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News for January 2007
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 30 January 2007 |
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| Scaling Up Listening Seminar, March 23, 2007 |
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Ever since I was first asked about the potential for online fundraising, I have been thinking about the true potential of the Internet for building relationships with stakeholders. In several articles, I've laid out the idea that, for most organizations, that potential lies in "scaling up listening". Finally, I'm teaching an online seminar on the topic, on March 23, 2007. I'll be taking a results-oriented approach, looking at how specific listening strategies can seriously improve the outcomes of our relationships with our stakeholders, especially with donors.
Posted: 1/30/07; 7:10:48 PM # |
| MobileActive Strategy Guide Series |
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MobileActive has published the second entry in its Strategy Guide Series. Three people I admire greatly are behind this: Michael Stein, Katrin Verclas, and Martin Kearns. The new guide is more than just a few case studies. It's a thoughtful and well-presented snapshot of five valuable lessons: (1) Understand your audience. (2) Work with a mobile vendor. (3) Plan your mobile strategy early. (4) Have a clear call to action. (5) Identify your needs.
Posted: 1/30/07; 11:49:35 AM # |
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28 January 2007 |
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| Imagine. Connect. Act. |
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I recall Ami Dar explaining to me his original vision for Action Without Borders (Idealist). It was both vast and simple. Despite the many millions of social change and social service organizations in the world, most people still aren't connected with others of like mind on issues that concern them. How can we help people connect with each other? How can we help them take action?
The recently re-imagined Idealist.org embraces this mission wholeheartedly, capitalizes on the already substantial information resources of Action Without Borders, and leverages the best synergies of online and offline organizing. There are a lot of ways to approach this and the invitation page helps spell things out, but the core is this: Find people near you and meet them.
Posted: 1/28/07; 7:18:34 PM # |
| Organizational Obituary |
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I posted several new entries at The Authentic Organization last week, but there is one in particular on which I would love your input. In Organizational Obituary I explore the use of end-of-life explorations for grounding organizations in their essential nature. I close by asking you what sort of obituary you might write for your organization.
Posted: 1/28/07; 6:53:26 PM # |
| Community Created Content |
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Nonprofits are slowly picking up on the "community created content" trend. Many are getting trapped in yet another version of "if we build it, they will come" (they won't). If you're looking at community oriented online content projects, I recommend Community Created Content: Law, Business, and Policy (17 page PDF), by Herkko Hietanen, Ville Oksanen, and Mikko Välimäki. Although they distinctly ignore nonprofit missions, I nevertheless particularly recommend the section on business models.
Posted: 1/28/07; 6:51:20 PM # |
| The Darfur Wall |
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There's something about the elegance of the darfur wall fundraising project that appeals to me. Yes, it's one of those cliches of fundraising like buying a brick in a walkway or something like that, but it's understated and simple in its execution. The fact that the dead of Darfur are numbered is a cold reminder of the anonymizing nature of the horror being perpetrated there. The fact that you can light up one of those numbers for just a dollar is a reminder that giving is for all of us.
Posted: 1/28/07; 6:05:01 PM # |
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24 January 2007 |
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| New Quarterly Journal: Early Subscription Promotion |
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I'm very pleased to announce some changes ahead for Nonprofit Online News Journal. In a couple of months, it will be succeeded by a new quarterly journal, with some exciting improvements:
First, the new Journal will be in large part a peer reviewed publication. We have been hard at work recruiting reviewers and we've been impressed with the enthusiastic interest we've received from talented thinkers with strong track records. Second, we will be publishing more original content in addition to thematically connected reprints. Third, each issue of the new Journal will be larger, but will come out quarterly rather than monthly. We know that the monthly schedule has been too much for many subscribers.
The first issue of the new journal will be prepared in partnership with the Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network in time for the annual Nonprofit Technology Conference in early April. The theme of the issue will be Information Technology in Social Change and we already know it's going to be an amazing issue.
We're very excited about this next step for us and we think you'll love the results. As part of this announcement, we are offering steep discounts on the price of the new journal. If you subscribe by January 31st, 2007, you will save 23% to 26%.
Posted: 1/24/07; 9:49:12 PM # |
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23 January 2007 |
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22 January 2007 |
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| The 10 Most Underreported Humanitarian Crises of 2006 |
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Doctors Without Borders has prepared an in-depth report on the Ten Most Underreported Humanitarian Crises of 2006. The headlines that we should have seen more of are: (1) Somalis Trapped by War and Disaster, (2) Fleeing Violence in the Central African Republic, (3) Increasing Human Toll Taken by Tuberculosis, (4) Consequences of Bitter Conflict in Chechnya, (5) Civilians Under Fire in Sri Lanka While Assistance is Limited, (6) Effective Strategies for Treating Malnutrition Not Implemented, (7) Congolese Endure Extreme Deprivation and Violence, (8) Living in Fear in Colombia, (9) Violence Rages in Haiti's Volatile Capital, and (10) Clashes in Central India.
Posted: 1/22/07; 5:41:05 PM # |
| Storytelling: Branding in Practice |
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Back when I was a lobbyist for environmental and consumer organizations in the mid Eighties, I came to the conclusion that our cause had a secret weapon. We didn't have the advantage of good ol' boy webs of relationships with legislators. We certainly didn't have the cash that built and sustained those relationships. But when the system worked and the fourth estate was functioning properly, we sometimes, just sometimes, had an amazing power on our side: the power of the true story.
I won't dwell on the many ways in which telling true stories (or threatening to) worked for us or how I came to believe that legislators are motivated primarily by fear of embarrassment. Rather, I want to use this as an opportunity to recommend the book Storytelling: Branding in Practice, by Klaus Fog, Christian Budtz, and Baris Yakaboylu. Although its examples are drawn primarily from the commercial world, the strengths of this approach to building trust with our stakeholders is even more useful in civil society, where we don't have to concoct passionate reasons for our work.
The book applies storytelling to both management and marketing. It has an excellent introduction to the important structural elements of story telling, which is especially useful if you're one of those people who knows a good story but doesn't usually step back far enough to see the patterns that make it work. I encourage you to read this book from cover to cover. You won't regret it.
Posted: 1/22/07; 5:13:36 PM # |
| Outrageous Behavior by The Gates Foundation |
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I mistakenly ended a previous post about the investment policies of the Gates Foundation on the marginally optimistic note that there would be a review. Evidently, the Gates Foundation thinks it's naive to believe that investment can change the world. How they reconcile that with clear statements to the contrary is beyond me. For more on this, I recommend Allison Fine's coverage of the Outrageous Behavior by The Gates Foundation.
Posted: 1/22/07; 4:35:44 PM # |
| Integration Proclamation |
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The challenge of integration of nonprofit information and communication tools has not gone away in the years since it was a favorite topic of mine. The latest effort to try to build some momentum toward interoperability is called the Integration Proclamation and if you believe in an open ecosystem as the best vision for an effective civil society infrastructure, then this is probably worth signing. My question is: Where are Convio and Blackbaud? Where are Guidestar and VolunteerMatch? Where are the funders?
Posted: 1/22/07; 4:25:56 PM # |
| Why Do Good? Brain Study Offers Clues |
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I'm generally fairly skeptical of attempts to explain specific social phenomena in narrow biological and evolutionary terms -- I believe we evolved most of all to be creatures that learn -- but I am nevertheless fascinated by brain research. A recent study by Scott Huettel and Dharol Tankersley explores the deep structures of altruism and empathy.
Posted: 1/22/07; 4:01:27 PM # |
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18 January 2007 |
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| Civil Society LifeWork Survey |
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We're pleased to announce that our new Civil Society LifeWork Survey is now open. It takes about 90 seconds to complete and it will help us develop a view of the quality of work life in the field of civil society. Please help spread this particular survey far and wide. The larger our base of respondents the more we will learn about specific communities and regions.
Posted: 1/18/07; 1:14:14 PM # |
| Migrating from Innovation to Entrepreneurship |
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I want to be really clear that, despite misgivings that I hope would make a fun conversation with the author, I highly recommend Jerr Boschee's book Migrating from Innovation to Entrepreneurship. The book is a valuable addition to the shelf of any nonprofit leader who wants to take earned income seriously.
My misgivings center around the book's frame of reference, rather than its core lessons. That frame of reference, based on anecdote as far as I can tell, is that the culture of the nonprofit sector is fundamentally more averse to entrepreneurship than the business sector. I would like to see a study (controlling for all other factors) that demonstrates that, not just anecdotes and assertions. (By the way, I do think the sector is very conservative, just not necessarily more so than most businesses, as plenty of consultants who work with the latter will tell you.) This frame of reference makes itself known in a variety of unfortunate implications: Are government contracts really not a form of earned income? Are churches really inherently unsustainable because they rely on donations?
That said, the book's discussion of critical entrepreneurial success factors alone justifies the modest price of the book. They include: candor, clarity of purpose, courage, core values, willingness to plan, building the right team, the separation strategy, strategic marketing, viability before mission, focus, customer service, quality, aggressive pricing, and strategic partnerships. Buy this book for those lessons.
Posted: 1/18/07; 11:03:15 AM # |
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14 January 2007 |
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| LinkedIn: Michael Gilbert |
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For several years, I've been waiting for there to be a successful open architecture (like the web itself) for the functions performed by so-called "social networking" sites. But all through that time, I received LinkedIn invitations pretty much every week. So, I've decided to relent and experiment with it a bit. Despite my many concerns (such as the way the company encourages and profits from unsolicited commercial email within the system), here is my profile. If you're on the system, please drop me a line there.
Posted: 1/14/07; 10:52:08 PM # |
| A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods |
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Lots of good sources have been linking this week to the excellent Periodic Table of Visualization Methods. While I'm not sure that the structure of the periodic table really adds meaning to the presentation, I've rarely seen a more engaging portal to learning about the extraordinary range of methods available for the visualization of information.
Posted: 1/14/07; 10:47:56 PM # |
| Roundup 2003: Technically Speaking |
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I had no idea the good folks at N-TEN were offering video segments from the plenary panel at their 2003 conference, entitled Technically Speaking. If I'm not mistaken, that was the last time N-TEN had colleagues of the audience in the opening keynote. (They've since moved to authors -- usually from the mainstream technology industry -- whose fame might draw more people to the conference.) The segments include "Funders are not Venture Capitalists," "The Carrot Story," "Why Evaluation is Hard," and "Sabateurs Affinity Group."
Posted: 1/14/07; 10:45:54 PM # |
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10 January 2007 |
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8 January 2007 |
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| Dark Cloud over Good Works of Gates Foundation |
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The Los Angeles Times took a close look at the investment practices of the gates Foundation and found a dark cloud in the form of substantially greater financial investment in the oil companies destroying the health of Africans than the amount they make in grants to help in improve such health. I would be very curious to know how many lives the Gates Foundation would save if they were as aggressive in leading a divestment campaign against the oil companies as they are in trying to eliminate malaria. We need more research into foundation investment practices, that's for certain. Update as of Jan. 11, 1007: The Gates Foundation has announced that they would review their investments to assess their social responsibility. Oil companies in Africa aren't all that hard to assess, from my perspective, but the decision is certainly an opening.
Posted: 1/8/07; 11:13:04 PM # |
| Nonprofit Technology Conference 2007 |
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I'll be attending the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Washington DC during the first week of April this year. Most likely I will be talking about listening (isn't that an interesting phrase), introducing papers from the Journal of Information Technology in Social Change (a special issue of our Journal), and meeting with prospective bloggers for our network. Look me up if you're there, and don't forget to register soon if you want a discount.
Posted: 1/8/07; 11:07:56 PM # |
| Good Capital Projects |
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I had a very rewarding conversation a few months back with some of the principals of Good Capital, a fascinating model for stimulating investment in social ventures. In the context of current capital markets, they make a good case for the need for finance models somewhere in between grants and traditional venture money. There are other such intermediate forms, of course (program related investments of grantmakers come to mind), but I'm hoping Good Capital can scale it up.
Posted: 1/8/07; 11:01:05 PM # |
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7 January 2007 |
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| Darwin Rules |
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In his most recent article for Tropes of the Times, Phil Bereano looks at why Darwin Rules at the New York Times. My own higher education focused heavily on genetics and the more I learned the less I wanted to try to explain, especially in the context of the Social Darwinism that seems so pervasive in the mainstream media. The Times article he critiques here is actually about frogs, but the generalizations are profoundly relevant to civil society and anyone who cares about social solutions to social problems.
Posted: 1/7/07; 7:10:04 PM # |
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4 January 2007 |
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3 January 2007 |
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| The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism: A New Map of the Path |
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Images have the ability to help us focus. When I wake up in the morning, I make a point of looking west in the hopes of seeing the Olympic Mountains. When they are visible, as they were this morning, the sight of them reminds me how small I really am and helps me shed the grandiosity that comes from excessive responsibility. I cherish that focus. Symbols authored by our fellow human beings can often accomplish similar effects and thus aid us in our emotional and intellectual discipline. In his book The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism, Kenneth Kraft offers us such a symbol. He presents us with ten images arranged in a mandala to help us apply our wisdom and compassion to the social, political, and environmental issues of our time. His essays on these images are an inspiration to those of us who believe that contemplation and just action go hand in hand.
Posted: 1/3/07; 12:09:39 PM # |
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2 January 2007 |
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