News & Commentary
ArchiveArchive
Mar 24, 2010
Obama’s Missed Opportunity and the P2P Revolution in Philanthropy
Recent posts at Stanford Social Innovation Review and Harvard Business Review cover Obama’s missed opportunity with his donation of the Nobel prize money and the coming P2P revolution in philanthropy.
Mar 22, 2010
Philanthropy Action is Co-Winner of 2010 Best in Aid Award
Last Week, the Aid Watchers blog named it’s winners of the best and worst in aid for the last year. We’re proud to be named among the winners—all of whom are groups aiming to help people give better.
Mar 12, 2010
Teachers Are Made, Not Born
Good teachers are not born. Instead, research increasingly shows that effective teachers consistently possess attainable knowledge about their subjects and take specific actions in the classroom that promote student learning.
Mar 02, 2010
Measuring the Unmeasureable
Some new materials on measuring the unmeasureable in philanthropy.
Feb 26, 2010
A Lesson from Haiti: Are Search and Rescue Teams Worth It?
The images of people being rescued from the rubble in Haiti by international search and rescue teams were inspiring and have led some to call for more investment in search and rescue teams. But looking at the data, I think that’s exactly the wrong lesson from the experience in Haiti. As a public health practitioner, and someone dedicated to outcomes measurement, it seems likely to me that SAR-focused relief efforts improperly subordinate the good of the many to the good of a very few. In other words, there are much better ways to direct disaster relief than SAR.
Feb 24, 2010
Helping Haiti’s Children, Part II
What should people do who want to help Haiti’s children?
Feb 15, 2010
When Good Surveys Go Bad—And How To Prevent It
Surveys can easily lead to bad data and false conclusions that can result in future missteps. For instance, a recent study by Dean Karlan and Jonathan Zinman in South Africa found that roughly 40 percent of survey respondents provided erroneous information about their use of credit. To help organizations use surveys effectively, we’re hosting a conference call on February 22nd at 1pm Eastern/10am Pacific with David and Sean Stannard-Stockton of Tactical Philanthropy. The call is free. To register for the call and get call-in details, send an email to info@ndpmetrics.com.
Feb 11, 2010
A Round-Up of Education Headlines
There have been a number of articles and reports published in the past few weeks pointing toward the value of clear evidence of what works in the field of education.
Jan 25, 2010
A Downside of Donor Education?
In an earlier post I argued that donors pushing for better measurement and accountability might not be as effective as non-profit employees pushing for those same reforms internally, but Mario Morino of Venture Philanthropy Partners takes it one step further and says external pressure might actually be detrimental.