Whipsaws

Organizing science: Can a ten-minute conversation with a canvasser at someone’s door change their mind about a strongly held opinion? A new study by David Broockman and Josh Kalla, published in Science, titled, “Durably reducing transphobia: A field experiment on door-to-door canvassing,” says the answer is yes. As Brian Resnick explains in Vox, this is a big deal.

The money chase: Don’t miss Hal Harvey’s mea culpa, “Why I Regret Pushing Strategic Philanthropy,” published in The Chronicle of Philanthropy. Here’s how he starts out:

“…A major challenge for strategic philanthropy is that it can create delusions of omniscience in many program officers. Instead of reviewing grant proposals, querying experts, synthesizing ideas, and respecting those with years in the field, many program directors and officers become auteurs: They begin to see themselves as the origin of intelligence as well as the arbiters of money. The grant-making business already starts with a deep imbalance of power, with one party wielding the decision-making authority and the other more or less on bended knee. Add the presumption of strategy, and in no time, grant seekers become whipsawed approval-seekers and grant makers become demigods—with all the theocratic arbitrariness that term implies.”

And in case you think this is original or helpful, check out Ruth McCambridge’s riposte. As editor-in-chief of the Nonprofit Quarterly she’s been criticizing the hubris of so-called strategic philanthropists for a long time.

This is civic tech: Code for Charlotte is holding the city’s first civic tech hackathon this Saturday.

Age of transparency: Almost half of Iceland voters now say they would support the Pirate Party as their choice to lead the country if new elections are held, the Iceland Monitor reports.

Crypto-wars, continued: Signal, Open Whisper Systems’ end-to-end encrypted messaging system that is favored by Edward Snowden, is now open to all users, Devin Coldewey reports for TechCrunch.