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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 It is no longer being updated.

Markets For Good

Markets for Good was a platform launched in 2012 to help increase social impact through good data practice. The Digital Civil Society Lab at Stanford PACS acquired Markets for Good in 2016.

Posts by Markets For Good

An Exciting Lens Through Which To View Nonprofits: Insurance (Yes, Insurance)

Say the words “exciting” and “insurance.” I think that’s the third time in history they have appeared in the same sentence. Our loss. Investors don’t want to lose money and, thus, take a full enterprise view in due diligence, enabling informed decision-making not just at the point of investment but also in the management going […]

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A Quick Revisit To The Fundraising Theme…

4 Big Things You Need To Do Now To Prepare A Successful “Giving Day” by Beth Kanter and Bahia Ramos We’re glad to welcome back two previous contributors to Markets For Good: Beth Kanter (Doing The Math Ourselves) and Bahia Ramos (Methods & Tools For ‘Giving Days’”). Having spent the prior month exploring the topic […]

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What Is Community Animation? (Interview with Eli Malinsky, Centre For Social Innovation)

“We have staff whose title is Community Animation. Their job is to get to know what you are working on and to weave connections…” … Eli Malinsky is Executive Director, New York City of the Centre For Social Innovation. We interviewed Eli at the newly opened New York City location for insight into the business […]

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Note from the Curator: Decision-Making and Data

Let’s get straight to it: Nonprofits and foundations are in business to advance their missions. In the social sector, nonprofits’ and foundations’ missions sum up to making lives better. Even with the nascent convergence of for-profit and nonprofit entities to operate for “good,” the social sector will still be judged more heavily on how well […]

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Markets For Good Interview: Debbie Adler

I have just had the opportunity to catch up with Debbie Adler (Debbie Adler Consulting) at the The Aspen Institute’s Socrates Society Seminars. As one of the conversations of the day turned to nonprofits and fundraising, we decided to stop and recap a few good points in a quick interview. Many thanks to Debbie for […]

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On Fundraising, Data, and Live Music!

Fundraising is an odd thing today – at once, a business function and now a fashionable topic anywhere you find two or more start-up or nonprofit folks talking about…anything.  As a business function, it is being redefined by new actors, methods and demands. As a fashion statement, it is infinitely more fashionable when it moves […]

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A Few Questions About “How Companies Learn Your Secrets”

We are living a pretty intense “data moment.”  Data collection and usage practices that were formerly dismissed as technically impossible, or simply not done, are now feasible and openly posited as much in terms of proposed benefit as in terms of personal or business risk. Try this from case study of the retailer, Target, in […]

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Challenging The Big Data Narrative: “Most data isn’t ‘big’…”

Bandwagons make for a smooth ride, but not normally to useful insight.  Their opposite, however, in the form of scattered voices of the “anti-bandwagon” often don’t help much either when reflex contrarians don’t offer much more than complaints. While looking for a solid counter to a few of the popular big data narratives, I found […]

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Open Data…Another Source of Big Data (How will we use it?)

– “Open and machine-readable”, the president said, is “the new default for government information.”- From: A New Goldmine, The Economist, May 2013 This article notes the opening up of government data as yet another big bucket of bytes contributing to the “big bang of big data,” one that will…

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Government-Nonprofit Contracting Update

The pace continues with new digitization initiatives designed to enable the free flow and easier use of social sector data…

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