NPQ’s Week in Review
Good Morning! At NPQ, what moves you is what moves us. The Week in Review highlights what our readers nominate as their favorite content and what they share with us and the community in the form of tweets, comments, contributed articles, and newswires.
But first, take a look at what you might have missed last week in some of the major news stories covered in NPQ.
CALLS FOR FINANCIAL REFORM COME FROM ABOVE AND BELOW: In what we hope will become part of real multi-level pressure for reform of our financial system, Bill Gates proposed a financial transaction tax to the G20 nations as a way to raise needed revenue while discouraging wasteful speculation. Meanwhile, “Occupy Wall Street” spread to Boston, Los Angeles, Chicago, and other U.S. cities.
NONPROFITS RECRUIT MEMBERS AND ALLIES TO GATHER INFO AND GENERATE IDEAS: MoveOn.org and the Freshwater Society employed crowdsourcing techniques to engage people in defining and proposing solutions to public problems. MoveOn is asking people to take pictures of deteriorating infrastructure—bridges, roads, schools, etc.—in order to make the case for public investment that puts people back to work while improving the nation’s capital stock. Meanwhile, the Freshwater Society is running a contest asking people to come up with ideas for managing runoff from lawns and other sources of harmful chemicals. We love to hear about these kinds of efforts.
TEENS TAKE ON THE GIRL SCOUTS OVER PALM OIL: Two young Girl Scouts have used social media and a cookie boycott to pressure the Girl Scouts into changing their recipe for those delicious cookies. The cookies use palm oil, the production of which helps to destroy the rain forest. This is one of many such stakeholder actions that NPQ is following.
Readers’ Pick: THE Hottest article OF THE WEEK
Nonprofits Could Benefit from Facebook Changes
Written by NPQ’s newest and youngest staff member, Aine Creedon, this Newswire article eclipsed every other story on our website in terms of readership and reader comments. The overwhelming response confirmed what we already knew: NPQ readers are focused on and want to hear more about the engagement potential of social media. The comments indicate that readers are more or less enthusiastic about Facebook’s announced changes, but they are paying close attention.
Conversation of the week
Things Not to Say in a Job Interview: Those Pesky Buzzwords
We would all like to know how we really come across to those we’d like to impress. This Newswire article covered a post from an employment specialist who had a lot to say about applicants’ sometimes obnoxious use of buzzwords in interviews. But readers said, “What are we supposed to do? You employers actually run our resumes through automated systems to pick up ‘key words!’ Isn’t that a bit of a set-up?” Good point. With 9 percent unemployment, it’s a buyer’s market when it comes to hiring. Given that, maybe the best advice for resumes and interviews alike is to simply be honest and be yourself. If doing so means you use buzzwords, then so be it!
Trending Tweets of the week
Thanks to all you tweeters out there. You help us spread the NPQ word and we’re grateful for your engagement. We saw a lot of NPQ articles being followed online, not only on Twitter but on LinkedIn and Facebook as well this week, leading to close-to-record readership. Thanks to our community for surfacing and circulating what interests you! And if you don’t already, follow us on Twitter at @npquarterly.
Living_CitiesSep 27, 12:06pm via Web
Rick Cohen of @npquarterly via @NextAmCity “The New Normal of Community Development” bit.ly/okoDCm #LC20
chrisj1914Sep 30, 3:02m via Tweetdeck
“Does Philanthropy Really Want Entrepreneurs? Maybe Not”…bit.ly/qYJCaF (via: @npquarterly)
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MetroplannersSep 30, 11:27am via Web
@MoveOn wants your photos of deteriorating #infrastructure in #Chicago + nationwide. owl.li/6EUgR via @npquarterly
mdgislasonSep 28, 11:29pm via Twitter for iPhone
“@HaasJrFund: The slides and recording of today’s @npquarterly trendcast w/ Bill Ryan on coaching made available at dev-npq-site.pantheonsite.io”
SAAFdnSep 27, 1:11pm via Hootsuite
RT @npquarterly: Congratulations Habitat for Humanity for building your 500,000th home! A celebration well deserved
NPQ’s READER Contributor of the week
Bill Ryan
A lifelong student of nonprofits, Bill Ryan is a research fellow at the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He currently directs the Nonprofit Governance and Accountability Project, a joint initiative of the Hauser Center and Harvard Law School aimed at engaging Harvard researchers in critical questions related to nonprofit governance. Bill was the guest of NPQ Editor-in-Chief Ruth McCambridge on our trendcast of last week, which was based on the recent NPQ interview “Coaching as a Capacity Building Tool.” Bill is also an old friend of NPQ. More than a decade ago he helped us think through our points of view on governance. In 2004 Bill co-authored the influential book Governance as Leadership: Reframing the Work of Nonprofit Boards with Dick Chait and Barbara Taylor.
NOW IT’S YOUR TURN! GIVE IT TO US.
Got a Tip for Us? We Need Your Voice Here
Did we miss something this week? What do you want to see us cover next week? Be our eyes and ears on the ground. Don’t hold back. Let us have it. And we’ll put it right here. Just let us know if you want it to be confidential.
