Category Archives: nptech

Kjerstin Erickson of FORGE

December 5, 2007 – 11:41 am

Who is FORGE, the nonprofit that posted 423 comments to the One Post Challenge winning entry? Well here’s the story as written by FORGE founder and executive director Kjerstin Erickson.

By Kjerstin Erickson

One week ago Monday, I stumbled across the One Post Challenge after following a few links from the ‘Philanthropy Today’ update that I receive in my inbox every weekday. As a blogger myself, I first considered entering. But then I came across the $500 for your nonprofit entry and immediately knew that with the right mobilization strategies, FORGE would win.

FORGE is not a huge organization, but we have three things working in our favor:

a) an engaged and highly motivated network

b) a strong presence in today’s online social networking tools

c) a staff that understands the power of social media and is willing to use it

The beauty of web activism is that you don’t even have to know the people that you reach – they are often 3 or 4 degrees of separation away from you. I know everyone that has ever worked or volunteered for FORGE, but I only knew approximately 15% of the people that voted for us.

So what did we do? Every nonprofit keeps a master listserv of their supporters, but we didn’t even have to use ours. Rather, we depended on the personal connections of our core staff and alumni – approximately 50 people – who we then asked to reach out to others. Being requested to do something – anything – is much more potent when it comes from someone you know well. Therefore, dozens of smaller emails are often much more powerful than a few large email blasts.

Sending the request to our core staff was our original, ‘catch-up’ strategy. But we asked people to not reach deeper into their networks until the deadline was upon us. When there was just 12 hours left in the competition, we pounced.

Facebook is our networks’ social networking tool of choice, so we:

1) formed a Facebook Event and invited thousands of people to “virtually attend” (the event was named “FORGE go go WIN!” after comment #200, our favorite, from one of the refugee students we sponsor to University)

2) asked our staff members to “Post a Facebook Note” telling everyone in their network about the contest and how they could take part

3) asked our staff members to “change their Facebook status” to “Just Voted for FORGE at http://tacticalphilanthropy.com/2007/11/500-for-your-nonprofit”

Within 3 hours, we had 100 new votes. By the end of the evening, we had more than 260 new votes. And the rest is history…

Do I have any lessons to share? I think that the majority of the nonprofit world is blissfully unaware of the revolution that is happening in cyberspace. Many organizations have little idea what Facebook is, much less how great of a tool it can be for them if used properly. Web 2.0 has brought with it a great transformation of the possibilities for human outreach and interaction, and the social sphere is one of the best places to use it.

Everyone loves a little competition, and this contest was extremely fun for us. But perhaps the best part of it was not the winning or even the funds, but the way in which our ‘constituents’ – the refugees that FORGE serves – got involved from across the world. Most of the refugees we work with live in camps that don’t have electricity, much less internet access. However, we are currently sponsoring six talented refugee students to attend university in Lusaka, and they have internet access at the ‘flat’ where they live. The day I found the post, I decided to send them a quick email to let them know about the competition. The next morning, I woke to find that not only had they all posted a comment of support, but that they had gotten so excited about the contest that they went all over their apartment building, knocking on doors, and getting people to come over to vote for FORGE! When you are an African refugee, you have little opportunity to break down the barrier between ‘server’ and servee’ and fundraise for yourself – they took the opportunity with gusto.

And boy we’re they excited when FORGE won…you’ve just gotta check out the video and attached photos they sent!

fef-u-guys-celebrating-forge-victory1.JPG

fef-u-guys-celebrating-forge-victory.JPG

Kjerstin Erickson

FORGE Founder and Executive Director

www.FORGEnow.org

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in One Post Challenge, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (3)

And The Winner Is…

December 4, 2007 – 8:58 am

Surprise, surprise, the post $500 For Your Nonprofit won, no… absolutely dominated, the One Post Challenge. Regarding whether the post actually furthered the online philanthropy conversation, I will note that a number of people who were drawn to Tactical Philanthropy to vote for their charity stuck around and commented on other posts.

Without further ado here is the victory speech from the author of $500 For Your Nonprofit, the anonymous author of the blog Don’t Tell The Donor.

By “a fundraiser”

When I submitted my entry to Sean’s “One Post Challenge”, it wasn’t my intention to hijack the contest.

Fourteen months ago when I started my Don’t Tell the Donor blog, it was one of only a handful of fundraising blogs. Over the past year, I was initially excited to see so many more bloggers add to the online conversation.

Unfortunately, the proliferation of websites has all too often produced an incestuous conversation. For this medium to reach its strongest potential and serve as a true benefit to the nonprofits we serve, we must find a way to reach out beyond a limited number of fundraisers and foundation staffers to engage directly with individual donors.

As I wrote in my initial post, “blogging is not about talking AT PEOPLE, it’s about making readers part of the story and giving them a reason to be engaged.”

Engaged was a bit of an understatement. Within the first 24 hours, my post generated 57 comments, which by itself would have been enough to win the contest.

Sean himself noted that the deluge of hopeful supporters leaving comments for their cause generated more traffic to the website than his mentions in both the Chronicle of Philanthropy and the New York Times. That single comment proved my point more than the huge number of posts that came in.

…oh, but by the way… there were a heckuva a lot of comments. As I write this now, it looks like there are 683 total comments. I will leave it to Sean to see if he thinks there was any cheating with multiple votes coming from the same IP address (Sean’s note: The voting seems to be valid. Some duplicate voting on both sides, but nothing that would change the outcome)… but here is how I saw the horserace unfold:

A total of ten nonprofits tried to lobby for votes. The early leader, Pride at Work after generating more than 60 votes within the first 36 hours. Thanks to one dedicated activist who was able to use his own site to reach out to more people, Pride at Work built a commanding lead… so much of a lead, they stopped thinking about the contest.

Then, on November 26th, someone who went by the name “Kjerstin” posted comment #75 - the first vote for Forge. That was followed by more than 50 more votes for Forge within the next couple hours… and the battle lines were drawn.

For the last week, votes poured in from both charities. It wasn’t until late on December 3rd when Pride at Work must have thought the voting was over when Forge moved in for their final push. The refugee assistance group poured on more than 250 votes in the final day and won the contest by a final vote (through 683 total votes) by a score of 423-231.

Truth be told, I had never heard of either group when this contest started, but I have learned a lot about them in the past couple weeks… I hope others have. Both groups did an excellent outreach marketing job… and I would suggest that even though I will donate the $500 gift card (Sean’s note: the prize increased to $750 during the contest) I won to Forge, I would like to suggest that Sean award his second $250 award to the second place group in this contest, Pride at Work.

My work here is done. This “fundraiser” is off to run a couple victory laps around the blogosphere. Congratulations to Sean and to Forge (who apparently live about an hour away from each hour). I would encourage other bloggers to organize these challenges… it seems much more effective than those bland carnivals.

Thanks again for letting me be a part.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Giving Blogs, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy, Prize Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (3)

The Futures of Philanthropy, Fundraising, and Advertising

November 28, 2007 – 12:50 pm

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Peter Deitz. Peter writes a blog called About Micro-Philanthropy and is the founder of Social Actions, a community website that aggregates person-to-person fundraising campaigns and helps people to start their own. Deitz also works as a consultant to nonprofits and philanthropists interested in leveraging the power of social networks.

By Peter Deitz

The Futures of Philanthropy, Fundraising, and Advertising

The futures of philanthropy, fundraising, and advertising are looking remarkably similar. In all three fields, technology innovators are turning to real people to do the hard work of moving money.

Foundations are asking non-specialists to “crowd source” their grant recipients. Development teams are using “wired fundraisers” to increase online donations. Companies are relying on “fansumers” to promote their latest products.

The online marketing guru Seth Godin first reported on this trend in a series of e-books entitled Flipping the Funnel. In three versions of the same e-book, Godin addresses companies, nonprofits, and politicians. He instructs them on how individuals can be empowered to sell products, raise money, and recruit votes respectively.

Godin could easily have written a fourth version of Flipping the Funnel, one tailored to the needs of foundations and private philanthropists. The hypothetical e-book would have emphasized the important role that non-wealthy and non-specialist individuals can play in awarding grants and redistributing wealth.

Flipping the Funnel for Foundations and Private Philanthropists would have noted that:

  • Real people are often excellent judges of innovation and long-term impact;
  • If provided with the right incentives, individuals may back their grant recommendations with donations of their own, resulting in larger grants and more grantees;
  • People who are involved in grant-making are more likely to recognize a philanthropist for his or her contribution to the field.

Today, only a handful of nonprofits are effectively using wired fundraisers to raise money. Companies experimenting with fansumerism are drawing criticism for their attack on consumer privacy. And only a handful of foundations and private philanthropists are actually crowd-sourcing grant-making.

And yet, the innovators in these fields are continuing to experiment with new technologies that enable person-to-person communications and discernment. Overtime, the pioneers who balance privacy and fraud concerns with the opportunity for greater sales, donations, and grants will reap rewards for their early adoption.

Compared to fundraisers and advertisers, philanthropists have been the least exuberant in their embrace of the peer-to-peer economy. The sector needs leadership and technology innovation so that more wealth can be moved, and more effectively.

This post will hopefully serve as a starting point for discussing the trend as it pertains to philanthropy. Lessons from person-to-person fundraising and advertising will no doubt inform the discussion and provoke more innovation.

I look forward to exchanging ideas with the Tactical Philanthropy community and the larger world of emerging philanthropy bloggers.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Foundations, Fundraising, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (2)

Creating a Generation of Digital Natives

November 27, 2007 – 10:43 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Daniel Ben-Horin. Daniel is the founder of CompuMentor/TechSoup, which puts on the NetSquared conference. Daniel has been named to the Nonprofit Times Power and Influence Top 50 a number of times.

By Daniel Ben-Horin

The bone I am gnawing on is about connecting these dots:

* There is something intrinsic in ‘knowing technology’ that makes the person with knowledge want to pass it on. So there is an almost infinite pool of ‘desire to help’ in the technological world (and I do mean ‘world’)

* The technologies associated with Web 2 make it easier and easier for communities to self-organize (although it is still by no means a slam dunk to do so, even with the new tools;  some level of external catalyzation and some level of structure are essential to successful, sustainable efforts, viz the relationship between Jimmy Wales and his staff and the larger Wikipedia community.)

* Financial resources are available for big web-based projects invoking large communities; the chance to be associated with the next Wikipedia or to be perceived as a leader in the climate change arena is very attractive to corporate sponsors. Likewise, some foundations see the potential.

* Absent a coherent effort to link the three dots above, there will be insufficient technological intellectual capital to train and support on new technologies in the developing world. This is an absolutely classic and pervasive issue. The digital divide has been ‘traditionally’ considered a matter of hardware and software, but it is as much or more a matter of training and support.  Projects like the xo (formerly ‘hundred dollar laptop’;  this is a good piece on that issue) offer a lot of promise for abetting a generation of digital natives (in the techie not colonialist sense of the word!) but in the short term, and in the longer as well, it is essential to create a way for these digital natives to get assistance along their learning curve, and also to create a way for the full demographic spectrum to learn to use these tools. And to do it soon.

Wiserearth seem to have a piece of this puzzle. The Impact Alliance might have an interesting piece or Oneworld.net,Techfinder, a project CompuMentor and NTEN developed has a piece (but only a piece).

I remember once hearing Ethan Zuckerman of Global Voices talk about human rights bloggers, who often operate clandestinely, which it makes it all the harder for them to secure technology assistance. I think about Bill Lester, of Engender Health, telling me about an internet outage in South Africa and the very specific skills it takes to just understand how to talk to the ISP there. I think about ngos around the world working against extreme odds with the barest-boned of patchwork IT structures and so little access to help.

And I think about all the people who can help, want to help and, with current tools, can help remotely.

A project to build a largely self-organizing database of technology experts/helpers/mentors and to enable those people to create beneficial interactions with organizations that need help would need project planning and development resources would need, I think, at least two skilled staff for the first year– one a very technically savvy Web 2 savant who could figure out how to create the necessary interfaces among existing resources and build new ones as needed; the second a more development oriented person who could articulate the social possibilities and build the relationships.

What do you think?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy | Comments (4)

Blogs Aren’t For Everyone

November 26, 2007 – 9:19 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from an anonymous writer named “S”. S works in communications at a large California-based foundation and has worked in the philanthropy sector for more than a decade.

By “S”

You know what? Blogs aren’t for everyone. I get so tired of hearing how important it is to start a conversation online and care for it and feed it and make it go. Blogging can be a great tool, but has anyone thought about the fact the blogging may not be the greatest thing to ever come to philanthropy? How is posting a blog and receiving comments really a conversation? I post, you post, I post…

Paul Brest needs a blog. Really? What for? Let’s step back and think about this for a moment. Paul Brest needs a blog why? So that his completely scrubbed words can help philanthropy make its mark on the world? Let’s be real. Not only is Paul Brest too busy to have a blog, but the honest truth is, people don’t crave news about philanthropies, they just don’t. I work for a foundation and we share about our work only as much as we want to. Other than that, no go.

This blogging community in philanthropy is tiny. The only people who regularly comment on others’ posts are the bloggers themselves. When you need to ask people to Digg it or to StumbleUpon it, what are you doing? Skewing the result of what normal people might do. People aren’t Digg-ing it or StumblingUpon it because it’s not what is on their agenda.

Philanthropy is a great thing and helping out all kinds of people is a great thing. But foundations get so wrapped up in trying to tell everyone about their work and how great they are. Who cares about what the general public thinks? We are important and we are doing great work. We are so convinced that we need to get out there with our message.

The foundation I work for has spent nearly four decades doing good work. And before the Internet and blogging and Digg and StumbleUpon and other avenues online, we have been able to get the word out as necessary.

I am not against an online conversation or building the interest around philanthropy. We just need to think about it and not assume that everyone should be interested. They have their lives, too.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Foundations, Giving Blogs, Media, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media, Transparency | Comments (11)

Beyond Hacking Philanthropy

November 23, 2007 – 11:25 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Kevin Jones. Kevin is a principal at Good Capital and blogs at xchangexchange.

By Kevin Jones

There are events like Hacking philanthropy, where people try to come up with new ways to crack the code of giving. There are events like Josh Becker’s zero tradeoff conference where a new group of funds say you can invest to do good at no discount to return. Both approaches are attracting a lot of people and attention. And I think they’re great, but I also think something deeper needs to happen.

If you are hacking philanthropy, it’s like, in technology terms, that you are just hacking at the interface level; you are buying into the set of assumptions, the implicit myths that the system offers you. The true power of the open source Linux system is that it opens up the root level, where you can decide which interface, which set of assumptions you buy, or where you can even create a new set. That’s where I want to play. At the root, superuser level, where you decide who you are, look at your resources and decide what impact you want to make in the world, without the hard and fast categories of giving and investing, two pocket thinking that you’ve had handed down to you.

I want to hack at the root level, not just hack philanthropy or investing. I want to reconsider the basic equation. What impact do I want to make in the world? How much do I need, how much can I share for the sake of all?

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Open Source Philanthropy, Philanthropy | Comments (2)

Does Blogging Substitute Real Action?

November 21, 2007 – 11:19 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Perla Ni. Perla was the founder of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. Her current project is Great Nonprofits, a “Zagat’s”-like guide to nonprofits.

By Perla Ni

Does blogging substitute real action?

I get asked about this a lot because I blog.   Why are all these people blogging?   Why aren’t they out there in the real world doing something?

Especially in the nonprofit world – where there’s so much need and most ED’s I know are busy enough running their programs, fundraising, doing the jobs of 4 people – blogging about nonprofits or philanthropy seems quite a luxury in navel-gazing.  There’s so much work that needs to be done in the real world, why waste time blogging?

I have two minds about this.  On one hand, yes, I’ve seen blogging become an end to itself for some bloggers.  One blogger I know started blogging in order to vent his frustrations about the lack of community spirit in his town.  Though he’s still very much looking for solutions, he’s equally absorbed with monitoring how many people have visited his blog and how long they’ve stayed on the site.  Because the “success” of blogs are measured by these metrics, it’s easy to see how some can get so absorbed in the process of blogging that it saps their focus from tackling the real world problem.\

On the other hand, blogging is essentially the mass, interactive, publishing and the dissemination ideas.  It’s an efficient means for spreading ideas.  As Seth Godin says, “ideas that spread, wins.  Period.”

When we think of some of the most important accomplishments of nonprofits – the civil rights movement, environmental movement, women’s rights movement – these are all massive systemic changes that required the winning of millions of hearts and minds.  The ideas and values at the heart of our nonprofit work – whether it be providing after school programs, cleaning up local streams, providing battered women shelter – need to be spread and supported even more widely if we want systemic change.

That’s where blogging can matter.  Blogging is not the only means – but one easy and efficient channel for you to spread your ideas far and wide.    Even those of you who are on the front lines – working with incarcerated juveniles, or running a museum, or providing health counseling – you are all also in the business of winning support for your patients, clients and cause.   You are all in the business of gaining converts to your ideals and goals.  Now if they can only add another 2 hours to the day!

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Giving Blogs, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (4)

A Shout-Out to Youth!

November 18, 2007 – 5:23 pm

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Jamie Kong. Jamie is the Program Coordinator for YouthChoose, a DonorsChoose.org Youth Philanthropy Program.  DonorsChoose.org is a nonprofit website that connects individual donors with teachers requesting materials and experiences their students need to thrive in the classroom.  When donors entrust large donations to the YouthChoose program, youth in the program have the opportunity to reflect on their own educational experiences and decide together how these funds can have the greatest impact on public school classrooms through the DonorsChoose.org website.  In this way, YouthChoose offers young people, who are often the beneficiaries of philanthropy, the chance to become philanthropists themselves.

Jamie Kong

A shout-out for youth.  They are the next generation of philanthropists.  It’s young people who are on MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Xanga, and are the segment of the population that is the most comfortable with blogging.  And it’s young people who will direct the future of philanthropy.  So, wouldn’t it be great if we could connect youth with the conversation that is happening here?

Reading the “$500 for Your Nonprofit” post got me thinking.  The beauty of this post is that it opened the conversation to everyone and gave everyone a chance to participate—even without a new idea to introduce.  It invited people who may not have their own conversation starter to join the discussion.

So, I would like to start a post for youth philanthropy.  If are a young person, share the issues you care about or your experiences with philanthropy. If you work with youth, share any ideas to increase youth engagement in philanthropy.  And if you don’t belong to either of these groups, share how your experiences as a young person informed your decisions about philanthropy today.  The sharing of experiences can be as catalytic as the sharing of ideas.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Giving Blogs, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Youth | Comments (4)

When Technology Trumps Philanthropy

November 18, 2007 – 5:11 pm

When Technology Trumps Philanthropy

This entry to the One Post Challenge is from Valerie, an Alumni Relations Associate at a major university.

By Valerie.

Gone are the days of keeping track of donors on 3 x 5 cards and marking return envelopes on the side with a red swipe of the marker to know that it is the “ABC” appeal (although I heard someone say nary a year ago that they did that!).  Computers are here, we have databases, printers, the web and the ability to track, analyze and reach people in ways that were not possible a decade or more ago.

Yet, I find that with all this technology, if the IT department is left in the driver’s seat, it can hinder marketing efforts rather than help them.  What is “convenient” or makes sense technologically is not always best for Development or - more importantly - the donor.

Two examples have happened recently that illustrate this constant struggle.

In every online marketing class I have taken, it has been emphasized that the donor must be engaged to, well, DONATE first before asking them all sorts of superfluous questions such as “How did you hear about us?” “When did you graduate?” “Does your company have a matching gift program?” and so on.  Therefore, when I redesigned the online giving form for simplicity, I asked the donor for their amount and credit card information first.  Once this has been entered, they are much less likely to disengage - they will fill out the entire form.  (I also reduced the number of overall questions from the previous form.)

Scrolling endlessly is also a no-no, so page 1 is money - amount, credit card - & fund designation, page 2 (next) is donor name, & contact information (next) and page 3 is extras that few people fill out, such as matching, tribute, etc. (submit).

I’ve been informed by the IT department that our particular software doesn’t like placing the credit card information on page 1, so they’d prefer to move it to page 3.  It CAN be on page 1, but it’s DIFFICULT to do, so they’d prefer that each of my online donor forms just have it on page 3.

I’ve explained my reasons, but have been told that “the programming/software makes it difficult…”

Likewise, a different IT person doesn’t care for my requests for multiple redirects (which goes to these many forms).

So that I can track responses to multiple appeals, I have asked for redirects such as

www.company.org/donate
www.company.org/contribute
www.company.org/scholarship
www.company.org/stock
www.company.org/alumni
www.company.org/future

I have been told that this “has to stop” because “it’s creating too many folders” on the website.  The alternative I was given is that I could have as many redirects as I want…under one folder: the “Donate” folder, which would give me the following options:

www.company.org/donate/(appeal1)
www.company.org/donate/(appeal2)
www.company.org/donate/(appeal3)
www.company.org/donate/(appeal4)
www.company.org/donate/(appeal5)

When I tried in vain to explain that it has to be “marketable and memorable” to the donor and can’t go on and on, I was informed that “We can’t have this many folders on the website.”

So, accommodating the software’s preferences appears to trump the donor’s preferences?  This is how we came up with voicemail that says, “If you want ________, press eighteen…”

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Fundraising, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (2)

One Post Challenge: Something’s Happening Here

November 13, 2007 – 1:48 pm

In case you haven’t noticed, the One Post Challenge entry from “a fundraiser” has generated 60 comments as of this writing. I have intentionally not commented on the progress of the competition so far as I didn’t want to interfere in the process that was unfolding. But I’m going to break my silence.

What the $500 For Your Nonprofit post did was take control of the competition and create an incentive for commentators rather than retaining the incentive for the blog post author. This was an exceptional demonstration of the author’s understanding of online fundraising. His/her post generated attention and a link from a high traffic blog called BlogActive, which quickly became the top referring site to my blog (hello Pride at Work!). The fact that both the NY Times and the Chronicle of Philanthropy coincidently mentioned my blog yesterday also spurred traffic (although it is important to note that BlogActive sent more readers, and more engaged readers, than the NY Times or the Chronicle).

So now we see that when competing for attention online, having a great, well thought-out message doesn’t always win the game. You also need to understand the medium that you’re working with. Now the question becomes does the $500 For Your Nonprofit post simply highjack this competition and show that mobs are more powerful/important than intelligent thought provoking commentary? Or are their new and creative ways that participants can take back control of the competition and find a way to redirect this traffic surge to engage people to type more than three words?

To me, this is the central dilemma of online marketing. Is the internet great at getting millions of people to watch online videos of cats doing dumb things? Or can the power of social media be harnessed to provide a benefit to the public good?
I can think of no industry with a more vested interest in this question than philanthropy.

What’s your answer? Email me your entry to the One Post Challenge and demonstrate how social media for the social good is done.

(I’d like to thank Network for Good for co-sponsoring this competition and awarding their new Good Card to the One Post Challenge winner. Click here for One Post Challenge rules.)

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Fundraising, Media, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (21)

$500 For Your Nonprofit!

November 12, 2007 – 8:34 am

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from the anonymous fundraiser who runs the blog Don’t Tell The Donor. If you’ve been forwarded this post, I vouch for the fact that the $500 is real and will be given to the winner. You can read about the details of this contest here. I would like to note that the winner is the post with the largest number of people posting a comment, not the most comments. So no need to post multiple comments from the same person.

By “a fundraiser”

I’m the anonymous fundraiser who runs the blog DontTellTheDonor.org and I am thrilled to be published on Tactical Philanthropy as part of Sean’s One-Post Challenge. I have also noticed the same tendency Sean cites that if we can encourage readers to leave just one comment - it can be a springboard for a rapid and engaging discussion.

My blog tries to inject a daily dose of humor into fundraising news stories… sometimes I get my hands on a juicy piece of gossip that makes its way from development office to development office… but my real love is for the profession of fundraising and the opportunity my day job gives me to connect people to the causes they believe in. I love providing opportunities for donors to give.

Therefore, I am going to use Sean’s “One Post Challenge” to demonstrate the power of fundraisers who understand the online world. Blogging is not about talking AT PEOPLE, it’s about making readers part of the story and giving them a reason to be engaged. I am going to attempt to win this first annual one post challenge by turning this contest on it’s very head.

I need your help… and I promise to try and make it worth your time.

The blogger who gets the most comments to their post will win a $500 “Good Card”, the new “gift card” from Network for Good that let’s the receiver make a grant to the nonprofit of their choice.

If I win, I will give the $500 to the charity named by the most people in the comments to this post. For example, if you are reading this post and you want me to give the $500 to your local Habitat for Humanity or your neighbor’s animal rescue - simply post a comment with the name of that charity. I hope to encourage people who love charities to visit this website and leave a comment.

Maybe I’m being conservative, but I think I would need 50 comments on this post in order to win the contest… and there will probably be a dozen different charities with varying level of votes… so, technically a plurality of 10 comments for one non-profit could win your favorite group a $500 donation. It’s that easy.
Forward this post to your friends and co-workers and encourage them to post a comment on my form and you could be a hero for your favorite charity

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Fundraising, Giving Blogs, One Post Challenge, Philanthropy | Comments (700)

Network for Good & One Post Challenge

November 7, 2007 – 3:09 pm

Katya Andresen of Network for Good likes the One Post Challenge. As a show of support for the burgeoning online conversation, Network for Good is matching my $250 grant to a nonprofit in the name of the winning entry. The winner will now receive a $500 Good Card, the new charitable “gift card” from Network for Good that lets the receiver make a gift to their favorite charity.

The Good Card is a gift card for charity – where the recipient gets to donate to their charity of choice. Customers, clients, employees, friends and family all have their favorite charities and now you can give them the perfect gift – a donation to their favorite charity. The nonprofit Network for Good, which created the cards and donation processing system, is a trusted partner that has processed $145 million to 25,000 charities since it was founded in 2001. Network for Good is approved by the Better Business Bureau Wise Giving Alliance.

The card will launch the day after Thanksgiving, meaning that the winner of the One Post Challenge will be one of the first people to receive a Good Card.

Keep those entries coming and don’t forget to add your comments to the entries already posted. You can read about the contests and rules here.

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

Who Defines the Philanthropic “Product?”

November 7, 2007 – 10:14 am

For there to be a philanthropic capital market, there must be philanthropic products. In this entry to the One Post Challenge, Carla Dearing of GivingNet looks at who defines these products and introduces a web 1.0 to web 2.0 framework for understanding them.

Carla Dearing is the CEO of GivingNet, formerly Community Foundations of America. Prior to joining GivingNet, Carla was president of a financial services firm. GivingNet publishes an excellent email newsletter called InTandem, which you can subscribe to here.

By Carla Dearing

Across most industries, companies are allowing clients to define product, promotion and even price through interactive online platforms. While the nonprofit sector is not there yet, several organizations are starting to move in this direction. Understanding the elements that support this type of client participation is critical for future success.

Knowledge Networking is the amalgamation of knowledge management and social networking. It is the idea of capturing the knowledge of your organization and putting it online so it can be used to efficiently to serve your customers, but also so it can also be used by your constituents: donors, nonprofits, board members, advisors, etc., moving toward the self-serve model that is prevalent in so many other industries online. There may be some debate about how soon we need to make self-serve options available to our clients, but there is no question that this is the direction we are all headed.

On the social networking side, most people think of MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. Those are difficult analogies for our marketplace, because they don’t seem aligned with our business. The fact of the matter is that much of our business is social networking that takes place offline: events, one-on-one meetings, donors talking with each other about the organizations they are involved with, etc. The idea that we move some of that online is a logical next step for our market. We have to figure out what parts of social marketing fit our sector.

As organizations think about how knowledge networking fits with their brand, there are several models that span the spectrum of interactivity from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0:

On the left side of the spectrum, organizations provide information that people can search on—there is a minimal level of interactivity. As you move to the right you add elements of social interactivity to offer the user ways to interact with the information. The components are displayed across the spectrum, giving an idea of what components might fit best with your brand. Most people in our sector are still working on getting to Web 1.0 with their knowledge assets—just getting the assets online for people to just have access to online. Many foundations are not comfortable moving beyond 1.0 at this point, but it is good to see what is out there and where they might want to head in the near future in order to be competitive and meet the expectations of the marketplace.

Starting at the left side of the spectrum (minimum interactivity):

DonorEdge:
This tool was created by Greater Kansas City Community Foundation. It allows you to search for nonprofits—the first important element in knowledge networking. Once the organization has gone through a level of due diligence with the foundation, a red checkmark appears. Allows you to “donate now,” but there are no other elements of social networking.

Dot.che:

Dot.che was created by the Arizona Community Foundation, and is now owned by ChesterCap, LLC. When you click on a particular nonprofit, you will see that this product collects less information on each nonprofit than DonorEdge does, but more than you will see with other sites as we move across the spectrum. It also has donate now (ecommerce), or donors can make gifts from their funds, but no other elements of social networking are available.

VisionMgr:

This software allows the foundation to create a “charity wish list” in a form that holds information about different nonprofits. Less information is collected in this system than in Dot.che or DonorEdge. In terms of social networking, there aren’t any elements other than ecommerce.

Moving to the right on the spectrum, we find the following:

GlobalGiving:

GlobalGiving’s founders wanted to build on the World Bank’s efforts to promote a marketplace where ideas for improving communities around the world could be submitted in a competition-style format, and winning ideas would be funded. You can find organizations based on topic area, region, sponsor, etc. The site has a few elements of social networking: giving, volunteering, progress report from each of the organizations. Visitors can look at the results of the progress report and can forward those to a friend, hear from others who have given, add a badge to their blog or website. Users profile themselves and begin to make comments about the organization. Profiling is the second important component of knowledge networking, as it allows organizations to start to collect data about the individuals who are interacting with their information.

Moving again to the right:

Socialedge:

Socialedge was created by the Skoll Foundation, which funds social entrepreneurial organizations, as a resource for these organizations. One of the areas that is particularly strong is what they call discussion forums or discussion threads. This has particularly applicability to our marketplace because the threads are listed by topic. Discussions are hosted by an expert in the issue area, then visitors start to add their thoughts. First, they have to profile themselves. The host responds to the comments. There is a lot that could be done in our market with knowledge networking using discussion forums on issues like housing, health, youth, etc. This site allows visitors to rate different blog entries or forums. Discussion forums and ratings are additional elements of social networking.

A little further to the right:

WiserEarth:

WiserEarth was started by the entrepreneur and author Paul Hawken, who is well known for his book, Natural Capitalism. It is an international network of 107,000 social justice and environmental organizations, with an impressive taxonomy. There are 49,000 U.S. organizations, but 6 months ago there were only 9,000 U.S. organizations. The site collects a handful of important data items about the organizations. As we move across the spectrum from 1.0 to 2.0, we start to see less focus on the amount of information provided about the organization, and more focus on the social networking elements. This site introduces the concept of tagging, which is essentially indexing the information to allow you to search on it. WiserEarth also has wiki functionality, which allows you to edit the information that is in the site. Visitors follow the trail of edits, and can add information, add organizations, post job listings, add events, etc. The site also offers discussion forums.

Sites that add more components of interactivity:

Kiva:

Kiva is an online microfinance site. Lenders profile themselves, shows repayment progress, etc. Not quite as many elements of networking—not rating yet, for instance.

Prosper.com:

A similar site is prosper.com, also an online microfinance site. It has more interactive elements, including bidding functionality like that of eBay. You can pick up the site and add it to your site via RSS, and get some credit information. There is a very high level of transparency in both the Kiva and prosper.com sites. Our market is not always comfortable with this level of transparency.

GreatNonprofits:

This organization is started by Perla Ni, who comes from the Stanford Social Innovation Review. This is basically TripAdvisor (www.tripadvisor.com) for nonprofits. Users enter information and ratings on nonprofits, profile themselves, learn what others are doing, add nonprofits and send information to others, e.g., board members, to have them rate, etc. The idea is to have a site that allows donors to find information about “good” nonprofits, based on feedback of the people who are really using those nonprofits or working with those nonprofits. An element of functionality introduced in this site is called a tagcloud. Tagclouds are created by software that “reads” the entire site, collects the tags from the site and displays the tags in a “cloud.” They are displayed by order of prominence due to how often the tags appear on the site.

The far right-hand side of the spectrum contains the most components of 2.0 knowledge networking:

Change.org:

This site has the most elements of 2.0 knowledge networking that we are aware of. This is MySpace for the nonprofit sector. First, the user profiles him or herself. (All of the presidential candidates have profiles on change.org, for example.) Then, as a classic social networking site, it starts to show relationships: how many people you have recruited to the issues/causes you care about. You provide information on the changes you want to see. The issues are listed in order of the size of the community that is working on the issue.

How to figure out where this fits with your brand?
As a marketplace, foundations tend to be on the left side of the spectrum. However, they should slowly and carefully build community around the knowledge resources they offer. They should let the people using the knowledge resource interact with each other, have discussion threads (they could have their staff moderate those threads), and offer ideas. Let people profile themselves if they want to and let them find others who are like them if they so choose. One of the biggest benefits of on-line community functionality, if it works, is that people in the community help keep the information fresh over time. Foundations need to ask themselves whether and how their organization will be a player in this emerging market.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, New Philanthropy, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropy | Comments (3)

Guidestar for Sale

November 2, 2007 – 7:49 am

The first entry in the One Post Challenge comes from Rob Johnston:

Rob Johnston has more than twenty years experience working for and with nonprofit organizations. He served as executive director of the Helene & Grant Wilson Center for Social Entrepreneurship at Pace University, and for twelve years he worked for the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management and its successor the Leader to Leader Institute, where he served as president from 2001 to 2003 and led its program development and publications programs from 1991 to 2001. Johnston worked as editor of the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy News Digest, and has developed the database backends on Web sites for businesses and nonprofits operating in the United States, Europe, and Central America.

Rob writes an occasionally updated (non-philanthropy) blog.

Send in your entry for the One Post Challenge and see your ideas appear here. Remember to drop your comments on each post. Most importantly, encourage your peers who are not hooked in to the online conversation to use this opportunity to join in through reading the posts, commenting and submitting their own post to the challenge.

Guidestar For Sale — Or Why It Should Be

By Rob Johnston

Guidestar, the indispensable resource of information on United States nonprofit organizations and foundations, should be acquired by a company with Internet interests and be made into a true hub of nonprofit information and community. An acquisition by Google, Yahoo, Amazon, IAC, or News Corporation, for example, could bring real Internet and community smarts and produce a site that is more useful to donors, nonprofit organizations, foundations, interested citizens, scholars, and anyone seeking to know more about the vital social sector.

The inspiration for this proposal came from a careful comparison of the current offerings of Guidestar and the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). As it became clear that Guidestar could be improved by the adoption of many of the approaches of IMDB, it occurred to me that it might also benefit from a similar corporate structure.

To any movie-loving, Internet geek who is also interested in nonprofits, it’s natural to wish that Guidestar would be more like the Internet Movie Database (IMDB). Though these two Web sites have very different audiences, their purpose has some similarities and Guidestar could benefit by adopting even more similarities in how they create and share information.

First, a bit of my history. In the early 1990s I was an eager Internet pioneer. After using CompuServe in the late 1980s (and getting the Metropolitan Museum of Art to list a small number of products on the CompuServe “Electronic Mall” in 1987-88), I was an early subscriber to The Pipeline, a text-based Internet service in New York City (founded by author James Gleick). I also subscribed to Wired Magazine (which started publishing in 1993) and would eagerly look forward to its “Net Surf” column which would list two pages of finds on the Internet including news groups, public information, and ftp sites. These resources would occasionally give up their secrets to my inexpert explorations.

A few years later, the World Wide Web and Netscape’s browser changed the way we used the Internet. One of the first useful sites I found was the Cardiff Internet Movie Database, which was based at a university in Wales. From what I have since learned, the IMDB grew out the activities of an Usenet newsgroup and a number of lists assembled by users. Like many community sites celebrated today (e.g. the online encyclopedia wikipedia.org) IMDB was created by the collaboration of movie fans from around the world. Discovering and using it led me to a few insights. One, my wife and I would not have to buy copies of the annual encyclopedias of movies (or the Microsoft Cinemania CD-ROM) in order to plan our video rentals or efforts to watch the work of a particular director or actor. Two, I learned about the power of the Web to allow disparate people to contribute to a common collection and create a resource valuable to thousands more. I remember using IMDB as a practical, understandable example to explain the usefulness of the Internet and the Web.

In 1994 Philanthropic Research, Inc. was founded and shortly thereafter began to do business as “Guidestar.” The mission of the nonprofit is “to revolutionize philanthropy and nonprofit practice with information.” Its Web site also notes: “GuideStar was created to support charitable entities through the free flow of information in a public forum, to enable supporters and nonprofit managers to research and benchmark organizations’ missions, programs, and performance.” [Guidestar FAQ.]

Though Guidestar allows nonprofits to register and post information about their mission, governing boards, goals and accomplishments, I see it primarily as a powerful front end for the IRS 990 tax returns of the nation’s nonprofit organizations and foundations. The 990 form is the only public form that is required of all nonprofits (with budgets greater than $25,000 and excepting some religious institutions) so it is valuable for anyone trying to learn about individual organizations or compare a number of them.

On first glance, the similarity of Guidestar, which chronicles American nonprofit organizations, and IMDB, which chronicles movies worldwide, might not be obvious. On the other hand, both aim to present a collection of information about one set of entities that have many “moving parts.” From my use of both sites, and my participation as an active nonprofit executive and user of the Internet I propose that Guidestar could make its offerings more effective by being more like the IMDB. Following are areas where Guidestar could make the biggest improvements.

Open the Database to the Web

Guidestar should make its basic pages of information open to all visitors, without registration. It should also open these pages to search engines and their “spiders.” The result of this would be that more information on nonprofits would be available to more people, and combined with the point on community participation, Guidestar could become the definitive source for nonprofit information. For example, if I wrote a story or a blog posting about the American Red Cross or Sequoia Community Initiatives I could link to the organizations’ pages on Guidestar. IMDB follows this practice. Its entries on movies, actors, directors, etc. are open to all visitors and Web spiders. As a result, when people write about movies they include a link to the IMDB entry for related information. And because the information is open to search engines, when people use Web search engines to search for movies they get IMDB information at the top of the results. You can see from the results below what a difference this open access makes to the availability of information on search engines.

Where does the site appear in a Google search for material it covers?

We chose a set of topics we expected the IMDB and Guidestar to be able to provide information on and conducted the searches on Google. Below are listed the rankings of the site in question for each search topic.

Search for top five movies on the American Film Institute’s list of 100 Greatest Films.

Movie Ranking of IMDB in Google results
1. Citizen Kane (1941) 2
2. Casablanca (1942) 2
3. The Godfather (1972) 2
4. Gone With the Wind (1939) 2
5. Lawrence of Arabia (1962) 2

Search for top five nonprofits in the Chronicle of Philanthropy annual Philanthropy 400 survey, October 2006

Organization Ranking of Guidestar in Google results
1. The United Way of America >50
2. The Salvation Army 50
3. AmeriCares Foundation 4
4. American Red Cross >50
5. American Cancer Society >50

[Note: In order to provide links to the Guidestar pages for the sites listed above, I had to use JustGive.org, one of partner sites that uses Guidestar's information. If I linked to the Guidestar page and you were not a member who was logged in, you'd get a login page and no information. Here's the Guidestar link for United Way of America. By coincidence, the one organization that has a good result in the Google search, the AmeriCares Foundation, shows up there with a JustGive link. It's a small demonstration of the usefulness of an open database.]

The comparison of these two sets of searches makes clear the advantages that Guidestar could gain if its information were widely available. Today, the likelihood that a searcher at Google will find a Guidestar listing is pretty slim. On the other hand, a Google searcher will almost always find the IMDB page for a movie in the first 5 listings. (It’s clear that the newest movie in our first search is more than 35 years old. To see if the IMDB position held for most recent movies, we searched for the top five movies by sales for the most recent weekend, 1-3 June 2007. IMDB was found on the 3rd listing for three of the top five and on the 4th listing for the other two. See below.)

Movie Ranking of IMDB in Google results
1. Pirates of the Caribbean-3 (2007) 4
2. Knocked Up (2007) 3
3. Shrek the Third (2007) 3
4. Mr. Brooks (2007) 3
5. Spider-Man 3 (2007) 4

Relax the Login Restrictions

Currently, a visitor to Guidestar cannot get any specific information about a nonprofit organization without registering and logging in. There is no charge for this basic information, and the registration process is not too onerous. On the other hand, it is hard to understand that Guidestar gains more than it loses with this requirement. I have been registered to Guidestar for several years and I do not recall receiving email from them as a result of my registration. I respect this discretion and the respect for my email choices, at the same time I wonder why they require my registration when they seem to do so little with it?

I propose that Guidestar make its basic information available to all visitors (people and machines, as mentioned above) without a registration requirement. See the IMDB and how much it offers to any visitor. Guidestar can then continue to require registration for its higher levels of membership, and also for the participation I describe in the next section.

Invite Community Contributions

As a movie fan living in New York City I have had the chance to see lots of films in limited release, old films presented at nonprofit repertory houses, and to attend film festivals hosted by Lincoln Center, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Tribeca Film Festival. As an amateur of film I have found some errors and missing information on the IMDB and I have submitted corrections. Those items are now part of the site and available to all who visit. Guidestar should do the same and allow people add information or comments about a nonprofit. Today it allows only nonprofit representatives to maintain information about their organizations. It could expand the quality and quantity of the information in its listings if they allowed others to post information on the organizations they know. This would have to be administered with some central review, and requirements (for sources) set, but the net effect would be a strong site.

If Guidestar chose to, it could greatly expand the information that its users contribute. For example, it could track grants made by foundations, or accomplishments of organizations in the field. With an more open system, the wisdom of the wider nonprofit community could be tapped.

Consider Selling Out

In 1998 the IMDB was acquired by Amazon.com. In the process, the volunteer-run site became professionalized and people were hired into full-time roles to build and expand the site. Guidestar has been working to build a sustainable organization and shift its funding from contributions to earned income. Its 2006 financial reports [PDF] show that it has made progress in that effort.

Today Guidestar has a professional staff and has established rigorous methods for capturing information from the Internal Revenue Service and making it useful for specialized audiences. With more financial support and a new approach to making its information accessible, it could become the essential hub for things nonprofit. If it does not take a number of these suggested steps it may find itself left behind as the availability of digital tax filing information grows.

Take the opportunity, Google, to acquire a valuable operation collecting and making information available. Open it up to the world and expand the usefulness and reach of that information. Or, Yahoo, build on the database and establish nonprofit communities around the Guidestar core. Or, Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, acquire this resource and build a giving platform around it. This is underexploited asset, a gem waiting to be uncovered. Open it up and build on it now when both the need for effective nonprofits and the growing possibilities for charitable giving are so strong.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, One Post Challenge, Philanthropic Technology, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (12)

For-Profit Philanthropy Blogging

October 30, 2007 – 8:47 am

How big is the audience for philanthropy blogs? B5media thinks the audience is real and valuable to advertisers.

With more than 290 blogs, 15 vertical channels and over 10 million unique visitors a month, b5media offers advertisers a large, loyal and growing audience for companies looking to promote their brands and products.

Those 290 blogs include blogs like Hot Mama Daily, Teen Style Lounge, Copyblogger, Pimp Your Work, and Britney Groupie. B5media sells ads on these blogs and the bloggers are paid to write the content.

The newest b5media blog is The 501(c) Files. Introducing the blog in his first post, author Tom Durso wrote:

I worked in higher education for a decade, and now, as a freelancer, I do contract work for universities and other nonprofits, and I’ve seen firsthand the sweat and effort that go into making those institutions run well. Just because an organization doesn’t produce a quarterly income statement doesn’t mean it can ignore the need for such basics as strategic-minded senior leadership, sound fiscal policies, and effective management.

What makes nonprofits unique is their focus on mission, not revenue. But many of the same strategies and tactics used by the corporate world to make Wall Street happy can and should be used by schools, charities, foundations, hospitals, and the like to create value for their unique stakeholders.

With an M.B.A. and a background in nonprofits, I like to explore the intersection of mission and business. And I enjoy putting the lie to the perception that the only people working hard are the ones struggling to push a share price up by 25 cents.

So welcome to the 501(c) Files, b5media’s new blog on the role of nonprofits in today’s business world.

Intrigued by the idea of a for-profit philanthropy blog I wrote Tom who quickly responded to my questions:

Why did you start 501c Files?

The 501(c) Files — or, more specifically, a blog about the business end of nonprofits — was not my idea, but b5media’s. They advertised for a blogger, and I liked the idea because I spent 10 years doing communications for higher education. So I answered the ad, provided some clips, gave them a sample post or two, and here I am.

Why does b5 think this is a profitable vertical?

As I noted, I’m not a b5 employee, so you’d have to ask them that. My sense is b5 has noticed that nonprofits are delivering an increasing array of services and enjoying greater and greater visibility. Some of them have become quite large and comprehensive. And the issues affecting nonprofits, regardless of their size and scope, are often similar to those impacting for-profit organizations.

In other words: There’s an audience there for a well written and useful nonprofit blog. And where there’s an audience, there will be advertisers who want to reach them.

What’s your background?

My b5 bio is at http://www.b5media.com/tom-durso/; you can also find more at my website, www.tomdurso.com.

How do you get paid?

I consider that a private matter between me and b5media. Thanks for understanding.

Who are you targeting as advertisers?

Beats me — that’s b5’s purview, not mine.

I imagine that some readers might think the concept of for-profit philanthropy blogging misses the point. I don’t. Todd Cohen runs ads on his Inside Philanthropy blog. Lucy Bernholz, Jeff Brooks, Susan Herr and I all have indirect monetary incentives for blogging (speaking on my behalf, I’ve brought in new clients at Ensemble Capital as a direct result of this blog). Is there something more pure about a blog without ads? I don’t think so. If Tom can add valuable commentary to the sector and he and b5media can both make money in the process, I say bravo. As Susan Raymond might say, we are at the End of Definitions and the line between for-profit and nonprofit activity is blurring.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Giving Blogs, Media, Philanthropy | Comments (4)