One of the most fascinating debates taking place currently within the philanthropic and nonprofit sectors reflects the tension inherent in embracing evidence-based approaches. Within this debate, the two sectors have challenged the merits of and obsession with formal evaluation outcomes, metrics, and nonprofit effectiveness. For example, see this online discourse between Bill Schambra, a noted philanthropic critic, and Will Miller of The Wallace Foundation in Nonprofit Quarterly.

Scaling growth, whether in nonprofits or social benefit enterprises, continues to generate attention and buzz. The underlying concepts behind scaling growth are not new. But scaling growth has gained further traction in recent years as the philanthropic and social investment sectors have increased their focus on improving and documenting organizational effectiveness, developed new collaborative funding models to address systemic problems, and supported individual donors’ interests in maximizing the impact of their charitable giving and social investments. Efforts like the Social Capital Markets conference (SOCAP), the Social Impact Exchange, the Social Innovation Fund, Investing in Innovation (i3), and Social Impact Bonds, all touch on or extend the parameters of the scaling growth dialogue.

An upcoming event (link) on scaling growth of nonprofits with William Foster, Bridgespan Group Senior Partner and incoming Executive Director of the Jacobson Family Foundation, continues this dialogue. Sponsored by UpStart Bay Area, the Foundation Center, and the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund, this event will build on Foster’s decade of primary research and client work. The discussions will focus on what nonprofits need to do in order to achieve scale, how their program models relate to their funding models, and philanthropy's central role and common failings in helping nonprofits scale.

We are on the eve of the second Social Impact Exchange conference which will be held June 15 - 16. The conference last year, which was covered by Geri Stengel of Ventureneer and myself, focused on defining scaling organizational growth to increase social impact while presenting discussions on developing growth capital systems and the need for philanthropic collaborations. A summary of the conference coverage is available here. Geri will again host the blog coverage for the conference, which can also be tracked on Twitter under the hashtag #SIEX2011.

One of the most interesting discussions during the Grants Managers Network (GMN) conference focused on the evolution of grants management software. Admittedly, this might not seem like the most exciting subject. But grants management software has a tremendous impact on how foundations review proposals and process their grant awards. And based on the discussions that took place at the GMN conference this week, a big change is about to happen – the only true question is whether this change will occur within two to three years or within five years.

I’ve spent the past few days at the annual conference of the Grants Managers Network (GMN) and will publish two other posts about the conference. 

My first post though focuses on the grantmaking organizations and social media. Much as been written about foundations that use social media to communicate and outreach. But, very little has been written about how grantmaking organizations apply due diligence to social media use by their grant seekers and grant recipients. Due diligence in philanthropy reflects the funder’s efforts assess an organizations fiscal position, organizational effectiveness, leadership, and capacity to implement a specific grant. So, let’s build the best practice approach to this subject.

In building this best practice, funders can research both an organization’s footprint and behavior within social media platforms, and assess its strategies and capacity through its internal documents.  To keep this simple I have listed twenty key questions a funder should be asking when examining social media activities of an organization its researching. I’ll break these questions into external (i.e., things we can answer by simply researching online) and internal questions (i.e., things that we can only answer by getting information directly from the organization being researched).