Weekend Link Roundup (December 3-4, 2016)

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

Aging

America is aging rapidly, and for "elder orphans" — the growing number of seniors with no relatives to help them deal with physical and mental health challenges — the future is a scary place. Sharon Jayson reports for Kaiser Health News.

Animal Welfare

Nonprofit Chronicles blogger Marc Gunther looks at the animal welfare movement, which, he writes, "is energized these days by the commitment, brainpower and moral fervor of a impressive group of activists in their 20s and 30s...crying out in opposition to what they see as an evil but widely-accepted practice."

Data

On her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz explains why, given the threats the incoming Trump administration poses "to free assembly, expression, and privacy," the nonprofit and philanthropic communities need to do more to manage and protect their digital data.

Education

Betsy DeVos, Donald Trump's pick to be U.S. Secretary of Education, is a wealthy supporter of "school choice" and, as "one of the architects of Detroit's charter school system,...partly responsible for what even charter advocates acknowledge is the biggest school reform disaster in the country." In an op-ed in the New York Times, Douglas N. Harris, a professor of economics at Tulane University and founding director of the Education Research Alliance for New Orleans, explains why her "nomination is a triumph of ideology over evidence that should worry anyone who wants to improve results for children."

In a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, Paul J. Deceglie of Fairfax, Virginia, argues that poverty, not school choice (or lack thereof), is the chief driver of poor student performance.

In a new installment of The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Re:Learning podcast, Goldie Blumenstyk chats with Jim Shelton, who recently was hired by the hired by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative to head up its education work.

Fundraising

Guest blogging on Beth Kanter's blog, Rob Wu, CEO and co-founder of CauseVox, shares six insights the so-called sharing economy tells us about the future of fundraising.

Giving

In the Washington Post, Albert R. Hunt looks at the impact various tax changes proposed by the incoming Trump administration could have on charitable giving.

The Bible tells us it is better to give than receive. So why are Americans so stingy when it comes to charitable giving? On the Vox site, Christian Smith and Hilary Davidson, co-authors of The Paradox of Generosity: Giving We Receive, Grasping We Lose, share key takeways from their research.

Just in time for the holiday giving season, GiveWell, the data-driven charity evaluation site, has released an updated list of its top charity rankings and recommendations.

Philanthropy

László Szombatfalvy, an 89-year-old Swedish philanthropist who fled his native Hungary in 1956 and subsequently made a fortune in the stock market, is offering a $5 million prize for "the best idea to create a new international decision-making system capable of tackling the world's intractable issues, from extreme poverty to the spread of nuclear weapons and growing environmental damage." Laurie Goering reports for The Wire.

In the latest installment of his "Business of Giving" podcast, Denver Fredericks chats with Kresge Foundation Rip Rapson about Kresge's recent evolution from a foundation specializing in capital challenge grants to a more strategic approach and the changing role of philanthropy nationwide.

Forbes staff writer Kerry A. Dolan checks in with a piece that looks at how a growing number of high-net-worth donors are making "big bets" in an effort to solve some of society's most pressing problems.

It isn't the first and won't be the last, but BuzzFeed reporter Natasha Tiku's take on the "new" philanthropy, Silicon Valley style, is worth a read.

Social Entrepreneurship

On the Skoll Foundation site, Sally Osberg, the foundation's president, and Bill Drayton, the founder and CEO of Ashoka, sit down with Suzana Grego, Skoll's director of public engagement, for a wide-ranging conversation about social entrepreneurs and social entrepreneurship.

Social Innovation

And don't forget to check out Nell Edgington's ten great social innovation reads form November.

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