Transparency in Israeli philanthropy continues to be a big deal in the press as a result of the recent JFN Conference. According to the Forward:

"The Israeli government does not demand the same level of financial reporting of nonprofits as does the United States, and it does not publicly release the financial reports that it does receive, as has become increasingly common in the United States and Great Britain with services like the Web site GuideStar. The result is that transparency and public oversight are often lacking."

A must read article: As Ranks of Israeli Wealthy Swell, Philanthropic Sector Plays Catch-Up image source: The Reut Institute...

Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance and education center in Jerusalem, has launched two YouTube channels in advance of today's Holocaust Remembrance Day. The channels, in English and Arabic, went live Tuesday. The English channel contains testimonies from Holocaust survivors, including archival footage, historians’ lectures on key issues related to the Holocaust, footage from visits to Yad Vashem, including those of President George W. Bush in January 2008, and Pope John Paul II in March 2000, as well as human interest stories, such as family reunions. The Arabic channel has testimonies and archival footage about the Holocaust, with Arabic subtitles. “We know that YouTube is one of the most popular websites today. This ...

The American Red Cross spent $10. million to develop their web site; $2. million annually sustains it. While I do not know any organization in our communal world with an expenditure so large, I do suspect more than one are in the same ballpark as a percentage of their operating budgets. So, the question is, you've put all this time, effort and money into the site. Beta-tested new ideas; possibly even held focus groups. And you're still left with the nagging question,

will they come?

You can easily fall into a bottomless pit spending money to market your website. But, there are also many (and important) ways you should be building your brand for free.

...

America's family foundations gave away $16 billion in 2006, a 13 percent increase from the previous year, according to Key Facts on Family Foundations, released last week by the Foundation Center. Since 1998, the first year for which statistics on family foundations are available, giving by these grant-makers has more than doubled. Family foundations also accounted for the bulk of giving (59%) by independent foundations. According to Steven Lawrence, senior director of research, "Despite the economic fluctuations since the start of the 2000s, donors and donor families have continued to establish new foundations and build the endowments of their existing foundations. We expect these trends to continue to boost family foundation giving for the foreseeable future." Among the key findings:

• 67 percent ...
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Hot Off The Press - being released later today: In the for-profit dot.com world, the bottom line is easy to measure — it comes down to dollars and cents. For nonprofit organizations, success is more difficult to define. How many people were educated? Informed? Served? Engaged? Activated? How much money was raised? Did legislative policy change? Corporate policy? Public opinion? The eNonprofit Benchmarks Study is the first of its kind look at the effectiveness of major American nonprofit organizations using the Internet to raise money and influence public policy. The study is a tool that nonprofits can use to measure and compare their online performance ...

Facebook messaged the 4,600 fans of the FacebookPages Page with helpful hints on how to make your presence on Facebook go viral (by messaging all of your fans, for example). Check out some key strategies from the most successful businesses on Pages, including:

• Regularly adding engaging and useful content
• Letting fans participate in the conversation

To read about some winning strategies—along with the nuts of bolts of how to create and manage a Page—here's a link: Insider's Guide to Viral ...

The Spring issue of Non-Profit Quarterly is out; titled "Leadership Without a Safety Net". Their focus in this issue is "to draw readers away from the emphasis on strategic career development and towards a focus on leading for impact and effectiveness." Two articles you may find of particular interest are Gap or Pap: Generational Differences at Work and The Evolution of Nonprofit Management Programs (registration / subscription required).

Gap or Pap: Generational Differences at Work by Jennifer J. Deal

Conventional wisdom about the dynamics of the nonprofit workplace would have us believe that a great generational shift is under way and that the up-and-coming have a fundamentally ...

A new study at an Irish university suggests that gossip influences generosity, reports Reuters. NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Worried about what people are saying about you? Concerns about gossip could influence behavior, including generosity, researchers said. "As it turns out, the act of gossip can indeed be quite powerful," said Jared Piazza of Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Read more here. Perhaps the Jewish Funders Network should pass the study details over to the Israeli philanthropists who participated in their recent Conference here in Jerusalem. See our previous post, Israeli Philanthropists: Afraid of Transparency.

Paying a fundraiser a commission is a controversial issue. Many professional organizations ban the practice outright in their Codes of Ethics. Here in Israel, while such is also the practice among professional fundraisers, every week advertisements appear for commission based positions in parts of our fundraising community. From Prospecting, we bring you a recent post on the subject. We think this is a relevant and important issue in our international Jewish community. Therefore the complete post follows... When Susan Herr ran a struggling charity, she was sometimes tempted to reward her fund raisers financially for their success, not just for their effort. “My (desperate) thinking: I’ve got no money to hire someone and if this gal can bring in some funds, why ...

Celebrate Israel's 60th anniversary with a new dance from Moses. Brought to you by Birthright Israel.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hH3crBQyyhY[/youtube]

Chag Pesach Sameach

Shabbat Shalom from Jerusalem