Category Archives: nptech

Causes, MySpace & ideablob

November 16, 2009 – 8:06 am

In recent days, Causes has left MySpace and IdeaBlob has shutdown. To some, these events were unimportant. In reaction to the Causes announcement, Economist bureau chief Matthew Bishop tweeted “Who knew it was on MySpace?” to which New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom tweeted back “No kidding.”

But to many people active in online social action communities, these events had deeper meaning. This is a guest post from Amy Sample Ward, NetSquared’s Global Community Development Manager

By Amy Sample Ward

The Effect on Community in Community Platforms

There’s something in the wind, other than in-coming winter, that has my attention. It’s something I can only wrap my mind around by talking to others and hope that this is a chance to further a very important conversation. First, let’s start at the beginning:

Causes Leaves MySpace

Two weeks ago, Causes, the application that lets individuals and organizations campaign and fundraise, removed itself and all Causes-related content/data from MySpace. (Read more about Causes leaving MySpace here.) This separation came with no public announcement, either before the move or when it happened, except for a very short email sent a couple days beforehand to account administrators as a warning. The message explained that Causes would be focusing on only providing service to the Facebook platform, encouraging any MySpace users that wanted to continue using the application to migrate, too. and then… 

ideablob Shuts Down

By now, you may have heard about the very abrupt closedown of ideablob, a competition and promotion platform for entrepreneurs. Late last week, registered users, interested supporters and social changemakers participating in a funding competition were all greeted with the message below when visiting the ideablob website:

 ideablobclose

Users (whether they were people with a project in the competition, those that had voted to support an idea, or were general registered users of the site) received no notice that the closure was coming, or even when it happened. The only bread crumbs to find were some business reports about Advanta declaring bankruptcy, like this one, that don’t even mention ideablob. Here’s a bit of John Brennan’s story (an ideablob member who was competition in the competition) from his comment on my original blog post:

"It’s upsetting that companies like this aren’t actually thinking or caring about the real people and ideas they are effecting. This week our idea was up for the sprint and in the top 3. Why did they even start the competition when they already were going through bankruptcy talks?"

and so… 

The Conversation

What’s this mean to you as an activist, supporter, volunteer, changemaker, entrepreneur, innovator or *insert preferred title* online? Well, it means a lot. We can see (and learn a valuable lesson about) the way current ecosystem of social media works in regards to transparency, data, and community. To unpack this, let’s narrow in on each:

Transparency
The lack of communication about the actual decision, but more so in the lack of communication about the development, direction and intention of Causes and ideablob indicates that transparency isn’t a part of the package. There are many who approach the online landscape with very different views than their offline business decisions. For example, if ideablob or Causes were a product offline, and you were a funder, an investor, or a consumer/user of ideablob or Causes as offline products providing no integral communication, you would probably not have ever considered participating/consuming. Just because you aren’t meeting offline, in real-time, in the same room with your supporters and the competitors in the ideablob competition, does not mean likewise that you do not need to know if the platform will even be around for your competition to finish. The transparency issue is a steep mountain to climb with social media. Unless you knew that ideablob was part of Advanta, and you were reading the business sections of the papers last week, you wouldn’t have had any idea ideablob was even considering discontinuing. But, transparency is even more than this, and really is a part of the Data and Community, too.

Data

We can count our Twitter followers or how many people have commented on our blog post, or could have counted the number of supporters on Causes or voters on ideablob, but that doesn’t mean we connect with them. Now that Causes removed itself, it’s content, and any related data from MySpace, organizations cannot connect with their supporters who were using Causes. ideablob participants are locked out from seeing any comments or feedback on their ideas. The fact that access to data, whether it’s supporters’ email addresses, tracking actions taken, or anything else, is instantly gone should be a big alert bell to those working in a "networked" way via social media to grow their community. To connect with supporters, organizations and individuals working on projects will need to be sure that data gets back to them. How are you encouraging your supporters all over the web to connect with you directly? For example, when you post a message (whether it’s on Twitter, Facebook, or even Change.org) telling your supporters that you’re ramping up for some big news, a new project or something else, include a link where they can sign up with you to be on the email/announcement list. When supporters sign a petition or take action on your organization’s behalf in social media platforms, include "thank you" and "learn more" links wherever possible that link to ways to connect directly with your organization, ensuring the contact information is in your database, not just Facebook’s.

Community

In the Causes move, the issues around community are very clearly focused on the different demographic groups represented on MySpace and Facebook. With ideablob, it isn’t so much that groups are being separated/segregated, but entirely shut off. These events raise many questions and flags about diversity, opportunity, and even corporate decision-making. Communities on both platforms were clearly not part of the development and communications process, yet they were actively using the platform (for example, a grant from ideablob helped Epic Change implement a technology lab in a school in Tanzania). What is the difference between a community actively using a platform and one actively involved in the evolution of the platform? If a platform were to disappear, would the community be able to continue on? Perhaps so if it had been active in the development and direction (or, perhaps that would indicate that the platform would be more unlikely to disappear or at least not without notice)?

What’s Next

I don’t necessarily want to call for the communities on MySpace or on ideablob to call for the return of the tools. We can see by the issues raised above that the platforms weren’t necessarily operating in the best ethos anyway. But, I do want an arena for the communities to describe what they do want and be an integral part of the process to building and sustaining whatever that is.

How can this work? I can’t speak for others working in the "innovation sector," but at NetSquared we can’t emphasize enough that our Community is what drives us – whether’s it’s online or offline. Community feedback shapes everything from our goals to our website and everything in between. We are able to work as a small team on the organization side because of the passionate, collaborative, dedicated Community. For example, you can follow the website redesign process via the blog where the feedback and directives for the redesign, the people who stepped up to implement, and the step-by-step process have all been open and Community centered. This isn’t about creating a new splash page, this is involving the users in the design of the Gallery where their Projects are housed, showcased and voted on; involving bloggers in the design of the collaborative sharing space they contribute to already; involving Community members in telling us both the bad stuff and the good stuff, so we can work to make it everything they want.

As another example, the Net Tuesday network is now up to 56+ groups meeting every month around the world—a global network of events, bringing the NetSquared Community together offline—and growing in an entirely organic way. That doesn’t mean NetSquared’s perfect, by any measure, but it does mean that a quick abandonment isn’t in store. That also doesn’t mean that NetSquared is the *only* or the *best* place for absolutely everyone to find what they are looking for. It is, though, one example of trying to make it work.

Your invitation: Join this conversation. Tell me what the recent Causes/ideablob announcements means for our sector and for you. And share your ideas with your friends and colleagues to further the breadth of the conversation. The more voices the better! Here are some places to start:

  • Evaluate your use of social media tools: do you encourage your supporters on other platforms to register on your website, ensuring you have their contact details?
  • Evaluate your community: are you reaching a diverse community or operating in a silo?
  • Evaluate your relationship with developers: are you using tools that allow you to surface suggestions, ideas, and useful functionality for development? Do you know what the plans are for the tools you are using?

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Innovation, Open Source Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Social Media, nonprofits | Comments (7)

Philanthropy Debate in a Twitter World

October 14, 2009 – 9:05 am

The recent debate about Kiva is the first major philanthropy blog debate since Twitter added a number of philanthropy focused users to their Suggested User list. What makes the debate doubly interesting is that Kiva and their CEO Matt Flannery are two of the Twitter users on the Suggested User list. So let’s look at some of the data points and their implications.

  • Kiva and Matt Flannery’s follower counts on Twitter went from a couple thousand a piece before being added to the Suggested User list to 61,000 and 47,000 respectively today (just 12 days since they were added).
  • To put that in perspective, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has a circulation of 34,000 (that’s paid subscription to the newspaper, not their Twitter followers. In may ways it is an apples to oranges comparison, but it does give a sense of reach).
  • Acumen Fund, another new Suggested User, has seen their follower count go from a couple thousand to 52,000.
  • After I published the post yesterday summarizing the Kiva controversy, Acumen Fund tweeted a link to the post. That link has been retweeted 37 times and generated 276 visitors to this blog (over the last 23 hours). A second Acumen Fund tweet to another post I wrote on the issue has generated another 75 visitors.
  • Reading through the profiles of the people who retweeted the Acumen Fund tweet, it appears that many of them have some familiarity with Kiva, but are not regular readers of the philanthropy blogs.
  • These new readers didn’t just click on the link and then move on. The number one outbound link on my blog yesterday was the link to the GiveWell blog’s graphical representation of how Kiva explains their process to donors compared to how they explain it to microfinance institutions. This link was halfway down the post, suggesting that many visitors read through the post and took action to learn more.
  • Including all Twitter users (not just Acumen Fund), Twitter was responsible for 44% of all Tactical Philanthropy readers yesterday.
  • Yet the official Kiva Twitter account has made no mention of the debate and Matt Flannery’s Twitter feed links only to the guest post he wrote giving Kiva’s side of the story on David Roodman’s blog.

A number of the new Tactical Philanthropy readers who came in via the Acumen Fund tweet left comments on my posts. A quick scan of other posts on the debate suggests that readers new to the philanthropy blogs found the debate engaging and are asking questions about important issues.

The Kiva debate is complicated. There is good cause to criticize them and good cause to defend them. What is exciting is that we now have a vibrant online debate about important issues in philanthropy and new platforms like Twitter are exposing non-traditional audiences to these debates.

At the time the Twitter Suggested User list was published, I suggested that the new members needed to realize they were talking to a new audience then they were before and they needed to adjust accordingly.

One small suggestion I would make is to point out that the members of the list are now speaking to a mainstream audience rather than social entrepreneur insiders. I know from my experience writing for the Financial Times, that writing for a mainstream audience is more difficult but also offers more opportunity than speaking to people who already “get” where you are coming from.

Imagine you are giving a talk to a small group of people who are passionate about social change. All of a sudden the walls around the room you are speaking in come crashing down and you realize that their are thousand and thousands of new people outside the room who are now crowding around to hear you.

What would you say?

The Twitter Suggested Users suddenly find themselves holding a powerful new tool. They have the ability to point people’s attention to the subjects they pick. This isn’t a small deal. The current debate is about the validity of Kiva, one of the most highly touted of the “new philanthropy” brands. I’m not sure where this all goes, but I think it is healthy to have so many new people being exposed to the discourse. And I think new winners and losers are going to emerge.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Social Media, Storytelling, Transparency, microfinance | Comments (0)

Twitter’s Message to Social Entrepreneurs

October 5, 2009 – 7:03 am

On Friday afternoon, Twitter added a number of social entrepreneurs to their “suggested user” list. Over the weekend, Twitter employee Claire Williams (who new suggested user Kjerstin Erickson of FORGE says made the push internally to add social entrepreneurs to the list) left a message for Tactical Philanthropy readers:

Hey All –

We’re honored to be able to use Twitter to highlight your amazing work! Do contact me with any questions.

Claire and everybody at Twitter

A quick glance at the Twitter profiles of some of the people added to the list shows that their number of followers exploded to as much as ten times what they were on Friday. It will be interesting to see how the members of the list use their new found popularity.

One small suggestion I would make is to point out that the members of the list are now speaking to a mainstream audience rather than social entrepreneur insiders. I know from my experience writing for the Financial Times, that writing for a mainstream audience is more difficult but also offers more opportunity than speaking to people who already “get” where you are coming from.

Imagine you are giving a talk to a small group of people who are passionate about social change. All of a sudden the walls around the room you are speaking in come crashing down and you realize that their are thousand and thousands of new people outside the room who are now crowding around to hear you.

What would you say?

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

Social Entrepreneur API

September 9, 2009 – 10:25 am

The Social Entrepreneur API from Social Actions launched at the SoCap Conference. The Social Entrepreneur API (Application Programming Interface) is the first open database of information about social entrepreneurs who have won fellowships and awards from social enterprise funders. The current API includes awards made by Civic Ventures, The Draper Richards Foundation, ideablob, PopTech, The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, and The Skoll Foundation.

We live in a world with literally millions of nonprofits and many, many individuals working on social benefit projects that are not registered nonprofits. Shifting through these organizations is a daunting task for any donor. But luckily, there are thousands of foundations and other grantmaking entities with paid staff doing just this work. Unlike in for-profit markets where possession of important information helps secure profits, in philanthropy, sharing important information increases a grantmaker’s impact.

What’s interesting about the Social Entrepreneur API, as I’ve written before, is the way it allows for anyone to access a stream of vetted social entrepreneurs and mash the data up however they like. For instance, Tactical Philanthropy Advisors could build a web interface that displayed vetted grantmaking opportunities that took the API data and then limited the data to projects in need of at least $25,000 so that our high net worth clients would be delivered a pool of eligible, vetted social entrepreneurs that we could then help them look into more deeply.

Knowing that the Draper Richards Foundation or Skoll has funded someone does not automatically make them a good grantee. But it certainly helps to search for organizations within a universe of groups that have already been vetted by well resourced, smart funders.

How else might Tactical Philanthropy Advisors or other organizations use the Social Entrepreneur API?

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Open Source Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, Social Media, Tactical Philanthropy Advisors | Comments (4)

Learning From Foundation Tweets

August 18, 2009 – 8:09 am

Beth Kanter (currently a visiting scholar at the Packard Foundation), recently analyzed the list of “foundations that tweet” on the Philanthropy411 blog. Beth gives a really interesting breakdown of the various ways the foundations are using Twitter as well as takes a look at the “profiles” the use.

She breaks the profiles into four types:

  1. Pure Foundation Brand
  2. Foundation with Personality
  3. Employee with Foundation Association
  4. Pure Personal Account

Personally, I generally think options 1 and 4 are boring. Profile 1 types tend to be versions of press release distributors. Profile 4 types tend to tweet about their cats, what happen on a TV show last night and other personal conversation that doesn’t interest me (I’m not referring to the profiles that Beth uses as examples, just making a generalization).

But Profile 2 and 3 types are really interesting. These are either foundation branded Twitter profiles that clearly are authored by a real person writing like a normal human does or individual branded Twitter profiles where the person’s connection to a foundation is clearly noted.

I think the lesson to be drawn here is that in the search for how best to share knowledge, the key thing is to put humans at the center. Knowledge is not some sort of physical element that we can stack in a room somewhere and index easily. Knowledge is a concept that is rooted in the very fact that we are human.

Information we can stick into databases and take humans out of the equation. Knowledge on the other hand (or dare we say wisdom?) cannot be separated from the human element in which it is rooted.

As we strive to build a more effective philanthropy, to share knowledge and support what works, let’s not become disconnected from the human element that drives philanthropy. Any hope we have to build a philanthropic field that is high performing and high impact must be built on a framework that embraces our humanity rather than tries to overcome it.

It is a messy world out there. But humans are uniquely good at organizing, contextualizing and identifying patterns in messy information landscapes.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Foundations, Information Sharing, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (20)

International Grantmaking Repository

July 27, 2009 – 7:22 am

Philanthropy In/Sight shows how raw data, when intelligently sorted and engagingly displayed, can enhance understanding, lead to insights and result in better philanthropy. With that sort of project in mind I’d like to point your attention to the Repository Project.

The Repository is a project of Council on Foundations, InterAction, Foundation Center and Independent Sector with the aim of making international grantmaking more streamlined. Private foundations and public charities are allowed to make international grants. However, for international “NGOs” (non governmental organizations) that do not hold 501c3 (nonprofit) status in the United States, grantmakers must document their grantmaking at a higher level than when making grants in the US. They must complete an “equivalency determination” that shows that the international NGO is “equivalent” to a US based 501c3. That is that the organization would qualify as a 501c3 if it were conducting operations in the US. Or the grantmaker must engage in “expenditure responsibility”. This simply means that the foundation is responsible for documenting that the grant it made was indeed spent by the NGO on qualifying activities.

While this process makes sense, it requires that many grantmakers repeat the same process over and over again. The Repository Project, being designed by TechSoup Global, is an attempt to fix this problem by working with the IRS to create an approved database where once a grantmaker completed an equivalency determination, other funders could depend on their finding and avoiding duplicating the process.

At first glance I thought that this all sounded sensible and practical, but mostly just a streamlining of administrative duties. Nothing to get too excited about. But recently it has been brought to my attention that there’s actually a lot more going on behind the scenes. While the direct goal of The Repository Project is as I outlined above, the inevitable side effect will be the creation of a dynamic database of international grantees that are eligible for US grantmaker funding.

Whenever you hear a call for more nonprofit reporting on their activities and impact, you hear the response that this reporting is costly and will be a burden to nonprofits. But in the case of international NGOs, they are already required to report on grants they receive from US based funders. The Repository Project will simultaneously decrease the reporting burden on NGOs, while making the reporting universally accessible.

Now lets be clear here. The Repository Project is under no requirement to make all NGO reporting and funder grantmaking information public. But it will be collecting this data and doing so in a way that brings cost savings to the participants rather than increasing reporting costs.

More importantly, I would point out that TechSoup Global was selected to host the repository. TechSoup is the group behind NetSquared and one of the most socially media savvy nonprofits around. TechSoup is committed to concepts like transparency and knowledge sharing. It wouldn’t surprise me if at some point we see a sort of Repository 2.0 that builds on the administrative efficiencies of Repository 1.0 to help make international grantmaking more effective.

One of the underlying assumptions I made in my post about the value of Philanthropy In/Sight was that it would be valuable for individual donors to “follow the smart money” of foundation funders as a way to identify high impact giving opportunities. I would suggest that the value of this practice in the international space is exponentially higher because of even further lack of transparency compared to the US. As more and more donors become interested in supporting causes in Africa, Asia and elsewhere, the ability to find out where large, well resourced foundations are sending their grants and being able to piggy back on a reporting system becomes invaluable.

The Googlization of Philanthropy marches on…

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Foundations, Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (3)

IdeaEncore & the Nonprofit Information Marketplace

June 9, 2009 – 9:38 am

I’ve written extensively about the value of philanthropic information and how it is fundamentally different than for-profit information. But what is it worth and to whom? It appears that we’re about to find out if the new IdeaEncore Network marketplace takes off.

IdeaEncore says this about themselves:

[We are] an online marketplace for the sharing of ready-to-use tools, presentations, course outlines, templates, and project plans within and between nonprofit organizations. The system is designed to provide incentives for sharing and a range of intellectual property protections for shared materials.

Nonprofits can upload any information they want to the system and make it available to anyone. They can share it for free or they can charge a fee for access. IdeaEncore told me that they hope the system will increase the quality and “velocity” (the speed at which information changes hands) of nonprofit knowledge.

Let’s say you are building your development office, you might download the Development Policies and Procedures being shared by the Association of Grant Professionals (for free). If you want to recruit volunteers, you might check out the Volunteer Position Description Template being shared for a price of $5 by Volunteer Vancouver.

What I find so interesting about the project is that we’ll be able to track the demand and supply of nonprofit information under both a free and paid model. From a social benefit standpoint, everyone should be sharing for free. But would the people at Volunteer Vancouver have taken the time to upload their template simply out of the goodness of their heart? Or does the $5 fee encourage more people to share information?

IdeaEncore seems to be asking all the right questions with an in depth FAQ section that covers such things as: the impact of the pricing decision on encouraging sharing while diminishing access, the elasticity of demand (the rate at which demand for the information changes as the price changes, and why buyers should be willing to pay.

IdeaEncore only launched a few months ago. But it seems to me that if they can cross a tipping point and their network of buyers and sellers gets large enough, that they might create a robust market place. Not only will this make information sharing between nonprofits more effective, but it will help us understand the supply/demand characteristics of nonprofit information which I believe are fundamentally different than the market behavior described by traditional economics.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, nonprofits | Comments (5)

Your Free Ticket to NetSquared

May 20, 2009 – 11:47 am

Two months ago I wrote about how excited I was to attend the fourth annual NetSquared Conference in San Jose, CA on May 26 & 27.

I wrote:

Longtime readers of Tactical Philanthropy know that I’ve always been a fan of the NetSquared conference. From N2Y1, where I heard about some site called Facebook for the first time and was taught how to launch a blog. To N2Y2, a nonprofit “investment fair,” where the seemingly uncontroversial comment “some nonprofits just suck” by a venture philanthropists lead to a heated public debate between participants with the board members of NetSquared sponsor TechSoup Globaltaking opposite sides. To N2Y3, where philanthropy “mashups” won cash and Peter Deitz’ Social Actions took home a prize.

But now I’m disappointed to say that something has come up and I will be travelling next week and unable to attend the conference.

Well, my loss is your gain because now I’m going to give away my $300 ticket to the two day event.

Here’s the summary of the conference:

The NetSquared Global Conference, held in San Jose California, is a two-day meeting that brings together the minds of unlikely allies from different professional fields including: leaders in philanthropy, corporate philanthropy, engineering, media and world-class innovators driving the development, distribution and use of social technologies for progressive change.

The conference provides participants an opportunity to attend interactive sessions facilitated by leaders working at the cross-roads of technology and social change; create new collaborations, and participate in a uniquely democratic approach to funding innovation through the Project voting process.

All conference attendees have an opportunity to share their perspective and insights from the field with competing Projects, and vote to fund N2Y4 Mobile Challenge winning Projects competing for $50k in cash-prizes and in-kind resources.

So here’s the game: To win the ticket you must:

  1. Promise that you will use it.
  2. Explain in 500 words or less (as a comment on this post) why you think mobile technology can lead to better philanthropy.
  3. Submit your entry by midnight (pacific time) on Thursday May 21 (tomorrow).

Ready… Set… Go!

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, N2Y4, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (0)

Smart Money & the Social Entrepreneur API

May 14, 2009 – 7:55 am

In financial markets there is “smart money” and “dumb money”. These rather crude phrases refer to the fact that certain types of investors tend to make good decisions and others tend to make bad decisions. The “smart money” usually goes against the crowd and makes investments in things that the “crowd” currently dislikes. “Dumb money” investors tend to be trend followers and pile into the hottest fade of the moment. When someone says “follow the smart money”, they are urging you to invest in the things that the “smart money” investors are currently buying.

Today, Social Actions, in partnership with The Skoll Foundation, PopTech, ideablob, and Civic Ventures, announced a new resource that will let people interested in social entrepreneurs “follow the smart money.” The resource is called the Social Entrepreneur API:

From the Social Actions press release:

The Social Entrepreneur API (Application Programming Interface) will be the first open database of information about social entrepreneurs who have won fellowships and awards from social enterprise funders.

The tool will allow philanthropists, investors, press, and fellow entrepreneurs to find social entrepreneurs based on keyword, location, cause area, population served, and a variety of other factors.

"The Social Entrepreneur API will provide an easier way for people to find, invest in, and support social entrepreneurs, as well as serve as a resource for social entrepreneurs to connect with each other and partner for greater impact," says Jill Finlayson, Marketing Manager for Social Edge.

Lucy Bernholz offered her take on Philanthropy 2173:

This makes it easier for funders to find entrepreneurs. For entrepreneurs to find other entrepreneurs. For aspiring entrepreneurs to find mentors. For networks to bridge networks. For potential partnerships to be formed or common problems to be worked on collectively. For researchers to look for patterns or entrepreneurs to look for gaps in service or systems thinkers to consider the kind of networks and infrastructure that supports (or doesn’t) these people.

It’s nothing short of putting philanthropic data in the cloud – which leaves it to all of us to figure out what cool things to do with it…

This also happens to be an excellent example of the Googlization of Philanthropy.

I’d love to see a similar database for foundation grantees (Grantfire has been working on this for sometime). One way to think about how this might look is by checking out Stockpickr.com. This site makes it easy for investors to search a database of professional investors’ stock picks (professional investors are required to disclose their investment positions once every quarter in the form 13F, much as foundations disclose grantees in their Form 990PF once a year).

Stockpickr.com lets you enter the name of a company you are interested in and pull up a list of the professional investors that currently hold the stock. It also displays a list of other companies that people own who own the stock you are interested in. This is similar to Amazon’s “people who like book X, also enjoy book Y”.

Facing more than a million nonprofits and a vast field of social entrepreneurs, we need smart ways to create filters so that the great opportunities do not get lost in the fire hose of information.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship | Comments (1)

More Googlization

April 29, 2009 – 7:48 am

My recent Chronicle of Philanthropy column was about the Googlization of Philanthropy and the ways in which third party web applications can effectively organize philanthropic data so long as social sector players digitize their knowledge and make it accessible. I specifically was not making the point that Google the company should dominate this process. But of course they are the heavy hitter in this area.

So it was with interest that I read today about Google’s new efforts to aggregate and organize public data. The initial launch makes unemployment and population data on a county by county basis available in chart form that can be manipulated by the user. You can try it out by googling “unemployment rate” or “population” and the state or county you are interested in. The charting feature makes it easy to put the data in context both across time and in comparison to other areas.

From the Google Blog:

The data we’re including in this first launch represents just a small fraction of all the interesting public data available on the web. There are statistics for prices of cookies, CO2 emissions, asthma frequency, high school graduation rates, bakers’ salaries, number of wildfires, and the list goes on. Reliable information about these kinds of things exists thanks to the hard work of data collectors gathering countless survey forms, and of careful statisticians estimating meaningful indicators that make hidden patterns of the world visible to the eye. All the data we’ve used in this first launch are produced and published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Division. They did the hard work! We just made the data a bit easier to find and use.

Since Google’s acquisition of Trendalyzer two years ago, we have been working on creating a new service that make lots of data instantly available for intuitive, visual exploration. Today’s launch is a first step in that direction. We hope people will find this search feature helpful, whether it’s used in the classroom, the boardroom or around the kitchen table. We also hope that this will pave the way for public data to take a more central role in informed public conversations.

This is just the beginning. Stay tuned for more.

Google admits that “the hard work” is the data collection. Their job is to make the data “easier to find and use”. As this process plays out in philanthropy, individual donors are going to find that they can begin to act on the information that informs the grantmaking of large institutional funders. Since individual donors give vastly more to charity than foundations do each year, helping their donations flow based on better knowledge of what works will have a transformative effect.

You can see a quick video demo of the new Google product here.

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Grantmaking, Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media, video | Comments (4)