Nonprofit Incubator

If “social entrepreneurship” is more than just a time-stamped and faddish notion, then it needs to be encouraged. So to that end, I’ll add another idea to my post on the Nonprofit Ad Exchange & Nonprofit Angel Conference.

The Nonprofit Incubator

In the same way that people looking to invest in early-phase companies have put together business incubators, I think philanthropists should pool their money into a Nonprofit Venture Fund.

Part of that social VC fund should go to setting up and maintaining the nonprofit/NGO 2.0 version of a business incubator. The incubator would provide desk space, administrative help, supplies, connectivity and top-shelf advice (salaries would be helpful as well) to social entrepreneurs with ideas that are innovative.

entrepreneurship, socialentrepreneurship, incubators, businessincubators, nonprofit, ngo2.0

Curt Hopkins

Nonprofit Ad Exchange & Nonprofit Angel Conference

I had two ideas and, since I have a blog, I’m going to post them. I don’t have the time to realize them myself, at least not right now, but I think they’re good and there’s always the chance that someone else will see it and either follow that idea through themselves, or, as has happened, let me know that such a thing already exists.

So here are my two nonprofit-assistance ideas.

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The Nonprofit Ad Exchange

A site/service in which high-traffic blogs and sites wanting to do a little cheap good sign up and offer blocks of online advertising to nonprofits, specifically small or incipient organizations.

Donors would sign on via a series of simple forms on which they would indicate who they were, what kind of a publication they had and offer demographic information. There would be additional fields for the donor sites to indicate how many units of online ad space they’re offering, what kind they’re offering (text, display), how large each unit is and how long they’ll entertain each ad. They would also have the option of declining certain types of organizations or indicating a special interest in certain types.

On the nonprofit side, small organizations would sign up, indicating their needs. Each nonprofit would have to be a credentialed nonprofit, being, for instance in the U.S., a 501(c) 3 tax-exempt corporation. Each participant organization would have to have an annual income of less than $5,000.00.

From either side, donor or nonprofit, once the organization fills out the relevant information and hits ‘search,’ they would be presented with a list of matches for their criteria.

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The Social Entrepreneur-Social Angel Investor Conference

In an attempt to further alternatives to the calicified, top-down NGO donor model, I would love to see a conference that would brought together new, innovative aid groups with individuals and, possibly, institutional sponsors looking to support something different.

The current aid situation favors administrative behemoths with traditional hierarchies and a belief in the efficacy of clearly sputtering (and sometimes fantastically deleterious) models of aid delivery. A lot of aid, in cash or goods, goes into the hands of politically powerful in the destination countries, and that’s after a huge amount of it is already eaten up in administrative costs.

Only allowing new approaches to the problem, starting with getting rid of the notion of “aid” as a be-all and end-all. Charity is a virtue. Perpetuating it is not.

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Update: Nonprofit Incubator

If “social entrepreneurship” is more than just a time-stamped and faddish notion, then it needs to be encouraged. So, in the same way that people looking to invest in early-phase companies have put together business incubators, I think philanthropists should pool their money into a Nonprofit Venture Fund.

Part of that social VC fund should go to setting up and maintaining the nonprofit/NGO 2.0 version of a business incubator. The incubator would provide desk space, administrative help, supplies, connectivity and top-shelf advice (salaries would be helpful as well) to social entrepreneurs with ideas that are innovative.

Cross-posted to Blogswana.

NGO2.0, Africa, ngo, nonprofit, investor, angelinvestor, socialentrepreneur, socialentrepreneurship, entrepreneurship, incubators, businessincubators, ngo2.0

Curt Hopkins

Blogging Interview with the House Theatre of Chicago

I recently interviewed Nathan Allen, the Artistic Director of the House Theatre of Chicago regarding their blog, which, as I’ve said previously, I regard as the best theatre company blog I’ve yet to find. Don’t blame Nathan for the slightly stilted sound of the interview. I reconstructed it from notes I made just for myself.

When and why did you start your company blog?

We started it a year and a half ago in June of 2005. It was hell to update our old flash site, so the blog became our website for a time. The blog is now thoroughly integrated into the new House Theatre website.

At The House we have a real young crowd. Most of the theatre-going audience is not interested perhaps in getting their info that way. But ours is in the 18-40 year old age group. Our mission is creating community, so the community-building aspects of a blog suit us. We’re trying to capture the people who get their information that way.

Blogging is a real easy way to keep people connected and excited. Our blog is a venue for really great conversation. There is usually at least one (comment) thread per show, going on for a month or so, keeping people excited. The number of people commenting has grown.

Blogging is a good way to release information. We’re trying to capture the people who get their information that way. But we still do regular press releases. Some of the major press doesn’t even want emails. The blog hasn’t replaced any written material.

How satisfied have you been with what it’s given you?

It’s extremely easy to set it up and manage it. The more times you update, the higher it goes up in Google and elsewhere and that brings us additional visitors.

Do you think it’s enabled a better conversation with your audience?

It’s helped people feel like they’re in on a secret. Our two-for-one ticket deal was only announced on the blog and the people who took advantage of that felt like they’re more in the club. And people like that, who are more interested, are the people more likely to become donors. When we post playwright’s or director’s notes, people respond almost without exception with congratulations and other positives. So if newcomers stumble on our blog they see praise. There were seven comments on our Hatfield and McCoy (show) of utmost praise.

Did you have any fears when you started it? If so, have any of the chickens come home to roost?

Not for us. The House was created to encourage this sort of conversation, to acknowledge the audience; that’s part of our mission. The blog encourages the culture we create in our theatre. We have had a couple of people post that we had to remove, but that was very minimal compared to all the good we get from it. We’ve never had an ad hominem attack. In fact, we respond to complaints on the blog and have been able to use it as a means to retain disgruntled audience members. If a complaint shows up, we email or call the people who leave the comment.

Any of the company members can blog, all are invited to do so. Most of it is done by myself or Jake, our director of guest relations or Dennis who does the marketing. We announce a lot of events there.

How did your subscribers/board members/sugar daddies react when they found out you’d be blogging?

They are all here because they get the culture of the place. They’re all on board for the constant conversation. In tandem with a quality website, we’ve extended this culture into the internet.

Have you gained more or new audience because of it?

We have not yet asked the question. Our survey process is young. We tell people about the blog at shows, in emails. It gives some background into the theatre. But at this point we do not have a dependable way to assess what effect it’s had on building audience. It’s much more a place for people to explore their interests in the House and the theatre. Mostly these are young people and they’re going to turn into donors. Blogging is a smart part of audience development.

theatre, live_theatre, theatre_blogging, blogging, House_Theatre

Curt Hopkins

Cingular’s Website: A Mess

I spent half an hour and went through dozens of screens on the Cingular Wireless site to find the anwer to one of the most easily-anticipatable questions a cellular phone user could have: How do I check my messages.

I don’t know if the way Cingular has arranged their website is due to incompetence or is a purposeful strategy. When I finally found what I was looking for I thought I would drop them a line to encourage them to rethink their site’s architecture. But the obstacles between where I was and what I wanted had certainly not ended. It was patently impossible to register my opinion with the company without logging in (who knew I had a login?) and entering a password (password? what password?). Even then, no telling what further steps I would have had to have gone through. No simple email address listed for suggestions or complaints.

In a day and age when accessibility is prized and unwillingness to allow it is severely punished by the consumer, it is not terribly sensible to pursue a strategy of discouragement of and contempt for your customers.

Just ask Dell.

cingular, cingular_wireless, customer_service, websites

Curt Hopkins

Global Voices’ Israel Problem?

One of my favorite Arabic blogs used to be Haitham Sabbah’s Sabbah’s Blog. Haitham seemed to be a very passionate writer. He was not easily inclined to forgiveness and peacemaking, but he seemed nonetheless to try to see beyond his own horizon. I empathized with that because I think I’m a little like that myself. If Haitham talked about peace between Palestinians and Israelis, you could rest assured it was an effort for him and he wouldn’t take the effort for scant reason. But unfortunately, Haitham, like too many Middle Eastern bloggers, left off all pretense to civility once Israel invaded Lebanon in July of this year, in response to Hezbollah attacks.

Since that time Sabbah’s Blog has grown encrusted with “Zionist military regime” this and “Zionist terrorism” that. A shame maybe, a loss, but not a shock. Sabbah’s Blog has become just another conspiracy-riddled gossip sheet, typical unfortunately of a part of the world where independent news sources, and the critical thinking they inspire, are often in short supply.

I would certainly defend Haitham’s right to froth at the mouth all he wants. No government should interfere with the right of an individual to share his or her opinion on any matter, regardless of who gets offended in the process. That doesn’t mean, of course, that I think he should be rewarded. I stopped reading Sabbah’s Blog some time ago, and I encourage you to do the same.

What really bothers me, though, is not Haitham’s blog. It is the fact that he is, and remains, the Middle East and North Africa Editor for Harvard’s Global Voices Online project. According to the GVO site, this project is exists “To call attention to the most interesting conversations and perspectives emerging from citizens’ media around the world by linking to text, audio, and video blogs and other forms of grassroots citizens’ media being produced by people around the world.”

I don’t think it would be reasonable to require from Global Voices that it, or its editors, be impartial. I do think, however, that it is not out of line to expect them to be fair-minded. And I am unsure how someone who writes “Not an original idea, the Nazis had it first, but the part of the US paying, that’s original Israeli” is to be relied upon to bring a fair-minded review of the area’s discussions. Haitham has used the word “Nazis” 130 times on his blog and “facists” 60 times. I don’t recall him writing very much on European history so you can imagine what the terms are used for.

I’m not the only one who has noticed Sabbah’s veer into the warm embrace of hatred, and I don’t doubt that his bosses at GVO have been informed. But if likening Jews to Nazis never got a college professor fired, why would it result in the removal of an editor?

I just wonder if this is what Reuters meant when it said, announcing its monetary contribution to and partnership with, the organization, “The alliance with Global Voices enables Reuters to present a wider set of voices and commentary from around the world.”

Probably not.

Letting one’s emotions devolve into hatred is one thing, and a bad enough one at that. But when it leaks into and taints your capactiy for comprehensive and fair-minded coverage of a topic, it’s time to go. And if you don’t go, it’s time for your employers, or their funders, to show you the door.

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Update: According to TechCrunch, that bastion of ethical business practices, Yahoo, is joining forces with Reuters to exploit the work of bloggers. Yahoo “is currently developing some sort of compensation method.” Yeah. And with their track record I’m sure bloggers will come out top. I wonder what the relationship is exactly between Global Voices, Reuters and Yahoo. Global Voices is an international blogging aggregator, Reuters licenses the GVO content and Yahoo, who helped the Chinese government send reporters to jail, uses it?

Iraqi Blogger Detained by U.S. Marines

This is a note on the collaborative blog, Alive in Baghdad, from one of their correspondents, Qasem Al Dulaimi, asserting that he had been arrested by U.S. Marines.

The site’s About page says, “Through the work of a team of Americans and Iraqi correspondents on the ground, Alive in Baghdad shows the occupation through the voices of Iraqis.”

Iraq, journalism, threatened_bloggers