Weekend Link Roundup (May 21-22, 2016)

Our weekly round up of noteworthy items from and about the social sector. For more links to great content, follow us on Twitter at @pndblog....

Climate Change

Just as we often hear that it's easier to make money than to give it away, it seems as if donors and foundation leaders are learning that it's easier to divest from fossil fuel companies than it is to invest in clean energy. Fortune's Jennifer Reingold reports.

Economy

America's middle class is shrinking. The Pew Research Center lays it out in depressing detail.

Giving Pledge

So you've amassed a few hundred million or even a billion dollars and now want to help those who are less fortunate. A good place to start, writes Manoj Bhargava, founder of Billions in Change and Stage 2 Innovations, in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, is to understand the problem before funneling money into a solution, stop relying on traditions and assumptions, and make your philanthropy about serving, not helping.

Health

In a post on RWJF's Culture of Health blog, the foundation's Kristin Schubert says it's time for public health officials, school administrators, and parents to reframe the way we think about the links between health, learning, and success in life.

International Affairs/Development

Why should U.S. foundations take the global Sustainable Development Goals seriously? Because, writes NCRP's Ed Cain, they "constitute the broadest, most ambitious development agenda ever agreed to at the global level for getting the world off of its self-destructive, unsustainable path. [They] reflect the interconnectedness of social, economic and environmental challenges and solutions. [And they]...tackle inequality, governance and corruption."

Nonprofits

On the TechCrunch site, Kevin Barenblat, a co-founder and president of Fast Forward, looks at three ways tech innovations are helping to reinvent how nonprofits address social problems. 

On the Forbes site, five nonprofit leaders from the Forbes Nonprofit Council pinpoint some of the challenges that may be holding you back from making your organization a success.

Nell Edgington has a good interview on her Social Velocity blog with Isaac Castillo, director of outcomes, assessment, and learning at Venture Philanthropy Partners. 

In the Harvard Business Review, Charities Defense Council founder Dan Pallotta argues that the decentralized structure of the charitable sector is undermining its effectiveness -- so much so, in fact, that what the sector really needs is the mother of all mergers.

In the first installment of a two-part series for the Nonprofit Quarterly, Tim Delaney, president and CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, looks at the recent data on funding for nonprofit infrastructure organizations (the organizations that Pallotta would like to see united under a single banner) and asks three questions: Why has overall infrastructure funding fallen from 0.85% of total giving in 2006 to just 0.60% in 2012? Why the pronounced bias for philanthropy-specific infrastructure versus the essentially stagnant support for nonprofit infrastructure? What's at risk if support for nonprofit infrastructure continues to be tepid in the face of vastly greater policy threats to the work of foundations and charities, and vastly greater numbers of entities for nonprofit infrastructure to support?

And here on PhilanTopic, GuideStar's Jacob Harold and the Center for Effective Philanthropy's Phil Buchanan explain why all foundations need to support nonprofit infrastructure. 

Philanthropy

What will it take to reverse the chronic under-investment in rural communities by philanthropy. NCRP executive director Aaron Dorfman has a few ideas.

As media coverage and public awareness of philanthropy have increased over the last decade and a half, so has criticism of it. In the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Karl Zinsmeister, creator of The Almanac of American Philanthropy, reviews a dozen common criticisms of philanthropy -- and offers a spirited defense.

Social Good

After taking a pounding from the Wall Street Journal for a single "CGI commitment, made six years ago...[that]  involved a private company...performing a social good," the Clinton Foundation responds on Medium with an explainer that details how the CGI model and impact investment work.

Transparency

On his Nonprofit Chronicles blog, Marc Gunther looks at what Russian-born Daniil and David Liberman are doing to bring radical transparency to the nonprofit sector.

And Carnegie Corporation Vartan Gregorian explains what a commitment to transparency looks like for a large, stablished foundation.

Women/Girls

In a sponsored piece for the New York Times, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation explains why and how efforts to collect data about women and girls drives social progress, and what it is doing to support those efforts.

That's it for now. What have you been reading/watching/listening to? Drop us a line at mfn@foundationcenter.org or via the comments section below....