Category Archives: Weblogs

Transparency and giving well….

Posted on by

Regular readers will know that I often cite the delivery, quality, transparency mantra as important foundations for any socially-beneficial enterprise seeking to operate in today’s world/markets. Two of those, quality (including measurement) and transparency, have collided in a huge furore over a US-based philanthropic funder/evaluator called GiveWell. You know when the founder of an organisation has to title a blog post "I had a lapse in judgement, did a horrible thing, and I apologize", that things are not good.

Basically, one of GiveWell’s founders was caught asking himself a question (with a fake ID), then responding (with another ID) promoting GiveWell. He was also subsequently tracked using various aliases to promote GiveWell elsewhere online and, according to some posts, give their competitors a kicking. Not good, particularly when the organisation has shouted from the rooftops about the need for transparency and openness. This has made the reaction (see GiftHub and the original Metafilter post for the gruesome details) all the stronger and more vicious, alongside the fact that many seasoned professionals in the field had already been rubbed up the wrong way by GiveWell’s perceived arrogance and naivety (the two founders are recent converts from hedge fund management, and their initial response was to offer the MetaFilter community money by way of an apology).

The laundry continues to be aired in public too. The much-respected blogger Lucy Bernholz is on GiftWell’s board, and has posted here asking what she/the organisation should do.  Having put itself forward, as Jeff Trexler puts it, as a model of accountability, it will be interesting to see how it pans out.

What’s interesting about this, I think, is not only the importance of walking the walk as far as transparency is concerned, but also about really understanding the internet and its power (constructive and destructive). If people thought that this blog was being used to advertise products, or had press releases placed with it, it would damage the credibility…as would any suggestion that we were making up comments on this blog or other people’s. At the same time, people expect the blog to represent and inform about the work of SSE and its students and Fellows, amongst other material, in as fair and objective a way as possible. We don’t always get the tone right, and sometimes have strong, subjective opinions, but trying to manipulate the audience is never an option, as GiveWell are discovering.

Incidentally, our new intern Thor does exist and is not a figment of my imagination. He’ll be giving the unvarnished, barely moderated truth in his month-long stay with us here….

[UPDATE: the GiveWell founder has been demoted to Program Officer, according to this official statement from the organisation’s board]

Share Button

Talk about a resolution…

Posted on by

Happy New Year readers / subscribers / social entrepreneurs. Hope you had a nice festive period: I was delighted to find that this blog had had its busiest traffic day in a long time while it was on leave; not sure what that says, but welcome to all newcomers.

It’s traditional, of course, to start the new year with a whole host of lists and resolutions, and the blogosphere is no different. You might want to start with the mighty Merlin Mann over at 43folders who has posts about Fresh Starts and Modest Changes and then read about 9 great tools to help you achieve your goals. Or, if you want to be real about the new year resolution shtick, how about 5 hard questions to ask before starting a new project, followed closely by choosing one of these Free Tools to Manage New Year’s Resolutions. Being S.M.A.R.T. about those resolutions is the key, apparently….

There will be those reclining, wishing to be told what to expect in the year ahead. Here, I might point you to Lucy Bernholz or McKinsey’s  8 Business (Technology) Trends to Watch. And for those still wanting food for thought, you might enjoy the EDGE’s annual question to the great thinkers of the world (this year: "What have you changed your mind about, and why?") and John Thackara’s reflection on approaches to sustainability.

A few other things to catch up with over the Xmas break:

– Tom Savage on how social enterprise doesn’t have a monopoly on doing good (and how it is difficult to invest in). I missed this last year, but is worth a read, if only to ponder how one reverses through a glass ceiling. More seriously, it does raise some interesting points, in relation to educational background, barriers to investment, and the need for greater "remuneration".  Given that Al Harris is largely considered the driving force behind Blue Ventures, it will be interesting to note the progress of Tom’s Bright Green Talent recruitment agency….certainly seems to fill a niche at a good time.

– The government launched a new initiative called Spark (igniting social enterprise to prevent homelessness), which is:

"an innovative project developed by Communities
and Local Government, The TREES Group, Big Issue Invest (part of The
Big Issue group) and Eastside Consulting to build and inspire social
enterprise to prevent homelessness"

It will aim to scale up existing enterprises, support the growth of enterprises within existing organisations and encourage the sharing of skills and resources across sectors.

– A full list of third sector-ites on the new year’s day honours list to follow, but here’s some North-Eastern social entrepreneurs who made it on….

– Many SSE students and Fellows are driven by faith or spiritual beliefs of some kind. There’s a discussion about the relationship between spirituality and social entrepreneurship on Social Edge.

– And last, but by no means least, proof that SSE reaches beyond these shores….to the Sydney Morning Herald, no less: Calling all rebels: it’s your time

My resolution? Eat that frog.

 

Share Button

Social entrepreneur and social innovation blogs

Posted on by

An organisation doing PR for a big event in our world asked me recently for a list of blogs related to this field / movement, as they were having trouble deciding who / what to contact. I put together a list of what I think the most influential / readable / interesting / relevant blogs are, and then thought that it was quite a useful list, so here it is, broken down with no real reasoning into US / UK / Other; there’s lots of other feeds I subscribe to, but tried to pick the most directly relevant blogs; please add any others in the comments:

US-based
– Social Edge: www.socialedge.org
– Social Enterprise Reporter: http://www.sereporter.com/seblog
– Stanford Social Innovation Review: http://www.ssireview.org/opinion/
– Philanthropy 2173: http://philanthropy.blogspot.com/
 
There’s a few others that are tangentially relevant
(Tactical Philanthropy etc) with a very good blogroll here: http://philanthropy.com/giveandtake/
 
UK-based
– me, obviously, here and on www.sse.org.uk
[I also blog at the www.GlobalIdeasBlog.com and at
Innovation Exchange: http://innovation-exchange.org/]
– Rod Schwartz et al at Catalyst Fund: http://www.catfund.com/blog
– Todd Hannula at Social Catalyst: http://www.socialcatalyst.co.uk/
– NESTA (various): http://blogs.nesta.org.uk/
 
[tangentially Intelligent
Giving: http://www.intelligentgiving.com/blog and
David Wilcox are relevant also: http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org/ ]
 
Other thoughts
– Doors of Perception: http://www.doorsofperception.com/

I’d also add that, on blogging + web 2.0 / third sector, you have to read:
– Beth’s Blog
– Have Fun, Do Good
– nfp 2.0
– Podnosh

Share Button

Why the third sector shouldn’t fear blogging…

Posted on by

SSE is currently working on setting up blogs for the social enterprise ambassadors programme, in collaboration with our various consortium partners. We had an interesting conversation about the degree of moderation / filtering needed, and the risks of commenting. My view was that the more authentic / honest / unvarnished the better (the ambassadors are amazing people, and letting their passion and personality come across is part of what the programme is about), and that commenting wouldn’t be a substantial issue. Which is always easy to say, and never that easy to predict.

So I was happy to read Britt Bravo’s post on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, titled "No-one has ever died from a blog comment". It echoes the point above, just in stronger terms:

"Has anyone ever died from a blog comment? Has a nonprofit been brought
down because they were too transparent and authentic online?….If being authentic, truthful and generous while listening, sharing and
collaborating are things nonprofits want to avoid, then, we’ve taken a
wrong turn."

Which is difficult to disagree with. The other issue that gets raised is "but what if we get thousands of comments, and lots of people have to be taken on to deal with them…?", but this rarely happens unless the blog reaches enormous critical mass; by which time the positives from such an audience vastly outweigh any drain on resources. As laid out in our "Should social entrepreneurs and social enterprises blog?" psot a while back, blogging shouldn’t be done because of hype, but because it fits into strategic communication and marketing objectives; understand why you are doing it, and it will be all the more powerful.

Feel free to comment below :0)

Share Button

The obligatory Facebook post

Posted on by

OK, so I resisted only so long. Since I last mentioned innocently in passing that "Facebook appears to have hit a tipping point recently amongst my circle of friends" (Social networking for good), it has gone absolutely stratospheric…to the point of dominating pub conversations and news aggregators alike. So….relevant to SSE and social entrepreneurs? I honestly have no idea, currently. Ok, so the ‘Causes’ application seems promising, it’s more usable (to me) than MySpace, and the SSE group is in place and (slowly) starting to grow…but surely too early to say? Not for plenty of other people:

– Facebook: social enterprise machine? seems an appropriate place to start. Tom Watson reckons that, like other online philanthropy matching sites, Facebook "holds the promise of connecting social entrepreneurship with mass
markets of consumers: of linking the motivation behind philanthropy
with the aspiration to bring about change". Longer piece by Tom is on OnPhilanthropy

– Facebook causes and effects has a good overview of what it might mean for charities / social causes, particularly focusing on the Causes application….and how to promote it. Interestingly, it also raises the point that, because Facebook was initially designed for and populated by those in university education, your friends could be ripe potential donor material! Which brings me neatly, if tangentially, to:

– The class divide between Facebook and MySpace... which strikes me as, well, wrong. It’s pretty obvious to most that it’s an age divide, surely? Or a music vs photos divide? Or a ‘I embrace the randomness’ vs ‘I want to communicate with people I know’? Anyway, the argument rages in the comments…

– More relevantly, check out the ‘Beginner’s Guide to Facebook for non-profits’. Very much for beginners (here’s how you create an account…etc) but useful, nonetheless.

– Falling for Facebook seemed about right to me, particularly in drawing attention to the way it "mixes business and pleasure", rather than, like LinkedIn, seeming "like some sort of massive resume swap". And, of course, that it’s about connecting to your community…

– For background on where it’s heading, here’s a good interview / article in Fortune mag: Facebook’s new face; key quote: ""We want to make Facebook into something of an operating system so you can run full applications"…

– CharityBlog also gets in on the act, albeit with a slightly resigned air ("The social networking site Facebook appears to be flavour of the month"). Can’t help feeling comparing it to BBC’s Action Network is somewhat off the mark, though.

– The prolific David Wilcox thinks it could help to re-invent membership organisations

– This Facebook post is quite interesting too, helping to elucidate the USPs and why you end up using it: "The first thing is that you get a feed of what changes about any of
your friends. The second is that there’s a whole lot of things to do,
so there’s a lot to see in that feed. And, thirdly…they’ve made an API
that allows third parties to add modules to their hearts content, to
add new functionality, which is nicely integrated with the rest of the
site."

That’ll do for now, though I prepare myself for a rash of Facebook / philanthropy / social entrepreneurs /  non-profit / charity stories. I would only add that, if it’s rise / expansion continues, those spending time creating less usable, more niche, less open, less used, less, rich, non-profit-specific social networking sites might begin to wonder if they’ve barked up a very wrong tree. Those who can plug into it, and build with it, will be the ones to flourish….

Share Button