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).

Scaling social impact – defined as focusing on increasing philanthropic and capital investments in scaling effective social programs – continues to evolve at a high speed. New growth capital opportunities, development of capital aggregation systems, and an expanding role for capital intermediaries are only a few examples of the evolution of the sector. To help inform the evolution of the sector, the Social Impact Exchange has convened a number of small working groups to further develop an understanding of scaling social impact and increase coherence in the field. The working groups engage members of the Social Impact Exchange in specific project related to scaling impact and in identifying scale ready programs for growth funding.

I’m currently attending the annual gathering of Jewish community federations and affiliated communities. The gathering, known as the General Assembly (GA), focuses on issues critical to North American Jewry, Jews abroad, and the State of Israel. As explained by the Jewish Federations of North America, the system’s umbrella organization, the federation movement “represents 157 Jewish Federations and 400 Network communities, which raise and distribute more than $3 billion annually for social welfare, social services and educational needs” placing it “collectively among the top 10 charities on the continent.” In a very rough foundation analogy, that would a foundation with roughly $60 billion in assets.

That’s big; really big. And yet, the federation movement is struggling with declining donor bases, growing local community needs, and challenges to implementing effective philanthropic strategies. So, yesterday’s session on “Disruptive Philanthropy” with Diana Aviv (President and CEO, Independent Sector), Jeffery R. Solomon (President, The Andrea and Charles Bronfman Philanthropies), and Brian A. Gallagher (President and CEO, United Way Worldwide), promised to provide an interesting barometer of how the federation movement is embracing (or resisting) change in its grantmaking approaches.

The Fall 2010 Communications Network  / CommA Conference (ComNet010) began this morning with a presentation by James Surowiecki, author of the Balance Sheet column for the New Yorker and the book The Wisdom of Crowds, on  finding better answer and solutions through a focused efforts to engage group intelligence. The session was an excellent way to engage the audience – mostly communication personnel in philanthropic institutions – in a in-person and Twitter discussion about the potential power of using crowds to inform decision making and organizational vision. It also raised a lot of questions.

Last week the SOCAP10 producers announced the winner of the SOCAP10 Impact Challenge, a competition launched in July. The competition, designed by SOCAP, Triple Pundit and Myoo Create, challenged competitors to address the “Money for Good” report (PDF) by Hope Consulting and “explore what’s next in social enterprise” in 500 words. Kyle Westaway’s post was selected by the SOCAP10 producers as the winner for which he was awarded a complementary pass to the conference.

Kyle’s post suggested that there is an opportunity tap into the $120 billion impact investment market by directing individual investments into social enterprises. Specifically, he proposed leveraging Low Profit Limited Liability companies (LC3s) that would offer two avenues for capital: one targeting philanthropic institutions and the other targeting the individual investors at the heart of the Money for Good report.  For the philanthropic avenue, he recommended scaling up the Social Innovation Fund (SIF) through additional government funding and philanthropic donations.  That scaling up would provide the SIF with an additional $200 million from the federal budget and another $250 million from private donors who have taken the Billionaire Pledge.