May 10, 2016
On April 27th, the Chicago Hyatt Regency ballroom began filling up with 900 people from 20 countries and nearly every state. They were gathering for two days of learning, community, and nerdery at the fourth annual Do Good Data conference. When I started Do Good Data three and a half years ago, I […]
March 14, 2016
For a long time, nonprofits and foundations have been seeking to improve outcomes. Getting there requires all kinds of new measurement schemes, thus the last two decades have brought us talk of social return on investment, quality-adjusted life years, and many other calculations. I think it’s time we recognize we’re operating with a […]
November 11, 2015
So much is written every month in various nonprofit publications and blog posts regarding the insights and best practices revolving around fundraising. Virtually all of them are truly insightful and can lead to greater successes. However, just a few mistakes here and there in the handling of your data can easily decrease your fundraising […]
October 30, 2015
As organizations start to get serious about feedback, things inevitably come to the moment where feedback gets personal. To be really useful, feedback must touch on an individual’s performance. This is tough stuff. People resist feedback in many different ways. A growing part of Keystone Accountability’s Constituent Voice work with organizations is to help staff recognize auto-immune-type […]
October 22, 2015
In cities across America, mayors are eager to make use of ever-growing streams of data to enhance the effectiveness of city services and improve residents’ lives. If you can track why some blighted buildings take so much longer than others to be demolished and rehabbed; if you know that some residents routinely call an […]
October 12, 2015
A huge shift is happening in the social sector. Dennis Whittle traces it all the way back to the birth of democracy in Greece circa 594 BCE. The people are sovereign! In titling our special theme ‘Beyond accountability: feedback as transformation’ we are signalling that the long march of democracy has arrived at our doors. When we say […]
September 28, 2015
When it comes to ending poverty, the way forward cannot be development as usual. The stakes are too high for the same interventions by the same actors. How would one propose to end poverty without including the employers of the world and the drivers of our global economy? How do we determine the way […]
September 22, 2015
A hyperconnected experience less governed by materialism could exploit “shared states” rather than “shared objects”—a more sustainable paradigm that shifts discursive desire and practice further toward transparency and accountability.
September 15, 2015
For every dollar an individual chooses to donate to a social or public purpose, she has to make one of these choices: donate, invest, political support, shop, crowdfund. This the universe of choices we face for all the private resources we want to put to public benefit.
September 3, 2015
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 […]
