Social media and grantmaking: resources

I'm building a list for philanthropic foundations - please add your recommendations in the comments. Thanks.

Social Media Resources for Grantmakers

Reports

Alliance for Justice, Influencing Public Policy in the Digital Age: The Law of Online Lobbying and Election-related Activities, pdf

Communications Network, “Come on in, the water’s fine: An exploration of Web 2.0 technology and its emerging impact on foundation communications”

http://www.comnetwork.org/report-urges-foundations-to-make-more-use-of-new-media/

Mapping Digital Media Project, Open Society Institute

http://www.soros.org/initiatives/media/listing?subject=Mapping%20Digital%20Media
Institute for Philanthropy, Philanthropy and Social Media
http://www.instituteforphilanthropy.org/content/Think+Philanthropy+Papers  

Books

Twitter4Good, Claire Diaz Ortiz, http://twitter4good.com/

The Networked Nonprofit, Beth Kanter and Allison Fine, Jossey Bass, 2010

The Dragonfly Effect, Jennifer Aaker, http://www.dragonflyeffect.com/blog/

Articles

Technology Review, October 2011 (also includes audio and videos)

http://www.technologyreview.com/article/38343/

http://www.technologyreview.com/web/38379/

Claire Diaz Ortiz, “Harness Twitter, Change the World” Washington Post, September 6, 1011

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/harness-twitter-change-the-world/2011/09/05/gIQANzKL4J_story.html

Blogs

Philanthropy2173 “Why would a foundation tweet”

http://philanthropy.blogspot.com/2011/02/why-would-foundation-tweet.html

http://philanthropy.blogspot.com/2011/08/why-would-foundation-tweet-6-month.html

Beth’s Blog on Nonprofits and Technology www.kanter.org

Global Voices Online http://globalvoicesonline.org/
Glasspockets, http://glasspockets.org/ What  foundations are doing vis-a-vis transparency 

Videos and slide decks

Three tips to use social media to democratize your grantmaking http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erfiqD-_OFs
 Social Media for Grantmakers
http://www.slideshare.net/shaicoggins/social-media-for-grantmakers
Box Hill Institute's video on social media stats & facts, including Australia:

Digital information news

A couple of items of interest regarding the need for foundations and nonprofits to deepen their thinking about digital information:

The Center for Digital Information, on whose Advisory Board I am proud to serve, has announced funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and a partnership with the Annenberg School at U Penn. The Center will help foundations, nonprofits and think tanks integrate digital strategies into their research. Today's networked social data world requires much more than making a pdf of a document and posting it on a web site. Data structuring, access, engagement, iteration, and mobility - this is how to think about research and communications for change.

I just learned of a new consulting group - Off Leash Studios - with offices in Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area focused on helping nonprofits and think tanks with these same issues. I'll be meeting with them in a few weeks.

Google+ brought me a great new research paper from danah boyd on "Six Provocations for Big Data." The paper makes frequent reference to David Bollier's great work for the Aspen Institute as it looks at what big data mean for all kinds of academic disciplines.

Skip past some of its academic gobbledygook ("‘computationality might then be understood as an ontotheology, creating a new ontological “epoch” as a new historical constellation of intelligibility’" - yeah, right) because boyd and co-author Kate Crawford have some key insights - and good writing - to offer. They offer up my favorite new metaphor for understanding how we live in and create data everywhere we go:

"Massive data sets that were once obscure and distinct are being aggregated and made easily accessible. Data is increasingly digital air: the oxygen we breathe and the carbon dioxide that we exhale. It can be a source of both sustenance and pollution."

While boyd and Crawford are focused on the academic use and structuring of data their recommendations for caution have real world implications for nonprofits, open government activists, and data scientists/visualizers. Those of us who consume cool graphs, interactive maps, and online flow charts with increasing frequency also need to become more critical readers of the data that lie below the cool colors and moving icons. The paper will be presented on September 21 at the Oxford Internet Institute - another great resource on data, networks, and the online world.

Sharing Economy and Open Government

I need your help...I'm trying to make sense of the sharing economy and the open government movement. Can you please help me out? I welcome your comments on this thinking - which is completely raw and woefully incomplete...thanks.

The sharing economy is the world of car sharing and co-working spaces, food bartering, open

government, and mutual aid. Many elements of the sharing economy, such as co-ops and

neighborhood exchanges are old ideas being brought back to life at a digital speed. I want to

introduce the sharing economy now to prepare readers for the next game changing shift in where and

how we produce social goods.

      The sharing economy calls into question one of the core economic drivers of the past decades

consumer spending. Many of the sharing websites overtly ask “why own what you can share?” This question is meaningful to consumer goods companies, many of which are jumping into the sharing system to learn how to work in this new way. For example, Ford and Toyota actively partner with ZipCar and other car sharing programs to learn about the kind of consumer who prefers to use a car by the hour.

      Shifts in consumer behavior will surely matter for philanthropy. At the smallest level, greater

communications between neighbors may well influence how community organizing happens or

how people are able to respond in a disaster. If efforts to share community goods are successful

we might see the grassroots development of tool libraries, produce swaps, and mutual aid

societies. If this achieves any scale it could affect both the needs for nonprofit services in

those communities as well as shift what the neighbors want from their elected officials.

      Local governments are already active in the sharing communities. By virtue of the open

government movement, in which public data sets are being shared openly and broadly, many

cities and towns are already shifting how they work with networks of community volunteers.

Technology friendly cities are inviting in volunteers to build mobile applications from their data.

These include schedules that tell you when the next bus is coming, maps that show you where to

recycle hazardous materials, as well as tools to help bikers report potholes and park users track

maintenance needs.

      We are seeing a coming together of a “sharing ethos” that helps neighbors or like-minded

individuals swap consumer goods with a tech-driven open government movement that attracts

volunteers who spend their time making cities more responsive. These trends represent new

behaviors for business and government. Both the sharing economy and open government rely on

volunteers to share what they know (or have).

Questions:

• If nonprofits have typically filled in between government and markets, what do these two shifts mean for them? 
• Are they likely to be the basis of many of the sharing platforms? 
• Will they help organize the volunteers of the open government movement? 
• Will the "space" between government and markets get smaller or bigger? 
• Does either the sharing economy or open government do anything for the poorest among us? 
• Oh, do I have a lot of questions. .... help!

Give Smart comes to Stanford

This Thursday, September 15, the PACS Center at Stanford is delighted to host Tom Tierney and Joel Fleishman in conversation with Bill Meehan. They be talking about Tierney and Fleishman's book Give Smart. My review of the book is here. Information and registration for the event is here.