Reading Roundup: Philanthropy – 6/21-27/11

June 27th, 2011 by nathanj5

This week’s philanthropy reading roundup.

I actually missed #1 one, from June 15, in my first roundup.

1) Big Foundations & Effective Government Spending

Sean Stannard-Stockton at Tactical Philanthropy
In brief: Sean continues to argue that private foundations should participate as intermediary partners in the US federal Social Innovation Fund by responding to 4 reasons for non-involvement. Makes for an interesting case study on blockages to cross-sector partnership.

2) Social Impact Evaluation: Useful? Utopian?

Jonathan Lewis at Huffington Post
In brief:

Soon, in-the-trenches anti-poverty practitioners with long experience, community-based organizations close to their clients, market-based programs with real revenues and real customers, and experimental, innovative initiatives with great promise may be written off as woolly-headed, undisciplined or unscalable simply because they are un-evaluated… We need evaluators and critics. The rougher and tougher, the better. What we don’t need is academic hegemony over activism.

3) Person’s Choice Award for Foundation Data Presentation

Lucy Bernholz at Philanthropy 2173

In brief: As part of an ongoing appeal to foundations to share their data, Lucy celebrates the Knight Foundation’s new report, An Interim Review of the Knight News Challenge, for its useful and beautiful data presentation.

4) Passion Needed For Data Driven Analysis in Philanthropy

Phil Buchanan at Tactical Philanthropy

In brief: “We should use stories responsibly, when they reinforce and illustrate what the data shows.”

5) Seattle Foundation Raises More Than $3.5 Million for Charity

Philanthropy News Digest
In brief:The Seattle Foundation has announced that a one-day online fundraising event on June 23 generated donations totaling more than $3.5 million from 18,800 people. From Seattle Foundation president and CEO Norman Rice: “This event represents the democratization of philanthropy, in which everyone can make a difference in the world around them.”

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Reading Roundup: Philanthropy – 6/13-20/11

June 21st, 2011 by nathanj5

I’ve been gearing up to offer consulting services to the non-profit, and especially philanthropic, sectors. I’m discovering a number of great blogs and other resources, and want to share what I’m finding with regular quick hit roundups.

Here are the most interesting posts I’ve found over the last week.

1) Getting to the Root of Social Change Philanthropy

Sonja Swift at Resource Generation.

In brief:

…the power dynamic inherent to philanthropy is something to be considered when we’re put in the position of making decisions about where money will be re-distributed in attempts to address the far-reaching effects of capitalism gone astray. One reliable means of addressing this dynamic is by bridging a grounded community voice with the board’s birds-eye view of the issues.

2) The New Social Economy

Lucy Bernholz at Philanthropy 2173

In brief: In a speech to new Stanford graduates, political philosopher Rob Reich outlines innovations blurring lines between private, public and philanthropic sectors, noting both the promise and potential peril of this trend.  Example: is poverty reduction an opportunity for profit-making?

3) It’s 2011… Do You Know Where Your Foundation Is?

Mark Carpenter at Re:Philanthropy

In brief: When they avoid using social media, foundations are missing out on conversations about their organizations and the programs they support.  Adopting social media takes a mindset change. “You must be willing to give up control, listen and share, seek advice and help from others, be consistent with your strategy, and not be rigid.”

Also at Re:Philanthropy: Six Tips for Foundations to Engage Their Audiences with Social Media, Sophia Guevara.

4) Litigation: an under-funded strategy to achieve lasting change

Aaron Dorfman at National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy.

In brief: Dorfman argues that foundations should consider supporting more litigation to effect change, using the Rosenberg’s Foundation’s support of Dukes v. Wal-Mart as an example.

5) Crowdfunding allows everyone to be an arts patron

Gus G. Sentementes, The Baltimore Sun

In brief: Solid Kickstarter stats: 20,000 campaigns to date, 8,500+ have reached their fundraising goals. $60 million has flowed through Kickstarter

6) Collective Intelligence in Philanthropy

Eugene Eric Kim at Tactical Philanthropy

In brief: “[Foundations] need to think of themselves as movers of knowledge instead of movers of money.”

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Why I’m Psyched about Awesome Foundation Seattle

June 3rd, 2011 by nathanj5

This is Suzanne Tidwell and that fuzzy, rainbowed thing beside her is a tree.  Suzanne is a self-proclaimed yarn bomber — think Stich’n Bitch + graffiti.

Today, I watched Suzanne and her friends transform 7 or 8 of the Occidental Park maple trees into a fanciful, Christo-meets-Seuss installation (more pics below).

I had a chance to chat with Suzanne during Arts Walk.  She’s been scouring every Value Village in greater Seattle for discount yarn.  She won a grant from 4Culture.  And then came the paperwork and the permissions.  In other words, a lot of love and hard work.

The result? Complete surprise and delight from all passers-by.  People petting trees. A reason to stop for a snapshot with a friend.   Awesome.

Suzanne was happy to hear that we are launching an Awesome Foundation in Seattle.  She told me that winning traditional arts project grants can be tricky.  “Foundations won’t often fund your project until it’s nearly completed,” making the start-up process challenging, especially for new artists like herself.  A little recognition and a $1,000 grant for supplies could be a very meaningful first step for a new project.

Coming home inspired by Suzanne and her yarn bomb, I wanted to reflect on my personal motivation for launching Awesome Foundation Seattle.

  • First off, I want to see how awesome $1,000 can be.  In my professional life, it seems that if a project doesn’t cost at least $100k, it can be starved of attention and support.
  • I want to meet the people of Seattle (and beyond) who can make $1,000 awesome.  I’ve been coming and going from Seattle for study and work since 2005.  Now that I’ve returned and hope to stay, Awesome Foundation is my call out to the local dreamers and makers – let’s bring some new fun, brains and hope to the city!
  • I’m a nerd for experiments in collaboration and community coordination.  I want Awesome Foundation to be my new lab.
  • To a long-time non-profit professional, Awesome Foundation is counter-intuitive.  Is “awesome” a mission?  Can a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens really change the world, without big dollars and big institutions?  Is philanthropy the new punk?  I want to find out.
  • Finally, I want to spend more of my days inspired.  And, if I’m lucky, I want to inspire more people to spend more of their days inspired.  Inspired by people like Suzanne, by more color for trees, by new friends and new ideas.

Will you join me?

I’d love to hear from you.  If you’re already an Awesome Foundation trustee with another chapter, leave a comment about why you’re psyched.   If you live in Seattle, use the comments section to point out something local and awesome that inspires you.

And finally — Seattle-area folks — if you want to learn more about the nascent Awesome Foundation chapter, please fill out our very short interest form soon and help us spread the word.  Next week, Tommer and I will start organizing an awesome community dinner to get things kicked off.  So far, 25 people have signed up.  Don’t get left out!

To learn more about Suzanne, visit her new site: http://suzannetidwell.com/.

And, better yet, come on down to Pioneer Square to check out her work.  The yarn is acrylic and the trees will stay in their current Suessy state through the summer.

Now, as promised, click on for more pics:

Read the rest of this entry »

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Seattle Needs Awesome and Awesome Needs You

May 30th, 2011 by nathanj5

All over the world, people are working together to forward the interest of awesomeness in the universe, and it is time for Seattle to join their ranks.

I’m talking about the Awesome Foundation, and we* want you to help form the Seattle chapter.

Are you in? Fill out this very brief interest form and help spread the word through your networks.

Need more info? Read on…

Awesome Foundation is a global of community of good folks experimenting with simple, lightweight funding structures that foster the creation of surprise and delight.  Every month, each chapter gives one $1000 grant to the most awesome application.  Grants can go to efforts in the arts, sciences, magic, poetry, civic engagement, new media…. you name it.  Grants are unrestricted and may go to individuals, non-profit organizations, for-profit organizations, or other entities. There are no reporting requirements; this is a relationship built on trust.

Funds are contributed by Awesome Foundation trustees, who collectively make the granting decisions. Most Awesome Foundations have ten trustees who contribute $100 a month. In Seattle we’re are trying to build a diverse, accessible chapter.  We are considering a larger group of trustees, allowing for more participation by lowering the financial commitment.

We will be joining a rapidly growing family of Awesome Foundation chapters around the world.  This is philanthropy for the rest of us.  If you want to consider joining as a founding trustee or would like to be informed when we start taking grant applications, fill out our very brief interest form. We’ll invite everyone to a get-together over food and drink to talk it over and move forward. Please try to signal your interest by Saturday, June 4th.

Learn more at awesomefoundation.org.

Why does Seattle need Awesome Foundation?

Seattle is too awesome not to have an Awesome Foundation chapter.  How awesome is Seattle? Let me count some ways…

That’s just scratching the surface of awesome activity in our back yard.  We believe that out there in this dynamic mix are hundreds of ideas that could get a start or a boost with a 1,000 bucks and some community love.

Awesome Foundation is an opportunity to make Seattle even more awesome by inter-networking our creative communities.

Why should you be an Awesome Foundation Seattle Trustee?

  • You are already an ambassador of awesome, a community maven, a dedicated activist, a mover and a shaker.
  • You’re looking for a fun, new way to make friends and build your community.
  • You believe that people-powered, decentralized networks can build a better Seattle and a better world.

Bonus: according to tradition, chapters generally grant the first person holding a trustee slot the right to title that position for all future occupants of the slot on the board (e.g. The Tim Hwang Chair for Higher Awesome Studies).

Are you ready to get it started? Sign up to come to a dinner and learn more.

While you’re at it, please share this post widely across all of your awesome networks.

* Who are we?

The founders of Awesome Foundation Seattle are:

  • Tommer Peterson: Long time Seattle resident, artist, theater-guy, rabble-rouser, and deputy director of Grantmakers in the Arts. Age 61.
  • Nathaniel James: Consultant, digital activist, community builder and social entrepreneur, working at the intersection of technology, media, advocacy and the arts. Recently returned to Seattle after 3 years living and working in Washington, DC. Serves on the board of National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture. Age 32.
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Students: Enter the Knight-Mozilla Challenge

May 1st, 2011 by nathanj5

This is a open invitation to students to get involved in the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership and enter our News Innovation Challenge.

At this year’s SXSW Interactive, I sat in on a News Apps panel where Aaron Pilhofer, NYT’s Interactive News Editor, noted that “this is a unique historical moment where academia can lead the [news] industry.”  The industry is looking to students, teachers and researchers to experiment, break some rules, and collectively invent the future of journalism.

We believe you can do it, and we want to help you succeed by involving J schools and computer science departments (and the combinations they are forming).

Students, recent graduates, teachers, researchers, deans and more: please follow @knightmozilla on Twitter and sign up for our community discussion list to join the conversation.

But most importantly, we want students to enter our Innovation Challenges, starting with the current challenge: Unlocking Video: How can new web video tools transform news storytelling? In the coming weeks, we’ll release 2 more challenges: one focusing on evolving commenting and debate for online news and one on developing cross-platform news apps using HTML5 and other new tools.

What you can look forward to as a challenge participant

Our news innovation specialist, Phillip Smith, recently summarized the incentives we have put together for participants, including the chance to get a great job.  But we have even more opportunities lined up for participants. By entering the challenge, you can:
  • Take your news-technology idea from napkin sketch to specification to working prototype, with Mozilla’s help.  For students, we hope this means actualizing classroom work.  60 people will move on from this year’s challenge to our online Learning Lab, where they’ll get exposure to tech and journalism leaders, including  Christian Heilmann, Burt Herman, Aza Raskin, John Resig.
  • Put your best ideas in front of the people shaping online journalism’s future. Our stellar challenge review panel and dozens of news organanizations are looking to the Knight-Mozilla Innovation challenge to identify talented people and put them to work in the news industry.  Entering the challenge is a great way for students to make contact with this folks.
  • Get flown to Berlin for a face-to-face prototype-building event. 15 Learning Lab participants will earn this great experience – 3 days to make your ideas a reality in one of the most energetic hubs of open innovation in Europe.
  • The ‘big prize’: spend a year evolving your ideas in one of the  world’s most prestigious newsrooms as a paid Knight-Mozilla fellow. This is your opportunity to bring your ideas to market with our news partners, Al Jazeera, the BBC, Boston.com, The Guardian, and Zeit Online.

Enter the challenge today and contact me with any questions.

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Knight-Mozilla for Innovative Video Makers

April 29th, 2011 by nathanj5

By Popperipopp (Own work) [Public domain

Calling all video makers & hackers, remix masters and mashup gurus: the Knight-Mozilla News Partnership (aka “MoJo”) wants you to enter our Unlocking Video challenge.  We believe that you can help us figure out how new web video tools can transform news storytelling. Unlocking Video closes for entries in 1 week (May 6), so head on over to our challenge site to enter today.   Read on if you’d like to learn a little more before taking the plunge.

I talked with Brett Gaylor of Rip: A Remix Manifesto and Popcorn.js fame today about recruiting a wide range of creative video makers in the challenge.  Here are some key points for people in that community to consider:

  • You don’t have be an expert in journalism per se to enter the challenge. In fact, we believe that bringing together an interdisciplinary community will make the MoJo partnership a successful hub of innovation for journalism.
  • We’re looking for ideas AND people. You have great ideas for innovating in documentary or cinematic video formats online, but maybe you haven’t considered applications for journalism.  That’s OK.  Participating in the innovation challenge is just the first step – like raising your hand – so we can get to know who you are.  Think a bit about how what you’ve learned outside of journalism might help news users engage with stories and enter the challenge.  We’ll work with you from there through our Learning Lab, Hackfests, and Fellowships to develop your ideas with the support of our growing community.
  • We’ve got to do a better job reaching out to the wild and wonderful world of web video makers. That means talking to the Web Made Movies community, and reaching out to organizations like National Film Board of Canada and the Tribeca Film Institute, and networks like Shooting People.  We can’t do it alone, so please share this post with your networks.

If you’re new to MoJo, here are some resources to get you up to speed fast:

Now that you’re read the basics, head over and enter the Unblocking Video challenge before we close it on May 6, and share this post with your web video-loving friends.

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MoJo Innovation Challenge 2011: Start Your Engines!

April 15th, 2011 by nathanj5

The stars are beginning to align for the launch of the 2011 Knight-Mozilla News Innovation Challenge.

On Monday, April 18th, we will be making some important announcements and the following week, we will open the gates for public entries.  I want to give you, our faithful MoJo friends and followers, an early notice and ask for your help in spreading the word in the coming weeks.

What’s going to happen

The 2011 Challenge will run from April 25-June 20.  We will be posting 3 distinct challenge statements in 2 week intervals.

For new readers, the ultimate prize for successful entrant is a yearlong, paid fellowship at one of our partners’ newsrooms around the world, including the Al Jazeera, BBC, Boston.com, The Guardian and Zeit Online.  Along the way, we will also offer online Learning Lab and Hackfest experiences to develop the expertise of our candidate pool.  Every single participant will play a part in shaping the future of news with Knight and Mozilla.

Here is the basic calendar for the challenge and the topics our challenge statements will cover.

Challenge 1 – Open Video

Explore how HTML5 and open video can make news video more engaging.

April 25-May 6: Submission period

May 9-20: Community voting

Challenge 2 – Re-imagine Comments & Debate

How can open web tech improve the quality of online discourse?

May 9-20: Submission period

May 23-June 3: Community voting

Challenge 3 – HTML5 News Applications of Tomorrow

How can news organizations best deliver high-quality journalism across devices and platforms?

May 23-June 3: Submission period

June 6-17: Community voting

Winners announced during the week of June 20th! Approximately 60 challenge entrants will be invited to our online Learning Lab to interact with top thought leaders and makers at the intersection of web and news innovation, taking one more step towards the fellowship.

Spreading the word

We’ll need all the help we can get to make sure that lots of great people submit their ideas to the challenge.  I’ll be reaching out to a long list of people we want to engage next week.  In the meantime, help out by:

  • Joining the MoJo community mailing list for up-to-the minute and follow along with our thinking on the project wiki. A new public-facing web site is coming down the pipeline shortly.
  • Follow @knightmozilla on Twitter and ask your followers to do the same.  Here’s a sample tweet: Please follow @knightmozilla for Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership updates. RT love much appreciated. #knightmozilla #drumbeat
  • We’re planning meetups in Berlin, Boston, London, New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Seattle with local partners. We’ll treat participants with beer and great company in exchange for a challenge entry to help feed the pipeline. Stay tuned and be in touch if you’d like to participate in an event or make your own in a different city.

So, if you want a shot at the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Fellowship or know someone who should enter, start your engines – the race is about to begin.

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How to become a Knight-Mozilla Fellow: The Script

March 22nd, 2011 by nathanj5

Hey, there MoJo fans:

In anticipation of our upcoming Knight-Mozilla Innovation Challenge 2011 launch, we’re producing a promotional video to help potential participants understand how they can enter the challenge and become eligible for a fellowship.

We’d love your feedback on this draft script.  Is it clear?  Does it leave important questions unanswered?  Weigh in here in the comments or go to http://etherpad.mozilla.com:9000/MoJo-Fellow-script to ask questions or suggest changes.

Note that we can’t add too much more.  We’ve timed it and want to keep it at about 2 minutes.

Thanks!

========
MoJo Explainer video script
How to become a fellow

[Intro—mash Mozilla and Knight]

For the next few years, The Knight Foundation and Mozilla are igniting news innovation through the Knight-Mozilla News Technology Partnership. We like to call it “Mojo” for short.

A big part of the program is placing paid fellows inside newsrooms around the world. Want to be a fellow? Keep watching.

Knight-Mozilla  Fellowships are paid, one-year positions inside newsrooms at the BBC,   Boston.com, the Guardian, Zeit Online and other leading news organizations.

Fellows will hone their tech expertise and will become leading news hackers,  helping bring systemic innovation across the news industry.

Whether you’re a writer,  a developer, a designer, a statistician, an artist, or just a net saavy muckracker, we want you. Here’s how it works in 3 easy steps.

[Step 1: Open Innovation Challenge]

In the spring of 2011 and again in early 2012, Mozilla will publish a series of news innovation questions to the world. Questions like:

“How can we improve the interfaces for building data visualizations?”

Or

“What does open video & audio hold for online journalism?”

That’s where you come in. Visit us at knightmozilla.org and help us answer those questions.  You can submit insights, anaylsis, napkin sketches or wireframes—however you choose to best address the question. All you need is a desire is to work on these issues with the news hacker community.

We’ll take votes on the proposals, and they’ll be considered by a reviewer panel that includes news tech gurus, movers and shakers.  Entering the challenge will give you and your ideas a lot of exposure. But that’s not all.

[Step 2:  Learning and Hacking]

We’ll invite 60 challenge participants with winning ideas to take part in the Knight Mozilla Learning Lab, where you’ll hear from some brilliant hackers and journalists and begin to advance some of the ideas that emerged from the challenge.

Then, we’ll gather the strongest people and ideas together for a high-energy hackfest to begin building working prototypes.

[Step 3: Fellowship]

After the hackfest, we’ll select our fellows— starting with 5 fellows in 2011.

We’ll repeat the whole process again, from start to finish, and place 10 new fellows in 2012.

If you’re ready to help Knight and Mozilla shake up the news industry, follow us at @knightmozilla and join the community! For more, visit, knightmozilla.org.
========

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5 Ways to Integrate Hacking in Newsrooms

March 18th, 2011 by nathanj5

An excerpt from my post at the PBS MediaShift blog.

I jumped right up at Q&A time and asked for more: What are some best practices you’ve seen for getting over this “people problem?” And the panel really delivered.

I’ve distilled their answers into 5 “To-Do’s” for news innovation. Jenny and Trei Brundrett from SB Nation deserve special recognition for their answers.

1. No surprises. Involve the newsroom from the beginning.

2. Constant communication. Use chat tools like Campfire to keep the conversation going across working groups.

3. Iterate, iterate, iterate. Get software versions into the hands of journalists for testing, and then make the changes they suggest to the best of your ability. When you’re ready to launch, journalists will be using tools that they themselves helped to design.

4. Credibility. Successful implementation will flow from high-level editorial buy-in. Early experiments in social media were often driven by marketing teams and saw mixed results; don’t repeat or mimic this formula from the tech team!

5. Risk-friendliness matters. Traditionally, news organizations follow a “perfect, then release” model, whereas technology is teaching us to fail early and often, as long as you learn and change.

Read the whole piece here.

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How to Become a Knight-Mozilla Fellowship Host

March 8th, 2011 by nathanj5

***UPDATE***

One very important indicator I left out, that falls neatly into the “Commitment to the Partnership” category – strong candidates will have some very clear ideas about the technology problems they’d like to solve as part of the partnership and a clear sense of how a solution would be useful to many others in the journalism field.

***************

As we ramp up the MoJo project, we have already been contacted by over 35 organizations expressing their interest in hosting one of our 15 fellows.

With so much interest, it’s important that we begin to clarify how we will select hosting organizations.

As you might have noticed, we have four great news partners already selected to host fellows (BBC, Boston.com, the Guardian, and Zeit Online) .   As we are very much in a testing phase of the partnership this year, we may only place fellows at those four organizations in 2011.

Later in 2011, most likely in November, we will post a simple application for organizations that want to host one of the 2012 fellows.

Here are the basic criteria we will use to select fellow-hosting organizations and some examples of the kinds of indicators we’ll be looking for:

Innovation Capacity

  • invested in innovation
  • empower technical teams to experiment with new tools and models
  • excited about open web standards and software that can be used and remixed by others
  • a maker/hacker culture is in evidence, even if lots of financial resources are not

Producing Excellent Journalism

  • a history of producing content that makes an impact at the local, national or international level
  • values journalism that represent the fair, accurate, contextual pursuit of truth.

Commitment to the Partnership

  • active participation in sharing ideas and feedback on the community list
  • helping to build buzz during the innovation challenges
  • proposals for how an organization plans to build on their fellow’s work and the technologies we build after the partnership is over

Multiplier effect

  • how one organizations (or a partnership) with a Knight-Mozilla fellow can influence many more to adopt the technologies we develop

Compelling Stories

  • We’re open to surprises. What makes your news organization unique?  Do you reach a special audience?  Have you organized multiple news providers in your community to work together?

If you’re interested in hosting a Knight-Mozilla Fellow, mark your calendars for the November application window and in the meantime stay in touch and involved on our community list.

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