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Philanthropy News Digest invites opinion and commentary on topics of importance to the philanthropic sector. For more information on this feature, contact Mitch Nauffts, PND's publisher/editorial director, at mfn@foundationcenter.org.
Commentary & Opinion: Social Media Can Open Door to Philanthropy's Future
by
Larry
Blumenthal,
director of social media strategy,
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
In retrospect, I'm not sure I would try this exercise again. A few months back, I began a workshop for staff from a variety of foundations by asking them to shout out all of their whiny, cry-baby excuses for not getting involved in social media. The excuses flew at me fast and furious, like so many tranquilizer darts. I don?t have time. It's too much work. We don't have the resources. Can't figure out the return on investment. Senior staff don't see the value. We're afraid of losing control. What if people criticize us? My shoes are too tight.
Posted on November 4, 2009
Commentary & Opinion: Performance Measurement: Put a Stake in the Ground
by
Andrew
Wolk,
CEO and founder,
Root Cause
If you are a nonprofit leader operating in today's hardscrabble environment, you're undoubtedly spending an exceptional (and unacceptable) amount of time looking for support and fiercely competing for shrinking philanthropic dollars. No matter how good your program is, you may be one of many who are only a few months shy of having to fold your tent.
Posted on September 30, 2009
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Commentary & Opinion From Other Sources
Opinion: Is Goldman’s Charitable Gesture Enough? (New York Times 11/19/09)
When Goldman Sachs said this week that it was starting a $500 million charitable project to help 10,000 small businesses — a sum that represents 3 percent of the $16 billion the firm has set aside so far for employee compensation this year — the announcement was widely seen as a public relations move.
The firm’s chairman, Lloyd Blankfein, who had earlier stoked popular anger when he said Goldman was doing "God's work" in its business, also apologized for participating in "things that were clearly wrong." A recent audit found that the government bailout of A.I.G., the insurance company, resulted in billions of dollars of benefit to Goldman Sachs....
Op-Ed: Food Safety Bill Should be Passed by the End of the Year (The Hill 11/18/09)
Millions of Americans are sickened with food-related illnesses in the United States every year, with hundreds of thousands of people hospitalized and thousands more dying as a result.
Congress has a historic opportunity to address this critical issue. A food safety bill moving through the U.S. Senate this week has strong, bipartisan support. Lawmakers should act quickly to pass the bill by the end of the year and give the U.S. Food and Drug Administration enhanced authority to oversee the safety of the nation’s food supply....
Opinion: Hunger in the United States (New York Times 11/17/09)
Congress should make a priority of expanding federal nutrition programs that are aimed at helping millions of struggling families feed their children. The need to bolster these programs was underscored again this week in a dismaying Department of Agriculture study showing that a record number of households had trouble getting sufficient food at one time or another last year.
These facts are troubling enough, but a separate federal study showed that even before the recession began, more than two-thirds of families with children who were defined as "food insecure" under federal guidelines contained one or more full-time worker. This suggests that millions of Americans were trapped in low-wage jobs before the downturn that made it more difficult for them to provide children with adequate nutrition....
Letter to the Editor: Education Reform (Ford Foundation 11/17/09)
The Wall Street Journal's editorial on reforming America's public schools is right to say that there has been a valuable generation of innovation in our schools. Charter schools and smart reforms by public schools have contributed to a new set of approaches for achieving great education for our children. We've learned that all our schools — public, charter, and private — need four basics in order to succeed: outstanding teaching, sufficient and well-designed learning time, money to pay for it, and strong accountability to make sure both money and time are used well and that our children are getting ahead.
The challenge now is how to bring this generation of innovation to scale for all our young people, especially in our poorest neighborhoods where the challenges are toughest and where few funders have focused resources. Many of the innovations noted in the editorial — successful charter schools and Teach for America, for example — are important illustrations of what's possible, but they lack broad-based impact. We need to find ways to bring the best innovations into every school....
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