Here’s a sobering thought: According to the IBM-sponsored 2016 Ponemon Institute Cost of a Data Breach Study, the average cost to an organization of a run-of-the-mill data breach is $4 million.
It’s even more sobering because any one of us could be the unwitting cause – or victim – of a data breach. Including you. Definitely including me.
Ever heard of spear phishing? I’d never heard of it before it happened here. [Read more…]
As Americans, we’re acculturated to believe – deep down in our cell structure – that no matter how dire the situation, the cavalry will always come at the last minute to save the day.
The cavalry can be a heroine, a hero, a bunch of dusty dudes on horses, or a squad of geeky introverts, but you only have to look at every movie ever made in Hollywood to know that when help is needed, it will come. [Read more…]
Abbaye de la Sauve Majeure – Ulysses, by Ophelia2 (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By English: Petty Officer 2nd Class Arcenio Gonzalez Jr., U.S. Navy [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
What’s going on, briefly? The British Information Commissioner’s Office’s (ICO) levied substantial fines against two large and well-respected British charities, publicly berated and shamed them for – amongst other things – conducting wealth screenings and prospect research. It’s a very worrisome time in the UK for our colleagues right now, and the fundraising community over here should take note – and provide moral support.
More on this developing story will be found here on the Intelligent Edge, but in the meantime, please take a moment to visit the Further Reading section at the end of this post to get yourself caught up on the ICO ruling and the UK fundraising community’s reaction to it. [Read more…]
BuzzFeed reports that, on Facebook, the top 20 click-bait-y fake news stories generated more engagement than the top 20 real news stories did in the past three months.
That’s okay if you know that what you’re looking at is fake and you’re just clicking or sharing something to get a good eye roll workout. But a new study by Stanford University says that the “digital natives” amongst us – kids from middle school through college – can’t tell the difference between sponsored content and real news.
And regarding their habits on social media, the Wall Street Journal reported that “[m]any students judged the credibility of newsy tweets based on how much detail they contained or whether a large photo was attached, rather than on the source.”
Think about that – credibility is judged on whether or not there’s a pretty picture.
That’s really worrying, especially because it’s not just kids that are making that mis-judgment. The Pew Research Center reports that 66% of Facebook users get their news there, and overall nearly 40% of us get our news online now.
Facebook is just a social networking site. It’s not a news site…right?
It’s inappropriate for anyone to like an article about someone getting shot. In the case of the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, research shows that stories on his death went into a cone of silence on Facebook, partly because it was inappropriate to ‘Like’ (for which read: share) and harder still (for non-trolls) to comment on. So when it comes to what gets shared more, the algorithms favor the Pope endorsing Donald Trump over what’s happening in Ferguson or Flint because of Likes.
It makes sense logically. But if 66% of people on Facebook (and let’s face it, Facebook’s market penetration is colossal) – if 66% of Facebook users are getting their news there, it’s well on its way to becoming a media company. A news distributor. Far and away from simply a social networking site. [Read more…]
Fundraising is certainly not a new profession, but the study of it is. As Ben Rymer pointed out in his recent blog post “if money is power, why has philanthropy not been a more popular field of inquiry for social scientists?”
Good question.
Between the jaw-droppingly huge philanthropic initiatives that have been recently announced, the rise of impact investing, venture philanthropy, and the political and social implications this new stratosphere of evolutionary philanthropy brings, we need intelligent commentary and creative centers of study to help translate what all of this means. [Read more…]
Quite. Well, in May 2015, the UK elected a Government with the manifesto pledge to hold a referendum with a simple question: should the UK remain in or leave the European Union? That referendum took place on 23 June 2016, and 51.9% of those who voted, voted to leave the EU. [Read more…]
“I Voted” – photo by Valerie Hinojosa via Flikr
You may have noticed that there’s a presidential election coming in November*.
What you may not know is that you can find out how much someone has given and to which candidate they have given in any political race. Nonprofiteers, this is important information to know. I’ll tell you why in a second. [Read more…]
While uncertainty rules the day on Brexit’s effect on philanthropy, four things seem reasonable to expect in the wake of the British public’s vote on June 23rd to leave the European Union.
First, Brexit is likely to be bad news for the British macroeconomy. A weaker sterling (the British pound is so far the worst performing currency in the world in 2016), continuing low productivity (see chart below from the Resolution Foundation) and lower profits (the FTSE 250, consisting of mainly British companies, lost £38bn from June 24th-July 8th) are all notable trends.
There is a risk that Britain (or, in the event of a breakup of the UK, perhaps only England) will become a sort of ‘Greater Guernsey’. [Read more…]
Front Cover – CAF Charity Street II Report 2016
This month, the UK-based Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) released their report Charity Street II: The value of charity to British households. Over 2,000 households responded to the survey this past February which was aimed at discovering [Read more…]