Lucy Bernholz

buzzword

Philanthropy Hot or Not?

It is September - time to make some predictions for Giving Season - otherwise known as November and December. In the style of fashion (T), pop culture (Entertainment Weekly), movie ratings (thumbs up/down), and tech magazines (Wired) here is my list of what will be in and out for Giving Season

markets

How are you using them?

I've received dozens of emails about the geologic and evolutionary timelines I posted a few days back. Thanks to all who've written in and said "wow," or "thanks" or "you're wrong about X" or "too inside baseball&

disasterrelief

When the blur fails....

Tony Pipa asks  why are Obama and McCain fundraising for the American Red Cross instead of talking about the government's role in disaster prep and response? Great questions, great post and comments. See some additional thoughts I posted on this over at All Things Reconsidered. Tags: philanthropy, disaster

auctions

To bid or not to bid?

Just as eBay's WorldofGood site launches, allowing you to buy and sell "socially responsible" products along comes CharityBuzz, which is an auction site for charity. At WorldofGood you can buy handmade, environmentally sound crafts and other pro-social products. At CharityBuzz you can bid on celebrity

marketplaces

Online Giving Marketplaces - Stanford October 8

I write about online marketplaces for giving all the time - now the Stanford Social Innovation Review is hosting a conference on the topic. (I'll be moderating one session) The description and registration materials are online here. Tags: philanthropy, SSIR, marketplaces

philanthropiccapitalmarkets

Geologic Eras of Philanthropy

The above is another view of the development of the philanthropic industry - you can compare it to this one. Please send improvements, suggestions, revisions, etc. to lucy (at) blueprintrd dot com. I'm happy to email you a copy of either graphic, on three conditions: * You let me know

algorithm

The Evolution of Philanthropy Markets

And we're off...I wrote several months ago about how recommendation engines might work in philanthropy - donation dashboard has made this real. The site comes out of the Center for New Media at UC Berkeley and is based on collaborative filtering (similar to the Pandora music service). This

More blur

I write about the blurring of the sectors often. And I appreciate it when others send me a 'heads up' on an example of this at work. Sean Stannard Stockton pointed me to zoosa.org - a new website where job seekers can find "social enterprise" opportunities

New types of trend data

My colleague Jonathan Jaffray has a new blog, philanthropyadvisor.com (great name!), and is out of the starting blocks with an important insight - he notes here that more than 100 domain names had been registered with the word "gustav" by September 1st. He rightly continues to note that

Where will your disaster dollars go?

As I write this, Gustav has moved, having left 80+ people dead in Cuba and is now bearing down on the gulf coast. Hanna is headed for Florida's eastern flank.  There are two more tropical storms brewing in the Gulf of Mexico. According to The Wall Street Journal

While I'm away

Well I am away but not for the reason (vacation) I had planned. So instead I'm within striking distance of the Internet and can't help but capture some thoughts in between other things.... Sean Stannard Stockton has a good conversation going on over at tacticalphilanthropy about

allthingsreconsidered

Sustaining Attention

Top 20 I just learned that the p2173/JustMeans cross-post, "The Customer is always Right" was picked up as a top 20 blog post. ----------- Here is my most recent post, "Sustaining Attention," from All Things Reconsidered, the JustMeans blog (Save yourself a click or two)

Finally. Summer break.

I'm taking a week off from posting here. See you in September.

buzzword

Let us hope it is not a buzzword - philanthropizza

Alternative definition of philanthropizza - that which must be provided to volunteers at all meetings...Tags: philanthropy, buzzwords

philanthropiccapitalmarkets

The customer is always right

Cross posted from All Things Reconsidered There are several customer-centric tropes in the business world: “listen to the customer,” “the customer is always right,” “make the customer happy.” It is harder to find this kind of focus in the world of social action, nonprofits or philanthropy. First of all,

christensen

Innovate and educate

If you know anyone who has worked in the nonprofit sector for more than 6 hours then you know someone who has heard a lot about what the sector can learn from business. They may think there is a great deal for the sectors to learn from each other, they

cross-platform philanthropy

International aid and philanthropy

My friend Tony Pipa sent me this thoughtful reflection on international aid and international philanthropy. He delicately raises some key questions about the distinctions between them, intended and perceived, past, current and future. He lets me off the hook for mistakes I made in this post, and gracefully suggests my

dml

Monday bits and pieces

Is it redundant to  post small bits and pieces of thoughts on a blog since so much of what gets blogged is small bits anyway? That asked, here are a few "bits and pieces*" of philanthropy thoughts to start your week: ******************* New Report on Community Foundations and Social

networks

Network analysis as metric for grantmakers

[image from boxesandarrows] You hear a lot about networks these days. In nonprofit jargon no one even wants to be an organization anymore, everyone wants to be a network. I've been thinking on a smaller scale of how networks might matter to philanthropy and funders and do-ers.

A gathering of market makers

Back in June I called for a new one-click infrastructure. My point - with the abundance of social action platforms and online giving sites it is high time they got together and identified their shared needs, regulatory issues, market size, and ways they might share data. Well, Wednesday night in

media

Who needs an annual report?

By now I'm sure you've heard that Democratic Presidential Candidate Barack Obama is going to announce his choice for Vice President by text message. Imagine a world in which texting is how major news gets announced. What does that mean for your philanthropy?

What's wrong with embedding...

There is an interesting comment discussion going on in relation to this post from a week or so ago....touches on the role of everyone as a content producer and thus an advertiser, fundraiser, influencer. What might this mean for giving and activism? Don't put this off to

Receiving well

I wrote recently that the Internet may not be changing giving so much as receiving. In honor of the 28th Steinbeck Festival (which just concluded) here is John Steinbeck, writing in 1951, on what it takes to be good at receiving: Perhaps the most overrated virtue in our list of

advertising

Philanthropy Advertising

(photo from adweek.com) My post on Embedded Giving 2.0 elicited a comment that suggested this kind of activity - in which individuals advertise their chosen brands on behalf of their favorite causes - be called "embedded advertising." Nothing embedded about the latest advertisement for philanthropic advising - yesterday'

nptech

NpTech

Wow - check out this post on Beth's blog, tracking a "slow season" in developments in the nonprofit social media space. Let me say, if that is low volume, watch out for peak season. The post itself is full of the latest and greatest and not so