CauseWired

Tom Watson is a journalist, media critic, entrepreneur, and blogger with a 25-year professional career that includes the founding of two companies and several popular online publications, bylines in more than a dozen major newspapers and magazines, and a history of innovation in media technology and online communities.

Currently, Tom is Chief Strategy Officer of Changing Our World Inc., a national philanthropic services company he helped to found. Changing Our World was acquired by the Omnicom Group [NYSE: OMC] in 2002, and provides a wide range of consulting services to nonprofits, corporations, foundations, and individuals in philanthropy.

A journalist and media critic whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Industry Standard, Inside, Worth, Contribute and Wired magazines, Tom began his career as a sportswriter and has been writing professionally for more than 25 years.

At Changing Our World, a pioneering social enterprise company, Tom is responsible for the company’s marketing, communications, and technology; he is also heavily involved in business development and corporate partnerships for the firm.

Under his leadership, Changing Our World created onPhilanthropy.com, a leading online resource for philanthropy professionals that includes the popular blogs, Buzz, onLine, and Future Leaders in Philanthropy. onPhilanthropy received a 2007 WebAward for Outstanding Achievement in Website Development from the Web Marketing Association in the category of E-Zine Standard of Excellence, and site was also named a Silver Award Winner in the 2007 W3 Awards for general excellence in the news category.

Tom also launched the Summit onPhilanthropy, an annual private gathering of the top leaders in New York; each year, the Summit brings together both funders and nonprofits to discuss the big-picture issues in philanthropy.

Tom discusses the confluence of media, brands, and communications with philanthropy for The Huffington Post, and also writes regularly on that topic for onPhilanthropy. He has been quoted widely on philanthropic trends in publications ranging from Women’s Wear Daily to the Christian Science Monitor, and has appeared on CNN and NPR to discuss the business of media and causes.

In addition to his media work, Tom assists Changing Our World clients in case development, strategic planning, communications, branding development and marketing, as well as fundraising and development planning.

Outside of his work with Changing Our World, Tom is the founder and publisher of newcritics.com, an online journal of cultural criticism.

Before joining Changing Our World, Tom was co-founder and co-editor of @NY, the pioneering Internet news and information service that has chronicled New York’s Silicon Alley media sector since 1995. The company was acquired by Jupitermedia Group [Nasdaq: JUPM] in April 1999, two months before a successful initial public offering.

Tom has been a widely read commentator on and analyst on media technology matters since the mid-1990s, writing articles and columns for a host of business, technology, and media publications. Tom has frequently commented on media development for many news outlets, including CNN, NPR, and CNBC. He has spoken about the Internet and media technology, as well as fundraising and nonprofit marketing, at conferences and academic institutions including the Hilton Humanitarian Symposium, American Society of Association Executives, the Hacking Philanthropy symposium, MIT Enterprise Forum, Conference on Philanthropy, the ePhilanthropy Foundation, Content Management Summit, the Performance Institute, Association of Fundraising Professionals, the Software Summit, City University London, Harvard Business School, Columbia University, and New York University.

Previously, Tom was the executive editor of The Riverdale Press, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper in the Bronx, where he covered politics, and won more than a dozen state and national awards for excellence in journalism. The paper won national acclaim during his tenure for not missing an issue after terrorists linked to Iran destroyed the newspaper’s offices with firebombs.

Tom is a member of the boards of directors of the Drum Major Institute for Public Policy, a progressive think tank based in New York, and the New York Software Industry Association, an industry association. He holds a BA in English literature from Columbia University, and has served as an adjunct professor of new media at Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism.