Code, Camera, Action

Judi Sohn thinks beyond nonprofit "vote for me" fundraising competitions.

Here’s a community challenge I want to see: Reward nonprofits for projects that require collaboration and networking. 

An example straight off the top of my head: A cancer support organization working with a meals-on-wheels organization and one that helps people with job skills designing and implementing a program to make sure that patients are eating right after treatment and can get back into the workforce after a long health-related absence. 

I think the possibilities are endless if we can get out of our silos long enough to consider them.

Extra points to the projects that require the most diverse organizations to actually work together towards a common goal. The general public can view and comment on the proposed programs, maybe even make suggestions of partners. Community insight and transparency is wonderful. Yet ultimately the funding decision is by a team that will evaluate based solely on the viability of the project and what will have the most benefit for the population it will serve. Not necessarily which will serve the largest population. Not necessarily which has the largest mailing list or Facebook fan page.

Nice dream. 

In the meantime, all I can do is beg corporations to think it through before the next challenge. If you sprinkle food at the top of the crowded pond, the fish aren’t going to say, “you know, I’ve thought about it and I’m not really that hungry to fight for it.” They’re going to eat each other up like it’s their very last meal. It’s the fish’s nature. It’s ours. It’s up to you to design your giving programs to make sure we’re helping each other to the next meal and we’re all being fairly judged on our own value, not purely in competition.

via judisohn.posterous.com

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A dynamite report sponsored by the Wilburforce Foundation looks at the online tactics of Obama for America and how they apply to nonprofits generally. Worthwhile advice that goes well beyond political applications.

The most successful new media strategies for the campaign were all things that can – and should – be replicated by nonprofit organizations. Build an email list. Send high-quality, engaging emails to those constituents. Make them a part of the story. Run a program that is data-driven, and use analytics to improve that program. Use authentic organizational content – video, text and images – to tell a compelling story. Use email and phone calls to ask online volunteers to participate in offline programs.

http://www.wilburforce.org/pdf/Online_Tactics_and_Success.pdf

Hat-tip to @msmithDC.

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It’s “giving season” again and so we’re about to see a huge ramp-up in embedded giving—the practice of embedding a donation into the purchase price of something you buy (e.g. “a portion of the proceeds will go to cancer research/plant a tree/build a space hotel”). Joining Lucy Bernholz, we’ve been critical of embedded giving schemes for a variety of reasons including their ability to obscure what is really going on.

The post goes on about the fiasco at Zynga, where an embedded giving campaign is clouded by the spammy tactics of FarmVille's in-game advertising.

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Nathaniel Whittemore on funding the causes (and friends) you know --

Today’s young people have grown up with access to more news - and more connectivity to direct on the ground sources - than ever before. We’re hungry to actually do, and less and less content to sit on the sidelines (or if you will, Morgan Stanley summer internships). When today’s young people are surveying their options for summers, and the options are getting research grants or volunteer positions with international nonprofits doing compelling work, or wearing a suit to get some guy coffee and learning how to jockey Excel spreadsheets, guess what they’re choosing?

The implication is not that every one of those people that has that sort of formative experience is going to start or join a social venture. But almost every young person today knows more people with their own nonprofit organizations than people a few years older. It’s just the norm.

If and as that trend continues, it’s going to make more and more sense to just support the work of people you know. That sort of giving has not only the personal return on investment discussed above, but a social return on investment that is about investing in the good work of your friends. And that’s even before you get to the fact that many will be more likely to trust the “outsourcing” of the social return on investment to people they know and in whom they have confidence.

via socialentrepreneurship.change.org

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Charles Kenny contends that the growth of TV worldwide is fundamentally liberalizing. Amidst lots of statistics comes this giving gem --

In the United States, an additional minute of nightly news coverage of the Asian tsunami increased online donation levels to charities involved in relief efforts by 13 percent. 

via foreignpolicy.com

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Mike Everett-Lane, former Executive Director of one of the Donors Choose regions, on Kiva's transparency issues:

I don’t believe that microphilanthropy (or microfinance, peer-to-peer giving, etc.) is a good solution for most problems. DonorsChoose.org has an advantage, in that they are funding discrete classroom projects within public schools, but do not have to fund the infrastructure of the schools themselves. Most problems just couldn’t be solved in this way. (”I’d like to fund only the violas in the orchestra, please.”) But if you’re going to advertise yourself as giving choice to the donor, you’d better do it.

via tacticalphilanthropy.com

The whole comment on Tactical Philanthropy is well worth reading. Sean's (@tactphil) coverage of the entire conversation around Kiva's fundraising stories vs operations has been fabulous.

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