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‘American science, long a source of national power and pride, is increasingly becoming a private enterprise’  writes William J Broad in the New York Times. From key, public philanthropists like Bill & Melinda Gates and Eric Schmidt, through to the more elusive, they are launching ‘a private war on disease’....

“Strategic philanthropy requires reliable information,” writes Brad Smith, President of the Foundation Center, in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. He draws on his experience to urge a shift away from an our over-reliance on personal networks and verbal information and toward three key types of data: transactional, contextual and impact....

“…the volume and complexity of what we know has exceeded our individual ability to deliver its benefits correctly, safely, or reliably. Knowledge has both saved us and burdened us.” – Atul Gawande in “The Checklist Manifesto” ~ There must be a green shoot somewhere in Dr. Gawande’s paradox. If so,...

New compendium of blog posts from Markets For Good captures discussion and debate around how to strengthen the “information infrastructure” of the social sector: “Selected Readings: Making Sense of Data and Information in the Social Sector.” Going forward, you can access this publication, in downloadable e-book format, directly from our...

This month marks the launch of our first reader-proposed theme, Beyond Data Silos,  suggested by Andrew Means, founder of Data Analysts For Social Good. In his winning submission, Andrew raised interesting questions about how we think about data silos and, implicitly, about our framework for addressing them. He noted data...

The content on Markets For Good is driven by guest contributors and focused on monthly editorial themes that, together, provide a framework that allows us to attack an otherwise unwieldy topic: upgrading the information infrastructure of the social sector. In November we asked you, the Markets For Good audience, what...

This month’s theme will focus on Measuring Social Returns. To frame the discussion, we’ll take a critical look at both the actual measures of social return and how we measure; that is, we’ll consider the underlying tools, systems, and architectures for results measurement.  Now, let’s heat the pool with a...

Markets for Good is an effort to improve the system for generating, sharing, and acting upon data and information in the social sector. Our vision is of a social sector powered by information. Our practice is open conversation with you, our audience. To date, we’ve covered many topics on our...

I hope we have your attention. (Disco ball??) This month’s theme – Collaboration – is not an easy one. Thanks to many years of the sharpest minds studying how we can better work together, we might be prone to think we understand it. But, simply understanding collaboration is itself a...

Sunand Menon, previous Markets For Good guest author of one our most highly visited posts, has offered a recent thought piece (Stop Assuming Your Data Will Bring You Riches) that deserves a deeper examination. I’d like to use it to raise more questions (not give answers) about the pathways to...