Keystone - accountability for social change

Keystone at the ISTR conference in Barcelona

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 09:40:02 -0400

9 July, 2008 - 12 July, 2008

Location:
Barcelona, Spain

Event Details:

Keystone will be represented at this year's International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) conference to be held in Barcelona by Research Associate and Advisor Natalia Kiryttopoulou. ISTR is the major international membership association and recognized leader promoting research and education in the fields of civil society, philanthropy, voluntarism and the non-profit sector. The conference's theme is "The Third Sector and Sustainable Social Change: New Frontiers for Research".

The rights of 'Consumers' of development products and services

Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:23:31 -0400

Your feedback is very important as we begin to explore what a Consumer Rights Charter for Aid Recipients may look like. Please take only 5 minutes and fill our short online survey by clicking here.

We are all consumers. When we purchase medicine, or processed food, or petrol, when we take out a loan, or hire a mechanic or a plumber, we do so with a vast array of legal and institutional arrangements in place to protect our interests as consumers.

Keystone Summer Internship Opportunity

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 11:49:05 -0400

Keytone is currently accepting applications for two interns in their London office for the summer of 2008. To learn more about this opportunity and how to apply, please download the attached job description. We look forward to hearing from you!

Keystone Summer Internship Opportunity

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 10:33:42 -0400

Keystone is currently seeking two interns for Summer 2008 in our London office. To find out more about this exciting opportunity and how to apply, please download the attached job description.

Partnerships for Development Forum

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 08:54:44 -0400

16 April, 2008 - 18 April, 2008

Location:
Wilton Park, UK

Event Details:

DELIVERING IMPACT AS A PRIVATE FUNDER

David Bonbright, Keystone's Chief Executive, attended this year's 'Partnerships for Development' Forum at Wilton Park and presented a panel, next to Gerard Salole of the European Foundations Centre and Tina Wallace of the International Gender Studies Centre at Oxford.

The panel entitled: 'Delivering Impact as a Private Funder' took place on April 17th at 9am and addressed the following questions:

- What are the challenges of delivering impact as a private funder?

- How can funders best address issues such as accountability, transparency, aid effectiveness, and building capacity in-country?

What's the IMPACT of this all?

Mon, 14 Apr 2008 09:11:54 -0400

A panel entitled "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, What's the IMPACT of this all?" delivered at this year's Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship explored new approaches to assessing the impact of our work. The panel, formed by social investors and entrepreneurs - including Fay Twersky, Director for Impact Planning and Improvement of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Brian Trestald, Chief Investment Officer of the Acumen Fund and Keystone's Chief Executive, David Bonbright - examined the challenges of impact assessment for social enterprises, from time constraints faced by social entrepreneurs on the ground to the conciliation of different approaches to measuring and the choice of what to measure. Panelists presented new trends in thinking about evaluation and impact assessment and agreed that it is only worth pursuing if aimed at learning and improving our work.

2008 Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 12:01:44 -0400

27 March, 2008

Location:
Saïd Business School, Oxford University, England

Event Details:

MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHAT’S THE IMPACT

OF THIS ALL?

Keystone's Chief Executive, David Bonbright, will be participating in this year's Skoll Forum on Social Entrepreneurship and sitting on the panel of this interactive session that will explore various approaches to assessing impact and leveraging these efforts to attract resources and drive organisational learning. Panellists and public will try to answer key questions including: Who are the real audiences for impact assessment efforts? Who really cares and is it worth the bother? What happens in practice when social entrepreneurs are systematic about measuring impact? How does this lead to organisational learning, increased impact and innovation, or to greater resource mobilisation?

Online Philanthropy: Opportunities and challenges

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:22:50 -0400

Two new articles on the Financial Times touch two of the issues that are explored in the recently published Keystone study ‘Online Philanthropy Markets: From Feel-Good Giving to Effective Social Investing?’: the array of opportunities that the online world offers for transforming the way we engage in philanthropic activities and the challenge of giving both with our hearts and heads.

Sarah Murray, in a piece titled: ‘The age of cyberspace offers aids for giving’, reviews the rising phenomenon of online giving and the opportunities that it presents for revolutionizing philanthropy. The article identifies that beyond offering a means for making donations easily, online philanthropy platforms enable knowledge exchange among different actors that facilitates ‘a more “open source” approach to finding solutions to seemingly intractable problems’. In addition, they come with ‘built-in’ accountability and transparency elements, such as direct reports on the use of funds and progress achieved from beneficiary organizations or individuals. And the innovation goes on to enabling direct involvement by users, with systems that are based on user-generated content or crowd-sourcing for identifying successful solutions to social problems.

Simple ideas, big impact

Mon, 17 Mar 2008 11:23:30 -0400

An inspiring article appeared in December in the New Yorker magazine: a doctor in the United S tates introduced step-by-step checklists for procedures in intensive care units and gave the power to nurses to control doctors' performance against the checklists. The results? In some cases, infection rates in ICUs dropped by 66%. The author wonders: If something so simple can transform intensive care, what else can it do?

Simple ideas often have the greatest impact. At Keystone we believe that simple interventions for enabling the voice of beneficiaries and other constituents of developmental processes enhance the performance and impact that organisations working in the social change field are having. Who better to control and assess the work of these organisations, than those most affected by it? For this, we have developed a series of tools and services that give beneficiaries and other constituents genuine voice within the organisations that act on their behalf and for their benefit.

'Online philanthropy markets: From 'Feel-Good' giving to effective social investing?'

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 05:20:14 -0500

Online platforms like GlobalGiving, Kiva, Network for Good, GiveIndia, HelpArgentina, and so many more – hold the potential to transform the quality and quantity of resources available for domestic and international development. But can they realise that potential? Can they really revolutionise philanthropy?

With support from the Aspen Institute's Nonprofit Sector Research Fund, Keystone has undertaken a research project to answer these questions. Our breakthrough study 'ONLINE PHILANTHROPY MARKETS: FROM ‘FEEL-GOOD’ GIVING TO EFFECTIVE SOCIAL INVESTING?' examines the rapidly expanding phenomenon of online philanthropy markets and details the opportunity that they have to create the informational basis for results-oriented giving and serving as a lever for greater accountability and effectiveness of social purpose organisations.

More Investment on Impact Evaluation is Needed Survey Finds

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:28:06 -0500

A survey conducted by Keystone in collaboration with Alliance magazine confirms that impact evaluation is a major issue in the social sector with agreement from both the donor and grantee side. However, results show clearly that the general perception in the sector is that there is not enough investment for fostering evaluation practices. Evaluation has the potential to improve learning within social purpose organisations and enable them to improve their performance in bringing about change. But for the full potential to be realised more funding is needed.

The survey, in which 72 grant-making and 226 grant-recipient organisations from all around the world took part, was conducted online during September and October 2007. Donors were asked to provide information about their demands from grantees regarding evaluation and the funding and other support they provided for this purpose. Grantees were asked to answer the survey keeping in mind one of their most important donors and provide their point of view of the donor’s as well as of their own practices related to evaluation. You can see the survey results by clicking here.

Keystone's David Bonbright Guest Edits This Months Alliance Magazine

Tue, 22 Jan 2008 06:46:07 -0500

David has contributed both as editor and author to the latest issue of Alliance magazine. His article 'What Do We Need to Know?' explores the emergence of new forms of measurement for quality social change. David also co-wrote 'Taking Evaluation Seriously Still a Way to Go' with Betsy Schmidt. This article reports on the online survey Keystone and Alliance conducted to get the opinions of those on both ends of evaluation, donors and grantees. For more from Alliance magazine, click here.

CIVICUS Global Survey of the State of Civil Society Vol. II

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:23:59 -0500

The second volume of the CIVICUS Global Survey of the State of Civil Society offers a wide-ranging analysis of key issues facing civil society worldwide with contributions from prominent researchers and civil society practitioners. Comprising 24 chapters, the book draws on the information collected by the CIVICUS Civil Society Index project in more than 45 countries to explore issues such as civil society’s accountability, its relations to the state and corporate sector and its role in governance and development. It also includes regional overviews of the state of civil society in different continents. By bringing together a diversity of perspectives and themes, this book offers one of the most comprehensive and engaging analyses of civil society worldwide.

The Charitable Measurement Initiative Gets Up and Running

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:22:57 -0500

This month sees the first posts to the new Charitable Measurement Initiative blog. Created by Harsh Trivedi and Alexander Lemke, CMI is passionate about maximizing the impact of non-profit organizations by increasing their transparency and facilitating public reporting. To achieve their goals, CMI has implemented the Keystone framework. Stay up to date with their progress through updates on their blog.

GuideStar International Assembly

Sun, 09 Dec 2007 16:29:14 -0500

19 September, 2007 - 20 September, 2007

Location:
London

Event Details:

The GuideStar International Assembly took place in London on 19-20 September 2007. Around the theme of "Transparency, Civil Society and Effective States in the Information Age", representatives from civil society organisations, public aid agencies and private foundations debated on the possibilities offered by the information technologies for improving the transparency and accountability of civil society across the globe.

Keystone was represented at the event by David Bonbright who contributed to the panel titled: "To evolve a Global Reporting Framework" - an open discussion of the opportunities for, limitations and wisdom of and programme required to generate a consensus global framework for CSO reporting.