Monday, April 03, 2006

Alliance Extra - April 2006 - Interview with Buzz Schmidt - Taking data seriously

Alliance Extra - April 2006 - Interview with Buzz Schmidt - Taking data seriously: "GuideStar aims to provide good-quality information about a large number of a country’s civil society organizations in accessible and highly searchable form and free of charge. After a decade operating in the US, GuideStar has now launched in the UK, and systems may be emerging in India, South Africa, Hungary, Germany, Israel and Palestine. What can GuideStar offer to the non-profit sector? How can quality of data be assured? And who’s going to pay for it? Caroline Hartnell talked to GuideStar founder Buzz Schmidt, who is now President of Civil Society Systems, which promotes and supports the construction of GuideStar systems around the world.

In the US, GuideStar has so far been funded by private foundations – it needed an $11 million capital infusion from foundations a few years ago. Given the fall-off in the number of non-profit infrastructure funders, what’s the future of GuideStar in the US?"

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