The price of trust

I have a much longer post on health disparities, race, and insidious marketing techniques that mis-appropriate people’s trust people, but I’m still working on it. However, this evening, I heard this story on the radio (KQED, broadcast of All Things Considered) and had to get this down now. In the story (transcript pending) Douglas Kamerow [...]

Talk amongst yourselves…about power

Back in March, the Council on Foundations hosted and recorded two conversations at the Seattle Public Television Station, KCTS. One of them, The Philanthropic Fault Line: Exploring the Sometimes Shaky Ground between Foundations and Nonprofits, used a paper I wrote, Rewriting Myths, as its backgrounder. The paper was commissioned by the Annie E. Casey Foundation [...]

10 reasons the discussion is always about nonprofit redundancy…

Notice how no one ever talks about “too many foundations?” Time ran an article on “Rethinking Nonprofits.” Remarkably, nothing new was said. However, the Agitator’s comments on it are priceless. My favorites are number 8 + 6: “8. I recently learned from my favorite sources (MySpace, The Daily Show, my text buddies) that people are [...]

Social Media and NPOs

Confused by all the hype? Well, here is more info on social media and nonprofits than anyone person could possibly generate. Which is why it is being captured on two linked wikis and several blogs. Check out the wikicarnival on social media and nonprofits at SocialMedia.Wikispaces.Com and web 2.0 for nonprofits and Designing for Social [...]

Another way to know ratings are coming

When the neighbors (read: services users and donors) get up and arm about the ways nonprofits are acting, you can bet that rating/monitoring/calls for nonprofits effectiveness will increase. Read this story about nonprofits in East Palo Alto, CA to see one example of this. And here (NorCalUrban: Article, “Local East Palo Alto Non Profits Taken [...]

Rating Nonprofits

This is a topic that surfaces, makes a splash, stumbles back below, and then resurfaces after time passes. How come there are not easy-to-use, comparable, meaningful metrics for donors and others to use to compare nonprofit organizations? There have been several attempts (Philanthropix), there are some partial successes (DonorEdge, Guidestar reports, Charity Navigator), and there [...]

SXSW Panel on disruptive technology and nonprofits

For those who are done with TED and still have more conference in them, check out this panel on Disruptive Technologies and Nonprofits at the SXSW Festival. Tags: technology, nonprofit

Second chance to advise on self-regulation

The Panel on the Nonprofit Sector (hosted by Independent Sector) is taking public comments on their draft principles for effective practice. Read and comment here. You have until March 30, 2007. Tags: philanthropy, nonprofit, independentsector

Ask an expert

Stanford’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) and the Stanford Social Innovation Review are making available the resource and knowledge of the GSB’s Alumni Consulting Team (ACT). You can submit a management question and get an answer. Access the resource here. Lets hope they make this a customer-feedback enabled site. Tags: nonprofit, stanford, ssir

Disruptive philanthropy: the good and the bad

Not many people took note of this post from a month or so ago on the “myths of philanthropy” but it did get this response over at the nonprofiteer. In the spirit of the Ralph Waldo Emerson’s observation that “Great geniuses have the shortest biographies,” maybe I should file this under “The ideas that get [...]