Last week I attended a homeless walk in Los Angeles. The idea of the walk was to raise funds for organizations that provide homeless services and to raise awareness about homelessness. During the walk I saw groups of people from all sorts of corporations such as Wells Fargo, KPMG, and AT&T. What I didn’t see [...]
Social media researcher Danah Boyd recently concluded a study where she found that low-income, less educated, and minority youth are more likely to use Myspace, and white, well educated, wealthy youth are more likely to use Facebook. If Boyd is right, then why are so many non-profits choosing Facebook over Myspace? Assuming the purpose of [...]
On June 30th, the Chronicle of Philanthropy reported that President Obama announced that White House officials will travel across the country to find “the most promising nonprofits in America” as the administration decides how to spend a new $50-million fund to help charities expand innovative social projects. Of course the President’s statement begs the question, [...]
The recent surge in public attention to poverty and homelessness in America, which has been exasperated by the financial crisis, has exposed the social service industry for what it is: a stagnating industry with a lot of heart, but few good ideas. The issues we in the social service sector have dedicated our lives to [...]
President Obama has waged a war on charity. Well, at least that is what some who oppose a controversial portion of his 2010 budget proposal would have us believe. According to the LA Times Under the president’s plan, itemized tax deductions for charitable giving and mortgages would be capped for those earning more than $250,000 [...]
I, like many in my field, have long thought the social service sector needs better metrics for evaluating agencies’ effectiveness. There are many standardized metrics in business to determine the profitability of a corporate venture. The common goal of profit maximization in most for-profit enterprises makes it easy to evaluate companies within sectors and across [...]
As a social service professional I tend to focus more on the provider side of services rather than on the fundraising side. But money obviously is a big part of the game. In the current economic down turn, social services are finding themselves without the funds they need to continue operations, as was noted by [...]
Something that really drives me nuts about the solicitation of non-profit donations is that agencies publish the amount of money that goes to overhead expenses. Personally, I’d rather give to agencies based on the effectiveness of their programs, regardless of overhead expenses. Luckily, a new study by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact [...]
