Weekend Link Roundup (February 19 - 20, 2011)
February 20, 2011
Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Fundraising
After doing some more thinking about so-called cause competitions like America's Giving Challenge and the Pepsi Refresh Project, Networked Nonprofit co-author Allison Fine wonders how other groups might structure an effort that combines "the fun of competing without the detriment of causes competing against one another."
"I've always thought the catchphrase 'accounting is destiny!' that Clara Miller and George [Overholser] would throw around when they ran the Nonprofit Finance Fund was a little...nerdy," writes Sean Stannard-Stockton on his Tactical Philanthropy blog. "But it sure seems to me that our simplistic nonprofit accounting standards, paired with our moralistic views around spending money on fundraising, is a major culprit of our undercapitalized nonprofit sector...."
On the Harvard Business Review blog, Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta suggests that we're all to blame for convincing donors that organizations with low overhead costs are more efficient than those with higher costs. Writes Pallotta:
We've been telling the donating public that good charities have low overhead, and bad charities have high overhead. Well, I don't know about you, but when I hear "good," I think, "makes a difference." So, if you tell me [that] good charities have low overhead, then I don't need to know whether the money I give makes a difference. If they have low overhead, I can assume that they do! The Nonprofit Overhead Cost Project at Indiana University's Center on Philanthropy came to the opposite conclusion. Their report, "Getting What We Pay For: Low Overhead Limits Nonprofit Effectiveness," indicates that the charities that spend less on capacity tend to have inferior programs. The donating public might want to know that, don't you think?
We have, as a result of our timidity, managed to confuse a well-intentioned public into basing their giving decisions on the wrong data. That's not what they want. And if they knew that's what we've been up to they'd be pissed....
Microfinance
Still confused about why it's okay for for-profit microfinance lenders to charge exorbitant interest rates? Watch as Philanthrocapitalism author Matthew Bishop explains it to a skeptical Felix Salmon in this seven-minute video.
Nonprofits
On the Case Foundation blog, Change Your Career author Laura Gassner Otting looks at the pros and cons of working in the nonprofit sector.
Philanthropy
Philanthropy 2173 blogger Lucy Bernholz recaps a recent Guidestar webinar based on her ten predictions about how philanthropy is likely to change over the next decade.
Social Entrepreneurship
Sasha Dichter shares a few reflections on Generosity Day, a twenty-four-hour version of his Generosity Experiment. Organized by Dichter, Network for Good's Katya Andresen, and Malaria No More's Scott Case, the effort sought to "make [Valentine's Day] about love, action, and human connection -- because we can do better than smarmy greeting cards, overpriced roses, and stressed-out couples trying to create romantic meals on the fly."
Social Media
On the Chronicle's Social Philanthropy blog, Cody Switzer explains how the American Red Cross went "from #gettngslizzerd to getting donations" last week. After a young employee accidently posted a tweet about drinking using the organization's Twitter account on Hootsuite, a social media application that allows users to send updates from multiple accounts, the Red Cross quickly deleted the tweet and owned up to it on various social media channels. Writes Switzer:
The results were overwhelmingly positive. At one point on Wednesday, the phrase #gettngslizzerd was a trending topic on Twitter. Dogfish Head Brewery asked people to donate to the Red Cross, and several donors responded by posting that they had donated either money or blood. HootSuite pledged to donate $100. [Red Cross social media director Wendy] Harman said it's impossible to calculate the total direct impact of the tweet, but donations were up slightly above average....
And on the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Greater New Orleans Foundation president and CEO Albert Ruesga explains how his foundation uses social media to communicate with local residents, especially during a disaster like last year’s BP oil spill.
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at [email protected]. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
Posted by Brad Fallon | February 24, 2011 at 07:09 PM
A nonprofit organization is an organization that does not distribute its surplus funds to owners or shareholders, but instead uses them to help pursue its goals.