Visualizing 10 years of impact

admin — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 16:26:26 +0000

Yesterday we posted an infographic showing all of the service members we’ve placed. Since our focus is on building the capacity of organizations that use media and technology to strengthen communities, it’s equally important (if not more) to chart out all of the nonprofits and institutions we’ve placed Digital Arts Service Corps (and CTC VISTA before it) members over our 10 year history. (160 organizations is a tough fit, so you can download this visual as a full-sized PDF for easier reading.)

Nonprofit infrastructure and the organizations that build it

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:24:00 +0000

There is a lot of meat to the Nonprofit Quarterly’s “Study on Nonprofit and Philanthropic Infrastructure” (hat-tip Rosetta Thurman). The introduction from Elizabeth Boren, research director at the Urban Institute puts the infrastructure in perspective:

If I were to describe the network of organizations that supports the nonprofit sector, I would not use the word infrastructure, which connotes a fixed and unchanging support system. These organizations are hardly the static bones of the sector; rather, they are the interactive forces that transmit information and propel change. This network connects civil-society organizations through its hubs, which create opportunities for peer-to-peer learning and shared experiences as well as for improving practices, conducting and using research, and developing ethical standards. At their best, support organizations are propellants that drive organizations to excel. They promote an overarching view of the nonprofit sector’s role in society by articulating the collective challenges of organizations and their constituents and by developing alternatives to address these challenges.

What are the implications of this dynamic perspective? It puts the focus on how the support network connects a diversity of organizations and facilitates their interaction with the wider environment. The recent presidential campaign, whose Web revolution so engaged the young, illustrates these dynamics. Networks embody speed, flexibility, interactivity, and a high tolerance for volatility, negative feedback, and redundancy. Successful network hubs provide quality content and a variety of communication and engagement options.

Building on this idea of dynamism, both across the nonprofit sector as well as within our own public media infrastructure, is identifying the specific actions this network should enable:

To respond to this challenging environment in a rapid and well informed way, nonprofits of all sizes and shapes, but especially, the majority which are small or mid-sized, need the connective tissue of infrastructure to, among other things:
- restructure their practices, services, and organizations to fit a resource-scarce environment;
- identify and pursue available resources;
- track important trends in government and communities;
- identify potentially useful innovations in practice, financing, and organizational structure occurring elsewhere;
- engage in collective policy development and advocacy.

Sound a little familiar?

Digging deeper, the study clearly articulates one of the greatest challenges: “the nonprofit infrastructure lacks the reach to serve the vast majority of the sector which is made up of small to mid-size nonprofits, most of which are very local and very deeply woven into the fabric of their own communities.”

Fortunately, the Transmission Project is an outlier there, as well as here:

Most infrastructure organizations are not digital natives and need help in rethinking their design to include the most optimal use of new technological tools.

And here on Human Resources:

Many described the area of force concerns as behind the curve, with people and groups “playing around the edges” or addressing discrete issues such as executive transitions and recruitment. One interviewee suggests that the conversation has been too narrowly cast, and that discussions of the sector’s use of “human capital” should include ideas on how to effectively engage and retain unpaid as well as paid talent. This discussion is, no doubt, going to be played out loudly in the next few years as national initiatives based on service gain traction and steam.

Reinforcing our views that organizations are capable but under-resourced—locally designed solutions succeed if provided broadly based support—the study identifies an undermining perspective shift from asset to deficit orientations:

Over the past twenty years or so there has been an increasingly strident narrative that promotes the view that many or most nonprofits are dysfunctional and need to be fixed. A deeper look reveals that the financial and political markets which nonprofits must regularly negotiate are complex and difficult, requiring a variety of what Jim Collins calls high legislative leadership skills.

But unfortunately there is a counter-trend in the wider philanthropic community: ‘the increasing penchant among some foundations “to bypass nonprofits altogether in trying to achieve their goals.” ’

Lastly, what makes for a good infrastructure support organization:

Some respondents pointed out that among MSOs [Management Support Organizations], there are pockets of excellence, where the practice and thought leadership are exemplary. These organizations, they added, also tend to combine capacity building with research and publishing.

The 38th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy

Mira Allen — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:48:45 +0000

TPRC is a non-profit organization that hosts an annual forum for scholars and decision-makers in the fields of telecommunications and information policy. The purpose of the conference is to acquaint policy-makers with the best of recent research, and to familiarize researchers with the knowledge needs of policy makers.

Nonprofit Technology Conference

Mira Allen — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:37:26 +0000

The Nonprofit Technology Conference (NTC) will bring together an outstanding group of nonprofit leaders, IT innovators, communications gurus, fundraising superstars amongst other nonprofit staff looking to learn the latest trends, practical how-tos, and IT solutions to optimize their organization’s technology to further their missions to create more social good in the world.

Washington Nonprofit Conference

Mira Allen — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 19:15:18 +0000

The art of fundraising is changing rapidly – new methods of communicating and engaging with donors are rapidly increasing. Email, social media, blogging, digital media, mobile and more are quickly becoming credible means of marketing to donors and prospects. But with various groups of constituents engaging through multiple channels, how does one integrate them all so that a consistent message across all channels is delivered?

Transmission Project - nonprofit

Visualizing 10 years of impact

Nonprofit infrastructure and the organizations that build it

The 38th Research Conference on Communication, Information and Internet Policy

Nonprofit Technology Conference

Washington Nonprofit Conference