PhilanTopic

'2009: The Year In Review' Now Online

As we do every year at this time, the editors of PND look back at some of the important philanthropic stories and personalities of 2009 -- and look ahead to the start of a new year and decade certain to bring their share of challenges, surprises, and opportunities.

Enjoy. And Happy New Year!

2009: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

• Hard-Pressed Nonprofits Wait, Hope for Recovery
• Global Health, Healthcare Reform Share Spotlight
• Shrunken Endowments, Infusion of Federal Funds Dominate Education Agenda
• Charity Comes to the Social Media Ball
• Philanthropy and the Future of Journalism
• White House Pledges Support for Social Innovation, Public-Private Partnerships
• Noteworthy Gifts
• People in the News
• 2010: Preview of the Year Ahead

Goldman's Image Make-Over?

In the clip below, Melissa Berman, president and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, discusses Goldman Sachs' new $500 million initiative to help small businesses with Bloomberg TV's Erik Schatzker and Deirdre Bolton. (Disclosure: Berman serves on the board of the Foundation Center, which publishes Philanthropy News Digest and this blog.)

What do you think? Is the Goldman initiative a sincere effort to help right the U.S. economy? A cynical ploy to deflect attention from the $20 billion in bonuses that Goldman will be paying out in a few weeks? Or something in between?

-- Mitch Nauffts

Readings (and Other Stuff) - Nov. 12, 2009

Here's what we're reading today:

• Times' special section on Giving
  • New Fame for the Everyday Donor (Stephanie Strom)
  • Billionaires Learn Giving Is Only a Start (Matthew Bishop and Michael Green)
  • Outreach in the Age of Pullback (Rachel L. Swarns)
  • As Foundations Close, Anxiety for Charities (David Cay Johnston)
  • Charity Bankruptcy Leaves Many Donors in Distress (Deborah L. Jacobs)
  • Leaving a Bank for a Foundation Proved Rewarding (Geraldine Fabrikant)
  • From an Idea by Students, a Million-Dollar Charity (Gretchen Morgenson)
  • The Chain Store as Patron of the Arts (Robin Pogrebin)
  • Raising Real Money in a Virtual World (Peter Wayner)
  • Dollars That Turn Into Bees, and Other Gifts Given Twice (Jennifer Saranow Schultz)
  • Clicking for a Cause (Brad Stone)

• Lucy Bernholz: New York Times Giving Section (Philanthropy 2173)
• Brian Reich: Why Today's NYTimes Giving Section Isn't Good Enough (Thinking About Media)
• Video: Philanthropist Eli Broad on Why 'Venture Philanthropy' Works (WSJ's Financial Adviser blog)
• Felix Salmon: The Goldman Sachs Foundation's Torrid 2008
• Beth Kanter: A Tale of Two Nonprofit and Social Media Adoption Surveys (Beth's Blog)
• Evolution, as Traced by the Lens (NYT)
• It's the End of the Phone as We Know It (Next Billion)

What are you reading?

Readings (and Other Stuff) -- Nov. 9, 2009

Here's what we're reading:

• Wall Street Journal’s 2009 Philanthropy Report
  • What's Wrong With Charitable Giving -- and How to Fix It(Pablo Eisenberg)
  • Finding the Silk Purse (Sarah E. Needleman)
  • Expanding Your Horizons (Anjali Cordeiro)
  • Time to Convert? (Jilian Mincer)
  • Profiles in Giving (Melissa Korn)
  • Is It Public, or Is It Private? (Shelly Banjo)
  • Consider It an Investment (Shelly Banjo)
  • Tough Times, New Tactics (Shelly Banjo)
• Stephanie Strom: Confusion on Where Money Lent via Kiva Goes (NYT)
• Tim Ogden and Laura Starita: Social Networking and Mid-Size Nonprofits: What’s the Use?
• The Urbanophile: Detroit: Urban Laboratory and the New American Frontier (via New Geography)
• The Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later (NYT)

How about you?

How to Fix Charitable Giving?

The Wall Street Journal is out with its year-end philanthropy package, and long-time observer/critic of the sector Pablo Eisenberg steals the show with a section-heading article entitled "What's Wrong With Charitable Giving and How to Fix It?"

Those who know Eisenberg or follow him in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (where he's had a column for the past seventeen years) will recognize his concerns: "Much of current philanthropic giving, by foundations and individuals, neither meets the needs of...charitable organizations nor addresses some of our most urgent public needs." Foundations are "too bureaucratic, inflexible and cautious, and too focused on short-term objectives." Grantmaking processes and procedures "are more tailored to the needs of foundations and their trustees than to the requirements of nonprofits." And the depressed economy is making matters much, much worse.

To address these problems, Eisenberg offers nine recommendations that "would go a long way toward making philanthropy do what we all claim we want it to do":

1. Increase the payout rate. Currently set at 5 percent of foundation net assets (calculated on a rolling mutliyear basis) for grants and administrative expenses. Eisenberg would like to see it raised to 6 percent and limited to grants, which he says would add $10 billion to the roughly $40 billion awarded in grants by foundations annually.

2. Increase general operating support. Foundations allocate roughly 20 percent of their grant dollars to general operating (a/k/a unrestricted) support; Eiesenberg would like to see foundations up that to 50 percent.

3. Increase multiyear funding. Most foundations award grants on an annual basis, renewable for a year or two. But, says Eisenberg, excellent organizations pursuing long-term goals require financial commitments of five, ten, even twenty years.

4. Award grants on a rolling basis. Limiting grant decisions to biannual or quarterly board meetings serves trustees' interests first and foremost, says Eisenberg, not grantees'.

5. Allocate more funds to the truly needy. Most individual and institutional giving is directed to established charities and tax-exempt institutions in higher education, health, and the arts, while only "a small slice goes to those who require the greatest assistance." We can do better, says Eisenberg.

6. Reach out to local groups and underserved regions. Large parts of the country (e.g., the Mississippi Delta, rural areas) "are underserved by philanthropy." There are ways to remedy this, and Eisenberg mentions a few in his piece.

7. Simplify application and reporting procedures. Time is money, says Eisenberg, and time spent filling out "lengthy, exhaustive proposals with great detail" is money not spent on programs and advocacy.

8. Improve public accountability. Government doesn't have the resources to do the job and the collapse of the daily newspaper model means that soon no one will be around to hold nonprofits and foundations accountable. One answer, says Eisenberg, is to convert failing or at-risk newspapers into nonprofits. (Don't hold your breath, he adds.)

9. Fund watchdog groups. "Foundations," says Eisenberg, "are reluctant to fund activities that are controversial, generate inordinate publicity and create too much criticism" -- in other words, the very things that are the hallmark of a "healthy and vibrant democracy." If the public sector can't, or won't, fund them, philanthropy must.

As I say, a classic Pablo piece chockful of good ideas (general operating and multiyear support, more of a focus on underserved regions), a few controversial ideas (payout, diversity benchmarks), and a non-starter or two (foundation subsidies for newspapers).

But here's the question that has been nagging me all afternoon. Do his recommendations really address the problems of nonprofits and charitable giving in 2009? Or are they more of a backward-looking prescription for the problems of a sector that, like so many other industries, is in the midst of a fundamental restructuring and in five years, ten at the most, won't look anything like it does today?

Where are the recommendations related to what LaPiana and Associates, in a new report (30 pages, PDF), argue will be the trends that shape the nonprofit sector of the future (generational and other demographic shifts, the rise of social media and other new technologies, the growing importance of networks, the changing nature of volunteerism and civic engagement, and the blurring of sectoral boundaries)?

And is his critique too one-sided in its focus on the shortcomings of funders? In other words, isn't this crisis an opportunity for nonprofits willing and able to surf the five key trends outlined in LaPiana's report? Or are they forever fated to rely on the kindness of deep-pocketed strangers?

Use the comments section to share your thoughts.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Weekend Link Roundup (November 7 - 8, 2009)

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

Corporate Philanthropy

On the Reimagining CSR blog, Jessica Stannard-Friel shares examples of "companies identifying CSR activities that are relatively cheap for them to carry out, but relatively high value for the community at large."

Economy

On Friday, the National Bureau of Labor announced that the unemployment rate had jumped four-tenths of a percent, to 10.2 percent -- the highest level in twenty-six years. On the Kaufmann Foundation's Growthology blog, a downbeat Tim Kane puts the number into sobering perspective.

Fundraising

In her new book, Reliable Fundraising in Unreliable Times: What Good Causes Need to Know to Survive and Thrive, Kim Klein suggests that fundraisers need to expand their definition of "donor" to include "someone who gives time, shares ideas about how your organization can succeed, says nice things about the work you do, opens doors for you, [and] expresses gratitude for the services you provide." In addition to sharing other tips from Klein, Joanne Fritz, on About.com's Charitable Orgs blog, offers this advice:

Look for people who have a lot of relationships, who offer to help in all sorts of ways, and who are grateful for your services. Then get in contact with them and stay in contact. Say thank you frequently for whatever gifts they provide, and nurture those relationships....

Using language like "we haven't heard from you" or "we want you back," says John Thompson on the Donor Power Blog, is a sure way to weaken rather than strengthen your donor relationships.

Social networking site MySpace has announced that it is dropping the online fundraising application Causes "due to the lack of activity." Amy Sample Ward argues that this will negatively impact nonprofits on MySpace and their "communities of supporters," while Marshall Kirkpatrick at ReadWriteWeb suggests that it might not matter at all.

Impact/Effectiveness

On the WiserEarth blog, Diane Scearce, a consultant at the Monitor Institute, offers a few things to keep in mind when evaluating network effectiveness in terms of social impact.

Journalism/Media

In a two-parter at the Cohen Report, Rick Cohen looks at the looks at the emergence of online nonprofit news and investigative journalism venues and speculates about whether the Newspaper Revitalization Act introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) can save the industry.

Leadership

Live blogging from Independent Sector’s annual conference in Detroit, Rosetta Thurman shares some questions for emerging sector leaders posed by panelists David Simms, managing partner at the Bridgespan Group, and Michael Watson, senior vice president at Girl Scouts of the USA .

And in a different post, Thurman recaps the breakfast plenary session featuring Jeff Raikes, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Philanthropy

"Got a story about how many times you were asked to give in one shopping trip?" If so, Lucy Bernholz wants to know. Click here to share the "embedded giving" story from 2009 "that made you scratch your head."

Speaking of embedded giving, Philanthropy Action editor-in-chief Tim Ogden says the real problem with the approach is the "near complete lack of transparency (who gets the funds? when? how much?) in the industry."

Guest blogging on Tactical Philanthropy, Charles Bronfman and Jeffrey Solomon, chairman and president, respectively, of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies and co-authors of The Art of Giving: Where the Soul Meets a Business Plan, argue that understanding WHY you give is just as important as figuring out how and where to give. Their post has generated a lively comments thread (thirty-plus and counting), and visitors to the blog can also read an extended excerpt from the book.

Riffing on that conversation, Nathaniel Whittemore at the Social Entrepreneurship blog asks, "Is there such a thing as selfless giving?" Whittemore doesn't think so but does believe that "giving can be much more self-aware -- and in the process, much more fulfilling, sustainable, and effective."

Social Media

Nonprofit marketing guru Nancy Schwartz shares three tips for managing your nonprofit's reputation on social networking sites that she picked up at the recent Communications Network conference in New York City:

• Use what you hear: 1) To better serve your networks by knowing what they're saying to others and to you; 2) to respond to and/or engage critics; 3) to stay abreast of the latest developments in your area of work.
• Overcome objections that listening is unnecessary: Compile and share online conversations related to critical keywords and themes over a week or a month. Provide some concrete examples of how not listening to or participating in those conversations meant that others spoke for (and defined) your organization.
• Use the best free listening tools: 1) Google Alerts and RSS feeds for keywords (org name and URL, issues, leadership names, competitive/colleague org names); and 2) Twitter search/hashtags for real-time tracking.

Schwartz also recommends following Amy Sample Ward's advice about creating a one-stop listening dashboard.

Technology

"Just as we are phasing out snail mail a few decades after email first became popular," writes Kristin Ivie in an interesting post on the Case Foundation's Social Citizens blog, so may "many offline opportunities eventually be phased out as well."

In yet another information-packed post, Beth Kanter reminisces about the early days of the World Wide Web and offers her take on how nonprofits can use Twitter's new "Lists" feature to filter the growing flood of information that comes to us courtesy of the Internet.

Transparency

Building on a recent blog post by Lucy Bernholz, Allison Fine takes a closer look at copyright expert Lawrence Lessig's claim in a recent issue of The New Republic ("Against Transparency") that "there is such a thing as too much transparency in government." While Fine doesn't buy Lessig's argument, she does agree with Bernholz that "requiring too much transparency of foundations may drive them into the dark, back rooms...of donor advised funds." Writes Fine:

Even with their enormous tax breaks, foundations are private entities that more than any other kind of institution have very little incentive to make their operations and programs more open and transparent except out of a noble assumption that by doing so they will be more effective....

Fine goes on to suggest that nonprofits, which are not public or as "private as foundations," should ask themselves the following questions as they try to strike the right balance between transparency and confidentiality:

• Will sharing this information advance our mission?
• How can others build on our content and make it better?
• Will revealing this information improve morale and make staff feel better informed and able to make decisions on their own?
• Will sharing this information better connect us to our network and help us build the relationships that we need to be successful?

Last but not least, on the Social Actions blog, Christine Egger rounds up a number of thought-provoking conversations on the topic of transparency and data standards in the sector.

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

-- Regina Mahone

Sunk Costs and the Need for Social Innovation

(Farnaz Golshani is director of programs and services at the San Francisco-based Tides Center. This is her first post for PhilanTopic.)

I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of "sunk costs." In economics and business decision-making, sunk costs are unrecoverable past expenditures that, under normal circumstances, should not be taken into account when determining whether to continue or abandon a project, effort, or initiative because costs that are already "sunk" cannot be recovered.

Inevitably, thinking about sunk costs reminds me of my "Saab stories." I purchased a used Saab for $15,000 a number of years ago and then spent more than $5,000 on repairs for it over the next few years -- not to mention the considerable time I spent at the repair shop and the stress I experienced each time the "check engine" light would blink on. But I kept sinking dollars into that Saab, if only to justify all the money I had already "invested" in it.

Organizations and bureaucracies often behave in a similar fashion. Rather than innovate, they choose to stay the course and keep sinking money into existing projects and initiatives simply to justify their previous investments. Indeed, government does this all the time. Two glaring examples -- failing workforce development systems and inadequate treatment of veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) -- are particularly noteworthy, given that we are fighting two wars and the unemployment rate is the highest it has been in decades.

On the workforce development front, the federal government continues to fund WorkSource Centers through the Workforce Investment Act (WIA). In 2009, the Department of Labor had a budget of $53 billion, a good part of which funded WorkSource Center "One-stops," even though the average WorkSource Center only has a 20 to 40 percent success rate.

In contrast, truly innovative workforce development organizations such as Chrysalis, the Delancey Street Foundation, and Rubicon have achieved phenomenal outcomes with the "hardest to employ" -- the homeless and individuals with multiple felonies. Even in this challenging economy, Chrysalis, a workforce development organization based in L.A.'s Skid Row area, helps more than 80 percent of its homeless clients secure jobs each year using transitional employment opportunities.

Sadly, the innovative workforce development models pioneered by these organizations receive only a pittance from DOL, forcing them to rely on variable and much more modest revenues donated by individuals, corporations, and foundations. Adding insult to injury, stimulus funds now going through DOL are simply getting dumped -- sunk -- into existing WIA programs and contractors/agencies already in place. This precludes workforce development programs lacking WIA contracts from receiving stimulus funds, even if those programs have been proven to be more effective.

It also pains me to see the government sinking funds into ineffective treatment for veterans rather than investing in proven models with better track records. The federally funded Veterans Affairs (VA) system offers a largely ineffective thirty-day Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) support program that leaves most of the young men and women who complete it with persistently high levels of anxiety and depression and often no recourse other than to turn to drugs, alcohol, violence, homelessness, or even suicide.

There are existing programs that actually help veterans with PTSD develop the coping skills they need to face their anxieties and reintegration challenges. One such program is the Pathway Home for Returning Veterans, an LLC of Tides. Most veterans entering Pathway are referred by other VA hospitals because their PTSD or traumatic brain injuries were so severe that they had attempted suicide or were still suffering from seizures. Through its holistic 90- to 120-day program, Pathway has helped veterans with PTSD overcome their fears, secure jobs, and live healthy lives with their families. Indeed, its graduates consistently attest that the program saved their lives, armed them with the coping mechanisms to deal with anxiety, and even helped their families to better understand their PTSD.

Pathway's successes could not have happened in the VA -- they are the result of innovative partnerships involving nonprofits, the state of California, and donors who are committed to doing right by those who put their lives on the line for our country. Yes, a 90– to 120-day program is more expensive, but the long-term cost of PTSD is far greater when you factor in the social costs of homelessness, violence, long-term medical issues, drug problems, and so many other problems plaguing our veterans.

In his first months in office, President Obama said it was time for the government to invest in social innovation. Most of us in the social sector were delighted to see our efforts and good work finally get some recognition -- even if it meant we had to ignore the fact that the federal government was willing to sink $85 billion into AIG to keep the giant insurer afloat or spend $13.4 billion on rescuing General Motors but was only willing to invest $30 million in social innovation.

That was then. The "official" unemployment rate in the U.S. is now over 10 percent. We continue to put the lives of brave young men and women on the line in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's time for the public, private, nonprofit, and philanthropic sectors -- as well as individuals -- to invest in best practices and proven models of successful social innovation and to stop sinking money into organizations and efforts that no longer work, or never did.

Even I managed to learn that lesson. After four years of waiting in dealerships for more bad news, I finally bought a new car.

-- Farnaz Golshani

Foundations' Year-End Outlook for Giving

Our Research colleagues here at the Foundation Center have issued a new advisory (5 pages, PDF) that looks at how foundation thinking has evolved since the center conducted its last giving forecast survey in January.

Based on a follow-up survey of leading funders conducted in September, the advisory suggests that foundation giving will decline by more than 10 percent this year -- toward the middle of the 8 to 13 percent range estimated by that initial survey -- and that overall foundation giving will decline further in 2010. Indeed, consistent with findings from the January survey, a larger share of respondents expect their giving to be lower next year (26 percent) than higher (17 percent).

Other findings from the advisory:

• More than two-thirds of respondents have reduced their operating expenses in order to shore up their giving or for other purposes, with cuts to staff travel budgets and conference attendance the most common action in the cost-cutting area, followed by freezing or reducing staff salaries, reducing staff training and professional development opportunities, reducing/cutting institutional memberships, reducing the number of publications produced, cutting staff and the use of consultants, and reducing staff benefits.
  
  
• Grantmakers expect the field of philanthropy to become more strategic as a result of the economic crisis, with 78 percent of respondents agreeing with that statement, 7 percent disagreeing, and 15 percent opting for "no opinion."
  
  
• The majority of funders believe that the nonprofit community in general was not sufficiently prepared to weather a significant economic downturn, but most (though not all) expect the sector to emerge stronger from the crisis. Still, skepticism that anything good will come of the crisis abounds, with one funder saying that "in a weak sector like the not-for-profit sector, crisis creates more weaknesses rather than increased strength," and another remarking that nonprofits "will lose good people with years of experience and will not be able to replace them."

What do you think? Will 2010 be an annus horribilis for nonprofits and the nonprofit sector? Will organizations, both good ones and those that are underperforming, fail in unacceptable numbers? Or will most find a way to muddle through and emerge stronger as a result? And what will be the most important quality or compentency for nonprofits in the new Reset Economy?

Use the comment section to share you thoughts....

-- Mitch Nauffts

Weekend Link Roundup (October 24 - 25, 2009)

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

Arts and Culture

Social media guru Beth Kanter shares this nugget with arts organizations on her blog: "A successful social media strategy with arts audiences is more like an audience development or education program, not a straight ticket sales strategy."

Corporate Philanthropy

"While most U.S. companies are not making changes in their corporate citizenship practices...38 percent of those that are...have reduced their charitable giving, 27 percent have increased layoffs, and 19 percent have trimmed research and development for sustainable products," writes Todd Cohen, citing a recent study, on his Inside Philanthropy blog. And with "companies becoming more strategic in their giving," Cohen adds, nonprofits

should be working to team up with companies in ways that will generate not only the contribution of corporate dollars but also ongoing relationships that will build a pipeline of other resources that include in-kind support, employee volunteers and expertise, and corporate sponsorships and connections....

Social media site Twitter has announced a new partnership with Crushpad, a San Francisco company that tries to connect city dwellers with the resources and tools to make great wine. Through the Fledgling Initiative, Crushpad will help people "make awesome wine for the benefit of Room to Read," a nonprofit organization that works to increase the literacy of children worldwide. According to the ServiceNation blog, it's an interesting initiative "because it doesn't take the usual global approach to raising money....Instead, it...taps the passion of a small subset of potential donors, in this case wine lovers...."

To learn more, watch this video featuring Twitter co-founder Biz Stone; John Wood, the founder of Room to Read; and Crushpad founder Michael Brill:

Governance

Is the nonprofit governance structure flawed? Can board structures be eliminated altogether? Nonprofit Board Crisis blogger Mike Burns argues that the current system is flawed. And because "the IRS has not been willing to accept another construct," says Burns, only a new business structure, like the L3C, or low-profit limited liability company, may offer a solution to the problem.

Leadership

Rosetta Thurman offers this list of eleven tips for do-it-yourself nonprofit professional development:

1. Find your own mentors
2. Remember you can learn a lot from your peers
3. Don't underestimate the power of reflection
4. Join a board of directors
5. Communicate your leadership involvement with your employer
6. Be proud of the training you receive from your local YNPN chapter
7. Become an expert
8. Invite yourself to everything
9. Do a really good job in the position you're in right now
10. Ask a lot of questions
11. Find your true passion

Philanthropy

On his Tactical Philanthropy blog, Sean Stannard-Stockton challenges a commenter's claim that a previous post of his advanced the idea that social investors know better than nonprofits how to run nonprofit programs. What do you think? Leave a comment below.

Poverty Alleviation

On the White Courtesy Telephone blog, Albert Ruesga, president and CEO of the Greater New Orleans Foundation, shares his thoughts on class mobility and what it has been like to spend his adult life working for social justice after growing up poor. His conclusion?

I wish there were more people in the nonprofit and foundation sectors who would speak out about their experiences of having grown up in poverty. It would be a good tonic. I and others might be more likely to discard some of our questionable experiments in social engineering. If I were able to see the poor neither as super-beings nor as eternal victims, I might gain a truer picture of how they sometimes participate in perpetuating their own misery. I might spend less time feeding my sentimentalism and my self-righteousness, and more time feeding the hungry.

The next step for us is even harder. It’s to admit that even with our privilege and our education, in spite of all the learned men and women at our beck and call, we typically haven’t the slightest clue about how to change a system that not only keeps people in poverty but continues to create them in prodigious numbers....

Social Entrepreneurship

"Will the Social Innovation Fund fund social innovation?" asks Nonprofit Quarterly contributor Rick Cohen in a new essay commissioned by the Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal. Among other things, Cohen raises seven areas of concerns about the fund. Here are a few:

• Will it stay true to its commitment to find "hidden jewels" in the nonprofit sector as opposed to falling prey to focusing on nonprofits that have the better public relations, substantial research "proving" their innovations, and resources with which to match the SIF and foundation funds they will be receiving;
• Given that the fund is administered by the federal agency whose primary mission is to promote service and volunteerism, will it be able to avoid the reflexive tendency to over-focus on organizations that emphasize volunteers (or stipended volunteers);
• Will it remain cognizant of the limitations of foundations as intermediaries for identifying nonprofit innovations; and
• Will it be able to support and sustain innovative nonprofit organizations in light of the severe financial constraints that are affecting most nonprofits during this economic downturn.

Social Media

Heather Mansfield has compiled a list of 29 nonprofit bloggers to follow on Twitter.

#BeatCancer, a charitable campaign launched at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo, set a Guinness World Record last week for generating the most social media messages in a 24-hour period -- and in the process raised $70,000 from sponsors eBay/PayPal and MillerCoors Brewing Company, which donated a penny for each tweet, status update, or blog post that included the "#breastcancer" hash tag. (H/t: AFP blog)

A recent Financial Times article about MySpace "conceding defeat" in its competition with Facebook to become the largest online social network struck a chord with Allison Fine. Indeed, says Fine, nonprofits can learn a valuable lesson from MySpace, which "has changed its frame from competing with Facebook to focusing in what it does best." The lesson for nonprofits? Organizations that want "to be viable and effective in the digital age" should not wait to take the social media plunge.

Women

Last but not least, the World Affairs Council has posted an audio recording of a conversation between its CEO Jane Wales and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, co-author (with his wife, Sheryl WuDunn) of Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity For Women Worldwide.

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

-- Regina Mahone

Weekend Link Roundup (October 10 - 11, 2009)

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

Corporate Philanthropy

Blogging at BlackGivesBack, Tracey Webb shares a recent item about the newly renovated Betsy Hotel answering President Obama's call to service by appointing Dr. Deborah Briggs as its first vice president for philanthropy. The hotel's "community-conscious" efforts will include backing education, medical research, nonprofit sustainability, the arts, culture, and African Relief initiatives. And let's not forget: next month the Betsy will host the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.

Blogging at Reimagining CSR, Jessica Stannard-Friel spotlights the Boston College Center on Corporate Citizenship's report State of Corporate Citizenship 2009: Weathering the Storm. After sharing some of key findings from the report, Stannard-Friel suggests that the "recession might be a good thing for the field of CSR," in that "as companies are faced with both increased social needs and decreased resources...[one can hope] they will learn to build programs that are truly win-win."

Fundraising

Jeff Brooks, newly minted creative director at TrueSense Marketing, has moved his fundraising how-tos and marketing advice to a new domain: Future Fundraising Now. (H/t: Give and Take)

Leadership

In the latest installment of her series celebrating Hispanic leaders in the nonprofit sector, Rosetta Thurman interviews Danielle Reyes, program officer at the Eugene & Agnes Meyer Foundation.

Nonprofit Management

On her Nonprofit Leadership 601 blog, Heather Carpenter shares her takeaways from the recent Nonprofit HR Conference on the future of recruitment and hiring in the sector.

Philanthropy

Lucy Bernholz kicked off a fascinating crowdsourcing exercise on her Philanthropy 2173 blog last week by posting a map of the landscape of donors and do-ers and then inviting readers to submit comments and/or visual representations of their own. The results -- here, here, and here -- are really interesting. Be sure to check them out.

Gift Hub blogger Phil Cubeta compares the gift economy -- "the kindness done years ago that can be called upon in one's own hour of need" -- to the strategic grantmaking economy and concludes that "we need more of the true gift economy if we are to recover our humanity."

On the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy Front and Center–Atlanta blog, Stephen Sherman takes a closer look at the new Bridgespan Group study Nonprofits in America: Overcoming the Resource Gap, and shares strategies and recommendations from the report on how to help rural nonprofits succeed.

Are you thinking about participating in the second iteration of America's Giving Challenge, a month-long competition sponsored by the Case Foundation, in partnership with Causes on Facebook and PARADE Publications, designed to raise awareness of and increase interest in online giving? Before jumping in, read Katya Andresen's thoughtful list of reasons why you should and how to get involved.

Social Entrepreneurship

Twitter has added a number of social entrepreneurs to its list of suggested users -- and that, says Sean Stannard-Stockton on the Tactical Philanthropy blog, has nudged "evolving social capital markets into the mainstream." Peter Panepento, the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Web editor, wants to know which "tweeps" from the nonprofit world are missing from the list.

Being included in the “suggested users” list is "more valuable...than if [Twitter] had donated...$1,000,000 [to these social innovators]," says Nathaniel Whittemore on the Social Entrepreneurship blog. Do you agree? And how much would you pay to get your name on Twitter's suggested user list?

Science/Technology

In preparation for the 2009 NMC Symposium for the Future, Beth Kanter has been asked to gaze into her crystal ball and answer these questions:

• What role will social media play in the future for the nonprofit social change sector?
• What do nonprofits need to do to thrive?
• Is this a shiny future or a dire future?
• What will be different about nonprofits in the future?

Conversations about the future of the sector, social change, and technology are taking place all over the Internet, and Kanter pulls a number of them together. Her conclusions?

• To date, nonprofits have failed to maximize the potential of technology as a powerful force to effect transformational social change, to improve people's lives, and to mobilize their collective power. How, she then asks, can we assist organizations in moving from using technology to increase their internal productivity to using it to fuel social change?
• The transformative power of technology has been successfully leveraged in the business community and has produced "game changing" models such as eBay and Google. How can we support innovation, invention, and adoption of transformative technology for the public good?
• The barriers preventing the nonprofit community from harnessing the power of technology include lack of understanding and know-how, privacy concerns, institutional resistance, and real or perceived start-up costs. How can we overcome these, and other, barriers to widespread technology adoption?

What does your crystal ball say about the future of the sector, social change, and technology? Share your comments with Kanter and her readers here. Or leave them below....

Social Media

At the Have Fun Do Good blog, Britt Bravo lists ten questions your organization should ask as it jumps into the world of social media:

1. What is the goal we're trying to achieve by using social media?
2. Who is my audience?
3. What are people already saying about our cause or organization?
4. How much time do we have to spend on social media?
5. How much money do we have to spend on social media?
6. What skills do we have?
7. What social media tool(s) should we use?
8. How will we measure success?
9. What is our growth plan and/or exit strategy?
10. How can we have fun using social media?

As a recent article in the New York Times explains, the Federal Trade Commission has announced it will release a new set of regulations, effective December 1, that would require bloggers who review products to disclose any conflicts of interest they may have, "including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers...." On his Buzz Machine blog, Jeff Jarvis wonders whether the FTC has taken things too far. Writes Jarvis:

There are so many bad assumptions inherent in the FTC's rules:

First, Pay Per Post et al, as I realized late to the game, are not aimed at fooling consumers. Who would read the boring, sycophantic drivel its people write? No, they are aimed at fooling Google and its algorithms. It's human spam. And it's Google's job to regulate that.

Second, the FTC assumes -– as media people do -– that the Internet is a medium. It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking. So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media -- as they explicitly do -- is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed....

Insanity and inanity. And danger.

Volunteerism

Last but not least, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has launched the VolunTV Challenge, a competition designed to engage readers in creating story lines for their favorite TV shows that highlight real-life volunteers and volunteerism. A grand-prize and two silver-prize winners will receive a donation in their name to a charity of their choosing. Entries must be submitted by October 26. For more information, visit the VolunTV challenge site. (H/t: Allison Fine)

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

-- Regina Mahone

2009 CGI: Where Did Our Love Go?

Can't put my finger on it, but the mood at this year's Clinton Global Initiative is, well...different. I'm not saying the event has jumped the shark. But something -- okay, a lot -- has changed over the last year. In no particular order, here's a short list:

• The Democratic Party has a new star, and his name is not Clinton.
• The rich donors and donor countries that were supposed to save the world almost drove it off a cliff (and still might). The idea that nonprofits and NGOs have much to learn from Wall Street and Harvard MBAs has been opened to question, if not ridicule. People don't want to hear the CEOs of Goldman Sachs and ExxonMobil, both of which pulled in record profits last year during the worst economic crisis since the 1930s, talk about leverage or incremental approaches; they want to hear what resource-rich organizations are doing to address and fix problems now.
• The financial crisis has drawn the curtain on the complex, interdependent systems that drive the global economy, causing many people to feel helpless and/or disempowered. Who can say that he or she is master of his or her own destiny anymore?
• In the wake of the financial crisis, previously flush-feeling donors and foundations have cut back on funding, leaving many to anxiously wonder what philanthropy in the Reset Economy is going to look like.
• The explosion of social networking and social media tools -- and the collapse of traditional media business models -- has put lots of people out of work and served as a reminder to the rest of us (as if we needed one) that all bets are off, there are no guarantees, and the only constant at this hinge moment in history is change itself.
• The suffocating security in advance of President Obama's appearance at the opening plenary on Monday (and, for that matter, ever since) is a sobering reminder that extremism, foreign-bred as well as homegrown, is alive and well.

Or maybe it's just because since Sunday I've been battling what I hope is only a cold.

So as not to be a complete drag, I'll leave you with this thought from Alan Cohen, the popular speaker and best-selling author:

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power....

I hope so.

-- Mitch Nauffts

2009 CGI: Clinton Global Citizen Award Winners

Late this afternoon, the folks at CGI announced the third annual Clinton Global Citizen Awards. The award recognizes remarkable individuals for their leadership in improving the lives of people around the globe.

This year's honorees are:

Paul Kagame, President, Republic of Rwanda
Leadership in Public Service

Asha Hagi Elmi Amin, Chairperson, Save Somali Women and Children
Leadership in Civil Society

Peter Bakker, Chief Executive Officer, TNT
Leadership in the Corporate Sector

Dr. Rola Dashti, Parliament Member, State of Kuwait
Leadership in Public Service

Ruchira Gupta, President, Apne Aap Women Worldwide
Leadership in Civil Society

Quincy Jones, Founder, Quincy Jones Foundation
Leadership in Philanthropy

For more information about the winners, click here.

-- Mitch Nauffts

2009 CGI: Commitments

If you're familiar with the Clinton Global Initiative, you know that Commitments to Action are the foundation on which much of its good work is built. The CGI site describes them as "new, specific, and measurable initiatives undertaken by CGI members. Varying in size and duration, commitments may focus on diverse concerns, regions, and types of activities."

The tradition at the annual CGI meeting is for President Clinton (or a leader of one of the conference tracks) to preface each plenary and the special sessions with an announcement of new commitments. A day into this year's meeting, new commitments include:

• A commitment of $30 million from the Omidyar Network to help entrepreneurs in sub-Saharan Africa and India;
• A $2 million commitment from Peter and Jennifer Buffett's NoVo Foundation to three organizations -- the International Rescue Committee, V-Day, and Women for Women International -- aimed at ending violence against girls and women in the Democratic Republic of Congo;
• A second commitment from NoVo to alleviate poverty and create sustainable livelihoods for women in Afghanistan, Bosnia and Herzegovnia, the DRC, Iraq, Kosovo, Nigeria, Rwanda, and Sudan;
• A commitment by ExxonMobil, Ashoka's Changemakers, and the International Center for Research (ICRW) to help women in developing countries fulfill their economic potential through technology and innovation;
• A three-year commitment from Plan USA to provide vocational skills and media training to no fewer than 140 adolescent girls in West Africa.

More will be announced over the next two days.

But after the applause has faded, here are a couple of questions we need to ask: How many of these commitments are completed? (According to the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Ian Wilhelm, the Clinton folks say one-quarter of the 1,400 commitments announced since 2005, the first year of CGI, have been completed.) And, perhaps more importantly, how many have clear and measurable goals attached to them that allow others to evaluate whether they succeeded in making an impact and changing lives.

The Clinton folks are sensitive to this issue and have taken steps to make the whole commitment process more transparent. (There's a dedicated section on the CGI site where you can search/browse previous commitments.)

And, of course, many commitment partners have embraced and are working on their own to be more transparent and accountable for results. For example, Management Sciences for Health (MSH), an international nonprofit that works to help leaders, health managers, and communities in developing nations build stronger health systems, circulated a press release on the first day of this year's event that details results from the first year of its four-year, $12.5 million commitment to introduce and expand performance-based financing (PBF) for millions of people in Rwanda and Haiti.

These are modest but important steps in the right direction, and we look forward to reporting on more such efforts over the coming days, weeks, and months.

Now we'd like to hear from you. What advice would you give the folks at CGI about evaluation and outcomes measurement? And what do you think they could or should do to infuse more accountability for results into the commitments mechanism? Use the comments section below...

-- Mitch Nauffts

2009 CGI Social Media Package

A few hours in and it's already evident this isn't your father's CGI. Watch live video feeds of plenaries and special sessions, tweet or submit questions via Twitter, share on Facebook -- all in one convenient location. Cool.

More to come.

-- Mitch Nauffts

Still Hurting

Financial armageddon has been averted. A second Great Depression is off the table and, thanks to the bold actions of central bankers and governments around the globe, the "Great Recession" is on its way to becoming an unpleasant memory. Or so policy makers and the financial press would have us believe.

Not surprisingly, the reality for folks on Nonprofit Street is a little different, as two new snapshots of economic conditions in the Midwest make clear.

Based on a survey of nearly four hundred nonprofits in the Milwaukee metro area, the 13th Annual Report Card on Charitable Giving from the Greater Milwaukee Foundation found that the economic downturn has caused a drop in giving, with 63 percent of the respondents saying the state of philanthropy in the region is getting worse. And of organizations providing direct services to clients, 62 percent said that demand for assistance is increasing.

Other findings from the report:

• More than 80 percent of organizations have cut costs due to budget constraints, and one in four has laid off staff;
• Only one in four organizations describe themselves as financially healthy and not currently vulnerable;
• Over half of the organizations surveyed have six months or less operating reserve, while 31 percent say they are running an operating deficit in the current fiscal year;
• Half the nonprofits responding to the survey have considered collaborating with another nonprofit within the past year, nearly one in three has explored merging with another nonprofit, and five have considered closing.

The news isn't much better in Chicagloand, where the most recent installment of Metro Chicago Vital Signs, a monthly report from the Chicago Community Trust, found continued distress in the metro area's economic health. To wit:

• The region’s unemployment rate remains above the state and national averages at 10.5 percent;
• While remaining steady in the second quarter, layoffs rose sharply in July to 25,119 -- well above the 7,674 at the same time last year;
• Food security continues to be a problem for many in the region, with the number of households relying on food stamps reaching record highs, at more than 470,000, and the number of individuals relying on food pantries climbing back above 400,000;
• Calls for homelessness prevention aid remained steady in August, at over 5,400;
• A drop in foreclosures around the region in the second quarter, which many attribute to the Illinois Homeowner Protection act signed into law in April, may be short lived, with preliminary data for the third quarter revealing a sharp increase in foreclosures after the 90-day period in which homeowners are allowed extra time to deal with possible eviction.

As New York Times columnist Bob Herbert has been pointing out for months now, the country is in the midst of an employment crisis. Indeed, in the current issue of TIME magazine, Joshua Cooper Ramo reports that the number of long-term unemployed (more than twenty-seven weeks) in August was the highest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the number in 1948, while the total number of nonfarm payroll jobs today -- roughly 133 million -- is about the same as it was in 1999.

"That is why," writes Ramo, "the problem of how America works needs to become the focus of an urgent national debate. The jobs crisis," he adds

offers an opportunity to think in profound ways about how and why we work, about what makes employment satisfying, about the jobs Americans can and should do best. But the ideas Washington has delivered so far are insufficient. They reflect a pre-9%-11% way of thinking as much as old defense policy reflected a pre-9/11 notion of who our enemies were. The funding for job creation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was based on an assumed 8.9% unemployment rate. Now 15% is a realistic possibility. And yet we're hearing few interesting ideas about how to enhance America's already groaning unemployment support system as millions of Americans sit idle. Tangled in the debate over health care -- and bleeding political capital -- the White House may find itself too weak and distracted to deal with the danger of joblessness....

That would be a tragedy.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be blogging from the 5th annual Clinton Global Initiative meeting in midtown Manhattan. CGI is one of the premier gatherings of the movers, shakers, and thought leaders responsible for maintaining and improving the architecture of globalization. And globalization has been one of the most important factors -- if not the most important -- in the restructuring of the American labor market over the last thirty years. I'll be very interested to hear what the many panelists -- and former President Clinton himself, who voiced his concern at last year's CGI meeting about a populist backlash in this country against free trade and global money flows -- have to say about the issue.

In the meantime, you can vote on whether the recession is over in our current PND poll. Or weigh in below on the jobs crisis, the growing pressure on safety-net services, and/or the impact of globalization on American workers.

-- Mitch Nauffts