I have another guest post up on Tactical Philanthropy today, this time talking about a number of different foundations that are using technology in innovative and effective ways. This post is essentially a recap of my favorite session from the conference I attended a few weeks ago. It’s been a hectic few weeks, which is why my post is so delayed.
While I recognize that few of Tropophilia’s readers are involved in formal philanthropy or the foundation world, I think many of these tools and lessons learned should be interesting to a variety of folks in many different types of organizations or fields.
Here are a few snippets of my post, you can read the rest here.
Amy Luckey from Blueprint Research and Design pointed out a number of examples of foundations using technology well, including [...]
A personal favorite, the Packard Foundation’s wiki on nitrogen pollution and agriculture strategy
[...]
Marc Osten, from Summit Collaborative, offered advice for those in the room who are facing an uphill battle bringing technology into their organizational culture OR are simply unaware of how to get started using these tools. First, he warned that getting caught up in specific tools (“We need a blog!”) without first carefully considering your organization’s goals—and what tools might help accomplish those goals—is a recipe for failure. This is a point that I think deserves highlighting, because it’s the reason (for example) that so many organizational blogs are launched with enthusiasm and then updated once a month or less. All the while, those (limited) resources could be more useful if deployed on other tools that better address the needs of the organization.
In a guest post on Tactical Philanthropy, I write about a session at the Council on Foundations conference called “Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose.” This post might only be of real interest to folks who are involved in nonprofit fundraising or organized philanthropy, but I found the session really useful. Here’s an excerpt of my post:
I attended a session Monday afternoon that, frankly, won’t sound nearly as sexy and exciting as some of the topics covered recently by my fellow bloggers (micro philanthropy, socially responsible investing, venture philanthropy, etc). And yet “Drowning in Paperwork, Distracted from Purpose” spawned a great discussion about desperately needed measures for improving the grantmaking process that (I hope) a number of funders will implement when they return home from DC.
I go on to describe a few ideas that–while certainly not revolutionary–would help funder-grantee relations significantly, and help nonprofits (AND foundations) focus more on the important elements of their work. One example:
“Start[ing] from Zero:” the notion that foundation staff and board members should start from scratch and ask themselves “what information do I absolutely need?” to evaluate a grant proposal or project. Starting from zero means that funders should always be able to articulate to their grantees WHY they need follow-up materials, grant reports, a letter of support, etc. Many nonprofits interviewed for the study reported frustration from submitting reports to funders and not hearing any feedback. One nonprofit executive quoted in the study quipped: “We assume that [the funders] feed everything to a giant fiery furnace.” Starting from zero encourages funders to only request information that will be used in learning from grants or evaluating past and future efforts.
You can read the rest here. I should have one or two more guest posts at Tactical Philanthropy as I look back to my notes from the last few days. But let me take the opportunity to express what a pleasure it’s been to meet Sean and my fellow guest-bloggers this week, and to see segments of such a traditional-minded sector embrace blogging wholeheartedly. Good stuff; many thanks to Sean and Tactical Philanthropy for the opportunity.
I attended a fascinating session this morning on Social Entrepreneurship. I wrote up a bit of a (lengthy, but informative) play-by-play for Tactical Philanthropy. I’ll put a piece of it below, but you can check out the whole thing here.
How do we create a culture of social entrepreneurship in our community/funding area?
Bill Drayton spoke of the need to reach individuals at an early age in order to build successful adult social entrepreneurs. He emphasized what he termed “applied empathy” as a crucial component for change-makers.
Gregory Dees stressed that entrepreneurship—in the business OR social benefit world—is not easy to create. He argued that building the capacity of social entrepreneurs will depend on inspiring creativity, celebrating successes in a public way, and not stigmatizing failure. Failure is a natural part of the for-profit entrepreneurial world, and yet social entrepreneurs often face unrealistic expectations of success all the time.
I would add that one thing I didn’t cover too much in the guest post was the limitations of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise. Those themes weren’t covered very much in the session (to be fair, we were just touching on those topics when time ran out). BUT it should be stated that there certainly seems to be an environment (and perhaps a subset of problems) that are best-suited for social entrepreneurship, social enterprise, or social ventures. What exactly those conditions and problems are is still unclear to me, but it certainly seems that health issues and youth development in the developing world is one area where social entrepreneurship has had an enormous impact. More blogging to follow–it’s great to be blogging quasi-professionally!
As Jarred mentioned in the previous post, I’m in DC this week at a conference. While I’ll be directing you to my guest posts all week, you can read coverage of the conference from a 19-member (including Sean, the site’s founder and blogger) blog crew on Tactical Philanthropy.
Apologies for the abbreviated links, but I need to get some sleep. So here goes:
- I have to say, I used to roll my eyes at Tom Friedman columns. Jarred is a recovering Friedman fanboy, but I was always a skeptic. Now that Tom’s moved away from predicting the pace of success in Iraq, and is focused on green industry, I find his writing much more inspired. His column on energy policy last week is a must read. Here’s an excerpt from his latest column:
[M]illions of Americans are dying to be enlisted — enlisted to fix education, enlisted to research renewable energy, enlisted to repair our infrastructure, enlisted to help others. Look at the kids lining up to join Teach for America. They want our country to matter again. They want it to be about building wealth and dignity — big profits and big purposes. When we just do one, we are less than the sum of our parts. When we do both, said [Special Olympics chairman Tim] Shriver, “no one can touch us.
- I’m very intrigued by product designations/certifications like “organic” or Energy Star and LEED. TreeHugeer writes about the newly-developed “Natural Standard” put forth by the Natural Products Association. The criteria for “Natural” products focus on materials from natural sources and manufacturing processes that avoid harsh chemicals.
For the first time in history, anybody can publish information to a worldwide audience; in the past, only those with access to mainstream media could do so. The students currently in high school and college — what I call Generation Google — will have to live with a series of information fragments about their personal lives.
In college, students often experiment as they strive to develop their own identities; they often do silly things. [...] The gossip that pervades college campuses, high schools, and many other settings doesn’t fade into obscurity — it lives on. Gone are the days of innocent experimentation, of being foolhardy without having to suffer permanent regret.
- Finally, do yourself a favor and get to the farmers market. Here’s a perfect, simple recipe to take advantage of the spring bounty.
Happy Monday.
In conjunction with his participation in the Council on Foundations’ Leadership Summit this week, Taylor is going to be guest blogging for Tactical Philanthropy. The blog’s founder, Sean Stannard-Stockton, has invited Taylor and a handful of others to post their thoughts on different seminars and presentations that they attend. We’ll be sure to include links to his posts here, as well as some excerpts.
As the conference gets ready to begin today, Taylor has introduced himself to Tactical Philanthropy’s readers and described his plans for the week:
I’m grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this excellent blog, as I’m a ‘blog junkie’ and have a great appreciation for the role of social media in spreading information and advancing our work. I’ll be attending sessions at COF focused on the intersection of philanthropy and technology; sessions with titles like “Innovation in Philanthropy,” and “Wired Philanthropy.” I also hope to attend sessions focused on improving the grantmaking process in a way that empowers grantees (without overburdening organizations with unnecessary work), and focuses foundations on strategic thinking and learning.
Check back early and often this week for more of Taylor’s thoughts.
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