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News for May 2007

30 May 2007

People With a Personal Practice of Reflection Are Five Times as Happy with Their Jobs

I'm very excited about the third report to come out of our 2007 Lifework Survey. Entitled The Role of Personal Practice in Work Satisfaction, it presents some very interesting results. Although we can't make confident assertions about causality from these simple cross tabulations, the highlights are thought provoking: (1) People with a personal practice of reflection are five times more likely to be satisfied with their job. (2) They are almost half again as likely to be satisfied with their career overall. (3) More than six times as many of them say that they would keep doing the work they're doing, even if they only had two months left to live. Posted: 5/30/07; 6:44:17 PM #

29 May 2007

Four Ways to Participate in N2Y2 Online
	I regret not being able to attend this year's Netsquared Conference. They are really trying some new ideas and I appreciate them pushing the edges of the conference model. If you're not there I recommend that you check out their backchannels, which are summarized in Four Ways to Participate in N2Y2 Online. Posted: 5/29/07; 12:08:46 PM #

27 May 2007

The Council On Foundations Opens Up To New Journalism

In my recent post at With, I look at how the Council on Foundations opened up to new journalism at their 2007 conference. Although Nonprofit Online News has been welcome at the conference for years, this was the first year in which they have welcomed and supported self-identified bloggers. My article is a survey of the news and commentary generated by this new step toward transparency. Posted: 5/27/07; 1:32:10 PM #

API Dashboard

With mashups and network centric approaches getting increasing attention in civil society, I want to encourage people to take a look at the API Dashboard created by ProgrammableWeb. It's focused on the web as a set of application programming interfaces and includes how-tos and a comprehensive database of API resources. Obviously, we have to evaluate the technical, economic, and political reliability of every tool we depend upon, but increasingly there are genuine choices to be had in this realm. As I consider this week's NetSquared context and the 21 projects vying for attention, I'm tempted to look at them to see which ones really leverage the full resources of the web as a platform. Posted: 5/27/07; 1:04:00 PM #

Is it ok for our campaign to donate a list to an allied or friendly group?
	Given the indiscrimate way in which many nonprofits treat the implied promises of an email relationship these days, it's nice to see Kari Chisholm encourage policial campaigns to avoid being spammers. I really don't get it. Is it so hard to put yourself in the position of the person receiving email? Posted: 5/27/07; 12:57:47 PM #

Philanthropy in the News: An Analysis of Media Coverage, 1990-2004

The Philanthropy Awareness Initiative report on Philanthropy in the News (28 page PDF) is a worthwhile read for anyone who wants a reality check about how giving is reported in the United States. The report covers 1990 to 2004 and examined tens of thousands of articles. The findings include: Most coverage of philanthropy is transactional rather than mission or outcome related. (In other words, as with political campaigns, the media takes the easy way out and reports on the dollar amounts.) Only 1 percent of stories were negative. (But of course, those stories have remarkable impact.) My number one concern about this study is the lack of a key context: How is the media covering the work of the organizations to which these donations are being made? If I were a grantmaker, I wouldn't treat my communication efforts as completely separated from that of my grantees. Posted: 5/27/07; 12:45:21 PM #

23 May 2007

Light a Fire: Successful Social Marketing for Nonprofits

At the recent Nonprofit Technology Conference, I was asked when we were going to teach a seminar on network centric marketing. Given our systems oriented approach to communication planning, the topic has been on my mind for some time, but I wanted to have an approach in place that had the right balance of strategic and tactical components. I think we've found the right mix in our new, single session online seminar entitled Light a Fire: Successful Social Marketing for Nonprofits. It will be held on Friday, June 29th, 2007. Posted: 5/23/07; 7:01:17 PM #

LifeWork Survey Results: Making the Most of Our Time

I'll be teaching a LifeWork seminar online this Friday so I felt it was timely to publish the second installment of our reports on the results and lessons of the 2007 LifeWork Survey. Entitled Making the Most of Our Time: How People In Civil Society Face the Tough Questions of Meaningful Work, the report looks at the results to six deep questions we asked, divided into three areas of interest. Would people stick with their jobs if they knew that they didn't have long to live? How aware are they of how they are spending their time and (therefore) their life? And how widespread are personal practices of reflection or personal mission statements as tools for managing work and life choices? Posted: 5/23/07; 12:38:10 AM #

20 May 2007

New Principles of Accountability for International Philanthropy

The Council on Foundations and European Foundation Centre have launched New Principles of Accountability for International Philanthropy. They've produced a readable 30 page report on the topic, complete with related practices. Their seven principles are: (1) Integrity, (2) Understanding, (3) Respect, (4) Responsiveness, (5) Fairness, (6) Cooperation and Collaboration, and (7) Effectiveness. Posted: 5/20/07; 10:40:58 PM #

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007

I'm a little late this year in pointing to Project Censored's Top 25 Censored Stories of 2007. This year's list includes: (1) Future of Internet Debate Ignored by Media, (2) Haliburton Charged with Selling Nuclear Technologies to Iran, (3) Oceans of the World in Extreme Danger, (4) Hunger and Homelessness Increasing in the US, (7) US Operatives Torture Detainees to Death in Afghanistan and Iraq, (11) Dangers of Genetically Modified Food Confirmed, (14) Homeland Security Contracts KBR to Build Detention Centers in the US, (19) Destruction of Rainforests Worst Ever, and (23) US Oil Targets Kyoto in Europe. Posted: 5/20/07; 10:25:05 PM #

OpenNet Initiative

Are the regions of free communication around the world expanding or contracting? One of the places to look for answers might be the OpenNet Initiative, where they are studying and mapping global Internet surveillance and filtering practices. I can't tell from their website, but I hope they don't restrict themselves to government practices alone. Market forces can be just as capable of undermining freedom as governments - they just look different. Posted: 5/20/07; 10:16:58 PM #

Student Journalism Training Day 2007
	Applications are still being accepted for Student Journalism Training Day, to be held at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, on Monday, June 25, 2007. I wish I were still a student - the list of speakers and topics is extraordinary. Posted: 5/20/07; 10:05:38 PM #

Going Postal on Rate Hikes for Independent Periodicals

I've tended to regard postal rates with a certain skepticism as an issue, because often it's the one banal topic that large parts of the nonprofit sector in the U.S. can get worked up about. But the recent approval of radical changes that would starkly favor large corporate mailers has made it clear that, like other issues I write about from time to time, this is an important piece of our civic infrastructure. In Going Postal on Rate Hikes for Independent Periodicals, Andi Zeisler explains. Posted: 5/20/07; 9:59:02 PM #

16 May 2007

Looking for Partners for Beta of Gilbert Press

The Gilbert Center has been producing and selling publications in PDF format since 2003, during which time we've had a chance to develop some solid practices and tools. We're now starting to offer our services to other organizations and authors in civil society. We're in a beta testing period and accepting a limited number of such partners. If you would like to know more about this service, please contact us. Posted: 5/16/07; 6:58:54 PM #

13 May 2007

Center on Philanthropy Study on Donors Paying for Overhead

The Center on Philanthropy at Indiania University has released the results of their study on donors Paying for Overhead. Highlights include the surprising result that 69% of foundations fund overhead expenses (especially within program grants) and the (much less surprising) conclusion that the more dependent you are on foundation funding, the harder the overhead problem is for your organization. Posted: 5/13/07; 10:55:34 PM #

How Creative Mass Non-Violence Beat a Nuke and Launched The Global Green Power Movement

Because of its influence on the movements that followed, I owe much of my political upbringing to the success of the Clamshell Alliance in the late 1970s. Harvey Wasserman was a part of that movement and describes its influence in his article at Freepress.org: How Creative Mass Non-Violence Beat a Nuke and Launched The Global Green Power Movement. Now that I think about it, the current growing global justice movement feels like something of a combination of the Internet and the cutting edge movements of thirty years ago. Posted: 5/13/07; 7:56:42 PM #

9 May 2007

Ten Things We Look For In A Client

A lot of my readers don't know that The Gilbert Center takes on consulting clients from time to time. Every time I travel to a conference, I find myself explaining exactly what kind of clients we take on. As part of our continuing organizational anniversary theme, I thought I would share with you ten important qualities that characterize our ideal clients. These qualities can be expressed in ten questions: (1) Are You Doing Good Work? (2) Are You Willing to Invest in Planning? (3) Do You Work Strategically? (4) Do You Like Hard Questions? (5) Are You Interested in Ongoing Learning? (6) Are You Structured to Make and Keep Promises? (7) Do You Respect Your Own Time and the Time of Others? (8) Can You Candidly Manage Organizational Politics? (9) Will Your Project Have Potential Benefits for Other Organizations? and (10) Is the timing right? Posted: 5/9/07; 10:41:48 PM #

One Hundred Years of Internet

I've just finished reading Gavin Clabaugh's One Hundred Years of Internet for the second time. As with the other authors in our network, I pitched Gavin on the idea of some kind of an article with ten things in it, in celebration of the ten year anniversary of The Gilbert Center. He outdid himself, penning an idiosyncratic retrospective on the last ten years of the Internet (which are like a hundred years of anything else, hence the homage to Gabriel Garcia Marquez in his title). He compares his own predictions from ten years ago with the present and concludes that he was too pessimistic about the rate of change. Never one to let that deter him, he also offers some predictions about the coming ten years, which he sees as playing out five interlocking themes: Ownership, Identity, Trust, Privacy and Community. Gavin, thank you. With any luck, you and I, the people we've supported, and those who have supported us, will get to play some interesting roles in the years to come. Posted: 5/9/07; 3:46:12 PM #

8 May 2007

Frictionless Fundraising Online Seminar on June 15, 2007

I'm very pleased to be teaching a full day online seminar on Frictionless Fundraising on June 15, 2007. I got a lot of feedback about the value of these ideas while I was at some conferences recently. As social networks and social media continue to become larger parts of people's lives, these are the principles and practices that will allow us to scale up our fundraising efforts. By focusing on transitioning existing donors, leveraging the Internet's capacity for cultivation and stewardship, and publishing an email newsletter that truly builds trust, we can fundamentally deepen our relationships with our stakeholders and raise more money in the process. Posted: 5/8/07; 5:48:19 PM #

6 May 2007

New Survey Shows Only 37% of Nonprofits Track Marketing Impact
	Nancy Schwartz did an online survey recently which explored the marketing practices of nonprofit organizations. The lead result was that only 37% of respondents track the impact of their marketing efforts. Given the methodology, I would guess that the result is higher than the real number. She points out some of the unfortunate consequences of this. Posted: 5/6/07; 11:37:28 PM #

A Guide for Presenters Working with Interpreters
	If you work internationally or across varying language groups in the US, chances are good you've worked with an interperter. Dennis List has written an excellent guide to working with interpreters, focusing primarily on the needs of spreakers and trainers. He shares advice about choosing interpreters, preparation, pacing, and visual aids. Posted: 5/6/07; 11:36:55 PM #

Grantmaker Due Diligence in the Pension Protection Act Era

I was very pleased to run into Dan Moore of Guidestar at the recent Council on Foundations Conference. He was there presenting to community foundations and other grantmakers who are affected by new federal regulations that require greater due diligence than has been the case until now. A PDF of the presentation - Grantmaker Due Diligence in the Pension Protection Act Era (43 page PDF) - is available in full online. Posted: 5/6/07; 11:36:19 PM #

2 May 2007

A Bad Taste in My Mouth: The 2007 Council on Foundations Annual Awards Gala

I enjoyed this year's Council on Foundations Annual Conference. It's a very professional event and they coax a solid level of preparation out of their workshop presenters. But I do have my criticisms and one of them relates to the messages that were sent in the Oscar-like Awards Gala on Monday night. In A Bad Taste in My Mouth, I explore my three concerns: the over-the-top tribute to profiteers, a bit of political hypocrisy, and the apparant notion that listening has nothing to do with communication. Posted: 5/2/07; 10:42:56 PM #

Barr Foundation Resources on Networks
	The Barr Foundation is one grantmaker that has invested seriously in understanding their relationship to the new world of networks. Of the publications listed on their resource page about networks, I recommend Weaving Tangled Webs and NET GAINS: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change. Posted: 5/2/07; 3:59:25 PM #

Scanning and Networking

I'm a big fan of GrantCraft, and yet somehow one of their smaller publications escaped my attention. Roberto Cremonini, who presented on knowledge management at the Council on Foundations Conference, was one of the contributors to Grantcrafts supplement on Scanning and Networking. The focus of the piece is very much on grantmakers as learners, paying a special kind of attention to their networks in search of new ideas and fresh perspectives. Posted: 5/2/07; 3:48:50 PM #

ABC: An Introduction to KM

Because of its potential relationship to helping foundations appreciate the emerging role of networks, I paid a lot of attention to the knowledge management sessions at the Council on Foundations Conference. One resource that came to my attention was Meridith Levinson's recent article in CIO Magazine entitled ABC: An Introduction to KM. She touches on several important questions, including: How can I demonstrate the value of a KM initiative? Who should lead KM efforts? And what is social network analysis and how is it related to KM? Posted: 5/2/07; 2:31:37 PM #

Marketing Your Knowledge

A major emphasis of knowledge management in the field of philanthropy in the last few years has been on the dissemination of lessons learned by foundations. Although it may not leverage the power of networks, it's quite understandable, since grantmakers are by nature hubs of ideas, plans, and evaluations. While discussing this at the Council on Foundations Confererence, I was directed to this excellent report by the Williams Group entitled Marketing Your Knowledge (18 page PDF). Among other things, the report recommends the following ten practices: (1) solve problems or address needs faced by practitioners, (2) begin with user segmentation, (3) base efforts on market research, (4) tap peer-to-peer networks as distribution channels, (5) target opinion leaders, (6) start with small conversations and move outward, (7) create and capitalize on learning moments, (8) shape knowledge products using three techniques (clear messages, provocative arguments, and memorable stories), (9) deliver knowledge using short and simple formats, as well as “push” and “pull” methods, and (10) share knowledge using multiple means to build appetite and reinforce messages. Posted: 5/2/07; 2:14:54 PM #

1 May 2007

Nonprofit Knowledge Management On-Demand Seminar

My favorite sessions at this year's Council on Foundations Conference were on the topic of knowledge management, so it's with a sense of good timing that I announce our second on-demand online seminar on Nonprofit Knowledge Management. This is a self paced, three part, three hour online seminar that includes a thirty minute phone consultation. Based on our very successful live seminars, this one covers both planning and organizational readiness issues for information oriented learning intiatives, as well as an in depth look at a strategy for leveraging the communities of practice of which we are all a part. I encourage you to take a look. Posted: 5/1/07; 6:23:22 PM #