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Top Ten Articles on Civil Society, 1996 - 2006
By Michael C. Gilbert, January 23rd, 2007
As part of our celebration of the ten year anniversary of The Gilbert Center and Nonprofit Online News, we are publishing a series of "Top Ten" lists, which we will continue until we've done ten of them. This is the first of these lists and likely to be the most substantial: The Top Ten Articles from the First Ten Years of Nonprofit Online News.
As with any such list that doesn't provide a methodology, these articles are in the list because of my opinion as the editor. I based my choice on a combination of the following factors: (1) How influential was the piece, either directly or indirectly? (2) How influential do I wish it were, given the importance of the ideas at the time it was published? And (3) how proud am I to have written and published it?
The following articles are listed in the order that they were published.
Although it's a very short piece, this is on the list because sadly, the key insights and pieces of advice have stood the test of time. On the other hand, it's been good to see weblogs continue their rise as a publishing model, given how they directly address syndromes like The Upside Down Website and The Dead Web Site. The article's Quick and Dirty Site Analysis still comprises many of the best questions you can ask about a site.
This article was originally written for In Context Magazine (now Yes! Magazine) back in 1994 when I was running a small nonprofit called GoodWorks. We reprinted it in 1999 because it captures the spirit and practice of mindfulness that we try to bring to the work we do with individuals and organizations. It's based on a series of "time management" workshops that I've taught to folks in social change and social service work.
In the field of nonprofit technology, this is probably the most influential piece I have written. Although most nonprofits still periodically go through major investments in web bling, there is fairly widespread nominal agreement that email connections and email tools are fundamental components of online relationship building.
During the dotcom boom, I was a discouraging voice when it came to the topic of online fundraising. I felt that anxious consultants and overfunded ecommerce companies were luring nonprofits into bad deals on the basis that credit card transactions were some kind of fundraising. When the anxiety quelled and nonprofits reasserted their expertise, the true potential of online fundraising came into view.
We spent several years as a leading researcher of online communication, in the forms of both surveys of organizations and controlled tests of effective practices. Some of the key insights of that research came together beautifully in the Email Newsletter Marketing Model, one of the most prominent pillars of our Communication Centric Planning body of ideas. It was widely greeted by leading consultants as an accurate description of the direction in which they were encouraging their clients to move.
This is a very simple idea: Grants information can and should be shared online via an open, machine-readable format. It has the potential to move us toward the era of effective network-centric philanthropy. But the future of this idea is far from certain. A few foundations have stepped forward, but not enough to create the critical mass that would be needed for a rich and open ecosystem of grantmaking information to emerge. But the nascent Grantsfire project, which we are supporting along with several other leading organizations, gives me hope.
Occasionally I teach a workshop called Keystrokes, in support of writers who want to develop their discipline, rather than just their craft. One of the elements of that workshop is a simple, but effective model for helping people develop the vision and practice needed for completing large writing endeavors. If just one colleague a year writes a book because of this model, I will feel it's been an enormous success.
The boundaries of traditional nonprofit organizations are under relentless assault by new patterns of communication and association that are stronger than the corporate model of governance and stronger than nonprofit brands. The pressures and ideas converging on nonprofits include: collaboration and mergers, ASPs, Web 2.0, network centric advocacy, blogging, social bookmarking, and many other forms of social software and networks. Although our mainstream commentators are not on this yet, this convergence foretells a radical restructuring of the nonprofit sector.
I have long been frustrated by the technocentrism inherent in most nonprofit technology planning. In this article I look at three issues: What should planners in general ask? What are nonprofit techies (to the best of my discernment) asking? And how can we fix this (move away from asking technological questions that yield technological answers)? Regardless of your methodology, these are the fundamental questions of communication-centered thinking.
Knowledge management in civil society is one of our key areas of practice. Touching as it does on the core of my world view about learning, this piece has four lessons for every aspect of consulting, leadership, and change management. (1) Postures of Appropriate Ignorance. (2) Appreciation for Lingering Questions. (3) Investments in System Understanding. (4) Faith in the Nature of Change.
Honorable Mentions:
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