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"The campaign takes the form of--you guessed it--a Facebook Platform application, in which members can choose their favorite of more than 500,000 nonprofits. Naturally, then, they're encouraged to use the hallowed "social graph" to encourage their friends to do so as well."

The Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, EarthShare and Do Something are the newest editions to the Better The World family.  New causes are now featured on the Better The World site ranging from “Increase Your Green” to “Keep Toxins Out Of The Classroom” to “Run for the Cure”.  The money raised by Better The World members supporting these causes will benefit breast cancer patients and contribute towards finding a cure; give parents and teachers critical tips to protect their children at school; and, get young people competing to become the most green.

“We are excited to be working with our three newest charity partners, the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, EarthShare and Do Something,” said Elissa Beckett, charity director and co-founder, Better The World.  “Our tools allow them to attract new supporters that have no time or money to give.  These new supporters can now financially support their favorite cause for free.  As charity leaders, they are leveraging the power of the web to not only raise awareness of breast cancer, the environment and the power of volunteering, but to raise money too.”

About Better The World:
Better The World is a global technology, consulting and specialty media social enterprise that creates innovative cause solutions for not-for-profit and for-profit organizations. Better The World strives to improve stakeholder engagement, loyalty and goodwill through it’s three primary lines of business; a social fundraising software platform; a social citizen based advertising network; and innovative cause consulting services. The company also operates an international consumer website where Internet users can raise money for more than 20 local and international charities, just by surfing the web. For more information, visit http://www.bettertheworld.com.

efrazier@charlotteobserver.com

Nearly a year after it created a pool of money to help the homeless and hungry, Foundation for the Carolinas is launching another initiative to help the city's struggling nonprofits.

It's called the Community Catalyst Fund, and like last winter's critical needs initiative, it is based on a $1 million challenge grant from the Leon Levine Foundation.

However, that's where the similarities end.

The new effort, which is expected to reach $5 million in coming months, won't pay for food, utilities or rent. Instead, it will be seed money to come up with strategies that rethink the way nonprofits do business, including innovative ways to raise revenue, create partnerships or implement mergers.

Another big difference: Science and art agencies are welcome to apply for grants, the first of which will be issued Dec. 12.

"From my perspective, the Catalyst Fund is the perfect complement to the Critical Need Response Fund," said Cathy Bessant, a Bank of America executive and chair of the committee of 17 community leaders who spearheaded the creation of the new effort.

"The critical need fund addressed immediate, dramatic needs, and yet we didn't cause operating models to change," she said. "This fund is about making the models more efficient and effective, with less duplication."

Those themes came up repeatedly during recent community meetings sponsored Mission Possible, a media coalition seeking solutions for the area's nonprofit crisis.

The same set of goals also appealed to Levine Foundation co-founders Sandra and Leon Levine, who have given millions in the past year to local charities dealing with increased demand.

"This is about helping nonprofits become stronger for the future," said Leon Levine. "We are delighted to be able to make an investment in the long-term growth and stability of this sector."

A study commissioned by the foundation this year revealed nearly 800 nonprofits have the potential for collaborations, partnerships and mergers.

It's those groups that the Catalyst Fund will reach out to, including invitations to attend seminars that will explain the possibilities. The foundation stressed that it isn't trying to force changes - read mergers - on nonprofits.

"Mergers are not the answer to every problem we face, and I think this response allows organizations to bring their own solutions," said Brian Collier, senor vice president of community philanthropy for the foundation. "It also allows us to bring some national best practices to the table and say: 'Can we make this a Charlotte solution?'"

Some local nonprofits have recently unveiled projects that are cited as examples of what the new money seeks to inspire. These include the merger of the Uptown Shelter and the Emergency Winter Shelter and a decision by Habitat for Humanity to save money by buying and repairing foreclosed homes, rather than building new ones.

Most local nonprofits are operating this year with vastly trimmed programs because of the recession, including an average of 40 percent cuts from United Way.

It's that money shortage that prompted the creation of the Community Catalyst Fund, which will be managed at no charge by the foundation, in collaboration with United Way and the Arts & Science Council. All told, it's estimated the community's large charities will face cuts of about $190 million this year.

"This (fund) is important because that gap is not going to be filled in traditional ways," said Laura Meyer, executive vice president of the foundation. "We are not in any way, shape or form going to be what we were before. But we do believe in the concept of hanging a lantern on a problem and attacking it."...

I love this idea - similar cities have launched this strategy in the past...it gives nonprofits another voice in the discussion.

In a recent debate, David Hunter’s article on the nonprofit sector has taken heat for its assertion that “While nonprofits work incredibly hard, with passion and dedication, and often in incredibly difficult circumstances to solve society’s most intractable problems, there is virtually no credible evidence that most nonprofit organizations actually produce any social value.”

We agree with the claim for the sectors we’ve examined, which we believe are similar to the sectors Mr. Hunter has examined: particularly thorny areas such as charities working to improve education and international charities addressing extreme poverty overseas. These are problems on which experts have struggled for decades to make any progress, and while we don’t necessarily agree that most charities are failing to produce value, we agree that most charities cannot produce any credible evidence that they are. This is different from the claim that Sean Stannard-Stockton attributes to Mr. Hunter (”most nonprofits and the social sector as a whole is not currently producing social value”), but it still means that it’s very hard for a donor to give with confidence.

The information we have

Our belief is based on two years of looking for this evidence; we’ve published the full details of our findings online, and you can see our summary of international charities (only 19 out of 320 examined publish any impact-related evaluation reports) and U.S. equality of opportunity charities (only 6 of 83 examined provide credible impact-related reports, and 2 of these show negative or no impact).

In addition, in a guest post on the GiveWell Blog, David Anderson of the Coalition for Evidence-Based Policy estimates that 75% of rigorous evaluations show weak effects, no effects, or negative effects.

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