A Rebuttal to Facebook Founder’s Nonprofit Opinions; Plus More: Tuesday’s Roundup
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
July 6, 2010 | Read Time: 1 minute
- In a rebuttal to the Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s statement that businesses can change the world more effectively than nonprofit groups, Phil Buchanan, president of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, says we need to get beyond the “sector wars.”
- Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator, announces that the nonprofit watchdog group has added “transparency and accountability” to its criteria for evaluating organizations.
- Sean Stannard-Stockton, an adviser to donors and a Chronicle contributor, urges the nonprofit group Unitus to be more open about why it is redirecting its resources from microfinance to an as-yet-to-be-identified “area of maximum socio-economic impact.” Is the group exiting microfinance for positive reasons (it has accomplished its mission), or negative ones (it determined that microfinance wasn’t the area where it could have the most impact), asks Mr. Stannard-Stockton.
- Joanne Fritz, a former nonprofit manager, says that charities should write their mission statements in the same way they would give an “elevator pitch,” keeping them short and simple. On her About.com blog, Ms. Fritz offers tips on how to do this from the book Guerilla Marketing for Nonprofits: 250 Tactics to Promote, Recruit, Motivate, and Raise More Money.
- Philanthropic freedom and greater diversity among foundation employees are not mutually exclusive goals, Bradford Smith, president of the Foundation Center, writes on PhilanTopic.
- Engaging an organization’s supporters on Facebook doesn’t have to be a time-consuming process, John Haydon, a social-media consultant, writes on his blog. Among his tips: Facebook users are more likely to comment on “a pithy status update” than a shared URL, picture, or video.
