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

Posted on May 30, 2018October 25, 2018 by Case Foundation

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.

Charitable Giving 3.0: Tech is Changing the Way We Give and Give Back

Posted on November 29, 2016October 30, 2018 by Case Foundation

We have long been enthusiastic champions of democratizing philanthropy at the Case Foundation. In the same way that technology has leveled the playing field to allow all voices to be heard, we believe technology has proven its potential to empower anyone to become a philanthropist. Indeed, as the nation sets its sights on another #GivingTuesday, it is important to remember that online giving was just a nascent movement not that long ago.

Our early work in experimentation with social media platforms included America’s Giving Challenge (AGC), dating back to nearly a decade ago. At the time, we were concerned that both donors and nonprofits weren’t fully prepared for the potential of the brand new world of social media, and we knew we needed a bold step to move people toward the online tools we knew could transform the future of online giving.

AGC called on citizens everywhere to use emerging social media platforms to get engaged and give to causes they cared about. Incentives were established to encourage the greatest number of donations, not necessarily the largest, and donations of all sizes were welcomed. As part of the campaign, our “Gear Up for Giving” helped train thousands of individuals and nonprofits so that they could best leverage social media to reach their networks. We also invited people everywhere to be champions for their own causes, instead of curating a list that were our favorites.

Back then, online philanthropic competitions of this kind were relatively unheard of, and I’ll admit that we weren’t sure what to expect at first. There were so many unknowns. Would the big organizations dwarf the little guys? How would social media be activated to spread the word and reach new audiences? Would organizations be nimble enough to effectively mobilize their networks? To our surprise it was the small organizations that had the most success, and taken together, microdonations from across the nation represented significant sums for the winning causes.

Along with partners like Causes on Facebook, PARADE Magazine, Network for Good, and GlobalGiving, over the course of these two Giving Challenges we were able to mobilize nearly 200,000 people and nearly $4 million was raised for thousands of causes. Both Challenges were effective in helping the nonprofit sector become more skilled in its use of social media and they inspired other corporations and foundations to launch similar online contests. Following this work, the Case Foundation published findings and lessons learned, and worked closely with follow-on campaigns such as the Pepsi Challenge and days of giving that were popping up across the nation.

Ever since those early pioneering efforts, we have remained captivated by the idea that emerging technologies and tools can be leveraged to democratize philanthropy and provide new significance to the individual donor.

Over the years, both through the Case Foundation and through individual investments, we have encouraged “good” giving and have supported different ways to leverage technology to drive a social mission—including the very first DC Give to the Max Day, Causes on Facebook, Network for Good and MissionFish. Combined, Causes, Network for Good, and MissionFish alone represent more than $2 billion in crowdsourced contributions to the nonprofit sector.

These early online platforms and technologies provided a new way to increase opportunities to give by uniting people around causes that were close to their hearts and deepening their civic engagement. This was game-changing and has led to many innovations that have changed the way we give and give back.

In a few short years, online platforms like Network for Good, Crowdrise, Indiegogo, Razoo, Classy, and GlobalGiving have gained in popularity and have been instrumental in raising billions of dollars. Through these platforms and others like them, individuals could fund all kinds of inspiring causes and needs and, perhaps most importantly, catalyze civic action one donor at a time.

This is why we were intrigued to answer the question, “what’s next in online giving?”

At its Social Good Forum just a couple weeks ago, Facebook announced that users can now build their own fundraising pages that link the donate button to Facebook Live videos. Imagine being able to show, via live stream, your support for a cause while viewers donate in real time. The possibilities seem almost limitless. What’s nearly as exciting to us is that Facebook collaborated with our longstanding partner, Network for Good, to make this happen. It stands to reason that we will soon see fundraising on other social media platforms like Snapchat, which recently introduced Snapcash, and Twitter, which already allows for direct payments using $Cashtags.

And there may be no better example of the growing and transformative power of social media and the spirit of collaboration in philanthropy than #GivingTuesday. In 2015 alone 698,961 online donors raised $116.7m on #GivingTuesday, and #GivingTuesday continues to grow in size with a 52 percent year-over-year increase in online donations.

We’ve had the pleasure of being involved with #GivingTuesday from when it was just a concept being formulated by our friends at 92 Street Y and the United Nations Foundation. Since its inaugural year in 2012, we have been vocal supporters of the #GivingTuesday movement because it reflects our long-held belief in the importance of collective action.

While many look towards foundations, corporations and the government for resources, they often forget that 72 percent of giving in this country comes from individuals—and, if we’re ever going to see tipping points in addressing chronic and significant social problems it will require mobilization of the masses.

The good news is that online giving grew 9.2 percent in 2015 compared to 2014—we are seeing growing momentum in the mobilization of online donors. But I believe we have only scratched the surface. Just 7.1 percent of overall fundraising dollars are raised online. And when looking at the next generation of 80 million Millennials, we know that they primarily use digital technology such as websites, social media and mobile platforms to access information about and donate to causes and nonprofits, and that each platform plays a distinct role. And while giving offline will likely remain an important way to give for some time to come, we also must continue to leverage new technologies and data to make the process of giving even more convenient and rewarding.

If the past is any indication, we have an extraordinary opportunity ahead of us to further connect the passion of individuals ready to make a difference with new platforms, technologies and innovations that can help them do just that. This #GivingTuesday, each and every one of us has the opportunity to donate to the causes that matter most to us. Our hope is that the democratization of giving will be further strengthened in the days ahead and our communities made stronger as a result.

Citizens at the Center: How Technology is Unleashing a new Public Commons

Posted on May 31, 2016March 10, 2024 by Case Foundation

Putting people at the center of the solutions to their own problems might seem obvious—and yet time and time again, whether in business, government or the social sector (including nonprofits and philanthropy), we see well-intentioned professionals engage in program planning in conference rooms under fluorescent lights with little or no input from the very citizens the programs they create aim to serve.

At the recent New America Annual conference, I had the opportunity to sit down with the organization’s CEO, Anne-Marie Slaughter, to discuss the role that citizen-centered ideation and innovation must play in solving our most pressing social problems. And what role can technology play to better engage citizens and create a new kind of “public commons”? As we’re witnessing more and more, technology’s power to encourage, facilitate and increase citizen-centered dialogue, deliberation, organizing and action might be exactly what we need to make sure people living the problem are given the opportunities to define and solve problems for themselves.

Nearly a decade ago, the Case Foundation commissioned a report to look at this opportunity—drawing out challenges and opportunities for a deeper level of civic engagement—in which citizens are invited into the process of developing solutions in their own communities and creating ongoing feedback loops to ensure continued dialog over time. The report, entitled “Citizens at the Center,” laid out a framework for action—a path for engaging the people who have lived the problem to identify solutions—through business, government and the social sector. The idea caught on—since that time we’ve seen a range of organizations, initiatives and governments embrace this approach.

Not surprisingly, technology has played a huge role in advancing this mindset—with the ubiquity of the internet and the increasing access to mobile devices, everyday citizens can now reimagine how best to access healthcare services, find and qualify for jobs, access markets and supply chains, and yes, find paths to capital that can enable them to build their new enterprises—benefits once reserved for the elite. And they are speaking up and connecting with government to improve quality of existing services, or suggesting needed new programs and services. The increasing demand for improving transparency and reducing government bureaucracy, combined with the evolution of digital technologies, has opened the door for the creation of programs that can successfully engage the public and encourage their direct involvement in driving innovation and improving how government serves them. At its core, this is an opportunity for government to return to the roots of democracy—a government that is for the people, and more significantly, by the people.

One example is Boston’s Citizen’s Connect—a mobile app that gives citizens a way to communicate and collaborate on the issues they are seeing and experiencing at the municipal level—providing the city government with real time feedback on everything ranging from bad potholes to missed garbage pickups. Steve Goldsmith highlighted this example and others like it in his book The Responsive City.

Here at the Case Foundation, we’ve been passionate about the potential for technology to ignite civic engagement in a variety of ways. For instance, our first foray into the space was with our Make It Your Own Awards in 2007, a platform that enabled citizens to champion their best ideas for working with others to bring solutions in their own communities. Then, in 2008, our Change Begins With Me campaign, brought the best thinking forward from thousands of citizens across the nation who made a pledge to personally make a difference in big or small ways in their home communities. These programs were followed by some of the earliest work in crowdfunding social media campaigns when we introduced America’s Giving Challenge, together with our partners PARADE Magazine, Network for Good, GlobalGiving and Causes on Facebook. All in all, more than 200,000 citizens came together to champion causes they cared about and encourage others to join in. All in all, nearly $4 million was raised for great causes, most of them local, small and previously unheard of—with average donations of about $25.

As these approaches continued to pick up steam, we partnered with the White House in 2010 and 2012 to co-host The Summit on Innovation, which brought together more than 35 agencies for two daylong public-private strategy sessions focused on promoting innovation through the use of prizes, challenges and open grantmaking. An outcome of this work was Challenge.gov, a platform that provides opportunities for government agencies to tap into the innovative ideas of its citizens through the use of prizes and challenges competitions. On any given day, this platform enables citizens to engage in meaningful efforts of federal agencies as they seek to better serve those they represent.

In the years since, President Obama has gone to great lengths to express the importance of employing a way of governing that gives citizens a voice and empowers them to solve big problems. In his own words (spoken at this year’s SXSW Interactive Conference), President Obama asked, “How can we start coming up with new platforms, new ideas, new approaches across disciplines and across skill sets to solve some of the big problems that we’re facing today? (evercoach.com) Because, I’ve said this before, I said this at the State of the Union, the most important office in a democracy is the office of citizen.”

Innovation and technology is increasingly becoming a democratizing force as citizens from all walks of life are given the opportunity to more fully engage in the process of solution-seeking. The cloud-based platform Akvo FLOW places the needs of community members at the center of local and regional governance. Through its sophisticated data collection technology, citizens themselves can monitor and report on water, sanitation and hygiene programs in real-time; the result is reliable information that better informs policy planning and infrastructure management. Another example of technology being developed with citizen engagement in mind is MobiSAM. This mobile app is aimed at promoting dialogue and facilitating interaction between citizens and local government in South Africa around the provision of basic services.

Even with all of these incredible advances, we still have a long way to go before we fully realize the benefits of deploying all of the arrows in our quiver when it comes to fully unleashing technology in ways that engage those who have lived the problems we are trying to solve. But given how far we’ve come in a decade, I have no doubt that with the rapid advances in technology we are closer than ever to realizing a democracy where all citizens are fully engaged and firmly at the center of decisions that matter the most.

What’s So Wrong with Nonprofits Playing by Market Rules?

Posted on March 27, 2015October 31, 2018 by Case Foundation

Here’s the thing about markets – they have this uncanny way of being candid, sending demand signals that companies need to pay attention and adapt to in order to thrive, if not survive.

So why is it that the nonprofit sector is uncomfortable with embracing more market-based approaches to its work? This week’s feeding frenzy of articles criticizing the Council on Foundations for its experiment to host a $40,000 pitch competition to identify new organizations and approaches to drive social change is an example of this discomfort. In fact, the frenzy was so severe, that the Council decided to cancel the pitch competition and instead host a discussion on the merits and drawbacks of new approaches to grantmaking.

One of the pillars of our work at the Case Foundation is “revolutionizing philanthropy.” We believe that the practice of mobilizing private capital for public good is in need of a major reboot. In order to keep up with the pace and scope of major social challenges, the resources and tactics going into addressing these challenges and the organizations managing those resources need to be more efficient and effective. And as a sector, we need more catalytic, collaborative and creative solutions.

That’s why we’ve tested programs like the Make It Your Own Awards, the first campaign to open up a part of the grantmaking process to an online public vote. Or the America’s Giving Challenges (in 2007 and 2009), which mobilized over 150,000 donors to give $3.8M to over 14,000 causes, most of which were small and scrappy. That’s why we created the Be Fearless campaign – because we believe that in order to create more innovation in our approaches to social change, we must all take risks, embrace and learn from failure and make big bets. And that’s why we consistently provide catalytic funding to partners that are experimenting with new approaches and hoping to find breakthrough solutions and collaborations.

We’ve long championed the potential for prize and challenge programs – including initiatives like pitch competitions – to discover breakthrough innovations. We know that sometimes the people with the most innovative solutions to big problems will be found in unlikely places – just take the wedding dress designer who played a critical role in helping to dramatically improve the design of the Ebola Protective Suit worn by health care workers treating the disease, thanks to a challenge hosted by USAID’s Global Development Lab. The U.S. government has broadly embraced the use of prizes and challenges, which kicked off with the Summit on Innovation that we co-hosted with the White House in 2010, leading to the creation of Challenge.gov, which hosts hundreds of prize and challenge competitions across 50 federal agencies. And we were proud to join some of the philanthropic sector’s leading innovators – Bloomberg Philanthropies, the Joyce Foundation, the Knight Foundation, the Kresge Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation – in publishing a 2014 report on the ways in which incentive prizes are transforming the innovation landscape.

We love to see new practices for crowdsourcing ideas, pooling resources, disrupting old ways of doing business, testing new approaches and massively publicizing – if not competing – new programs. Why? Because, quite frankly, despite a massive amount of good accomplished with billions of nonprofit dollars, the evidence base for impact remains unsatisfying. We’re not saying that we should swing the pendulum completely toward prizes, challenges and other experimental approaches – but deploying tactics that can help us discover new ideas from unlikely places is desperately needed.

We have a saying at the Case Foundation based on an old African proverb – if you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together. What if, instead of trashing the Council on Foundations for trying something new, we embraced it as a fearless attempt to disrupt the status quo with the hope of finding a better way? Sure, we might each have our tweaks on how to make it better (e.g., having a panel of judges, not the audience, vote on the winner). But as a tactic, it brings a fresh market-based approach and has the potential to expose innovative people and ideas to a broad community of funders, who just might decide it’s worth pooling their resources for greater and faster impact.

We look forward to the discussion on the merits of new grantmaking approaches at the Council’s conference, but we’ll wistfully be wondering what it would be like with the pitch competition in full swing, tapping into the “wisdom of the crowd” and fully embracing of the idea of democratizing philanthropy, making it easier for anyone to participate in the efforts to solve big, hairy problems.

Want to continue the conversation? Tweet us @CaseFoundation with the hashtag #CFBlog!

AGC Conversational Case Studies: A special sauce for contest success?

Posted on May 24, 2010November 1, 2018 by Case Foundation

This post was written by Allison Fine on behalf of the Case Foundation:

For this third and final Conversational Case Study on America’s Giving Challenge from Beth Kanter and I, we wil pose a question rather than answer one: Is there a “special sauce” for successful participation in online fundraising contests?

Any good sauce is always a combination of ingredients, never just one thing. So is successful social fundraising. Based on our assessment and review of winning efforts in other contests, it seems clear that some of the key ingredients include:

Personal Appeals

People naturally respond more frequently to personal appeals from family and friends. Personal solicitations to existing donors and friends through multiple channels were rated as the most effective methods for fundraising by Challenge participants. Thirty-five percent rated messaging to friends through Facebook as most effective; 32 percent rated personal email to friends, family and colleagues as effective or most effective; and 25% rated email to existing organizational donor base as effective or most effective.

Thankfulness

Many of the winners cited the importance of thanking donors profusely throughout the contest. Food for People not only made personal appeals to their donors but also went to great effort thanking their donors knowing that a well-thanked donor is likely to help solicit their own friends for the cause.

Transparency

Creating public spaces to share information about who is doing what is also a very effective strategy. The Overseas China Education Fund maintained and shared a wiki about who was asked to do what.

Spreading Out the Work

One of the most powerful attributes of social media is the ability of large numbers of people to coordinate their actions as part of a larger event. This type of grassroots activism can be enormously effective for contests or any type of cause-based movement.

Some like Atlas Corps recruited 150 “Campaign Captains” before the contest started. These Captains agreed to get between 5-10 of their friends to give to Atlas Corps during the contest. One of the Captains was so excited about the contest that he made a challenge to his friends that if 100 of his friends donated to Atlas Corps he would go on a 30-mile bike ride in his underwear. His friends responded and he lived up to his promise. Take a look at the bottom and see for yourself!

Other organizations broke their efforts down into bite size pieces for their volunteers by creating templates to use to send messages to their friends, post and comment on blogs, and create their own videos. Here is a template page for the Challenge created by GlobeMed for its supporters.

A Picture is Worth a 1,000 Donors

Most of the winners, including our first Conversational Case Study organization Darius Goes West, chronicled their efforts by video. Students involved in GlobeMed made a series of videos and posted them on YouTube.

Face-to-Face Can’t be Forgotten

Brick and mortar methods still reign as a highly important aspect of online giving campaigns. Five Star worked with their local Chamber of Commerce gathering to set up a laptop and how to give in-person donations.

Contests are important to this concoction because they provide a framework for engaging the community, an urgent deadline for action and, in best cases (such as the Giving Challenge), matching funds for the winners. But in the end, we wonder if there is some other unique quality or combination of these ingredients that makes each person or groups efforts “special” and successful, that turns some combination of activities into a community of energetic people actively engaged in supporting a friend or a cause.

Our questions to our readers, doers, champions and participants, are these:

In your experience does a concoction, some blend of activities and tasks, exist, that makes some groups or people more successful than others in fundraising contests? And if so, what are they?
Under what circumstances does some combination of activities work best?
Is there a tool or action you think might work well in the future that you’d like to test next time (e.g. a geo-location service like Foursquare?)
Are we trying too hard to be prescriptive in discussing sauces, and should we just let people create their own recipes?

Guest blogger Allison Fine is a writer and activist dedicated to understanding and enhancing efforts to use new, social media tools for social change.

America’s Giving Challenge is off and running!

Posted on October 8, 2009November 1, 2018 by Case Foundation

It’s an exciting week at the Case Foundation … not because of us, but because of you. That’s right, because yesterday, we launched the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge – the success of which rests entirely on the ability of individuals like you across the country to step up and take the Challenge by supporting nonprofits in need.

Actions can range from promoting your favorite cause via social networks like Facebook and Twitter, to making a simple donation to one that touches your heart or speaks to a smart idea. The prize structure provides lots of opportunities to win based on the number of donations received – so literally every day different causes stand a chance to win – no matter how big or small.

Our 2007-2008 Giving Challenge mobilized more than 70,000 small-dollar donors to raise over $1.8 million for hundreds of nonprofits nationwide. We’re proud to once again partner with Causes and PARADE Publications to spark new momentum for passionate people and teams everywhere to harness the power of their online and offline social networks to catalyze civic action.

We’ve been overwhelmed and inspired by the thousands of individuals and nonprofits that have taken advantage of the social media training sessions and resources we made available as part of our Gear Up for Giving efforts in the past month. We look forward to seeing how new skills are put into action over the 30 days of the Challenge.

While nonprofits continue to struggle in these tough economic times, we also know that online giving is up and that nonprofits are outpacing other sectors when it comes to the adoption of social media. That’s why it is our hope and sincere belief that as with the last America’s Giving Challenge, individuals and nonprofits will experiment with social media tools and find new ways of engaging friends and colleagues to make a significant impact on the causes they care about.

As part of our involvement, the Case Foundation is pleased to provide more than $150,000 in award money for the Challenge, which will include both daily and overall prizes that will reward individuals and nonprofits who are able to truly galvanize their networks to get the most people to donate to their cause. In addition, a generous $20,000 contribution from the Aspen Institute has enabled us to add a second tier of daily prizes, which we found was a key driver of activity during the last Challenge. Along with award money, we believe that the opportunity to raise awareness and attract new donors, donations and supporters, as well as the overall sense of competition and urgency created by the limited time frame of the Challenge will drive participation and excitement for the campaign.

We recognize that we’re launching this year’s Challenge in a far more constrained economy than our first Giving Challenge. However, we also recognize that nonprofit organizations have seen a decrease in giving while the need for their services continues to rise. We believe the need for a citizen-driven effort like this, that leverages the collective power of individual contributions and micro-donations, has never been greater. We’re hopeful that this year’s America’s Giving Challenge will once again demonstrate the potential of social networks to make a significant impact on the causes people care about, even in tough economic times.

So, we hope you don’t delay. Everyone has a cause they care about and everyone can participate in America’s Giving Challenge in any way they choose – you can be a cause champion, donate or help to advocate for the causes you care about most. Tell your friends and make sure the causes you care about are part of this Challenge. More information and the opportunity to take action is available at AmericasGivingChallenge.com. We’ve also got a great set of resources for participants to help you get started.

We hope you’ll join us as we, together with our partners in the Challenge, set out to demonstrate the power of social media to bring people together in citizen-led efforts for good and to prove that micro-donations can be combined to make a powerful difference. We invite you to keep checking the leaderboards to see for yourself the difference you and others can make through this year’s Challenge.

It’s Official – the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge Launches October 7!

Posted on September 22, 2009November 1, 2018 by Case Foundation

We are very pleased to announce today that the Case Foundation, Causes and PARADE are joining together to present the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge, a national competition launching on October 7.

The Challenge, which will be featured in an October 11th cover story in Parade and will utilize the Causes application on Facebook, will enable passionate individuals and nonprofits to compete for awards of up to $50,000, based on the number of donations they garner for their favorite cause.

The first America’s Giving Challenge brought together tens of thousands of people and motivated them to give to the causes they care about. We hope this year’s Challenge will not only help nonprofits leverage their existing efforts to raise awareness, support and donations, but will be a catalyst to help nonprofits think about how to use online social networking and social media in a more strategic way to engage supporters for their causes.

In the weeks ahead, we’ll share more details about how this year’s Challenge will work. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, I encourage you to check out our Gear Up for Giving training sessions aimed at helping nonprofits better navigate the world of social media. It is our hope that nonprofits participating in these sessions will put their new skills in action by participating in America’s Giving Challenge. In addition, you can help us spread the word about the upcoming launch by blogging, tweeting (using #AGC), posting on Facebook, or sharing with your network in some other way. We look forward to having you join us for the 2009 America’s Giving Challenge!

Autumn updates from Jean Case

Posted on September 10, 2009November 1, 2018 by Case Foundation

As the summer winds down and we gear up for what promises to be an exciting fall at the Case Foundation, I thought it might be useful to step back a bit and reflect on our work – both the wonderful opportunities that we encounter every day as we invest in people and ideas that can change the world, and in the challenges and barriers we face as we work with our extensive network of partners and organizations to do great things.

Together with many of our colleagues in the philanthropy and nonprofit community, the macro shifts that have taken place around us in the past year have caused us to look hard at what we fund and to be vigilant in assuring that our resources are deployed in smart, effective programs that are yielding meaningful outcomes. And, despite the worst economic downturn in recent history and major transitions taking place in the public sector, we are pleased about the progress of the initiatives we’ve supported and enthusiastic about the new opportunities ahead.

One example for instance, we launched a civic engagement campaign in January to coincide with the inauguration of President Obama. The campaign, entitled “Change Begins with Me,” called on citizens to make commitments to “be the change” through small or very significant personal acts – anything from shoveling snow for a neighbor to tackling bigger issues at the community or even global level. Last week, we announced that a sampling of participants suggests more than 90% of those that made commitments said they’ve already fulfilled them. The number exceeds where we thought we would be with the campaign at mid-year, so we feel very good about those efforts.

But at the same time, on a larger spectrum, the Civic Health Index, released just last month by the National Conference on Citizenship, reports that volunteerism and acts of civic engagement are down in the nation overall, with the economy cited as the #1 dynamic influencing citizen efforts on these fronts. We’ve put significant Case Foundation efforts and resources toward civic engagement and volunteerism in recent years, and so the report reminds us that we still have a long way to go to achieve the kind of active civic engagement our nation and communities need and deserve.

Our main area of investment in health care has been in the brain cancer arena, through Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2), an organization that was launched with an innovative approach toward accelerating therapies for brain cancer patients. The organization was created to be a collaborative that brings together scientists, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, universities and other nonprofits. When we launched in 2002, we knew it would be a longer versus shorter haul toward desired outcomes. For many years and through many millions of dollars of investment, we have worked with the scientific and medical communities toward the goal of new therapies for patients. We had a sense of slow momentum as we aimed our focus at the screening of compounds and increasing the number of clinical trials and scientific convenings that we hoped would advance the field and result in new therapies being approved for patients. Admittedly, as the years ticked by, there were periods when we questioned if our investments were paying off or producing outcomes at a fast enough pace. Then 2009 arrived, and it has proven to be a remarkable year. For the first time in over a decade, the FDA approved a new drug, Avastin, for recurrent brain tumor patients. ABC2 helped to fund the early screening of this drug in partnership with Genentech, Duke University and others that ultimately cleared the way for clinical trials and approvals.

In addition, in the late spring, American Idol’s David Cook served as honorary chair of the Race for Hope, the primary fundraising event for ABC2, in partnership with the National Brain Tumor Society. This year the event raised more than $2 million. Shortly after the race, David appeared on American Idol’s finale and donated his iTunes revenues from the recording to ABC2. Needless to say, the momentum and progress is very real for our investments in brain cancer and we look forward to even more developments in the months ahead.

Our support of health and humanitarian efforts in Africa has resulted in a portfolio of diverse efforts that span much of the continent. Investments in HIV/AIDS, malaria, clean water and efforts aimed at reducing extreme poverty, have opened our eyes and taught us much about challenges and opportunities of working in Africa. And they’ve taught us that each country, and indeed each village, in Africa brings its own unique characteristics, making a “one size fits all” solution to entrenched problems unrealistic and posing significant barriers to scale.

One example is PlayPumps, the initiative launched to bring clean water to African villages via children’s merry-go-round pumps. We’re proud of the investment we’ve made in PlayPumps International U.S., the fundraising and marketing arm for the initiative, and the strides they’ve made in helping to bring clean water to millions of people. However, after three years of working on the ground in Africa, PlayPumps has identified significant concerns related to maintenance of the pumps in certain areas. While the initiative has brought hundreds of new pumps to Africa – an outcome we celebrate – at the same time some mix of the scale and reach, combined with a downturn in the economy, has meant that local contractors can’t keep pace with the maintenance needs. It is becoming clear that the kind of scale we hoped for will not likely be achievable in the timeframes initially outlined. As a result, Gary Edson, a strong leader with both development and business expertise, was brought on board as CEO of PlayPumps International to help the organization take a hard look at the right ways to go forward with humanitarian efforts in the future and how to best take and apply lessons learned from our involvement to date.

As I write this, we are poised to launch our next America’s Giving Challenge (AGC) in the coming weeks. We are deeply in the throes of the advance work, helping nonprofits gear up and get trained to take full advantage of what we hope will be many thousands of individuals coming online to support causes they care about – and to pick up new skills to engage new donors and supporters in the future. When we introduced the first America’s Giving Challenge in late 2007, our desired outcomes were not just about getting individuals to give to causes they cared about through this new technology, but also to galvanize nonprofit organizations to get up to speed and develop expertise in this exciting, new marketing and outreach front.

That Challenge motivated more than 70,000 Americans to give to causes they cared about and helped prepare many thousands in the nonprofit sector for social network marketing and outreach. But we realize that as we take this year’s Challenge forward, we do so in an economy in which resources are constrained – both for individuals and for organizations. What will this mean to the outcomes for this year’s campaign? Will fewer people give? Will nonprofits have the resources to fully leverage this opportunity for their organizations? These are questions we’ve asked ourselves time and time again, and at times we’ve worried that this year’s Challenge may not raise as much money or recruit as many donors as the first. But the bottom line is that we know there is a greater need in our communities, our nation and around the globe than ever before. We’re willing – and excited – to go forward with this investment with the faith that people will support the organizations that support them and that nonprofits will be ready to take advantage of the moment.

We say that the Case Foundation “invests in people and ideas that can change the world.” If we had a crystal ball, we’d invest in people and ideas that WILL change the world but the bottom line is sometimes we can’t know for sure until we try. We’re committed to learning from our successes and challenges and to work collaboratively with others to share and learn along the way.

Yours in service,

Jean Case