PhilanTopic

Trouble at the IRS: What Were They Thinking?

(David Jacobs is director of foundation information management at the Foundation Center. In his last post for PhilanTopic, he blogged about an Open Data Master Class presented by the World Bank.)

Like many Americans, I was shocked to learn last week that the Internal Revenue Service had targeted conservative and Tea Party organizations applying for 501(c)(4) tax exempt status for additional review prior to last year's elections. And like many Americans, my shock turned to disgust this week as additional details -- including the alleged leaking of confidential donor information -- emerged, showing the scandal to be more serious than initially disclosed.

Regardless of whether you believe what happened in Cincinnati was an act of political malfeasance or just a case of monumental governmental ineptitude, the fact that it did happen should be sending shockwaves through the nonprofit sector. One of the bedrock principals of organized philanthropy and nonprofit advocacy in America is the idea that such activity should be tax advantaged, regardless of cause or political orientation, and that, when it comes to the nonprofit sector, the IRS should always operate in a fair and impartial manner. The thought that that might not be the case in every instance should bother and disturb all Americans.

Some apologists for the agency have tried to rationalize its actions by placing them in the context of the Citizens United decision:

The danger of this frame is that it will discourage the IRS from fully investigating all nonprofit groups spending money to influence elections. And it will distract from the core problem behind the IRS's mess: the post-Citizens United explosion of undisclosed electoral spending.

Before the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United, only a limited number of nonprofit 501(c)(4) groups could spend money to influence elections -- those who did not take contributions from corporations or unions. But Citizens United lifted restrictions on corporate spending in elections, setting the stage for individuals and companies to funnel unlimited money through all corporations, including (c)(4)s and super PACs in an effort to help elect the candidates of their choice.

While no one questions the propriety of fairly vetting any organization applying for tax-exempt status, let's not get sidetracked and pretend that the issue here is beleaguered workers at the IRS who, in a presidential election year, found themselves swamped by new applications:

It's not like the IRS needs a way to flag the new groups that were created in the wake of the Citizens United decision. They have all the information they need to do that without any special filter. They can search for the date of the application. If what you're concerned about is that most of the new groups being created are in fact thinly disguised electioneering vehicles, then what you want to do is take a random sample of the new groups, review them, and see what percentage turn out to be self-dealing or otherwise engaged in inappropriate behavior.

Instead, the IRS method for dealing with the volume was to take an unrandom sample. And how did they decide that you deserved extra scrutiny? Because you had "tea party" or "patriot" in your name. Since the Tea Party was a brand-new movement in 2010, they couldn't possibly have had any data indicating that such groups were more likely to be doing something improper. So how exactly did they come up with this filter? There is no answer that does not ultimately resolve to "political bias."

One of the reasons I have chosen to devote myself to nonprofits and the nonprofit sector is because I see philanthropy and nonprofit advocacy to be quintessentially American activities. What could be more American, after all, than people gravitating to an issue or problem that concerns them and choosing to work to solve it by starting a nonprofit organization or making a donation to an organization that already exists for that purpose? Which is why I am deeply troubled by the thought that other people, including civil servants at one of the most powerful agencies in the federal government, value that freedom much less highly than I do.

While I realize the Tea Party isn't the most sympathetic or popular movement around, I hope that leaders of the nonprofit sector will speak out to condemn what happened in Cincinnati as strongly as they surely would if the IRS had decided to subject groups with words such as "progressive," "marriage equality," or "pro-choice reform" in their names to additional scrutiny.

What do you think? Were the actions of the IRS a case of political bias or just government ineptitude? And what shold the nonprofits and the sector do to let the Obama administration know that the agency's actions are unacceptable?

-- David Jacobs

Dear Fundraisers: The Annual Report Is Yesterday’s News

(Derrick Feldmann is CEO of Achieve, an Indianapolis-based creative fundraising agency. In his last post, he wrote about the importance of differentiating between your "sophisticated" and average donors.)

When I headed off to college for the first time, I had no idea what I wanted to study or what kind of career I would pursue after graduation. Like so many other "undecideds," I took classes from lots of different departments and hoped something would click.

Then, in my junior year, I discovered criminal justice. I had always enjoyed crime novels, detective stories, and hearing about unsolved mysteries, and after I took a few classes in the field, I convinced myself that maybe the law was my calling. Eventually, I marched into my advisor's office and declared my major: pre-law.

Well, as a pre-law major, I needed to take the LSAT in order to be able to apply to law school. But unlike just about everyone else taking the test, I didn't bother to study until the night before. Don't ask me why.

So, I took the test and, thinking I might have done okay (or even a little better than okay), I settled in at home and waited for the results. I checked the mailbox every day for an oversized envelope, and as days turned into weeks, my thoughts ran every which way. Law? What had I been thinking? The second part of the test wasn't so hard, though, and I'm pretty sure I did okay on the third part. Who knows? And, hey, I do love a good mystery.

Then, one morning, it was there, larger than life. I tore open the envelope and scanned the contents for the only thing that mattered, the score that was going to gain me entry to the best law schools in the country and change my life.

Wow. I blinked and stared harder. Could a person really score that low on the LSAT? It was a pivotal moment for me. I returned to school and wasted yet another month, still with no answers about my future career path.

After I graduated with a degree in criminal justice, I bumped around a bit and eventually found work in a university development office. I loved working with students and alumni, and before long I realized that fundraising was my true calling. To advance my career, I decided to go to graduate school, which meant I needed to take the GRE.

This time I studied every night for two months, and by the time I drove to the local test administering site I was as prepared as I could be. Two hours later, having completed the last section, I clicked the submit button and something interesting happened. A message popped up on the screen: "Would you like to see your unofficial score?"

How was that possible? It had taken a month to get my LSAT scores. I hesitated. Had I prepared well enough? Did I really want to know how I had done right then and there? Maybe I should wait?

After a long pause, I took a deep breath, clicked the "yes" button, and up popped my score. Huge relief. A score to be proud of, even. With the click of a button, I had received instant feedback on my performance, and the world was a beautiful place.

What does all this have to do with annual reports? Well, in case you haven't noticed, we live in a world where real-time feedback is fast becoming the norm. Whether posting on Facebook and checking three or four times a day to see how many of your friends and acquaintances "liked" your update, to online polls where your vote is instantly aggregated, to comment threads where your thoughts jostle with the thoughts of others, we are rapidly creating a world in which real-time feedback on virtually everything we think, do, and create is the norm. Why is that significant? Because it enables us to make better decisions based on actual performance and achieve our goals more efficiently and with less guesswork.

Of course, the nonprofit sector has its own feedback mechanisms. The typical nonprofit will create an annual report to provide information to its donors about its financial/operational performance and, quite often, how the gifts it received were used to advance its mission over the course of the previous year. Similarly, experienced fundraisers make a point of providing feedback to donors with respect to the impact of their gifts in face-to-face meetings and when making stewardship calls, usually once or twice a year.

But is that enough? As the pace of communications and feedback accelerates, is your nonprofit moving as quickly as it needs to in terms of reporting results to donors?

Take annual reports. In today's fast-paced world, very few people think the annual report is the answer to providing donors with the kind of timely feedback they want (and increasingly expect). Asking donors to wait a full twelve months to be updated about how their gifts are being used and whether those gifts had an impact is a recipe for losing their interest, if not their support.

Donors want and deserve quicker feedback. They deserve the kind of reporting that helps them understand how the gift they made last week or a month is going to be used to advance the mission or cause. They need to see the impact of their gifts through the eyes and in the words of the people who are benefiting from those gifts.

Nonprofits that whinge about their inability to report impact in a more timely fashion inevitably are the organizations that have chosen not to address the disruptive changes in technology and communications we've seen over the last decade and a half. Which is not to say that direct mail is dead or that we should abandon more traditional methods of communication such as the phone call or the personal note. Think of this, instead, as an urgent reminder that the need to report back to your donors in a more real-time fashion using any method at hand is no longer a luxury; it's a necessity.

Indeed, thanks to the Internet, the ability to communicate with almost anyone, anywhere, in real time demands that we "reframe" our notions of time. And your organization is no exception; it needs to adapt to the changes that are happening all around us and embrace a new feedback and reporting paradigm. The framework below is designed to help you and your colleagues do just that.

Immediate. How can your organization share the impact it had today with respect to its constituents and/or the communities in which it works? Share a photo of a person who was helped by your organization on your social networks and tell your donors, "Thank you. This is [fill in the blank], one of the people you helped today."

Short term. How can your organization share the impact it had this week? Create a page on your Web site that illustrates how your donors' gifts were put to work over the last seven days and let them know through e-mail or by postcard that you've created a page they should bookmark and visit on a regular basis.

Longer term. How can your organization share the impact it had this month? Send a postcard and/or dedicated e-mail at the beginning or end of every month that provides an overview of the impact your organization is creating, making sure to include key statistics and to highlight the impact of your organization's efforts on real people or in the community.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. The key takeaway is this: Reporting at a twenty-first century pace will help your organization maintain its relevance with donors and keep their passion for your mission/cause fresh and vital. It's not easy, and it may require an additional investment of time and money. But then, the world shows no sign of slowing down, does it?

And at your next development/communications planning meeting, don't focus the discussion on whether you should publish your next annual report in print or digital form (or both). Ask instead, "What can we do to report faster?"

-- Derrick Feldmann

Weekend Link Roundup (May 11-12, 2013)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

On the Philanthropy Potluck blog, Megan Sullivan shares a list of tools for resource-constrained nonprofit communications officers.

Fundraising

Frustrated by your organization's inability to turn its good work into consistent, sustainable donor support? Hop over to the Fired-Up Fundraising blog, where fundraising consultant Gail Perry shares a very good list of the ten things you need to understand about how fundraising really works. Recommended.

Impact/Effectiveness

On the Markets for Good blog, Laura Quinn, executive director of Idealware, argues that as much as funders and others value the idea of more and better performance data from nonprofits, most nonprofits do not have the resources to provide high-quality data about their own effectiveness. How do we get them to a point where that’s possible? asks Quinn.

It would take more than just a little training or a second look at their priorities. They'd need sizable investments in a number of areas. They'd need help with technology, and to understand how to best make use of data and metrics on a limited budget. They'd need a rationalized set of metrics and indicators that they're expected to report on, standardized as much as possible per sector with a standard way to provide them to those who need them.

Funders need to understand what is and isn't feasible, and to redirect the focus of their desire for community impact evaluations from small nonprofits to the university and research world so the nonprofits they support can be unencumbered to work toward a better world....

Building out the "information infrastructure" of the social sector, as Markets for Good and its supporters (the Gates and Hewlett foundations prominent among them) propose to do, is an admirable idea, writes Bridgespan's Daniel Stid on the Markets for Good blog. But "if we build it," he asks, "will the putative buyers and sellers in the envisioned marketplace -- the philanthropists and nonprofits spending and soliciting money within it -- use it as planned?... [W]ill better information change their behavior?" What do you think? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Leadership

"There are a number of affinity groups that focus on bringing together younger grantmakers," writes Greater New Orleans Foundation president Albert Ruesga on the White Courtesy Telephone blog. "Their challenge, as I see it, is to avoid simply turning younger practitioners in the field into older practitioners in the field...."

Nonprofit Management

In an excellent post on the Nonprofit Quarterly site, Minnesota Council of Nonprofits executive director Jon Pratt argues that financial independence not only is something that nonprofits should strive for, it's something they can achieve -- with good planning, continuous and active attention, and lots of hard work.

Philanthropy

In a world characterized by growing social and environmental challenges, foundations need to think and act more like "catalysts," writes Erik Rasmussen, founder and CEO of Scandinavian think tank Monday Morning, on the Huffington Post's Social Entrepreneurship blog. What's more, says Rasmussen, catalytic philanthropy isn't about how much you give,

but how you give. [C]atalytic foundations have realized that they can make a big difference not by writing checks but by offering their competencies, network[s] and way of thinking as a new form of capital. By doing so, they bring forth innovative capital that opens the door to great changes and improvements in society. Imagine what change we could gain from one hundred philanthropists thinking and working [like] Bill Gates, Warren Buffett or David Rockefeller....

"What does the journey from entrepreneur to philanthropist look like, and how can we chart these experiences to help the cause of more and increasingly effective giving?" asks Charles Harvey, pro-vice-chancellor for humanities and social sciences at Newcastle University. Citing Andrew Carnegie as "perhaps the best example" of an entrepreneur-turned-philanthropist, Harvey, who helped lead the research team that looked into the question, writes: We want this research to show there is a logical process at play which many struggle to understand. Entrepreneurs apply the same rigour and disciplines from the world of commerce to the charitable sector, which suggests there is in fact a science to giving at this level that can be replicated and learned from....

What are the hallmarks of "entrepreneurial" philanthropy? Harvey and his team suggest the following:

• It is the pursuit by entrepreneurs on a not-for-profit basis of big social objectives through active involvement of their economic, cultural, social and symbolic resources.
• They apply business-like methods when making social investments: key performance indicators and rates of return.
• Entrepreneurs invest more than simply money [in] their causes: time, connections, the "know-how," branding.
• They like to leverage investments and frequently partner with others, including governments.
• Businessmen and women don't believe in giving handouts. They want to help others to help themselves.

Technology

Joanne Fritz has a good post on crowdfunding site Benevolent, which enables Chicagoans to help ordinary folks who find themselves in a tough spot. As Fritz explains, the site is effective in part because it works with nonprofits that "vouch" for the individuals listed (i.e., verify that their needs are legitimate and reasonable). The site has been a hit, she adds, because it's simple to use and because people understand that giving through Benevolent is less about charity and more about "neighbors helping neighbors."

On her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Blueprint 2013 author Lucy Bernholz fleshes out her digital civil society concept and explains that the discussion going forward should be focused on governance issues and how such assets work, not about gadgets.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a good week!

-- The Editors

[Infographic] Mission Investing

This week’s infographic provides some basic facts, courtesy of the data architecture team here at the Foundation Center, about the relatively small but growing field of mission investing, which encompasses both market-rate mission-related investments (MRIs) and program-related investments (PRIs).

The first program-related investment was made in the late 1960s, and the Foundation Center has been tracking foundation use of PRIs for more than sixteen years. The infographic below, which is partly based on a Foundation Center survey conducted in 2011 and on more recent research, reveals the staggering amount of assets available for mission investing and the geographic scope of such investments.

 

As foundations, the public sector, and businesses increasingly investigate the profit potential in making socially beneficial investments, the dollar amount of both MRIs and PRIs is expected to increase. As it does, the Foundation Center will continue to collect and share information about those investments and their impact.

Has your organization made or received an MRI or PRI? Was it a positive experience? Have any mission investing lessons you can share with funders and/or potential recipients of such investments? Use the comments section below...

-- Sue Rissberger

5 Questions for...Katie Everett, Executive Director, Lynch Foundation

Today, as in the past, education reform tends to be politically charged and fraught with controversy. And while the needs of students often figure prominently in the debate, the devil is always in the details.

In the Boston area, the Lynch Foundation has worked to engage administrators, educators, and parents to think outside the box about how to improve the educational experience for all. In that spirit, the foundation has begun to work with educational innovator Salman Khan and Khan Academy to provide free educational materials to schools in the metro Boston area.

Recently, PND spoke with the foundation's executive director, Katie Everett, about its partnership with Khan and how new approaches to classroom instruction are making a difference in Boston-area schools.

Philanthropy News Digest: What areas of education does the Lynch Foundation fund?

Katie Everett: We fund in all areas, from early education to higher ed. We've been around for twenty-five years and have funded everything from targeted early literacy programs to comprehensive projects at Harvard, Boston College, and the University of Pennsylvania. We fund teacher training, we fund charter schools, we fund in the Catholic school sector, we fund public schools, and we fund principal leadership programs. If there's one area in which we have stopped investing, it is job training. We found it was really hard to measure the impact of those programs.

PND: Tell us about your support for Khan Academy.

KE: We had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Sal [Khan] at a couple of events a few years ago and were open to piloting an initiative that had the potential to reduce operating costs within the Archdiocese of Boston school system. Sal had already piloted programs in a handful of charter and district schools that used technology to create cost efficiencies while maintaining academic excellence within the classroom. Not by replacing the teacher, but by leveraging his or her skills to accelerate students' progress and outcomes. We launched our pilot program with Sal and his team last year, and it's been a great success. We started with two Catholic schools just south of Boston, one in Quincy and one in Milton, and families have loved it, students have loved it, the teachers have loved it. After introducing Khan classrooms in fifth and seventh grades as planned, the schools have already spread it to the sixth and eighth grades and are looking to expand it into the lower grades. At the moment, they're working alongside the Khan team to build up assessments of what's working and where challenges remain. They're getting a lot of feedback from students and from teachers. It's a wonderful partnership.

PND: Are they identifying shortcomings in the traditional curriculum and augmenting it with Khan materials? How does it work?

KE: Basically, this approach involves "flipping the classroom." The teachers give the students the assignment, and their "homework" is to visit Khan Academy online and watch a ten- or fifteen-minute video clip that walks them through the lesson or module, and then they come to school the next day and do their homework in the classroom with the teacher. It's the complete opposite of how we were taught in school, where the teacher would assign us, say, math homework, and we would go home and struggle to figure it out on our own. This is a significant shift. Now, students learn the lesson the night before from a module at Khan, and the next day they go in and the teacher actually does the exercises with them and provides as much additional help as they need. Students do exercises online, which means that they can keep practicing until they have fully grasped the concept. Teachers track this progress and provide highly individualized attention to address exactly where students may be "stuck." Some kids may be accelerated, in which case they can dive into the next lesson. Khan gives teachers the tools they need to encourage mastery of each concept, by each student, and helps them maximize the impact of their teaching time.

PND: How do you manage the risks associated with something that’s perceived to be innovative?

KE: That's a good question. We built in what we thought would be a solution to some of the foreseeable challenges, for example, pushback from teachers. Some teachers are threatened by new technology in the classroom, seeing it as something that might end up costing them their job. So it was important from the beginning of the project to include teachers in the discussions about the project and secure their buy-in. This is a teaching resource, not a replacement, and that was an important conversation to have up-front. We even flew teams of teachers out to California to meet Sal and his team and spend a couple of days learning the approach.

We also hired a consultant whose main focus is to make sure that any problem or challenge a principal or teacher may have is sorted out. In our experience, those two things are critical when it comes to launching anything having to do with technology -- or with education reform, for that matter. You need to have buy-in from all the stakeholders from the outset, and you need a dedicated person to troubleshoot problems.

PND: It sounds like it might be a difficult thing to scale.

KE: It can be scaled, but it needs to be done thoughtfully. We're pretty ecumenical about the schools we work with. Doesn't matter if you’re red, white, blue, brown, Catholic, public, charter -- we love schools. But we won't work with school leaders who aren't excited to work and partner with us. After seeing initial success with the Khan Academy pilot, we flew a Khan team in from California and invited every middle school math teacher in the City of Boston to a day of professional development. We got over a hundred teachers to join us on a Saturday in December.

So, yes, these things can be scaled, but only if there's interest at the teacher and school administration level. It has to be bottom up, not top down.

-- Matt Sinclair

No Second-Class Families

(Ben Jealous is president/CEO of the NAACP.)

African Americans have spent much of our history fighting for equal treatment. Just two generations ago, our parents and our grandparents were banned from eating at certain restaurants, attending certain schools, and working in certain professions.

So it's not difficult to empathize with the struggle of immigrants in our country. Like our ancestors who migrated from the former slave states of the Deep South, millions of undocumented immigrants move to the United States each year to find work and a decent education for their children. When they arrive, however, they are confronted with blatant discrimination, racial profiling, and hardly any legal recourse.

As people of color, we have a responsibility to stand up for social justice whenever it is violated. That is why the NAACP has joined other civil rights and human rights organizations, including the Rights Working Group and the Leadership Conference of Civil and Human Rights, to support comprehensive immigration reform.

Across the country, an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants live with permanent second-class status. Many immigrants come to the U.S. to find a better life but find themselves living in the shadows, in constant fear of arrest and deportation. This has a cost.

Undocumented workers are exploited on a regular basis. Many business owners pay low wages and provide dangerous working conditions for their undocumented workers, with little fear of retaliation. They know that their employees have too much at stake to risk contacting the proper authorities.

Undocumented immigrants are also targeted by police. Racial profiling has been legalized in states like Alabama and Arizona under the guise of immigration enforcement. Our national immigration laws, in conjunction with these state laws, encourage local police to stop people of color, whether they are undocumented or not.

Right now Congress is debating a comprehensive immigration bill that will offer a road map to citizenship and also deal directly with workplace discrimination and racial profiling. One proposed provision allows undocumented immigrants to have the full protection of American labor laws. Another provision explicitly prohibits racial profiling by Homeland Security agents -- which, if passed, would make it the first federal law to do so.

The bill in its draft form is not perfect. The racial profiling provision needs adjustments that are being debated at the time of this writing. The bill also contains provisions that would eliminate the diversity visa program -- which helps many African and Caribbean immigrants come to America -- and dramatically expand the guest worker program. The NAACP and our allies will continue to make our voice heard as Congress debates the bill.

In August 1963 a sea of diverse activists descended on the National Mall to demand social justice and an end to segregation. In April 2013 a similarly diverse assemblage of legal immigrants, undocumented immigrants, and activists of all backgrounds gathered at the Capitol to call for an end to second-class citizenship. Just as the March on Washington helped pressure Congress into passing the Civil Rights and Voting acts, this year we need to show Congress that Americans of all stripes care about progressive immigration reform.

As Dr. King said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. If we truly want to discharge the sins of our past, we must ensure there are no second-class families in America.

-- Ben Jealous

Advancing Human Rights: A 'Flip' Chat With Mona Chun, Deputy Director, IHRFG

(The video below was recorded as part of our "Flip" chat series of conversations with thought leaders in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. You can check out other videos in the series here, including our previous chat with Harish Bhandari, director of digital engagement and innovation at the Robin Hood Foundation.)  

Since 2012, the Foundation Center has been working with the International Human Rights Funders Group to develop a framework for assessing the state of human rights grantmaking around the globe. The two organizations recently released some key findings (12 pages, PDF) of their research based on data collected from IHRFG, Ariadne, and the International Network of Women's Funds and an analysis of more than seven hundred funders representing twenty-nine countries. 

Among other things, the analysis found that in 2010 the United States accounted for the largest number of human rights funders -- which may be a reflection of the ability to draw upon a wealth of data on U.S.-based philanthropy through the Foundation Center's database and the lack of a similar resource outside of the U.S. -- followed by Western Europe, Latin America, Asia and the Pacific, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East.

The analysis also found that the Ford Foundation was the largest funder of human rights by grant dollars ($159.5 million), while the Open Society Foundations reported the largest number of human rights grants (1,248); that human rights funders awarded a total of $1.2 billion in 2010; and that the largest share (69 percent) of that funding went to U.S.-based organizations, many of which work in other countries, regions, and/or at the global level.

While the full report won't be released until June, PND recently had a chance to chat with IHRFG deputy director Mona Chun about this important work. During our sit-down, Chun discussed the biggest challenge and opportunity for international human rights funders and shared what she and her colleagues have learned from the research project with the Foundation Center. 

(If you're reading this in an e-mail, click here.) 

(Running time: 10 minutes, 11 seconds) 

What do you think? What else should foundations and individual philanthropists be doing to advance human rights globally? And what advice would you give organizations working in the field? Share your thoughts in the comments section below. 

-- Regina Mahone

Weekend Link Roundup (May 4-5, 2013)

What a gorgeous weekend! Hope yours, wherever you are, was half as nice. Here, a little late, is our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

The Catalytic Network, an interesting new initiative of the Rockefeller Foundation, aims to share tools and stories which emerge from the foundation's work with innovators around the globe. In that spirit, Michael Myers, a senior policy officer at the foundation, lays out the 5 Golden Rules of a Great Pitch on the network's site to help nonprofits better tell their story.

The five rules are:

• Keep it under two minutes.
• Know your audience, and know the ask.
• Talk about the problem you are solving -- in one sentence.
• Give two reasons why your approach is unique.
• Leave them one memorable, repeatable story.

Data

On the Harvard Business Review blog network, Mark Bonchek, "chief catalyst" at Orbit & Co, argues that without Little Data -- "what we know about ourselves. What we buy. Who we know. Where we go. How we spend our time" -- Big Data "has a tendency to become Big Brother," and that without Big Data, Little Data "is incomplete."

Fundraising

On her Non-Profit Marketing blog, Katya Andresen, the host of the April Nonprofit Blog Carnival, shares two dozen posts from nonprofit bloggers and readers on the theme "the best career advice you ever received."

Impact/Effectiveness

Amit Bouri, managing director of the Global Impact Investing Network, flags five themes for impact investors to keep an eye on: the emergence of better tools and improved infrastructure; a growing need for strong fund managers; the importance of supporting the "demand side" of the impact investing equation; the growing interest of "retail" investors in the field; and the growing acceptance of and emphasis on impact measurement.

Philanthropy

On his White Courtesy Telephone blog, Greater New Orleans Foundation president and CEO Albert Ruesga takes a long look at philanthropy's "uneasy" relationship with the social sciences. "We make grants because we predict (or at least fervently hope) that our interventions will shift human behavior in certain hoped-for ways," writes Ruesga. And after "we make our grants, we test our predictions and adjust our grantmaking accordingly. Those of you with grantmaking experience know, however,

that our interventions seldom, if ever, unfold as we predict they will. Our inability to predict human actions with a high degree of accuracy has been understood and discussed by philosophers, psychologists, social scientists and others longer than the field of organized philanthropy has been in existence. Yet those of us who work in foundations ignore these fundamental truths about the difficulties of predicting human behavior when, for example, we construct elaborate theories of change, or worse, when we inflict them on our grantees. These truths don't absolve us of the responsibility to change or inspire human behavior, but they do place limits on our attempts to anticipate or direct the many twists and turns of the human heart.

If the idea of philanthropy as an experimental social science unnerves you as much as it does me, how would you re-conceptualize it in a way that the most "results-oriented" among us would find compelling? If the idea appeals to you, how would you suggest that philanthropy capture and teach the lessons learned long ago in allied fields, especially those lessons that might help save our grantees and the communities we serve from unnecessary suffering?...

Like pretty much everything Ruesga writes, the post is worth your time.

On NCRP's Keeping a Close Eye blog, Trista Harris, executive director of the Headwaters Foundation for Justice, shares a list of six tips designed to help you become a (social justice) philanthropy rockstar.

Writing on the GrantCraft blog, the European Foundation Centre's Rosien Herweijer looks at a new study from the Association of German Foundations that explores how German foundations approach their mistakes and failure. Not surprisingly, the study found that larger foundations tend to do more evaluation and documenting of mistakes than smaller foundations, while operating foundations tend to be more self-critical than general grantmaking foundations.

In a post musing on the "changing landscape of philanthropy," Senay Ataselim-Yilmaz says that the annual Global Philanthropy Forum should "pay more attention to the rising impact of diaspora [contributions] in global philanthropy."

Women

In an op-ed on the CNN site, legendary investor Warren Buffett argues that women are the key to America's future prosperity. "No manager operates his or her plants at 80 percent efficiency when steps could be taken that would increase output," writes Buffett. "And no CEO wants male employees to be underutilized when improved training or working conditions would boost productivity. So take it one step further: If obvious benefits flow from helping the male component of the workforce achieve its potential, why in the world wouldn't you want to include its counterpart?"

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a good week!

-- The Editors

The Art of the Phone Call: How to Stand Out With Funders

(Allison Shirk is a freelance grantwriter based in the Puget Sound region. In her last post, she shared ten tips for making the best use of your grantwriter's time.)

In today's world of high-speed communications, it can be hard to make a meaningful connection. Remembering the art of the personal phone call is a great way to stand out in the crowd. Here are some tips when reaching out to a potential funder by phone.

Leave a short but detailed message. Most funders receive dozens, if not hundreds, of phone calls a week. Voice-mail messages that don't include the right amount of detail will be ignored. Leave your name, phone number, and the elevator pitch for your organization/project. Speak clearly and slowly.

Make a plan to connect. Be sure to include a time (during regular business hours) when you can be reached. Mention that you'll call back in two days if you haven't heard from them. Follow up with an e-mail that includes your contact information and a link to your organization's Web site.

Don't drop the ball. If they call back and you miss the call, call them back within forty-eight hours and follow up with an e-mail. Be persistent but respectful.

Once you've connected. Someone from the funder's office returned your call and is on the line! Don't ramble. Take detailed notes. If it turns out the funder isn't interested in your project, politely thank him/her for their time. Don't argue.

It never hurts to write down in advance what you plan to say when a funder does call back. Here's a framework for a couple of scenarios you're likely to encounter in that situation.

Before submitting a proposal: "I've looked at the information and guidelines on your Web site and have determined that a funding request for our youth development program is a good match for your [_____] program. I'm ready to submit a grant proposal and wonder whether there's anything specific I can include in the application that would be of interest to you and your colleagues."

After the proposal is submitted: "I submitted an application two weeks ago. I'm checking to make sure you have all the information you need and to answer any additional questions you might have."

If your proposal is declined: "I received the declination letter and wondered whether you would be willing to spend a few minutes telling us how we could improve the proposal for next year."

It goes without saying that you should never argue a decision. Ever. If the funder's letter says they didn't fund you because your organization doesn't meet their guidelines and you can prove that you do, you might mention it, but don't push it. At that point, it's likely the money has been committed to another project and arguing will only ensure that your application is declined next year as well.

You received a grant: "I just received your letter. Thank you! We're delighted to have an opportunity to work with you and your colleagues. What can we do to keep you informed about the project over the coming months?"

During the grant period: "I wanted to let you know that the youth development project you funded has received an additional grant from the ABC Foundation. We're delighted to have additional support for the project."

Of course, some funders do not accept phone calls -- under any condition. Respect their wishes and follow the application instructions on their Web site or in tools like the Foundation Directory Online.

Whatever you do, don't get discouraged. Grantseeking is a marathon, not a sprint.

Have other grantseeking tips/comments you'd like to share? We'd love to hear 'em. Use the comments section below....

-- Allison Shirk

Most Popular PhilanTopic Posts (April 2013)

It's May Day/International Workers' Day/Loyalty Day! Before you begin your celebration, take a few minutes to check out the most popular posts on PhilanTopic in April:

• 'How Do I General Support Thee, Let Me Count the Ways!' (Brad Smith)
• Ten Ways to Make Your Grantwriter's Time Count (Allison Shirk)
• Dispatch From the Frontlines: Council on Foundations' 2013 Annual Conference (Michael Seltzer)
• Closing the Achievement Gap for African-American Males: An Economic Imperative (Angela Glover Blackwell)
• Digital Tools and Apps: A 'Flip' Chat With Harish Bhandari, Robin Hood Foundation (Regina Mahone)

What are you reading/watching/listening to? Share your favorites in the comments section below....

 

The Social Progress Index: Measuring What Counts?

The Washington, D.C.-based Social Progress Imperative made a splash at the Skoll World Forum earlier this month when it launched its Social Progress Index (SPI), an ambitious effort to inform and influence development policies around the globe.

Developed by Harvard Business School professor and competitiveness expert Michael E. Porter in collaboration with Scott Stern of MIT, the index is founded on the principle that "what we measure guides the choices we make." To that end, the index analyzes fifty-two outcome-based (as opposed to input-based) indicators in three dimensions of social progress: meeting basic human needs; establishing the foundations of well-being that enable individuals to enhance and sustain the quality of their lives; and creating opportunity for all to reach their full potential. (For a complete breakdown of indicators, click here.)

While the index and the report (154 pages, PDF) released in conjunction with the launch of the index includes only fifty countries, those countries represent three-quarters of the world's population. Here's a chart from the report that plots their aggregate SPI scores against GDP per capita (PPP):

As the chart shows, the countries included in the index and report are fairly well distributed across income levels, ranging from Switzerland at the high end with a GDP per capita of $51,262; to middle-income countries such as the Russian Federation ($21,246), South Africa ($10,960), and China ($8,400); to lower-income countries like Egypt ($6,281), India ($3,627), and Mozambique ($975).

So, what do the SPI team's findings based on an analysis of a full year of data reveal? For starters, that countries' level of overall development -- as measured by GDP per capita and/or indices of global competitiveness -- often mask striking social and environmental challenges and strengths. For example, Costa Rica, a lower-middle-income country with a PPP of $12,157, ranks twelfth overall in the index, ahead of richer countries such as Israel ($27,825) and Argentina ($17,554); nineteenth in terms of basic human needs; and eighth for opportunity -- ahead of France, Japan, and Germany, all of which rank higher in terms of overall score. In contrast, the United Arab Emirates, the third-richest country ($47,893) in the SPI sample, ranks nineteenth overall, including eleventh in terms of basic human needs, but only thirtieth for opportunity and a disappointing thirty-seventh in terms of foundations of well-being.

The index/report also seem to indicate that economic development is necessary but not sufficient for social progress; that it is possible to achieve a high level of social progress at a relatively modest income level; and that while low-income countries are clustered at the bottom of the index, there is a wide range of social progress within this group. For instance, Mozambique, the poorest country in the SPI sample, is ranked fourteenth in terms of equality and inclusion, whereas Rwanda, the third-poorest country in the sample, is ranked forty-fourth for equality and inclusion. At the same time, Rwanda tops the index in terms of ecosystem sustainability, while the United States, which has the second-highest PPP in the sample and is ranked sixth overall, ranks near the very bottom (forty-eighth) in terms of ecosystem sustainability.

If by highlighting each country's strengths and weaknesses with respect to various aspects of social progress these data get you thinking differently about development, then SPI is off to a good start. "The purpose of the Social Progress Index," the report's authors note, "is to benchmark performance and motivate improvement while providing useful insights that will help all stakeholders to make better choices, prioritize investments, and strengthen implementation capacity to improve the lives of citizens."

Looking ahead, SPI plans to refine its model based on feedback and empirical testing, eventually expanding the number of countries in the index from fifty to a hundred and twenty. It also plans to form a Social Progress Network comprising partners from research and academic institutions, think tanks, for-profit and nonprofit organizations, and international development organizations "to identify the policies, institutions, legal frameworks, and financing mechanisms that can drive more effective and efficient social progress, through international benchmarking and fostering specific research projects." And it will explore the possibility of creating a Social Progress Capacity Index to measure the potential of a country's government, business, and civil society institutions to contribute to innovation in the social sector.

In the meantime, governments are paying attention, with Paraguay already having agreed to incorporate the SPI model into its national development framework. Which perhaps begs the question: How will the philanthropic sector, in the U.S. and elsewhere, respond? The index has already begun to spark discussions about impact investing and social entrepreneurship. Will foundations become more active in those conversations than they have been to date? And how, if at all, might the index change the way we approach economic development -- both overseas and here in the United States? Have thoughts you'd like to share? Use the comments section below.

-- Kyoko Uchida

Weekend Link Roundup (April 27-28, 2013)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

Our friends at the Communications Network have a nice Q&A with Lucas Held, director of communications at the Wallace Foundation, who, among other things, calls Diffusion of Innovations, a theory developed by the late Everett Rogers, "the most useful tool I have ever encountered for communications."

Data

In a long, fascinating piece in the May/June issue of Foreign Affairs, Kenneth Neil Cukier and Viktor Mayer Schoenberger look at the emergence of "big data" and how it's changing the world. "Using great volumes of information," they write,

requires three profound changes in how we approach data. The first is to collect and use a lot of data rather than settle for small amounts or samples, as statisticians have done for well over a century. The second is to shed our preference for highly curated and pristine data and instead accept messiness: in an increasing number of situations, a bit of inaccuracy can be tolerated, because the benefits of using vastly more data of variable quality outweigh the costs of using smaller amounts of very exact data. Third, in many instances, we will need to give up our quest to discover the cause of things, in return for accepting correlations. With big data, instead of trying to understand precisely why an engine breaks down or why a drug’s side effect disappears, researchers can instead collect and analyze massive quantities of information about such events and everything that is associated with them, looking for patterns that might help predict future occurrences. Big data helps answer what, not why, and often that's good enough....

Philanthropy

Kevin Bolduc, vice president of assessment tools at the Center for Effective Philanthropy, shares some lessons from the organization's efforts to scale up a data visualization tool called "Strategy Landscape" and the reasoning behind its decision, announced earlier this week, to pull the plug on the tool. "A few...in particular stand out," writes Bolduc:

The incredible motivation and interest of a few early groups of funders that really craved this kind of information led us to overestimate the demand and believe that examples of use would snowball and generate further enthusiasm. We were wrong. (We should have realized that earlier, and avoided turning a little bet into a somewhat bigger one.) We also didn’t accurately anticipate the level of technological flexibility the tool would need when, inevitably, groups wanted to use the tool differently than we had anticipated. We fell down on both of those counts....

We still believe that visualizing customized information about how grants across foundations roll up into common categories of strategy, geographic targeting, and tactics (policy, direct service, etc.) could be very useful as funders work to address common issues. But this just wasn’t the right tool at the right time....

On the GrantCraft blog, the European Foundation Centre's Rosien Herweijer chats with Luc Tayart de Borms, managing director of the Belgium-based King Baudouin Foundation, about Lucy Bernholz' annual industry forecast, Blueprint 2013, and how it relates to European foundations.

Writing on her own Philanthropy 2173 blog, Bernholz highlights a new Sunlight Foundation article in which the government watchdog argues that e-filing of 990 forms is important because "990 data helps to ensure that the system isn't being abused." Bernholz says there is another reason the data should be made readily available in machine-readable form: American patriotism and pride. "[T]he Canadians do it," she writes, so "shouldn't we?" Indeed, adds Bernholz, the Canadian company Ajah.ca offers both "both federal AND provincial open data on charities, government contracts, and foundation funding."

Social Media

Beth Kanter, co-author of Measuring the Networked Nonprofit, discusses a recent Twitter chat on social media measurement hosted by Zoetica Media and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. In her post, Kanter focuses on mapping your network to measure the engagement of network members. As Kanter explains, "Social network analysis maps are useful for helping you understand your network, developing a baseline visual, and identifying strategies for making your network stronger."

Social Media for Social Good author Heather Mansfield has some advice for organizations looking to make their press releases shareable. "I have no proof these tips will help your nonprofit get more media coverage," writes Mansfield, "but at the very least they will help your nonprofit’s press release get more exposure on the social Web." Among other things, Mansfield suggests organizations include their Twitter handle, a photo, and add social networking icons on press releases.

Transparency

Over at Transparency Talk blog, our Foundation Center colleagues share a number of videos from this year's Global Philanthropy Forum that relate to philanthropic transparency in a digital age.

Last but not least, Pablo Eisenberg, in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy remember Bob Edgar, president and CEO of Common Cause, who passed away unexpectedly last week at the age of 69. "We are truly grateful that Bob Edgar served on NCRP's board," writes NCRP board chair Diane Feeney. "He was relentless in his work to clean up money in politics, but also to ensure that philanthropy benefited the underserved and marginalized. We will miss him sorely."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a good week!

-- The Editors

How RWJF Tackles the 'Social Media, So What?' Question

(Debra Joy Perez [@djoyperez] currently is serving as interim vice president of research and evaluation at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest healthcare philanthropy in the country. The following Q&A was conducted by our colleagues in the Foundation Center's San Francisco office and originally appeared on Transparency Talk, the Glasspockets blog.)

Last year, after Steve Downs, chief technology and information office at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, shared a post on Transparency Talk detailing the foundation's social media strategy, we conducted a series of interviews (here, here, and here) with RWJF staff members that explored how social media and, more broadly, the transparency and participation they offer was adding a new, critical dimension to their work.

The latest Q&A in the series, featuring Debra Joy Perez, the foundation's interim vice president of research and evaluation, explores how RWJF's use of social media, which has become essential to its communication efforts, can be measured to reflect the impact of that work in the context of achieving the foundation's larger social change goals.

TT: Give us a quick overview of your work at the foundation in light of these new technologies. Why are social media metrics important to RWJF?

DJP: RWJF has a forty-year history of developing evidence-based programming. We're known for our research and evaluation work nationally and internationally. But as efforts to advance our goals in health and health care have become more reliant on technology, we've struggled with measuring success and accountability.

Since 2009, RWJF has been incorporating Web 2.0 technology into our everyday work, and with the September launch of our redesigned Web site, we now have more social sharing facilitation tools on the site. We're also doing more on on Twitter and Facebook to invite conversation about how to advance health and health care and are producing content to serve the needs of various online communities.

All that activity allows us to clearly see the present and future value of social media, which we believe can help us create social change and build movements around the causes we care deeply about. And, guided by the principles of openness, participation, and decentralization, we have learned a number of important lessons from that work. They include:

• Personal outreach matters;
• Responsiveness to requests for engagement is important;
• Criticism can lead to healthy dialogue;
• Engagement needs to be easy and simple; and
• Real engagement requires work and dedicated resources.

These takeaways underscore the importance of ongoing conversation about the policies and processes needed to achieve our goals. For instance, with each social media campaign, we have to be explicit about our expectations. Metrics are an essential part of that effort. Measurement allows us to see how we're doing against those expectations and to improve our use of social media to achieve our broader goals.

TT: What does an effective social media campaign look like?

DJP: Where to start? Well, you might start by acknowledging what you are already doing with social media and celebrating that. Do you have a Facebook page, an organizational presence on Twitter, a Tumblr? Conduct an inventory of what you are doing as an organization, as well as the level of engagement with your intended audiences. Are staff using social media to leverage their activities? Have they been able to extend the organization's reach? Do they regularly appear on relevant blogs?

As you conduct your inventory, you're likely to begin to realize how much you don't know. That's okay. It's important not to let the "not-knowing" paralyze you. Here are a few tips for doing that:

• Have an explicit dialogue with staff about your organizational goals, what you are trying to accomplish with your social media efforts, the purpose of tweeting something, the specific action or actions you want audience members to take, and so on. And remember, although click-throughs are not themselves an outcome, they are a process measure.
• Identify your networks. You probably already have more of a network than you realize. If you haven't already, read Measuring the Networked Nonprofit by Beth Kanter and KD Paine.
• Schedule a more formal discussion with staff about value proposition. Find out who on staff is adding value and who isn't. Don't expect everyone to tweet. Some people are natural long-form writers and might be better suited for blogging.
• Establish data points for measuring the impact of your efforts.
• Create unique URLs for product releases and then use AB testing to test them against each other to see which is more effective.

Most importantly, remember that social media is a tool, a tool to achieve larger goals. While it can be a very powerful tool, it shouldn't be mistaken for the end in itself.

TT: Do you have an expected ROI for social media?

DJP: As more and more people build trusted networks of individuals and organizations and engage with each other online, we believe social media can really help us extend our reach. It also makes it easier for us to provide our health and health care advocates -- also known as message evangelists -- with the information they need, when they need it. And by making data more accessible through interactives, data visualizations and infographics, we're able to illustrate and promote key messages in compelling ways and do a better job of building awareness.

All of that is worth measuring. But while there are a plethora of ready-to-use analytical tools on the market, the challenge is to avoid the "low-hanging fruit" trap of measuring activity instead of impact. If we do our job correctly, eventually we expect to be able to say what works and what doesn't, and to be able to distinguish our impact online from off.

TT: What's the state of play in terms of social media measurement? And where do you go from here?

DJP: The potential of social is undeniable, and we continue to look for ways to test our assumptions about what we are doing in the space. As the unit responsible for measuring the impact of our work, we regularly ask ourselves questions such as: What are we using social for? Who are our target audiences? (By the way, developing metrics that include audience demographics is an important part of that measurement effort.) What is the action/behavior we want to see? How do we measure behavior change? How can we go beyond measuring online activity -- page views, unique visitors, tweets, retweets -- to measure the impact of that activity on off-line action and policy change?

That is one of the key challenges for philanthropy today. As a foundation accountable to our board and the public, we have to establish goals and benchmarks for our investment in social media just as we do for our programmatic investments. We have to be able to answer the "so-what" question in terms of the investment of staff time and talent in social media. As a sector, we are becoming much more sophisticated in our use of strategic communications to advance our work. Figuring out how to measure social media activity should fit within that broader framework. Fortunately, social media, because it is digital and quantifiable, lends itself to measurement.

As I said, we really believe in this stuff and are working to produce a set of social media indicators in five foundation-focused areas:

• that we are viewed as a valuable information source;
• that we are viewed as transparent;
• that the lessons we learn are disseminated effectively, multiplying our impact beyond our traditional reach;
• that our social media efforts help to increase knowledge, advocacy, and action in key strategic areas; and
• that our social media efforts serve to strengthen and diversify our networks.

There are already some foundations doing great work in this space, and we hope others will join them and us in advancing the field of social media measurement. It's an exciting time.

Ten Ways to Make Your Grantwriter’s Time Count

(Allison Shirk is a freelance grantwriter based in the Puget Sound region. A version of this post appears on her Web site.)

The decision to use a freelance grantwriter can be a smart investment for a nonprofit organization, especially if it knows how to use that freelancer effectively.

With that in mind, here are ten tips (plus a bonus tip) to help you make the most of your freelance grantwriter's time:

1. Get organized. Make sure your grantwriter has everything she needs to be as autonomous as possible. This is likely to require a substantial amount of time in the beginning, but it will also save you time in the end. Ask your grantwriter for a checklist of things she needs, as well as a wish list. The basics include audited financial statements and organizational budgets. Go a step further and provide her with project budgets for every program or capacity-building initiative that may be eligible for the grant. Also, be sure to provide letterhead, photographs, .jpegs of logos, and anything else she'll need to tell your organization's story.

2. Single point of contact. When working with a contractor, it's always best to have a single point of contact. Make sure the individual assigned to be that person is a decision maker who can delegate effectively to every department/function within the organization. Development directors of small organizations may be too busy with special events to give grant proposals the attention they require on a regular basis. Having the grantwriter report directly to the executive director is optimal, in that it will give him/her better access to the "big picture" and help ensure that the information he or she needs is produced in a timely fashion.

3. Put it in writing. Dictating instructions or narrative to a grantwriter over the phone can be a poor use of time and increase the chances of miscommunication or error. Instead, take the time to put key ideas/information in bullet-point form for the grantwriter to elaborate on and polish. Use a descriptive subject line in e-mails so the grantwriter can quickly locate the information at crunch time. It's also a good idea to keep e-mail threads current by changing the subject line when important new information is introduced in the thread. If an attachment is included, make sure to reference it in the body of the e-mail.

4. Back off the deadline. Too often, busy organizations will wait until a deadline looms to send information to the grantwriter. Don't. Grantwriters need time to analyze the grant opportunity, write and edit the proposal, incorporate revisions and additional edits into the proposal, and package it all to best effect. Organizations lose the opportunity to put their best foot forward if they wait until the last minute. If there's going to be more than one reviewer, create a review calendar and stick to it. Or better yet, use Google docs so that the appropriate parties can participate in the group-editing process, leaving time for the grantwriter to finish it up. Be sure to note whether the grant proposal needs to be postmarked by a certain date, and note the time of day and time zone for online applications. Some foundations still require eight copies of a proposal, double-sided and hole-punched, so leave time for logistics. Last but not least, give the grantwriter a chance to give the proposal a final read-through before submitting it.

5. Provide the budget first. One of the most frustrating experiences for a grantwriter is to get a proposal ready and then receive a project budget that doesn't remotely resemble the proposal narrative. Follow the money. It's critical that the grant budget is set first, so that the narrative serves to describe the request for funds. Remember, organizations that have a solid understanding of what it really costs them to provide a service tend to do best in the quest for sustainable funding.

6. Use your grantwriter to write grants. Be careful not to let your team put the grantwriter to work doing administrative tasks. Keep in mind that she is being paid $40-$120 per hour, and while she's probably great at gently nagging team members for important information, crunching numbers, creating board rosters, and the like, you might want to use her time for writing grants.

7. Take their advice, seriously. Experienced freelance grantwriters are worth their weight in gold because they know what foundations want, and expect, to hear and can help organizations move in that direction. They also tend to be familiar with a broad range of research, the latest developments in technology, and can suggest ways that the organization can work more efficiently and effectively -- but only if you ask.

8. Keep them in the know. Make sure your grantwriter receives all of your e-mail communications, the minutes to board and staff meetings, and anything else that will help him do his job. The more your grantwriter knows about your organizations and its activities, the better able he will be to keep an eye out for appropriate grant opportunities.

9. Try a retainer. Working with your grantwriter on a monthly retainer basis gives her the flexibility to respond to urgent needs or back off when things are slow. If an urgent opportunity comes up, she can devote extra hours to that particular proposal and spend fewer hours the following month so that things balance out over time. Your financial team also will appreciate having a consistent monthly dollar amount to figure into the budget planning process.

10. Project wisely. Encourage your grantwriter to write several proposals at a time. Developing a completely new proposal for every opportunity that comes up is labor intensive and inefficient, as is having your grantwriter switch his or her focus from project to project. One way to avoid this is to focus one month on general operating support grants and the next on program support, etc.

11. Leave time for follow-up calls. One of the best ways to get your grant proposals funded is to build a relationship with the funders you have targeted. Allotting time for follow-up calls, even for proposals that are declined, is one of the best investments of your grantwriter's time you can make. You might even want to consider giving your grantwriter an organizational e-mail address to use for initial inquiries and follow-ups. Relationships and personal contacts matter in development work, and the more resources your organization devotes to cultivating them, the better the chances your proposal will end up on the top of the submission pile.

Have other tips/comments you'd like to share? We'd love to hear 'em. Use the comments section below....

-- Allison Shirk

Dispatch From Philanthropy’s Frontlines: Globalization in Chicago

(Michael Seltzer is a trustee of EMpower-the Emerging Markets Foundation and a distinguished lecturer at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs of the City University of New York. To read his earlier dispatch from the Council on Foundations' annual conference, click here.)

Global issues were front and center at the annual meeting of the Council on Foundations in Chicago earlier this month. That shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. While many U.S. nonprofits have long been active in the international arena, the transnational dimensions of a range of issues, from food security, to sex trafficking and violence against women, to global warming, have become ever more apparent and have helped fuel the growth of nongovernmental organizations globally.

At the same time, more and more U. S. corporations, especially in information technology, financial services, natural resources extraction, and pharmaceuticals, derive a larger percentage of their profits from overseas operations, while a handful of the nation's largest foundations continue to fund international efforts. In addition, newer players like Bloomberg Philanthropies regularly make connections between their work at home and global efforts.

On Sunday, the first day of the conference, Dr. Tomicah Tillemann, senior advisor to the U.S. secretary of state for civil society and emerging democracies, remarked on the growing importance of the nonprofit sector globally and State Department efforts to position the U.S. government as a leading supporter of the global philanthropic and NGO movements, elevate the role of civil society in the formulation of U.S. foreign policy, engage multilateral organizations working to advance democracy and civil society around the globe, and promote the independence of civil society globally.

Other positive trends in this arena include the lowering of barriers that historically have discouraged U.S. foundations from funding efforts in other countries. John Harvey, managing director of the council's Global Philanthropy program, reported on recent efforts to modify and improve U.S. Treasury and IRS rules governing international grantmaking, including the launch of equivalency determination service NGOsource. Charities Aid Foundation America has announced that it is now providing 501(c)(3) equivalency services (something it has been doing for many years) at no cost to American donors. And public foundations like the International Youth Foundation and Tides Foundation have ramped up their international efforts. Tides now supports projects in more than seventy countries, while IYF is working with partners in more than eighty-six countries. More recently established organizations such as the African Women's Leadership Foundation-USA have joined the ranks of older organizations like the American India Foundation and Brazil Foundation in working to forge connections between diaspora communities in the U.S. and civil society efforts back home, while the International Center on Not-For-Profit Law (ICNL) today serves government officials and the donor community in more than a hundred countries.

Another indicator of the growth of global philanthropy is the emergence of national philanthropic associations around the globe. Centro Mexicano para la Filantropía (CEMEFI) boasts more than twelve hundred members and is celebrating its twenty-fifth anniversary. Indeed, the philanthropic sector accounts for 1 percent of Mexico's gross domestic product, while more than eight hundred Mexican companies have signed corporate social responsibility pledges.

The conference closed on Tuesday with a plenary appearance by two of America's most important social sector thought leaders: feminist playwright Eve Ensler, whose latest project, V-Day, seeks to create a global movement to end violence against women and girls, and who spoke about the organization's work in the war-torn Congo; and Paul Farmer, co-founder of Partners In Health, the award-winning global health organization, who spoke about PIH's work in impoverished Haiti, where PIH has long had a presence.

As technology and capital flows continue to shrink the globe and the need to address climate change, nuclear proliferation, and other borderless problems grows more urgent, we should expect that more and more people in more and more places will look to philanthropy for funding and answers. The sense that this is already happening was palpable in the halls and conference rooms of the Chicago Hilton, and I, for one, am confident that it is one of the trends we'll be hearing a lot about it in the years to come.

In the meantime, click here to catch up on highlights from the 2013 CoF meeting. And if you'd like to share your thoughts about what philanthropy can and should be doing to promote the "greater good" globally, we'd love to hear them. Use the comments section below...

-- Michael Seltzer

Weekend Link Roundup (April 20-21, 2013)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Communications/Marketing

On her Getting Attention blog, Nancy Schwartz has some recommendations for nonprofit communications officers (here and here) on how to communicate during a time of crisis.

Current Affairs

In the wake of the horrific bombing at this year's Boston Marathon, Philanthropy 411's Kris Putnam-Walkerly has curated a list of resources for anyone interested in learning more about philanthropy's response to the tragedy. As of Friday, the One Fund Boston, which was created by Boston mayor Thomas Menino, had raised more than $10 million to help victims of the attack.

As if the marathon tragedy wasn't enough to rattle Americans, on Wednesday a fertilizer plant in the Texas town of West caught fire and exploded, killing at least fourteen people and injuring hundreds of others. According to ThinkProgress economic policy editor Bryce Covert, the plant hadn't been inspected in five years. Covert goes on to explain that the main federal agency charged with the enforcement of safety and health legislation, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, "is chronically understaffed, which means that a given plant like West Fertilizer can only expect to get a state inspection once every 67 years on average." And what's more, OSHA is "slated to take a huge cut under the sequester...."

Data

On the O'Reilly Strata site, Mike Loukides, vice president of content strategy for O'Reilly Media, reminds us that data science, like science itself, needs to be built on a foundation of skepticism. "Skepticism about data is normal," writes Loukides,

and [that's] a good thing. If I had to give a one line definition of science, it might be something like "organized and methodical skepticism based on evidence." So, if we really want to do data science, it has to be done by incorporating skepticism. And here's the key: data scientists have to own that skepticism. Data scientists have to be the biggest skeptics. Data scientists have to be skeptical about models, they have to be skeptical about overfitting, and they have to be skeptical about whether we're asking the right questions. They have to be skeptical about how data is collected, whether that data is unbiased, and whether that data -- even if there's an inconceivably large amount of it -- is sufficient to give you a meaningful result.

Because the bottom line is: if we're not skeptical about how we use and analyze data, who will be?

New York Times columnist David Brooks has some interesting thoughts of his own about the uses, and misuse of, big data. "One of my take-aways," writes Brooks,

is that big data is really good at telling you what to pay attention to. It can tell you what sort of student is likely to fall behind. But then to actually intervene to help that student, you have to get back in the world of causality, back into the world of responsibility, back in the world of advising someone to do x because it will cause y.

Big data is like the offensive coordinator up in the booth at a football game who, with altitude, can see patterns others miss. But the head coach and players still need to be on the field of subjectivity.

Environment

In the first of a series of "dialogues" on the Nature Conservancy's Talk blog, TNC president Mark Tercek chats with environmental activist Bill McKibben about climate change and the state of the environmental movement.

Impact/Effectiveness

Still a little confused about social impact/pay for success bonds? Not to worry. The experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco devote the most recent issue of Community Development Investment Review to the topic, with contributions from George Overholser and Caroline Whistler, Daniel Stidt, Jonathan Greenblatt, Kristina Costa and Sonal Shah, and many others.

International Affairs/Development

Writing on PhilanTopic, Jeff Falkenstein, vice president of data architecture at the Foundation Center, recaps the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's annual Global Forum on Development, which this year was held in Paris. Among other things, Falkenstein highlights some of the gains achieved through the Millennium Development Goals process, which is slated to end in 2015, and asks what role, if any, private foundations should play in a post-MDG world. What do you think? Share your thoughts here.

Philanthropy

Beth Kanter was in San Francisco earlier in the week for the 2013 Global Philanthropy Forum and, on her blog, recaps a session from the event on the topic of "building an information infrastructure" for philanthropy. Among other things, the session highlighted the need for more current data; the challenge of making the data we do have more meaningful; the benefits of data mining; and building organizational capacity to take advantage of open data. For more information on the session, check out this curated list of blog posts and other resources from Kanter.

On the other side of the pond, our friends at Alliance magazine are pleased to announce the winners of the first Olga Alexeeva Memorial Prize: Jane Weru and Kingsley Mucheke of the Akiba Mashinani Trust, in Kenya.

Professional Development

Network for Good's Katya Andresen has some advice for social sector professionals who are "stuck on replay." "'Replay' can be somewhat effective if you're sticking to what works well," writes Andresen. "The problem is it can also create an autopilot state of mind that dulls your senses to changes around you -- like shifts in the political landscape, your donor base or constituencies -- that require a new approach."

Social Media

And on the Foundation Center's Transparency Talk blog, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation interim vice president of research and evaluation Debra Joy Perez shares insights into the foundation’s use of social media as well as some of the metrics it uses to understand the value of that work.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a good week!

-- The Editors

Rising Risk and Rising Tides: Can We Catch the Wave?

(Rachel Leon is executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association.)

Since its creation in 1970, Earth Day has helped bridge the gap between people and the planet, connecting us to the ground we stand on. For Extreme Weather Earth Day 2013, it is vital we reaffirm that connection as we confront global challenges and increasingly common extreme weather events in our own backyards.

At a recent conference, Gina McCarthy, the Obama administration's nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, articulated two priorities for us as a nation and community: finding solutions to problems of climate change, and getting kids outside. These macro and micro pieces fit together and can help show the way to a more sustainable future.

My mother likes to tell the story of my first speech, which I gave when I was three and which included a plea for more parks in our community. I grew up in Schenectady, New York, in an inner-city neighborhood; our playground was a vacant lot full of metal pipes and glass, and that speech was the beginning of my personal activism and connection to the outdoors.

Ultimately, the community, with a huge contribution from my mom, succeeded in getting a new park built. And, thanks in part to that experience, I was drawn to issues of poverty and inequality as I got older. I really didn't reconnect with environmental issues, however, until I found myself working at a statewide anti-hunger organization. Our agenda included getting food stamps accepted at farmers markets so as to encourage fresh food choices for all families, regardless of income. At the time, I didn't identify as an environmentalist, and yet my work was absolutely connected to the environment. That perception, that people working for a better planet are somehow different from those working to address poverty, inequality, or other social issues, is all too common -- and one we absolutely need to address if we hope to build an engaged community that spans all interests and sectors.

Getting kids outside is crucial to that movement because children today are far less likely to be connected to the living environment than their parents or grandparents were at the same age. And if kids don't feel a connection to the environment, the critical work to create a sustainable future won't have a constituency. My activist mom and my anti-poverty work connected me to "place and planet," even though my access to green spaces as a kid was limited. But not everyone has that experience. So while we work on the very big issue of climate change, we also need to remember the smaller, concrete goal of getting kids off the couch and outside, where they can begin to appreciate the connection between the environment and all the challenges, social and environmental, confronting our communities.

After several years at the anti-hunger organization, I went to work for Common Cause, where I experienced firsthand how money in politics was blocking progress on environmental issues -- whether it was the failure to hold landlords in New York City accountable for lead poisoning, the long struggle to pass a bottle bill in the face of the soda industry's opposition to such legislation, or Big Oil blocking progress on renewable energy alternatives that would help reduce our carbon emissions and slow global warming.

Today, in my role as executive director of the Environmental Grantmakers Association, I‘ve come full circle. Recently, for example, I traveled to Chicago for the Council on Foundations' annual conference, where I had the good fortune to meet and network with funders, community activists, and reformers who see the connections between and among their different areas of interest. I organized and participated in sessions that applied a global lens to issues of climate justice, food insecurity and efforts to create a more sustainable agriculture, and media reform (or lack thereof). These sessions crystallized for me how the solutions to many of the challenges we face lie in our ability to connect individual experience to different sectors and broader global goals.

As Earth Day 2013 approaches, the part of the United States I call home is still trying to recover from Superstorm Sandy, while Louisiana and post-Katrina New Orleans, where EGA will hold its fall retreat later this year, is rebuilding at a heartbreakingly slow place and losing the equivalent of a football field to rising sea levels and erosion every forty-five minutes. Other parts of the country are locked tight in the grip of drought, while a recent spate of natural disasters worldwide, from forest fires in Australia to massive flooding in Argentina, remind us that the "new normal" isn't just economic reality; it's something environmental funders, NGOs, and people in communities everywhere need to come to grips with. If there's a silver lining in all this, it's the growing awareness of climate change as a serious problem that will cost millions of people their homes, their livelihoods, and the certainty that extreme weather events are something that happen to other people.

Still, even this moment of urgency will fade unless we succeed in connecting individuals with the issue of climate change and a vision for a better future. And doing that can be as simple as getting kids outside, letting them stick their toes in real mud, and reminding them that they are part of the environment. It is us, and we are it.

So this Earth Day, let's think about where we are and where we need to go. Here are some resources to get you started:

• the Earth Day Network has created a Faces of Climate Change tumblr to personalize the challenge that climate change presents while uniting people around the globe behind a powerful call to action;
• on Monday, the Bullitt Foundation in Seattle will celebrate the grand opening of the Bullitt Center, the "greenest commercial building in the world," and will offer educational tours of the building to the public;
• college-age youth across the country are joining the grassroots online community at PowerShift and showcasing their efforts to get university endowments to disinvest from coal;
• the insurance industry is beginning to "get it";
• the Pulitzer Prize committee has recognized Inside Climate News with a Pulitzer; and, of course,
• EGA members are funding efforts to get kids outside.

Indeed, our Tracking the Field (executive summary, 8 pages, PDF) research shows that a growing number of environmental grantmakers are making these connections. Among EGA members, grants that were strategically focused on communication nearly doubled between 2009 and 2010. The EGA funding community also sees the connection between sustainable communities and agriculture, with more than $13 million funding this intersection of issues in 2010. Between 2009 and 2010, we also saw a 63 percent increase in funding, to $76 million, for environmental education and youth organizing (or roughly 7 percent of EGA members' grantmaking). But gaps remain. We continue to see too few dollars going to environmental justice, which saw one of the largest drops in funding during the Great Recession and in 2010 received less than 2 percent of EGA member grant dollars.

We are also reaching out to new constituencies. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan recently helped EGA members begin to rethink community resilience at the city level. And our board has committed to engaging us globally -- a direction that is both selfish and selfless. As former President Bill Clinton once said: in helping others and the planet, we truly are helping ourselves.

So this Earth Day, let's think back to when we were kids and making our first connection to the outdoors -- a connection that most of us cherish deeply. And let's commit to matching the vigor of our outreach and advocacy efforts to the intensity of the extreme weather events that seem to have become the "new normal."

-- Rachel Leon

Boston Foundation Statement on Marathon Attack

The Boston Foundation issued the following statement this morning in reaction to the attack on the Boston Marathon on Monday afternoon:

Yesterday at 2: 50 p.m., our community was torn apart by an act of unspeakable cowardice and evil. Today, we join our neighbors, our community, and friends across the nation and the world not only in grief, but in our determination to overcome this heinous crime. All of us at the Boston Foundation wish to express our sympathies and support to all those directly affected by the attack, and pledge to provide short- and long-term support to the community as we all seek to recover and heal.

We continue to be in touch with state and local officials as well as other members of the nonprofit and philanthropic community, as we develop our immediate and longer-term efforts to support our community in this time of need.

Throughout its history, the people of the City of Boston have demonstrated their resilience and strength in times of crisis -- and we have seen those acts of courage and heroism already in the past day. Boston is our home, and for nearly 100 years we have been honored to play a role in strengthening and supporting this community. Together, we can all take comfort in the knowledge that we can and will work together as a community to lift up the victims of this tragedy, ease their suffering and support each other in this challenging time.

The foundation is currently gathering information on scheduled events for the public in tribute to those harmed by the attack and is posting those on its Web site, tbf.org. It will issue more statements on its plans as they are finalized.

Philanthropy and Global Development: When Worlds Collide

(Jeff Falkenstein is vice president of data architecture at the Foundation Center. In October, he wrote about the challenges of gathering foundation grants data in a timely fashion.)

Earlier this month I had the good fortune to join policy makers, academics, and leaders from civil society and the private sector in Paris at the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development's (OECD) annual Global Forum on Development. (For those who haven't heard of it, the OECD works with governments, multilateral agencies, and bilateral agencies to better understand global trade and investment flows; the drivers of economic, social, and environmental change; and what can be done to address urgent global development problems. It then builds on that work to predict future trends in global trade and development.)

In the past, forum attendees typically discussed the challenges and opportunities presented by efforts to alleviate poverty around the globe. This year, however, the focus was on the progress made over the past decade in meeting the UN's Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) -- and on jumpstarting a dialogue about new challenges in a post-2015 world.

It was clear from reports presented at the meeting that, two years from their original 2015 target date, the MDGs are already a success. Poverty rates have declined globally. Access to health care has improved. The number of deaths of children under the age of 5 has fallen, to 7 million in 2011, down from 12 million in 1990. The number of AIDS-related deaths also has fallen, to 1.7 million in 2011, down from 2.3 million in 2005. Thanks to the MDGs, well-designed and coordinated social programs are producing a wide range of positive outcomes, including improved nutrition and food security and higher rates of school enrollment.

Despite this progress, forum attendees made it clear that challenges remain. The income gap between the poorest and wealthiest individuals continues to widen, while acute poverty afflicts tens of millions of people around the world. In sub-Saharan Africa, half the population still lives on less than $1.25 a day. Access to basic services remains a global challenge; close to 2.4 billion people around the world go without proper sanitation facilities, while 1.1 billion people lack access to clean drinking water. Meanwhile, the economic growth of the last twenty years has not translated into job creation. The number of informal, poor-quality jobs remains high in many developing countries, with young people particularly affected. In Africa and the Middle East, young people comprise 60 percent of the unemployed.

Somewhat lost among the good news is the fact that development aid globally fell some 4 percent in 2012, following a 2 percent decline in 2011. There has also been a noticeable shift in aid allocations from the LDCs (i.e., the poorest countries) toward middle-income countries. For example, bilateral aid to sub-Saharan Africa totaled $26.2 billion in 2012, a year-over-year decline of nearly 8 percent.

As already thread-bare social safety nets become more frayed, the global development sector is looking to the private sector to pick up the slack, leading many to question whether that's an appropriate role for foundations -- and whether, collectively, they have the resources to do so. After all, the majority of foundations in the U.S. are independent or family foundations that focus their grantmaking in two or three areas of interest and/or in a specific geographic region. Similarly, corporate foundations tend to fund efforts in communities where they have employees and facilities, while community foundations, by definition, target local geographic areas. Outside the U.S., foundations tend to use their resources to operate their own programs and often look more like grantseeking public charities than private foundations.

The U.S. foundation at the epicenter of global development work is the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the scope and scale of its work has tended to reinforce the notion that foundations are the answer to shortfalls in global development assistance. In the global health field, for example, the Gates Foundation is the third largest donor after the government of the United States and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

The level at which Gates supports global health work is an exception, however, not the rule. And while Heather Grady, vice president for foundation initiatives at the Rockefeller Foundation, noted in her plenary remarks that Rockefeller itself has been an important driver and supporter of multi-stakeholder engagement with global development issues over its hundred-year history -- and while many other foundations are active in the global arena -- Gates is by far the biggest player.

So the question remains: If the global development community is eager to increase its engagement with private foundations, how do we bring more foundations to the global development table? And for those foundations already at the table, how can they better coordinate with other actors in the global development space?

I'm happy to report that a number of initiatives to do just that are under way. In an effort to increase communication among various stakeholders in global development work, the OECD and United Nations Development Programme created the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-Operation to support and monitor development cooperation and "ensure it achieves the maximum impact in eradicating poverty and building better lives." To date, the partnership has brought 160 countries and 45 organizations together around a set of principles that it hopes will form the basis for effective development cooperation going forward.

In addition, UNDP, the UN's Economic and Social Council, the Worldwide Initiative for Grantmaker Support (WINGS), and OECD's netFWD initiative are actively engaged in helping the global philanthropic community understand how it can support development efforts and, with an eye to the future, are working to scale collaboration among philanthropic organizations, governments, and multilateral agencies. To that end, feedback from an ongoing e-discussion will feed into a special policy dialogue on "The role of philanthropic organizations in the post-2015 setting" on April 23 at the United Nations in New York.

The Foundation Center, too, is doing its part to increase the engagement of foundations with the global development sector. Through our partnerships with OECD, Development Gateway, and the World Bank, as well as through the development of Web portals like WASHfunders, the center is helping to shed light on the intersection of global development and philanthropy and creating greater understanding of those fields among governments and foundations.

I'll be attending the event at the UN on the 23rd and will be interested to see which foundations are represented there. In the meantime, I'd love to hear your thoughts about whether private foundations should think of themselves as part of the global development community? And if not, why not?

-- Jeff Falkenstein

Weekend Link Roundup (April 13-14, 2013)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Fundraising

Future Fundraising Now blogger Jeff Brooks says to forget about donor fatigue; what's really happening is fundraiser fatigue.

Health

This might be "shaping up as the year of crowdfunding medical needs," writes Lucy Bernholz on her Philanthropy 2173 blog. "These medical crowdfunding site are fascinating to me. In many ways, they are returning us to the time before national health services and social security, when turning to one's community for financial assistance with medical needs or college costs was the norm."

Impact/Effectiveness

Over at Forbes, Jessica Joseph, associate director of innovation at the Rockefeller Foundation, explains how social impact bonds "went from concept to execution faster than any other social innovation [in years]."

That may be, writes Kyle McKay, a policy analyst with the Maryland General Assembly, on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog. But while SIBs are interesting as "endeavors in financial creativity," their risks for cash-strapped governments and nonprofits may outweigh their benefits.

The Social Progress Index launched this week, and Ben Baumberg, a lecturer in sociology and social policy at the University of Kent in the UK, has some really interesting thoughts about what the folks behind the index have done well -- and could do better.

Journalism

The Nonprofit Quarterly's Rick Cohen recaps a panel discussion from the Council on Foundations' annual conference that looked at the future of journalism and why it matters to philanthropy. "[I]f there was an overwhelming message [from] the panel," writes Cohen, "it was [the Center for Investigative Reporting's Robert] Rosenthal's contention that funders have to understand a new generation of journalists motivated by creative ways of storytelling."

Philanthropy

In a nice profile on the Bridgespan Group's Give Smart site, actor, philanthropist, and Parkinson's sufferer Michael J. Fox shares four key lessons he has learned from his philanthropic work: involve beneficiaries in guiding your philanthropy; pinpoint the role your philanthropy can play in adding value to existing efforts; bring expertise in-house and use it to drive change; be pragmatic and urgent in your drive to get results.

Regulation/Oversight

GuideStar president and CEO Jacob Harold says the provision included in the White House's FY2014 budget that all nonprofits file their tax forms digitally and that the government make that data available in structured machine-readable form is a potential game-changer. "The nonprofit sector (and GuideStar in particular) has had to invest immense resources in aggregating, organizing, and presenting financial information from the Form 990," writes Harold. And the changes in the 2014 budget

could free up those resources and let us focus on a set of even more important questions: What are nonprofits accomplishing in their communities? What can we learn from their stakeholders? How can the nonprofit community work with government and business for a better world?"

There's no doubt that if these changes pass, they will erode some parts of GuideStar's business model. That's OK. In fact, that's great. The world is changing quickly, and we're ready for it...."

Social Media

On her About.com blog, Joanne Fritz announces the winners of the 2013 DoGooder Video Awards.

And Beth Kanter has some advice for senior nonprofit leaders looking to make time in their busy schedules for online media. Among other things, writes Kanter, they need to get started with small steps, understand the benefits of their efforts to their organizations as well as professionally, and be able to connect any online social activity to what they're already doing.

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a good week!

-- The Editors

U.S. Should Follow California's Lead on Immigration

(Ira S. Hirschfield is president of the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund. Robert K. Ross, MD, is president and chief executive officer of the California Endowment. And Timothy P. Silard is president of the Rosenberg Foundation.)

Equality of opportunity is a fundamentally American value. Throughout our history, we have taken important steps to make our country more equal and to bring opportunity to groups that were denied it in the past.

Today, with national leaders debating plans to reform America's broken immigration system, we may soon be taking the next step in this continuing journey. Getting reform right means keeping our core values front and center, and Californians are showing the way forward.

First, more about the problem. More than 11 million immigrants in this country (including nearly three million in California alone) are living in the shadows. Their invisibility and fear of deportation makes them vulnerable to exploitation at work, reluctant to report crimes or to participate in their communities, and hesitant to get health care when they and their families need it.

This situation is not good for anyone. The American economy and our society are better and stronger when everyone has an opportunity to participate. Having a permanent underclass of aspiring Americans who do not have the same rights as everyone else, and who cannot speak up for their interests without putting themselves and their families at risk, demeans our democracy and diminishes our values.

That is why federal immigration reform is so important. As Washington continues down the path to creating a better, more humane, and more efficient immigration process, it can learn a lot from what's happening in California. In recent years, our state has made important strides in bringing the values of equality and inclusiveness into the immigration debate.

Today, a decisive majority of Californians favor inclusive immigration policies that would allow undocumented people to stay in this country and eventually earn full citizenship rights. In addition, we were one of the first states to approve a law enabling the children of undocumented parents to have the same access to higher education as other young people. The California Dream Act became a model for other states and an inspiration for President Obama's program that allows young undocumented immigrants to apply for temporary work permits and a reprieve from deportation.

California is leading the way on these issues because it is home to one in four U.S. immigrants, as well as many heroic organizations that are advancing the cause of immigrant rights. Our three foundations are excited to be working with many of these organizations. Since we began supporting the movement for federal immigration reform years ago, we have had a front-row view of how nonprofit advocates across California have come together to educate people about the need for action on this issue at all levels. In addition, we have had the opportunity to work with other funders across the state to make sure that our combined support is having the greatest possible impact on the ability of the immigrant rights movement to achieve its goals.

And now, California advocates are taking the lead in defining the values that should drive the national immigration debate. Last month, in an effort coordinated by the California Immigrant Policy Center and the National Immigration Law Center -- two organizations that our foundations support -- more than one hundred leading civil rights and immigrant rights organizations outlined a set of core principles for reform.

These principles point the way to an inclusive immigration system that lives up to American values. Among the key principles these diverse groups recommend to national policy makers are:

• Creating a road to citizenship for 11 million new Americans that does not include long waiting periods or roadblocks.
• Protecting family unity for all immigrants, regardless of country of origin, race, religion, gender, age and sexual orientation.
• Guaranteeing access to health care for all residents.
• Protecting the inherent dignity and equal rights of all people by ending unjust detentions and deportation and other unfair treatment of immigrants.

The U.S. immigration system should reflect U.S. values. Lawmakers in Washington can learn a lot from California's experience. Let's hope they pay attention to the people and organizations that are working to make sure this state -- home to so many immigrants -- can become a place where they feel welcome and safe, are able to come out of the shadows, and can continue to contribute in positive ways to the economy and society.

-- Ira S. Hirschfield, Robert K. Ross, MD, and Timothy P. Silard

Digital Tools and Apps: A 'Flip' Chat With Harish Bhandari, Robin Hood Foundation

(The video below was recorded as part of our "Flip" chat series of conversations with thought leaders in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors. You can check out other videos in the series here, including our previous chat with Anika Rahman, president and CEO of the Ms. Foundation for Women.) 

If your organization thinks it doesn't have the time or money to invest in online tools like Twitter, it is "missing the boat," says Harish Bhandari, director of digital engagement and innovation at the Robin Hood Foundation. Robin Hood and Bhandari saw the benefits of digital media firsthand after Superstorm Sandy smashed into the Jersey shore in late October. After the storm, the New York City-based charity organized a benefit concert to raise funds for relief and recovery efforts in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut -- a concert that, thanks in part to the organization's use of social media to promote it, turned out to be the most successful benefit concert ever.

Indeed, says Bhandari, by not engaging with donors and other audiences online, nonprofits are missing out on connecting with a demographic that is passionate about social change and in a position to be "really loyal" over a long period of time. 

During a sit-down with PND, Bhandari, who spoke at a recent 501 Tech NYC event dedicated to "visual storytelling" (check out Noland Hoshino's recap here), discussed Robin Hood's efforts to engage potential supporters after Sandy, explained Robin Hood's approach to social networking, and shared some thoughts about newer mobile apps like Instagram and Vine.

(If you're reading this in an e-mail, click here.)

 (Running time: 5 minutes, 13 seconds)

What do you think? Is your organization spending money and time on social networks it can engage on behalf of its mission? Is it using newer mobile apps like Instagram and Vine? And what has it learned in the process? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

-- Regina Mahone

Protecting Nature Is the Smartest Investment We Can Make

(Mark Tercek is president and CEO of the Nature Conservancy and co-author of the book Nature's Fortune: How Business and Society Thrive by Investing in Nature).

In my work for the Nature Conservancy, I think a lot about how we can do more. How can we unlock new sources of capital, enlist more people to support our cause, and develop new alliances that will enable us to conserve nature at a scale never before achieved?

In my view, the answer is in putting ourselves in others' shoes -- whether those of a sugarcane grower in Colombia, a trawl fisher in California, or the executive of a global manufacturing company -- and focusing on why nature is important and valuable to them.

A simple but elegant solution to an environmental challenge in Colombia demonstrates this approach -- an approach that is leading to exciting new ways of structuring, funding, and discussing environmental nonprofit interventions.

The Project

In October 2011 I met with a group of sugarcane growers in Bogota, Colombia. They were warm and gracious hosts, affable dinner companions, and extremely proud of their beautiful lands and their booming business. They didn't see the world exactly the same way I do and they certainly didn't think of themselves as environmentalists. But they did agree with me on a simple point -- it makes great sense to invest in nature to protect water supplies.

Over the past decade, Colombia's sugarcane growers have become increasingly concerned about water supply in the Cauca Valley, situated near the country's Pacific coast and one of the richest cane-growing regions in the world. The farmers there need abundant water to irrigate their enormous fields.

The solution we arrived at together: protect the water supply by protecting the forested watersheds that feed the Cauca River.

Through an investment strategy called a water fund, cane growers, mill owners, and other water users in the region voluntarily pay into a fund reserved for forest conservation upstream. The idea is simple. Farmers, mill operators, and other businesses save money by preempting the need for more costly water treatment activities. Water resources are kept healthy and flowing for local communities. And healthy natural systems provide habitat for wildlife.

The Takeaways

As we are learning in places like Colombia, investments in "green infrastructure" or "natural capital" can produce very attractive returns. But the benefits of the approach go far beyond individual project sites.

Conservationists have long been dependent on and grateful for the help of generous philanthropists, foundations, and individual supporters. The support of such donors remains vital -- we would be nowhere without their generosity and passion. But we need even more people and resources on our side. If we can persuade government and business leaders that investing in nature will secure important benefits, we should be able to provide a powerful new source of capital for conservation.

Second, many people today are disconnected from nature and don't understand why they should care about protecting it. But these same people do care about what they need to survive and thrive -- clean water and air, fertile soil, timber to build homes, protection from floods and other natural hazards. Natural capital can be a powerful concept for spreading the word on why everyone should care about saving nature.

Third, environmentalists -- however well-intentioned -- often lecture society on what it "should" or "shouldn't" do. As a result, we have alienated potential allies. By focusing on the value of nature, we can shift the dialogue from hectoring lecture to win-win discussion. For example, instead of telling businesses not to pollute, isn't it more effective to demonstrate a lower-cost way of obtaining the clean water that sustains their bottom line?

Finally, as we are seeing in places like Colombia, relatively small philanthropic investments in natural capital can catalyze much larger investments by the beneficiaries of a project -- in some cases, even leading to a self-sustaining flow of conservation funding. For philanthropists seeking to maximize the impact of their funding, investing in natural capital makes compelling sense.

By making the connection between nature and basic human and business needs, conservation becomes more meaningful to millions of people around the globe. Natural capital investment won't solve all our environmental challenges. But when it does, the benefits will be many -- from new sources of capital, to more widespread support and constructive dialogue, to higher returns on philanthropic donations and gifts.

-- Mark Tercek

Dispatch From the Frontlines: Council on Foundations' 2013 Annual Conference

(Long-time PhilanTopic contributor Michael Seltzer is a trustee of EMpower-the Emerging Markets Foundation and a distinguished lecturer at the Baruch College School of Public Affairs of the City University of New York. He filed this report earlier today from Chicago, site of the Council on Foundation's 2013 annual conference.)

Each year, several thousand grantmakers from around the globe come together at the Council on Foundations' annual meeting to learn, discuss, and network. This week, more than 1,200 donors from 47 states and 17 countries have gathered here in Chicago. Reflective, perhaps, of a longer-term shift in wealth accumulation and the creation of new foundations, the states/regions with the greatest representation here are (host state) Illinois, California, New York, and Washington, D.C., while Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Great Britain top the list of countries represented at the conference. Another indicator of the changing composition of the field is evident in the large number of new faces. Take it from this philanthropy veteran, a new generation of grantmakers has arrived.

Paul Ylvisaker, the late Ford Foundation officer and a mentor to many veteran foundation leaders, once described foundations as "the passing lane" on the highway to a better world. Entrance ramps to that highway were quite evident in the opening sessions of this week's gathering.

On Saturday, at the annual gathering of the Association of Black Foundation Executives, Maya Wiley, founder and president of the Center for Social Inclusion, focused her remarks on the opportunities available to philanthropy to support solutions to the challenges facing the soon-to-be "majority minority" population in America: people of color. Wiley highlighted examples of grassroots leaders across the country who are working to implement innovative public policies in their communities, cities, and states -- and, through a combination of vision, effective community organizing, and thought leadership, are succeeding in mitigating the structural barriers that for too long have denied access to equal opportunity for people of color, women, and others.

The next day, at the opening plenary (which was moderated by Joyce Foundation president Ellen Alberding), "The Three Mayors” -- Michael Nutter of Philadelphia, Mitch Landrieu of New Orleans, and Rahm Emanuel of Chicago -- echoed Wiley’s message that social change is not only within our reach, it is happening under our noses. Each painfully recounted how alienated teenagers and young men today have turned to guns rather than yesterday's fistfights to settle their disputes, creating a "plague" of gun-related violence in our cities' African-American neighborhoods. But the three also outlined a number of strategies implemented by their respective administrations that, so far in 2013, have proven to be effective in reducing gun-related homicides and shootings.

While the mayors' remarks resonated with those in attendance, conference attendees will long remember the stirring musical performance turned in by the Soul Children of Chicago. The organization -- which uses music to motivate young people to have faith in themselves, each other, and God -- is just one example (albeit an especially inspiring one) of a grantmaker-supported organization that is actually helping African-American youth succeed in life.

Hope and inspiration. It's been a theme of the conference so far, and it reminds me of what philanthropy can accomplish when it seeks out and supports the "possibilists," a term popularized by UC-Berkeley professor John Powell. Indeed, one antidote to the disgust created by what passes for political discourse these days can be found in the uplifting stories told by changemakers on the ground who are crafting actual solutions to real problems and urging others to get involved. Because, as John Powell might say, if we stand together, we can accomplish pretty much anything.

-- Michael Seltzer

Introducing the 'Open Places' Initiative

(Kenneth H. Zimmerman is director of U.S. programs for the Open Society Foundations. The post originally appeared on the OSF's Voices blog.)

Across the United States, local communities face an ever more challenging environment: dramatic shifts in federal and state funding, advances in technology, and large-scale demographic change. Each of these affects how low-income communities and communities of color are able to access political, economic, and civic opportunities. In response to these shifts, the Open Society Foundations is launching a new effort, the Open Places Initiative, to advance the ability of local communities to achieve equal opportunity and promote vibrant democratic practices.

As part of the initiative, planning grants of roughly $100,000 each have been awarded to eight sites. The awards will enable an assortment of nonprofits in each of these places to plan how to create sustainable change in areas such as effective and accountable government, civic engagement, criminal justice reform, and equal educational opportunity.

In late 2013, OSF will award up to five of these sites long-term implementation grants of up to $1 million a year, for a minimum of three years -- and, potentially, a full decade.

The eight sites selected to receive grants are Albuquerque, New Mexico; Buffalo, New York; Denver, Colorado; Jackson, Mississippi; Louisville, Kentucky; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; San Diego, California; and Puerto Rico. We are pleased with the geographic diversity of these sites as well as the diversity of communities represented.

The Open Places Initiative begins with the premise that local knowledge and assets are fundamental to the creation of inclusive and open places. Yet, local conditions are changing significantly. Local governments face unprecedented demands due to budget constraints, and the nonprofit sector is facing significant funding challenges. At the same time, increased access to information is transforming community engagement on pressing issues. Nonprofit organizations, government agencies, and civic groups need to adapt to the new circumstances. One of the primary goals of the initiative is to increase the ability of each place to extend beyond current agendas, strategies, and capabilities.

The initiative draws on our experience with our urban social justice laboratory, OSI-Baltimore, which tests the effectiveness of various place-based strategies to address some of the biggest challenges facing Baltimore and other urban centers in the U.S. We are also drawing on the experience of other foundations and public-sector efforts, and look forward to collaborating with them going forward.

During the next few months, each site will select its specific areas of focus in response to pressing local priorities -- and, in each case, will incorporate multiple issues and tools into its planning.

While the sites are just now beginning the planning process, they have already noted some areas of focus. In addition to increasing local civic capacity to bring about long-term change, the preliminary goals of the different projects include advancing fair and inclusive economic development and fiscal policy, integrating immigrants into the larger community, reducing rates of incarceration, helping high school students graduate in greater numbers, addressing the enduring impact of residential segregation, and creating pathways to the middle class for low-wage workers.

We anticipate the initiative will enable the collaborations to identify and address needed skills and capacities, effectively access national and local resources, and further develop the approaches needed to address complex issues. In doing so, the Open Places sites will successfully develop more innovative and coordinated approaches to these and other challenges over the long term. While local equity and justice issues are likely to vary over time, what will remain constant is the need to bring together different groups -- residents, business leaders, state and local officials, nonprofits -- to mobilize and advance needed reform.

We are committed to supporting the Open Places sites as they develop and refine their approaches to making lasting and positive change. In addition to financial resources, we will be providing technical assistance as well as facilitating connections among sites and introductions with leading national organizations and institutions.

We heartily congratulate the groups that won planning grants. We look forward to gleaning lessons from the work that comes out of the initiative for replication in other cities, regions, and states, and believe that work has tremendous potential to help all of us chart a new course for our cities and regions.

-- Kenneth Zimmerman

Weekend Link Roundup (April 6-7, 2013)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Advocacy

On NCRP's Keeping a Close Eye blog, Rosenberg Foundation president Tim Silard discusses the foundation's recent decision to increase its payout this year to 6.1 percent to help advance immigration reform. "Our hope," writes Silard, "is that this major step by a mid-sized foundation can go a long way toward encouraging more of us in philanthropy to stretch our funding even further...to respond to this unique window of opportunity."

Communications

In a post on the Council on Foundation's Re: Philanthropy blog, Rita Soronen, president and CEO of the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, reminds us why storytelling matters. Indeed, it is "at the heart of all emotions," writes Soronen. "And nonprofits simply must use communications -- storytelling -- as a very important tactic to steward current donors and secure new funders."

Fundraising

Jeff Brooks, author of the Fundraiser's Guide to Irresistible Communications, explains that fundraising is "a two-way conversation" and if you don't know that, you're missing an opportunity to engage your donors in a real way.

Impact/Effectiveness

Center for Effective Philanthropy president Phil Buchanan considers the role of foundations in the emerging impact investing space. Writes Buchanan:

In many of the accounts heralding impact investing as the potential solution to the world's ills, foundations, with their more than $300 billion in assets, are featured prominently. They are portrayed as leaders, or likely leaders, in this new realm....

Clearly, there are some major foundations that have taken significant and important steps into impact investing, such as the W.K. Kellogg Foundation (see CEO Sterling Speirn's excellent post on Kellogg’s experience for the CEP Blog) and the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. But, beyond a handful of much discussed examples, it is unclear how much of the talk about impact investing is just that -- talk -- and how much is reflected in actual practice....

Buchanan goes on to explain that he has heard "many foundation CEOs and board members eschew the idea that they'd ever seek anything other than maximum returns for their foundations' endowments." To that end, Buchanan writes, more research needs to be done "to bring the prevalence of this practice into focus."

Can't get enough of the impact/metrics debate? The Nonprofit Quarterly kicks it up a notch with a great point/counterpoint debate featuring an entertaining post ("Charity Navigator 3.0: The Empirical Empire’s Death Star?") by William Schambra, director of the Hudson Institute's Bradley Center for Philanthropy and Civic Renewal, and an equally sharp rebuttal ("Debating the Realities of Ranking Charities") from CN's own Ken Berger.

International Development

Ariel Schwartz, a senior editor at Fast Company's Co.Exist operation, looks at four ideas that Melinda Gates believes will drive the next wave of advances for people in the developing world: M-Pesa, a mobile money system; Digital Green, an organization that helps farmers in India and South Asia create educational videos for other farmers; contraception education and access; and local development.

Nonprofit Management

On the Valcourt Group blog, Jim Jewell looks at seven reasons why nonprofits often fail or flounder.

Regulation/Oversight

The Charitable Giving Coalition (CGC), a group of sixty nonprofits that includes the Association of Fundraising Professionals and Independent Sector, has launched a new Web site, ProtectGiving.org, to help preserve and protect the charitable tax deduction in its current form. Visitors to the site will find a variety of resources (reports, fact sheet, FAQ) designed to raise awareness about the importance of charitable giving in America, examples of the impact nonprofits make in our communities, and a "Take Action" section that includes talking points, a message and media guide, and op-ed and elected official letter templates.

Social Entrepreneurship

Writing on the Gates Foundation's Impatient Optimists blog, GOOD magazine's Mary Slosson announces the launch of the Global Citizenship Project, which will offer five global innovators each a "pop-up fellowship to elevate and expand their work in order to create more equitable and successful neighborhoods."

Social Media

Beth Kanter urges nonprofit leaders to embrace social media -- and "the benefits of effective social media integration that personalizes your organization’s brand with the voice of its leader" -- by making time for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other tools on a regular basis. As a start, Kanter suggests that execs and senior managers start by asking their communications teams:

• What do you spend time doing now that you could do better via social?
• What other executive directors that you respect, follow, or feel inspired by are using social creatively?
• What are your strengths and preferences and what is the best match in terms of social channels?
• How will social improve things you already KNOW and value

Citing the experience of Udi Ofer, executive director of the New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Kanter points out that Twitter not only enables Ofer to comment "on his organization's most important cases and issues," but also to display his human side and inject "warmth into the organization."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a good week!

-- The Editors

Blinded By the 'Sophisticated Donor'?

(Derrick Feldmann is CEO of Achieve, an Indianapolis-based creative fundraising agency. In his last post, he wrote about the importance of "usability" to the online fundraising experience.)

When I started in fundraising, I had almost no experience asking for money. To compensate, I read lots of articles and books about the different approaches and techniques used by successful fundraisers. As I immersed myself in their ways, I started to pay particular attention to an approach that emphasized the importance of communicating to donors the impact their gifts were helping to create.

Many years later, as the head of national fundraising for a K-12 education program, I spent a good deal of my time seeking support from some of the biggest foundations and corporations in the country. My "ask" in these situations invariably included what I thought was a powerful and persuasive presentation that demonstrated to grantmakers how a grant would transform the lives of a certain number of students and ultimately improve a community. Every time I gave my presentation, I would see heads nodding and would sigh with relief, knowing that those present "got it." Of course, not every presentation resulted in financial support, but even when they didn't, I usually made new friends who understood and liked what we were doing and were willing to help us build our network of supporters.

I used this method, with its focus on impact, in every fundraising solicitation I made. And I taught my staff to do the same.

One day, a member of the board who planned to ask a friend to donate to our organization before the end of the year called me to review our solicitation script. But as I walked him through it, I could tell something was wrong. He didn't say anything after I finished, but he clearly was uncomfortable. A week or so later, he called me to report on the meeting and let slip that he hadn't said any of the things to his friend I'd told him to say. When I asked why, he said, "I've known my friend a long time. And I know the only thing that really matters to him is my trust in this organization and the people who run it. I could've talked about all that impact stuff, but it wouldn't have made a difference. So I just told him why I support you and asked him to consider making a gift."

I told him I appreciated his honesty and filed it away as one person -- albeit an important one! -- who made a spur-of-the-moment decision.

A couple of months later, I attended a gala event for an organization that a friend served as a board member. Now, I have to admit that attending a fundraising event for another organization is not high on my list of things to do. But I wanted to help my friend.

So I watched as individuals schmoozed, bid on auction items, and generally enjoyed themselves. Then it was time for the "fund the need" portion of the evening, during which everyone in attendance was asked to support the cause by donating whatever they could. As I sat there, my wife (a fundraiser in a former life) turned to me and told me to get out our credit card. I hesitated, then asked, "Why?" Because, she said, it was important to our friend. "How do you know our gift will make a difference?" I replied. "Stop being cheap," she said.

Then it hit me. Not everyone is a "sophisticated" donor. Not everyone is a professional fundraiser or works for a foundation or corporate giving program. In fact, very few people do. And people who don't seldom give to a charitable cause or organization because they're looking to achieve impact or based on a chart of performance metrics; they give because it makes them feel good, or because it's a worthy cause, or because, like me, they want to help a friend.

As professional fundraisers, we tend to align our methods and appeals with the needs of sophisticated donors. Why? Because they have money to give and it's what they expect. But in doing so, we sometimes forget about the people who give because it makes them feel good or because they like our mission, our leadership, or the story we have to tell.

What's a fundraiser to do? Start by thinking about your sophisticated donors and how they may be influencing, subtly or otherwise, your overall fundraising approach:

Board Members
Board members, especially good ones, are by definition sophisticated. They tend to be accomplished individuals who are interested in your work and are more than happy to sit through presentations and engage in serious discussions about all aspects of that work. Since most are expected to dig into their own pockets to support your organization, they also tend to have a keen and very personal interest in your fundraising results. As such, they can exert a disproportionate and even damaging influence on those results. As I like to say to the board members with whom I work, you are not the target audience of an organization's fundraising appeals; the general public is.

Foundations
Given the number of organizations seeking their support, foundations really do have limited resources. Which is why many of them, especially larger ones, evaluate their grant investments on a regular basis to identify high-performing nonprofits with a proven ability to execute. They also are staffed (again, the larger ones) with program officers who have particular agendas of their own. Many nonprofits seeking foundation support get into trouble when, against their better judgment, they agree to alter, expand, or create programs to serve a foundation's goals rather than their own.

Major Donors
Some fundraisers will try to replicate the conversations they have with major donors when "pitching" a member of the general public. That almost never works, for obvious reasons: Jane Doe doesn't have the resources, philanthropic experience, or big-picture mindset that a major donor typically has. Even more problematic is trying to approach a potential $1,000 donor in the same way you might approach a $100,000 donor. Don't assume the former (or even the latter) cares about organizational effectiveness or is familiar with any of the well-known charity rating systems out there. Indeed, studies show that fewer than 22 percent of all donors will check a charity's ratings before making a gift.

Don't get me wrong: Sophisticated donors and the fundraising approaches that resonate with them are important and should be reviewed and revised on a regular basis. But development professionals also need to realize that not every donor is willing to invest as much time and thought in their giving as are wealthy individuals and big grantmaking organizations. If you remain mindful of that fact and allocate your resources accordingly, I'm pretty confident you'll soon realize improved returns on your investment in fundraising.

-- Derrick Feldmann

Most Popular PhilanTopic Posts (March 2013)

It's the first day of April, which means it's time to look back at the most popular posts on PhilanTopic in March:

• Welcome to the New World of Fundraising (Dave Boyce)
• 'How Do I General Support Thee, Let Me Count the Ways!' (Brad Smith)
• Closing the Achievement Gap for African-American Males: An Economic Imperative (Angela Glover Blackwell)
• Leveraging Momentum in the Movement to End Violence Against Girls and Women (Jennifer Buffett)
• Expanding Our View of Pathways to Grow Impact (Kathleen Enright)

What have you read/watched/listened to lately that you liked and would recommend? Use the comments section to share with our readers....

Philanthropy? I’m Going Fishing!

(Bradford K. Smith is the president of the Foundation Center. In his last post, he wrote about the linguistic creativity of funders who award general operating support.)

April 1 is the most important day of the year on my calendar, and not because it's April Fools' Day. No, April 1 is the opening day of trout fishing season here in New York State -- and if it's like past opening days, it will be icily cold, wet, and unproductive, with my chances of actually catching one of those wily trout almost zero. Still, I'll be out there -- early -- because trout fishing is my form of meditation, the one thing I do that takes my thoughts as far away from work as possible, to nowhere.

Given that my work is the business of philanthropy, I thought I'd share a list of the things I will NOT be thinking about while I am, as author John Gierach puts it, "standing in a river waving a stick." Here goes:

Is philanthropy effective?
Is philanthropy efficient?
Is philanthropy strategic?
Is philanthropy catalytic?
Is philanthropy innovative?
Is philanthropy transparent enough?
Is philanthropy too transparent?
Does the Foundation Center's data capture the uniqueness of each foundation?
Will the foundation world ever agree on data standards?
What is the difference between an outcome and an output?
Is there too little collaboration among philanthropy "infrastructure" groups?
Is there too little collaboration among foundations?
Is limiting the lifespan of a foundation better than establishing a foundation in perpetuity?
Is perpetuity better than limiting the lifespan of a foundation?
Who will be the next president of the Kellogg Foundation?
Who will be the next president of the Ford Foundation?
Who will be the next president of the (fill in the blank) Foundation?
Is there a viable business model for open source, open data, open anything?
Can philanthropy keep up with technological change?

These concerns and many others will still be percolating on April 2 when I return to the office -- as they are likely to be for months and years to come. So taking a day off from thinking about them won't be the worst thing I've ever done -- in fact, it might even lead to a sudden insight or two, in a Zen sort of way.

Of course, philanthropy itself won't be far away. As I was writing this post, I couldn't resist doing a quick search of Foundation Directory Online, and, lo and behold, I turned up more than 900 grants made by U.S. foundations that in some way involve "trout." The biggest beneficiary was Trout Unlimited, which received awards ranging from a minnow-like $1,000 to a real whopper of a grant, some $4.275 million, from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation in support of its "Western Water and Public Lands Program." My favorite, however, was one from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust to Evergreen State College "to study needle-less methods for delivering gene-based vaccines to rainbow trout."

So, though April 1 will officially be a day of "no-mind" for me, I am fully aware that it's foundations and individual donors, working with nonprofits, local communities and advocates, and dedicated state conservation officials, that enable iridescent trout like the one pictured above to survive and thrive in fragile public streams less than two hours from the bustle and grime of New York City. It's also a reminder of the many ways in which the work of foundations contributes to the public good.

-- Brad Smith

Weekend Link Roundup (March 30-31, 2013)

Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....

Black Male Achievement

Here on PhilanTopic, the Open Society Foundation's Shawn Dove, whom we spoke with back in December, announces the launch of BMAfunders.org, a Web portal designed to "facilitate engagement, collaboration, and strategic decision making among funders, nonprofits, and policy makers working to promote positive outcomes for black men and boys in America."

Communications

In a guest post on Kivi Leroux Miller's Nonprofit Communications Blog, Jen Charney, communication manager at the Save the Redwoods League, explains how the organization redesigned its Web site to attract more "uniques" and increase online donations and e-mail subscribers.

Environment

Environmental "cause days" such as Earth Day are great, but what about the other 360+ days of the year, asks Geoff Livingston, author of Welcome to the Fifth Estate, in a recent post on his blog.  "If our culture intends to adapt to climate change," writes Livingston, "our efforts need to increase. First of all, let's not poo-poo the small acts taken. Instead, let's build upon them...."

Impact/Effectiveness

On the Skoll World Forum Up for Debate blog, Darin McKeever, deputy director of the Charitable Sector, Global Policy & Advocacy program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, asks the important question: "How might we accelerate [the] conversation about Big Data into one about Big Information, Big Knowledge, and Big Wisdom?"

Philanthropy

The excellent "forum" feature in the March/April issue of the Boston Review looks at the pros and cons of private philanthropy in America. With a lead essay by Stanford University professor Rob Reich, who argues that private foundations are plutocratic by nature, the package includes essays in response from Paul Brest, Rick Cohen, Pablo Eisenberg, Stanley N. Katz, Larry Kramer, Gara LaMarche, and Robert K. Ross, among others. Highly recommended.

Writing on her Philanthropy 2173 blog, Lucy Bernholz wonders whether proposals submitted to foundation-funded open challenges could serve a larger purpose. "For example, if you were trying to understand the 'state' of community information efforts, would the applications to the Knight News Challenge be a useful source of data in terms of understanding what people out in the world think is important," asks Bernholz. "Do you know anyone who has looked at them as such?"

GiveWell's Holden Karnofsky explains why his organization recommends so few charities, and the concept behind the GiveWell approach. "We recommend few charities by design, because we see ourselves as a 'finder of great giving opportunities’ rather than a 'charity evaluator,'" writes Karnofsky. "In other words, we're not seeking to classify large numbers of charities as 'good' or 'bad'; our mission is solely to identify, and thoroughly investigate, the best."

Social Justice

On the Huffington Post, Janell Ross discusses findings from The American Non-Dilemma: Racial Inequality Without Racism, a new book written by Rutgers University professor Nancy DiTomaso and published by the Russell Sage Foundation. Based on DiTomaso's research, writes Ross, the book argues that

most white Americans engage, at least a few times per year, in...activities that foster inequality. While they may not deliberately discriminate against black and other non-white job seekers, they take actions that make it more likely that white people will be employed -- without thinking that what they're doing amounts to discrimination....

Social Media

Nonprofits using video to engage their supporters should focus on telling stories about people, not programs, ListenIn Pictures co-founder Annie Escobar argues in a guest post on the Getting Attention blog. "The best use of video is not to inform and educate," writes Escobar. "It's to make your audience feel something and through that emotional response, create a connection to your work."

That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a good week!

-- The Editors