Lucy Bernholz

In a changing landscape, whither the 501c3?

I'm concerned about nonprofits. Are they aware of the threats they face? Are they prepared to demonstrate their value in the face of changes in corporate and tax law, and, as importantly, changes in the cultural zeitgeist about social capital markets and social enterprise? For almost a century,

The Changing Ecosystem of Change

I'm pleased to draw your attention to a newly published paper we've written with the support of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. "The Changing Ecosystem of Change" looks at the many new enterprise forms, from social businesses to nonprofits, that are

What kind of Apps would your foundation build?

I admit it - I tossed the question out onto Twitter in a bit of a lark. I was preparing for a presentation to 50+ of America's largest community foundations and I've been thinking about Apps quite a bit (not only because of the new Apple

Nonprofit Data Scorecard goes live

(Sorry folks - The first version of this post (January 25) somehow got corrupted/encoded. Lots of email readers received empty emails and/or gibberish. Hope this one posts better. Thanks for your patience.)I've written about the Nonprofit Mapping effort before and am thrilled to say they&

How technology is disrupting philanthropy

I hope readers in the SF Bay Area will join us at Stanford this Thursday, January 28 at 5 pm for a discussion with me, Sonal Shah, and Rob Reich on how technology is changing philanthropy. For those on twitter, the hashtag for the conversation is #sempacs. The hashtag for

Random data bits about Haiti giving

Real(ish) time data sources Paypal has emerged as a new source of data on giving - reporting $1.5 million processed in donations to #Haiti relief efforts. As for data sources, Google Checkout, Convio, Network for Good and the mGive Foundation (behind the text donations) have definitely claimed their

The value of crowds

(Photo by VictoriaPeckham, Flickr Creative Commons) Last weekend hundreds of volunteers got together in Silicon Valley, DC, London and several other cities for CrisisCamps: Haiti - tech oriented brainstorm/build sessions to develop tools that could help with the rescue, relief and recovery efforts. Similar efforts were coordinated by Ushahidi

The future of conferences

A few weeks ago I posted a list of conferences that interest me. This post was picked up all over the place - it was even translated into Spanish. This surprised me, as I was just sharing a list that I keep - not pretending to be a gatekeeper or

Digital disaster relief

I've been writing all day but needed to take a break, to write, about new ways that technology is being deployed to help Haiti. This post will catalog some of the more distinctive tech + philanthropy responses that I've heard about or seen. These are limited to

buzzword2010

Buzzword 2010.1 Scale

Ideas scale. Do communities? Organizations? Tags: philanthropy, buzzword2010, buzzwords, scale

Disaster donations in an age of disruption

Never before have people donated money to disaster relief at the scale and speed and ease that they did on Wednesday in response to the devastating earthquake in Haiti. The reports I've seen show $7 million in text donations in 1 1/2 days. (updated: $12 million in

A decade of predictions

(Scorecard from Game 3, 1955 World Series, Photo by Wallyg, Flickr, Creative Commons) Nothing like the turn of a calendar page to get everyone focused on the new. But what really distinguished January 1, 2010 from December 31, 2009? Perhaps the new year/new decade is not much more than

Conferences I've got my eyes on

I don't have time to do a full round up of conferences that matter before some of them actually happen. So, here's a quick, dirty and terribly incomplete list of conversations I want to be part of virtually or in person. Please let me know what

buzzword2009

Final Buzzword List - 2009.8, 9, and 10

With less than 48 hours left in 2009 it is time to post up the final three buzzwords of the year. Here they are, in reverse order, as well as numbers 1 -7. Numbers 8, 9, and 10 were officially announced on Marketplace: Buzzword 2009.10 Impact Investing Partly a

New Research on Online Giving Marketplaces

I am delighted to share some new research - including a spreadsheet of data and an analytic memo - on online giving markets. The research was done by David Koken, a Coro fellow, while he was working at The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Let's get the caveats

Innovations in Embedded Giving...and an Idea about Ideas

Once upon a time I thought my writing about #embeddedgiving would come to an end. Ah, youth. So long as its proponents keep on pushing it, I guess I'll keep being asked about it. The most recent inquiries, however, have actually led to some really interesting conversations. For

Unbundling embedded giving

(Photo by z287marc, Flickr, Creative Commons) Just today I learned of the newest riff on embedded giving - call it "unbundled." Here are the two examples, brought to my attention by two different reporters. BRAC USAWhat I Did Not Buy Send Your Mother In Law To Darfur What

Facebook launches Foundation. Or not.

On the same day that it unleashed new default privacy settings on its hundreds of millions of users I learned that Facebook has also launched a foundation to address online privacy issues. Ironically (or not) the foundation results from a lawsuit against the company about...wait for it...privacy issues.

Disrupting Philanthropy

Finally - the "technology paper" I've been working on all year is ready to go live! (Draft 2.0, that is) Thanks for your patience.  Those of you who requested copies should have received them via email over the weekend. Anyone else who is interested can

Philanthropy with an attitude

Spotted the sweatshirt below on Dan at the Stanford Coffee House. Apparently this event, Charity Fashion Show, (VIDEO - turn down the volume or turn the monitor away before clicking if you are in an uptight office or a place with children) was started by an undergrad at Stanford last

A little bit on a lot of things

I've been at the FasterCures PartneringForCures* meeting since Tuesday (with a side trip to DC) and even with free inflight wifi I can't keep up. So this blog post is going to romp across several things that have crossed my mind in the last few days.

Making list of lists on futures of social sector

("Lost Horizon," Photo by tipiro, Flickr, Creative Commons) It is definitely list time again. Here is a list of lists on the future of the social sector: On the Foreign Policy blog, Michele Fugiel writes about philanthropy in the year 2048: "History and culture affect how philanthropy

Media coverage of Philanthropy2173

Just released video from SoCap 2009: Heads up - the 2009 Marketplace Philanthropy Buzzwords will air on December 1, 2009. Here's the 2008 Marketplace piece and here's the 2007  Marketplace piece. Tags: philanthropy, buzzwords, buzzwords2009, marketplace, gritTV, #socap09

Peer review nonprofits - a proposal

How often have you heard the complaint "There are too many nonprofits?" This is one of those issues - like politics and religion - that can be so divisive that you don't want to talk about it with certain relatives at certain holiday meals. Is it

Experimenting around expertise

(photo by Joe Shlabotnik, Flickr, Creative Commons) All the experimentation about crowdsourcing is, in my mind, really a discussion about how to organize around expertise. Time was, an organization needed to have certain skills and knowledge in-house to get things done. So, for example, John D. Rockefeller built a foundation