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How Arab American Tech Entrepreneurs Can Help Arab Spring Countries

Posted on February 7, 2012

Arab-American technology entrepreneurs have a special role to play in helping Arab Spring nations find their way back to stability and development, according to David Hamod, CEO of the National U.S.-Arab Chamber of Commerce.

Addressing an audience at the Plug and Play Tech Center, a well-known Silicon Valley incubator run by Iranian-born Saeed Amidi, Hamod said such members of the Arab Diaspora could provide the experience and skills needed to jump-start innovation in Arab economies. “For the Arab world to make the transition from hydrocarbon-based economies to knowledge-based economies, the next big thing, in a sense, is innovation,” Hamod noted. “Innovation, hand-in-hand with entrepreneurship, will create those productive jobs that are so vital to growth in the Arab world.

“There is a special role to be played in this process by Diaspora Arabs, who have made it in Silicon Valley, who have learned the lessons of Silicon Valley and who are uniquely situated to share those lessons with the Arab world,” he added.

Hamod spoke at a global forum examining ways to harness the economic potential of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region in the aftermath of the Arab Spring revolution. At a time of uncertainty as well as promise, Arab-Americans are looking inward to discover their role in helping usher in democracy and economic stability in their traditional homelands. He told forum attendees that technology alone is only part of the equation. “If the Arab Spring at its heart is about dignity, respect, having a voice, reducing economic disparities and being able to put bread on the table for one’s family, then there’s no time to lose in promoting innovation through entrepreneurial ecosystems,” he said.

Throughout the day, some of Silicon Valley’s leading Arab-American technologists reiterated Hamod’s applause-inducing speech by creating an atmosphere that resembled a high school pep rally. There were discussions about cultivating the start-up ecosystem in the Gulf region and perhaps most important, getting access to venture capital. It is that final hurdle that deserves a watchful eye in the coming months as the grassroots revolutions turn to the formation of new governance, observers said. Political resolution might encourage the citizenry to return its attention to the daily duty of work. Hamod predicted that there will be no return to the status quo, but where that leads the region is anyone’s guess.

The forum was held on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and Hamod found a parallel between King’s fight for freedom in the 1960s and the protests in the Arab world that have broken the stranglehold of entrenched regimes. He quoted from a portion of King’s famous 1957 speech delivered at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington D.C.: “Sometimes it gets hard, but it is always difficult to get out of Egypt. The Red Sea always stands before you in discouraging dimensions. And even after you cross the Red Sea, you have to move through a wilderness with prodigious hilltops of evil, gigantic mountains of opposition. But I say to you, keep moving. Let nothing slow you up. Move on with dignity and honor and respectability.”

King’s speech was meant for an African-American constituency. But it sounds less ethereal to modern Arabs, especially those who risked their lives in Tahrir Square protests one year ago, and for those who continue to grapple with how to move forward after creating unprecedented change.

Is Solar Grid Parity Nearly Here?

Posted on January 4, 2012

Solar energy could become price competitive with fossil-fuel energy sources in some U.S. cities within a couple of years, notes the website Energy Self-Reliant States. The first to hit the mark will be San Diego in 2013, followed by New York City in 2015. By 2018, several additional California cities are projected to join the ranks.

The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), which developed the website, has created an interactive map showing by year which metropolitan areas would reach “solar grid parity,” meaning the costs for locally generated solar energy would equal the cost of grid electricity — traditional, remotely generated electricity delivered via transmission lines. “In just seven years, one in six Americans living in major metropolitan areas could lower their electricity bill by installing solar – without any incentives,” according to John F. Farrell, a senior researcher at the ILSR. Below is a static version of the map, showing the U.S. cities where solar energy will reach grid parity by 2027 and be able to serve 156 million people.

You can try the interactive version here.

The solar parity calculations are based on the following:

Solar energy costs are assumed to be $4.00 per watt installed.
The map uses a grid electricity price based on the average residential retail rate reported by PVWatts for the core city of the metropolitan area cited.
The map assumes solar-generation costs fall 7% per year and that grid electricity prices rise 2% per year over the period covered.

Solar will certainly be one important component of an array of energy sources in the future, says Eric W. Orts, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. He agrees that solar energy is close to becoming competitive with coal-generated and other sources of fossil fuel energy in the United States. But the demand for energy is also rising rapidly worldwide, and that may simply make solar an additional, rather than a replacement, energy source. “Coal is still cheap in China, which is building a new coal plant every couple of weeks,” Orts notes.

Read more about the advance of solar energy in this recent Knowledge@Wharton Today article.

Additional related Knowledge@Wharton Articles:

Is China’s Solar Industry Heading for an Eclipse?

An NGO Champions Solar Energy in Egypt

Solar Power Incentives in France: Subsidization without ‘Planification’?

Featured Professors: Eric W. Orts

Also posted in Knowledge@Wharton Today, Managing Technology | 1 Comment

Entrepreneurship in India Is on the Upswing

Posted on December 22, 2011

It’s not the best of times in India. The country is going through an economic slowdown and political hiccups. But amid all this, one thing that is thriving and vibrant is entrepreneurial zest.

According to Venture Intelligence, a research firm focused on private equity and mergers & acquisitions, the number of investments in India by venture capitalists (VCs) has gone up from 131 in 2010 to 182 in 2011. In value terms, the investment during the same period has grown from US$696 million to US$988 million. And the number of investments by angel investors this year was 32 compared with 24 in 2010.

The numbers are small in the context of investments in the U.S. According to Dow Jones VentureSource, investors put $8.4 billion into 765 deals for U.S.-based venture companies during the third quarter of 2011 alone. This is a 29% increase in investment and an 8% increase in deals from the same period last year. The median amount raised for a round of financing during the third quarter was $6 million, up from the $5 million median a year earlier.

But given India’s young history in angel and venture funding, there is significant reason to cheer. According to Arun Natarajan, founder and head of Venture Intelligence: “Unlike even four to five years back, there is a lot of clarity today — both among investors and entrepreneurs — as to who will invest in which segment in terms of stage of a company, the sector, the amount and so on. Also, unlike earlier, the pace of angel investments has not dipped with the vagaries of the stock market. This is probably because investors themselves have been through a few “boom and bust” cycles and know what it takes to stay the course.”

Kanwal Rekhi, venture capitalist and cofounder of TiE (formerly the Indus Entrepreneurs), the global network of entrepreneurs founded in 1992 in Silicon Valley, notes: “The entrepreneurial ecosystem in India is light years ahead of what it was 10 years ago and also much ahead of many places across the globe.”

This entrepreneurial energy was well evident at the fourth TiE Summit 2011 (TES 2011). Held recently in Bangalore, India’s very own Silicon Valley, the theme for TES 2011 was “Celebrating the Entrepreneur Trip.” Successful entrepreneurs like Sanjeev Bikhchandani (Naukri.com), Ashok Soota (Happiest Minds Technologies) and Manish Sabharwal (TeamLease) shared their stories, while venture capitalists like Artiman Ventures and Canaan Partners were on hand to give advice on what VCs look for and the intricacies of fund raising.

Positioned as Asia’s biggest entrepreneurial event, TES 2011 was attended by around 1,500 participants from across the country and outside, comprising both successful and aspiring entrepreneurs. The event had 40 sessions covering different sectors like health care, education, agriculture, social media & advertising, mobile business, clean technology, web economy and financial services. More than 100 panelists discussed trends, opportunities and challenges in the various sectors. Among the most popular were sessions on e-commerce, the mobile industry, social analytics, cloud computing and education.

Delivering the keynote address, N.S. Raghavan, cofounder of information technology firm Infosys, and founder-director or Nadathur Holdings and Investments, highlighted the need for entrepreneurs to be aware of the nuances of human behavior. He pointed out the critical role that fairness and equity play when organizations attempt to emotionally engage with all stakeholders. He also shared some interesting manifestations of human biases, particularly those that drive customer behavior. “Research work in neuro-biology and the two disciplines of neuro-economics and behavioral economics are of particular relevance to business professionals,” Raghavan said.

Hari Rajagopalachari, executive director with PricewaterhouseCoopers, spoke about the challenges around scaling a start-up. He noted that analysis shows that “entrepreneurs who are driven by a higher social purpose than just a profit motive are the ones who last longer and achieve scale.”

Now, that’s a good takeaway — not just for entrepreneurs but for businessmen of all hues.

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Joe Simon and the Great American Hero

Posted on December 19, 2011

Photo by Kendall Whitehouse

Before Captain America was the star of last summer’s blockbuster movie, he was a comic book superhero. The man who co-created the character over 70 years ago, comic book writer and artist Joe Simon, passed away this past Wednesday in New York.

Two months earlier, Simon spoke at New York Comic Con, a convention for fans of comic books and popular culture. It was three days after Simon’s 98th birthday, and as he entered the meeting room at the Javits Center, the enthusiastic crowd sang “Happy Birthday” to the comic hero creator.

The cover of the first issue of Captain America shows the character and his side-kick Bucky fighting Nazis, with the Captain himself socking Adolf Hitler on the jaw. Looking at the illustration now, it’s easy to write it off as typical American wartime propaganda.

But look closely at the issue date. Newsstand comics were routinely dated two or three months later than their actual publication date (so issues that lingered on the shelves unsold wouldn’t appear to be outdated). With a cover date of March 1941, that first issue of Captain America was likely created in late 1940 or early 1941. The U.S. entry into the Second World War was nearly a year in the future.

When Simon and partner Jack Kirby were looking for a villain for their new comic book, they didn’t have to venture into the realm of fantasy – there was horror enough arising in Europe. Concluding that the best comics were the ones with the best villains, Simon thought, “Let’s get a real live villain.” Hitler was the obvious choice. As Simon wrote in his autobiography, Joe Simon: My Life in Comics, “We knew what was happening in Europe, and were outraged by the Nazis – totally outraged. We thought it was a good time for a patriotic hero.” And thus Captain America was created to go up against the rising Nazi threat.

Simon and Kirby did give Captain America a fantastical opponent — the Red Skull, the idea for which came to Simon as he watched hot fudge dripping down the ice cream on a sundae. Simon was struck by how the pattern of the fudge looked like arms and legs, and he began to imagine a new villain – one who oozed all over the place and could be called Hot Fudge. He quickly rejected that idea. He then realized the cherry on top of the sundae resembled a skull and thought, “Red Skull … that sounds good.” And Captain America’s arch-villain was born.

In creating Captain America, Simon sought to devise something different from the spate of superhero characters that appeared following the success of Superman in 1938. “Comics used to be right out of a mold,” he told the audience at New York Comic Con. At industry leader DC Comics, Simon said, “You put all the ingredients in a cake, shake it, twist it around — and out would come a DC comic…. We came out with something different. Jack Kirby’s great artwork was totally different from anything that DC was putting out.”

Simon went on to create other remarkable heroes and villains, many in conjunction with Kirby. The team developed the Sandman, the Blue Bolt, the Newsboy Legion, the Boy Commandos, Manhunter and many others. The pair also worked in a wide range of genres beyond superheroes, including titles focused on crime, war, romance, western adventure, horror and humor.

Throughout his long career, Simon worked with many of the major figures in the industry. Stan Lee, the longtime Marvel Comics writer and editor – and one of the best known and most influential people in the industry – began his career working with Simon as, in Simon’s words, his “assistant and gopher.” Speaking at New York Comic Con, Simon said, “[Stan Lee] is a good guy. I like Stan.” He then jokingly added, “I made him what he is today.”

Simon was one of a number of early comic book creators who later fought for the rights to their earlier work. As Captain America continued to generate revenue through comic books and other forms of popular entertainment, Simon sought to reclaim the copyright to the character. His legal battle with Marvel over Captain America was eventually settled out of court.

Throughout his career Simon seemed intrigued by what makes someone a hero. It was a fascination that began early in his life.

At New York Comic Con, Simon relayed the story of an old veteran from the Civil War who visited his school when he was eight or nine years old. The man proudly held an old 35-star U.S. flag and burst into song, “Ah, the old flag never touched the ground, boys. The dear old flag was never down….” He shook the hand of each student declaring, “Shake the hand that shook the hand of Abraham Lincoln!”

A key moment in the tale was Simon’s account of the difference in the reaction of the teacher and the students to the old soldier. As the man rambled on, at one point the teacher, standing behind him, twirled her finger around while pointing at her head. In her view, the old man was a bit loony. Simon and the young students, however, saw something different. “None of us agreed with her,” Simon told the Comic Con audience. “We thought this guy was a great, great American hero.”

It was clearly a story that made an impact on Simon. It serves as the preface to his autobiography published in 2011, in which Simon wrote, “I would always remember the odd little fighting man as I continued in my life-long quest for the great American Hero. Eventually I would find him … and more.”

The version of the story Simon spun at New York Comic Con was long and rambling, often skipping around from point to point. But, even if his narrative did meander, his memory of the event — after close to a century — was clear and sharp. To the admiring audience, he must have seemed much like the character in his own story: aged — even a bit doddering – yet still an icon of an earlier era of heroism.

Also posted in Knowledge@Wharton Today, Leadership and Change | Tagged Captain America, comic books | Leave a comment

The Serious Legacy of Jerry Robinson, Creator of Batman’s Joker

Posted on December 12, 2011

Photo by Kendall Whitehouse

Jerry Robinson, 89, creator of Batman’s iconic Joker and other characters, passed away last Wednesday. Robinson’s work enthralled at least three generations of comic book lovers, and will continue to do so in the future. Less widely known, however, are his contributions in elevating comic book art to a respectable profession, training future generations of artists and helping those in his trade to share in the profits their creations generate from movies and merchandise, says Wharton’s director of new media Kendall Whitehouse.

In his seven-decade career, Robinson “was witness to — and an active participant in — the entire history of the superhero in comic books and popular culture,” Whitehouse wrote in his blog. He credits Robinson with being “a key player in making [comic book art] a professional field.” His comments were echoed by Batman movie producer Michael Uslan, who, according to a CNN report, said that Robinson “elevated comic books as art and fought for respectability for all his fellow artists.”

Robinson joined what would later become DC Comics (now DC Entertainment) in 1939 at age 17 as an assistant to Batman creators Bob Kane and Bill Finger, and is generally credited as the creator of the Joker in 1940. Back then, work as a comic book artist “wasn’t considered a serious profession,” Whitehouse notes. “This was an industry that was looked down upon, and comic books were viewed as trivial, and somewhat disreputable, entertainment for children.”

Decades later, the characters Robinson created or helped to shape through his work were featured in movies including in the 1989 box office hit Batman and 2008 top-grosser The Dark Knight. “Batman as a brand has stood the test of time, and it is amazing how it has evolved,” says Whitehouse. The newest Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, is scheduled for release next summer. Over the years, the Joker has been interpreted in many ways: as a prankish, funny character or as a powerful and menacing villain.

The comic book industry, too, has evolved. Robinson was instrumental in fighting for artists’ rights and working to secure for comic book creators a share in the profits they helped generate, says Whitehouse. He recalls how Robinson helped negotiate with Warner Communications to compensate Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who reportedly sold the rights to that character for $130. Years later, when the big-budget Superman film was being shot, Siegel and Shuster were “essentially destitute,” Whitehouse notes. “Robinson, along with follow artist Neal Adams, led a campaign to shame Warner Communications into providing them a small stipend and giving them credit for the creation of what was by then a source of many millions in revenue.”

One of Robinson’s biggest contributions was in training future generations of artists and helping create institutions for such work. He was an early faculty member at the School of Visual Arts in New York. There, he taught, among others, artist Steve Ditko, who went on to co-create the characters of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, says Whitehouse.

Whitehouse recalls asking Robinson once if he was still in touch with Ditko. “‘Not very often,’ he indicated. But he quickly added, ‘I taught him.’ He was clearly very proud of that contribution.”

Also posted in Knowledge@Wharton Today, Leadership and Change | Tagged Batman, comic books, Jerry Robinson | 4 Comments

How Google Is Trying to Grow Egypt’s Tech Industry

Posted on December 7, 2011

When bullets began flying in front of the State Television Building in downtown Cairo in October, Wael Fakharany had to run for cover. Fakharany, country manager for Google North Africa, was on his way to a TV studio interview when dozens of protestors outside the building were killed. “I was shot at,” he says. “The country is in chaos.”

And during the revolution that led to the unseating of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Fakharany recalls dealing with state police visits on a daily basis. But the upheaval Egypt has seen since the Arab Spring began has not made him despondent. “To be honest, this gave me a lot of energy. Egyptians need help, and I’m a firm believer that technology can change Egypt — its economic landscape, the cultural landscape and the political landscape.”

That’s why Fakharany and his team are enthusiastic about sponsoring a start-up competition in Egypt called Ebda2 — Arabic for “start” — that seeks to support local innovators and entrepreneurs. It is the first time that Google has ever directly supported the development of a country’s tech industry.

“This is the way forward for us, to get more and more people involved and expand the technology market,” Fakharany notes. “This is an investment to us. There are thousands of kids who are starting their own technology ventures, a few of them become sustainable, a few of them become regional and a few of them become a great success for Google and for me as an Egyptian.”

Part of the goal behind this competition, Fakharany says, is to challenge the notion in the Middle East that failure must be avoided, and only certain jobs are acceptable. “It’s deeply rooted in the culture, so we cannot change some of that,” he says. “But we want to change the culture of graduating from college and waiting for a job.”

The competition will go on for seven months, during which entrants will receive advice and mentoring from Google employees and Egyptian tech entrepreneurs. The contest will be administered independently from Google, just to keep it fair and free for all participants.

Fakharany notes Google received 3,000 applications in 15 days. “It’s about taking the idea, having the skills, and basically sharpening the skills, and creating a working prototype,” he says. The competition is now down to 200 finalists. In May, one winner will receive $200,000 from Google, and finalists will get to pitch their ideas to Silicon Valley investors.

Ultimately, Fakharany says his scope for the start-up program goes beyond the year. He hopes the competition will not only discover would-be tech entrepreneurs, but also create a network of Egyptian investors. “The network of angel investors in Egypt simply does not exist,” Fakharany points out. “What I want to do is not create the funds, but the first angel investor network. This will let them keep their money, but allows them to access ideas in cloud computing, or engaging Arabic content.”

The start-up competition is one of a number of initiatives that Google is undertaking in the Arab world. The Middle East is also included in the YouTube Space Lab competition, which seeks student experiments that could be demonstrated by astronauts in space.

Google is also expanding its presence in the region. According to The National newspaper in Abu Dhabi, the search giant doubled its regional workforce in an effort to gain a larger stake of online advertisement spending there. Regional Google searches have grown 30%, the paper notes, while its online advertising market has grown 118% in 2011.

Fakharany says that the Arab Spring has played a part in developing that growth. “When I started at Google four years ago, there were four million people online in Egypt,” he notes. “Now there are 28 million people online. Everything has changed with the revolution. If you look at the number of YouTube playbacks per day, it’s grown from two million playbacks in January to 28 million right now.

“The revolution has just helped us — everyone knows about the Internet now, and it is becoming a mainstream source of news,” he adds. “If you look at our search index, before the revolution, it was 15% celebrity news and gossip. Now 24% of our index is news [related to] the revolution.”

Also posted in Managing Technology | Tagged Egypt, entrepreneurship, Google | Leave a comment

Sun Rise Sunset – Solar Energy’s New Day

Posted on November 30, 2011

Solar energy’s contribution to total U.S. energy needs is gathering momentum thanks, in part, to continually falling costs for solar panels. But technical success also makes for a tough competitive environment that has claimed the lives of many solar companies – with more victims likely.

The falling costs recently caught the attention of Paul Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning columnist at The New York Times. In a recent article, he wrote that solar panel costs have dropped so much that the energy they produce is now priced competitively with fossil fuels in many cases. “We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power.” Krugman also references a recent blog post at Scientific American, which noted “there’s now frequent talk of a ‘Moore’s law’ in solar energy.” (Moore’s law suggests that the amount of computing power that can be placed on an integrated circuit doubles every 18 months.) Inflation-adjusted prices for solar equipment generally are dropping about 7% annually, and solar panel prices fell by about half over the last two years, according to some estimates.

That positive long-term news is partially offset in the short run by shifts in the production landscape, where the rapid advances and lower costs achieved by some firms have outflanked many others. The result: “’Of the few hundred or so solar panel makers worldwide, just 20 to 40 are expected to remain standing in a few years time,’ said Mark Bachman, a renewables analyst at Avian Securities,” according to CNN Money online. The industry shakeout is being driven further by cuts in solar subsidies in some countries – notably in Europe – which face tough budget constraints.

More generally, projected rising energy demands in fast-growing regions such as Asia and Latin America mean that the use of all forms of energy – fossil fuels and alternatives – will rise rapidly in the furute, notes Eric W. Orts, Wharton professor of legal studies and business ethics. “Solar will be a piece of that.” (Expect oil production also to ramp up over the next few years because, ironically, global warming has opened up vast new areas of the Arctic to oil production.)

One problem facing solar, wind and most other alternative energy sources is that the payoff — or breakeven — period for investments is long term. Venture capital and private equity investors tend to prefer the faster payouts potentially available in, say, social media, notes Orts, who also is director of Wharton’s Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL).

Meanwhile, solar energy costs would be competitive today with fossil fuels if all of the external costs of the latter were counted, such as the effects on air and water quality, and ultimately on human health, Orts points out. Because those costs are not priced in, they amount to hidden subsidies, Krugman says. “Economics 101 tells us that an industry imposing large costs on third parties should be required to ‘internalize’ those costs — that is, to pay for the damage it inflicts, treating that damage as a cost of production.”

Alternative energy sources typically receive overt government subsidies of various kinds, something that has become a point of contention recently. The biggest controversy involves Solyndra, a solar energy equipment company which recently went bankrupt after receiving $500 million in U.S. subsidies. Solyndra was one of those solar companies that failed because technological successes in the industry swept past them, according to Krugman.

While those opposing subsidies point to Solyndra’s losses as a prime example of why the government should not be picking winners and losers, Orts points out that the U.S. may have to continue subsidies to counter strong competition from China, which most observers say heavily subsidizes its fast-growing solar energy industry. “Solyndra suggests subsidies are a bad thing, and there’s been a lot of focus on one case gone bad. But what about China?” Orts asks. “And if we do choose to fight back that way, challenging China for violating WTO (World Trade Organization) obligations in subsidizing the industry, how does that play into all of this?” Some U.S. solar panel makers have already filed an action against China with the U.S. Commerce Department over alleging subsidies.

The bottom line is that if solar energy is not yet totally competitive, it soon will be, Orts says. “It’s already a significant piece of the mix and will become more so.” Right here at Wharton, for example, there’s been talk of setting up a parking lot that will be wired to recharge electric car batteries via solar panels.

Given the fallout in the solar panel industry, in the short run, the bigger alternative investment opportunity in energy may be energy efficiency, according to Orts. A lot of times, such solutions – such as insulation and heating and air conditioning control – don’t get much attention. “But there have been many advances in new technologies and materials that save lots of money, and venture capital money has found it has a pretty good payoff.”

Featured Professors: Eric W. Orts

Also posted in Finance and Investment, Knowledge@Wharton Today, Law and Public Policy, Managing Technology | 6 Comments

A New Era for Nonprofits: Seeking Data That Makes a Difference

Posted on November 10, 2011

All nonprofits have the goal of making a positive difference in the lives of the populations they serve. But how do they know if their efforts are truly having an impact?

In a new film, Saving Philanthropy: Resources to Results, director Kate Robinson documents a two-year effort to answer that question. The former director of a health care nonprofit, Robinson began her search when she realized that she had no way to measure the effectiveness of her program. Following a screening of the film, Robinson and a panel of experts discussed this and other struggles for nonprofits at an event sponsored by the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for High Impact Philanthropy, the Wharton Program for Social Impact and the Wharton Leadership Program.

After interviewing dozens of people from across the nonprofit sector, Robinson suggests that the most successful programs are those that have clearly defined goals, methods of collecting data to see if those goals are being achieved, and the ability to adjust based on what the data is telling them. But in an era of shrinking staffs and greater competition for fewer funding sources, creating such a strategy and making it a key area of concern is very challenging, panelists acknowledged.

“People need to make time for it and view it as a priority, not as something that’s extra if they have time for it at the end of the day,” said Carra Cote-Ackah, a consultant for the Center for High Impact Philanthropy and a former program officer for the Robertson Foundation. “We’re seeing nonprofits closing; we’re seeing drops in funding and we’re seeing a whole new world of funding. That is stressful for nonprofits, and it’s stressful for funders. But making time to prioritize that emphasis on quality, and the learning around it, is really important.”

Thanks to technology, the data that can be made available to nonprofits is much greater than it was in the past. It’s a challenge facing a number of industries and creates a “huge job ahead of us in gaining the translational skill to [present the data] in pictures, in images and in graphs, so you don’t have to be a wonk to get it,” noted Katherina Rosqueta, executive director of the Center for High Impact Philanthropy. “We’re talking about a set of donors who are now used to a lot more information than people were 20 years ago…. If we can solve that, our sector will be closer to the results we want to have.”

But nonprofits are also overwhelmingly facing disconnects between the outcomes they are studying in-house versus those that are of importance to potential and ongoing funders. Panelists said nonprofits need to guard against “mission drift” and be bolder in demonstrating why their data measuring is also meaningful to donors. “That’s an easy thing to say and hard to do,” noted Greg Goldman, vice president of development for the Philadelphia Zoo. “Some funders are so stringent in their own definition of what outcomes are that they impose that definition on the organization, making it very difficult for organizations to develop and work toward their own organically generated outcomes…. The agenda should be driven more from the bottom up.”

Within the organization, however, the staff has to be willing to change course, in some cases dramatically, if they see evidence that a particular program isn’t working. “It takes brave people in both the foundation world and the nonprofit world to have the guts,” to acknowledge a misstep and move on from there, Rosqueta said. “It’s only failure if you don’t learn from it, and if you don’t do that kind of course correcting.”

Also posted in Knowledge@Wharton Today, Leadership and Change | Tagged nonprofits, philanthropy | 2 Comments

Category: Innovation and Entrepreneurship