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Impact Washing, Data Refuges, Big Bets, and More: Philanthropy’s 2018 Buzzwords

December 13, 2017

Philanthropy is in for many changes in 2018. Debates in Washington about federal policies and many other changes should make it clear that there are new challenges to the old guard — from the perspective of regulations, digital practices, and even the boundaries of the nonprofit world.

As we all get ready for the year ahead, here are the top 10 words, phrases, and ideas that I predict people in the nonprofit world will be using, misusing, and probably abusing in 2018.

Biometrics

The use of digital data collected from your body to provide access or verification to a system, including fingerprints, iris scans, and facial-recognition software, is exploding. The databases that gather this information are often created by governments and hosted by corporations, but the data are often collected by nonprofit or nongovernmental partners.

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Philanthropy is in for many changes in 2018. Debates in Washington about federal policies and many other changes should make it clear that there are new challenges to the old guard — from the perspective of regulations, digital practices, and even the boundaries of the nonprofit world.

As we all get ready for the year ahead, here are the top 10 words, phrases, and ideas that I predict people in the nonprofit world will be using, misusing, and probably abusing in 2018.

Biometrics

The use of digital data collected from your body to provide access or verification to a system, including fingerprints, iris scans, and facial-recognition software, is exploding. The databases that gather this information are often created by governments and hosted by corporations, but the data are often collected by nonprofit or nongovernmental partners.

Biometric data collection is an example of a massive collapse of meaningful borders between the roles and responsibilities of business, government, and charities. In a digital world where the data-collection work done by nonprofits can turn into resources for commercial or government use almost seamlessly, how do nonprofits actually claim — and protect — any true independence?

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Big bets

Given the amount of money now being held for purposes loosely described as “doing good,” the scale of challenges from climate change, the evil robot overlords, and the demise of democracy, the betting money is on big money, dedicated to big issues, to make big change (or at least try to).

Data refuge

A data refuge is a volunteer-led effort to make backup copies of digital data that governments and others might decide to destroy to impede their opposition. For example, many volunteers came together when the Trump administration took over to make copies of scientific research on climate change that resides on government sites. Such a data refuges — often located in other nations, are being created to preserve access. Data protection is becoming a core strategy of advocacy organizations. Data weaponization

The term covers the deliberate manipulation of data, politicized analysis, selective use of data, and the creation of bots and other algorithmic techniques that drive propaganda and misinformation on the internet.

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Explicability gap

This is the distance between the power of algorithms to process data and our ability to understand them and encourage architects of the algorithms to do all they can to avoid introducing biases into calculations. This is particularly problematic when these tools are used to steer cars on public roads, implicate people for prison sentences, track kids in school, differentiate groups for public services, or recommend certain medical procedures.

Impact washing

Efforts to measure impact have been steadily increasing, and the impact-investing movement continues to drive this forward. Projects that ensure accurate and credible measurement are on the rise, Among them: a new Presidents’ Council on Impact Investing a group of 20 leaders of big foundations seeking to advance investments tied to their social missions. Also of note, the Ixo Foundation, which is using blockchain, an encrypted technology that distributes computing power to avoid copying, to measure progress toward the Sustainable Development Goals. Others will just take the easy way out and “claim impact” or seek to wash themselves in the language of social good without really doing anything.

Monopoly

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The global dominance of a handful of companies — mostly those based in the United States — is under increasing scrutiny. This will matter to nonprofits for three reasons: First, expect more civil-society protests against corporate power. Second, there will be more scrutiny of the philanthropic influence of companies and their executives. And third, there will be more high-profile tech philanthropy.

Red teaming

The term comes from software development and the security industry. It refers to a practice of staging efforts to breach your organization’s digital systems to test your defenses. The language of digital security will become familiar to us all. Even if practices like red teaming remain beyond the reach of resource-stretched organizations, we’ll all be familiar with the idea (if not the practice) of “threat modeling” (just what it sounds like).

Resist

People have been rallying around this term since November 2016. The spirit of resistance has changed the composition of civil society, informed the creation of countless new associations, and mobilized financial resources from big and small donors. The word travels beyond the United States and English, as we see in marches and protests around the globe.

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Universal basic income

An old idea that is experiencing a moment in the philanthropic sun, the idea is to guarantee that everyone who isn’t affluent is guaranteed an annual income. Experiments are underway in several countries, several high-profile donors are involved, and policy makers are interested in experiments to address wage stagnation even when there’s economic growth.

Lucy Bernholz is author of Philanthropy and Digital Civil Society: Blueprint 2018, a report that includes a version of this list. She is a senior research scholar at Stanford Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
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