more ...

 more ...

 more ...

 more ...

Board members who say things like “…it’s never been done that way before,” can put a real damper on innovation. A new article from Guidestar won’t tell you how to make them act differently, but it might encourage you to press forward with your vision even when you hear them. In summarizing his points, Jarold Panas writes:

The other day, while waiting in the doctor's office, I came across an article in an old issue of National Geographic.

"The barnacle," this article said, "is confronted early on with a decision about where it is going to live. Once it decides that, it spends the rest of its life with its head permanently cemented to a rock."

Don't let it happen to you!

You’ve got valuable business skills that have enabled you to succeed brilliantly in the corporate sector and now you want to leverage those same skills to make the world better. According to a new article from Stanford Social Innovation Review the work of transitioning is not as obvious as it may seem. Here's a snippet:

... it has taken years in the nonprofit sector to appreciate the challenge of applying business best practices to that sector. In fact, like the proverbial bull in a china shop, MBAs like me can, without appropriate understanding of nonprofits, actually wreak havoc when let loose in the often alien world of nonprofit strategic planning. Here’s how it usually works:

Cautionary words that still speak to the immense potential business folk like you can bring to social change.

It was more than ten years ago when my close friend Adriana Ballen, who also happened to be both a Columbian immigrant and a program officer at the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation told me, “I feel my privilege most when I eat.”

As our culture becomes more and more engaged in conversations about sustainable agriculture and food deserts and the “slow food movement”, I am regularly reminded of the perspective Adriana provided more than a decade ago as someone not born to the agricultural bounty so many in the US possess.

The Metro Section of yesterday’s New York Times could have carried Adriana’s statement as its overarching headline. Instead, it casually juxtaposed two articles that capture the economic chasm food issues represent in our culture. The main article, called “The Lost Supermarket: A Breed in Need of Replenishment”, which features this photo of an abandoned Associated store in Queens, states:

A continuing decline in the number of neighborhood supermarkets has made it harder for millions of New Yorkers to find fresh and affordable food within walking distance of their homes, according to a recent city study. The dearth of nearby supermarkets is most severe in minority and poor neighborhoods already beset by obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Right below that article, "Parents, Meet Your Coach in the Organic Aisle" which describes the efforts of "certified wellness counselor " Nancy Weisner's work at the Whole Foods in White Plains, New York:

Teaching people how to return to a simple lifestyle — not to eat anything, as Ms. Weiser says, “that wouldn’t grow in the ground” — turns out to be a complicated proposition, involving a bounty of reading materials and 12 educational sessions over the course of six months, not to mention the tour. Ms. Weiser considers it as much her job to teach mothers basics like how to cook kale (or at least, how to teach their help to cook kale), as to help them learn to say no “to all those volunteer types of projects that they consider obligations.”

Several points of consideration for discerning donors:

- Food deserts described in the first article illuminate the fact that systems, not lack of self discipline, play a major role in diseases like obesity and diabetes. That means solutions must focus on these systems issues as well. It makes no sense to educate young moms to eat better, for instance, if they can't afford or access fresh produce at affordable prices. (Hear it firsthand from folks featured by PhilanthroMedia in this video.)

- These issues beg for market-based solutions informed by Michael Porter's ideas on "The Competitive Advantage of the Inner City."

What incentive could encourage Whole Foods to bring Nancy Weisner to Queens?

In his book, The Fiefdom Syndrome (The Turf Battles That Undermine Careers and Companies - And How to Overcome Them), Robert J. Herbold, former Microsoft Chief of Operations, describes how self-interest undermines careers and companies. A dialogue on Social Edge explores the book’s relevance to social entrepreneurs looking to advance change in their communities. The dialogue's host, Carlos Gasca Yanez, does a great job of applying Herbold's concepts. For instance:

“Fiefdoms lack discipline” and that is how they are formed in community initiatives. Engaging the community requires a sense of openness, which aims to increase participation. In reality without thoughtful participation the loudest voices may lead to fiefdoms forming. To encourage openness and useful interaction a social entrepreneur should have a toolbox full participation and decision-making methods. One facilitator that I know uses play money as form of voting. In other words you have this budget, where would you invest it?

A community investment strategy for a local living economy is one way to engage the community. However, the idea seems so big that is un-manageable, but a good example of keeping it simple is the Seattle’s Foundation Framework for a Healthy Community. A framework provides a means to develop discipline amongst the various fiefdoms. For the social entrepreneur working with a healthy community framework can serve to prioritize their investment and energy.

I find this thread so compelling because business coverage of social entrepreneurialism so consistently misses the recognition that, while many business concepts may be fruitfully applied to social change, communities aren't dollar bills. The commonalities between business and community change may not be something you can learn from a book, but they can be learned over a lifetime in a community of peers committed to understanding them.

With its recent report on how foundations can help fight global climate change, Taking Action on Climate Change, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation set out to define not only which specific programs and policies would have the the highest impact in keeping global climate change below 2 degrees, but also put a price tag on it -- $800 million per year for six years.

The report itself does not give the price tag but I've been told that there is excitement within the organization that it is possible to define the amount of money it would take to solve the problem, and some reason to be hopeful that foundations would join together to pursue some of the report's recommendations.

As reported in a recent newsletter from Jane Wales, the new head of the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program at The Aspen Institute, the report recommends that "philanthropy help establish a national lobby for energy research and development, something that doesn’t exist at the moment. More specifically, foundations should focus on the "pinch points" in the energy policy system - working to improve building codes, utility regulations and auto fuel-efficiency standards."

If there is one social issue that each foundation and large donor cannot afford to reinvent the wheel on, due to the levels of expertise needed and the dollar figures involved, global climate change is it.

The philanthropic sector, foundations and donors alike, should now grapple with these big questions and more: Can we agree on a set of recommendations and pool our efforts? Are these the right recommendations (implicitly, how many additional six-figure, consultant-driven reports will be funded and re-funded before we reach a consensus)? Is the dollar amount right? Who will ante up? How do we know if we've made a difference?

Editors Note: While Bobby's entry refers to specifics of Richmond Public Schools, it also touches on a variety of issues being discussed in public schools more broadly.

One of the highest priorities for The Community Foundation and its donors is education, and there has been a plethora of news about the Richmond Public Schools of late. Change most certainly is coming. Will change be for the better? What form will it take? Consider these facts.

· Two years ago, Richmond Mayor Douglas L. Wilder proposed a City of the Future plan to build 15 new public schools and to make other needed improvements to Richmond's schools.

· More recently, Mayor Wilder requested an audit of the Richmond Public Schools, which revealed waste on a broad scale.

· In the past month, a search committee has been named to seek a replacement for the superintendent, who has announced she is leaving, and five of her top six administrators will also be vacant.

· Ten new principals will be hired.

· A first-ever charter school in Richmond is a real possibility.

· Donors increasingly are providing funding for new private alternatives for Richmond city children, such as Elijah House Academy, Orchard House School and Seven Hills School.

· The Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation, which was established to facilitate corporate support and has reputedly been under-utilized, has received a clean audit and is getting new board members, per a private conversation I had this past week.

So, Richmond Public Schools is at a crossroads. Will new leaders bring a bold new vision? Will fiscal management become sounder? Will new ideas like charter schools be embraced? Will vouchers be introduced to enable inner city children to choose alternative private education? Will facilities be significantly upgraded as promised? Will business leaders invest new capital? Most important, will we begin to see results in terms such as lower truancy and higher graduation rates?

For three years, Mayor Wilder has pressed for change. He rightly made education a priority. There are a wealth of options before him and the School Board, which has front line authority over many of these issues.

Will Mayor Wilder and the School Board work effectively together? The Mayor fought for change and now has his opportunity. We shall see what he and the School Board can do with it.

A ‘Heady’ Approach
Another school of thought is that donors are really more like investors: they invest their charitable dollars in nonprofits of their choice, and the ‘return’ they get from so doing is the ‘psychic reward’ of having done a good thing with their money. In other words, ideally there would be a social capital marketplace that facilitates the connection of sources of capital (donors) to uses of capital (nonprofits). According to a key feature in The Economist that highlighted this issue almost three years ago, three things would be needed for a philanthropic marketplace to work:
"First, there must be something for philanthropists to ‘invest’ in—something that, ideally, will be created by ‘social entrepreneurs’, just as in the for-profit world entrepreneurs create companies that end up traded on the stockmarket.
Second, the market requires an infrastructure, the philanthropic equivalent of stockmarkets, investment banks, research houses, management consultants and so on….
Third, philanthropists themselves need to behave more like investors. That means allocating their money to make the greatest possible difference to society's problems: in other words, to maximise their ‘social return’."

Writing for the Financial Times, Sean Stannard-Stockton describes the social capital marketplace as one that is, “characterized by a model of giving that mirrors the financial markets,” but that is, “still in its infancy.” In the article, he goes on to hypothesize about what this marketplace will look like in 25 years. He suggests:
“For many donors, the year 2033 does not look a whole lot different from 2008. Many people simply write checks to charities and devote the bulk of their giving to non-profit organizations in their community.
But for some donors, the landscape is radically different. The “social stock exchanges” that became popular between 2011 and 2019 now include all but a few large non-profits and many small but ambitious start-ups.
These exchanges compete for non-profit listings. Exchanges include big national networks with some international organizations, down to small local exchanges.
The business of giving money away is particularly different for large private foundations and smaller “impact-oriented” foundations. Instead of expecting non-profits to solicit them for grants, these foundations’ “impact committees” and “program analysts” spend their days looking for and researching potential grantees. Given the considerable information disclosure required by the exchanges, much of the information required for grantee research is available online. Third-party evaluation firms provide regular reports on listed non-profits and these reports are a valuable input for the foundations.
While the cost to non-profits of conforming to the exchanges’ information disclosure requirements is steep, once listed they find grant dollars come looking for them rather than the other way round. Exchange-listed non-profits tend to have small fund-raising groups that focus on “donor relations”. They market the non-profit by attending “road shows” where they have the chance to make their case.”

SocialMarkets
Jeff Tuller and Allan Benamer agree that the philanthropic sector is ripe for this type of mechanism. They are co-founders of SocialMarkets, an Internet-based organization whose mission is to “build the foundation for a true social capital marketplace. This is only possible through the measurement of both social good and the risk involved in its creation, asking for the cooperation of both those who create social goods and those who invest in them.” [Full disclosure: GivingNet currently serves as fiscal sponsor for SocialMarkets.] Their “vision” is “of an ideal outcome of the socialmarkets enterprise: the foundation of a true social capital marketplace. We believe such an outcome is only possible through the measurement of both social good and the risk involved in its creation. We know that such an outcome is only possible with the cooperation of both those who create social good and those who invest in them.”

In his blog on the subject, Benamer goes on to describe socialmarkets.org as a place, “where donors ‘invest’ in nonprofit projects based on their SROI (Social Return On Investment.):
“There are plenty of donors looking for a “best-bang-for-the-buck” (i.e. maximum SROI) approach to non-profit investment, and right now there is not much useful data out there for them. The success of sites like Charity Navigator are a testament to the need for metrics, but they only tell potential donors about what nonprofits spend, rather than what they accomplish. Surely we can do better than that.”

Socialmarkets is in its very early stages of development, but you can check out their approach by viewing their current listings. For example, a donor might choose to fund Rushing Rivers Institute to train people to save rivers. Socialmarkets has determined that a $100,000.00 investment in this cause would yield a $238,853.00 SROI. Donors can also vote for their favorite listings, and there is a “leaderboard” in which donors are rated by their overall social return on investment for all the donations they have made through socialmarkets.

Meeting in the Middle
While on the surface GreatNonprofits and SocialMarkets seem to have almost diametrically opposed approaches to luring donor interest and investment in nonprofit causes, in reality their founders would agree that some combination of touching the hearts of donors while appealing to their desire for transparency, accountability and efficient, effective use of their charitable dollars is required. There is a spectrum of donor types and donor expectations, and some combination of the information provided by these two organizations is likely to appeal to most. Donors--what do you think?

There is no doubt that attracting and retaining donors is front of mind for all nonprofits, particularly given the struggles of our current economy. Beyond the traditional methods, some new players in the sector have developed online applications for reaching out to donors. Interestingly, however, these Internet-based approaches can differ quite dramatically in how they woo potential givers. Two organizations in particular come at donors from almost opposite angles: one strikes at the heads of donors, with a more investment advisor approach, using statistics, measurements and hard data; the other strikes at individuals’ hearts, using stories and ratings to intrigue donors. Although both would probably agree that, in reality, donors rely on a mix of the two in making their charitable giving decisions.

Winning their hearts
According to Wharton professor Deborah Small, organizations that want to raise money should appeal to the hearts of potential donors, not their heads. The study she conducted, along with co-authors George Loewensteinb and Paul Slovic, shows that when making charitable gifts, “most people probably do not calculate the expected benefit of their donation. Rather, choices are made intuitively, based on spontaneous affective reactions."

Examples cited by the study include, according to the publication Knowledge@Wharton, “several well-known examples of large sums of money being donated to help identifiable victims. In 1987, a child named Jessica McClure, dubbed "Baby Jessica" by the news media, fell into a well near her home in Texas and received nearly $700,000 in donations from the public. Ali Abbas, a boy who lost both his arms and his parents in the Iraq War in 2003, was the subject of widespread media attention in Europe and received some $550,000 in donations. Even animals generate sympathy: In 2002, more than $48,000 was contributed to save Forgea, a dog stranded on a ship adrift in the Pacific Ocean.”

In the Knowledge article, Small suggests that there are important take-aways from the study for charitable organizations. "It's all about putting together a simple, emotionally compelling message. The best way to do that is in the form of a picture or a story, something that purely engages the emotional system. The mistake that many charities make is trying to appeal both to emotion and to reason. They assume this would be more effective than appealing to only one or the other, but it isn't."

GreatNonprofits
Perla Ni also believes that donors will respond best to the stirring stories of nonprofits, and founded the organization GreatNonprofits to enable nonprofit stories to be told. Founder and former publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Ni states on her organization’s website, “It struck me, as I struggled professionally to find great nonprofits for our magazine [Stanford Social Innovation Review] to write about, that there needed to be an online "Zagat," if you will, for nonprofits that would collect stories and reviews of people—people like me, the victims of Katrina, and hundreds of thousands of others—who have seen the impact of nonprofits up close, and can speak personally and firsthand about it.”

The mission of the organization is GreatNonprofits is to:
• Help inspire and inform prospective donors and volunteers, help them differentiate between nonprofits, find ones that they trust, and be more confident in giving or signing up to volunteer.
• Enable great nonprofits, regardless of the size of their marketing budget, to harness their most authentic and most effective advertising - the stories of the people they’ve served.
• Promote greater nonprofit excellence through feedback and transparency.

GreatNonprofits uses a model similar to TripAdvisor, Epinions or Yelp that rely on people who have actually interacted with an organization to post reviews and ratings. In the case of GreatNonprofits, these people might be volunteers, board members, staff members or clients of the nonprofits. An example is the reviews of MusicLink Foundation from both clients and volunteers. So far, this charity has a five-star rating based on three reviews. Reviews of other nonprofits are not all positive, as clients who have less than satisfactory interactions are free to post their thoughts as well.

GOOD. In case you don't, know, GOOD Magazine is "for people who give a damn. It's an entertaining magazine about things that matter."

Why have I resisted GOOD for so long? Over the past decade I've pined for a Fast Company that focused on the Nonprofit Sector. That was when I assumed the Nonprofit Sector was the only option for advancing real change in our communities, our country and around the globe. Like many others, I now believe that market-based solutions, strategically applied, may have much more influence. That means the magazine I pine for has changed in my mind as well.

I resisted GOOD because it emerged in a spate of new publications targeting social change. Early on, the website supporting the mag seemed like a really small community (which I'm sure it was.) But the publication and website have evolved rapidly. I'm especially excited by the terrific video work GOOD is producing. What's posted is a recent original production on the global water crisis that has really stuck with me in the month since I watched it.

Back with more GOOD soon, I'm sure.

 more ...

The new data on global smoking from a global survey, known as MPOWER, funded by Bloomberg Foundation, will get the hair up on the back of your neck.

As reported in Health News, "WHO officials said that one billion people could die of tobacco-related illness this century. Douglas Bettcher, director of the WHO Tobacco Free Initiative, stated, "What we're saying is that we don't want to let that happen. We want to see the operating environment of the tobacco companies become as difficult as possible in the near future."

According to a recent article in The Economist, over 150 countries have already ratified the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control , which requires countries to take a range of anti-smoking measures.

MPOWER, an initiative of the WHO, promotes six strategies to address the issue:

- Monitoring tobacco use and control policy
- Protecting people by enforcing "smoke-free" laws
-Offering smokers nicotine replacement and counseling programs
- Warning on cigarette packs about the hazards of smoking
- Enforcing bans on tobacco advertising and promotion
- Raising the price of tobacco through taxes

According to the Health News article, Studies have shown that raising the price of cigarettes is the most powerful strategy. For every 10% increase in price, cigarette consumption drops about 4% overall and about 8% in young people.

Bloomberg is on top of pursuing these strategies in New York with his recent call for another 50-cent increase in the New York City's cigarette tax to $3.50 a pack.

But the Economist article notes that only 5% of the global population is covered by "sweeping smoking bans." Evidently, "The tobacco industry is regrouping on order to focus on "promising" markets and escape the pesky lawsuits it is likely to face in rich, litigious markets. China is now home to more than a quarter of the world's smokers."

The global scale of the issue, and of the companies that proliferate its incessant and insidious growth, demands global-scale problem solving. We hope you'll share more about active initiatives addressing this global health crisis.

New research from the Girl Scout Leadership Institute (GSLI) demonstrates the extent to which the current election is engaging youth at atypically high levels. According to the February, 2008 poll:

Eight in 10 girls are interested in the upcoming Presidential election, and for the following reasons:

• Eight in 10 girls would get involved with this upcoming Presidential election if they could in a number of ways.

In releasing the data, GSLI also refers to data about higher levels of civic interest among American youth, in general. According to a Time Magazine/SRBI poll: Year of the Youth Vote from January 2008:

* Three-quarters of 18 to 29 year old youth are following the election.
* Almost two in three (63%) are following the election campaign by television, 44% by the Internet, and 21% by newspapers.
* Nearly three-quarters (72%) believe the U.S. is on the wrong track.

Over the last decade, voter trends have risen for youth voter registration and turnout (Young Voter Registration Turnout and Trends, February 2008). To see the sharp rise for this presidential campaign, check out , a new report from Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) and Rock The Vote.Young Voter Registration Turnout and Trends.

PhilanthroMedia is interested in learning about how nonprofits are planning to tap this election's youth activism for efforts that extend beyond it. If you've got an idea or know who is doing solid work here, pls let us know!

Improving poverty and income inequality is a shared objective globally, so it is fitting that globalization is bringing new innovations to these intractable social challenges in the U.S.

According to a recent article in the Economist, Brazil's Bolsa Familia ("Family Fund"), the largest anti-poverty scheme of its kind in the world, represents a proven model that is being adopted around the world, including in a recent experiment in New York City.

Here's how it works in Brazil, according to the article: For families below a certain income, mothers are paid a monthly benefit, distributed through a re-fillable debit card on the condition that they keep their children in school and keep them current with their vaccinations. Municipal governments monitor compliance of the program but the federal government pays the benefits.

The program receives technical and financial support from the World Bank, in an effort to show that "social policies [can] go beyond assistance and become active tools of social and economic transformation."

Opportunity NYC, New York City's take on the program, developed with the Rockefeller Foundation, will provide cash incentives to families in three key areas: education, health, and employment and training, as follows:

• Education incentives will promote superior attendance and good behavior in school, achievement and improved performance on standardized tests, and parental engagement in children's education.

• Employment and training incentives will promote increased employment and earnings or combine work activities with specific job training activities.

The payoff is potentially big, big, big. The Economist article cites improvements in the "cycle of poverty" by ensuring children obtain an education, increased rates of economic growth for the poorest citizens and reduced income inequality in the Brazilian implementation.

We share Rockefeller Foundation's hope that this proven model could be transformative for American cities, if it proves proves fruitful for New York. We'd like to hear your thoughts about this or similar effective efforts.

Highlighting the continuing mashup between the nonprofit and for profit sectors, an article in the April 13 edition of the New York Times said that a “new style of ‘hybrid’ technology organization is emerging that is trying to define a path between the nonprofit world and traditional for-profit ventures. They’re often referred to as 'social enterprises' because they pursue social missions instead of profits. But unlike most nonprofit groups, these organizations generate a sustainable source of revenue and do not rely on philanthropy. Earnings are retained and reinvested rather than being distributed to shareholders.”

Such ventures, also called for-benefit, low-profit, fourth sector or b corporations, among others, “…can make money; they will just never make enough to provide venture capital rates of return,” according to James Fruchterman of Benetech, a social enterprise incubator.

Several technology companies have been working at the intersection of the for-profit and nonprofit worlds for some time now. The article highlights TechSoup, which it says, “stumbled upon its business eight years ago after it began sending a truck around San Francisco to pick up donated commercial software to distribute to nonprofit groups. Today, the organization distributes products from 32 commercial companies, including Cisco Systems, Microsoft and Symantec, to roughly 50,000 organizations annually, for a small administrative fee.
‘We were just trying to meet the needs of nonprofits,’ said Rebecca Masisak, co-chief executive of TechSoup.”

As anyone who is venturing into the fourth sector will tell you, the experience is rife with unanswered questions and challenges. But the need for better technology, more business acumen and better efficiencies in the nonprofit sector combined with the desire of folks in the for-profit sector with dollars, experience and expertise to do work that benefits society sounds like a win-win if given the chance to succeed…

In this episode of "Dialogue for Donors," PhilanthroMedia travels to Trenton, NJ to CYO Mercer County Catholic Youth Organization to learn more about the Salsa, Sabor y Salud program which uses a culturally-sensitive approach to advance healthy living in Latino communities. Developed by Kraft General Foods, in partnership with the National Latino Children's Institute, the program has received high marks from the Center for Prevention Research at the University of Illinois.

Given the fact that the American Association of Pediatricians has labeled obesity the most chronic health problem facing American children, programs like this one are sorely needed. As a former program officer, I was especially impressed with the high participation and retention rates in Trenton's program. And as for its director, Gloria Pica, you just gotta meet her. So tune in.

 more ...

No, I do not believe that people give to avoid taxes. I hear donors in their 80’s and 90’s say that their children are well established, and that they want to give something back to their community. I hear donors say they want their children to learn the value of hard work, and they decline to make them independently wealthy. I hear donors talk about tithing.

Yes, people are tax-wise in the way they give. Why not let Uncle Sam make part of your gift through tax savings? Donors give appreciated securities to avoid the capital gains tax. They make a variety of planned gifts to receive income during their lifetimes, after which the remainder value passes to charity free of estate tax. Donors make charities the beneficiary of their IRA, which will be heavily taxed (up to 80%) if left to heirs.

However, if people give to avoid taxes, then why has giving exploded in recent years, despite lower tax rates?

While we are challenging the consensus, why not take on the popular press which loves to bash our local governmental leaders? Have they really been such bad partners? Consider Virginia’s investments in our state agency museums - the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and the Science Museum of Virginia - and our state university, Virginia Commonwealth University. Consider the investment of the City of Richmond and surrounding counties in Maymont. And, yes, consider the City of Richmond’s and the State’s investments in the Virginia Center for the Performing Arts.

To be sure, many cultural opportunities go unfunded and those which are funded require a lot of effort. However, the net result of our private and public investment in cultural institutions is astounding for a city our size. We have two well endowed universities, a phenomenal array of cultural attractions and a community foundation that ranks19th in asset size nationally.

Critics will undoubtedly continue to rationalize their view that raising taxes will increase both government revenues and charitable giving. At least in the latter case, and arguably in the former as well, it is simply not true.

(part 2 of 2)