Weekend Link Roundup (September 18 - 19, 2010)

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

Communications/Marketing

At her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen shares three "incredibly important" rules to organizing information on your nonprofit's Web site.

Philanthropy

All last week, philanthropic leaders attending the Council on Foundation's Fall Conference for Community Foundations shared their thoughts and perspectives on Kris Putnam-Walkerly's Philanthropy 411 blog. We especially liked the posts by Jillian Vukusich of the Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties, who urged foundation leaders to be flexible when doing business; Nick Deychakiwsky of the Mott Foundation, who reflected on a plenary speech by CoF president/CEO Steve Gunderson in which Gunderson compared community foundations to auto dearlerships -- in both industries, reputation matters, quality matters, customer service needs to be 24/7, speed is important, and location matters; and China Brotsky of Tides, who shared a few takeaways from a session on racial and ethnic diversity in philanthropy.

On his Tactical Philanthropy blog, Sean Stannard-Stockton argues that the times call for "deviant philanthropy," which he defines as action or behavior that challenge the philanthropic status quo.

On the Deep Social Impact blog, Ellen Remmer wonders why the list of wealthy individuals who have signed on to the Giving Pledge campaign includes so few women. Writes Remmer: "I get...that today's self-made billionaires are more likely to be men....But what bothers me is that here we have a huge statement about the powerful and moral act of giving; indeed a call to action, a challenge, and women look like the back-up act, extras in the drama."

And in a different post on the Deep Social Impact blog, Philanthropic Initiative senior fellows Paula Johnson and Mark Sidel call the data informing this year's World Giving Index "perplexing, and potentially harmful to our understanding of the rich, diverse, and complex ways that philanthropic giving is practiced around the world."

Social Media

On Beth's Blog, the tireless Beth Kanter identifies three options for nonprofits looking to delegate some of the social media work load (free, integrated, or staffed).

The Foundation Center has released the results of a new survey which found that about a third of foundation executives regularly read blogs and use Facebook, while only 6 percent use Twitter. Responding to the news, Allison Fine, co-author (with Beth Kanter) of The Networked Nonprofit: Connecting With Social Media to Drive Change, writes that if she had to choose, she would rather see a foundation use social media than fund it.

Looking ahead to the upcoming Social Media Summit, Mashable's Sarah Kessler compiles a list of five trends "that will shape the way we use social media for positive change in the future."

And on the Social Citizens blog, Kristin Ivie takes a look at some of the drawbacks to sharing crisis information on Twitter and wonders/asks whether "the potential risks [are] worth the access to the information?"

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

-- Regina Mahone