The Tenuous Link Between Foreign Aid and Results; Plus More: Thursday’s Roundup
By Maria Di Mento
Senior Editor
July 1, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
- People who fight poverty globally often fail to recognize the limited progress in struggling countries that can be attributed to foreign aid, says Holden Karnofsky, co-founder of the nonprofit-evaluation group GiveWell, on his blog.
- How many board members is enough for most small and midsized charities? On the Nonprofit Consultant Blog, Ken Goldstein pegs the magic range at nine to 14 members—big enough to avoid burnout and make it easy to achieve quorum, but small enough to avoid becoming unwieldy and fractious.
- Rosetta Thurman, who writes The Chronicle’s Leading Edge blog, has compiled an updated listing of more than 30 nonprofit and philanthropy blogs written by people of color.
- A new online partnership between the relief group Save the Children and the Ad Council seeks to spotlight the work of local health-care workers in the developing world, reports the blog Future Leaders in Philanthropy.
- Laura Freschi, of New York University and the AidWatch blog, writes about a Frontline segment on PlayPumps, a nonprofit effort to bring water to African towns and villages, that looks at how the group fell far short of expectations.
- On his blog, Selfish Giving, Joe Waters argues against Brigid Slipka‘s claim that cause marketing gifts aren’t “real gifts.” Mr. Waters, a director of cause marketing for a Boston hospital, says that there are just as many people who give generously at the register as there are people who give in other ways and that often times, charities benefit from the large donations made by the company sponsoring the giving programs.
- The Getting Attention Nonprofit Tagline Awards season has begun with the introduction of three new categories: programs, fund-raising campaigns, and special events. “The tagline is a critical element of any nonprofit’s message platform,” says Nancy Schwartz. She added that creating the new categories gives nonprofit organizations the opportunity to communicate effectively with their audiences.
