Friday, January 04, 2008

Buzzword Survey

A colleague pointed me to the site of the Forum of Regional Associations of Grantmakers. The site hosts a survey widget, asking readers to choose the buzzword that "best captures philanthropy trends in 2007." The buzzwords offered as choices come directly from the list posted on this blog on December 31. That full list was as follows:

10. Philanthropy 2.0
9. B Corporation
8. Endorsement Philanthropy
7. Social Stock Exchanges
6. Embedded Giving
5. Aligned investing
4. Open Philanthropy
3. Microfranchising
2. Microphilanthropy
1. Hyperlocal

As public radio stations often note, "The opinions expressed are not necessarily the opinion of the station or its sponsors." I was not contacted by the Giving Forum, did not suggest or sanction the use of these buzzwords in this way, had no hand in developing the survey widget, and only found it when it was brought to my attention by a colleague. In addition, please note this post that comments on the role and value (if any) of buzzwords and the ideas they attempt to represent.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Am I missing something? They're buzzwords--meaning, everyone is already using them. How can one steal a buzzword? (Did they steal your ideas *about* the buzzwords?)

Unknown said...

Am I missing something? They're buzzwords--meaning, everyone is already using them. How can one steal a buzzword? (Did they steal your ideas *about* the buzzwords?)

Lucy Bernholz said...

Hmmm, perhaps my tongue was too firmly in my cheek - no theft was mentioned or implied. Simply pointing folks to the widget and its contents, and noting the lack of affiliation, involvement or attribution as a matter of disclosure.

Leyla Farah said...

I'd love to add another buzzword if I may - Distributed Funding - which I think captures the potential fund raising power of social networking. Something a lot of us in the industry are watching very closely these days.

I've posted my thoughts about Distributed Funding on my own blog if you're interested in diving deeper into what I mean.

I'd be very interested in hearing your thoughts - and your reader's thoughts - on this idea.

Leyla Farah
Cause+Effect - Public Relations with a Purpose

Anonymous said...

Disclosure... You mean, disclosure that you aren't personally involved every time someone writes "microphilanthropy" on the internets?

Understood!

Anyway, weird post.