By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors The term “pathfinders” is often used to describe a person or people who leads a pack and shows the way. Seventh-day Adventists call their youth group by that name, and there is a role-playing game comparable to Dungeons & Dragons with the same name. As such, it’s a fitting […]
By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors Just four short years ago, few people would have recognized the name – or the voice – of Sarah Koenig. Today, Koenig, an investigative journalist, engages millions of people and is among the world’s most-listened-to storytellers. Koenig’s medium? The podcast, a once-humble and somewhat experimental method of delivering content […]
By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors We live in an era where technology seemingly changes by the minute. What’s new today is old tomorrow. The trend is not lost on nonprofits, which continually seek how to best incorporate technology into their fundraising efforts. With figures showing recent declines in charitable giving, the quest remains: Is […]
By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors When Annie Cornett was hired by Bloomington-based Social Legends two years ago, the company tracked its projects by using Excel. Teams used both Microsoft’s OneDrive and Dropbox to share files. While this system worked really well for a long time, as the company started adding people, it just wasn’t […]
By Sarah Breitenbach, reporter, Stateline/Pew Charitable Trusts | What if a child’s performance in a fifth-grade gym class could be used to set the rate for a life insurance policy when they’re 50? What if a computer program advertised interactive tutoring when your child struggled with long division? Privacy advocates worry these scenarios could become […]
By Sonal Shah & Hollie Russon Gilman, Stanford Social Innovation Review | Big data has become a buzzword for private, public, and social sector organizations. For the social sector, there is a belief that “big” data is the new panacea to solving our greatest social challenges — whether criminal justice, health care, education, or international […]
By Jing Cao, reporter, Bloomberg News | Dartmouth College computer science professor Hany Farid — using funding from Microsoft Corp. — has developed technology to help scrub extremist content from the internet. Working with the nonprofit think tank Counter Extremism Project, Farid built software capable of identifying and tracking photo, video and audio files, even […]
By Laura Arrillaga-Andreessen for The New York Times | Suppose you want to help people in struggling communities become better health care consumers. Or to try to prevent terrorist attacks using Big Data. Or to develop lab tests that cost a fraction of what most providers charge. Do you create a business or a nonprofit? […]
By Chip Heberden, owner and president, Netlink, Inc. Understanding computer exploits like malware and viruses and how to prevent them, are basic business survival skills these days regardless of your organization’s size. Just like other technologies, security compromises are getting more innovative. It pays to be aware of how to prevent infection and if compromised, […]
By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors Treva Burgess has a second recommendation – Canva. It’s a simple, free, online design tool software, and is a boon for nonprofits that don’t have graphic designers. Setting up an account is free, as are many of its design elements. After creating an account and logging in, the user […]