From the Director

Dear Friends,
 
Welcome to the first newsletter devoted to the Project on Philanthropy, Policy, and Technology (PPT): Recoding Good for the 21st Century. The PPT project is one of three signature research initiatives that the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society supports. Still a work in progress, PPT has the potential to engage audiences both within and beyond the academy, thanks to the innovative approach of leaders Rob Reich and Lucy Bernholz. The questions that they are exploring should engage all of us as we think through what the new policy framework for social good should look like in the 21st century.

This Thursday, PPT lead investigator, and PACS visiting scholar, Lucy Bernholz will take part in a not-to-be-missed discussion with Beth Kanter and KD Paine, authors of the new book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit: Using Data to Change the World.” Doors open at 5:00pm and the program is slated to run from 5:30pm to 7:00pm at Stanford Humanities Center, Levinthal Hall. RSVP here. If you can’t be there, please participate in the discussion on Twitter using hastag #pacs.

Enjoy the inaugural PPT newsletter!

Kim

Kim Meredith
Executive Director

Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society
Stanford Social Innovation Review

• What does the Citizens United decision mean for nonprofits, philanthropy, and the public good?

• How is digital technology changing our conception of public accountability and public goods?

• How will big data, the sharing economy, and open government influence philanthropy? How can philanthropy influence and shape the evolution of big data, the sharing economy, and open government?

• How can we better align our regulatory frames for public good with the technological innovations being made in bioscience, data processing, and other rapidly advancing fields?

• What is the 21st century policy frame we need to encourage the private and public resources to help address our global challenges? How can we develop 21st century rules to guide our 21st century tools?

 
The answers to these questions will inform policy to create a new infrastructure for the nonprofit sector and the new social economy. Such a system matters to all of us: nonprofits, donors, social investors, social entrepreneurs, activists, and citizens. It should reflect what we want from government, markets, and individuals in solving our shared social challenges.

The ReCoding Good Charrettes are one part of the Philanthropy, Policy, and Technology Project. Each charrette is a discussion about one of the key elements of the new social economy and its policy implications. Scrolling down, you will find an overview of each of the charrettes that have been conducted during the academic year 2011/2012, as well as supplementary information and updates related to the questions that have emerged during this process. Read more about ReCoding Good in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR): The Project by Lucy Bernholz and Rob Reich.

Last month, Rob and Lucy presented some of this work to a sold out crowd of 340 nonprofit leaders at the Stanford Social Innovation Review Nonprofit Management Institute. Click here to read Beth Kanter's blog post about their talk and work, and view the slides they presented.

 
The ReCoding Good Charrettes are one part of the Philanthropy, Policy and Technology Project. Each charrette is a discussion about one of the key elements of the new social economy and its policy implications.

In this newsletter we provide an overview of the charrettes that have been conducted during the academic year 2011/2012, as well as supplementary information and updates surrounding the questions that have emerged during this year.

The first ReCoding Good Charrette was held on January 24, 2012 and focused on intersections between the sharing economy, nonprofits and philanthropy. This charrette aimed to develop a set of big ideas about how sharing practices, platforms and companies are directing private resources to public good and what that might look like over the next decade. Participants also considered the practical policy implications that the growth of sharing companies creates for nonprofits, donors, activists, and social investors. Where are these two parts of the social economy — sharing and giving — in alignment, where might they be in conflict, and what are the policy implications and opportunities?
 

 
Resources

• Rob Reich, Class Day Lecture, (video) The Promise and Peril of the New Social Economy, Stanford, June 2011 (begins at 30:00)

• Yochai Benkler, The Penguin and the Leviathan

• Marvin Brown, Civilizing the Economy

• Lisa Gansky, Six Reasons Why The Sharing Society (aka THE MESH) Will Trump The Ownership Society

• Shareable.net

• 10 Ways our World is Becoming More Shareable — including some data on various elements of the sharing economy and its drivers. Written by Neal Gorenflo

• Steve Case talks about the sharing economy on the Stephen Colbert Show

• Infographic on Car Sharing from the Collaborative Fund

• The Economist on Sharing Economy, Schumpeter, 2010

• Lisa Gansky, The Mesh: Why the Future of Business is Sharing

• Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers, What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption

• Sara Horowitz, "Occupy Big Business: The Sharing Economy's Quiet Revolution", The Atlantic.com, December 2011

• The Sustainable Economies Law Center, (theselc.org)

• Policies for a sharing city (20 part series)

• Categories for sharing companies from Meshing it

• Peer to peer lending in China

Recent Updates

• The Potential For Pitfalls And Success In The Sharing Economy. It seems like every day sees the launch of another collaborative consumption startup. Today’s launch: Sidecar, which is akin to Uber with non-professional drivers. Are we really good enough people to be sharing everything? http://www.fastcoexist.com/1680087/the-potential-for-pitfalls-and-success-in-the-sharing-economy

What will the Citizens United decision mean for nonprofits, philanthropy, and the public good? The second charrette, held on March 20, 2012, attempted to provide an answer to this challenging question. It considered the implications of Citizens United for the nonprofit sector, from a legal, political, and normative perspective. It tackled questions about changes in money flows, the structure of the nonprofit sector, transparency, and the state of data on nonprofits. Jane Mayer of The New Yorker was a special guest at the charrette.

 
Resources

• Jane Mayer, "Covert Operations," The New Yorker, August 30, 2010

• Jane Mayer, "State For Sale," The New Yorker, October 10, 2011

• Larry Lessig, "Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress and a Plan to Stop It"

Two articles that argue the problem is not about "Corporate Personhood":

• Hager & Leas: Corporate personhood is not the problem with Citizens United

• Leas: Constitutional amendment not needed

Recent Updates

• The Money Crisis: How Citizens United Undermines Our Elections and the Supreme Court. By Russ Feingold. Without a significant change in how our campaign finance system regulates the influence of corporations, the American election process, and even the Supreme Court itself, face a more durable, long-term crisis of legitimacy. Read more: http://www.stanfordlawreview.org/online/money-crisis

• Report Details State Legislative Measures in Response to Citizens United Ruling. A new report by the Corporate Reform Coalition details a variety of innovative measures, legislative and otherwise, that states have endorsed to regulate the flow of corporate cash in elections. The report also grades states on transparency in spending and advocates for clearer federal reforms. Read more: http://www.uspirg.org/news/usp/new-report-sunlight-state-state-after-citizens-united

• Political Nonprofits Pushed to Reveal Donors. A U.S. Court of Appeals panel in Washington declined to stay a ruling by a federal judge requiring organizations that run election-related television ads to disclose their donors. Read more: http://articles.latimes.com/2012/may/15/news/la-pn-court-ruling-may-force-advocacy-groups-to-disclose-secret-donors-20120515

• Non-profits Outspent Super PACs in 2010 Election. While super PACs emerged as political players in the 2010 congressional elections, those groups were outspent by non-profit organizations -- many of which keep their donors' identities secret, a new report finds. Read more: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/onpolitics/post/2012/06/nonprofits-outspent-super-pacs-in-2010-election/1#.T-8JZHB9m9I

• IRS Alert for Nonprofits Involved in Campaign Finance. The Internal Revenue Service has decided to revoke the tax-exempt status of a small political nonprofit on the grounds that the organization is not “operated primarily to promote social welfare” and that its activities are “conducted primarily for the benefit of a political party and a private group of individuals, rather than the community as a whole.”  The IRS decision might send a signal that it may turn its attention after November’s election to major nonprofits involved in this year’s election. Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-08/irs-denial-of-tax-exemption-to-u-s-political-group-spurs-alarms.html

• Updating Disclosure for the New Era of Independent Spending. Richard Briffault, Professor of Legislation at Columbia Law School, wrote a new article that lays out a reform agenda for adapting current disclosure laws to the post-Citizens United area. Read more: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2040934

• “Schmooze or Lose.” --  Jane Mayer’s New Piece on Obama and Fund-raising. Jane Mayer, the New Yorker writer and a participant at the PACS’ charrette on Citizens United, details how the current electoral landscape, dominated by large donations of money by wealthy individuals through SuperPACS, is threatening the Obama campaign. Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/08/27/120827fa_fact_mayer

• Jane Mayer’s Piece on Private Money in Politics. Jane Mayer profiles in this piece Bryan Fischer, a little-known conservative Christian radio host in Mississippi. Fisher successfully spearheaded the campaign to force Mitt Romney’s openly gay national-security spokesman, Richard Grenell, to resign in May, inciting a controversy that, Mayer writes, helped “make gay rights one of the defining social issues of the 2012 campaign.” For a press release see: http://nyr.kr/OePRIO

• Political Donations Can Now Be Made Via Text Message. The Federal Election Commission unanimously approved a proposal to allow campaigns to accept donations via text message, helping candidates solicit spontaneous donations from supporters. Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/06/12/us-usa-campaign-textdonatio dUSBRE85B03120120612.

• Campaign Donations Coming Soon to Twitter. A Portland, Ore-based tech company says it will today launch a platform through which people may tweet contributions to politicians and political committees, further capitalizing on mobile technology’s potential as a campaign fundraising weapon. Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77571.html#ixzz1zHp0jzb8

• ProPublica Report on Dark Money. The report highlights the role anonymous money is playing in the current electoral campaign. Read more: http://www.propublica.org/article/two-dark-money-groups-outspending-all-super-pacs-combined.

• New Book by Richard Hasen: "The Voting Wars: From Florida 2000 to the Next Election Meltdown." Read more: http://law.uci.edu/communications/chancellors_chairs.html

Our third charrette, held on May 15, 2012 focused on what is possibly the innovation in the social sector that generated the most excitement and urgency in the past decade: the idea of impact investing. Participants at the charrette investigated whether there are regulations and code changes that might well help grow impact investing without troubling the broader social economy. They also questioned how the rise of impact investing, and its related oversight agencies and regulatory structure, change the nature of the social economy? 
 

 
Resources

• Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money While Making a Difference

• The Campaign for Mission Investing

• Impact Investing: A Framework for Policy Design and Analysis

• From Blueprint to Scale

• New Corporate Forms: Flexible Purpose Corporations, Benefit Corporations, and L3C's

• The Distortion Risk in Impact Investing

• The Trouble with Impact Investing-Part 1

• The Trouble with Impact Investing-Part 2

• The Need for Evidence and Engagement

• Federal Register New PRI Rules

• "Blue Report" (Impact Investing: A Framework for Policy Design and Analysis)

Recent Updates

• The Economist: Warren Buffett and the Giving Pledge. The Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway discusses his motivations for giving wealth away, history's great philanthropists and why his tax return is not a factor. See video: http://www.economist.com/node/21555488

• A Hybrid Foundation: from Grants to Impact Investing. Lucy Bernholz questions whether we need a new form of philanthropic enterprise designed to work across the continuum from grants to impact investing. Read more: http://philanthropy.blogspot.com/2012/05/hybrid-foundation.html

The fourth charrette was held on June 21 at the Stanford Design School. Through the use of the design method, participants approached a terrain of investigation that is still conceptually unclear and underdeveloped: the terrain of the digital economy. Has the creation, distribution, and ownership of material online, and the social connections between people online, caused a revolution in private goods, in the world of commerce? What are the implications of this revolution for democracy and civil society?
 

 
Resources

• Data Philanthropy: Philanthropy 2173

• Design Principles for the Online Communities by Peter Kollock

• Why Open Data Isn't Enough: Open Knowledge Foundation Blog

• Commons Bibliography: David Bollier

Recent Updates

• How Can Data Change Philanthropy? Lucy Bernholz has written about the role of data in philanthropy at length. Here are some ideas in short form that consider all kinds of data - trend, legitimacy, performance, outcome, digital exhaust - and how they can change philanthropy. Read more: http://philanthropy.blogspot.it/2012/06/how-can-data-change-philanthropy.html

• Mapping the Big Data Ecosystem. Matt Turck and Shivon Zilis of Bloomberg Ventures recently made this graphic that maps out the ‘big data ecosystem’.  It is far more comprehensive than the one Forbes put together -- it illustrates how many players are in the space. Read more: http://blog.metalayer.com/post/26160619001/mapping-the-big-data-ecosystem

Social Sector News

Charitable Deductions Under Fire. 
The stage is set for the mother of all tax battles. The 2001-03 tax cuts expire at year-end, and lawmakers remaine deadlocked over what to do about it. Read more here.

Nonprofit Sector’s Big (Often Feared) Question Briefly Arises at House Hearing.
Perhaps it is time to redefine charity and establish priorities—a hierarchy of some sort for charitable activities that should receive preferential treatment in the Internal Revenue Service laws and regulations. Read more here.       

The Economist on Charity and Taxation.
Sweetened charity: The idea that the state should subsidize giving to good causes is resilient, but not easily justified. Read more here.

The Economist: Warren Buffett and the Giving Pledge.
The Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway discusses his motivations for giving wealth away, history's great philanthropists and why his tax return is not a factor. See video: http://www.economist.com/node/21555488

News from the PPT Team at PACS

Lucy Bernholz, PACS visiting scholar, led a discussion on transparency in philanthropy for the Aspen Philanthropy Group. She is planning several events on philanthropy and data with the White House Office of Social Innovation (more information about these events will be regularly updated on PACS website). She is also preparing for the Salzburg Global Seminar in October - with a focus on global philanthropy. 
 
Rob Reich, PACS co-director, moderated this summer a workshop at The Aspen Institute. He also delivered a keynote address to the Gateway Center for Giving in St. Louis, MO. His work was mentioned in the Economist’s article on charity and taxation (see link above) and in David Brooks' New York Times OpEd column. Read more.
 
Chiara Cordelli, a postdoctoral fellow at PACS, has recently published an article on the ethical duties of nonprofit organizations in the provision of social services. The article appeared in the Journal of Political Philosophy. She also attended the International Society for Third Sector Research Annual Conference held in Siena, Italy.