This is a guest post by Tony Wang, a current JD/MBA candidate at Duke University and former philanthropy researcher at Blueprint Research & Design, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and Stanford University. By Tony Wang Every sector, including the nonprofit sector, needs transparency AND a healthy marketplace of ideas to combat corruption and inefficiency; […]
Category Archives: Information Sharing
Becoming the Best Possible Philanthropist
April 15, 2011 – 10:21 am
I’ve long advocated for foundations to embrace impact focused transparency. While many people want foundations to be more transparent for the sake of accountability, I just think that foundations should share more as a way to achieve impact. In the wake of the Japanese disaster, charity rating organization GiveWell is demonstrating how impact focused transparency […]
Speaking at New Profit’s Gathering of Leaders
February 2, 2011 – 9:29 am
Next week I’ll be in Miami speaking at New Profit’s Gathering of Leaders. While I’ve often focused on New Profit’s “investing in nonprofits” approach to grantmaking, they also have an “Action Tank” that works to strengthen the ecosystem for social entrepreneurs and the environment in which nonprofit capital markets are being created. In 2007, New […]
Explicit vs Tacit Knowledge for Impact
December 6, 2010 – 5:19 am
This is a guest post by Ian Thorpe. Ian writes the new blog "KM on a dollar a day". He has worked for over 20 years in the international development field and is currently Senior Information and Knowledge Manager with UNICEF. Ian’s blog is written in a personal capacity and does not necessarily represent the […]
Philanthropy’s Period of Rapid Innovation
November 30, 2010 – 9:47 am
One of the defining characteristics of a blog, that sets it apart from historical publishing models, is the conversational focus of the medium. If a “blog” just publishes items that talk about the author or their organization each day, that’s really just a newsletter. But when blog authors write about what other authors are discussing, […]
Maximizing vs Measuring Impact
October 25, 2010 – 10:38 am
Gabriel Kasper, one of the authors of the What’s Next for Philanthropy report that I mentioned last week commented on my post: “Thanks for the provocative commentary on the report Sean. We couldn’t agree with you more about the importance and power of leverage. In the coming years, we believe that the most effective funders […]
Philanthropedia Launches Expertise on Demand
October 15, 2010 – 8:47 am
Back in May, I announced that I would be chairing a steering committee to help the nonprofit research group Philanthropedia launch a project called Expertise on Demand. The project is the realization of the Tactical Philanthropy Knowledge Network I had been working on and is designed to connect donors and funders with leading experts who […]
Exploring the Edge: Social Sector Ideas That Matter
September 13, 2010 – 9:12 am
“I have always felt that the action most worth watching is not at the center of things but where edges meet. I like shorelines, weather fronts, international borders. There are interesting frictions and incongruities in those places.” Anne Fadiman The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down Today I’m happy to announce the re-launch […]
Nonprofit Creates its Own Competition
May 14, 2010 – 9:23 am
One of the sessions we’re going to be having in the Tactical Philanthropy track at the Social Capital Markets conference is: Replication vs. Diffusion: Does scaling social impact require scaling organizations? A successful for-profit organization must maintain ownership of its concept while it scales in order to capture profit. But social impact accrues to the […]
