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News for August 2007
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 26 August 2007 |
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| Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship Guidelines |
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The Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship is a carefully conceived program for financing social enterprises that are at the stage where they can scale up or be replicated. Projects should address one of these program areas: environmental sustainability, health, tolerance and human rights, institutional responsibility, economic and social equity, or peace and security. Although it's a year round program, if you have a project that you think should be included in the 2008 Skoll World Forum then your deadline is September 24, 2007.
Posted: 8/26/07; 2:04:42 PM # |
| Your Project and Its Outcomes |
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Charities Evaluation Services has published a primer entitled Your Project and Its Outcomes (26 page PDF). The booklet presents frameworks for understanding outcomes and a number of specific methods for developing and working with them. I didn't like the use of notoriously flawed self reporting techniques as an assessment tool, but they did provide a number of other mechanisms. I particularly liked the simple outcome monitoring sheet.
Posted: 8/26/07; 1:42:47 PM # |
| Anatomy of a Plagiarism |
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In Anatomy of a Plagiarism, Hildy Gottleib describes her discovery and response to the wholesale appropriation of her 2001 article on "Why Boards Micromanage and How to Get Them to Stop". It's not just that this article was reprinted without her permission, but the author submitted the article as his own to a respected educational journal, where it was accepted. One jaw dropping fact: The culprit was a university professor at a leading university - teaching ethics and leadership.
Posted: 8/26/07; 12:27:43 PM # |
| CARE Turns Down Federal Funds for Food Aid |
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A lot has been written in the last week about how CARE Turned Down Federal Funds for Food Aid. Despite the New York Times headline, it seems that these so-called funds actually come in the form of heavily subsidized American farm products, that are then sold by aid agencies to raise money for their actual anti-poverty work. CARE turned down $45 million worth of this food because the act of dumping it on African markets undermines the local food production capacity. Other agencies have yet to follow suit and, as might be expected, quite the argument has broken out about this. Given the lengths that nonprofits will go to raise money and how limited the systems thinking can be in many organizations, I can only hope that CARE receives the attention it deserves for this leadership and vision.
Posted: 8/26/07; 12:16:23 PM # |
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24 August 2007 |
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| The Challenge of Change by Philip Coltoff |
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Philip Coltoff's book, The Challenge of Change, delivers on its subtitle - "Leadership Strategies for Not-For-Profit Executives and Boards". Far too often we use the word "strategy" when what we are really talking about is tips or tactics, but Coltoff doesn't fall into that trap. Nor does he just recycle for-profit corporate practices with a nonprofit paint job. Indeed, he makes a point of saying that "Elements of corporate style are certainly useful for not-for-profits. But we should never apply a corporate vision to the substance of our work." Bravo!
Throughout this thin volume, Coltoff keeps his eye on high level principles and practices that can be applied again and again in different contexts. Despite the high level strategic perspective, the lessons are not at all vague. When he describes his five essential leadership qualities - Vision, Commitment, Excellence, Humility, and Peace of Mind - I felt like I had actually learned something new, rather than just been lectured with abstractions. It helps enormously that he then applies these principles and provides contextual guidelines in the major areas of nonprofit leadership. Finally, I profoundly appreciated the analysis he provides about the role of social service agencies in social change work, described by the principle "Service + Advocacy = Change". This quick-read of a book is a gem.
Posted: 8/24/07; 9:36:42 AM # |
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19 August 2007 |
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| Craigslist Foundation - Project Entry Point |
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The Craigslist Foundation is embarking in some new directions, starting with something that will ring a bell to those who've been standing at the crossroads of the Internet and civil society: "a clearinghouse that connects people and organizations to the resources they need... an atlas that easily connects people to what they need to do good... Imagine the impact if social entrepreneurs, nonprofit leaders, and those wishing to support social change knew exactly where to go for all their needs."
I admire the Craigslist Foundation, and for about three years now I've thought that they have a unique and powerful contribution to make to the field. But how does this vision differ from the Nonprofit FAQ or its imitators and successors? To be fair, I think they are starting out small and smart, with a website that will succeed even if it's just an online version of the Nonprofit Boot Camps they've been running. But as someone who has watched a great many projects aim to be "the hub that connects people to everything they could ever need to do good", I am a little worried that the Craigslist Foundation will not make the great contribution they have the potential to make.
Posted: 8/19/07; 8:43:26 PM # |
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17 August 2007 |
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| The Authentic Organization: Draft Chapter Outline of the Book |
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After a break to deal with various mundane calamaties, I have returned to work on my book, The Authentic Organization. I've posted a draft chapter outline. It's full of abstractions as befits something with one paragraph per chapter, but it's actually starting to look like a book. I was tempted to post my own commentary on it to preempt the criticism that I'm actually trying to solicit (fuzzy thinking, meandering ideas, and so forth), but I resisted that temptation. If you have the time to give me feedback on this, I would be very grateful.
Posted: 8/17/07; 1:21:27 PM # |
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16 August 2007 |
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| The Journal of Online and Integrated Fundraising: Call for Papers |
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As we approach the publication date of the journal we are currently in the midst of editing, we're excited to be able to announce the third title in our growing journal portfolio, one that I think many readers will be excited to see: The Journal of Online and Integrated Fundraising. It's well understood that we're in the midst of a radical transformation of development work in civil society and many interests are converging on the need for rigorous understanding of precisely how the field is being transformed, what it means for organizations and practitioners, and frankly, what works and what doesn't. The deadline for proposals is Sept. 21, 2007 and the deadline for full papers is Nov. 2, 2007. It is scheduled to be published in February 2008.
Posted: 8/16/07; 6:35:22 PM # |
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15 August 2007 |
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| Nonprofit Marketing: Best Practices |
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John Burnett's Nonprofit Marketing: Best Practices is a valuable book and unless you are an experienced marketing professional, it probably belongs on your shelf. It covers every major aspect of mainstream marketing practice, including positioning, branding, research, product management, marketing services, and so on. It's a superb introduction to most of the traditional fields of marketing, with a decent sprinkling of nonprofit examples throughout.
Without in any way taking away from this recommendation, I want to describe how this was not the book I hoped it would be. First, although the book acknowledges the existance of interactive media, it is nevertheless fully steeped in the classic one-to-many approach to marketing. There is nothing in the book about the inspiring potential to scale up listening. Thus, despite its 2007 publication date, it's still very much a late twentieth century manual. (Of course, if you don't know the classic practices, then it might be good to learn them.) Second, as with many such texts, the book bolts nonprofit missions and circumstances onto a mainstream business school model of marketing. That's fine, but given that fact, I would have preferred the title not to lead with the word 'nonprofit'. Third, because of its frame of reference, it encourages nonprofits to look at its stakeholders as consumers (or at best customers), rather than as citizens. The author is not alone in this, by any means, but it's deeply pernicious and damaging to civil society.
The book's strong points for nonprofits includes its analysis of competition (which every nonprofit should consider), it's description of the characteristics of service products (which is what most nonprofits "produce", if you follow the business paradigm), its exploration of the concept of "servicescapes", and its extremely clear exploration of the concept of "channels" of distribution. Although I don't think the book has nonprofits as its starting point, any one of these strengths is enough for me to recommend it.
Posted: 8/15/07; 5:43:48 PM # |
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14 August 2007 |
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| Investing in Leadership, Volume 2 |
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As a followup to my recent post about the upcoming leadership crisis in the U.S. nonprofit sector, Jillaine Smith encouraged me to look at Kathleen Enright's Investing in Leadership, Volume 2 (60 page PDF). Because both the leadership and the rank and file of the forces of reaction are building at an unprecedented pace, the ideas in this report (and others like it) are of critical importance today. This report looks at the leadership development practices of five major foundations and draws lessons from them. Although I don't think they go far enough in the direction of cradle to grave leadership development in individuals as they move through a community of practice, there are lots of recommendations here that get beyond the narrow, organizational-centric focus on executive directors. These are great ideas and they need to be taken even further.
Posted: 8/14/07; 4:42:06 PM # |
| The Mercenary Revolution: Flush with Profits from the Iraq War, Military Contractors See a World of Business Opportunities. |
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I have long argued for organizational development both as an objective and as a frame of reference for understanding strategic decisions of all kinds. In other words, it is always valuable to ask what the organizational development implications are of any action. Government budgets in particular should be looked at from that perspective, which is why I have often linked to critiques of the rampant defunding of civil society organizations by the current U.S. administration.
If the Bush Administration isn't building civil society, what are they building instead? The disturbing answer is that they are building private armies. Much has been written about the rise of mercenary companies in Iraq, but (finally) in The Mercenary Revolution, Jeremy Scahill looks at the long term social and political implications of this. For the last several years, at a rate approaching a billion dollars a week, this administration has built up a powerful new political interest group - one that is armed.
The right in the U.S. has played a long term game for decades now, as with the commitment of right wing foundations to the long term stability of their leadership development efforts. With the building of new federal detention centers capable of imprisoning 400,000 people, presidential directives in place that lay the groundwork for the complete seizure of all government powers, and vast domestic spying operations that we've only begun to uncover, some have argued that democratic civil society itself is about to be checkmated. What piece in the game will be played by the private armies we've created? The game isn't over yet, but the notorious short sightedness and tunnel vision of civil society organizations may be our complete undoing in one time frame or another.
Posted: 8/14/07; 4:32:04 PM # |
| Resources on Blogs, Social Networks, and Tags for Nonprofits |
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Katrin Verclas compiled an eclectic list of Resources on Blogs, Social Networks, and Tags for Nonprofits for the recent Neighbohood Neworks Conference. As you would expect from a list that was quickly gathered from an NTEN mailing list, it's mostly casual case studies and collections of tips. There are definitely a few gems in the list, including several attempts at "best practices" for Myspace and Facebook, some excellent (and previously mentioned) work by Suw Charman and Nancy White, and a recorded seminar that includes ideas on integrating blogs into your workflow. There's some strong content here regarding "social networks" and blogging, but the tagging related content is a bit weaker. There's a lot here, so set aside some time to go through it all to find out what might be valuable to you.
Posted: 8/14/07; 4:00:54 PM # |
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13 August 2007 |
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| Dross, Gloss and Brilliance |
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In Dross, Gloss and Brilliance, Gavin Clabaugh explores some questions about the value of weblogs and whether they are worth reading, along with a related question about how ideas flow from the fringes to the mainstream and on to the dustbin of time. The conclusions in each case seem to be that blogs are not a genre the way science fiction is, but rather are many different things that happen to travel through the same medium.
What I enjoyed most about this piece was Gavin's description of how to adapt the Molitar Model and related methods of emerging issue analysis to the world of new media and data availability. He proposes catagorizing online channels into one of four quadrants based on historical analysis of their content and timing: Fringe, Precursor, National Media, and Resolution. (He would do this using what he calls "Reverse Google" but which can already be done using the Internet Archive.) Then you would have a living framework for identifying emerging issues. Plus, depending on what quadrant you like to work in, you might learn what blogs were worth reading.
Posted: 8/13/07; 3:51:25 PM # |
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10 August 2007 |
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| Announcing Rare Medium, by Michael Soper |
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I was first introduced to Michael Soper over the phone, in the context of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting's support for the Nonprofit Email Study. Michael was one of our consulting partners on that project. I met him in person around that same time at a public broadcasting conference at which we were both speaking. We talked at great length about systems issues in public broadcasting - he from the perspective of three decades as an insider and me from the perspective of a complete newcomer. He has been the best of peers to me ever since.
It is therefore with great pleasure that I welcome Michael Soper's weblog, appropriately entitled Rare Medium, to the peer group of the Gilbert Authors' Network. Whether you care about public broadcasting, new and old media, the fifth estate, digital communication strategies, or the underpinnings of civil society in general, you would do well to subscribe to Michael Soper's blog. For the last several years I have had a privileged channel to Michael's ideas and analyses (for me this is often in the form of a quick instant message asking if I have a moment for a thought he wanted to share). I'm deeply pleased that all of you will now have that privilege as well.
Posted: 8/10/07; 12:01:52 AM # |
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7 August 2007 |
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| The Power of the Negative |
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It's great to see a glimpse of the synergy that I hope to see emerge in the coming years from The Gilbert Author's Network: In The Power of the Negative, Asher Bey explores a topic previously raised by Burt Webb at The Nexilist's Notebook - how a single negative comment can have greater influence than a comparable positive comment. As with so many such phenomena, I am curious to know whether this is culturally universal. But there is no doubt in my mind that, whether you're a teacher, counselor, or advocate, it's tremendously important to be mindful of this dynamic.
Posted: 8/7/07; 7:25:30 AM # |
| Methods for Facilitating Organizational Change, from The Change Handbook |
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The website for The Change Handbook maintains practical descriptions of a growing list of methods for facilitating change in organizations. On a single, easy-to-digest page, each description includes the method's purpose and intended outcomes, when to use it and when not to use it, the appropriate number of participants, the types of participants, the duration, a brief example, some historical context, and a link to more information. Some of these methods will be familiar to you and others are likely to be new discoveries. The list includes: Action Learning, Ancient Wisdom Council, Appreciative Inquiry, Balanced Scorecard, Collaborative Work Systems Design, Consensus Decision Making, Dynamic Planning Charrettes, Human Systems Dynamics, Idealized Design, Open Space Technology, Open Systems Theory, Scenario Thinking,
Search Conference, Study Circles, Technology of Participation, , Whole Systems Approach, and The World Cafe.
Posted: 8/7/07; 7:13:00 AM # |
| The Leadership Deficit |
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I just got around to reading the research behind Tom Tierney's paper on The Leadership Deficit in the U.S. nonprofit sector. The basic issue here is what is now fairly widely recognized as a severe and growing shortfall of senior staff. Tierney's suggested solutions include: invest in leadership capacity, improve management compensation, and explore new talent pools. The danger is that in the typical hand-to-mouth planning environment of most organizations, leadership development will continue to take a back seat, leading to a systematic weakness in the sector in the coming years.
Posted: 8/7/07; 6:38:09 AM # |
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6 August 2007 |
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| Form 990 Wiki |
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Wiki style editorial strategies seem to work well when (a) there is a defined topic that's important to a community of interest and (b) either prestige or network effects create a perceived credibility for the resulting work. Those two ingredients combine to create the kind of shared state in the outcome of the editorial process that results in good content. The new Form 990 Wiki, launched by the National Center for Charitable statistics, stands an excellent chance of bringing a good test of these principles. On top of this, it's about time there was such a thing as a genuinely public conversation about the single most important financial reporting document for U.S. tax exempt organizaitons.
Posted: 8/6/07; 11:41:40 PM # |
| The NPT 2007 Power and Influence Top 50 |
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Although I'm not sure I understand the methodology behind the Nonoprofit Times' annual listing of influential people in the US nonprofit sector, I'm nevertheless utterly delighted to see one of our own network authors - Gavin Clabaugh - selected to be among the "Top 50" in 2007 (6 page PDF). The Times even leads with Gavin's blog in their brief profile: "Go to Gavin’s DigitalDiner and see where the elites of the nonprofit online world go for nourishment. At Mott, he has evolved a back-office position at a large foundation into a strategic opportunity to emphasize technology within both the grant-making community and the larger nonprofit sector."
Posted: 8/6/07; 10:43:49 PM # |
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2 August 2007 |
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| Nonprofit Blogging Strategies: Leveraging the Best of Old and New Channels |
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Weblogs are one of the key enabling technologies of online social organizing and marketing strategies. But it's too easy for organizations to either (a) treat them like just another channel through which to pump content or (b) treat them as alarmingly dangerous to organizational brand and message. Unfortunately, both of these approaches lead to greater alienation between organizations and their stakeholder communities. It's with that in mind that I'm pleased to announce our next online seminar: Nonprofit Blogging Strategies: Leveraging the Best of Old and New Channels, which will be conducted on September 14th & 21st, 2007. The early registration period (during which time registrants get a free copy of Communication Centered Technology Planning) is now open.
Posted: 8/2/07; 3:56:15 PM # |
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