Search Results for: organization

Reliable and accessible data in the social sector is hard to come by. But, changing the way we generate, use, and share data is more than simply creating better collections of data. Independent consultant, Cynthia Gibson Ph.D., takes on this topic, starting with a brief look back at how we’ve...

The complexity of the “data” question is evident to the point of new cliché. Regardless of whether it is cliché or not, we have to deal with it. After any given round of wrestling with the question, we can often sense ways forward that are simple, powerful, and counterintuitive. That’s...

I will leave the foreword to this post as best stated by Jeff Edmonson, most recent recipient of the American Express NGEN Leadershp Award and  Founder of the Strive Network: “The big vision of Strive is to support every child, from cradle to career. And in order to get every...

Greg Ulrich, Director, Advisory Services for Hope Consulting, offers a different perspective on people who donate to nonprofits and supports it with research. As individual donors, each one of us tends to “give from the heart,” but there’s more to it than that. Markets for Good is an initiative to...

Markets for Good has shared a draft of a “vision paper” that signals how and why we think the sector needs to upgrade its information infrastructure.

Performance assessment is an acknowledged necessity for nonprofits to operate effectively and attract capital. Phil Buchanan discusses the role of foundations in helping nonprofits carry out this vital function and the challenges for everyone involved. Markets for Good is a welcome push for the development and use of data to...

According to John Hecklinger, Chief Program Officer of GlobalGiving, the powerful tools and technologies we are creating are helping us solve social problems, but they could work better if they were to work together. He argues for explicitly connecting them so that the information they generate flows more freely and becomes...

Cinthia Schuman Ottinger, Deputy Director for Philanthropy Programs at the Aspen Institute’s  Program on Philanthropy and Social Innovation, discusses the need for nonprofit data and the impact that it can have.  A good part of the problem, however, is unlocking that data from the protocols and structures that render is...

Nick Deychakiwsky, Program Officer of the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, raises a few questions that go to the core of the concept of an information marketplace and how we should (or shouldn’t) think about it as we organize our work in the social sector. Building an information infrastructure for social...

If, in part I, we were urged to adjust our lens for viewing social problems, Katya Smyth continues the disruption here, making the case for thinking across boundaries as we attack those problems and for combining our minds long before we combine our data. If I am a homeless survivor...