Recently researched models for Community Giving

I have been trying to research other models that we can learn from as we build our program. For those who have been involved in Mozilla for a long time, it may come as no surprise that it is hard to find anyone who is doing exactly what we are trying to do. This makes it hard to find one clear model that could serve as an example of success.

But, I thought I would share with you these organizations who I have met with so far.

Perl Foundation — dedicated to the advancement of the Perl programming language through open discussion, collaboration, design, and code. I met with Nathan Torkington and Allison Randall who gave me a lot of background on Perl Foundation. Programatically, this is probably the most closely related to what we are doing. I really recommend checking out what they are doing because I could see us creating a similar process and structure to the community giving program.

Omidyar Network – Started by the founder of eBay, they are trying to build a strong community of users on their Omidyar Network. This community can use the online forums to discuss and create new ideas about social change. In addition, they provide funding, but are operating as a hybrid venture fund and foundation. More specifically, they invest in both innovative companies, taking equity just like other venture capitalists, and nonprofits, where they give support to those who can prove how to make change. Here is a list of the companies, nonprofits, and communities they have supported. They are obviously very different from us because we are starting to look at our community and trying to find innovative ways to support the key contributors to Mozilla. However, they do state on their website that “[they] believe issues are best addressed by the people who face them, so [they] fund citizen-driven models that enable individuals to pursue what matters most to them.”

Google.org — Google.org is still in its early stages and is looking for the best first areas to support. As the website says, it has offered a lot of free advertising to partnering nonprofits, and seems to think about how it can incorporate the interests and work of its employees into what they are doing. That’s cool and we might do that one day, but not yet. It also looks like they are going big and will hopefully address issues with the same scale as the Gates Foundation.

Yahoo! for Good — Yahoo! tries very hard to match all of its “for good” efforts with its brands. It typically will not push anything that doesn’t also align with its business goals. I think this actually pretty smart and innovative because they are doing some cool stuff to promote both their own efforts and the work of many interesting nonprofit organizations. Check out the site. Aligning their good-will with their business practices seems like a win-win solution for everyone. Mozilla has always done what is best for its community and for open-source, creating a brand around this concept rather than what can make the most money. There’s a similarity in there somewhere, I believe, even if it is small..

Skoll Foundation — Very similar to Ashoka, which has been supporting social entrepreneurs for 25 years. Skoll is working hard to also support social entrepreneurs. It is also trying to use the power of the Web to spark social change conversations…this is where the community building comes in. I think we could learn a lot about how they empower people with new ideas and how they convert discussions into actions.

Ashoka — I have pointed to Ashoka before. Very cool place and I used to work there. They have a rigorous selection process that has many levels of research to ensure that they find the right people where their support will provide the highest leverage for social change. Since we don’t have unlimited resources, I believe this is one area where we can really learn. How will Mozilla’s support be leveraged to provide the greatest change that advances Mozilla’s mission.