If you need a little more WHY:

Why would you want to sit on a nonprofit board?

Because you believe in the mission. But also, it’s a good way to move on up in your nonprofit career. Have you ever known an executive director who previously sat on your nonprofit board? This seems to happen quite a lot. Two nonprofits I’ve worked for had this happen. You can probably name a few, yourself.

What does sitting on a board entail?

It entails making sure your executive director is not stealing money with the nonprofit credit card. And then, if they are caught, it entails firing them.

Oh, no, they didn’t do it by accident. Because if they tell you that, and you let them stay, THEY WILL DO IT AGAIN, and STEAL EVEN MORE.
But seriously though.

I am being serious. That just happened to a nonprofit I used to work for.

As a board member, you are fiscally responsible for the nonprofit organization. So, if it goes belly up and can’t pay its bills, YOU are left holding the bag. So, don’t take this lightly. Also, you should learn how to fundraise and teach your fellow board members how to do it, so that you don’t have to worry about this happening.

What if I don’t want to fundraise?
Everyone can do something. Maybe you can stuff envelopes. Call people to say thank you for giving a gift. Research grants. Advocate for more funds at the government level. I have a comprehensive checklist and quiz that goes into detail about how you can help your board members fundraise here.

What else?

You need to give to this nonprofit, so that you can convince other people you know to give. That will be more convincing. Also, it should be in the bylaws that you need to give.

Ugh, really?

Yeah. But if you don’t believe in the mission, then why are you on the board anyway?

What about the board meetings?

Those are going to be once a month, probably. 2 hours of your time. Take this time to get to know staff better. Let them know you’re there to help. Ask what you can do. Be realistic about what you can accomplish with a certain timeframe. If a board report is not making sense to you, ask to have it explained. Your other board members will secretly thank you.

Committees?

Yes, you’ll probably be asked to sit on a committee too. There’s the marketing/communications committee, the fundraising/gala committee, the executive committee, the website committee, the strategic planning committee, the finance committee, etc. One thing I’ve learned from sitting on nonprofit boards is that if I do fundraising for my job all day, I’m kind of burnt out on doing it for other people for free after I get off work. So even if you’re an accountant, maybe you don’t want to do it for free for this nonprofit. Say so up front, if so. However, this does lead to people who aren’t terribly skilled in the committee focus being on this committee. Nobody said being on a board was easy. But it can help you be seen in more leadership roles, create the right relationships to get you that development director or executive director position. Click the link at the top of this post to see what board positions are available at nonprofits near you.

If you like this post, check out
“Are You Pressuring Your Board?” by Alexandra Peters

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Do you want to sit on a nonprofit board? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on January 11, 2012.

He writes:

“Often exiles from nonprofits because they were ineffective, burned out or just wanted a bigger paycheck, bad consultants can drain nonprofits’ limited funding in return for simplistic advice masquerading as strategic thinking.

Many who could not cut it as nonprofit professionals turn to consulting because they spot easy prey in nonprofits desperate for strategic advice.” . . .

What these consultants are selling is blind faith in their image and self-confidence. But after paying the fees, many nonprofits are left with little more than a consultant’s promise that cosmetic and formulaic changes will improve their organizations.

Nonprofits buy what mediocre consultants are selling because, strained to the breaking point in our damaged economy, and struggling to make ends meet in the face of rising demand for services and of shrinking resources, they need help and want to believe the consultants can provide it.”

—————————————————

Ouch! Obviously Todd has talked with nonprofits who have been burned by consultants who didn’t really help them or deliver on what they promised to deliver.

Here’s my response.
————————————-

Dear Todd,

I appreciate you bringing up the fact that we have to vet nonprofit consultants more carefully.

And I agree, a nonprofit should be wary of general strategists simply because no one consultant can be an expert on strategy for every type of nonprofit. I’d be more inclined to trust a consultant who specialized in, say, K-12 educational strategy than someone who said they provided general nonprofit strategy.

In my own consulting practice, I don’t give simplistic advice or offer empty strategy. I wrote a book called The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising and I teach webinars offering step by step guides on how to do various tasks, including finding sponsorships, finding grants, and putting out direct mail pieces.

There may not be regulations on consultants, but I do my best to be transparent, which means I disclose exactly how much I’ve personally raised with the methods above.

I don’t just rely on my own experience. I read books, go to conferences, attend trainings, and research online and look at the best examples I can find in the field before offering advice to nonprofits. I’m always learning, always trying to provide more value for nonprofits.

I think the best consultants can offer nonprofits the gift of shortcuts and best writing samples, at the very least, if they are focused on hands-on, how-to instruction.

When it comes to successful fundraising or strategy, you forget that you need a trained and motivated board, a dynamic leadership, and an engaged community. Probably most nonprofits don’t have these, which is why they come to a consultant in the first place.

People need to take responsibility for the situation they created, not blame the consultant for not giving them a quick fix.

• One consultant alone cannot overcome the fact that no one on the board has ties to a foundation.
• One consultant cannot transfer 10 relationships with corporations to a nonprofit to get those sponsorships.
• One consultant cannot overcome a 5 year lapse in sending appeals with the first appeal.
• One consultant cannot overcome the lack of any development staff to carry on the work once they leave.

You talk about nonprofit consultants not taking responsibility for their actions. I’m not trying to pass the buck here. I’m trying to talk about what can realistically be accomplished with the assistance of a nonprofit consultant.

Rather than expecting the consultant to solve all organizational problems in the space of a week or a month, why not just help the consultant train the ED or other development staff to write a better appeal letter, or how to do speaking engagements more effectively?

Or if you think the consultant is still too removed, what about creating contracts where the consultant works together with the nonprofit, checks in with them over a period of 6 months to 1 year, to help them tweak their fundraising and development?

What do YOU think of these solutions?

Are you looking for a nonprofit consultant?

What has worked best for you in terms of hiring someone to help your nonprofit, from the outside?

If you are a nonprofit consultant, have you ever felt like people expected you to overcome too much?

How did you deal with managing expectations?

Please share your experience in the comments.

A response to “Bad Nonprofit Consultants” from Inside Philanthropy originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on January 9, 2012.

Are you getting to the age when you are not interested in accepting $28,000 a year anymore? Yeah, me neither.

Did you know that the way executive salaries have ballooned in the last twenty years, we should all be making $50,000 per year MINIMUM? Yeah, that’s so far from the current typical nonprofit wage as to see the curvature of the universe.

Have you ever wondered how to negotiate for a nonprofit salary?

It’s a little trickier than negotiating for a for-profit salary, because they can always pull this line on you, “HOW MUCH DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE MISSION IF YOU WANT TO GET PAID MORE” Etc.

But you DO need to get paid more. Because we are the lowest paid industry. Unless you’re working at a hospital or university. Then you’re probably getting paid a little better. But check out this chart.

(this graph is from Blue Avocado)

See? I told you! Even government workers get paid more than you. So, think of your future, think of saving for retirement, think of paying off your student loans, and think of NOT EATING RAMEN EVERY NIGHT OKAY.

You have to do your research.
Here’s a study from Guidestar on what executives are getting paid. And if you look up the nonprofit you’re considering applying for a job for on Guidestar, you can see what the current ED makes and look at what they’ve made over the last two or three years as well. If you’re not gunning for an executive level job, then just maybe cut that salary in half and that’s probably what you’ll be making, or less.

You have to tread carefully, and know what to say. But WHAT DO YOU SAY?

Case Study:
Yesterday I had this conversation with my friend, let’s call her Donna.

Donna had been an executive director for over ten years at other organizations, and for two years, she has been looking for a new job. She did jobs on the side to get through, but her unemployment had run out and she was struggling.

I had an RSS feed set up for nonprofit jobs, and when I saw this executive director job, I jumped on it and sent it to her. Then she replied and said thank you! And then she asked me to check out the 990 form on Guidestar for her, and I did, and I said,

“Uh Oh, you are NOT going to make a high salary at this place, their budget is pretty small” and she said, “Well, that’s okay.”

Then she asked me to look at her her resume and cover letter. So I did, I rewrote them and reformatted them and sent them back to her. We had a couple of weeks of interviews, phone, skype, and in person, and I celebrated with her that she had got that far, trying to not expect more…

Then last week she called me and said, “IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT” and I said, “REALLY” and she said “I GOT THE JOB!!!!” And we did a little victory dance over the phone, and she stopped by with flowers for me.

When she stopped by she explained to me what was going on at this nonprofit. It’s a small, rural nonprofit and they do have some government grants but they depend mainly on their yearly event (for which nothing has been done yet) and they are struggling. They need new case managers and everyone is trying to pull together.

When I asked her how the salary negotiations went, she told me she had to really fight to get $65,000.

“How did you do it?” I asked.

She replied,

“Here’s what happened. We were in this room, and the contract was there, and they were pushing me to sign it, and I looked at the bottom, and it only said $60,000. And I just sort of sat there and looked at it. And one person there said, “Is there something wrong?” And I said, “In all of the places this job was posted, the salary range was from $50,000 to $65,000.” And then someone else said, “Well, with your qualifications and the salary research we did for this region blah blah blah” but she didn’t have to listen to that person, because her experience is over 10 years of executive level experience, and so I said nothing and then the first person said, “Donna, what will it take to make you happy?” And I said, “I need to see that the board is behind me and believes that I can raise this money” and then the first person quickly took the contract back and crossed out $60,000 and wrote in $65,000″ and then I signed it and that was that.”

I actually clapped at this point and she smiled. She said, “It would have taken me 10 years to get a $5,000 increase in salary, and I knew I had to negotiate it now.”

Then she told me, “Between you and me, they are going to get half of that money back because I am going to buy two tickets for their gala and give $100 a month to this nonprofit, so that I can ask each board member to do the same.”

I thought that was really smart. So if you’re going up for an executive director job, you should build in some buffer that you will be donating to the nonprofit as well.

Are you inspired by this case study? Want to get a nonprofit job, FAST?

You can hire me to look over your resume and cover letter too.

I happen to be teaching a free webinar about moving up in your nonprofit career this December at CharityHowTo.com.

You can also get the Nonprofit Career Guide Free

Or the Wild Woman’s Guide to Nonprofit Management for just $9.99 til December 31st, 2011!

PS.
Here are some more resources on nonprofit salaries
Rosetta Thurman’s blog post on salary negotiation
Allison Jones’ blog post on salary negotiation
Blue Avocado’s Jan Masoka on how much executive director salaries should be

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Case Study: How to negotiate your nonprofit salary? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on November 10, 2011.

I need to Confess to You...My Secret

OKAY radical honesty time!

I’m not Catholic, but here’s my Confession:

Cynicism was a coverup. For the last two years, I have not known what the next five years would hold. I felt incapable of making a decision about the future. I felt demotivated about the nonprofit world and fundraising in particular. And then, tonight, I surprised myself. It hit me. Why I couldn’t imagine a future.

I held a position in the last few years that left a bad taste in my mouth. For this nonprofit, I wrote the grant proposals, and they got funded. I wrote the compelling appeal letters, the annual reports, the newsletters, and they brought in the money, but I felt disconnected, and I felt ashamed that I was getting money for a nonprofit that would only squander what I was hired to help them get. And I was not sure that any nonprofit that I worked for in the future would be any more deserving, that they wouldn’t also be corrupt and squander my hard work.

And I had not analyzed my motivation in that light, but it really affected me. I felt rudderless. Drifting, wanting to believe that all we needed to do as a sector was band together and the world would magically become a better place.

BUT My own experience with bad leadership belied that. My own experience told me that people involved in nonprofits are just as much out for their own material gain as anyone else, and what’s more, they are forced to conceal this or try to convince themselves that they have a higher, nobler purpose. And most of the time, the board is not paying attention to what is happening, and embezzlement continues to happen, while leaders stay in place, EVEN WHEN THEY ARE CAUGHT. Having a nonprofit job has become just that, a job, instead of a calling.

Let me explain.

URGENCY: Remember when American women got the vote? Women worked tirelessly for two years to get it in America, in 1910, and once they did, then the groups disbanded.

This structure we have is a false one: Causes and nonprofits were never set up originally to employ people like corporations. They were set up to achieve a mission, and then disappear. And presumably people were supposed to figure things out after that.They were never meant to be 9-5 jobs that you showed up for.

They were meant to be things you did because you cared about the mission. Maybe you would work on the cause after your job in the factory, or in your spare time when you weren’t taking care of your children. The urgency was palpable. You HAD to be there. You NEEDED the change. Desperately.

You look at nonprofit job descriptions now and the mission is kind of thrown in as an afterthought. They want you to have experience helping some other mission. They want you to have a background with software. They want you, in short, to be employed, like a corporation would employ you, for wages, where you will hopefully go about your job without too much fuss about whether or not you fully believe in the mission.

What’s the Point? Here’s the clincher. In fundraising, I feel like the most cynical idealist imaginable. I worked tirelessly for women’s rights for several years. And then was thrown out on my ear for absolutely no reason at all. Then I tried to go work for a cause that was about social justice. But when I saw that no one cared about the mission, when I saw that the urgency had left, and that there was no vision from senior leadership, then I just felt completely demotivated about fundraising. I just started to have a bad case of NOT GIVING A RAT’S ASS ABOUT ANYTHING. What was the point? I wondered. What was the point in getting money just so the Executive Director could squander it in some new pointless way ? What was the point if the board were out to lunch and no one actually was paying attention to the real mission? I can say this here, to you, that the status quo suits some senior leaders very well.

So when I went out and looked at other nonprofits and their missions, I saw some people clinging to the tiny raft of their ideas in a sea of administrative bloat and incompetent leadership. And I just thought, you know, there are few enough rewards for fundraising staff at dysfunctional organizations, maybe it’s better to help a lot of different nonprofits than to try to chafe under that yoke again. Can you relate? Have you ever had a terrible case of the FUCK-THIS-JOB-WE-ARE-NOT-REALLY-HELPING-PEOPLE?

If this system is broken, What can we do about it?

I WANT to believe the world will be better if nonprofits can just get their acts together, but in reality, we have to get EVERYONE to get their acts together. And that’s not going to happen in a blog post. But here are some ideas.

• Big ideas and dedication aren’t going to save us. The most tireless, selfless, dedicated people in the world can get used and abused by a nonprofit corporation.
• A good board isn’t going to save us either. Boards change up every year.
• A degree in nonprofit management isn’t going to save us. Just like an MBA doesn’t teach you how to lead a company day-to-day. Theory is nice, but you learn by doing.
• Looking at administrative overhead is not going to save us. Every nonprofit calculates this differently. Just because you’ve learned to read a 990 form does not make you an expert on organizational effectiveness and mission fulfillment. The 990 doesn’t talk about that. Because measuring that is a LOT more complex.

Here’s what I propose:

Unionization: A decent, living wage for nonprofit workers, which will probably only happen if we unionize. Whether you’re a nurse at a nonprofit hospital, or a fundraising professional, wages need to rise with the cost of living, every year.

Remote Working: Living more lightly on the earth. We’ll cook more wholesome food if we work less. We should be able to choose if we want to work from home, to save on commuting costs. Saves on office space too. Extra incentives to use public transport or to bike.

Dignity for All: Nonprofits set up more like Co-Ops, with every employee able to make suggestions and have a voice in leadership. Everyone allowed to come to board meetings. Everyone allowed to help make decisions about who will be the head of the agency. Hiring and firing by communal vote.

Return to Mission: Each year, ask everyone, Are we successfully fulfilling our mission? How many have we truly helped? Should we still exist? Is there someone else out there who is doing what we’re doing? What can we learn from them? How can we partner?

What do you think?

Have you ever felt completely demotivated in fundraising? In philanthropy? In feeling like you’re “making a difference” in this broken system?

What did you do about it? Did you surprise yourself? If so, how?

What do you think this system needs?

Please leave a comment.

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Dear Reader… Can I make a confession to you? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on October 26, 2011.

So these past seven months I’ve been working on a new book. And it was going to be called 3-D Reputation Engine. I was pushing myself towards an end of August deadline, and now I’m glad I didn’t make it.

Because we were on a walk with the dog in the Greenbelt in Austin a few days ago, and Steve brought it up. He said, “You’re having a lot of problems getting the cover together for your new book. Maybe it’s the title. Or maybe you should stick with Wild Woman.”

Then it hit me. He’s totally RIGHT. I’m the author of the Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising. It’s sold all over the world. People like the book. I like the book. I like the title. I like the look. I’ve made a bunch of apps around the book and brand. I like the whole package.

And people know me as the author of this book. When I bring it to networking events, people are magnetically drawn to it. They are WAY more interested in hearing about this than Treyz Social Media or 3-D Reputation Engine. So why would I change it for my next book? Why would I build up an entirely new brand for that?

Strange as it may seem, obvious as it may seem, that just did not hit me until right now.

I guess I was afraid that men would be turned off by the title if I called my book The Wild Woman’s Guide to Social Media. I guess I was afraid it wouldn’t seem “corporate-friendly’ enough. I guess I was afraid that I couldn’t compete with the other social media for business books out there unless I left my wild self behind.

But then I realized, this is me!

I don’t want to pour myself into a corporate mold, put myself under pressure to conform for some shadowy future entity. I mean, look at Seth Godin. He gave his business books out in cereal and milk boxes! He writes books called “All Marketers Are Liars” and he is feted at many a business conference and his books are New York Times best-sellers! Who am I to try to be “normal” just to please people who probably just want me to be myself anyway?

Does this make sense to you? When I say Wild, here’s what I mean.

I mean not taking drugs or doing something equally stupid, like rattling down a giant hill face down on a skateboard with no helmet.

No, when I say wild, I mean taking a risk.

Taking a risk by standing up for yourself at work. Being emotionally honest enough in your relationships to get what you need. Taking a risk by going somewhere you’ve never been, and doing something you’ve never done, to learn, for the joy of it. That’s what Wild means to me. It means pushing your own boundaries, trying to get the most out of each day, feeling the urgency of time slipping by, and working with your life to make something happen between now and when you die.

I mean, that’s wild, to me. It doesn’t mean we have to go live in the woods. It doesn’t mean appropriating any tribal culture. It means going against the dominant paradigm. It means waking up. Creating a legacy with your life. Whatever that means for you.

So I bought Wild Social Media.com, Wild Woman Social Media.com, emailed my graphic designer and told her the new plan, and now…I can breathe a big sigh of relief. This new book is going to be packed full of the same sassy advice and same hands-on, how-to worksheets and checklists as the last book, with bonus metrics application ratings and everything, AND it’s going to be called “The Wild Woman’s Guide to Social Media.” It just makes sense! It’s more… ME!

How do you get wild?

Did you ever get really far down a path and realize that you shouldn’t have gone that way?

What did it teach you? I’d love to get your comments!

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I just realized something. originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on September 7, 2011.

Think about who you can partner with in a host-beneficiary relationship. This could be part of cause marketing, or it could be just creating business partnerships with your neighbors in the strip mall.

A host-beneficiary relationship is one that people probably try to talk you into all the time. It’s when you are sitting at your desk, minding your own business, and the local mattress store calls you up and says,

“Hey, put an ad about us in your newsletter!” And you say,

“Why would I do that?” And they say,

“Well, we’ll give a discount to your newsletter subscribers!”

Uh huh.

So this is a clumsy and not effective way to try to get someone to be a host for you. How can you be smarter than the mattress salesman?

1. Define your target audience and think of local businesses they frequent. Think about who your natural partners are. If you’re a food bank, would partnering with local restaurants be a good idea? Local grocery stores? And could you use their mailings or e-newsletters to talk about your nonprofit? Yes?
1. Start with your favorite local restaurant and see what they say.
2. Poll your staff and see where they eat when they go out. Start with places you’ve already built relationships with. Life is so much easier this way. So think about the whole package of your donors, your volunteers, etc.
3. Approach the restaurant, talk about all of the business you give them, collectively, and ask if they’d like to partner. If so,
4. Could they do a special night where you get part of the proceeds?

Another example. If you’re an environmental nonprofit that does outdoor land cleanup, do they get their hiking boots at the local Army-Navy Store? Could you partner with this store?

Yet Another example. If you’re a nonprofit serving people with developmental disabilities, what sorts of people donate to you? Are they the families of people with developmental disabilities? Do you know which products they use, what books they buy, what support groups they go to? How can you help your nonprofit help them even more effectively by connecting them to the resources they need?

2. DEVELOP A SEPARATE OFFER FOR EACH PARTNER.  As far as possible, come up with a service that has a high perceived value for the consumer.  Do as much as possible to make this offer unique to each new partner.  Remember that some of your customers may already be customers of several potential partners. So maybe you can offer to highlight them in your newsletter, but more than that, if they are doing pinups for you at their store, maybe you can drive more people to their store to buy the pinups, or come there yourself and help their staff talk to customers about your nonprofit, get people excited about your cause.

3. HIGHLIGHT THE BENEFITS TO THE HOST BUSINESS.  Show them that your plan offers a way for them to reward their customers at minimal expense and with little effort.  It’s also a great way for them to reach out to their customers, reminding them of the long-term relationship. Your pinup campaign, for example, contributes to employee satisfaction and customer loyalty.

4. SUPPLY A LETTER FOR THE HOST’S USE.  Providing a letter that can be sent to the host’s customers on the host’s letterhead will help put the plan into motion quickly.  It will also show your potential partner how easy it will be for them to participate. Let’s say you want to do an event in the parking lot of a local pet store, advertising your free spay and neuter day. They have an email list they can send this out to.

5. ENSURE YOU HAVE A STRATEGY TO CONVERT THESE LEADS INTO LONG TERM PARTNERS.  This, after all, is your long-term goal.  Once you get enough local business partners, you can start to develop a reputation as a good nonprofit to help businesses with their marketing, customer loyalty, and employee volunteerism, as well as someone who thinks strategically, long-term, and more like a business in this way too. This might lead to them sponsoring your annual walk-a-thon, or recommending you to other partners, and more!

Have you ever done cause marketing? Or participated in a host-beneficiary relationship? I’d love to hear about your experience in the comments!

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What is a host-beneficiary relationship, and how can you work it for your nonprofit? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on August 29, 2011.

Picture from Elsie Esq from Flickr Creative Commons

So Blue-Sky thinking is being overly optimistic. Grey sky thinking is rather less so. Nonprofits seem to sit on their own hands rather than take a risk with anything having to do with spending money.

How do Charities engage in grey-sky thinking? Let me count the ways.

1. We’ve never had any money, and we can’t afford to hire someone to get us money.

2. The downturn makes it so difficult to raise new money that we should settle for breaking even this year.

3. We can’t hire this talented Executive Director candidate, they are going to want too much money.

4. We can’t hire this talented consultant, they are going to want too much money.

5. We can’t get a database, that would cost too much money.

6. We can’t spare our development/executive director to go work on partnerships, we have already given them enough work for 4 people, they need to be here, to answer the phone.

7. We want new staff to work, on salary, for a paltry sum, and we won’t pay you healthcare because you might have to work 20 hours to 60 hours per week. And Why aren’t we getting any top candidates for this job?

8. We can’t have a nonprofit union because that will make our workers lazy and demand too much. No. This is a “right to work state” and they can take their “at will employment” or we will fire them.

9. We can’t afford new computers so we’ll make do with these ten year old ones that we had donated, that crash every couple of hours. Also, we can’t afford to have an IT person come and fix them.

So those are just nine ways, off the top of my head, that I can think of where nonprofits engage in grey-sky thinking. Can you think of any more? If so, leave a comment. I’d love to get your opinion on how nonprofits sit on their own hands instead of take a risk.

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9 Ways that Charities Get Grey-Sky Thinking originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on July 29, 2011.

What does your board report look like?

Are you a consultant? Does your board report look like a CYA thing? Whether or not you have a good relationship with your boss, it’s good to know what people expect. And if they have no expectations? What do you give them then?

Ever wanted to know what other one-person development shops do?

Time for radical transparency!

Here’s my board report.

ACO July 2011 Board Report
Mazarine Treyz, Development Director
Activities for end of June and beginning of July

Appeal progress
Wrote draft 1 of appeal letter and emailed to board member for editing.
Read “The 7 faces of philanthropy” book about how to get more people to give to ACO.

Grants progress
Did more grant research with NOZA database
Added grants to the grant application calendar (attached)
Applied to the X Foundation online
Met with Program Director of X Foundation, applied to X Foundation

Survey and Workplace giving progress
I need to know if and when we are going to be able to go into Dell children’s hospital, Need to know who, what they will play before I can apply for this

Graphic Design and Branding
Met with designer to talk about graphical standards for ACO, hex codes, logos, etc.
Nonprofit Brand Report from Harvard University Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations

“A nonprofit brand can often serve as a moral compass for the organization, helping to facilitate choices about which resources and partnerships to pursue in order to increase organizational capacity and effectiveness.” -Excerpt from this report

Sponsorships
HEB is good to approach because 29 people shop there
ATT because 9 people get their service there
UFCU 8 people bank there
Blackerby 11 people shop there

Next steps for July and August:
Finish and send out appeal letter for next season
Apply for grants with no deadline
Would like to meet with website committee on ways to get more donations on the website. Would like to go speak at workplaces about ACO with 1-3 musicians to do a little concert. Would like to move mailing list over to Aweber and add names from June concert. Work together with PR/Business Manager to highlight our players in the newsletter

Workplace Giving/Possible sources of Board Members
Apple computers
The State capital
PPD, Inc.
Freescale Semiconductor
Dell Children’s Medical Center

What does your board report look like? Does it look like this? Are you required to give information? Or different information?

What does your board report look like? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on July 26, 2011.

“Since 1997, the Packard Foundation has awarded 1,392 “organizational effectiveness” grants to an array of groups, most of which have annual operating budgets of $1 to $10 million, and operate in the human services, environmental conservation, population, and arts fields. Packard recently surveyed 274 of these grantees from 2007-2009 (grant amounts ranged between $7,000 and $160,000) and analyzed the responses from 169 (a 62% response rate) to ascertain the outcomes. Grantees that concentrated on improving fund development capacity reported inferior longer-term outcomes compared to those that focused on strategic planning, organizational learning, or leadership succession.”

I’m glad he addressed the fact that funding fundraising does not help as much as funding leadership succession and organizational issues. If you want to take a look at the wiki this research is being compiled on, it’s here.

If you invest in your fundraising professional, and then they leave, and then you get another one, and then they leave, you may want to ask yourself, why, in a down economy, are my fundraisers leaving or being fired?

Picasso, Pablo (1881-1973) - 1922 Two Women Running on the Beach

What makes fundraisers run away from nonprofits is bad leadership.

There. I said it.

I would like every single foundation reading this to understand this. If your board is checked out or your senior leadership says, point blank, “I am not interested in fundraising” then no amount of funding fundraising is going to keep a good fundraiser there. There’s really not a lot you can do when your leaders refuse to fundraise, and put all of the pressure onto you.

I wish that this study had actually interviewed people who were no longer fundraising at the organizations where they had “invested in fundraising” and asked them what they thought. I think they would have had quite a different response about why funding fundraising wasn’t a success. It wasn’t that they didn’t need continuing education, or more people helping them. It was that they were not given enough power within the organization to make a dent in the organizational structure, management, and communications.

If you crack open Dan Pallotta’s book, Uncharitable, he recommends that ALL people in the nonprofit think of themselves as fundraisers, or brand ambassadors for the organization, and comport themselves as such. This can take the pressure off the fundraising professional and increase revenues exponentially.

I would like to see a study where funders look at creating structures inside an organization, that is standardized systems for each section of the nonprofit, to help people get their work done more quickly, and then help them plug into areas of fundraising that they are comfortable with.

I would like to show every nonprofit staff person that fundraising is everyone’s responsibility.

It is incredible to me how in so many nonprofits people don’t seem to want to accept that if fundraising doesn’t happen, their mission will not go forward, and then they won’t have a job. It should be foremost on everyone’s minds, and everyone should be pulling together to get more donor relationships for the nonprofit.

I think the answer should be, not fund fundraising OR organizational strategy and leadership succession, but we should fund fundraising AND strategy and succession planning.

What do YOU think?

Do you think that a study where only 62% of participants responded could have valid results? Do you think that funding fundraising is less important than succession planning? Do you think that everyone should be a fundraiser?

PS. Want to come to my webinar on July 15th about monitoring your online reputation? It is gonna be awesome. Go here.

Asking foundations to fund development staff is a waste? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on July 14, 2011.

Flickr image by GinasPics

First off, if you like how I write, you are going to LOVE how I teach. Because then it’s like I’m writing, but you can hear me talk, and then we can have a conversation, too!

Here’s a neat thing: My Wildly Successful Events Webinar on how to get sponsorships on July 13th is all sold out! For the THIRD TIME IN A ROW! PEOPLE REALLY LOVE IT! I am so happy! If you just want tips on how to get mega-sponsorships, then my next sponsorship webinars are September 1st and September 27th with charityhowto. And you can sign up right here.

I also have a new Charityhowto webinar, and it’s all about appeal letters! It’s called Tons of Money in the Mail. September 14th! And here’s where you can read more about it.

And if you just can’t wait for some new info right this month, I’ve got a webinar on managing your online reputation on July 15th that has a few extra spaces left in it. Just go here to check that out!

Have you ever worked with a nonprofit leader that just would say NO to everything you suggested? Did you ever think, ‘Oh M. G. I can’t take it anymore” and run out? Did you ever want to partner with other nonprofits but feel stymied because your organization wasn’t nimble enough to take advantage of opportunities like that? Too much bureaucracy? Or maybe you just didn’t have the power to decide that partnerships could happen?

I’ve noticed some of these issues and I’ve come up with a theory of what makes an effective leader. Whether you’re getting your Master’s in Nonprofit Management or your Master’s in Public Administration, I think these can be useful for you.

Do you have what it takes to be a good nonprofit leader? As I’ve made a study of what helps people be good leaders over the last five years, I’ve come up with six key things that can make or break an organization’s effectiveness. And we all want to be effective, right?

Here are the six qualities of effective nonprofit leaders.

1. Listen to what other people tell you and say yes to their suggestions.
This is as simple as someone saying, ‘Hey, can we partner with Nonprofit X? We could get some more exposure out of it’ and then just say YES. Or if someone else says, ‘Can we get a donor database now? I’ve researched them and this is the best one’ then just say YES. It’s a principle of one of the most successful car companies in the world. Ever heard of Toyota? Anyone at Toyota can make a suggestion and it will be tried to improve the effectiveness of their processes, whatever they are. This is lean methodology, also known as Kaizen. I have a whole section in my book devoted to this concept, and it can make such a difference in terms of making your nonprofit effective.

2. Appreciate people who work for you.
You need to build relationships all of the time, and especially with the people that you work with. These people need to see that you respect them. And when you appreciate them, you show them you respect them, and why they should continue to work even harder for you. A little thank-you when they do something right can mean so much. Maybe a big smile and a “I really appreciate what you did there” at other times. But in my experience so many people don’t know how to do this. If you don’t know how to do this, watch other people who do it really well. And emulate them.

Flickr Picture by Eric Schoon

3. If you have a problem with someone, meet with people and communicate with them clearly. I guess if it gets too serious, you could always use a finger puppet to say things for you?
There is so much bad communication in really tiny nonprofits, and there’s just no excuse for it except that people need to figure out how to communicate without blowing their stack. And what I find helps the most is weekly check-ins with people in your team. Even if it’s just you and the executive director. Get in there and have that meeting. Sit in the waiting area and chat about what’s going on, what you need help with, ask about priorities, etc. If you are off track, it can be corrected quickly with weekly meetings. When you are no longer meeting, communication breaks down and then it’s just a matter of time before you don’t have a job anymore.

4. Have passion for what you are doing and share credit whenever you can.
When you have true passion for the mission, when you are connected to the deepest pains of your clients or donors and you can articulate that to everyone around you, when you really love what you do and how you do it and how it all helps others, then people are going to love working around you and with you. You connect with the pain and then you can connect with a solution. Everyone likes problem-solvers. And also people who share the credit for doing something right. So when you do your work, appreciate the people who helped you do it. When you hold up people of lower status than you, that makes you look like a generous leader. And you are if you can make it a habit.

5. Push yourself to develop new skills and go beyond your comfort zone.
This means instead of saying, “Well, we’re not doing that because we don’t know how therefore it doesn’t matter” just ask someone. Say, why should we do this? What makes it a good thing? What will it get us? And then if there’s an opportunity for you to learn something, like a more effective way to deliver services, then learn it. It doesn’t take that long to learn about what other people are doing. We are getting so interconnected now that almost as soon as an innovation happens, when it’s published online, other people can get aware of it and start to replicate it, or connect with the person doing it and figure out how to make it happen on their scale. This can help you be more eligible for grants, when you take best practices of other nonprofits and apply them to your own. It can also keep you on your toes.

6. Ask for help.
This is huge. This could be partnering with another nonprofit, this could be bringing in an accountant to do your taxes, this could be asking someone to help you with board recruitment, this could be asking your board to help you fundraise, this could be even bigger, this could be getting a consultant to help you do better organizational communication, or getting a scholarship for continuing education for your employees to improve their knowledge. Maybe they just need to learn how to administer the website better. Maybe you need to ask an event manager for help. Asking for help is different than not paying for things. But sometimes, right, there’s founder’s syndrome and/or type A stuff where you think you have to do it all and be it all and you can’t show that you don’t know something, and seriously, it is SUCH a relief to ask other people to do things for you, and/or pay them, and know that it’s going to get done.

Do you agree? Disagree? Any more qualities that you think I’ve left out? Please leave a comment.

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6 ways you can be an effective nonprofit leader originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on July 11, 2011.