10 Great Social Innovation Reads: October 2015

October brought some great discussions in the blogosphere, including a forum on whether regulations around donor advised funds should change, concerns that we are working too hard, the need to better retain donors, and a debate about whether social media is (or can be) an effective fundraising tool. Round that out with examples of successful crowdfunding and volunteer skill crowdsourcing, and it was a good month.

Below are my picks of the 10 best reads in the world of social change in October. But, as always, let me know what I missed. And if you want a longer list, follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook or Google+.

And if you want to see past 10 Great Reads lists go here.

1. Donor advised funds (DAFs) have come under fire in recent years. There was an interesting discussion in October at the Boston College Law School Forum on Philanthropy and the Public Good about whether regulations on donor advised funds should be changed. In advance of that forum, history professor Lila Corwin Berman provided an historic perspective (on the HistPhil blog) including the fact that “donor advised funds fundamentally changed the balance of public and private power in the United States starting in the 1970s.”
2. John Hopkins University professor Lester M. Salamon released a new book in October, The Resilient Sector Revisited: The New Challenge to Nonprofit America in which he lays out a framework for understanding America’s nonprofit sector. An excerpt from the book in the Nonprofit Quarterly examines “The 4 Impulses of Nonprofits“, as he describes it: “The nonprofit sector has long been the hidden subcontinent on the social landscape of American life, regularly revered but rarely seriously scrutinized or understood.” His book is an attempt to do just that.
3. The Association of Fundraising Professionals and the Urban Institute released their annual Fundraising Effectiveness Survey Report with some startling data, like: nonprofits retained only 43% of their donors in 2014, and for every $100 a nonprofit brought in they lost $95 to lapsed and reduced gifts. So the challenge for nonprofits, says AFP president Andrew Watt, is to get better at retaining donors: “Donors do not simply choose a few charities to support and stick with them every year. Donors are remarkably inconsistent in their giving, whether it’s because they lost interest in a cause, were giving because a friend or family member asked them, or did not like how the charity was treating them. The charitable sector’s challenge is to figure out how to better inspire and retain donors from year to year.”
4. And speaking of fundraising, Nonprofit Tech for Good donated $800 to 32 nonprofit organizations via the nonprofit websites and shared some important lessons for other nonprofits trying to fundraising effectively online. But Derrick Feldmann cautions that social media fundraising is not the panacea many board members might think. The new “Social Good Team” at Facebook might disagree because they have big plans for social media and the nonprofit sector.
5. Kickstarter, the crowdfunding website, re-incorporated as a public benefit corporation in order to put their social good mission above profit, and then partnered with the United Nations to raise money for Syrian refugees.
6. While we’re on the power of the crowd, in his ongoing Fixes blog, David Bornstein profiles Movement.org, a crowdsourcing site that connects human right activists and skilled volunteers. As David Keyes, one of the leaders, describes the platform: “Amazon says that you don’t need to be a bookstore to sell a book and Uber says that you don’t need to be a taxi service to drive a taxi. I realized that you don’t need to be an N.G.O. to fight a dictator, or a political leader to help a human-rights activist. Millions of people around the globe have the skills to help, and they’re currently not being utilized. If we could build a bridge between these communities, more people could be helped than we ever thought possible.”
7. And in more solutions news, South Los Angeles, once an urban food wasteland, is becoming a hub of food activism with a focus on startup, affordable eateries that are committed to building a strong, healthy community.
8. Companies are already getting ready for the holiday season mix of commercialism and philanthropy and Amy Schiller worries that Bloomingdale’s “Icons w/ Impact” marketing campaign highlighting celebrities, fashion and philanthropy is a worrisome shift in philanthropy. But I’m hoping that the HistPhil blog will chime in with a reasoned, historical perspective.
9. Poor strategy will get you in the end. The breast cancer nonprofit, the Susan G. Komen Foundation came under fire a few years ago for some poor strategic decisions (like aligning with Kentucky Fried Chicken and pulling funding from Planned Parenthood), and it looks like those decisions have dramatically affected their fundraising.
10. Phil Buchanan from the Center for Effective Philanthropy has a problem with our workaholic culture. He and his organization have learned from the Millennial generation’s more balanced (than Gen X’s or the Boomer’s) approach to work and life, and he suggests we do the same: “The millennials don’t care that this is what we might have done at that stage of our careers. In fact, they look at us and are quite clear they don’t want to be us — they don’t want to make the same mistakes!” Amen!

Photo Credit: Museum of History and Industry, Seattle