All posts in Technology

We are very excited to announce the annual call for College Bound Brotherhood grant requests between now and Monday, June 18, 2012.  We are looking to provide $25,000 grants for up to15 nonprofit organizations that are working on college readiness with young black men in Bay Area.

Additionally, we’re interested in organizations that are developing or using information technology platforms/”apps” – exclusively or as part of their overall college access work – to increase the number of African American males that are college ready. This work should have a component that speaks directly to the needs of young black men. Please note: we only make grants to nonprofits; for-profit developers are not directly eligible but may work in partnership with a suitable nonprofit applicant. We’re happy to answer any questions about this new type of funding support.

Click HERE for more information on how to apply.

Please help spread the word and we looking forward to learning about your work.

Stanford Social Innovation Review is providing a free webinar, courtesy of Living Cities, to discuss how new digital media is affecting the world we live in. Join leaders from the Twitter, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and Living Cities to understand how these new digital media trends are changing notions of leadership and to learn how your organization can harness new technologies to accelerate innovation, adaptation, and impact.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012
11:00am-12:00pm PT, 2:00-3:00pm ET

Presented by:
Ben Hecht, President & CEO, Living Cities
Claire Diaz Ortiz, Head of Social Innovation, Twitter
Steve Downs, Chief Technology & Information Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

To find more information and to register, click HERE or go to www.ssireview.org/webinars.

Our own president and founder was just named by Forbes as one of the most influential angel investors on AngelList, an info platform to match up startups and potential investors. The brief article states “These investors, each for different reasons, bear watching as arbiters of what’s next in technology.” We already knew that.

While this isn’t directly related to our foundation programs – except for the fact that we’re able to do this work in part because of those investments – we’re already working to start aligning tech and social change on both sides of the for/nonprofit spectrum. Stay with us as this unfolds.

In an ever growing high-tech world, many nonprofits are making it a priority to incorporate new technologies as best they can with the resources that are available to them. A new article in the Nonprofit Quarterly recently discussed how organizations are increasingly developing the new job role of Social Media Manager or “Publisher”. This person takes on the responsibility of creating content across various communications channels, including e-mail newsletters, blogs, Facebook, video, etc.

In my work with social media and nonprofits, I have found a few overarching trends that nonprofits face in terms of new technologies and incorporating them in a way that is most suitable to their work. Here I have compiled a few tips to help your organization stay up-to-date, build more effectively with online communities, as well as gain more visibility.
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With 87% of the world’s population using mobile phones, it’s clear that the nonprofit sector in the U.S. should be thinking of how to innovate around mobile technology and its work.  Jeff Perlstein from ZeroDivide and Amy Gahran have written a report called “Funding Mobile” that ramps up the conversation on how funders can support nonprofits in using mobile to move their mission. The focus is on initiatives by underserved communities in the U.S. and how funders can strengthen the quantity and quality of support for this work.

To Download the white paper: Full version and Individual sections

Post to Twitter, Facebook: http://bit.ly/MobileZD #mobile #philanthropy #fundertech

Penguin Day is returning to San Francisco on Friday, April 6, 2012.

Full details and agenda are at www.penguinday.org. Thanks to the generosity of Mozilla, there are fee waivers available for anyone who needs one!

Sessions will include:

* Introduction to Free and Open Source Software
* Making sense of Free and Open Source Content Management Systems
* What should a Web Site Cost?
* Introduction to Blogging with WordPress
* Intro and Advanced sessions on Joomla! and Drupal
* Healthy and Sustainable Free and Open Source Communities
* Working with developers: Helping Techies and Non-Techies Communicate
* Introduction to Free and Open Source Desktop Applications
* Creative Commons And Open Content
* Introduction to social media
* How to write a nonprofit tech Request for Proposal (RFP)

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We are very pleased to share highlights of the past year with you! Thanks for helping us make this work happen!

Please note that of the $4.4 million distributed last year:
$2.2 million provided core support for the Level Playing Field Institute;
$1.3 million supported civic engagement & green economy work;
$500,000 supported college access and retention; and
$400,000 supported capacity building & research.

Two weeks ago, I attended the Northern California Grantmakers (NCG) annual conference, “#ReCodeGood: A Look at the New Social Economy”. The conference provided a great opportunity to meet NCG’s newest board members and also featured a panel discussion with leading scholars and philanthropic experts, Lucy Bernholz and Rob Reich. These two have been leading efforts as part of the Project on Philanthropy, Policy and Technology at Stanford University around what it means to “reCode Good”. This refers to the changing landscape of private funds being used for the public good.

Over the past few decades there has been what Lucy and Rob call a tectonic shift taking place, caused by a new social economy. This includes all of the ways that private funds are deployed for the social good. In the past, there has been a distinction between the private, public, and philanthropic sectors; however, because of enormous social and technological innovation, the lines between these sectors has been blurred. These days, one can enter into any of these sectors and be able to work towards social benefit.

This new social economy presents several questions for discussion: Can the same decades-old rules for using private funds for the public good still be used in today’s digital world? Do the same rules still apply? How is digital technology changing our conception of public accountability and public goods?

This coming election will be important as all are in turning out communities of color to vote, as well as passing necessary economic reform measures to help restore California’s economy. Our grant partners like Voto Latino and Oakland Rising are urgently working on campaigns, both national and local respectively, to register and educate voters of color, in addition to mobilizing around key economic policies that will try to rebuild our struggling state.

Using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and blogging, Voto Latino has established a major new media presence online and effectively mobilized Latino youth around voting amongst other pressing issues. Using celebrity voices and the latest technology, they have creatively and effectively registered more than 120,000 young Latino voters, galvanized Latino youth and their families to be counted in the 2010 Census, and mobilized them to speak out and take action on policies impacting their lives.

Also working towards mobilizing more voters of color to the polls is the multilingual, multiracial Oakland-based coalition, Oakland Rising. Believing that a healthier, safer, and more prosperous Oakland is possible for all through building voting power, Oakland Rising is registering and educating low-income Oakland voters, in addition to campaigning for the California Millionaires Tax. Oakland Rising has also used tech tools to spread awareness and anticipates turning out 40,000 votes in support of the tax, having already identified 28,000 supporters in East and West Oakland.

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More and more, conversations are growing around how to use technology for social good. Social entrepreneurs, academics, and activists – in addition to foundations like ourselves and grant partners like our own – are all having these dialogues around each of our respective goals for social change.

In this week’s e-newsletter of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, ten leaders are highlighted who are providing strong examples of effective use of technology for social purpose. You can check them and their projects out here.

In addition to foundations and non-profits, magazines like GOOD are promoting technology for community development. From March 2nd through the 4th, they are hosting a Design Hack-athon in New York City, calling upon “geeks of all stripes” – from designers to developers – to compete in who can design the most effective tool to promote meaningful connections, efficient transportation, clever consumption, educational reform, cleaner environments, and smart economies. We at the Kapor Foundation are intrigued by these innovative efforts to combine technology and social change and are trying to stay on top of where they might lead.

In the past, we have partnered with Kapor Enterprise Inc.’s (KEI) Creative Team to try to be leaders in this area. We have worked to bring our grant partners together with KEI’s Creative Team to receive technical assistance (website, video, social media, printed media, events/presentation, visual identity) with the intention of advancing the goals of our grant recipients. We look forward to continuing to build our work at the crossroads of technology and social justice by staying abreast of new tools and trends that are useful to our efforts and to those whom we work with.