Friday Rewind

The Friday Rewind offers a snapshot of PhilanthroNews —  that means news stories, articles, events of note, or information updates — from around our network and throughout the broad world of philanthropy. Whether you take a quick skim of the material or a deep dive through each item we hope to help inform your work and inspire your thinking.

1. When it comes to establishing a digital strategy, nonprofits know by now that we need to grow our online audiences. A big part of that is connecting to our communities through social networks like Facebook and Twitter. But now that there is endless data we can monitor from all these social channels, is your organization aware of what metrics are important to track? Read the Full Story Here.
2. If Martin Morse Wooster had to sum up the lessons of his book, Great Philanthropic Mistakes, in one paragraph, it would be this: any effort by a foundation to use grants to manage human behavior ends in failure. Essentially, he asserts that philanthropies are too tidy, calculated, and structured to be as impactful as they’d like, and perhaps if they were a bit more “messy” they would be more effective. Read the Full Story Here.
3. The Philanthropy Roundtable recently released a new guidebook, Uniform Champions: A Wise Giver’s Guide to Excellent Assistance for Veterans. This resource — a successor to their first guidebook entitled Serving Those Who Served — looks at assistance for veterans purely from the funder side and chronicles the most successful donors in this area and what they have learned. Download the Resource Here.
4. The Student Loan Forgiveness Program started in 2007 and offered forgiveness for student loan obligations to students with government (not private) student loans who work in public service for 10 years. Four former students have brought suit in federal court against the U.S. Department of Education seeking to reinstate their eligibility after their initial approval letters were rescinded. Read the Full Story Here.
5. After years of paying lip-service to the concepts of diversity and inclusion, some charities have completely restructured their operations — going well beyond the tokenism that has angered and alienated minority communities for years. One such organization is Dance/USA, a Washington organization that, among other things, administers a grantmaking program to help member dance companies engage and build their audiences. Read the Full Story Here.

Friday Rewind is published each Friday by NY Funders Alliance staff. To submit a story for the Friday Rewind, please email programs@nyfunders.org.