The Public Online Information Act Yesterday I blogged a "Modest Manifesto for Open Philanthropy." As I mentioned in the post, I actually hit the "post" button sooner than I intended (fate?) and so a draft went live - I've refined it since then, so you might take another look.
Open Philanthropy: A Modest Manifesto I've been reading Beth Simone Noveck's book, Wiki Government, which is one outcome of a "modest proposal" for peer-to-patent that Noveck posted to her blog back when she was a law professor at New York Law School. Now she is the Deputy Chief Technology
What matters about mobile? (Photo by nedrichards. Flickr, Creative Commons) So here we are, several weeks after text donations crossed from cutting edge to common place. I've been interviewed more times than I can count on what matters about text giving, and the real experts on social media and social good (Beth
Industry Forecast: Philanthropy and Social Investing: Blueprint 2010 Blueprint Research & Design, the company I founded, is thrilled to release the first ever independent annual industry analysis for philanthropy and social investing. "Philanthropy and Social Investing: Blueprint 2010" was distributed in partnership with SSIR starting in December 2009 through national donor advised funds, private banks, wealth
Buzzword 2010.2 "Sector Agnostic" I declared Apps the first buzzword of 2010 a few weeks ago. Now we've got buzzword 2010.2 - sector agnostic. I didn't coin this one. I give Ralph Smith of the Annie E. Casey Foundation credit for that, and it seems this blogger agrees. Smith
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
