Fundraising questions to ask of donors and anticipate from them

March 14, 2013 erik Fundraising

It has been an exhausting whirlwind of work the last few months. While I would never dare complain about work so as not to upset the consulting gods, I need to take a short break. So, this week I will re-run some of the most viewed DonorDreams blog posts on fundraising and leadership. I hope you enjoy today’s post on questions you should ask of and expect from your donors. Enjoy the flashback! ~Erik

Fundraising questions to ask donors and anticipate from them

Originally published on June 21, 2012

Last week we started a series of blog posts focused on the art of asking questions, and this theme has carried over into this week. So far, we’ve looked at questions that executive directors should be asking themselves and their boards. We’ve also looked at questions board members should be ask of themselves and their fellow board volunteers. Yesterday, we looked at various questions you need to ask prospective board members before asking them to join your board. Today, we’re ending this series of posts by looking at 1) powerful questions that donors should be asking the non-profit agencies they support and 2) questions non-profits should be asking their supporters.

Questions that donors have of you

Over the last 15 years, I have been part of countless solicitation teams and answered more questions than I care to recall at this time of the morning. While those questions tend to be all over the place thanks in part to “unique circumstances,” there are commonly asked questions that many donors seem to ask after they’ve been asked to consider making a charitable contribution.

What will my contribution help accomplish?
Specifically, how will my contribution make a difference in your clients’ lives?
How financial stable is your organization?
There are so many worthy causes that keep asking for support. Why should I support you?
How much of my contribution directly supports programming and how much will underwrite administrative and fundraising expenses?
Tell me more about your fee structure and why are you charging your clients what you’re charging them? How do you know that is the right amount? Why not more?

The list of FAQs is much larger, but these are just questions that I recall answering over and over again. If you want a more comprehensive list of questions, you may want to read Harvey McKinnon’s book “The 11 Questions Every Donor Asks: And the Answers All Donors Crave“.

Why is it important to know what burning questions to expect? I think there are two HUGEreasons:

If you do a better job “anticipating” these questions and build those answers into your case for support and solicitation presentation, I predict that your annual campaign numbers will start climbing.
There is a long list of fears that get in the way of people volunteering to help your agency with fundraising. One of the top reasons is their fear of not being able to answer questions. Addressing FAQs as part of your annual campaign training program will improve volunteer confidence, reduce the amount of avoidance behavior during the campaign, and result in better solicitations (and hopeful result in better fundraising numbers).

Questions that you should have of donors

As I said earlier, I’ve been on many fundraising solicitation teams, and I’ve seen many things throughout the years. Too often, I’ve seen volunteers rush through the solicitation, get a commitment, and quickly downshift into chit-chat of a personal nature. It is almost as if the volunteer solicitor is non-verbally saying “Phew! Thank goodness that is over.”

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with chit-chat after the solicitation is completed. In fact, there is all sorts of important personal information that could and should be harvested from that conversation, captured on a contact report form, and entered into the donor database. However, most volunteer solicitors don’t receive training on what those conversations should look like.

While it would be easy to use that post-solicitation time to talk about family and personal things, it think the following questions might be more useful in developing a deeper philanthropic relationship with your donors:

If you only had one year to live, what would be most important to you to accomplish?
What are the issues, injustices, principles or causes in this world that get you riled up?
If you could change one thing in the world, what would it be?
What accomplishment or legacy would have ultimate significance to you?
In philanthropic terms, if you had unlimited resources, what would you set out to do?

While it is important to know the names of a donor’s spouse and children as well as where they went to school or go to church, I think it is far more important to understand a donor’s passions, dreams, and desires. Knowing and understanding these things puts you in a position of helping them achieve big things. I believe this is one of the biggest differences between transactional fundraising and donor-centered fundraising™.

I believe these types of questions can transform how a donor views you and your organization . . . FROM fundraising vulture TO philanthropic dream-maker.

Please take a minute this morning to share a commonly asked question that you hear donors asking your volunteer solicitors in the comment box below. Or share with this online community one or two questions that you like to ask donors that helps you better understand their philanthropic hopes and dreams. We can all learn from each other and it is just 60 seconds out of your day. Please?

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
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Questions every non-profit executive director should be asking

March 13, 2013 erik Fundraising

It has been an exhausting whirlwind of work the last few months. While I would never dare complain about work so as not to upset the consulting gods, I need to take a short break. So, this week I will re-run some of the most viewed DonorDreams blog posts on fundraising and leadership. I hope you enjoy today’s post on questions every non-profit CEO should be asking. Enjoy the flashback! ~Erik

Questions every non-profit executive director should be asking

Originally published on June 14, 2012

Tony Stoltzfus explains in his book “Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Questions” that there are many reasons why asking questions is important. I highlighted the following three reasons:

Asking empowers
Asking develops leadership capacity
Asking creates authenticity

I believe the very first reason in this list explains why non-profit executive directors need to get better at asking questions of their board members. The following is what Tony says about “asking empowers”:

. . . roughly 80% of the time, I find that they already know what to do: they just don’t have the confidence to step out and do it. Self-confidence is a huge factor in change. When you ask for people’s opinions and take them seriously, you are sending a powerful message: “You have great ideas. I believe in you. You can do this.” Just asking can empower people to do things they couldn’t do on their own.

Sure, Tony is talking about executive coaching in that passage, but in some regards executive directors serve as a coach to the board of directors. At least sometimes . . . right? (Yes, that job involves a weird little dance and sometimes the board leads and other times the executive director leads. Sigh!)

I cannot tell you how many non-profit executive directors tell me that their board members are disengaged. While there can be many reasons for this phenomenon, one reason could be that the executive director is doing too much talking and not enough asking. Think about it for a moment.

When I decided to open The Healthy Non-Profit LLC last year, I saw a blog post from Seth Godin titled “Questions for a new entrepreneur“. After reading it, I posted it to the bulletin board in my office. I periodically go back and re-read it because the questions he suggests a new business owner ask are right on target. Here are a few of those questions that I think are applicable to non-profit executive directors:

Are you aware of your cash flow? What’s your zero point? What are you doing to ensure you get to keep swimming?
What’s your role?
Are you trying to build a team?
Why are you doing this at all?

Circling back around to the idea of engaging board members, here are a few questions I found in Tony Stoltzfus’ book “Coaching Questions: A Coach’s Guide to Powerful Asking Questions” that I believe non-profit executive directors should be asking of their board members in committee meetings and in the boardroom:

Where do you see this going?
How do you want things to turn out? What’s the best possible outcome?
What do you think this looks like from the other person’s point of view? (e.g. donor, client, staff, etc)
How do you feel about that?
What are the real issues here?
How should we make this decision?
What do you need to know to make a great decision?
What would a great decision look like?

I believe the following Ralph Waldo Emerson quotation can best summarize how important a good executive directors can be to their board of directors, especially if that executive director knows how to ask really powerful questions:

“Our chief want is someone who will inspire us to be what we know we could be.”

What questions do you hear being asked by executive directors? Are they powerful and engaging questions? Please use the comment box below to share a few examples.

Here’s to your health!

Non-Profit Trends and Predictions: Volunteerism

March 12, 2013 erik Fundraising, volunteers

2012 Non-Profit Trends and Predictions: Volunteerism

Originally published on December 29, 2011

This week I’m looking back upon 2011 for major trends, and then looking forward to 2012 with an eye towards making a few predictions. Today, we are looking at non-profit volunteer recruitment, retention and management.

Throughout the course of 2011, I had the opportunity to write about non-profit organizations and volunteerism. I’ve kept my eyes open for signs of what non-profits are doing with volunteers, and I see indicators everywhere pointing to:

2012 continuing non-profit agencies’ focus on volunteerism.

Here is what I’ve seen that leads me to this conclusion:

My fellow Generation Xers continue to increase the amount of time they spend volunteering. (I personally suspect this has less to do with their charitable outlook on life and a lot more to do with the fact that they’re in the heart of their child rearing years)
I see my parents’ Baby Boom Generation starting to retire, and they just don’t know what to do with themselves when they wake up in the morning. They are volunteering because they don’t see themselves as being old and they want to keep busy.
I see my Millennial generation friends standing in the unemployment line, and then turning around in search of volunteer opportunities that they hope might just turn into a job opportunity (or at the very least turn into a great reference or a referral).
I see my former employer — Boys & Girls Clubs of America — partnering with one of their major corporate supporters to fund a volunteer management pilot project in an effort to develop a program to teach their local affiliates to become better with volunteer recruitment, retention and management.
I see corporations demanding volunteer opportunities and projects from their philanthropic partners in an effort to drive down their employee turnover rates and grab onto what marketing professionals call “the halo effect”.
Let’s not forget about the research out there on the Millennial generation that shows this emerging generation is very much into volunteerism unlike any other recent generation.
According to a recent Guidestar survey, many non-profit agencies are trimming staff or putting a cap on hiring plans in 2012. Not surprisingly, the same survey showed that 65-percent of all non-profit respondents are looking for volunteers for program work and 54-percent are looking for volunteers for administrative work.

The reality is literally this simple . . . donors are saying they want to see non-profits do more with less . . . volunteer recruitment and management helps accomplish exactly this . . . and in the final analysis volunteers turn into new donors a lot easier than cultivating new prospects from scratch.

Investing in volunteerism could just turn out to be the non-profit sector’s version of an economic stimulus plan that pulls agencies out of their economic doldrums.

Volunteer recruitment, retention and management isn’t as easy as just putting out a call for volunteers. As with everything in life, it is science that requires planning and careful management.

Since the economic collapse four years ago, this trend has been taking form and the non-profits who are leading the way have been experimenting with such things as: volunteer databases, volunteer coordinators, various recruitment strategies, strategic alliances with agencies that specialize in volunteerism, recognition programs, orientation and training programs, placing value volunteer hours, and much much more.

As budgets get even tighter in 2012, the flood of non-profits who commit themselves to figuring all of this out will continue to propel this long-term trend.

Is your agency recruiting more volunteers? How has it gone about doing so? What challenges have you experienced along the way? How important is it to have a volunteer coordinator on your payroll to orchestrate recruitment, orientation, training, volunteer opportunity assignment, evaluation, retention, etc? How successful have you been at turning volunteers into new donors?

Please scroll down and use the comment box to weigh-in with your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Gift acknowledgement letters, quid pro quo and the IRS

March 11, 2013 erik Fundraising

It has been an exhausting whirlwind of work the last few months. While I would never dare complain about work so as not to upset the consulting gods, I need to take a short break. So, this week I will re-run some of the most viewed DonorDreams blog posts on fundraising and leadership. I hope you enjoy today’s post on gift acknowledgement letters. Enjoy the flashback! ~Erik

Gift acknowledgement letters, quid pro quo and the IRS

Originally posted on March 27, 2012

I cannot count the number of times that I’ve attended a non-profit organization’s special event fundraiser and walked away with a gift acknowledgement letter that was not compliant with “IRS Publication 1771, Charitable Contributions–Substantiation and Disclosure Requirements”.

Rather than use the language of accountants and tax professionals to explain, I’ll let the following hypothetically example speak for itself.

My first contribution to “Agency X” is the purchase of two dinner tickets for what I am hoping will be the best rubber chicken of my life. My out-of-pocket expenses to get in the room is $120.
When I show up, I am assaulted by happy volunteers selling 50-50 raffle tickets. My out-of-pocket expenses to get these intensely happy people who are blocking my path to the bar is $20.
With a nice glass of wine in my hand, I am finally able to mingle with old friends, but I end distracted by all of the shiny objects in the silent auction. <<Sigh>> At the end of the evening, I discover that “Agency X” is deeper into my wallet for another $250 in out-of-pocket expenses.
The final blow came many glasses of wine into the evening during the live auction (ahhhh, of course it is always the booze and the live auction that sinks most donors). Those Opening Day Chicago Cubs tickets had my name written all of them and only cost $1,000.

So, the next morning usually comes with a hangover and regret (even though “Agency X” is an amazing charity and you’re always happy to have supported their awesome mission). A few days later in the mail comes a gift acknowledgement letter. It tells me how wonderful I am and contains some nice “return on investment” and stewardship verbiage. Ahhhh, gotta love that warm fuzzy feeling.

You’re probably wondering “What’s wrong with all that?”

Well, the gift acknowledgement letter thanked me for my charitable contribution of $1,390.

Sure, if you do the math $120 + $20 + $250 + $1,000 does add up to $1,390, but this was not size of my “charitable contribution” according to the Internal Revenue Service, and now I need to take time out of my busy day to chase down the executive director or fundraising professional at “Agency X” for a correct letter. To help clarify the math, here is exactly what the IRS has to say on the subject:

“A donor may only take a contribution deduction to the extent that his/her contribution exceeds the fair market value of the goods or services the donor receives in return for the contribution; therefore, donors need to know the value of the goods or services.”

Let’s circle back and do the math one more time:

The event tickets cost $120, but the food I received in exchange for the ticket purchase was valued at $20 per plate. So, $120 minus $40 means that the charitable contribution only amounted to $80.
The $20 in raffle tickets got me four chances at a cash prize. The “value” I received for those chances was twenty bucks. So, $20 minus $20 means that I didn’t make a charitable contribution in the eyes of the IRS.
The silent auction was a huge benefit to me because I got some amazing bargains. Woo Hoo! Move over Wal-Mart! So, I might have spent $250, but the items I won totaled $500 in value. So, $250 minus $500 means that I didn’t make a charitable contribution in the eyes of the IRS.
And last but certainly not least, there was the booze fueled live auction. The bad news . . . it was $1,000. The good news . . . I finally got something to write off on my taxes. Opening Day tickets to see another woeful season of the Chicago Cubs are valued at $500 (of course, White Sox fans would argue that they are worth nothing). So, $1,000 minus $500 means that I can deduct $500 from my taxes next year.

The IRS tells us that it is legitimate to acknowledge my overall gift of $1,390 as long as somewhere (usually at the bottom of the letter in a footnote) there is language that explains that the fair market value of the items I purchased was $810 and only $580 of my $1,390 contribution is tax-deductible.

In my experience as a donor, this rarely happens and I end up wasting my time chasing after a new gift acknowledgement letter. The harm to “Agency X” is twofold:

It is counterproductive to annoy the donor. This is not good stewardship and doesn’t help “Agency X” in its efforts to secure the next contribution from me.
It can result in fines to “Agency X” if the IRS ever found out.

What is the potential penalty? Here is what the code says:

“A penalty is imposed on charities that do not meet the written disclosure requirement. The penalty is $10 per contribution, not to exceed $5,000 per fundraising event or mailing.”

If you want to learn more, Joanne Fritz at about.com does a nice job explaining it. You can also click here to get it directly from the IRS.

Note: “Agency X” does not exist. I am not calling out any one particular non-profit organization in my philanthropy portfolio. The aforementioned examples are a “compilation” of things I’ve purchased over the last 10 years. Please don’t add me to you special event mailing list. :-)

Please scroll down and use the comment box below to share the “boilerplate language” that your agency uses at the bottom of its special event gift acknowledgement letters. Please trust me that 30 seconds of your time will benefit countless smaller non-profit agencies. If I had a nickel for every time I was asked for sample boilerplate language, I’d be rich! We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Fundraising, stonecutters and ignoring best practices

March 8, 2013 erik Fundraising, organizational development, volunteers

Welcome to O.D. Fridays at DonorDreams blog. Every Friday for the foreseeable future we will be looking at posts from John Greco’s blog called “johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly” and applying his organizational development messages to the non-profit community.

In a post titled “All That Had Gone Before,” John gets philosophical. He points out how a stonecutter’s success is attributed to a series of chips just like your successes in the workplace is the result of the people who came before you. He says, “Our results today; our performance today; our effectiveness today; is not from what we have done today; but all that we’ve done before.”

I read this and immediate think of a recent fundraising training that I facilitated for a bunch of volunteer solicitors.

In my training, I talk about the 12 steps to making a successful face-to-face solicitation. If followed exactly without any corner cutting, each step is designed to quiet our “inner saboteur’s voice,” which is rooted in fear and the mistaken belief that we are “begging for money.”

I’ve conducted this training almost 100 times in my life (if not more), and it never ceases to amaze me how many people don’t want to slowly and methodically chisel away at their solicitations by following the 12 step process. Here are some of the most recent things I’ve heard people say in the wake of this training:

“I don’t need to make my own pledge before going out to solicit my friends. I know that it is the first step in the 12 step process, but I give my time and that should be enough.“
“If the donor indicates that they don’t want to meet with me, I’ll just solicit them over the phone. I know these people well enough so there won’t be a difference between a phone and in-person solicitation.“
“I know that I shouldn’t leave the pledge card behind with the donor, but I know this donor very well and they will send it in and everything will be fine.“

These people used to frustrate me. After all, they don’t seem to understand these best practices were developed by countless numbers of volunteers and professionals before them. Ugh! However, after reading John’s blog post, I’m going to attempt to change my perspective.

From this point forward, I will simply look at these folks as inexperienced stonecutters who are trying to split that big rock in half with just one or two swings of the hammer. They choose to ignore all of the progress made by everyone who preceded them because they are simply apprentice stonecutters. Right?

As a non-profit and fundraising professional, how do you channel your inner stonecutter when working with donors? When working with fundraising volunteers? When working with your board? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Too much PowerPoint in your non-profit boardroom?

March 7, 2013 erik Board development, organizational development, technology

A few weeks ago I was sitting down with a client putting the final touches on their Board Retreat agenda, and I received what I thought was an odd request from the board president. He emphatically asked me to please spare him and the board from using PowerPoint presentations during the course of the retreat. He explained that in his line of work he sees far too many PowerPoint presentations, and his eyes glaze over whenever someone starts clicking through their slides and droning on about something obviously important.

Well, I thought it was an odd request, but the customer is always right. Right?

However, out of curiosity I went to Google to see if there are other people who feel the same way. Here is what I found:

strategicsense blog: “Too much PowerPoint can kill you“
Fast Company: “Death To PowerPoint!“
Wendy Russell at about.com: “PowerPoint — The Ugly“
Harvard Business Review: “PowerPoint is Evil, Redux“

Well, alrighty then!

I never realized how many people are tired of PowerPoint presentations (especially bad ones). So, I was left wondering what I should do because I am apparently one of those consultants who over uses PowerPoint.

Luckily, the board president saved the day and told me about a presentation service he found online — Prezi.com. This online service as a software (SaaS) is a dynamic virtual whiteboard that brings a 3-D quality to your presentation. Click here for a better explanation. You can also watch this YouTube video to see a demonstration.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxhqD0hNx4Q]

I’ve now used Prezi a few different times, and I can honestly say that I like it (and I’m not getting paid to say any of this).

Just yesterday I transformed one of my PowerPoint presentations on the “12 Steps to Making a Face-to-Face Solicitation” into a Prezi. After the training, I had a few different volunteer solicitors thank me for using a different format. You can check-out that presentation by clicking here or the graphic below.

Let me end this post with a dose of skepticism.

I personally don’t believe that people are tired of PowerPoint presentations and I don’t think Prezi is the solution to all of our problems.

In fact, I suspect that what non-profit volunteers are actually trying to tell us is:

Enough of the presentations! Can we have a discussion?

Perhaps, we’re talking too much at our board volunteers, and we need to figure out how to incorporate more discussions into our board meetings and board retreats.

Have you been struggling with this question recently? If so, please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box about the following questions:

Who should facilitate these engaging discussions in the boardroom, especially when no one on the board is a highly skilled facilitator?
Are there trainings available that a board president can easily access to improve his/her facilitation skills?
What role should staff play in framing and staging these conversations before, during and after the board meeting?
When information is vital to framing an important discussion, what is the best way to present it to board members without lulling them to sleep?

Please don’t misread me. I’m not suggesting that you throw all of your PowerPoint slides away. I’m not suggesting that Prezi is manna from heaven. I’m not telling you to only have robust discussions in the boardroom or board retreat. However, I am suggesting there is a delicate balance and we need to figure out if we want our non-profit boards to get better at governance.

We can all learn from each other. Please weigh-in with your thoughts using the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Back to non-profit board basics: Fiduciary Responsibility

March 6, 2013 erik Board development, volunteers

Dani Robbins is the Founder & Principal Strategist at Non Profit Evolution located in Columbus, Ohio. I’ve invited my good friend and fellow non-profit consultant to the first Wednesday of each month about board development related topics. Dani also recently co-authored a book titled “Innovative Leadership Workbook for Nonprofit Executives” that you can find on Amazon.com.

The book Governance as Leadership, by Richard P. Chait, William P. Ryan and Barbara E. Taylor, and the modes of governance contained within, changed the way I look at Board service and the capacity of Boards to move the needle of change in their communities.

Several recent blog posts have been dedicated to discussing how to move governing Boards from focusing primarily on the fiduciary mode toward becoming more strategic and generative. High functioning Boards manage in all three modes depending on the circumstances and the needs of the organizations, yet fiduciary is and must continue to be the foundation of Board governance.

As a quick reminder, those modes are as follows:

Fiduciary – the board is faithful to its mission, accountable for performance, and compliant with relevant laws and regulations. It exercises its legal responsibilities of oversight and stewardship.
Strategic – the board is responsible for strategic thinking and sets the organization’s priorities and course, and deploys resources accordingly.
Generative – the board’s work entails efforts to make sense of circumstances, to discover patterns and discern problems, and to make meaning of what’s happening.

Boards are made up of appointed community leaders who are collectively responsible for governing an organization. That includes:

Setting the Mission, Vision and Strategic Plan;
Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive Director;
Acting as the Fiduciary Responsible Agent,
Setting Policy and
Raising Money

Most of how that happens is at Board and committee meetings, which is really the point of today’s blog.

The minimum requirements to become a functioning governing Board operating in the fiduciary mode is this:

You must have a quorum at all Board meetings. The organization’s Code of Regulations (also called by-laws) will dictate the number of Board members required to be in the room to have a quorum; it is usually half or half plus one. When you do not have a quorum the Board will not legally be able to take action, which in addition to stymieing the organization’s capacity to function, will also be noted in your audit, and in turn will quickly become a concern for your funders.

Minutes must be taken at each meeting of the Board of Directors and approved at the following meeting. Those minutes should include who was in attendance (distinguish between Board and staff please), the approval of the prior meting minutes and the financial statements as well as any and all votes, including the complete motion that was made and by whom, who seconded and if it was a unanimous vote. Minutes should also include the name of any Board members who voted no as well as anyone who abstained. Only Board members can make motions. Staff can make recommendations but in most cases cannot vote.

Financial statements, including a profit and loss, variance against the budget and a balance statement must be presented, explained and voted upon at each meeting. The Treasurer, when presenting the financials, should review anything that is higher or lower than expected, and explain anything that is not immediately obvious. Board members should ask questions until they understand and are willing to have their name listed as voting yes in favor of accepting the financial statements as presented.

Committee decisions should be presented by the Chair of the Committee (not by staff, other than occasionally by request of the Chair) and anything that requires a vote should be motioned by that Chair. As listed in a prior post the following need votes:

Any Policy – crisis communication and management, personnel, etc.
Past board meeting minutes;
Financial reports;
Agency Annual Budgets;
Plans – strategic, board development and/or resource development;
Changes to the strategic direction of the organization;
The hiring of an Executive Director;
Audits;
Campaigns;
Opening, closing or changing the signatures on bank accounts;
Changes to the mission or vision; and
Board Members and Officers being added, or renewed.

Board meetings should also include a report from the Executive Director (also called CEO). Any recommendations that are made must be motioned by a board member and should then follow the voting path outlined above.

Board Chair’s often make reports as well, yet do not make motions or vote themselves unless there is a tie to break.

The meeting ends with any old or new business.

There are myriad ways to move a Board from a strictly fiduciary Board toward a high functioning Board, but none can happen before a Board masters their fiduciary responsibility. Fiduciary responsibility is the price of admission to Board leadership, but it can’t end there. Strategic and generative leadership is what engages Board members and moves the needle for change in our communities. Isn’t that why we serve?

What’s been your experience? As always, I welcome your insight and experience.

Carol Burnett’s advice to disengaged non-profit boards

March 5, 2013 erik Board development, volunteers

The idea of engaging non-profit board volunteers is sometimes treated by thought-leaders as a simple idea; however, in reality it is really hard. A few days ago I had this conversation with a board volunteer, and he said something I found very profound. He said, “When one person is disengaged, it is as simple as challenging them to step-up and join the group. When a few people are leading and the rest of the group is disengaged, it is far easier for the few to step-back because that is the norm.”

Obvious? Yes! Did I know this before I heard it? Of course. But I had never heard it stated quite so succinctly.

During this conversation, he also related a great quote from a business consultant he recently heard speak at a conference. The quote was “If you can’t change your people, change your people.” Upon hearing this, my mind first darted to Jim Collins, who famously talks about getting the right people on the bus and in the right seats.” Yet, surprisingly, my mind didn’t stay there. The cosmic jukebox in my head started playing a song that I still can’t get out of my head. Click here or on the YouTube screen below and please join me in singing . . .

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjQuZCTLAv4]

Yeah, I think Carol Burnett gave some great advice to board development committees when she sang her iconic sign-off song.

Carol reminds us that time flies when you’re having fun. She says early in the song: “Seems we just get started and before you Know it
Comes the time we have to say, ‘So long’.” In this one simple sentence, I am reminded of the following truisms for the board development committee:

There is a beginning, middle and end to every board volunteer relationship.
It is the Board Development Committee’s responsibility to manage every aspect of that relationship during every step down that path.
In the beginning, expectations must be set or disengagement is almost inevitable (e.g. use job descriptions to recruit).
During every step of the way, year-end evaluation is essential in order to maintain engagement. These aren’t always “pat-on-the-back” meetings. Sometimes, committee members need to ask tough questions during evaluation meetings such as: “What can we do to get you more involved in our resource development program? Is there something we can do to help you feel more comfortable with your roles and responsibilities? Are you sure this opportunity is a good fit or would everyone be better served if you stepped off the board and joined a committee?“
In the end, compassion and grace — like you hear in Carol’s voice — are the values that carry the day. Hopefully, the volunteer concludes that they’re ready to move along to tackle other opportunities related to your mission and organization. However, more oftentimes it is obvious to everyone except the board volunteer. Not only must the committee exercise compassion and grace, but they must be strong and do what needs to be done. Too often committee volunteers kick the can down the road, which creates problems for another day.

When the norm on the board is disengagement, I’ve too often seen a frustrated Board Development Committee take the discussion into the boardroom. Their intention is good. After all, they want to wake some people up and shake them from their sleepy disengaged slumber. However, I’ve never seen this strategy work. In fact, it always backfires in one of two ways:

Tempers flare because it feels like finger-pointing and accusations are being made.
Committee members get frustrated because their “call to action” is met with a yawn of “disengagement”.

For me, it all comes back to that consultant’s quote that my friend shared with me: “If you can’t change your people, change your people.” with a chaser of “I’m so glad we’ve had this time together.”

I believe taking this conversation into the boardroom is tantamount to the board development committee abdicating their responsibilities and giving up. I suggest the more direct option of one-on-one meetings with disengaged volunteers.

If you are looking for resources and more reading materials on the subject of volunteer management, board development, board engagement, and how to move board volunteers onto other opportunities, you may want to click on some of the following links:

DonorDreams blog: “Have you forgotten year-end evaluations and performance plans during the year-end scramble?“
DonorDreams blog: “Is your non-profit board of directors engaged?“
DonorDreams blog: “Not fundraising? Not engaged!“
National Council of Nonprofits: Volunteers
The Chronicle of Philanthropy: “How to Fire Lousy Board Members“

What have you done or seen done when disengagement is the norm in the boardroom? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts on individual meetings versus group discussion? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Setting attainable social media goals for your non-profit

March 4, 2013 erik Mondays with Marissa, Planning, technology

If there is one thing non-profits know about, it is goals. There are goals within the mission. There are fundraising goals. There are membership goals. Today, we are going to talk about setting goals for social media. If you want your organizations social media campaigns to be a success, setting attainable social media goals is key.

Start with a Baseline

Just like anything, you have to see where you are before setting goals for where you want to go.

Measuring success in social media can be a tricky thing. There are many tools to help you define metrics that can be good indicators of interaction. For example, Facebook gives you Insights, which can tell you which posts were successful and which ones were not based on how many people saw them, shared them or liked them. Google Analytics can tell you about how many people visit your website and how long they stay engaged on your site. This type of data is helpful when you’re setting a baseline.

I would also encourage you to look at things outside of traditional metrics to help you define success. For example, how many posts were made in a specific platform can help you form a more complete picture of where your organization currently stands.

Keep in mind, there may not be an easy way to get data for all of the social media networks you use and that’s okay. However, gathering a baseline of data can help you measure success as your organization’s social media plan grows.

Look at Your Data

Take a look and see if you can spot any patterns. Here are a few questions you should ask yourself:

Are there posts that are super successful?
Are there posts that just seem to tank?
Do photos do better than text updates?
Do posts made at the beginning of the day tend to do better than those posted later in the day or vice versa?
Which social media networks are the most active?
Which social media networks are the most dormant?
Are posts containing a call to action more successful than those without?
Do posts with links tend to get users more engaged than those without?

The list could go on and on, but the point is to take a look and see what’s working and what’s not.

Looking at your data is important in the beginning stages of goal setting, during measuring a goal and once the goal timeline has passed. Getting in the habit of collecting and looking at data early, will help you out along the way.

Talk to Your Staff

Social media is a powerful tool for nonprofits. Due to its very low cost, it gives organizations a much louder voice to reach new members of the community and keep up-to-date with those who have been there since the beginning.

While there may be just one person in charge of posting things on social media networks, it is important to get the whole agency together when forming social media goals. Take the time to meet with your staff and talk about how social media can help them reach their own departmental goals. For example, the membership team might like to use social media to run a membership drive during the month of October.

Talking with staff early can help you plan out a specific campaign. Because you’ve taken the time to look at where your organization stands now, you’ll be better able to shape these conversations into what will be most successful for your agency.

Set Goals

After establishing a baseline and taking the time to look at what works and what doesn’t, you are ready to take on social media goal setting. The following are a few tips for writing and monitoring goals:

When writing goals, make sure they are SMART (e.g. specific, measurable, action oriented, realistic/relevant, and time bound).
Make sure you have ways to capture data throughout the goal’s timeline.
Discuss and adjust your posts with your team along the way.
If a goal isn’t met, it doesn’t mean that it failed completely. Take the time to examine what barriers kept it from succeeding. Maybe the goal wasn’t a great goal in the first place. This can be a lesson to learn in and of itself.

What type of social media goals does your organization set? How to you keep track of your data? What challenges do you face when it comes to setting and meeting social media goals? Let us know in the comment section!

A celebration of African American philanthropy

February 28, 2013 erik Fundraising

Ah, yes. It is February 28th once again, which signifies the end of another successful Black History Month. While on the treadmill this morning, I scratched my head and wondered how we got to the end of February so quickly. My mind also wandered back to an old training curriculum that I used to use that was titled “Changing with the Times: Adapting Fundraising to a New United States“.

I went back and dusted off this curriculum because there are a few tidbits I think are appropriate to share on this last day of Black History Month.

Institutions built

Racial stereotypes are so dehumanizing. I cannot tell you how many people I’ve talked to throughout my career who obviously view the African American community as “recipients” of philanthropy and not “participants”. You don’t need to look any further than the following organizations to understand how incorrect those stereotypes actually are:

Urban League
The African Methodist Episcopal Church
Tuskegee Institute

What do these three institutions have in common? They are the result of African American philanthropy, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Not just an Amen!

Here’s another racial stereotype for you. Throughout my career, I’ve met many people who assume that African Americans only support their churches when it comes to philanthropy. Again, this just isn’t true. According to a 2002 report published by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation, the following is a list of giving priorities for the African American community:

Education
Public Affairs / Social Benefit
Children & Youth
Arts & Culture
Health
Other
Human Services
Religion

Huh? Go figure. Religion came in behind the category labeled “Other”.

To help put this list in context, more than half of respondents said “education” was their highest priority compared to approximately 5% who said “religion”.

Not just Buffet and Gates

Try playing this fun game with your friends. Ask them to close their eyes and blurt out the first name that comes to mind when you say the word “philanthropist”. I’ll bet that the most common responses will be Warren Buffet, Bill Gates, and even Donald Trump (gosh darn Celebrity Apprentice).

In reality, the African American community has (and had) more than its fair share of awesome philanthropists including:

Oprah Winfrey
Michael Jackson
Bill Cosby
Tom Joyner
Russell Simmons
Magic Johnson
Wyclef Jean

Did you know?

I thought it would be fun to end this post on a really positive note. So, I dug really deep in that old training curriculum for a few of those “OMG . . . I didn’t know that” type of factoids (most of which came from the Kellogg Foundation report):

“According to an analysis of IRS records by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, African Americans with $50,000+ income give a higher percentage of discretionary income than most Americans.”
“Most African Americans give to multiple causes and most giving is local (79%).”
“African American donors seem to forgo endowment building in favor of donating time and money to assist with more immediate community needs.”

Did anything here surprise you? Do you have any fun stories that you’d like to share on this final day of Black History Month? Do you have any special strategies or tactics in your written resource development plan focused on philanthropy and this community? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!