Bringing Transparency To “The Kitchen”

Posted in: Blog, CEO Notes by Marco Puccia on September 20, 2009

International Transparency Solutions is honored to have been selected to pitch at this years “The Feast Kitchen” Pitch Competition in New York City. Over 80 startups from around the world applied or were nominated, and only eight were selected to pitch — so it’s an honor to be among them!

From the website:

See what’s cooking in “The Kitchen” of the world’s most innovative and creative entrepreneurs looking to make the world a better place.

All Day Buffet will flip over every rock and boulder to find 10 startups who will have five minutes to pitch their ideas in front of 200 fellow entrepreneurs, investors, and press.

Here’s an overview of the other startups being featured (an awesome lineup!):

Michael Mossoba, Goodness500.org

Goodness500 makes it easy for people to learn which corporations are the most socially responsible.
Nicole Betancourt, Parent Earth
Connects busy parents to the newest and best ideas for raising healthy children on a sustainable and equitable planet.

Jose Serrano-Reyes, Trust Art
Trust Art is a social platform that is commissioning ten public artworks over the next year.

Monaqui Porter Young, Srina

Srina tea is 100% organically grown, hand-plucked, packaged and produced on a small scale farm in a rainforest in Sri Lanka.

Eli Halliwell, VotaVox
VotaVox collects opinions from voters around the world on issues that are meaningful to them.

Breatt Beach, Madecasse
Madécasse chocolate is the only chocolate produced bean to bar on the island of Madagasca.

Cynthia Koenig, Hippo Roller International

Aims to improve global access to water by making it possible to collect 24 gallons (90 liters) of water- five times the amount possible using traditional methods – in less time and much more easily.

The overall conference, dubbed “The Feast”, is put on by All Day Buffet, a NYC-based organization on a mission to “change the world through creativity and business.” The main conference will take place on October 1st, hosting an awesome lineup of speakers that includes:

• Annie Duke, Professional Poker Player (Yeah, and former Celebrity Apprentice finalist!)
• Joshua Viertel, Slow Food USA
• Uffe Elbæk, The Kaos Pilot
• Matthew Bishop, The Economist (And Co-Author of the Book PhilanthroCapitalism)
• William Drenttel, Winterhouse

Learning from Charity Navigator

Posted in: Blog, Non-Profits by Marco Puccia on September 14, 2009

Charity Navigator is a non-profit watchdog that ranks 5,000+ of the top US charities in order to give donors and investors the tools they need to decide where to invest their money. Transparency Solutions is in the process of building a similar system that operates on a global scale and targets non-profits in the developing world — adding a new layer of transparency and global credibility to help them unlock their investment potential.

We really like the Charity Navigator site, in fact we use it regularly to do research on US nonprofits that may be interested in our investment oversight services. They have gotten some criticism for the simplicity of their “four star” rating system, and we’re paying close attention so that we can learn from their experiences! Recently Ken Berger, President of Charity Navigator, shared his thoughts and announced changes the organization was going to be making in how it ranks charities. Here’s the podcast interview from The Chronicle of Philanthropy:

What Ken talks about really lines up with what we’ve talked about in the past regarding the importance of such a certification program and objective oversight. In the interview, Ken mentions how they currently base their ratings largely on financial indicators readily available in the IRS 990 form. But the system fails to account for measuring outcomes and program effectiveness as well as standards of transparency and accountability that I mentioned in my last post.

I can’t help but wonder what relationship Transparency Solutions and Charity Navigator can have in moving forward with creating a more thorough system for measuring charity effectiveness and encouraging responsible donations and investments.

Visit the Chronicle of Philanthropy for more great interviews and discussions on social investing and the nonprofit sector!