Stories, software and strategies to help nonprofits do the social web
“Empathy increases generosity. The pictures and stories on the Kiva site increase understanding between various parties that would otherwise operate in completely different universes.” That’s Matt Flannery, Kiva’s CEO and co-founder replying in his guest post on David Roodman’s blog. “If you’re going to advertise yourself as giving choice to the donor, you’d better do it.” That’s Mike Everett-Lane, formerly of Donor’s Choose, commenting...
October, 30 2009 • 1 Comment • 0 Faves
Geoff Livingston responds to Kristin Ivie and my previous posts about new nonprofits. Entrepreneurs look at things, see how they can be improved, tear down models, and rebuild them. So when we’ve experienced enormous successes in the for-profit world and then turn our eyes to higher causes, it’s only natural to think the same approach will work. Granted there is ego at play, but are you going to tell someone who successfully sold a business or took a company public, that they can’t win again in a different sector...
October, 13 2009 • 2 Comments • 0 Faves
David Roodman's long post is a great explanation of how Kiva works. It's also critical of the way Kiva markets. Here's the issue. Let's say you make a $25 loan on kiva.org. You pick an entrepreneur, you make a loan. The web site makes it look like you have funded that particular entrepreneur. But that isn't really how the microfinance organization works. For practical reasons, that entrepreneur has already been funded by one of Kiva's partners on the ground. On one level, Kiva is open about this, providing dates...
October, 9 2009 • 7 Comments • 0 Faves
On Earth Day, 1971, a nonprofit called Keep America Beautiful launched TV ads to persuade people to stop littering. If you grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons in the '70s, you'll remember them. Each one featured an American Indian paddling or riding or walking through a trashy landscape and a grave voice over, ending with "People start polution. People can stop it." At the end of each ad, the camera zooms in on the Indian's face, onto a single tear. The crying Indian got America to stop littering. That...
October, 4 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Kristin, my colleague at the Case Foundation, has some good advice for folks thinking of starting their own nonprofit: think twice. http://www.socialcitizens.org/blog/start-nonprofit The post goes on to list some ways of partnering with existing orgs -- to do the good works without having to do your own 501(c)3. With one nonprofit for every 300 Americans, that's probably a good idea. But I wonder what it is about nonprofit thinking that makes successful, businesslike individuals forget their horse sense. Nonprofiteers...
October, 1 2009 • 2 Comments • 0 Faves
Great recipes (zillions of them) -- and in-app advertising done right. Back in the web 1.0 days, Conde Nast put all of the recipes from Gourmet and its other food magazines online at http://epicurious.com. The recipes were searchable and over time Epicurious added ratings and other community features. It's been a fabulous resource for cooks. They are great recipes, and there are lots of them -- including the 1955 recipe for steak au poivre that keeps me from going vegetarian. Epicurious has now come to the iPhone...
September, 27 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Gentle Reader -- What, you may have wondered, is all this about nonprofits and social media yadda yadda doing on "The camera part of Code, Camera, Action"? I got carried away. Posterous made me do it, with its seductive bookmarklet and beefy media handling. What I'd intended to be a couple of photos a week turned into a couple of clips a day. I was hooked. Posterous made it so easy (I'd say brainless, but I'll let you be the judge of that) to post stuff related to my other passion. That's helping nonprofits spark...
September, 25 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Eric Ries on the power of online communities -- Collectively, an online community has an unlimited amount of time to spend. Even if you and your community managers are a hundred times smarter and more productive than the members of your community, there is absolutely no way that you can keep up with its sheer volume of energy. So you can’t fight an online community and hope to win the argument. The only way to have your point of view prevail is to have members of the community invest their unlimited time and energy...
September, 24 2009 • 0 Comments • 0 Faves
Google is trying to take interactivity away from the source and centralize it. This isn’t like Disqus, which enables me to add comment functionality on my blog. It takes comments away from my blog and puts them on Google. That sets up Google in channel conflict vs me. It robs my site of much of its value (if the real conversation about WWGD? had occurred on Google instead of at Buzzmachine, how does that help me?). On a practical level, only people who use the Google Toolbar will see the comments left using it and...
September, 23 2009 • 1 Comment • 0 Faves
Startup thinking for the social sector. Code to help nonprofits do the social web. Plus photography.
(And reading aloud.)
More about Eric Johnson.
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