Just picked this up off of Techcrunch… I love any idea that forces nonprofits to compare their results to others in their field. It’s dovetails transparency and accountability quite nicely. So what Swivel does is allow people to upload data to their site not merely to store it but to use for data analysis. This could conceivably allow donors and clients to actually see what a nonprofit does (should they actually have the data for this).
I’d like to point out that if there was such a thing as a nonprofit social service data standard, then it would be remarkably easy for people to do these comparisons. That said, how wicked would it be for people who used the same case management systems to do data dumps and upload it to Swivel? Let’s say my org (which uses Foothold Technology’s AWARDS database) and another org which uses that same application does a simple .CSV dump of their data. We upload the dumps independently of one another to swivel. We wouldn’t need a Charity Navigator or Guidestar anymore to justify our expenses. All our work would be up there for everyone to see and to slice and dice as necessary.
Of course, the devil is in the details hehe. And who knows how’s snappy their apps are going to be or how detailed their graphs are going to be? Swivel is such a great idea and I really hope it takes off.
UPDATE: Swivel is now up! (And under heavy server load)
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Love your thoughts on accountability and transparency. We agree. Our take is the only there is through having fun and being social. Then, 3 months later, wow transparency.
Come check us out once we open up.
Brian Mulloy
Cofounder & CEO
http://www.swivel.com
I’m there! Sign me up for the beta.
excellent. see you then.
Sounds very interesting, is Swivel expanding the team? What’s the backend architecture? Love to learn more!
there may be something here but if it is widely adopted i could see the dawn of a new type consultant up whose sole purpose will be to superficially enhance an organization’s Swivel rating. More consultants. That’s great.
Maybe not. But either way – when comparing organizations’ management capabilities, you really can’t go wrong with the old Income Statement, Balance Sheet, Statement of Cash Flows, and 990. From the 990 alone you can get profit margins (yes, profit margins are important for nonprofits), fund balances, expense ratios, directors salaries, and program related revenue. That will tell you what kind of “organization” you are dealing with. And frankly, if those numbers don’t jibe, you shouldn’t donate to the nonprofit no matter how compeling their cause is. Ideas are great but if the organization lacks the people to execute the mission then stay away. Think like an investor.
But assuming that 2 NPOs rate equally on the financials – how do you determine who does more? That’s tough and maybe Swivel can help here. I know that the Balanced Scorecard Approach is used by companies like New Profit to evaluate nonprofits. Does Swivel use any principles of the Balanced Scorecard?
If Swivel doesn’t work, I propose that all nonprofits get MySpace pages and the one with the mst scrolling marquees receive the most donations.
LOL! I think nonprofits should be judged on percentage of web page devoted to widgets. Higher score wins as always…
Anyway, Swivel could rock the nonprofit world on those fine points of analysis. The problem I have with financials alone as a way to evaluate a nonprofit is that it makes nonprofits focus on outputs and not outcomes. Outcomes frameworks take forever to implement and cost a lot — and paying for that adds to your overhead. That gives nonprofits a bad choice at times — pay for outcomes analysis or maintain your 3 star rating at Charity Navigator (ugh).
With Swivel, I would assume that nonprofits can truly be judged on outcomes if they’re already using case maangement software. Let the donors do the analysis and cut out the evaluation middle men and women. Uh oh — I wonder whose business model bubble just burst?
Good post. from what I’ve seen, philanthropy is stimulated when the cost of giving appears low relative to the perceived rewards. Friends of mine, and many others are being jolted into becoming philanthropists, most commonly by travelling in countries where a few to a few hundred of their dispensible US dollars can change lives. A friend paid for a year of education for the neice of a man he met in China, who would otherwise been deprived of a now much more promising future. I call this micro-philanthropy. I think there are opportunities for harvesting the ripples of commerce to meet some civic needs, but I also see many needs that wouldn’t be met by this method — like the needs of older, very poor men & women for housing and food. So much depends upon the perception of value by the donor — which doesn’t map neatly to many kinds of needs.