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GreatNonprofits

Voting Summary (Elevator Pitch):

Online "Zagat" guide to nonprofits.

URL:
http://www.greatnonprofits.org/
City:
Pittsburgh
State/Region:
Pennsylvania
Country:
Unites States
Project Vision Statement & Potential Social Impact:

Consumer recommendation guides like Zagat and Amazon customer reviews, as well as TripAdvisor, eBay seller ratings, Epinions, and Yelp, have demonstrated that enabling the sharing of feedback empowers individual voice, provides valuable feedback on quality of services and products, and creates norms for transparency and accountability.

Why, then, isn’t there a similar “consumer reviews” site about nonprofits? A place where nonprofit clients – people that nonprofits seek to empower – can give feedback about their experience with the organization? A place where potential supporters – donors and volunteers – can read or watch videos about what clients served by the nonprofit say about their experience?

GreatNonprofits will build, market, and launch a Web site that enables local citizens, clients, volunteers, board members, and others who have had direct experience with a nonprofit to share their stories about that organization. Contributors can post reviews, photos, and videos. People who are looking for information about what’s going on with local nonprofits can read reviews and see the social impact of nonprofits through the lens of people familiar with those organizations.

GreatNonprofits will:

•Equalize the playing field for nonprofits, enabling great nonprofits – regardless of their donor Rolodex, or whether they have a national brand or no marketing dollars – to rise to the top and attract more donors and volunteers.
•Promote greater nonprofit excellence through feedback and transparency.
•Help prospective donors and volunteers differentiate between nonprofits, find ones they trust, and be more confident in giving or signing up to volunteer.
•Give voice to the clients served by nonprofits and the volunteers to nonprofits, showing them that the first step to empowering them is to listen to what they want.

Sustainability (financial) model:

We have a business plan for reaching 50 percent earned income, 50 percent donations within five years. That ratio between earned revenues and donations is on par with that of VolunteerMatch and GuideStar. Our plan for earned revenues includes sponsorship as well as premium accounts.

Potential obstacles:

Challenge: How to get more than a small percentage of people to spend time contributing stories/reviews:

Typical participation rates for online review sites, online forums, and blogs is only 1 percent. We don’t expect that it will be any higher in the nonprofit sector. As a result, we have budgeted and planned for substantial intensive marketing to nonprofits as well as targeted online marketing.

Challenge: How to reach the goal of having up-to-date reviews of 10,000 nonprofits within five years:

We will employ both a top-down and bottom-up strategy. Our bottom-up strategy involves working with local nonprofit associations, through them reach local nonprofits, and through them reach their base of beneficiaries and volunteers. We have a partnership with the Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, whose 250 member nonprofits will be participating. Our top-down strategy involves partnerships with online volunteering sites, such as perhaps VolunteerMatch, where we power the "user reviews" portion of their site.

Resource Needs:

Funding to cover Web site development, Web design, Web site hosting, and marketing and outreach.

Key Milestones:

Progress to Date
•Web site designed and built.
•Nonprofit users: Greater Pittsburgh Nonprofit Partnership, a project of the Forbes Funds, to launch with nonprofits in Pittsburgh.
•Nonprofit users: SF Connect.
•Began talks with Social Venture Partners, Silicon Valley Association of Nonprofits, and Louisiana Association of Nonprofit Organizations about expansion.
•Operationally – recruited advisory board, conducted market survey of volunteers and willingness to write reviews about nonprofits, began fundraising.
•PR: Written up in Newsweek, Dec. 22.

Current Activities
Additional Web development, private beta, and QA in anticipation of public launch in September 2007.

Project Summary:

Acting much like an online "Zagat" for the nonprofit sector, GreatNonprofits will build, market, and launch a Web site that enables local citizens, clients, volunteers, board members, and others who have had direct experience with a nonprofit to share their stories about that organization. Contributors can post reviews, photos, and videos. People who are looking for information about what’s going on with local nonprofits can read reviews and see the social impact of nonprofits through the lens of people familiar with those organizations.

Comments

I loved the idea of this

I loved the idea of this project. The ability for people to share their experience/review/story with a nonprofit organization is a very original idea. Keep up the good work!

< http://www.2eb.org/ >

Charity Navigator.org

Are you affiliated with Charity Navigator?

Hi, Perla and friends

Hi, Perla and colleagues!

How are things going with your project?  I like the E-Pinions approach to the rating of nonprofits much better than the Morningstar approach, but I still worry about smaller, community-based organizations getting lost in the shuffle of big guys like the American Red Cross.

I know you're on the side of the angels and will work all these issues through.  Stop by and say "hello," if you get a chance.

_____

Albert Ruesga

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