Tori Hogan at the Social Edge blog “beyond good intentions” recently wrote about the problems with getting reliable feedback from projects in international development, and what GlobalGiving has been doing to improve feedback. Here is an excerpt:

“My old stats professor will probably kill me for this, but what ever happened to good old-fashioned gut instincts? Do you trust anecdotal reports by people who have visited field projects and come away with certain perceptions?

I started considering this concept recently when Marc Maxson at Global Giving introduced me to a new project they’re running that allows people who visit any of their countless field sites to submit ‘postcards from the field‘. These blog-like reports written by non-professionals (mostly by interns and student travelers) have an open-ended framework and are only guided by the question,’”what would you tell your friends about this project?’ According to Marc, ‘gut feelings about recommending a project are broad enough to predict deeper problems.’”

Tori dug through our more than 70 postcards from 2009 and found that this new Visitor Postcards program still needs more volunteers to scale up. I quote again from that post:

“However, as I scrolled through the “postcards” I had a really hard time finding any that were critical of the organizations they highlighted. Are visitors afraid to report on problems or are these organizations actually as perfect as they sound? Marc informed me that, ‘most volunteers try to self-filter and only say good things publicly, but privately send in negative comments.’ Well, it’s not perfect, but at least it’s a start!”

This remains true. The vast majority of comments on projects are positive, although I can think of two organizations who hosted visitors this year that posted negative comments and triggered larger dialogues. But anyone doing a spot check on our postcards is bound to miss them because they are not a significant fraction.

Bloggers and the public are our advisors. I personally thank Tori and look forward to doing what I can to get more honest feedback from visitors onto the site. Visitor postcards have played a major role in the outcome of one organization, and we will be presenting a case study on this at the upcoming Skoll “International Social Innovation Research Conference.”

I replied to Tori’s post:

We think visitor postcards have been a major success because more people are getting a first-hand account of what projects look like. And (as our case study will show) it also works to reform a problem project. The power of real-time feedback loops was enough to cause the organization visited to dissolve and reform under new leadership of a group of underserved beneficiaries. This happened in spite of the “self-filtering” problem we discussed.

Visitors often don’t realize that they omit inconsistent (negative) details when they have good rapport with the people the meet. This is human nature, and affects tourists and evaluators alike. I urge you to read “The Surprising Power of Neighborly Advice” from Science Magazine (March 2009), which shows that (a) strangers’ gut feelings are more reliable trust indicators than a set of facts and (b) most people DO NOT BELIEVE THIS even though they act on it.

I cannot underscore strongly enough that getting more people to walk through more  village-level development projects would transform the way that money is spent, for a variety of reasons.

I hope you’ll attend our talk at ISIRC in September, 2009 - Oxford!

Save to:  

Can the Internet revolutionize citizen-led philanthropy?

That’s the question The Case Foundation and Parade Magazine are hoping to address with the America’s Giving Challenge, the first large-scale initiative to use technology as a way of inspiring people to support causes they care about. Through the Challenge, which runs from now through January 31, 2008, Parade is encouraging individuals to champion causes they care about, raising donations online using Web 2.0 tools that make it easy to spread the word and give. And there are some other incentives (of the monetary sort) too: the eight “fundraisers” attracting the greatest number of donations for their causes will each get $50,000 for their chosen cause, and the 100 causes that receive the most donations will each get $1,000.

GlobalGiving is one of the two partners selected by Case and Parade to support the Challenge (Network for Good is the other, for US-based organizations) - so anyone who wants to support an international cause will have the opportunity to fundraise for or donate to a project on GlobalGiving - with the potential to get $50,000 for that project!

The Washington Post and New York Times have already written about the Challenge, which kicked off yesterday, and the really big bang will come this weekend, when Parade is featuring the Challenge in its magazine (look for Denzel Washington and Oprah Winfrey on the cover) - which is distributed in over 400 U.S. newspapers, and has a readership of more than 70 million!

So if you’ve got a favorite project, now’s your opportunity to help them get $50,000. Set up a fundraiser, create a charity badge, tell all your friends, leverage your social network, take the Challenge…become a part of the revolution!

Save to:  

As Thanksgiving approaches, I can’t get these holiday carol lyrics out of my head. Working on the project team at GlobalGiving, I have the privilege to work with the amazing project leaders and innovative organizations that list their work for funding on our website. This also means I get an up close and personal look at the challenges our partners face on a daily basis. Here is one description of the journey to send an e-mail in Malawi:

“Well, first I leave the school and hop on my bicycle. After riding my bike for two hours over dusty, bumpy roads, I arrive at the internet café. Then I write out my e-mail carefully by hand and give it to the owner. Assuming the internet isn’t broken that day, he logs on to the only computer in the village and sends the e-mail for me.”

Rather than braving the river and woods to get to grandmother’s house, each day our project partners face challenges ranging from lack of electricity or internet connectivity, natural disasters like floods and earthquakes, health crises including malaria and HIV/AIDS, non-existent transportation infrastructure, or unstable political environments. Tasks that seem like no big deal to those of us in the U.S.—sending an email, turning on the lights, making a phone call—can be time consuming and difficult.

With all of these challenging circumstances it’s a wonder that anything gets done at all! But the most exciting part of my job is that not only is stuff getting done, our partners are tackling the most difficult challenges our world faces right now and achieving great results. It’s a testament to the determination, creativity, passion, and insight of the projects listed on GlobalGiving that each day I get to read updates from the field like this:

“The Roteang Village children have nearly completed the immunizations…” from "Provide 570 Children with Lifesaving Vaccines" in Cambodia.

“One of our a pioneer teachers at Nyaka told me last year that because of his job at Nyaka, he has been able to buy land, take care of his twin sons and daughter, and take care of his aging mom and dad…” from "Nyaka School for Children Orphaned due to HIV/AIDS" in Uganda.

“Through these two projects, we secure transportation and safe passage for women who are fleeing their homes to reach the shelters or other refuge…” from "Safe Houses for Iraqi Women" in Iraq.

Whether arriving via the back of a bicycle, the dusty Indian mail service, carrier pigeon, or solar-powered dial-up email, project updates keep donors informed about all things (good and bad) going on with the project on the ground. Clicking “submit” isn’t the end of a donation to a GlobalGiving project—it’s the beginning of an adventure!

Save to: