Listening to Nonprofit Beneficiaries: An Interview with Perla Ni

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, I’m talking with Perla Ni, CEO of GreatNonprofits. Perla was the founder and former publisher of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the leading journal on nonprofit management and philanthropy. Prior to her work at SSIR, Ni co-founded Grassroots Enterprise, later acquired by global public relations firm, Edelman. A frequent speaker on nonprofits and philanthropy, she has been named a “Top Game Changer” by the Huffington Post.

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

Nell: GreatNonprofits is an interesting spin on the growing nonprofit ratings market in that you gather consumer reviews of nonprofits. Why do you think what donors, volunteers, and clients have to say about a nonprofit is important to potential donors?

Perla: We think people with direct experience with a nonprofit, especially the nonprofit’s beneficiaries, are in the best position to tell us about the difference that that nonprofit has made in their life or their community.

In the seven years that we’ve been doing this, we have learned a couple of things about collecting beneficiary feedback. It’s not only the right thing to do – to empower the voice of beneficiaries so that they are treated with dignity – it is also the smart thing to do. It’s the smart thing to do because it is highly correlated with actual program outcome. We’ve seen the linkage between effective outcomes and organizations that collect and listen to their beneficiaries.

Although there are ongoing conversations about the best metrics for judging quality, there is agreement that, for almost every sector, consumer satisfaction and feedback drive quality through transparency and competition.

A trend toward human-centered design, where products are designed and rapidly iterated upon with feedback generated from users, is another example of how client responsiveness leads to improved outcomes.

GreatNonprofits has been collecting feedback about a wide variety of health, human service, arts and education organizations.

Nicole Molinaro, former executive director of Communities in Schools of Pittsburgh-Allegheny County, a Pennsylvania-based dropout prevention program serving at-risk youth, found great value in constituent feedback, “What interested us in being open to reviews from our constituents is really the desire to improve our services. Without hearing feedback about what we’re doing well and what we can do better, we really can’t make improvements in how we serve our kids.”

Due in part to feedback submitted by students, the organization added a student lounge as a safe, accessible place for the students to spend time in before and after programs.

In a recent GreatNonprofits survey of nonprofits, we found that a large number of nonprofits are listening to beneficiary feedback and some are taking action.

• 78% share reviews with board members
• 72% share reviews with staff
• 54% share reviews with volunteers
• 49% share reviews with donors
• 23% share reviews with clients
• 26% say reviews have impacted their operations

In fact, in Learning for Social Impact, a report for donors and foundations by McKinsey & Company, the number one recommendation given to funders is for them to “hear the constituent’s voice.”

These rich, detailed and concrete experiences from people who have actually experienced the work of the nonprofit—been fed by the food bank, helped by the after-school program—are a better way to discover the most effective charities than through tax forms. According to our survey of our users:

• 90% of donors say that reading reviews of clients help them understand the work of the nonprofit
• 80% of donors say that it influences their decision to give

Nell: How does a great customer experience (a review from a volunteer that had a great experience with a nonprofit) translate into a nonprofit’s ability to create social change? Or should or does a donor care about that?

Perla: In the excellent article “Listening to Those Who Matter Most, The Beneficiaries” in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, the authors show that, in the studies about school performance and patient outcomes, there is a high degree of correlation between listening to the student/patient and success.

Donors care about real world outcomes–how is my money helping?

Nell: What do you make of the growing debate about what information donors want and actually use in making their funding decisions? Do you think how donors make their giving decisions and what information they use to make those decisions has or is changing?

Perla: It starts with the donor. Donors want to improve the world, to make a difference. And the donors typically want to spend their time and money effectively. How do you find a nonprofit that is aligned with your passion and making a real difference on the ground?

Well, it requires listening to the voices of people on the ground – the ex-felon in a job training program, the student receiving mentorship, the volunteer who organized the environmental conference, the donor who visited the school in Cambodia – who have seen the first-hand impact of nonprofits.

These are not the usual people that donors listen to – they may be different from us in so many ways – income, class, geography, or race.

And if the donor wants to empower real, tangible changes in the lives of people and communities they want to improve, he/she needs to have the discipline to do that. It’s part of the first rule of philanthropy “don’t do something about me, without me.”

It’s a radical discipline, transparency and accountability that we must hold each of ourselves to, including the donor.

We don’t see this discipline as just funding decision-making. We see this as community engagement. The donor and the beneficiaries needs to be part of this philanthropic marketplace together to share insights on what works, what doesn’t yet and what could help to make a greater difference.

Nell: You were also the founder of the Stanford Social Innovation Review which is currently celebrating its 10th year. 10 years in to this world of social innovation what do you think we have to show for it? Have we gotten better at solving social problems?

Perla: If you Google “social innovation,” you get 648 million search results. This wasn’t at all the case 10 years ago! We pretty much invented that term.

One of the accomplishments, I think, is that social issues are no longer ghettoized as nonprofit issues. It’s not just a nonprofit problem or a business problem or a technology problem. Social innovation, which was always focused on finding new ways to solve problems, agnostic of the approach of the sector, is broadening our framework and ways that we network to achieve our goals. Now published by the incredibly prolific Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society, SSIR reaches business people, foundations, technology leaders, and nonprofits. Social innovation is about bringing an open, entrepreneurial outlook to enterprises – start-up and mature organizations alike. We’d also like to think that it helped popularize other concepts such as social entrepreneurship, which has blossomed into an area of study in school, as well as create a new kind of career identity. At the core is a belief in not being complacent, not doing the same old same old, or talking to the same people. It’s really about creating a broad mindset for ideas and different people.

Nell: Much speculation has occurred about what effect millennial donors will have on philanthropy, because of the huge wealth transfer they will enjoy, their large numbers and the new ways they are sharing information about their giving. What are your thoughts on how or if Millennial donors will change philanthropy?

Perla: Millenials are more civic-minded, more public about their giving and more likely to be bifurcated in their giving – give locally and internationally.

They may find the idea of donating to their parents’ alma mater or their parents’ charity as rather stuffy. They are a more connected, shop local, eat local, biking/walk generation – and so they are more drawn to the idea of helping their local community. They are also well-traveled and more connected internationally, so they have a high interest in giving internationally as well.

Tags: donors, GreatNonprofits, Millennial donors, Millennials, nonprofit, nonprofit outcomes, Perla Ni, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, social innovation, Stanford Social Innovation Review

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: January 2013

January was about looking ahead to 2013 and being prepared for the many changes to come. It was also about understanding and embracing new generations, thinking about risk differently, re-evaluating growth, and analyzing the unique and critical role of foundations.

Below are my top 10 picks for what was worth reading in January in social innovation. But please add to the list in the comments. And if you want to see more, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest or ScoopIt.

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

1. The predictions about what 2013 will mean for social innovation continue this month. As part of their whole Outlook 2013 series, the Chronicle of Philanthropy provides 5 Ways Nonprofit Work Will Change in 2013  and 5 Nonprofit Innovators to Watch. And the Philanthrocapitalism blog makes 20 predictions for 2013 chief among them is the rise of the woman philanthrocapitalist.  Writing in Forbes, Antoinne Machal-Cajigas tells us What’s Next in the World of Social Innovation?




2. January saw the second inauguration of President Obama, and Mathew Forti and Colin Murphy argue that his re-election campaign offers nonprofits some ideas about how to measure performance.




3. Phil Buchanan, head of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, likes to stir things up, and I love him for it. He argues that nonprofit dependency on philanthropic dollars is NOT a bad thing.  And because there is no rest for the weary, later in the month he argues against “the stampede to embrace the idea that for-profits — or for-profit models — can more easily combat our toughest social problems.”




4. Writing on the HBR blog, Kimberly Dasher Tripp reminds us that scaling social impact is not about growing organizations, it’s about growing solutions.




5. And speaking of impact, if you haven’t started figuring out what results your nonprofit is achieving, you may want to start since it looks like your youngest donors are demanding it.




6. Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center, wrote a moving post about the critical role foundations play in our society, “Free from the bottom-line pressure of markets, the partisanship of electoral politics, and the demands of fundraising — [foundations] can use their independence to do remarkable things, whether it’s taking on issues that no one wants to touch, sticking with an issue for decades if required, or keeping the rest of us from forgetting the millions of people who, through no fault of their own, continue to be harmed and/or excluded by war, economic injustice, disease, and discrimination.”




7. Beth Kanter writes a great post about overcoming the risk-aversion of the nonprofit sector by taking “little bets.”




8. As you plan your conference schedule for the year ahead, check out the William James Foundation’s comprehensive list of social entrepreneurship conferences.




9. Social change can be exhausting, demoralizing work. Here’s how a New York City teacher, with arguably one of the hardest jobs in education, stays committed to social change.




10. The millennial generation is no longer willing to separate work and life, so says Ryan Steinbach on the UnSectored blog. In fact, “millennials see their careers as not a part of their lives, but rather what they do with their lives – and life is so much more than making ends meet. It’s social, emotional, physical, and spiritual. It’s about pursuing your passions, building relationships, and giving back.”

Photo Credit: thatdisneylover

Tags: Foundations, Millennials, nonprofit, nonprofit outcomes, nonprofit risk aversion, performance measurement, philanthrocapitalism, Philanthropy, scaling social impact, social change, social innovation

Who Should I Interview Next?

I’ve been doing the monthly Social Velocity Blog Interview for 2 1/2 years now and have talked with more than thirty inspiring leaders in the world of social innovation. But now I need your help.

Over the last few years, I’ve interviewed

• Social investment gurus like Kevin Jones, Antony Bugg-Levine and George Overholser
• Philanthropic thought leaders like Phil Buchanan, Lucy Bernholz, Clara Miller and Sean Stannard-Stockton
• Nonprofit leaders pushing innovation forward like Dennis Morrow, Susan Comfort and Karina Mangu-Ward
• Social entrepreneur startups like Erine Gray and Ted Howard
• Sector activists like Robert Egger and Jeff Raderstrong

And many, many more.

It’s been amazing to hear from these leaders about where we’re going in the world of social change and where they hope to take us. You can see all of the past interviews here.

But now I’d like your ideas for who I should interview next. What all of these interviewees have in common is that they are people who are pushing boundaries, asking hard questions, creating new realities, making real social change. Who’s next?

So help me add to the list. If you have a suggestion for who I should interview next, leave a comment below or email me at info@socialvelocity.net. Thanks for your help!

Tags: Convergence, interviews, nonprofit, nonprofit leaders, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship, social innovation

Losing the Nonprofit Charity Mindset

Note: While I’m off during the holidays I wanted to provide some archive blog posts that you might enjoy. A version of this post originally appeared on the Social Velocity blog in November 2010.

Along with the burgeoning social entrepreneurship movement comes a bit of hubris that social entrepreneurs know better how to create social change than do the nonprofits that have been working on it for decades.  We can’t dismiss an entire sector that has been working on social problems for years.  However, I do think that there are some things that nonprofits can learn from social entrepreneurs.  The most important is how to lose the Charity Mindset.

Nonprofits are sometimes referred to as “charities,” and it is a real misnomer and does a real disservice to nonprofits.  A charity mindset is when a nonprofit, its board, funders or others promoting its work have a narrow view that the organization is benevolent, but not critical, to the world at large.  The charity mindset assumes that a nonprofit starts from the position of need, inadequacy, and burden, rather than a position of opportunity, strength, and effectiveness.  The charity mindset differs from a social entrepreneur mindset in a number of ways:

• Symptoms vs. Solutions: A charity, by its very definition, exists to provide aid to the needy, not to solve the underlying cause of the need.  This is not to say that every nonprofit can work toward solving an underlying problem; there will always be organizations that exist simply to provide basic needs (food, shelter, safety, etc.).  But I wonder if too many nonprofit organizations view their work as residing in the “charity” camp, instead of working, as social entrepreneurs do, to understand the cause of the need and how how they may be able to attack and solve it.

• Fundraising: A fundraiser in the charity mindset apologizes for the burden of asking someone for money, but a social entrepreneur offers investment opportunities to prospects.  Wendy Kopp from Teach for America went around evangelizing the Teach for America story and sought investors who wanted to get in on the ground level of an incredible opportunity to change the American public education system.

• Investment in Infrastructure: Charities spend every last penny on the program and leave little money for building the organization.  Social entrepreneurs understand that it takes organizations, infrastructure, systems, and talent to effectively execute on a solution to a social problem.

• Respect: Charities may be beloved by their supporters, but they may not garner a lot of respect from them.  Social entrepreneurs behave as equal partners with funders in creating solutions, and, as such, they command and receive real respect from investors, volunteers, partners and others.

• True Costs:  Charities like to claim that as much money as possible goes to direct services, but social entrepreneurs recognize the true costs of their endeavors and are open and honest with funders about those costs.  In fact they demand that funders understand and support those true costs.

I think the old adage is true, people will treat you the way you ask to be treated.  If a nonprofit acts like a charity, people will treat it like one.  Nonprofits need to stand up and demand to be treated as critical, equal partners in creating solutions.

Photo Credit: wolfgangfoto

Tags: charity, charity mindset, Fundraising, nonprofit, nonprofit fundraising, nonprofit strategy, Philanthropy, Social Entrepreneurship

10 Great Social Innovation Reads: November 2012

With a national election, hurricane Sandy, and Giving Tuesday, November was a busy month. All three events encouraged reflection about social change. And at the same time we had some pretty interesting arguments for how two of the sectors supporting social change (philanthropy and government) needed to shift as well.  All made for a fascinating month of reading.

Below are my top 10 picks for what was worth reading in November in 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 ScoopIt.

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

1. Even though hurricane Sandy hit at the end of October, much of November was spent cleaning up and reacting to the powerful storm. Patrick Davis reflects on what our reaction in natural disasters says about human nature.




2. And from Sandy we moved into the national election where, once it was over, there was much to learn. First Lucy Bernholz marvels at Nate Silver (the statistician that very accurately predicted the outcome of the election) and wonders what the corollary is in the philanthropic world. She asks “Who will be the first big philanthropist to put predictive analysis to the test in the social sector?” And apparently there is much to be learned from the Obama campaign’s email tactics during the campaign.




3. November also saw the launch of “Giving Tuesday,” an online effort to kick off the philanthropic season, just as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are the beginning of the commercial Christmas season.  While it seems like a great, innovative idea, Tim Ogden disagrees arguing that it won’t “materially affect giving in any positive way.”




4. It looks like it’s time to get tough with foundations. The PhilanTopic blog argues, “No More Free Rides: Foundations Need to Increase General Operating Support Now.” Amen to that! And GlassPockets, the Foundation Center’s online effort to increase foundation accountability and transparency now has 50 foundations participating, representing $138 billion in assets and more than $6.5 billion in annual giving, or 15% of all U.S. foundation giving.




5. And the government has work to do as well. Former Social Innovation Fund Director Paul Carttar writes a call to action about what government can do to more effectively encourage social innovation.




6. The drum beat for nonprofits to measure outcomes continues. Writing on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Mollie West and Andy Posner encourage nonprofits to go the way of business and government and start using The Math of Social Change.




7. And there is a really interesting new development in the ongoing effort to compare and rate social change organizations. The Social Impact 100 Index was unveiled in November. Modeled after the S&P Index in the financial markets, this effort by the Social Impact Exchange analyzes and picks the best 100 nonprofit investments for donors. It will be very interesting to see how this effort evolves and whether it transforms the nonprofit rating space.




8. Despite a tough economy, charitable giving rose slightly in 2011. But the real news is that online giving has grown to a $22 billion industry.




9. And speaking of fundraising in the online world, social media has completely disrupted the old model for how a nonprofit engages a donor, so says Julie Dixon and Denise Keyes. And Kivi Leroux Miller agrees.




10. On the Managing the Mission Checkbook blog, Kate Barr cautions that nonprofit sustainability isn’t just about revenue, it’s about 1) working to achieve your mission 2) integrating a successful business model and 3) adapting and changing. Agreed!

Photo Credit: kadorin

Tags: donor engagement, foundation transparency, Foundations, Fundraising, Lucy Bernholz, nonprofit, nonprofit outcomes, nonprofit social media, outcome measurement, Philanthropy, social change, social impact, Social Impact 100, social innovation

A Different Way to Give Back

Since it is the season of giving and most nonprofit organizations are asking for your support, I wanted to offer a different way to give back, as a bone marrow donor. My mom died 18 months ago from Leukemia. She was lucky enough to receive a bone marrow transplant, but unfortunately, it wasn’t able to save her life. However, many people who need a transplant don’t get that chance because they can’t find the right donor match.

I remain in awe of the (anonymous) incredibly generous person who gave the gift of bone marrow to my mother. It is a remarkable act of generosity. And incredibly powerful to think that you are potentially giving the last best hope of life to someone you will never meet.

Which brings me to Be the Match. Be The Match provides bone marrow and umbilical cord blood transplants to patients with life-threatening blood cancers. Every year, 10,000 patients in America need a bone marrow or cord blood transplant from someone outside of their family, yet only half receive one. These patients depend on the Be The Match Registry, the world’s largest listing of potential marrow donors and donated cord blood units, to find a matched donor. Be The Match is operated by the National Marrow Donor Program, a nonprofit organization that matches patients with donors, educates health care professionals and conducts research so more lives can be saved.

Be The Match’s goal is to provide marrow or umbilical cord blood transplants for all patients in need. And here’s where you come in.

There is a constant need to add new people to the Be The Match Registry. In 2011, more than 650,000 people joined the registry. The more people who join the Be The Match Registry, the better the chances all patients have of receiving a transplant. The chances of finding a match vary by individual based on their tissue type. Due to genetic diversity, a person’s tissue type may be common, uncommon or rare. Tissue types are inherited, so patients are most likely to match the tissue type of someone who shares their racial or ethnic heritage. Within every race or ethnicity, there are individuals with rare tissue types, which is why they continually strive to increase the size and the diversity of the Be The Match Registry.

So if you are looking for a different way to give back this holiday season, it’s simple to join the registry. You can find out more here.

Tags: Be The Match, bone marrow transplant, giving back, nonprofit, nonprofit campaigns, season of giving

Echoing Green Fellowship Application Goes Live Soon

It’s that time of year again. The Echoing Green application is about to go live. In their annual competition, Echoing Green looks for promising entrepreneurs starting up new organizations aiming to create large-scale social impact. The Echoing Green Fellowship awards up to $90,000 of start-up capital and two years of technical assistance to help get your organization off the ground. They fund nonprofit and for-profit startups.

The application will be open online from December 4th to January 7th, but you can get a head start by:

• Reviewing the application questions
• Reading the guide about how to answer the questions
• Watching a few short videos on the application process
• Signing up for informational webinars targeting underrepresented applicants (including African Americans, US Latinos, and women)

And while you are waiting for the application to go live you can also read my past interview with Lara Galinsky, senior vice president of Echoing Green and my review of her book, Work on Purpose.

To learn more about the Echoing Green fellowship or to access the application when it goes live, go here.

Good luck!

Tags: Echoing Green, Echoing Green Fellowship, funding for social entrepreneurs, Lara Galinsky, nonprofit, social entrepreneurs, Social Entrepreneurship, Work on Purpose

Helping Nonprofits Navigate Change

Over the past few weeks I’ve started using video more often on the blog. My plan is to do even more of that. So today I’m excited to share the below video with you (click here to see the video if you are reading this in an email.) It explains how I help nonprofit organizations, of all shapes and sizes, navigate dramatic change in their organizations so that they can raise more money, engage their board, achieve their mission, and ultimately create more social change.

I have launched a Social Velocity channel on YouTube, and I plan to add additional videos and even video blog posts in the coming months. I encourage you to check it out and subscribe to the channel if you are interested.

Tags: board development, Fundraising, Nell Edgington, nonprofit, nonprofit board of directors, nonprofit capacity, nonprofit change, nonprofit consulting, nonprofit strategic planning, nonprofit strategy, nonprofit video, Social Velocity