A. Fine Blog

Social Network Analysis For the Rest of Us

Allison Fine — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 17:12:24 +0000

Social Network Analysis or SNA can feel overwhelming and confounding to newcomer. The basic premise isn’t complicated, we live in a variety of personal and professional networks wherein people are connected to one another; or many people are connected to particularly influential organizations or people. We should be able to create a diagram that shows [...]

How Newsweek Got My $6.95 and Lost My Subscription

Allison Fine — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 20:41:40 +0000

A few days ago my lovely husband came home from the market with a copy of Newsweek magazine that he knew I’d like. The cover was a photograph of a young Michael Jackson. It was a tribute edition to the singer with only the words “The Meaning of Michael.” I had a delicious vision in my [...]

80 Million Millennials Meeting Today in DC

Allison Fine — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:49:56 +0000

OK, well, not exactly eighty million young people, but a coalition of organizations called 80 Million Strong that includes Mobilize.org, SAVE and the Roosevelt Institution as well as our committed steering committee members, including GenerationEngage, Advocates for Youth, Global Grind, The Concord Coalition are meeting today in DC. They’re going to be talking about jobs, jobs, [...]

Tweeting for Children

Allison Fine — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:50:51 +0000

The Christian Children’s Fund has changed its name to ChildFund International. To celebrate their new, well, let’s call it “christening”, they will be giving gifts of agricultural love and hope from the organization’s gift catalog for every 200 Twitter followers @childfund receives. These efforts will directly benefit children in Gambia, Zambia, Kenya and Ethiopia. There is [...]

Causes on Facebook: An Update and Lessons

Allison Fine — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:15:26 +0000

The latest edition of my Social Good podcast was posted yesterday. The topic this month is the Causes application on Facebook, where things stand and how to be successful using it. My guests were Joe Green the co-founder of Causes and Amy Eldridge, the founder and executive director of Love Without Boundaries. I first heard [...]

Why Humanitarian Aid is NOT Crest Toothpaste

Allison Fine — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 13:59:16 +0000

It is astonishing when very thoughtful, passionate people get something so utterly wrong. It’s even worse when that wrongheadeness is in the op-ed section of the New York Times for the world to see and many to take as gospel. This morning, Nick Kristof writes: One of the reasons, I believe, is that humanitarians are abjectly ineffective [...]

Twitter Vote Report Case Study

Allison Fine — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:26:21 +0000

Our friends at Center for Social Media at American University, specifically Nina Keim and Jessica Clark, have written case studies on Twitter Vote Report and Inauguration Report. I wasn’t involved in Inauguration Report, will let Andy Carvin et. al. speak to that one, but certainly know Twitter Vote Report well! Here are the key lessons learned [...]

Foundation Boards Partly to Blame for Madoff Scam

Allison Fine — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:37:54 +0000

National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy has released a study of the foundations that were scammed by Madoff. According to the report, “More than 80 percent of foundations that lost between 30 to 100 percent of their assets to Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme had fewer than five trustees serving on their boards.” Not only were there very [...]

Provocative Ideas from Personal Democracy Forum

Allison Fine — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:32:11 +0000

Had an amazing time at Personal Democracy Forum this year (although, sadly I couldn’t stay for the whole thing.) Love the fact that I always come away from the conference wtih my head buzzing from all of the interesting ideas. Here is the Day One recap. And here is Day Two. When the videos are posted from the [...]

Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards

Allison Fine — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:53:29 +0000

The 2009 Nonprofit Tagline Awards sponsored by Getting Attention is on! Nancy Schwartz the brains behind Getting Attention describes the competition this way: The contest is a great means of motivating nonprofit folks to focus on the basics (e.g. powerful, distinctive, succinct messaging) in a time of such distraction (from the economy to social media and on) Last [...]