Jacob Harold of GuideStar on Nonprofits, Data, and Donors in the Excessive Information Age

Through the Noise #105

Jacob Harold // President & CEO // GuideStar

Today’s guest is Jacob Harold of GuideStar, the organization some consider to be the “Bloomberg of Nonprofits.” The nonprofit sector makes up fully 6% of the U.S economy and GuideStar has information on two million different nonprofits. Potential donors want to know if they are giving to an effective organization, but for too long donors and nonprofits have focused on overhead costs to analyze an organization’s efficacy, while the real measure ought to be the results they produce. We are so inundated with data that it’s exceptionally difficult to parse through and find the information that is relevant to make informed decisions and GuideStar is working to make that easier. Join us today for a great conversation with GuideStar’s CEO Jacob Harold for a unique perspective and get some ideas to incorporate into your own business or nonprofit.

Jacob Harold is President & CEO of GuideStar. He’s worked as a grantmaker at the Hewlett and Packard foundations and a climate change campaigner at Greenpeace and Rainforest Action Network. He is from Winston-Salem, NC and was educated at Duke and Stanford.

GuideStar is the world’s largest source of information about nonprofit organizations.