November's President's Report
November 5, 2008
Last month, we launched a new blog site called Ken's Commentary to separate out opinion pieces from the daily news of the charity sector which remains on the Charity Navigator blog. I hope many of you who have signed up to become Followers on the Charity Navigator blog will also do so for Ken's Commentary!
In October, I also began to collaborate with my Charity Navigator colleagues on blogs. The installments since last time are as follows:
- Good News in a Bad Economy - Leonie Giles and I collaborated on this post. It was picked up by The Chronicle of Philanthropy in their "Give and Take" Column of the Best Nonprofit Blog Posts.
- Jalapenos and Yogurt - This is the first entry on Ken’s Commentary and simply explains why the new blog.
- The Front Line vs. The Bottom Line - Kaitlin Woolf was my collaborator
- Bad Charities with Heart - in partnership with Vincent Bogucki
- A Win-Win Strategy - The Graying of Charities - written with Emily Navarro
We have also begun a collaboration with student interns from the NYU Wagner School of Public Service to help us deepen our performance measurement of charities as well as our own organization. Two teams of interns are working with us on the projects.
In October, I visited with the national staff of the American Red Cross in Washington, D.C. The scale of their operation is amazing as are the challenges they face in handling disaster relief and maintaining about half of the country’s blood supply. The visit was also an opportunity for me to meet leaders of many other household name charities headquartered in DC and to hear their views on what the future holds for the charitable sector.
I was interviewed for a TV spot with BusinessWeek that is scheduled to air nationally in the coming month. The segment covers cause-related marketing and charity malls. You can read about some of our views on the subject by clicking here and here.
As you read this, I will be in China speaking at the Global Philanthropy Forum. My daughter and I intend to record a fair amount of video of the presentations as well as interviews of speakers. We will share it with you around the middle of November on Ken’s Commentary and the Charity Navigator blog. I'm also attending the annual conference of the Independent Sector in Philadelphia on 11/10 and 11/11. Once again I will be trying my hand at some video podcasts for your viewing pleasure.
Never a dull moment! All the best!
Ken Berger
President & CEO
Charity Navigator
