In recent days, Causes has left MySpace and IdeaBlob has shutdown. To some, these events were unimportant. In reaction to the Causes announcement, Economist bureau chief Matthew Bishop tweeted “Who knew it was on MySpace?” to which New York Times reporter Stephanie Strom tweeted back “No kidding.” But to many people active in online social […]
Category Archives: nonprofits
Leveraging Expertise in Philanthropy
October 20, 2009 – 8:20 am
Here’s an example of a way that donors with knowledge about a specific area of social impact can leverage their knowledge by sharing it with other donors. This comes from Social Venture Partners Rhode Island, but it is a format that any group with domain expertise in a particular grantmaking arena could copy. Leveraged Investments […]
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 […]
Philanthropy at the End of the Recession
October 12, 2009 – 9:31 am
Most economists believe that the Great Recession is ending. Let’s assume for a moment that this is true. That the economy has finished the deepest contraction since the Great Depression and is now on the verge of beginning to expand again. If this outlook it correct, it is critical that nonprofits recognize this moment as […]
Seth Godin : Fear : Vertigo Tolerance : Change
September 16, 2009 – 10:01 am
Seth Godin is someone who a lot of people look at with reverence. Books of his like Tribes and The Dip have been very influential for me and many other people. But boy, oh boy did his post yesterday in which he called nonprofits to task for not embracing change and social media let loose […]
A Rebuttal & an Example of a High Performance Organization
August 5, 2009 – 4:38 pm
My post earlier today and this one is an attempt to air the differing opinions that have been circling my recent posts (of course you can read the 30+ comments on this post to catch a whiff as well). The many comments, emails and tweets that have pushed back and applauded my series of posts […]
Guest Post: Exploring Nonprofit Mergers and Alliances
June 15, 2009 – 9:27 am
This is a guest post authored by Eric Kessler, founder of Arabella Philanthropic Investment Advisors. By Eric Kessler Nonprofit mergers and alliances (M&A) are a hot topic these days among philanthropists and nonprofits alike. Both the Association of Small Foundations and the Council on Foundations are hosting teleconferences on the subject later this month. And […]
IdeaEncore & the Nonprofit Information Marketplace
June 9, 2009 – 9:38 am
I’ve written extensively about the value of philanthropic information and how it is fundamentally different than for-profit information. But what is it worth and to whom? It appears that we’re about to find out if the new IdeaEncore Network marketplace takes off. IdeaEncore says this about themselves: [We are] an online marketplace for the sharing […]
The FORGE Story & The Wall Street Journal
April 24, 2009 – 11:16 am
The FORGE story dominated many of my blog posts from December of last year. It was the first time that the Tactical Philanthropy Community came together around a specific nonprofit. From the hours of pro bono consulting of Tactical Philanthropy reader Curtis Chang to the many, many comments from readers offering advice and constructive criticism […]
Steal This Idea!
April 15, 2009 – 7:32 am
At the Center for Effective Philanthropy conference, one of the most interesting sessions was a discussion of scale between the successful nonprofits Nurse-Family Partnerships and Homeboy Industries and funders the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation and the California Endowment. The session was titled Promises and Pitfalls of Going to Scale and examined the different ways that […]
