Northern California Grantmakers

It’s Twitter Thursday again here on the NCG blog. Time for us to highlight some of the organizations and individuals we follow through Twitter.

And if you want to follow NCG on Twitter, check us out at twitter.com/NorCalGrant.

Here’s Who We’re Following on Twitter

LPFCH
Also known as the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children’s Health, LPFCH uses its Twitter account to share research and news related to children’s health. Additionally, this NCG member tweets about Kidscal Updates, their weekly digest about children’s health events in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, and Kidsdata Advisories, which raise the visibility of children’s issues in California.

Here’s a sampling of their recent tweets:

Less Than 25% of 2010 High School Graduates Passed the ACT College Entrance Exam; Questions Rise about College-Readiness http://ow.ly/2rzl3

This week’s Kidscal Update, noting children’s health events in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, now is online http://is.gd/1qq5v

tactphil
Not only do I follow Sean Stannard-Stockton‘s Tactical Philanthropy blog, I follow his tactphil Twitter feed. Recently Sean, the CEO of Tactical Philanthropy Advisors, used his Twitter feed to muse and stoke dialogue on the Social Innovation Fund’s selection process.

no doubt that “accountability” transparency questions/the “smoke” led to transparency that will advance impact of #SIF effort #SIFDEB

Getting the facts behind the SIF issue: Social Innovation Fund Process Stirs Controversy from @philanthropy – http://bit.ly/cPjiyJ

VaultCSR
VaultCSR is the twitter feed of Aman Singh, the CSR Editor at Vault.com. Aman’s interests include corporate social responsibility, sustainability practices, diversity and women leadership in the workplace–all of which are represented in her tweets.

For example:

The #csr Daily is out – read this Twitter newspaper on http://paper.li/tag/csr (147 contributions today)

Comments continue to pour in 4 “Why There IS a case for #CSR Despite WSJ’s Obituary” http://bit.ly/bXgzM3 << Have u weighed in yet? #careers

ZeroDivideorg
NCG member ZeroDivide invests in community based social enterprises which leverage technology to benefit people in low income and other underserved communities. Considering their mission, it makes perfect sense that they have a strong online presence on Twitter and that they are concerned about internet accessibility. Case in point this recent tweet on net neutrality:

Users, not ISPs, need to decide what services get on the Internet, says FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski. http://bit.ly/abLlJq #netneutrality

Have any Twitter recommendations for us? Let us know who you think we should be following.

Marc Benioff, founder of Salesforce.com Inc. has announced that he and his wife will give $100 million to UCSF for the creation of a new children’s hospital in San Francisco.

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and his wife, Lynne, are donating $100 million for a children's hospital, part of a new medical center at UCSF.

“The gift is expected to give a major boost to San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood, where UCSF is planning a $1.5 billion hospital system. The facility, slated to be open by the end of 2014, will include a cancer center, women’s hospital and children’s hospital, which will be called UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital. The 14.5-acre medical center will be financed by a combination of debt, equity, cash from the school and private donations.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, this gift puts Marc in the league of “super donors” such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. And like Buffett and Gates, Benioff has announced that “he intends to give away the majority of his wealth in his lifetime.”

Interestingly enough, this news comes on the heels of the Buffett/Gates announcement to encourage billionaires to do just that, give away at least 50% of their net worth in their lifetime.

Read the full Wall Street Journal article.

Healthcare advocates and funders will be interested to learn that NCG member the California HealthCare Foundation has recently released an issue briefing that explores “the clinical documentation options available to users of most EHR [electronic health records] programs.”

Clinical Documentation: EHR Deployment Techniques “is the second in a series of tactically oriented issue briefs arising from the California Networks for EHR Adoption (CNEA) initiative.”

The issue briefing compares free-form to structured documentation, explores the challenges of using structured vocabularies and offers examples from CNEA grantees to illustrate the pros and cons of each approach.

Read the issue briefing online.

Learn more about the California Networks for Electronic Health Record Adoption initiative.