Posts by Maria Di Mento
June 1, 2010, 12:51 PM ET
Microsoft's Approach to Corporate Philanthropy; Plus More: Tuesday's Roundup
- Beth Kanter, a social-media expert, and Kristi Heim, a reporter at The Seattle Times, write about the Accelerator Summit, a recent meeting held by Microsoft to talk about its approach to corporate philanthropy. Among the projects discussed: PhotoDNA, a partnership between a Dartmouth College professor and Microsoft researchers to create a way to identify and remove images of child pornography from search engines.
- On Care2's blog, Frogloop, Karen Uffelman, director of client
strategy for Groundwire, discusses how to engage and build stronger
relationships with donors. Ms. Uffelman offers a list several
nonprofit organizations that have used effective strategies to
attract donors.
- Philanthropedia, a group that works to provide donors with expert opinion about charities, is looking for suggestions from nonprofit organizations, foundations, and others for its
May 28, 2010, 11:02 AM ET
How Should Nonprofit Groups Make Business Decisions? Plus More: Friday's Roundup
- On the blog Social Citizens, Kristin Ivie, of the Case
Foundation, discusses why it is important for nonprofit
organizations to make decisions based on both mission and money.
She says that organizations that maintain a balance between
pragmatism and idealism are the ones that get the best
results.
- On the blog Philantopic, Cynthia Bailie, director of the
Foundation Center-Cleveland, argues that when too many nonprofit
organizations are trying to accomplish the same mission, the
infrastructure to support them weakens. She says that communities
would be better served if nonprofit groups collaborated
more.
- Will the financial crisis and spiraling government debt in developed countries mark the end of the "brief golden age of aid" to fight poverty and disease in the developing world, Matthew Bishop and Michael Green, the co-authors of Philanthrocapitalism, ask ...
May 27, 2010, 11:00 AM ET
Are Bad Choices Part of the Global Poverty Predicament? Plus More: Thursday's Roundup
- Global poverty's "ugly secret" is that some of the world's poorest families make terrible spending decisions, buying cigarettes instead of bed nets that could save their children's lives, wrote columnist Nicholas Kristof in Sunday's New York Times. William Easterly and Laura Freschi of the Aid Watch blog call his argument a "legitimate" one to raise; but Laura Seay, author of the Texas in Africa blog and an assistant professor at Morehouse College, says it reinforces stereotypes. Holden Karnofsky of the group GiveWell calls Mr. Kristof's argument interesting but not a case for action; and Max Fisher of the Atlantic Wire summarizes the debate surrounding Mr. Kristof's article.
- On the blog, Philanthropy Potluck, Ellis Bullock, executive director of the Grotto Foundation, discusses his experience working in the nonprofit world for more than 30 years. He offers tips...
May 26, 2010, 12:10 PM ET
Debate Over the Use of Peer Pressure on Trustees; Plus More: Wednesday's Roundup
- Writing on the Step by Step Fundraising blog, Gail Perry, a Raleigh, N.C., consultant who works with nonprofit boards, encourages charity leaders to use peer pressure in getting board members to follow through on their commitments to the organization. They can, for example, ask trustees to report on what they have accomplished at every meeting. But Chicago fund-raising and management consultant Jennifer Price, writing in her Philanthropy Ink blog, takes exception to that advice: "Peer pressure leaves a bitter taste in the mouths of many -- is that how you want your board members to think of you?"
- Jenni Wolfson, managing director of Witness, writes on the organization's blog about asking friends and family members to contribute to the New York human-rights group. "It was an eye-opening experience for me," she writes. "Whilst asking for money is about as comfortable as a...
May 25, 2010, 11:21 AM ET
Defending Prospect Research; Plus More: Tuesday's Roundup
- In response to the recent Wall Street Journal article, "Is Your Favorite Charity Spying on You?" Sarah Conner-Smith, director of philanthropy operations at Feeding America, defends the practice of prospect research on her About.com blog. Ms. Conner-Smith says that "information is an asset, and any charitable organization would be wise to make investments to enhance, manage, and protect that asset."
- On her blog, Katya Andresen, the chief operating officer at Network for Good, offers advice from Nancy Schwartz, a nonprofit marketing consultant, on how she would rebuild the brand of Nature Conservancy and other environmental charities that have admitted to accepting grants from BP these past years.
- On her About.com blog, Joanne Fritz, a former nonprofit manager, offers insight from Roger Craver, founder of Donor Trends, on the outlook for nonprofit organizations. Mr...
May 24, 2010, 11:21 AM ET
A Call for More Transparency Among International Aid Groups, Plus More: Monday's Roundup
- International aid and development organizations may advocate that governments be more accountable about their spending, but the charities themselves are far from transparent, Till Bruckner, a former employee of Transparency International Georgia, writes on Aid Watch.
- Minnesota Open Idea is "an example of an online social-good contest that works," the social-media expert Beth Kanter writes on Beth's Blog. The effort's first contest garnered more than 400 ideas on how to fight childhood obesity. The submissions went through two rounds of judging before the final three ideas were put to a public vote.
- International charities are seeing the largest number of new donors in Asian countries with growing economies, such as India, writes James Lamont, the South Asia bureau chief for the Financial Times, on Beyondbrics, the newspaper's blog about emerging markets.
May 21, 2010, 11:56 AM ET
Concerns About Social-Service 'Monopolies,' Plus More: Friday's Roundup
- The nonprofit world's dogmatic stance against duplicating services has created "regional monopolies whereby a few organizations are granted full control over a range of social services," David Henderson, chief executive of Idealistics, writes on Full Contact Philanthropy. Not unlike the big banks, he says, some charities can claim that they are too big to fail.
- One-on-one training is key for helping clients learn to use assistive technologies, Chris Peters, an analyst at TechSoup.org, writes on his blog. Mr. Peters also advises Web developers to look at their sites using the tools to make sure that they're accessible for people who are blind or have impaired vision.
May 20, 2010, 11:00 AM ET
An Argument for Not Giving Small Charities an IRS Paperwork Break; Plus More: Thursday's Roundup
- The Internal Revenue Service was wrong to give small charities a reprieve for missing a deadline to file a new online tax form, argues Jack Siegel, a lawyer who writes the Charity Governance blog. The IRS "should have played hardball in the name of the administrative efficiency that Congress sought," he argues.
- In a blog post about how to persuade trustees to raise money, Mohan Sikka, senior project director of the Community Resource Exchange, in New York, says that good board members care about a charity's executive director and helping the leader succeed.
- The staff of New Philanthropy Capital, a charity-evaluation group in Britain, is writing a series of blog posts that make recommendations to Nick Hurd, the new British charities minister.
May 19, 2010, 11:00 AM ET
How Two Major Cancer Charities Are Spending Their Money; Plus More: Wednesday's Roundup
- Elie Hassenfeld, a co-founder of the nonprofit evaluation group
GiveWell, examines how two big cancer charities—the
American Cancer Society and Susan G. Komen for the Cure—spend their
money. He says he does not know enough yet to determine if the
groups are effective, but it seems clear that little of their money
finances research for new cures or treatments and both spend a lot
of money on "raising awareness" activities.
- Susan Goldenberg, of the Toronto Star, reviews the new book A Year of Living
Dangerously: Dispatches From the Front Lines of Philanthropy,
in which the author and the community-service activist Lawrence
Scanlan writes about his experience as a volunteer for 12 Canadian
nonprofit groups.
- The greatest myth surrounding foundations’ public-policy work is that it requires lobbying and interacting with politicians, writes Chris Murakami Noonan,...
May 18, 2010, 11:51 AM ET
Evaluations Are Useless if Groups Ignore the Results; Plus More: Tuesday's Roundup
- Louisa Hackett of the Community Resource Exchange, a nonprofit group in New York, discusses a recent New Yorker article on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Poverty Action Lab and says that evaluations are only useful if organizations are prepared to listen to the results.
- Emily Robbins of PhilanTopic writes about a recent discussion of the trends
reshaping philanthropy with Steve Gunderson, the Council on
Foundation's president; consultant Lucy Bernholz; Diana Iviv of
Independent Sector; and Stanford University professor Robert Reich.
Watch a video of the event.
- Most donors will not make a donation without visiting a nonprofit group's Web site first, writes Jocelyn Harmon, director of nonprofit services at Care2. On the blog Marketing for Nonprofits, Ms. Harmon offers tips on how nonprofit groups can strengthen their Web presence, noting that the...