Creating more strategic, financially savvy, and confident nonprofit leaders and organizations.
In today’s Social Velocity interview I’m very excited to be talking with the co-founders and editors of the new History of Philanthropy blog: Benjamin Soskis, Stanley Katz, and Maribel Morey. The HistPhil blog launched this past June and focuses on how history can shed light on current philanthropic issues and practice. Because how can we hope to create […]
In today’s Social Velocity interview, I’m talking with Denise San Antonio Zeman. Denise has been President and CEO of Saint Luke’s Foundation of Cleveland, Ohio since 2000. A lifelong Clevelander, Denise’s career has spanned higher education, human services, healthcare and philanthropy. Now in its 17th year of grantmaking, Saint Luke’s provides leadership and support to […]
In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Chris Earthman, Executive Director for the Aragona Family Foundation. For the last 8 years Chris has also worked for Austin Ventures, the largest venture capital firm in the Southwestern US. Chris has over 15 years of experience at the intersection of nonprofit and for-profit enterprises, […]
In the world of social innovation, May was most definitely about innovations in philanthropy and funding of social change. From social impact bond experiments, to hybrid foundations, to impact investing, to the Giving Pledge 2.0, there was much discussion and debate about how funders of social change should and are innovating. And that is very […]
Every once in awhile an article comes along that is so honest and observant that it opens the door for a fundamental shift in thinking. Curtis White’s “The Philanthropic Complex” in the Spring 2012 Jacobin is such an article. White writes about how the politics behind American philanthropy compromise its ability to create real social […]
Scott Goodson’s new book, Uprising: How to Build a Brand – And Change the World – by Sparking Cultural Movements, has an ambitious goal that eventually falls flat. Goodson provides an excellent analysis of the new movements sweeping the globe and how social change organizations can learn from them. However, when he tries to connect […]
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 toward social change for years. Some social entrepreneurs argue that nonprofits are too set in their ways to embrace a new way of creating solutions. […]
There is a very useful and widely used matrix in the business world called the “BCG Matrix” that helps a company analyze their product lines to determine which to further invest in, which to liquidate, which to expand, etc. This is where the term “cash cow,” a product whose positive cash flows pay for the […]
The news in the philanthropy world this week is not good. It seems that our fears about the effect of the economic downturn on philanthropy are being confirmed in spades. The Ford Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Foundations, two of the largest in the country, are both reducing their staffs by 30%+ and making other […]
The one common frustration shared by the various organizations I work with is money. How do we get more of it, how do we use it more effectively, how do we generate it more easily, how do we make it sustainable? My answer to all of these questions is to take a more strategic approach. […]
