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For me, the value of the web to stimulate participation and collaboration was on display last week during the debate around Charles Bronfman & Jeffrey Solomon’s guest posts regarding their new book The Art of Giving.

It seems that Charles and Jeffrey felt the same way. Today, I’m happy to announce that Charles and Jeffrey were so inspired by and appreciative of the thoughtfulness and candor of the discussion held here that they would like to send a signed copy of their new book to each person who contributed to the conversation. So if you left a comment on one of the Art of Giving posts last week (Wednesday-Friday), please email me your mailing address to receive a personalized copy of the book.

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Twitter Presents a Chance for Savvy Charities to Reach More People
November 12, 2009 | Link of Chronicle of Philanthropy

Late one Friday afternoon this fall, Matt Flannery, the co-founder of Kiva.org, posted a message on Twitter: “It seems like my Twitter account is getting attacked by spam. 500 new followers a minute. Anyone else experiencing this?”

In fact, a small group of people who use Twitter to talk about philanthropy had also been inundated with followers. But the reason for the instant increase wasn’t anything as spurious as a spam attack. All the people who suddenly attracted new followers had just been added to Twitter’s official “suggested users” list of people worth following. Traditionally, Twitter’s suggestions have included celebrities like Al Gore, Shaquille O’Neal, and Oprah Winfrey, so adding the likes of Matt Flannery and other stars of the philanthropy world represents a big shift.

Twitter’s decision to elevate people in philanthropy to its list of those worthy of watching is important for the nonprofit world. It gives people at foundations and other nonprofit organizations a new platform to attract supporters and discuss important issues — but people in philanthropy will need to change their ways if they plan to capitalize on this important moment.

It is easy to dismiss Twitter, since it requires that people post their thoughts within a limit of 140 characters at a time. Many press releases put out by foundations feature headlines two or three times longer than an average “tweet.”

But this has been the year for Twitter to enter the mainstream of online social networks. While President Obama was considered cutting edge when he released his choice of a running mate in 2008 via text message, it’s clear he would have used Twitter to make such an announcement if he were trying to stir the same kind of excitement this year.

Twitter allows people who broadcast messages to get the word out to anyone who has signed up to listen. And reading the messages doesn’t require any special access; just sign up to follow someone and you can get all the public messages the person sends.

Twitter has also gotten some attention in philanthropy this year. At the annual conference of the Council on Foundations this spring, people were using Twitter to post messages about many of the sessions, in part because the council created an official Twitter account from which it encouraged conference goers to chat about sessions they attended.

But to a large degree, Twitter posts about philanthropy end up circulating within a small group of people who are passionate about the subject. While a hot topic might capture the interest of a small number of Twitter posters, those tweets rarely if ever “go viral” and branch out to reach the millions of people who use Twitter for reasons that go well beyond philanthropy.

However, that could soon be changing, as Matt Flannery learned.

When Twitter decided to add a group of philanthropy-focused people to its suggestion list, it vastly expanded the number of people who now get updates on nonprofit issues.

In addition to adding Matt Flannery, Twitter highlighted organizations like the Skoll Foundation and the Acumen Fund as well as individuals like the nonprofit-social-media expert Beth Kanter and the social entrepreneur Kjerstin Erickson.

The results of getting on Twitter’s suggested user list are phenomenal.

Since he was added, Mr. Flannery’s follower count has ballooned from a couple thousand to more than a hundred thousand. If the experience of the past is a guide, then the new philanthropy-focused members of the list can expect to add half a million or more followers over time. The exposure is seen as being so valuable that the Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis once offered Twitter $250,000 if it would add him to the list.

Those kinds of numbers make Twitter a key forum for discussions of philanthropy, in many cases outstripping the number of people who subscribe to print and online publications about nonprofit affairs.

But what is even more important about Twitter’s decision to highlight nonprofit leaders in its list is that it is yet another sign that philanthropy itself is becoming more and more a part of mainstream culture. News organizations are devoting more attention to nonprofit affairs, Product Red made giving a prominent part of the consumer world, and the NBC drama The Philanthropist brought the topic to prime time.

As a result, philanthropy is no longer a topic of discussion reserved for the ultra wealthy, nonprofit executives, or academic researchers. As with any topic that goes mainstream, many insiders will complain that the subject is too nuanced for the masses to understand.

But the people and organizations that can figure out how to speak authentically about philanthropy to a mainstream voice — without dumbing down the subject or talking over the heads of the newly formed crowds — will dominate the discussions about the nonprofit world in the coming months and years.

For the most part, people in philanthropy have a tradition of speaking in jargon-filled messages to other philanthropy insiders.

But preaching to the choir never changed the world.

While it might be a strange new world for philanthropy, unless more people at foundations and charities learn to speak to the newly gathering mainstream audiences, they may blow a huge opportunity to radically expand the influence of the nonprofit world.

Sean Stannard-Stockton is chief executive of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, in Burlingame, Calif., and author of the Tactical Philanthropy blog. He is a regular columnist for the The Chronicle of Philanthropy.

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In the next few days, I’m going to explore some of the conflicting views that the question exposed. But first I’d like to offer a reprint of a post I wrote in February 2008, which currently ranks #1 on Google for the phrase “Why do people give to charity?” Interestingly, I wrote the post as a contribution to that month’s Giving Carnival, a project I started in early 2007. The topic of the February 2008 Carnival hosted by Jason Dick on his A Small Change blog was “What motivates giving?”, the same question posed by Bronfman and Solomon. You can read all the submissions on this topic to that month’s Giving Carnival by clicking here.

At the time I wrote:

I believe that giving is motivated by humans’ deeply held need to find meaning in life. For most people, meaning is deeply intertwined with community connections (defining community as narrowly as family to the full community of life). Humans want to feel a sense of connection and a sense of purpose to life. Giving (time, money, energy) is a central way that we strive to find meaning.

Much has been made of selfish motivations behind giving. No doubt some giving is motivated by selfishness. However, if we look to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (a central theory of what drives human behavior) we find that while humans are driven by items that benefit them, once these needs (food, sleep, security, etc) are met, they are driven by the desire for self-actualization. Maslow describes self-actualizing people:

• They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them.
• They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions.
• They are creative.
• They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives.
• They feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life.
• They have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority.
• They have discernment and are able to view all things in an objective manner.

To me, this is a wonderful description of the very best philanthropists.

Because what is good for our community is good for each of us (in that individuals in thriving, happy communities are generally happier themselves), there is a way in which giving comes back to benefit the giver. This feedback loop is wonderful, but I believe that humans’ motivation to give is rooted in their desire to find meaning through community, not the hope that doing so will benefit them.

All of this is my thoughts on what motivations humans to give. The motivations of each individual giver are of course unique. But just as we eat to satisfy our desire to live, we give to satisfy our desire for meaning.

My post generated a number of responses, especially from people who argued that wealthy donors only give to claim a tax deduction or who pointed to the economic theory that giving is a result of the “warm glow” or internal satisfaction that individuals derive from giving. I responded to those objections in a post you can read here.

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Now the New York Times’ Stephanie Strom has published coverage of the debate:

Last month, David Roodman, a research fellow at the Center for Global Development, pressed a button on his laptop as his bus left the Lincoln Tunnel in Manhattan and started a debate that has people re-examining the country’s latest celebrated charity, Kiva.org.

…“Little did I realize what that click would unleash,” he said in an interview, later adding that the post had attracted dozens of comments, more than 10,000 hits and thousands of Twitter postings.

…Now Kiva is the latest nonprofit group to have to overhaul its explanation of how it works. Where its home page once promised, “Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur, empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty,” it now simply states, after Mr. Roodman’s post: “Kiva connects people through lending to alleviate poverty.”

…The uproar has proven beneficial in an unexpected way. “If anything, it has drawn more people into the nuance and beauty of this model of microfinance,” said Mr. Shah, who joined Kiva from eBay. “It’s highly imperfect, but it’s like a 3 1/2-year-old child: it has a lot of potential.”

Click here to read the full story.

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A different sort of model is playing out in Los Angeles on Wednesday. The Social Innovation Fast Pitch event being held at the University of Southern California, features nonprofits that have been vetted by USC, Social Venture Partners-Los Angeles and the Social Enterprise Institute.

The Social Innovation Fast Pitch is not just an event where 10 nonprofit leaders give their 3-minute elevator pitch to compete for $20,000 grants in front of an audience of 350 people. It’s really a professional development program for social entrepreneurs that builds skills they’ll use every day. It teaches them how to talk to people about their organization in a much clearer, more compelling way. What we’ve observed is that too often, the message gets stale, and people tend to use too much jargon. They may not be clear about their “ask”, or may put themselves in a box by focusing their “ask” only on money or on assumptions they make about their audience. In addition, they just don’t get the feedback from listeners about what they like and connect with – or don’t like. These organizations are doing amazing, innovating and impactful things, but from some of the applications, you’d never know it!

The program addresses these ineffective communication habits head on. This year, 22 nonprofits were selected from a pool of 65 nominations to go through the 2-month training program. We recruit dozens of volunteers from the business community to provide group coaching in multiple practice sessions, and also pair each nonprofit leader with 1 or 2 of the coaches to mentor them between sessions. Of course, what often happens is that the feedback prompts them to look at bigger, strategic questions about the organization. The difference over a short period of time is truly amazing! Program participants tell us that – based on what they’ve learned – they change the way they talk about their organization in almost every setting: to people they just meet, to the media, to their boards, and to funders.

This year’s event runs from 4:00 – 7:30 pm on Wednesday, November 11, 2009 at USC. In addition to the 10 presenters, the program features Andy Rappaport, a venture capitalist and social entrepreneur, who will share his views on social change and risk-seeking philanthropy. The program is co-hosted by Los Angeles Social Venture Partners, the Social Enterprise Institute, and the University of Southern California.

For more information or to register for the event click here.

I’m particularly intrigued by the concept, because it mirrors the way I speculated that nonprofit funding might occur in the future in a column I wrote for the Financial Times in early 2008.

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The plan today was to run a set of questions that Jeff and Charles pose in their book. But given the strong response, we’re calling an audible and the authors have written a new guest post especially for Tactical Philanthropy in which they ask a single important follow up question.

I hope you’ll consider offering your thoughts via a comment. New comments still qualify for the Picture Your Legacy toolkit from 21/64 (see this post for details) and as I understand it, Jeff and Charles are so impressed with the dynamic community here at Tactical Philanthropy they are considering how else they might say thank you to everyone who has participated in this conversation.

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Like yesterday, comments on this post will be eligible to receive a set of the Picture Your Legacy tool from the Bronfman Philanthropies 21/64 group (see yesterday’s post for details).

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