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Open Philanthropy
From WikiEducator
Contents |
Value Proposition for Open Philanthropy
Free and open education within a networked global ecosystem is inherently renewable, sustainable and scalable. WikiEducator and the OER Foundation are developing open models for nonprofits / NGOs and funders to:
- learn about mutual interests
- develop content that can be re-used, modified/updated, localised, contextualised, translated and adapted (i.e., not having to reinvent the wheel throughout funding cycles)
- to support projects and initiatives using a scalable and sustainable strategy
Our Recommendation
WikiEducator / OER Foundation recommends that all funded content be released freely into the public domain (i.e., CC-BY or CC-BY-SA).
Benefits for Funders
- Greater ROI and sustainability -- by releasing materials into the public domain early and frequently
- Leverage network-based production ecologies to reduce cost and resource usage, and increase quality.
- Greater knowledge and information-sharing across projects
- Greater scalability -- across sectors, geographic, cultural and linguistic boundaries
- Development of living content repositories -- rooted in information-sharing, knowledge-transfer and good practices
- High international visibility throughout global OER ecosystem
Benefits for Nonprofits / NGOs
- Open Education = a parallel funding channel to conventional activities
- A visible international presence on a top 100,000 website, with 10 million hits per month (October 2009), 10,000+ members in 110 countries
- Access to successful funding proposal development and templates
- WikiEducator's successful $100K Learning4Content proposal (2008) to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
- Less time and fewer resources devoted to proposal development
- Greater probability of success
- Access to strategic partners -- including WikiEducator / OER Foundation
- Access to an international network of support
- Access to new models of learning program design and delivery
- Access to re-usable and modifiable content -- which can be contextualised, localised and translated
Strategic Partnerships & Sustainable Investments: An Open Dialogue
With the recent near-collapse of the world's financial system, and reduced availability of support, both funders and NGOs are considering new models of investment that are open, sustainable and scalable.
- How can the successes of the Open Source movement benefit BOTH funders and nonprofits / NGOs?
- How can can content developed for one organization be leveraged across other organizations, sectors, etc.
- How can NGOs collaboratively develop proposals -- based on successful examples, case studies, models, good practices etc.
- How can WikiEducator / OER Foundation help? What are the opportunities for pilot projects?
- What is the timeline and metrics for success?
- How will we know when we are successful?
- How can we report / communicate/report our successes?
We can enable strategic, scalable and sustainable return-on-investment by:
- encouraging governments and philanthropic funders to freely release all funded content be released freely into the public domain (i.e., CC-BY or CC-BY-SA).
- supporting nonprofits/ NGOs to share content openly with each other (i.e., CC-BY or CC-BY-SA)
- supporting educational institutions and research organizations to share content openly (i.e., CC-BY or CC-BY-SA)
Links
- See: Philanthropy
