Lucy Bernholz

chronicle of philanthropy

Social media, organ donations and increasing giving

Here are some thoughts on social media, organ donations and what The Chronicle of Philanthropy calls the "Stubborn 2%" problem.

Public Action Requires Privacy Protections

(photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Leben_der_anderen.jpg) Have you seen the movie, The Lives of Others? The 2006 Academy Award winner for best foreign film, the movie tells the story of authors and artists living under the Stasi in East Germany, when everyone spied on everyone

Balancing the voices of good and evil

There's a shift afoot. Those who question the power of technology for good are starting to make themselves heard as nuanced contributors to an overall conversation, not just as polemics. This must come as a bit of a relief to some, a headshaker to others, and just more

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Data Science for Social Good

The Data Science for Social Good Summer Fellowship has announced its first class of Fellows. These 36 DSITs ("data scientists in training" - my term, not theirs) hail from around the country and range in academic backgrounds from Math to Criminal Justice. They'll spend the summer

Fixing C4s Won't Fix the Problem

Finding solutions depend on how you define the problem. If the current mess at the IRS is truly a case of civil servants or elected politicians infringing on the free speech of specific political groups, that’s a problem for law enforcement and the courts. So far, what appears to

Digital Civil Society and the DPLA

This post appeared originally on PBS MediaShift Why would anyone want to attend a party to celebrate the opening of a virtual repository of metadata? A better question might be — what is a virtual repository of metadata? In this case, the repository I’m talking about is the Digital Public

Passing the buck from the IRS to the FEC to Congress

There's a new job opening at the top of the IRS. John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are calling not just for resignations, but criminal inquiries. The Op-Ed pages are full of insights about how 501 c 4s are broken, not just the IRS. In truth, these insights have

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The problems with 501 (c) (4)s

Regular readers of this blog know that I've been like a dog with a bone about the threat to the social economy and charitable organizations inherent in the Citizens United decision. I've written about it, held charrettes on it, spoken about it, and - at least

MOOC for Philanthropy

The Learning By Giving Foundation, funded by Warren Buffet's sister, is offering a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on philanthropy. Participants will learn about giving and then give. More information is here.

Re-discovering the digital divide

The New York Times has discovered that all is not fair in the land of digital technology. Janet Maslin, a book critic for the paper, doesn't usually review tech books. So I was a bit surprised to see her review of Jaron Lanier's Who owns the

It's not about gadgets, it's about governance

I've been researching and talking a lot lately about Digital Civil Society. These are the elements of our society where we use our private resources for public good in and on digital platforms. It includes "digital activism," civic technology, social network organizing, open data sharing, and

Expanding the case for open 990 data

President Obama's 2014 budget includes a call for nonprofits to file their annual tax forms (990s) electronically (e-filing). This post by Sunlight Foundation, on why e-filing of 990s is important, hits the mark. An excerpt: "Nonprofits are required to publish this data for good reason: their exclusion

Measuring and Indexing Social Progress

Here are two (relatively) new sources for measuring social progress The Social Progress Index launched at the Skoll World Forum. It aims to show the degree to which nations "provide for the social and environmental needs" of their residents. It organizes data along three dimensions, basic human needs,

Giving Goes Social

On April 29, 2013 I'll be joining Rob Reich for a conversation about philanthropy and social media. The discussion follows a great workshop featuring Beth Kanter, Matthew Bishop, Jeremy Heimans, Aaron Sherinian, and Peter Sims. Both events are hosted by The Stanford New York Alumni Board, Stanford Center

The #GoodJobs Challenge

Saturday, April 20th was a typically gorgeous Palo Alto spring day. For about 60 students and faculty of Stanford University, however, the weather outside did nothing to distract them from their tasks - using open data from the federal government, along with data from LinkedIn, GuideStar, and the Foundation Center

Digital Civil Society

I think a lot about Digital Civil Society - how are digital technologies changing how we use our private resources for public benefit? It's easy to see the surface level changes that smart phones and laptops offer in how we organize, fund, create, and distribute these goods -

The Digital Public Library of America

Sometimes, in all our fixation with technologies, we forget that there are people making these things happen. The tragic events in Boston on Monday, continuing through the lockdown on the city and its suburbs this morning, provided me with an all-too stark reminder of the humanity that underlies the most

Digital Action - 2 bits from the Brits, 1 from Boston

Philanthropy Impact - a UK Philanthropy newsletter - has this post asking if digital giving has come of age. The Guardian UK has this article on How Digital Media is Changing Philanthropy And Matt Stempeck, a researcher at MIT's Center on Civic Media has this personal account of

Carpe Datum

The abundance of video, photos, tweets, text and voice calls from those in Boston on Monday has become a major part of the news story as we shift from the first shock and horror to efforts to solve the mystery and catch the bomber(s). Newscasters and pundits have been

GoodJobs CodeJam

You've heard of hackathons. These are short, dedicated periods of time in which software coders and data wonks get together and create something new, improve some code, or tweak and complement an existing product. They've become integral parts of corporate culture at places like Facebook, are

Thinking harder about taxes and philanthropy

Here's an event worth watching (or attending if you are in DC) The Charitable Deduction in American Political Thought "The charitable contribution deduction is in peril, a potential casualty in the looming budget wars of 2013," notes attorney Alex Reid. One reason for that might be

Crowdfunding health care

First, came GlobalGiving, DonorsChoose, and Kiva. These platforms brought crowd giving/lending to new heights. They also represent a trajectory of increasingly narrow area of focus for the platforms - GlobalGiving funds development projects internationally, DonorsChoose focuses on US classroom teachers' needs, and Kiva "kickstarted" the crowdfunding

DAF Direct

Donors seem to love DAFs (Donor Advised Funds). Community foundations sell them. Fidelity and Schwab sell them. There are billions of dollars of charitable funds held in these vehicles. Last year, at Fidelity alone, donors authorized 428,000 grants for $1.6 billion from their DAFs, and put another $3.

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Money and Life

"Originally, it was invented as a piece of social technology." That comment refers to money. It's the lead-in to a new documentary, called Money and Life, that asks some interesting questions. The film opens next week. You can find out when it's playing near

Big philanthropic data with a purpose

Has anyone used the open, visible portals of philanthropic foundation applications (Knight News Challenge, MacArthur DML, Hewlett OER, others) as a source of data about a certain issue? For example, if you were trying to understand the "state" of community information efforts, would the applications to the Knight