Darfur

November 9, 2009 — The use of social networking and social media in the nonprofit sector has exploded in the past few years, spurred by successful, widely profiled social media initiatives by organizations like Save Darfur and charity:water. The Obama campaign’s effective use of social technologies for both fundraising and organizing was the icing on the cake. Can there be any doubt given these examples that social networking and social media are must have tools for nonprofits?

May 26, 2009, Harvard Business Blog — This weekend the main sections of the New York Times and the Daily News contained big ads for Hummer, T-Mobile, AT&T, Macy's, Bloomingdales, and a host of electronics and furniture retailers. The home page of the Huffington Post right now is running an ad for Delta Airlines. On CNN.com it's Netflix. ABCNews.com — Choice Hotels. Oprah.com — Crystal Light beverages. No ads on any of these pages for Darfur, ending AIDS, or curing breast cancer — indeed no ads for any 501 (c) 3. This is not an anomalous day. Gigantic consumer brands advertise. Gigantic causes don't.

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 14, 2009 — Jeff Skoll, founder and chairman of the Skoll Foundation and Participant Media, announced today that he has hired Dr. Larry Brilliant as president of a new organization Skoll is launching to address urgent threats confronting humanity and the planet.  Brilliant will focus the new organization, the Skoll Urgent Threats Fund, on identifying and supporting innovative high-impact initiatives to combat climate change, water scarcity, pandemics, nuclear proliferation and Middle East conflict. Brilliant will also serve as senior adviser to Skoll to ensure alignment of work on these urgent threats across Skoll’s business and philanthropic activities.

The cost to aid budgets of the world economic downturn is headed for billions of dollars, slashing assistance to the world's poorest people just as it becomes harder for them to make money for themselves.

Web site architecture and design can significantly improve your online fundraising success. In the session, “How You Can Dramatically Increase Your Fundraising Success by Improving Your Website’s Information Architecture and Design” at the Kintera 2008 User Conference in Washington, D.C., earlier this month, attendees were given tips to effectively evaluate and utilize Web site architecture and design to boost online fundraising. Here’s a quick summary: 1. Help people find and do what they want quickly. Effective information architecture and design is reflected by intuitive, easy-to-use navigation. A Web site with high usability navigation helps visitors, regardless of the type of information they are

The U.S. has 1.5 million nonprofits that account for more than $1 trillion of the country’s economy. Over the last 15 years, nonprofits actually have grown faster than the rest of the economy and currently are the third largest industry in the U.S., behind retail and wholesale trade but ahead of banking and telecommunications.   So with the playing field getting larger and larger, something begs to be asked. What makes a great nonprofit? Which are the crème de la crème, and how did they attain such a level of success? This is the question that Leslie Crutchfield and Heather McLeod Grant meticulously answer