Gena Rotstein's blog

Next week I will be presenting at the AFP Banff Compass on Philanthropy in a Digital Age and how Cloud Computing and Big Data influence the social profit sector.  I started working on this when we began amassing significant amounts of information through Place2Give.

I was recently asked by Brian Singh, of Zinc Tank, if there is a correlation between “good” charities and their annual reporting styles.  The timing of this conversation was interesting since I had just been introduced to Ashley Good, founder of Fail Forward and the first author of Engineers Without Boarders Failure Report.

What does that mean really? What makes a good charity? And more to the point, who am I to judge?

This past week the Calgary Foundation received a very generous legacy gift from the late Doc Seaman.  This is the largest foundational gift in the history of community foundations in Canada.  The question now becomes, what will the Calgary Foundation do with this investment?

I have been in Las Vegas for the Advisors in Philanthropy conference. I was presenting on Philanthropy in A Digital Age with my dear friend and mentor, Lori Stewart.  The irony isn't lost on me that we are talking about philanthropy and wealth in a city that has been hit hard by the economic downturn and has a tourist culture of excess and consumerism. But is this very thing that is attractive for someone like me who explores complex issues and looks for ways to address the complexities through social enterprise and venture philanthropy.

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This week I have been attending SugarCon2013 in NYC.  SugarCRM is an open source CRM platform that is expanding its market share in the CRM world.  Capitalizing on the elasticity of cloud computing and the open source community of developers, Sugar has created a culture of client-centered solutions for contact management. 

What does this have to do with social change and social capital?

By guest blogger: Adam Aptowitzer, LL.B.

Despite bearing relatively little news for charities this in itself is probably good news for charities.

I am on a flight back from Ottawa as I write this.  The past 48 hours have been very insightful regarding how Federal funding into Canada's business sector is allocated.  The timing of my visit was perfect as the budget is dropping on Thursday and in previous budgets Stephen Harper committed $400MM into R&D for Canadian companies.

I just finished presenting to the ACGC group in Edmonton on social media and the non-profit sector with Arleigh Vasconcellos from The Agency.  There was interesting conversations around the recent budget announcements from the Alberta Government on cutting support to foreign aid organizations (from $1.5MM to $750K) and the ripple effect this will have on Albertans.  It's so easy to divorce ourselves from the global marketplace when it comes to foreign aid - as it is; we have our own "poor people."

I took the last couple of weeks off... Well not exactly "off" but I was on a holiday in Guatemala where I was volunteering for a wonderful NGO - Dentistry for All.  You can read about my trip and the people that I met on my Calgary Herald blog.  There are four articles posted in the Calgary Herald along with photos from Brodie Wilkinson and Hope Photography.  Read more »

Guest blogger: Meghan Somers, Social Media and Marketing Coordinator at The Agency.  The Agency provides the marketing and PR support for Dexterity Consulting and Place2Give.

We often call Place2Give.com the eHarmony of charities. Then we get the inevitable follow up question: what do you mean by that? In honor of Valentine’s Day we thought we would share the Place2Give.com story and the rationale behind the claim that we are the eHarmony/dating website for charities.

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