Posts by Maria Di Mento
May 3, 2010, 03:05 PM ET
New Approaches to Foreign Aid; Plus More: Monday's Roundup
- Nicolas D. Kristof, an opinion writer for The New York Times, writes on his blog about a new approach being proposed for foreign aid, in which governments pay poor countries for outcomes, such as the number of children who complete elementary school, rather than just providing money for education, which could be wasted or misused.
- Kristin Ivie, of the Case Foundation, writes on the Social Citizens blog that she is "surprised and disappointed" that charities haven't tried harder to engage donors who made text donations after the Haiti earthquake.
- Joanne Fritz, a former nonprofit manager, writes about how to successfully manage nonprofit boards on her About.com blog and offers tips from Blue Avocado's article, Ten Quick Ways to Invigorate Board Meetings.
- Writing on Change.org's social entrepreneurship blog, Nell Edgington, of the group Social Velocity,...
April 30, 2010, 12:34 PM ET
A Continuing Debate Over Donating Goods Overseas; Plus More: Friday's Roundup
- On her Good Intentions Are Not Enough blog, Saundra Schimmelpfennig writes about the problem of donating goods overseas, and about the "1 Million Shirts" campaign. She has gathered blog posts on the impact of the debate about the campaign going viral on the Web, as well as posts from professional aid workers who are weighing in on what they think about the campaign and about donating goods for relief efforts. Ms. Schimmelpfennig has worked on tsunami recovery efforts in Thailand.
- On her blog, Katya Andresen, chief operating officer at Network for Good, discusses a recent study by M+R that offers suggestions on how to deploy and evaluate online campaigns.
- Charities owe it to their supporters to think very carefully about what personal information they collect from donors, how long they keep the data, and how best to protect it, Jake Marcinko, information security...
April 29, 2010, 02:23 PM ET
A Cancer Charity's Questionable Deal With a Fast-Food Company; Plus More: Thursday's Roundup
- "Brand gone bust!" is how Nancy Schwartz, a marketing expert, describes the fallout from Susan G. Komen for the Cure's partnership with Kentucky Fried Chicken. She says Komen messed up by betraying supporters' trust and by remaining too quiet in the face of the controversy.
- Mike Burns, a nonprofit consultant, writes on his blog that New York's proposal to centralize
competitive contracts and grants for nonprofit groups is an
opportunity for municipalities to set standards as financiers of
nonprofit groups and to become, along with nonprofit boards, more
focused on results.
- Writing in Frogloop, Randy Paynter, founder of Care2, a social-networking site about nonprofit causes, criticizes an online post equating online petitions with "slacktivism"—a negative term indicating that they are less worthy than other forms of activism. Mr. Paynter offers a lengthy defense of ...
April 28, 2010, 11:47 AM ET
Asking Donors for Fund-Raising Feedback; Plus More: Wednesday's Roundup
- Starbucks uses its "passion panel," a group of its best customers who answer questions online in return for special perks, to help develop new products. Charities could adopt the practice by asking questions of a group of donors and using the responses to improve their fund raising, Tom Belford, a veteran fund raiser, suggests on The Agitator.
- Thinking of joining the board of a nonprofit group? Alice Korngold, a consultant who works with charities, says regardless of how passionate you may be about an organization's mission, it is important to make sure you and the board are a good match. To help determine compatibility, she offers tips on the 10 things you should know before you join a nonprofit board. Her views appear on Fast Company magazine's FC Expert Blog.
- On the blog, Neuromarketing, Roger Dooley, a consultant, discusses an experiment in Edinburgh, Scotland...
April 27, 2010, 01:33 PM ET
The Nuts and Bolts of Nonprofit Collaboration; and More: Tuesday's Roundup
- To be effective, discussions about nonprofit collaboration need to move beyond "communicating and coordinating or creating harmony" to a nuts-and-bolts conversation about the people and resources that groups are willing to contribute to a joint effort, John Brothers, a management consultant, writes in the Stanford Social Innovation Review opinion blog.
- Beth Kanter, who writes a blog about social media, summarizes several recent reports that discuss how organizations can measure the impact of their social-media efforts.
- Lawrence Harmon, of the Boston Globe, reviews the new book The Death and Life of the Great American School System, in which the author and historian Diane Ravitch criticizes the education philanthropy of Bill Gates, Eli Broad, and other so-called venture capitalists as thoughtless experimentation.
- On The New York Times's DealBook blog, the...
April 26, 2010, 12:42 PM ET
Why Effective Philanthropy Remains Hard to Achieve; Plus More: Monday's Roundup
- Applying competitive business practices to charitable operations makes sense, but many nonprofit officials and donors still fail to recognize this, says Dan Elitzer, a management consultant writing on the Full Contact Philanthropy blog. He uses Dan Pallotta’s book Uncharitable: How Restraints on Nonprofits Undermine Their Potential as a jumping off point for his discussion.
- Robert Egger, executive director of D.C. Central Kitchen, a food bank in Washington, writes on his blog about his visit to Denver, where he spoke to members of the Young Nonprofit Professional Network. He lists 10 tips he suggested to the group’s members about ways to change and “ripen” the nonprofit sector.
- On his Gifthub blog, Phil Cubeta, a wealth adviser, writes about ways wealth advisers and nonprofit groups can form partnerships with what he calls “board-level wealth.”
- On Bread for the World's ...
April 23, 2010, 02:42 PM ET
Should the CEO of the Boys & Girls Clubs Take a Pay Cut? Plus More: Friday's Roundup
- The chief executive of Boys & Girls Clubs of America will probably need to take a pay cut if the charity hopes to see the $425-million federal appropriation that has been held up by four senators who have criticized Roxanne Spillett's nearly $1-million compensation package, Paul Light, a professor of public service at New York University, writes in a Washington Post blog, On Leadership.
- Allison Fine, a social-media expert and a Chronicle contributor, questions whether nonprofit groups have been missing an opportunity to use donations as a measure of civic involvement. She says that many experts wrongly assume that writing a check is too passive to be considered a measure of strong civic ties.
- "In fund raising, nonprofit groups should focus on what they can give their donors rather than what they can extract from them," writes Katya Andresen, chief operating...
April 22, 2010, 03:34 PM ET
Did the Boy Scouts' Board Fail in Its Duty? Plus More: Thursday's Roundup
- "All nonprofit boards should pay attention to their policies, training, and liability-insurance needs," writes Mike Burns, a nonprofit consultant, in response to the recent case involving allegations of sexual abuse by a local Boy Scouts of America official. On his blog, Nonprofit Board Crisis, Mr. Burns questions whether the national organization's board failed to exercise its duty of care by providing appropriate polices and training.
- Bono, the lead singer for U2 and founder of the advocacy group One, says that Africa's private sector and civil society see poor governance as one of their biggest obstacles. But, he notes, the two sides, which in the past have often been discordant, are starting to learn how to coexist. In The New York Times, Bono discusses his recent trip to Africa.
April 21, 2010, 05:16 PM ET
How Longitudinal Research Can Help Nonprofit Groups; Plus More: Wednesday's Roundup
- Sarah Keen, of New Philanthropy Capital, a British charity-evaluation group, writes about the potential of longitudinal research to help charities understand the long-term impact of their work.
- Katya Andresen, vice president of marketing for Network for Good, in Bethesda, Md., and the author of Katya's Non-Profit Marketing Blog, discusses a free ebook about measuring Facebook’s impact on nonprofit groups.
- On his blog, Future Fundraising Now, the consultant Jeff Brooks offers tips to nonprofit groups on how to create an effective newsletter, such as sending newsletters as self-mailers instead of in envelopes, which can knock down responses by about half. He also points to the book, The 8 Most Common Mistakes Made in Nonprofit Newsletters, for additional advice.
- On his blog, Bob Ottenhoff, the chief executive of GuideStar, describes a recent visit to Kenya...
April 20, 2010, 02:38 PM ET
Celebrities Who Have Established Effective Aid Efforts, and More: Tuesday's Roundup
- "The celebrity aid phenomenon is not going away any time soon, so one wonders ... are there any celebrities doing it better than others?" writes William Easterly, a professor of economics at New York University, on his blog Aid Watch. Mr. Easterly suggests that Shakira, the singer from Colombia, could be a good candidate.
- Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of the nonprofit-evaluation group GiveWell, compares the value of independent reviews of charities to movie reviews.
- Writing on the Huffington Post Web site, Dennis Whittle, chief executive of GlobalGiving, defends the use of mass public input and online voting to direct money to charitable projects. Mr. Whittle's group is a partner in the Pepsi Refresh Project, the most ambitious effort by a company to use crowdsourcing to give money away.