Category Archives: Prize Philanthropy

Tactical Philanthropy Podcast: Alberto Ibarguen

March 4, 2008 – 9:13 am

Today’s podcast interview is with Alberto Ibarguen, the CEO of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The Knight Foundation has its roots in the newspaper business and today makes grants that transform journalism and communities. Alberto was publisher of the Miami Herald before he joined the foundation in 2005.

During the interview, Alberto discusses the foundations effort to hire an “online community manager”, why one of the Knight Foundation’s major projects might make some people “vomit on the table” (and why he’s OK with that), how the foundation is planning on funding “wonderful strangeness”, and the promise of “prize philanthropy”.

(Please be patient while you wait for the audio file to download. The transcript is below.)

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Alberto will be responding to comments, so let us know your thoughts. You can read the transcript by clicking on the link below.

(Full disclosure: my brother is currently on a Knight Fellowship at Stanford. However, he was not involved in any way with the production of this content nor in setting up the interview).

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By Sean Stannard-Stockton | Also posted in Philanthropy, Social Media, podcast | Comments (1)

Social Edge: The Global Social Benefit Incubator

January 10, 2008 – 9:35 am

Social Edge is a fantastic program from the Skoll Foundation. “By Social Entrepreneurs for Social Entrepreneurs”, Social Edge is a global online community where social entrepreneurs and other practitioners of the social benefit sector connect to network, learn, inspire and share resources. The site has some great blogs, discussion forums and resources for social entrepreneurs.

Currently Social Edge is hosting the Global Social Benefit Incubator. Through the program, 15-20 people will be selected to receive a full scholarship to a two-week intensive program (sometimes called a boot camp or mini MBA for social entrepreneurs) at Santa Clara University.

Here’s what I really like about the incubator program:

After registering, applicants go through a series of three exercises. The rigorous application is rewarding, with many applicants commenting that they learned a tremendous amount by going through the process. “Social Edge community members, GSBI mentors and business school students from Santa Clara University will log on to help aspiring social entrepreneurs, and offer them advice on their business proposition, their strategy and their application,” says Victor d’Allant, Executive Director of Social Edge. This feedback helps them to compellingly tell their story and clarify their impact and strategy for scaling their ventures, which will in turn help them to secure future funding and support.

I’ve often been told by people in the public benefit sector that they don’t like to think of other organizations in their space as “competitors”. The idea I think is that organizations with similar missions should encourage each other instead of competing. This is true in the sense that a really mission focused organization should want to see their mission completed and not care whether they or another organization achieves the goal.

But I think that there is a lot to gain from healthy competition in the public benefit sector. I don’t mean the cut-throat competition that tries to knock other organizations out of business, I mean the kind of competitive spirit that is a joy to engage in. The kind of competition that two  world class athletes at the top of their game might find with each other and credit with pushing each of them to new heights. But also the kind of competition that eliminates competitors who waste precious resources.

I bring this up because I think the Social Edge incubator highlights the way that all participants in a competition can benefit from the process. This was also the message at NetSquared last year. Putting yourself to the test forces you to operate at the highest level you are capable of, and gives you feedback about how you can improve or whether maybe you should find a different area to compete in.

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

New York Times Giving Section

December 11, 2007 – 4:17 pm

I never got around to commenting on the NY Times Giving Section. As always it was full of a ton of interesting articles, notable Stephanie Strom on the trend towards foundations “spending down” rather than existing forever, an overview of blogs effect on fundraising citing GiveWell, The Agitator and Trent Stamp (and a list of influential philanthropy blogs with the usual crew all listed, although they left out PhilanTopic), and an article on Prize Philanthropy and innovation.

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

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, Social Media, nptech | Comments (3)

Impact Through Inspiration

November 13, 2007 – 3:23 pm

This entry to the One Post Challenge comes from Rich Polt. Rich is president of Louder Than Words, a Boston-based PR agency that works with foundations, nonprofits, and mission driven businesses. When he’s not communicating good for his clients, he can be found with his family, on his bike, or with the NY Times crossword puzzle.

By Rich Polt

First let me applaud DontTellTheDonor on their blogging coup. I recently cast my vote for Aid to Artisans on that thread, but my “Spidey-Sense” tells me that Pride at Work might be running away with the prize. Congratulations (potentially)! Don’t Tell The Donor showed us that there is power in numbers on the Web. I believe that there is also power in ideas (and would like to place some internal resources against that assertion… read on).

I believe that inspiration is the greatest commodity this sector has to offer.

Blogging should not just be about casting a vote, but advancing ideas and inspiring others to action through those ideas. Two weeks ago, I attended a great conference in Miami that was sponsored by the Communications Network. The theme of the event was What We Know (Or Should Know) About Effective Communications in the philanthropy sector. The penultimate plenary session included a presentation from the Skoll Foundation about how they have leveraged storytelling to build the successful Web site Social Edge. Check out this amazing example (produced for Social Edge) of how unembellished storytelling can elicit a visceral response.

What I would love to know is this:  What deserving, undercapitalized nonprofit has a story to inspire the masses AND a few sentences on the source of that inspiration (i.e., the “why”). Feel free to either name nonprofits or to comment on other people’s suggestions. Hell… I want to know why Pride at Work inspires so many people! If this post wins the “One Post Challenge,” Louder Than Words will donate the $500 gift card as well as $2,500 of in kind time and services to the nonprofit with the most inspiring comments/story (as determined by us after reading your posts). It’s all about the inspiration…

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

Prize Philanthropy Part II

October 9, 2007 – 9:12 am

Holden Karnofsky responds to my Prize Philanthropy post:

I think a prize makes the most sense when the terms are crystal clear and all competitors know exactly what they’re aiming for - as is the case for all the examples you cite.

A prize for "innovation" - without clear terms for what this means - seems unlikely to change anyone’s behavior.

Holden is right. If you look at how X Prize for space flight or the new Google Lunar X Prize works, they are highly specific about what constitutes winning. This format allows anyone to compete without concern that the process is really a popularity contest. On the other hand, many of the problems of philanthropy stem from our inability to quantify outcomes.

I think the big problem in philanthropy today is our inability to define, identify and measure impact; the positive outcomes that philanthropy generates. If I were to create a grand prize for philanthropy, it would be awarded to the person who came up with the best way to define, identify and measure impact. But I don’t think that we can quantify what that outcome would look like the way that Holden suggests.

Meanwhile, reader Suzy asks:

I sometimes wonder about the value we place on innovation. Don’t get me wrong we certainly want to do things as efficiently as possible…but sometimes doesn’t it simply require that we roll up our sleeves and just dig in and do the work?

I’ve heard this from a few different corners recently. I don’t value innovation more highly that other attributes, but I do think it is an area where philanthropy is particularly weak. Given the lack of market mechanisms in philanthropy, having everyone keep doing things the old way without much change is a very sustainable state. Market mechanisms force out players that don’t change with the times. Without the markets working for us, philanthropy must put added emphasis on innovation as a core value.

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