Weekend Link Roundup (December 29-30, 2012)

To help mark the end of another eventful year, we've rounded up a dozen or so of our favorite "best of" and nonprofit trendspotting pieces. Have a list you'd like to share? Let us know in the comments section below.

Communications/Marketing

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen shares Trendwatching's list of consumer trends to keep an eye on and weighs in on what each could mean for nonprofits in 2013.

And in a two-part series on her Getting Attention blog (here and here), Nancy Schwartz lists the nonprofit marketing trends that are "must-dos" for your organization in 2013.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Kula CEO Gerrit McGowan looks back at some of the CSR high- and lowlights of 2012 -- and tells us what companies looking to take their CSR programs to the next level will be doing in 2013.

Innovation/Leadership

As it has it has for many years, Foreign Policy magazine closes out 2012 with an eclectic list of the top global thinkers -- a list that includes Bill and Melinda Gates, Warren Buffett, George Soros, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, novelists Haruki Murakami and Chinua Achebe, and Russian environmentalist Yevgenia Chirikova.

In addition to his appearance in the FP list, Barack Obama was honored in December by TIME magazine as its Person of the Year. "We are in the midst of historic cultural and demographic changes," explains TIME, "and Barack Obama is both the symbol and in some ways the architect of this new America...."

Philanthropy

Turning to the philanthropic space, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation shares the top 2012 reads from its Impatient Optimists blog, while the Ford Foundation looks back at its major accomplishments in 2012, including the launch of Time to Succeed, a national coalition that encourages and enables communities to add more learning time to the school day and year.

On the BlackGivesBack blog, Tracey Webb names the top ten African-American celebrity philanthropists of 2012. Now in its sixth year, the list was compiled with help from the Admiral Center, an initiative of New York City-based Living Cities that helps celebrities use their time, influence, and money to develop sustainable solutions to pressing global challenges.

On its site, New York City-based Bolder Giving announces the twelve Bold Givers who in 2012 "[supported] important causes at remarkable levels of income and assets...[and embody] Bolder Giving's mission to inspire and support people to give at their full lifetime potential."

And Philanthropy 2173's Lucy Bernholz wraps up her list of the top buzzwords of 2012 -- words and terms that, in a field known for its love-hate relationship with jargon, "are becoming ever more a part of the philanthropy conversation."

Science/Technology

Like the Eye of Sauron, Google never sleeps. As the year was drawing to a close, the tech giant released Zeitgeist 2012, an online platform that highlights "the searches that defined 2012."

And on the Tech Soup blog, Jim Lynch looks at the big nonprofit technology trends of the year, including cloud computing and mobile technology.

Social Media

Hootsuite CEO Ryan Holmes weighs in on the social media trends to watch in 2013.

Women

And the Washington Area Women's Foundation takes us out with a list of five policies that affected women and their families in 2012.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a happy and safe New Year!

--The Editors