Eye on FDO

Statistical Update

It's time once again for a regular statistical update:

• 98,428 grantmakers (114 new since our last update)
• 504,927 trustees, officers, and donors (435 new)
• 2,166,669 grants (30,976 new)
• 4,026 companies
• 700,836 keyword-searchable 990s (14,000 new, and the first time over 700,000!)

Read more about what these numbers mean. 

Ashoka Changemakers' Interview with Brad Smith

Calling the Foundation Center the "Mother of all Databases" for funding, Ashoka Changemakers interviews Foundation Center president Bradford K. Smith about a range of topics in philanthropy and nonprofits. 

Changemakers is a project of Ashoka, a global association of social entrepreneurs, in which members collaborate on issues through discussion, mentorship, and competition. Members submitted questions for Brad, who gave answers on topics ranging from the role of evaluation metrics, online fundraising, business models for nonprofits, and the role of philanthropy in society.

Listen to the interview here.

Part of the discussion focuses on collaboration, and Brad mentions a new Foundation Center project, the Nonprofit Collaboration Database, a resource for everyone seeking real-life examples of how nonprofits are working together. This unique database provides models and best practices of exceptional nonprofit collaboration efforts drawn from projects presented for consideration for the 2009 Collaboration Prize. Explore different collaboration models, learn about strategies for overcoming challenges to working together, find metrics for measuring outcomes, and more.

PhilanTopic: A 'Flip' Chat With…Ami Dar of Idealist.org

The Foundation Center's Regina Mahone and Alison Alford recently sat down with Ami Dar, founder of Idealist, for a quick chat about Idealist and the state of the nonprofit sector. Read Regina's PhilanTopic post and check out the video below.

PhilanTopic: A 'Flip' Chat With…Ami Dar of Idealist.org

 

Update Central for May

One of the many benefits of an FDO subscription at the Professional level is access to Update Central, where you can get a quick summary of the numbers of newly added grantmakers; high growth grantmakers (significant increases in total giving or total assets); and grantmakers with contact information changes, fields of interest or types of support changes, and leadership changes.

You can also build a custom Update Generator by selecting category—new, high growth, or recent changes—and one or more states. Run the generator to get a list of grantmakers meeting your criteria along with a brief description of the update and a link to each grantmaker's FDO profile. In addition, you can sign up to receive summaries of each month's additions and updates to our grantmaker database via e-mail.

Here's a summary of updates for May 2010:

Category	Updates	Year To Date
New Grantmakers	320	716
High Growth Grantmakers	30	729
Contact Information Changes	1,254	5,463
Fields of Interest/Types of Support Changes	646	2,493
Leadership Changes	463	2,500

To explore Update Central and learn more about the numbers above, Professional subscribers can visit Update Central directly. Subscribers at other plan levels can learn more in the Update Central section of the Help file. 

Statistical Update

It's time once again for a regular statistical update:

• 98,314 grantmakers
• 504,492 trustees, officers, and donors
• 2,135,693 grants
• 4,040 companies (We just recently went up over 4,000!)
• 686,836 keyword-searchable 990s

For more on what these numbers mean, see the last update. 

Training Opportunity: Foundation Funding Research

Periodically I like to take a moment to let you know about upcoming training opportunities that can help you learn how to make the most of your Foundation Directory Online subscription. The Foundation Center offers the day-and-a-half training course Foundation Funding Research: Strategies for Finding and Evaluating Prospects, which shows the many ways you can find comprehensive, accurate, and timely information on prospective funders with FDO.

There are several dates coming up at Foundation Center library-learning centers. Click the links below to learn more and sign up.

June 14 - 15, 2010 
New York, NY

July 13 - 14, 2010 
Washington, DC

July 15 - 16, 2010 
San Francisco, CA

August 3 - 4, 2010 
New York, NY