Weekend Link Roundup (October 14-15, 2017)

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

Arts and Culture

We've always admired Herb Alpert — chart-topping musician, innovative record producer/executive, generous philanthropist — and are happy to pass on the news that his foundation has a brand brand new website.

Economy

"[F]or the first time since World War II, American children have only a 50-50 chance of earning more than their parents" — proof that our "economic system is broken," and why jobs and opportunity are America's most pressing challenge, writes Rockefeller Foundation president Rajiv J. Shah.

Giving

How might tax reform affect charitable giving? On the NPR site, Jonathan Meer, a professor at Texas A&M University and an expert on charitable giving, shares his analysis.

Cash-strapped though they may be, cause-driven millennials are finding ways to support causes and organizations aligned with their passions and concerns. Justin Miller, co-Founder and CEO of CARE for AIDS, a faith-based NGO that provides holistic care to families affected by HIV/AIDS in East Africa, explains.

Grantmaking

On the Center for Effective Philanthropy blog, Anthony Richardson, a program officer at the Nord Family Foundation in Ohio, argues that it is critically important for funders "to listen and be discerning about what may be most helpful — and what may indeed be unintentionally harmful — to organizations doing challenging work on the front lines."

Most Popular PhilanTopic Posts (April 2017)

For those in the Northeast, April was rainy, cool, and dreary. Here on the blog, though, things were hopping, with lots of new readers and contributors. The sun is back out, but before you head outside, check out the posts PhilanTopic readers especially liked over the last thirty days.

• Six Ways to Connect People to Your Cause Through Social Media (Angela Hearn)
• A Multi-Pronged Approach to Impact Investing for Family Foundations (Sally Boulter)
• Millennial vs. Boomer Strategies: Time to Move On? (Derrick Feldmann)
• Advocacy Funder Collaboratives (Cynthia Gibson, Jen Bokoff)
• Reframing Addiction: Removing Stigma, Saving Lives (Gary Mendell)
• Four Key Indicators of Nonprofit Success (Richard Brewster)
• Remembering Paul Connolly (Bessemer Trust)
• Groundwork for Good Fortune: The Real Power of Strategic Planning (David Allyn)
• Support Girls of Color by Listening First (Jody Myrum)
• Beyond the Emergency Department: How We Can Improve Care for Patients With Complex Needs (John Lumpkin)

What have you read/watched/heard lately that got your attention, made you think, or charged you up? Feel free to share with our readers in the comments section below. Or drop us a line at mfn@foundationcenter.org.

Weekend Link Roundup (March 4-5, 2017)

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

Arts and Culture

"The right of artists and journalists to tweak the nose of power, to challenge what we believe, to criticize those in high places, to hold accountable people who otherwise might anoint themselves kings, cannot be abridged because we find it at times uncomfortable," writes Heinz Endowments president Grant Oliphant on the foundation's Point blog. And the "very real possibility that the tiny levels of federal spending for the NEA, NEH and CPB will be eliminated has...obviously nothing to do with balancing budgets or fiscal prudence. It is an attack, pure and simple, on independent and potentially critical voices. It is an expression of disdain for the magical ability of art and journalism to knit our country and its people back together again, and of cowardly antipathy toward those who dare speak unpleasant truths to power...."

Civil Society

Citing efforts to repeal the Johnson Amendment, proposed budget cuts to the IRS, pending anti-protest bills in at least sixteen states, the renewed drive to kill net neutrality, and other developments, Lucy Bernholz argues in a post on her Philanthropy 2173 that "[c]ivil society in the U.S. is being deliberately undermined" and that, just like current attacks on the press, these efforts "are both deliberate and purpose-built."

Education

In this Comcast Newsmaker video (running time, 5:09), Kresge Foundation president Rip Rapson discusses the drivers behind the foundation's early childhood work in Detroit.

Fundraising

Looking to hire a fundraising consultant? Consultant Aly Sterling has put together a nice presentation with a dozen "essential" tips for you to consider and keep in mind.

Giving

The folks at @Pay have the answers to your questions about online giving platforms.

Six Ways to Connect People to Your Cause Through Social Media

A lot has changed since the National Park Foundation shared its first Facebook post in 2008.

Before then, landing an interview on a national news program or with a daily newspaper was enough to reach the masses.

Now, traditional media shares the spotlight with social media and other innovative forms of communication. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and the like have opened up a new world of possibilities for the sharing of content. And while NPF continues to use traditional advertising, public relations, content marketing, and events to engage current supporters and reach new audiences, social media plays an increasingly important role in our marketing and communications mix.

Here are some of the social media tactics we use to reach people of different ages and backgrounds and inspire them to care about our cause:

1. Create a movement with a call to action that inspires social sharing. In anticipation of the National Park Service Centennial celebration in 2016, we launched Find Your Park/Encuentra Tu Parque in 2015, a bilingual public engagement campaign designed to reach millennial audiences through traditional and new media platforms. The groundswell created by the campaign inspired a movement, with more than one in three millennials becoming familiar with #FindYourPark and #EncuentraTuParque through our strategic communications efforts, including print and Web media, public service announcements, live events, and donated advertising. But the campaign really took off on social media, as supporters of the national park system responded in huge numbers to our call to share their memories and tips for exploring these incredible places with those who had never experienced them. Indeed, over the course of the campaign, we registered more than 5.9 million engagements through our social media channels.

2. Partner with influencers, including celebrities. There's no doubt that the right celebrity ambassador can bring star power to your cause and get new eyeballs on your work. Our Find Your Park/Encuentra Tu Parque ambassadors have been fantastic partners in doing just that. From Mary Lambert performing a Facebook Live pop-up concert in front of Stonewall National Monument to Bill Nye hosting a modern-day telethon via Mashable's Facebook page in support of #GivingTuesday, our message is reaching more people in new and innovative ways. But don't discount the impact and importance of everyday influencers. Participants in our Find Your Park Expedition, for example, are social media personalities and bloggers who "bring" people along with them when they explore a national park by sharing their experiences online. We know that people are compelled to act by genuine, authentic narratives. While the channels through which we deliver those narratives may vary, curiosity about what our national parks represent and the urge to help preserve them for future generations transcends demographics and cultural differences.

Weekend Link Roundup (January 7-8, 2017)

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

Animal Welfare

Here's some good news: China has announced it will shut down the trade of ivory within its borders by the end of 2017. Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen applauds the decision.

Higher Education

Could a favorite tax break for donors who give to the nation's wealthiest colleges and universities be curtailed by the new Congress? Janet Lorin reports for Bloomberg.

Regardless of the tax policy changes Congress settles on, many multimillion-dollar gifts won't do as much good as the donors of those gifts hope, writes Paul Connolly, director of philanthropic advisory services at the Bessemer Trust, and that’s because "too few of them are getting the sound advice they need to move from good intentions to effective contributions and real positive impact."

International Affairs/Development 

As bad as 2016 may have seemed, the long-term trend for humanity is moving in the right direction, writes FastCo.Exist contributor Adele Peters, citing research by Oxford economist Max Roser. Take poverty: two hundred years ago, most people on the planet lived in extreme poverty, but "by 1950, a quarter of the world's population had made it out of extreme poverty...[and today] 90% of the world has." Or education: "In 1820, 1 out of 10 people was literate. Now more than 8 out of 10 people in the world can read." 

These trends could be accelerated if more of the developing world's population was connected to the Internet. On the ONE blog, Samantha Urban reports on the recommendations to address the situation made by Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in November 19.

5 Questions for...Jennifer Preston, Vice President for Journalism, Knight Foundation

"Quality journalism matters," writes Jennifer Preston, vice president for journalism at the John S, and James L. Knight Foundation. "It is a buttress against the torrent of fake news we've seen explode in the past year, and it can help rebuild the diminishing trust many people have in society's core institutions."

In keeping with the foundation's efforts over the last ten years to support quality journalism and the work of nonprofit news organizations, Preston and her colleagues launched the Knight News Match just before the holidays. In a recent email conversation, she spoke about the problem of fake news, the role of social media in the recent presidential election, and the matching campaign, which is open through January 19.

Philanthropy News Digest: There's been a lot of talk about fake news and its role, real or imagined, in determining the outcome of the presidential election. What is fake news, and why is it suddenly a problem?

Jennifer Preston: Fake news is not a new problem. Supermarket tabloids have been generating false stories and doctored photos for decades. As journalists, we spend our days reporting, verifying, checking, sifting through misinformation to uncover accurate information and verify facts before publishing. Social media — and the Internet — has accelerated the pace for spreading both journalism and false information. What is happening, of course, is the impact of social media on how we consume information. False information is flowing unfettered through social media channels and people are sharing it without knowing that what they are sharing is inaccurate. I see the concerns over fake news to be a symptom of the overall lack of trust in media and information. At Knight, we are supporting projects to help journalists and news organizations build trust with their audience by engaging more directly with community residents. As an example, we fund a Solutions Journalism project in Seattle and another in Philadelphia. We are funding the University of Oregon's Center for Journalism Innovation and Civic Engagement to create case studies and best practices for journalism engagement. And we're also supporting the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation's work in New Jersey, which has been focused in helping local online news organizations engage more closely with the communities they cover.

PND: Are you at all concerned that efforts to identify and minimize the influence of fake news could backfire by reinforcing people's existing filters and certainty in what they believe to be "real" news?

JP: It took a while, but we are seeing engineers and technologists becoming highly engaged in addressing the spread of false information, and it will be interesting to see their solutions. It is key, however, that First Amendment concerns are addressed. It was interesting to see how Facebook decided to partner with Politifact and ABC News. One of the best ways to fight misinformation is to support quality journalism, and that's why we launched the Knight News Match campaign.

Weekend Link Roundup (August 20-21, 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....

Civic Engagement

On the Carnegie Corporation website, the corporation's Geri Mannion and Jay Beckner of the Mertz Gilmore Foundation chat with Carnegie Visiting Media Fellow Gail Ablow about how foundations can support voting rights litigation.

Community Improvement/Development

The Rockefeller Foundation and Unreasonable Institute, which works to identify entrepreneurs with the potential to address social injustice at scale, have announced the launch of the Future Cities Accelerator, a $1 million urban innovation competition aimed at spurring next-generation leaders to develop solutions to complex urban problems. Though the competition, ten winners will receive $100,000 each and will participate in a nine-month intensive program giving them access to business leaders, investors, and technical support. Details here.

The Knight Foundation is bringing back its Knight Cities Challenge for a third iteration and will offer $5 million in grant funding for the best ideas in three areas that are crucial to building more successful cities – attracting and retaining talent, increasing economic opportunity, and promoting civic engagement. The competition, which is limited to the twenty-six Knight communities, opens Monday, October 10, at knightcities.org and will close on Thursday, November 3, with winners to be announced next spring.

As part of Generocity's "Leaders of Color" series, Tony Abraham profiles David Gould, a program office at the William Penn Foundation, who has a plan for leveling the playing field for people of color in Philadelphia. You can check out the rest of the series here.

What can we learn about creative placemaking from Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities)? As the Saint Luke's Foundation's Nelson Beckford reminds us, pretty much everything.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Think the concept of sustainability is a little too fuzzy to serve as a pillar of one's corporate strategy. Think again, argues the Environmental Defense Fund's Tom Murray.

Weekend Link Roundup (April 30-May 1, 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....

Arts and Culture

On the Americans for the Arts blog, Sharbreon Plummer offers some "suggestions for ways that employers can support emerging leaders...of color, along with ways that individuals can begin to explore self-care and agency within their institutional structures and everyday lives."

Climate Change

The Paris Agreement to limit emissions of global greenhouse gases will go into effect when 55 countries  —  comprising at least 55 percent of annual global emissions — ratify it domestically. Making sure individual countries live up to their commitments is going to be a challenge. Pacific Standard's John Wihbey explains.

Community Improvement/Development

"In the wake of Freddie Gray's fatal encounter with the police, subsequent tumultuous protests, a mistrial for one of the officers charged in connection with [his] death, and a crime spike, Baltimore, for better or worse, has become a poster child for government failure," writes Clare Foran in The Atlantic. With Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake having announced she will not run for reelection, what happens in the city's Democratic primary "could shed light on the complex challenge of how to rebuild a fractured city — or how not to."

Corporate Philanthropy

On his Nonprofit Chronicles blog, Marc Gunther considers the growth of global pro bono programs and argues that, as well intentioned as they may be, "without independent evaluations, feedback from clients and transparency about results, [such] practices won't do nearly as much good as they could."

Education

On the Ford Foundation's Equals Change blog, Frederick James Frelow, a senior program officer in the foundation's Youth Opportunity and Learning program, looks at some of the restorative justice practices the New York City Board of Education has implemented to help address "the root causes of the conflicts and misunderstandings that undermine trust and respect between youth and adults in school as well as in the world at large."

Environment

A massive 40,000-acre seagrass die off in the waters of Florida Bay is raising alarms about a serious environmental breakdown. The Washington Post's Chris Mooney reports.

In the first post of a four-part series, Mongabay reporter Jeremy Hance explores how the world's biggest conservation groups have embraced an approach known as "new conservation" that is roiling the field.

Weekend Link Roundup (April 2-3, 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....

Education

StudentsFirst, the education reform organization started by controversial former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, is being merged into education advocacy organization 50Can. "Rhee's group launched on Oprah Winfrey's talk show in 2010, with the goal of raising $1 billion dollars in its first year," writes Joy Resmovits in the Washington Post. "The goal was then revised to $1 billion over five years; in its first year, it brought in only $7.6 million."  Rhee stepped down as CEO of the organization in 2014, after which it closed a number of state chapters, downsized its staff, and lowered its profile.

Environment

Two-thirds of the environmentalists who have died violently since 2002 were activists in Latin America. And for the five years ending in 2014, more than 450 were killed -- over half of them in Honduras and Brazil. Darryl Fears reports for the Washington Post.

On March 15, the World Health Organization released the second edition of a report on the health challenges that arise from living and working in unhealthy environments. The UN Foundation's Analise McNicholl shares five takeaways from the  report. 

A recent state task force report called the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, an "environmental justice." But what does that mean -- and what can we do to ensure that instances of similar injustice are eliminated? Brentin Mock examines those questions for The Atlantic's City Labs portal.

Higher Education

Phase-one results from College Count$, a joint research project established in April 2015 by the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, Ford Foundation and Annie E. Casey Foundation, demonstrate that low-income students who've participated in the Arkansas Career Pathways Initiative (CPI) earn associate degrees or technical certificates at more than double the rate of the general community college population in the state and experience a boost in wages. College Count$ itself currently is seeking funding for the next phase of research to measure the return on investment (ROI) to the state generated as a result of expanded employment, increased tax revenues, and a decline in the need for public assistance. 

Weekend Link Roundup (March 19-20, 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....

African Americans

In the New Yorker, Jelani Cobb considers the ongoing debate surrounding the Black Lives Matter movement.

Data

With its combination of "engaging" visuals and "data-driven interactivity," data visualization could be the answer to opaque spreadsheets and dry, little-noticed statistics. Or not. The challenge, writes Jake Porway on the Markets for Good site, "is that data visualization is not an end-goal...[i]t is often the final step in a long manufacturing chain along which data is poked, prodded, and molded to get to that pretty graph.  Ignoring that process is at best misinformed, and at worst destructive."  

What makes data "clean" and why does it matter? Jenny Walton, a customer advocate at donor relationship software company Bloomerang, explains.

Education

It's a familiar story. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, moves into a small town or suburban community and "disrupts" its local competitors out of business. Less familiar is the story about Walmart, increasingly under threat from online competitors, leaving a town or community -- and taking its low-paying jobs along with it. A business story, yes. But as Jeff Bryant, director of the Education Opportunity Network, explains on Valerie Strauss' Answer Sheet blog, it's also a story about closed or underfunded public schools.

Can privately funded charter schools and district schools co-located in the same building learn to live together in a way that benefits kids and teachers from both schools equally? The folks at the Walmart Foundation, a major funder of charter schools, highlight one promising example from Los Angeles.

Inequality

Not New York. Not San Francisco. The U.S. city with the widest income disparity is Boston, where nearly half of residents make less than $35,000 a year and, for most folks,  inflation-adjusted incomes haven't risen in three decades. That stark reality is one of the findings contained in a new study by the Boston Redevelopment Authority, a report that "portrays a local economy sharply divided by race, class, and education, with shrinking opportunities for those trying to climb the economic ladder." The Boston Globe's Katie Johnston reports.

Weekend Link Roundup (February 20-21, 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....

Arts and Culture

In a piece for the Huffington Post, Robert Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts, looks at five macro trends that nonprofit arts organizations need to watch.

Fundraising

You would think that finance and fundraising professionals at most nonprofits go out of their way to be collegial and collaborative. According to Andy Segedin, you would be wrong.

Governance

Good post by Eugene Fram on the role trustees and directors should play in overseeing nonprofit management/staff.

Higher Education

Is the traditional college education an endangered species? Of course it is, says MIT computer science professor and serial education entrepreneur Anant Agarwal. The Innovation@Wharton team reports.

Inequality

Nicky Goren, president and CEO of the D.C.-based Eugene and Agnes Meyer Foundation, suggests that "many of the barriers and challenges facing low-income communities are the product of generations of systemic inequity," and that business and nonprofit leaders need "to have an open and candid conversation about racism before we can move from treating the symptoms of inequality to tackling its causes."

What do entrepreneurs and tech visionaries in Silicon Valley understand about income inequality and the threat it poses to global prosperity? Not a whole lot, write Jess Rimington and Joanna Levitt Cea, visiting scholars at Stanford University's Global Projects Center, and Martin Kirk, head of strategy for activist website The Rules, on FastCoExist.

The practice of tipping is rooted in slavery -- and it continues to hurt American workers today. The Ford Foundation's Elizabeth Wann explains.

[Infographic] The 2016 Nonprofit Communications Trends Report

Kivi Leroux Miller, the award-winning author and trainer behind Kivi's Nonprofit Communications Blog and the Nonprofit Marketing Guide site, has released the sixth edition of her annual Nonprofit Communications Trends Report (33 pages, PDF). The report, which is available for free download (registration required), includes valuable information about which communications goals/channels are most important to nonprofits, how often they send send direct appeals and newsletters (both print and email), the social media sites they favor, the average size of nonprofit communications teams and the average salary for key team members, and what nonprofit communicators are most excited about as they look ahead to 2016.

For a taste of what's in it, check out the infographic below...

Three Email Tactics to Boost Year-End Donations

Nonprofits make a huge chunk of their revenue during the last few weeks of the year – from Thanksgiving until December 31 at 11:59 p.m. So the fundraising strategies you employ during year-end should be rock solid. Careful and thoughtful planning is the key to seizing year-end opportunities.

Here are three email tactics that are relatively painless to implement:

1. Engage subscribers before asking for money. The Jane Goodall Institute asked me to vote for their nonprofit in Animal Planet's 2014 Matching Campaign (see email below). They invited me to show my support without pulling out my credit card. In fact, all they asked for was "just one click."

They've engaged me for two reasons:

• The barrier to entry is low (just one click).
• The reward from that one click is high (the good feeling from supporting JGI).

By engaging me emotionally first, they increase the likelihood I'll donate (which I did).

And if you didn't already know it, let me remind you: Opens and clicks are gold!

Most Popular PhilanTopic Posts (October 2015)

To quote the New York Post's Mike Vaccaro: "You are a New York Mets fan...and you know nothing is guaranteed." Congrats to the Kansas City Royals on a spectacular season and a truly memorable World Series victory, their first in thirty years. If you're a Mets fan...well, you don't have to wait that long to revisit some of the winning content we posted in October.

What did you read, watch, or listen to over the past month that had you cheering? Feel free to share in the comments section below, or drop us a line at mfn@foundationcenter.org.

• Creativity: A New Pillar of Sustainability (Laura Callanan and Anders Ferguson)
• 5 Reasons the Public Is Losing Interest in Your Cause (Derrick Feldmann)
• Why Are We Obsessed With Social Media Fundraising? (Derrick Feldmann)
• Philanthropy University? It Really May Be the Next Big Thing... (Fay Twersky)
• To Strengthen Democracy in America, Think Tech (Micah Sifry)
• 7 Ways to Make Your Year-End Fundraising Really Count (Claire Axelrad)
• To Solve the Succession Crisis, Invest in Homegrown Leader (Libbie Landles-Cobb, Kirk Kramer and Katie Smith Milway)

Why Are We Obsessed With Social Media Fundraising?

We all have guilty pleasures. Whether it's a favorite show on Bravo, the tabloid magazine we read in the checkout line at the grocery store, or that box of Girl Scouts cookies hidden in a desk drawer, there are certain things we become attached to and will not give up, on pain of death.

In fundraising, many of us share a guilty pleasure: social media fundraising.

We dream about it, discuss it with colleagues, and love reading articles and blog posts about it. Whether it's a platform highlighted in the latest issue of our favorite trade publication or a conference that always has at least one session on the topic, we just can't help ourselves.

Why? Why do we spend so much time obsessing about an activity that, in reality, doesn't generate all that much income – in fact, just 1 percent of total revenue from online donations?

The answer, I suspect, lies in our own use of social media, our often-overzealous boards, and misguided expectations.

You enjoy social media...

...and why shouldn't you? It's a great way to stay in touch with friends and family members, who entertain you with their pictures and videos, share things you like, and keep you informed of their career moves. As long as it's not abused, social media also provides a convenient, low-cost respite from the daily grind.