PhilanTopic

Weekend Link Roundup (April 14-15, 2012)

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

Accountability

Thanks in part to the proliferation of social media and a loss of faith in institutions of every kind, foundations and nonprofit organizations must rethink how they communicate and hold themselves accountable, argues Lucy Bernholz on her Philanthropy 2173 blog. "The kind of organizing that led Komen to change its decision and that is now calling for change from Gates is easier than ever," writes Bernolz.

It can be turned on in an instant and reach unprecedented scale at unprecedented pace. Boards of directors of nonprofits and foundations need to know this, they need to expect it, and they need to engage with both critics and supporters. They need, in other words, to govern in a new landscape in which each and every decision they make may be the one that transforms supporters into critics (Komen) or turns educational policy grants into part of national outrage about gun laws and racial justice [i.e., Gates Foundation support for a conservative advocacy organization known as ALEC].

Is this about a social media policy? I don't think so. Is it about governance, engagement, conversation, accountability, structural consistency, clarity of mission, and a willingness to remain civil while participating in difficult areas of work riven with disagreement? Yes. Nonprofits are part of civil society which thrives only when it is filled with multiple points of view and diverse approaches to problem solving. The "public" will not agree with every decision a foundation or nonprofit makes and they have a right to express that disagreement. Foundations and nonprofits have a right (and a responsibility) to make their decisions and expect a public response to them....

Communications/Marketing

On her Getting Attention blog, Nancy Schwartz "nonprofitizes" a list of content marketing tips from top chefs originally compiled by MarketingProfs.com. Her list includes:

• Use fresh ingredients. Fresh content retains its natural flavor. Avoid stale or processed content -- your supporters will know it and hate it.
• Keep the menu simple. Don’t overcomplicate content or muddy the dish with too many flavors.
• Experiment in the kitchen. Try new forms of content and solicit feedback so you know what's not working -- and what is.

Visit GettingAttention.org for the complete list.

Journalism/Media

On the HuffPost Media site, Kevin Murphy, president of the Berks (PA) County Community Foundation, suggests that the death of traditional journalism is going to force philanthropy to step up and fund alternatives. "[A]s foundations realize the profound impact of losing the communications vehicles that tie our society together," writes Murphy,

they're going to recognize the imperative of supporting journalism in their field or community. At a global level, funders rely on journalism to help the public understand challenges like world wide poverty, climate change and human rights violations.

Without the ability to hear from, and communicate with the populations they serve, foundations will find their mission nearly impossible to accomplish. So, they'll solve that problem....

Leadership

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen shares management lessons from Steve Jobs included in a recent Harvard Business Review article by Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson. Her favorite -- "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." -- was something Jobs told Isaacson he had first come across in that icon of '70s counterculture, the Whole Earth Catalogue.

On her blog, Rosetta Thurman offers a few suggestions for organizations interested in supporting the next generation of nonprofit leaders. Among other things, Thurman advises nonprofit executives to increase the number of professional development opportunities availble to young staffers and to require each employee to draft a career development plan.

Philanthropy

In advance of the annual conference of the Global Philanthropy Forum later this week in Washington, D.C., Jane Wales, president and CEO of the World Affairs Council and vice president of philanthropy and society at the Aspen Institute, considers the philanthropic legacy of Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller and connects it to some of the tools and approaches championed by a new generation of philanthropists.

On the BlackGivesBack blog, Tracey Webb announces the W.K. Kellogg Foundation's Cultures of Giving Donor Challenge, a ten-day online competition designed to boost funding for nonprofits working to address the critical needs of communities of color.

Social Entrepreneurship

Writing on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Jason Saul, the founder/CEO of Mission Measurement, shares five takeaways from the 2012 Skoll World Forum: it's okay to make an economic return from trying to solve a social problem; measurement is no longer optional; it's cool to be corporate; people want to move the needle; and we're entering a new age of social entrepreneurship.

Social Media

In a guest post at Beth's Blog, Frank Barry, Internet strategy manager at software company Blackbaud, shares findings from the 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report. Writes Barry: "We learned a lot of things, but one prevailing theme stood out -- despite limited budgets and staffing, nonprofits continue to find great value in their fast-growing social networks."

In the latest installment of her Chronicle of Philanthropy Social Good podcast series, Allison Fine chats with Alliance for Youth Movements co-founder Stephanie Rudat about how and why a few recent social action movements, including Kony 2012 and Change.org's Trayvon Martin petition, went viral.

Social Media for Social Good author Heather Mansfield discusses hashtag spamming, which "can do more harm to your nonprofit's brand on Twitter than good." Writes Mansfield: "Too many hashtags in one tweet can look messy or nonsensical, decrease click-through rates, and subtly communicate to your followers than you are a hashtag spammer -- i.e., you're not really monitoring or participating in the conversation around a certain hashtag, just spamming it in hopes of getting more followers, which doesn't work by the way." What do you think? Is less more when it comes to hashtags in tweets? Use the comments section below to share your thoughts.

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

-- The Editors

Weekend Link Roundup (March 10-11, 2012)

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

Education

Social media guru Seth Godin has released "Stop Stealing Dreams: What Is School For?", a free 30,000-word manifesto and experiment in what Godin calls "firestarting." As he writes on his blog,

I'm hoping that removing friction from the sharing of this idea will help it spread. If you're interested in the topic (and I hope you are), please tweet or like the project page, download the files, post mirror copies on your own blog and if you can, email them to every teacher, parent and citizen who should be part of the discussion about what we do with our kids all day (and why). If just a fraction of this blog's readers shared it with their address book, we'd reach a lot of people....

Governance

Based on his organization's research and his own observations, Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan offers a sharp take on the 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective Foundation Boards.

Human/Civil Rights

In a guest post on the Open Society Foundations blog, filmmaker Doug Liman calls on ordinary Americans to fight torture by participating in his current project, Reckoning With Torture: Memos and Testimonies from the “War on Terror". "What I'm asking people to do is both simple and profound," writes Liman. "[T]o film themselves reading one of the eleven documents that make up the script of the movie and send me the footage." The documents in question were among the 140,000 the ACLU uncovered through a Freedom of Information Act request, and to date actors, writers, a former CIA officer, a former interrogator, and the chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo have been among those who participated in the project.

Impact/Effectiveness

In a new post on the GiveWell blog, Holden Karnofsky considers the case of mothers2mothers, a nongovernmental organization based in South Africa that has been criticized for publishing what Karnofsky calls erroneous figures about the number of women it serves. Writes Karnofsky:

We certainly don't think the anomalies we've found show that m2m isn't doing great work, or that its support and awards are undeserved (and we are still considering the possibility of further investigating m2m as a potential GiveWell-recommended group). Still, seeing this sort of problem from an organization that gets as much attention as m2m seems significant. It's another piece of evidence that the philanthropic world -- including many of the largest and best-resourced funders -- is not asking all of the critical questions that it could be asking....

On his Harvard Business Review blog, Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta offers a "unified theory of social change" for nonprofits and institutions seeking to "change the world." The plan, in three parts, looks like this: 1) set big, hairy, audacious goals and deadlines for each problem you want to tackle; 2) collaborate and communicate like there's no tomorrow; and 3) invest in fundraising to dramatically increase the capital available to solve those problems. "It's not rocket science," adds Pallotta. "So let's get on with it."

Philanthropy

Philanthropy 2173 blogger Lucy Bernholz has released a new toolkit for foundations and nonprofit organizations based on Philanthropy and Social Investing Blueprint 2012, her annual look at the trends shaping the philanthropic and social change landscape.

Social Media

Beth Kanter looks at the role of transparency in the incredibly viral response to -- and debate over -- the KONY 2012 video, which was posted to YouTube on Monday and quickly racked up fifty million views. Although the video quickly galvanized tens of thousands of young people to pledge to "stop" Lord’s Resistance Army leader Joseph Kony, whose guerrilla army filled with child soldiers terrorized Ugandan villagers for the better part of two decades, the video also generated a backlash among African journalists and others who question its accuracy and the intentions of Invisible Children, the U.S.-based NGO that produced and released it.

Women

Allison Fine celebrated International Women's Day on Thursday by reflecting on a recent development in the human rights arena: the fact that in most cases "protests were started by individuals [on social media channels], not organizations." And while there may be no "Nelson Mandalas or Lech Walesas speaking on behalf of protestors," writes Fine, "social networks aren't leaderless, as critics say, but leaderfull with individuals defining their own roles, uploading videos, [and] posting news without being asked or tasked or targeted...."

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

-- The Editors

Geena Davis Institute Asks: Where Are the Good Roles for Women?

(Laura Cronin is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In her last post, she wrote about the Wikimedia Foundation's first Public Policy Initiative.)

As we get ready for the Academy Awards on Sunday, it's interesting to think about the relationship of pop and celebrity culture to social change.

The average foundation manager working to move the needle for a cause can only envy the ways in which celebrities are able to generate attention for their favorite issues. A short speech from a prominent figure on the red carpet is a surefire route to getting your cause trending on Twitter.

This year's Academy Award-nominated films are packed with issues that foundation and nonprofit people are concerned about: inequality, children and families, race, gender, sexual violence, politics. And I'm not just talking about documentaries.

Unfortunately, good roles for strong women are rare. That depressing fact turned Oscar (The Accidental Tourist) and Golden Globe (Commander in Chief) winner Geena Davis into an advocate. Watching television and movies with her young daughter a decade ago, Davis became concerned about the representation of women in most children's media. In 2004, the actress founded the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media and commissioned a study by Dr. Stacy Smith of the USC Annenberg School of Communications & Journalism which found a huge, 3:1 gender gap in roles for men and women. The study also concluded that even G-rated films transmit negative messages about girls -- messages which not only affect children in the U.S. but, given Hollywood's global reach, are exported to the rest of the world. The institute raises money for research, advocates for change, and develops educational materials that schools can use to help children think beyond stereotypes, including a recently piloted video learning series about gender and the workplace called Guess Who?

It also believes that pop culture is not just a mirror of our world but a driver of attitudes, and that positive gender portrayals break down stereotypes and broaden children's aspirations. According to the institute's executive director, Madeline Di Nonno, what children see on a screen truly matters. It shapes their emotional and social development and their beliefs. The more they see female characters who are hyper-sexualized, sidelined, or not present at all, the more boys and girls will think that's the way it's supposed to be.

So whether you stay up all night with Billy Crystal to see who gets to bring home a golden statue or turn in early, the Geena Davis Institute hopes you'll spend a few minutes thinking about how women and girls are portrayed on the silver screen.

-- Laura Cronin

Weekend Link Roundup (December 3 - 4, 2011)

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

Environment

On the Mother Nature Network, author Chris Turner (The Leap: How to Survive and Thrive in the Sustainable Economy) suggests that the problem with the modern environmental movement is "a maddening combination of Much Too Big and Way Too Little": Rio, Kyoto, Copenhagen, and Durban -- "the entire international emissions treaty process...[is] predicated...on convincing essentially the whole world to take [the first step] all at once, in unison," while our individual decisions to use eco-friendly products at home just aren't going to change the world. In his post, Turner offers advice about how to nurture your own activism and points to the solar energy boom in Gainesville, Florida, as an example of right-sizing a community sustainability effort.

As part of Occupy the Future, a forum on lessons to be drawn from the Occupy movement hosted by the Boston Review, Paul and Anne Ehrlich (co-authors, most recently, of The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment) offer a much darker view of the "conflict" between capitalism and the environment. "It is clear that we must redesign governments to regulate the marketplace so that most externalities are internalized for the good of society," write the Ehrlichs. "Everyone should recognize that old-time capitalism, like socialism and communism,

simply has not and cannot generate the sustainable redistribution and material and population shrinkage that are essential to creating an environmentally sound and equitable global society. The challenge is immense and unprecedented, with the dilemma exacerbated by plutocrats buying politicians and funding a powerful and effective disinformation machine programmed to lie about environmental threats. Overcoming that machine will require much cooperation, which won’t likely be achieved without new institutions and a broad increase in social justice. And these will require what the Occupy movement apparently demands: that we step back and consider whether the society we’ve built is indeed the one we want. But we have no choice but to meet the challenge. Either we will change our ways, or they will be changed for us.

Fundraising

Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks explains why the advent of Web 2.0 fundraising tools has not killed direct mail. "Direct mail is the greatest fundraising medium ever created -- after the church collection plate," writes Brooks. "It's changing, getting more complex and more expensive. But it's not dying."

Health

On the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog, Dr. Bart Haynes, head of the NIH NIAID Center for HIV/AIDS Vaccine Immunology (CHAVI), marks the thirtieth anniversary of the global AIDS epidemic by reflecting on the progress that has been made in developing a safe and effective AIDS vaccine.

In an op-ed piece for the Wall Street Journal ("No Retreat in the Fight Against AIDS"), George W. Bush recounts the successes over the last decade of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Malaria and Tuberculosis and the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). More than 4.7 million people have received AIDS treatment through the Global Fund and PEPFAR, Bush notes, while some 450,000 children have been born HIV-negative due to the latter's programs to disrupt mother-to-child transmission. And while acknowledging that "in lean budget times the U.S. and developing world must prioritize," the former president closes by urging Congress to think twice before it cuts funding for the programs.

On the same topic, Open Society Foundations program officer Shannon Kowalski gives two reasons why it's unlikely AIDS will be eradicated: "political will and the money to do it." Writes Kowalski:

These two barriers came into painfully clear view last week when the board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria announced that it was cancelling its latest call for applications for funding and adopted a set of drastic measures so that it could maintain funding for the essential services that it is currently supporting. At precisely the moment we've realized how to curb HIV, donors have left the Global Fund treading water, struggling to keep funding flowing to preserve the lives of those who are already on treatment....

And in "World AIDS Day: The Role of Religion," the Council on Foreign Relations' Isobel Coleman writes that "[t]he obstacles to achieving an AIDS-free generation -- and the benefits of this achievement for humanity -- make the constructive involvement of religious institutions crucial." While religious leaders have "contributed to the epidemic by denying the importance of condoms in HIV prevention and contributing to the stigma that AIDS patients already confront," Coleman writes, USAID is partnering with religious leaders in places like Indonesia to "facilitate the implementation of HIV policy statements" and "share a compilation of fatwa (religious guidance) on HIV prevention."

Journalism/Media

Author, NYU professor, and new media deep thinker Clay Shirky (Here Comes Everybody: The Power Of Organizing Without Organizations) brilliantly rebuts a lengthy piece in the Columbia Journalism Review written by Dean Starkman in which Starkman argues "for the continued relevance of existing news organizations, especially newspapers, in something very close to their current form." It's long, well worth reading, and includes this observation: "No medium has ever survived the indifference of 25 year olds...." Indeed.

Philanthropy

The folks at the BlackGivesBack blog need your help selecting the top ten celebrity philanthropists of 2011. Anyone can vote, as long as they do it before Sunday, December 11.

Social Justice

At the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Sara K. Gould, former president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women, shares key findings from Diminishing Dollars: The Impact of the 2008 Financial Crisis on the Field of Social Justice Philanthropy (35 pages, PDF), a new study which she authored with help from colleagues at the Cricket Island Foundation, the Foundation Center, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy, the Wagner School of Public Service at New York University, and the Social Justice Philanthropy Collaborative.

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

-- The Editors

ANNOUNCEMENT: Funder-Only Event With Rebecca MacKinnon, Author, 'Consent of the Networked'

Back in March, we chatted with Helen Brunner, director of the Media Democracy Fund, about social media and the Arab Spring uprisings, net neutrality, and the role of nonprofit advocacy groups in ensuring that every American continues to benefit from an open Internet.

This Wednesday, October 19, at 11:00 a.m., MDF is hosting a funders-only talk featuring Rebecca MacKinnon, author of the soon-to-be-published Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom. In the book, MacKinnon argues that freedom in the Internet age depends on whether we defend our rights on digital platforms and networks in the same way that people fight for their rights and accountable governance in their actual communities and nations. It's time, in other words, to stop thinking of ourselves as passive "users" of technology and instead act like citizens of the Internet -- as netizens -- and take ownership and responsibility for our digital future.

Interested funders can sign up for the event here.

This Week in PubHub: Community Information Ecosystems

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at four reports that examine the recent past and future prospects of journalism and the news media.)

The twentieth-century mass media model is being replaced, we're told, by a "new news ecosystem" in which the consumer of news increasignly is also a producer of news content. But for all its openness and egalitarian qualities, questions remain as to how well this ecosystem functions as a local community information system, whether people trust the information it delivers, and what investments are needed to make it better? This week in PubHub, we're highlighting four reports that examine how well the rapidly evolving news business is serving local communities.

The Chicago Community Trust report Linking Audiences to News: A Network Analysis of Chicago Websites (54 pages, PDF) analyzes the structure of the local news ecosystem -- more than four hundred Web sites -- in the Chicagoland area by mapping the way these sites are connected to one another via hyperlinks. Among other things, the report found that nearly 80 percent of the sites are rarely linked to from other sites and therefore unlikely to be found by consumers of local news and information, while more than 40 percent do not link out to other sites. Sites that are widely linked to include the region's mass transit systems, museums, and sources of original reporting such as chicagotribune.com and online-only publications like gapersblock.com and chicagoist.com. The report also found that whereas online-only sites are most likely to link to other sites, traditional media sites tend not to, while specific content-oriented sites tend to share links among themselves but are rarely linked to from sites outside those fields. Funded by CCT, the Knight Foundation, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, the report calls for encouraging more linking among locally focused sites as a way of creating and encouraging a better-informed community.

So how does the public view community information ecosystems, what are the factors that shape those views, and how do those views in turn influence civic life? Those are some of the questions raised in How the Public Perceives Community Information Systems (13 pages, PDF), a report from the Monitor Institute, the Knight Foundation, and the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Based on surveys conducted in Philadelphia, Macon, Georgia, and San Jose, California, the report found that those who believe local government does a good job of sharing information are more likely to be satisfied with its performance, as well as the performance of other local institutions, the overall community, and the local information ecosystem (including the local media, libraries, public forums, and broadband connectivity). The report also found that confidence in local government transparency and increased access to local news and information are linked to a stronger sense of civic empowerment and active community engagement.

The Knight Foundation's Community Information Toolkit: Building Stronger Communities Through Information Exchange (53 pages, PDF), another product of the foundation's collaboration with the Monitor Institute, offers guidance and resources for community leaders interested in leveraging the power of information for community improvement, including a template for identifying local issues and how information affects them, data collection and assessment checklists, a scorecard for visualizing information ecosystem findings, and an action plan template.

One important element in a robust community information ecosystem is a high-quality online hub, a "well-publicized portal that points to the full array of local information resources," a 2009 report from the Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy argues. Creating Local Online Hubs: Three Models for Action (34 pages, PDF), a 2011 report from the Aspen Institute and the Knight Foundation, describes what such a hub might look like, including core elements such as local government information, community news and commentary, and links to community resources. The report calls on government at all levels to facilitate access to relevant data, seed money, and infrastructure; on local libraries, media outlets, and colleges and universities to help develop content, technologies, and information resources; and on businesses, foundations, and venture capitalists to provide financing and in-kind support.

At the moment, the community information field is dominated by the Knight Foundation, which has invested considerable resources in examining the state of community information networks and their potential for boosting civic engagement. Are you aware of or involved in an interesting community information project? Do you think the "new news ecosystem" is living up to its potential to foster community improvement through increased civic participation? And if it's not, what can foundations do to help build a new news ecosystem that works for all Americans? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section below.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can check out new featured reports every week and browse more than a hundred and fifty reports that address topics related to journalism and media.

-- Kyoko Uchida

This Week in PubHub: Journalism/Media: The State of the News Media

(Kyoko Uchida manages PubHub, the Foundation Center's online catalog of foundation-sponsored publications. In her previous post, she looked at four reports that examine the challenges of implementing human rights protections and rights-based interventions.)

With ad revenues and circulation numbers falling, newsroom headcounts shrinking, and social media and the blogosphere commanding a growing share of reader eyeballs, news executives are doing a lot of hand-wringing and soul-searching these days. So where do things stand midway through 2011? This week in PubHub we're featuring four reports that look at the recent past and future prospects of journalism and the news media.

According to The State of the News Media 2011 (525 pages, HTML), the Project for Excellence in Journalism's annual assessment of industry trends, all major sectors of the news media except newspapers saw revenues begin to recover in 2010. Funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, the report also points out that online advertising revenue in 2010 is expected to surpass print advertising revenue for the first time, and that 47 percent of Americans now use a mobile device to consume news. As new platforms are introduced, however, the greatest challenge for news providers, the report suggests, may lie in the layers of technological complexity created between content providers and the public -- and the lack of control over audience data.

Is the future of serious journalism necessarily a not-for-profit proposition? Or can good journalism still be good business in the twenty-first century? Those are some of the questions raised in A Way Forward: Solving the Challenges of the News Frontier (39 pages, PDF), a report based on a February 2010 conference sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Paley Center for Media at which faculty and students from twelve leading journalism schools discussed the impact of efforts such as the Carnegie-Knight Initiative as well as examples of enterprising nonprofit operations like Politico. The good news (according to the report)? By developing their multimedia skills, honing their entrepreneurial instincts, and building their personal brands, the journalistic stars of tomorrow can indeed connect to audiences and tap into revenue streams that will support their efforts.

Taking the Temperature: The Future of Global Health Journalism (32 pages, PDF), a report from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, considers how recent financial constraints on the news media, advocacy groups' use of social media, and other trends have affected global health news coverage. Among other things, the report argues that while mainstream media tend not to focus on policy-angle coverage of global health issues, specialized publications such as online-only news outlets and journals are becoming a major source of global health journalism. Even as outside funding makes possible continued coverage of global health issues in the mainstream, specialized, and public media, however, questions of sustainability and journalistic independence loom large.

What about government funding for public broadcasting? With such funding frequently held hostage to political debate, the U.S. public media system increasingly is underfunded compared with systems in other developed democracies, a recent report from the Free Press argues. The report, Public Media and Political Independence: Lessons for the Future of Journalism From Around the World (88 pages, PDF), describes efforts in fourteen countries to protect the autonomy of public media through multiyear funding, oversight organizations linked to audiences, and "buffer" agencies or boards designed to limit the influence of politics on the system. Funded by the Foundation to Promote Open Society, the report also highlights the viability and vitality of the public service model in the digital age and hints at ways the model can be strengthened in the U.S.

How has your relationship to news and the news media changed? Do you still subscribe to a print newspaper? Are you getting more of your news online or via mobile platforms? Has your news consumption become more ecumenical or more parochial? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.

And don't forget to visit PubHub, where you can browse more than a hundred and fifty reports about journalism and media.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Weekend Link Roundup (July 23 - 24, 2011)

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

Grantmaking

Writing on the White Courtesy Telephone blog, Greater New Orleans Foundation president Albert Ruesga urges readers to consider the ur-question in philanthropy: What should my goals be, and why? In other words, "How do independent foundations, which have almost complete freedom in the choice of what they can fund, rationalize their choice of grantmaking goals?"

Impact/Effectiveness

On his Light on Leadership blog in the Washington Post, NYU Wagner School professor Paul Light suggests that nonprofits, "having been pushed to behave more like businesses for years...are now being treated as such by federal courts." Indeed, a federal appeals court judge recently decided "to allow states to regulate the Girl Scout cookie business the way they would a commercial business." Writes Light:

Given the court decisions challenging commercial activity, the downturn in giving, and continued government negligence, nonprofit leaders need to think harder about transformation. They must attack the duplication and overlap through consolidation with their competitors; flatten their bloated hierarchies and confusing management structures; invest in the frontline workforce that is straining under rising case loads; and harvest these savings for basic investments in information technologies, training and modest compensation increases needed to assure high performance.

Nonprofit leaders also have to get much better at measuring the value they produce. They have relied too long on the public's empathy for their revenues, when survey after survey shows that givers want measurable value for their dollars. Americans understand that there is great need out there, but they are often confused about the impact of their dollars. They continue to believe that nonprofits have the right priorities but waste too much money. They want greater efficiency, not more pictures of needy children.

If a nonprofit cannot explain how every dollar given generates more than a dollar in results, it should close its doors....

Is he right? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. (H/t Phil Cubeta.)

On her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz, who is "all for the principle of 'failing fast' and learning from our missteps," looks at a few efforts designed to help foundations and nonprofits reflect on their mistakes while sharing lessons with their peers.

In remarks delivered earlier this week at the Hudson Institute as part of a panel discussion on "Reclaiming the Moral Life of Philanthropy," Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan argues that foundations "are morally obliged to seek to know how we are doing, and how we can improve."

International Affairs/Development

In a follow-up to an earlier PhilanTopic post that criticized the Patriot Act for preventing NGOs and development agencies from coming to the aid of starving people in southern Somalia, PND's Nick Scott updates readers on the situation and provides a list of organizations working in the region.

On the Philanthrocapitalism blog, Matthew Bishop and Michael Green wonder whether the Nathan Cummings Foundation can leverage its position as a minority shareholder to get scandal-scarred New Corps to change its most egregious practices, as it did earlier with Smithfield Foods, the giant pork processor. Write Bishop and Green:

Could the greatest influence of philanthropic foundations on the media business come not through grantmaking but through their role as investors? Possibly, but only if there is a seismic change in the foundation world. For another striking aspect of the Nathan Cummings Foundation's experience is that it is still all too rare. Yes, organizations like Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors are pushing foundations to make better use of their shareholder power as a force for good; the More for Mission campaign is trying to get foundations to use more of their endowment capital for what is now known as "impact investing." But they have so far made little progress, despite plenty of talk. This type of activity still comes a distant second (or last) to what many see as the ‘real' business of foundations: grantmaking....

Philanthropy

At the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Paul Park says that funders shouldn't think of themselves "investors" but rather as "purchasers," adding that "viewing funders as purchasers rather than investors provides a clear rationale for avoiding the nonprofit starvation cycle."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And stay cool out there!

-- Regina Mahone

Weekend Link Roundup (May 21 - 22, 2011)

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

Communications/Marketing

On his Harvard Business Review blog, Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta announces the launch of a new advertising firm, Advertising for Humanity, that hopes to market "benevolence as brilliantly as Budweiser markets beer."

Impact/Effectiveness

Back from the Center for Effective Philanthropy's annual conference, the Wallace Foundation's Ed Pauly reminds grantmakers that a "passion for results is what's behind every grant, every initiative, and every philanthropic foundation." To that end, when a tool (e.g., strategy, feedback from grantees, performance assessment) fails to deliver impressive results, it's time to "recognize that it didn't work -- and get the facts to build a better strategy." Writes Pauly:

When your first foundation performance assessment doesn't illuminate anything, recognize that the lights are still off -– and put a brighter flood lamp on the facts. When your grantee feedback is awful, zero in on the bleakest spots and the facts that will help you work with your grantee partners more effectively.

Our passion needs facts about our results. Are we making a difference yet? Have we learned how to work successfully with our grantee partners? Are we reducing poverty yet? Try a solution, and then get the facts to find out what happened....

International Affairs/Development

On Thursday, Bill Easterly and Laura Freschi announced that, after two years and four months, they were ending their Aid Watch blog to "free up...time for writing longer and more substantive pieces, both academic and non-academic, on development."

On the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Jessica Majno of Bridging the Divide responds to Kelly Kleinman's May 3 op-ed in which Kleinman advised nonprofits to steer clear of initiatives that attempt to reinvent the nonprofit model. Contrary to Kleinman's advice, writes Majno, "in the field of foreign assistance, it is exactly the failure to reinvent and adapt to changes in technology and the social landscape that is diminishing nonprofits' ability to serve their intended beneficiaries and that is threatening to render them irrelevant...."

Journalism/Media

In the third in a series of posts on the Knight Foundation blog, Elise Hu, digital editor of the Impact of Government project at NPR, shares eight things nonprofit news organizations are doing to boost their revenue.

Philanthropy

On NCRP's Keeping a Close Eye blog, Christine Reeves recaps a recent Hudson Institute event in which the panelists shared their views on likely changes in the global philanthropic landscape over the next decade. GlobalGiving co-founder Dennis Whittle, one of the panelists, said that "the practice of affluent Westerners with power (grantmakers) determining how to frame and approach philanthropic problems, solutions, funding strategies and evaluation metrics will be supplanted by the practice of voices and ideas of people affected by problems and solutions (the beneficiaries of grants)."

Regulation/Oversight

The Nonprofiteer's Kelly Kleinman wonders whether we're asking the right question in the charitable deduction debate. "The tax code is designed to provide the government with resources to do its job," writes Kleinman. "Its job, among other things, is to provide essential services to citizens who cannot provide those services for themselves; and the more money it collects, the more services it can provide. What's important is that those services get provided, not that they get provided by the sector that happens to employ the Nonprofiteer...."

Writing on her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz considers some of the ways in which the regulatory landscape for nonprofits is shifting and sees in them a potential set of "new rules for a new social economy."

Social Media

NTEN's Amy Sample Ward explains the difference between crowdsourcing and community-sourcing and why both can be "valuable for the success of your campaign or call to action."

And at the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Social Philanthropy blog, Derek Lieu discusses the Rasmuson Foundation's foray into Second Life, the Internet-based virtual world where it has created a floating digital museum that displays works created by Rasmuson-funded artists.

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

-- Regina Mahone

Council on Foundation’s Film and Video Festival

(Kathryn Pyle is a regular contributor to PhilanTopic. In her previous post, she wrote about memory as an instrument of peace.)

Attendees at this year's Council on Foundations conference (April 10–12) in Philadelphia will have the opportunity to view some excellent documentary films during the conference's Film and Video Festival. Held in cooperation with Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media (GFEM), the festival is a regular feature at the annual CoF conference and this year will feature a number of special screenings co-sponsored by council affinity groups like the International Human Rights Funders Group and Funders Together to End Homelessness. There will also be a presentation for funders on how to use short videos and other media to educate the public and explore community issues.

As I described in a previous post, documentary films are growing in popularity, both at festivals and via television and the Internet. Indeed, grantmakers and nongovernmental organizations increasingly grasp the potential of documentary films to tell their stories and advance their priorities -- not only in terms of traditional "public relations," but by conveying with deep-felt passion a subject or story that aligns with their own interests.

The Council on Foundations recognized the importance of film and video early on, launching a film and video festival ("in a closet," as Phil Hallen, formerly of the Falk Foundation, puts it) at an annual conference in the late 1960s. Today, the festival, a regular feature of the conference since then, is a juried exhibition of a dozen films with its own on-site screening room; conference participants can also borrow a DVD of any film to watch on their hotel television sets or their laptops.

For funders particularly interested in the impact of documentaries, the festival offers examples of how films can contribute to social change. Several years ago, I blogged about Traces of the Trade: A Story From the Deep North, a featured documentary at the council's 2008 conference that explored the history of slavery in the North through the lens of a Rhode Island family’s struggle to come to terms with its legacy as descendents of slave traders. At the time, the filmmakers created an extensive educational program around the film -- work now being carried out by the Tracing Center on Histories and Legacies of Slavery, which was founded in 2009 to advance the conversation sparked by the film.

At the 44th Film and Video Festival this weekend, three films have been selected for special attention.

On Saturday, April 9, Budrus, a documentary about a community organizer who unites Palestinians and Israelis to save his village from being razed, will be screened. The film is one of two at the festival that will be honored with the Henry Hampton Award for Excellence in Film and Digital Media. Following the screening, producer Ronit Avni will join Elise Bernhardt, president of the Foundation for Jewish Culture, a funder of the film, for a discussion.

On Sunday, April 10, the second Henry Hampton Award winner will be screened. Crime After Crime is a documentary about a woman, Debbie Peagler, who killed her abusive partner. Such abuse is mandated by California law to be considered at sentencing but was not; the film follows a team of young lawyers who appeal Peagler's case. A national advocacy campaign around the issue of domestic violence and abuse is a component of the outreach associated with the film. Filmmaker Yoav Potash and Marion Dienstag, COO at the Foundation for Jewish Culture, a funder of the film, along with one of the lawyers and Peagler's daughter, will be present for the discussion.

A third film at the festival will feature a post-screening discussion as well: Lost Angels portrays life on the streets for denizens of Los Angeles' skid row, a diverse and eccentric population. Following the screening, representatives of Funders Together to End Homelessness will lead a discussion featuring Thomas Napper, the film's director, and producer Agi Orsi.

If you're in Philadelphia for the conference this weekend, be sure to check out one or all of the above. It will be time well spent. And for more information about the festival, click here.

-- Kathryn Pyle

Weekend Link Roundup (March 12 - 13, 2011)

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

Disaster Relief

The 8.9-magnitude quake that rocked Japan on Friday was the strongest to hit the northern Pacific region in 1,200 years, the Associated Press reports. Although it will take weeks for the total cost of the disaster to be calculated, the U.S. Geological Survey's David Applegate told the AP it's likely to amount to tens of billions of dollars -- and that's assuming Japanese nuclear engineers can get the situation at five damaged nuclear power plants under control.

A number of charities on the ground in Japan have launched relief efforts, with more to follow. For a complete roundup of resources and breaking news related to the tragic and increasingly grave situation, see our Japanese Earthquake & Tsunami Relief page.

Impact/Effectiveness

In the Nonprofit Quarterly, Joe Kriesberg, president of the Massachusetts Association of Community Development Corporations, argues that social impact bonds, a new innovation that has been touted by the Obama administration and others as a way to "encourage private, profit-motivated investors to fund social programs that work," may "take us in the wrong direction."

Journalism/Media

It was not a good week for National Public Radio. On Tuesday, right-wing activist James O'Keefe released a video of NPR fundraising executive Ron Schiller and a colleague, Betsy Liley, meeting over lunch with two of O'Keefe's associates posing as members of a fictitious American Muslim group interested in domating $5 million to NPR. On the heavily edited tape, Schiller is heard caviling about Republicans and Tea Partiers, while suggesting that NPR, whose federal budget appropriation was zeroed out by the Republican-controlled House, "would be better off in the long run without federal funding." A day later, NPR chief executive Vivian Schiller (no relation) was forced to resign by the NPR board, which decided that "the [high-profile] controversies under [her] watch had become such a distraction that she could no longer effectively lead the organization."

NPR itself posted some of the best analysis of the debacle, while NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen, on his PressThink blog, suggests that while Schiller and Liley were sandbagged, they -- and anyone else who works in the public media space -- should have seen it coming. Elsewhere, What Would Google Do? author Jeff Jarvis explains on his Buzz Machine blog why the resignation of Schiller "is an indication of more trouble ahead for NPR...."

Philanthropy

On Monday, Tactical Philanthropy blogger Sean Stannard-Stockton launched an examination of what he calls the "four core approaches to philanthropy": the charitable giver, the philanthropic investor, the strategic philanthropist, and the social entrepreneur.

Responding to Stannard-Stockton's post, Greater New Orleans Foundation president Albert Ruesga wonders whether it doesn't make more sense to divide "institutional philanthropy into two categories: in the first we put philanthropy that addresses not just a given social ill but also its causes, seeking not only to provide aid for the poor, for example, but to examine why there are so many poor people in the first place. In the second category we put everything else." Adds Ruesga:

The first category, while vanishingly small, contains, in my view, the heart and soul of philanthropy. To do it well requires all the tools of strategic philanthropy; the investor’s focus on strengthening institutions and social movements; and the empathy of the charitable giver....

Last but not least, NCRP's Niki Jagpal suggests, in light of the recent Foundations on the Hill conference, that funders should take the time to "educate lawmakers about the great work that they're doing to ensure that the voices of underserved and marginalized communities are at the table when policy decisions that affect them are being made."

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

-- Regina Mahone

Journalism, Objectivity, and Foundation Funding

(David Jacobs is director of foundation information management at the Foundation Center. In his last post, he asked whether diversity can be legislated.)

Last week, in an interesting article about how the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation's funding  of non- and for-profit media has made it a force in journalism, the Seattle Times asked the question: "Does Gates funding of media blur the line between journalism and advocacy?"

Citing recent Gates-funded pieces aired by ABC, PBS, and Public Radio International (among others), reporters Sandi Doughton and Kristi Heim suggested that the foundation's grants to media organizations "raise obvious conflict-of-interest questions: How can reporting be unbiased when a major player holds the purse strings?" But direct funding of media organizations, said Doughton and Heim,

is only one way in which the world's most powerful foundation influences what the public reads, hears, and watches.

To garner attention for the issues it cares about, the foundation has invested millions in training programs for journalists. It funds research on the most effective ways to craft media messages. Gates-backed think tanks turn out media fact sheets and newspaper opinion pieces. Magazines and scientific journals get Gates money to publish research and articles. Experts coached in Gates-funded programs write columns that appear in media outlets from The New York Times to The Huffington Post, while digital portals blur the line between journalism and spin.

The efforts are part of what the foundation calls "advocacy and policy." Over the past decade, Gates has devoted $1 billion to these programs, which now account for about a tenth of the giant philanthropy's $3 billion-a-year spending. The Gates Foundation spends more on policy and advocacy than most big foundations -- including Rockefeller and MacArthur -- spend in total....

That strategy has caused some experts to express concern about the ability of the world's wealthiest foundation to shape and influence public discourse related to areas in which it has a stake. "Even if we were to satisfy ourselves that the Gates Foundation were utterly benign, it would still be worrisome that they wield such enormous propaganda power," says Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media, culture, and communications at New York University.

It's a discussion we're likely to have more and more frequently, both in and outside the sector, as the wealthy and mega-wealthy continue to devote growing sums to philanthropic causes.

For what it's worth, I don't have a problem with Bill and Melinda Gates' strategy with respect to media. Promoting public education and awareness are legitimate aims of any foundation, regardless of its areas of interest or activities. Nonprofits have a similar duty to get their message out as effectively as they can.

In fact, the real problem in this instance would seem to be with the ethics of the media outlets that accept donations from large foundations whose activities they may have to scrutinize one day. Does it really make sense to fault the Gates Foundation -- or any nonprofit that advocates on behalf of a cause -- for the choices made by media executives who should know better? Gates may be blurring the line, but journalists and media outlets are the ones who choose to step over it.

Where do you stand on the issue? Is the Gates Foundation's funding of media good strategy? Or is it symptomatic of a larger problem?

-- David Jacobs

Weekend Link Roundup (February 12 - 13, 2011)

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

Communications/Marketing

Social Citizens blogger Kari Dunn Saratovsky wonders why more Fortune 500 companies haven't followed Pepsi's lead and used their Super Bowl ad budgets to promote the idea of "doing well by doing good." "Taking a step back from the commercials that made you laugh out loud or evoked your inner child," writes Saratovsky, "were you compelled [during the Super Bowl] by a brand or product because you recognized that it was a good company or that it cared about more than selling a product?"

Journalism/Media

On his Six Pixels of Separation blog, Twist Image president Mitch Joel argues that AOL's acquisition, for $315 million, of fast-growing content aggregator The Huffington Post is all about "the new way content flows in a digital world."

What Would Google Do? author Jeff Jarvis offers his own take on the merger on his BuzzMachine blog:

I was just thinking yesterday that though AOL has lots of content and plans to make a lot more, I never think to go there, apart from heading to one of its brands, such as Engadget. Portals are burned toast. Making content for search is not, I believe, a growth strategy, as the more Google becomes personalized and successfully seeks out signals of quality and originality, the more SEO will die as a black art. So to execute on its content-and-advertising strategy, AOL needs brands with engagement. Huffington Post is that. Armstrong needs someone who understands that the critical sphere of discovery for content will more and more be people: peers links, not algorithms; Arianna [Huffington] gets that. The company was bought at a high multiple to its revenue but I think the price is not insane. [AOL chief Tim] Armstrong didn’t buy pageviews (how 2005); he bought a content and distribution strategy....

"I'm a blogger. And a journalist. I report on the news but am also supposed to be more personal, more conversational. So is what I do news or opinion, or neither?" asks Humanosphere blogger/journalist Tom Paulson. While nobody seems to be able to answer the question, adds Paulson, "more important to the future of global health journalism...is what I would argue is the lack of a clear definition of what we mean by 'global health'."

Microfinance

Philanthropy Action's Tim Ogden admits that a few "troubling developments" over the last week have left him feeling "deflated" since he forecast in a previous post "sunny days" ahead for the microfinance industry.

Philanthropy

Philanthropy 2173 blogger Lucy Bernholz wonders whether "the many small trends, ideas, and changes in philanthropy and society" that have caught her eye recently are harbingers of bigger trends or just a bunch of one-offs.

Social Innovation

On his World Affairs Commentary site, Rahim Kanini chats with Rockefeller Foundation president Judith Rodin about the evolution and promise of social innovation.

Social Media

On the McKinsey Quarterly site, McKinsey's Dan Singer talks with Jennifer Aaker and Andy smith, authors of The Dragonfly Effect, about the power of social media and how social-media engagement differs from traditional marketing and advertising.

And in a world in which the act of connecting has been commodified, what matters most, argues Assetmap founder Nathaniel Whittemore, "is the weight of the reputation behind the connection and in turn, the likelihood that all parties will engage with it seriously."

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

-- Regina Mahone

Philanthropy on the Edge: Foundations, Egypt, and Press Freedom

(Bradford Smith is president of the Foundation Center. In his last post, he wrote about George Soros' $100 million gift to Human Rights Watch.)

Whoever said philanthropy is not relevant to the issues of the day?

Take Egypt. Many, who as recently as a week ago may have known little about Egypt, have been riveted to television, Facebook, and Twitter as the drama of a people challenging a government -- and that government pushing back -- unfolds. But foundations have been funding projects in and about Egypt for years, and many of the people, ideas, and institutions they have supported will be vital to that country’s future.

What is the foundation "line" on Egypt? Well, there isn't just one; American foundations are private institutions, so it all depends on the interests, values, and expertise of each donor. Using the Foundation Center's database, I did a simple keyword search for "Egypt" and found more than five hundred grants awarded since 2003. The largest number has gone for higher education, either to U.S. or European universities or directly to Egyptian institutions like the American University in Cairo or Cairo University. Whatever the outcome of the current crisis, Egypt will still depend on skilled human resources to build a modern, competitive society. Other grants have gone for issues that speak more directly to current events such as human rights, personal liberty, and the status of women. These can be controversial anywhere, and in Egypt addressing such issues takes skill, a keen sense of politics, and, well, courage. Even supporting cultural activities, where certain artists are state sponsored and others are not, can represent risk for a funder -- and more so for those who do the work on the ground. Research grants we found help to better understand the complexity of Egyptian politics, transformations in the region, and the role of religion. Good data is lacking, but there are also African and European foundations that consider Egypt important to their programming.

Take Press Freedom: While in Tunisia and the early days of the Egypt protests everyone was celebrating the liberation of information through Twitter, Facebook, and CNN, authorities quickly shut down the Internet and mobile networks and angry pro-Mubarak mobs began to target journalists. A free press is one of the pillars of a democratic society and a favorite target of authoritarian leaders of all persuasions. Even in democracies, where the press remains largely free (though subject to commercial interests), it is frequently accused of one bias or another. Here, some foundations have also translated their values into grants. The same kind of quick search in Foundation Directory Online yielded hundreds of grants made since 2003, most to a select group of organizations created precisely to combat press censorship and persecution. They include the Committee to Protect Journalists, the World Press Freedom Committee, and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Not surprisingly, among the foundations that support them are several like the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Gannett Foundation with origins in the newspaper business. For a glimpse into how such grantmaking might strike a raw nerve, check out Silence or Death in Mexico's Press: Crime, Violence, and Corruption Are Destroying the Country's Journalism, produced by the Committee to Protect Journalists with support from the Knight, McCormick, Oak, and Overbrook foundations.

Imagine what it's like to be a foundation that has staff and grantee partners in Egypt at the moment. Imagine what it's like put your foundation's money behind press freedom and see journalists arrested, beaten, and harassed -- in Egypt and elsewhere. This is philanthropy on the edge: driven by a sense of justice and a willingness to take risks.

-- Brad Smith

ANNOUNCEMENT: 5th Annual Knight News Challenge Open for Entries

Hard to believe, I know, but it's been two years since we last wrote about the Knight News Challenge. Now in its fifth year, the Knight Foundation-funded media contest "seeks innovative techniques and technologies that advance the foundation's goal of informing and engaging communities." In the first four years of the challenge, a total of $23 million was awarded to 56 media innovators chosen from more than 10,000 entries. (Click here to learn more about past winners and their projects.)

This year, for the first time, the competition is featuring four experimental categories: Mobile (innovative ideas for news and information on all types of mobile communications devices); Authenticity (projects that help people better understand the reliability of news and information sources); Sustainability (new economic models supporting news and information that enhances citizen engagement); and Community (groundbreaking technologies that support news and information specifically within defined geographic areas).

(In the first three categories, the foundation prefers entries with a community focus; a place-based focus is an "absolute" requirement for the Community category. All software produced by contest-winners must be open-source.)

The contest opens for entries October 25 (today) and closes December 1. Individuals, nonprofits, businesses, schools, and government are all eligible to enter.

Entries submitted to the contest will be reviewed by experts in news, technology, and community. Final recommendations will be made by Knight staff, with the winners to be chosen by the Knight board and announced next June at an event at MIT.

The foundation will conduct an online chat tomorrow, October 26, at noon EST, to answer questions about this year's contest. To sign up for an event reminder about the chat, visit the News Challenge Web site.

-- Mitch Nauffts