Did you read Seth Godin’s blog post a few days ago? He wrote about what the most important question a company should be asking itself about its customers. In Godin-like fashion, he runs through a laundry list of questions that are not as important. In the end, he tells us that the most important question in marketing is: “Do they trust me enough to believe my promises?”
As I let this blog marinate for a few days, I’ve come to see Godin’s question as critical for both for-profit and non-profit corporations alike. I even Googled the search words “non-profit donor trust” and came across a great post at Fundly titled “Building Donor Trust For Your Non-Profit Organization“. The first paragraph of this article summarized my sentiments perfectly:

“Donors won’t give if they don’t completely trust your organization. They have to emotionally invest in your cause before they financially invest, and the bridge between the two is built on trust, accessibility and accountability. How do you build that bridge?”

After this obvious realization, I decided to do the opposite of what Seth did in his post and started writing down questions that non-profit organizations should be asking themselves.
Here is just some of what I came up with:

• Is your agency doing what it said it would do with a donor’s contribution?
• Are you achieving the programmatic results and outcomes that you promised?
• Are you measuring the right things in order to know your agency is making a difference?
• Are your data gathering tools and methods valid and acceptable?
• Does your agency communicate with donors in ways they want to be communicated?
• Is your agency running programs that address community needs? Or are your programs being run just because of organizational inertia?
• Are we sharing the type of success stories that your donors want to hear?
• How much do your donors trust you? Can it be measured and quantified?

Asking and answering questions like these are directly related to building trust with your donors.
Here are a few other good links that I found from my Google search regarding donor trust and loyalty:

• nonprofit hub: “5 Simple Rules to Increase Donor Loyalty“
• Karen Zapp’s nonprofit blog: “How do you build trust for your nonprofit?“
• GuideStar: “Build Trust with Donors by Answering These Questions“

How is your non-profit organization addressing donor loyalty? How are you building trust and relationships? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to spend a little time with a professional grant writer, and I walked away from the encounter wondering if there isn’t a new trend afoot in the world of non-profit grants. During our time together, I got the sense that the winds of change are blowing. So, I thought I’d blog about it this morning and see if you are encountering some of the same things.
Of course, a comprehensive grant writing program has many different components to it, such as:

• Private foundations
• Corporate foundations
• Government grants
• Family foundations

Even within these areas, you have some additional subdivision:

• Federal government
• State government
• Local government

So, our conversation was predicated on planning question because this organization’s resource development committee is in the process of developing a written resource development plan for 2014. Here were some of the questions I asked:

• How many grants did you write in each of these areas last year? What were your results?
• What do you currently have in the pipeline (e.g. written and out the door, in the process of writing, etc)?
• What strategies are we currently using? Should we shift our grant writing strategies and make adjustments in the upcoming year (e.g. who we’re writing to, what we’re writing for, how we’re engaging decision-makers, etc)?

It was during this interesting discussion the grant writer shared a few interesting observations (and opinions):

• He sees a contraction in government grants starting to occur
• He sees increased competition for private foundation and corporate foundation pools of dollars
• He attributes a huge bump in grant dollars over the last few years to the federal stimulus package and believes that organizations who rode that wave now need to find another wave to surf (and quickly)
• In the wake of the recession, he thinks there is a “New Normal” where many non-profits tweaked their fundraising plans and focused more on grant writing (thus making proposal pools more competitive)

Of course, I find all of this interesting even if it is just one data point (and one grant writers opinion) in a huge universe of data. However, it still tweaks my curiosity. So, I’m hoping you will use the comment box below this morning to weigh-in on any of the following questions:

• Did your agency change its resource development plan (e.g. goals, strategies, tactics) since the 2008 economic crash? If so, what did you start doing  differently?
• Are you seeing some of the same things?
• If you are experiencing some of the same things (e.g. increased competition, fewer government grants, etc), what are you planning to do about it?
• Are you in the process of shifting your agency’s grant writing focus? If so, what are you shifting it to?

In the interest of sharing, this organization is contemplating slightly shifting its focus to Family Foundations and engaging its board volunteers to help in the cultivation process. Of course, these type of foundations act and behave very differently than the others. As a result, they need to look at possibly employing different engagement strategies and different solicitation strategies.
As I always say, there is no reason that we need to be alone out there in this vast non-profit universe. We can all learn from each other, but that requires you taking one or two minutes out of your busy day and sharing your thoughts and experiences.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Are your Actions Conflicting with your Goals?

By Dani Robbins
Re-published with permission from nonprofit evolution blog
I’m always fascinated by the number of things people do that are in direct conflict with their goals. My dog does a perfect illustration of this: He gets so excited when we have visitors that he acts inappropriately and gets put outside or crated, which prevents him from meeting his goal of being loved by our visitors. He is not alone. Leaders and organizations do the same thing!
This week, since it’s a new year and many people in my personal and professional lives have begun working on new goals, I’ve been thinking about the intent of those goals.
I love goals that are intended to get everyone on the same page and align the work of an organization.
I do not love goals that are intended to motivate people, and I’m not even clear why we would need to do that.
Employee goals intended to motivate don’t make any sense to me and, honestly, I don’t find them motivating. In fact, I find them de-motivating, and also slightly insulting.  High performers — a group I like to count myself among — will do their very best every day, aligned with the work they’ve been assigned and the expectations of their position, and not in any way because of the goals they’ve been assigned. They will do their best because it’s who they are and the work ethic they possess. It is our job as leaders to demonstrate our vision and hire, support, groom and develop high performers who can help us reach that vision.
Let me be very clear, I absolutely and unequivocally believe that leaders must set expectations for staff and also evaluate those staff based on the expectations set. I also believe that the job of the exec is to implement the strategic plan which doubles as their goals. In the absence of a plan, it is the board’s job to work with the exec to set the expectations by which they will evaluate that exec’s performance at the year’s end. Those expectations (call them goals if you must) should not be set to motivate your exec. They should be set to align the work of the organization, ensure everyone is on the same page and provide a process for evaluation. If you have to set goals to motivate your exec, you have the wrong exec.
As leaders, we should all strive to have as many high performers as we can possibly attract and afford.  It begs the question: are the goals we are setting for high performers alienating those performers? I think they might be. I’m beginning to believe that employee goals that are intended to motivate people are lowering our standards, teaching to the middle, and working in direct conflict of our actual goals of meeting our missions and achieving our organizations’ visions.  You know, I believe that any action, process, policy or procedure that is in conflict with our goal is a bad action, process, policy or procedure. I am starting to believe that goals that are intended to motivate are just that.
Once, many years ago and before I really understood resource development and major donor cultivation, I was running an agency that attracted about $50,000 of contributions from individuals each year. My Board Chair wanted to set a goal for me of $1,000,000. One million dollars! Yes, your math is right and that would have been 20 times the annual giving received by that agency. He called it a stretch goal.
Rather than inspire me to reach that goal, it terrified me -– and not in a good way. How in the world — with no change in staffing, no change in process or a new program or project to announce — was I going to raise 20 times our current contributed income?  I wasn’t.
Thankfully, I was able to explain my position and get him to revise my goals. To his credit- and this may have been his intent all along — I ramped up my own knowledge and capacity for raising money and cultivating and retaining major donors giving major gifts.
I did raise that amount and more a few years later, but not because of a goal and not, by any stretch of the imagination, alone. I did it with a change in staffing, a more developed board, several changes in process and a huge project that addressed a significant gap in service that I was committed to rectify.
Wanting something doesn’t make it a good goal. If you set goals, set them to recognize, hire and retain high performers.  Set them to align the work of your agency. Set them to have some way to evaluate your executive. Make your goals doable, with systems to support them and a path to achieve them.
Don’t set goals to motivate people! We should not be using goals to motivate. We shouldn’t have to. The work we do and the communities we serve should motivate our team toward greatness.  If they don’t, we have built the wrong team and no amount of goal setting is going to rectify that.
What do you think about goals being used to motivate staff?  As always, I welcome your insight, feedback and experience. Please share your ideas or suggestions for blog topics and consider hitting the follow button to enter your email. A rising tide raises all boats.