Nonprofit Blog Carnival: Openness in the Third Sector

The diversity of submissions to this month's carnival speaks to how truly relevant the cultural and rhetorical move towards "openness" is to the work of nonprofits.

The demand for openness is affecting nonprofits in almost every dimension of our work, including: fundraising, research, marketing/communications, operations, evaluations, and outcomes. But we have a long way to go before openness in our practices and approaches could be considered the norm.

Each of the posts in this month's carnival makes its own argument for why nonprofits not only have to accept this cultural shift but also why its to our real benefit to do so. Here are some choice quotes from this month's submissions:

"Ultimately real dedication to openness means to publish every piece of relevant data in a searchable format for the world to look at, to search and to analyze." Good Developments

"“How open do I need to be?” … It seems fairly obvious to those of us steeped in the world of social technologies — you just are open, authentic, and transparent. But for many people where Facebook and Twitter represent alien planets fraught with danger, this is a very valid question. - Charlene Li

"The social media policy for one organization may not be appropriate to your association. Your policy should to be tailored to address your exposures and needs." - Social Fish

"Openness is a broad concept. It implies being truthful and honest in what you say, communicating information freely to stakeholders, and being held accountable to those you serve. It touches on much more than just your communication strategy, extending to how you run your programs and what sort of governance mechanisms you have." - WiserEarth

Nonprofits are doing everything from circulating open RFPs for potential merger partners to applying creative commons licenses to all of their research. What are you doing? Let us know in the comments!

Opening Up: Nonprofit Transparency
Kerry Vineberg from WiserEarth brings us this awesome big-picture look at the question of openness, while providing valuable advice on the small and practical steps your nonprofit can take to be more open.

Wikileaks and Its Consequences for Openness of Nonprofits
To put this all in a bigger cultural context the good folks at Good Developments bring a nonprofit perspective to the wikileaks phenomenon. Would your organization survive having all of its data published?

Nonprofits and Information: Sharing Our Stories
The Edmonton Social Planning Council talks about why stories are worth sharing and how several nonprofits (including IssueLab) are working to share as much and as often as possible.

Science of Giving 6: The donation box-How do social norms, price & scrutiny affect what people do?
Katya Andresen puts her spin on the benefits of openness, looking at how being open about the donations you receive might affect future gifts.

Successful fundraising is not for the thin-skinned
And right after you open up about your donations you may need Pamela Grow's advice on how to manage feedback from donors. Make sure to check out the comments on this post for some real-world insight about openness in fundraising.

True Tales of a Department of Education Grant Reviewer
For an example of a process that is integral to our work in the sector but unfortunately almost completely lacks openness, Jake Seliger shares a post from an anonymous reader about grant reviewing.

Foundations Fail at Failing
Speaking of foundations, Michael Remaley's recent post about foundations' openness about failures and lessons learned challenges grantmakers to start walking the talk on the kind of openness we used to call transparency. Be sure to check out the comments

How to use to Social Media without getting Panned
Maureen Carruthers brings us some great tips on how to be open and authentic in social media, without the dreaded over-sharing.

Peering Behind the Curtain of Advocacy Email Campaigns

Rob Pierson from BeaconFire gives us valuable insight into how being more open in our email campaigns might actually help address legislators' fears that emails aren't authentic, making our campaigns that more effective and meaningful.

Risk Management and Open Community: More Similar than You Think
Social Fish gives us some insight on how to manage the risks associated with creating open communities.

How open are you? Conduct an Openness Audit to Find Out
And finally, now that you've read all these other posts make sure to check out this interesting approach to understanding exactly how open your organization really is. Charlene Li, get ready for this -- shares -- her Openness Audit tool.

Thanks to everyone who shared a post with me. Although not all of them fit the topic closely enough to be included I read and appreciated each one.

Sandra Sims has just posted the February Nonprofit Blog Carnival's call for submissions. It is up at Mission Connected and is titled, Submit Your Blog Posts About Nonprofit Jobs to the February Nonprofit Blog Carnival. Check it out!

(Picture generously shared under a CC BY 2.0 license by Monica's Dad)

And The Winner Is...

IssueLab is pleased to announce the winner of the Research Remix video contest!

Contestants were asked to remix facts or data from one of over 300 openly licensed research reports on the IssueLab website into a video. At launch for Open Access Week 2009 and throughout the submission deadline, the contest generated lots of buzz and interest from nonprofit and video communities alike.

Our congratulations go to Erin Costello and her video remix "Girls Risk High Morals: Online," featuring research by the MacArthur Foundation Digital Media and Learning Initiative. Judge Allison Fine (Senior Fellow at Demos) notes that "the video creators have combined riveting visual images with a dramatic narrative to forcefully impact the viewer on the dangers of the online world for girls."

Learn more about the Research Remix video contest and read the original research here.

Thank you to Research Remix participants for sharing their creative interpretation of research on pressing social issues. The video is available under a Creative Commons license, open for use and remixing (for noncommercial purposes) by anyone!

Additional thanks go to the panel of judges, to Creative Commons and the Public Library of Science, as well as the many promoters and supporters that spread the word about this unique opportunity giving voice to nonprofit research.

P.S.: There are still many more contest packages with t-shirts to give away, so we encourage any additional submissions to the Vimeo Research Remix channel! If you've got remixed media and can incorporate openly licensed nonprofit research, share your art and views with everyone!

Common(s) Sense for Communications Staff

Would you password your website? Or make twitter updates private? How about hiding your facebook fan page so it doesn't appear in search results? That wouldn't make much sense. Neither does using restrictive copyrights for work you produce to further your nonprofit mission. Yet, a majority of the third sector still has difficulties using Creative Commons.

Is it because we're unfamiliar with the options? Are nonprofits worried about how their writing and research might be used by others? Beth Kanter is an avid supporter of Creative Commons (another reason to jump on the bandwagon!) and this post includes great resources, articles, and remixes that make a strong case for open licensing in the nonprofit framework.

For foundations, the choice may be a bit more difficult. As this Berkman Center for Internet and Society report notes, foundations don't usually apply open licenses to funded work (with a few notable exceptions!), since it's often produced by consultants or grantee organizations. Still, blogger and philanthropy consultant Lucy Bernholz advocates for opening up foundation content and has some good ideas on information sharing and creation.

Here at IssueLab, we're big supporters of open licensing. Whether you work for an advocacy or direct service organization, a research institute or a foundation – here is why you should start thinking about using Creative Commons (CC):

1. Increase your exposure – Share and share alike. It's a simple concept and can work wonders for your visibility online. When readers know your research (photos, website, video, etc.) carries a CC license, they know it's ok to share your work. The rules are clear, and your constituents don't have to ask for permission when they want to use your ideas, which is a huge deterrent for online sharing. Remember: the more you share with others, the more they'll use, quote, recommend, share, and reference in turn.

2. Sustain impact of your work – There are many reasons why restrictive copyrights stunt the potential impact of your work. Open licenses = open access, and this means you can be in more spaces online for the life of your organization and beyond. Publishing a report is not the end of the line; your CC-licensed work can continue to circulate and inform audiences independently of your active outreach and organizational capacity.

3. Expand innovation in your field – Depending on the CC license you choose, your audience has the opportunity to be really creative with your ideas. One of the main goals of nonprofit research, after all, is to evaluate what works and to build upon lessons learned. This is how we find practical solutions and spur social innovation. Applying an open license to your work can encourage people to repurpose or remix information into ideas, programs, events, data or campaigns that have never before existed. Imagine the possibilities!

4. Get credit – Don't we all like to get credit for our content and ideas? Creative Commons makes it easy (yes, easier than the old standard copyright) to receive proper and specific attribution for work you share. Contrary to what you may have heard, an open license like Creative Commons doesn't just make your content a "free for all," but actually requires users to credit and cite you explicitly in a manner of your choosing. The CC-image used in this blog post? Check out the citation at the bottom - it's a simple copy & paste from the "some rights reserved" link on the flickr photo page. Easy!

Not convinced yet? Agree completely? No time for licensing issues? I'd love to hear your comments!

"Common Sense" image:

simone_brunozzi / CC BY-SA 2.0