PhilanTopic

Introducing the 'Open Places' Initiative

(Kenneth H. Zimmerman is director of U.S. programs for the Open Society Foundations. The post originally appeared on the OSF's Voices blog.)

Across the United States, local communities face an ever more challenging environment: dramatic shifts in federal and state funding, advances in technology, and large-scale demographic change. Each of these affects how low-income communities and communities of color are able to access political, economic, and civic opportunities. In response to these shifts, the Open Society Foundations is launching a new effort, the Open Places Initiative, to advance the ability of local communities to achieve equal opportunity and promote vibrant democratic practices.

As part of the initiative, planning grants of roughly $100,000 each have been awarded to eight sites. The awards will enable an assortment of nonprofits in each of these places to plan how to create sustainable change in areas such as effective and accountable government, civic engagement, criminal justice reform, and equal educational opportunity.

In late 2013, OSF will award up to five of these sites long-term implementation grants of up to $1 million a year, for a minimum of three years -- and, potentially, a full decade.

The eight sites selected to receive grants are Albuquerque, New Mexico; Buffalo, New York; Denver, Colorado; Jackson, Mississippi; Louisville, Kentucky; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; San Diego, California; and Puerto Rico. We are pleased with the geographic diversity of these sites as well as the diversity of communities represented.

The Open Places Initiative begins with the premise that local knowledge and assets are fundamental to the creation of inclusive and open places. Yet, local conditions are changing significantly. Local governments face unprecedented demands due to budget constraints, and the nonprofit sector is facing significant funding challenges. At the same time, increased access to information is transforming community engagement on pressing issues. Nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and civic groups need to adapt to the new circumstances. One of the primary goals of the initiative is to increase the ability of each place to extend beyond current agendas, strategies, and capabilities.

The initiative draws on our experience with our urban social justice laboratory, OSI-Baltimore, which tests the effectiveness of various place-based strategies to address some of the biggest challenges facing Baltimore and other urban centers in the U.S. We are also drawing on the experience of other foundations and public-sector efforts, and look forward to collaborating with them going forward.

During the next few months, each site will select its specific areas of focus in response to pressing local priorities -- and, in each case, will incorporate multiple issues and tools into its planning.

While the sites are just now beginning the planning process, they have already noted some areas of focus. In addition to increasing local civic capacity to bring about long-term change, the preliminary goals of the different projects include advancing fair and inclusive economic development and fiscal policy, integrating immigrants into the larger community, reducing rates of incarceration, helping high school students graduate in greater numbers, addressing the enduring impact of residential segregation, and creating pathways to the middle class for low-wage workers.

We anticipate the initiative will enable the collaborations to identify and address needed skills and capacities, effectively access national and local resources, and further develop the approaches needed to address complex issues. In doing so, the Open Places sites will successfully develop more innovative and coordinated approaches to these and other challenges over the long term. While local equity and justice issues are likely to vary over time, what will remain constant is the need to bring together different groups -- residents, business leaders, state and local officials, nonprofits -- to mobilize and advance needed reform.

We are committed to supporting the Open Places sites as they develop and refine their approaches to making lasting and positive change. In addition to financial resources, we will be providing technical assistance as well as facilitating connections among sites and introductions with leading national organizations and institutions.

We heartily congratulate the groups that won planning grants. We look forward to gleaning lessons from the work that comes out of the initiative for replication in other cities, regions, and states, and believe that work has tremendous potential to help all of us chart a new course for our cities and regions.

-- Kenneth Zimmerman

From Global to Local: Partnerships Are Critical to Success

(Nancy E. Roman is president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank, which she joined in January 2013 after serving as director of public/private partnerships and communications at the United Nations' World Food Programme. Prior to joining WFP, Roman was vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, D.C.)

Moving from a job with the World Food Programme -- the world's largest humanitarian agency -- to the Capital Area Food Bank, a local NGO, has afforded me a bright-line look at the advantages and challenges of global versus local. The global humanitarian arena allows for scale but little flexibility or agility. The local environment allows for just the reverse: we move swiftly, like a speedboat, toward the problem but must depend on others to scale up our best solutions and practices. But one common theme emerges for both: the importance of partnerships.

Whether tackling hunger or clean water, disease eradication, literacy, or social justice, solutions to the great humanitarian and social problems of our day have eluded us. Both global and local hunger persist, despite the heroic efforts of many. And from both global and local vantage points, it becomes ever clearer that we urgently need to collaborate more effectively with our partners to meet the challenges we face.

For millennia, the human race has been finding ways to help others in need. But addressing social problems through agencies designed and built to tackle particular problems is a relatively new phenomenon. The International Committee of the Red Cross, founded in 1863, is one of the earliest. United Nations organizations such as UNICEF and the WFP are but fifty years old. Many of the largest and best-known NGOs are even more recent players. Founded in 1980, the Capital Area Food Bank was created to end hunger in the Washington, D.C., metro area. Unfortunately, over the last thirty-three years, the need has not diminished. Poverty is on the rise, in our region and nationally. Indeed, we have witnessed a 25 percent increase in hunger since the beginning of the economic downturn in 2008. Today, more than 680,000 individuals, including 200,000 children, in the District of Columbia, northern Virginia, and Montgomery and Prince George's counties in Maryland look to us for help. And while the ranks of the working poor are growing, the middle class is also under stress, as many people who have never needed emergency food services find themselves at the doors of our neighborhood partner agencies and food pantries, which depend on CAFB for food and household items.

There was a time when many of us looked forward to ending the scourge of hunger, poverty, and homelessness. But as days become months and months become years, these stubborn social problems have outlasted our commitment, our resources, and sometimes even our compassion. So we ask: Given that these problems are overwhelming and persistent, might not we fight them more effectively in partnership rather than alone? If that's the case, how can we maximize impact through collaboration? And how should we think about these critical relationships?

At WFP, it became abundantly clear that our work, once deemed the purview of "donor governments," required a broader set of players. Back then, I was focused on engaging the private sector, in particular, to join with government and civil society to more effectively reach hungry people around the world. During my five years with the UN, our unconventional thinking about public-private partnerships became conventional wisdom, as governments began to embrace the idea that they, too, needed partners -- not just for additional funding but for the expertise that private-sector partners often are uniquely positioned to provide. As the UN partnered with Fortune 500 companies and governments to take on child malnutrition, the process of coordinating the work was always harder than we'd initially thought -- yet always turned out to be more worthwhile than we'd expected.

At CAFB, our partners include not only private companies such as Marriott and philanthropic entities like the Philip L. Graham Fund, but also hundreds of nonprofits, from local churches to area YMCAs to Martha's Table, Bread for the City, and other community groups. In working with these partners, however, we have come to realize that it is not enough to address immediate needs in our communities; we must also find ways to create a long-term plan to collaboratively and systematically tackle the problems we face.

To that end, I have just completed a round of conversations with forty or fifty agencies that are working with us to combat hunger in the region. CAFB's role is to provide our partners with leadership, expertise, training, and food resources to meet the needs of children, seniors, and families in their areas of service. But as we think through the challenges of how to do this effectively, we are also mapping the food insecurity needs and the reach of our and our many partners' efforts. When that effort is completed, we will be better positioned to empower and support the community agencies best suited to address these challenges.

Just like leaders in the humanitarian aid field, we grapple with how best to work with our partners. Collaboration and information sharing is critical if we are to repair and weave stronger social safety nets that contribute to sustainable reductions in hunger, preventable diseases, and a host of other pressing problems.

We realize that collaboration, to be effective, will require an understanding of the comparative advantages of our various partners. It may also require bringing them together more often -- not just to share best practices, but to plan better. Finally, it may require demanding answers to tough questions from all of us. Questions like: Which solutions are most effective? Which should be scaled first? Which should be phased out?

In the end, the best solutions are likely to be implemented street by street, block by block, one community at a time. At CAFB, we're convinced that working with our partners to understand what works best and then to share best practices and scale solutions as we work toward our collective goals will make it more likely we achieve them.

-- Nancy Roman

WASHME: Making WASH Orgs Sustainable

The Foundation Center has been collecting collaboration stories for its Nonprofit Collaboration Database, a searchable collection of 670+ profiles that gets 2,000+ visits every month. And this one just came in. (Have a story you'd like to share? Learn more here.)

"Sustainability is one of the most pressing issues facing the WASH (water, sanitation, and hygiene) sector today. More than 30 percent of WASH projects fail after two to five years." -- Sustainability WASH Web site

In 2011, a group of NGOs, funders, and academics started to ask hard questions about the sustainability of their own programs and those of other organizations in the WASH sector. One result of that effort was Sustainable WASH, an online platform for assessing, learning about, and sharing best practices in the field.

And one initiative of Sustainable WASH is the WASH Monitoring Exchange (WASHME), which was developed by several leading WASH organizations to eliminate barriers to post-construction monitoring in the belief that such monitoring is critical for the ongoing improvement of organizational practice and understanding. Any organization is encouraged to submit data, which will be made publicly available.

The ultimate goal of this work is to create a set of indicators that other WASH organizations can use to measure the sustainability of their own work. Leading partners in the collaboration are:

• Improve International (Atlanta, Georgia)
• Global Water Challenge (Arlington, Virginia)
• Blue Planet Network (Redwood City, California)
• Water 1st International (Seattle, Washington)
• Water For People (Denver, Colorado)

You can read more about the WASHME collaboration in the Nonprofit Collaboration Database.

And for submitting its story to the database, WASHME will receive a free Digital Grant Guide and a 20-percent discount on a full-day course.

How about you? Are you ready to share your collaboration story?

-- Sandy Pon

How Collaborative Learning Can Make Organizations Smarter, Stronger, and Better Positioned to Scale: A Q&A with Andrew Wolk and Wendy Yallowitz

Andrew Wolk is founder of Root Cause,
a nonprofit research and consulting firm that partners with nonprofits, philanthropy, government, and business to advance solutions to today's toughest social issues, and Wendy Yallowitz is a program officer with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Vulnerable Populations Portfolio, which supports social innovations with the potential to grow to scale. For almost two years, Root Cause helped guide RWJF grantee More Than Wheels, a Boston-based nonprofit that helps people get the best deal on a reliable and fuel-efficient car, through a facilitated merger exploration with Ways to Work, a Milwaukee-based community development financial institution that provides short-term low-interest loans to working poor families with challenging credit histories -- a merger that ultimately failed to materialize. From the process, however, Root Cause and RWJF developed a "collaborative learning" framework that allowed both organizations to learn from each other and emerge with stronger, smarter strategies than they would have on their own. The lessons learned are available in "Collaborative Learning: A Case Study on More Than Wheels and Ways to Work," which is available as a as a downloadable PDF from the RWJF site bookstore.

In the following Q&A, Andrew and Wendy shed light on how collaborative learning turned a failed merger exploration into a success. A version of this post originally appeared on the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog.

Transparency Talk: What is collaborative learning, and what are its origins?

Andrew Wolk: It's an intentional effort between two organizations to exchange, analyze, and apply knowledge that will lead to better outcomes. More specifically, collaborative learning is a structured, facilitated learning process that allows for in-depth knowledge exchange without the organizational and cultural challenges of mergers. Based on a four-step framework, the process can serve as an alternative to merger discussions -- or a "plan B" in the middle of merger talks that aren't working out.

Wendy Yallowitz: It's a good time for this type of framework. When you consider how nonprofits continue to grow in number and are continually asked to do more with less, it's more common for foundations to encourage similar organizations to figure out whether there's a way to optimize resources. Hence, we're seeing more merger explorations like the one we pursued with More Than Wheels and Ways to Work.

AW: As for origins, this potential merger brought about the framework. We know from past experience merger talks can present huge barriers, and we were running into some of those things. At a certain point, we decided to take an approach whereby we lifted the pressure of mergers or formal collaborations and partnerships as expectations so that the two organizations could work together to solve problems and grapple with strategic questions.

TT: What are the benefits of collaborative learning?

AW: Collaborative learning can accelerate knowledge very quickly in a resource-efficient way, provided both organizations are mutually investing in sharing and learning. We built the framework around four phases, starting with an assessment of need wherein you ask whether it would be beneficial to look inside another organization to address your own challenges. You have to be willing to look inward at your own gaps in knowledge and share information. So right off the bat, entering this phase pushes you to evolve in some way.

From there you move to establishing trust and facilitation by a neutral third party, which entails conversations, adherence to a collaborative learning scope of work, and relying on a facilitator to help set and make progress against goals. Next is an in-depth exchange and analysis of knowledge -- in the case of More Than Wheels and Ways to Work, that involved an immersive exchange of client profiles, program and financial models, and how success is measured. Last up is application of knowledge to challenges faced, which involves applying what you learned to the challenges that originally brought you to the table and perhaps other areas.

WY: What ended up being really key was facilitation of the learning. If you really want it to work and be more than just an information-gathering exercise, you need a facilitator. Root Cause was able to pull out themes and lessons by asking, "What did we learn from this?" They ensured ideas and opportunities would be carried out.

TT: How does collaborative learning relate to scaling?

WY: This is about scaling impact collaboratively, working with a similar organization that also wants to grow beyond its challenges. For example, as a result of these conversations, Terri [Steingrebe, CEO of More Than Wheels] was able to look at her strategy and see more than one way to scale More Than Wheels. Their initial model was to open physical offices where they saw a need, and that's evolved after assessing Ways to Work's affiliate model. Through a new partnership-based model, More Than Wheels can increase the number of people they serve without needing to establish a new client base in new communities or set up new offices. All in all, they expect to lower per-client costs by 40 percent.

Likewise, Ways to Work gained appreciation for More Than Wheels' one-on-one consumer counseling and financial education and went on to establish an online financial education course for clients, set higher expectations for financial fitness and education before loan approval, and -- based on More Than Wheels' success -- increased loan amounts beyond original estimates.

TT: Why should funders consider supporting grantees interested in participating in collaborative learning?

WY: RWJF has worked to connect grantees interested in talking about opportunities to work together, but collaborative learning adds a layer of purpose, with goals and outcomes very much part of the mix. So, at the end of the day, we see this as a long-term cost-effective way to build capacity among those grantees for whom this is an appropriate option. And funding the process, of course, contributes greatly to providing the resources needed to explore a merger and engage in collaborative learning.

A by-product of this process was building trust with our grantee. I encouraged Terri to have the conversation but did not push her to merge -- that was never a rigid expectation. She never felt awkward coming to me with honest feedback. It helped me gain a real appreciation for the collaborative learning process.

AW: What we're seeing is more organizations that want to learn from each other. We believe there’s a fundamental culture beginning to build around performance for impact. The nonprofit sector should be having these conversations because, in the end, it's about whether there's impact.

TT: Thanks for sharing the case study. Potential mergers and collaborations are often shrouded in secrecy, and the same is true of failed foundation experiments. Why do you think it's important to bring these efforts to light?

WY: RWJF has long been committed to sharing the results of our work with the field, whether those results represented success or failure. We release grantee results reports and evaluation findings as a matter of routine, but I agree that process results such as those stemming from merger and collaboration attempts often are not approached with the same spirit of transparency. In this case, the deep exchange of information about the models we were looking to merge resulted in a wealth of learnings, including important signals that a merger might not be the right fit for either group. That wasn't viewed as a loss or a wasted effort; rather, it opened our eyes to new possibilities for each group in terms of their models and growth strategies. And wWe believe it's important to share those learnings widely in hopes they prove to be of value to other funders and nonprofits that are wrestling with the challenges associated with growing to scale.

-- Natasha Isajlovic-Terry

Collaborative Relationships Between Nonprofits and Educators

(Erin Palmer, a writer and editor for University Alliance, writes about nonprofit and public sector topics covered by master of public administration degree programs. This is her first post for PhilanTopic.)

Some of the most stunning inhabitants of the natural world -- the sea anemone, the hummingbird, the orchid -- owe their intricate and variegated beauty, at least in part, to a basic biological process: symbiosis. When human beings and the institutions we shape interact in this manner, we call it "collaboration."

Of course, no living creature exists independent of its environment, and nonprofit organizations are no different. Just as the most beautiful orchids will not bloom without pollination from an outside source, nonprofits must also cultivate collaborative relationships with community leaders, including educators, in order to achieve their full potential.

Getting Started

The first step is recognizing that an educational institution, whether a local K-12, a large research university, or a private liberal arts college, is more than just a place of learning for enrolled students; it is also the locus of a wide variety of community resources.

Perhaps the most valuable of these resources is the students themselves. Regardless of the amount of time they spend sitting in a classroom, learners, whether age 6 or 60, function as whole human beings and not as just repositories of information. Each possesses singular talents, abilities, ambitions, and skills -- all of which can benefit a nonprofit, and vice versa, once a collaborative relationship is formed.

Just as the nonprofit should see the educational institution as an assemblage of valuable resources, so should the educator recognize that a nonprofit is an engine for positive change in the community. Whether socioeconomic equity, environmental stewardship, or the pursuit of human dignity and rights, a nonprofit's primary aim almost always will prove beneficial to the educator's (and students') community.

Cultivation

As in all new relationships, communication is key. Successful collaboration between a nonprofit and an educator hinges on each partner's understanding of the other's dreams. Or, more specifically, their DREAMS: Desires, Resources, Experience, Aims, and Motivations. Each party must offer and share the following information:

• The primary aim, including specific goals around mobilizing, strengthening, and/or changing the community
• Prior experience with service/volunteer and educational collaboration, including a clear understanding of the outcomes and impact
• Reason(s) for the current interest in a collaborative relationship
• Resources (time, money, materials, etc.) available for the collaboration
• Past, current, and anticipated methodologies for achieving primary goals
• Past, current, and anticipated challenges and successes in pursuit of primary goals

As communication between the parties flourishes, a relationship is cultivated. Each party should pay particular attention to areas of overlap with the other's dreams, and together they should determine their common need(s) and goals. A clearly defined and shared public purpose, such as instilling a service ethic in elementary school students or educating college students about the nonprofit's cause, informs every collaborative relationship.

Moving Forward

For educators and nonprofits, a shared purpose can facilitate consensus on operational design and management. Strategic planning should therefore anticipate the needs and resources of the community in which both partners operate --specifically, its people, systems of governance, and key institutions and organizations.

All these elements form the context in which a collaborative relationship is most likely to thrive, as do a strong and ongoing understanding of the socioeconomic, governmental, and cultural trends that shape the community on which the partnership is focused. Both the nonprofit and the educator must remain apprised of changes to and developments within the commmunity in question.

Adaptation

Longevity of any kind -- whether in species, relationships, or people -- depends on adaptation. In a collaborative relationship, the best way to adapt is to pair frequent and open communication with an ongoing reevaluation of the partnership's shared goals and performance.

The more flexible and innovative their methodology, the more likely the educator and the nonprofit are to achieve their goals -- and to remain committed to the relationship itself. Neither the orchid nor its pollinator achieved their collaborative beauty overnight. Patience is the orchid-grower's mantra. That said, today’s gardeners have the knowledge, tools, and resources neeeded to cultivate quite easily what were once considered nature's rarest blooms. They've learned, in fact, that orchids are not only surprisingly tough but marvelously adaptable. Your next collaborative relationship can be, as well.

-- Erin Palmer

What Winning Looks Like: Impact & Innovation Forum for Black Male Achievement

(Grace Sato is a research assistant at the Foundation Center. This is her first post for PhilanTopic.)

What do New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, philanthropist George Soros, and Harlem Children's Zone founder Geoffrey Canada have in common? They're all passionate about black male achievement. And they all shared the stage at the inaugural Impact & Innovation Forum, hosted by the Open Society Foundations, earlier this week.

At the event, more than two hundred leaders from every sector -- philanthropy, government, finance, media, education, nonprofit, faith -- gathered to hear about efforts taking place across the nation to improve the lives of black men and boys. And while acknowledging the many challenges black men and boys face, forum participants focused on celebrating victories, spotlighting innovative strategies, and building on growing momentum in the field.

Here are some of my takeaways from the event:

Black men and boys are assets. The Knight Foundation's Trabian Shorters described the foundation's Black Male Engagement (BME) Challenge, which put out a call to black men in Detroit and Philadelphia to share stories of how they were helping their communities. The foundation received almost twenty-one hundred responses in just eight weeks from "regular" folks -- neighbors, uncles, coaches -- who are volunteering their time to make a difference in others' lives. With negative portrayals of African-American males dominating the media, these are stories that need to be shared.

The time is now. The field of black male achievement is "not a new idea. It's a now idea," said Shawn Dove, campaign manager for the Open Society Foundations' Campaign for Black Male Achievement. That sentiment -- what Dr. Robert Ross, president and CEO of the California Endowment, described as the "spiritual audacity of the moment" -- was echoed by numerous speakers and evident in the energy and enthusiasm of participants. Indeed, it was Angela Glover Blackwell, founder and CEO of PolicyLink, who expressed what most people in the room were thinking: "We have everyone we need to get this going. Help has arrived. It's arrived in the form of a movement."

The movement must be built on collaboration. Although the forum was hosted by the Open Society Foundations, the event was all about building the broader field of black male achievement and pooling resources to create real and lasting change. As speaker after speaker acknowledged, there's a role for everyone to play, from investors in social impact funds and African Americans serving on the boards of Fortune 500 companies to young entrepreneurs and volunteer mentors.

"The days of working in silos are gone. That time is dead," said Rev. Dr. Alfonso Wyatt, who emceed the afternoon sessions. Or, as Geoff Canada remarked, those who try to go it alone are bound to fail. The problems are large and complex, said Canada, and we are going to need to engage whole communities in developing a holistic response if we hope to solve them. "The only question," he added, "is, are we prepared to put the cause higher than our own egos or habits?"

Closing the belief gap. The opportunity and achievement gaps confronting black men and boys are well documented. Shawn Dove ended the day by asking, "Do we really believe we can win? For me, what winning looks like is that we've got to first close the belief gap."

I'll close with an anecdote shared by Dr. Ross. Before 1954, he told the audience, it was believed no human being could run a mile in under four minutes. Scientists said it was physically impossible. But in 1954, one man, Roger Bannister, did what everyone said couldn't be done. And within three years, fourteen other people had run a sub-four-minute mile. (Today, there are more than three hundred American sub-four-minute milers alone. I Googled it.) The Open Society Foundations launched its Campaign for Black Male Achievement four years ago. And today, there are sixteen foundations around the country making robust, targeted investments in the future of black men and boys. Not to mention thousands of individuals and organizations committed to their success.

Can the struggle for black male achievement be won? After attending this week's Impact & Innovation Forum, I, for one, am a believer.

-- Grace Sato

Clinton Announces Revisions to Tax Regulations to Support Civil Society Worldwide

Small but interesting announcement timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative and the opening of the 67th session of the UN general assembly:

In conjunction with a meeting of the State Department's new Global Philanthropy Working Group -- the sixth and newest pillar of the department's Strategic Dialogue with Civil Society initiative -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has announced Treasury Department and IRS guidance "aimed at lowering the legal barriers and administrative costs associated with cross-border philanthropy in support of civil society worldwide."

According to a statement issued by State, the proposed revisions to "equivalency determinations" -- i.e., the process by which a U.S. grantmaker evaluates whether an intended foreign grantee is the equivalent of a U.S. public charity -- allows foundations to rely on a broader range of professional tax advisors when making such determinations. It's hoped that "this will make professional tax advice in this area easier to obtain, significantly reduce the administrative costs of foundation grantmaking to foreign civil society groups, and ensure that accurate determinations regarding foreign grantees are made."

For the last year or so, Tech Soup Global, in partnership with the Council on Foundations, has been working on an equivalency determination information repository (EDIR) service called NGOsource. To learn more, click here.

 

Facebook as Catalyst for Collaboration: A Q&A with Mike Painter, Robert Wood John Foundation

(Mike Painter is senior program officer on the Quality/Equality Team at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. A version of this post appears on the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog. For more about the Robert Wood Johnson's Foundation's social media strategy and how it has evolved over the last two years, click here and here.)

Foundation Center: Let's start with a glimpse into a day in the life of a senior program officer at a major foundation. How is Web 2.0 changing your job and your relationships with grantees and the broader community you serve?

Mike Painter: I'm Mike Painter, and I'm an avid social media user -- although I don't think I need a twelve-step program quite yet. Don't get me wrong, I certainly like and use e-mail, telephone, and video-conferencing a great deal. In my work at RWJF, though, social media, including tools like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn, add an important and rich layer of capabilities and collaboration power to my tool set. Before I came to the foundation, I was an RWJF Health Policy Fellow for a year on Capitol Hill. While in that position, I soon realized that there were interesting things happening in our office that I wanted to share with others. We didn't have social media tools at the time to power that sharing, so instead I manually put together e-mail distribution lists to help keep people informed. That experience demonstrated to me the power of collaboration technology -- even something as simple as an e-mail distribution list. To me, social media is an obvious logarithmic enhancement of that rudimentary sharing and collaboration capability -- one that dramatically increases the reach and magnitude of my old distribution-list efforts.

FC: We've all heard talk in recent years about how social media is a perfect medium for collaboration and facilitating discussion. Among your efforts, what initiative or project comes to mind that stands out as a model of social media-driven collaboration?

MP: At RWJF we spend a great deal of time trying to improve American health and health care. To tackle such a complex, gargantuan set of tasks, we need collaborators and partners. We cannot succeed without them. Frankly, we need the ability to find great ideas and terrific people who can do most of that work -- the relatively small number of people at our foundation could never succeed on their own. One way we do that is to work with leaders from various regions and sectors -- health, consumer, business -- as they work to restructure health care in their respective local markets. We've used a number of technology platforms to enhance and promote that collaboration. And one tool, a Facebook group we started called Transformation Has Begun, is particularly promising.

Initially, we wanted to promote an online and ongoing discussion forum about improving the quality and cost of health care and attempted to host that forum on our own server, heavily promoting the discussions there using RWJF's significant communications assets. We absolutely got attention for that early site -- more than ten thousand page views. Unfortunately, the only way we were able to generate conversation or debate on that site was when we spoon-fed or manually prompted it. Essentially, we generated zero spontaneous conversations and fairly quickly realized that the site was a failure. So, after a fair amount of internal discussion, we decided to shut it down. Rather than give up on electronic collaboration entirely, however, we decided to go where people already were -- Facebook.

FC: What made the move into a new online space successful?

MP: When we moved the conversation to Facebook, we initially worried that people would not want to mix fun posts about the weekend, parties, kids, and biking with intense policy discussions about transforming health care. Turns out they would. What we found was that people joined the group fairly readily -- and almost immediately began generating spontaneous discussions about healthcare transformation. They shared materials, engaged in spirited debates -- all without our prompting. Clearly, participants liked the format and found it easier to access than the RWJF-hosted site.

FC: What surprised you the most about the effort?

MP: I think we were all pretty surprised by the stark contrast between the spontaneity on Facebook compared to the almost complete lack of interaction on our hosted site. It's also interesting that the conversation on Facebook seems to have legs. Over a year later, the conversation is going strong, the number of participants has grown, and my RWJF colleagues and I are simply participants among many. We jump into conversations when it makes sense, and sometimes we ask for input about project ideas or highlight interesting materials or issues.

FC: Can you share any interesting examples about how a conversation that started online at Facebook informed your work or strategies offline? And for those who may be skeptical about the return on investment from social media, what are some specific takeaways from your work?

MP: As members of this Facebook community, we ask the group for help from time to time. For example, in 2011 we were developing a new call for proposals around Payment Reform Strategies for High Value Care. Normally for this sort of project we would craft the call for proposals pretty quietly based on internal, non-public discussions involving staff and expert advisors. In this instance, though, we decided to solicit feedback from our Facebook community. We posed the program design problems to the group in a series of questions and received a significant number of helpful comments. Then we used those comments to develop the call for proposals. And, importantly, we reported back to the group as we were developing the project to let them know how their comments were helping us shape the project. Essentially, we crowdsourced the development of the project concept -- and were rewarded with a terrific product with a real-world sense of what leaders want and need from this sort of payment experimentation. The call for proposals itself attracted seventy-two high-quality proposals from across the nation. And, ultimately, from those proposals, we awarded grants totaling almost $1.8 million to four cutting-edge payment reform projects.

FC: What advice would you offer to foundation colleagues interested in pursuing a similar approach?

MP: We're not saying that any particular social media tool is the single best answer or approach. Certainly, we hope to see many new and exciting social media approaches -- and hope to try them out as well. I think we did learn that it pays to experiment with these tools -- to be bold. It turns out the risks were actually minimal and manageable -- and the upside was pretty big. Some of us may have had unfounded fears about losing some measure of control of the discussions we were promoting when we moved to Facebook. And yes, we almost certainly ceded a measure of control. But in return we got a glimpse of something much more important and powerful -- energized and empowered collaborators willing to work with us toward achieving some big, important goals -- like improving health care in this country.

-- Janet Camarena

[Infographic] Nonprofit Strategic Restructuring

How are funders supporting strategic collaboration, and how are nonprofits engaging in these kinds of partnerships with each other?

To answer those questions, our colleagues in the Foundation Center's field offices turned to the center's Nonprofit Collaboration Database to find nonprofit organization from across the country who could tell them about their experiences. They eventually contacted ten and asked them questions like:

• Why were you collaborating?
• What are the challenges to effective collaboration?
• How are foundations supporting your collaboration?
• How do you wish they would have supported you?

Then, in partnership with La Piana Consulting and the Tides Center, the center convened ten funders in a daylong session in San Francisco to talk about the way nonprofits and foundations are thinking about collaboration generally and strategic restructuring more specifically.

Based on those two sources of knowledge, our colleagues then created the infographic below for the Alliance for Nonprofit Management 2012 conference (hashtag: #anm12). Enjoy!

(Click for larger image)

For more information about collaboration and strategic restructuring, b sure to check out these resources:

• Nonprofit Collaboration Database
• Collaboration page on GrantSpace
• GrantSpace podcast archive (including the collaboration interviews)
• La Piana: How Grantmakers Can Support Strategic Collaboration
• Collaborating For Good (video)

Funder Tools for a More Efficient Marketplace

(Lisa Philp is vice president for strategic philanthropy and director of GrantCraft at the Foundation Center.)

Two years ago, the Foundation Registry i3 was a lifesaver for me.

I was working as a philanthropic advisor and was looking for an opportunity to lead a group of emerging philanthropists interested in education reform from talking about collaboration to taking action. The U.S. Department of Education's Investing in Innovation (i3) competitive grants program seemed tailor-made for my crowd: a marketplace of ideas, evidence-based approaches, and five-to-one leverage. I informed several dozen high-net-worth donors about the i3 program and vetted the highest-rated applicants based on the quality of their project designs, evidence and evaluation, capacity, financial review, and need for a match. My clients pooled over $5 million in flexible new funds to provide matches for i3 projects working in sixteen states and D.C. and, along with other private funders, leveraged $145 million in public funds.

The vetting and matching all happened within a few short weeks. How did I have access to i3 applicants for review? How did I know which ones needed matching funds? How did I benefit from the knowledge of other foundations? Simple. The Foundation Registry i3.

The registry was started by a group of presidents from the largest U.S. foundations focused on education who recognized that the i3 program created new opportunities to use technology to enhance collaboration and improve efficiency. After conversations with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, their staff members, and other funders, the Foundation Registry i3 was born. Starting with a founding group of a dozen funders, the registry now includes sixty foundations and corporations.

The registry combines an easy-to-use online platform with responsive people behind the scenes -- an example of technology augmenting relationships and networks. It simplifies the discovery phase of connecting groups of like-minded applicants and funders during time-sensitive, matching grant competitions and helps to create a more efficient marketplace. Applicants are encouraged to upload their materials to the registry to increase the awareness and reach of their proposals to participating foundations. Registered funders can sort applicants by tag and category, view other foundations' interest levels and match considerations for proposals, and collaborate by sharing notes and comments on proposals in a password-protected area. During the 2010 and 2011 i3 grant cycles, forty of the sixty-six highest-rated applicants were matched by one or more registry funders, to the tune of over $68 million.

The Foundation Registry i3 template has been adapted for use by the 100Kin10 initiative, a multi-sector mobilization focused on training one hundred thousand science, technology, engineering, and math teachers over the next ten years. It also inspired the SIF Registry, which is designed to simplify the process for eligible Social Innovation Fund intermediaries and sub-grantees to obtain matching funds from foundations.

Fast forward to the 2012 i3 grant cycle, now under way. I'm pleased to report that the Foundation Center is administering the Foundation Registry i3 for this year's grant cycle. We're encouraging i3 scale-up, validation, and development applicants to upload their U.S. Department of Education proposals and are reaching out to education funders to register for the site. Right now -- well before the matching period begins in the fall -- is a great time to become part of the registry. There's no cost to applicants to showcase their applications to a group of motivated funders, and no funding commitment required of foundations to sign up -- just potential interest in providing support for i3 applicants.

If you are a 2012 applicant to the i3 program or a funder interested in U.S. student achievement, please contact us so we can add you to this online community.

-- Lisa Philp

Weekend Link Roundup (July 21-22, 2012)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Collaboration

Minnesota Council on Foundations Web communications associate Chris Oien shares a list of free tools that make it easy to collaborate with others, including Dropbox for file sharing and Google+ Hangouts for online meetings.

Communications/Marketing

On the heels of the virtual Millennial Impact conference, Network for Good's Katya Andresen shares a few more key findings from the 2012 report on giving by younger donors on her Non-Profit Marketing blog. Among other things, Andresen reminds us that:

• Millennials prefer to hear from/about causes via social media, e-newsletters and alerts, and Web sites;
• They give online -- and in person; and
• They like to hear about volunteer opportunities from their peers.

You can read or download the report here.

Evaluation

On the GuideStar blog, Mark Miller-McLemore, dean of the Disciples Divinity House at Vanderbilt, argues that "assessment can be meaningful, even if it might not be easily quantifiable." To that end, he shares three guidelines for nonprofit leaders to follow:

• the best action is guided by principles;
• the best action does the greatest good for the greatest number; and
• good organizations are good people doing good things well.

Governance

In light of the report issued by former FBI director Louis Freeh on the Penn State University child sex-abuse scandal -- a report which found that the university's board "failed in its duty to make reasonable inquiry into these serious matters and to demand action by the President" -- James Irvine Foundation president and CEO James E. Canales offers some advice to nonprofit board members in an op-ed piece on the Chronicle of Philanthropy site.

Responding to Canales's op-ed, Allison Fine says that the saddest part of the Penn State situation is that we've been here before, 

and, sadly, we'll be here again, and I wonder what part of the governance process or relationship or even existence is so difficult that so few organizations do it well. Senior executives feeling that they have to "manage" their boards, stop them from interfering and micro-managing, share as little as possible with them are the norms not the exception. And board members more interested in the appearance of service than actually being trained as nonprofit board members (not the same as sitting in a meeting at work!) and learning about the work of the organization and insisting on accountability are the exception not the rule. Are the models for good governance, as Jim writes in myriad pamphlets, books, training courses, etc. so difficult and unrealistic that most organization will simply never be there...?

And on his Nonprofit Communications blog, James D'Ambrosio says that Penn State should follow the advice of a New York Times contributor who recently suggested that the university donate "the next four years of football-related profits...to a fund benefiting the victims of child sexual abuse."

Human/Civil Rights

On Nelson Mandela Day, Idealist.org's Allison Jones shares a video created by Prezence Digital Production that pays tribute to the former president of South Africa. "While the video is meant to be a fun way to explore the life and impact of Nelson Mandela," writes Jones, "it also made me wonder: what role does social media play in moving social movements forward?" We're wondering the same thing. Share your thoughts in the comments section below, or at the Idealist blog here.

Philanthropy

How can foundations really understand what's going on around them? How can they map the ever-evolving topography of funding in their areas of interest? asks Mendi Blue on the Center for Effective Phlanthropy blog. One possible solution, scanning the philanthropic landscape, was highlighted in a recent Grantcraft report. As the report points out, and Blue notes, however, multi-dimensional scanning "is easier said than done."

Back from a well-deserved vacation, NCRP executive director Aaron Dorfman applauds the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which recently announced plans to "cease running its own service programs and instead give out $20 million more per year in grants to high-performing nonprofits." Indeed, the "winner in this scenario," says Dorfman, "will be the families and communities that the foundation and its grantees seek to serve."

Philanthropy 2173's Lucy Bernholz adds "sensemaking" to her list of 2012 philanthropy buzzwords. Originally suggested by our colleague Lisa Philp, who oversees the Foundation Center's GrantCraft initiative, sensemaking "is what buzzword number three (data scientists) do with buzzword number one (data)," says Bernholz.

And in another post on her blog, Lucy does a deep dive on the idea of data as an essential element (think, Periodic Table of Elements) in philanthropic work. "Why does this metaphor work when thinking about data in philanthropy?" asks Bernolz. "Because these raw elements are only the beginning of the story. For data to be useful in philanthropy they have to be known, accessible, and compoundable....If everyone tracks their data separately, calls things by different names, and holds onto them behind closed doors, well, that's like having hydrogen in one room, oxygen in another and being desperate for a drink...."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org.

-- The Editors

Emoti-Con!: Digital Learning Comes to NYC

(Laura Cronin is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In her last post, she chatted with Kimberleigh Smith, board president of the New York City-based Paul Rapoport Foundation, about the foundation's decision to spend down by 2015 and what the foundation is doing to help grantees navigate that transition.)

What if a bunch of nonprofits and funders found ways to work together on new projects that furthered their respective missions while also creating outcomes that were larger than the sum of the new parts?

Productive collaboration among organizations is one of those textbook goals that funders love to promote. Many an executive director has heard from a major funder about some like-minded nonprofit she should find a way to work with, sometime in the future. But too often, such suggestions lead to circular conversations, mission drift, and/or wheel spinning.

Lately, however, several New York City nonprofits have discovered that young people's interests are a key that can unlock the secrets of successful, mission-driven collaboration.

Hive Learning Network NYC is a coalition of youth-serving organizations that encourages young people to explore their interests and further their learning through the use of digital media and technology. Fueled by grants from the New York Community Trust, MacArthur Foundation, and others, students from all five boroughs participate in a lively system of out-of-school time (OST) programs that use digital tools to help them dig deeper into subjects they're passionate about, from science and art to creative writing and filmmaking.

All Hive Network member organizations are driven by the interests of kids. Members work to develop programs that help youth become active producers of digital media, rather than letting them just use digital tools to passively consume off-the-shelf products created by adults. In turn, young people's experiences with new digital tools and artifacts helps nonprofits whose missions include serving youth to advance those missions more effectively.

A number of examples of that dynamic were on display at the fourth annual Emoti-Con! NYC digital media festival earlier this month.

According to Kerry McCarthy, program officer at the New York Community Trust, "The Hive Digital Media Learning Fund's grant to MOUSE [a NYC-based nonprofit that empowers students to succeed in the twenty-first century information economy] enabled teens to plan and run Emoti-Con! NYC, which brought together Hive NYC institutional members, educators, and their students to showcase their ideas and creations. And the collaborative continues to connect funders -- including MacArthur, Mozilla, and the David Rockefeller Fund -- interested in working together to help kids find and follow their interests and get excited about learning with digital media tools."

The Parsons School of Design's contribution to Hive NYC is the Parsons Scholars Program, an intensive, three-year summer and weekend pre-college program for students interested in the visual arts. With faculty and graduate students as mentors, twenty young scholars are exposed to all the available tools in the visual media professional's toolkit. Charged with using those tools for social action, the seniors choose an issue for their capstone -- this year it was curtailing gun violence -- and work with a client -- this year its was Beyond Bullets -- to create PSAs, DVDs, and loads of amazing print material that their NGO partner can use to raise awareness about an issue. Except for the fact that they were infused with the passion of students who want to make a difference and break the cycle of gun violence in their own neighborhoods, this year's final products were indistinguishable from professionally produced marketing materials.

New York City-based Global Kids sent a team from Long Island City High School to this year's Emoti-Con!, where it premiered a youth-directed video documentary that explores why LIC High School kids cut school. Many of those involved in making the video described their own first time cutting class, including one young man who said he felt so insulted when a substitute teacher fell asleep in class that he got up and left for the day. The hope, of course, is that honest answers from students will lead to more informed solutions to the city's truancy problem.

Girls Write Now, a NYC-based nonprofit devoted to drawing out the literary genius in young women, added a fresh component to their programming by giving students the tools and training they need to do digital remixes of their literary creations. Through the program, one high school senior is making a trailer for her forthcoming novel, while others have created animated versions of published stories and poems written by the professional women writers who serve as Girls Write Now mentors.

Chris Lawrence, director of Hive Network NYC, said, "The great virtues of Emoti-Con! are that it brings together youth from across the city to share their creations with their peers and professionals, gets them inspired by each other's work, and teaches them about other opportunities for youth across the city." Hive's swarm of thirty-nine partner organizations in NYC includes the American Museum of Natural History, Bank Street College of Education, the Bronx Museum, Make the Road, and WNYC Radio Rookies.

What's the lesson for those of us who may be too old to count ourselves as digital natives and/or are grown-up program officers and executive directors looking for better ways to bring nonprofits and social-change groups together on an issue? Simple: Don't forget to ask a high school student with a smartphone what he or she thinks. You just might get the answer you were looking for.

-- Laura Cronin

 

Weekend Link Roundup (June 23-24, 2012)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Collaboration

On the Deep Social Impact blog, Maureen O'Brien discusses the unique role each generation has to play in cross-sector collaborations. "Younger generations shouldn't underestimate the valuable knowledge and wisdom of the people who have been in this field for years. It is their work that has brought the sector to where it is today," writes O'Brien. "At the same time, older generations must not dismiss the ideas and innovative potential solutions that their younger colleagues suggest. It is their work that will help scale innovation and move the field to places never before imagined."

Communications/Marketing

On her Nonprofit Communications blog, Kivi Leroux Miller is asking for comments on a chart (thumbnail above) that illustrates a dozen ways in which having a content strategy is immeasurably better than not having a content strategy. Good stuff.

In a two-minute video on the Communications Network blog, Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Public Life Project, shares his thoughts about how the changes wrought by the Internet on society are also causing foundations to rethink and retool how they communicate with external audiences.

Getting Attention's Nancy Schwartz shares findings from a recent Nonprofit Messages Survey which found that "76 percent of nonprofit marketers and fundraisers...say their key messages are irrelevant to the people who need to hear them to be motivated or reminded to act." That's a serious problem, writes Schwartz, but one that can be fixed.

Fundraising

On the Social Velocity blog, Nell Edgington follows up on a post from January with "nine more ways board members can raise money without fundraising.

Leadership 2.0

On the Atlantic's Educating the Workforce of Tomorrow blog, Amy Southerland discusses the benefits and pitfalls of managing a virtual team. Among other things, writes Southerland, "virtual teamwork layers new challenges on top of the inherent challenges of teamwork, and the skills required do not come easily or automatically." To hone those skills, Southerland suggests that workers of all ages gain "higher-order digital skills in addition to familiarity with devices and applications" by taking "online courses, including hybrid classes where most of the coursework takes place virtually with less frequent in-person meetings.

Philanthropy

In the sixth and final installment of a six-part series, Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan asks: Why do those who work in the nonprofit sector put corporations on a pedestal? Yes, many companies do good every day, writes Buchanan. "But we also need to speak up -- much, much more forcefully --

for the nonprofit sector's distinct role and relevance. For this, too, is a defining strength of our country. We need to point to the historic and present day examples of foundations and nonprofits that make communities stronger, people healthier, and our environment cleaner....

On NCRP's Keeping a Close Eye blog, Aaron Dorfman announces the first anniversary of the organization's Philanthropy's Promise campaign, an effort to get as many large foundations as possible to allocate at least 50 percent of their grant dollars to the needs of marginalized groups and at least 25 percent to high-impact strategies such as advocacy, community organizing, and civic engagement. In the past year, a hundred and twenty-five foundations have signed on to the campaign, and in his post Dorfman highlights a few of the public statements they have made in support of the campaign.

On the Open Society Foundations' blog, Elizabeth Eagen, a joint program officer for the Information Program and Human Rights and Governance Grants Program, warns of an increase in physical and digital security threats to nongovernmental organizations and activists. Writes Eagen:

Though there has been a great deal of interest in digital security and secure communications training in the past few years, in fact, the process of uncovering an organization's susceptibility to digital attacks often reveals a whole host of other security and organizational issues. If we treat one type of threat while ignoring others, we miss an opportunity to promote long-lasting and resilient strategies....

While admitting that solutions are few and costly, Eagen calls on funders to keep in mind that "[f]unding and approaches in security need to be both incremental and tailored to work with the work of the institution" and to make all forms of security part of the support they [provide] to NGOs through information sharing; funding practice rather than tools; and being proactive.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors

Which Nonprofits Are Most Ready for Capacity Building?

(Alice Hill, a senior consultant at the TCC Group, has over twelve years of experience in the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors, with specific expertise in program design and implementation and nonprofit organizational capacity building. Hill served as project manager of the Challenge Fund for Journalism initiative.)

With funds limited, foundations must constantly assess how their money is best spent -- and support for organizational capacity-building support is no exception. How can a funder determine which nonprofit is most likely to benefit from this sort of investment? After all, change is something many talk about, but few actually accomplish. It turns out that, at least in the nonprofit world, desire to change trumps many other factors that are used to gauge "readiness."

A recent study of an initiative to strengthen nonprofit journalism organizations found that mindset matters most. It is not just a willingness to change, but an embrace of the often-messy work of transformation that is the most important indicator of capacity-building success.

The Challenge Fund for Journalism, which I managed, was an innovative funder collaborative that provided matching grants and capacity-building support to fifty-three nonprofit media organizations. Launched in 2004, the initiative brought together and pooled funding from the Ford, Knight, McCormick, and Ethics and Excellence in Journalism foundations and enlisted the management consulting firm TCC Group to provide one-on-one coaching and other resources to participants to guide them on a journey of change.

Collectively, CFJ helped the organizations leverage $3.6 million in grants into almost $9.5 million in matches. Eighty-five percent of the grantees reported that they experienced some positive organizational change, and 90 percent stated that they were able to maintain the progress they had made in diversifying revenues.

My colleagues at TCC and I decided to dig deeper to understand which factors were most important to success. We examined nine criteria that were used to determine readiness at the beginning of the initiative, such as turnover in leadership and management, financial stability, and prior experience with organizational development efforts. Based on experience, we had a sense of what we would find, and our hunch was confirmed. Only one factor significantly correlated with positive outcomes: leaders' motivation to change. The initiative achieved the greatest impact with nonprofit media groups that were ready for transformation at the outset of our engagement with them.

What did this motivation look like? Those groups that flourished most had at least one leader who embraced adaptation and was able to give voice to the need to overhaul business models. He or she was able to turn this recognition into a bold vision for the organization's future. Just as critical, these leaders had the ability to inspire this mindset in others and mobilize teams of supporters. In other words, a leader who could do what so many have found elusive: take the idea of change and turn it into action.

One group I coached, the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, was one of these success stories. The center's leaders were highly motivated to confront difficult questions, listen to new ideas, and engage in the complicated work of shifting their practices. They devised innovative approaches to both fundraising and earned income. They articulated a compelling vision and worked at better involving their board, building their networks, and engaging in planning. Executive director Andy Hall notes that "the greatest value of the initiative was that it enabled the center to try out new strategies for growth. Ultimately, we wound up changing our business model."

So, how can funders screen for something as hard to pin down as motivation? At TCC Group, we start with listening. During an in-depth conversation, one can begin to detect whether a nonprofit leader wants a check -- or "seal of approval" from a foundation -- as opposed to being genuinely interested in improving organizational effectiveness. For example, does he or she resist the results of an organizational assessment or challenge the validity of the tool or process? Does a leader invite senior staff and board members to join the conversation? Does a leader demonstrate at the outset a basic understanding of how the organization could grow and improve

In our experience, having a competitive process to select grantees, even if it involves a few relatively simple steps, goes a long way toward weeding out groups and leaders who lack motivation. It's helpful to conduct an organizational assessment upfront, talk about the findings with key leaders, and agree on what needs to be addressed. In this way, funders can be more intentional about looking for the mindset that will put an organization on the path to success.

-- Alice Hill

Weekend Link Roundup (June 16-17, 2012)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

In a lengthy post on the Fenton blog, Leslie Lipsick shares six tips for nonprofits looking to turn their data into stories. Her terrific suggestions are summed up nicely in the data pyramid to the right.

On her Non-Profit Marketing Blog, Katya Andresen highlights some of the key findings of the 2012 Millennial Impact Report, a survey of more than 6,500 people between the ages of 20 and 35:

• Millennials give for emotional reasons and like to "give in the moment."
• 75 percent said they made a cash gift in 2011.
• 70 percent said they had fundraised for their favorite causes.
• 67 percent have interacted with nonprofits on Facebook and 92 percent have “liked” a nonprofit’s Facebook page, while only 28 percent had interacted with a nonprofit on Twitter.
• 39 percent of those who gave in 2011 did so in response to an in-person request, while only 7 percent said they gave via text message or through a mobile site.
• More than 40 percent said they plan to volunteer more in 2012.

Impact/Effectiveness

Writing on the Huffington Post, management consultant David La Piana says that "great things are possible when nonprofits can put their own organizational concerns aside and join forces to achieve a big idea." We couldn't agree more.

In a video interview ("Philanthropy Debate: Investing's Most Important Evolution?") on the Euromoney site, the Rockefeller Foundation's Margot Brandenburg argues that what the field needs in terms of infrastructure to support the growth of impact investing is reporting standards for non-financial as well as financial performance, networks of investors and service providers willing to share lessons learned, and continual innovation. You can read the entire interview here and find interviews with other impact investing thought leaders here.

Philanthropy

After posting a brain dump earlier in the week about how data can change philanthropy, Lucy Bernholz follows up on her Philanthropy 2173 blog with a thought-provoking post about half- and full-step practice changes with the potential to reshape the field. Writes Bernholz:

If foundations really valued data as an output, they'd rewrite their grant agreements and contracting language. Creative Commons or other public re-use licensing would be the norm not the exception. Sharing data sets produced by philanthropic dollars (in machines readable form) would be standard practice (as would be the real-time publishing of grants data). Foundations would promote, experiment with, and build communities around their data and their grantees data -- they would structure their grants to produce and release data for others -- designing the grants from the beginning for the multiplying effect of the data products (and the open source tools to make sense of the data)....

Highly recommended (as are the comments that follow the post).

In response to the fourth installment of Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan's six-part series on the slow but steady intrusion of for-profit thinking and concepts into the nonprofit sector, Greater New Orleans Foundation president Albert Ruesga writes that "it's easy to see why we look to the for-profit world for our models.

The work of philanthropy is often framed as a social mini-max problem: We are in situation X facing social problem Y. We are given $Z to (a) solve this problem in the least amount of time, using the fewest resources; or (b) maximize the benefit to low-income communities; or perhaps (c) most fully satisfy the ego-needs of our CEO. This framing leads us to conclude that philanthropy is essentially about spending money to create a product or service. So we run into the arms of the nearest MBA, and while in that tender embrace are bidden to "allocate resources on a dynamic basis," "foster partnerships," "develop innovative approaches to evaluation," and do other things couched in toothless bromides we tearfully accept because we have it on good authority that this splooge will finally fill the Great Gnawing Void in our professional lives....

In a guest post on the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation blog, Nina Stack, president of the Council of New Jersey Grantmakers, speaks out against the tendency of grantmakers to award "project-only funding" -- which usually means "no money for rent, electric bills, audits, or key staff implementing the core mission activities that may not be directly involved with the special project. It also means no support for exploration or innovation." So how much of a nonprofit's budget should be spent on management, general operations, and fundraising? "The truth," writes Stack, "is that it depends on the organization. Regardless of what anyone will tell you, there is no set guide or percentage. There can't possibly be...."

Social Media

Social Media for Social Good author Heather Mansfield lists five new enhancements to the Facebook site that could benefit your nonprofit.

In a guest post on Beth Kanter's blog, Taryn Degnan, manager of social media and online community at CommonSense Media, outlines the "seven ways your organization can put privacy into practice." In tracking, profiling, and marketing to your organization's supporters and Web site visitors, writes Degnan writes, you need to "create an environment of trust around the information [you] collect and be crystal clear" about how that information is being used. Degnan then shares her seven basic privacy principles:

• No surprises. Constituents have every right to know when you're collecting their data. Be specific about your purpose for gathering it, and only keep the data for as long as you will need it to serve that purpose.
• Real choices. The industry standard for privacy should be opt-in -- especially for kids. Promote accountability by giving your constituents and Web site visitors the opportunity to make informed choices, and ask for their active participation in keeping your records up to date.
• Limited data. Collect only what you need. The Web is a "shared public resource to be cared for, not a commodity to be sold." Use non-personally identifying forms whenever possible.
• User control. Do not disclose your constituents' and Web site visitors' personal information without their consent. It's easy to post an off-the-cuff, friendly Facebook post about a donor or volunteer, but make sure it's okay with them first.
• Trusted third parties. When it comes to selecting service providers and partners for projects and collaborations, make sure they are just as committed to privacy as you are.
• Privacy across the board. Does your organization have a mobile app? A blog? A YouTube channel? Make sure your privacy principles apply across all platforms, both on your own hosted sites and elsewhere.
• Security. From restricting wireless access points to encrypting data on your organization’s portable laptops, keeping a secure environment is an integral part of preventing data leakage and upholding your constituents' trust.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!

-- The Editors