Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Picks of the Week: February 17 - 23, 2013

Website of the Week --  Social Compact
Social Compact is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization formed by coalition of business leaders from across the country committed to promoting successful investment in lower-income communities. Working in close partnership with community and corporate leaders over the past decade and a half, Social Compact has pioneered the DrillDown™, a methodology to analyze inner-city markets and create accurate, business-oriented profiles of “emerging” neighborhood markets. Drawing on business disciplines and community strength, these DrillDown profiles have a strong track record of catalyzing sustainable, private investment, benefiting communities and businesses alike. Social Compact’s innovative research seek to fill a void in the market: replacing outdated, deficiency-based data on lower-income communities with reliable market analysis to drive better investment decisions in underserved communities. The goal: safe and healthy neighborhoods in which to live and do business. Go to: http://www.socialcompact.org.

Publication of the Week -- Social Business by Design by Dion Hinchliffe and Peter Kim
From the publisher:  Social Business By Design is the definitive management book on how to rethink the modern organization in the social media era. Based on their research and work through the Dachis Group, thought leaders Dion Hinchcliffe and Peter Kim deftly explore how the social, cultural, and technological trends provoked by the social media explosion are transforming the business environment. Designed as both a strategic overview and a hands-on resource, Social Business By Design clearly shows how to choose and implement a social business strategy and maximize its impact. The book:
·         Explains the mechanisms, applications, and advantages of a strategic array of social media topics, including social media marketing, social product development, crowdsourcing, social supply chains, social customer relationship management, and more
·         Features examples from high-profile companies such as SAP, Procter & Gamble, MillerCoors, Bloomberg, HBO, Ford, and IBM who have implemented social business strategies
·         Draws on the extensive research and expertise of the Dachis Group, which has helped numerous Fortune 500 clients plan, build, and activate effective social business solutions

Click to preview this book on Amazon.com

Trend of the Week – Philanthropy and the Social Economy: Blueprint 2013
Philanthropy and the Social Economy: Blueprint 2013 is an annual industry forecast written by leading philanthropy scholar Lucy Bernholz about the social economy — private capital used for public good. The Foundation Center and the European Foundation Centre are pleased to partner with Ms. Bernholz to offer the Blueprint as a GrantCraft guide. The Blueprint provides an overview of the current landscape, points to major trends, and directs your attention to horizons where you can expect some important breakthroughs in the coming year. Key trends include:
·         Congress will change the rules on tax deductions. Congressional hearings on charitable tax deductions will occur in the first half of 2013. They will set lower limits for charitable deductions for the wealthiest donors.
·         The Affordable Care Act will reveal new opportunities for communities. States and counties will spend much of 2013 designing and implementing the new systems of health care delivery and insurance made possible by the Affordable Care Act. The year provides a good planning opportunity for all social service funders, organizations, and entrepreneurs to plan for the major shift in the social safety net that will become real in 2014.
·         Crowdfunding will go mainstream. People will use crowdfunding sites, like Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Crowdrise, and others more than ever, and they will be used for an ever-wider range of funding activities.
·         Civic crowdfunding will grow and may exacerbate inequality. Crowdfunding is not only expanding from independent and nonprofit projects to commercial businesses, there is also a rise in crowdfunding of civic projects, from parks and playgrounds to streetlights. Examples of these sites include Citizinvestor and Neighbor.ly, which allow neighbors to promote and choose civic projects to fund. While there is great excitement about these methods as a way for taxpayers to have choice and a say over the infrastructure in their city, there is concern about the potential of these sites to further divide our communities into “haves” and “have nots.”

To download the guide at no charge, go to:http://www.grantcraft.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=Page.ViewPage&pageId=3744

Resource of the Week – Resource Library from LaPiana Consulting
Founded in 1998, La Piana Consulting is a national firm dedicated to strengthening nonprofits and foundations. A large part of the firm's ongoing mission to advance the nonprofit sector has included developing an extensive library of tools, resources, and publications, specifically tailored to nonprofit leaders. Go to: http://www.lapiana.org/research-publications/publications

Tech Tip of the Week -- Using Screenshot in Office 2010
Screenshot -- a new feature in Office 2010 -- allows you to capture images from your screen.
·         Click the document that you want to add the screenshot to
·         Click the Insert tab on the Ribbon
·         In the Illustrations group, click Screenshot
·         To add the whole window, click the thumbnail in the Available Windows gallery
·         To add part of the window, click Screen Clipping, and when the pointer becomes a cross, press and hold the left mouse button to select the area of your screen that you want to capture
·         If you have multiple windows open, click the window you want to clip from before clicking Screen Clipping. When you click Screen Clipping, the program you are working in is minimized and only the window behind it is available for clipping
·         After adding a screenshot, you can use the tools on the Picture Tools tab to edit and enhance the screenshot

You can use Screenshot in Word 2010, PowerPoint 2010 and Excel 2010.

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