On July 29 More than 100 Australian social sector leaders spent a beautiful Saturday in Brisbane discussing the possibilities and responsibilities of digital civil society. Several themes dominated the day: the importance of the “people” part of digital data, the ways digital technologies can highlight and even amplify existing social disparities, and a clear enthusiasm for building connections across sectors, …
Digital Impact: Reflections from Brussels
The European leg of the Digital Impact event series kicked off in Brussels on 13 June. Not surprisingly to those who follow EU policy, the emerging European digital policy landscape permeated the day’s discussions. We were fortunate to have participants and speakers from digital rights groups and corporate policy offices to share insights on the many ways that European …
Digital Impact: Reflections from Beijing
With support from the Ai You Foundation, Digital Impact Beijing brought together 140 participants from Chinese nonprofits, foundations, corporate social responsibility programs, and universities. The opportunity to learn with and from networks of nonprofits in China – with its rapidly developing nonprofit sector and its singular digital culture – was exciting. The nonprofit and foundation sector in China is …
Digital literacy: A core capacity for 21st century nonprofits
Over the last twenty years nonprofit organizations have gotten steadily better at financial management, communications, and evaluation. For many organizations these are now core capacities. Such changes were driven by several factors, and in turn have informed and helped drive the impact investment movement, social media for good efforts, and collective evaluation and evidence-based decision making efforts. Building capacity in …
Reflections: Transforming the sector in Toronto
After the Data on Purpose / Do Good Data conference at Stanford, the Digital Civil Society Lab kicked off a yearlong series of convenings around the globe to learn from civil society leaders creating social impact in the digital age. Toronto was our first stop, where we partnered with Powered By Data, the Ontario Trillium Foundation, with support from global …
That’s Not Privacy: An update
This month I checked back in with Micah Sifry to learn about the status of the That’s Not Privacy campaign, which MFG covered in May. Here’s what I learned (the following is an edited version of an email exchange): Micah, it has been about six months since the campaign launched. How is the That’s Not Privacy campaign going? This was always intended to …
Resources for Responsible Data Use in Humanitarian Action
Humanitarian aid and disaster response groups are regularly faced with the promise and peril of digital data and infrastructure. The opportunities to use real time satellite imagery, to improve communications in dangerous situations, and to experiment with social media feeds for information on the fly are tempting. At the same time, the ethical demands to “do no harm,” the unclear …
Locking the Web Open
On June 8 in San Francisco, passionate data geeks and web users like you and me are invited to help design the World Wide Web for the future. The “Locking the Web Open” summit taking place at the Internet Archive is open to activists, citizens, techies, thinkers, designers, and all those committed to participating in and helping to create …
Civic Crowdsourcing 101
Democracy, Institutional Design, and Technologies of Expertise “Algorithms used to be what made computers run faster. Now they create social and economic systems.” Ashish Goel, Stanford University Digital platforms to solicit input, sort ideas, rank opinions, find patterns, and “matchmake” skills are proliferating. When applied to democratic institutions, these tools are what Beth Noveck of NYU’s …
The New Social Calculus – minimize risk and maximize gain
For a long time, nonprofits and foundations have been seeking to improve outcomes. Getting there requires all kinds of new measurement schemes, thus the last two decades have brought us talk of social return on investment, quality-adjusted life years, and many other calculations. I think it’s time we recognize we’re operating with a whole new social calculus. The …
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