February 2010

goodroot is relaunched and updated!

After a little break I am back to work and have started an exciting project with betterplace to design a stakeholder feedback project for their online donations. What is the idea? To let monitor and evaluate the beneficiaries of donations themselves to judge about quality and impact. We will soon start a Blog with the betterplace LAB about digital technologies for the social sector and i can say i am pretty excited about the prospect of all of these ideas. We will set up a monitoring system allowing beneficiaries to use video and SMS to rate on the performance of projects on the platform. That will not only enhance transparency but also serve as quality checks. Just check some of the cutting edge thinking of these developments at Ushahidi and Frontline SMS. I am also always inspired by the work of Ken Banks at kiwanjanet and Christian Kreutz at crisscrossed. They are really making my days with their absolutely interesting Blog entries!

The UN OCHA Cluster Evaluation II slowly comes to an end and i am working on the Synthesis Report together with my team at Gppi. I was a long journey with six country studies in humanitarian crisis situations to contribute to the global humanitarian reform project. We are all looking forward to global reactions and feedback to our work.

December 2009

The Cluster II evaluation for the UN requires some report writing: so we are writing the Gaza and West-Bank report. Apart from that: an article about Social Impact Measurement is finished, we are finalizing training modules for a foundation in Germany and cross checking what is going on with BildungsCent and their revised monitoring system. Susanna is hiring staff and preparing a book about social prototyping in philanthropy and ...apart from that ... looking forward to the holidays at the end of the year.

November 2009

How is the United Nations delivering humanitarian aid to vulnerable population in crisis situations? We are looking at that mechanism together with gppi and are in Gaza this month to evaluate the humanitarian response.

October 2009
- back in Berlin. Further developing Theory of Change work with BildungsCent and Stiftung Mercator. Writing and article about Venture Philanthropy in Germany. And writing the Myanmar report:-(

Europe is getting cold...but there is a very interesting fellowship program out there in Zurich and it connects professionals with promising social enterprises abroad. We love such initiatives. Deadline for application is October 26. We encourage to apply! Very promising move by the LGT Venture Philanthropy. 

I have written a short piece on the importance of strategically setting up thematic funding networks by german foundations at "51 Grad" of the Mercator Foundation.

September 2009
- in Myanmar. Evaluating the Cluster Approach in HumanitarianAid for UN OCHA Headquarters. We have teamed up for this with gppi in Berlin and URD in Paris.

August 2009
Our intern Miriam Rinawi has successfully completed some basic work on a feedback system for betterplace (thank you!), we are increasingly thinking about user led evaluation systems in online philanthropy and how to use mobiletechnology and mobile ratings when it comes to beneficiary led quality control in international development projects. Imagine that! Would be a revolution in the aid business!

The Case study series on impact philanthropy is further being worked on, Susanna is in Heidelberg at the Center for Social Investment.

July 2009
- working on user led feedback systems with BildungsCent and http://www.betterplace.org

June 2009
- goodroot joined the Global Public Policy Institute to evaluate the Cluster Approach of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) from now until 2010.

May 2009
- At New Philanthropy Capital and Bertelsmann Stiftung´s initiative there has been a gathering of non-profit-analysts who possibly will form an association in the future. It was a stimulating conference to build the field. Look here for schedule and more details.

April 2009 - Back in Berlin. A brandeins book has been published featuring pre-goodroot work and Susanna has written about an innovative foundation in Germany which is doing extremely interesting integration projects all over the country.

February/March 2009
- We are in Khartoum / Sudan to conduct evaluations for an international development agency

November 1/2, 2008 - We will be at the Vision Summit in Berlin this weekend. If you are also there and would like to meet or discuss ideas with goodroot write Susanna an eMail at info(at)good-root.org

October 25, 2008 - We have been just publishing an article about monitoring and evaluation in international development in the book: Leadership as a Vocation: Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the McCloy Program at Harvard University
Edited by Guido Houben and Tim Maxian Rusche 2008, 221 pp., pb., € 39.00,  ISBN 978-3-8329-3747-8, Nomos. If you are interested you may get it here.

October 20, 2008 - goodroot  is online