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News for June 2007

25 June 2007

Building Peace through Information and Communications Technologies

Idealware has published a wide-ranging overview of the use of IT for anti-war activism, by Skip Cole and Teresa Crawford, entitled Building Peace through Information and Communications Technologies. Using a number of great examples they look at how IT has helped movements in six ways: (1) providing information, (2) helping people process information, (3) improving decision making, (4) reducing scarcity, (5) supporting relationships, and (6) helping people understand each other. I highly recommend this to anyone working in large scale community based advocacy of any kind. Posted: 6/25/07; 10:14:55 PM #

Mobile Phones in Fundraising Campaigns

NTEN has been doing such great work in the last year. I'm particularly excited about the organization's support of various research initiatives. Along those lines they have published MobileActive's third strategy guide, on the topic of Mobile Phones in Fundraising Campaigns. The report identifies eight lessons learned: (1) Mobile carriers worldwide need to be pressured to lower their fees to charities. (2) NGOs should pilot mobile fundraising among existing donors. (3) NGOs should pilot selling mobile content among existing supporters. (4) Mobile fundraising is a unique tool for urgent fundraising appeals. (5) Mobile fundraising is a unique tool for fundraising in places where people are away from their computers, such as at music concerts, political rallies and sporting events. (6) Corporate and media partnerships are proving extremely valuable to maximize the success of mobile fundraising campaigns. (7) Mobile phone users should try out mobile fundraising when it's presented to them as a giving option by either a carrier or a charity. And (8) fundraising professionals need to learn about the potential of mobile phones to impact giving. Posted: 6/25/07; 9:52:21 PM #

E-mail is Not a Platform for Design
	Jeffrey Zeldman is a well known author and lecturer on web design and the publisher of the excellent e-zine A List Apart. In a time when it seems most nonprofit ideas of an email newsletter is basically sending people a big web page, it's good to see someone of Zeldman's stature laying out why e-mail is not a platform for design. Posted: 6/25/07; 8:07:31 PM #

Truthout 2007: Freedom and Democracy Awards
	Truthout has announced their first Freedom and Democracy Awards. They are awarding all three to people associated in some fashion with the US military: Cindy Sheehan, who needs no introduction; Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse to serve in Iraq; and Ann Wright, who resigned her foreign service post to work for the end of this disastrous war. Posted: 6/25/07; 7:36:38 PM #

21 June 2007

14 New White Papers & Reports Available!

From time to time, we release some of our work in the form of free white papers and reports in PDF format, suitable for printing and cataloging. It's been a while since we did that, but today I'm pleased to announce that we are making available fourteen new white papers and reports on a range of topics related to communication and civil society! If you've been reading our feature articles, you will have gotten a glimpse of some of these. All these downloads are free to subscribers of Nonprofit Online News. Here is one sentence about each paper: A Practical Approach to Collaboration presents an approach to inter-organizational cooperation that emphasizes function, rather than purpose. Asking the Wrong Questions is a critique of the technocentric method of technology planning that is in widespread use. How to Write a Book in One Year describes a basic approach to large scale writing discipline. Nonprofits and Weblogs presents a natural, integrative way for organizations to embrace personal publishing. Online Donor Cultivation presents a basic model for measuring and nurturing, in an online context, a donor's readiness to give. RSS Grants Channels is the proposal for a new way of sharing foundation data that gave rise to the current Grantsfire project. Seven Knowledge Management Mistakes is exactly what it sounds like. The HIMS Matrix is a method for analyzing our communication with stakeholders to assess whether they feel heard. The Mission-Resource Matrix is a deceptively obvious framework for program evaluation and planning. The Permeable Organization is a manifesto calling for new organizational boundaries in the age of networks. The Role of the Executive Director in Nonprofit Technology explains how leaders can manage conversations about technology to better serve their organizational interests. To Be Heard Above the Din, by Samantha Moscheck, explains how spam threatens civil society and what organizations and funders can do about it. Toward Network-Centric Philanthropy is a report on insights from a survey of grantmakers on the RSS grants concept for sharing information. Understanding E-Relationships, by Michael Soper, calls on us to take more responsibility for managing the transitions in our relationships with our stakeholders. This white paper model has been very popular and I hope you'll find these fourteen new additions as valuable as the others. Please feel free to write back with your feedback, and to pass on the link to others. Posted: 6/21/07; 6:49:56 PM #

18 June 2007

Momentum, by Allison H. Fine

Just as with my online resources and software reviews, I generally confine myself to reviewing books from my own perspective. But every now and then, I have to take a slightly broader perspective in order to do a book justice. Such is the case with Allison Fine's Momentum: Igniting Social Change in the Connected Age. This book is meant for a broad audience and toward that end it succeeds admirably. I have some very small quibbles: Fine makes some small mistakes here and there that will bother the experienced reader, such as her definition of "free software" as that which is freely distributed or her description of the origins of Craigslist as a "site". She uses the term "activism" so broadly that it applies to anything we might otherwise call "civil society". She may also be a little too sanguine about the digital divide. In a time of rapid growth of the foundation sector, she asserts that their era is coming to a close. And in one place, she uses the phrase "war on terror" unironically and uncritically. I mention some of these only by way of putting them aside. The book avoided every one of the major traps into which I feared it would fall. The book hits pretty much every important point that needs to be made in order to orient the interested newcomer to the field of activism in the age of networks, including many that are of particular interest to me. Here are my favorites: (1) Networks reward organizational authenticity by enriching conversations and human connection. (2) The idea that there are "too many organizations" is really a reflection of funders' desires for fewer choices; people are not overserviced, they are oversolicited. (3) Organizations lack institutional memory first and foremost because they are terrible listeners. (4) Pushing power to the edges doesn't reduce the power of organizations. (5) Understanding our connections is the first step in any communication technology initiative. I recommend the book in two ways: If you are just starting to look at how the world of networks will affect your organization, then it will give you a superb overview. If your perspective is already fairly sophisticated, but you need to bring some people along (like your board), then you would do well to consider some assigned reading. Posted: 6/18/07; 6:18:35 PM #

Living Well, Working Smart, by Sue Mackey & Laura Tonkin

Sue Mackey and Laura Tonkin's book Living Well, Working Smart is a work I would love to see developed as a weblog. The book, whose subtitle is Soft Skills for Success, is packed with high level ideas in forty-one different fields of activity, ranging from Problem Solving and Stress to Optimism and Time Management. It would probably take a couple of years to give each idea a day or two of online exploration. Although this made the book a little hard to read straight through - I felt myself dealing with the reading equivalent of museum fatigue (too much good stuff) - in some ways this density of big ideas is the strength and point of the book. Just like a good museum, it's meant to be returned to and sampled over time so that, in the end, each reader's experience will be their own. There are five highlights I want to share: (1) In addition to positive suggestions, each topic has a series of Mistakes to Avoid. Considering how common they are, I suspect these will be useful and accessible. (2) I couldn't help but be pleased that they recommend that everyone develop a reading habit. (3) Sprinkled throughout the book are suggestions that you might find too vague or even flat out wrong headed. (For example, I don't share their mainstream perspective on "retirement".) I think this diversity is part of the character of the book. It's a compendium, not a unified philosophy. (4) I was very pleased that one of their sections was devoted to the topic of grief and loss. We go to great lengths to avoid these feelings and that avoidance wreaks havok on our lives and work. Posted: 6/18/07; 6:18:23 PM #

The Cash Flow Solution, by Richard & Anna Linzer

I don't tend to review books about the nuts and bolts issues of nonprofit accounting, but having served on more than thirty boards of directors and having had to report to roughly a dozen of them at one point or another, I decided I had to make an exception for The Cash Flow Solution, by Richard & Anna Linzer. Although I am a firm believer that any organization (even a small one) that carries receivables or payables should use accrual accounting, I have often been frustrated by how much important governance information is missing from the most common reports, such as income statements and balance sheets. This book is a powerful guide to cash flow analysis, which is arguably the single greatest complement to those reports. The near constant context of cash shortage in which most civil society organizations operate has profound strategic impacts. Fundraising, program priorities, project management, amd morale are all affected. Although there are critical external factors at work that create this environment (funder policies and organizational isolation are two that come to mind), I also believe that systematic internal avoidance is a key ongoing enabler. Following the notion that "that which gets measured, gets done", I can see a great many organizations benefiting from the application of the simple methods in this book. Posted: 6/18/07; 6:18:13 PM #

13 June 2007

The Golden Goose: Building Trust Online with Donors, Activists, and the Media

We've been expanding the number of tightly focused ninety minute online seminars we offer and I'm particularly pleased with our newest one. On Friday, July 20th I'll be teaching a seminar entitled The Golden Goose: Building Trust Online with Donors, Activists, and the Media. Most organizations erode the trust of their stakeholders at an alarming rate and the widespread lack of donor retention is only one of many indicators of this sad fact. And yet, the Internet is truly one of the most powerful trust building media ever developed. This seminar will take a hard look at what we're doing wrong, how we can do better, and how we can reap profound rewards in doing so. Posted: 6/13/07; 6:34:46 PM #

11 June 2007

A Blog Is a Little First Amendment Machine

Freedom of expression is one of the key building blocks of civil society. This is one of the reasons why I believe nonprofits should concern themselves with civil liberties as much as they concern themselves with postal rates. It's also one of the reasons why I am such an advocate for blogging. Jay Rosen puts this well in this recent piece: A Blog Is a Little First Amendment Machine. Posted: 6/11/07; 6:04:51 PM #

Monsanto Vice President Joins the Gates Foundation

I spent a lot of years working on issues related to genetics and public policy, including organizing the very first international public interest conference on responsible genetics back in 1985. In that context, I have to say that seeing a Monsanto Vice President Join the Gates Foundation is pretty disturbing to me. Do they really think that someone who has spent his career at a company that has been working to privatize and control the world's agricultural systems is going to work in the public interest in Africa? Or is this just technocratic thinking on the part of the Gates Foundation? Posted: 6/11/07; 6:00:46 PM #

The Economics of Classification

Classification is best seen as a user interface issue, rather than a philoshopical one, at least in terms of how it affects web sites and web applications. On Giraffe Forum, Gerry McGovern examines this issue, paying particular attention to the economics of classification. Every classification decision increases the cost of finding some things while decreasing the cost of finding others. Figuring out how to account for those costs is the art to master. Posted: 6/11/07; 5:54:14 PM #

Marshall Ganz on Organizing

Marshall Ganz of the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations has done some excellent thinking on the topic of organizing. The Huaser Center has collected this thinking into an online multimedia curriculum (warning: video components require Real Player) that I highly recommend to practitioners, planners, funders, and researchers alike. His logical framework is powerful and practical and the resources available are rich and varied. Posted: 6/11/07; 2:01:05 PM #

7 June 2007

The Journal of Networks and Civil Society: Deadline for Papers, June 25, 2007

We're very excited about the interest building for our next quarterly journal, The Journal of Networks and Civil Society. I want to remind readers and others that the deadline for papers is June 25, 2007. We're taking a multidisciplinary approach and are interested in papers from both researchers and practitioners in a range of relevant subject areas including: community ties and the effectiveness of movements, the evolution of organizations in the context of networks, cross cutting issues of networks, methods for understanding civil society networks, social capital acquisition, network building as advocacy, and new funding and accountability models. Posted: 6/7/07; 6:54:19 PM #

3 June 2007

Making Foundations Relevant: Conversations with 21st Century Leaders in Philanthropy

The second major report of the Philanthropy Awareness Initiative is entitled Making Foundations Relevant: Conversations with 21st Century Leaders in Philanthropy (37 page PDF). This report, which follows on the heels of the previous quantitative analysis of media coverage, is a qualitative analysis of what foundations leaders have to say about the topic of philanthropy in the media. Their findings include: a lack of a clearly established role for foundations in American society, a lack of connection with their audiences - the most important of which is grantees, avoidance of the limelight out of deferance to those grantees, institutional character that limits the ability to be proactive, and a lack of a clear and compelling motivation to change public perception. Posted: 6/3/07; 6:43:27 PM #

Media Reform: Is it a Free-Standing Social Movement? Should it be?

The latest issue of Drum Beat asks a very interesting question about Media Reform: Is it a Free-Standing Social Movement? Philip M. Napoli (who is also the author of "Public Interest Media Activism and Advocacy as a Social Movement) argues that although media reform is deeply entwined with other civil society objectives, it is not simply an extension of them. His four main points in support of this are: (1) The increased prominence of new communication technologies in all aspects of political, cultural, and economic life merits a dedicated, free-standing social movement. (2) If media reform is conceptualized as subordinate to other social movements, then its success depends in large part upon developing successful linkages with these movements, which hasn't happened to a sufficient extent since the Sixties. (3) There is a wide range of critical media policy issues that may have dramatic implications for the public good, but that may not have implications that necessarily resonate with broader umbrella social movements. (4) A mainstream media environment more conducive to the coverage of social movements may not be as important to social movements today as in years past. Posted: 6/3/07; 6:32:05 PM #