I’d like to see data driven foundations host MOOCs like the one now being hosted by the Learning by Giving Foundation. More than 1300 people are registered in the Google+ community. This is a link to the Google+ community for that MOOC. https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101084616610416772005
However, I’d like to see this go several steps further.
a) focus the MOOC on specific issues the foundation is interested in supporting with its strategic philanthropy.
d) create a theory of change that shows “who all needs to be participating” in your MOOC, and in efforts to solve the problem you are trying to solve. Use concept maps to illustrate the range of talent and networks. Here’s an example. http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Talent-needed
After each event and gathering, share your maps to show who participated. Write some ‘sense making’ articles to show the diversity of participation, both based on the talent and networks who you want to have involved, as well as by the geographic distribution.
Create a tool to map growth in participation from year-to-year so that you can show that more of “the right people” are in the conversation and sharing ideas with each other (and the rest of those who focus on the same issue).
Create a tool to map donations to areas of the world and organizations in those areas who doing the work to implement your theory of change. Do your analysis to show what parts of the world have people from your network supporting their efforts with on-going distributions of time, talent and cash, and which parts of the world are still undeserved because too few people focus their resources on these areas.
If strategic philanthropy collects, organizes and shares this type of data perhaps those tools can be used by others and to support different causes. Perhaps this type of mapping and analysis is being done. If so links to web sites showing this should be provided, and foundations paying for such work should be complemented.
COMMENTS
BY Daniel F. Bassill, D.H.L.
ON August 13, 2013 10:03 AM
I’d like to see data driven foundations host MOOCs like the one now being hosted by the Learning by Giving Foundation. More than 1300 people are registered in the Google+ community. This is a link to the Google+ community for that MOOC. https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/101084616610416772005
However, I’d like to see this go several steps further.
a) focus the MOOC on specific issues the foundation is interested in supporting with its strategic philanthropy.
b) use Social Network Analyis tools to create a map of who is participating. I’ve been trying to do this with a conference I host in Chicago. The graphics in this blog show participants. http://kalyanimisra.blogspot.com/2010/10/social-network-analysis-of-may-09.html
c) use Google maps to show where participants come from - build this into your event from the start so most participant are on the map. Here’s the map started by Learning By Giving Foundation after the event had started. https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=210594313450416317479.0004e074d85c77116098c&msa=0
d) create a theory of change that shows “who all needs to be participating” in your MOOC, and in efforts to solve the problem you are trying to solve. Use concept maps to illustrate the range of talent and networks. Here’s an example. http://tinyurl.com/TMC-Talent-needed
After each event and gathering, share your maps to show who participated. Write some ‘sense making’ articles to show the diversity of participation, both based on the talent and networks who you want to have involved, as well as by the geographic distribution.
Create a tool to map growth in participation from year-to-year so that you can show that more of “the right people” are in the conversation and sharing ideas with each other (and the rest of those who focus on the same issue).
Create a tool to map donations to areas of the world and organizations in those areas who doing the work to implement your theory of change. Do your analysis to show what parts of the world have people from your network supporting their efforts with on-going distributions of time, talent and cash, and which parts of the world are still undeserved because too few people focus their resources on these areas.
If strategic philanthropy collects, organizes and shares this type of data perhaps those tools can be used by others and to support different causes. Perhaps this type of mapping and analysis is being done. If so links to web sites showing this should be provided, and foundations paying for such work should be complemented.
See my own thinking about growing networks at http://tinyucrl.com/TMI-Network-growth