News
New Monitor Institute report: “What’s Next for Philanthropy: Acting Bigger and Adapting Better in a Networked World”
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 | News | No Comments
The world around philanthropy is changing much, much faster than philanthropy itself. An intimidating range of forces—globalization, shifting sectoral roles, economic crisis, and new technologies—are changing both what philanthropy is called upon to do and how donors and foundations will accomplish their work in the future. For philanthropic and civic leaders looking to cultivate change in today’s rapidly shifting landscape, simply tweaking the status quo won’t be enough. Funders will have to pioneer “next practices”—effective approaches that are well-suited to tomorrow’s more networked, dynamic, and interdependent context.
With this in mind, we are pleased to announce the publication of the Monitor Institute’s new report, What’s Next for Philanthropy: Acting Bigger and Adapting Better in a Networked World. The piece updates our 2005 report, Looking Out for the Future, and represents more than a decade of work by the Institute in exploring the evolving “future of philanthropy.” It highlights the changing context in which funders now operate, and identifies ten emerging next practices that can help funders of all sorts increase their impact over the coming decade.
Funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, What’s Next for Philanthropy argues that while the cutting edge of philanthropic innovation over the last decade has been mostly about improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and responsiveness of individual organizations, the next practices of the coming 10 years will have to build on those efforts to include an additional focus on coordination and adaption—acting bigger and adapting better.
We hope you find the report helpful and look forward to hearing any feedback you might have.
A prize for follower-ship: the new Smart Money Award
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010 | News | No Comments
Why don’t more philanthropists work together? It’s one of those puzzling things for anyone just arriving in the field. Every foundation aims to cultivate some variety of social change, many foundations have mission statements that speak of the same values, and many have programs with the same or similar goals. Donors likewise often cluster around the same values and support like-minded projects. But any veteran can tell you that the incentives in philanthropy are almost all oriented against working together, starting with the simple fact that philanthropy is a voluntary act of expression rather than a competitive sport for profit or a requirement mandated by the state.
The new Smart Money Award offers one small incentive in the other direction. Since following in others footsteps rarely earns high praise, it offers that praise officially, recognizing and honoring the choices of philanthropists choose to support worthy projects that already exist rather than striking out on their own. The inaugural recipient: the McKnight Foundation, which used $100 million earmarked for fighting climate change to three major initiatives that were already underway. › Continue reading
New report: scenarios of how technology can help the poor
Monday, June 28th, 2010 | News | No Comments
Our colleagues at the Global Business Network just released a major new report with the Rockefeller Foundation: “Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development.” It takes a novel scenario-driven approach to describing how technology can alleviate poverty, tapping the tradition of scenario planning as a tool for strategic thinking that GBN has pioneered over the past two decades. It presents four stories (scenarios) that describe possible futures for the evolution of political-economy, technology, and the role of development over the next 15 years, and I’m happy to note that the stories all reinforce the importance of cross-sectoral and networked approaches to both problem-solving and organizational structure. › Continue reading
Highlights from the Personal Democracy Forum
Wednesday, June 16th, 2010 | News | No Comments
Once again I had the privilege of attending the Personal Democracy Forum in early June – an annual conference held in New York City that focuses on the intersection of the Internet, social media, and politics. Most attendees are part of the liberal “digerati”—bloggers, pundits, politicos, and campaign operatives—rather than social sector folks. However, the content at this conference is some of the best out there in terms of tracking the impact of technology on society and democracy. And, despite the paucity of nonprofit attendees, many of the presentations are very relevant to the work of social activists, particularly those concerned with civic engagement, grassroots organizing, or advocacy. › Continue reading
Noah’s Roundup for June 9th
Wednesday, June 9th, 2010 | News | No Comments
Here are seven particularly interesting items from the past month that I recommend reading:
- The Minnesota Community Foundation pulled off a very successful open grantmaking process with their new Minnesota Idea Open, a grant-as-prize competition focused on fighting obesity that used a diverse group of outside experts to vet the submissions and then tuned over the ultimate choice to a public vote. The process is closely aligned with that of the Knight News Challenge—and not surprisingly, the Knight Foundation was a sponsor. It went so well that the Minnesota CF now plans to make it an annual event and intends to let the public choose not only the winner but also the topic next year. Beth’s Blog has an interview with the VP.
- Twenty-one marquee funders are supporting a new initiative called Scaling What Works, a Grantmakers for Effective Organizations “action network” whose primary purpose is to › Continue reading
Webinar: Social Networks for Social Change on June 8th at 11am PDT / 2pm EDT
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 | News | 1 Comment
Heather Grant and I will be doing a webinar next week for Stanford Social Innovation Review. It will be an opportunity to present and discuss highlights from our recent SSIR article. We’ll also go deeper on recent research into social change with a network mindset and share a few tips for getting started working wikily. You can read more about the webinar and register at this page. Further details are below.
We hope you can join us! › Continue reading
New case study: KaBOOM!’s network-savvy path to scale
Thursday, June 3rd, 2010 | News | 1 Comment
We have just released a new case study focusing on KaBOOM!, an award-winning national nonprofit that helps build playgrounds in low-income communities, and advocates for children’s right to play. Rather than taking a typical approach to scale, KaBOOM! put its model online, and made it available to anyone, free of charge. Through a suite of online tools—including social networking, online training, codified content, and a Google-map mashup—KaBOOM! has empowered more than 6,000 communities to self-organize and build local playgrounds (far more than the 1,700 it built directly in its first 15 years). In so doing, it has had far more impact and reach, for far less cost. We look forward to your comments and hope that it will stimulate some new ways of thinking that might help you in the work that you do.
You can download the summary, the full report, or preview it below. › Continue reading
Working Wikily published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review
Wednesday, May 26th, 2010 | News | 1 Comment
I’m very proud to announce that an updated edition of Working Wikily has just been published as an article in the summer edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review. This version contains new examples and is written in a more narrative format that is even easier to read. I hope you find it valuable. You can view it in the reader below or download the PDF from the SSIR website. Please pass it along to anyone you know who might be interested in applying these ideas to their work.
New whitepaper: information technology is “Disrupting Philanthropy”
Friday, May 14th, 2010 | News | 2 Comments
If you’ve found any of this blog’s content interesting and relevant to your work, consider the new paper Disrupting Philanthropy assigned reading. All of the new ways of working in the social sector that we describe in Working Wikily 2.0 are made possible by the wave of new tools and technologies that are now available, and this whitepaper gives a full accounting of the breadth and depth of that wave. The authors (pictured at the right) provide a guided tour through the marvels available today that not only did not exist a decade ago but could not have existed because the technology to make them possible had not been invented or adopted. You’ll find among their examples › Continue reading
A whole new Facebook for causes?
Tuesday, April 6th, 2010 | News | 1 Comment
As GigaOm reported back in March, Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has launched a new startup called Jumo which will be an online platform for connecting individuals and organizations working on social causes. Here’s how he described the mission:
To do this well, I’m firmly of the mind that we have to foster relationships between everyday people and issues and organizations that are personally relevant to them. It’s now possible to provide each person with information and opportunities for meaningful action tailored specifically to who they are. If Jumo can make sure that happens and offer opportunities for meaningful engagement alongside it, I think we can speed the pace of global change.
Network-driven change at Tides: the Community Clinics Initiative
Friday, April 2nd, 2010 | News | No Comments
Ellen Friedman, the vice president at Tides, joined us last week for the Cultivating Change through Philanthropy convening. Just before coming she shared this wonderful anecdote on the Tides blog illustrating the effectiveness that she and the team at Tides have found in using a network-driven approach to their work on the Community Clinics Initiative:
I have seen firsthand the power of networks – both in my work as a grantmaker and as a leader at Tides where we have built a network across our various program offerings: grantmaking and donor advising, nonprofit program sponsorship and management, and nonprofit real estate development. In our work with Community Clinics Initiative we have participated in the development of a network of funders in California who fund community health centers and technology development. That work has not only resulted in increased dollars to clinics for technology development › Continue reading
Top Moments in Social Entrepreneurship – With a Network Lens
Monday, February 1st, 2010 | News | No Comments
We found this article by Nathaniel Whittemore on Change.org, as reposted on SSIR’s blog, very interesting. It captures highlights of the past decade with respect to the rise of Social Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation – two topics we at the Monitor Institute care very much about. Of particular note are several of these key tipping points which relate to networks, new technologies, or movement building within the SE field. In particular, we note:
- The advent of the Stanford Social Innovation Review as a journal, and now website and online community providing connective tissue for knowledge sharing across the field (Katherine Fulton and I both serve on their advisory board).
- The launch of the Social Innovation Fund, which creates a new networked model for government, working as a partner with nonprofits, foundations and borrowing best practices from the private sector.
- Social Capital Markets conference, where we’ve spoken and shared our research on the rise of impact investing
- The iPhone, which is facilitating mobile connectivity, and furthering both network mindset and action among social activists. It signifies many of the new technologies driving the creation of networks that we’ve written about here.
- The importance of the Jeff Skoll and Pierre Omidyar’s philanthropy in creating new models of giving for the field, influenced by their experience at eBay and a more network-centric approach to grant-making
For the complete list and commentary, here’s the original post.
Noah’s Roundup
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 | News | 1 Comment
Welcome back! We’ve been kicking off the year to a busy start here at the Institute, so this is the first chance I’ve had to look back over all the interesting material that popped up in the last month and a half. Here’s another roundup of the links that jump out to me as being the most noteworthy.
- It’s a new year with new predictions. Two lists worth reading are CauseGlobal’s general predictions of trends in the social sector and Change.org’s predictions for online action beyond donations. For a more thoughtful and long-term set of ideas about how technology is shaping the sector, Lucy Bernholz’ new paper “Disrupting Philanthropy” is a must-read.
- Transparency is a hot topic. The once-promising Chase Community Giving program resulted in fiery critique because of the opaque manner in which the administrators removed several vote-getters from the final round. What does that mean for foundations? Mario Morino argues that foundations should be getting ahead of the curve with a “transparency offensive,” because going transparent is simply inevitable. But as Chase has (hopefully) learned, › Continue reading
Noah’s Roundup
Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009 | News | No Comments
There’s been a lot of rich new material this last month and it’s about time that we took a moment aside again to summarize it in one place.
- Two resources for getting up to date on the current trends. First, ThinkSocial ran a competition for the best public-spirited uses of social media and released their first report, Social Media Blueprints 1.0, which offers a useful overview of the 10 trends that they’re seeing emerge. Second, Lucy Bernholz has a handy set of links to several year-end lists of social-sector trends.
- The crowd continues to be given increasing amounts of power. Governmental experimentation with crowdsourcing is beginning in earnest, as illustrated by these six examples and the launch of ExpertLabs to crowdsource policy advice. And JPMorgan Chase set a new milestone in trusting an online crowd with decisionmaking power with its Community Giving initiative that put $5 million of grants into the hands of Facebook users with only minimal supervision. What we’re seeing, says Lucy, is a shift towards organizing around expertise, wherever it exists in the organizational landscape. › Continue reading
Noah’s Roundup
Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 | News | No Comments
Now that I’m comfortably settled into the groove of tweeting out links whenever I find interesting material, I’m going to pick up our old tradition of posting the best links I’ve come across—but with a little more narration to liven it up. Let’s call it “Noah’s Roundup.” › Continue reading
The social sector charges ahead in social media
Wednesday, July 22nd, 2009 | Network technology, Networks in action, News | 1 Comment
The common perception is that social sector organizations lag behind the rest of the world when it comes to the use of technology. Many nonprofits have little money to spend on overhead, after all, and IT is easier to squeeze than personnel. But the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently released a longitudinal study that found nonprofits to be outpacing the business world and academia in the use of social media. This study was a follow-up to a study conducted by the Center in 2007 and compares organizational adoption of social media by the 200 largest charities in the United States. The headline from the results is clear: when it comes to fundraising, marketing, and organizing, social-sector organizations are using social media more frequently. › Continue reading
Kristof, charity : water, and 5 lessons for us all
Monday, July 13th, 2009 | Networks in action, News, Synthesis | No Comments
(This piece was originally posted from Jake Samuelson’s personal blog, My Geeky Side.)
With each op-ed, Nick Kristof chips away at the good-hearted but lazy NYT readers to make us aware and make us care about the world’s most pressing issues. He always has great data and research to back up his points. He often point us in the right direction of an amazing innovator and highlight something that needs fixing. He sometimes (but not often enough) will even tell us what we can do. › Continue reading
Clay Shirky: How Twitter Can Make History
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009 | Network technology, News | No Comments
Now that the media is increasingly social, innovation can happen anywhere, says Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody and a member of Monitor Talent.
As part of a series of lectures organized by TED Conferences, Shirky discussed the changing media landscape and choices facing organizations looking to communicate with an empowered audience.
“In a world where media is global, social, ubiquitous and cheap, in a world of media where the former audience is increasingly full participants,” Shirky said that communicating “is less about crafting a single message to be consumed by individuals” and more about “creating an environment of convening and supporting groups.”
Below is a video of Shirky, who also is an adjunct professor in New York University’s graduate interactive telecommunications program.
New links for June 20th
Saturday, June 20th, 2009 | News | 1 Comment
Twestival Local: Biggest Twitter Fundraising Event in History Returns *Killer Facebook Fan Pages: 5 Inspiring Case Studies *Change native to the digital world *Why Non-Profits Are So Good at Social Media * My Interview in BusinessWeek on Iran’s Twitter Revolution *15 Ways to Measure Return on Engagement (ROE) of Social Media * 8 Nonprofit CEOs Who Tweet › Continue reading
New links for June 18th
Thursday, June 18th, 2009 | News | No Comments
Catalyst for Change: The Impact of Millennials on Organization Culture and Policy * Social Networks for Nonprofits: Why You Should Grow Your Own * Is serious discussion possible in online communities? * Resources to Help Your Nonprofit Group Navigate Online Social Media * Hello, Washington Post: Dolllars Per Facebook Donor Is Not the Right Metric for Success * Nonprofit Social Network Survey Released › Continue reading
