#CIVICS: Apple’s Billions In Tax Dodges Come Under Scrutiny
The corporation is in California, but not its tax liability
Apple Inc. is making it difficult to feel sympathy for Apple Inc. When the blogosphere challenged Apple the business and Steve Jobs the CEO to act like a good corporate citizen by offering some philanthropic goodwill, we took a fairly conciliatory position that Apple’s job is innovative technology and Apple’s innovative technology has been a real boon to the nonprofit world. When the terrible conditions at Foxconn China broke, we followed the story arc with you and stressed Apple’s willingness to engage its supplier − albeit belatedly. Then the story dissolved amid retractions and mea culpas that threatened many careers outside Apple or Foxconn.
But now The New York Times has reported that Apple Inc. has been pipelining profits to subsidiaries and ghost offices both in the US and abroad that has lowered its tax liabilities by over $2 billion in the last year.
Popularity: 2% | Category Apple, Civics, Communications, Community, Marketing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Opinion, Politics, Public Relations, Report, Resource, Sustainability, Technology | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SOCIALNETWORKS: Kony 2012 Covered The Night. Did It Jump The Shark?
Youth cover some of the evening
The sensation that is/was ‘Kony 2012′ has been a part of the nonprofit social-media landscape for six-plus weeks now. The hundreds of millions who made the original video a viral sensation in March were not all supporters of the message, though, and challenges to the drive launched by the San Diego nonprofit ‘Invisible Children’ continue to be made. The original and ostensible goal is to have Joseph Kony and his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) brought to justice by making Kony ‘famous’ enough that world leaders will be inspired or shamed to dedicate the resources to get him. The effort to make him famous has been done and the culmination of the effort was this past weekend’s ‘Cover The Night’ campaign. How well did it go? Whether the night got ‘covered’ probably depends on where you are and what you want ‘covered’ to mean, but Invisible Children have ratcheted up their campaign with, frankly, the oddest video yet.
Popularity: 4% | Category Blogs, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Event Review, Events, Fundraising, Marketing, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Public Media, Reviews, Social Media, Social Networks, Storytelling, Video, YouTube | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#INTERVIEW: Mark Van Gurp, Osocio Blog — Showcases the Best Advertising & Marketing For Social Causes
Mark van Gurp is the founder of Osocio, an international blog devoted to showcasing the best advertising and marketing for social causes. Mark began an earlier blog, Houtlist, in 2005 as a personal collection of nonprofit ads. Overwhelmed by the response, he began Osocio in 2007 with more than a dozen regular contributors. He has kept his day job. The interview was conducted by Don Akchin, a principal of Nonprofit Marketing 360 and a frequent contributor to the MKCREATIVE blog.
MKC: Can you explain what you do in your day job?
MARK: I’m webmaster and web designer for a big publishing house. At the unit I’m working for, we write about advertising and marketing. It is like Ad Age.
MKC: What first inspired you to curate nonprofit advertising and create Houtlust?
MARK: It was a coincidence. I was thinking about working as a freelance designer. And because I’m interested in designing for non-profits, I started collecting inspirational examples in the field. Those were the days before Pinterest and other networks, so I started a blog just for myself. It was my online album accessible from anywhere.
(more…)
Popularity: 3% | Category Blogs, Communications, Community, Cross-Post, Interview, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Social Networks, Special Series, Special Series, Storytelling, Writing | | 0 Comments
Written by: Don Akchin
#ADVOCACY: Kony 2012 Sequel Not Going Viral, Nor Ending Debate
Too little too late?
Last Thursday, Invisible Children released their tepidly anticipated sequel to the stunningly viral video Kony 2012 (over 100 million views). The sequel, “Kony Part II – Beyond Famous,” was almost destined not to make as big a splash in the nonprofit/video/social-media ocean because the impact of the message had already been made, and those millions who responded − positively or negatively − probably don’t need to see a sequel to be re-convinced. Since the first video came out, just over a month ago, the ‘media packages’ people were asked to purchase to support the campaign were quickly sold out and the video’s director/narrator, Jason Russell, was arrested and committed to hospital for mental and emotional fatigue.
We still await the climactic ‘Cover The Night’ campaign of 20 April, but what all this has done to bring Kony to justice remains to be seen. What we want to focus on today, though, is how social networks inspired the explosion of interest around the original, and how those same networks might be dampening the responses to the sequel.
Popularity: 4% | Category Advocacy, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Crowdfunding, Fundraising, Marketing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Public Media, Social Media, Social Networks, Storytelling, Video, YouTube | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SM4NP: Kony 2012 Will Get A Sequel & More Context Today
Today is the day. Probably.
As any Hollywood mogul will confirm, when your movie is watched by 100 million people, you need to make a sequel. That market is just too big to pass up. And the renown viral video Kony 2012 has been viewed well over 100 million times. Nevertheless, the reasons the San Diego based firm ’Invisible Children’ will be releasing a sequel to their 30-minute wunderkind seem not really about tapping a market so much as explaining the phenomenon. It has not been released as of this posting, but one can’t help but wonder if we need the prequel/context-setter any more than we needed Star Wars: The Phantom Menace.
What do we know about a movie that has not yet appeared?
Popularity: 3% | Category Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Crowdfunding, Design, Events, Fundraising, Marketing, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Reviews, Social Media, Storytelling, Video | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#PROAGING: Republican Budget Realigns Medicare But Ignores Long-Term Care
The macro-economics of aging over the next 40 years do not look great: the first Baby Boomers reached the age of Social-Security eligibility 15 months ago, but the crest of this so-called ‘Silver Tsunami’ will not come until about 2030. It will not recede for another couple of decades. The issue is not the number of people so much as the economy’s ability/preparation to deal with the number. According to the Employee Benefit Research Institute, “The baseline 2010 Retirement Readiness Rating™ finds that nearly one-half (47.2 percent) of the oldest cohort (Early Baby Boomers) are simulated to be “at risk” of not having sufficient retirement resources to pay for “basic” retirement expenditures and uninsured health care costs. The percentage “at risk” drops for the Late Boomers (to 43.7 percent) but then increases slightly for Generation Xers to 44.5 percent.”
The combination of retiring Boomers with lengthening life expectancies with a general political trend to cut taxes for all while reducing services only to the poor has meant that the costs of long-term care are growing, while the will to adjust expectations or fund federal programs is shrinking. The FY2013 budget proposed by Senators Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), and Mike Lee (R-Utah) earlier this month has not much quelled fears of how Medicare will deal with the spread between long-living retired Boomers and the costs they will impose on an already stressed healthcare ‘system’.
Popularity: 3% | Category Affordable Housing, Aging, Assisted Living, Boomers, Community, Independent Living, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Retirement Living, Senior Housing, Study, Technology for Aging | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SM4NP: ‘Kony 2012′ Still Stirs Engagement, Controversy, And Embarrassment
Director's breakdown raises further questions
The controversy surrounding the viral video ‘Kony 2012′ continues even as its views on YouTube surpass 85.4 million as I write. The director, Jason Russell, had something of a mental breakdown a week ago, when he was arrested for indecent exposure while ranting almost incoherently about support and friendships. As reported by ABC.com late last week, “According to the National Institutes of Health, brief reactive psychosis is triggered by extreme stress, such as a traumatic event or the loss of a loved one. The symptoms, which include delusions, hallucinations and strange speech, can last up to a month, and the person may be completely unaware of them. … Alan Hilfer, chief psychologist at Maimonides Medical Center in New York City, said the backlash over Russell’s “Kony 2012″ campaign could have been traumatic enough to trigger the meltdown.”
How might disconcerting behavior of the video’s producer shift the discussion of the video and the appeal by ‘Invisible Children’ to raise awareness of Joseph Kony’s ‘Lord’s Resistance Army‘?
Popularity: 4% | Category Advertising, Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Crowdfunding, Fundraising, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Public Media, Reviews, Social Media, Social Networks, Storytelling, Technology, Video, YouTube | | 3 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#TECH: Megauploads Shut Down, Highlighting Concerns Of Cloud Computing
But what about all the legal files on the servers?
The move toward cloud computing has numerous benefits, including a place to back up your organization’s most important files and offering access to such files from any mobile device. Indeed, the growing stability and reliability of cloud-computing technologies has been one of the unsung underpinnings of the success of the iPad/tablet market, for they (thus far?) offer comparatively little storage space. Moreover, if that portable device gets lost, sat-on, or stolen, the donor list and the iTunes library are not lost with the device.
But cloud computing does carry some security risks, especially for organizations that feel compelled to rent space on third-party servers. For example, though upkeep of the network isn’t your concern in such a contract, if that third party gets subpoenaed by law enforcement for what’s on its servers, your organization’s data can be caught in the dragnet. As recent developments in the Megauploads case, getting legal and legitimate files back out of that cloud service can be tricky and time consuming.
Popularity: 2% | Category National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Politics, Site Administration, Technology, Technology for Nonprofits | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Advocacy: ‘This American Life’ Retracts Story Of Abuses At Foxconn
It has been a rough week for social-consciousness movements whose leaders have produced stories a bit too slick to be true. We wrote last week about the doubts surrounding the viral video ‘Kony 2012′ meant to inspire a public campaign against Joseph Kony’s child army in Uganda − if that army still exists and Kony is indeed in Uganda. Over the weekend, the producer Jason Russell was arrested for public drunkenness and self-satisfaction, casting still further doubt on the veracity of the campaign and on the nonprofit ‘Invisible Children’.
To add to the unnerving series of good stories gone bad, Mike Daisey’s story/one-man-show “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” has been discredited for his taking numerous liberties with what he claimed were personal encounters at Apple’s suppliers Foxconn in China. His story – somewhat truncated – was broadcast on the popular ‘This American Life‘ public-radio program this past January, causing quite a stir. And it now has been retracted by producer Ira Glass and Daisey has been reconfiguring his story in light of probing questions into its authenticity.
What might be behind the rise and fall of these stories?
Popularity: 3% | Category Apple, Blogs, Campaigns, Case Study, Civics, Communications, Interview, Marketing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Press Release, Public Media, Public Relations, Publications, Social Media, Storytelling, Technology | | 1 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SM4NP: Kone 2012 Video Goes Viral, But Maybe For Wrong Reasons
But will it hold up to scrutiny?
Today is yet another day in the Republican Primary Season. Today is another day many thousands of Republicans will not want Barack Obama re-elected, but nor will they rally around a viable contender. Yet today also is the day possibly the 75 millionth person watches the viral video phenomenon ‘Kony 2012′. The video tells the moving story of Joseph Kony of Uganda who was certainly known (7-8 years ago) for kidnapping boys and forcing them to serve in his Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), and the viral video campaign by Invisible Children to raise money and awareness to have him brought to justice.
But Is Kony even alive? Is Invisible Children truly dedicated to helping youth in war-torn central Africa? The very success of the ‘Kony 2012′ campaign shows us how fraught with challenges our media saturated brave new world is.
Popularity: 78% | Category Case Study, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Fundraising, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Public Media, Public Relations, Reviews, Social Media, Storytelling, Video Interview | | 4 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#PUBLICPOLICY: Online Privacy Becomes Concern For Service Providers
Perhaps the most famous statement of internet privacy from 'The New Yorker' (1993)
Online privacy has been a notable concern for many citizens almost since the inception of the internet, and certainly we have often discussed the issue on our blog over the years. A decade ago, the question of privacy largely was answered with calm warnings to use common sense and with explanations of the averages working against anyone being able to assemble any meaningful aggregate of the real you.
But now not only do companies exist precisely to aggregate your online behavior, millions of us willingly offer our own aggregations via our social-network platforms of choice. Those who strive to ensure some privacy of individuals have been lobbying the federal government to block certain aggregations and pressuring companies to offer ever more powerful privacy controls to customers and members. What seems to be the state of the discussion now?
Popularity: 4% | Category Audio Interview, Blogs, Civics, Communications, Community, Facebook, Marketing, Marketing Skills, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Permission Marketing, Politics, Public Relations, Site Administration, Social Media, Strategic Marketing, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#PUBLICPOLICY: Pressure Grows On Apple’s Supplier Foxconn
These are protestors of, not customers for, the new iPhone
The reputation of a nonprofit can make-or-break its efforts. Note the stunning blowback and reversal of the Susan G. Komen Foundation when it quietly tried to back out of its relationship with Planned Parenthood. For a business, the reputation can perhaps take more of a beating and still survive. Note BP’s expanding presence in the Gulf of Mexico despite the human and environmental costs of the corporation’s oil spill in 2010.
And then there’s Apple: perhaps the only company that can have a serious court case against its flagship product (the iPad in China), a publicity firestorm and protests over its (suppliers’) treatment of workers, and can still surpass the $500 share price. How is its PR responding to the oxymorons?
Popularity: 3% | Category Apple, Case Study, Civics, Communications, Community, Marketing Skills, Media Review, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Public Relations, Technology | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Communications: Postal Rates Raised Last Week – Not For Nonprofits
The United States Postal Service has been struggling financially for the last few years. The Bush Administration saddled the service with pre-paying its future retiree benefits for a decade (2006-2016), a demand uniquely imposed on the USPS. Bush’s policy meant the service went from profits in the $1.4 billion range in 2005 to one that has laid off thousands of works, closed numerous branches, and still needs to raise postal rates in an effort just to stay open. So what he did to the postal service he did to the country.
This past Monday many postal rates changed. For example, first-class mail went up by a penny and its guaranteed one-day delivery (depending on distance) was removed. Or perhaps you didn’t notice?
Popularity: 3% | Category Advice, Campaigns, Civics, Communications, Community, Direct Mail, E-Mail, Fundraising, Interview, Marketing, Marketing Budget, Marketing Skills, Measurement, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newsletter, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Politics, Publications, Strategic Marketing, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Communication: SOPA & PIPA Bills Are Dying, But Not Dead
Yesterday, a couple of the most used and best-known websites on the internet willingly shut themselves down: Wikipedia and Reddit. Google, you likely noticed, ‘redacted’ its daily Google Doodle. These efforts were to call attention to and protest against the Congressional debates over the ‘Stop Internet Piracy Act’ (SOPA) in the House and the ‘Protect Internet Protocols Act’ (PIPA) in the Senate. And they seem to have worked, as support for either bill has drained away: ”We can find a solution that will protect lawful content. But this bill is flawed & that’s why I’m withdrawing my support. #SOPA #PIPA,” Republican Sen. Roy Blunt wrote on his official Twitter page. (Quote from CNN Tech report earlier this morning).
But the concern over online piracy of entertainment and software remains, and SOPA’s political supporters promise to refine new legislative efforts.
Popularity: 4% | Category Blogs, Civics, Communications, Community, Copyrighting, Marketing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Reviews, Site Administration, Social Media, Technology | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Tech: SOPA Inspiring Blackouts & Lobbyists – Should Nonprofits Care?
Could SOPA chill free speech?
On the surface, not much seems to be of relevance in the ‘Stop Online Piracy Act’ (SOPA, H.R. 3261) because nonprofits aren’t really in the business of selling digitized content, much less pirated content. Nevertheless, nonprofit organizations and consumer protection groups are decrying the bill and calling for an internet ‘blackout’ on 18 January as Congress discusses the bill. AnonymousIRC, Reddit, and even the many Cheezburger sites are all participating in the blackout while encouraging others to do the same.
The blackout is meant, in part, to call attention to the powers SOPA offers internet service providers (ISPs) and media corporations to shut down sites they believe are dealing with copyrighted material. The blackout is also meant to act as a counterweight to the quarter of a billion dollars these companies have pooled to lobby Congresspeople for their votes in favor of SOPA.
The stakes are high for media businesses and service providers, but nonprofits apparently outside the bailiwick of the act are also starting to get involved. Why?
Popularity: 5% | Category Advocacy, Blogs, Campaigns, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Copyrighting, Events, Marketing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Public Media, Site Administration, Social Media, Technology | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#SocialNetworks: Primary Politics Offer Models For SM Strategy
Click to enlarge
As voters in New Hampshire head to polls to divvy up delegates for the Republican Convention (and the uncontested Democratic one), all the candidates are doing what Barack Obama did so singularly in 2008: developing social-media strategies meant to expand their bases, to parry jibes from their opponents, and to launch a few of their own attacks. In sheer numbers, the Republicans have turned the tables on their Democratic counterparts: According to Jennifer Steinhauser of The New York Times: “Republican House members have more than twice as many followers as their Democratic counterparts — about 1.3 million versus roughly 600,000 — and are far more active on Twitter with more than 157,000 individual Twitter messages, versus roughly 62,000 for Democrats.”
Nonprofits are not competing for votes in a similar antagonistic dynamic, of course. But donations and volunteer hours are finite entities, and the fact is nonprofits of all stripes now must challenge themselves to raise their social-networking strategy to challenge for every engaged constituent. The return on investment (ROI) might not be votes,
Popularity: 2% | Category Advice, Campaigns, Case Study, Cause Marketing, Civics, Communications, Community, Development, Facebook, Facebook, Fundraising, Marketing, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Newspaper Article, Nonprofit, Politics, Public Relations, Social Media, Twitter | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Tech: Net Neutrality Supported in Europe – Not Unsupported in US
The European Parliament voted last week to continue to encourage net neutrality as a means to foster innovation and to encourage the dissemination of information. The resolution states, in part, its ambitions “to ensure that internet service providers do not block, discriminate against, impair or degrade the ability of any person to use a service to access, use, send, post, receive or offer any content, application or service of their choice, irrespective of source or target.” Political support for the measure was bolstered by the Plum Report, funded by such content providers as the BBC, Yahoo!, and Skype.
In the US, on the other hand, the Senate recently blocked a Republican-sponsored bill that would block the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)from blocking service providers who block, or at least slow down, internet traffic. Why is the Senate’s position so much more convoluted than the one presented by the EU?
Popularity: 2% | Category Civics, Communications, Community, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Nonprofit, Opinion, Politics, Site Administration, Technology, Tools, Web and Print | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Enviro: Does a Green Xmas List Really Help The Environment?
We enjoy looking for, and perhaps even presenting ourselves, challenging ideas for our readers. And one idea we came across challenges our desires to find just the right holiday gift for a loved one while maintaining our green/environmentalist cred. Piers Fawkes, founder and CEO of the New-York based firm PSFK, argues in a recent blog post that ‘buying green’ this holiday season really misses the boat when it comes to helping the environment or changing the habits of businesses.
Are we indeed doing more harm than good when we buy from those ‘Green Gift Guides’ that show up in many of our (e)mail inboxes?
Popularity: 3% | Category Advertising, Blogs, Cause Marketing, Civics, Climate Change, Community, Environment, Greening, National/International, News and Current Affairs, Opinion, Politics | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#ProAging: GAP Index Highlights Global Challenges Of Care For Aging
The fact of the aging of the global population is something our readers are likely at least acquainted with. The phenomenon has arisen as life expectancy has lengthened even in developing countries and populations in developed countries often are not having enough children even to replace themselves. The result is that most national populations whose citizens or subjects are over 60 are quickly moving toward 30%. To put that number in historical perspective, The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) posits that, before the Twentieth Century, the percentage of inhabitants over 60 was 5-8%.
The CSIS released a sobering report earlier this year that measured the ‘Global Aging Preparedness’ (GAP) Index. The report stresses the demographic facts of the so-called ‘Silver Tsunami’ (a tide that can not now be turned, even if we all started having larger families) and the current economic situations of a number of countries both rich and poor, both developed and developing. So how did the US do?
Popularity: 29% | Category Aging, Banking & Finance, Boomers, Civics, Community, GI Generation, Health, Healthcare, Healthcare, National/International, Nonprofit, Politics, Publications, Report, Resource, Seniors Life | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD
#Health: Study Shows Advantages Of Conversation No One Wants
Remember Obama’s Death Panels? No, they didn’t exist. But like ‘cooties,’ the scared and the immature just kept repeating that they were waiting to snatch us up. What the Healthcare Reform Bill wanted to institute was the opportunity – nay, the expectation – for families to have regular consultations with their doctors about end-of-life/palliative care that would per force be covered by insurance.
Healthcare Reform became law in the early days of 2010, and we have been litigating it ever since – and no one has found any mention of a death panel. But even requiring insurance companies to pay doctors for these end-of-life consultations has proven to be a political hot potato – even though evidence of their efficacy is mounting.
A report from a group of oncologists from Sweden is the latest study to show the benefits of having a frank discussion about what treatments are working, what are not working, and what options/opportunities the patient has. The abstract of the report, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, can be found here (a subscription to the Journal is required to read the full report).
Fortunately, Paula Span of The New York Times discusses the full report and talks with Dr. Gunilla Lundquist, a palliative care specialist at Umea University and lead author of the study. One of the hard truths of the report is that about 70% of people who have that tough conversation about their terminal conditions die at home and among loved ones, in contrast to under 40% who do not have that conversation yet do not die in a hospital.
Paula Span also steps into the cultural and political difficulties of getting such a study done in the US, or even discussing the Swedish report. Instead, we’ll invoke the Bogie Panel to ensure our freedom from everything, except fear.
Popularity: 6% | Category Aging, Community, Dementia Care, Health, Healthcare, Healthcare, National/International, Newspaper Article, Politics, Publications, Report, Seniors Life, Silent Generation | | 0 Comments
Written by: Christopher Gardner, PhD