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Online Giving Marketplaces - Stanford October 8

I write about online marketplaces for giving all the time - now the Stanford Social Innovation Review is hosting a conference on the topic. (I'll be moderating one session)

The description and registration materials are online here.


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Geologic Eras of Philanthropy

The above is another view of the development of the philanthropic industry - you can compare it to this one. Please send improvements, suggestions, revisions, etc. to lucy (at) blueprintrd dot com. I'm happy to email you a copy of either graphic, on three conditions:

1. You let me know what you think of it;
2. You make suggestions on how to improve it;
3. You let me know how you use it (and you note proper attribution to me if/when you use it)
   

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The Evolution of Philanthropy Markets

And we're off...I wrote several months ago about how recommendation engines might work in philanthropy - donation dashboard has made this real. The site comes out of the Center for New Media at UC Berkeley and is based on collaborative filtering (similar to the Pandora music service).

This represents a significant moment in the evolution of philanthropy markets. It is a move to the "higher hanging fruit" in the evolution of philanthropy markets. The low hanging fruit (e.g., the first and easiest to get - and most critical to making major innovation happen) was digitized 990 data, which came to us in the U.S courtesy of Guidestar back in the 1990s (also available in the U.K. and coming quickly to other parts of the world).

Then came donate now buttons and giving platforms, such as GlobalGiving and NetworkForGood. Kiva and DonorsChoose took these models, iterated on them, and exploded the possibilities of reaching new donors. The micro-philanthropy sites exploded, and Peter Dietz took the lead in making the next step happen - cross platform social action searching.

Right alongside this platform innovation is a burst of interest from research centers and industry sources, new conferences, performance measurement tools and discussions, and data wonks and even prize competitions - all acting as several small pieces of the evolution of philanthropy markets. Amazing.



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More blur

I write about the blurring of the sectors often. And I appreciate it when others send me a 'heads up' on an example of this at work. Sean Stannard Stockton pointed me to zoosa.org - a new website where job seekers can find "social enterprise" opportunities in the public, private, independent and elected spheres. In the site's own words:

"Zoosa.org is an environment where professionals can quickly find social enterprise opportunities which match their interests, skill sets, and time. We make it easier for you to do well while doing good.

Zoosa.org includes all positions with a positive social impact (for-profit & non-profit, paid & unpaid)."

JustMeans is a similar idea (without the elected official angle). Zoosa's site doesn't give much information on who is behind this (they're based in Cambridge, MA), but the site looks a lot like sites such as socialactions.com, though that may be nothing more than site design. Site says "they're not looking for funding now." They will be negotiating sponsorships, advertising, and partnerships. Found nothing useful about them at the WhoIs domain registration site.

By the way, Sean has been posting some great thought pieces on the "business of philanthropy," - a topic so near and dear to my heart it is the subtitle of this blog.

P.S. Thanks to all who have been sending in good wishes - I hope to be back to work and blogging with some regularity as family health situation stabilizes (and assuming Hanna, Ike and Josephine don't prevent me from getting home)

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New types of trend data

My colleague Jonathan Jaffray has a new blog, philanthropyadvisor.com (great name!), and is out of the starting blocks with an important insight - he notes here that more than 100 domain names had been registered with the word "gustav" by September 1st. He rightly continues to note that donors should be wary of making donations through sites that they have not vetted.

His post made me realize that Jonathan had put his finger on a key new trend indicator for philanthropy - domain name registration. Here is how the indicator will be interesting:

• How many sites get put up containing the name of the disaster-du-jour (sorry if that is crass) and how quickly they go up;
  
• How many get used to fundraise - legitimately or otherwise;
  
• How many pre-existing, legitimate donation sites grab on to the disaster-name to improve their search results;
• How quickly Google sets up mini-sites for donations; and
  
• The pace of giving on Google checkout.
  

Of course, moving at the pace of technology, this indicator may already be out of date as donations speed on over to mobile phones and text donations. Which means we will have to update the "domain name indicator" with the "text message code indicator."

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Where will your disaster dollars go?

As I write this, Gustav has moved, having left 80+ people dead in Cuba and is now bearing down on the gulf coast. Hanna is headed for Florida's eastern flank. There are two more tropical storms brewing in the Gulf of Mexico.

According to The Wall Street Journal (and some others), the Red Cross is in dire straits. Where will your disaster relief giving dollars go?


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While I'm away

Well I am away but not for the reason (vacation) I had planned. So instead I'm within striking distance of the Internet and can't help but capture some thoughts in between other things....

Sean Stannard Stockton has a good conversation going on over at tacticalphilanthropy about philanthropic advising. I, of course, suggest you consider his ideas and the comments in light of the larger frame of "the business of giving."

Maybe it was to the 13 tweets and countless emails I received from Michelle, Barack, and David in the last week, or the constant IM'ing with my siblings as we update on family drama and track each other's cross-country flight schedules minute by minute, but life for this 45 year old is now pretty thoroughly mobily online. I also noted the first 2 of the following interesting uses of technology in nonprofit activism at tp.com ...

1. A site where you can ask any politician running for office a question about the nonprofit sector and the answers will be posted to a public blog - check out the V3 Campaign.
2. The much discussed use of LinkedIn to ask donors what irks them.
3. I've just found out, courtesy of the weather channel, that I am in the "cone" of Gustav and Hannah. Which led to me find out about Andy Carvin's Gustav08.ning site (which came to my attention through a Facebook status update). The ning site has a wiki, tweets, text alerts, and so on. You can get a gustav badge here, but I don't yet see a "donate now" button...

And finally, this has nothing to do with philanthropy, but it did come to my attention via Facebook - Maybe McCain really meant to choose Tina Fey as his VP? - and it gave me a much needed chuckle.

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Sustaining Attention

Top 20

I just learned that the p2173/JustMeans cross-post, "The Customer is always Right" was picked up as a top 20 blog post.

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Here is my most recent post, "Sustaining Attention," from All Things Reconsidered, the JustMeans blog (Save yourself a click or two):

Sustaining attention

I was at a meeting earlier this week with about 40 people, assembled around a large U shaped table. As the moderator led a round of introductions, the folks on one side the room gave their names, current professional titles and always added something like “former reporter for the small city Times,” or “former editor for the big city Journal,” or “former writer for mid-region Tribune.”

On the other side of the table, occupied by much younger people from a much more diverse set of racial and ethnic backgrounds, the introductions came fast and furious: “community and media organizer,” “entrepreneur and blogger,” “activist and podcaster,” “executive director and radio show producer.”

On the first side of the table were people who had once had jobs as media professionals. On the second side of the table were people who viewed the media as an integral part of their work, whatever that work happened to be. As one participant explained, “we do youth organizing, which means we are a media organization.”

This is an important pattern to consider as we think about sustainable businesses, sustainable careers, and the multi-sector blending that is part of the social justice work, environmental activism, clean tech development and global health interests of the Just Means community. Information is everywhere and we all produce and consume it – through print, online, visual displays, audio sources, in games, at our desks, in meetings and on our daily jogs. All of us wear many hats, all of us consume and produce media - - how do these things fit together as we focus on sustainable work? Here are some thoughts:

• Everyone in your company or organization needs to be thinking about customers and how to listen to them, learn from them, and reach them with the information they want – this can’t be the job of just the marketing department.
• The same shifts that are busy reverberating through news businesses – putting all those reporters and writers and editors into the “former” categories – are also shaping your company. Do you know how? What is your plan to capitalize on the changes rather than be swept away by them?
• If you do youth organizing, or environmental activism, or create clean products, or are providing new capital to social enterprises – aren’t you also a media organization?

Some pundits describe the current economy as the information or knowledge economy, others have started to call it an attention economy – either way, the question comes down to this - how does information, analysis, and media factor into your work? Are those practices sustainable?

• Tags: media, sustainability

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