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Digital Impact was created by the Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS and was managed until 2024. It is no longer being updated.

Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter is the co-author of The Networked Nonprofit with Allison Fine and Measuring the Networked Nonprofit with KD Paine. She has 35+ years working in the nonprofit sector in technology, training, and capacity building and has facilitated trainings for nonprofits on every continent except Antarctica. In 2018, Wild Apricot listed Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media as one of “50 nonprofit blogs you need to follow right now.”

Posts by Beth Kanter

The Happy, Healthy Data Nerd: Using Data to Support Wellbeing

The authors of The Happy Healthy Nonprofit share tips on how to leverage data to achieve your wellness goals.

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Giving Day Advice: Prepare, Learn, and Share

After listening to Markets for Good’s Virtual Roundtable “Giving Day Technology: Making Good on the Big Day and Beyond,” the big takeaway for giving day hosts, platforms, and participating nonprofits is to be prepared when technology fails — but also learn from every experience and share it with peers. Let’s look at what a number […]

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Using Design Thinking for A Foundation’s Investment Strategy

  What if a funder got real-time input from its grantees and other partners to develop its investment strategy?  What if they used a design thinking process to not only get feedback from grantees but as a way to develop a more agile way of working?   I was thrilled to work with the Brainerd Foundation staff to […]

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New Playbook Resource: How To Engage Alumni

  I am a huge fan of Playbooks in the nonprofit sector as a capacity building tool.  A playbook is an online resource that is basically knowledge capture around a specific practice or type of program.  The playbook collects, organizes, and synthesizes best practices from “bright spots” and others adopting this practice.    A good […]

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How Can Nonprofits Become Agile Learners?

    I read this wonderful article “Agility Is Today’s Most Critical Leadership Competency” by Julie Winkle Giuliani, author of “Watch Them Grow or Watch Them Go.”   Agility is defined in the dictionary as light and graceful or as a project management approach, but she defines agility as the ability for continuous learning and as […]

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What I Learned from Nancy Lublin About Data on Purpose

  I was lucky enough earlier this month to hear Nancy Lublin’s opening keynote at the Data On Purpose conference hosted by the Stanford Social Innovation Review.  The conference theme was about using data for social change and sessions were addressed the growing proliferation of data in the nonprofit sector and the sector’s increasing ability to make productive […]

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Spotting the Human Side of Data at Do Good Data Conference

A curated collection of Tweets from Day 2 of DoGoodData 2015 Conference
http://dogooddata.com/schedule/ – Beth Kanter’s Notes

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Creating A Culture of Continuous Improvement Based On Data

  I’m always on the look out for useful and thought provoking resources on how nonprofits can use data to make better decisions that lead to greater impact. So, when Mary K Winkler, one of the nonprofit data nerds I follow on Twitter and Senior Research Associate at Urban Institute’s Center on Nonprofits & Philanthropy specializing […]

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Here Comes GenZ

  Many nonprofit fundraisers know about and have specific strategies to reach, cultivate, and solicit baby boom donors, Gen X donors, and Gen Y donors. But get ready to reach out to Gen Z donors, sometimes called “PhilanthroTeens” or “PhilanthroKids.”   These potential donors are teens (and pre-teens) with a passion for social change and who […]

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Smarter Nonprofit Networking

  Your professional network is your greatest asset no matter the stage of your nonprofit career, whether you are an emerging leader or an acknowledged thought leader in your industry or somewhere in between. When you intentionally build your professional network in the right way, you create a circle of individuals who are all rooting […]

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