Omidyar.net & The Aspen Institute

Readers Seth Mazow and Tarek Rizk both point out online resources that use technology to increase collaboration in the grant making process:

Seth points to Omidyar.net and specifically their effort to let the community decide how and where to make grants. Today they kick off their 4th Quarter Funding Project.

From the announcement:

Omidyar Network plans to launch a new funding project with the omidyar.net community on October 30. In this project, we’d like the omidyar.net community to help us distribute $5,000 each to nine nonprofit organizations.

Phase 1. General Discussion and Preparation

Phase 2. Create a Funding Proposal

Phase 3. Vote for Top Three Funding Area Proposals

Phase 4. Vote for Specific Nonprofits in the Winning Funding Areas

Phase 5. Funding the organizations

Seth, by the way, manages the Interplast Blog, which has been a great example of how nonprofits can use a blog to connect with donors in ways that were unavailable until recently.

Tarek, the associate director of the Aspen Institute’s Global Interdependence Initiative, emails to point out their Continuous Progress tool, which helps both sides of the grant making process work together.

Technology is bringing many changes to the world of philanthropy. Probably most importantly, it is helping stakeholders with various interests work together more closely.