In my first post on the topic of High Performance vs. High Impact, I stated that Impact was the holy grail of philanthropy. It was something to journey towards and High Performance organizations were the best way to get there. But to get to High Impact, we need to know not just that we have [...]
Category Archives: Grantmaking
Forces for Good Author Weighs In
August 6, 2009 – 7:27 am
Heather McLeod Grant, one of the authors of Forces for Good, has weighed in on the debate with a thoughtful comment that I present an abbreviated version of below. You can read the full comment here. By Heather McLeod Grant Sean, Thanks for referencing our book, Forces for Good, as an example of both high-performing [...]
UnitedProsperity.org
June 18, 2009 – 10:24 am
It sure does seem like new philanthropic/social ventures are popping up all the time. As BusinessWeek declared recently, there’s A Bull Market in Social Entrepreneurs. One of the recent entrants is UnitedProsperity.org. At first glance, it looks like a Kiva.org knock off. But there is a hugely important difference. Whereas Kiva.org helps people make loans [...]
More Googlization
April 29, 2009 – 7:48 am
My recent Chronicle of Philanthropy column was about the Googlization of Philanthropy and the ways in which third party web applications can effectively organize philanthropic data so long as social sector players digitize their knowledge and make it accessible. I specifically was not making the point that Google the company should dominate this process. But [...]
The Association of Nonprofit Analysts
April 16, 2009 – 8:55 am
New Philanthropy Capital is a the leading charity research group in the UK. They offer research on charities, advice for donors and advisors, and tools that help charities measure their own results. They do great work and selfishly I wish they would open US offices and start looking at US nonprofits. New Philanthropy Capital gets [...]
Alliance for Effective Social Investing Update
April 14, 2009 – 9:18 am
Last November I wrote about my involvement with a new group called the Alliance for Effective Social Investing. After the November meeting, The Washington Post wrote about the group as did the Chronicle of Philanthropy. Today I want to share a press released about the progress of the group. Full disclosure: I’m co-chair of the [...]
Google.org & Superior Knowledge
March 26, 2009 – 9:47 am
About a month ago, Larry Brilliant announced the next chapter in the evolution of Google.org. My sister, Jessica Stannard-Friel, covered the announcement on her blog Reimagining CSR. The New York Times also covered the story (although Jessica thought they misinterpreted the context of the changes). Today I want to look at the decisions that Google [...]
Anatomy of a Failed Grant
March 25, 2009 – 9:42 am
The Carnegie Corporation of New York (the foundation created by Andrew Carnegie) issues a quarterly newsletter titled Results. The recent issue includes a fascinating story by the director of their journalism initiative. It tells the story of a failed grant: The article begins: This is an analysis of media grantmaking to support nonprofit issues. It [...]
The Currency of Philanthropy
March 24, 2009 – 8:40 am
In my debut column for the Chronicle of Philanthropy, I made the case that “information that enhances the ability to make smart grants is the real currency in philanthropy.” This is also true in for-profit financial markets. The equations are: Financial Capital + Superior Knowledge = Profit or Financial Capital + Superior Knowledge = Impact [...]
An Experiment in Outcome Measurement
March 20, 2009 – 9:01 am
Recently, Charity Navigator CEO Ken Berger said that one of the problems they’ll have in moving to an outcome measurement rating system is that less than 10% of nonprofits are actually measuring outcomes internally. While measuring outcomes (what effect a nonprofit’s programs actually have) might seem simply in theory, in practice it gets very complicated [...]
