Arts and cultural organizations in the District of Columbia now have access to state of the art technology to help them strengthen their management capacity and demonstrate their value and impact in communities. The Cultural Data Project (CDP), a web-based data collection tool for arts and cultural organizations and their advocates, is operated by The Pew Charitable Trusts. The District of Columbia Cultural Data Project (DC CDP) was launched October 3, 2011. Register now for one of free orientations sessions on the project scheduled around the city.
“What makes this exciting is that the CDP is nationwide, providing uniform tools to document the expansive impact of arts and culture locally and nationally”, said Jennifer Cover Payne, President of the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington.
With support from national arts foundations as well as community-based grantmakers, the Cultural Data Project has emerged as a national resource for collecting and disseminating reliable, standardized data for the cultural sector. Prior to its local launch, more than 11,500 nonprofits in 11 states are already using CDP—with plans to be operational in an additional 11 states by 2014.
Those participating in the District of Columbia Cultural Data Project will receive free assistance from a team of on-call database specialists and financial consultants. Once participants supply the wide range of financial, programmatic and operational data, the CDP serves as a repository and financial management tool. Organizations can instantly generate information for grant applications, or create, on demand, 77 different analytic reports to present to their donors or boards on topics such as program activity, free and paid attendance, balance sheet trends, or marketing expenses. Organizations can also use the CDP to understand how they operate in comparison to similar organizations in their community (or communities) in other CDP states.
“The CDP brings a new level of transparency. Members of the arts community will be empowered to proactively share the impact and outcomes of their programming, and members of the public and private sector will invest with confidence.” said Anne Corbett, Executive Director of the Cultural Development Corporation.
Interested? To learn more about the project, listen to this podcast.
Monday, January 30 2:00-3:00 pm (ET) Live Chat. Free.
Fiscal sponsorship offers potential benefits for charitable projects without tax-exempt status of their own. But you need to have more than just a great idea before an organization will agree to be your fiscal sponsor. Learn what else you need to have in place in order to be considered seriously, and when not to approach a sponsor, at this live-chat session. We will devote most of the hour to your questions!
The following is a guest post by George Ford of the Foundation Centerand was originally posted on the Small Act blog. He’s presenting a webinar going into more detail on this newly-launched grant tool tomorrow.
The Foundation Center recently completed a comprehensive redesign of our online database for individual grantseekers, Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, a source for detailed descriptions of nearly 10,000 foundation programs that fund students, artists, researchers, and others.
Foundation grants to individuals can be tough to come by. After all, foundation support overwhelmingly goes to 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. However, support is available in the form of scholarships, fellowships, arts and research grants, support for attending conferences and seminars, and fiscal sponsorship, among others. With Foundation Grants to Individuals Online you can customize a search based on 15 different search fields including types of support, plus geographic criteria, fields of interest, and keywords.
How can this help you? By conducting a targeted search you’ll find detailed funder profiles including valuable information such as program areas, limitations, application information, financial data, links to social media, and more. What you learn about these funding prospects will help you throughout your proposal development process, from choosing your best matches, to making an initial approach, to the formal application or proposal, and beyond to maintaining a relationship with that funder after the grant.
An example: Let’s say you’re researching gender issues and financial access in the developing world, and you’re interested in finding financial support for writing a book on these issues. You could enter women, economics, developing countries, and other similar terms from the fields of interest search index, and research, publications, travel grants, and project support from the types of support index. There are a lot of options that allow you to find a substantive list of potential funders, and more options to narrow your search further to those foundations that are accepting applications or those that have given more or less than a certain dollar amount.
And about that redesign? We’ve made Foundation Grants to Individuals Online faster and easier to use, adding information like social media links and more funder background information, and we’ve begun updating the database weekly instead of once per quarter, among other enhancements.
In addition to Foundation Grants to Individuals Online, the Foundation Center has many other offerings for individual grantseekers available at grantspace.org, including webinars and in-person training and a grantseeking knowledge base with lists of FAQs. Keep up to date with these events and courses and check out Foundation Grants to Individuals Online at gtionline.foundationcenter.org. The Foundation Center has a lot of resources to offer; call or email us to find out more!
Keeping up with the latest and greatest in the nonprofit tech world can be an overwhelming task. Here at the Washington, DC Foundation Center office we regularly schedule programs to inform and educate nonprofit professionals about the latest technology trends and impacts. These days, nonprofit technology is all about social media.
All of which is a long way of saying that we have two great social media tech programs coming up! Fundraising and research veteran Jay Frost (@GordonJayFrost) is coming to teach "Prospect Research in the Age of Social Media:
Social media can seem so trivial. Until we realize that the majority of our current and future supporters are on these platforms, defining themselves, their interests and their communities every day. Fundraising and research veteran Jay Frost lifts the lid on social media in this session, exploring how we can use these networks to better identify, understand and engage prospects and donors. We will learn how to get started, to work efficiently, effectively and ethically, and how to avoid getting stuck in this new world of publically disclosed personal information.
Social media + fundraising = happiness, so you should definitely give this a look. February 14, 10am-11:30am. Register online here, before it fills up.
And we're also super-excited to have Annie Lynsen of smallact (@smallact) come back to teach another awesome program: Twitter Basics from @ to #. That isn't until March 13, but if you want to guarantee yourself a spot you can go ahead and register online for that too.
We’re already planning even more great programs for 2012. Be sure to keep an eye on our event calendar for more upcoming events and classes!
Looking for more information about getting started in social media for nonprofits? Here’s a few links:
Beth’s Blog : Technology guru Beth Kanter offers guidance and advice for nonprofits using social media to power social change.
Nonprofit Social Media Decision Guide : If you’re really looking to dive into the weeds and find out which social media tools are best for you, download (and read) Idealware’s 78-page guide to social media.
As we continue to showcase examples of foundations' transparency, Paul Brest, retiring president of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, provides a nice window into the thinking behind the foundation's work. Grants aren't the only way the foundation seeks to solve social and environmental problems. In Beyond the Grant Dollars, his opening essay of the recently released 2010 Annual Report, Brest pulls back the curtain to explain the added value of the program staff in magnifying and maximizing impact.
He writes, "The Beyond the Grant Dollars project has two primary objectives:
To improve the Foundation staff's and Board's decisions about the mix of strategies and the allocation of financial and human resources that can best achieve our goals.
To determine the skills, experience, and other qualities we should look for in new staff members and ways to improve the development of Foundation program staff."
Brest does a fine job detailing a number of ways that funders like the Hewlett Foundation employ staff to get the biggest bang for the buck, all the while trying to keep their eyes on the prize. With solid examples from the foundation's own experience as a highly engaged philanthropist, he thoughtfully presents the rationale for the various tactics mobilized for mission achievement. And, as in the best instances of lessons learned, he does not only discuss successes. In his own words, "potentially high returns also involves a significant risk of failure."
Finally, Brest mentions the desire to capture the substantive knowledge that program staff acquire in their fields and in their various activities and disseminate it for internal use as well as externally "when it has the potential to inform nonprofit organizations, foundations, and others."
In February 2011, Mayor Gray signed into law the D.C. Nonprofit Corporation Act of 2010. The legislation overhauls the laws governing nonprofits organized under D.C. law. It is the first substantial change to the D.C. Nonprofit Code since 1962. The new law applies to nonprofit corporations formed under the 1962 D.C. Nonprofit Code, effective January 1, 2012. There is a delayed effective date for so-called "Old Act" companies formed under the pre-1962 Nonprofit Code.
One of the most important changes the new Nonprofit Code makes is that now officers must comply with a new fiduciary responsibility. Under the Nonprofit Code, an officer now has a duty to inform. This means that the officer must provide other officers and the Board of Directors with all the information they need to carry out their responsibilities.
In addition, an officer must inform a superior officer or the Board of Directors if the officer believes that another person within the organization has breached his or her duty to the organization or has committed a violation of the law involving the nonprofit.
In order to help nonprofits understand exactly what this new duty to inform entails, the D.C. Bar Pro Bono Program has prepared a legal alert which spells out in more detail exactly what is expected by the new duty to inform; who is subject to the new requirement; and what steps the nonprofit should take in order to comply.
The end of the year is a great time for reflection and planning, and we're taking full advantage of it here at the Foundation Center-Washington, DC ! In 2011, we offered a lot of different programs,e.g. our Out of the Foundation Box and TechSense series, and worked to step up our online presence. Now we would like to know: how well are we serving you?
We're committed to your success and want to provide you with the best resources possible so you can do more good in the community and around the world. Whether you come to our office for training and resources, connect with us on Twitter, Like our Facebook page, or read the blog, we want to offer you the best resources and continue to serve you to the best of our ability. If there are programs or resources we offered that you really liked (and want more of), we'd love to know. If there are other programs that you'd like to see, questions you want answered, or information and resources that you need to do you work, we want to hear about it!
Please take a moment to take our survey and tell us how we’re doing by January 20, 2012.
Note: this is the same survey you may have received via e-mail so ignore this note, if you have filled out a survey already. We are trying to collect as much feedback as possible.
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