1.
Philanthropy in a Digital Age:
2013
How Cloud Computing & Big Data Influence the Social Profit Sector
Monday, May 27th – 1:30pm
Gena Rotstein, CEO
Place2Give.com
gena@dexterityconsulting.ca
@Place2Give
403-860-7572
2. Financial: The way that money flows into the
charitable sector is changing due to the information
available to donors and their advisors.
Operations: The way that charities operate is going
to shift significantly due to the rapid growth and
shift in data related technology.
Policy: Government is going to be required to
address holes in legislation as the philanthropic
industry evolves.
Thesis
3. The intersection of technology and social
change
Implications on charity/NPO workflow
Ethical questions
Key Learnings
4. What data are you collecting?
http://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fig/1190140605001.png
7. Why the Cloud?
The main relevant features:
Resource/storage virtualization
Scalability and elasticity
Efficiency of resource sharing
Usage optimizing/optimized by usage
Ease of usage
Fast information sharing, delivery and control
Accessibility
Anonymity
8. “Unlike in past eras, social sector organizations
are now in direct control of a mass media
communication medium, more powerful than
any that proceeded it”
- The Communications Network
18. Place2Give
Database
API #1
API #2
API #3
Advisor
Toolbox
Data
Resale
Corporate
Giving
Portal
~1100 users/mo researching 2 charities
~$3MM transacted annually from data
19. What is the data used for?
Funders
Start conversations
Find opportunities
Make decisions
Share stories
Influence policy
Drive impact
Charities
Building new
businesses
Identifying new
solutions
Source strategic
partners
Influence policy
Drive impact
Lead the conversation
Identify market
opportunities
Understand competition
Find opportunities
Share stories
Drive impact
Social Enterprises
25. Ethical Context
Correlation vs. Causality
The shifting of control from users to the third parties
The storage of data in multiple physical locations across
many servers around the world possibly owned and
administrated by many different organizations
The interconnection of multiple services across the cloud
Wisdom of crowds
26. Ethical Applications
Relationship between charities and stakeholders
Anonymity
Publication of annual financial statements
Accountability
Use of data – Function Creep
Relationship between charities and Cloud
Companies
Patriot Act and who has access
Exercising control over personal data
Ownership
27. Digital Legacy Planning
How data is influencing the estate planning and planned giving
conversations
Photo credits: kipling.com; myoklg.com; loganmanzer.wordpress.com
28. How will you use data to further your
organization’s mandate?
Descriptive – reporting & dashboards
Diagnostic – finding problems
Predictive Analytics – forecasting & risk assessment
Prescriptive Analytics – business optimization
29. Book List
Philanthrocapitalism
Giving 2.0
Giving Well
The Art of Giving
End of Fundraising
Impact Assets
Uncharitable
MFG Change, Generating Social
Capital, Charity Hive - Blogs
The Creative Class
The Blue Sweater
Soul of a Citizen
The HIP Investor
Harvard Business Review,
Stanford Social Innovation
Review
30. References
Network for Good
The Communications Network
Stanford Social Innovation Review
Un:Common Innovation
“The Ethics of Cloud Computing: A Conceptual Review”
by Timmermans, Job et al.
“Big Data: A revolution that will transform how we live,
work and think” by Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger
CBC – Spark episode 218
“The Human Face of Big Data” by Rick Smolan
Why is this relevant to the charitable sector, what are some of the ethical questions, bleeding edge technology and how this will affect charities’ work flows. Explore ethical questions like – what are the obligations of where donor data is stored?, how does posting a PDF of annual report with donor names infringe on privacy?, what is NOSZA? How does this affect my donor’s rights or my organizations Code of Ethical Fundraising, what role can/should charities play in shaping what this looks like? Participants will be asked to submit their questions in advance so that up-to-date information can be provided.
So in this new economy, who is influencing whom?
LinkedIn Labs – social networking image… what’s your organizations value?Self reflection exercise.
The fourth premise is that we are in the beginning stages of a revolution:To quote iGenTribe.com - “Skills have been replaced by knowledge. Attitude has replaced experience. Leadership has replaced management.”Just look at Facebook or Google +. In Facebook, you have friends and fans. You can unfriend a friend and unlike an organization just by clicking a button. Or in Google you can create online cliques of friends by cataloguing and categorizing as you see fit.This shift in how we define community is also changing how we raise funds. Technology is allowing us to crowdsource financing either through donations, micro-loans, micro-donations, crowdfunding projects and raising start-up capital for new ventures. Technology is allowing us to move back to a village capital model where all ships rise on the collective success. This is the new economy and one that is going to shape the way that charities raise funds for the next three generations.
Data cross licensing
Data cross licensing
Lucy Bernholtz put together a timeline of the business of philanthropy a few years ago. This chart shows the way that people are interacting in the charitable space. It is no longer seen as a repository of “good feelings and money for good.” The charitable sector is sophisticated and complex. Like any industry, the philanthropic market now includes formalized corporate structures, academic reviews, regulations and standards and ways of measuring growth and change.This leads me into my third premise:Philanthropy is dead.Charities are no longer just operating because it is the right thing to do. There is a competitive landscape. I am going to pick one type of group because they have great market visibility... Breast Cancer.Just looking at Calgary’s market there are 15 organizations that deal with breast-cancer related issues. These organizations range from pre-and post-care support, to research and development, to family support, to religious-based support groups. One way that they are trying to “compete for donor support” is by diversifying their organizations product and service offerings. Ultimately what this means is that there is duplication in the market. How donors manage this duplication moving beyond just the emotional connection, there is now a need for donors to understand difference between one support group service offered through agency Y and another support group service offered through agency X. Don’t get me wrong, emotions and who is asking is still very much an influencing factor.Because of this new competitive landscape, the exchange between those that are financing the organization (i.e. Donors), those that are benefiting from the organization, those that are regulating the organization, and those that are working within the organization is no longer ONLY goodwill based.Don’t get me wrong, people are still donating. Charitable decisions are still predominantly made based on emotions first. But long-term engagement with donors, whether they are individuals, family foundations, large corporations or small businesses are built around expectations. Those expectations include some sort of exchange. That exchange can be as simple as a thank you note or as complex as a Social Return on Investment review.This means that the way organizations approach accessing funds has to shift.