Philanthropy Predictions 2014

It’s December! Time for the inevitable end-of-year lists that help us mark the passage of another year. My annual Blueprint forecast for philanthropy is now available online; it offers up lists of buzzwords, wildcards, and predictions, and identifies big shifts that will matter in 2014. Here’s a sneak preview of the predictions I’m making for the next 12 months:

• We will experience a major scandal in the crowdfunding marketplace.
• Github will become a widely used, meaningful sharing platform for nonprofits. (And you will learn what Github is.)
• At least one major nonprofit/foundation infrastructure organization will close up shop.
• Donor disclosure rules will return to the US media spotlight with the 2014 midterm elections.
• One winner of the Gates Foundation’s Data Interoperability Grand Challenge will launch a widely used new product or service for social sector data by December 2014.

There are more than a dozen more such claims in Blueprint 2014: Philanthropy and the Social Economy, now available for free download. Feel free to add your own predictions or disagree with mine in the comments.

You can also come back next December when I share the scorecard of how I did. Reflecting on last year, here’s a look at the scorecard for 2013—some of the things I got right or wrong from last year’s list:

• Right: US state courts will take center stage on issues of nonprofit donor disclosure. (Several states changed their rules on donor disclosure following the 2012 election.)
• Right: Four new social impact bonds will be issued in the United States. (There were more than four.)
• Wrong: Congress will change the rules on tax deductions. (It held hearings but didn’t change the charitable tax deduction levels. Yet.)
• Wrong (or we can’t tell yet): “Dead” 501(c)(4) organizations will litter the nonprofit landscape.

The above list is an excerpt from Blueprint 2014. You can download the full publication, including forecasts, buzzwords, wildcards, and other insights, from the Grantcraft website.

Read more stories by Lucy Bernholz.