Come on in. The water's fine. An exploration of Web 2.0 technology and its emerging impact on foundation communications
From PhilanthropyWiki
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"Come on in. The water's fine. An exploration of Web 2.0 technology and its emerging impact on foundation communications" urges foundations to make more use of Web 2.0 technologies in order to more effectively engage the public in their work and to have greater programmatic impact.
It suggests that foundations that have adopted new and still emerging forms of digital communications — interactive websites, blogs, wikis, and social networking applications — are finding that they offer "opportunities for focused convenings and conversations, lend themselves to interactions with and among grantees, and are an effective story-telling medium."
The report also acknowledges that the new technologies raise skepticism and concern among foundations. They include the "worry of losing control over the foundation's message, allowing more staff members to represent the foundation in a more public way, opening the flood gates of grant requests or the headache of a forum gone bad with unwanted or inappropriate posts." However, the report argues that whatever is "lost in message control will be more than made up for by the opportunity to engage audiences in new ways, with greater programmatic impact."
This USA report was supported by The California Endowment, the Edna McConnell Clark Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It was written by David Brotherton and Cynthia Scheiderer of Brotherton Strategies.
You can read Beth Kantner's review of this report here.