This presentation provides an introduction to the semantic web for nonprofits and a vision for a "nonprofit social graph." It explains how nonprofts fit into semantic web standards like RDF, Schema.org, Sparql, etc.

1. Introduction to the Semantic Web
and the Nonprofit Social Graph
Andrew Sears
Executive Director

2. The Need for the Semantic Web:
What are the Online Megatrends?
Browser traffic App Traffic
General Search Vertical Search
Proliferation of Open, Standardized
Closed Datasets/APIs Machine Readable Data
All of these trends call for more standardized
APIs and linked datasets = Semantic Web

3. App Traffic Growing beyond Browser Traffic
Note: Includes all web (desktop and mobile)

4. Vertical Search through MicroFormats & Schema.org

5. Proliferation of Nonprofit APIs
 All for Good  Social Actions
 Brooklyn Museum  Sparked
 Convio  WiserEarth
 CorpWatch  CiviCRM
 DonorsChoose  Get Active
 eTapestry  Member-only
 FirstGiving  Reults Plus
 Global Giving  Blackbaud
 Kintera  Institute for Money in State
 Kiva Politics
 LetGive  Giveness
 Piryx  WiserEarth
 Guidestar  ChristianVolunteering
 Charity Navigator  Let’s Give
 Dropcash  Piryx
 Global Currents Pitleline  Open Aid

6. A Programmers Perspective
 To develop a good app you need to:
◦ Aggregate from 5-20 sources
◦ Write to 5-20 Apis
◦ Sign 5-20 contracts and terms of use that are
often incompatible with each other
 In the future this problem will be 10 times
as big
 Conclusion: Developers are more likely to
develop apps based on standardized APIs
like the Semantic Web

7. What is the Semantic Web?
 Initiative of World Wide
Web Consortium for
providing common
formats for web data
 Led by Tim Burners-
Lee, the inventor of the
World Wide Web
 aka Web 3.0

8. Semantic Web Standards
Aggregators: Freebase, Dbpedia,
Zemanta, Kasiba, Calais, Data.gov…
Sparql: global query language for RDF
Schema.org: schema & ontology
of objects in RDF
RDF = data sharing format in XML
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web

9. How Nonprofits are likely to fit with
Semantic Web Standards
Aggregators: VolunteerMatch, AllforGood,
Guidestar, ChristianVolunteering, Mobile Apps,
Widgets, Web Portals, Thousands of Sites
Nonprofit Contracts/API Terms of Use
Sparql endpoints: AllforGood, Guidestar
Sparql: API standard for nonprofits
Schema.org: organizations, job postings
events, volunteer opportunities
RDF: data sharing format in XML

10. Schema.org
 Defines schema of objects relevant to
nonprofits in RDF
◦ Organizations
◦ Job Posting
◦ Volunteer Opportunity
◦ Events
 Will be used by all major search engines
to improve search results
◦ Most experts say using Schema.org format
could increase click-throughs by 30%

11. Why Provide Data to Semantic Web
 Technology Mandate
◦ Given strategy of search engines, it is likely that nonprofit
data that do not support the Semantic web will lose 50% of
their search engine traffic within 5 years and 90% within 10
years
◦ As more of the web is viewed through apps and vertical
search engines, open data is required
◦ There will soon be hundreds of nonprofit APIs, which are too
many for programmers to support
 Government Mandate
◦ It is likely that future government grants will require
grantees to provide data to Data.gov
 Public Mandate
◦ Nonprofits that choose to be closed will likely attract public
criticism and lose funders
 Social Mandate
◦ Providing open data maximizes social RoI

12. What is the Nonprofit Social Graph?
1. The Nonprofit social graph is set of
standards for data objects of interest to
nonprofits
◦ Similar to the Facebook Social graph, but more
open and focused on mapping resources
related to nonprofits
2. It will be how Nonprofits contribute to
the semantic web (Web 3.0)
3. It will define a set of data format
standards and terms of use for sharing
data

13. Nonprofit Social Graph
Volunteer
Opportunities
Foundations Jobs
Events Organizations People
Nonprofit Giving
Meta-wiki Requests
Causes/Social
Actions

14. SPARQL Endpoints
 SPARQL Endpoints serve as the primary
repository for a source of data
◦ Nonprofit Organizations in USA, Volunteer Opportunities
 Provides standard API query interface
◦ Two-way update capabilities coming soon
 Similar to AllForGood API, but using semantic
web standards
 Will require nonprofit community in each country
to agree to endpoint
◦ Will probably want to interface with data.gov
 Sample Endpoints
◦ Data.gov, Data.gov.uk, Dbpedia, Freebase, World
Factbook,
http://www.w3.org/wiki/SparqlEndpoints
http://www.w3.org/wiki/SPARQL
http://www.w3.org/wiki/SPARQL/Extensions/Update

15. Potential Options for Repositories/
Sparql Endpoints
1. One organization becomes sole repository
for organizations, volunteer opportunities
2. Different organizations become primary
repository for different objects
◦ AllForGood = Volunteer Opportunities
◦ Guidestar = Organizations
3. National/Global Sparql Endpoint becomes
sole repository (i.e. Data.gov)
◦ All data sources feed into Data.gov as a central
repository/Sparql endpoint provider
◦ Data.gov probably will not accept third-party data

16. Schema.org: Organization
Property Expected Type Description
Properties from Thing
description Text A short description of the item.
image URL URL of an image of the item.
name Text The name of the item.
url URL URL of the item.
Properties from Organization
address PostalAddress Physical address of the item.
The overall rating, based on a collection of reviews
aggregateRating AggregateRating
or ratings, of the item.
contactPoints ContactPoint A contact point for a person or organization.
email Text Email address.
employees Person People working for this organization.
Upcoming or past events associated with this place
events Event
or organization.
faxNumber Text The fax number.
founders Person A person who founded this organization.
foundingDate Date The date that this organization was founded.
A count of a specific user interactions with this
item—for example, 20 UserLikes, 5 UserComments,
interactionCount Text
or 300 UserDownloads. The user interaction type
should be one of the sub types of UserInteraction.
location Place or PostalAddress The location of the event or organization.
members Person or Organization A member of this organization.
reviews Review Review of the item.
telephone Text The telephone number.
More specific types: Corporation, EducationalOrganization, GovernmentOrganization,
LocalBusiness, NGO, PerformingGroup, SportsTeam

17. Step Toward Nonprofit Social Graph:
Organizations
 Organize a working group of key
stakeholders
 Decide who will be the primary organization
endpoint
◦ Guidestar or Data.gov or both
 Provide input into Schema.org’s organization
and NGO standards
◦ i.e. missing charity id, tax id, etc.
◦ May want to extend standard beyond Schema.org
 Provide Sparql Endpoint for Organization data
 Data.gov latest IRS data is 2004
◦ http://www.data.gov/list/agency/14/15/catalog/raw/page/1/count/50
http://schema.org/Organization
http://schema.org/NGO

18. Organization Data Providers
 Guidestar
 NetworkforGood
 Charity Navigator
 HandsOn Network
 Idealist.org
 United Way/Truist
 ChristianVolunteering.org
 VolunteerMatch.org
 211
 Data.gov/IRS

19. Schema.org: Job Posting
Need Volunteer Opportunity
Property Expected Type Description
Properties from Thing
description Text A short description of the item.
image URL URL of an image of the item.
name Text The name of the item.
url URL URL of the item.
Properties from JobPosting
baseSalary Number The base salary of the job.
benefits Text Description of benefits associated with the job.
datePosted Date Publication date for the job posting.
educationRequirements Text Educational background needed for the position.
Type of employment (e.g. full-time, part-time, contract, temporary, seasonal,
employmentType Text
internship).
experienceRequirements Text Description of skills and experience needed for the position.
hiringOrganization Organization Organization offering the job position.
incentives Text Description of bonus and commission compensation aspects of the job.
industry Text The industry associated with the job position.
jobLocation Place A (typically single) geographic location associated with the job position.
Category or categories describing the job. Use BLS O*NET-SOC taxonomy:
occupationalCategory Text http://www.onetcenter.org/taxonomy.html. Ideally includes textual label and formal
code, with the property repeated for each applicable value.
qualifications Text Specific qualifications required for this role.
responsibilities Text Responsibilities associated with this role.
The currency (coded using ISO 4217, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_4217 used for
salaryCurrency Text
the main salary information in this job posting.
skills Text Skills required to fulfill this role.
Any special commitments associated with this job posting. Valid entries include
specialCommitments Text
VeteranCommit, MilitarySpouseCommit, etc.
title Text The title of the job.
workHours Text The typical working hours for this job (e.g. 1st shift, night shift, 8am-5pm).

20. Steps Toward Nonprofit Social Graph:
Volunteer Opportunities
 Currently data.gov provides some data
◦ http://explore.data.gov/Social-Insurance-and-Human-Services/Federal-
Volunteer-Opportunities/svbx-5gin
 Decide who will be the primary organization endpoint
◦ Very likely to be All for Good
 Need Volunteer Opportunity standard in Schema.org
◦ Probably an intangible object like JobPosting
◦ Will probably want to relate event object to it for dates, and
determine whether there needs to be a new volunteer event
◦ Need to require EIN/org ID to be able to link to organization
 Provide Sparql Endpoint for Organization data
http://schema.org/Organization
http://schema.org/NGO

21. Volunteer Opportunity Data Providers
 Open = Contributing to Serve.Gov/Data.gov
◦ HandsOn Network, AARP, Idealist.org, United Way, Truist,
Habitat for Humanity, Service Nation, Universal Giving,
ChristianVolunteering.org, Craigslist, MENTOR, Senior
Corps, AmeriCorps, Girl Scouts, YMCA, Up2Us, CatchaFire,
Volunteer.gov, Rock the Vote, Citizen Corps, Red Cross,
Samaritan Technologies, Catchafire
 Closed = Not Contributing to Serve.Gov/Data.gov
◦ VolunteerMatch.org
 Schema Examples
◦ http://www.allforgood.org/spec
◦ http://schema.org/Event

22. Schema.org: Event
Property Expected Type Description
Properties from Thing
description Text A short description of the item.
image URL URL of an image of the item.
name Text The name of the item.
url URL URL of the item.
Properties from Event
attendees Person or Organization A person attending the event.
The duration of the item (movie, audio recording, event, etc.) in
duration Duration
ISO 8601 date format.
endDate Date The end date and time of the event (in ISO 8601 date format).
location Place or PostalAddress The location of the event or organization.
An offer to sell this item—for example, an offer to sell a
offers Offer
product, the DVD of a movie, or tickets to an event.
The main performer or performers of the event—for example, a
performers Person or Organization
presenter, musician, or actor.
startDate Date The start date and time of the event (in ISO 8601 date format).
Events that are a part of this event. For example, a conference
subEvents Event event includes many presentations, each are subEvents of the
conference.
An event that this event is a part of. For example, a collection
superEvent Event of individual music performances might each have a music
festival as their superEvent.

23. Challenges with other Data Objects
 No centralized source or independent
aggregator with critical mass of objects
◦ Nonprofit Events
◦ Nonprofit Meta-Wiki
◦ Giving Opportunities
 Lack of common structure
◦ Social Actions/Causes
 No workable business model
◦ People (will probably default to Facebook and
remain private silos for business reasons)

24. Roles in the Nonprofit Social Graph
Nonprofit • Web Portals
Websites & • Desktop software
Applications • Nonprofit social networks
• Nonprofit portals
• National Sparql Endpoints • Websites
• Data.gov • System Integration
• Search Engines Global Sparql Programming • Mobile Apps
Standards &
• Social Networks Aggregators Endpoints Consultants • Facebook Apps
• Places/Maps • Widgets
• 211 • Open Source Projects
Data Sources • 1,000’s of websites
• Volunteer, Jobs, Orgs, etc.

25. But, Nonprofit Data Providers
Make Their Money on their Data!
 The nonprofit social graph must support
sustainable business models for nonprofit
data providers
 Freemium business model
◦ Open data will be more limited like an RSS feed
◦ Need to provide enough data for it to be useful
or someone will “fork” the data and provide a
better open alternative
 Read Free: The Future of a Radical Price
by Chris Anderson

26. Business Models
1. RSS Feed Business model
◦ Share limited data to drive traffic to your website
◦ Traffic can be monetized
2. Open Source Software business model
◦ Provide more limited open data to develop
consulting business with full data and leveraging
expertise with data
3. Grants-funded business model
◦ Sharing data maximizes social value to attract
funders
◦ Funders will want aggregators to succeed
◦ Nonprofits perceived as “closed” will lose funding

27. Possible Futures
1. Bad. Nonprofits remained closed and the only
open data is Data.gov
◦ Data.gov’s data is very poor quality unless nonprofits
help improve it
◦ Nonprofit app development will be severely limited and
nonprofits will lose visibility online: will digital divide
online between nonprofits and for profits
2. Better. Most nonprofits contribute, but some do
not
◦ Nonprofits with closed data will lose most of their online
visibility
3. Best. Nonprofits organize and create critical
mass
◦ Creates new market for thousands of apps and widgets
where nonprofit causes become pervasive in the online
world

28. Open vs. Closed
 There is a spectrum from very closed to
very open
 Having an API is not Open
◦ Many APIs are closed because of restrictive
terms of use and limited access to data
 Open is sharing enough data to be useful
into open, public repositories
 Developer perspective
◦ Writing an a nonprofit app could soon require
aggregating hundreds of data sources and
hundreds of APIs

29. Potential first Steps toward the
Nonprofit Social Graph
 Serve.Gov/AllForGood could require (or strongly
encourage) data providers to include EINs linking
organizations to volunteer opportunities
◦ Critical missing piece right now to connect to open org data
◦ VolunteerMatch.org re-joins Serve.gov
 Guidestar could organize a consortium of organization
data providers
◦ Define organization standard as input to Schema.org
◦ Provides 2 way API with partners
◦ Provides organization data feed to Data.gov using RDF
 Idealist.org could start aggregating third party nonprofit
jobs (like AllforGood)
◦ Easy sources: SimplyHired.com, Indeed.com
◦ Starts providing nonprofit jobs feed to Data.gov using RDF
 Other nonprofit data sources start to form standards
working groups

30. For More Information
 Why Nonprofits Should Care about Linked
Data and the Semantic Web
◦ http://www.spaceforgood.org/content/why-nonprofits-
should-care-about-linked-data-and-semantic-web
 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_Web
 http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/
 http://www.w3schools.com/web/web_se
mantic.asp

31. Appendix

32. Why is TechMission Interested in
the Nonprofit Social Graph?
 Andrew Sears, Executive Director
◦ Previously co-founded MIT’s Internet Telecoms
Consortium supporting open standards
◦ Researched open standards under David Clark (one
of the fathers of the Internet)
◦ I personally have a passion for open data
 Open Data will support nonprofits focused on
niches and increase diversity
◦ Largest segment of nonprofit market is the faith-
based segment
◦ TechMission is the leading provider of open data
related to faith based nonprofits (6,500 volunteer
opps, 13,000 orgs, 170,000 wiki articles)

33. Giving Opportunity Data Sources
 Kiva
 JustGive.org
 Network for Good
 Changing the Present
 Donors Choose
 FirstGiving.com
 Schema/API Examples
◦ build.kiva.org
◦ developers.firstgiving.com
◦ developer.donorschoose.org

34. Causes/Social Actions Data Sources
 Social Actions/Guidestar
 Causes.com
 Change.org
 Schema/API Examples
◦ http://exchange.causes.com/resources/causes-developer-api/
◦ http://wiki.socialactions.com/w/page/24592876/Social%20Acti
ons%20API%20-%20About

35. Nonprofit Job Data Sources
 Idealist.org
 Indeed.com
 SimplyHired.com
 Schema Examples
◦ http://schema.org/JobPosting
◦ https://ads.indeed.com/jobroll/xmlfeed
◦ https://www.jobamatic.com/a/jbb/partner-
dashboard-advanced-xml-api

36. Other Schema.org Objects of Interest
 Review
 Rating
 MediaObject (audio, image, music, video)

37. Events Data Sources
 Meetup.com
 Craigslist.org/cal
 Eventful.com
 Upcoming.org
 Eventbrite.com
 Schema Examples
◦ http://schema.org/Event
◦ http://www.meetup.com/meetup_api/

38. Foundation Data Sources
 Foundation Center
 Council on Foundations
 Grant Station
 Data.gov IRS foundation data
◦ http://www.data.gov/list/agency/14/15/catalog/raw/page/1/count/
50