Wild Woman Fundraising

CSR=Look at the shiny thing while we trash your world!

Mazarine — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:22:59 +0000

“Yes, we disabled the alarms on the Deepwater Horizon. Oh, like you’ve never hit the snooze button? http://ow.ly/2fQ6x” 1:57 PM Jul 23rd @BPGlobalPR

Today British Petroleum announced a new CEO, Robert Dudley, an American, meant to appease the millions of Americans without livelihoods now, and the millions of environmental activists up in arms about the devastation in the gulf.

He said they would remain strong on their pledge to pay reparations to the citizens of the gulf, AND KEEP DRILLING. Well, it seems like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has struck again.

So the concept of CSR, as far as I see it, is that you throw some volunteers or money at a relief effort for a tragedy that you may or may not have caused and suddenly you have purchased the indulgences to act exactly as you please, with no need for morals any longer.

What is even more unconscionable is that this is the second such disaster and CEO musical chairs that has been caused by BP in the last five years.

Yes, in 2005, BP had a big blowup at a Texas City oil refinery and some leakage of oil in Alaska as well. So their then CEO, John Browne, was forced to step down, and Mr. Tony Hayward took his place. We all know how well THAT worked out.

My favorite line from The New York Times Article today is, “Mr. Hayward, asked how he felt about the oil spill given that he pledged to improve safety standards in light of the Texas City explosion, said he “was determined not to have a repeat” of such an accident but “sometimes you step off the pavement and get hit by a bus.””

Wow. That is really incredible. Mr. Hayward is STILL NOT ACCEPTING RESPONSIBILITY for this oil spill. You’d think that if you were BP CEO, you could improve safety standards. That it would be, kind of, your job. Especially since you just stepped in after a previous disaster when your oil equipment wasn’t safe enough, and pledged to “not have a repeat” of the accident. And now he’s going to continue to work for BP, and get his over $14 million dollar payout.

What is wrong with our concept of corporate social responsibility? Basically, everything. But we shouldn’t stop there. We also need to take away corporate personhood, and do as Ecuador has done, and make Mother Nature a person in court with equal rights.

I was reading the Philanthrocapitalism blog yesterday, which is written by an Economist editor, Matthew Bishop, and he asked, “Is CSR evil”? He calls it “Short Term Thinking” that plagues companies. That’s so understated that it’s almost insulting. How about we call it, “We’re going to Rape, Plunder and Pillage your entire life and you don’t have a choice”? I guess that doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

We need to start asking, why aren’t we instilling the golden rule into our accountants, stockbrokers, CEOs and MBAs?

Why are we making “at will employment” the rule, giving people no legal recourse to being fired? Why aren’t we protecting our workers, strengthening our unions, and making safety standards real, instead of just paying lip service to them?

It’s not “short term thinking” we need to eliminate, Mr. Bishop, it’s the sociopathic lack of any concern for anyone other than the company and its image.

We need to dissolve British Petroleum and stop our dependence on oil. We need to FORGET OUR BRANDS and start trying to SAVE OUR WORLD. Thank you Leroy Stick, for putting it so succinctly.

Why aren’t you more angry? What can you do about this?

See more pictures of the spill here

BP Kills. Don't give them your money.

How you can become a Chief Development Officer

Mazarine — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 10:53:06 +0000

Lisa Avra’s presentation was fantastic. She presented at our Nonprofit Career Club and told us what it was like being a Chief Development Officer at the University of Texas at Austin, what she learned before coming on in that role, and how we could get there.

We had 15 fabulous people attend our presentation, everyone from people who were looking for a place to volunteer to people who had a career in fundraising to former nonprofit executives to people who wanted to start nonprofits, to people who wanted to get INTO nonprofit work but didn’t know how.

At first Ms. Avra talked about her background, how she got from a BA in Radio and TV and English Literature to the CDO of the Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. She was really good at relating what she talked about back to the people she was talking with. She said that she got a BA in English Lit and a minor in Art History, so she decided to become a teacher.

Job #1: She got an Master’s in Education, and began to teach art at an inner city school. After a year of that, she realized that elementary school politics were NOT going to work for her, so she moved into museum education,

Job #2: As the Director of Education for the Dallas Historical Society. Unfortunately her position was only for 9 months, as a contract, so then

Job #3: She found another temporary position at the Dallas Museum of Art. But she realized then if she wanted to move up in the world of museum education she needed an advanced degree in Art history. So as she thought about that, her husband got promoted into a position in Mississippi.

Job #4: Since there weren’t a lot of people with advanced degrees in Mississippi back then, she ended up being the Director of Education at the Mississippi Museum of Art. And this is where she first got a taste of development. She said, you’ve got to do grantwriting if you want your programs to succeed. At the same time, she was volunteering with a nonprofit that helped mentally challenged adults. She created a program for them to sell their ceramics and they took them to market and made lots of money.

Job #5: They offered her the position of Executive Director, and she took it.

Job #6: Then another nonprofit for developmentally disabled people asked her to come on as Executive Director, and she did this for two years, and then it was time to come home to Texas.

Job #7: She realized that when they moved back, although she’d been the head of two nonprofits, what she liked best about her jobs there was development.

She said, “Money makes the world go around. If you can raise the money, you can do the good works.”

And she wanted to go somewhere where she could do it well, in a big development office. She looked at the University of Texas when she got back to Austin, and applied cold for a Development Director position, and got the position.

Job #8: After a few years, the Children’s Museum in Austin needed a development director. She knew someone who said, “You’d be perfect for this job!” They wanted to start a major donor program, and her children were the age that she thought, This could be fun for them. So she went to visit the management there, and they wanted her, so she worked there for a few years.

Job #9: Then she was talking with a friend who was getting promoted from the Chief Development Officer and Assistant Development Director position at the Ransom Center at University of Texas, and he said, “You should really have this job” and she realized it was a perfect position for her, and she’s been there ever since.

So how she got her executive position was at first through just volunteering, and she said, “You would not believe how many people become executives through volunteering first” and it’s definitely true in my experience as well. And she got her first full time development position at UT through a cold application, but all of her subsequent positions were through personal recommendations by people that she knows.

For people who want to move up in their careers, here’s what she said.

#1. Join AFP if you’re wise. They have monthly luncheons, workshops and a jobline in Austin. For $250, they will hook you up. This is the place to network and find a fundraising job.

#2. Check out Greenlights.org for Texas based people.

#3. Check out TANO.org, ditto, and the RGK Center for Philanthropy Certificate program if you want to get certified. There may be a nonprofit certification program in your city. Google this.

Ms. Avra’s presentation was particularly useful to me because she broke down the definitions between fundraising and development very succinctly. She said,

Fundraising is creating a product or activity you can sell and have the proceeds go to your organization.

Development is building relationships with people who have the same intent and capacity to give. You give them the opportunity to give. Someone who has the capacity will give it to you or give it to another nonprofit or the government, and they already give the government enough money, so you might as well ask! And provide an opportunity for them to feel good about giving.

Do you have any other suggestions for how people can get started in nonprofit careers or move up in development? Please leave a comment!

Follow Wild Woman Fundraising on Twitter! Because you’ll get sweet tips on fundraising and development!

Come to our Nonprofit Career Club Today at 5:30pm in Austin TX

Mazarine — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 12:17:22 +0000

Have you ever wanted to take your nonprofit career to the next level?

Join us today at 5:30pm at 2500 Exposition Blvd, Howson Library, in Austin, TX, when we’ll be talking with Lisa Avra, CDO of the Ransom Center!

She’s going to be talking about her Development career thus far, about what she does all day, and advice for people who want to reach the C-level of nonprofit fundraising.

I want to ask her,

Are your duties mainly major gifts?

What would you recommend someone do if they want to continue a successful corporate career in the nonprofit sector?

What courses should people take in college to prepare them for a fundraising career?

Do you incorporate lean manufacturing principles into your fundraising strategies?

What are some questions you’d like to ask her?

Come out today at 5:30pm at 2500 Exposition Blvd, Howson Branch Library, Austin, TX and get your questions answered!

Free presentation, free parking, free advice! You can’t lose!

Do you want to learn how to ask for help?

Mazarine — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 10:55:56 +0000

I’ve got some good news for you! You can read these articles I’ve written.

I’ve written a guest post last week for Sharp Skirts about how to ask for help, and how to find your magicians who help you here.

I’ve written a guest post on how to manage volunteers for Vivanista.com!

And thanks for the mention last week, Phil Cubeta at GiftHub!

And stay tuned, I’m writing a guest post for Pamela Grow on fundraiser empowerment and it should be up within the next week!

I’m also going to be interviewed by JMH for Generation Meh about nonprofit careers, why Generation Y and X go into them, and what to watch out for.

Thank you so much Carla at Sharp Skirts, Phil Cubeta at Gifthub, Stacy at Vivanista, and Pamela Grow and JMH at Generation Meh! Looking forward to continuing the conversation with you all!

XOXO

Mazarine

Oh, PS. If you are geographically situated in or near Austin and want to enjoy a face to face meeting, thanks to @CaitStuff I’m now apparently attending these Twitter meetups called #BATHH… which stands for Big Ass Twitter Happy Hour. And you can usually find these event notices at Jacqueline’s Life, Bridge The City a very useful social calendar to help you network and find a job in Austin.

And of course, you can always see me organizing and talking at the 2nd and 4th Tuesday Nonprofit Career Club, and this Tuesday, we’re meeting Lisa Avra, CDO of the Ransom Center at UT. We are so excited! So come out and see us, if you’re in Austin.

Fun and Forgotten Gems from ProBlogger’s Challenge!

Mazarine — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:15:17 +0000

I’m taking the 7 link challenge from Darren Rouse at ProBlogger!

1. Your first post – Gosh… my first post ever, I think was back in 1999 on Diaryland. I’m not going to embarrass myself now by posting it! I’ll give you the first post here (What is Fundraising?) instead.

2. A post you enjoyed writing the most – Are You Attacked For Your Fashion? was really fun to write. Partially because I got to put a woman with a whip and Vivienne Westwood at the top, and partially because I got to write about systemic oppression. I really love helping people figure out how to take their power back.

3. A post which had a great discussion – Fundraiser of the Year of Mismanaged Nonprofit of the Year had some great discussion, primarily from the people I’d written about.

4. A post on someone else’s blog that you wish you’d written – Dan Pallotta wrote a wonderful post on “The Psychic Benefits of Nonprofit Work are Overrated” and Equal Rights for Fundraising and Let’s Call It the Humanity Sector and Executive Compensation and the Curse of Proximity and and and okay basically just go to his blog and read him, okay? He’s INCREDIBLE.

5. A post with a title that you are proud of – Aw Girl, Are You Jaded was fun to write.

6. A post that you wish more people had read – It seems like every time I turn around these days, people are asking me, “How can I get known online. How can I build my brand online?” So why don’t people all read my FREE 17 page e-book? I have no idea. Here it is again.

7. Your most visited post ever – It seems to be “The Myth of the Naked African Child” because people look for the words “women” and “naked and “african” a lot on google, apparently. Sigh. The post is really about toxic giving, which is something we really need to think about as the world braces for another Haiti, another Katrina, and another earthquake in Chile.

Thanks for reading! What else would you like to see on this blog? Please leave a comment!

Which Places Are The Least Sexist?

Mazarine — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:33:58 +0000

Picture from the Brooklyn Nomad, 2009

There have been a lot of features lately on the most liveable cities. Vancouver BC, Vienna, Melbourne, Toronto, and Helsinki have been at the top of the Economist Intelligence Unit’s 2010 list.

Sure, we care about if we can get out and hike easily from the city center, and the cost of living, and opportunities for education, but what about how much pay you’ll get as a woman in these cities? Which places show that they care about gender equality?

You know, what has made things abundantly clear for me is that in Norway, England, Canada, Denmark and Sweden they have had female prime ministers. Not so in America.

Perhaps if we really want less sexism and more pay parity, we need to look to those countries.

Norway has at best a 91% pay gap.

Finland has an 80% pay gap.

In Sweden, the pay gap was 83% in 2001.

According to Wikipedia, customers are just biased to like white men more. They also suggest that what is required to solve the problem of wage inequality isn’t necessarily paying women more but changing customer biases. So how can we change our biases?

Where can you get the most value for your labor in the US?

Check out this interactive map from the NYTimes, ManyEyes and the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

It shows that the WORST State for gender pay parity is Louisiana.

The best state? District of Columbia, followed by California.

Could we call this the most and least sexist states?

If you can’t move to Norway or Helsinki or Sydney anytime soon, what can you do to achieve pay parity?

1. Start by talking about your salary. Why would you keep it a secret? The more we talk about what we make, the more we can make our salaries transparent, and the more we can all work towards equality by insisting on equal pay for equal work.

2. Start noticing your biases, uncovering them, and then bringing up how to recognize biases at work.

3. Who do you trust? Why do you trust them? Who do you tend to trust? Who do you tend to distrust? Why is that?

4. What’s one way you build trust with someone? What’s one way you can reach out to someone today at work and get to know them better?

5. Notice who you listen intently to, and who you affirm. Do you listen more intently to men or to women? To people of a certain social status? How can you bring that quality of attention and affirmation to others in your life?

6. Once you start to uncover your biases, you’ll start to see them more easily in others. This can make it easier to bring out into the open, talk about, and change.

Any other tips for uncovering biases? Please leave a comment.

How you can attain influence

Mazarine — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 10:52:00 +0000

Recently my friend Vicki Flaugher recommended a book to me. It’s called Influence, by Robert Cialdini. I started to read it last night and I could barely put it down. It has case study after case study that show how to attain influence.

Dr. Cialdini tells the story of a car salesman who sold, on average, 5 cars a day. How did he do it?

Every month he sent all his former customers a card that said, “I like you!” And it worked! People began to like him too, and came back to buy.

Why does it produce results?

People feel pre-disposed to like you if they know that you like them.

I had a board chair in a previous position who just looked me in the eye one day and said, “I Like You!” And that stayed with me for weeks, and every time I thought about it, I got happy again. How many times have we heard this phrase, delivered simply and genuinely to our faces? My first instinct is, not that often! So many people are looking for positive feedback, and so often, all they get is criticism. It’s easier to find something to criticize than to say, “I Like You!” but this is something that works. Try it!

Imagine if you could apply this to your donors. Every time you make a touch, whether it’s through phone, email, or a card (you might want to outsource the mailing if this happens every month) and you just tell them, “I like you,” imagine how many more donations you could get. Imagine how you could build good feeling about your nonprofit.

Instead of trying to tell people the doom and gloom story, the business case for giving, or simply trying to get them to come out to a social event, why not just say, “I Like YOU!”

Tell me your results with this!

Have you ever been fired? Was that awesome, or what?

Mazarine — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 10:35:08 +0000

Guess who else has been fired?

Donald Trump
Lee Iacocca-Former CEO of Chrysler
Pat Mitchell-Former head of PBS
Bernie Marcus-Founder of Home Depot
Tom Sternberg-Founder of Staples
Bernadine Healy-Former CEO of American Red Cross
Michael Bloomberg-Mayor of New York City, and 8th richest person in the world
Larry King-Radio personality
Robert Redford-Founder of the Sundance Film Festival and producer and actor in one of my favorite films, “Sneakers”
Martha Rogers-Head of Peppers & Rogers Group
Jamie Dimon-CEO of Bank One
Deborah Rosado Shaw-CEO of Dream Big Enterprises
JK Rowling-International best-selling author
Mozart

Did you know that 60% of CEOS get fired? Would you like to nominate some right now?

Are you ready to get fired? Ask yourself some questions.

Are you prepared to lose your job rather than compromise fundamental values?

Have you developed enough different skills so you always have a backup career in times of crisis?

Here’s some advice from Dr. Bernadine Healy, former President of the American Red Cross, who raised over $3 BILLION dollars for them before being fired. She did all of this, mind you, with a brain tumor.

She says, “Don’t get fixed on things you can do nothing about. Otherwise they will slow you down.”

“If you have faith in your own judgment and the cause is important, and if you have done your homework and sought wise counsel, and if you are driven by the right reasons, you must have the courage to take the personal risk of standing up and being counted.”

“Life isn’t a straight upward trajectory, but I think you will win more than you lose if you stand for something.” -Bernadine Healy, M.D.

Mark Hansen, coauthor of the bestselling Chicken Soup for the Soul books, was living in his car when they were written. Nobody would lend him money, not even his family. No one would offer any support. Then he wrote this book, and suddenly he was on top of the world.

He says, “If you go for security instead of opportunity you will lose both.”

“Ask yourself, what are the multiple streams of income you can create in your lifetime?”

“Constantly ask the question-What’s the one skill that will double, triple, quadruple my income?”

Lee Iacocca‘s story is startling. He made Ford $1.8 BILLION, and then Henry Ford fired him. He went on to Chrysler and turned them around to make $2.4 Billion. Just goes to show that unfair firings can happen in any industry, at any time, even when you think you’re doing things beyond reproach.

His advice? “Look for bosses who are buoyed by your success. If they seem threatened by it, it’s time to grab a life preserver and swim for shore.”

“Working with a despot, no matter how good you are, can only have two possible endings. Either you become a despot too, or the despot turns on you.”

He says, “If you can’t move forward, go sideways.” and, “Don’t let your love of success justify staying in the wrong place too long.”

Robert Redford says,

“Find your passions and pursue them tenaciously.”

“Embrace a dream. Have you been living out someone else’s script that squelched your dream for the future?”

“Link Your Thinking.” Redford created Sundance, which led to a film festival, which led to a restaurant. He says, “Once you find your primary channel, it can sprout opportunities in one hundred different directions!”

Finally, he says, “Give back. The people who give back the best are the ones who push things forward.”

All quotes from “We Got Fired” by Harvey MacKay, Ballantine Books, NY, NY. 2004

Are You Tired Of Being Unemployed?

Mazarine — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:54:05 +0000

Are you looking for a job right now?

How long have you been looking?

Barbara Ehrenreich tried to find a corporate job for a year, and she wrote a book about it called “Bait and Switch” in 2005 which I feel is still relevant today.

She writes, “As my crisis management instructor, Jim Lukaszcwski, made clear: The CEO may be a fool; the company’s behavior may be borderline criminal, and still you are required to serve unstintingly and without the slightest question.”

This loyalty is not reciprocated.

After a year of constant searching, Barbara Erhenreich finally succeeded in getting two offers, at the end of that year, as an AFLAC representative or Mary Kay saleswoman. Did you know that AFLAC, although they sell insurance, don’t provide it to their own employees? Everyone is a contractor, who doesn’t get benefits or health insurance, and they work out of their homes. Talk about hypocrisy.

Mary Kay tells you that all you have to do is pay $100 and get a kit and you can start making money, but what they don’t tell you is that you need to buy $1,800 worth of makeup to sell at makeup parties, you must buy your own inventory from them. And they don’t offer health insurance either, just the fleeting dream of a pink cadillac. The false promises of these two companies made Barbara Erhenreich realize that even these so called careers for go-getters are doomed to failure from the start.

And yet, even the corporate world offers false promises. Barbara’s Mary Kay saleswoman relates: “I had a high-up corporate job for 31 years and one day I realized I was sick of it. The downsizing. Achieving so much and they can never afford a raise. You’re up against everyone for promotions. You can’t trust anyone. I never got encouragement from management or support from other women.” -Pg 187, Bait and Switch, Barbara Erhenreich.

Several other people chimed in:

“Companies are colder these days.”

“There’s no stability anymore.”

“A lot has to do with greed.”

“It’s so cold blooded now.”

“There’s no warning, no thanks, just “Take your stuff and don’t come back tomorrow.”"

For all that these women missed their salaries and benefits, no job seeker she met ever expressed a nostalgia for the camaraderie of the workplace, perhaps because they experienced so little of it.” Pg 222, Bait and Switch.

Erhenreich concludes: “The failure of white collar workers to band together and defend their jobs and professional autonomy is usually attributed to individualism or to an unwarranted faith in the meritocratic claims of our culture. White collar workers lack dignity, they must sell not just skill and hard work, but themselves. “Personality” and “Attitude’ outweigh performance.”

“So the unemployed continue to drift through their shadowy world of internet job searches, lonely networking events, and costly coaching sessions. The tragedy is that they could be doing so much more. They could be lobbying for concrete improvements in the lives of the unemployed and the anxiously employed.”

“Topping the list would be an expansion of unemployment benefits, extending potentially for years. The entire debate about outsourcing would take a different tone if American workers had an adequate safety net to fall back on. Imagine if all 8 million unemployed people in America launched a concerted campaign for single payer health insurance.”

And now, of course, we can amend those numbers to 31 million unemployed. Imagine that. 31 million people.

It will take a change in attitude, a psychological transformation, to make the leap form solitary desperation to collective action. What unemployed people need is not “likeability” but the real ability to reach out to others and enlist them in a common project. What they need is not “a winning attitude” but courage-to come together and work for change, even in the face of overwhelming odds.

What can you do now, if you are unemployed?

Demand that Congress extend unemployment benefits.

Help Feed the Jobless.

Tell your story.

Want to do more? Start a job club. Help people connect with each other. With 31 million unemployed, you are not alone. In Austin, Texas, you can attend the LPJC.

Do you know of another job club that helps unemployed people? Please write it in the comments.

Do you have what it takes to be Chief Development Officer?

Mazarine — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 10:15:31 +0000

Why not come and find out?

This July 27th, at 5:30pm at 2500 Exposition, Howson library in Austin, Texas, we’ll be listening to Lisa Avra, Chief Development Officer, Harry Ransom Center at University of Texas at Austin.

Ms. Avra graduated from Baylor University with a BA in Mass Communication and English. She then went on to get her teaching certification at University of Texas at Tyler in K-12 Art and 7-12 English, Journalism.

In her current role, she leads a department of three development professionals. Develops strategies for securing major gifts from individuals, corporations and foundations. Manage a portfolio of 189 donors. Oversees an additional portfolio of 75 corporate and foundation donors. Directs activities in development communications, membership, and stewardship programs. Works closely with public affairs, marketing, curatorial, and administrative staff across the Center. Manages a $15 million dollar capital campaign. The Center’s capital campaign is currently leading all other UT college, schools and units with 172.4% of its goal three months prior to the halfway mark.

So how did she get from point A to Point B? Well, she’s going to tell us!

We’re so grateful to have her here to speak to us. Join us at Howson Library, 2500 Exposition, Austin, Texas, from 5:30-6:30pm.