Category Archives: nptech

Philanthropy 2.0: A Video Q&A with DonorsChoose, Facebook Causes, Kiva, The Motley Fool, and The Case Foundation

May 6, 2008 – 1:15 pm

(This is a guest post from Peter Deitz, Founder of Social Actions, who is covering the Council on Foundations Conference for Tactical Philanthropy)

By Peter Deitz

For micro-philanthropy groupies, including me, yesterday’s session on Philanthropy 2.0 at the Council on Foundation’s annual conference featured a star studded panel. The founders of DonorsChoose, Facebook Causes, and The Motley Fool were joined by the East Coast Development Manager of Kiva.org and the Director of Social Investment for The Case Foundation. Quite a crew!

Roughly one hundred and fifty people attended the session, choosing Philanthropy 2.0 over a host of other really awesome sessions. Session facilitator Sharna Goldseker, Vice President of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies, took a quick survey of the audience. The attendees consisted of 30% family foundations, 40% community foundations, 5% corporate foundations, 10% private foundations, and 15% foundation consultants and advisors.

For the first hour of the session, the presenters showcased what they have been doing with web 2.0 and philanthropy. For those who aren’t familiar with the platforms listed above:

DonorsChoose.org – A donation site that connects teachers who need supplies for classroom projects with citizen philanthropists interested in funding the projects. (67,400 donors, $1.2 million donated since 2000)

Facebook Causes – A popular application on Facebook that permits anyone to start a fundraiser on behalf of a registered 501c3 organization. (12 million users, $2.5 million raised since 2007)

Kiva.org – A community of advocates of micro-finance that permits individuals to make loans to small business owners in the developing world. (270,000 lenders, $28 million lent since 2004)

The Motley Fool – A web 2.0 financial investment community that also runs an annual program in which investors make donations to a select list of charities.

The Case Foundation – A family foundation started by AOL founder Steve Case that has invested heavily in the tools that make micro-philanthropy possible and has run several contests that encourage individuals to become citizen philanthropists.

After the presentations, the conversation gave way to a Q&A session, in which foundation representatives asked the panel about how philanthropy 2.0 could impact their own work.

Here is a video of the Philanthropy 2.0 Q&A:

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in COF2008, Philanthropy | Comments (1)

Social Media Nonprofit Job

March 26, 2008 – 12:44 pm

Some interesting jobs being posted on the Tactical Philanthropy Job Board recently. This one from from Change.org.

Change.org is seeking a Managing Editor for its forthcoming social action blog network, which will be launched in the summer of 2008.

Change.org’s Managing Editor will lead an effort to hire and oversee a team of several dozen expert bloggers who will be writing about the most important issues facing our world – ranging from global warming to hunger to health care.

In addition to managing a team of part-time writers, responsibilities will include establishing relationships with other media outlets, interacting with the hundreds of nonprofits active on Change.org, identifying and helping to promote activist campaigns, and part-time blogging. The position is full-time and pay is competitive.

If you’re looking for a job with significant responsibility, excited about the thrill of working at a start-up, and passionate about using the internet to advance social change, this might be the perfect opportunity for you.

Applicants should have experience in the nonprofit/activist space as well with blogging or journalism. Otherwise, we encourage anyone to apply – regardless of age or location. We’re more interested in someone who can take this position and run with it than someone who fits a particular mold.

You can find the details on this job here.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropy, Philanthropy Jobs | Comments (2)

NetSquared Update

February 28, 2008 – 3:38 pm

From the NetSquared Blog:

Google’s engineers, product and project managers want to help bring your NetSquared Mashup Challenge idea to life!

Next Friday, March 7th, NetSquared Mashup Challenge applicants have an incredible opportunity to participate in a Hackathon at the Googleplex in Mountain View, CA from Noon-5 PM.

A group of Google engineers, product and project managers will be available to help you think through your idea, answer questions, give advice and start building your mashup for social change!

Are you excited? We are!

To attend you need to submit your project idea to the NetSquared Mashup Challenge. The application process is just that, a process. Fill out what you know now, and begin soliciting feedback from others to move your idea to a completed mashup.

Once your project idea is submitted, you can register for the Hackathon by sending an email with the subject line: “Google Hackathon Registration” to net2@techsoup.org…

Click here for all the details.

A Hackathon at the Googleplex? 95% of my readers eyes just glazed over. 5% are in nirvana and just ran out the door to buy a case of Red Bull. 100% will be fascinated by results that show up at NetSquared in May.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, N2Y3, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

Social Marketplace Architecture

February 22, 2008 – 9:48 am

Reader Simon Marsh, shares his thoughts on the “Social Marketplace Architecture”:

The idea

A dynamic user led and focused software platform/environment for grant givers and grant seekers to interact and compete could be developed wherebytheir real time objectives and organisational identities interact and compete for the best ideas and resources. A second generation internet platform whereby a Foundation’s (for example) publicly available governanceand philanthropic objectives are matched (automatically) with various university (for example) academic objectives, personnel and events bothproactively and reactively.

You can read his complete comments here.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (0)

Beth Kanter & Michele Martin

February 22, 2008 – 8:11 am

The America’s Giving Challenge Champions have been announced. This experiment/competition to see how web 2.0 tools can be used for fundraising has gotten a ton of national coverage. Here’s the thing: Beth Kanter and Michele Martin won. Beth, who I know from NetSquared events and from her blog, is someone I’ve always thought got web 2.0 and nonprofits better than anyone else. I’ve referred the media to her and called her the Queen of all things web 2.0 on this blog. Michele I only know from her blog, but she clearly knows her stuff.

If you are a nonprofit interested in how to use social media tools to fundraise or advance your mission, there’s no question who you hire. Go to their blogs (Beth’s is here, Michele’s is here), check them out, and hire them.

And if you work at a foundation, you might have noticed that nonprofits are way ahead of grantmakers in learning how to leverage social media tools. They’re generally way ahead of for-profit companies as well. So if you’re a grantmaker, check out Beth and Michele as well. Maybe you can talk them into helping you out.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Fundraising, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media, nonprofits | Comments (3)

NetSquared N2Y3

February 20, 2008 – 9:34 am

NetSquared, the community of technology/nonprofit collaborators hosted by CompuMentor/TechSoup is hosting their third annual conference in May. I attended the first two and they are amazing. While each conference has had a different focus, they seem to bring out some of the most innovative people I’ve ever met.

This year’s contest will focus on Mashups for Good:

This year’s NetSquared Conference will bring together a unique mix of people from the public and private sectors to develop and release Mashups designed to provide deeper insight into the social issues affecting communities around the globe.

Those “people” are you — members of the NetSquared universe working on behalf of communities everywhere and the technical experts who care about these issues.

If we’re successful, we’ll learn something about cross-sector collaboration, meet new and interesting people, and build a unique gallery of Mashups that citizens, schools, and community-based groups everywhere can learn from, replicate, and build upon.

For more about Mashups, see Wikipedia’s definition.

For a better sense of what we mean, let’s take a look at a few of our favorite Mashups.

Go ahead, click on the examples below. Read the “about” pages to get a better sense of the project’s goal/mission, and how the site works. (Yes, this is kind of technical, but we’re going to help make sense of that. Enjoy!)

    * Maplight.org, a winning NetSquared project from last year, displays the link between money and politics by bringing together information about campaign contributions and legislative votes.

    * ChicagoCrimes.org is a browsable database of crimes in Chicago that lets users see information displayed on a map.

    * ActiveTrails shows visitors a list of active hiking and biking trails across the United States. Users play a big role in supplying information.

    * Tunisian Prison Map pulls from a variety of sources to locate the prisons on a map and links to videos and other information relating to the prisons.

On February 1, the Mashup Project Submission process for the NetSquared Mashup Challenge opens. Nonprofits and other social-change agents will be expressing their visions of how data can be recombined to advance social missions. NetSquared’s team will make sure that everyone gets the appropriate help they need to define their vision in a way that will be accessible and attractive to technical volunteers.

On March 14 at 5 PM, PST, the ability to publish a Project Submission will close.

03/17/08 - 03/21/08: Voting for the Mashup Project Challenge. Like last year, registered NetSquared users will be able to vote for their favorite Projects.

03/24/08: The top 20 Mashup Projects will be announced on March 24 and the winners will be invited to attend this year’s NetSquared conference in San Jose, CA, scheduled for 5/27 and 5/28. Each of the top 20 projects gets an allowance for travel (including airfare to and from the conference, along with a hotel room for two nights).

05/27/08 & 05/28/08: At the conference, Project Teams will have an opportunity to display and discuss their Mashups and attendees will vote to select the top three. All 20 projects at the conference will receive a share of $100,000 in prize money. The share will be determined by voting at the conference. Of course, there will be more legalese regarding the prize and its allocation after we open the application process on February 1, 2008.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, N2Y3, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media, Transparency, nonprofits | Comments (1)

Google, Information & Philanthropy

February 7, 2008 – 9:25 am

Google.com lets users create custom search engines. Here’s an interesting example of how Google technology can be used to create more efficient information distribution in philanthropy.

Developed by E-Democracy.org, the custom search tool is described this way by the creator:

To assist E-Democracy.Org’s grant prospecting efforts I put together a little (big actually) Google Custom Search covering foundations, some government funding sites, and sites with fund raising advice for non-profits.

You can use E-Democracy’s custom search engine here and create your own here.

(hat tip: Lucy Bernholz)

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Open Source Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (0)

Kiva.org Responds

February 4, 2008 – 9:53 pm

Fiona Ramsey, Kiva’s director of public relations responds to my post speculating on the implications of Kiva turning donor/investors away for lack of available borrowers to fund. Tomorrow at noon eastern, Kiva co-founder Matt Flannery will be in a live discussion on the Chronicle of Philanthropy website. I’ll post a follow up to Fiona’s comments after participating in Matt’s discussion. Just to be clear, I think Kiva is a fascinating, innovative model. I think the issue they currently face does not speak poorly of them in anyway, but I do think that the issue brings up complicated new issues that the social capital markets will have to deal with over time.

Sean:

It’s exciting for me, as Kiva.org Public Relations Director, to read your comments about one of the most intriguing parts of Kiva’s model. I agree with your comment that “Kiva?s problems are a great example of how strongly donors respond when social capital markets are created” - which is an exciting indication of how far lenders/investors will take this!

A couple points of clarification:

Kiva.org does not consider DonorsChoose.org or GlobalGiving.org to be competitors. While these models are similar in that individuals can choose the specific project they would like to contribute to, they are donations, not loans, and Kiva only facilitates loans at this time.

One element of the Kiva model that is often under appreciated is that the platform operates 24/7, so a “shortage” that exists at one time, may not exist a matter of hours later. Kiva’s Field Partners update loans for funding from the developing world as they are received, they are translated and submitted to the live site as quickly as possible. So, we can literally have a site with no funding needs one minute, and thousands of dollars with of funding needed minutes later. This is the beauty of the Kiva platform - needs being delivered from the developing world. Real-time, real people and real needs.

Of course the flip side is that a potential lender can come to the site and not find any lending opportunities at that time. However, that’s what makes the site so “addictive” for many lenders. Because you don’t know what needs will be listed an hour later, and find yourself checking back hours later to get an update.

One additional comment: there is not a shortage of people in need of a loan. What there is, is a bottle-neck. Kiva.org undertakes a significant due diligence before partnering with any microfinance institution, and it takes time to both satisfy Kiva.org’s due diligence and train MFI staff on the Kiva system. As such, the Kiva.org partner portfolio is not growing at the rate of our lender community. The other solution to building our partner portfolio is to increase the amount of funding each partner can raise (each partner has a monthly fundraising limit), but that simply wouldn’t be responsible. Kiva.org is committed to creating an online microlending platform that helps MFIs to scale only at a rate that is healthy for both the MFI and Kiva.org.

On a personal note, watching these “shortages” occur excites me because it sends a strong message to our Field Partners, that Kiva Lenders believe in their work and wish to support their programs, and to developing world entrepreneurs, that Kiva Lenders are supporting them from over 70 countries in the world, and want to give them a chance to be successful entrepreneurs.
As you said, Sean, this is a “great example of how strongly donors respond when social capital markets are created.”

Fiona Ramsey
Public Relations Director
Kiva.org

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, microfinance | Comments (4)

Nonprofit Job

January 31, 2008 – 7:59 pm

The newest job on the Tactical Philanthropy Job Board comes from CompuMentor/TechSoup, the nonprofit behind NetSquared:

Finance Coordinator

About TechSoup:

TechSoup is a nonprofit organization that helps other nonprofits acquire and use technology to better serve their missions. We are working toward a time when every nonprofit and NGO on the planet has the technology resources and knowledge they need to operate at their full potential. Through our Website, nonprofits will find a broad range of software donated by leading tech companies such as Microsoft, Cisco, Symantec, Intuit, and Adobe, along with content and community forums targeted specifically at a nonprofit audience. The NetSquared conference and showcase social Web innovations that nonprofits can use to dramatically increase their reach and impact.

Our finance department is looking for an individual to manage daily bookkeeping and act as a primary representative of finance to a staff of 155 employees. This is a great opportunity to solidify or expand on an existing background in accounting, non profit administration or finance. The ability to communicate well w/ staff and maintain confidential information is a must. A sense of humor, resourcefulness, and enthusiasm for our mission are important. Work is performed on site. This position reports to the finance manager.

You can see the full job listing here.

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

United Way Responds to Google Finance Question

January 31, 2008 – 7:29 pm

Last month I posted a question on the Google Finance profile page of the United Way of America. I got an email today from Meg Plantz, director, Impact Design and Learning for United Way. You can catch up on the Google Finance for nonprofits discussion here.

United Way of America’s approach to program outcome measurement, reflected in its manual, Measuring Program Outcomes: A Practical Approach (United Way of America, 1996), encourages health and human service agencies to develop ways to measure outcomes quantitatively.  This often is a challenge because many human-service outcomes seem at first glance to be un-quantifiable, and many agencies are used to describing their successes with narrative vignettes rather than with numbers.  When they have used numbers, the numbers often have reflected outputs (e.g., number of classes offered, number of clients served) rather than outcomes (e.g., improvement in parenting skills).  However, for purposes of creating and tracking program improvement over time and demonstrating results to increasingly data-oriented funders, donors, and publics, numerical indications of program performance are important.

Our approach consciously responds to the challenges that quantitative measurement presents.  For example, in our approach, intended outcomes do not have to meet the “measurable” test.  In fact, when agencies are identifying what their outcomes are, we encourage them not to worry about how they will measure them, but instead to focus on what results are meaningful to the program and its clients.

Once the agency is comfortable that it has described the appropriate outcomes for its activities, then we advise them to identify measurable indicators of those outcomes.  Questions such as “What will tell you if clients achieve the intended outcome (e.g., improvement in parenting skills)?  What will you be able to see, count, or measure?” help agencies identify critical aspects of their outcomes (e.g., using age-appropriate discipline methods) and think about ways to quantify them (e.g., record observations of parents in role plays and tally entries that parents make in a journal).  Agencies are encouraged to pick indicators that will provide useful data – data that will help them with program improvement, in communications, and in other management tasks.

Qualitative information complements and can help with quantitative measurement.  For example, agencies can use their narrative success stories to identify intended outcomes and then use quantitative measurement as a way to learn whether the stories are unique or are representative of other clients.  Agencies can use their narrative stories to illustrate their outcome data rather than offering the stories as evidence of outcomes.  Qualitative information such as focus groups discussions of quantitative data can help agencies understand the meaning of the data and make appropriate program improvements.

Meg Plantz
Director, Impact Design and Learning for United Way

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

Seth Godin & Philanthropy

January 29, 2008 – 4:27 pm

What does Seth Godin, the marketing guru and author of Seth’s Blog have to with philanthropy? In Seth’s words “Ideas that spread win. Period.” I think that understanding how to spread ideas is an important skill for high-impact philanthropists to acquire. I also think the nonprofit world has been quick to recognize the relevance of Seth Godin’s message. See Jeff Brooks, Perla Ni and Holly Ross on the importance of Seth Godin to nonprofits. Recently the CEO of a major foundation told me that foundations must “engage people” in order to do their job well. Godin’s work largely is about how to engage people in a digital world.

So with that context I encourage Tactical Philanthropy readers, especially those involved with the  nptech/NetSquared community to apply for the newest job listing on the Tactical Philanthropy Job Board from Squidoo, Seth’s company:

Software Developer/Features for Squidoo

You’re an expert at client side technologies, and you will handle most of the day-to-day feature development of the site, working with our crack team of designers, sysadmins and editors.

This is a full-time position. Telecommuting is possible, see below.

WHO YOU ARE
(which is even more important than what you know)
If you’re looking for a job, look elsewhere.

We want someone who is passionate about the work, about pushing the envelope, about not just the code that gets written, but the way it’s done. The process matters to you, we hope.

This is a very special little company. We are each extraordinarily self-directed and self-motivated. Nobody actually has a direct boss, really. On the other hand, we work extremely well as a team and cede authority to each other with regularity.

We pride ourselves on alacrity, on doing things quickly and well, but not better than the mission requires.

What would you do if the people you work with got out of your way? That’s what we can offer.

You can read the full job description here.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropy, Philanthropy Jobs, Social Media | Comments (0)

Should Foundations Fund Philanthropic Information?

January 16, 2008 – 1:49 pm

An interesting conversation is beginning to unfold in the comments to Phil Buchanan’s podcast. The point I’m making is not that foundations have some sort of obligation to fund nonprofit information for public use, but that doing so is in their best interest. This conversation ties in directly to the conversation we’ve been having about Google Finance and Google.org.

If a foundation can give $1 that creates $2 of social benefit, or give $1 that spurs the public to give $10, which creates $20 of social benefit, which one should they choose? This ability to give $1 and get $10 of social benefit instead of $2 is the “leverage” that so many philanthropist and foundations say they want to employ.

Here’s the big leverage opportunity of this decade: Provide the individual donors (who every year give seven times more than all the foundations in the country combined) the information they need to make better donation decisions.

Join the conversation with Phil Buchanan and let’s work this problem out!

PS: As background it might be useful for readers to note the essay by Paul Brest, the president of the Hewlett Foundation, in which he discusses “the advantages of good information” in philanthropy. In the essay he mentions Great Nonprofits, whose founder Perla Ni is participating in the conversation with Phil Buchanan. Hewlett is, to my knowledge, the most forward thinking foundation on these issues. Hewlett is also considering funding GiveWell.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Evaluation, Foundations, Grantmaking, Impact Measurement, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (0)

PhilanTech

January 14, 2008 – 9:11 am

Dahna Goldstein, the founder of PhilanTech, sent me the following email. She didn’t post it as a comment because she didn’t want to appear to be plugging her company, but I asked her for permission to share it.

I’ve just caught up on the discussion on your blog about Google Finance and nonprofits, and wanted to share my $.02.  Google is potentially in a unique position — as are you, by virtue of your thought leadership and initiative on this front — to positively affect how information is shared with the sector at large, with donors, and with other interested parties.

The absence of standardized information about nonprofits makes it difficult to suggest a set of metrics or a pre-defined combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses, as a number of your readers have pointed out.  And asking for new types of reporting from nonprofits risks placing an additional burden on already-burdened nonprofits.

PhilanTech has taken a step towards addressing this issue.  We created the PhilanTrack online grants management system to centralize and streamline the grants management process — creating centralized reporting about nonprofit organizations, activities, outcomes, and finances.  Our vision is for a centralized reporting for all donors (institutional and individual) and other interested parties (researchers, the nonprofits themselves, etc.) to obtain information to inform funding decisions — without creating additional hoops through which the nonprofits must jump.  I’d be happy to tell you more about how it is structured, but in a nutshell, PhilanTrack helps foundations request the information they want to receive from nonprofits (to help them evaluate their effectiveness as grantmakers and to help evaluate potential grants) while helping nonprofits avoid reinventing the wheel each time they report to a different funder.  The types of information that the system manages (activities, outcomes, finances, lessons learned, etc.), I believe, are the types of information that Google should consider posting about nonprofits.

While expense ratios, as you have pointed out, have significant shortcomings, there is still a lot that can be learned about the financial health and stability of an organization (if not its effectiveness) by looking at its finances.  It requires looking beyond CharityNavigator and beyond 990 data in ways that are not familiar to many (both individuals and institutions) who are considering gifts to nonprofits.  At PhilanTech, we have addressed this issue by developing a financial analysis tool that uses basic financial statements to provide six analyses (financial mix, efficiency, debt servicing ability, liquidity, long-term viability, profitability) with a number of different metrics and explanations of why each metric is important and useful in evaluating the financial health of a nonprofit.

Google Finance pages (or Google Knol) should, in my view, combine these financial analyses with the following:  quantitative information about outcomes (where available and qualitative where quantitative info isn’t available); qualitative information about activities, programs/projects, mission, people, sustainability, replication (where relevant), lessons learned, challenges faced and overcome; related organizations (including any partnerships/collaborations); news; funders; discussion (like the type of discussion you prompted about the Red Cross), and perhaps something like the 360 degree views GreatNonprofits is working to create.  And there are ways it could be done without placing too great a burden on nonprofits by leveraging some of the reporting nonprofits are already doing.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Evaluation, Impact Measurement, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy | Comments (0)

United Way on Google Finance

January 10, 2008 – 9:57 am

After reading a United Way blogger’s reaction to my prediction that UW would develop an industry standard, narrative outcome measurement form and my discussion of Google Finance, I’ve started a discussion thread on the Google Finance page for United Way.

The United Way’s focus on Outcome Measurement is wonderful. I wish  there were more resources like the ones you list at http://www.unitedway.org/Outcomes/  elsewhere on the web. I was wondering if someone at United Way could  explain to me a little bit about how your organization thinks about  qualitative vs. quantitative evaluation of nonprofits. It seems to me  that quantitative metrics are probably easier to measure, but less  valuable than more difficult to measure qualitative outcomes.

Any help you can provide in thinking through this issue would be  wonderful. Thanks!

FYI: While the Red Cross has stopped posting to the thread I started on their page, I understand from sources that they are taking the questions about their effectiveness quite seriously.

I wonder how the United Way will respond?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Impact Measurement, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (3)

Rebooting Nonprofit Evaluation Debate

January 7, 2008 – 9:46 am

A lively debate about nonprofit evaluation and metrics has been raging in response to my request for input on my meeting later this week with Google.org. However, the conversation has splintered into a debate over whether a systematic, “metric” driven process of scientific measurement is needed, or whether the frame of scientific measurement is “an epistemologically impoverished frame” through which to understand nonprofit evaluation.

I personally believe evaluating nonprofits is mostly about evaluating their output (the social good they produce). Since it is difficult (impossible?) to quantify this output, I think the focus on metrics as a framework for evaluation is misplaced. Metrics can be used, but they should be designed on a case-by-case basis for each situation. That being said, I think the conversation has fallen into the trap of being constrained by historical frames of reference.

I want to have a different conversation.

I’m interested in what information is available to donors who want to evaluate a nonprofit and which of this information is useful. Google.com is mostly a resource that points to information; they don’t tend to create a lot of their own content. So if we imagine a future version of the nonprofit data inside of Google Finance, I don’t imagine it will be some new metric that we design. Instead, it will point to existing information on the web. When I first wrote about nonprofit info in Google Finance, I said I hoped they would not display Charity Navigator ratings (although I would support them noting if a nonprofit had a zero or one star rating since I do believe that a Charity Navigator rating at this level is a significant red flag)

So the conversation I want to have is what information do readers think that donors should consider when evaluating a nonprofit? Then secondly, where or how can this information be captured online so that it can be displayed in Google Finance?

Open Invitation to Foundation Employees

I realize that if you work at a foundation, you may not want to jump into a conversation that involves telling another foundation what to do. However, the conversation we’re having here is really important and would not be complete without the input of the army of program officers (ie. Nonprofit evaluators) that read this blog. So please consider commenting anonymously (just let us know you’re a program officer) or comment publicly and realize that we’re having a broad conversation about nonprofit evaluation that goes beyond Google.org and Google Finance

Open Invitation to Nonprofit Employees

A conversation about nonprofit evaluation would not be complete without the input of the nonprofits being evaluated. What information do you, as nonprofits, what donors looking at when they evaluate you? It could be that someday the Google Finance website about your organization becomes the top ranked search result on google for your nonprofit. What do you want on that page?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Grantmaking, Impact Measurement, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Social Media, Transparency, nonprofits | Comments (70)