Posting #2 in a series on Resource Development See # 1, Five Elements of Strategic Resource Development First, a definition from the Oxford Dictionary: Crowdfunding (a form of crowdsourcing) is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising monetary contributions from a large number of people, today often performed via Internet-mediated registries, but the concept can also be executed through mail-order subscriptions, benefit events, and other methods. i Wikipedia adds this: Crowdfunding is a form of alternative finance, which has emerged outside of the traditional financial system. ii… Read more About Crowd Funding →
Posting #1 in a series on Resource Development It’s tough out there for non-profits and social causes when it comes to raising money, especially money for core operations and services.… Read more Five Elements of Strategic Resource Development →
It’s sad. There are too many people who speak ill of charities. Some making sweeping accusations or conclusions without any real evidence or understanding. Some prefer to focus on the mistakes charities make (and of course they make some) rather than the good they deliver, There are some who think the continuation of social problems means charities have failed because not everyone is housed, or healthy, or free of violence. Imagine saying to a heart surgeon she is a failure because for every life she saves, others die from heart disease… Read more Why Speak Ill of Charity? →
I am working on a major paper currently entitled, Mega-Charities and All the Rest: Money, Power, Folk Lore, and Transformation. It will include research and data about the revenue sources of… Read more Mega-Charities: the 100 Largest Charities in Canada →
(CONTINUED… If you missed Part One in this series, you can find it here.) It is well documented that those countries where the Income Gap between the wealthiest and poorest… Read more Heretical Propositions: Toward Democratic Philanthropy (Part Two) →
This is the first installment of a series from a long essay I am writing about philanthropy or more specifically about the need for a major, if not radical shift, toward democratic philanthropy. The essay will be included in a book of exposition and criticism I am writing, currently entitled “Heretical Propositions.” Money can mean a lot of things for those who have it. It can feed us, open doors, and keep us safe and warm. For those who have a lot of it — we call that “wealth” — it also provides influence… Read more Heretical Propositions: Toward Democratic Philanthropy (Part One) →
Let’s play pretend. Pretend you run a business that sells widgets that are critical to a buyer. The price of each widget is $1000.00 and the buyer needs 100 of… Read more Let’s Play Pretend →
I just came from an excellent meeting with local colleagues who lead some of the best known non profits in town. We were talking about a number of things, but one topic was the emergence of social impact bonds (SIBs) as another method of financing social/health programs. Social Impact Bonds are very new and the first one occurred in Great Britain in 2010. Today, there are 14 social impact bond projects in the United Kingdom, one in Australia, and a couple or so in the United States (as of 2013).… Read more The Scoop on Social Impact Bonds →
Taken from WHAT’S NEXT for PHILANTHROPY, Monitor Institute Download Report “As innovation theorist Bhaskar Chakrovorti explains in The Slow Pace of Fast Change, ‘The players in various networked markets appear to be prisoners of their own individualism. The problem is that the decisions that make sense at the individual or institutional level are not necessarily the best choices when viewed in the aggregate.’ “The result in philanthropy is a system with no natural mechanism for coordinating effort, for learning, for sharing knowledge about what does and doesn’t work, or for… Read more WHAT’S NEXT for PHILANTHROPY →
The other day the CBC published an article on third party fundraisers, and in my opinion failed to provide a measured and balanced piece. The article leaves one with the impression that the use of expensive, if not over-priced, third party fundraisers is a common occurrence. It isn’t. Imagine Canada responded to the article and I encourage you to read both the CBC ARTICLE and IMAGINE CANADA’S RESPONSE. It’s challenging enough these days to be a charity without having to face the kind of incomplete, small picture reporting offered in… Read more Imagine Canada criticizes CBC Article →
I spend a fair amount of my “free” time looking into trends that are and will be impacting the nonprofit sector. The kind of trends I am interested in go… Read more Fundraising Innovations (but so much more than that) →
