How Nonprofits Can Maximize LinkedIn to Grow Their Community

September 24, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, nonprofit, technology

I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought that LinkedIn was the grownup Facebook. When it first started, I didn’t think much of it, but over the years, LinkedIn has become a powerful networking tool, not only for job-searchers, but for everyone in a professional community. Today let’s take a look at a few things that you can do to maximize your and your organization’s presence on LinkedIn.

Complete Your Profile
When starting out on LinkedIn, completing your organization’s profile is important. This is because the heart of LinkedIn is connecting people. The more information it has about you, the better it can serve as a networking resource for you and

your organization. Take some time to think about 10 to 15 keywords that you think would best describe your agency and their mission. Using the right keywords will attract the right people to your page.

Not only is an organization profile important, but it is important that everyone connected to your organization has complete profile as well. Make sure employees, volunteers and board members take the time to fill their profiles completely. There is a “Volunteer and Causes” section that can be added to personal profiles where supporters can list your organization.

Companies as Donors
If you are looking to find a company to sponsor an event or make a donation, LinkedIn would be a great place to start. Many companies will list in their profiles if they give to charitable causes or not. If you cannot find info on their profile, see who is connected to that company and reach out to people in your network.

Follow People
I am not an advocate for stalking, except for in the case of LinkedIn. The more connections you have, the better your network, so follow people you know and people you don’t know. Having a connection can help you along the way, when it comes to

gaining volunteers, finding new donors, hiring a new employee, or finding a new board member.

Group Hug
One of the most dynamic sections to LinkedIn is their groups. There are groups focused on just about everything. Join as many as you can or have your organization start one tailored to discussions about your mission. People expect to start conversations in LinkedIn and groups can be a great way to create new connections.

Keep People Up to Date
LinkedIn is just like every other social media site; as in it works best when you update it frequently. So share news and blog updates with your community there too. Also, LinkedIn does a good job of of aggregating news that is important to you. It is a great place to find new articles to share with your followers as well.

Find Your Next Board Member
LinkedIn just released a new, exciting tool for nonprofits called LinkedIn Board Connect. This allows nonprofit organizations to use LinkedIn to find people who might be a good fit to be the next member of your board. For more information on this new service, take a look at LinkedIn’s announcement. Also, they are having a webinar on Wednesday, October 10, 2012 to explain what Board Connect can do. I suggest joining in to see if this is a tool that would be beneficial to your organization.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: finding the right social network for your organization is key to your social media success. LinkedIn can be a powerful tool to find people and grow your community. How does your organization use LinkedIn? What are some of the things that work best on this social network for you? I’d love to talk about it in comments!

Non-profit board volunteers should all dress the same

September 21, 2012 erik Board development, organizational development, volunteers

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

Today, I am focusing on a post that John wrote about “Decision Fatigue,” which is a fascinating organizational development concept that applies perfectly to so many different aspects of non-profit work life. I mean come on, John! It would be soooooo tempting to expand on the “Kissing while driving for non-profit agencies” post from March 9, 2012 and talk about the utter insanity behind most executive director’s day-to-day routines. But I won’t do that and instead decided to focus on the board of directors.

After reading John’s post this morning, I was transported back in time to March 20, 2000. I will never forget that day because it was my first day on the job as a newly minted executive director.

At the top of every new CEO’s “To Do List” is a whirlwind tour of meeting board members. This is one of the most important first tasks because you are trying to get a feel for:

what is going on throughout the organization
what personalities are sitting around the boardroom table
how decisions get made in the board room

When I stuck the thermometer in the turkey on March 20, 2000, it immediately registered “DECISION FATIGUE“.

This board had operated for more than six months without an executive director. Some of the people during our first meeting even told me of their plans to resign. Needless to say, within the first 90 days the board roster shrank from 20 people strong to 11 very weary individuals who bravely faced the future and simply said, “FORWARD!”

The list of decisions that fatigued the board prior to hiring an executive director is endless, but here are just a few of those decisions they routinely faced:

Where are we meeting? What time?
What’s on the agenda?
Who is attending? Do we have quorum?
What materials should be distributed prior to the meeting? Who puts all of that together?
How do we make sure everyone is properly prepared for tough discussions and decisions at the upcoming meeting?
Do we have enough money in the bank to make payroll next week?
Which employee just quit? At which site did they work? What does that mean for operations? Is there paperwork that needs to get filled out? Who is doing THAT?
Who is doing what and with whom with regards to the annual campaign pledge drive that is scheduled to start next week?
Uh oh . . . I though we were just focusing on the pledge drive, but now we’re talking about special event planning for the dinner that is 12 weeks away. Who is doing what and with who regards to all of THAT?
Ummm . . . how does all of this mesh with the decisions happening at home and at my paying job?

This is just a small sampling of what was on those board member’s decision-making list.

One of the most interesting things I found in my first 90 days was the board decision made right before they hired me. It was the decision to stop meeting monthly and only meet every other month. When I asked why they made this decision, they said that their monthly meetings had gotten way out of hand and too long. Those meetings apparently lasted sometimes three or four hours!

Like you, I scratched my head, and asked how in the world that decision made any sense.

If you think about it for a moment and put yourself in their shoes, it makes perfect sense:

They were tired.
They needed more time between meetings to re-group.
This allowed them to “empower” the executive committee to make decisions for the board during the off-months (e.g. dump the tough work on a smaller group of people).

I don’t need to tell you how damaging that decision was to the agency’s health, but it made sense when you look at it through a “decision fatigue” filter. It took me almost three years to get them to reverse their decision and start meeting every month again.

It is the job of the executive director to help the board avoid “decision fatigue”.

Good non-profit executive directors support the work of their board by facilitating and assisting with everything including:

developing agendas
taking meeting notes
recruiting new board volunteers
supporting committee work
helping board volunteers process tough issues and position them for making tough decisions in the boardroom
supporting all of the planning work that occurs ranging from strategic planning to special events
And much, much more!

So, I titled this blog post the way I did because of the Vanity Fair article that John cited in his blog post. In that Vanity Fair interview with President Obama, they explain why the President is almost always seen in blue or grey suits. Of course, it has everything to do with decision fatigue, and this got me giggling about non-profit board volunteers as I envisioned a boardroom full of volunteers wearing the exact same thing.

Hmmmm . . . perhaps board tee-shirts might not be a bad idea. 😉

Is your board tired? Have you given any thought to why? What role have you played in their fatigue? What could you be doing differently? Here’s a thought . . . if this is something with which you’re struggling, use the comment box below to ask a few questions of your fellow non-profit peers and see what they have to say. Or if you have a great success story, please feel free to share that as well.

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

Non-profit inside-the-box thinking: Sell-Sell-Sell ! ! !

September 20, 2012 erik Board development, Fundraising, organizational development

As promised in last Friday’s post, I dedicated Tuesday, yesterday and today to challenging proponents of “outside-the-box thinking” and examining various “inside-the-box thinking” principles. This week’s posts were determined by DonorDreams blog subscribers who took the time to voice their opinions via a poll last Friday. Thank you to those of you who voted. Additionally, the foundation of these posts are rooted in Kirk Cheyfitz’s book “Thinking Insider The Box: The 12 Timeless Rules for Managing a Successful Business.”

DonorDreams blog subscribers voted to hear more about chapter six of Cheyfitz’s book, which is titled “The Marketing Box: Unifying the Whole Business”.

I love how the author starts each chapter with a short sentence that serves as “food for thought”. The following is how chapter six started:

“You should be selling all the time.”

This is a complex chapter and a little mind-bending because the author contends that the average person’s idea about marketing is all wrong. Most people equate marketing with advertising, when in reality it is much bigger. He says in the book:

“Economists, academics, and marketing professionals have come to see marketing this way — as the single discipline that embraces and unites virtually every aspect of business activity. Marketing: Guides production . . . Governs distribution . . . Controls advertising, promotion and all marketing communications . . . Peter Drucker has written that business’s only purpose is “to create a customer,” and because of that, “marketing and innovation” are the two basic functions of business”.

Well . . . WOW! In a nutshell, Cheyfitz is saying:

Marketing is everything and

successful businesses do it all the time!

As I said in yesterday’s post, this concept is a little difficult to apply to non-profit corporations because the word “customer” usually conjures up images of clients and donors (or both) depending on which chair you sit in. Unlike yesterday, I won’t limit today’s blog to just talking about donors. I will attempt to GO GLOBAL.

I could probably write pages and pages on this topic because there is a lot of ground to cover. Instead, I will start a laundry list of examples and hand-off the baton to you so you can continue it in the comment section.

The following are just a few examples of marketing (and you will see how it unifies everything we do):

How your program staff talks to and treats clients is marketing because it shapes the perceptions of your brand in the community among volunteers, donors, potential staff, prospective donors and future board members.
The decision to create a new program and write a big grant to get it off the ground is marketing. You are sending messages to people around you about what is important and what is a priority. These messages get picked up by volunteers, staff, clients, and donors. They in turn amplify these messages throughout the community. These actions and messages will even impact the long-term sustainability of your new program depending on donor perceptions.
Sticking with the creation of new programming from the last bullet point . . . talking with clients and prospective clients before making the decision to offer that new service is marketing. If your new program doesn’t fill a community need and your actual or potential clients, then it is your initiative will likely failure (which will likely have a ripple effect among donors, etc).
How and what the executive director says to or does with their staff is marketing. When they tell co-workers that the agency has challenges, it impacts staff turnover and in turn affects program quality and how the donor community’s perceptions of their investments.
Talking to volunteers and donors before developing another special event fundraiser is marketing. You need to determine if people will support this new idea before investing time and money into developing it.
What an executive director includes in the board packet and says in the boardroom is marketing. All of those messages get amplified by your community ambassadors (aka board volunteers) on the street when they’re networking.

Cheyfitz tells us that marketing happens pre-production, during production, and definitely after production. In non-profit terms, it happens before the donor writes the check, during the solicitation process, and in-between gifts for the duration of your relationship with that donor. More specifically, marketing happens during every waking moment of a non-profit professional’s life in their dealing with staff, volunteers, clients, board members, donors, and the community-at-large.

At the end of this chapter, Cheyfitz offers six different tips on how to build your organization’s box rather as opposed to thinking outside of it. I won’t ruin the surprise (because you should buy this book and read it), but I will share two of his tips to whet your appetite:

Marketing (in other words everything you do) must unify every aspect of a business around one purpose: creating a customer.
Every time a company touches a customer, there is an opportunity to win or lose that customer. These opportunities must be maximized, not avoided.

How does your organization see and approach “marketing”? Are you trying to thread the idea of marketing throughout everything you do? If so, can you share a few examples? How do you prepare others (e.g. staff, board members, etc) to communicate and demonstrate what your agency is all about? Please share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit inside-the-box thinking: Donors are the boss

September 19, 2012 erik Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

As promised in last Friday’s post, I am dedicating yesterday, today and tomorrow to challenging proponents of “outside-the-box thinking” and examining various “inside-the-box thinking” principles. This week’s posts were determined by DonorDreams blog subscribers who took the time to voice their opinions via a poll last Friday. Thank you to those of you who voted. Additionally, the foundation of these posts are rooted in Kirk Cheyfitz’s book “Thinking Insider The Box: The 12 Timeless Rules for Managing a Successful Business.”

DonorDreams blog subscribers voted to hear more about chapter five of Cheyfitz’s book, which is titled “The Box Top: Customers Are The Boss”.

I love how the author starts each chapter with a short sentence that serves as “food for thought”. The following is how chapter one was started:

“Give customers what they want, not what you want to give them.”

Most of this chapter talks about how the “customer experience” has been the foundation of our economy for centuries and is easily traced back to the Middle Ages. Cheyfitz does a great job telling readers about customer-centric lessons we can all take to heart that were developed by the silk merchants in the 1300s, the town butchers in the 1700s, and the department store barons like Sears and Wards in the 1900s. It was eye-opening to see how the author took seemingly “modern” business practices (e.g. using CRM to segment customers into niches, using customer loyalty programs to reduce turnover, etc) and trace them back to pre-Magna Carta days.

As I attempt to make heads-or-tails out of this chapter for non-profits, it strikes me that non-profits have a more difficult challenge than their for-profit cousins when it comes to focusing on customers and thinking inside-the-box.

Why? Because when a non-profit reads the word “customer,” two different images are conjured up . . . “donor” and “client”. I believe that successful non-profit leaders are able to balance these interests and develop customer-focused approaches for both audiences. However, for the balance of this blog post, I am just going to focus on the donor side of this equation.

For those of you who routinely read DonorDreams blog, it won’t be surprising to learn that everything Cheyfitz talks about in chapter five aligns perfectly with what Penelope Burk espouses in her book “Donor Centered Fundraising“. You can see this is clearly the case from the following language on page 74:

“Simply put: Find out what customers really want, then give it to them. Make sure they have plenty of choices — in what they buy, where they buy, how they buy, and how they pay for it all. And address them personally, talk to them honestly, and treat them well every step of the way.“

The bigger question for me is: “How many non-profit organizations are really doing this?”

We work hard to convince donors to give us unrestricted gifts rather than funding a specific program.
We write funding proposals aimed at telling donors what we need.
We solicit donors using tactics that fit our needs and match our resources rather than how the donor feels most comfortable being solicited.
We fire off a database generated thank you letter and skimp on the transparency when it comes to showing donors exactly what their contribution paid for and what good it helped do.

As I think back to some of the most successful donor relationships that I’ve personally built, it really goes back to personal interaction, building a relationship into a friendship, understanding what the donor really wanted to get out of the relationship, and treating them like I treat members of my family.

So, how can non-profit organizations get back to the customer service principles used by the small town butcher or general store owner? How do we build our box and think inside of it rather than trying to “think outside-the-box”?

At the end of this chapter, Cheyfitz offers six different tips on how to build this box. I won’t ruin the surprise (because you should buy this book and read it), but I will share two of his tips to whet your appetite:

Never assume you know the reason a customer does anything. Always ask. Always listen. Always use the resulting information.
When creating a customer relationship plan, ask . . .

Who needs to be talked to and courted?
What different groups do they fall into?
What outcomes are desired?
What messages will be delivered?
How will success be measured?

Not only will these tips help you craft an awesome stewardship plan for your donors, but they are the basis for almost any plan you will ever write for you organization (e.g. strategic plan, marketing plan, business plan, board development plan, etc).

It is easy to conclude after reading this chapter that if you’re not personally sitting down with at least one donor every day, then you’re not living “inside-the-box” and your organization is not donor-centered.

How do you meet your donors’ needs? How do you know what those needs are? How do you successfully align donors needs with your clients’ needs? What are you doing to keep this “inside-the-box” principle in front of you every single day? Please use the comment box below to share answers to these questions or any other thoughts that this post may have inspired.

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit “inside the box thinking” — Understanding change

September 18, 2012 erik Fundraising

As promised in last Friday’s post, I am dedicating today, tomorrow and Thursday to challenging proponents of “outside-the-box thinking” and examining various “inside-the-box thinking” principles. This week’s posts were determined by DonorDreams blog subscribers who took the time to voice their opinions via a poll last Friday. Thank you to those of you who voted. Additionally, the foundation of these posts are rooted in Kirk Cheyfitz’s book “Thinking Insider The Box: The 12 Timeless Rules for Managing a Successful Business.”

DonorDreams blog subscribers voted to hear more about chapter one of Cheyfitz’s book, which is titled “The Basic Box: Some Things Never Change”.

I love how the author starts each chapter with a short sentence that serves as “food for thought”. The following is how chapter one was started:

“Know the difference between what will change and what won’t, and pay attention to the former.”

Most of this chapter talks about how some economists and many pundits are flat wrong about what they see as a “new economy”. He points to the dot-com bust of 2001 and talks about how ignoring human behavior and the basic principles of capitalism will get you and your company in trouble all of the time.

This chapter got me thinking about Gail Perry’s recent post titled “Post Recession Donors Have Changed” over at her Fired Up Fundraising blog.

After reading Perry’s post about donors, I realized the following:

There will always be donors regardless of how good, bad or sluggish the economy is. This will never change.
The mindset of those donors and conditions upon which they will donate is always evolving. This is constantly changing.

Cheyfitz’s encourages us to pay attention to “what will change” because not focusing on the ever-changing landscape is what puts too many companies (both for-profit and non-profit) out-of-business.

Gail Perry tells us in her blog that post-recession donors . . .

trust non-profit agencies less than they used to,
crave more information about ROI,
want to see more transparency, and
want to contribute to fewer unrestricted fundraising campaigns.

Read Gail’s blog for a few great tips on how to use “inside-the-box thinking” to address these perceived trends in the donor community.

There are also many other interesting trends occurring in the donor community:

technology’s impact on giving,
technology’s impact of cultivation and stewardship activities, and
donor communications moving from one-way to two-way communications.

Cheyfitz urges us to not focus on “the shiny object” (in this case it would be technology) and throw what works out the window for what we don’t understand (e.g. ePhilanthropy). However, he does not tell us to ignore the changes that are starting to happen. Instead, he point to the words that are chiseled above the entrance of the National Archives in Washington, D.C.:

“The past is prologue”

He ends the chapter by saying, “Paying attention to history, in short, can save a lot of time and pain and produce a lot of gain.”

The non-profit sector has seen this kind of change in communication technology before, right? I am thinking about the rise of “direct mail” and how that changed how we cultivate, solicit, and steward donors today.

I suspect that non-profits, who tossed their special events and peer-to-peer annual campaigns onto the trash heap and invested everything they had into direct mail, probably went out of business. Those who survived kept their eyes on the trend, engaged their donors in thoughtful discussions about their preferences with direct mail, and proceeded forward with caution and strategic focus.

Again . . . outside-the box thinking will sink you, and inside-the-box thinking will keep you afloat.

At the end of every chapter, Cheyfitz provides a few tips on how to “build your box” so that you can think inside of it. He offered four tips at the end of chapter one, but the last tip struck me as very appropriate for non-profit organizations during these challenging and changing times (read the word “customer” as “donor” to help with the non-profit translation):

“Use your time to focus on how your customers’ lives are changing and how you can serve their emerging needs with new products and services (delivered using the same old business models).”

Are your donors behaving different after the economic crash of 2008? What is your donor data telling showing? What are donors telling you? What kinds of “inside-the-box” best practices are you employing to thrive in this new economic climate? Please scroll down and use the comment box to share a thought or two with your fellow non-profit professionals this morning.

Here’s to your health!

How Podcasts Can Spice Up a Nonprofit’s Social Media Plan

September 17, 2012 erik Mondays with Marissa, technology

Named after the mp3 player that changed the world – the iPod – podcasts have become a big business when it comes to social media. In fact, there are entire networks dedicated to producing audio and video content for people to enjoy.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with this media format, a podcast defined as: A multimedia digital file made available on the Internet for downloading to a portable media player, computer, etc.

How can podcasts fit into your agencies social media plan? Let’s take a look.

Why Podcasts
What makes podcasting attractive to a person visiting your site is that it is a different type of media to consume. Blogs and photos are good, but sometimes more can be said through and audio interview or short video. People like variety and providing podcasts, gives a website visitor an opportunity to choose how they will receive their information. Furthermore, by consistently publishing podcasts, you can build an audience that follows your organization on a regular basis as opposed to just checking in from time to time.

What to Podcast
Really the topics for podcasts are pretty endless; but choosing the right ones will allow you to use the features of the format in the best way possible. Here are a few ideas of what you can podcast about:

Interviewing Board Members – let people know who they are and why they are involved in your organization
Special Event Planning – in the weeks before an event, showing people the progress that is being made can help hype up the event
Discuss Issues Surrounding Your Mission – remind people why your mission is so important. Discuss things that are happening in the news that impact your progress in fulfilling it.
Volunteer Spotlight – interview a select volunteer, highlight their work and show people why volunteering for your organization is worthwhile.

The nice thing about producing podcasts is that there is no standard length requirement. Your podcast can be anywhere from five minutes to more than two hours in length. This can allow you to have a focused podcasts on just one subject or include a variety of topics.

How to Podcast
Well the good news is, you don’t really need much to get started. As your content grows, you may need more sophisticated equipment, but to get things going you really just need a computer and a microphone. There is free software called audacity that

will record and edit audio recordings. If you are looking to get into video podcasting, you will need a video camera that shoots in high definition and video editing software. Most computers come with a program already included such as Windows Movie Maker or iMovie.

For a more detailed look at how to get started, check out this Digital Trends article.

Sharing Your Podcast
One of the easiest ways to get your podcast seen or heard by the masses is to publish it on iTunes. Lots of people use iTunes as their media manager and it makes finding podcasts easy. Also, by publishing to iTunes, you can use their RSS feed and post it on your website so that people can see the latest episodes there as well. If you decide to make video podcasts, I suggest publishing episodes to your YouTube channel as well.

Podcasts are a different form of media and will take time to develop. However, if you have the resources to create one, it is a great way to offer different content to your organization’s audience. By providing yet another way for people to be informed about what is going on in your agency, you can gain exposure to a whole new group of people.

Has your organization tried podcasting before? Have any tips and tricks to share? Let us know in the comments below!

Uh oh . . . you’re thinking outside-the-box again

September 14, 2012 erik Fundraising, leadership, organizational development, Planning

Today, I am not really “focusing” on John’s recent post about inside-the-box thinking, outside-the-box thinking, and just plain old reconstruction of your box thinking. Instead, I’m using his post as a springboard to set-up deeper discussions next Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday on specific “inside-the-box thinking” topics pertaining to the non-profit community.

When I was a young executive director a decade ago, I decided a few years into my tenure that I probably didn’t know everything there was to know about running a non-profit organization and a business. So, I committed myself to becoming a lifelong learner about such things. I started reading various manuals that our national organization published. I used Google to search for online articles. I especially loved going to Borders book stores on weekends and purchasing business books.

When John talked about the importance of organizational leadership and building new boxes where employees can be productive again, it reminded me of a book I once read and still sits on my bookshelf. The author is Kirk Cheyfitz, and the book is titled “Thinking Inside The Box: The 12 Timeless Rules for Managing a Successful Business“.

After reading a sentence or two from that short promotional passage on the inside cover, purchasing the book was a forgone conclusion. It was these words that hooked me and succinctly captures the essence of the book:

“For the past decade and more, everyone in business was told that success in a rapidly changing world required constant “thinking outside the box.” The result has often been financially and ethically disastrous. Now, in a radical reassessment of what really works, this book shows that the business world lost its way when it forgot how to think inside the box.”

Hmmmm? Re-reading those same words today now makes me think about Wall Street, mortgage-backed securities, derivatives, and the economic crash of 2008. However, I will resist the temptation of going down that rabbit hole this morning.

There are many things that stick with me 10 years after reading this book. One of the biggest things is what goes through my mind every time I hear a non-profit executive director say those magical words:

“Thinking outside-the-box”

I don’t conjure up images of “innovation” or “leadership” like many other people apparently do. The first thing that runs through my head is “uh-oh, they’re in trouble”. For me, the phrase “thinking outside-the-box” represents all of the following:

magical thinking
hope (which is not a strategy)
abandonment of best practices

I believe there are some “business practices” that are timeless and always work regardless of which sector you’re working and in what boxes you find yourself. Abandoning those practices in the name of “outside-the-box thinking” is what gets you in trouble.

For example, the following are just a few of the chapter titles you will find in the book:

The Money Box: Cash Is Everything . . . If you don’t manage your cash, you won’t be managing anything for long.
The Box Top: Customers Are the Boss . . . Give customers what they want, not what you want to give them.
The Basic Box: Some Things Never Change . . . Know the difference between what will change and what won’t, and pay attention to the former.
The Marketing Box: Unifying the Whole Business . . . You should be selling all the time.
The People Box: Hire Smart or Manage Hard . . . When it comes to people, you can hire smart and get out of the way, or you can run yourself ragged micromanaging.

There are many more chapters with equally thought-provoking business practices. Every new non-profit executive director should read this book.

Next week I will choose three chapters and go in-depth on those subjects in a way that speaks to the challenges non-profit leaders face every day. I also will pull stories from my non-profit experiences to illustrate those points and have a little fund along the way.

Using the poll below, please vote for three ideas that interest you the most. If you’re a subscriber and reading this as an email, you may not be able to vote (you never know … please try). If you find that you can’t vote from the email copy of this post, please click the hyperlink blog post title, which will take you to my WordPress blog site and cast your vote there. I am genuinely interested in your opinion and need help shaping next week’s content. Please?

[polldaddy poll=6533936]

For the love of God, it is 2012 and it is a Presidential Election year. Please vote!

Have you ever done something that you and others considered “outside-the-box”? If so, what was it? Did it work? How do you know it worked? Would you have been better off building a different box per John Greco’s suggestion? Please weigh-in with your thoughts using the comment box below (and please take 5 seconds to cast your votes).

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit lessons from the Middle East

September 13, 2012 erik Fundraising, technology

On Tuesday, I joined the Fox West Philanthropic Network and attended my first meeting in Geneva, Illinois. The program that day focused on social media and the value it brings to non-profit organizations as a marketing tool. While no one openly expressed doubts about the premise of the presentation, I could almost hear some of the more “old school fundraising professionals” questioning the effectiveness of “this social media thing“.

On Wednesday morning, I learned (via Twitter) that the United States’ embassies in Egypt and Libya were under siege and American foreign service employees had been killed. This morning protests and violence seem to be spreading. After a quick Google search, I learned from a Washington Post article that the embassy in Yemen had been breached, and protests are now occurring in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Where is this all coming from? Why are so many people angry? According to the Washington Post:

“The spreading violence comes as outrage grows over a movie called “Innocence of Muslims” that mocked Islam’s Prophet Muhammad. The amateurish video was produced in the U.S. and excerpted on YouTube.”

You read that right . . . a crappy little YouTube video produced in California provoked action (aka mass violence and death) half way around the world.

For those of you who still think that this “social media thing” is a passing fad and holds little to no value for non-profit organization, I direct your attention to the Middle East and ask that you please re-think your position on these very powerful communication tools.

I believe there are a number of lessons to be learned and conclusions to be drawn about social media from recent events emanating from the other side of the planet. The following are just a few revelations I’ve recently had:

Facebook and Twitter were used as powerful tools of revolution that fueled the “Arab Spring”. If these tools can fuel a revolution and overthrow powerful dictators, then these tools can be useful to non-profit organizations who wish to communicate with clients, supporters, volunteers, staff and donors.
YouTube is especially powerful because it visual in nature. If one YouTube video can cause this much action half way around the world, then your agency can figure out how to introduce people to your mission and engage them in doing good.
These new communication technologies are powerful and shouldn’t be misused because the consequences can be huge and unforeseeable. If you don’t know about The Butterfly Effect, then I suggest you read up on it before developing any social media strategy.
Oh yeah . . . you probably should steer clear of anything to do with the Prophet Muhammad when it comes to your social media strategy.

Developing your organization’s social media strategy will not be easy. What works for the agency down the street from you, won’t necessarily work for you. I encourage you be brave and commit to experimenting. Those things that don’t feel right or don’t work . . . don’t do them again. Don’t be reckless (please see observation #4 above), but commit yourself to learning and be prepared to celebrate failure.

The following YouTube video washed into my email inbox just a few weeks ago from a small non-profit agency in Wheaton, Illinois called Senior Home Sharing:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Q-de0t_-nM&feature=youtu.be]

There are a lot of things I would’ve done differently, but you have to applaud this organization for what they are trying to accomplish and message to potential clients, supporters, and donors.

The following are a few resources you may want to investigate if recent Middle East events have changed your mind about your non-profit organization’s approach to social media:

Connection Cafe: “10 Tips to Jumpstart Your Nonprofit Social Media Plan“
idealware: “The Nonprofit Social Media Policy Workbook“
YouTube: YouTube Nonprofit Program

Good luck, and you may want to go back an re-read my list of observations and keep in the back of your mind my fourth observation as you proceed.

How does your agency use YouTube? Has it been effective? How do you know? Do you have a written social media plan? Policies? Are you willing to share those things with other non-profit professionals? Please scroll down to the comment box and take a moment to share your thoughts, experiences, and answers to one or more of these questions. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit board work that moves the needle

September 12, 2012 erik Board development, leadership, organizational 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.

I’ve given a lot of thought lately to how the work of the Board gets done. Mostly, it’s by decisions made in meetings and in-between meetings. Board members go to a lot of meetings, committee meetings, board meetings, and meetings with the executive director. Additionally, there’s work to do between meetings, and it all leaves me wondering: Where’s the strategy? Where’s the generative thinking? Where’s the advocacy? Where’s the impact? How do we know?

Boards approve things, they review things, they talk about things, but . . .

Are they the right things?

Boards have to have a quorum. approve financials and meeting minutes, and a whole host of other things. Hopefully, Board members also represent the agency in the community, understand and talk about programs, support and evaluate the executive director, raise money, and give money. These are their fiduciary responsibilities. But surely, this isn’t all we have our Board members doing. They are the pillars of our community. They are smart, professional and talented people, but . . .

Are we correctly utilizing their collective brain power?

Have they decided upon a strategic direction? Have they discussed the underlying causes that created the issue the organization originally was created to address? I am hearing a resounding chorus of NO!

All too often, there is no plan, strategic or even tactical. There are no metrics. There is no discussion of root causes, alternative options or new ideas. There are talented people sitting in a room because they care about the mission of the agency –- and in certain, but by no means all cases — we are wasting their time. And as such we are wasting our resources.

Strategic planning has fallen out of favor. It kills me to say it, but it’s true. Most Board members have sat through at least one planning session, often more, that were long and boring; yet they sat there in an effort to decide the mission and direction of an agency. And as a prize for their dedication, they got to spend two hours debating if they were going to use the word “a” or “the” in the mission statement. Then, when they were – thankfully – finished after days or months and considerable expense, the plan sat on a shelf, collecting dust, never to be seen again.

It doesn’t have to be like that.

In the article, “Governance as Leadership; An Interview with Richard Chait,” Chait discusses his book “Governance as Leadership” (BoardSource) which “recommends reframing board work around “three modes” of governing. The first is the fiduciary mode, in which the board exercises its legal responsibilities of oversight and stewardship. The second is the strategic mode, in which the board makes major decisions about resources, programs and services. The third is the “generative” mode, in which the board engages in deeper inquiry, exploring root causes, values, optional courses and new ideas.”

You may be wondering how to add generative and strategic to your meetings.

“Strategy” is all about connecting the resources to the goals, which, of course, requires having strategic goals. If you don’t, I encourage you to read my previous blog about wheel spinning and begin to discuss planning.

“Generative” is a much deeper conversation about the underlying issues and how to impact them. Chait presents governance discussions as ones that “select and frame the problem.” In other words, we’re no longer talking about impact or program outcomes or even the agency itself, we’re talking about how we — our city, community, country or even world –- got here and what it takes to get out of here.

Chait explains it best when he says,

“Committees need to think not about decisions or reports as their work product, but to think of understanding, insight and illumination as their work products.”

In order to use the collective brain power of our Boards to move our agencies forward, we have to move into strategic and generative governance, while still meeting our fiduciary obligations. The board president and the executive director can, should, and I would submit, have the obligation to use the collective brain power of their board to move the needle. It’s why we’re here. In the absence of that, we approve things, we attend meetings and we go through the motions, but nothing happens.

I want something to happen . . . I want the world to change.

What’s been your experience? How have you utilized the talent on your Board to move the needle? I welcome your comments.

Is your fundraising program failing? Good!

September 11, 2012 erik Fundraising

I opened an email from a dear, old friend this morning. His name is Jim Chambers. We’ve known each other for 20-years and worked together at two different non-profit organizations. The email was titled “Something for you.” The message was equally simple and said, “Hope you are well. I thought you may like this video.”

Needless to say, I couldn’t resist clicking on the YouTube link at 7:00 am this morning.

At the other end of that link, I saw this title:

Innovation Keynote Speaker Jeremy Gutsche –
30 Minute Speech

I then realized that the YouTube video was 28:49 minutes in length. OMG!!!!!! It is 7:00 am in the morning. Are you kidding, Jim?

However, I knew in my heart that Jim knows me better than most people, and there must be a reason he sent me this video. So, I grabbed a cup of coffee and clicked on the link.

I’m glad I trusted Jim this morning because 28:49 minutes later I have more non-profit thoughts running through my head than I’ve had in a long time. So, I thought I’d take the next few minutes to dump those thoughts out into a bullet point list for your enjoyment and see if it sparks and discussion. Enjoy . . .

In times of tremendous economic crisis, chaos and upheaval, history has shown us that opportunity is abundant if you just open your eyes and look for it. What is your non-profit organization doing to take advantage of the chaos? Are you re-inventing your resource development plan? Are you approaching and engaging donors differently? Are you broadening your message or changing your services?
Companies that succeed and get stronger during crisis do a lot of experimenting. With this comes a lot of failure, which is what inspired today’s blog headline. What are you doing different? What are you failing at? Does your organization embrace failure and celebrate it with regards to your fundraising efforts?
We’re all focused on emotionally connecting with the customer, and fundraising professionals pursue this same connection with donors. However, there is something much more powerful — a “cultural connection“. Does your fundraising program make this distinction and even try to make this connection? I suspect that the fundraising thought-leader who figures this one out will de-throne Penelope Burk and her “Donor-Centered Fundraising” philosophies as the hottest new thing.
Does your fundraising case for support connect with donors or is something just connects with you and your volunteers? The speaker says that messages that connect with people travel faster than your competitors messaging. Are people buzzing about your agency? Is your fundraising message being talked about around the water cooler? Are people echoing your mission and fundraising messaging on social media?
When your mission and vision as well as your fundraising activities are just “average,” then that is all it will ever be. What are you doing that is fun, exceptional, and buzz-worthy. How are you communicating that? How do you get your clients, volunteers, and donors excited about anything?
Can you define in “7 words or less” what you do? Are you “obsessed” with your story? Is it simple? Is it direct? Is it supercharged?

I am willing to bet that I could go back to that 28:49 minute video, watch it again, and wring another six bullet points out of it, but there has to be at least one thing I shared with you or questions that I posed that has you scratching your head this morning. If that is the case, then please scroll down to the comment box and share your question, answer, or interesting thought.

If you have a little bit of time today, I really urge you to watch Jeremy Gutsche’s video about innovation. It is really awesome and thought-provoking. Here it is:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4gAkM72ah4&feature=player_embedded]

Here’s to your health!

Innovation Keynote Speaker Jeremy Gutsche – 30 Minute Speech

Innovation Keynote Speaker Jeremy Gutsche –
30 Minute Speech