Weekend Link Roundup (August 11-12, 2012)

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

Communications/Marketing

Welcome to the Fifth Estate author Geoff Livingston has a list of tips for artists and writers seeking to brand and market themselves. The list includes:

• Focus on actions.
• Go beyond Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
• Monitor social media conversations.
• Let your fans embrace your experience.

Disaster Relief

GiveWell's Holden Karnofsky shares findings from a recent evaluation of charities working to help people in Japan recover from the earthquake and tsunami that devastated the northeastern part of the country in 2011. After reviewing reports about their activities over the past twelve months, Karnofsky concludes that he and his partners "stand by the conclusions we reached last year: that the relief and recovery effort did not have room for more funding, that those interested in emergency relief should have donated to Doctors Without Borders, and that those determined to help Japan specifically should have donated to the Japanese Red Cross."

Diversity

On the Philanthropy Potluck blog, Wendy Wehr, vice president of communications and information services at the Minnesota Council on Foundations, reminds us that while gathering data to monitor diversity among foundation staff and boards is a critical step, organizations also must focus their attention on "turning data into knowledge, and then acting on that knowledge."

Leadership

Rosetta Thurman shares some helpful tips on plotting a guilt-free vacation.

Social Media

On the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, our colleagues chat with Jane Lowe, senior program officer and team director of the Vulnerable Populations Portfolio at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, about how social media, and more broadly, the transparency and participation they offer, are adding critical new dimensions to [the foundation's] work.

Technology

Buzz Machine blogger Jeff Jarvis shares a few principles for news and technology companies trying to develop online platforms:

• Users come first. A platform without users is nothing. Screw your users, screw yourself.
• A platform is defined by its users. In other words: Hand over control to your users. Give them power. Design in flexibility.
• Platforms collaborate.
• Platforms need principles.

Transparency

"With all that they have at their disposal (money, expertise, networks, flexible time horizons, and reputation), foundations have a great opportunity to try lots of different ways to share information," writes Lucy Bernholz on her Philanthropy 2173 blog. "It's not as simple as having a publications arm or a communications officer or a learning office or a knowledge management strategy, but it's about using whichever of the above means/mechanisms fits the 'who' and the 'why'...."

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

-- The Editors

Comments

[Geoff Livingston]

Glad you found the tips useful! Thanks for including me in your round up!