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Five Prognoses on Aid to Haiti – by Alexander Glück

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Following the catastrophe in Haiti, many donations have been made over betterplace.org for organisations that work with emergency aid, from Care International by way of the German Red Cross to the Alliance Action German Aid. Our guest blogger Alexander Glück takes a critical look at this topic. Of course, probably not everyone on the betterplace team shares his five theses, but we find it important to take a look at this particular perspective on emergency aid and we are excited to hear your responses as well:

The moment one has written a critical book about the donation market, the next moment next large donation campaigns are confirming the social giving mechanics that I have described in “The Marketed Responsibility” (Essen: Stiftung & Sponsoring, 2009). If the claims in that book hold true, then one will also have to allow the following prognoses regarding coming developments:

1. There will be new records in giving. But that won’t initially provide emergency relief.

The media tells daily of the overwhelming donation response that has surpassed all expectations, while simultaneously flashing on the screen the donation account numbers, together with strong visual images of suffering. Public heads such as Anne Will, Thomas Gottschalk and — as a columnist for the Bild newspaper — Angela Merkel, apply pressure to the already-existing call for ever-more donations — donations with as few strings attached as possible so as to ensure the most efficient application.

The problems with earthquake areas, however, are more logistical and technical in nature, as the needed resources are already in large part available. The media’s suggestions notwithstanding, a financial payment of any amount does not save a single child buried under the rubble.

2. Haiti is facing a profound structural change

The funds acquired won’t finance immediate aid, but will rather go toward initiatives for long-term reconstruction projects. Which is all well and good, except that it will never be discussed. Distribution and allocation conflicts will be the result, and without a functioning structure, unjust allocations and benefits will inevitably occur. Add to this the substantial roll of Haiti’s oligarchy, which before the catastrophe lived at the expense of the majority population, and which will in the future further attempt to allocate the funds according to such a structure. The coming changes can breakdown old structures of exploitations in order to build new ones in its place.

3. Initiatives not engaged in Haiti will see a slump

Whoever is donating to Haiti is not going to donate to another initiative. Donations for long-term aid in Haiti are now so important that, in the in the current donation frenzy, they threaten to overshadow many other equally-urgent projects; such projects will consequently see a clear decline in giving toward their causes, since after giving generously to Haiti, many donors won’t make the decision to give toward yet another project.

4. Incompetent initiatives will propagate the Haiti issue

We saw it during the Tsunami catastrophe of 2004. Fundraisers and advertising agencies crowded in to adopt the cause in order to increase their own donation profits. This will happen again, though most of these initiatives are incompetently prepared to engage this realm of aid, therefore eventually risking a considerable loss of prestige to their organisations.

5. Haiti will come more firmly under U.S. control

For the time being, the United States’ military presence in Haiti is ensuring the necessary structures to quickly and effectively distribute needed relief. The almost invasion-like arrival of the U.S. soldiers in Haiti will in all probability last for two decades and after awhile, won’t have anything to do anymore with aid to the earthquake victims.

Alexander Glück www.der-spendenkomplex.de.tt

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With Payback, you can now support small and large aid projects

Saturday, December 19th, 2009

Payback-Logo

Press Release from December 14. 2009

For the first time in Germany, Payback – together with the donor platform betterplace.org – has made possible a completely new method of online donations.

Sponsorship for a bed in the Children’s hospital Bärenherz in Leipzig; dyslexia educational assistance for the children from socially impoverished families at Lichtblick Hasenbergl in Munich, School books for children living in the largest slum in Kenya – whether it’s an aid project in a local region in Germany, or a far-away foreign hotspot, millions of Payback members are now able to do good with their collected points. In the newly created Payback Donation World, members can choose to allocate their collected Payback Points to go 100% toward concrete aid projects. Members first select a project to support from among the many options and follow the directions online.

The Payback Donation World was designed and implemented with betterplace.org know-how.  “We were won over by the revolutionary donation philosophy of betterplace.org,” said the Payback CEO Burkhard Graßmann. “With this concept, Payback is taking a pioneering role in the donation sector. The platform enables that which donors today wish for: personal, concrete and comprehensive aid,” according to donor expert and betterplace.org CEO Till Behnke.

Donors can see for themselves how their points are directly transformed into good on-site use, without bureaucratic hindrances and red tape. In contrast to anonymous donor accounts, the collected Payback points don’t all go into one big pot. Rather, each Payback member has before them the individual, concrete projects, initiated and implemented by real people who are available as references to the work being done. This is how projects are able to be created. And this is how the interactive Payback Donation World allows its members to take initiative to be a part of this good work themselves. The certification of non-profit status is a prerequisite for starting a project.

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Teeter-totters and swing-sets or, How to activate one’s network over betterplace.org. A prime example

Sunday, December 13th, 2009

This year, the Berlin Football Club (BFC), Dynamo became the first professional football club to have a playground built on their stadium grounds. The club has its diligent fans and supporters to thank, as well as betterplace.org, the transparent marketplace for social engagement. The entire playground project was financed in record time by donations made over betterplace.org. Such a successful campaign is therefore a prime example for effective fundraising among one’s own networks over betterplace.org

Set-Up
Fans of the BFC Dynamo began by posting a profile site on betterplace.org. Potential supporters and helpers could read about chosen tactics: how the project was planned, how much money is needed for which specific purposes, and who was managing those tasks. A teeter-totter was the first in line to be constructed, followed by a swing-set, a bench, a sand box and – last but not least – a slide.

Kick-off
To give the project the initial boost needed for its launch, the project managers next activated their networks: the fans of the BFC. They displayed the playground project prominently on the club’s official homepage along with a link to the project page on betterplace.org. Fans, guests, sponsors and journalists learned first-hand about the planned construction of the new play area. Each contact was thereby a possible networker for further donors.

Gameflow
The project was quickly picked up on and discussed in the club’s forums. One click, one donor – it couldn’t be more simple. Fans were updated about latest developments on the project as well as the donation levels needed for the next step. The project managers posted a Call-to-Action text with a link to the project on their website. The text could be cut and pasted and passed along through emails, messenger, blogs, or online communities. Whoever had their own BFC fan page could use the downloadable project widget to spread the word. As soon as one phase of the project was completed, the project managers documented the accomplishments with photos and blogposts on betterplace.org. This transparency motivated new donors: “There’s something going on, and I want to be a part of it!”

Game analysis
The community of donors on betterplace.org soon outgrew the boundaries of the playground project, reaching out to other supporters and even members of other football clubs – an astonishing effect. In one online community for active football fans, a user remarked on a common solidarity: “Separated by our colors, united by our cause.” The success story of the new BFC playground illustrates more and more the preferred mode of action for social engagement on betterplace.org. Instead of the more-costly and less-efficient conventional fundraising practice to cover all bases in every direction, a project could be specifically targeted, spread and concluded all via betterplace.org. Tailoring messages specifically within one’s own target groups and networks can optimise the donor potential for the organisation.

Plagiarism emphatically recommended!

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How efficient is the Social Capital Market?

Thursday, November 26th, 2009

This summer I was contacted by David Baumhauer, a student from the Otto Beisheim School of Management in Hamburg, who was researching his Bachelor thesis on the topic “Financing of Social Entrepreneurs” and had a few questions regarding betterplace.org. David, now studying for a Masters in Finance at Erasmus University Rotterdam, was kind enough to agree to write a blogpost about some of the interesting conclusions of his thesis.

Here is David writing about a subject we are deeply concerned about ourselves: How efficient is the Social Capital Market?

In this article I am writing on the question “How efficient is the social capital market?”. This question is highly relevant because an efficient social capital market would allocate capital to those organizations that earn the highest social return on capital without many losses due to market frictions. In an inefficient social capital market many resources are lost in finding good investments and investing in them and even organizations with excellent social results might struggle to get capital.

If we compare the capital market (and here, the stock exchange) with the social capital market (the market supplying money for social innovation and NGOs) with regards to their operational, informational and allocation efficiency, we observe a number of striking differences.

Many small organizations seek capital from many small givers
On the stock exchange only small transaction fees have to be paid to buy and sell securities. Costs to raise capital in the capital markets are estimated between 3-10% of the amount raised for private companies.

On the social capital market, these costs are estimated to be 22-43%. Furthermore, NPO executives spend 30-60% of their time with fundraising.[i] The reasons for these high costs lie in the fragmentation on both the capital providing and capital seeking sides. A study of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and McKinsey&Company finds 450 organizations helping children in Portland, USA and 125 organizations supporting the homeless in San Francisco.[ii] In private industries, a high number of organizations often leads to consolidation and top Management is incentivized by stock options for mergers. These financial incentives do not exist in the social sector. Also, there are few matchmakers that exploit Merger Opportunities and help companies find suitable partners. These are some of the reasons why there is a low Merger rate in the social sector.[iii]

On the capital providing side, the majority of the capital comes from millions of single givers (9 million in Germany, 40 million in the USA). So in the end many small organizations are looking for capital from millions of single givers, an inefficient process.

Capital aggregation on both sides would help to make the investment process easier. This could happen through a consolidation of smaller NPOs on the capital seeking site and through intermediaries like venture philanthropy funds on the capital providing side. These intermediaries bundle capital supply and demand. They also share due diligence costs between many investors and can thereby work more efficiently.

Donation marketplaces and social stock exchanges can too play a special role as intermediaries. They reduce information costs and information asymmetries, for example by screening the NPOs that want to use the platform for their fundraising prior to listing them. BOVESPA (http://www.bovespasocial.org.br), a Brazilian “Social Stock Exchange” has only accepted 30 out of 1000 Projects in its first year. There are several other online donation platforms such as GlobalGiving, Give, Helpdirect, Justgiving, Charitynavigator and betterplace. Two projects try to create real stock exchanges for Social Enterprises: Recently the Rockefeller Foundation has given 500,000$ (360,000€) to develop the idea of a Social Stock Exchange in which shares of British For-Profit Social Ventures can be traded. The Genesis Institute also plans a Social Stock Exchange.

“A millionaire does not really care whether his money does good or not …”
The private capital market is so informational efficient that 75% of actively managed mutual funds underperform their benchmark index. That means that they cannot gain an advantage by reacting quickly to new information, because everybody else also does that and all information is reflected quickly in the market price. It is obvious that investors have every incentive to react quickly to news because they want to maximize their future payoffs and will try to allocate their funds such that they get the highest risk adjusted return on capital.

On the social capital market the informational efficiency is inhibited by the operational inefficiency: It is costly to obtain information about NPOs.

Furthermore, the incentive to get the highest social return on capital for private investors is not as obvious as for the investors on the stock exchange. This is particularly important, as the vast majority of funds is not given through intermediaries, but comes directly from private givers (75% or $229 billion in the US in 2007 and 90% or €3.3 billion in Germany in 2004).

Bernard Shaw argued back in 1896 that for private givers the incentive to achieve a high social return on capital does not even exist: „A millionaire does not really care whether his money does good or not, provided he finds his conscience eased and his social status improved by giving it away…“[iv]. Practical literature for NPOs also assumes that prestige motives exist and suggests that NPOs pay special attention to their biggest donors and honor them. Economic theory on the other hand firstly assumed that people only give for altruistic reasons. In 1989 James Andreoni came up with the impure altruism model, which says that people not only give for altruistic reasons, but also for a so called warm-glow effect. This warm-glow effect includes the improvement of his social status and the good feeling that one gets from giving.[v] Andreoni proves that this effect exists, because his model can explain donation patterns that cannot be explained with purely altruistic giving.

A study by Cunningham et al. from 2004 supports this impure altruism model by noting that private investors often do not care much about performance measurement and rather assume that “all giving is good”.[vi] If private givers do not pay attention to the performance of their investments, we cannot have an efficient social capital market. A solutions to this problem must be a change in paradigm from seeing the transfer of money to a social organization as a donation to seeing it as an investment that should yield a high social return on investment and which performance should be monitored. Again, intermediaries can play a role here. As many investors will lack the time to constantly monitor their investments, they can invest it via a venture philanthropy fund.

The lack of standardized performance measurements
On the stock exchange, the past performance of a company is easily observable from the financial statements of the company. Stocks are constantly monitored by analysts and the media who make projections about the future performance. If a company has performed poorly and the future prospects look bleak, then people will start selling its stock. An entrepreneur with a good idea on the other hand can get it recognized and will find investors that support him.

On the social capital market, it is very difficult to determine where the capital is allocated best because there are no standardized performance measurement methods. The performance cannot just be read of a balance sheet. There are several approaches to tackle this problem, for example the Social Return on Investment method developed by REDF (www.redf.org.). This method monetizes the cost savings to society that a certain project achieves and compares them to its costs.[vii] There also exist many other performance measurement tools, but none are universally applied and accepted and many NPOs are not using them at all, which makes it difficult for investors to compare investments.[viii] Solutions can again be achieved by Rating agencies and Venture Philanthropy Funds that develop and implement performance measurement methods.

Rating agencies provide standardized, comparable information about the performance of NPOs and reduce information costs for investors. Two European rating agencies are New Philanthropy Capital (www.philanthropycapital.org) in the UK and Bertelsmann Stiftung (www.bertelsmann-stiftung.de) in Germany.

Intermediaries can make the market more efficient
Concluding it can be said that the Social Capital Market today is likely not very efficient when compared to the stock exchange. However, in the past few years many intermediaries have emerged that play a key role in making the social capital market more efficient by reducing transaction costs through agglomerating supply and demand and reducing information asymmetries. Intermediaries can be banks and investment funds as well as pure information intermediaries like marketplaces and rating agencies. In developing economies, the existence and development of (financial) intermediaries has been an important factor for overall economic growth and in the social capital market they can play a similar role. In order to make these intermediaries succeed, there has to be a demand for the services of venture philanthropy funds, rating agencies and donation marketplaces. This demand has to come from private givers who want not only to give to ease their conscience, but also to achieve a high social return on investment and realize that they can best find these investments with the help of intermediaries. The recent public attention to the Social Entrepreneurship phenomenon will do its part to develop a more performance oriented, more efficient social capital market.

[i] Meehan, William F., Derek Kilmer, und Maisie O’Flanagan. „Investing in Society.“ Stanford Social Innovation Review 1, Nr. 4 (2004): 34-43.

[ii] The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation und McKinsey&Company. The Nonprofit Marketplace: Bridging the Information Gap in Philanthropy. 2008. www.givingmarketplaces.org/materials/whitepaper.pdf.

[iii] Cortez, Alexander, William Foster, und Katie Smith Milway. „Nonprofit M&A: More Than a Tool for Tough Times.“ The Bridgespan Group. February 2009. http://www.bridgespan.org/uploadedFiles/Homepage/Articles/Mergers_and_Acquisitions/091702-Nonprofit%20Mergers%20and%20Acquisitions.pdf.

[iv] Shaw, George B.. „Socialism for millionaries.“ In Essays in Fabian Socialism, von G.B. Shaw (Hrsg.). London (Neuauflage 1949): Constable, 1896.

[v] Andreoni, James. „Giving with Impure Altruism: Applications to Charity and Ricardian Equivalence.“ The Journal of Political Economy 97, Nr. 6 (1989): 1447-1458.

[vi] Cunningham, Katie, und Marc Ricks. „Why Measure? Nonprofits Use Metrics to Show that They Are Efficient. But What if Donors Don’t Care?“ Stanford Social Innovation Review Summer 2004 (2004): 44-51.

[vii] For a German application see Jahnke, Thomas. „SROI Kalkulation · kurze Zusammenfassung case study · enterprise 2001 – 2006.“ iq consult. 2007. http://www.iq-consult.com/files/enterprise_Zusammenfassung.pdf.

[viii] For an overview see Clark, Catherine H., William Rosenzweig, David Long, und Sara Olsen. Double Bottom Line Projekt Report: Assessing Social Impact in Double Bottom Line Ventures, Methods Catalog. 2004. http://www.impactalliance.org/file_download.php?location=S_U&filename=11767042041Clark_etal04_DBL_IA.pdf.

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Good Practice Online Fundraising: action medeor e.V. on betterplace.org

Saturday, November 21st, 2009

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Sometimes even larger organisations have to start from scratch. The German medical aid organisation action medeor has cared for the people in the poorest regions of the world for 45 years. Over 10,000 health clinics in 140 countries have been set up by the organisation. In 2008 alone, they distributed 360 tons of medication and medical devices worth over 10 million Euros. Anke Engelke, a well-known German actress and comedian, stands at the helm of action medeor.

Join us at betterplace.org – invest in the future
Why do large organisations like action medeor set up their projects on betterplace? Does every little penny really count for such a large organisation? The answer to such questions might sound silly but here it is: action medeor is investing in the future. “Through betterplace.org, our support base has grown to include new, younger donors,” says Steffi Sczucka, a fundraiser for action medeor. action medeor has the same problem as many other traditional aid organisations: the core foundation of donors is getting up in years. Whether their children or children’s children will contribute as eagerly as they have is questionable, increasing the pressure for organisations to seek out new core supporters.

Relevancy is persuasive
Steffi Sczuka made her way to betterplace.org through a friend’s tip. She liked the site’s appearance among other things, and decided to stay and setup a project online. In contrast to other small organisations like Twende Pamoja, Steffi didn’t send emails to friends, acquaintances or donors, since the latter are mostly offline anyway and continue their support in ways that are familiar to them. Steffi says:

A large organisation often conveys the feeling of anonymity – people identify themselves differently with us than they do with the smaller, more personal grassroots organisations.

Nonetheless, action medeor fared successfully on betterplace.org. Steffi’s reason: “We stay current.” One of the first betterplace.org projects from action medeor concerned the Cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe. Shortly after the catastrophe was broadcasted through the media, 2,000 Euros for 200 medical treatments were donated on betterplace.org. Due to the relevancy of the situation, the betterplace.org team highlighted the project—the project was mentioned in the betterplace teamblog and was included in the featured projects list. The competition for support between organisations boils down to this: “We were the only ones on betterplace.org who offered aid for the Cholera epidemic.”

It was a similar case in September with the earthquake in Sumatra. At 2:00 p.m. it was in the news, and by 6:00 p.m. it had become a project on betterplace.org, remembers Steffi.

The important acquisition of new, additional donors is very efficient.

Posting the projects online doesn’t take much time,” says Steffi, “nor does the maintenance. The blog is kept up as needed.

Extremely cost-efficient earnings from new donors
Acquiring a new donor conventionally costs action medeor between 70 and 90 Euros. That’s about the cost of 20 mosquito nets. Many large organisations even spend a third of a donor’s “lifetime value” on this acquisition. Steffi came to betterplace.org from the start also because of the people who work for the internet platform, real people she can call who take her questions or dialogue with her to develop ideas. In this way, the organisation remained forefront in the awareness of the betterplace project team, who took an interest in promoting the cause to betterplace corporate clients on the lookout for nonprofit partners.

The result: in one year, action medeor has received 12,250 Euros from 212 donors. Obtaining these donations by traditional methods would have cost around 17,000 Euros. This group of donors gave on average 57 Euros to action medeor. Conventionally, this would never have been enough to cover acquisition costs, whereas betterplace.org ensures the most bang for each buck, helping more people and directing support to where it should go. Since donor trust is a worthwhile value, and transparency should never be ignored, Steffi will soon apply to fill a need that seems less exciting: administrative costs. Although betterplace.org forwards 100 percent of donations received to the organisations, one shouldn’t forget that large organisations must always use a portion for general administrative costs.

Anke Engelke: an ace up the sleeve
Besides the relevancy of their quickly-posted aid projects, action medeor has another ace up their sleeve: Anke Engelke. The well-known German actress is an inimitable advocate and uses her notoriety to draw visitors from betterplace.org into action medeor’s project pages. But Steffi won’t let this be the only distinction from other competitor projects: “You have to do something unique with your projects,” she says, and has plans to post more videos to betterplace.org.

Though the conventional methods of fundraising are still dominant, Steffi believes that online fundraising, as on betterplace.org, will continue to grow.

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Money into the bin or to projects?

Sunday, November 15th, 2009

imagesThis week the first chrismas charity mailing hit my mailbox – a thick wad of postcards painted by disabled people with their feet. Also in the envelope was, of course, a bank transfer slip.

What an awful waste! Because, as with 95% of all recipients, the mailing landed straight in my bin.

On the same day, I received a message from Brian Walsh, from Liquidnet for Good, quoting an article by William F. Meehan Why we need a more efficient social capital market – and how we can get there, with some figures about the inefficiencies of the market we work in (thanks Brian for sharing):

For starters, it does not have cost-efficient transaction processes, when compared to for-profit benchmarks. In the for-profit capital market, companies spend between $2 and $4 raising capital (e.g., legal, marketing, and administrative expenses) – for every $100 they raise. In the social capital market, however, nonprofits spend between $10 and $24 for every $100 they earn through fundraising (e.g., obtaining donor lists, sending direct mail, or making phone calls). Nonprofit chief executives, meanwhile, spent between 30 and 60 percent of their time pursuing donations with such “soft costs” unevenly accounted for in fundraising costs.12 Foundations and government grantors, meanwhile, spend about $12 to $19 on administration (including general overhead and reviewing grant applications) for every $100 they allocate.

That means that in the social capital market, the cost of raising capital consumes roughly 22 to 43 percent of the funds raised, a dreadfully inefficient process.

Together with other internet plattforms for the social sector, we are trying to stop this development by offering a cost-free (or low-cost) and much more transparent alternative for the raising of funds.

Please join us in this goal: everyone who donates during the festive season to projects on betterplace.org makes sure that more money goes to projects than into the bin.

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Twende Pamoja: How one small organisation entrusted its fundraising to betterplace.org

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Big gifts come in little packages -  Twende Pamoja is a prime example of this. Without their own powerful fundraising apparatus, Twende Pamoja has relied almost solely on betterplace.org to reap donations quickly and efficiently. As well as abundantly.

Twende Pamoja is Kiswahili for “Let us walk together.” That’s exactly what a couple of Germans have been doing since the year 2000, together with their friends and partners from the east African country Tansania, on the island Zanzibar. It was here that the aid organisation Twende Pamoja was established.

The project’s fundraising success is due in part to Twende Pamoja’s embrace of the full gamut of online-fundraising opportunities: the internet is fast, current, and aesthetic and a presence on the internet is inexpensive to maintain. And that’s just how Matthias Mnich, Michaela Blaske, and Verena Specht-Ronique, who placed the organisation Twende Pamoja on betterplace, brought it into being. Never before have potential supporters had the opportunity to stay so up to date or to develop with as much transparency such trusting network relationships as they now are able to with betterplace.

Admitting to weakness
Transparency and the development of trust require the strength to openly admit weakness. While Twende Pamoja thanked supporters for donating toward the material needed to produce cloth bags, they also simultaneously admitted that the bags were not competitive in the long run and openly reflected in hindsight that this project wasn’t especially sustainable.

Ongoing Communication with Donors
Up to now, Twende Pamoja workers have written a total of 167 blog posts about their seven projects; that’s almost 24 blog posts per project. News about the life of the projects have been updated continuously through the blogs, fresh information is reported as it happens, and the trusting relationships between the supporters and the project initiators are maintained. Users who are connected to a particular project as an Advocate, Visitor or Supporter, receive a prompt email from the betterplace system each time a blog post or photo is uploaded for the project. “There’s a news update on your project!” it says, and since news always serves to pique interest, a single click on an embedded link takes one directly to the updated information on the project blog.

The blog entries also give the project managers the opportunity to show supporters that they are pouring their hearts into their work. Together with photos that portray the history and evolution of the project, the regular blog updates turn the act of donating into a real experience. One doesn’t only donate money or goods, but rather feels connected in tackling the project alongside the project managers.

Low costs – high rewards
It takes less than 20 minutes to post a project on betterplace.org. But without proper care and attention the project may wither. In order for it to grow and thrive, those responsible for the project have to put their backs into it. Verena Sprecht-Ronique has worked with Twende Pamoja since its founding and has been responsible for two projects on betterplace. She invested several hours each week to update blogs and photos and to develop the project’s network. She describes the response of her labors with one word: “Phenomenal!” Not only has Twende Pamoja won countless new donors, but in comparison to the limited fundraising opportunities of pre-betterplace-days, the organisation has now also risen in international prominence. “Today we even receive support from England–a super publicity effort!” according to Verena. As a small organisation, Twende Pamoja has virtually outsourced their Online-Fundraising and now links their projects directly from their homepage to betterplace, where they are then elaborated and evaluated by the Web of Trust.

Activating networks
One important key to a project’s success is to activate one’s networks. You have to hold matches under several logs simultaneously to really start the fire going. In other words: write loads of emails, exhaust the rolodex, inform colleagues, friends and acquaintances about the project on betterplace, send around the link, post it in your email signature, on

Facebook, on Twitter, in your status update, tell the whole world! And be sure to remind everyone: spread the word!

“But don’t forget that the project rating system is also very important,” says Verena. She remembered to ask friends and acquaintances to rate her projects with several stars, pushing them to the top of the Recommended Projects list on betterplace.

Enabling the beneficiaries to act for themselves
Because betterplace participation is possible wherever internet access is, Twende Pamoja decided to take their results one step further: the organisation trained people from Zanzibar on how to use betterplace.org (using laptops that were acquired from a betterplace.org project). With no more go-betweens, the shortest route between points stands wide open: the Zanzibari are now independently fundraising with betterplace for the construction of a street to a maternity ward and for an important bridge. The crow doesn’t fly any straighter than that.

many thanks to Becky for the translation!

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Effective Online Fundraising – in China

Tuesday, August 11th, 2009

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Chinese actor Jet Li

It was only a question of time for populations outside the West to systematically start their own philanthropic efforts and use the Internet for their fundraising. As a cultural anthropologist I have been following developments in the Peoples Republic of China for many years and am still very interested in Chinese approaches to aid and development (a topic one can follow very nicely in the blog of my co-author Pal Nyiri). Thus I read with great interest an article in the current Intelligent Life, a good new journal published by The Economist, about Jet Li and his One Foundation. 

Li, aged 46, started his career as a nationally recognized martial artist. He than turned into a film star starring in the Chinese epos Hero as well as Hollywoods The Mummy movies. His third career is in philanthropy. 

ONE Foundation

When the Tsunami hit Southeast Asia in 2004, Li was on vacation on the Maldives. His small daughter oly just escaped death and this experience left a powerful mark on the actor. Feeling that he had to „give society and the world something back“ he spent 2 years researching how to create an effective foundation, talking amongst others to Bill Gates. Than, in 2007, he founded ONE. A short time thereafter, the Sichuan earthquake shook the country and Li – via a circulated sms – called upon his compatriots to donate. He received 10$ Million during a single week.

Since then, Li has been propagating social initiative as an integral part of „Chinese values for the 21. Century“ and has even managed to get the Communist Party on his side, who until recently looked very sceptically at any civil society engagements. So far over 1 Million Chinese have donated to ONE Foundation – most of them online.

The website also enables donors to donate money via sms or through monthly deductions from their credit cards. That way, says Jet Li, even one yuan (15 cents) can make a difference. 

Early Technology Adopters

Not many – if any – Western charities can claim to use their websites so effectively for fundraising. But thinking about it, the Chinese success makes sense, since Chinese have proved to be early adopters with regards to other technologies as well. I remember researching Chinese migrants in Eastern Europe in the early 2000 and my surprise at their very active use to skype-like communication channels. The families I studied where spread between China and Hungary, but spent every evening with one abother – playing cards over the internet, chatting and showing off their latest clothes. And this at a time when most Europeans had no idea what IRC or Skype was. 

Li’s goal

is to be the main marketplace where the many NGOs operating in China … can pitch for money to the new army of donors. Currently, he says, there are „millions of NGOs in China, but nobody knows who they can trust“. He aims to build a platform based on providing information, „so we can all get to know each other better“.

I think he must mean betterplace.org!

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betterplace – new partners, more power, new perspectives

Tuesday, July 7th, 2009

It took place at noon on Thursday, 2nd of July 2009 in the former “Milchstraßen” publishing house in Hamburg. Seven representatives of the national media gathered in our Hamburg office. Everyone was greatly excited because our new partners were to be announced: Bernd Kundrun, Arno Mahlert and Oliver Grün are three new partners of betterplace. At the turn of the year betterplace will be transformed into a non-profit stock corporation (“gemeinnützige Aktiengesellschaft = gAG”).
Now everyone is probably wondering – why? The opportunity to take a stake offers these partners the chance to share the success of betterplace and even to multiply it in future by combining forces. Personalities from the economy, media and society are expressively invited to actively shape the future of social commitment – a call that Mr. Mahlert, Mr. Kundrun and Mr. Grün have followed. We are delighted to WELCOME them! Arno provides us with his experience from his time as entrepreneur at Tchibo and Beiersdorf and makes his network available. Bernd supports betterplace by actively collaborating, by his contacts in the media sector as well as with a huge contribution from his private assets. As a specialist for fundraising of aid organisations, Oliver will bring the Internet domain “spenden.de” along with software capacities into the gAG.

Needless to say that the betterplace gAG will not pursue any profit maximisation but will remain a charitable (!) “company to improve the world”, meaning that the only return of all parties concerned is a better world – and no money.

With young bloods, the additional know how, lots of teamspirit, and the new effective synergies, we will have the chance to expand our field of activites. This will happen in form of the new „betterplace Lab“. The aim of the lab is to constantly improve the efficiency and the effectiveness of the donation process. Furthermore, because of the integration of “spenden.de”, for the first time it is possible to donate directly for global budgets of organisations, and not only for charity projects. “spenden.de” will be a second platform,  ran by a separate team, but we can benefit from synergies in the common admin-interface.

By the way, in the course of the restructuring there will not be any changes for the betterplace.org-Users. The donations will be forwarded as it was in the past – 100% are forwarded to the projects. More details about the “Lab”, about “spenden.de” und about the gAG will be published and discussed here in our teamblog in the forthcoming weeks and you all are invited to take part in the discussion.

FOTO_BlogpostUmwandlung

Thanks to our new partners we can achieve much more now. But to be well prepared for all these new challenges we were in the need of more energy – so we all met at a huge grill filled up with good vibrations to use the momentum of doing good. We had tons of great salads, we had very delicious beef and sausages, and of course we had a few bottles of beer. Cheers to this eventful day and cheers to all you guys who took part. We say thank you to all who supported us and helped out to make this day so successful.

Posted in Uncategorized, betterplace.org, fundraising, moritz eckert, philanthropy, team news | No Comments »

Invitation to Cinema Jenin. An evening at the Humboldt Viadrina School of Governance

Friday, June 19th, 2009

betterplace.org in cooperation with the German-Arabian Friendship Society (DAFG) has the pleasure to invite to an evening devoted to CINEMA JENIN!. 

The topic of the evening, part of the DAFG series „Is Peace in the Middle East Possible?” is

How can culture contribute to peace? 

The event will take place on Monday, 22nd of June, 7 p.m. at the Humboldt -Viadrina School of Governance  (Wilhelmstraße 67, 10117 Berlin) 

In spring 2010 an impressive cinema, closed since 1987, will be re-opened as a modern cultural centre. The initiators of Cinema Jenin, among them the documentary filmmaker Marcus Vetter, will be screening extracts from the internationally acclaimed documentary The Heart of Jenin, and present the project. During a panel discussion, moderated by Sawsan Chebli, Martin Kobler, Federal Foreign Office, head of the Directorate-General for Culture and Communication, Marcus Vetter and Joana Breidenbach (betterplace.org) will exemplify how art and culture can contribute to peace and mutual understanding in the Middle East. 

The evening will be opened by Prof. Dr.  Gesine Schwan (initiator of the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance) and Prof. Dr. Dietrich Wildung (Director of the Egyptian Museum Berlin and Vice President DAFG). 

The event will be held in English.  

In case you’d like to join us for the evening, please contact Ms. Susanne Weiß (susanne.weiss@dafg.eu; Tel: 030-20648888; Fax: 030-20648889).

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Posted in culture and development, events, fundraising, joana breidenbach, projects | No Comments »

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