May 1, 2003

By Todd Cohen

Cyber-Spreading
GuideStar is jumping the pond

Through a grant from the British Treasury, GuideStar is spawning a version of its online database of financial and programmatic information about charities in the United Kingdom.

Like guidestar.org, which features data on 850,000 charities in the United States, including 220,000 that file Form 990 financial reports with the Internal Revenue Service, the new GuideStar UK will feature data on 180,000 charities that file annual reports with the Charity Commission of England and Wales.

Mirroring GuideStar's approach in the U.S., British charities will be able to submit information on their programs to the GuideStar UK Web site. The free site, still without a Web address, tentatively is set for launch during the first quarter of 2004.GuideStar UK will be a separate British charity, said Buzz Schmidt, founder and chairman of GuideStar, which is based in Williamsburg, Va. Schmidt said he was invited to develop plans for GuideStar UK by the London-based Institute for Philanthropy, a research and advocacy group.

A handful of private British funders supported a feasibility study on creating an online database for U.K. charities, and the Treasury made a matching grant equivalent to $4.75 million (U.S.).

That grant, representing 60 percent of the new charity's budget for its first three years, requires that GuideStar UK raise the remaining 40 percent privately, Schmidt said. GuideStar UK already has landed a private grant that, with additional matching funds it requires, would meet most of the match the Treasury grant requires, Schmidt said.

GuideStar and its British counterpart will develop agreements on sharing data, marketing materials, logos and the GuideStar brand. The two charities also are forming a strategic alliance, which Schmidt said he will oversee, to address common needs, share ideas and develop opportunities, including building similar systems in other countries.

Schmidt spent a week in Japan last July talking with a dozen different groups about GuideStar. "There is continuing interest there," he said. "There is serious interest on every continent."

The chairman of GuideStar UK, which is seeking a British CEO, is Brian Smouha, retired head of the financial services practice for Deloitte & Touche in the United Kingdom.

Online training

The American College in Bryn Mawr, Pa., is launching an online certificate program in philanthropic advising for nonprofit and financial services professionals. The school, which offers classes at its campus in a four-day residential program, also is teaming up with the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) to offer classes to AFP members in selected cities, starting with Philadelphia.

Working with local AFP chapters, the school expects to offer classes one night a week for 12 weeks in roughly 10 cities over the next year, said H. King McGlaughon, Jr.

Headed by McGlaughon, the former director of the Merrill Lynch Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Management, the new program initially will offer three classes leading to a Chartered Advisor in Philanthropy certificate.

Created 75 years ago as part of the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and spun off as a separate institution in the 1950s, The American College traditionally has offered executive-education graduate and undergraduate courses, mainly through distance-learning technology, for financial services, banking and insurance professionals.

The initial curriculum will include a basic course on charitable-giving tools and techniques, a separate course on how nonprofits can create a charitable-giving program using those tools and techniques; and a third course on how nonprofits can operate and administer charitable gifts.

McGlaughon said he hoped to develop two more courses during the next 18 months, one on the types of assets used in planned giving, the other on building relationships among advisers working with donors.

Students typically take four to six months to complete each course, which costs $700, and is taught mainly by teams of faculty members and consists of 12 assignments or modules. Text materials, videos and chat rooms are available online, and exams are given at 300 testing centers run by Sylvan Learning Centers.

Tech progress, hurdles

Technology is playing a greater role in charity but still poses challenges for nonprofits and grantmakers, according to two new surveys and a new report.

While nonprofits and their supporters increasingly connect with one another online, for example, the Internet still accounts for a tiny share of charitable giving, according to a survey by Network for Good in Washington, D.C., and San Francisco, and The Bridgespan Group in Boston.

Nonprofits also recognize that technology can boost their operations and fundraising, yet they do not make technology spending a priority, according to a separate survey by the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) in Alexandria, Va., and Telosa Software in Palo Alto, Calif.

While philanthropic investment in technology has enjoyed healthy growth in the past three years, technology use among nonprofits is not widespread, and grantmakers can have a bigger tech impact, according to a report by Summit Consulting in Amherst, Mass., that was commissioned and funded by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation in Battle Creek, Mich.

Nearly all nonprofits use the Internet to reach supporters, for example, and nearly six in 10 Internet users go online to reach or support nonprofits or causes, according to the survey by Network for Good and Bridgespan.

Among 10,000 individuals surveyed, three in four said they took additional action, either online or offline, after visiting a nonprofit Web site, and six in 10 said they either would not have taken additional action, or were not sure if they would have, had they not visited the Web site.

"There's a huge connection between online information gathering and offline philanthropic activity," said Ken Weber, president of Network for Good. "We're moving from information dissemination to relationship acquisition to incorporating the Web into relationship management and cultivation in a strategic way," he said.

A survey of more than 400 AFP members and Telosa clients found nearly two in three nonprofit leaders believe technology can help make their organizations more efficient, but only one in three build tech spending into their operating plans.

The economic slump has hurt tech spending, particularly in the arts, culture, and humanities, survey results show.

Nearly three in four healthcare groups, for example, plan to invest in technology this year, compared to fewer than one in two groups in arts, culture and humanities, and nearly seven in 10 charities blame the economy for lower tech spending.

Smaller nonprofits tend to be less likely than larger nonprofits to recognize the importance of tech funding, survey results show.

In its report, Summit Collaborative says grantmakers should work together to learn about and fund nonprofit tech needs. Grantmakers, for example, should back community assessments that identify tech needs that nonprofits share, and should help local consultants address those needs, Summit concluded in the report.

It also calls for funders to work with one another and with nonprofits and consultants to coordinate the development of tools that nonprofits throughout the sector could use to handle tasks such as collecting data and communicating with constituents.

And Summit recommended that foundations finance a broad analysis of tech use by nonprofits, including its effectiveness and impact, plus any gaps in use.

Todd Cohen is editor and publisher of Philanthropy Journal, an online newspaper at www.philanthropyjournal.org. He can be reached at tcohen@ajf.org