Guidestar President and CEO Robert G. Ottenhoff, gave this talk “The Era of Assumed Virtue is Over: How the Internet is Changing the World of Philanthropy” at the annual Quigg Visiting Lecturer in Arts Management at the Modlin Center for the Arts. Established in 1994, Guidestar’s mission is to revolutionize philanthropy and nonprofit practice by providing information that advances transparency, enables users to make better decisions and encourages charitable giving. The talk was given in 2009, but it is of value for us today.
You can also read a supporting blog post by Bunkie Righter of GuideStar, who explains why nonprofits and philanthropies have to use hard data not to achieve their goal of stakeholder engagement. It’s not just transparency and accountability (although both of these are extremely important), it’s providing stakeholders with information they can use, including information about resources they can use.
