manage that changing relationship. In this article, McKinsey & Company consultants provide a model for incorporating sociopolitical issues into the strategic decision-making process.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Impact Measurement, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, microfinance | Comments (0)

The 2007 Slate 60

February 11, 2008 – 8:26 am

The Slate 60 was created as an antidote to the Forbes 400 (the list of the wealthiest Americans) after Ted Turner complained about the influence the Forbes list had on the wealthy and how it discouraged them from giving away money. With the 2007 Slate 60 out today, I think it a useful time to think about how cultural expectations drive human behavior. Personally I would love to see some sort of list of the most innovative, or most effective donors. Giving big is great, but giving well is better.

It is easy to measure how much someone gave, but really tough to measure how well they gave it away. In the financial markets, investors who generate the highest return on their investments are celebrated, not those with the largest portfolios. But then it is quite easy to measure for-profit investment returns.

When we discuss measurement, lets be sure to remember that we must measure the right things, not those that are easiest to measure.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Impact Measurement, Philanthropy | Comments (4)

Kiva & the Chronicle of Philanthropy

January 31, 2008 – 7:32 pm

Peter Panepento, who runs the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s website drops us a note regarding Kiva:

Sean:

This is an interesting analysis and you raise some important questions here.

I invite you and your readers to raise some of these questions directly with Kiva co-founder Matt Flannery, who will be taking questions on Tuesday, Feb. 5 at noon Eastern time as part of a live discussion sponsored by the Chronicle of Philanthropy.

You can find out more at http://philanthropy.com/live

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Financial Times Philanthropy Conversation

January 30, 2008 – 9:38 am

The first guest column to the Financial Times for the philanthropy series put together by my editor Lauren Foster, was published recently. Rick Cohen, a national correspondent for Nonprofit Quarterly and former executive director of the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, is the first author. He takes on the presidential candidates’ commitment to philanthropy.

Throughout the New Hampshire presidential primary, non-profit activists questioned the candidates about their commitment, if elected, to promote charity and philanthropy.

Barack Obama said he would create a social entrepreneurship fund to support innovative, non-profit projects. Rudy Giuliani endorsed continuing federal tax deductions for charitable contributions and overall favourable tax treatment for non-profits. Mike Huckabee confirmed that non-profits certainly will have a place in his White House.

Yet most candidates’ past histories of non-profit and philanthropic engagement tell more…

You can read the full story here.

If you are interested in contributing to the series, read my prior post on the project.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

GiveWell on CNBC

December 20, 2007 – 10:56 am

I just about fell out of my chair twice today. First Trent Stamp emails me to say he’s leaving Charity Navigator. Then the CNBC analyst on the TV above my desk introduces Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld for a long interview about GiveWell.

You can see the CNBC interview with Holden and Elie here.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Why GiveWell Matters

December 20, 2007 – 8:37 am

GiveWell and its co-founders Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld are suddenly media darlings. Not many people are written up in both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on the same day.

Stephanie Strom at the New York Times writes up a great profile in “2 Young Hedge-Fund Veterans Stir Up the World of Philanthropy”:

Their efforts are shaking up the field of philanthropy, generating the kind of buzz more typically devoted to Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffett, as charities ponder what, if anything, their rigorous approach to evaluation means for the future…

Read the full article here.

Sally Beatty and Rachel Emma Silverman at the Wall Street Journal discuss GiveWell in their article, “Doing Due Diligence On Your Donations”:

Donors can readily compare charities from a financial perspective: how much an organization spends on administrative costs or fund raising, for instance. But givers, especially younger, business-minded ones, now tend to want more information on how successful a charity’s programs are in addressing the issues the charity sets out to resolve, from feeding the homeless to securing employment for the disabled. That’s especially important as the number of charities continues to grow, with about 1.4 million to choose from…

… And there are a growing number of groups whose aim is to make charity-effectiveness evaluations open to the public. GiveWell, for instance, was started this year by two former hedge-fund researchers who were frustrated by the lack of available information on charities’ results and impact. They research and grant money to organizations in specific topic areas that the group deems effective and post the results on their Web site. For example, when researching job-training charities in New York, GiveWell asked groups to provide data on how many people took advantage of the programs, what skills they were taught, what percentage of clients found jobs, what kind of jobs they found, and how long workers kept their jobs, says 26-year-old co-founder Elie Hassenfeld.

The article ends with this advice,

It’s also smart to see if the charity’s progress has ever been evaluated by a third party, rather than just the charity itself. Check the charity’s Web site or annual report for specific details on how it gauges its results. If the information isn’t there, call the charity and ask. Be wary about giving, however, if a charity doesn’t answer your questions or provide annual reports or other filings.

When the Wall Street Journal tells donors to be suspicious of nonprofits who won’t provide details of how they gauge their results, you know there’s a sea change coming.

When I first wrote about GiveWell in February and said, “Why are the young members of the GiveWell project doing more to improve our shared knowledge base than The Ford Foundation?” and when I wrote in April that, “Fringe players like Holden (Karnofsky) are actually the real change agents (in philanthropy).” I never thought that by the end of the year, the New York Times would be quoting a GiveWell team member saying:

“There are huge foundations out there whose job it is to find great organizations doing great things,” said Robert Elliott, a club member who is now the Clear Fund’s chairman, “but when you call them and say you’d like to leverage the information they’ve already collected to make a smart donation, it’s a closed book.”

The IRS is focusing more and more on accountability and efficiency in the philanthropic sector. But with GiveWell being featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Chronicle of Philanthropy and Chicago Tribune in the last week, you have to start thinking about the cultural norms that these reports are creating.

When the LA Times wrote about the Gates Foundation investment policy earlier this year, the article created more movement on “aligned investing” in the foundation world than the IRS would ever accomplish through years of committee meetings.

Will the next LA Times exposé question why foundations are not sharing their philanthropic knowledge with the public and why two 26-year-olds with no philanthropic experience and a tiny budget seem to be doing the most to help donors?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Foundations, Grantmaking, Impact Measurement, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (12)

Financial Times Philanthropy Conversation

December 18, 2007 – 8:54 am

Lauren Foster is my editor at the Financial Times (I write a monthly column about philanthropy for her). I think that Lauren is building the philanthropic coverage at the Financial Times to a level that is going to make it a must read paper for the philanthropic field. Check out their recent Global Philanthropy special to see what I mean.

Now Lauren is doing something new. Something I think is really important. I’m proud to say that the One Post Challenge had an influence on how Lauren decided to frame her now project. Thanks to all of you that worked so hard to make the OPC a success. I encourage you to forward Lauren’s invitation to anyone you know who might want to submit something, or better yet submit something yourself!

The Financial Times is inviting submissions for thoughtful, illuminating commentary from philanthropic leaders. The bylined contributions should not only express the views of the author but also seek to provoke conversation. Email a one paragraph proposal to lauren.foster@ft.com. Suitable ideas will be commissioned at +/- 850 words for publication in the Weekend FT’s “Wealth at the Weekend” page (published length may vary). The FT’s Wealth page will regularly feature opinion pieces by esteemed guest writers - be they from private foundations, public charities, non-profits or advisories – in an effort to create a forum that fosters debate and encourages the dissemination of information and ideas.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Philanthropy | Comments (2)

GiveWell in the Chicago Tribune

December 17, 2007 – 11:14 am

The Chicago Tribune has a long article about GiveWell on the front page of their business section today. I’m amazed. It is really wonderful to see an innovative startup like GiveWell get written up in the mainstream press.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Impact Measurement, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Resources, Transparency | Comments (0)

Google Launches Nonprofit Portal

December 14, 2007 – 12:23 pm

This is a big deal. If you go to Google Finance, you can now search for charities by name and pull up data about them, news stories, blog posts and leave comments in a discussion forum (hat tip to “a fundraiser”). As far as I know this is brand new and as far as I know, I’m the first person to leave a comment in a discussion group.

On the Red Cross page, I wrote:

Is the Red Cross Effective? I don’t mean do they have low overhead expenses or some silly measure like that. I mean do they take donor dollars and use them to fund an organization that produces high levels of social impact? If the answer is yes, I’d love to know about any data that backs this claim up.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

Sean Stannard-Stockton
TacticalPhilanthropy.com

It was just last month that a One Post Challenge entry suggested that Google should buy GuideStar. Maybe Google thinks they can do it alone.

I think this is a game changer. If these Google pages resided at the top of the search results when people look up nonprofits, than these pages will become de facto home pages, but with blog posts, new stories and discussions that are both positive and negative. What if you’re a donor thinking about giving to the Red Cross and the first link you find is the Google Finance page? You take a look and find a question from someone asking if the Red Cross is effective… and no response from the Red Cross.

This is a big deal.

But it is obviously beta. Right now there is no silly overhead expense ratio analysis. But on the other hand Google bizarrely lists “Key Stats and Ratios” that are all blank, since the stats and ratios all refer to profitability measures. What data will Google choose to display? The choices they make will influence donors and the flow of charitable dollars in a big way.

What information do you think Google should list? I’ll do my best to get suggestions in front of Google.

If you want your voice heard, check out the Google Finance site, search for a nonprofit and leave your own comment in the discussion forum. You’ll be one of the first.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Social Media, Transparency, nonprofits, nptech | Comments (12)

Media Coverage of Philanthropy Innovation

December 13, 2007 – 4:02 pm

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an excellent, rather amazing, issue out this week.

In September, Cheryl Dahle, a podcast guest, wrote a “rant” about why foundations don’t deserve more media coverage. I respond with a rebuttal arguing that the business press doesn’t require the biggest companies to be innovative to publish a business section, they often focus on small, innovative companies. I then provide a list of innovative projects that were not being covered.

Well, the Chronicle of Philanthropy took just this tact, sticking innovative philanthropic startups GiveWell and Great Nonprofits on their most recent cover.

In A Quest for the Best, about GiveWell, the Chronicle wrote:

When Mr. Karnofsky delved into the world of philanthropy, he was stunned by some of what he found: that many charities he contacted had difficulty providing reliable evidence that their programs worked; that foundations did not explain publicly why they made grants to one charity over another; and that individuals provided the bulk of charitable donations, but had no neutral source to tell them whether an organization was actually saving or improving any lives.

He and Mr. Hassenfeld set out to shake things up. They raised $325,000 — $10,000 from Mr. Karnofsky and most of the rest from workers at the investment company — and created the Clear Fund, an arm of GiveWell that they dubbed the “world’s first completely transparent charitable grant maker.” Their goal: to scrutinize the data provided by grant applicants and to post their assessments of those charities, both positive and negative, on their Web site — giving charities the right to respond online to anything they wrote.

In A Zagat’s for Charities, about Great Nonprofits, the Chronicle wrote:

Ms. Ni, the site’s founder and chief executive, likens the site to a Zagat restaurant guide, something to help the public decide if a charity is worth donating to or asking for help, just as Zagat helps determine if an Italian restaurant is worth driving across town for. And like the Zagat guides, Great Nonprofits tailors its services to each city. After months of testing, sites for Pittsburgh and San Francisco have opened in the past few weeks, and Ms. Ni expects to expand to other cities soon.

(I was surprised to see that I managed to sneak into both stories. I’m quoted in the article about GiveWell and the Chronicle slapped a photo of me volunteering for Great Nonprofits in the paper edition, frankly not a very flattering photo, but oh well… at least I’m hanging out with the cool kids.)

Both groups got a lot of column space and a number of photos. These were excellent, interesting stories. Personally, I think that both stories would have enthralled the readers of the New York Times, Financial Times, or Wall Street Journal annual Giving sections. There are interesting, compelling stories out there about philanthropy. I’m glad they’re being told.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in New Philanthropy, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Blogs as a Public Commons

December 11, 2007 – 4:46 pm

When you interact with Tactical Philanthropy or any other blog in the comments section, you are engaging in public speaking. Proof of this comes from this weeks Chronicle of Philanthropy, which quotes me by republishing comments I posted to the GiveWell blog.

The story in question is the cover story, which provides an extensive overview of GiveWell. In a section discussing co-founder Holden Karnofsky’s “brash” style, the Chronicle writes:

“I get the impression that you are very authentic in your desire to make the world a better place,” [Stannard-Stockton] wrote in the blog’s comments area. “But my take is that a submission like the one you wrote will be dismissed out of hand because you used your normal writing style of sharp criticism.”

Mr. Karnofsky responded that it was not natural for him to “nice up” but conceded “there are times to tone it down.”

I’ve been harping on Holden to figure out how to present his incredibly important message in a way that funders can be more receptive towards (see my back and forth with Holden on this issue during the Chronicle of Philanthropy hosted live chat from today). But if a Chronicle of Philanthropy reporter had called to interview me on the record about GiveWell, I would have focused on the very positive work they are doing, not their drawbacks.

Frankly, though, as much as it can be scary to live in an “on the record” world, I think that it does benefit a more authentic conversation. Like everyone else I turn on my “media face” when I get a call from a reporter.

Welcome to the public square.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Giving Blogs, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (3)