So here's the first post on @Squareup - philanthropy.blogspot.com

And building from a tweet comment - why aren't foundation payments this easy? Imagine how much easier the whole grant reporting could be - all online, "instant payment to report," pre-line-itemed and submitted....

And another reason mobile payments will matter - mobile websites and access for NPOs philanthropy.com. Will Square plus mobile access turn everyone w a smartphone into free lance fundraiser...?

I agree there could likely be benefits of grant reporting, though we could end up with more confusion about where the money goes vs. the geo location it is serving. But beyond that, I like to think there could be a potential positive impact on actual payment processing at foundations. I have seen some real pain points at foundations on the mechanics of making grant payments. Wires and checks, especially when going to foreign accounts, are not always so straightforward and can be costly. It would be great to make this smoother for foundations and our grantees.

ANd another thought - carried over here from an email exchange with a programmer

"Consider the marriage of 'end result' metrics with this technology. You can hop on a site to see how many people you fed, runway you gave advanced research, or whatever the measure is. Would be amazing to have a digital report every week/month showing the progress your contributions were making all organized by the problem it solves and which stage in the problem solving pipeline it focused on.

It could be like a mutual fund almost where you deposit cash (potentially on a recurring basis) and then elect which 'funds' you want your investments to go into. "

Rebecca

It's sort of amazing that the payment process of grantmaking is so challenged - in our era of digital global money. What an opportunity for some efficiencies and easing mechanisms....

Thanks for your thoughts -

Lucy

If I were attending the trend forecast, I'd love to have some discussion of what tools/models will work to address some of the issues discussed in this article, which can't possibly be limited to San Francisco. How much are the people who are building the tools participating in the philanthropic process? modernluxury.com

Thanks Maura - I just put up a different branch to learn more about things like this