Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Corporate Philanthropy
Brigid Slipka weighs in on an article in the New York Times in which Stephanie Strom discusses The Single Bottom Line (14 pages, PDF), a paper by Daniel Altman and Jonathan Berman which argues that for-profit companies can achieve the most social good by focusing on their bottom lines rather than diverting resources to corporate social responsibility programs, double- and triple-bottom-line accounting, and hybrid structures. Alas, if the purpose of the paper "is...to encourage greater social good," writes Slipka, it comes up short.
Global Health
Philanthrocapitalism authors Matthew Bishop and Michael Green commend the Global Alliance for Vaccination and Immunization (GAVI), which last week received $4.3 billion in new pledges at an international donors conference. "GAVI's ability to attract additional funds at a time when budgets, particularly of govenments, are under severe pressure, is evidence both of a degree of political courage...and, above all, of the fact that this is one aid policy that really works."
The guys at GiveWell, who have refrained from recommending GAVI in the past "because we have trouble fully understanding its activities," agree that immunizations are "one of the best interventions out there for achieving good." But in light of the alliance's recent announcement, writes GiveWell's Holden Karnofsky, "we are fairly confident in not recommending GAVI because it appears to have all the funding it needs (which, given its area of focus, we consider very good news)."
Philanthropy
On his Tactical Philanthropy blog, Sean Stannard-Stockton argues that foundations should be more active supporters of federal initiatives like the Social Innovation Fund and the proposed Pay For Success program. Writes Stannard-Stockton, "Large foundations don't need to participate in these new programs. But they should. It is the right thing to do and represents one of the most attractive ways for savvy foundations to leverage their program expertise to influence more funds than they ever dreamed possible."
Social Media
Kris Putnam-Walkerly has updated her list of foundations and funder networks on Twitter and added a second. The lists are available on Twitter here and here.
On the Council on Foundation's Re: Philanthropy blog, Mark Carpenter explains why it's important for foundations to have a social media presence.
Women
And over at the Deep Social Impact blog, Joanne Duhl shares some info from High Impact Giving to Women and Girls, a publication put together by the Philanthropic Initiative for Bank of America Merrill Lynch that "lays out a series of questions to help you decide on the philanthropic path that's most appropriate for you...."
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
