“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.

Okay, enough of ME offering to help you! Here’s how other people can help you!

Have you ever wanted to get MORE done every day?

Have you ever been frustrated with how little it seems like you can accomplish in your office?

Have you ever just been totally stuck with everything you have to do, and wondering, “HOW can I become 5 people so I can get all of my work done?”

I have a host of resources for you!

Idealist.org

It’s for more than just jobs! It looks like they have a blog now as well, and possibly, if you post a volunteer request there, people will come and volunteer for you.

VolunteerMatch

Volunteermatch.org
Volunteermatch is an excellent source of volunteers. Do you need an extra pair of hands at your big event? Perhaps volunteermatch can help you.

HandsOn
Another volunteering site!

Sparked.com

The Extraordinaires have turned into: http://www.sparked.com/.
Go there! Microvolunteering opportunities! Maybe you need a lawyer to look over a legal document. Maybe you need someone to edit your appeal letter and make it better. Check them out. It’s virtual volunteering at its best.

One thing I’ve noticed though, is that sometimes volunteers can’t always do what you need them to do, to your standards.

I’m thinking of one cringe-worthy day when I had people from a company come to volunteer at my nonprofit and I got together phone-a-thon resources and thought that everyone knew that we needed them to come and do a phone-a-thon and they got there and 90% of the people said, “Oh hey, I don’t want to do fundraising, I just want to, you know, do some clean-up tasks or something.” So then I had to scramble to find things for them to do while simultaneously trying to direct the phone-a-thon. It was a MESS. They left in a huff after doing some random tasks. I stayed and finished the phone-a-thon with the 2 volunteers I had left. It was better than nothing. We got a few thousand dollars that day.

So, if you have a little bit of money, may I suggest “Fancy Hands”?

I love Fancy Hands

Fancy Hands is Ted Roden’s new company. It will take $35 per month and do 15 tasks for you. They must be virtual tasks, they can’t be stuff like “Go pick up my drycleaning” (which is just as well, because I don’t DO drycleaning.) But for example, I asked them to research some things for me, and they GOT ON IT, and DID IT! It was incredible.

If you want unlimited tasks, it’s $55/month. Pretty sweet.

And before you say, “Oh, they must outsource all of their tasks to India,” let me tell you, no, actually, everyone I’ve talked with has been in America, and they are all very nice, and all write English perfectly. So, it’s helping to employ people in America, while at the same time getting things done for your nonprofit, at a higher standard than a volunteer might be able to do!

So they’re not paying me to say this or anything, I am just so happy with their service that I thought I would share.

Also, I’ve used Ted Roden’s service http://enjoysthin.gs for awhile, and I really like it, and now I like his new project too! he’s always doing fun things to help people.

Oh yeah, PS! Another little fun thing that my friend Cait Stuff turned me on to is http://750words.com. It’s a place to help you write, and it has cute little graphics that track your mood and what you write about, but you have total privacy, it doesn’t share your writing with anyone. It’s like doing the artist’s way, with more details, and it reminds you to write every day too! So this is a place to help you do your journaling. Which is part of self-care, remember! Take care of yourself! Get help! Have fun!

Do you need some help? Where can you get it? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on May 5, 2011.

Did that experience leave you frustrated, or just stymied by how it all works?

Do you ever find yourself wondering, “What IS fiscal sponsorship, anyway?”

Today’s Reader Question is all you!

—————————————————
Dear Mazarine,

There needs to be some education around Fiscal Sponsoring, being a lead agency & the need for Collaboration.

I’ve asked many local agencies to become my partner fiscal sponsor, etc… and 99.9% of those people (in the non profit arena) didn’t know what I was talking about. They’ve never heard of that before. How can I educate them and do you know of this being a problem for anyone else but me?
 
Sincerely,

Dianne Sikel
www.Life-Love-Money.com
Communication & Relationship Consultant

————————————————————————————-

Hi Dianne!

I do think it’s difficult to find nonprofits who have heard of this concept. Especially small nonprofits. So you will find yourself educating them. Which isn’t bad, if they are open minded and willing to collaborate! But you have to build a partnership first!

How do you birth a partnership? How do you INCUBATE your idea inside a larger nonprofit, and get to do the work that you want to do?

1. What is Fiscal Sponsorship?
Well, when a nonprofit loves an individual very much, they get together and 9 months later fiscal sponsorship is born!

You + A Nonprofit = Fiscal-Sponsorship-Marmoset! Picture by floridapfe from Flickr

There you have it! A beautiful baby marmoset!

Just kidding. It doesn’t take that long.

(Prepare yourself for Marmosets everywhere!)

Fiscal Sponsorship means that a nonprofit allows an individual to use their 501 (c) 3 number to get money from foundations, corporations, or individuals, and allows the nonprofit to be a “pass-through” for the money. The nonprofit may or may not take responsibility for what the individual does.

2. How can I get fiscal sponsorship by a nonprofit for my idea?
You need to do the grant research, OR the sponsorship research/acquisition, on your own. Preferably, you also need to have been volunteering your time at the nonprofit so that they know you, they know what you do for their organization, and they are pre-disposed to like you. Come to them with the money in your hands, and say, “I have the money to do what I want to do for your organization’s constituents. Will you give me fiscal sponsorship?”

3. How do I educate nonprofits about what fiscal sponsorship means?
I never met a nonprofit yet that didn’t like money! You can tell them, “I have a foundation or corporation ready and willing to pay for my work that I already do for your nonprofit, but I need to get fiscal sponsorship from you, which means I need to have your blessing to use your tax id number. You would get a percentage of the money.” And then you can negotiate how much that is. Could be 5-10% of the money. They may ask you, “What sort of paperwork will I have to fill out, and when is it due?” So prepare that information in advance.

4. What if the nonprofit says no?
If they say no to money, did you ask the right person? Did you look for your own money, or did you walk in there wanting a piece of their grant money? (That’s never a good idea, by the way). Is someone being a gatekeeper? Did you spend enough time building the relationship by volunteering? Did you introduce yourself to the executive director? Are they in the middle of a crazy-making cycle? (Is their big event next week?) Is the development director stressed to the max? All of these things can impact whether or not they want to be your fiscal sponsor.

5. How can I research which nonprofits might be interested in being my fiscal sponsor?
Ask around to other people who have been successful at getting fiscal sponsorship. How did they do it? And who did they go through? Look at your local community foundation. They might be willing to be a fiscal sponsor. If no one in your town or city wants to have a partnership with you, look at your idea again. Is it really, truly useful? If it is, look at national nonprofits that deal with your same issue. Start to build a relationship with them, and then ask about fiscal sponsorship. You can also research http://idealist.org to discover which nonprofits might be open to the idea of collaboration. You can call them up and say, “How often does your nonprofit collaborate with other nonprofits or individuals?” That will save you a lot of time right there.

Do you have any more ideas about how to get fiscal sponsorship? I’d love to hear them in the comments below!

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Reader Questions: How do you partner with a nonprofit, get AKA Fiscal Sponsorship? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on April 27, 2011.

So tell me, as a fundraiser, would you like a higher salary? Would you like grants to fund your salary so that you can keep this nonprofit afloat, instead of your org looking at you as a necessary evil?

Would you like a larger marketing budget? Would you like a marketing budget, period?

When I read this on the RE:Philanthropy blog, I was floored.

Dan Pallotta, bestselling author of “Uncharitable” and founder of the AIDSRide and 3-Day breast-cancer walk, tells 1,000 foundation representatives that nonprofits should “step boldly” into radically new ways to scale their impact.

His first time to address a large group of philanthropists, Dan Pallotta challenges 1,000 members of the Council on Foundations to shake up the system. How?

“Stop asking about overhead and start asking about impact,” -Dan Pallotta

(what a radical concept!) -Peanut gallery

His own launch of the AIDSRide brought in returns of $108,000,000 in 9 years–that’s 1,982x the original seed grant of $50,000; and that’s the secret to scale. Pallotta tasks philanthropy leaders with finding “the next AIDSRide, the next Newman’s Own, or Product Red. They are out there, right now.”

“Fund fundraising,” he says; invest strategically; use your corpus to try loan guarantees; and and start acting like for-profits in 5 key ways:

• Offering competitive compensation
• Spending on advertising & marketing
• Taking risks to pursue new donors
• Allowing longer time horizons for outcomes
• Investing in risk capital for social causes

“We need a venture fundraising movement,” declares Pallotta. With a combined asset base of $1 trillion, U.S. foundations have more power than we realize. “A unified theory of charity is beginning to evolve, and that gives me hope,” he says. It has three components:

• Funding fundraising
• Hyper-vetting for effective nonprofits
• Working together for collective impact

 

Here’s what I think about funding risktaking. “OF COURSE!” What a good idea!

How about you? What do you think? Are you not allowed to make mistakes in your job? Does it make you feel unable to really make free movements and big changes at your nonprofit?

 

 

Are you new here? Welcome! Sign up for my newsletter and get fresh nonprofit fundraising, management and career ideas monthly!

First Name: 

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Email:  

 

Can I get a hell yes? Thank you RE:Philanthropy & Dan Pallotta! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on April 26, 2011.

Wild Woman Fundraising: With a One-Page Development Plan! Naw son! Yes!
A step-by-step guide to planning that magical plan that will help you raise all the money you need.

Tuesday April 19th
Start Time: 1:00 PM  End Time: 2:30 PM (Eastern Standard Time)

Only $49.99

Webinar Description
When was the last time you looked at your fundraising plan? What do you mean, it’s in a drawer somewhere? Take it out! Did you look at it at all in the last year? ARGH!!!

THIS is why you’re not making the money you need to make! So how do you make a plan that you can stick to? How do you get clear, get focused, and get motivated to follow it?

You need a one-page development plan. Because sometimes even two pages is TL:DR, and it’s time to get focused! This webinar will take you through, step by step, on how to make your plan, identify and chart multiple streams of income for your nonprofit. Learn it. Live it. Love it.

Get Your Questions Answered:
In order to effectively answer the questions of the participants, this interactive webinar is limited to 35 people. There is also a question-and-answer session at the end of the webinar.

During this webinar, in an easy-to-follow process, we’ll cover the essential steps you can follow to take your fundraising plan from pathetic to perfect. We’ll answer all of these questions and more:

Learn:
1. How do you identify which income streams are right for you?
2. How do you start from zero? What tools do you already have that you don’t even know about?
3. How do you influence your board members to give more?
4. How to identify who your volunteers know to start creating new income streams?
5. How many events should you do?
6. How do you create a plan for grants? How much should you expect to raise?
7. How do you start planning your major gifts program and prospect research?
8. What three things guarantee success of your nonprofit fundraising plan?

NEW! The following bonus materials are included with this webinar:
1. A sample one page development plan that everyone, from board to executive director to staff will understand!
2. A sample moves management grid for you to fill in!
3. Practice phone call scripts for board member cultivation.

Click the link below to sign up.

How to rock your development plan: Webinar April 19th originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on April 1, 2011.

To This?

This is about utilizing Lean Manufacturing processes to get the fundraising tasks you need to do done in the shortest amount of time, always improving, and always looking for ways to do it more efficiently.

Are you intrigued? Yes?

Then come to my presentation at the Center for Nonprofit Organizations on March 8th from 9:30am to 12pm.

We’ll go into what lean is, where it comes from, why it works, who is using it right now in the fundraising world, and what sort of success they’re having with it, and how you can apply it to your fundraising office. I’ve personally used these processes and found how incredibly helpful they can be for the one-person shop.

You’ll come away with concrete actions you can take in your fundraising office, and quick guides for lean appeals, lean grants, and more.

Using Lean Processes in Your Fundraising Office

Register here

If you can’t make it, I’ve got a whole chapter in my book about fundraising. You can click here to buy it now.

Want to be more effective in your fundraising? Get LEAN! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on March 3, 2011.

> Thanks so much for your follow up. Ours is a nascent nonprofit, established
> in August 2010. As a brief backgrounder, I’ve spent the bulk of the previous
> four months establishing the legal structures, building a board and
> a network for supporting long-term growth. I have a media/advertising
> background (both church and state; prepress/on air/design/placement). In all
> of my heretofore volunteer efforts with nonprofits, I’ve served as the
> marketing chair.
>
> Our nonprofit applies a solution to systemic poverty for women that I
> haven’t found in my research prior to establishing Women With Drive
> Foundation. Our mission is to provide a woman with a car (including assuming
> maintenance costs) for two years. In exchange, she undergoes an extensive
> assessment to identify her specific barriers to independence (ie. education,
> financial acumen). With the results of the findings, she and a program
> officer draft a two year plan designed to address her challenges with our
> common goal being her independence. Many nonprofits provide interview
> skills, clothing and other training, but when the rubber literally needs to
> meet the road, few provide an actual vehicle and none provide our two year
> program.
>
> Therefore, a lot of what I’m doing is building the basement and the roof at
> the same time, so to speak.
>
> With little to no immediate funds on hand, I need to do three things:
>
> 1. Build a strong, engaged donor base.
> 2. Explore grants.
> 3. Determine how to become self-sustaining.
>
> I know nothing about any of those things. I value your expertise and welcome
> anything you can do to help. I’ve served as a free-lance consultant
> for marketing, social media and general design, and so I completely respect
> your right to be paid for your expertise. One of my solutions to square the
> circle regarding our staffing needs is to strategically retain professionals
> to provide interim skills until we need/can afford full time staff.
>
> Please let me know what I may do to help you.
>
> Again, my thanks for your consideration.
>
> Best,
> M.

Hi Molly!

First off, I love that you’re helping women get wheels. When I worked in a domestic violence shelter, this is something that would hamper women in getting the services that they needed, whether baby-sitting, counseling, welfare, etc. A car can mean the difference between a job and no job, and between a woman having to return to an abuser or not. Thank you for recognizing this.

Fundraising and marketing are kind of similar, so don’t sell yourself short when it comes to saying you don’t know about fundraising. Chances are, a lot of the same principles you learned in marketing, you can use in fundraising.

1. I checked out your web presence, and you need a website, not a ning group. The ning group is closed, and you need to be OPEN. Open for business! Open for taking donations! Capeesh?
2. You need to figure out who you know.
3. You need a comprehensive fundraising plan.
4. You need someone to help you WORK your fundraising plan. SO, you need training for your fundraising volunteers.

So first, let’s see who you know. This link takes you to a place where you can get a worksheet that will help you identify potential areas of overlap for funders and donors in your community.

For a fundraising plan,
Think about what you can reasonably do, and what you can unreasonably do.

When I first started fundraising, I thought fundraising was grants. I then found out that it was much much more, but this was over time, and it took me a long time to figure out what it was.

So that’s why I wrote my book, to be the fun, engaging primer to fundraising that I never had.

Fundraising is grants. It’s also appeals, marketing, mobile giving, events, social media engagement, lean systems, conflict management, volunteer recruitment and management, teaching other people how to fundraise, major giving, e-newsletters, and more. It’s a big job. Best done by a team of people. Who I teach you to find and train. My book covers all of this. It’s really too long to write in a blog post. It took me 180 pages to do it, and 80 pages of a resource CD on top of that.

Since you said you wanted to learn the process of fundraising, I would suggest that you buy my book, The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising, because that is an excellent primer in every major aspect of fundraising, with the exception of Major gifts. Mal Warwick’s books are a big help there.

My book is a good investment, as it ALSO comes with an 80 page resource CD with templates to help you start to apply the tools I give you IMMEDIATELY to your nonprofit, whether grants, marketing, getting volunteers, or even creating a one-page development plan. (You can buy the book here.)

Are you new here? Welcome! Sign up for my newsletter and get fresh nonprofit fundraising, management and career ideas monthly!

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Reader Questions: Bootstrap your nonprofit startup in 4 steps! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on February 8, 2011.

I will be teaching four workshops in February, March and April at the Center for Nonprofit Organizations at 5930 Middle Fiskville Road in Austin! Want to come out and learn? Click on the links below to register.

How to Find and Cultivate Donors
When: Thursday, February 10, 2011 from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

Is your nonprofit just starting out? How do you find the people who want to connect with you and grow those relationships and get money?

Where do you find people of means? Where do you look for hidden gold?
Who can you turn to, who has a natural affinity for your cause? You’re going to have some A-HA moments in this workshop! We’ll go over the many ways to find and cultivate donors, on a broad scale, with average return on each method, before drilling down with concrete exercises to help you succeed in each area. Using these methods, the speaker has raised over $1M in the last 3 years. Register for How to Find and Cultivate Donors here

Making a splash in the Nonprofit Job pool
When:Tuesday, February 15, 2011 from 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM

Landing a nonprofit job can be tricky. People look for MORE than
skills. They look for passion. This presentation will detail how to
put your skills, traits and talents in the best light, including skill
story creation, cover letter creation, how to measure your success,
internet resources, and professional, high level networking tips. Get
energized by this pep talk and take home real tools that will give you
REAL results. Register here for Make a Splash Landing in a Nonprofit Pool

Lean Development
When: Tuesday, March 08, 2011 from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

You know your nonprofit could be more efficient. So could everyone’s.

So do you want to seriously sit down and figure out how? How can you get out from under those piles at your desk? How can you help EVERYONE get more efficient and effective? This presentation will be an introduction to lean management techniques, gives concrete examples on how to do efficient development in the most inefficient sector of our economy, the nonprofit world, and makes a play for major donor cultivation strategies above all other strategies. Includes concrete examples of lean development in appeal letter batches, moves management, and more. You’ll have time to think about how to apply this in your office, and ask questions and get answers too. Register for Lean Development

Negotiating Conflict at your Nonprofit
When: Thursday, April 07, 2011 from 9:00 AM – 12:00 PM

In the nonprofit world, sometimes you have to be the truthteller. And sometimes people don’t want to hear the truth. So how do you set boundaries? How can you manage expectations? How can you figure out which types you’re dealing with? How do you take power? We’ll go over rank in the workplace including boss and board profiles to help you skip through the conversational minefield with grace and alacrity. Oh, there will be amusing anecdotes. You may find yourself nodding your head a lot. And then there will be ways, concrete ways, to deal with each kind of person who comes at you verbally. This is self-defense at work at its best! Register for Negotiating Conflict at your Nonprofit

So come on out and meet me!

Who is the speaker?
Mazarine Treyz: Author of The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising, a book and blog that helps people learn how to change the world. She’s raised over $1M US in the past three years, including; over $130,000 in grants, $500,000+ with events, $60,000 in appeals, annual reports, and online giving. Furthermore, Mazarine has raised attendance at events from 500 to 1,500 through marketing, and social media. She offers Social Media Coaching, Nonprofit Job Coaching, Fundraising Consulting and Advice in Austin, TX.

You can meet me at the Center for Nonprofit Organizations in February, March and April 2011! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on January 5, 2011.

Dorothy Day was a right on woman!

I’m not Catholic or anything, but Dorothy Day was pretty damn special. Ms. Day was an American journalist, social activist and devout Catholic convert; she advocated the Catholic economic theory of Distributism. She also described herself as a Christian anarchist. In the 1930s, Day worked closely with fellow activist Peter Maurin to establish the Catholic Worker movement, a nonviolent, pacifist movement that continues to combine direct aid for the poor and homeless with nonviolent direct action on their behalf. She died in 1980.

I found these quotes from Dorothy Day after listening to Utah Phillips talk about Ammon Hennacy being her protege. Dorothy Day inspired Hennacy to found the “Joe Hill House” in Utah, where Phillips drifted to (after coming back from the Korean War) and stayed for 8 years, becoming a pacifist. Here’s a poster made by Hennacy.

Flyer by Ammon Hennacy

And Utah Phillips, in turn, was a mentor to Ani DiFranco, who is one of my favorite folk singers.

Utah Phillips and Ani Difranco

So I kind of wanted to get a sense of her lineage. Dorothy Day is a suitable great-grandmother for Ani DiFranco. Behold these quotes.

On Community
“We have all known the long loneliness, and we have found that the answer is community.”
-Dorothy Day

Isn’t this part of the reason we’re involved in nonprofits? To escape the long loneliness? To find our community which believes it can make the world better?

“Men are beginning to realize that they are not individuals but persons in society, that man alone is weak and adrift, that he must seek strength in common action.”
-Dorothy Day

How often do you give this message to people in your day to day life as a nonprofit communicator? Do you help them feel connected to a greater sense of purpose? A group of people who care about the same thing they care about? Don’t take your position lightly. You are helping people find more significance in their lives by connecting your mission to what they want to see accomplished in the world before they die.

On Measuring Nonprofit Effectiveness

“Don’t worry about being effective. Just concentrate on being faithful to the truth.” — Dorothy Day

I think what Dorothy Day meant here was that there is a truth in each of us that cannot be denied. Maybe this truth demands that you work for social justice. Or the environment. Or community arts and theater. Whatever your truth is, keep to it. Even if the structure you’re in is not supporting you, you can work outside the structure and still be faithful to your truth.

“People say, “What is the sense of our small effort?” They cannot see that we must lay one brick at a time, take one step at a time.” — Dorothy Day

I used to have a teacher who would say, “Every little step is a big step.” People get frustrated with social change and with social movements because our lifespans are so relatively limited, that we cannot see the instant gratifying results we want as a result of our hard work.

This is what is wrong with demanding instant outcomes from grants and other forms of money given by people. Social change takes years. It can take decades and other false packages. If you’re looking for what is truly effective in a nonprofit, you have to look at a community from many different angles, and over a long period of time.

On Who To Trust

“I have long since come to believe that people never mean half of what they say, and that it is best to disregard their talk and judge only their actions.” -Dorothy Day

Nonprofits that are actually doing the work will survive. Nonprofits that are all talk will fail. People in the community trust a nonprofit that they can see is doing the necessary work. And they will support that nonprofit. So if you’re stuck in a nonprofit that is actually not doing anything, just get out. Find a nonprofit that really IS doing something. Don’t trust people and their words blindly. Watch what they do. This goes for potential partners, all the way up to the President. Just watch their actions and you’ll see what they’re really about.

Ideals
“The greatest challenge of the day is: How to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?” -Dorothy Day

“We believe in loving our brothers regardless of race, color or creed and we believe in showing this love by working for better conditions immediately and the ultimate owning by the workers of their means of production.” -Dorothy Day

Imagine if each nonprofit was a worker owned cooperative. Imagine with each grant that came in, and each dollar, the collective as a whole got richer. Imagine how easy it would be to turn everyone into a fundraiser in that environment. Yeah, pretty nice, isn’t it? Do you know any nonprofit collectives?

On Work

“You will know your vocation by the joy that it brings you. You will know. You will know when it’s right.” — Dorothy Day

“Writing is hard work. But if you want to become a writer you will become one. Nothing will stop you.” — Dorothy Day

“Words are as strong and powerful as bombs, as napalm.” -Dorothy Day

Words and their power fascinate me. I put these quotes in last as a reminder to myself and any other woman reading this who loves to write. If writing brings you joy, then it IS your vocation, whether it’s a grant, an appeal letter, an e-newsletter, or a novel or poem. Even your diary entries count as writing. So if you love to write, whoever you are, keep writing.

What did you think of Dorothy Day’s quotes? Please leave a comment.

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Dorothy Day Was a Right On Woman! originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on December 14, 2010.

Here are some screenshots. You “Create Your Account,” then “Select your Interests”

How JUMO Works-Add your interests!

And then Select “Charities to Follow”

I was pleased to see Planned Parenthood and the 826 center in there, less pleased to see the Austin Urban League, which still has a “malware, infected site” error when I go to “http://aaul.org” versus “http://www.aaul.org.” I mean really, COME ON. There’s NO PROCESS for a charity to deserve to be on this site.

Once you’ve selected various charities to follow, the charities’ news feed shows up on your page, just like on Facebook. In fact, the whole thing looks and feels exactly like Facebook. You can even “like” charities there.

What JUMO looks like, on the inside

The difference is that you can get a sense of similar charities on the side, like stumbling upon them in a dictionary. For example:

“Synonyms for JUMO: A facebook tool, yet another platform for charities”

Antonyms for JUMO: Yelp for Charities, a place to actually find out what charities are really doing”

I didn’t see ANYWHERE to rate charities. All you could do is “like” things, and as usual, because it’s facebook, there’s no “dislike” button.

You can add your charity, as long as you’ve got the EIN number. Here’s a screenshot.

Jumo Adding An Organization Screenshot

There doesn’t seem to be any criteria for adding a charity. It’s not like they vet charities and then add them. It’s like anyone can sign up.

As far as I’m concerned, the fact that you’ve got to have a facebook login is a BIG MINUS.

Think about what Facebook stands for: Breaches of your privacy. Invasive Ads. Selling Your Information to the Highest Bidder. And anything you post on there is theirs, in perpetuity. I could go on.

Aside: So I got off of Facebook last year, because it wasn’t adding value to my life. You can bet that I created a spam email account and then a facebook account without my real name, just to log in and see what this was about.

It may still be in beta, but if it wants to be a place where people can, you know, rate charities, you’d think that they would have a more comprehensive rating system in place aside from “Liking” something.

For example, oh, I don’t know, like a, “On a scale of 1-10, do you think this nonprofit is accomplishing its mission? Have you visited their program site? Have you volunteered there? Been helped by its programs? Seen the good work first hand?”

It’s not difficult to rate charities in an even marginally meaningful way. Look at CharityNavigator.org.

It IS more difficult to rate charities in a comprehensive and meaningful way. But that is precisely what Givewell.org is trying to do. They’ve even created a DIY charity evaluation section of their website, of key questions to ask nonprofits to vet them. And they’ve categorized them by type of nonprofit.

If all JUMO is going to do is rate charities based on the Like button, (a meaningless distinction which will probably tell you which charities have spent the most on marketing), they really have no reason to exist at all.

So, until JUMO gets some more meaningful way to rate charities, don’t bother signing up.

What is JUMO and why should you care? originally appeared on Wild Woman Fundraising on November 30, 2010.