Category Archives: Philanthropic Technology

Flashback: Giving Blogs

September 16, 2008 – 9:20 am

I’m reviewing some of the early posts on Tactical Philanthropy this week. You can catch Monday’s posts for a little background on the history of this blog. Today I want to revisit Giving Blogs, a post I wrote on November 27, 2006. In this post I looked at the giving blog landscape and noted how immature it was and how I thought it was poised for growth.

The theme of this post is that all philanthropy related blogs were being grouped together, but that over time they would separate out into “fundraising blogs”, “nonprofit blogs”, “philanthropy blogs”, etc. This prediction has definitely come true and in fact the Chronicle of Philanthropy later launched Give & Take, their philanthropy blog summary service that lists well over 100 philanthropy blogs and breaks them into categories. On the day that Give & Take was launched I wrote about the “professionalization” of philanthropy blogging after my post on Social Media Tools for Philanthropy was one of the first posts featured. In the post I note how I separated my blogroll into my daily read and other blogs. With the launch of Give & Take I changed my blogroll to just display the blogs I read every day.

Giving Blogs

The new edition of Fast Company profiles three blogs from the Giving community. The article labels as “Best Blogs” Lucy Bernholz’s Philanthropy 2173, Jeff Brooks’ Donor Power Blog and Marc van Gurp’s Houtlust Nonprofit Advertising. I read Philanthropy 2173 and Donor Power Blog regularly. The funny thing is that the Fast Company article implies that 1) these are all “social entrepreneur” blogs and 2) that they are inside looks at nonprofits. I’m glad to see Giving blogs getting press attention, but none of these blogs cover what the article implies they do.

Philanthropy 2173 covers a broad range of philanthropic industry issues with special attention paid to the emerging “philanthropic capital markets” and the interface of internet technology and philanthropy. Donor Power Blog gives fundraising advice looks at fundraising trends, and Houtlust Nonprofit Advertising is really a blog about advertising that focuses on nonprofit advertising.

The “Giving blog” segment of the blogosphere is still relatively immature. Many of the blogs are relatively new and their numbers pale in comparison to political blogs, business blogs and tech blogs. At this point, blogs targeting a nonprofit employee readership are much more prevalent than blogs targeting donors as readers. Many blogs, like this one, cover a variety of topics and have readers from many different segments. My bet is that as the Giving blog community matures we’ll see particular niches begin to arise. Just as we use to have many “Investment Blogs”, we now have venture capital blogs, stock picking blogs, technology stock blogs, business blogs, economic blogs, etc. Over time, I expect the Giving blog community to fracture into fundraising blogs, social entrepreneurship blogs, donor blogs (with separate blogs addressing issues of Vision, Strategy and Tactics), nonprofit technology blogs, cause marketing blogs, Venture Philanthropy blogs, hybrid blogs addressing concepts like Good Capital, and philanthropy industry blogs.

I’ve tried to separate my own blog roll into Philanthropy Blogs and Nonprofits blogs. However, I’ve realized that at this point in the maturation process of our community, segmenting blogs in this way does more harm than good. So beginning today, you’ll notice that I’ve changed my blog roll into two areas: My Daily Read (Giving blogs I read religiously) and Giving Blogs (blogs that cover some segment of the Giving community). I’m always on the lookout for new or interesting voices, so let me know if you read a Giving blog that I don’t have on my list.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Giving Blogs, Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (2)

Flashback: Web 2.0 & Philanthropy

September 15, 2008 – 1:33 pm

I launched Tactical Philanthropy in October 2006. Back then, philanthropy blogs were relatively few and far between. Phil Cubeta and I immediately got into a good back and forth (which is why I was a bit nostalgic over Phil’s most recent broadside). But in reviewing some of my early posts recently it occurred to me that no one really read my blog back then (except for super reader Bruce Trachtenberg who helped me believe that someone was actually reading me!). So I thought I’d repost a couple of entries from my archives.

First up Web 2.0 and Philanthropy, first posted on October 23, 2006. I’m by no means a tech guru (or even a techie of any skill level), but some of my early postings drew a connection between the cultural implications of Web 2.0 and the ways in which philanthropy was evolving. It was actually posts like this one that got the most early interest from readers. At the bottom of this post we see a comment from nonprofit social media queen Beth Kanter, who clearly had some google alerts rocking to have picked up on my upstart attempt at blogging:

Web 2.0 & Philanthropy

Reader Dan Bassill, who blogs at the Tutor Mentor Connection, recently brought up the importance of the internet in changing the way that philanthropy is practiced. I think he is exactly right.

While the democratization of philanthropy is occurring about 10 years after the democratization of the stock market, philanthropy has the benefit of coming of age during the rise of Web 2.0. Like most new technologies, when the internet first went mainstream it was used mostly to facilitate old forms of business and communication. Most of the great companies of Web 1.0 did things like sell books (Amazon), or “send letters” (Yahoo’s email). Some companies actually used the new technology to create entirely new businesses like person-to-person auction based marketplaces (eBay), but for the most part the internet made old business/social/information systems work more efficiently.

Today we are seeing the rise of Web 2.0 (Web 2.0 is somewhat of a controversial phrase and it means different things to different people. I will use the term to refer to internet applications that leverage the two-way communication aspects of the web rather than facilitating one-way communications). These technologies are extremely important to the rise of the Second Great Wave (or Philanthropy 2.0 if you’re feeling overly cute). Web 2.0 technologies are most useful when a situation needs the input of the community at large. Since philanthropy is by definition about individuals focusing their attention on the community around them, Web 2.0 is a perfect platform for The Second Great Way.

Web 1.0 dropped the operating costs of traditional philanthropy, distributed information about strategies, tactics and needy causes, and facilitated transactions. Essentially, it made the philanthropic “marketplace” more efficient. These are the same types of changes we saw in the financial markets during the 80’s & 90’s. With Web 2.0, we are seeing not just a more optimized version of Philanthropy 1.0, but instead the emergence of a radically new philanthropic marketplace.

Unlike the Rockefellers, Carnegies and other early foundation founders who created entities that mirrored existing institutions, the structured philanthropic vehicles of the 21st century will create a tradition similar to the emerging Web 2.0 companies. Rather than concentrated pools of money which imitate existing institutional structures, the new philanthropists will be smaller, widely distributed agents of change who co-create the social sector that they support.

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

Online Grant Applications

June 25, 2008 – 10:10 am

Flaw #9 from the Project Streamline report:

More than 80 percent of the grantmakers who responded to our survey reported that they have taken steps to make their information gathering practices “more efficient and streamlined for nonprofit applicants.”

…Many streamlining strategies have turned out to be useful to foundations and their grantees. Yet others, notably online applications and common grant applications, have produced mixed results, creating new issues for grantmakers and grantseekers alike.

…Common grantmaking forms for application and reporting (here, generically referred to as CGAs), which provide a single set of application and/or reporting questions that a substantial number of funders in a region (or funding area) will accept, have seemed like a logical time and resource saving tool for philanthropy. Yet our research found surprisingly little support for common grantmaking forms as a strategy for effective streamlining. CGAs are accepted (or, much less frequently, required) by 34 percent of foundations that responded to our survey.

Common grant applications is one of those ideas that make so much sense on the surface. But then I think about how any investment manager would reject the concept of having a standard template of information on which to base their decisions. Every person has at least slightly different criteria for making an investment or grantmaking decision.

But investors do have a very important infrastructure in place that philanthropy lacks. Investors in publicly traded markets know that every company will file their financials with the SEC. Unlike nonprofits’ 990s, SEC filings are not documents focused on compliance and IRS driven issues. SEC documents are designed to inform investors (the recent changes to the 990 did move them in this direction). In addition, companies host quarterly conference calls to discuss their business. While every investor has their own criteria for investing, they have a common set of information they can obtain about any company.

But here’s the critical difference. A common grant application means that there is a standard set of information that nonprofits can send to funders. In the stock market, the common set of information is available for investors to go get. This switch from passive receiving of information to proactively going out to find what you want is one of the core changes that the internet (and especially web 2.0) bring to the world. A common grant application misses the whole value of the internet. Instead of having nonprofits fill out and submit lots of grant applications, why don’t they just post a single set of common information for any funder to download? The 990 could serve this purpose, but why should funders let the IRS dictate what information is important? Why can’t the philanthropic community design their own “impact report” template that every nonprofit could complete and keep updated? (I asked Brian Gallagher, CEO of United Way of American, this question in a recent podcast.)

Personally I think that most funders should do away with even accepting most grant requests. I think it would be boring to be deluged with requests, most of which I wasn’t interested in. Sounds like spam to me. I’m much more interested in proactively identifying and researching the investments (for-profit or nonprofit) that I am interested in. It sure would help if I could pull up good information about nonprofits on Google Finance the same way I can pull up good information on stocks!

Update: I should be more clear when I say foundations should not accept grant applications. What I believe is that the system of philanthropy should switch from a system of where nonprofits ask for money to one where funders proactively seek out grantees. I layed this thesis out in a Financial Times column earlier this year. But within the current context, I realize there are ramifications if a single foundation stops accepting requests.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Effective Giving, Foundations, Fundraising, Grantmaking, Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Open Source Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Social Media, Tactical Philanthropy, nonprofits, nptech | Comments (2)

connec+ipedia

June 23, 2008 – 6:00 am

For some time now I’ve been talking about the need for large foundations to share their knowledge base with the general public. While some people have made this argument from the standpoint of obligations that foundations have to the public, I’ve thought that foundations will find that they are able to more effectively further their own mission by sharing their knowledge base. Since individuals give seven time more money each year than all the foundations in the country combined, it stands to reason that foundations who share their knowledge with the public might influence some of these vast flows of funding to support the mission of the foundations.

Recently the Meyer Memorial Trust, a $700 million+ foundation that has proven innovative in a number of ways, launched an attempt to share their knowledge base with anyone who is interested. The project is called connect+ipedia. Rather than explain the project myself, I asked Amy Sample Ward - Communications and Learning Associate at MMT and author of the foundation’s New Media Blog - to share her thoughts with Tactical Philanthropy.

By Amy Sample Ward

If you are looking for some introductory information about after school programs, for example, and you do a Google search for that term, you would get 40,200,000 results. But, if you use connec+ipedia, you get 111, all of which are cards on the topic or organizations involved in such work. So, what is connec+ipedia?

Let’s start at the beginning: A few years ago, Meyer Memorial Trust (a private, regional foundation based in Portland, OR) recognized the need to explore the world of knowledge management. A full program staff turn over in a short amount of time (with program officers retiring after decades of service) meant an irrevocable loss of institutional knowledge, and the adoption of a knowledge management tool could ensure that such loss did not happen again. Marie Deatherage, Director of Communications & Learning, was tasked with the investigation and discovered that foundations around the country were investing a lot of dollars (millions, even) to develop tools that only the organization could use and that often faced little-to-no staff buy-in.

MMT had shown a commitment to both supporting open source software and to supporting the broader philanthropic and nonprofit sector through grantmaking and other projects, so, when Marie met the two great minds behind Grass Commons who were working on an open source wiki tool that incorporated database functionality, the choice seemed clear. What was also clear to the Trust, was that this wouldn’t be a tool for internal use only, but would be completely open. Other foundations, nonprofit organizations and state agencies were often all working on the same kinds of programatic work, so it would make sense that they should be able to collaborate online, in a way that allowed for sharing of best practices, data, standards, and other information—that these parties should all have access to the same information when working to make informed decisions about work that effected the field.

Wagn is the free, open source software that connec+ipedia runs on, combining the editable functionality of a wiki (like Wikipedia) with ‘tagging’ or referencing functionality of a database. Anyone (with Intern access) can view, search, and read the site. Users (request an invitation!) can edit, create and contribute content, all organized through people, places and things, as well as the intersections between them. Back to the initial example: If you wanted to find out about after school programs, searching Google may be too much information. Searching on connec+ipedia, instead, could mean a more easily digestible avenue to tailored information. Users from across MMT’s service area and beyond, in foundations, nonprofits, state agencies, as well as corporations and public citizens are already making connec+ipedia a resource. The Oregonian has even gotten behind it!

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Foundations, Information Sharing, New Philanthropy, Open Source Philanthropy, Philanthropy, Social Media, Transparency, nptech | Comments (2)

N2Y3 Mashup Challenge Project Gallery

March 24, 2008 – 8:22 am

This year’s NetSquared conference is a celebration of mashups. You still have time to vote (until 5pm pacific time today) for which contestants will be invited to the conference and even if you don’t vote, you can still check out all the projects.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in N2Y3, Philanthropy, Social Media | Comments (0)

NetSquared Update

February 28, 2008 – 3:38 pm

From the NetSquared Blog:

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

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

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

Are you excited? We are!

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

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

Click here for all the details.

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

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

Social Marketplace Architecture

February 22, 2008 – 9:48 am

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

The idea

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

You can read his complete comments here.

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

Beth Kanter & Michele Martin

February 22, 2008 – 8:11 am

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

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

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

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

How to Start a Nonprofit

February 20, 2008 – 9:52 am

My firm, Ensemble Capital Management, advertises our services for philanthropists on Google. We’ve found that most people googling words like “private foundations” or “donor advised funds” are looking for eduction, not a sales pitch. So we’ve crafted this landing page for people looking for private foundation info and this one for donor advised fund info.

Occasionally we have people contact us who want to start a nonprofit, not a grantmaking organization. While doing some research on which resources I could point one of these people to I ran across a google ad for the keywords “how to start a nonprofit”. The ad was placed by The Wallace Foundation, one of the largest private foundations in the country. The ad leads to this “knowledge center” web page maintained by the Wallace Foundation.

The information is about a variety of topics, but included a report called “More than Grantmaking”, about how private foundations are deploying “direct charitable activities” to further their mission. I shared this report with one of my private foundation clients last year as they contemplated the use of this tactic.

In my push for large foundations to share their knowledge with individual donors, I’ve often been told that it is not foundations’ job to help other donors. So I was struck to see the Wallace Foundation actively advertising their knowledge center. By taking out a google ad, they are actively competing against for-profit companies to educate donors about philanthropy.

Interesting… I love it.

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

NetSquared N2Y3

February 20, 2008 – 9:34 am

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

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

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

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

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

For more about Mashups, see Wikipedia’s definition.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google, Information & Philanthropy

February 7, 2008 – 9:25 am

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

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

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

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

(hat tip: Lucy Bernholz)

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

Kiva.org Responds

February 4, 2008 – 9:53 pm

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

Sean:

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

A couple points of clarification:

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

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

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

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

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

Fiona Ramsey
Public Relations Director
Kiva.org

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

United Way Responds to Google Finance Question

January 31, 2008 – 7:29 pm

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

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

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

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

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

Meg Plantz
Director, Impact Design and Learning for United Way

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

Information Sharing in Philanthropy

January 23, 2008 – 11:45 am

I wrote a post a while ago called Paul Brest Needs a Blog (Paul is the head of the Hewlett Foundation). I’ve been an advocate for more people in philanthropy to start blogging in general. In the above mentioned post I wrote:

So why should foundations blog? It seems to me that the imperative is not for them to embrace technology so much as it is for foundations to join and begin to drive the online philanthropy conversation. [But] it is the two-way flow of information that blogs encourage that is important, not blogs themselves.

Even so I’ve noted recently that some people feel that I’ve pushed blogging rather than information sharing. As the conversation we’re all having unfolds I think it is important to take a step back and make sure we haven’t missed the forest for the trees. I wish I had expressed my thoughts with more clarity.
When Phil Cubeta recently asked why nonprofits should blog, astute reader Michele Moon asked:

I’m not entirely sure why it’s blogging, in particular, that’s the focus of discussion, especially because it’s now considered a little bit old-hat, Web 1.5. What is it about the format that makes it so essential to transparency and its tyrant? Is it actually blogging you want to see - personal, real-time updates and editorials, followed (if you’re lucky) by people who read, comment, and sometimes stick around to converse?… Why should it be blogging that we aim to do, or is that shorthand for more complicated online interactivity?

I’m guilty of using “blogging” as short hand for information sharing. I’ll stop making that mistake.

When economists speak about efficient markets they are talking about a situation where money flows to the organizations that can put it to the best use. Widely available, robust information is a critical factor for a functioning efficient market. Recently, in a conversation with Phil Buchanan and other readers on this issue I wrote the following (you can find the full thread here. The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently highlighted the conversation):

In an efficient market, investing is a zero sum game. Maximum returns are generated globally so the only question is matching an investor’s risk/return preferences. In inefficient markets, higher returns accrue to more “effective/smarter” investors. In a public benefit market, since all returns accrue to everyone, investors should desire an efficient market within which they could align their social investments with their personal values/goals.

The philanthropic capital markets are highly inefficient. Far more inefficient than any for-profit marketplace.

Therefore, it seems to me that making the philanthropic capital markets more efficient should be the number one priority of large funders who desire to be effective…

I’m not arguing that the public will make better decisions than the “experts”. I’m saying that efficient markets will produce better outcomes than inefficient markets. In the for-profit world, inefficient markets are great for “expert” investors because they can exploit superior information to generate outperformance of investment returns. But these inefficient markets reduce the total returns in the market by preventing capital from flowing to the best performing investments.

What I’m saying is that unlike in the for-profit market, “expert” philanthropist enjoy no advantage from superior information. The returns they generate accrue to the public, and so no “outperformance” is possible. Instead, they should be interested in the total market functioning at a higher level, since that is the only way to increase the social return on investment that accrues to everyone.

This is the challenge we face as a field. How can we ensure that the $300 billion that is given to charity each year is flowing to the organizations that can put the money to its best use? The key will be our ability to supply market participants with widely available, robust information. Blogs are one tool in this work. There are many others.

By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Cross-Disciplinary Conversations, Effective Giving, Evaluation, Foundations, Giving Blogs, Grantmaking, Impact Measurement, New Philanthropy, Open Source Philanthropy, Philanthropic Capital Markets, Philanthropy, Transparency | Comments (18)

Should Foundations Fund Philanthropic Information?

January 16, 2008 – 1:49 pm

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

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

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

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

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

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