10 Great Social Innovation Reads: October 2012

It seems that October had two primary themes: moving nonprofits to measure outcomes and the evolution of philanthropy. The drum beat that nonprofits must find a way to measure what change they are creating has been growing louder, and every nonprofit leader would be wise to listen and understand this new trend. But in order to get to a place where most or all nonprofits are measuring outcomes, philanthropists must start paying for measurement. It is interesting to watch this all evolve.

Below are my top 10 picks for what was worth reading in October in the world of social innovation. And as always, please add what I missed to the comments. And if you want to see an expanded list, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or my newest social media network, ScoopIt.

You can see the 10 Great Reads lists from past months here.

1. There were several great articles about the need for nonprofits to prove the change they are creating. Steve Boland at Nonprofits Assistance Fund kicked if off by encouraging nonprofits to compare their resources to the outcomes they achieve.  The New Philanthropy Capital blog encouraged nonprofits to approach measurement with theory, courage and creativity. And on the Center for Effective Philanthropy’s blog, Lauren Gilbert provided a case study of BELL and how they measured outcomes.




2. And then to the ultimate question, “Will funders pay for measurement?”. Beth Kanter asks the question What is the Funder’s Role in Supporting Good Measurement? and Mario Morino (author of Leap of Reason) weighs in.  And Phil Buchanan, CEO of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, argues “Foundations must step up and support robust nonprofit performance management systems.” Oh yes, please.




3. Writing in the New York Times Paul Sullivan explores how the advent of impact investing is pushing philanthropists to measure the impact of their dollars.




4. Even though the premier social entrepreneurship conference, Social Capital Markets, was in September, there were two great round-up blog posts about how SoCap moved the conversation about investing in social entrepreneurship forward. First was Jeff Raderstrong’s argument that we need to beware of the hype around impact investing and focus on solutions to social problems. And Christine Egger wrote a fabulous post on the Idealist blog about new ways to think about, fund & inform social change.




5. There were a couple of great posts about (the really sexy topic of) nonprofit budgeting. It may sound dry, but a nonprofit’s budget is an incredibly powerful tool for creating social change, so the more organizations that can harness that tool, the better. On the Nonprofit Finance Fund blog, Peter Kramer demonstrates how to connect your budget to your overall organization strategy. And Kate Barr argues that breakeven budgeting is the “biggest barrier to nonprofit financial health.” Amen to that!




6. Two great pieces this month from Lucy Bernholz who always makes us think, especially about the future. First is her piece on libraries and the future and then her laundry list of  things we can no longer assume about the world around us.




7. I always love a well done infographic and PhilanTopic offers one with their Nonprofits’ Impact on the Economy.




8. Writing on the Social Earth blog Ashok Kamal reminds us that the work of social change is an exhausting roller coaster and we all need some “inspiration capital” to keep us going.




9. Nancy Lublin, CEO of DoSomething.org, describes that for the millennial generation, innovation is the status quo and they are “poised to bring the social and business worlds closer together – tying profit to social change, and strong local communities to a new global society.” Let’s hope!




10. It looks like the old is becoming new again as cities revive the idea of public, inner city markets.

Photo Credit: x1klima

Tags: BELL, impact investing, Leap of Reason, Millennials, nonprofit budgeting, nonprofit infographics, nonprofit measurement, nonprofit outcomes, nonprofit performance management, Philanthropy, public markets, SoCap, Social Capital Markets, Social Entrepreneurship, social innovation

Creating UnSectored Social Innovation: An Interview with Jeff Raderstrong

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Jeff Raderstrong, founder and editor of UnSectored, an online platform for people interested in developing collaborative efforts to create social change. In addition to the online platform, the UnSectored community uses offline events and activities to identify intersections, facilitate discussions, encourage cross-sector collaboration, and promote cross-sector change efforts. Jeff is also a community engagement consultant and has worked for Venture Philanthropy Partners, among other organizations on the front lines of social innovation.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: You and some friends started the UnSectored blog a year ago to encourage the nonprofit, public and private sectors to break down their walls and work together on social change. How has it worked so far? What are you seeing?

Jeff: The blog was a first step in changing the conversation around social change to focus not on individual components—social enterprise, nonprofit, corporation social responsibility, government innovation, etc—but to consider the entire ecosystem. Social change is a complex task and, to us, it seemed silly to have all these conversations separately, with people not really paying attention to what those with similar (or identical) goals were doing.

In that way, the blog has been successful in providing that space. The response we received was way more positive than we were expecting, because our core message is a pretty simple one—that social change is the responsibility of all individuals, organizations, and sectors, and that everyone should work together. But there had not been a place for discussion around that idea, so it resonated with people.

There’s still a lot more work to do, obviously, and UnSectored can’t do all of it. We are providing the platform for the community that believes in this idea—what’s next is up to the people who join that community.

Nell: Your fellow bloggers at UnSectored are all part of the Millennial generation. Do you think the notion of “unsectoredness” (is that a word?) is a particularly Millennial one?

Jeff: Answer to first question: Yes! You just put it on the internet, so it’s now a word!

Second question: I do not think there is anything inherent about the ideas behind UnSectored that make it explicitly a millennial endeavor. The work on UnSectored has been done primarily by millennials, but I think that’s just a function of the people I reached out to (my peers) rather than who the idea resonates with most. We have gotten response on this from people of all ages and backgrounds—I think it’s a universal idea.

That being said, I do think it’s a relatively new idea, born out of the more collaborative and connected nature of the brave new world we live in. The new tools available to people make it much more easier now than ever before to work together. For millennials, this isn’t “new,” this is the way we were raised. Because of that, we get it a little quicker than others, but I don’t think that makes it “ours” at all.

Nell: In addition to the blog you are also doing UnSectored Talks and Working Group Actions. What are these and what are you hoping they will accomplish?

Jeff: We have four components to UnSectored: Blog, Talks, Actions, Campaigns. The blog is relatively straightforward, as are the Talks: Both are ways to engage with open and intentional conversations around social change. The Talks are offline, the blog is online.

The other two components are trying to leverage the power of the UnSectored community to move from discussion to action. The Actions are the offline, coordinated version of this, and the Campaigns leverage the online platform of UnSectored. By giving people the option to engage in discussion and action, both online and offline, we hope to meet people where they are and get them to engage the best they can.

Nell: How geographic is your movement? Is it growing beyond the D.C. Metro area?

Jeff: It’s centered on DC, but we’ve been talking to people around the country. Because we aren’t funded and rely on volunteer time, it’s hard for us to have events in other places. But, we are looking for creative ways to partner with other organizations around the country. If you have some ideas, let us know!

Nell: Many of your fellow bloggers work for high-profile organizations within the social sector space (Venture Philanthropy Partners, Calvert Foundation, Council on Foundations, etc.). Do you find that your employers buy into the UnSectored idea and if so what are they doing to make it a reality?

Jeff: They definitely do. I think we all get inspiration for UnSectored from our other work. More and more, people at all types of organizations—high profile or not—are beginning to see how working together can produce better outcomes and create more transformative change. Personally, I’ve worked on the Social Innovation Fund initiative from the Obama administration, a great example of “unsectoredness” at work: The federal government partnering with funders and service providers to better leverage resources and encourage innovation. This initiative, which many of your readers are probably familiar with, is a great example of UnSectored’s core principle: That by working together, we can do much more than working alone.

Tags: Calvert Foundation, Convergence, corporate social responsibility, Council on Foundations, government innovation, Millennial generation, nonprofit, Obama Administration, social change, social entrepreneurs, social innovation, Social Innovation Fund, Unsectored, Venture Philanthropy Partners

Are You a Social Entrepreneur?

I’m excited to report that a week from today, July 26th, I will be participating in a live online chat at the Foundation Center’s Grant Space website, titled “Are You a Social Entrepreneur?“.

Abby Chroman, leader of global community curation for AshokaHub, and I will be fielding questions from the audience about social entrepreneurship, social change, nonprofit innovation, capacity capital, social return on investment and much more.

Some of the questions we’ll be discussing include:

• What qualities do social entrepreneurs possess?
• How is this concept different from traditional corporate structure, even one with a socially-minded mission?
• How do you truly accomplish social change vs. simply doing “good” work?
• How can nonprofits especially incorporate some of this thinking to be successful in fulfilling their missions?
• How do you measure social impact and return?

But the majority of questions are up to the audience. This live chat will happen entirely in the chat window on the Grant Space website. When the chat goes live, you can submit your questions and comments and interact with Abby and me and other readers, but you can also send questions ahead of time.

So join us! Registration is free at the Grant Space web site here. I look forward to your questions!

Photo Credit: Colin_K

Tags: Abby Chroman, Ashoka, AshokaHub, capacity capital, Foundation Center, Grant Space, live chat, mission, nonprofit, outcomes, social change, social entrepreneur, Social Entrepreneurship, social innovation, social return on investment

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: June 2012

I’m a little late getting the June 10 Great Reads list out this month because I was on vacation. But June didn’t disappoint, with some great articles that make us think about things in new ways, from how philanthropists fund, to how “nonprofit” is defined, to how homelessness and food insecurity can be solved, to how Millennials give and much more.

Below are my ten picks of the best reads in social innovation in June, but please add what I missed in the comments. If you want to see more than just this list of 10, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest. And if you want to read 10 Great Reads lists from past months, go here.

1. A new debate raged on the “old” topic of defining the nonprofit sector. Phil Buchanan at the Center for Effective Philanthropy started it off with this 6-part series on articulating the value of the nonprofit sector. And along the same lines, Mark Hecker at the UnSectored blog wrote this really thought-provoking piece about the language of social good.




2. From The Atlantic comes a great article about the enormous opportunity of impact investment, “How Financial Innovation Can Save the World.”




3. The on-going drumbeat to get nonprofits to advocate for their own sector in Congress gets louder with “Nonprofits Missing From Big Battles (in Congress)” and a united movement among San Francisco nonprofits to push for more city funding.




4. David Henderson is easily one of the greatest thinkers in the social sector space and he takes issue with a new app designed to “solve” homelessness. His post really begs the question, “To What End?”




5. Always at the ready with fantastic financial tools for the nonprofit sector, the Nonprofit Finance Fund releases a list of Top 10 Finance Essentials for nonprofits and, not to forget that the philanthropy that funds nonprofits also needs to change, they also have a list for nonprofit funders.




6. In The Washington Post, Sarah Kliff explores new experiments and studies about how to solve urban food deserts.




7. As a mother of two young boys I agree there is definitely something to emulating how kids play, as Philip Auerswald argues at the Harvard Business Review blog: To Innovate, Play with Pieces Off the Game Board




8. The third annual Millennial Impact Report, about how the millennial generation connects with nonprofits, was released and lots of people had things to say about the data, including 3 New Truths About Millennials and How Millennials Connect, Involve and Give.




9. At the Center for High Impact Philanthropy blog Jen Landres describes how philanthropists can have much greater impact by being “unsexy” in their giving.




10. Decrying the over-emphasis on capital campaigns in the arts world, Rebecca Thomas and Rodney Christopher argue that “scores of organizations jeopardize the long-term vibrancy of their programs because they focus on getting the building built rather than having a healthy organization inside it.” Amen to that!

Photo Credit: Frank Starmer

Tags: Millennial giving, nonprofit, nonprofit advocacy, nonprofit capital campaigns, nonprofit finance, nonprofit financial tools, outcomes, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, social innovation

Empowering Teens to Make a Difference: An Interview with Aria Finger

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Aria Finger, COO of DoSomething.org. Aria oversees the programmatic and business development activities that empower millions of young people to take action each year around causes they’re passionate about. She reads economic theory for fun, loves vanilla cupcakes and thinks that “After Innocence” should be required movie viewing for anyone who cares about social justice. Aria currently serves on the board of Care for the Homeless, is an adjunct professor at New York University and was recently named to Crain’s New York Business list of “40 under 40″.

You can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: DoSomething was founded almost 20 years ago, long before the explosion of social entrepreneurship and social media. How has the organization evolved and kept up with the new energy and excitement around social change and new technologies for connecting people?

Aria: DoSomething.org has always had the same goal – enable young people to take action around the causes that they’re passion about. The exciting part is that now, in 2012, we have an entirely new toolkit at our fingertips – mobile, social, the web, etc – to reach millions of young people who want to make a difference. Experimentation and iteration keeps us on our toes. About a year ago, we decided to text 500 of our users who we hadn’t heard from via email in 6+ months. We sent them a text message and in 9 minutes, we had a 20% response rate. Just incredible. We found that with texting we could activate 20% of a group of “defunct” users. This SMS test was the basis for our pivot to mobile – using cell phones as a means to activate and engage teens. We now text out to over 220,000 teens on a weekly basis.

Nell: How does an organization like DoSomething, that is all about the youngest generation, remain relevant as the organization and its staff age?

Aria: One word: interns. At any given time, we have 20-30 college students working for the organization. And we pay them. These interns are coming to pitch meetings, becoming instant focus groups, creating full-fledged national campaigns and being the frontline of interaction with our users.

In addition, in this new world where everything can be crowd-sourced, we use that to our full advantage. When we were re-launching our website, we put the mocks on Facebook and asked our fans what they thought. When we’re stuck on a campaign name, we go out to our 500,000+ twitter followers and ask them what we should call it.

Nell: At DoSomething you are committed to metrics and have some impressive quarterly performance dashboards. How do you balance what is easy to measure, like outputs (# of members, # of campaigns), with what’s harder to measure like outcomes (what social change DoSomething is creating)?

Aria: At DoSomething.org, we LOVE data. In fact, we have two data analysts on a staff of 40. They inform everything we do and we love that we get to show off their awesomeness in our quarterly dashboards. That being said, you can’t always measure in numbers the value of a warm and fuzzy story about a teen’s first volunteerism experience being with our Teens for Jeans campaign. Qualitative anecdotes do have a place in performance dashboards as well. What I’m really excited about is 5 years down the road when we’ll be able to track our young people long-term – see them go from engagement in one campaign to five campaigns to perhaps starting their own Do Something Club when they go off to college. It will be really exciting to measure whether DoSomething.org members are happier, healthier, participate in their communities more, register to vote more, etc.

Nell: In the last few years there has been a huge increase in online action platforms like Change.org that organize people around causes. How does DoSomething compete with or complement these new channels and movements?

Aria: We love the Change.org folks and all of the other fabulous online platforms that are promoting social change (half of our staff found their job on Idealist.org!). For the most part, the thing that sets DoSomething.org apart is our focus on teenagers. A lot of the other sites do a great job activating older folks – mid 20somethings and beyond – and our focus has remained on high school and college students.

Nell: The Occupy Wall Street movement is largely driven by dissatisfaction among the Millennial generation. What are your thoughts on Occupy Wall Street, how they’ve organized and their potential to make change happen?

Aria: Personally, I’m a supporter of any movement that tries to change this world for the better, as long as they’re doing so in a peaceful and constructive way. A lot of millennials are pissed off because they perceive that the “older folks” have done a good job screwing up our world and now they’re left to pick up the pieces. We see a lot of young people really tuning out politics because they don’t see any good coming out of it and they think they can do a better job trying to fix things themselves. There has been plenty of criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement, and I’m sure many of them are valid, although I do think they created a national conversation around income distribution, fairness, jobs for middle class people, etc that wasn’t happening before them.

Tags: Aria Finger, Change.org, DoSomething.org, Idealist.org, Millennials, mobile, mobile campaigns, nonprofit, Occupy Wall Street, outcomes, outputs, social change, Social Entrepreneurship, social media, social movements