By James Cridland via Flickr
Posted by Scott Stadum.
Say one has quite a bit of money to donate to a good cause, but isn't sure who to give it to. How might she or he decide where the money should go?
Paul Buchheit, the creator of Gmail and AdSense and one of the first Google employees, is crowdsourcing suggestions for where he should donate a "bunch of money." Using Google Moderator, Mr. Buchheit is asking for recommendations of IRS recognized public charities, with broad public support and a few public endorsements before he decides who gets the donation.
This is a fantastic use of Google Moderator and a fun way to raise awareness about wonderful organizations like Doctors Without Borders and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. But what's even cooler, and of course we're completely biased...Idealist.org is on the list!
If we're lucky, maybe we'll win a "bunch of money" and continue to help our supporters turn good intentions into action. Please check out our profile, leave a comment and consider voting for Idealist!
Compiled by Scott Stadum and Douglas Coulter.
Photo courtesy Flickr user respres
IdealistNews is a project of Idealist.org and Reddit where users like you can submit nonprofit news stories from around the web and vote on your favorites. Here's a roundup of some recent hot stories (titled the way users submitted them):
Have you posted a link to IdealistNews yet? It's easier than ever with the "bookmarklets" tool. You can drag it to your toolbar or to your bookmarks and submit a link with the click of a mouse. Find out more.
To find more stories or share your own, be sure to visit IdealistNews.
Any of these questions sound familiar?
- I hate networking but I hear it’s essential to get a nonprofit job. Where should I start?
- How can I get an employer to see my value if I don't have a lot of work experience?
- Should I follow up to see the status of my job application if I haven't heard back?
- I'm thinking about starting my own nonprofit. Any suggestions?
- Where are all the jobs?!?
Have you asked any of these questions? Had people ask you about these topics? If so, check out this week’s Career Corner podcast.
My colleague Jung interviewed me to get some answers to ten of the most common questions I hear from folks who are looking for a nonprofit job these days.
And while listening to this podcast will not offer up any golden tickets to finding your ideal job, hopefully you’ll hear at least one new tip that will help you in your search. Or perhaps you’ll listen and get confirmation that you’re doing everything right. Sometimes that reassurance is as much needed in the job search as more advice.
As always, leave a comment if you’ve got thoughts to add, examples to provide, or exceptions to offer up.
Posted by Meg Busse, who is not a fan of her recorded voice. Find the entire Career Corner blog archive here.
From Flickr user Flamsmark
From Scott Stadum.
Would you consider crowdsourcing a data management project that requires less than a minute of someone's time to be a volunteering opportunity? Or reviewing a single paragraph of a resume for mistakes? How about showing up for the equivalent of a flash mob for advocacy, in response to an SMS message nudging 5,000 people to show up somewhere?
Traditionally, the nonprofit sector might not consider these to be volunteer opportunities or even offer them as options to supporters. But with changing technology and the new ways to leverage the power of the internet, the nonprofit sector would be missing out if we didn't take advantage of these new approaches. Here are some suggested tools to tap into:
Groundcrew: "Community organizers, volunteer coordinators, and event planners can do more: they get software that lets them find and coordinate teams of local people in real-time. They can see who’s available at any moment using text messaging and GPS, and they can give assignments, either mass assignments or systems of individual assignments, that help even large crowds of people work together constructively and enjoyably."
Mechanical Turk: Mechanical Turk is an application from Amazon.com that coordinates services that are too tedious for one individual, yet too complex for a computer. This service provides simple tasks for users to complete, from tagging photos to writing summaries of articles. Idealist has been leveraging the service and the power of crowds to update our database by offering opportunities in these bite-size chunks.
The Point: Whether you're trying to move people to action, raise money, or attract attention to a cause, this service doesn't work until a mass of people have reach a "tipping point." This happens when enough people "pledge to give money or do something, but no one does a thing until the conditions are met to make contributions worthwhile."
PledgeBank: This site works similarly to The Point, using statements such as "I will start recycling if 100 people in my town will do the same" or "I will organize my child's school play if three other parents will help."
The Extraordinairies: This service "delivers micro-volunteer opportunities to mobile phones that can be done on-demand and on-the-spot." As smart phones proliferate, people are becoming ever connected to the web. While we're becoming more connected, we may not always have something to do; so the Extraordinairies allows us to use those moments to complete small tasks that help nonprofits and other organizations.
Facebook Causes: Causes allows you to donate your birthday to a specific cause that's already in their system. You can set the amount you'd like to raise for as little or as much as you want in any size donation increments. Causes will then ask your network of friends to donate to that cause in lieu of gifts for your birthday. Now imagine if that cause was yours and you reached out to your members whose birthdays were approaching, asking them if they'd ask their networks to donate. Whether each birthday donation raises the desired amount or not, you'll find a steady stream of donations being raised for your nonprofit.
If we start thinking about volunteer opportunities in terms of what and when is convenient for our supporters instead of the other way around, we'll be able to engage many more people, affect more lives, and work more closely with our communities than we've ever been able to in the past.
Photo courtesy Flickr user quinn.anya
Compiled by Douglas Coulter.
IdealistNews is a project of Idealist.org and Reddit where users like you can submit nonprofit news stories from around the web and vote on your favorites. Here's a roundup of some recent hot stories (titled the way users submitted them):
Have you posted a link to IdealistNews yet? It's easier than ever with the "bookmarklets" tool. You can drag it to your toolbar or to your bookmarks and submit a link with the click of a mouse. Find out more.
To find more stories or share your own, be sure to visit IdealistNews.
Nanubhai's logo
By Douglas Coulter.
We know many of you are looking for opportunities to put your skills to use by volunteering abroad. We recently heard from an organization called Nanubhai Education Foundation, who told us about their plan to expand their programs of teaching English and Information Technology in rural India. Since 2004, they've worked with about 2,000 students at a time; and now they're planning to expand their work to two new schools and over 6,000 new students. With such heavy expansion, they're looking for new volunteers from the United States to help teach their classes.
The work and expansion of Nanubhai illustrates that there are many programs around the world that still need help. But for those who can volunteer abroad, there are many questions that need to be answered. So if you're thinking about volunteering, check out our extensive International Volunteer Resource Center. It can help you decide if you should go, how to go, what to do when you're there and how to return home. The more research you do before you go, the better your experience will be, and the more likely you'll be to have a positive impact.
This post is a collaboration between Mashable's Summer of Social Good charitable fundraiser and Max Gladwell's "10 Ways" series. The post is being simultaneously published across more than 100 blogs.
This content was originally written by Mashable's Josh Catone.
Social media is about connecting people and providing the tools necessary to have a conversation. That global conversation is an extremely powerful platform for spreading information and awareness about social causes and issues. That's one of the reasons charities can benefit so greatly from being active on social media channels. But you can also do a lot to help your favorite charity or causes you are passionate about through social media.
Below is a list of 10 ways you can use social media to show your support for issues that are important to you:
1. Write a Blog Post
2. Share Stories with Friends
3. Follow Charities on Social Networks
4. Support Causes on Awareness Hubs
5. Find Volunteer Opportunities
6. Embed a Widget on Your Site
7. Organize a Tweetup
8. Express Yourself Using Video
9. Sign or Start a Petition
10. Organize an Online Event
If you can think of any other ways to help charities via social web tools, please add them in the comments. If you'd like to retweet this post or take the conversation to Twitter or FriendFeed, please use the hashtag #10Ways.
1. Write a Blog Post: Blogging is one of the easiest ways you can help a charity or cause you feel passionate about. Almost everyone has an outlet for blogging these days—whether that means a site running WordPress, an account at LiveJournal, or a blog on MySpace or Facebook. By writing about issues you're passionate about, you're helping to spread awareness among your social circle. Because your friends or readers already trust you, what you say is influential.
Recently, a group of green bloggers banded together to raise individual $1 donations from their readers to be given to several selected nonprofits. The blog-driven campaign included voting to determine how the funds would be distributed between the charities. You can read about the results here.
You should also consider taking part in Blog Action Day, a once a year event in which thousands of bloggers pledge to write at least one post about a specific social cause (last year it was fighting poverty). Blog Action Day will be on October 15 this year.
2. Share Stories with Friends: Another way to spread awareness among your social graph is to share links to blog posts and news articles via sites like Twitter, Facebook, Delicious, Digg, and even through email. Your network of friends is likely interested in what you have to say, so you have influence wherever you've gathered a social network. You'll be doing charities you support a great service when you share links to their campaigns, or to articles about causes you care about.
3. Follow Charities on Social Networks: In addition to sharing links to articles about issues you come across, you should also follow charities you support on the social networks where they are active. By increasing the size of their social graph, you're increasing the size of their reach. When your charities tweet or post information about a campaign or a cause, statistics or a link to a good article, consider retweeting that post on Twitter, liking it on Facebook, or blogging about it.
Following charities on social media sites is a great way to keep in the loop and get updates, and it's a great way to help the charity increase its reach by spreading information to your friends and followers.
You can follow the Summer of Social Good Charities: - Oxfam America (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, YouTube)
- The Humane Society (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, MySpace, Flickr)
- LIVESTRONG (Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Flickr)
- WWF (Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr)
4. Support Causes on Awareness Hubs: Another way you can show your support for the charities you care about is to rally around them on awareness hubs like Change.org, Care2, or the Facebook Causes application. These are social networks or applications specifically built with nonprofits in mind. They offer special tools and opportunities for charities to spread awareness of issues, take action, and raise money.
It's important to follow and support organizations on these sites because they're another point of access for you to gather information about a charity or cause, and because by supporting your charity you'll be increasing their overall reach. The more people they have following them and receiving their updates, the greater the chance that information they put out will spread virally.
5. Find Volunteer Opportunities: Using social media online can help connect you with volunteer opportunities offline, and according to web analytics firm Compete, traffic to volunteering sites is actually up sharply in 2009. Two of the biggest sites for locating volunteer opportunities are Idealist.org, which also lists paying jobs in the nonprofit sector, in addition to maintaining databases of both volunteer jobs and willing volunteers; and VolunteerMatch, which has almost 60,000 opportunities listed.
For those who are interested in helping out when volunteers are urgently needed in crisis situations, check out HelpInDisaster.org, a site which helps register and educate those who want to help during disasters so that local resources are not tied up directing the calls of eager volunteers. Teenagers, meanwhile, should check out DoSomething.org, a site targeted at young adults seeking volunteer opportunities in their communities.
6. Embed a Widget on Your Site: Many charities offer embeddable widgets or badges that you can use on your social networking profiles or blogs to show your support. These badges generally serve one of two purposes (or both). They raise awareness of an issue and offer up a link or links to additional information. And very often they are used to raise money.
Mashable's Summer of Social Good campaign, for example, has a widget that does both. The embeddable widget, which was custom built using Sprout (the creators of ChipIn), can both collect funds and offer information about the four charities the campaign supports.
7. Organize a Tweetup: You can use online social media tools to organize offline events, which are a great way to gather together like-minded people to raise awareness, raise money, or just discuss an issue that's important to you. Getting people together offline to learn about an important issue can really kick start the conversation and make supporting the cause seem more real.
Be sure to check out Mashable's guide to organizing a tweetup to make sure yours goes off without a hitch, or check to see if there are any tweetups in your area to attend that are already organized.
8. Express Yourself Using Video: As mentioned, blog posts are great, but a picture really says a thousand words. The web has become a lot more visual in recent years and there are now a large number of social tools to help you express yourself using video. When you record a video plea or call to action about your issue or charity, you can make your message sound more authentic and real. You can use sites like 12seconds.tv, Vimeo, and YouTube to easily record and spread your video message.
Last week, the Summer of Social Good campaign encouraged people to use video to show support for charity. The #12forGood campaign challenged people to submit a 12 second video of themselves doing something for the Summer of Social Good. That could be anything, from singing a song to reciting a poem to just dancing around like a maniac—the idea was to use the power of video to spread awareness about the campaign and the charities it supports.
If you're more into watching videos than recording them, Givzy.com enables you to raise funds for charities by sharing viral videos via email.
9. Sign or Start a Petition: There aren't many more powerful ways to support a cause than to sign your name to a petition. Petitions spread awareness and, when successfully carried out, can demonstrate massive support for an issue. By making petitions viral, the social web has arguably made them even more powerful tools for social change. There are a large number of petition creation and hosting web sites out there. One of the biggest is The Petition Site, which is operated by the social awareness network Care2, or PetitionOnline.com, which has collected more than 79 million signatures over the years.
Petitions are extremely powerful, because they can strike a chord, spread virally, and serve as a visual demonstration of the support that an issue has gathered. Social media fans will want to check out a fairly new option for creating and spreading petitions: Twitition, an application that allows people to create, spread, and sign petitions via Twitter.
10. Organize an Online Event:
Social media is a great way to organize offline, but you can also use online tools to organize effective online events. That can mean free form fund raising drives, like the Twitter-and-blog-powered campaign to raise money for a crisis center in Illinois last month that took in over $130,000 in just two weeks. Or it could mean an organized "tweet-a-thon" like the ones run by the 12for12k group, which aims to raise $12,000 each month for a different charity.
In March, 12for12k ran a 12-hour tweet-a-thon, in which any donation of at least $12 over a 12 hour period gained the person donating an entry into a drawing for prizes like an iPod Touch or a Nintendo Wii Fit. Last month, 12for12k took a different approach to an online event by holding a more ambitious 24-hour live video-a-thon, which included video interviews, music and sketch comedy performances, call-ins, and drawings for a large number of prizes given out to anyone who donated $12 or more.
Bonus: Think Outside the Box: Social media provides almost limitless opportunity for being creative. You can think outside the box to come up with all sorts of innovative ways to raise money or awareness for a charity or cause. When Drew Olanoff was diagnosed with cancer, for example, he created Blame Drew's Cancer, a campaign that encourages people to blow off steam by blaming his cancer for bad things in their lives using the Twitter hashtag #BlameDrewsCancer. Over 16,000 things have been blamed on Drew's cancer, and he intends to find sponsors to turn those tweets into donations to LIVESTRONG once he beats the disease.
Or check out Nathan Winters, who is biking across the United States and documenting the entire trip using social media tools, in order to raise money and awareness for The Nature Conservancy.
The number of innovative things you can do using social media to support a charity or spread information about an issue is nearly endless. Can you think of any others? Please share them in the comments.
About the "10 Ways" Series: The "10 Ways" Series was originated by Max Gladwell. This is the second simultaneous blog post in the series. The first ran on more than 80 blogs, including Mashable. Among other things, it is a social media experiment and the exploration of a new content distribution model. You can follow Max Gladwell on Twitter.
By Amy, who posted a longer version of this on The New Service.
The Roosevelt Scholars Act aims to create a new pipeline to public service careers for graduate students who are developing skills desperately needed by the U.S. government. Introduced last year in the House of Representatives but not yet during this year's 111th Congress, the Act would create a scholarship program to fund graduate education for students who demonstrate outstanding potential for a career in a "mission-critical occupational area" within the federal government, and who in turn would commit to three to five years of service in a federal government agency. The scholarship would would be similar to the Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC), but instead of committing to military service, students would commit to other kinds of government service.
Photo courtesy Flickr user cardamom
The scholarships, including tuition and living expenses, could amount to as much as $60,000 per student per year, for up to five years, to complete a degree in "high-skill, high-need fields including engineering, information technology, foreign languages and public health," according to the Partnership for Public Service. Positions in these fields are often the hardest to fill, but agency leaders often consider them crucial to fulfilling strategic goals.
The purpose of the scholarships, then, would be to highlight these crucial positions within the federal government to new audiences, and give students an incentive to pursue public service after graduation.
The Act is likely to be re-introduced in the House of Representatives before the August recess by the same Congressman who sponsored the bill last year, Rep. David Price (D-NC). While the House version of the Roosevelt Scholars Act focuses on on graduate education, if the Act is introduced in the Senate this year as hoped, it's likely to include scholarships for undergraduate education as well.
If you'd like to get involved: If you like the idea of the Roosevelt Scholars program, the Partnership for Public Service has created an online petition you can sign to show your support.
By Celeste Hamilton.
Ever needed a favor but were unsure of how to ask? Or had something to offer but didn't know how to give it away? If this sounds familiar, check out Friendly Favor and Meal Baby, two websites that will make you feel less sheepish and more organized with a few simple clicks.
Friendly Favor is a free service that relies on the kindness of your friends, acquaintances, coworkers, and more. From the mundane to the inventive, there are an endless range of favors you can ask for and offer. Maybe you need a babysitter, or advice on the best digital camera to buy. Or on the flip side, you're looking to lend your summer cabin out in exchange for a donation to the Red Cross. Simply sign-up on Friendly Favor, and the site will tap into your existing social networks—your email contacts or Facebook friends, for example—to spread the word. You can then return the favor through charitable donations, gift cards, and even good karma.
Photo courtesy Flickr user Emily Barney
Similarly, Meal Baby adds an online element to the neighborly concept of helping those in time of need. Forget playing telephone tag to coordinate volunteers to bring over casserole dishes, pies, and more. Through a series of tools that include calendar planning, noting customized food options and more, Meal Baby organizes and arranges meals for easy delivery. Alternatively, you can buy a gift card for someone if you choose not to go the home-cooked meal route, or even donate to Feed the Children to help those outside your network.
If you feel like being creative, why not use these two services together? Maybe buy a restaurant gift card for a new mom, and agree to babysit. Or cook a meal for your friend who's recovering post-surgery in exchange for a recommendation on which local nonprofit to volunteer with. The possibilities for making someone feel good are endless.
This entry is one in an ongoing series about how we can all be taking small steps to help one another in tough times. Read all of our "A Little Bit More" posts here.
From Douglas Coulter, our Multimedia Producer.
Photo: Eric Hilton
This podcast is the second in a new series called "Questions With" in which we feature leaders in the social sector discussing their work and professional journeys.
I interviewed Eric Hilton about his new nonprofit organization, Technically Learning, which believes that "all students should have the opportunity to discover how fun and inspiring the science, technology, engineering and math fields can be." Eric talks about how he got involved with creating educational materials, LEGO robots, and the challenges of starting a new nonprofit.
To listen to the podcast now, click here.
As always, we welcome listener feedback!
Posted by Julia Smith.
Photo from Flickr user Christine van der Merwe
In honor of Nelson Mandela's birthday, the organization 46664 and the Nelson Mandela Foundation have deemed tomorrow (Saturday, July 18) Mandela Day. On the website, organizers wrote: "Mr. Mandela has spent 67 years making the world a better place. We're asking you for 67 minutes."
As of this writing, people around the world have pledged more than 130,000 minutes of service this weekend, and it's not too late for you to get involved and volunteer.
In addition to the push for service around the globe, there will be major celebrations in South Africa and the United States. According to this blog post, the South Africa-based event will be held in Newtown and feature music, dance, and speeches; meanwhile, a concert at Radio City Music Hall in New York will include performances from among others, Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Aretha Franklin, and one of my favorite South African groups, Freshlyground. And it looks like the concert will be an international, annual event; organizers just tweeted that "The 2010 Mandela Day concert will take place in Madrid. Official announcement has just taken place in New York."
Learn more about Mandela Day at mandeladay.com.
Compiled weekly by Scott Stadum and Douglas Coulter.
Photo from bhopalwater.com
IdealistNews is a project of Idealist.org and Reddit where users like you can submit nonprofit news stories from around the web and vote on your favorites. Here's a roundup of some recent hot stories (titled the way users submitted them).
Have you posted a link to IdealistNews yet? It's easier than ever with the "bookmarklets" tool. You can drag it to your toolbar or to your bookmarks and submit a link with the click of a mouse. Find out more.
To find more stories or share your own, be sure to visit IdealistNews.
Announcement from Steve Joiner, who co-authors our Career Corner advice column.
We're thrilled to announce the launch of our full 2009-2010 webinar series. Our webinars are designed to help career service professionals understand and speak to the unique issues around the nonprofit career search. We employ a train-the-trainer approach, with all information directly applicable to a diverse range of campuses and students.
There are three different types of webinars for our 2009-2010 series: - Six 30-minute resource overviews
- Nineteen one-hour in-depth webinars
- Three expert panels
As well, we will be archiving all our webinars this year so if you miss a webinar date, you can watch it later on your own time. The design of these webinars is largely for career service professionals but we'll also have several "Student-Invite" webinars, plus a webinar for any interested individual (July 2010).
Visit our webinar page to learn more and sign up. Please help us spread the word about these valuable resources!
We look forward to seeing you soon online.
By Celeste Hamilton, who originally wrote about this topic for Idealist in NYC.
By Flickr user Jason Rogers
Think about all the important ways you use your phone in daily life. You use it to build relationships with family and friends. To make doctor’s appointments. To secure an apartment. To find a job.
But what if you were phoneless?
Enter Community Voice Mail (CVM), a nonprofit that strives to keep those who are in crisis or transition connected. In three minutes you can acquire a new local telephone number and voicemail—making it easier for potential employers and more to get in touch.
CVM has been around for over a decade now and has 47 branches all over the United States. Especially as the number of jobless continues to grow in many of our communities, having a phone is nothing less than crucial. But the service is not only for job seekers; it can help anyone who needs it, from victims of domestic violence to displaced foster children to migrant workers.
By providing something as simple as a consistent telephone number, CVM is helping to restore dignity in people’s lives.
From Scott Stadum.
Facebook Causes was in the news again after raising over $10 million for the causes that use the service. Whether or not you find this application useful, it definitely warrants reconsideration due to its ability to leverage the Facebook network.
Personally I'm a fan of Causes; even with its imperfections and missed opportunities, I find it increasingly useful in supporting the causes I care deeply about. One of its more interesting features is the Birthday Wish, which allows you to donate your birthday to a cause, easily tapping into your own network while inviting friends to engage theirs. I wrote about this feature in an earlier post:
Causes allows you to donate your birthday to a specific cause that's already in their system. You can set the amount you'd like to raise for as little or as much as you want in any size donation increments. Causes will then ask your network of friends to donate to that cause in lieu of gifts for your birthday. Now imagine if that cause was yours and you reached out to your members whose birthdays were approaching, asking them if they'd ask their networks to donate. Whether each birthday donation raises the desired amount or not, you'll find a steady stream of donations being raised for your nonprofit. Among the other notable features you'll find the ability to set events and sent invitations, recruit members, set fundraising goals, add videos, photos and links and send email blasts to your members.
If you haven't set up a cause on Facebook, NJ.com has a great rundown on how to do this. If you have, I'd love to hear about your successes, tips and ideas on Facebook Causes.
Compiled weekly by Scott Stadum and Douglas Coulter.
From Flickr user iowa_spirit_walker
IdealistNews is a project of Idealist.org and Reddit where users like you can submit nonprofit news stories from around the web and vote on your favorites. Here's a roundup of some recent hot stories (titled the way users submitted them).
Have you posted a link to IdealistNews yet? It's easier than ever with the "bookmarklets" tool. You can drag it to your toolbar or to your bookmarks and submit a link with the click of a mouse. Find out more.
To find more stories or share your own, be sure to visit IdealistNews.
From Douglas Coulter, our Multimedia Producer.
In our latest podcast, I interview Suzanne Seggerman about her organization Games for Change (G4C) and their innovative work with video games. G4C helps connect a variety of nonprofits working on issues from the environment to economics to video game designers to help raise awareness of critical issues in a new way. In this interview, Suzanne talks about how she got started in G4C, her work and how anyone can create social issue games.
Click here to listen to the episode now.
This podcast is part of a new series called Questions With in which we feature leaders in
the social sector discussing their work and professional journeys. Check out our past episodes, Questions with Stefanie Faucher of Death Penalty Focus and Questions with Eric Hilton of Technically Learning.
Put Barber, editor of the Nonprofit FAQ, sheds light on expectations and best practices for nonprofit leadership.
From Flickr user cliff1066
The part of the United States Internal Revenue Service that deals with nonprofits has a new chief. Sarah Hall Ingram, a long-term IRS employee and now the Commissioner for Tax-exempt and Government Entities, came to the job late in the spring. Her first public statements emphasized continuity, though, as she reiterated the IRS commitment to pressing for attention to the way nonprofits govern themselves and the way IRS agents examine nonprofits for compliance with tax rules and careful practices. “It is fair to ask all organizations,” she said at Georgetown University Law Center on June 23, “whether they have in place systems, safeguards, or controls to minimize the risk of events occurring that contravene the Internal Revenue Code’s requirements for tax-exemption.”
Some of the questions the IRS will be asking are in Part VI of the new “Core” of Form 990 – a series of yes/no inquiries about important, and widely adopted, practices. And more questions will be asked, Ingram made clear, if an IRS examination is underway and there’s any hint that the board and staff have been slighting their responsibilities to stay true to the mission and stay away from anything that might blend private gain with tax-exempt status.
At the same seminar on governance at Georgetown, Diana Aviv, President of Independent Sector, unveiled a new “Workbook” for boards to use alongside the Principles for Good Governance and Ethical Practice IS published recently. The 33 “principles” were worked out through an extensive program of consultation with legal experts, nonprofit leaders, and researchers. They point to areas in the leadership of nonprofits where all too often trouble can brew. And they offer advice about what standards should apply in developing – and administering – policies that protect against trouble and provide a firm foundation for dealing with any issues, or doubts, that might arise. The “Workbook” translates the principles into action-steps that boards can take, working with staff (and a facilitator too, if need be), to assess where their organization stands and what might need to be done to add confidence that everything is on, and will stay on, the right track.
- The full text of Sarah Hall Ingram’s talk at Georgetown University is online here
- A copy of The Principles Workbook can be downloaded for free (after registering) on this page along with further information about the principles and the project that developed them
- Section VI of the Core Form 990 is explained in the instructions here
All this attention to governance isn’t asking well-run organizations to do anything new. These principles and practices reflect values that are part of everyday life at the vast majority of America’s nonprofit organizations. What is being asked is that each organization take a careful look at itself and check whether policies and protections are in place to put commitment to the mission at the top of everyone’s to do list day after day. What could be more important than that?
p.s. Idealist's Nonprofit FAQ has a lot of useful information about governance from several perspectives. Learn more here.
By Joanna Eng, who originally blogged about this topic on Idealist in NYC.
Image from salvationarmyme.org
This recession has clearly had ravaging effects, but fortunately, it has also sparked a lot of creativity. As nonprofit organizations attempt to carry out their work despite considerably reduced budgets, some are coming up with innovative takes on traditional fundraising and advertising campaigns. Here are two recent examples that we heard about:
The Salvation Army of Northern New England slashed its advertising budget to zero and nonetheless succeeded in rolling out a large, attention-grabbing advertising campaign to raise funds in Portland, Maine. Springwise reports that a local ad agency donated its time to design the ads and coordinate the campaign, and more than 50 local businesses donated various forms of ad space to the nonprofit. As a result, Salvation Army advertisements appeared on everything from store windows to pizza boxes to bathroom mirrors to tennis courts, all around town. Some individuals even scribbled on the dusty back windshields of their cars in order to display the ad.
In New York City, the Queens Museum of Art decided to transform its annual fundraising gala into what they called a NON-GALA in June. Rather than waste any precious donations on a fancy event, the QMA skipped the drinks and dancing in order to put more towards its actual exhibits and programs. The NON-GALA took place online, and it still managed to have most of the other highlights of an annual fundraiser: a welcome from the director, speeches by honorees, a chance to chat, and, of course, an opportunity to donate. There was even an auction conducted via a live streaming video, where participants could obtain the auctioned items for free by making creative, non-monetary bids via phone, email, and Twitter.
If you know of any other recession-friendly fundraising campaigns that nonprofits have tried, please share them in the comments below.
From Erin Barnhart, who runs our Volunteer Management Resource Center.
By Flickr user kia4067
Last year, Utah and Minneapolis-St Paul came out on top as the state and large city with the highest average percentage of volunteers, according to research conducted by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS). As CNCS releases civic engagement stats for 2008 today, anticipation is high to see who will take these titles away from the Twin Cities and the Beehive State. So, without further ado, this year’s city and state with the highest percentage of volunteers…Minneapolis-St Paul and Utah!
Ok, so they’ve held onto their spots for another year in a row. Still, these two locales aren’t the only ones with serious volunteer bragging rights. For example, when it comes to volunteer hours per resident, Salt Lake City comes out on top. The city with the highest percentage of millennial volunteers (those born in 1982 or after)? Portland, Oregon.
If you’re interested in learning more about how, where, and why people are volunteering, be sure to check out the newly launched Volunteering in America website. Here, you can find stats on the volunteering rates for nearly 200 large and mid-sized cities, as well as check out trends like how the economy has impacted volunteer engagement, why an increasing number of people are getting involved at the neighborhood level, whether volunteers donate more to charitable organizations than non-volunteers, and which age group is the most active in your city, state, or region.
Perhaps the coolest thing about the newly launched site is your ability to customize a profile of stats, charts, and graphs for your area, a feature that definitely comes in handy whether you’re trying to figure out how to best engage volunteers at your organization, accessing data as part of nonprofit studies or research, or even just looking for your area’s stats in order to challenge or taunt your far-flung friends.
As for Minneapolis-St Paul and Utah, congratulations on having such an impressively high percentage of your citizens engaged as volunteers. Don’t get too comfortable though: Nebraska and Portland would love to take your place. Until next year…
Cross-posted from The New Service, where Amy Potthast explains how the Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Act of 2008 created a new way to help members of the military pay for school in the U.S.
From Flickr user cloudsoup
In the United States, the Post-9/11 GI Bill currently pays up to the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition and fees. However, if a veteran is heading to a private college, going to graduate school, and/or is not qualified to pay in-state tuition, his or her expenses may exceed the GI Bill benefit. The Yellow Ribbon Program—taking effect at participating schools on August 1st, 2009—attempts to close the gap between GI Bill education benefits and the true cost of many educational opportunities.
As part of the Yellow Ribbon Program, schools can volunteer to contribute up to 50 percent of that gap between their own costs and the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition and fees. The government then matches the school’s contribution, on top of providing the dollar amount of the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition and fees.
For example, this fall the Monterey Institute of International Studies in Monterey, CA is launching a Yellow Ribbon Program for five of its degree programs. Monterey will offer full tuition to up to 20 admitted military veterans, according to this formula: - The GI Bill would cover $13,173.08 of a veteran’s tuition and fees in the state of California, but tuition is $31,001.08, which leaves a $17,828 gap.
- The Monterey Institute will contribute $8,914, filling half the gap.
- The Yellow Ribbon Program then allows the U.S. Department of Veterans' Affairs (V.A.) to match that $8,914 contribution, which will cover the rest of the tuition gap.
The Department of Veterans' Affairs website has information about which veterans are considered eligible. To find other participating schools, explore these state listings, which include information about which departments are offering the assistance, how many service students will be eligible to receive the funding, and what the school’s contribution will be per student.
If you read our blog or follow us on Twitter, you've heard about Mozilla Service Week. Here's a quick overview from the folks at Mozilla in case you haven't:
During the week of September 14-21, 2009, we're asking individuals to step up and make a difference by using the Web to better their community. We're looking for people who want to share, give, engage, create, and collaborate by offering their time and talent to local organizations and people who need their help...By utilizing our community's talents for writing, designing, programming, developing, and all-around technical know-how, we believe we can make the Web a better place for everyone.
Yesterday Idealist emailed thousands of organizations in our database and asked them to post technology-related opportunities for Mozilla Service Week. Within hours we had a growing list of opportunities. Here are just a few of them:
- Website Volunteer for Coalition of Community Health Clinics
- Video Volunteer
- CSS Website Designer
- Computer Networking
- Branding (logo, letterhead, bookmarks, website)
- Donor Database Developer
- Website redesign and help with learning how to maintain it
- Website/Graphic Designer
- Website Fixer
Could your organization use help with tasks like this? If you're not sure how to describe what you need, visit our Resources for Organizations page.
And if you know right now how a volunteer could help make your organization—and the Web—a better place, why not submit a volunteer opportunity for Mozilla Service Week?
Compiled weekly by Douglas Coulter and Scott Stadum.
From Flickr user David A G Wilson
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