NTEN, Common Knowledge and Blackbaud present the fourth annual 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report. The report provides insights for nonprofits, foundations, media and businesses serving the nonprofit sector about the most important behavior and trends surrounding social networking as part of nonprofits’ marketing, communications, fundraising, program and IT work.

NTEN, Common Knowledge and Blackbaud present the fourth annual 2012 Nonprofit Social Networking Benchmark Report. The report provides insights for nonprofits, foundations, media and businesses serving the nonprofit sector about the most important behavior and trends surrounding social networking as part of nonprofits’ marketing, communications, fundraising, program and IT work.

 Rev. Bill Stanfield, North Charleston Resident of the Year, shared his frontline perspective, a perspective not focused on deficiencies, but rather holistic development of latent capacities at the March 1, 2012 SC GMN quarterly meeting. 

Rev. Stanfield resides in the economically underperforming, but as he would be quick to point out ‘neighborhood of great potential,’ Chicora-Cherokee in North Charleston.  He is an associate minister at St. Matthew Baptist Church and the cofounder, along with his wife Evelyn, of the Metanoia Community Development Corporation.  Learn how Mr. Stanfield has applied his philosophy of asset-based development to create student leadership programs, housing development, minority contractor training, and culinary arts training.  In addition, under Stanfield’s leadership Metanoia is renovating two buildings to spark commercial revitalization in the Chicora-Cherokee neighborhood.  In short, he practices what he preaches. 

Fall Forum Presentation: Now more than ever partnerships are the key to creating innovative and lasting change – and we all know the buzz around public/private partnerships.  In this session, our speakers will outline the City of Spartanburg’s courageous attempt at holistic community improvement on the north side of Spartanburg.  The plan includes private investors, the Mary Black Foundation, the local housing authority, and the local school district and most important the community itself.  During this session, attendees will hear a frank discussion of the plan, process, and steps the partners are taking to avoid pitfalls

An update on what’s happening in Washington, D.C. now, and the outlook of legislative activity for the remainder of the year. Learn how your involvement at the federal, state, and local levels can help you create stronger communities where you live.

Census update including South Carolina profile, trends, demographic changes, and links to additional resources.

This is the third installment of The State of the South, a year-long project of MDC to document the South’s condition in the wake of the two recessions over the past decade.

As pizza in America evolved from its start in 1905 as handcrafted, simple food for Italian construction workers in Manhattan to the widespread, mass-produced, multi-variety fare it is today, it changed. Some changes were good, some bad, some unintended. Regardless, the results are not the same – “pizza” no longer means the same thing. Program replication or scaling a concept in the nonprofit sector faces similar challenges. How do we achieve consistency in results while reducing costs, increasing accessibility or volume, and speeding “production?” What are the essential “ingredients” that we must maintain while still allowing for local adaptation? Learn from GEO’s Scaling What Works initiative – and explore the evolution of pizza as a cautionary tale of lessons that suggest how grant-makers can effectively help scale what works.

Charities are often told they should learn from business.  The reverse is also true.

Article from: Economist - July 17, 2010

What, specifically, should grantmakers do to maximize their impact and best serve nonprofits, vulnerable communities and the common good? That’s the central question this document seeks to answer. The National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) developed these criteria to provide grantmakers with the tools to ask themselves some long-overdue, perhaps difficult, questions.

March 5, 2009

ROBERT BECKER, THE STROM THURMOND INSTITUTE:   

The question posed to us ten years ago was, “how do we close the US/SC income gap?”  The question now is, “how do we close the human capital gaps in SC and encourage and enhance the human capital advantages that we have in South Carolina?”

For many in the foundation world, "lobbying" is a four letter word. But funding advocacy or supplying some support to organizations that lobby is allowable for foundations, as long as they follow certain rules. It's also an exciting and effective way to create lasting change at the community, state, and national level. First it helps to know the facts...

November 2008 - Helping Community Foundations during Economic Volatility

Wendy Horton with Valerie Bockstette and Melissa Scott  

Community Foundation Insights’ mission is to enable community foundations to make informed decisions about their operating models in order to achieve greater sustainability and community impact.

As the financial environment continues to be shaky and market values remain depressed for the foreseeable future, community foundations will have fewer resources available to cover their budgets and serve their communities in the coming years. Concurrently, the economic downturn in the U.S. has created a heightened need for philanthropic support due to job cuts, foreclosures, and tight credit markets for both companies and consumers.

2007 - Philanthropy:

Holly Fisher, Special Projects Editor

Articles explores the economic impact of philanthropy throughout South Carolina.

 

2006 - NONPROFIT SECTOR RESEARCH FUND

Lisa Ranghelli, Andrew Mott, & Elizabeth Banwell

In April 2006, the Nonprofit Sector and Philanthropy Program of the Aspen Institute held the first Community Foundation Colloquium for Practitioners and esearchers, "Beyond Asset Size: Non-Financial Measures of Community Foundation Performance." A community foundation's accomplishments, effectiveness, and sustainability traditionally have been calculated against the "yardstick" of asset size. Smaller foundations are continually working toward the magic $10 million in assets. However, the field is changing and asset size is no longer the best measure of a community foundation's impact. But apart from growing assets, what exactly is meant by community foundation "success?" 

With the help of the three provocative discussion papers commissioned by the Nonprofit Sector Research Fund for the Colloquium and presented here, participants in the all-day Colloquium explored other benchmarks for assessing the performance of community foundations.