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Thursday Feb 08, 2007
Fundraisers wreak their web 2.0 revenge
I picked up a very interesting online conversation highlighted by Beth Kanter on her blog yesterday.
The conversation started when Ami Dar from Idealist.org felt compelled to express his disappointment at the lack of consistency in terms of feedback and grants from the Omidyar Funding Network. As Ami points out:
“In meetings and conversations with colleagues across the sector, as well as in our own experience at Idealist.org, the story is always the same: organization X meets with people from ON (Omidyar Network), the ON people are invariably very nice, and make the organization feel that funding will be forthcoming, easily and quickly. The organization is ecstatic and counts on this (since when 99% of funders make you feel this way, they mean it), but then nothing happens. Emails and calls go unreturned, often for months at a time, meetings get cancelled, and people are led on for a year or two until they finally give up.”
The first interesting thing to note is that Ami posted this on the Omidyar Network Community site. I have to say I do have a lot of sympathy (as I’m sure all fundraisers do) with Ami’s point when it comes to funders in general.
What’s most interesting for me though, is as Beth points out on her blog, this is a great example of the era of transparency that web 2.0 has ushered in. It’s fantastic that someone is able to express their opinion on a sensitive subject, as well as have a conversation with others about it right where it counts – on the website of the very organisation that they’re commenting on. Posted by Sam Thomas ( 10:15 AM ) Link to this post Comments[8]
BUT, this is not a manifestation of transparency in the age of Web 2.0. There will be an article in a nonprofit industry newspaper here in the US about funder practices, and the reporter had a very hard time getting people to speak on the record, so much so that this article has been in the making for months now.
There have been also a LOT of people who cheered Ami on for his post but who will NEVER be on the record (even though they send revealing email). Notice that there is NOT ONE other comment from a nonprofit exec or leader on the thread. Ami did a very courageous thing here, and it is astonishing how few of the many others who have been treated poorly and unprofessionally by funders are willing to say so -- since they are still hoping that MAYBE, somehow they will get some money after all.
Watching the response of people who express in private 'right on, my experience, too, but I can never talk about this publicly' has been one of the more depressing manifestations on overt human cowardice that I have seen in a long time. It makes me want to truly leave this dysfunctional sector.
Bravo to you for at least giving a public shout out, even though you may be pending or hoping to pend with Omidyar as well.
Katrin
Posted by Katrin on February 09, 2007 at 04:36 AM GMT+00:00 #
Good to hear from you and thanks for your thoughts.
I agree with you about very few nonprofit execs going "on record" when they've been treated poorly by funders - I think the same thing happens over here.
I guess what excites me is the possibility of more genuine and open conversations between funders and nonprofits, and the parallels with the web opening up and becoming more transparent.
I have very little understanding of the relationships and politics between funders and nonprofits in the USA, and as I've never met Ami or the Omidyar Network I'm in no position to comment on the specifics of that situation.
I was more interested in the potential of someone having that kind of conversation online and in public on the very website of the organisation they're talking about ¿ something that we wouldn¿t have been able to do not so long ago.
All the best
Sam
Posted by Sam on February 09, 2007 at 09:32 AM GMT+00:00 #
Nice to discover your blog!
Posted by Beth on February 11, 2007 at 01:30 AM GMT+00:00 #
Nice to discover your blog!
Posted by Beth on February 11, 2007 at 01:32 AM GMT+00:00 #
We're fans of your blog so it's great you've found ours!
Posted by Sam on February 12, 2007 at 01:03 PM GMT+00:00 #
Posted by Beth on February 13, 2007 at 02:26 PM GMT+00:00 #
Posted by Jim on February 15, 2007 at 03:42 AM GMT+00:00 #
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