Dorian Almont on 5 Must-Read Blogs for Those Working in Nonprofits and Foundations

Hello, I’m Dorian Almont and I am an independent consultant working primarily to develop measurement capacity with nonprofit community organizations. I’d like to share five blogs that I read, after I’m done reading aea365 of course, to keep up to date on issues in the nonprofit sector. Each regularly includes discussions and contributions focusing on measurement and evaluation of nonprofit outcomes.

Rad Resource – Tactical Philanthropy: Written primarily by Sean Stannard-Stockton, CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, this blog includes both links to key writings on philanthropy from other sources as well as reflections from the author. It often takes a research-based, measure-focused approach and I’ve found it to be the most consistently useful philanthropy blog in that I learn about tools and measures that I can apply readily in my own consulting work.

Rad Resource – The CEP Blog: Written primarily by staff at the Center for Effective Philanthropy, with multiple contributions from its President Phil Buchanan, the CEP blog focuses (like CEP itself) on examining “the development of comparative data to enable higher-performing funders.” While I wish there were a few fewer announcements about staffing and such at CEP, the content that focuses on research in philanthropy is of consistently high quality.

Rad Resource – To What End: Authored by Jara Dean-Coffey, founder of JDC Partnerships, and aea365 contributor, this blog gives insight into what it is like to be an evaluator, working on the ground, with nonprofits. She shares multiple resources via her approximately weekly updates, and the information is practical and meaningful for day-to-day practice.

Rad Resource – Philanthropy411: Curated (an often written) by Kris Putnam-Walkerly of Putnam Community Investment Consulting, Philanthropy 411 covers the breadth and depth of philanthropy. She often gathers teams together to cover events, such as the Council on Foundations Annual Conference, providing multiple perspectives. Evaluation and measuring impact are ongoing topics and the content is updated on a regular basis. This blog is especially good for gaining insight into major happenings that I cannot attend in person.

Rad Resource – High Impact Philanthropy: From the Center for High Impact Philanthropy at the School of Social Policy & Practice at the University of Pennsylvania, the blog is a mixture of philanthropy theory and practice, with an ongoing focus on increasing and measuring impact. It regularly includes links to research-based reports on impact measurement and its articles span multiple sectors (education, health, etc.).

Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org. aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.