by Kim Ammann Howard

Recently, I’ve been thinking about new tools that can help present information in a visually engaging way. More than ever before, we are able to easily and cheaply gather and share such information. This has generated vast amounts of visual content; on YouTube alone, 24 hours of videos are uploaded each minute. However, as we know, more of anything doesn’t always equal better; sometimes it just means more. Below are some examples of tools that visually present information in a way that made me stop and think about an action I could take, how I could incorporate the tool into my own practice and colleagues who might have an opportunity to use the tool:

• Wordle is a free online service that creates “word clouds.” The site analyzes imported text and generates visual displays of words that appear most frequently in the source text. The images show the most common words with greater prominence by increasing font size and using color. The Chronicle of Philanthropy recently surveyed nonprofit fundraising staff about their favorite blogs in the nonprofit world and created a word cloud based on the results.
• GapMinder is a free online tool that people can use to create maps that show the progression (or lack of progression) in human development. Through this program, users choose among hundreds of indicators (e.g., unemployment, literacy, life expectancy rates) to create maps that move and shift along a timeline. For example, taking advantage of the attention on the World Cup, one user asked the question whether rich countries are better at soccer by creating a visual display through GapMinder that shows qualifying nation’s soccer ranking relative to the nation’s income per person.
• HealthyCity is a free online California mapping tool that allows users to locate public services, analyze demographic and residential data, create easy-to-read maps and share data projects across organizations. Recently, the Advancement Project utilized their Healthy City mapping tool to coordinate efforts for the 2010 Census and ensure a better count of “hard-to-count” communities.
• Prezi is an online tool to create visually stimulating presentations. Prezi allows users to follow a story line through a presentation and zoom into specific sections for emphasis. In 2009, writer James Geary utilized Prezi at the TED Conference to visualize his presentation about the influence of metaphors on people’s thinking.

Many of the existing tools, those above and others, are easily accessible through the Web and in most cases are even free – something that is critical for many of the nonprofits with whom we collaborate. As we identify and experiment with new tools, and maybe even create our own, let’s share our experiences about how they help us to tell important stories of change.

By Kim Ammann Howard

Everyday, information permeates most aspects of our lives. Rapid advances in technology and our resulting ability to collect and share information takes place at a scale that was hard to imagine, even ten years ago. For many of us, this information explosion results in a “love-hate” relationship that oscillates between invigorating and overwhelming depending on the moment.

The Economist’s recent special issue report “Data, data everywhere” reflects on how, in our information-centered economy, various forms of data have become the new raw material of business in the industrial data revolution we find ourselves in. While other industries continue to struggle during this down economy, the data management and analytics industry flourishes; currently estimated to be worth more than $100 billion, it is growing annually at about 10%. The appearance of new definitions to measure available information is just one indication of these swift changes—gigabytes, which in the only distant past seemed so large, has been quickly surpassed by exabytes, zettabytes and yottabytes. While the report focuses on compelling stories of how information is transforming business practices, I wondered about the implications for the nonprofit sector. To what extent can we further harness technology-induced data and tools to transform nonprofit practices? How might we use:

• Data exhaust, the valuable information left from the trail of internet users’ clicks,
• Broader and easier access to public information from the biggest generator and collector of data—the government (e.g., www.data.gov),
• Cloud computing, in which the internet is used as a platform to collect, store and process data, allowing organizations to lease computing power when they need it rather than buying expensive equipment, and
• Open source software, which allows the examination and presentation of data without the purchase of expensive and complicated software packages and updates (e.g., Google Analytics, a free software that provides in-depth reporting on Web site usage).
• Hand held devices and other new technologies that facilitate quicker and cheaper collection and use of information across users and sites.

Whether we like it or not, we are part of a grand experiment of how information will impact our lives. For those of us committed to the nonprofit sector, we are at an exciting moment to influence how these new found technologies can propel us towards the change that we want to see.

By Ellen Irie

Capacity building has been a leading issue in the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors for over a decade. This is a good thing. The increased focus has provided nonprofits with time and resources to attend to the underlying structures, competencies and processes that enable them to be more efficient and effective in their mission-related work.

In the last several years, “greening” has also become a topic of much discussion. While greening is a relatively young term that lacks a consistent definition, it generally relates to making a place or processes more environmentally friendly and ecologically sustainable.

I would like to posit—promote even—bringing these two concepts together into the “greening of organizational capacity.” Currently, for nonprofit organizations, green practices are often an add-on—something to do when resources permit (e.g., printing on recycled paper or increasing electronic communication and transactions). But what if being green was essential to strong organizational capacity? I’m not just talking about adding environmental elements into program outcomes, which may be an appropriate path for some nonprofits. I’m talking about green thinking and practices being critical to strong organizational capacity—enabling a nonprofit to reach programmatic outcomes.

Can the nonprofit and philanthropic sectors “green” the frameworks we use to understand organizational capacity? Can we move beyond greening as a feel-good or compliance issue to a core capacity element that is essential for efficiency and effectiveness—not just “nice to have,” but “need to have?” What will this take? Stay tuned for my next post on some specific ideas – and I welcome any of your thoughts as well.

By Lande Ajose

In liberal California, diverse philanthropic leadership may not appear to be much of a conversation. After all, a quick look at many of our leading foundations—James Irvine Foundation, The California Endowment, the California HealthCare Foundation—as well as some notable community foundations—California Community Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation and the East Bay Community Foundation—would suggest that the issue of diversifying leadership is a thing of the past. Yet according to a recent national report by the Council on Foundations, only 20% of new foundation CEOs are from diverse backgrounds. So what gives?

A few recent publications show that the issue of diversifying the leadership tier is alive and well.  The Council report summarized a fall 2009 convening in which executive search consultants and philanthropic leaders lamented the field’s lack of diversity and mused about whether there were actual career pathways to becoming a foundation leader, and how to tread such a path. Also last fall, Vincent Robinson of The 360 Group suggested in Responsive Philanthropy that the quest for “celebrity leaders” means there is an infinitesimally small pool of candidates to choose from. A key issue it seems is that foundations’ boards, which are notorious for their lack of diversity, prefer to look outside of philanthropy for their next leader, and even then, only to those individuals who have held similar executive positions. Conclusion? As Robinson says, the pool is infinitesimally small.

Even so, pointing to the leaders of many of our California foundations reflects a narrow understanding of leadership. While leadership is often focused on the individual, it is most often carried out by a select group that includes the board and senior leadership team, and that is where diversity is woefully lacking. Diversifying the entire leadership infrastructure of foundations is the critical next step in creating philanthropic institutions worthy of the causes they are serving.

Foundations need increased pathways, not only for diverse leaders interested in CEO positions, but also for the next generation of board and senior leadership team members. Yet the impetus for this panoply of diversity needs to come from a deeper place: it needs to come from the field’s acknowledgement that the work we are doing in our respective organizations is best served by having a multiplicity of leaders who can think differently about our social problems because their relationship to those problems is different. It means recognizing that a diverse leadership infrastructure is essential to the achievement of mission.