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  • The Sweet Science of Incentives: How Prizes & Awards Are Changing Philanthropy
    by Jaison G. Morgan · May 19, 2010 · SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

    A couple of weeks ago, the Blue Avocado issued the Just Awards, a cheeky release from the nonprofit sector. The winner of the Award for Abominable Press Coverage was Stephanie Strom for her article in the New York Times, "Charities Rise, Costing U.S. Billions in Tax Breaks." Then, the crowning Award for Narcissism in Philanthropy was handed to the President of the Rockefeller Foundation, Judith Rodin. The sponsors describe the effort as "civil society's pointed mockery of itself," but just like People Magazine's 10 Worst Dressed List the point is not as much self ridicule as a stab at others.

    I believe that there's a real use for this kind of platform, but the irony for me goes beyond offering a prize for bad behavior. Digging into the announcement, they name a few runners-up. Though somewhat encrypted, it's not hard to find my favorite. One of them is "a large bank that gives out funding based on American Idol-like popularity contests where nonprofits must urge their supporters to vote for them on the bank's website." So, here we have it, an award taunting an awards program. Now, it gets interesting.

    Back in 2007, the Case Foundation started experimenting with online contests through America's Giving Challenge. It wasn't perfect, but they issued a frank analysis of the experience through a 20 page "Assessment and Reflection" report. And, we've seen a lot of followers. Most recently, news and controversy over Pepsi's Refresh Project and Chase's Community Giving Competition (yes, the "large bank") have echoed a lot of the same lessons.

    If you're going to do it, you better start with an open, fair and utterly transparent process. Practical pointers include offering a leaderboard, technical support and lots of carnival barking heading into the final votes. By the way, the folks at Blue Avocado chose to remain vague in describing their process (including anonymous nominations), putting new meaning to their use of "Just." If you want to see a pretty interesting discussion of the inside scoop on these kind of contests, check out Global Giving's Chief Business Officer, Donna Callejon, at her interview on UStream. And, stay tuned for even more experimentation; at the latest count, the number of well documented case studies is growing and more are in development.

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AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Jaison G. Morgan

Jaison G. Morgan is the Managing Principal of The Common Pool, LLC.   

He has recently returned from an extended client engagement in the United Arab Emirates, where he worked with the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (Masdar), to design and manage the Sheikh Zayed Future Energy Prize.  Masdar is building the largest clean technology cluster and the first carbon-neutral, zero-waste City in the world.  Inhibited only by the limits of material science and talent, this $30 billion project is using the model of prizes and new incentives to deliver their promise of the most ambitious and sustainable development in history. 

Mr. Morgan was formerly the head of prize development at the X PRIZE Foundation, where he designed large scale inducement prizes with purses in excess of $10 million each.  He has presented and published widely on innovation through incentivized competitions, including lectures at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and presentations during the World Economic Forum. 

Prior to his experience designing prizes and awards, Mr. Morgan served in the Mayor’s Office, City of Chicago, where he received commendations for his work coordinating resources in the Chicago Parks, Libraries and Schools. He has been responsible for starting and scaling multiple nonprofit and commercial ventures, including a groundbreaking revenue model for large tax-exempt employers. He completed his graduate studies at the University of Chicago and remains a frequent blogger and public speaker, focusing on methods for delivering breakthrough results for common causes.

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