Archive for Steven Ketchpel (author of "Giving Back")

The Power of Community

December 20, 2011 / / No comments

I ran across the HBS Research Brief “The New Measures for Improving Nonprofit Performance” and wasn’t terribly impressed by it.  It was a fairly generic interview with the founder and chairman of Venture Philanthropy Partners Mario Morino (also author of Leap of Reason) and an HBS professor Alnoor Ebrahim.

Key points:

  • Non-profits don’t invest enough in capacity building, organization development
  • Strategy for non-profits is hard because lack of alignment of the stakeholders.  Donors, not beneficiaries are paying, so it can warp the direction set by the non-profit management away from things that really help.  (Incidentally, TED talk by Engineers without Borders’ David Damberger What Happens when NGOs Admit Failure (13 minute video) does a better job making this point.)
  • For profits have well-understood metrics, non-profits don’t.
  • It’s hard (though important) to separate the contribution of different organizations working to create change in the same set of interrelated issues.
  • Build a culture of transparency and results-orientation by leadership from the top, with values; even at the board level.
  • There should be a willingness to acknowledge and learn from failure (again, the TED talk does a better job of this…)

For me, the most compelling part of the whole interview was when the author asked Mario Morino why he was interested in the topic.  His response (italics mine):

My family was blue collar, but we were never poor. There’s a distinction between being in deep poverty and living in a low-income world. We had food and clothing. And the world was different in the 1950s. Even a tough neighborhood still had a social fabric to it. Today the social fabric is gone. The economic base for that income level has been almost fundamentally wiped out. And there’s a prevalence of guns and drugs. Those three things together create a deadly cycle for a community.

When I grew up I had all kinds of people encouraging me, helping me get through things. That’s what’s missing in communities today. In metrics, we don’t track the existence of caring relationships with adults in a student’s life. Yet it’s the biggest reason a kid succeeds in school. I’m trying to apply the analytical world to the passion of how do you help people, how do you make a difference in their lives.

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Service Projects for Martin Luther King Jr. Day near Palo Alto

December 15, 2011 / / No comments

As you’re thinking about the holidays, don’t forget about one coming up early in 2012:  Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on January 16, 2012.  “Don’t make it a day off, make it day *on!*”

Need some ideas how you and your family can participate in a service project to honor Dr. King?  If you’re in the Bay Area, Oshman Jewish Community Center of Palo Alto has done a great job of pulling together lots of options:

  • Taking care of our earth and environment
    • Planting trees, restoring habitats, picking fruit, gardening
  • Confronting Hunger & Homelessness
    • Serve a meal in a shelter, sort at a food bank, pack bag lunches, make scarves, build a house
  • Supporting those with illness
    • Decorate, make joke books, serve desserts, make soup
  • Honoring our elders
    • Visit, make placemats or play bingo

See the full listings and then sign up your family!

They also ask that you bring a non-perishable food item for Second Harvest Food Bank.

If you don’t happen to be near Palo Alto, All for Good site has a special “MLKDay” category that lets you find opportunities near where you are.  (For me, it still included several things that weren’t strictly MLK Day focused…)

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Impact of Proposed Tax Changes on Charitable Deductions

December 9, 2011 / / No comments

I’d heard a little about this back pre-Super Committee when Obama was offering the “Grand Bargain,” but hadn’t tracked it very closely, and assumed that it was a massive change (doing away with the deductability of charitable contributions) which probably wouldn’t happen.

Today, I ran across The Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University’s analysis from October, and it appears that it’s a more targeted reduction (and not particular to charitable contributions).  As I was reading the first couple of pages I thought, “Wow, this is an interesting analysis, but it really needs an executive summary.”  And then I kept going and discovered that *was* the executive summary.

So here’s my attempt at summarizing:

Proposed Tax Changes

  • Top marginal rate to be restored from current 35% to previous 39.6%.
  • Deductions (of all types, not just charitable contributions) for high income households ($200K+ AGI individual, $250K+ married) to be capped at 28% vs. today’s 35%.

Hypothesis

Rich people will give less, because (1) They’re paying more in taxes, so have less to give; and (2) The tax benefit they get from donations decreases.

Findings

Yes.  Charitable giving is expected to go down, something like $800M in the first year, and $2.4B in the second year.  This is off an expected baseline giving of $197B in the first year and $185B in the second year, so amounts to about 1.3%.  The amount of additional tax revenue expected by these changes is 2013 is $138B, at a time when the annual deficit is projected to be $691B.

See the report for more details about the model, the history, the impact if only one or the other of the proposed changes goes through, and lots more prose apparently written by accountants.

Personal Thoughts

Sure, it’s hard for non-profits to take an added hit when they are already struggling, and the demand for services is going up.  But if we’re talking about $138B in deficit reduction for a $2.4B loss in giving, I think it’s a worthwhile trade.  Note also that projected giving between the two years is projected to drop from $197B to $185B, and only $2.4B of that is due to the tax changes.  The other $9.6B (exactly 4x as much) is due, if I understand the model correctly, to the downward momentum of the economy.  So, working to improve the economy, say, by reducing the deficit, would actually be addressing the bigger issue.

Based on this report, I will be unpersuaded by non-profits that argue that these tax changes will be life-threatening to them.

 

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Palo Alto Weekly section: The Importance of Teens Finding a Purpose

December 2, 2011 / / No comments

High school is a stressful time.  Schoolwork, family obligations, paid employment, extracurriculars, college applications–all are major demands on a student’s time. At the same time, teens are still wrestling with questions of identity and how they fit in with the social scene that emerges from their peer group.

Parents, wanting to be helpful, are often not sure how, and can end up making things worse.   The birth of new technologies, especially social media, mean that today’s students have a whole new realm to contend with.

In a place like Palo Alto, the culture of success runs deep.  Many parents have reached the pinnacle of performance in their selected fields:  CEO’s, venture capitalists, serial entrepreneurs, partners of prestigious law firms or ad agencies, executive directors of non-profits.  They want their children to live well, and too often that implies “live well off.”  Material success is a common goal, but even where parents agree that their children should have the freedom to choose a lower-paying, less prestigious career track, they aim to give their child a “full range of options” by having him or her go to the very best schools, resulting in major pressure to garner admission to Stanford or an Ivy League school.

And so begins the “treadmill”:  expectations (both parental- and self-) of academic success; excellence in sports, music, school newspaper or other “meaty” after school activity; volunteering or paid employment; and a range of support services to help prepare for standardized tests and college applications.

This combination has been literally fatal to too many students in the Palo Alto high schools.  The community has reflected and responded.  Improvements have been made.  Support services are stronger.

The cover story/section of the November 18, 2011 Palo Alto Weekly was an excellent multi-faceted review of different programs and experiences of people, both students and those who support them.

There is an interesting sidebar why college is less stressful than high school (more flexibility in choosing classes, more interesting material (professors that  probe “why?”), extracurriculars run by students–without as much “resume building” pressure, instructors that treat their students in a more egalitarian way, and just fewer hours of instruction and activity, less competition, and getting away from “pushy parents”).

But the main point of the story is about…

Purpose.

“People don’t worry about the right things,” [William Damon, Professor from Stanford School of Education, author of the book The Path to Purpose: How Young People Find Their Calling in Life] said. “The biggest problem growing up today is not actually stress; it’s meaninglessness.”

Working hard for something they didn’t choose themselves, and don’t believe in, is counterproductive to longterm health and fulfillment. It is simply not sustainable.
A purposeful life, by contrast, can unleash tremendous
energy, creativity, exhilaration and a deep satisfaction
with efforts and accomplishments, according to Damon.
Based on hundreds of surveys and in-depth interviews
with adolescents nationwide, Damon has found that the
vast majority of today’s youth (about 80 percent) are not
engaged in activities fueled by a clear sense of purpose.

Community service was an avenue through which several of the students found their purpose.  Youth Community Service (Disclaimer:  I’m a huge fan) and Executive Director Leif Erickson (Disclaimer applies here, too…) were featured for their work in service learning programs in the schools.  The stories of the students were inspiring.

I’m tempted to quote more and more of the article, but I’ll limit myself to urging you to read the original, and quoting one final sidebar:

How Purpose Begins

The following sequence outlines steps in a path to purpose
for youth, according to researchers’ findings.

  1. Inspiring communication with persons outside the immediate family
  2. Observation of purposeful people at work
  3. First moment of revelation:  Something important in the world can be corrected or improved
  4. Second moment of revelation:  I can contribute something myself and make a difference
  5. Identification of purpose, along with initial attempts to accomplish something
  6. Support from immediate family
  7. Expanded efforts to pursue one’s purpose in original and consequential ways
  8. Acquiring the skills needed for this pursuit
  9. Increased practical effectiveness
  10. Enhanced optimism and self-confidence
  11. Long term commitment to the purpose
  12. Transfer of skills and character strengths gained in pursuit of one purpose to other areas of life

Source: “The Path to Purpose: How
Young People Find Their Calling in Life”
by William Damon

It was interesting to me that people *outside* the family were instrumental in the initial stages of defining a purpose.  Also made me wonder how I, personally, can do a better job of giving teens that glimmer of possibility.

 

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Book Status Update

December 2, 2011 / / One comment

Just a quick note that I’ve reached the next stage in the writing process:  sent off a complete draft to an editor.  (To several, actually.  But I’m very excited about one…)  It’s made me think that editors are unsung heroes–like batting coaches.  The good ones have a huge hand in the final product, but aside from a small mention in the acknowledgments, basically get no public credit for the work they do.

While it looks like I *could* maintain the original time line, with a “Fall 2011” publication (which would give me to December 21st, I guess), it looks like I’ll add another step into my process and have a professional designer work magic on it.  I’m not sure exactly how long that will take, but I’m near certain that it’ll be 2012 before you’ll find it on Amazon.

 

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Community Foundations and funding “Social Justice”

November 8, 2011 / / No comments

There’s an interesting blog post today “The Big Uneasy” over at White Courtesy Telephone (an occasionally irreverent series of guest blog posts about philanthropy) talking about why Community Foundations shy away from funding Social Justice.  Better than just talking about it, they provided some survey data (surveying community foundation staff members) about it.  While it’s a small sample (57 people), it’s a lot better than one person pontificating.  (And they let you download the survey results, though not the raw data…)

The main concerns are that “social justice” is either too radical or too vague.

  • 57% agreed or strongly agreed with the statement:

“Many CEOs or trustees of community foundations resist social justice philanthropy because they fear alienating donors”

This doesn’t mean that the respondents themselves felt that way.  Indeed, it smacks a bit of “sour grapes” where staff members would like to take a more radical stand, but feel push back from CEO’s or trustees.

They speculate a bit about how improved messaging (a focus on “fairness” and “equality of opportunity”) might clarify the goals and make it more palatable to donors.

As for me, some stats about the inequities that social justice is trying to correct is more compelling than word-smithing a perfect definition.

How about these drawn from “Fourteen Examples of System Racism in the Criminal Justice System”

  • People of color represent half the population of NYC, and 80% of the NYPD stops.  8% of whites who are stopped are frisked, for blacks and Latinos, it’s 85%.
  • In 2004, the American Bar Association reviewed the status of the public defender program and wrote:  “All too often, defendants plead guilty, even if they are innocent, without really understanding their legal rights or what is occurring…The fundamental right to a lawyer that America assumes applies to everyone accused of criminal conduct effectively does not exist in practice for countless people across the US.”
  • “The U.S. Sentencing Commission reported in March 2010 that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10% longer than white offenders for the same crimes.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Launch of Giving 2.0 by Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen

October 28, 2011 / / One comment

The launch of Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen‘s new book Giving 2.0 was a festive event at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business yesterday.  It was open to the community, and I’d guess I was one of the first people to sign up to attend.

The Talk

(I’ll go a little out of chronological order, to get to the “meaty” part first.)

Challenging the notion of philanthropy as “something rich people do,” Laura offered her own definition of a philanthropist:

ANYONE WHO GIVES ANYTHING—TIME, MONEY, EXPERIENCE, SKILLS, AND NETWORKS—IN ANY AMOUNT, TO CREATE A BETTER WORLD.

Laura started off with her personal inspiration for giving, the example of her parents Frances and John. She talked about the challenge of losing her mother to cancer, and the transformative experience that providing care to her had been.  She also talked about the significance that giving has in her new family, with her marriage to (Netscape, Opsware, and Ning founder) Marc Andreessen.

She wove in examples from the book from givers of different stages and scales:

  • Hector Chau, a retiree in Southern California, who uses his CPA skills to help needy people prepare their tax returns through Tax-Aide
  • Seema Bhende, an engineer in Seattle, who uses the Jolkona platform to support girls receiving computer training in South America (where $40 covers the expense of such a class).
  • Joon Yun ‘s support of Bay Area Women’s Sports Initiative through Silicon Valley Social Ventures.
  • Her own family giving
The key thesis was the need for philanthropists (by her definition, all of us!) to move from “Giving 1.0” to “Giving 2.0” where the key is not *how much* you give, but *how* you give.  (“If the gift is significant to you as the giver, it has the capacity to be significant to the recipient as well.”)  She contrasted the change in giving style:
“Giving 1.0” “Giving 2.0”
Reactive Proactive
Sympathetic Strategic
Isolated Collaborative

She encouraged each of us to think about the causes that we were passionate about, to research them on the web, and make sure that the gifts that we were giving were going to organizations that tracked their impact and reported it back, so that we as givers would also feel a greater connection to the outcome.

She talked about the current times of economic challenge, and pointed out that this was when were called to be most generous, when the need was the greatest.  She provided examples at different scales:

  •  Global:  2 Billion people live on less than $2/day
  •  National (US):  1 in 8 people received emergency food aid last year
  •  State (CA):  1 in 4 children live in poverty (Family of 4 making less than $22,000/year)
  •  Local (Palo Alto / East Palo Alto):  Of the population over age 25 in East Palo Alto, only 18% have a high school diploma
She closed with a plea for the audience members to think about how they could move their giving to the “2.0” model, and also use their influence (networks and advocacy) to make the world a better place.  Laura did some giving of her own:  In addition to sharing her wisdom and ideas, she gave each of the event attendees a copy of the book.

The Event

Held in the CEMEX auditorium of the Knight Management Center of the Stanford Graduate School of Business, the launch attracted several hundred people to witness the contributions that Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen has made to philanthropy, especially her latest, the authoring of this new book.

In her brief welcome, Kim Meredith, the director of the Stanford Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS) center, gave some high level statistics about the importance of philanthropy and acknowledged the extensive list of luminaries and major philanthropic organizations that were attending as co-sponsors of the event.

Jim Canales, the President and CEO of the James Irvine Foundation introduced Laura.  Laura needed little introduction in this venue, as she is a respected and beloved member of the philanthropic community, both as a seasoned giver and an academic who has had a significant impact in helping to shape how philanthropy is researched and presented.

A few key highlights:

  • Earned 4 degrees from Stanford (undergraduate, two masters, and an MBA from the GSB).  While the whole Knight Management Center is new since the time she was a student, it was still something of a “home coming” to present at the GSB.
  • Served as President of two family foundations:   Arrillaga Family Foundation and the newly created Marc and Laura Andreessen Foundation.  The first has transformed Stanford campus (Arrillaga Alumni Center, Arrillaga Family Dining Commons, Arrillaga Family Sports Center, Stanford Stadium) and made significant donations to other schools and athletics.  The second has supported medical emergency services and transformation of the field and practice of philanthropy.
  • Created Silicon Valley Social Venture (SV2) an early “giving circle” to help the new generation of tech entrepreneurs and workers get engaged in philanthropy, giving both of their material wealth and the skills that helped them achieve that wealth.
  • Joined the faculty of the Stanford GSB, teaching courses about philanthropy, and helping to establish the academic grounding, by writing case studies and convoking conferences on the topic. (I was able to audit her course when I was a visiting scholar in 2004.  She gave informative lectures, and brought in great guest speakers.  I blogged about many of the class meetings (for example, the first lecture)  in my previous RDVP-focused blog, newly re-constructed at http://ketchpel-rdvp.blogspot.com .  This course certainly influenced my own thinking about giving, and introduced me to key concepts and people  especially in the strategic, venture philanthropy tradition.)
  • Established the Stanford Philanthropy and Civil Society (PACS) Center, and serves as its Chair.

The Future of Giving 2.0

Although the book is building on a decade of scholarship and practice, it seems clear that this is just the first step of a bigger project for Laura.  The bookmark included with our free copies read “Giving 2.0:  a book / a website / a movement”.  While the website  is live, there are lots of features that are “coming soon,” like Giving Circle startup materials (and hosting platform, perhaps?), your online giving journal, a how-to for sharing the values with your children.

Laura has also pledged to give 100% of the author royalties of the book to proactive, strategic, collaborative non-profits.  Information is still forthcoming, but I’d imagine there will be a crowd-sourcing aspect to it.

Given the technical savvy level of Laura (and her husband) I’d assume that the Giving 2.0 will either launch as or morph into a major resource for sharing information about non-profits, giving strategies, and the key information that philanthropists (all of us) need to make the world a better place.

Congratulations, Laura!

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Mission 1: Letter Writing Campaign

October 27, 2011 / / One comment

A lot of the volunteer work that I do is coordinated through my church, First Congregational Church of Palo Alto, which is a church in the United Church of Christ (UCC) denomination.  This year, the UCC is launching an initiative called “Mission 1,” covering the 11 day period from 11/1/11 – 11/11/11.

One of the 3 aspects of it is a letter writing campaign, augmenting Bread for the World with their 2011 Offering of Letters.  Their focus is on improving the effectiveness of US foreign aid, through accountability and transparency, streamlining redundant, overlapping aid agencies, and giving local people what they want.

For the Mission 1 campaign, we’re hoping to send 111 letters from our church.  To participate:

  1. Learn about the issue.
    1. Read a two-pager of facts about poverty and hunger (and USAID)
    2. Watch the overview of the campaign, including stories from Haiti and Liberia  (YouTube Video 7:51)
  2. Compose your thoughts.
    1. Start from a sample letter from Bread for the World (or download the Microsoft .doc version)
    2. Or, if you want to be more free-form (and effective) say it in your own words.  Be sure to include your name and address at the bottom of the letter (so your representative knows that you are in his or her district).
  3. Send the letter.
    [UPDATE:  The UCC has set up a nice page which lets you submit a single form, and figures out from your zip code which members of Congress should receive it.  So you can send all 4 (2 Senators, 1 Representative, Pres. Obama) with a single form submission.]
    1. Via the legislator’s web contact form:
    2. Via Snail Mail:
      • Representative Anna Eshoo, 205 Cannon Building, Washington, D.C. 20515
      • Office of U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer, 112 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
      • Senator Dianne Feinstein, United States Senate, 331 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, D.C. 20510
  4. Let us know you’ve sent your letter (to count toward our goal!)
    • Email givingbackbook  at gmail , or better still
    • Comment on this post, include a copy of your letter, if you like, and let us know where you sent it.
  5. Invite a friend to participate in the letter writing campaign. Share this blog post. Bring the letter writing campaign up in a conversation.
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Kids and Money, Part 1, “Giving”

October 25, 2011 / / No comments

Yesterday, I participated in a workshop for families organized by financial planner Cheryl Young and the Silicon Valley Community Foundation.  This was a new project for them, and for the first time being offered, I thought they struck a good balance between content for the kids with activities to keep them engaged, and content for the parents.

The two-hour program featured:

  •  A brief introduction
  • A testimonial from one of the parents, talking about the types of volunteer experiences she and her kids had engaged in, along with some cues about what activities might be “too early” for some of the younger ones
  • Michelle Berg, community relations and events coordinator from the Second Harvest Food Bank, spoke about her own experience as a client of the food pantry growing up, and the alarming level of need (nearly 10% of the people in these counties, nominally one of the richest parts of the world, used the services). SHFB is able to leverage donations of imperfect/hard-to-sell fruits and vegetables, plus relationships with major grocery chains to really stretch their resources, providing lots of meals (100,000/day (!), 45 million pounds/year(!!!)) at just 50 cents per meal.
    After the talk and a very short video about an elementary school student  who organized a food drive  (1:50 YouTube video), we did a short food-sorting project, helping to pack healthy snack bags.  Our group of about 30 people (more kids than adults) made short work of the packing project, and had a snack break of our own.
  • Jennifer Yeagley, the Executive Director from My New Red Shoes, described the importance of letting poor and homeless children start school with the sense of pride and belonging that comes from a new outfit and school supplies.  Recipients get a pair of new sneakers, a $50 Old Navy gift card, school supplies appropriate to their age, and a card from a volunteer who helped make and pack the gift bag.  The kids split off to decorate cards for the bags (which ended up being a favorite activity of the day for most of them).
  • Meanwhile, the adults learned a bit more about Silicon Valley Community Foundation and the 5 major initiatives for our community.  Gina Dalma, the Program Officer for SVCF’s education initiative spoke about the inequality in the schools in our counties, as well as the hope for advancing the laggard schools with appropriate leadership and teacher training.  She answered questions from the very education-focused parents.
  • I got a chance to describe my book project, and appreciated the friendly reception for what was essentially the first public presentation of the work in progress.
  • Cheryl Young finished off with a plea to the kids to engage their parents in conversation about what they could do.  I was impressed that even as a financial planner, Cheryl felt it was more important to have “Give” come before “Save” in the workshop series.  I think her comments and mine struck a very similar tone, even without any advance planning.
  • Marie Young, Director of Donor Learning and Engagement of SVCF, prepared packets for the adults, with a bibliography of family-friendly books on giving, some tips for starting conversations, and a reprint from a Scholastic Family article, as well as a bunch of SVCF background information.  The kids’ goody bags were more fun:  a t-shirt and stuffed animal from Cheryl, and a pen that looked like a fork from Second Harvest Food Bank.
Overall, it was a nice event, engaging both kids in the 6-12 year old range, plus their parents, to learn more about the needs of the local community, and the organizations that are helping to fulfill those needs, and what they can do to contribute.
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GuideStar Webinar: “The Second Great Wave of Philanthropy” by Sean Stannard-Stockton

October 7, 2011 / / 2 comments

Bottom Line:  Sean Stannard-Stocktongave an insightful discussion of how today’s “value-creating” second-wave of philanthropists (Gates, Zuckerberg) differ from yesterday’s “value-extracting” first-wave (Carnegie).  They’re more concerned about impact, but it’s still the emotional appeal that brings in the most dollars.  5 great questions to ensure your non-profit is metric driven.

The Changing Face of Today’s Philanthropists

The entrepreneurs who have made a fortune and intend to give a big chunk of it back are taking the same approach to their philanthropy that they took to their businesses:  deep involvement, relying on data, metrics, and experimentation to reach a good outcome.  A less-well known example is the Aldermans, who, as a testament to their son killed in 9/11, set up a foundation that offers mental health treatment to victims of terror and mass death world-wide.  Their clinics have treated over 100,000 people, in countries like Haiti, Uganda and Liberia where other mental health professionals are few and far between (1 per 1.25M people in Uganda).

Evaluating non-profits

The “second wave’s” emphasis on results was shown in a survey that said that 85% of donors do care about the impact that their gift has. But only 32% did any kind of research, and only 21% did performance-based research, and just 3% used the relative performance to make their grant decisions.

This distinction between performance research and more general research (generally fund-raising expense ratios) was a key point. Stannard-Stockton was highly critical of the over-reliance of non-performance metrics, implicitly endorsed by the main rating agencies like Charity Navigator and GuideStar, because the financial metrics are so much easier to get than the performance metrics. I’d written a blog post about this before, but Sean convinced me that I need to move even more in this direction, and support efforts that do get at performance metrics (like GiveWell.org and Philanthropedia both of which are presented in GuideStar’s TakeAction portal.)

How to motivate giving:  Stories vs. Statistics

You might think that this impact-driven generation of philanthropists would be hyper-rational about their giving, and look to the statistics to choose their donations.  You’d be wrong.  “Spreadsheets are not going to trigger giving,” Stanndard-Stockton said.  He cited a study on a donation appeal where one group got an “identifiable victim” (a person’s story with a name that the giver could relate to); a second group got the “statistical victim” (I took it to be a series of bullet points of facts and stats about the need for giving); a third group got both.  The results:

Treatment Average Given
Statistics $1.14
Identified Victim $2.38
Both $1.43

So, the “story only” did the best, by more than double the “statistics only”. Adding statistics to the story pulled the average level of giving down by about one-third. Sean didn’t talk about the particular audience for this experiment, and I expect it was a general audience, not specifically the “impact-driven” givers, but the point is well worth noting. There is further evidence that “activating logical thought processes in the brain dampens empathy.” Sean talked about an experiment where subjects were primed with simple arithmetic tasks, and then given the “story only” treatment. Their response was similar to the “story plus stats” case. That is, doing math before hearing the story made people less generous in their response, whether the math was stats about the giving need or entirely unrelated.

Sean said that doesn’t mean that non-profits should exclude the logical, evidence-based information from their appeals, they should just think about the narrative, and present it as a story, rather than math. (I *really* need to remember this, personally.) He offered a couple of resources that can help:

Cause-based “mutual funds”

Given the challenge of doing your own research, shouldn’t there be a way of having donor advisers allocate your money the same way that mutual fund managers allocate your investments? This is an idea that I’d toyed with a bit 7 years ago, but never did anything substantial. Sean said that others have tried it, with varying degrees of success.

  • Calvert Giving Folios were already around when I thought I was breaking new ground, but they have since gone defunct
  • NewProfit.org describes a portfolio approach, and lists 4 sectors (education, workforce development, public health, or poverty alleviation) but you have to “invest” when they are “raising a fund” and it’s not clear what the minimum level of participation is.

5 Questions to Ensure your Non-Profit is Improving

  1. What research or evidence did you use to design your program?
    (Unless you are intentionally an R&D project, you should be using the best known approach to tackle your problem…)
  2. What information have you collected about the the results of your programs?
    (It may be hard for a non-profit to establish direct causality, but you should be showing contribution. And as a funder, if you’re asking for stats that the non-profit wasn’t already collecting, are you sure the stats are worthwhile? Your grantee didn’t think so before you showed up on the scene….)
  3. How do you systematically analyze the data you do collect?
  4. Have you adjusted your activity in response to your analysis?
  5. Do you have absolute focus on producing results?
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