Photo credit: IBRRC

Links and Resources:

• Save the Gulf: Olivia’s Bird Illustrations Facebook Page
• Olivia Bouler – AOL Artists portfolio
• Audubon Magazine Article
• National Audubon Society
• The Thin Green Line Blog (SFGate) How you can help the Gulf and 11-year-old raises $100,000 for Gulf cleanup efforts
• International Bird Rescue Research Center (IBRRC) blog updates
• Gifts for Oil Spill Total $4-Million, but More Is Needed – Chronicle of Philanthropy (summary only, subscription required)
• Volunteer Opportunities Scarce in Wake of Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill – Philanthropy News Digest
• The Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors BP Oil Drilling Disaster Emergency Response Fund
• The New York Times Times Topics – Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill (2010)
• U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service site for Deepwater Horizon spill

Listen to the NPR story:

• Nonprofits Count!: A project of the Nonprofit Voter Engagement Network, this website provides information, including best practices, on how nonprofit organizations and human services agencies can help produce an accurate count of hard-to-count populations.
• Mapping Hard-to-Count Communities: Hard-to-Count (HTC) populations are groups that may have a higher non-response rate on the 2010 Census. With support from The California Endowment, Healthy Cities has generated a portal through which Census stakeholders may locate communities at risk for undercounting in California.
• Justice Department Confirms Confidentiality of Census Information – March 5, 2010 article by the Washington Post
• The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
• Census History: Counting Hispanics – March 3, 2010 article by the Pew Hispanic Center
• Census: Battleground for Money and Justice – February 17, 2010 by Blue Avocado
• Most View Census Positively, But Some Have Doubts - February 12, 2010 by The Pew Research Center for the People & The Press
• California Complete Count Committee
• The Census Project Blog: A collaboration of state and local governments, civil rights and labor groups, housing and child advocates, businesses, professional societies, and research organizations interested in a fair and accurate Census 2010
• Brookings Institution Census Information

Grantmaker Initiatives

• Census 2010 Grants Will Bring Visibility to Hard-to-Count Populations – The San Francisco Foundation
• New York Foundations Push to Get Accurate Census Count – Philanthropy News Digest
• Private foundations offer millions to ensure accurate census count – Contra Costa Times
• The California Endowment has awarded nearly 11,000 grants across California totaling more than $1.9 billion.

• How to get the attention of journalists in a competitive landscape
• The most effective pitches
• The most common errors nonprofit groups make when they approach reporters and editors
• How to build productive relationships with reporters and editors

For the chats you can submit your questions in advance or follow along on with the conversation.

The Chronicle also maintains transcripts of past discussions. A few of my favorites include:

• Creating Effective Marketing Messages with Nancy E. Schwartz, author of the Getting Attention blog
• The Philosophy of Giving with Karen Ansara, co-founder of The Ansara Family Fund, a donor-advised fund at the Boston Foundation, and Anne Ellinger, co-director of Bolder Giving
• Building Meaningful Alliances With Other Nonprofit Groups with Clara Miller and Thomas A. McLaughlin of the Nonprofit Finance Fund and Elizabeth Boone, artistic and executive director of Miami Light Project
• Foundation Giving: What Might the Future Hold? with Bradford K. Smith, president of the Foundation Center
• Shaking Up Journalism and Philanthropy with Alberto Ibargüen, president of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
• What’s the Payoff? How Charities Can Figure Out How Much Time and Money to Invest in Social Networking with Beth Kanter, social media guru

• White House Press Release
• America Forward
• Nonprofit Times
• The Foundation Center
• Huffington Post

Update on Philanthropy This Week (audio)
Posted: Tue, 14 Jul 2009
Social Innovation Fund and Spending Down Your Endowment

Corporation for National & Community Service
Posted: July 2009
FAQ – Social Innovation Fund – Shows how and when to apply (PDF)

• Sue Merrill, Annual Giving Manager, University of California San Francisco (UCSF) - a large public educational and research institution
• June Thompson, Executive Director of California Association of Student Councils (CASC) – a student-led nonprofit for youth leadership training with a staff of two
• Patricia Cavagnaro, Director of Development, Immaculate Conception Academy – a 126-year old Catholic high school for girls in the Mission District of San Francisco

10 Tips for Building Relationships

1. Give program alumni, members and other supporters (volunteers, donors) multiple ways to get together because they will want to meet each other and see each other.
2. Send a regular e-newsletter and ask your constituents what articles they want.
3. Tell potential donors where their dollars will go. What will their contributions support? Be specific.
4. Ask beneficiaries of your programs or services to write thank you letters to donors, telling them how their support made a difference in their lives
5. Give beneficiaries multiple ways to “give back.” If you maintain relationships with beneficiaries, such as program alumni, oftentimes they will want to give back in the future.
6. Acknowledge donors to thank them for their generosity. Donor walls are a great way to do that. You can also think of creative ways to build and expand the wall over time (Immaculate Conception Academy came up with an innovative and creative solution).
7. Explore social media as part of your communications strategy, especially if you are building connections among supporters.
8. Manage donor/volunteer/alumni information effectively with constituent databases (Idealware article).
9. Use tools to capture best practices and manage institutional knowledge, especially if your organization relies on a large number of volunteers, peer-to-peer training or high turnover. CASC set up a wiki to support their elaborate transition process for volunteers. For help with wikis, Idealware published a how-to article called “Using Wikis for Internal Documentation.”
10. Thank and acknowledge. Thank and acknowledge.
]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/06/fundraising-its-all-about-relationships/feed/ 1 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/05/building-and-funding-programs-to-promote-play/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/05/building-and-funding-programs-to-promote-play/#comments Mon, 18 May 2009 19:13:12 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=588

Youth development advocates nationwide have been building a movement to prioritize play and outdoor time for children and youth – through recess, sports and adventures in nature. Backing them up are new research studies from the fields of pediatrics and youth development, linking the influences that regular play and outdoor learning time have on success in school and life.

This afternoon the inaugural Sports4Kids Play On conference kicks off three days of keynotes and sessions dedicated to the topic of play – its multiple benefits and how to build programs to make a difference in our schools and communities. The conference runs May 18 – 20 at San Francisco’s Mission Bay Conference center. This conference comes at a time when many children and youth-oriented nonprofits are developing community programs that get kids outside to play in safe, fun, and supportive environments while learning, connecting and being physically active.

Finding funding and understanding philanthropic priorities is key to making outdoor and sports-based programs a success, so I am looking forward to today’s afternoon session featuring speakers from health-driven foundations including the The California Endowment, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Kaiser Permanente followed by a discussion with Dr. Stuart Brown, founder of the National Institute for Play and often called one of the country’s premiere experts on play behavior.
]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/05/building-and-funding-programs-to-promote-play/feed/ 0 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/05/how-nonprofits-can-use-storytelling-to-engage-supporters/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/05/how-nonprofits-can-use-storytelling-to-engage-supporters/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 15:28:08 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=656 Better Online Storytelling from NTEN's 2009 Nonprofit Technology Conference
View more presentations from Roger Burks.
]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/05/how-nonprofits-can-use-storytelling-to-engage-supporters/feed/ 0 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/04/follow-the-economic-stimulus-money-to-your-community/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/04/follow-the-economic-stimulus-money-to-your-community/#comments Tue, 07 Apr 2009 17:25:20 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=601 Yesterday San Francisco launched RecoverySF.org to highlight the progress of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) in the City and County of San Francisco. The idea is to build transparency so communities can track grants that San Francisco has applied for and won, view official correspondence with federal and state agencies and learn about upcoming public meetings.

While it might appear that the City has received awards of close to $300 million for projects ranging from transportation to work force development, these are only projections. The City must apply for and win the competitive grant awards before the money can be channeled to local projects.

The City promises to post announcements when ARRA funds have been fully awarded and obligated to San Francisco.

California and the federal government have also set up Web sites to track stimulus dollars.

The federal site is: www.recovery.gov.

The state site is recovery.ca.gov

For a complete list of all Recovery Act programs, visit Grants.gov.

See my previous blog post on the Recovery Act for more resources.

Nonprofit Strategies for Tough Times: Economic Stimulus Act FAQ (Philanthropy News Digest blog- PhilanTopic)

Updates:
5/21/09: Recovery.org, run by a private company, might make searching and tracking federal stimulus projects easier to follow than the federal government site Recovery.gov, as recently reported in the Washington Post.

5/22/09: The City of Oakland recently set up www.oaklandstimulus.com for tracking the status of the city’s requests for federal stimulus funds.

]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/04/follow-the-economic-stimulus-money-to-your-community/feed/ 0 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/02/what-does-the-new-economic-stimulus-legislation-mean-for-your-nonprofit/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/02/what-does-the-new-economic-stimulus-legislation-mean-for-your-nonprofit/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 00:23:21 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=505 The Obama Administration launched Recovery.gov as a way for the public to track spending and progress of the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 – also called the “Recovery Act” and the “Stimulus Package.” If you are interested in learning how that spending could relate to nonprofits or public agencies, a few good resources are already available. Many public agencies responsible for distributing funds to state programs and nonprofits, through grants and loans, have already set up Web sites.

Recovery Act Resources for Nonprofits

Zimmerman-Lehman – “The Stimulus Package: Is Your Nonprofit Receiving Funds (or Should It)”

Council on Nonprofits – Special Reports on Economic Stimulus & Recovery

The National Endowment for the Arts has posted grant guidelines for $50 million in Recovery Act grant funds.

Apollo Alliance – Describes how $113.5 billion will benefit “green-collar” jobs and training, cleaner energy, energy efficiency, high-mileage electric vehicles and renewable energy over the next two years.

National Recreation and Park Association – How the Recovery Act will benefit parks and recreation.

California State Water Board – $280 million for “shovel ready” projects in California that will create jobs immediately. At least 20% must go toward “green projects” – water efficiency, energy efficiency, green infrastructure, and environmentally innovative projects.

U.S. Department of Education – Overview and Implementation

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Overview and Grant Programs

U.S. Department of Justice – Including $1 billion to the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) program; $225 million to the Office on Violence Against Women

Community Development Financial Institutions Fund – Including $3 billion in New Markets Tax Credits and an additional $90 million for the CDFI grant program.

U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services – Including more than $15 billion in federal assistance to help states cover the costs of Medicaid programs.
]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/02/what-does-the-new-economic-stimulus-legislation-mean-for-your-nonprofit/feed/ 0 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/02/the-explosion-of-social-networking/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/02/the-explosion-of-social-networking/#comments Fri, 13 Feb 2009 02:23:27 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=430 Recently the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project released a new report on how adults use sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace. One of the report’s main findings was that the share of adult Internet users who have a profile on an online social network site has more than quadrupled in the past four years – from 8% in 2005 to 35% now, according to a December 2008 survey.

Overall they found that social networking is more popular for personal use than professional use, and most adults are using online social networks, like Facebook, to connect with people they already know.

Last week Facebook passed its five-year mark and now has over 150 million users (70% joined in 2008 alone). The company suggests that their rapid growth can be attributed to a safe and trusted environment where everyone can have a “voice to express ideas and initiate change.”

Several nonprofits in the U.S. are using social networking as a way to engage and inform constituents. Green For All, a nonprofit that promotes green-collar jobs and opportunities for the disadvantaged is on many social media channels, including Facebook, where it has over 3,500 “fans.” The Chronicle of Philanthropy, a nonprofit newspaper, is using the social networking site Twitter, a platform for sharing quick and short updates. Compared to Facebook’s 150 million users, Twitter, the younger of the two, has about 5 million members, and 5,000 to 10,000 new accounts open daily.

Resources for Nonprofits:

• Philanthropy Front and Center blog: A map is worth a thousand words: Guest post by nonprofit technology strategist John Kenyon after a presentation at the Foundation Center in San Francisco on February 26, 2009.
• Beth’s Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media – Creating Your Organization’s Social Media Strategy Map
• Twestival – Feb. 12 Twitter event in over 100 cities worldwide to raise funds for charity: water, a non-profit whose mission is to bring clean and safe drinking water to people in developing nations. Read the New York Times article.
• The Pew Internet Project Data Memo: Twitter and Status Updating (6 pages, PDF)
• Netsquared shares blogs, a Facebook group page and other social media to further its mission “to spur responsible adoption of social web tools by social benefit organizations.”
• Nonprofits on Facebook
• Facebook Group vs Facebook Fan Page: What’s Better?
• The Chronicle of Philanthropy – How Nonprofits can Build Awareness and Raise Money with Facebook, Twitter and Other Social-Networking Tools (Transcripts of Live Expert Interviews) – Nov. 2008 and Feb. 2009.
• Why every nonprofit needs a social media strategy | SPURspectives
• We Are Media Project: The Social Media Starter Kit for Nonprofits
• The Essential Guide to Social Media
]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2009/02/the-explosion-of-social-networking/feed/ 0 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/11/corporate-philanthropy-in-turbulent-times-program-on-november-14-in-san-francisco/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/11/corporate-philanthropy-in-turbulent-times-program-on-november-14-in-san-francisco/#comments Fri, 07 Nov 2008 02:17:40 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=268

Every year the Foundation Center in San Francisco hosts a forum on regional corporate philanthropy trends in the Bay Area. In light of the state of the economy and possible fundraising impacts on the social sector, this is a good time to hear from corporate giving officers.

Representatives from Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Intel, and Cisco Foundation will present trends in corporate philanthropy and forecast their giving for next year and beyond. Some nonprofits are wondering if we will see impacts reminiscent of the economic fallout earlier in the decade, when giving portfolios shrank and competition for grants and charitable donations became fiercer.

Janet Camarena, the director of the San Francisco Foundation Center, will moderate the forum. She recently launched a new blog for the Center and has invited the community to post questions to the blog for consideration during the November 14, 2008 forum.

Co-sponsored by San Francisco Business Times and the Development Executives Roundtable (DER), this popular forum typically fills to capacity early.

Go to DER’s Web site to register.

The forum is free if you bring your own lunch, $12 for DER members and $10 for non-members.

UPDATE:
The Foundation Center’s video recording of this event is now available on their Web site.
]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/11/corporate-philanthropy-in-turbulent-times-program-on-november-14-in-san-francisco/feed/ 0 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/08/risk-and-reward-in-philanthropy/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/08/risk-and-reward-in-philanthropy/#comments Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:01:16 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=160

It’s human nature to be adverse to risk-taking. But like successful business people, many social entrepreneurs believe you have to be willing to take risks to achieve progress.

A widely read example of risk and reward in philanthropy is the story of Greg Mortenson and his painstaking journey to build schools in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the New York Times bestselling Three Cups of Tea. With a typewriter Mortenson wrote 580 appeal letters to potential donors and 16 grant applications in an attempt to raise $12,000, the minimum he needed to fulfill a promise and build a school in a remote alpine village in Pakistan. While his appeals were largely a failure, the difference came with one individual who read a newsletter article about Mortensen’s personal mission, took a risk, and moved fast – agreeing to fully fund the school. Dr. Jean Hoerni made the decision to fund the project after one phone call and Mortenson’s word that he would “not to screw up.”

In the San Francisco Bay Area, another philanthropist embraces the idea of risk-taking in grantmaking. In a new book, Bill Somerville, president of the Bay Area Philanthropic Ventures Foundation (PVF), makes the case that grantmakers should take risks to reap the highest rewards for their investments. Somerville recounts several stories of how a little risk went along way in transforming individual lives and communities – from juvenile courts to classrooms. Published by Berkeley-based Heyday Books, his new book with Fred Setterberg is titled “Grassroots Philanthropy, Field Notes of a Maverick Grantmaker.”

In Grassroots Philanthropy Somerville advocates that grantmakers should find and fund outstanding people, eliminate bureaucracy in favor of moving quickly, focus on ideas and not problems and take risk and initiative. While Somerville’s approach to grantmaking may not be for every foundation, it makes sense for the grassroots as the book title implies. By definition, grassroots movements move quickly and are driven by effective leaders doing hands-on work at the community level. Many of these individuals cannot afford to get bogged down in time-consuming and costly application processes.

In the case of Mortenson’s plight to build schools, a donor’s risk-taking led to the formation of the Central Asia Institute, which has now established 64 schools in remote and underserved regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The remote schools have educated over 25,000 children and have provided unprecedented opportunities for girls.

For Somerville and the Philanthropic Ventures Foundation 17 years of nonconformist approaches to grassroots grantmaking have attracted several prominent California foundations as supporters including The California Endowment, David & Lucile Packard Foundation, Flora Family Foundation, Herbst Foundation, and the San Francisco Foundation, among others.
]]> http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/08/risk-and-reward-in-philanthropy/feed/ 0 http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/05/getting-outside/ http://www.christinesculati.com/blog/2008/05/getting-outside/#comments Fri, 30 May 2008 23:21:58 +0000 christine http://christinesculati.com/blog/?p=151

“Exercise is key to health, and studies have shown that people are much more likely to exercise if parks and opportunities for recreation are nearby,” writes the Trust for Public Land (TPL) in their latest issue of Land & People. For TPL and many other community-focused organizations, the interconnected issues of physical health, getting outdoors and connecting kids to the outdoors, are becoming paramount to their work. These issues are relevant for the land conservation-focused TPL, health organizations like Kaiser Permanente and funders like the Stewardship Council in California. TPL in fact received funding from Kaiser Permanente to build what they call “Fitness Zones” in Los Angeles, particularly in densely populated low income East Los Angeles neighborhoods where obesity is high.

Another organization focused on getting youth outside believes “[c]hildren are smarter, cooperative, happier and healthier when they have frequent and varied opportunities for free and unstructured play in the out-of-doors.” As such, the Children & Nature Network, chaired by Last Child in the Woods author Richard Louv, compiled two annotated bibliographies to research that will tell you just how much kids are not getting outdoors, the consequences and the most promising solutions.
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