Philanthropy News Feed

• Do the Wealthy Really Need a Generosity Coach? – The Wealth Report – WSJ Commenting on a recent profile of a self-styled "generosity coach", the Wall Street Journal columnist Robert Frank wonders sarcastically if the wealthy need greed-management coaches, family resentment coaches and parent guilt coaches as well. At Tactical Philanthropy Advisors we work with people who want to give and think coaching people to become more generous is rather presumptuous. (tags: philanthropy)
• Facebook Co-Founder Starts Philanthropic Social-Networking Site – The Chronicle of Philanthropy The nonprofit focused social network Jumo, which will launch in the fall, will try to connect donors to nonprofits of interest by asking them questions about their personality and lifestyle. (tags: philanthropy)

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How the poor love their cell phones:

“Connectivity is poverty” was how a friend of mine summarized Sterling’s bold theme. Only the poor — defined broadly as those without better options — are obsessed with their connections. Anyone with a strong soul or a fat wallet turns his ringer off for good and cultivates private gardens that keep the hectic Web far away.

Online Storytelling Marketing: The New (Old) Way of Delivering Your Brand Message : eMarketing & Commerce (eM+C): "Storytelling marketing is a critical part of online marketing. Telling a story is the one communication method that beats all others when it comes to delivering a memorable, motivating and meaningful message. And when combined with online marketing, it creates a very powerful way to

Ventura County Reporter - Nonprofit with local roots has global reach: "funds and did outreach for Third World and developing countries, drought-stricken, in urgent need of safe drinking water supplies. When Kuepper entered the picture, he had started writing for the group, quickly becoming director of its West Coast branch. Its offices in Oxnard are now its national headquarters, and Kuepper

What if there was a way to trigger a $150 billion influx of new money into the social sector?

Recently, in my public speaking, I’ve been talking about Kiva.org and why Kiva is like a “gateway drug to social investing”. The fact is, most people are not sitting around wishing that they could make high impact social investments. When Kiva was formed, it was not designed in reaction to a large group of everyday people who were looking for a simple way to make small loans to impoverished people in the developed world. Instead, Kiva built a model that was incredibly compelling and hooked everyday donors into the world of microfinance, which until Kiva was a social investing practice reserved for institutional grantmakers.

How did Kiva do it?

Well one model of what makes ideas spread is outlined in the book Made to Stick, by Chip & Dan Heath. The model is called SUCCESs and it lays out six principals of what makes an idea “sticky”. It is amazing how perfectly Kiva, which is one of the “stickiest” ideas in social investing, follows the SUCCESs model.

Simple: Simplicity isn’t about doing little things. It is about focusing on a core message. Kiva offers the simple premise that you can lend money to aspiring entrepreneurs in impoverished countries and help them improve their lives.

Unexpected: To get attention, you need to do something unexpected. Kiva’s pitch is that you can lend (not give) your money, get it all back and still make the world a better place.

Concrete: While the Red Cross says that they “help prepare communities for emergencies and keep people safe every day”, the home page of Kiva asks you to make a $25 loan to a specific person with their photo and bio.

Credible: According to the SUCCESs model, credibility comes from “human-scale statistics and vivid details”. Kiva’s website is overflowing with information about all their historical loans so that a first time visitor can quickly see specific borrowers and lenders and reams of fully paid back loans.

Emotional: People care about people, not numbers. The Chip brothers argue that people care more about self-identity than self-interest. Again, the home page of Kiva features a constantly updating profile of Kiva lenders, with short bios and their answer to the question “I loan because…”. After a few minutes clicking around their website, potential lenders will run across an existing Kiva lender whom they identify with.

Stories: Kiva borrowers keep a journal that explains to the lender how they’ve used the loan and how things are going. A lender is first presented a story about the individual requesting the loan and then given story updates as the borrower deploys the loan.

Kiva isn’t a freak accident. It is a masterfully executed, “sticky” idea.

We tend to spend a lot of time talking about what sort of giving is effective. But there is another issue facing philanthropy. During the last 100 years, charitable giving has run at about 2% of gross domestic product. Making philanthropy and nonprofits more effective isn’t going to change that number. Making philanthropy and nonprofits “stickier” is the key. Bumping giving from 2% to 3% would trigger a $150 billion influx of money into the social sector. That’s real money. That’s the kind of number that is thrown around when wars are started, banks are bailed out, health care is reformed. What if that kind of number was channeled towards effective philanthropy? What if giving went to 4%?

If you care about effective philanthropy, then you need to care about making effective philanthropy “sticky.”

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The NonProfit Times - The Leading Business Publication For Nonprofit Management: "The newest volunteering incentive is Disney’s “Give a Day, Get a Day” program, where volunteers who dedicate their time will receive a one-day pass to a Disney theme park. Those who sign up can search through volunteer opportunities on the Disney Web site and manage their volunteering accounts.Susan Ellis, president

Idealist.org: Don't search for jobs, search for people!: "All right, all right – the title is a tad misleading. You’ll still have to search for jobs a little bit. But what if you changed your focus?So that you weren’t doing the constant Idealist/Craigslist/local job board shuffle and instead spent more of your time searching for—and talking with—people who are doing interesting things and who may

Nonprofit Jobs: Interview with Idealist.org's Ami Dar and Meg Busse: "Ami Dar is founder and executive director of Idealist.org and Meg Busse directs their Career Transitions Programs. Look for additional posts from Idealist.org over the next month, as they will be contributing their own mini-series as part of this Nonprofit Job series with advice on working in the nonprofit sector.Sokunthea: It

In times of economic hardship, non-profit organizations confront issues that are unique to their status. Like business entities, charities have responsibilities to their employees, to conduct their activities and to their creditors. But charities also have obligations to their donors and are accountable to the community at large for the use of their assets for charitable purposes, which may impede how those assets are used in responding to financial difficulties.  So how does a charity navigate perilous economic waters when its actions are scrutinized and governed by a multiplicity of (potentially conflicting) interests?

Dear Prudence:  Standards of Care for Directors and Officers

Of paramount concern to charitable directors and officers is whether they may be held personally liable for decisions, particularly challenging decisions such as reducing staff, borrowing against an endowment or even filing for bankruptcy.  Historically, the standard of care that applied to the governing bodies of charitable organizations was rooted in trust law which carries a greater risk of personal liability.  However, modern non-profit corporation statutes have attempted to adopt standards of care more closely attuned to the business corporation model.

Each state has adopted its own set of laws governing the conduct of managers of charitable organizations.  Although the actual language of each state’s law may vary, the principles generally do not.  For example, in New York, “[d]irectors and officers shall discharge the duties of their respective positions in good faith and with that degree of diligence, care, and skill which ordinarily prudent men would exercise under similar circumstances in like positions.”

The actions of directors which have been taken in good faith and with the honest judgment that such actions were in furtherance of the nonprofit’s corporate purposes. Directors and officers are required to be “honest,” to disclose conflicts of interest and to subordinate their own interests to those of the corporation.  The officer or director who complies with the standard of care will not be subjected to personal liability, even if the relevant decision turns out to have been incorrect.  The officer or director who complies with appropriate decision making process will not be held accountable for the results of his or her decisions.  New York and other states have also limited the liability of uncompensated directors, officers and trustees of most charities. No personal liability will attach unless he or she is guilty of gross negligence or intentional harm. 

A director’s compliance with the standard of care may be complicated by the interests of donors, creditors and the general public in the activities and assets of charitable organizations. Whether legally binding or not, both the officers and directors of charities must address these sometimes conflicting interests in tapping their endowments and other institutional funds, addressing the claims of creditors and disposing of assets held for charitable purposes.

Swimming Underwater: Drawing on Endowments in Hard Times

States have also adopted rules for managing charitable endowments and other institutional funds.  Virtually all states and the District of Columbia have enacted some variant of either the Uniform Management of Institutional Funds Act or the more recent Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act, inelegantly referred to as UMIFA and UPMIFA, respectively.

The uniform acts set forth their own standards for directors and officers in managing institutional funds, loosely based on the business judgment and ordinary prudence standards applied more generally to the actions of directors and officers.. UMIFA states that in managing its institutional funds the “governing board shall exercise ordinary business care and prudence under the facts and circumstances prevailing at the time of the action or decision.” UPMIFA directs that the board shall consider the charitable purposes of the organization and shall manage each fund in good faith and with the care an “ordinarily prudent person in a like position would exercise under similar circumstances.” Both statutes enumerate the factors that must be taken into consideration in investing charitable assets and delegating investment authority.

The uniform act applicable in a particular state is key to the latitude the charity has in accessing its endowments.  UMIFA is the more restrictive of the two uniform laws and permits a charity to appropriate the net income and so much of the appreciation of the fund over its “historic dollar value” as the board considers prudent.  Historic dollar value refers to the aggregate value of all contributions to the fund or funds at the time made. The concept of historic dollar value is intended to preserve the original principal of each gift. Unfortunately, the current stock market woes have left many endowments “under water” -- below historic dollar value.  In UMIFA states, this means that only the income is available to charity until the endowment recovers its historic dollar value at a time when other sources of income are likely to be declining.  Nothing prevents the terms of the gift instrument from altering the general rule.

Where enacted, UPMIFA eliminates the troublesome notion of historic dollar value and permits a charity to use such amounts of an endowment (consistent with the purposes of the endowment) as the board deems “prudent.” In UPMIFA states, charities have the option of using endowment principal even when the value is below historic dollar value.  Charities must still consider the duration and preservation of the fund, the purposes of the charity, the effects of inflation and deflation, the charity’s other resources and its investment policy.  Concern that some organizations would spend down their endowments imprudently led to an optional provision in the draft of UPMIFA which would create a presumption of imprudence if a charity spends in any year more than 7% of the endowment’s average value over the previous three years.

Both UMIFA and UPMIFA permit the charity to obtain the consent of the donor or donors either to permit an invasion of principal or to release a restriction on an endowment that would allow its use for the general uses of the organization.  However, charities should be cautious and consider whether such a request would jeopardize donor relations and the potential for future fundraising.

UMIFA and UPMIFA also permit a charity to ask a court to release a restriction, but this is may not be a practical solution for temporary financial issues.  Under UMIFA, the court must find a restriction to be “obsolete, inappropriate or impracticable” in order to release it.  Under UPMIFA, the restriction must be found to be “impractical or wasteful” or to impair “the management or investment of the fund.” A court may modify a restriction if, because of circumstances not anticipated by the donor, a modification of the restriction will further the purposes of the fund.  In all cases where the written consent of the donor is not available, the attorney general of the state must be given notice of the proceeding or action.

Charities may be able to use their endowments as security for a loan (advantageous in today’s low interest rate environment), provided that the loan proceeds are used in a manner consistent with the purpose of the endowment.  Some have suggested that a charity may borrow “from” an endowment.  However, this would seem to be contrary to the principle of preserving historic dollar value in UMIFA states. Nevertheless, the New York City Opera was able to borrow $23.5 million from its endowment with the approval of the court and the New York attorney general. Even in UPMIFA states, by borrowing from itself, the charity cannot give the endowment the protections a creditor would have. If the charity goes under, the borrowed endowment goes with it. Borrowing from the endowment should not be undertaken without the express consent of the donor or, if the donor is deceased or incompetent, the state attorney general and the court.

None of these rules, except the standard of care, applies to board-restricted funds, or “quasi-endowments.” They apply only to funds restricted by one or more donors (including donors giving to an endowment fund based on representations that fund will be restricted in time or purpose). What the board alone has restricted, the board may release and use for its general purposes.

Donors versus Creditors: Who Wins?

A charity also has obligations to its creditors, but not in abrogation of its duty to its donors. Whether a charity is in bankruptcy or state insolvency proceedings, or is simply trying to determine how to pay the bills, state law will determine the rights of creditors to assets held for charitable purposes.  However, not all of a charity’s assets may be made available to pay the claims of creditors.  The analysis under the law of the applicable state turns on whether the assets are held in a separate trust, or quasi-trust, whether the assets are held for specific purposes or, if the charity goes out of business, whether the court should apply principals of equity and determine the further use of assets held for specific purposes.

A trust for the benefit of a charity will not ordinarily be subject to the claims of creditors, unless it can be revoked by the charity or was created by the charity for its own benefit.  A trust created by a third party is generally not available to the claims of creditors.  If the charity has ceased to exist, the trust will not fail; rather a state court will determine its further and best uses.  Relying on these rules, some charities create separate fundraising entities to insulate those assets from the claims of creditors.

Typically, however, an endowment is not legally a charitable trust.  Nonetheless, an endowment created by a charity which solicited donors by representing the fund as a permanent fund for specific purposes may be deemed equivalent to a charitable trust and not subject to creditors’ claims.  Donor intent, in short, trumps creditors’ claims where the fund is restricted for a particular purpose.

Board-restricted assets ordinarily will be subject to creditors’ claims on the theory that they are revocable and self-settled. Also, to the extent that a debt is within the scope of the purposes of the endowment, some part of the endowment may be available to the creditor.

A Moral Minefield:  the Sale of Assets Held for Charitable Purposes

A charity also has obligations to the general public which may dictate the terms on which it makes use of its assets in times of financial hardship. As several institutions have recently discovered, the local community and professional groups may also have a say in whether the asset can be sold and for what purposes. For example, the National Academy Museum sold works of art in order to meet operating expenses, thereby running afoul of the guidelines of the Association of Art Museum Directors, which require that the proceeds of art sales be used solely for new acquisitions. The New York Public Library sold Asher B. Durand’s “Kindred Spirits” for Alice Walton’s museum in Arkansas, despite the painting’s deep connection with New York, generating criticism. Faced with having to sell key assets, a governing board must balance these other concerns against serving the broader purpose of the institution as a whole, particularly where the alternative may be bankruptcy, dissolution or severe curtailment of its activities.

Conclusions and Recommendations

Responsibility for addressing a charity’s financial difficulties lies with the directors, who must make a determination of what can be done as well as what should be done. Directors and officers should be familiar with applicable state laws defining the obligations of charities’ directors and officers, and the rights of donors and creditors, and with community and professional sensitivities. Strong governance practices should be in place to insure honesty and the integrity of decisions. Directors and officers, particularly those who are compensated, should be insured against the prospect of personal liability. Obtaining the opinions of counsel may be prudent when confronting decisions that affect labor and employment, the legal rights of donors and creditors, employee benefits issues or filing for bankruptcy. Inquiries to the state attorney general may provide guidance on what actions will be deemed acceptable under the law and to the community. As a last resort, the organization may be forced to seek court protection and guidance, including bankruptcy or dissolution.  However, with adequate governance practices and attention to the relevant standard of care, whatever decisions are made will be prudent and no director or officer will incur personal liability.

 

 

Christina M. Mason is a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.  She focuses on trusts and estates, tax, estate planning, real estate and private foundations and other charitable organizations.  Ms. Mason can be reached at cmason@kelleydrye.com.  Carolyn R. Caufield is a partner at Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.  She focuses on trusts and estates, closely held businesses, estate and gift tax, and fiduciary matters including income tax.  Ms. Caufield can be reached at ccaufield@kelleydrye.com.

 

 

Women in the World, which unfolded last weekend at the historic Hudson Theater just east of Times Square - where Arsenic and Old Lace made its Broadway debut in 1941 - was the energetic vision of one of New York's most connected women. Tina Brown, proprietor of The Daily Beast (where I occasionally contribute), assembled this town's old guard media tribe and then some: Barry Diller, Barbara Walters, Katie Couric, Christiane Amanpour, Diane Sawyer, and Charlie Rose mingled with Queen Rania of Jordan, Meryl Streep, Madeline Albright, Donna Karan, Nora Ephron and the ever-present Diane Von Furstenberg.

"My hope is that it will help grow this important message of economic empowerment for women as the key to prosperity, and help spread this message around the world," Brown told USA Today.

This latest gathering brought together what Brown referred to as "lioness leaders" in the cause of telling stories, getting prominent people (including corporate and media types) more involved, and building a movement. In fact, this movement clearly dates to 1995, when Hillary Clinton famously told the UN's Fourth World Conference on Women that "women's rights are human rights." Yet it's a decade and a half down the road, and the horrors that women endure in fields of conflict, throughout the developing world, and just down the block continue to shock and sicken on almost a daily basis. Just a day before Women in the World opened, a young woman was savagely beaten in the bathroom of a club only a few blocks from the Hudson Theater - reportedly for refusing to dance with the man now charged with her attempted murder.

"Sexual terrorism" carries different meanings in different settings - yet it's the terrorism part of the phrase that should get more attention. Gender itself is so vast, so seemingly non-organizable. It was no accident that Brown named the Daily Beast's conference Women in the World; "of" is untenable, yielding more of a soft-touch 1964 World's Fair exhibit of a title than a call to action. No, this gathering, for all its glamour, had a sharp point with a barbed tip. The barb that stayed caught was the quest for political and economic power. Time and again at Women in the World, I heard speakers talk about meaningful participation in governance and the world economy. This was a gathering of women not content with traditional philanthropy and corporate hand-outs, with slogans and ribbons and rubber bracelets.

Yet story-telling is so important. One of the real highlights was an evocative reading (directed by Julie Taymor) of Seven, a play that is a collaboration between Vital Voices and seven award-winning women playwrights, which profiles seven women leaders from the Vital Voices' Global Leadership Network. Meryl Streep added Oscar-worthiness to the ensemble cast, which also featured Marcia Gay Harden, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Stephanie Okereke, Archie Panjabi, Julyana Soelistyo, Lauren Vélez. Over 90 minutes, Seven moves its protagonists from the desperation and powerlessness to activism and achievement. But the overarching theme isn't organizing - it's bravery.

From Inez McCormack, a civil rights leader in Northern Ireland (portrayed by Streep with humor and a believable Ulster brogue), to my personal hero, Mukhtar Mai of Pakistan, who was played effectively by Aghdashloo, the willingness to court more violence in the pursuit of justice pervades the reading of Seven, whose stories were subtly propelled by sparse sound effects and strong photograpic images on the large screen behind the actors. Seven women, speaking for billions. Seven stories to mobilize half of humanity.

Yet in chatting with Rebecca Lolosoli just before the reading of Seven, I was struck by how quickly village-level organizing can attain a bigger profile - and with it, more of a say in the halls of power. Rebecca is the founder and director of the Umoja Uaso Women’s Village, a community of survivors fleeing domestic abuse and arranged marriages in Kenya. She wears the brilliant colors and beaded necklace of the Samburu and, though Vital Voices, has become a recognized voice for changing traditions that make women into victims. We were talking about the violence in Kenya, and she said that real political power remains elusive.

This echoed the words of Suraya Pakzad, executive director of Voice of Women, which provides women in Afghanistan with shelter, counseling and job training. "Don't think of women's issues as a project - women are not a program," she told a panel on women in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Pakzad, who courageously risks her life to run her shelters, argued that women belong at the table for peace talks. And this echoed the top global issue facing women identified by a coalition of leaders who gathered last fall in Florence under the Vital Voices banner: Lack of political will and accountability.

That technology can help even the playing field is taken as an issue of faith at gatherings like Women in the World. And indeed, the growth of cell phones and networked organizing is changing the landscape quite a bit. As I wrote in the Daily Beast last week: "The systemic challenges facing billions of women in the developing world defy easy, clickable solutions. Yet from linking remote villages via increasingly ubiquitous mobile-phone messaging to improved water safety and cooking tools, technological innovations are changing the lives of women and their families for the better, around the world."

I heard many people say over the weekend that the network really matters to them - the ability to connect women in remote developing regions to colleagues in NGOs, corporations, and government provides a shorter path to recognition. Cherie Blair talked about her partnership with the GSMA association of mobile operators to get inexpensive phones into the hands of more women in developing nations, where there remains a demonstrable technology gap between the genders. But technology can also bear witness. At Women in the World, the word "Congo" bore as much emotional power as "Katrina" or "9/11" do for many in the U.S. and the reason to me seemed clear: horrific cell phone images of the victims of infamous mass rape.

"Congo" has become short-hand for sexual terrorism.

Yes, images do matter. In introducing Seven, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told the story of her recent visit to Guatemala and the request of an American diplomat there when she met with a a civil rights leader. The ambassador's request to Secretary Clinton was simple: take a picture with her. "They're trying to kill her." A photo with one of the world's most famous and powerful women carries some power. "Here's a woman who is putting everything there is on the line."

The story provided the perfect lead-in to Seven, which is about women who have done just that - and with success. Yet Secretary Clinton warned that "extremist voices against women's rights are growing louder." And she took a moment to update the language of her 1995 declaration:

"Women's progress," she said, "is human progress."

 

 

Tom Watson, author of CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World (Wiley, 2008) is Managing Partner of CauseWired Communications, a consulting firm advising nonprofits and causes. He can be reached at tom@causewired.com.

 

 

 

Boomers Seeking Personalized Volunteering - The Best Life (usnews.com): "Surge in self-directed volunteering reflects desire to use specific skills and meet personal needs.If you have time and an interest in volunteering, you literally can create your own program. Aided by Internet sites that match needs and volunteers, along with other 'do it yourself' online tools, boomers are rewriting the

Do the Wealthy Really Need a Generosity Coach? - The Wealth Report - WSJ: "Now some philanthropy advisers are rebranding themselves as “generosity coaches,” making the whole business seem more a matter of good morals than big money."

Human Resource Executive Online - Story: "That's why executives from a couple of the nation's more established, traditional nonprofits -- Girl Scouts of America and Mental Health America -- joined experts from Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania at the University's Fels Institute of Government to discuss innovative new approaches that might re-create some of TFA's recruiting magic for

Lloyd Webber to Sell $60.9 Million Picasso Portrait for Charity - Bloomberg.com: "March 17 (Bloomberg) -- A Pablo Picasso painting of an absinthe drinker owned by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber’s charity foundation may fetch as much as 40 million pounds ($60.9 million) at a London auction in June."

NPR:

Behind the new position is a remarkable story of how critics of gung-ho global capitalism finally succeeded in challenging IMF orthodoxy, in part because the financial crisis of 2008 prompted reconsideration of conventional economic theories.

In the Arts: New Generation of Curators Helps Museums Modernize - Philanthropy Today - The Chronicle of Philanthropy- Connecting the nonprofit world with news, jobs, and ideas: "A new guard of curators is taking root at major American art museums as the organizations aim to recharge programming and attract younger audiences, The New York Times reports in a special section on the museum scene.The

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 Officer for Open Government at the White House. Peer-to-patent is real. Open government is a practical manner of working for many municipalities, states, and national governments - in the US and elsewhere. Those are pretty impressive outcomes from a "modest proposal."

At the same time, I've noticed that manifestos appear to be all the rage. Here's one on innovation, here's one on the internet (and the future of journalism), here's one on "awesomeness," and here's one on philanthrocapitalism. One thing I noticed and appreciated about these manifestos is their generous use of bullet points - so herewith, my modest manifesto on open philanthropy:

1. Open sharing of ideas in philanthropy serves us all as we seek to solve shared problems.
2. We need a Freedom of Foundation and Nonprofit Information Act. These organizations are tax-privileged data repositories. As such, their tax privileges should be linked to the degree they openly share and contribute the information, data, and knowledge that they produce for the public good.
3. Openness extends to the interoperability of data - ours and others. Efforts to open government reporting, data sharing from municipalities and states, and open access to public records on donations, nonprofit filings, and public funding sources are all in the best interest of solving social problems.
   
4. Experimenting with openness will show us what works. The Sunlight Foundation's recent "datajams" and Sunlight Live coverage of the health care reform discussions are a great working example of what information matters to whom, about what, and when. Their explanation of how they did it is fascinating - and further demonstration of "what open looks like" in practice.
5. The ability to be open and our expectations of it are changing. These new expectations will change what transparency really looks like and how it works (Here's one version - the Cycle of Transparency). Philanthropy can guide this or react to it but it can not ignore it. Some leaders among large foundations are helping to shape the Glasspockets site from The Foundation Center, and the Center for Effective Philanthropy broke ground in this space. However, the most significant change is still to come - as the tools of transparency are now in the hands of the "viewers" not just those to be "viewed."
   
6. Open matters to communities. Given the tools of today, we should consider at least the following possibilities:
   

• Crowdsourced peer reviews of tax exempt entities (e.g. nonprofits);
• Crowdsourced community needs and recommendations on social sector infrastructure;
• Mandatory online filing of nonprofit and foundation tax forms;
  
• Real-time data feeds from state attorneys general on nonprofit openings and closures;
  
• Real time data feeds of foundation grants (that can be mashed up with similar feeds from public agencies and other grantmaking bodies);
• Aggregated analysis of giving and loans from online giving marketplaces to show trends from the long tail. APIs and interoperable data structuring to allow these data and foundation data to be mashed up;
  
• Use of external expertise for developing and assessing giving strategies (peer-to-philanthropy model, adapted from peer-to-patent);
  
• Interoperable data streams from online games that generate social activism;
  
• Standardized privacy protections developed, agreed to, and used by public and philanthropic data sources to protect individuals' identity while providing access to aggregate data;
• Statements of usage and ownership for intellectual property that align with the nonprofit or philanthropic entities' missions, rather than the default use of copyright protection. Use of alternative and open content licensing where appropriate.
  
• The kinds of data and information sharing strategies that underlie efforts like CrisisCamps or Ushahidi should be understood and considered in all domains.

(Section in quotes below was ADDED ON March 18 2010 - see this post also)
"A few more thoughts from me (which I also will go back and post into original)

1. Data on embedded giving (affiliate marketing, cause-related giving - whatever you want to call it) needs to be open and accessible. This would include how much each company "give at the cash register" effort raises, how much is donated, and to what organizations. These efforts should be tracked and revealed in common visible way.*
2. How we give is rapidly changing. We need data systems, and open protocols for sharing info on:
   

• Text donations.
  
• Embedded giving is already the MOST COMMON form of giving (according to recent Convio report).
  
• Mobile phones will become the standard platform for organizing, volunteering, and giving - Ushahidi and The Extraordinaries are the tip of an iceberg for how we are shifting to P2P philanthropy (See Tim Ogden in March 2010 Alliance Magazine (subscription req'd)
  
• Giving in games and virtual worlds.

Our systems for tracking, revealing, and sharing data on these trends need to account for these revolutions and those to come. Otherwise we face the same disconnect between "data collected" and "actions taken" that we've had for years because we track foundation giving but not that from donor advised funds."

One of the things we've learned from the open source software movement is that codes of professional practice matter - the early licensing efforts to create code that developers could access, use, improve, and share again are critical to how software development happens. We need similar codes of professional conduct and practice in philanthropy.

While the capacity to reach out to and incorporate community and expert input is all around us, the organizational impetus is to act otherwise. This is ever more so as the universe of social good producers diversifies to include nonprofits, social enterprises, social businesses, and corporate social responsibility efforts - each type of enterprise has different incentives for sharing their information openly, and we can not assume that greater openness will be the natural choice for all.

Several years ago I offered these seven building blocks of open philanthropy:
1. Facilitate adaptation, don’t hinder it
2. Design for interoperability, local specificity will follow
3. Build for the poorest
4. Assume upward adaptability
5. Creativity and control will happen locally
6. Diversity is essential
7. Complex problems require hybrid solutionsThe tools we have today for gathering input, sharing data, exchanging ideas with attribution while encouraging reuse and remixing, creating sustainable enterprises dedicated to social change, and engaging multiple communities over time have exploded in number and pervasive use since I first offered those building blocks. Now is the time to consider en toto the systems and tools of giving so that they deploy fully the tools, norms, and expectations of our times. This will position them to work most successfully in relation to the public and commercial sectors and increase our chances of making lasting change.

NOTE: I accidentally pushed the "publish post" button instead of the "save draft" button. So now, since some version of this has already gone live, I am pushing this out there and acknowledging that this is thinking "in progress." I'll continue to refine and edit.

Please add to the list, "Vote" on those that make most sense to you, or upload the list to a voting system or turn it into a survey monkey and spread it around. The best manifesto for better philanthropy will come from the input of the many.


Tags: knowledge, philanthropy, web2.0, technology, open, opendata, manifesto

Thanks to everyone who has added to and improved (and voted on) ideas in my "Modest Manifesto for Open Philanthropy."

A few more thoughts from me (which I also will go back and post into original)

1. Data on embedded giving (affiliate marketing, cause-related giving - whatever you want to call it) needs to be open and accessible. This would include how much each company "give at the cash register" effort raises, how much is donated, and to what organizations. These efforts should be tracked and revealed in common visible way.*
2. How we give is rapidly changing. We need data systems, and open protocols for sharing info on:
   

• Text donations.
  
• Embedded giving is already the MOST COMMON form of giving (according to recent Convio report).
  
• Mobile phones will become the standard platform for organizing, volunteering, and giving - Ushahidi and The Extraordinaries are the tip of an iceberg for how we are shifting to P2P philanthropy (See Tim Ogden in March 2010 Alliance Magazine (subscription req'd)
  
• Giving in games and virtual worlds.

Our systems for tracking, revealing, and sharing data on these trends need to account for these revolutions and those to come. Otherwise we face the same disconnect between "data collected" and "actions taken" that we've had for years because we track foundation giving but not that from donor advised funds.

There are tax reporting implications from #2 above. Right now nonprofit organizations and tax forms from people who itemize and data streams from transaction processors are primary sources of giving information. This system has always missed real giving numbers from the long tail of donors who do not itemize on their taxes.

The complexity of these issues should not be underestimated. Donor privacy is important, subject to multiple levels of oversight, and not an easy thing to protect on the internet. But giving data is just one piece of the data streams about public good that we, as the public subsidizing these gifts, have both a right to and a use for. This is why The Public Online Information Act is a critical piece to this puzzle. As philanthropy, social enterprise, corporate social responsibility and impact investing all blend together and public/private partnerships grow, we should be considering ways to share data and protect privacy within the larger context of public and private norms and goods, rather than creating (or worse, not creating) a parallel system for philanthropy.

*Laura Starita of Philanthropy Action has more detailed thoughts on this. Check them out.

Tags: manifesto, philanthropy, longtail, technology, innovation

Mixing It Up On Nonprofit Boards: Diversify or Fail | Leading Companies for Good | Fast Company: "Diverse perspectives and heuristics can be engines of joy,' says Page. This is one of the primary reasons that I so enjoy training and placing business executives on nonprofit boards. Through nonprofit boards, people from diverse backgrounds and perspectives have the opportunity to come together to

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