I’m not sure if the two groups I’m using as examples (Nuru and One Acre Fund) would characterise their organisations in this way exactly, but their models provide an interesting contrast.

One Acre Fund being the example of laser focus, where Andrew Youn created a distinct model of working with small holder farmers, providing them with inputs, education and insurance that in one crop cycle at least doubles their harvests and profits. Small holder farmers + inputs + education + insurance. Very straight forward. Pretty quick. This focused model has enabled them to rapidly grow to 130,000+ families in only 6 years.

Nuru, by contrast is going the holistic approach, where Jake Harriman’s team acts like a general contractor of sorts, bringing in and layering solutions in Agriculture, Community Economic Development, Water & Sanitation, Healthcare, and Education, all within one village. Over time they train and build local leadership to continue to run the programs, so that the village as a whole owns and participates in the overall increase in standard of living. Between 2008 and 2011 Nuru had worked with 2,006 families in their pilot in the Kuria district of Kenya.

Nuru’s model is clearly moving at a slower pace, but goes so much deeper. And OAF’s model is arguably shallower, but has already produced extraordinary scale. So who has the better model?

The theory is that once Jake has got the Nuru model down, their ability to replicate and scale will increase. And now that Andrew has the OAF model reaching so many people in their farming network, he’s starting to layer on other products and services. Perhaps they are both right and will end up reaching similar numbers of people at a similar depth. We won’t know for awhile, it’s early days for them both. But how exciting to watch these two models, which in some ways are vastly different, work towards the common goal of eradicating poverty. We love working with these guys!

As part of the class students are asked to blog once a week on a prescribed topic - for example: “Defining Social Entrepreneurship: Do you believe it is important to have one definition of the term SE? Why or why not?”.  Thus far we’ve been quite impressed with the students’ responses; we’ve seen both impressive insight and a touch of healthy debate.

Give it a look, let us know what you think, and maybe even leave a comment or two. 

- Avoid delivering information via more than two sources at any time. Try to minimise diluting the attention focus of your viewers by only having two methods of information delivery at once, eg voiceover + whiteboarding (other sources of info would be slides, video of the speaker, photos, etc..).
- Always start by showing the person speaking, even if it is only a picture, before cutting to other visuals that they may be talking over. Having a mental picture of the person speaking makes continued engagement with the information easier to maintain.
- Don’t feel like you have to create a whole new discussion community for students to contribute to, solely focused on the class. A great alternative, which potentially provides more value, is to encourage the students to listen in on and join existing communities already focused on class topics. This way their learning and participation is more likely to continue beyond the limitations and duration of the class.
- Encourage students to solve each other’s queries, before coming to the instructor or teaching assistant. Better for the learning process, and better for time management for larger classes. This can be done through an online forum or wiki.
- Create 1 minute videos with screen-share recordings to demonstrate how to navigate the syllabus, find resources, use any tech platforms necessary. Break everything down. Model everything.

We’re still incorporating a lot of the advice we got yesterday. Hopefully some of it is useful for others out there.

We’ve mentioned before that we’ve recently developed a social innovation curriculum at the PF - something none of us have ever done before.  We have an idea, and we think it’s a good one, but to really make it useful we’ve found it’s best to borrow wherever possible (as long as we have all of the appropriate rights and permissions, that is).  For each lesson we’ve pulled articles, videos, and frameworks from across the web and our networks.  We think this makes our curriculum much, much stronger.  We may know that it’s important for our students to understand root cause analysis, for example, but we also know that someone else has far superior tools to actually teach it to them.

Throughout this process we’ve been pleased to find that everyone we have asked has been more than happy to share their resources and expertise (and we’ve asked a lot of people).  It just doesn’t make sense not to.  Especially in the context of the social sector—we all have the same vision and should help each other achieve success wherever possible. 

So here’s our vote for more sharing, more borrowing, and much less reinventing.

Our class, ‘Do Good Better’, provides a structure for students to:
1) discover the varied roles they can play in the social innovation sphere,
2) learn about 3 key skills useful in all roles they might be interested in: root cause analysis, solution evaluation, and impact measurement,
3) create a 20yr, 5yr, and next-semester plan for their own unique contribution to their community (as they define it).

We’re insanely excited and slightly nervous. This is the first time Lanée and I have ever done anything like this, but we found ourselves creating the class we wish we could have taken. We quickly realised that the 14 week class would need an accompanying workbook, so we set about creating that too. 74 pages later, ‘Do Good Better: The Guide’, just got back from the printers. A tangible product of our work this summer! The Guide is complemented by a Pinterest board of homework and resources, and the students will be blogging some of their developing ideas around social innovation on this Wordpress blog.

We have finished our preparation and we’ll start our small pilot class at BYU in a week and a half. Once it gets in the students’ hands the editing will begin again as we test and refine the content and delivery. So really we’ve only just started.

Here’s what Salesforce does for us:
- Tracks all of our investments
- Stores our contacts and relationships (including interactions and connections between members of our network)
- Generates reports and visuals of our data
- Tracks value added and leveraged funds for each of our partners
- Tracks milestones and metrics from our partners
- Schedules check-ins and grants due

Here’s what we recommend to others (if customizing SF):
- Hire a great consultant who wants to understand your organization and goals - it makes all the difference
- Take the time to really figure out what it is you want from the platform before you begin
- If what you thought you wanted doesn’t work, throw it out immediately and start over
- Try using Salesforce for things you didn’t think you needed it to do - the possibilities are almost limitless and you’ll likely discover value you didn’t know was there
- Test out a few apps, that’s what free trials are for
- Find out how other organizations are using Salesforce

I’d highly recommend checking out the other interviewee videos. Jonathan is building a resource full of diverse perspectives, experience and advice. For budding changemakers iOnPoverty is a platform for social innovation mentorship soundbites. There are some sage pieces of wisdom -actionable too- from Anne Marie Burgoyne from Draper Richards Kaplan, Akaya Windwood from the Rockwood Leadership Institute and many others. And it’s free for all viewers now! Enjoy!

What if there were a GreatFoundations.org? A mechanism for grantees to review their experiences and interactions with a foundation. Somewhere to inform grant seekers of what kind of interaction they can expect. A repository for great stories of grantee-funder partnership. And somewhere to promote excellence through transparency and feedback. This is not a new idea, but one that has not come to fruition yet.

As people have discussed the potential of this I’ve heard concern about whether non-profits would actually participate or give truly frank feedback as they would never want to damage a funding relationship, or their reputation with other funders -an understandable and real concern. But what if the feedback could range in its level of detail? At the very least a non-profit could give an overall rating out of 5 stars for a foundation, then if they wanted to they could give ratings out of 5 for the foundation on various general categories, and then finally have the option to go in to detail by writing an actual review -all anonymously. The general categories could be things that cut across types and sizes of foundations, like ‘clarity’, or ‘respect’.

What other categories would be telling, yet general enough to apply to all funding interactions? Comment or email me (jessamynATpeeryfoundationDOTorg) with your suggestions. We’ll pass them on should this idea get traction any time soon!

Please, if you thrive on the inherent power imbalance in philanthropy, or don’t have respect for the people at the table with you, find another profession or industry. After 3 years in philanthropy I’m not yet an expert but feel protective of the approach to philanthropy many influential funders have worked hard to create. Funders like Philanthropic Ventures Foundation, Mulago, Draper Richards Kaplan and many others around the world. Those who constantly try to improve the way they walk the line of respectful candour, are conscious of the time they ask for from grant seekers, and simply trust their grantees.

It was put really well by Gayle Williams, ED of the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, who I’ve never met but is quoted in a great Council on Foundations publication, ‘Wit and Wisdom’:

“Know that the culture of philanthropy is a culture of privilege and try to maintain a sense of humility within that place of power and privilege. People in the field can’t pretend that it doesn’t exist. We can either behave in privileged ways, or we can work to maintain a deep sense of who we are and act with integrity and authenticity. There’s no easy way to deal with this tension, but we have to struggle with it. I’d worry if we didn’t struggle with the privilege that surrounds us.”

- Fire faster: Personnel problems tend to age more like milk than wine.
- Exercise: This is non-negotiable if you are in this for the long run.
- Decisions don’t have to take a long time if you’ve got the right people making them.
- People do not describe themselves as ‘in poverty’.
- Appreciate your critics: Grit makes polish.
- The key to confidence is humility.
- Reject all excuses: Trying really hard does not equal results. Do not confine your staff to mediocrity.
- Your standard is exactly what you want to say but do nothing about.
- Only the schizophrenic survive: The militantly optimistic, and constantly petrified.
- You can’t do it alone: Isolation is one of your biggest dangers.