November 06, 2009
How Can Nonprofit Groups Make Most of Twitter Lists?
People in the nonprofit world now have a new feature on Twitter that can allow them to create lists of followers centered on a specific topic.
In the past, Twitter users had only two lists at their fingertips — a list of people they are following and a list of people who follow them.
The lists are long and offer no options for searching, grouping, or segmenting.
As a result, when a Twitter account gets thousands of followers, sifting through the list becomes an exercise in frustration.
The new Twitter Lists feature removes some of that frustration by allowing users to create user lists by category.
The Chronicle‘s Twitter feed, for example, now includes lists of nonprofit groups, foundations, and our own writers and editors, among others.
We’ll be adding to these lists — and creating new lists — in the coming days, weeks, and months. And we expect this to be an evolving process.
Best of all, the lists are public, so anyone on Twitter can follow our lists to get segmented feeds of other Twitter users centered on a topic.
Lauren Cochrane, who manages online communities for a nonprofit group in Australia, writes on Geeking for Good of several ways nonprofit groups can take advantage of lists on their own Twitter feeds.
Ms. Cochrane suggests creating lists of supporters, organizations with similar missions, volunteers, and media figures that are of interest to your organization.
How is your organization using Twitter lists? What lists would you like to see the Chronicle create?
Click on the comments link below this post — or connect with us on Twitter — to share your thoughts.
Congress Urged to Force Charities to Prove Their Social Value; Plus More: Friday's Roundup
- With a recent survey showing that 23 presidents at private colleges earn more than $1-million, Congress should do more to regulate nonprofit salaries and operations, including establishing a national standard for “how much benefit an organization must provide to a community to earn tax-exempt status,” argues an editorial in the Des Moines Register.
- Tim Ogden, editor in chief of Philanthropy Action, writes about the case of Zynga, a company that makes online games, which recently trumpeted that it had raised $500,000 for nonprofit groups in Haiti. Much of the company’s revenue turned out to be raised through a scam, however, which highlighted for Mr. Ogden the lack of public information about how much of a consumer’s gift goes to a cause.
- Causes, the application that promotes giving on social-networking sites, recently announced that it was ending its efforts on MySpace due to a “lack of activity.” Amy Sample Ward, who works with NetSquared and other nonprofit groups, writes on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog about the implications of the decision for nonprofit groups.
- Sean Stannard-Stockton, an adviser to donors and a Chronicle columnist, features several posts on his blog from grant makers Charles R. Bronfman and Jeffrey R. Solomon, who have published a new book on giving. Read The Chronicle’s article about the men, who are chairman and chief executive, respectively, of the Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies.
November 05, 2009
British Donors Urged to Go Public With Their Big Gifts, and More: Thursday's Roundup
- Dame Stephanie Shirley, Britain’s ambassador for philanthropy, is urging philanthropists to be more public about their giving and get charities to focus more on results, writes Lena Schreiber, a senior consultant at New Philanthropy Capital, a nonprofit research group in London. Her views appear on the group’s blog.
- As another charity scandal gets headlines, the nonprofit world “will have to work harder to ensure that we are letting our supporters know that we not only do good works but that we do them well and we are, therefore, worthy of their gifts and of their trust,” writes Janet Levine, a fund-raising consultant, on her blog.
- Using the online tool Twitter for social change is all about “making sure the message you want to put out there is simple, direct, and genuine,” Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, tells Huffington Post.
- Rick Cohen, national correspondent at the Nonprofit Quarterly, examines whether legislation introduced in the Senate and House will help newspapers transform into nonprofit organizations.
November 04, 2009
A Call for Charities to Share Their Data; Plus More: Wednesday's Roundup
- Marnie Webb, co-chief executive of TechSoup Global, contemplates the role of charities in a world in which so many people have easy access to data. In response to posts by Allison Fine, the social-media expert, and Lucy Bernholz, an adviser to donors, Ms. Webb says she would like to see nonprofit groups do more to share their data, collect stories to demonstrate what the data show, and agree on standards for the information they collect.
- Holden Karnofsky, a founder of the nonprofit group GiveWell, raises more questions about microfinance on the organization’s blog. He says that some charities may be supplying small loans in places where people could get other forms of credit.
- Philanthropy has become a tired concept, and more charities need to follow the example of Citizen Effect, which uses the Internet to connect everyday people with local charitable projects, writes Amy Carol Wolff, a master’s student who has worked with several charities, on the Social Earth blog.
November 03, 2009
Nonprofit Research and Philanthropists
Do charity researchers and philanthropists have too cozy a relationship sometimes?
The Fundermentalist blog is examining this question regarding a study released last month by Brandeis University that showed that a Jewish charity that offers free trips to Israel is increasing the number of marriages within the faith.
The study was good news for Taglit-Birthright Israel and its donors, Charles Bronfman, Lynn Schusterman, and Michael Steinhardt, who also paid for the Brandeis research.
The philanthropists used the release of the study to solicit donations for Birthright, writes Jacob Berkman, a reporter with the Jewish Telegraph Agency who writes the blog.
“Does such a coordinated campaign, with the same funders backing the project and the research, risk undermining the credibility of the final study?” he asks.
Len Saxe, the researcher who oversaw the study, told Mr. Berkman that he would have preferred that the philanthropists wait a “couple of weeks before using the study in their pitches.”
But he added that he felt no pressure to gin up the findings to please his financial supporters.
What do you think?
A Critique of Consumer 'Giving,' and More: Tuesday's Roundup
- Lucy Bernholz, an adviser to foundations, thinks that embedded giving — namely, the incorporation of charitable gifts into consumer purchases — is a “rip-off” because it puts too many steps between a nonprofit group and a donor, lacks reporting standards, and has the effect of individual donors giving away their charitable deduction to companies. On her blog, Philanthropy 2173, she asks readers to share their run-ins with embedded giving during the holiday season.
- Good magazine interviews Matthew Bishop, a co-author of Philanthrocapitalism: How Giving Can Save the World, on the eve of the book’s release in paperback. Mr. Bishop says that the recession has increased talk of mergers and collaborations among charities, which he calls “an opportunity rather than a disaster for philanthrocapitalism.”
- Scott E. Hartley, a graduate student at Columbia University and a former employee at Google, writes about open-source technology and its implications for philanthropy on the Stanford Social Innovation blog.
November 02, 2009
The Downside of Transparency, Plus More: Monday's Roundup
- Lucy Bernholz, an adviser to foundations, explores the potential downsides of transparency on her blog Philanthropy 2173. Ms. Bernholz, an advocate of increased information in philanthropy, describes one potential unintended consequence: If disclosure requirements at private foundations were expanded, that might drive more people to instead use donor-advised funds.
- Heather Carpenter, a researcher at the Caster Family Center for Nonprofit Research, offers some tips for moving from a job at a regional to a national nonprofit group.
- While The Philanthropist television show has been canceled by NBC, fans of the show are trying to persuade the network to bring it back, writes Mitch Nauffts on PhilanTopic, the Foundation Center blog.
- A new $75,000 grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation brings the total amount of prize money available in America’s Giving Challenge to $245,000. Participants in the challnege, which ends Friday, compete to see who can raise the largest number of donations for their favorite charity using the Causes application on Facebook.
October 30, 2009
Public Invited to Vote on Philanthropy "Game Changers;" and More: Friday's Roundup
- Huffington Post is asking readers to vote on “the biggest game changer in philanthropy.” Candidates include New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, for his creation of a citywide service program, and Perla Ni, founder of the Web site Great Nonprofits.
- Andrew Wolk, founder of the nonprofit group Root Cause, advances the idea of creating common measurement tools tailored to an organization’s size and stage of development.
- While making changes to the nation’s health-care system is important, capping the charitable tax deduction to pay for the overhaul — or any other government program — would hurt charities, writes Brian A. Gallagher, chief executive officer of United Way Worldwide, in the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call.
- With the growing interest in the racial and gender diversity of foundation leadership, Gary Yates, chief executive of the California Wellness Foundation, and Thomas E. Wilcox, president of the Baltimore Community Foundation, discuss on a Council on Foundations blog how their organizations were able to recruit women, black people, and others to their boards.
October 29, 2009
Where's the Nonprofit Funny Business?
Does the nonprofit world need a good laugh?
Humor plays an important role in building identity, yet charities and foundations don’t seem to laugh at themselves very often, writes Gabriela Fitz, co-director of IssueLab, an online publisher of nonprofit research.
Do “we take ourselves too seriously (and then blog about it no less)? Or are we simply concerned that other people won’t take us seriously?” she asks on her group’s blog. “Or is it more evidence that we don’t really have a nonprofit group identity? I mean, a joke really only works when it resonates with the common experience of the audience.”
There are, of course, exceptions. Lolnptech.org makes fun of nonprofit technology, and Philanthropiccrap used to provide a much-needed dose of irreverent humor.
And The Chronicle offers a regular cartoon in its editorial section. That said, more humor is always welcomed.
Ms. Fitz calls for a nonprofit version of The Onion, the satirical newspaper, and is seeking headline ideas on her Web site. “Nonprofit Logic Model Proves to be Illogical,” she suggests. “Foundation president drops kids’ allowance, blames inadequate theory of change and proof of impact,” suggests someone else.
What do you think? What satirical nonprofit headlines would you suggest?
Concerns About Federal Impact on Charity, Plus More: Thursday's Roundup
- Howard Husock, vice president of policy research at the Manhattan Institute, writes on Townhall.com that “the stars are aligning for government to capture funds that would have otherwise gone to philanthropy and for government itself to pick charity winners and losers.” His concerns center on proposed changes to the amount Americans can deduct for their charitable gifts, the new White House Office of Social Innovation, and the Serve America Act.
- Several prominent corporate chief executives have sales backgrounds, so why does it seem that nonprofit chief executives usually are not former fund raisers? Sasha Dichter, director of business development for the Acumen Fund, raises this question on his blog.
- While some nonprofit experts question the appetite of everyday donors for charity evaluations, Ken Berger, chief executive of Charity Navigator, a watchdog group, argues on his blog that there is a growing interest for such information.
- The Chicago News Cooperative is converting from a nonprofit group to a low-profit, limited liability company, or L3C, a move that other journalism ventures might follow, writes Jim Barnett, a blog writer for the Nieman Journalism Lab.
- Allison Fine, a social-media expert, asks groups that recruit or use volunteers to work with the Entertainment Industry Foundation to develop a long-term strategy for promoting volunteerism following last week’s “iParticipate” TV campaign. Her post responds to Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch, who says the week of volunteer-themed programs and public-service announcements did not translate into many new volunteers.