Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Communications/Marketing
"Nonprofits are heroes, not unskilled hired help," writes Todd Cohen on the Inside Philanthropy blog, "and they need to start owning their role and championing their worth."
What Would Google Do? author Jeff Jarvis shares his notes for a talk he gave to a recent TEDxNYed gathering in which he used the opportunity to question the whole TED format. Like old-media, writes Jarvis, the lecture format needs to move past a one-way conversation to collaboration. Do you agree?
Fundraising
Future Fundraising blogger Jeff Brooks says that sending extra appeals to your donors not only doesn't hurt, it's the smart thing to do. Adds Brooks: "It turns out that asking donors to donate is something like asking fish to swim or birds to sing. It's what they do, what they want to do. Giving them the opportunity is not a rude and hurtful intrusion...."
International Affairs/Development
In the aftermath of the recent earthquakes in Haiti and Chile, the New York Times' Anand Giridharadas suggests that the kind of "everyone-as-informant mapping" pioneered by Ushahidi, a small Kenya-based nonprofit, "may have something larger to tell us about the future of humanitarianism, innovation and the nature of what we label as truth."
Nonprofit Management
Responding to a recent Professionals for Nonprofits salary survey, Rosetta Thurman asks her readers whether they are satisfied with their pay. You can learn more about what they had to say here.
Philanthropy
At the New Philanthropy Capital blog, Martin Brookes chides himself for "wasting charitable funds" because he donated to an animal charity at the request of his daughter. This type of giving, adds Brookes, represents a "misallocation of charitable funds" because it was done "to make [himself] feel good, not charitable giving for public benefit."
Tactical Philanthropy's Sean Stannard-Stockton offers his own take on Brookes' post here.
And in a post on the GiveWell blog, Holden Karnofsky argues that giving money for "selfish" reasons is "no more wrong than unnecessary personal consumption. The point at which it becomes a problem," adds Karnofsky, "is when you 'count it' toward your charitable/philanthropic giving for the year."
Last week, President Obama released the list of charities to which he has decided to donate the $1.4 million cash award that came with his Nobel Peace Prize. On the Social Entrepreneurship blog, Nathaniel Whittemore grades the president's choices.
Social Media
Beth Kanter, Geoff Livingston, and Kami Watson Huyse -- the principals of recently launched consulting firm Zoetica -- share their thoughts about how the rapid uptake of social media and other online technologies is changing corporate social responsibility.
Wealth Management
The Weakonomist takes a look at the 2010 edition of Forbes magazine's list of the world's richest people and identifies a few noteworthy trends.
And that's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
Non-Financial Capital and Social Change
(Paul Shoemaker is executive director of Social Venture Partners Seattle and recently was named one of the "Top 50 Most Influential People in the Non-Profit Sector" by The NonProfit Times.)
As some of you know, a few months ago I did the local TEDx about the power of human and social (not just or even primarily financial) capital to change our world in the years ahead. I think there are two parts of that message that might be relevant to WEF, and there's one I mentioned in the talk: our old ways of adding up the financial and institutional resources for community change flat out miss the power, potential, real, and often more enduring impact of human and social capital. (I give credit to SVP partner Bill Henningsgaard for articulating that.) This is starting to change, but we have to become much more intentional and specific about the role and value of non-financial capital in social change. That is a core part of our game at SVP.
This other one I didn't mention: another huge reason why human social capital is so critical is because the amount of money we can bring to bear on social issues is fixed, constrained, or even shrinking in many places. Whether we like it or not, that is not going to change anytime soon. Governments around the world are collectively tens of trillions (tr, not b) of dollars in debt. No matter your politics, that is a fact that unquestionably points to constrained public resources.
So the most plentiful, expandable assets we have are non-financial. Don't get me wrong -- money always matters. But if we want to increase the "supply" of assets for positive change, we're gonna have to do it in ways that are leveraged, creative, and expand human and social capital. How much difference can that make? I don't know for sure, but think about the "social value" that Facebook creates -- and the fact that it didn't even exist ten years ago.
What do you think? Given the challenges confronting us in 2012 and beyond, what does the social sector have to do to think -- and be thought of -- differently? How can we rapidly change the "equation for social good"?
-- Paul Shoemaker
Posted at 10:30 AM in Commentary, Philanthropy, Strategies, TED Talks | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)