NEWS
The 2009 edition of the Foundation Center's Philanthropy Annual is now available. The third in as many years, the annual highlights the news, issues, people, organizations, and giving trends shaping the field of philanthropy.
"Philanthropy Annual provides an opportunity to pause and reflect on what our sector has achieved in 2009 and has yet to achieve in the future that awaits us," says Bradford K. Smith, the Center's president, in the Annual's introduction.
This year's highlights include:
- Topical issues covered in the mainstream and philanthropic press during 2009, including the continued impact of the economic downturn and the intersection of government and private funding for healthcare, education, and social innovation
- In-depth interviews and commentary from widely respected leaders and thinkers, including Albert Ruesga, president and CEO of Greater New Orleans Foundation, and Vicki Escarra, president and CEO of Feeding America
- Lists of the top foundations and public charities, as well as updated statistical information about U.S. grantmaking
- A sampling of books, periodicals, and blogs in the field
- Updated key contacts at philanthropy support organizations
Philanthropy Annual: 2009 Review is available for free download or for purchase at the Center's online Marketplace ($19.95).
Spitfire Strategies is now enrolling participants for its 2010 Strategic Communications Grantmaker Training, which takes place in May and July. The course is designed to help foundation program staff learn how to use co.jpg)
mmunications to inrease the impact of their work as well as activities of their grantees.
Among the topics covered are how to:
- Develop messages
- Frame issues
- Identify compelling stories.
The training is divided into two sessions:
May 5 – 7 covers the fundamentals of strategic communications to improve the impact of grantmaking.
July 8 – 9 focuses on advanced strategy and skills-building sessions.
Fee for the training is $5,000 per person. Space is limited.
For more information or to reserve a spot, contact Dennis Poplin at 202-293-6200 x. 226 or dennis@spitfirestrategies.com
The Foundation Center has launched Glasspockets,, a web site that showcase how different foundations are taking the lead in communicating about their work, particularly using online resources and social networks. Glasspockets encourages these organizations to tell the stories of their successes — and failures — in part by highlighting exemplary efforts of their peers.
According to Foundation Center President Bradford K. Smith, "The Foundatio
n Center believes strongly in the kind of freedom that allows U.S. foundations to be innovative, take risks, and work on long-term solutions to the world's most vexing problems," says Smith. "To preserve this freedom, foundations must tell the story of what they do, why they do it, and what difference they make. Glasspockets will serve as a central source of knowledge that can fuel this movement toward greater transparency in philanthropy."
Visitors to Glasspockets will find essential facts about all 97,000 U.S. foundations, illustrations of philanthropy's impact on the issues that people care about, and information on the ways in which foundations are striving to become more transparent. The site features real-time Twitter feeds to convey "What foundations are saying right now," while "Foundation Transparency 2.0" showcases the growing number of foundations that are using social media. "Who Has Glass Pockets?" provides at-a-glance profiles of individual foundations' online communication practices according to infor
mation they make public regarding their governance, finances, grantmaking processes, and performance metrics. Project manager Janet Camarena confirms that foundations are coming forward and volunteering to be put under the magnifying glass and hopes others will use what they learn on the site to conduct their own assessments and open them to public view.
Glasspockets was developed together with partners, including the Center for Effective Philanthropy and the Communications Network.
The Heinz Endowments has added an interactive section to its Web site to provide the foundation's grantees a forum to tell their stories "as they know best." Every two weeks, In the Spotlight will feature a different grantee. Standing features include a Q&A, a blog, video, photos and links to other sites. Grantees will be responsible for producing their own stories and providing all supplemental materials. Visitors can also sign up to receive email updates about individual grantees featured in this special section of the Heinz Web site.
Lisa Witter and Lisa Chen, co-authors of the book, The She Spot: Why Women are the Market for Changing the World and How to Reach Them, have launched Shespotter.com, a blog devoted to the art and science of marketing effectively to women. According to Witter and Chen, women are the not-so-secret-secret to making political and cultural change because they give, vote and volunteer more than men do. Witter and Chen, who are senior strategists at Fenton Communications, say Shespotter.com touches on everything from the latest research on giving trends to marketing campaigns by both for-profit companies and nonprofits, and explores opportunities for connecting through social media like Facebook and Twitter. The blog also offers insights into the four principles Witter and Chen describe in The She Spot – Care, Connect, Cultivate and Control – that are critical for reaching women.
For a past Communications Network webinar with the book's co-authors, click here.
Philanthropic foundations are taking unprecedented steps to address the crisis in journalism and “serve as a firewall against the disappearance of critical news and information,” according to a new report from the Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication.
The report, Philanthropic Foundations: Growing Funders of the News is authored by David Westphal, a CCLP senior fellow and former Washington editor for McClatchy Newspapers.
Leaders from philanthropic foundations, journalism, education and non-profit organizations were interviewed for the report, which follows up on a major meeting convened in 2008 by Geoffrey Cowan, dean emeritus of the USC Annenberg School and CCLP director, Alex Jones, director of the Shorenstein Center at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and Orville Schell, former dean of UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism and a CCLP senior fellow.
The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research recently completed one of the first statistically significant, longitudinal studies on the usage of social media by United States charities.
New research shows th
at charitable organizations are still outpacing the business world and academia in their use of social media. In the latest study (2008) a remarkable eighty-nine percent of charitable organizations are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis. A majority (57%) of the organizations are blogging. Forty-five percent of those studied report social media is very important to their fundraising strategy. While these organizations are best known for their non-profit status and their fundraising campaigns, they demonstrate an acute, and still growing, awareness of the importance of Web 2.0 strategies in meeting their objectives.
Given the current economic climate, everyone’s looking to cut costs and work smarter. And that 
means more organizations are scheduling teleconferences, videoconferences, and webinars instead of in-person meetings. On paper, where the savings clearly add up, this makes plenty of sense, but is anybody calculating what is lost when we meet this way?
This spring, our colleagues at The Goodman Center invited public interest professionals from across the US and Canada to answer that question. More than 1,200 people completed their online survey, providing a much clearer picture of the potential downsides of “meeting without meeting.”
Click here to download their new report, “Dialing In, Logging On, Nodding Off: The True Costs of Teleconferences, Videoconferences and Webinars” and find out why your organization may want to press the pause button before scheduling its next telemeeting.
Also, to view a webinar, hosted by Andy Goodman, on "how to meet without meeting," click here.
Foundation communications goes far beyond an annual report or the occasional press release about grantees. And it's no longer the exclusive domain of big foundations, communications staff, or consultants. Integrating communications is critical to advancing programmatic goals. A new guide from Grantcraft -- Communicating for Impact Strategies for Grantmakers -- shows how grantmakers use a "communications lens" to develop strategy, evaluate impact, take advantage of new media technologies, and more.
Click here to download a pdf.
Click here for more information, including how to order printed copies.
Free-Range Thinking, a useful publication for people involved in public interest communications, provides helpful tips for building a "story bank" -- a central repository where you can easily and quickly find a story that enlivens whatever point your organization want to make.
The Communications Network has published Are We There Yet? A Communications Evaluation Guide. The guide will help foundation and nonprofit communicators create plans for monitoring their communications activities and measuring their results. The guide walks users through a nine-step process for evaluation plans.
The guide was created by Asibey Consulting, and made possible by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation
The Philanthropy Project and AOL News have announced a new service that provides information and news about philanthropic efforts across America, as well as the latest scientific information and advice about the benefits of living a philanthropic lifestyle. The feature, , created in partnership with Philanthropy Project, is the latest in a series of AOL News launches across various special-interest areas that deliver top-quality breaking news.
What is the state of foundation communications? How do communications staff members spend their time? What are their priorities? How much influence is Web 2.0 having on foundation communications? How effectively do communications staff work with their program colleagues? How does spending compare across foundations of different sizes?
These are some of the issues addressed in a report, Foundation Communications: the State of the Practice. The report includes a summary and analysis of the results of a survey conducted in the fall of 2008 of several hundred communications professionals at private and community foundations. The survey was conducted by DeSantis Breindel, a branding and interactive firm, for the Communications Network, with support from the California HealthCare Foundation.
A report produced for the Communications Network urges foundations to make more use of Web 2.0 technologies in order to more effectively engage the public in their work and to have greater programmatic impact.