4 Free Open Source Projects to Help You Run Your Nonprofit

Finding the right software for a nonprofit organization can take up valuable time and resources, but open source can often provide cost-effective solutions. We are thrilled to see the number of open source options for nonprofits expanding. These projects—created in and out of the social sector—are examples of the fantastic potential open source has to better equip nonprofits with cutting-edge software, often at a reduced operating cost. The continued development of open source projects for nonprofits also allows for increased collaboration between developers and nonprofits, with the potential to support communities everywhere.

At the Case Foundation, we have long been advocates for expanded use of open source by nonprofits and wanted to flag four examples of this growing trend:

If You’re Looking for an Effective CRM: CiviCRM

Customer Relation Management Systems (CRMs) are key for companies that must manage individual relationships to drive revenue, but they are also often necessary for nonprofits who must manage various types of external relationships. CiviCRM manages donors, suppliers and anyone else who helps a nonprofit achieve its mission. For example, the software can digitize and organize HR resources as well as generate reports on contributions to an organization. It allows nonprofits to both fundraise and create advocacy campaigns, like ‘Get Out the Vote’ initiatives. More than 11,000 organizations currently use this platform, showcasing the breadth of impact open source software can achieve. The National Hispanic Voter Educational Foundation, for example, implemented CiviCRM to create a database to organize over 60,000 contacts and conduct surveys in the community. Visit Project Homepage.


To Send Large Quantities of Email: Mail for Good

It is common for organizations to use email marketing platforms to share their message and news about their work, but those services often come at a price. Enter Mail for Good, which was developed in 2017 by individuals at the nonprofit Free Code Camp, which needed a better and cheaper way to send a large volume of emails. After they built it, they published the code to make sure other organizations who shared their issues could easily find a solution. Free Code Camp can now send out 800,000 emails in four hours with Mail for Good for only the $10/month it takes to support a server instead of spending thousands of dollars per month on a subscription service. Visit Project Homepage.


For Connecting an Organization to Volunteers: Sapphire

An example of how just a few individuals can make a big impact! Sapphire, created through the Code for Change program, is a volunteer management system, allowing groups to organize their paid and unpaid volunteers, communicate new opportunities and keep track of events. High School Senior Armaan Goel created Code for Change in 2018, a school club and nonprofit, to harness talent in high schools and create digital solutions for local organizations, like Exodus Refugee Immigration in Indianapolis. The refugee organization helps individuals rebuild their lives in Indiana and saves precious time and funding by using Sapphire’s digital volunteer system. Visit Project Homepage.


A Quick Way to Create a News Overview: Weekly Roundup

The Case Foundation shares much of the software we produce for our work to the open source ecosystem. A project which we find indispensable for keeping our team abreast of the latest news in impact investing, inclusive entrepreneurship and civic engagement is our Weekly Roundup. This tool allows our communications team to quickly and easily distribute news clips to staff via email. It scrapes metadata (title, date, publication, and description) from submitted URLs, then formats the information into a newsletter that users may organize and edit before sending. The system distributes the newsletter via SendGrid, taking a process that previously took several hours a week to produce and reduces it down to mere minutes, freeing up our staff time for other work. Visit Project Homepage.


The open source ecosystem contains a wealth of software and technical expertise, and we are happy to see so many join together to unleash that potential for nonprofits and foundations. The projects highlighted here are just a sampling of what can be achieved with this kind of collaboration, and we look forward to continuing to shine the light on opportunities for open source to be used to the benefit of the social sector.

Five Open Source Projects We Love

The open source community has no shortage of projects devoted to social change and improving lives. Pick a need, and there is likely an open source solution for it, but it is often difficult for projects that have a social good application to get the notice they deserve. This is a shame as the collaborative and transparent nature of open source is a force-multiplier for changemaking efforts and when properly supported, open source software can spark innovation, accelerate social good. Therefore, here are five open source projects that we think show the potential for open source to make a real impact in the non-profit world. 

Givesource

The creators of Givesource had a vision that there could be a cheaper and better fundraising platform for nonprofits. Through a partnership between Firespring, a Lincoln, NE-based marketing and software company, and the Jeffrey S. Raikes School of Computer Science and Management, the team built a fundraising tool to power the Lincoln Community Foundation’s Giving Day but with a broader vision of creating a platform that out-performed anything on the market at a far-reduced operating cost. The result is a platform that empowered the Lincoln Community Foundation to set a new record for giving, slashed their processing and platform fees, and attracted the attention of local media. Anyone seeking a best-in-class tool for fundraising can tap into the power of Givesource as it was designed from the outset to be open sourced. 

Learn more at Givesource.com 

Tidepool 

Seeing firsthand how little interoperability there was between diabetes devices and their data, Tidepool founder Howard Look set out to create an open source toolkit that allowed users, both individuals with diabetes and medical professionals, to better combine and analyze data from the multiple devices diabetes patients must use to manage their health. Users of Tidepool’s software can explore their data on a personalized dashboard and easily share that data with their doctor, ending the need for patients to physically go to their doctor’s office to share their data. Similarly, researchers using Tidepool’s platform can share their data in real-time with the research team.  

Learn more at Tidepool.org 

Code for America 

Code for America empowers citizen developers to help their communities using their talents. Salt Lake County was struggling with a solution to notify people for court appearances or for court-ordered treatments. The Code for America Fellowship group approached the problem by starting with extensive research and a user-centered design process which yielded evidence to disprove the commonly-held notion that most individuals simply skip or forget their court dates and other appointments. Instead, their research showed a wide range of reasons individuals missed their dates and there was a need for a better tool for communicating with their case officers at any time. Therefore, Code for America’s team built ClientComm, an open source platform that facilitates easier communication between case officers and their clients by giving the case officer’s a sophisticated management platform to track their clients and gives end-users a simple text-message-based platform that allows them to contact their case officer immediately in any situation. 

Learn more at ClientComm.org 

Mifos 

The Grameen Foundation found a key barrier to their goal of helping the 2 billion poor and unbanked worldwide was the lack of good financial services platforms. To address this problem, they created Mifos, an open source financial services suite that institutions may use to easily offer low or no cost digital banking solutions to their customers. As a totally open platform, banks may use and expand upon the features in Mifos to best serve their customers all while being part of a community of users of the tool who share and collaborate on features. Mifos’s mission now is to spread the use of this platform across the world, starting with developing regions where there is little to no access to banking. 

Learn more at Mifos.org 

Open Agriculture Initiative 

An initiative of the MIT Media Lab, the Open Agriculture Initiative’s works to create healthier, more engaging and more inventive future food systems and drive an ecosystem of open source tools to support transparency and innovation across their work. Some of the many open source projects they support include a set of tools for using technology to optimize conditions for growth. These applications include the Tree Computer for tree growth, the Personal Food Computer for tabletop-sized environments, and the Food Server which manages large-scale hydroponic installations. In addition, the Open Agriculture Initiative supports research to incorporate computer vision and machine learning into their projects to enhance their growth management tools. 

Learn more at media.mit.edu/groups/open-agriculture-openag/overview 

Whether it is reducing the cost of fundraising for non-profits, improving the lives of patients, making government systems more friendly for citizens or supporting teams that are focusing on the food of the future, each of these projects highlight the benefits that can come from the wide embrace of open source by the non-profit and philanthropic sectors. We tip our hats to each of these organizations who are ensuring that their work is available to all—embodying the Case Foundation’s vision that open source is a form of philanthropy. We look forward to showcasing further examples of open source work being done by individuals, nonprofits, and companies. If you have or know of a project that you believe is fearlessly trying to make change in a community or the world, let us know at opensource@casefoundation.org. 

It’s Time for Philanthropy to Open the Door to Open Source

Innovation is driving technology and change faster than ever before. Yet, when I am asked about technological innovations that have the best chance to make an impact in the future of philanthropy, I often cite a collaborative approach that is closely aligned with the technology world, but can no longer be considered cutting edge: open source.

This may not be the answer that many are expecting, but open source’s collaborative and transparent nature is well suited for philanthropy and its ability to leverage the power of many to do good at minimal cost lends itself to being one of the keys to the next phase in the evolution of philanthropy.

Open source software allows anyone to read, study, modify and redistribute a software’s source code with little restriction other than that free access is maintained. It is often developed in a highly collaborative manner with many people contributing pieces of code and it is found in a wide variety of places – the overwhelming majority of consumer devices include some open source code.

For many philanthropies and non-profits, open source provides the opportunity to save money and time. There is a growing community of coders experimenting openly and sharing ideas and software covering everything from website and app development to artificial intelligence and blockchain. By embracing open source, foundations and nonprofits can tap into this space of bright technologists and innovators for free. In doing so, they will gain access to battle-tested code and ideas, allowing them to focus on their core missions.

For others, it is an opportunity to leverage the time and money they have put into building software and programs so others in the field can use them. In our network of changemakers, we see many organizations producing innovative platforms and technologies that are used to create social change. Why not further that effort by open sourcing that work so that many more can use, improve and share it? Our experience shows that by including open source from the outset of a plan, you reap the benefits of including a community in your work and have a product that can be shared with the larger community with minimal effort. And, frankly, isn’t the act of open sourcing software in line with most philanthropic missions?

Open source has other benefits as well. The collaborative nature of open source can encourage philanthropies to engage with new audiences and to connect technical and nontechnical participants. We have seen that reaching beyond your bubble and forging unlikely alliances between those working to solve the same problem can yield impressive and transformational results.

We’re already seeing philanthropies embrace open source. For example, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation developed an open source platform to drive the adoption of digital financial services in developing countries. Mojaloop, the platform’s name, creates a standard system for banks and other financial service providers to communicate and execute transactions at a lower cost than competitors for the nearly two billion unbanked people in developing regions.

Throughout the Case Foundation’s history, we’ve recognized the value of open source software by both using it in our work and supporting others who are a part of the community. Some of our greatest efforts such as Make It Your Own and America’s Giving Challenge succeeded because open source software enabled us to move quickly and experiment with new ideas without having to start from scratch. We were also early supporters of groups such as Code for America which produces open source software and organizes communities of citizens to also create and contribute open source solutions for their towns and cities.

And we are now building all the software we produce for specific campaigns with an eye on making them open sourced as well. For example, we have provided the open sourcing code from our #FacesofFounders campaign allowing any organization to launch a similar campaign focusing on user-generated content. And this year, we plan to release even more open source projects produced through our broader work here at the Case Foundation. We hope that–along with many others–we can help the social sector see the benefits of open source, spark innovation, accelerate social good and ultimately help change the world.

We hope you will join us.

The Best Newsletters for Philanthropy News

The world of philanthropy is always evolving, and our team is inspired each day by the tremendous giving that is taking place across the globe. From families and entrepreneurs lining up to give a majority of their wealth away through the Giving Pledge, to the boom of online giving platforms being modernized and democratized, to open source emerging as a new form of  philanthropy, there’s a lot to keep up with and celebrate. The many advances in the practice of giving back have opened the doors for new givers, both large and small, who are supporting nonprofits that are changing the world.

At the Case Foundation, we want to empower people to use their time, their talents and their treasures, and the first step to doing so is understanding the field. We are often asked how we stay up-to-date on the news across the sector, so we’ve compiled a list of newsletters we read each week that will bring you up to speed on all things philanthropy.

  1. Philanthropy News Digest from Foundation Center is a weekly news digest of the top philanthropy news. Sign up here.
  2. Inside Philanthropy has the top news in who’s funding what, and expert commentary on the philanthropy world. Sign up here.
  3. Future of Philanthropy from Fast Company has weekly updates on the individuals, groups, ventures and tactics leading the way in philanthropy. Sign up here.
  4. Philanthropy Today from the Chronicle of Philanthropy is a daily roundup of the news in the nonprofit world. Sign up here.
  5. The NPQ Newswire from Nonprofit Quarterly has a rundown of the latest events and trends on fundraising, philanthropy, nonprofit board governance and nonprofit management. Sign up here.
  6. SSIR Now is Stanford Social Innovation Review‘s weekly roundup of their top news stories covering the world of social change. Sign up here.
  7. Emerging Practitioners in Philanthropy’s newsletter covers philanthropic, foundation and changemaking news with a focus on the next generation of innovators. Sign up here.
  8. Causeartist shares news in social impact with a focus on socially conscious consumerism. Sign up here.
  9. The Daily Good is a daily digest from Good Magazine that shares the top news geared towards next generation conscious consumers. Sign up here.

With these great newsletters, you can be better informed as a practitioner and as a philanthropist just by checking your email. And if you’re interested in the news on our other movements, check out my roundup of Inclusive Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing newsletters.

#GivingTuesday: a Chance to Use Tech to Give Back

Some time ago, the idea of putting your credit card number on the internet seemed unthinkable, but today almost 80 percent of Americans shop online. And with the holidays coming up, online marketplaces are seeing an impressive spike in both traffic and orders. In fact, this year, more people are expected to shop online than in-store.

While e-commerce has forced traditional brick and mortar retail to evolve, the convenience of online shopping for consumers has been advantageous for online giving. This summer, we talked about how tech trends like the emergence of online payment platforms have made it that much easier for everyone to jump into philanthropy. Millennials are key players in that trend too; the Millennial Impact Report found that 80 percent of Millennials made donations last year, and 62 percent have expressed interest in using mobile as a giving platform.

In 2012, we helped support the first official #GivingTuesday campaign, founded by the 92nd Street Y and the United Nations Foundation. We were very excited to play a part in #GivingTuesday’s transformation from a campaign to a movement, both through our own donation matching campaigns and by supporting the overall tracking of fundraising activity each #GivingTuesday.

Five years later, it’s more convenient than ever to give. New platforms allow users to search for charities that match their interests, donate by shopping for things they’d already buy and use social media to donate and fundraise.

Here are some easy ways you can use tech to give on #GivingTuesday.

Donation Platforms

If you’re not sure where to start, there’s a variety of platforms that can help you find a cause you’re passionate about and verify the credibility of the organization behind it so you can donate with confidence.

If you shop online, you’re already familiar with PayPal, but did you know that you can also use the payment service for donations? The Paypal Giving Fund lets you browse charities and donate to them online through your PayPal account.

If you’re searching for a specific charity, or already know which issue you want to support, Network for Good* has an online database of over a million charities of all sizes and issue areas. You can also purchase Good Cards on the site if you want to give someone else a gift card that they can use to donate to the charity of their choice.

Interested in taking a more international approach to your giving?  Global Giving allows you to donate to vetted projects from around the world and will send you updates on how your money is being put to work.

And if you’re interested in helping educators in the U.S., Donors Choose can connect you to a public school in need. Teachers use the site to share the projects for which they need funds, and how much they need to reach their goals. You can use the site to donate to the classroom project of your choice.

Crowdfunding platforms

Donating to a crowdfunding campaign is a great way for people on a wide range of budgets to work with others in the online community to help someone in need, and there are several platforms you can use.

GoFundMe allows online donors to contribute to individuals or groups taking on a wide variety of projects and problems. And it’s making a real difference—more than $4 billion has already been raised through the site. If you’re looking to contribute to an individual or a new organization that hasn’t registered as a charity yet, GoFundMe provides that flexibility.

Crowdrise is a social fundraising tool that supports corporations, nonprofits and events. Nonprofits and individuals can set up fundraisers for their favorite cause with specific goals and timelines. Do you want to use your network to expand your impact on #GivingTuesday? Crowdrise can help you do that. The website also allows users to explore trending fundraisers and look for ones in the categories they’re interested in.

A different type of online crowdfunding source is Kiva. Kiva gives users a chance to lend as little as $25 to help people across the globe with everything from going to school to launching a business. Kiva donors get their loans repaid, and then can reuse the repayment for another loan, or withdraw it.

Purchase roundups

When checking out at a brick and mortar store, you’ve probably been given a chance to round-up your purchase to the nearest dollar or more and have that extra change go to charity. Now you can do that online, and you can choose which charity receives that extra money.

We micro give is an online platform that rounds your online and in-person purchases up to the nearest dollar and donates the change to the charity of your choice. The site allows you to set monthly maximums and provides users with an online dashboard to summarize their giving activity.

Similarly, Coin Up offers a website and an app that donors can use to have their credit and debit card purchases rounded up and donated. The site tracks your donations over time and sends a year-end donation total so you can see your yearlong impact.

Network for Good* recently launched Hippo Give, an app that also helps you make secure donations through purchase roundups. You can support multiple organizations with your spare change and see your donation activity tracked in real time. Hippo Give even makes a donation on your behalf when you get started. It should be noted that this is still in minimum viable product development stage (MVP), but it’s an exciting new platform that shows promise.

And finally, if you use Amazon.com, you can give back without spending an extra dime just by changing the URL. If you use https://smile.amazon.com/, 0.5 percent of your purchase total will go to the charity of your choice.

#Donate Using Social Media

Organizations and individuals often use social media to give their fundraisers a promotional boost, but now there are ways to donate directly though the social media sites themselves.

Facebook has a donating platform that organizations can use year-round to give their followers an easy way to donate and share. And this #GivingTuesday, the site is stepping up its commitment to support online giving through an up-to-$2 million matching campaign in partnership with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

You can also donate instantly across social platforms with Goodworld. All you have to do is comment or reply #donate on a participating cause’s Facebook or Twitter post, and you’ll be sent a secure, one-time link you can use to apply your donation.


Last year, #GivingTuesday saw a record $168 million in charitable donations, and we expect to see similar results from today’s activity. Every year, online platforms like these make it that easier, more interactive and more fun for users to donate to causes close to their hearts. Charitable giving is truly just a click away. We hope you’ve been inspired to give to a cause you care this #GivingTuesday (November 28 this year) and throughout the year.

 

*Brian Sasscer is on the Board of Trustees for Network for Good

A New Form of Digital Philanthropy: Open Sourcing #FacesofFounders

Open source software, by its simplest definition, is a work of software whose source code is available for others to read, study, modify and redistribute with little restriction other than that the free access is maintained. Earlier this week, I wrote in an op-ed in the Stanford Social Innovation Review (SSIR) about how we at the Case Foundation see open source as another form of philanthropy—a digital one whose contributions influence the success of many by providing publicly accessible software. In the article, I shared how we see the potential of open source software and how it can spark innovation, accelerate social good and ultimately help change the world.

Building on the early work of Jean and Steve Case—pioneers in the democratization of information with AOL—technology has always been a crucial part of how the Case Foundation works, and our tech-centric legacy has led us to champion early ideas that are now commonplace such as online giving and digital advocacy. In the course of that work, we have often used open source technologies because of their scalability and opportunity for customization. Giving the technology we create for projects at the Foundation back to the open source community is the next logical step. As we take on new challenges and new campaigns that serve our movements, we will also begin to take the time to ask ourselves and the community if a project that we think would be good for our efforts would also be good for others’ efforts. If that is true, we will dedicate time and resources in the project to open source the components that the community needs. Our contributions will always follow the needs of our broader goals, and we will open source the work in which we and the community find of real value.

So, as a part of our commitment to this open source ideal, we are excited to release the code that powered our #FacesofFounders campaign. This open source code includes features that powered the social photo upload and filters, applicant and story submissions, and the distributed judging platform. By releasing this platform’s code into the community, we are aiming to help those looking to launch similar campaigns where applicants must submit information and have a pool of judges evaluate the submissions.

We designed this platform that powered the first phase of the #FacesofFounders campaign to attract entrepreneurs, particularly women founders and entrepreneurs of color, to share their photos and stories of entrepreneurship on FacesofFounders.org or on Twitter using #FacesofFounders. Launched at the White House’s South by South Lawn festival, in partnership with Blackstone Charitable Foundation, Google for Entrepreneurs and UBS, along with Fast Company, #FacesofFounders sought out and lifted up America’s dynamic entrepreneurs who are key to driving innovation and job growth. The winners of the crowdsourced contest, who were reviewed by our panel of 40 guest judges, were selected because they bridged innovation and a commitment to inclusiveness. We then featured the winners of the contest on FastCompany.com and our #FacesofFounders Medium publication.

The technology powering this campaign was a huge part of its success, and we’re excited to share this code with the open source community. Throughout the judging process, we received numerous comments on how easy it was to use. The platform has three unique components that are all a part of a combined codebase.

Social Media Profile Photo Filter

The first of which is the photo upload feature that allowed visitors to upload a photo (or select their Facebook or Twitter profile photo) and place a campaign-themed filter on top of it. The visitor could then make that filtered photo their profile image on their social media profiles, and the photo was added to a shared photowall on the homepage, which continually displayed all new and past filtered photos. In addition administrators had the ability to remove inappropriate photos from the homepage.

Story Submission

The second feature is the story submission system. In addition to, or instead of, uploading a photo, visitors could submit their story to the judging platform. This submission tool contains customizable forms and can be placed in a “closed” state once judging begins. All submissions entered through the form then go into a queue for a site administrator to assign to judges. Because the platform is built into WordPress, it is also possible to directly upload submissions via WordPress’s dashboard.

Story Review and Judging

The third and final component of this codebase is the judging platform. As visitors submit stories, they queue in the judging section of the backend. Once all submissions are final, assigned judges can log into the platform and request submissions to review. The judges score each submission on a numeric scale, and the platform uses those scores to begin ranking each submission. Site administrators can then log in and view the stories ranked by their aggregate scores to determine winners. The entire codebase comes packaged as a WordPress theme for easy deployment and visual customization using WordPress’s robust theme system.

This open source #FacesofFounders platform is a useful tool for organizations running any sort of applicant submission and review process, and it could be modified to accommodate a grant or scholarship application review, among other uses. If you have a pool of judges or reviewers who are geographically separated or difficult to coordinate on schedules, the platform accommodates such logistical challenges by facilitating an individualized back-end review process. We believe that this code will be integral for the prizes and challenges community.

Given the collaborative nature of the open source community, we are looking for organizations interested in using this code in their own campaigns, as well as suggestions for ways to improve the #FacesofFounders codebase. Moving forward, we plan to share more of the software powering other campaigns and efforts with the open source community.

We at the Case Foundation hope our work can help others, and we’ll do our part to help catalyze the open source movement as we share our resources, our time and our talents with the community. We are excited to share this multifunctional platform with the community, and we look forward to further contributing to this part of digital philanthropy.

You can find the #FacesofFounders platorm here.

An Imperative for Nonprofit Boards: The Time is Now to Step Up Your Game

This piece originally appeared on BoardSource’s Exceptional Boards blog.

Over the years, I’ve had the great privilege of serving on a wide range of boards — from early stage startup companies to large, established nonprofits — and have observed firsthand the variety of hats we board members can wear. The role of board member compels us to be diligent in our roles as fiduciaries, but that’s just the beginning of our responsibilities. We also need to be champions of and networkers for the organizations we serve. And, particularly in a world where change is accelerating and disruption is becoming the norm, we also need to step up and challenge the organizations we care so much about.

Drop into the average board meeting as an observer and you’ll be quick to spot the fiduciary at work, or the helpful board member offering up valuable insights or supportive compliments. What might be harder to spot is the “fearless challenger” in the mix. And this is for a good reason: Quite commonly, board members view their role as “protector” of the organization, legally bound to ensure the longevity and solvency of their organization. For some, this mandate is a call to exercise an abundance of caution and focus on risk mitigation — in essence, do what they can to be sure bad things don’t happen. But, while of course that’s important, it’s incomplete. Today’s board members have to go further, and challenge the organization to be sure good things happen, too.

Earlier this year, BoardSource released Leading with Intent: A National Index of Nonprofit Board Practices 2015 in which chief executives and board chairs used BoardSource’s 10 basic responsibilities of nonprofit boards — including mission, financial oversight and strategy — to assess their board’s performance. The result was a disappointing B- average, reflecting “responsible, but not necessarily exceptional, performance.” The Leading with Intent survey found that boards have a particularly difficult time adapting and adjusting to change, noting that “boards do well at functions related to compliance and oversight, but face challenges with their strategic and external work.”

Given the critical role boards play in influencing and guiding the work of social sector organizations, when it comes to performance, anything less than exceptional is simply unacceptable. Underpinning all of our fiduciary and legal responsibilities on the boards we serve is the need to help our organizations adapt, innovate and…change.

We live in a world where the pace of change is unprecedented. It’s not just the old organizations that have to reinvent their ways of doing business to keep pace, even new and highly successful organizations such as Google, Facebook and Amazon routinely adapt their structures, their practices and even their workforce to stay relevant and ensure they are well poised for the future or adapting to new market opportunities as they emerge.

In the social sector, many of the organizations we serve are on the front lines of the world’s most pressing challenges where the “same old way of doing things” is simply not an option. As noted in the Leading with Intent report, this assessment should serve as a wake-up call for boards. If we want to move from a B- to an A+, we all have work to do. We must understand that while risk mitigation is important, it’s also important to push the organizations we serve to try new things, experiment and challenge the status quo. Often for an organization to stay nimble, it needs to feel it has the backing of its board to take some risks and be bold. If we, as board members, don’t provide the requisite “air cover” to encourage risk taking, we are not really serving the organizations’ long-term interests.

Through time there have been many examples of organizations we can learn from that missed the mark on these fronts. Shouldn’t Kodak have brought us Instagram? Shouldn’t Blockbuster have brought us Netflix? Instead, they were utterly disrupted by these upstarts. These companies didn’t have their heads in the sand — they were aware of the upstart challenges — but they didn’t organize and prioritize to meet the challenge. They were taking what they thought was the safe route, and it turned out to be the risky route. They were stuck playing defense, when they needed to play offense.

If we are privileged to serve in board roles then we need to be bold enough to ask the hard questions and challenge the organizations we are there to support. In this period of great disruption and change, it is imperative that boards don’t just focus on the current operations, but also keep an eye toward the future — and make room for the necessary strategic conversations about the future.

How can these ideas be put into practice? Here are three specific suggestions:

  • Ask your CEO to highlight “threats and opportunities” as a routine part of board sessions, not just report out on current operations. On this point, remember that often everything is fine until it is not, so relying just on current operating activities without an eye on the broader landscape can represent its own “head in the sand” risk.
  • Make sure someone at the table is routinely asking, “How is the landscape around us changing, and are we adapting fast enough to meet these challenges and leverage new opportunities?” If you don’t have board members asking these questions already, you can “assign” this role to a given board member or members to ensure that the requisite conversation takes place. This “designated hitter” approach (often via a lead director) offers a safe and effective method to put on the table what some board members are really thinking or questioning, but often don’t feel comfortable to be the first to put forth. By openly “assigning” this role at the start of dialogue, a CEO can get the “unspoken” issues on the table.
  • Ask the CEO what she/he needs to ensure that the organization’s future can be ensured, and strengthened. As a board, be prepared to listen carefully to the answer to this question. All too often budgets are prepared under the assumption of what the board expects. What the board really needs to know is what the CEO really thinks the right path forward should be — not what the CEO thinks the board wants to hear, or might readily approve.

By formally inviting an all-cards-on-the-table conversation, board members can be candid and honest in providing feedback, without worrying that their suggestions or critiques might be viewed as unsupportive. This kind of dialogue can help build trust and a sense that “we are all in this together,” which can go a long way to furthering the goals of the board and the organization.

Last year, I had the privilege of speaking at the BoardSource Leadership Forum about why we all need to Be Fearless in the social sector. I laid out the five key principles that typically are present when organizations or movements achieve transformative breakthroughs. The response was overwhelming, as I heard from many in the community afterwards about what they were already doing in line with the Be Fearless principles, or what they were inspired to do moving forward.

Since then, we have been working closely with practitioners in the field to improve our Be Fearless Framework for Action. We heard from many of you what worked and what didn’t, and as a result we’ve revamped the tools, to make them more useful — including adding more ways to assess your organization and identify opportunities for increasing your impact.

I invite you to check out the new Framework at CaseFoundation.org/BeFearless — and hope you will let me know what you think about it so we can continue to improve it.

Being the fearless one in the room — especially the boardroom — is never easy, but it is necessary if we are going to fully support individuals and organizations that will create the transformative change the world needs. These ideas may seem foreign to some, given the traditional boardroom dynamics that are so commonplace, but they are grounded in real-world examples and best-in-class practices that yield results…results the world cannot wait for any longer.

Jean Case is CEO of the Case Foundation, and serves in a number of board roles, including: the National Geographic Board of Trustees; Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2); SnagFilms; BrainScope Company, Inc.; and the White House Historical Association. In addition, she is also a member of several advisory boards, including: Georgetown University’s Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation; Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative; and the Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.

Be Fearless Spotlight: Baltimore Corps

This Spotlight is authored by guest writer Caitlin Kelly as part of a special blog series by the Case Foundation featuring Be Fearless stories from the field. Follow along with us as we meet people and learn about organizations that are taking risks, being bold and failing forward in their efforts to create transformative change in the social sector.

Too many people still think of his city as a morass of strife and failure, says Fagan Harris, co-founder and CEO of Baltimore Corps, an innovative two-year-old organization working to change that perception.

In April 2015, after police arrested Freddie Gray, a 25-year-old African-American Baltimore resident who later died in police custody, the city erupted, with at least 20 police officers injured, 250 people arrested and hundreds of businesses damaged. Vehicles and buildings were burned and pharmacies looted. It looked like an episode of the unrelentingly grim television show that, for many, still defines the city, The Wire.

Harris, who grew up in and around Baltimore and who returned in his late 20s, is passionate about the city’s potential, despite the “fact that too many people, when they think of Baltimore, imagine a broken, dysfunctional city. The truth is Baltimore is home to creative thinkers and truly visionary leadership working everyday to strengthen community,” he argues. This understanding of the opportunities that lie within Baltimore—and many other cities that share a similar history—is what drove Harris to develop a bold approach to forging a new talent pipeline for the city.

Baltimore Corps is a committed group of 35 skilled professionals working closely with a range of cause leaders at leading nonprofits, social enterprises and government agencies to accelerate and scale the impact of effective models for social change. Each cause leader and placement organization pays their Fellow(s) stipend and a nominal program fee to Baltimore Corps. Fellows work full-time at their placement and commit for one year.

Fellows earn a baseline stipend of $32,000; Baltimore Corps aggressively markets its fellowship to talented Millennials across Baltimore and the country, and the organization saw 500 applicants last year for its 35 fellowship positions. To insure a strong mix of local knowledge and fresh thinking, “the best of both worlds,” adds Harris, half of those accepted are city residents.

“At Baltimore Corps, we’ve made a big bet that Baltimore is a frontier of social change,” says Harris, a graduate of Stanford and a Rhodes Scholar. “What New York City is to finance and San Francisco is to technology, Baltimore is for social change. If we can get it right here, we can get it right anywhere. We have more models for strengthening communities than many other places.”

The Corps’ work combines several simultaneous initiatives: to attract the best and brightest workers committed to effecting social change, to help local nonprofits and government retain them so they can grow and better achieve their goals and, through those combined efforts, to help Baltimore thrive. The riots lent an urgency to Baltimore Corp’s work as his staff “did a ton of volunteerism” and several fellows, due to begin their jobs in September, began in June instead. “We responded urgently to help clean and build up and relocate people. As a place-based organization, it’s critical that you’re a good neighbor.”

The city needs them to stay—and they need good jobs; nine of ten of the first class of fellows were hired full-time at the end of their work with Baltimore Corps, a result that thrills, but doesn’t surprise Harris. “We work hard to recruit for fit,” he says.

But initially attracting bright, ambitious fellows who’ll choose to make a life in Baltimore after their year’s commitment is a challenge, Harris admits. “It’s working so far, but it is a challenge.” Popularly, Baltimore is still seen as a second or third-tier city, Millennials are “very, very mobile” and many are deeply wary of any work involving government. To sweeten the offer, the program opens a deep network to fellows, offering ready access to corporate executives, even the city’s mayor, which would be nearly impossible in a larger city.

Baltimore Corps, unusually for a new, growing nonprofit, relies heavily on technology and data to keep careful track of fellows’ work, of their satisfaction and their work’s impact, checking in with each of them every 90 days. The hands-on approach can be emotionally draining, he admits. “This is risky, hard work. It can be heart-wrenching and lead to some soul-searching conversations.” The diversity of our corps and placement partners is powerful but it also challenges…A leader with an Ivy MBA tends to rely on different approaches than a leader who hasn’t graduated high school, and pairing the two has produced “abundant examples of friction,” Harris admits. “We ask for humility and patience. It’s not something we try to paper over.”

“We need more people in the fight putting their shoulder to the wheel and pushing,” says Harris. Bringing talent into Baltimore to partner with the city’s most promising cause leaders and social impact organizations propels ambitious professionals and graduates eager to accelerate their social justice careers, and the city has seen an out-migration of people in their 20s and 30s, leaving local groups and agencies hamstrung, he says. “When we think about scaling the most important and impactful work, we have to ask ‘What’s the hold-up?’ It’s not money or a lack of ambition. It’s deploying the right human capital to drive scale.”

After a local group, Thread, which helps underachieving high school students, found new blood through Baltimore Corps, the program scaled their organization by a third.

The fellows work with a wide range of partners, some with social entrepreneurs who are building organizations with only two or three people to large, bureaucratic and long-established agencies like the City Health Department. “That’s maybe non-traditional,” says Harris, “but we need to work with all of Baltimore. That’s really been a value of ours since Day One.” Doing so effectively means creating what he calls “a tapestry” of small and large social enterprises, nonprofits and government agencies and departments “working together to meaningfully promote the city.” Key to his vision is getting groups together to share information that typically don’t, who normally choose to “silo” their knowledge instead of cooperating.

The Corps’ five-member board “has been really tremendous,” offering “new energy and a new perspective” by attending staff meetings and giving plenty of feedback. “They’re very hands-on. They’re tremendous partners who are not just a board but five really terrific advisors.”

“Our number one goal is to identify what’s working here and grow it,” says Harris. “The families, the neighborhoods, the city–we really want to see things strengthen and improve.”

Feeling inspired? If you’re ready to begin your own Be Fearless journey start by downloading our free Be Fearless Action Guide and Case Studies.

Photo credit: Flickr user Cayusa, used via Creative Commons.