When we talk about measuring the impact of philanthropy, we are in essence discussing how to know the truth. We are examining how we might best understand the reality in which we live and the ways in which our actions affect the world around us. While “impact assessment” can sound like an academic or theoretical [...]
Category Archives: Impact Measurement
GuideStar Launches Expert Nonprofit Reviews
March 31, 2010 – 11:45 am
Last year, GuideStar, Charity Navigator, GiveWell, Philanthropedia, GreatNonprofits and Philanthropy Action put out a joint press release announcing their rejection of overhead expense ratios as the primary approach to evaluating nonprofits. GuideStar was a little bit of an odd group to sign the press release, because while they provide information about nonprofits, they do not [...]
Curmudgeonly Comments: Online Capital Markets for Nonprofits?
March 15, 2010 – 9:13 am
This is a guest post from George Overholser of the Nonprofit Finance Fund. This post follows the bullet point format George used when he wrote the Bullet Point Manifesto guest post last year. By George Overholser Someone recently defined nonprofit “mid-caps” as organizations with revenues in the $5 million to $25 million range. We need [...]
What Drives Philanthropic Success?
March 12, 2010 – 8:31 am
Peter Frumkin is the author of Strategic Giving, an excellent book that I reviewed last year. Earlier this week, Peter wrote a post on the Philanthropy Central blog calling into question some of his own assumptions about what drivers are most important to successful philanthropy. Peter wrote: …I am increasingly troubled by a recurrent worry. [...]
Social Innovation Fund Finalizes Guidelines
February 19, 2010 – 8:29 am
Key Points The final Social Innovation Fund guidelines recognize the limited availability of evidence in the social sector. The guidelines lower the minimum grant size to broaden the range of grantmakers who can apply. The Social Innovation Fund offers a chance for smart grantmakers to demonstrate effective philanthropy on a national stage and influence public [...]
Qualitative Evaluation Conference Call
February 18, 2010 – 10:01 am
For all the focus on quantitative metrics, many donors forget that the act of investing, whether it be social or for-profit investing, is largely driven by qualitative information. Join me on Monday, February 22 at 10am pacific on a Philanthropy Action hosted conference call with Timothy Ogden of Philanthropy Action and David Roberts of New [...]
Crowdsourcing the SoCap Conference
February 17, 2010 – 9:34 am
Within minutes of announcing that there would be a Tactical Philanthropy track at this year’s SoCap Conference we started getting emails from people who had suggestions for panels and speakers. So I’m glad to say that our plans for designing the track include soliciting your ideas and comments. Below you’ll find a number of session [...]
Purpose Prize: Liz & Steve Alderman
November 1, 2009 – 4:48 pm
The Purpose Prize, provides five $100,000 and five $50,000 awards to social innovators over 60 in encore careers. Encore careers combine personal fulfillment, social impact and continued income, enabling people to put their passion to work for the greater good. It is the nation’s only large-scale investment in social innovators in the second half of [...]
Fixing the Power Imbalance in Philanthropy
October 26, 2009 – 9:44 am
It is a recurring complaint in philanthropy that the huge power imbalance between funders and grantees skews the behavior of nonprofits in negative ways. This was one of the points made by reader Aaron Stiner in his critique of David Hunter’s essay on social investing: I still have some concerns that the model you are [...]
Social Investing & The End of Charity
October 19, 2009 – 8:53 am
In my recent writing defining the difference between Tactical and Strategic Philanthropy, I’ve focused on the concept of the Strategic Philanthropist as a social problem solver and the Tactical Philanthropist as a social investor. So I’d like to draw your attention to an article by David Hunter in the brand new Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal [...]
