Activities vs Outcomes

July 19, 2011 • Blog, Development, Philanthropy & Giving • by
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Activities are the things we do. Outcomes are the things we produce. Outcomes are more necessary than activities and today’s donors don’t want to just fund activities, they want to purchase outcomes.

An activity is handing out food at a food pantry. An outcome is helping people move from food dependence to food independence.

An activity is running an after-school basketball league. An outcome is increasing the odds a student ends up in college.

Activities make up the day to day life of social entrepreneurs and nonprofit leaders. Outcomes are why they started the organization to begin with. Read More…

Sevenly: Bringing Philanthropy to Ecommerce

July 14, 2011 • Blog, Development, nonprofit, Philanthropy & Giving • by
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Yesterday Mashable highlighted the new online t-shirt store, Sevenly. It’s a simple model, sell a t-shirt designed to raise awareness about a particular non-profit, and then give $7 of every purchase to that non-profit. Their first partnership was with International Justice Mission, and this week’s shirts support World Relief.

It’s probably no surprise to many of you but I love this kind of stuff. I love integrating social causes into business and seeing the market support social causes. Nonprofits need to take this kind of revenue stream seriously and think of creative ways to tap into the market.

This is just another example of how philanthropy is beginning to change. Everyone wants to be a donor. It is not just the wealthy who are giving. The more we can find ways to tap into a broad market the stronger your revenue streams will be.

Of course, these kinds of projects are often limited in scope. IJM for example, only received $6,125 from the sale of Sevenly t-shirts. But I do believe potential is there and that moving forward these kinds of social entrepreneur projects will begin to play a larger role in the revenue streams of nonprofits.

To read the articles from Mashable click here and here.

Why Limiting Itemized Deductions Will Be Good for Nonprofits: Pt. 2

July 13, 2011 • Blog, Development, nonprofit, Philanthropy & Giving • by
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William Daroff, vice president for Public Policy and director of the Washington Office of the Jewish Federations of North America, weighed in on the Tax Deduction debate yesterday on the SSIR blog. A couple days ago I wrote how I feel that limiting tax deductions might actually help charities.

Mr. Daroff wrote that 90% of the Jewish Federations‘, and many organizations like it, funding comes from less than 10% of its donors. Generally this 10% is the wealthiest 10% and the most motivated and attune to tax strategies when it comes to their philanthropy. Limiting itemized deductions will certainly hurt and stretch these organizations.

But this raises the question, has it been a healthy thing for such a large part of the social sector to be reliant on such a small portion of the population? I believe the answer is no. Read More…