Markets For Good

‘The Obama administration hopes to fight global warming with the geeky power of numbers, maps and even gaming-type simulations’ notes NPR. Operating under the idea that transparency and data mean more knowledge, which in turn leads to better decisions, Obama is putting climate change on our personal agendas.   —

 “I like the Millennium Development Goals because each and everyone one of them is measured.” With the MDG finish line rapidly approaching, we take a look back to statistician Hans Rosling in 2010, giving a wonderful interpretation of progress, using huge amounts of data and questioning how they should be interpreted. As well as being a […]

‘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’. As a reader of our […]

“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. They need to be used […]

“…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, it certainly won’t be found […]

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 homepage. (See the top right […]

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 silos as inefficiencies, for sure, […]

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 you thought we should be […]

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 quick look backward.  (Oh, that […]

“Efforts to unlock and open ‘big data’ are great and sorely needed in the social sector, but if we can’t make sense of that data—if we can’t connect it with other data and turn it into useful information that is presented to the right people at the right time to help them make better decisions—then it’s all for naught.”