The majority of charities devote less than 2% of their budgets to advocacy or lobbying. Does it matter? Should Charities take on the mantle of Advocacy as an element of their mission?

Most charities have a two pronged mission: strive to alleviate some type of struggle or suffering in the immediate term and to change the cycle that allows the harm to continue. I suggest it is impossible for most charities to achieve their mission without advocating and lobbying for their particular cause.

Melissa Berman, the president of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, recently wrote a white paper titled Data, data, everywhere; and not a way to think. In this paper, she describes the difference between philanthrocapitalism and philanertainment, and the insufficient role that data usually plays in nonprofit outcomes.

On Wednesday, July 16th, Ascendant hosted a breakfast for nonprofit executives at the Fairmont Copley Hotel in Boston. Over 80 executives showed up. They keynote speaker was Dr. David Norton, co-creator of the BSC concept.

In the Bridgespan Summer 2008 Knowledge Letter, released today, Kirk Kramer, a partner at Bridgespan, talked about a recent report from Bridgespan and Bain on how effective organization achieve superior results. In this research, Bridgespan compares assessment results of 30 nonprofits against Bain's database of over 500 for profits.

I was lucky to be in New York for the awards ceremony for the NY Times 2008 Nonprofit Excellence Awards. This award is given in conjunction with the New York Regional Association of Grantmakers (NYRAG) and the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee of New York (NPCC). The ceremony was at the Times Center on June 24.

The United Way's mission and vision are about improving people's lives, and they recently decided that they were not making as big of a difference as they could. CEO, Brian Gallagher, decided that the most important measure for the organization was to look at the number of lives impacted and communities shaped. His approach may take donations away from traditional recipients of United Way grants.

In the March 21, 2008 issue of Science magazine, Harvard professor Michael Norton, not to be confused with Balanced Scorecard co-creator David Norton, published his findings that money can buy you happiness. I certainly was intrigued when I read this news in a Harvard Business School's Working Knowledge interview earlier this week.

One of the key articles in the Summer 2008 issue of the Stanford Social Innovation Review is titled Achieving Breakthrough Performance, and is written by Gottfredson, Schaubert, and Babcock (two partners at Bain and one CEO of a nonprofit). In this article, they argue that there are 4 principles that nonprofits should follow to achieve performance.

Susan Towler, the Executive Director of The Blue Foundation for a Healthy Florida, won the iPod Touch drawing at the CoF Summit. The drawing was from the various attendees who filled out the Foundation Impact Survey. Congratulations Susan!!

I recently returned from the new National Harbor development and the Council on Foundations annual summit in Washington, DC. It was a great opportunity for me to learn more about issues facing community, family, and corporate foundations and to hear from leaders in the field on key strategic problems.