William Brindley spent most of his career keeping financial institutions at the leading edge of technology. Now, as CEO of the nonprofit consortium NetHope, he is using those same skills to help nonprofits do the same. Brindley joined NetHope two years ago after a long career on Wall Street, most recently as a senior executive at Citigroup’s Citi Private Bank. He also served as CitiBank’s deputy chief technology officer where he helped manage the bank’s global information technology (IT) systems.

NetHope was launched in 2001 by Edward Granger-Happ, another Wall Street veteran who was then running Save the Children’s IT operation. What Happ noticed was that other international aid organizations were struggling with many of the same IT issues that he was, in particular how to provide computer and voice communications to field-workers in remote and often undeveloped parts of the world. His solution was to form NetHope, an organization that would coordinate the efforts of various aid organizations to jointly develop IT solutions that were better, more reliable, faster, and less expensive.

NetHope now has 25 member organizations, among them Save the Children, Mercy Corps, Oxfam, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, and Catholic Relief Services. Combined, these organizations operate in 180 countries, employ more than 300,000 people, and spend more than $30 billion each year.

Chris Evers / chris@chrisevers.dk

Hellere tid end penge?

According to a new study published in the Journal of Consumer Research in October 2008, asking supporters for their time, not for their money, is a better way to increase donations. Jumping straight in and soliciting potential donors for funds can, in fact, alienate them––making them less likely to get involved and less likely to actually donate. Asking them to volunteer first, however, can positively shift their willingness to give both time and money.

The reason, according to Jennifer Aaker of Stanford Graduate School of Business and Wendy Liu of UCLA, coauthors of the study, is that questions regarding time versus money stimulate different mindsets. When people are solicited for their time, they automatically think in terms of emotional meaning and fulfillment: Will volunteering for this charity make me happy? When tapped for money, they start thinking about the far more practical, boring, and sometimes painful matter of “economic utility”: Will making a donation make a dent in my wallet?

Chris Evers / chris@chrisevers.dk