Last Monday, GlobalGiving UK launched its brand new web site in London at a big gathering of NGO, private sector, and government leaders.  This is particularly exciting since UK donors are among the most generous and progressive in the world when it comes to supporting causes overseas.

The creation of GlobalGiving UK has been supported financially by the Charities Aid Foundation’s Venturesome Fund and the Travel Foundation, with key advice and operational support from Google, Expedia UK, Paypal, and Isango.  Booz and Company hosted the launch on Monday and provided office space in the start up phase.  The GlobalGiving US team worked overtime to provide back-end services and adapt the front-end website to the UK context.

Minister Shahid Malik of DFID (the UK’s aid agency) gave the keynote speech and made the first donation through the site, which speaks volumes.  DFID is at the very top of official aid agencies in terms of innovation and leadership in key areas.

The GG UK team is outstanding.

It is headed up by Sharath Jeevan, who has the kind of eclectic background that makes him specially suited for the job.  Most recently, he ran eBay’s charity division in the UK. Previously,  he has worked at the international NGO ActionAid, been a project leader at Booz Allen, and has even done a high-tech startup in Asia.  Having grown up near London, Sharath has an economics degree from Cambridge, an MBA from INSEAD in France, and graduate degree in creative writing from Oxford.

UK team members include Rachel Smith, who heads up relationships with NGOs and campaigns, Svetlana Gitman, Tanya Serov, Ann Dugan and Becky Hill - all of whom have played key roles in the launch.

We at GlobalGiving US are proud of our new cousins in London.  But we are a little nervous, too.  They have already introduced a couple of key innovations that we don’t have on our own site

[GlobalGiving]

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The traditional philanthropic model revolves around money…Money is important, but it’s not everything… When I talk to friends and colleagues in the nonprofit sector, what I hear again and again is a desire for knowledge.There are a lot of reasons why nonprofit executives are hungry for knowledge. They work on particularly stubborn problems…This knowledge transfer is already happening, but not effectively. Face-to-face conferences are expensive and often logistically impossible…like all personal networks, they don’t scale efficiently…

That is from a nice post by Michael Idinopulos over at SocialText. I really like how he highlights the importance of knowledge as an equal partner of money in the equation. He goes on to say:

The absence of a strong market mechanism and regulating institutions allow bad management practices to endure.

The interesting thing about markets is that they involve transactions - someone provides something to someone else for something in return. It doesn’t have to be money - it can be status, a favor, or just a good feeling. But without this “something in return,” markets don’t function well.

Michael goes on to say:

It’s not hard to imagine a better way. I’m envisioning an online knowledge networking tool for nonprofits…

How can we make such an online knowledge tool into a well-functioning market so that it gets widely used? That is the $64,000 question.

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We’re launching a new “shade” of GlobalGiving today – GlobalGiving Green.

GlobalGiving Green looks at development through a green lens – and vice versa, for that matter – and enables you to support projects that are fighting poverty and dealing with climate change at the same time.

Why are we doing this? The developing world faces a double whammy. Pretty much every country in the developed world has gotten to where they are through a carbon-intensive path, which if repeated would cancel out any other efforts to combat climate change. And developing countries are more likely to bear the consequences of global warming—things like flooding and droughts, or increased incidence of diseases like malaria. And there are indirect societal and political impacts too – Nicholas Kristof wrote about one of the more unusual ones earlier this year, linking unusual levels of rainfall in rural Tanzania to more women being accused of witchcraft.

So, we partnered with EcoSecurities, a leader in emissions reductions markets, to evaluate how projects are doing with regard to climate change, and in areas such as providing sustainable economic growth, aiding the culture and environment of a community, educating future generations on green issues, and more. Twenty-four projects were initially selected to be a part of GlobalGiving Green, and on the website you can see how they do on elements ranging from use of innovative technology to creation of additional health and safety benefits. And we’re working with our amazing Project Leaders to help them understand how their proposed solutions to big societal issues can build a carbon-neutral path to development.

It’s a small (but first) step toward creating a market-based incentive for green development to thrive. Through GlobalGiving Green, we hope people concerned with climate change can more easily find the best solutions for creating positive change, developing responsibly, and reducing harmful emissions.

Check it out and let us know what you think!

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From the Stanford Social Innovation Review posted a very nice article about philanthropy. 

 On full disclosure, GlobalGiving is mentioned in the article.

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This weekend’s edition of the New York TImes Magazine focused on philanthropy.  There are a number of worthwhile analyses - a great read all around.

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Peter Brock, a student at Skidmore College produced this documentary, They Come in the Name of Helping.  It’s a different perspective on international philanthropy - mainly from the people who are supposed to benefit.  This came to my attention through Peter Deitz’s blog where he also posted a great interview with Peter Brock.  Click here or on the picture to watch the film.

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Saw this in a blog called Don’t Tell the Donor, but actually it’s the kind of inspiring story that donors like to hear.

It’s about Sonja Christopher, one of the contestants in season one of Survivor (way back in 2000). She had originally promised to donate her potential prize winnings of $1 million to her church to build a community hall - but since she was the first one voted off the island, ended up with “only” $2,500, which she went ahead and gave to her church anyway.

But something interesting happened - moved by her generosity, fellow congregants stepped up - and raised the million dollars needed. Ground was broken recently. The moral of the story, according to the church’s minister, is that “giving is good.”

And never underestimate the power of a “small” donation.

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In the three years I’ve worked at GlobalGiving, I’ve worked on tons of email communications. Here’s my unabashed confession—I ignore most newsletters. I find them trite, salesy, and simply boring.

But Agros International gets my attention every time they hit my inbox—their incredible pictures and video links tell stories that paragraphs of blobbidy bloop can’t. The quality of their emails triggers my happy neurons, and I now have come to expect an even better newsletter each time.

So here’s my four smiley faces, two thumbs up and a Wayne’s World “I’m not worthy” to Agros International, Master of Multimedia Marketing. Below is the newsletter as I received it in my inbox—again, simply beautiful!

Here’s one of my favorite Agros projects:

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America’s Giving Challenge is on!

Here is the video I made a couple of nights ago with my good friend Nathan on the steps of the Capitol. Share the video, and start a fundraiser.

Thanks to playasound.com for the killer soundtrack.

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We at GlobalGiving are big fans of Facebook—while we’re interested in building applications that support our projects, we also just love to have fun and see what our friends are up to.

I personally love the Flixster application in Facebook, where I can compare my movie tastes with everyone I know and get friends’ recommendations on movies I haven’t seen.

Why Flixster is awesome:

A) It’s easy and fun to rate, share, and compare movie tastes—the Facebook application is simple, simple, simple.

B) Users can compete with others in movie trivia, and Facebook users LOVE to compete—it turns out that I know more than I’d like to know about Adam Sandler movies.

For the philanthropy sector, the meteoric rise of Flixster, iLike, and Scrabulous is informative, even if they are free applications.

The lesson: Facebook users want to play, so let them play.

About a year ago, I asked Facebook’s team if we could transform the NCAA Basketball Pool promoted through Facebook into a fundraising application, where participating users could pay $10 each into competitive pools and raise funds for their favorite GlobalGiving projects.

That was before Facebook opened its platform up to developers, so this year I’m issuing a challenge to developers at large:

Calling ALL Slashdotters, Facebookies, OpenSocialites, ESPNers, Bloggers, and Friends—if you have ideas for a fun, simple, and collaborative application where users get to play around and still contribute to a good cause, let us know. If we really like your idea, we’ll invite you to blog about it.

Your ideas don’t have to deal with the NCAA—that’s just my idea. Be creative!

	Click on the pictures above to learn more about these particular projects.

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