Manifesto for an Open Philanthropy
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Proposed by Lucy Bernholz:
"herewith, my modest manifesto on open philanthropy:
1. Open sharing of ideas in philanthropy serves us all as we seek to solve shared problems.
2. We need a Freedom of Foundation and Nonprofit Information Act. These organizations are tax-privileged data repositories. As such, their tax privileges should be linked to the degree they openly share and contribute the information, data, and knowledge that they produce for the public good.
3. Openness extends to the interoperability of data - ours and others. Efforts to open government reporting, data sharing from municipalities and states, and open access to public records on donations, nonprofit filings, and public funding sources are all in the best interest of solving social problems.
4. Experimenting with openness will show us what works. The Sunlight Foundation's recent "datajams" and Sunlight Live coverage of the health care reform discussions are a great working example of what information matters to whom, about what, and when.
5. The ability and expectations of open-ness are changing. These new expectations will change what transparency really looks like and how it works (Here's one version - the Cycle of Transparency). Philanthropy can guide this or react to it, but it can not ignore it.
6. Open matters to communities. Given the tools of today, we should consider at least the following possibilities:
- Crowdsourced peer reviews of tax exempt entities;
- Crowdsourced community needs and recommendations on social sector infrastructure;
- Mandatory online filing of nonprofit and foundation tax forms;
- Real-time data feeds from state attorneys general on nonprofit openings and closures;
- Real time data feeds of foundation grants (that can be mashed up with similar feeds from public agencies and other grantmaking bodies);
- Aggregated analysis of giving and loans from online giving marketplaces to show trends from the long tail. APIs and interoperable data structuring to allow these data and foundation data to be mashed up;
- Use of external expertise for developing and assessing giving strategies (peer-to-philanthropy model, adapted from peer-to-patent);
- Interoperable data streams from online games that generate social activism;
- Standardized privacy protections developed, agreed to, and used by public and philanthropic data sources to protect individuals' identity while providing access to aggregate data;
- Statements of usage and ownership for intellectual property that align with the nonprofit or philanthropic entities missions, rather than default use of copyright protection. Consideration of alternative licensing where appropriate.
- The kinds of data and information sharing strategies that underlie efforts like CrisisCamps or Ushahidi should be understood and considered in all domains."
(http://california.newamerica.net/blogposts/2010/open_philanthropy_a_modest_manifesto-29189)