The Bamboo Project Blog

When Funding Priorities Change

An article in this morning's Marin Independent Journal about the impact of Marin Community Foundation funding cuts led me to this article on the Foundation's recent decision to change their funding priorities:

The foundation announced in June that its board of trustees had decided to split its giving equally between sustaining and initiating grants. As a result, nonprofit organizations that serve some of Marin's neediest residents will have to reconfigure their operations or face the possibility of losing millions of dollars in funding.

The change will result in a shift of more than $35 million from sustaining grants to fund new initiatives over the next four years. The foundation gave nearly $26 million to Marin organizations during the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Among the reasons they cite for their decision are the proliferation of nonprofits with similar missions and programs and the desire to have a bigger impact. Not surprisingly, this policy change has upset a lot of people from the nonprofit community. But I see it as a change that is actually moving in the right direction.

One of my all-time favorite books is Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies. In it, the authors argue that in visionary organizations, there is a tension between the need to preserve the core and stimulate progress.

Preserving the core means that an organization is very clear about its organizational mission and values and sticks to the strategic and tactical decisions that support their core organizational culture. A strong core gives everyone in the organization a sense of purpose and clear guidance for making decisions and taking action.

While preserving the core is important, there's also a need to stimulate progress. Organizations will not grow and flourish if they do not continue to take new action in light of changing circumstances. Recognizing that there's a tendency to stick with the "tried and true" even when the world is changing around you, the most visionary organizations have developed policies for themselves that force their organizations to change and adapt. 3M, for example, requires that a percentage of its business each year must come from new products and services. They will never completely rely on what they've done in the past--no matter how successful--because they know that eventually this will spell their demise.

From what I can see, the Marin Community Foundation is attempting to put this strategy into practice within the nonprofit/social sector environment. They recognize that their continued funding of existing programs will ensure the continuation of the same old same old and discourage innovation or change. They want to be more strategic in their support and to drive greater innovation and collaboration. This is a bold move, one that other foundations and nonprofits themselves should consider. Ongoing change is a fact of life. Developing strategies and policies that encourage the change cycle can have great benefits and create an environment that allows changes to be more strategic and coordinated. I'll be curious to see how things turn out.

Michele

 

Building Nonprofit Networks--Part Four: Affinity & Production Networks

Continuing with the learnings from NetGains on developing networks, today I want to talk in more detail about affinity and production networks.

Affinity Networks Build Alignment
As you'll recall, connectivity networks link people to people and people to information. Affinity networks build on these initial linkages to align the network around what is called a "collective value proposition." According to Platrik and Taylor:

" . . . a collective value proposition (is) a shared reason to care about each other. The individual people in the network come to share a set of ideas, language, standards or identity. This allows them to more efficiently exchange information and coordinate with each other as a group. They are more than just connected to each other, but less than focused on a narrow production goal."

The key difference between a connectivity network and an affinity network is that members of an affinity network must give up a measure of their individuality in order to align themselves more closely as a group with shared values and meaning. Affinity requires that members of the group develop enough trust for them to be willing to buy into the group proposition.

Key Tasks of the Affinity Network
In addition to continuing the weaving activities of the connectivity network, organizers of the affinity network must focus on strengthening relationships between members. They must allow members to come together regularly so that people can get to know each other to develop trust and explore their potential shared values and identity. The most effective way to do this is through face-to-face meetings. Technology can also support this process.

The other key task in an affinity network is helping members to forge their collective value proposition. To some extent this will happen as a natural result of contact with one another. But, this is a process that usually must be helped along by network organizers. In part this is because while individuals and organizations may have a lot of ideas about what the network can do for them, they tend to think much less about what value they can bring to the network.

Production Networks Develop for Specific Purposes
A production network builds upon the connectivity and affinity networks that have previously been developed and transforms them into joint actions for specialized outcomes.

The types of joint actions that production networks typically take include:

• Generating particular goods and services

• Advocating for particular polices or causes

• Innovating to jointly address particular social issues

• Learning about and spreading specific best practices

• Mobilizing support

• Building the capacity of local leaders or organizations

Structure and Activities of a Production Network
The structure and activities of production networks depends on their specific purpose. For example, networks that form to build public support will need to focus on rapid growth and "spreading the word." Therefore they are likely to be more loosely structured with many communication hubs that can quickly and efficiently move information through the network. On the other hand, a network that forms to provide after-school programming to urban young people may be more tightly structured with fewer organizations involved and much closer collaborative agreements developed.

Developing an effective production network requires that members be very clear about the specific purpose(s) of the network and the roles of network members in achieving that purpose. It also requires the development of connections and alignment. Production networks do not develop overnight in response to an RFP or other funding opportunity, although this is often they path that nonprofits take in forming a network. Work must already have been done around connecting members to one another, developing high levels of knowledge and trust, and creating alignment around common goals and values.

The Collective Value Proposition is Key
For all types of networks, but especially affinity and production networks, the development of a common value proposition is critical.  It is only through the creation of common value that you will gain the full effects of a network and be able to continually engage network members to achieve group goals.

In my next post on this topic,  I'm going to talk a little more about creating common value because it is such a key strategy for moving networks forward. Unfortunately, lack of attention to developing common value is one of the major reasons why many networks get stuck.

Michele

Nonprofit Networks Part Three: Using Technology to Build Connectivity

Yesterday we discussed connectivity networks and how they are the foundation of all collaborations. As you'll recall, connectivity networks link people to people and people to information. They are characterized by loose ties between people and they tend to form around "hubs" or people who are able to connect people to other people and to relevant information.

All networks, especially connectivity networks, are strengthened by face-to-face interactions. These in-person connections help people form more trusting relationships with each other and they are often the most effective way to conduct certain kinds of work. In this post, however, I want to talk about how I believe technology can support the creation and development of connectivity networks.

Two Major Elements to Connectivity Networks
To form strong connectivity networks, you must have two key elements--a strong informational/navigational element and people responsible for nurturing the connections between people and between people and information. In other words, you need useful, valuable information that people are looking for and you need at least one person to help them connect with that information and with other people in the network who can also serve as sources of information and connection.

It's important to remember that relevant, timely information and access to "the right people" are the major currencies of connectivity networks. People and organizations want to join  networks that connect them to these two things. Further, they will not maintain their connections to a network if they do not have access to good information and helpful people.

Supporting the Spread of Information in a Connectivity Network
The explosion of the Web has created an associated explosion of information. It has also created new tools for gathering, managing and sharing information in ways that are more meaningful and useful. For nonprofits wishing to create connectivity networks, these two developments create great opportunities.

What Information Should You Be Sharing?
To create your connectivity network, consider who it is you want to bring together and what kinds of information they may need. Think about:

• Potential gaps in information needed by network members

• Opportunities to put information needed by different organizations into a central repository to be shared by all network members.

• Sharing of best practices and common resources. 

• Consider creating communities of practice among people with common issues and needs, such as a case manager network or a network of grant writers and then focusing on their information needs.

 

One example of what we're talking about here is told in NetGains:

Chris Lynch has spent three years weaving together the hundreds of organizations that provide after-school sports programs for youth in Greater Boston. His work was supported by the Barr Foundation, which was concerned that thousand of youth were not being served, especially urban youth and girls. Lynch's assignment was to start connecting the scattered after-school sports organizations to each other and to resources they could use. In early 2006, he published the 25th e-newsletter of Sportsnet, part of a website that provides information to network members and facilitates communication between members.

Another example is the New York City Coalition Against Hunger, which has created interactive hunger maps showing the locations of hunger resources throughout the city.
As described in a recent TechSoup article,

"(Through this project, they sought) to compile a comprehensive list of all known soup kitchens in the area, but also to facilitate collaboration and communication between local pantries to help them reduce duplication of efforts, better target their limited resources, and unite in their public-advocacy efforts."

The key is identifying the kinds of information that are considered useful, relevant and timely for your nonprofit network. Think about the information you wish you had. Ask other potential network members what information they think is missing or too fragmented to work with.

How Do You Gather and Share the Information?
Newer web technologies provide great opportunities for both finding and sharing the kinds of information that will build a strong connectivity network.

To gather information, consider using tools such as Google Alerts and RSS feeds to keep yourself updated on the latest news and stories from around the Internet. Find blogs that are written by knowledgeable people in your nonprofit field and get in the habit of reading them to find useful information you can share with network members.

You must also be prepared to go "off-line" for valuable information. While there's a lot of information readily available online, great sources of information in the nonprofit world will also be found in print materials, at meetings, and in other "real-world" interactions.  In fact, some of your most valuable information may be "hidden" within your individual network member organizations and the key may be finding ways to move this information into a shared, central location that is accessible to all.

To share information, you have many options. Like Chris Lynch above, you might start with an e-mail newsletter and a basic network website for sharing links to resources and to other members of your network. Blogs, wikis and "mashups" provide other options for sharing information in ways that can be more useful and relevant for your network members. You can also use tagging or social bookmarking as strategies for sharing information on common topics.

Supporting the Development of Community in Your Connectivity Network
The other major component of a connectivity network is the development of connections between people and organizations. It is critical to recognize that connections between organizations are based on the connections between individual people.  To foster connections between nonprofit entities, you must foster connections between the individuals within those organizations.

Remember that the creation of community in a connectivity network depends on the work of  "weavers." These are individuals who are like the hosts of your network party. They introduce people to one another, explain the culture of the community, and help people connect to the information they are looking for. Weavers pay attention to process and to ensuring that there's ongoing access to good, relevant information available to the members.

How Can Technology Help Build Community and Make Connections Between the People in the Network?
The development of community is based on interactions with other people. While sharing information (as we described above) can start to help network members develop a sense of common needs and approaches, simply providing information to members is not going to build community. This requires 2-way communication that allows network members to "talk" with other members.

Obviously in an ideal world, these interactions would take place face-to-face. But limitations of time and location can be a barrier to in-person interactions. Technology allows us to overcome these barriers. It also allows connectivity networks to form between organizations and people that might otherwise be isolated from one another. These connections are often the source of great innovations and growth.

There are a few technology options that can start to build that sense of community:

• E-mail is probably the simplest strategy. Weavers can use e-mail to answer individual questions and to connect network members to one another, suggesting, for example, that one member of the network might be a valuable contact for another. E-mail listservs (like Yahoo Groups) can further support this community development as individual members are able to interact with the entire group for advice, information, etc.

• A network blog is another potential option. Network members can easily contribute articles and resources. They can also use comments to respond to the information that members share and to begin conversations that may be followed up via e-mail or through other means.

• A wiki may be a great tool to develop if your network needs to create a repository of shared information. Wikis are excellent ways to share resources and best practices. They make it easy for members to add their own content and comment on the content added by others.

• Using photosharing with sites like Flickr allows network members to  post pictures and information about themselves and their organizations. This creates a new kind of connection as members are able to "see" other members and what they do.

• More "advanced" users of technology may want to consider developing and sharing relevant podcasts or using tools such as Skype to generate free, online phone calls between members. Use of social networking sites like Care 2  or MySpace may be another strategy to consider, depending on the members of your network.

The technologies a network selects to support the development of community will depend on the needs and capacities of the network members. It also depends on the level of commitment the network is willing to make to developing and supporting the growth of community.

It's critical to remember, though, that more "advanced" networks--the ones nonprofits rely on to get work done--first require the successful development of connectivity networks. Failure to pay attention to the initial development of connectivity will create a very shaky foundation for later collective action.

In my next post on this topic, I'm going to go into more detail on the development of affinity networks, which build on the foundation of connectivity to create a common value proposition.

Michele

Nonprofit Networks: Part Two--Building Connectivity Networks

Last week I started discussing what I'm learning from NetGains. This has become particularly interesting as I work through planning for a new project I'm working on. It also further reinforces my belief that  Web 2.0 is as much a revolution in thought as it is a pile of tools.

As I mentioned previously, the foundation upon which all networks are built is the connectivity network. In this post, I want to delve more deeply into Plastrik and Taylor's descriptions of connectivity networks, as well as their suggested strategies.

Connectivity Revisited
Connectivity networks link people to one another. They also link people to information. This information tends to be "thicker and richer" than what people might find on their own. It also tends to be less "packaged and shaped" than the information they might get from hierarchical organizations (such as their own nonprofit).

The entire purpose of a connectivity network is to link people and information. That is all they do. They do not try to align people around core values and they do not try to move people to collective action, at least not at this stage. They are particularly important when people or groups are isolated from one another by physical space or by differences, such as race, class, etc.

Characteristics of Connectivity Networks
Connectivity networks are characterized by several features:

• Designed to unleash the network effects of rapid growth and diffusion and small-world reach. Because connectivity networks are about generating links between people and moving useful information, they must be designed to support membership growth and sharing of information. They must also create "bridges" across distance and social categories so that members are able to quickly and efficiently link to one another.

• They tend to form around "hubs"--people who connect to many other people. These are the connectors and mavens I talked about last month in a post on reaching "The Tipping Point."

• Relationships are based on what are called "weak ties." Weak ties are ties that are strong enough to open lines of communication, but still too loose to build true collaboration because the level of trust is still too low.

Creating a Connectivity Network
Connectivity networks require two key elements:

• Strong informational and navigational capabilities--Information is the "currency" of a connectivity network. It is the reason people will join the network and share it with others. Therefore careful attention must be paid to finding and disseminating information to members that is useful, relevant and presented in a usable, digestible format.

• Strong focus on community development--Besides sharing information, the other key purpose of a connectivity network is to create linkages between members of the network. But for this to happen effectively and efficiently, you need people who are paying attention to the development of community. Plastrik and Taylor call these people "weavers." Another way to think about them is as "hosts" of a party.

Weavers are the people who introduce "guests" to one another. They know something about the people in the network and can make suggestions about who might want to talk to each other or who might have things in common. The purpose of a weaver is to create the right kind of community atmosphere so that people feel connected to one another and want to remain a part of the community.

The ideal way to develop a sense of community is through face-to-face interactions, so any connectivity network needs to provide opportunities for that to happen.

But in most cases, this connectivity can also be supported by digital means, through web-enabled connections that allow members of the community to transcend the challenges of distance and time. Furthermore, electronic community can also help members overcome distances based on race, class, etc. as they get to know one another in an environment where those differences may be much less apparent and the focus can be on what they have in common, rather than on what separates them.

Weavers must actively create community. They must always be looking for ways to make it easier for network members to connect to one another and to the information the network is sharing. Like a good party host, they might look to build bridges between individuals or groups who are isolated from one another. Or they might gather and share new information or make information more readily accessible.  Their goal is to develop connections. So they focus on the what it takes to create the right kinds of ties.

The purpose and strategies of connectivity networks can be readily supported by technology. In fact, I think it's the explosive growth of new technologies that is in large part driving the development of social networks as a fundamentally different way of organizing people and information.

In my next post, I'm going to look at how technology can support the development of connectivity networks for those who know how to use them.

Michele

P.S. Thanks to Beth and Alan for the heads up on FlickrCC for getting Creative Commons licensed images from Flickr. I'm particularly digging the edit option that lets me crop and add text, frames and attribution all through the FlickrCC site. Very cool.

Building Nonprofit Networks--Part One

I've been reading NetGains: A Handbook for Network Builders Seeking Social Change by Peter Plastrik and Madeleine Taylor and I think it has some interesting things to say about building networks. One of the most important is the notion that there are three kinds of networks "that form a progression that a network's evolution is likely to follow." While networks may not move through all stages of the progression, we do know that to reach the third stage successfully, you must first progress through the previous two.

Connectivity Networks
This type of network connects people to allow the easy flow of and access to information and transactions. The focus is on developing ties between people so that they can develop trust and gain understanding of one another prior to moving to another level of connection. This is the "base" network that must be formed in order to move to the other levels of networking.  Without connectivity, you cannot develop alignment or move to action. These kinds of networks are particularly important when you are concerned about the isolation of particular individuals or groups from other people.

The task of a network builder in a connectivity network is to "weave," that is, to help people meet each other and to increase their ease of sharing and searching for information. Flickr's start-up story offers a prime example of a connectivity network:

But even beyond the product and (user interface) Flickr emphasized making new users feel welcome. Caterina mentioned how there would be a member of the Flickr team moderating the Flickr forum 24/7 just to make people feel part of the community. While this might sound a bit exaggerated, you get the idea. Flickr put a tremendous amount of effort into community development and support.

Alignment Networks
In this type of network, the focus is on aligning people around collective values to develop and spread a common identity. This identity usually reflects some of the individual interests of members, but in this network, they've come together because they share some common values or identity. Their goal is then to develop and spread that identity, both among the members and outside of the community. College alumni and professional associations are examples of alignment networks.

Network builders in alignment networks are facilitators. They help people explore their shared identify and meaning so that they can define and communicate their common core values. They are listening to the individual members and helping the group arrive at a collective vision of their identity and shared purpose.

Production Networks
A production network "fosters joint action for specialized outcomes by aligned people." In other words, it is designed to move people who are united on a common cause from affinity to action. 

Network builders in production networks act as coordinators. Their primary work is to help people plan and implement their collaborative actions. Network members actually do the work of the network. The coordinator provides the glue to hold their actions together. They pay attention to the activities that are required to keep the group focused on collective identity and collective action.

The Critical Lesson
It's been my experience that because many nonprofits form collaborations in response to funding opportunities or requirements, they move immediately into developing a production network. However, network research indicates that such networks are doomed to failure because a production network is based upon having developed first a connectivity network and then an alignment network. In other words, to create a production network, you need connectivity and alignment first.

The other key thing here is that the activities that it takes to form each of these three types of networks are different. You cannot build a connectivity network by immediately moving to the strategies that are necessary to build a production network. They are not the same.

In another post, I'm going to share what Plastrik and Taylor have to say about the strategies for building each type of network. But for now, to me the important piece of this is to understand that networks evolve and that attention must be paid to developing first connections, then alignment before a network can become focused on action.

Michele 

Free Primer on Creating Nonprofit Networks

Via Connectedness, the Net Gains Handbook on building social change networks is available from the Innovation Network for Communities.

From the Introduction:

Relying on networks to generate social change is not new to philanthropy and nonprofits. Many foundations have funded the civil rights, feminist, and consumer movements for decades and more recently have assembled “learning networks” of grantees that work together to innovate and improve their practices. As Jon Pratt, executive director of the Minnesota Council of Nonprofits, points out, “community organizers and grass roots organizations have applied network concepts for years.” 

But something new and important is afoot. The nonprofit and philanthropic sectors are under growing demand to do more and to do better. The number of nonprofit organizations is expanding substantially, as are the tasks the civil sector undertakes in light of government downsizing. “We’re seeing growth of nonprofit organizations, but not much change in the systems they are trying to impact,” says Pat Brandes, a foundation executive in Boston

Nonprofit capacity is a “chronic problem,” writes Jonathan Peizer of the Open Society Institute. “The sector must embrace new paradigms.” Gideon Rosenblatt, executive director of a Seattle nonprofit and a former Microsoft senior manager, notes that “many environmental leaders are questioning whether the environmental movement has the right strategies and organizational structures in place.” The movement, he contends, has “over-invested in institutional overhead” and “is replicating board development, fundraising and many other functions across thousands of very small organizations.” It is essential, Rosenblatt concludes, to “un-bundle” and rebuild the environmental organizational structure using network approaches.

I've just downloaded and begun to read, but this Open Source handbook looks like a great primer on developing networks between nonprofits.

According to the Table of Contents, it covers:

Part I: Is a Network Approach Right for You?   

1. Starting Points   

2. What We Mean by Network   

3. The Difference a Network Makes   

4. The Business Case for Social-Change Networks   

5. Gut Check: What It Takes to Build Networks   

Part II: Organizing Networks: Seven Decisions   

6. Three Networks in One: Connection, Alignment, and Production Nets   

7. Reasons that Bind: Collective Value Propositions   

8. Who’s In, Who’s Out: The Privilege of Membership   

9. Who Decides What and How: Network Governance   

10. The Shape of Things To Come: Structures of Networks   

11. Rules to Live By: Operating Principles for Network Building   

12. The Different Roles of Network Builders   

13. When Funders Organize Networks   

Part III: Managing a Network’s Development: Five Tasks   

14. Weaving Connections: Ties that Bind   

15. Facilitating Alignment: Production Agreements   

16. Coordinating Production: Who Does What   

17. Operating the Network: Management Issues to Anticipate   

18. Taking a Network’s Pulse: Monitoring and Evaluation   

19. Visualizing Networks: Maps that Reveal   

Part IV: Net Gains in the Social-Change Sector   

20. Building the Civil Sector’s Networks: Five Strategies   

A Network Glossary 

Resources for Network Builders

I'm going to take a look and then try to post some chapter summaries if that seems like it would be helpful.

Michele

Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Charities

A disturbing story on the front page of MSNBC tonight about the lack of confidence average Americans have in the nonprofit system:

Americans’ charitable spirit peaks during the holiday season, but this year the urge to give is battling a strong contrarian tide – a crisis of trust born from public disenchantment with a philanthropic system that many consider disorganized, under-regulated and tainted by scandal.

A poll by Harris Interactive released this summer found only one in 10 Americans strongly believes charities are "honest and ethical" in their use of donated funds. And nearly one in three believes nonprofits have "pretty seriously gotten off in the wrong direction," it found.

This is serious on a lot of levels, not the least of which is the fact that the contributions of "average donors" to nonprofits total some $260 billion. Obviously if they're questioning what's happening to their money, we have a serious problem on our hands, particularly as we head into the holiday season when people are more likely to give.

Compounding the problem is the explosion in the number of smaller nonprofits, which further fragments donor attention. People are still aware of the large nonprofits--the United Ways, the Easter Seals--but smaller charities are left to compete among themselves for increasingly scarce resources. Not that this is news to anyone in the nonprofit sector.

This story is part of a larger series that MSNBC is producing on nonprofits called Give and Take. Through the series they intend to explore "the good and the ugly in the world of charity." The message board is particularly interesting, with the vast majority of comments coming from disgruntled donors.  Among the complaints:

• Sending a thank-you asking for another donation in the same envelope.

• A belief that nonprofits are basically "hounding" donors. "Harassing me for money makes me think my gift wasn't appreciated," reports one person.

• A perception that money is being "wasted" on frequent mailings, especially mailings that include small gifts.

• That too much money is going to administrative fees, rather than to helping people.

Nonprofits already have a tough battle with marketing and fundraising. Stories like this aren't going to help.

"From Struggle to Strategy"

Via TechSoup, I'm reading an interesting study, Online Technology for Social Change: From Struggle to Strategy, prepared by dotOrganize, a project organized to define best practices and provide strategic direction and information to support social change organizations in their use of technology.

The report "compiles insights from more than 400 social change organizations" and I think adds some things to consider, given our  previous  discussions about the Second Wave.

According to the study, which targeted U.S. and Canadian nonprofits:

• Survey respondents work across the spectrum of social change issues, including education (35%), the environment (30%), healthcare (34%), youth issues (29%), and economic justice (21%).
• 30% of respondents operate on a budget of $100,000 or under, and 60% operate on a budget of $500,000 or under.
• Respondents tend to have a relatively small number of paid staff. 67% employ 10 or fewer paid staff members, and a full 15% are run entirely by volunteers.

This would seem to me to be a fairly representative group of social change organizations, except for the budget size as we know that most nonprofits operate with a much smaller budget. Further, it may be biased toward more "tech-savvy" groups, as the surveys were distributed online, indicating that some level of comfort with tech was likely.

Key findings of the report include:

• Organizers view technology as important to their missions. Ninety-five percent said that tech is important or essential to achieving their mission.

• Interest in tools is wide-ranging. Beyond Excel, Outlook and Access, respondents indicated an interest in a wide range of applications, with no single application dominating, although the ten most used tools were related to either fundraising or communication.

• A significant number of organizations don't have a handle on technology fundamentals. Close to 40% don't use e-mail newsletters, 47% aren't equipped for online donations and 43% don't have information available for download on their sites. Further, only very small percentages make use of Web 2.0 tools such as wikis, podcasts or social networking tools.

• Organizations expressed interest in older, less effective technologies such as bulletin boards and online forums.  According to the report, "respondents do not always want valuable newer technologies because they don't understand them, don't recognize their strategic value, or don't know they exist. This suggests that organizers may not have the information and resources they need to successfully integrate newer technology into their campaigns."

• Nonprofits are frustrated with their current tools. Respondents expressed major dissatisfaction with current software capabilities, capacity for integration and data-sharing and support for training. This held true across all organizational funding levels, with large organizations generally as dissatisfied as less well-funded NPOs.

• Lack of time, money and expertise were cited as the major reasons for not adopting new tools. Lack of training in particular was regarded as a huge impediment.

• Data disarray is at the heart of the problem. The ability to effectively capture data into a single database is elusive at best. Contact management in particular is a problem. Organizations are wasting vast amounts of time and energy with double entry and trying to get applications to "talk to one another." This also creates significant gaps in their knowledge of their customers, funders, and other stakeholders that has serious impacts on their abilities to manage their organizations on a day-to-day basis.

• Organizations with dedicated technology staff fare better. Organizations with 4 or more dedicated tech staff were 3 times more likely to be satisfied with the state of technology in their organizations.

• Technology struggles are stunting impact. "Social-change organizations are struggling to master standard and emerging technologies, as well as to manage data silos and ill-suited tools. These challenges, which drain resources away from serving communities and constituents, result in lost time, poor constituent-relationship management, fewer supporters, and missed civic-engagement opportunities. The lack of convenient donation vehicles, combined with fewer supporters and poor tracking of information, means less money coming in the door."

Clearly a lot of issues going on inside these organization, to which dotOrganize suggests some good solutions. What I particularly see is the need for identification and sharing of best practices to get the word out to NPOs about technology options and how they can work, as well as making quality learning opportunities available for staff. It appears that the interest in technology is there--organizations see technology as necessary to achieving their missions and they express a desire to learn more. The problem is getting the right information into the right hands with the right supports to make it all happen. Figuring that out is part of our job now.

Michele

Beth's ChipIn Fundraising Experiment

Beth is guest-blogging at Katya's place about raising funds using the ChipIn! widget and is going to be sharing the results of her experiment as she goes along. As you can see, she's  raising money for a project near and dear to her heart:

When we adopted our beautiful children, we also adopted their birth country.  We have embraced Khmer culture and we also feel a responsibility to give something back to the country, particularly to seriously disadvantaged children in Cambodia.  Soon after coming home with our first child nearly seven years ago, I volunteered for the Sharing Foundation, an ngo that works directly with local officials, orphanages, and NGOs in Cambodia to identify and carry out projects which improve the lives of children.  I now serve on the board.

There’s lots of could tell you about TSF and I encourage you to visit the web site so you can get an sense of the scope of the good work this organization does.  One of its focus areas is education. Over 1,300 children in Cambodia receive educational support every day as a result of The Sharing Foundation initiatives.  The Foundation has increasingly focused its efforts on ways to create and improve educational opportunities for Cambodian children of all ages, including public school projects, pre-school, Khmer literacy, English language instruction, high school and college sponsorships, and vocational training.  These projects present what might be the only means for the most disadvantaged children to life themselves, as well as their families, out of poverty conditions, become self-reliant and lead more productive, hopeful lives.

The Foundation is now its second year of college sponsorships.  Last year, our family stepped forward to sponsor Leng Soparath, an orphan from Kampong Speu orphanage.  For a gift of $750 annually, TSF is able to cover her college fees and living expenses. (It is a stretch for us ... we’re not rich but this could make such a difference in the life of one young person) In addition to money, we provide emotional support and encouragement through regular letters and photographs that we exchange.  Our letters are hand-carried to Cambodia by Sharing Foundation’s 76-year old founder, Dr. Nancy Hendrie.  Watch the video for more information.

As part of the project, Beth is also asking for ideas on how she can get the word out and make her fundraising efforts successful. Several people have already shared some great thoughts in the comments section of the post and I encourage you to head over and offer your own ideas. Some things off the top of my head:

• The most obvious thing--I'm chipping in. Definitely have to put my money where my mouth is.

• As you can see, The Bamboo Project is adding Beth's widget to our page for the duration of the campaign. You can add the widget to your site by going here.  Also be sure to check out Beth's video here.

• Since it's around the holidays, chipping in on someone's behalf seems like an easy idea and something that other bloggers can spread through their blogs, in addition to posting the widget.  Could also be a great project for a Girl Scout Troup, book club or church group to sponsor Leng Soparath.

• I do a lot of work with Job Corps and one of the programs I've set up with my clients is a social entrepreneurship project where students are raising money for a good cause. I've found that even though Job Corps students are often the object of "charity" because they come from disadvantaged backgrounds, they love the idea of being able to give something back to someone else in need, so I'll be suggesting this to my clients as a possible project. Maybe other bloggers have some of the same things going on and could spread the word that way.

• Seth had a good idea about using social networking and college students to get them to embrace the cause. To build on that I wonder if there wouldn't be a way to get a graphic artist to put together some quick digital art that could be downloaded from Beth's site as MySpace or FaceBook badges, t-shirt decals, etc. like The Bridge has done.

Just a few thoughts. . . I'll add more if they come to me. In the meantime, why don't you head on over to ChipIn!

Michele