Planning – Page 9 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Can’t change your non-profit ways? That’s just BS!

June 1, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, leadership, organizational development, Planning

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, we’re focusing on a post that John titled “The Cow Path“. In that post, he talks about cow paths that started hundreds of years ago and somehow have turned into urban roads we drive on today. Of course, there is a classic organizational development point of view at the middle of John’s post. In a nutshell, his point is threefold:

It is relatively easy for organizations to start new initiatives.
It is very, very easy for organizations to continue doing what they’ve always done.
It is downright difficult to stop doing things your organization (e.g. staff, board members, volunteers, and donors) have become accustom to doing.

If you haven’t done so already, please make sure that you take a moment to click over to John’s post because he does a very nice job of illustrating this point. Heck, he even uses a poem from Samuel Walter Foss in his post to drive home this point.

When I read “The Cow Path,” I had to chuckle because it describes so many small non-profit organizations that understand the need to change their resource development approach but don’t understand the threefold organizational development principle laid about in John’s blog post.

Let’s look at an example of a typical non-profit organization that I’ve worked with since the economic crash of 2008:

Start a resource development or annual campaign planning process (aka start a new initiative)? Responses range from a hesitant maybe to a lukewarm yes.
Stop pursuing more and more government money? Responses range from polite resistance to outright defiance.
Stop running so many special events (and stop trying to add “just one more event)? Responses range from polite resistance to outright defiance.
Stop recruiting board members who don’t want to fundraise and who don’t have any skills and experiences with fundraising? Responses range from polite resistance to outright defiance.
Continue writing grants, chasing government funding, running special events, and recruiting warm bodies to sit in the boardroom? You betcha! Full steam ahead.

Why is status quo normally the victor in 70% of change initiatives? Because “we’ve always done it that way” is the enemy of “OMG, there is an iceberg ahead and we need to change course immediately“.

In John’s post, he talks about an exercise he uses called “Stop-Start-Continue”. I’ve been through a similar exercise facilitate by Noel Tichy called “Rattlesnakes and Pythons”. Click here “to read a short description of it in Tichy’s book titled “The Cycle of Leadership”.

Unfortunately, my experience with “Rattlesnakes and Pythons” was similar to John’s findings with “Stop-Start-Continue”. Even when things were identified as needing to be eliminated or squeezed out, there was great resistance to it and sometimes it didn’t happen.

In the end, John is right. As always! There is only one person to blame when change is allegedly out of reach, and we continue doing the same thing over and over again with an anticipated different result.

What a load of BS! Grab that bull by the horns and make some change happen.

If you took 15 seconds and wrote down a few things that you know need to be eliminated from your non-profit organization’s modus operandi, what would be on your list? What process have you used in the past to identify things that need to change at your agency? How effective where you at eliminating those things? Please use the comment box to share your answers.

Here’s to your health!

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
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Cultivation and stewardship: Who’s on first? What’s on second?

May 30, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, Planning

Yesterday’s post titled “Time in the office versus time with donors” begged more questions than it answered. Today, we’re going to zoom in on one of those questions and examine it more closely.

Should the executive director be more responsible for relationship building than the development director?

I have always advocated that, regardless of how hard they try, a non-profit executive director cannot abdicate their role as their agency’s chief development officer. Even when an organization is lucky enough to have a fully staffed development department with talented fundraising professionals, the executive directors is ultimately the person who needs to provide vision and direction.

I think Harry Truman said it best when he said, “The buck stops here!”

Of course, this doesn’t mean that the executive director needs to be the person out on the street cultivating and stewarding relationships with every prospect and donor.

To answer the question posed at the beginning of this post, I believe it is as simple as taking an inventory of who does what well. While I firmly believe that prospects and donors prefer meeting the executive director and developing a relationship with him/her, there may be situations where the executive director doesn’t possess the requisite relationship building skills to cultivate and steward people to the extent necessary for a successful fundraising program. If this is the case, then the answer becomes simple . . . whoever is the natural “people-person” takes on the lion’s share of cultivation and stewardship.

It really can be that simple. Right?

How do you know if someone is a natural relationship builder? Here are a few things I lused to ook for when I interviewed fundraising professionals:

If their network is big, then there is a good likelihood that they are good at building relationships.
Do they keep in contact with their network? If so, then they are most likely someone who intuitively knows how to maintain relationships.
Have they ever “taken advantage of” someone and violated their trust? Trust is a foundational issue in building relationships, and it is something good fundraising professionals know how to navigate.
I always like to learn more about what is being talked about between a relationship builder and the person with whom they are trying to build a relationship. Why? Because good relationship builders are inquisitive and take an interest in the prospect or donor.

Again . . . while I personally prefer that the executive director takes on this role, it doesn’t always work that way and the fundraising professional might need to become the primary cultivation and stewardship person for the agency. It might also become something where certain board volunteers need to help step-in and help. Regardless, the executive director cannot abdicate this role completely and must find places where they are comfortable meeting prospects and donors.

In these circumstances, it is important to clarify roles and responsibilities and the executive director needs to take the initiative in doing this. Off the top of my head, the following are a few tools that can and should be used to achieve clarity:

written annual performance plan
weekly contact reports
written comprehensive resource development plan
weekly in-person checkpoint meetings
written cultivation & stewardship plan
Moves Management program

Doing an inventory of skill sets and assigning and managing roles and responsibilities for cultivation and stewardship activities will keep your agency from sounding like Abbott and Costello in their famous Who’s on First? comedy sketch. It will also likely help you answer the difficult question posed in yesterday’s blog post about how much time needs to be spent outside of the office compared to behind your desk.

Who is the person primarily responsible for cultivating prospects in your agency? Who stewards your donors? What tools and strategies are used to maintain clarity? Please scroll down and share your thoughts in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health!

Class of 2012 should inspire all non-profit professionals: Part 3 of 3

May 24, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, leadership, organizational development, Planning

On Tuesday, we started a three-part series about educational opportunities for non-profit professionals. The first post looked closely at North Park University and their Master of Nonprofit Administration program (M.N.A.). The second post in the series investigated the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University and everything they offer. Today, we’re zooming out and taking a wider view.

Lots of institutions

I invested the first two days of this blog series talking about two non-profit studies programs I think are really excellent. However, there are many different options available to those of you wishing to secure a certificate or degree in something related to the non-profit sector. The following is just a short list of other centers and institutes found in the United States:

Institute for Nonprofit Education and Research at University of San Diego
Center for Civil Society at University of California, Los Angeles
Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at The City University of New York
Center on Philanthropy and Public Policy at University of Southern California
Helen Bader Institute for Nonprofit Management at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Institute for Human Services & Public Policy at Louisiana State University in Shreveport
Institute for Nonprofit Organization Management at University of San Francisco
Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins University
Lodestar Center for Philanthropy & Nonprofit Innovation at Arizona State University
Nancy Bell Evans Center on Nonprofits & Philanthropy at University of New York

Don’t make a rash choice. Follow the advice that you received from your high school guidance counselor: “Do your homework and thoroughly investigate these programs to find the right fit for you.”

Lots of options

I like to joke with friends and colleagues that I went to the non-profit school of hard knocks to get my degree, but I’m really just being a joker when I say things like that. In reality, I attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and received both my BA of Urban Planning and Masters of Urban Planning.

Now some of you are probably wondering what urban planning has anything to do with the non-profit sector. I think Shannon Bond does a great job answering this question in her about.com article titled “A Guide to Nonprofit-Focused Graduate Degree Programs” when she said:

“Is there a program out there for you? You may be surprised at the variety of nonprofit-focused degree programs that exist. Here are descriptions of a few . . . MUP: A Masters of Urban Planning degree focuses on city revitalization, empowerment of impoverished areas, and environmental concerns. Graduates typically secure jobs in such organizations as the UN, USAID, the World Bank, local and state housing agencies and nonprofit organizations that assist the homeless.”

Shannon highlights a number of other graduate degree options including: Masters of Business Administration, Masters of Public Administration, Masters of Public Policy, and a Masters of Social Work. I encourage those of you who are seeking non-profit degrees and certifications to look at all of your options. Click here and start with Shannon’s article.

Of course, going to school nowadays has gotten really expensive. If you can’t afford to enroll in an institution of higher learning, I suggest looking more closely at some of the certificate programs that we talked about in the first and second parts of this blog series.

If neither a certicate or degree are in your future, you can always do it the old fashion way and get some “on the job experience”. The non-profit sector is always looking for good men and women regardless of their level of education.

Did you graduate from a higher education institution with a non-profit related degree? If so, please share more about your alma mater. If not, please share a non-profit experience from your past that you can honestly say helped shape who you are today. We can learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

How can apps help you and your non-profit get more things done?

May 21, 2012 DonorDreams Mondays with Marissa, Planning, technology

In many of my Mondays with Marissa posts, I tend to focus on how non-profits can use social media to spread the word about their mission to build a community of volunteers and donors. This week, I’m looking at how some handy applications can help you better organize your day so that you might have more time to build an awesome website or make the best Facebook page ever.

Evernote

I remember when Evernote first came out. It blew my mind. The basic idea behind Evernote is that it wants to be your external brain. It is a place to put notes, photos, lists, documents, anything. Anything you put in Evernote can be accessed from anywhere through a variety of applications for the desktop, web and smartphone. All of these notes can be organized into various notebooks that can be public, private or shared with co-workers.

What makes Evernote really remarkable is the fact that it can search text in photographs. So, for example, say you were in a special event planning meeting where your team used a whiteboard to capture ideas. Everything was laid out on the whiteboard, but there wasn’t enough time to capture all of those ideas into an email to be shared with everyone later. You could just take photo of the board and put it in one of Evernote’s collaborative notebooks. Later you could use the search function to look for the words “special event,” and if it was in the white board photo, it would show up in your search results.

Evernote is free to use, but for just $5/month or $45/year you can get more storage and more functionality. I could go on and on about the cool things you could do with Evernote, but you should just check out their website for more information.

Google Apps

Google has really tried hard to replace office standards such as Outlook, Word and Excel. I think they have done a pretty good job. With Google Docs, teams can work together on a document in real-time and not have to email large files back and forth. Google Calendar is a robust replacement for the calendar in Outlook. Additionally, if you use Gmail plug-ins, you can easily customize your email to your liking.

Google also has a tasks list built into both GMail and Google Calendar. I find this extremely helpful because I prefer to put my “To Do List” onto a calendar as opposed to just making separate lists. Once you create a task list, the window can stay minimized at the bottom of your window, which allows for convenient access at all times. If you put a due date on your task list, it will show up in a special tasks calendar next time you open Google Calendar. You can also set it up so that it emails you reminders.

Finally, GChat is something that I think many people overlook. As someone who works remotely, GChat is really convenient. It allows me to have conversations with people without having to be in the same room. Beyond the traditional text-based instant messaging conversations, GChat has a great video chat feature included. You can also make phone calls to landlines or mobile phones using GChat. Some of them might even be free!

Click here for a more comprehensive list of Google product. I suspect you will be surprised at all they are offering!

Remember the Milk

This last App is one of the oldest and fully featured to-do list applications out there. Remember the Milk makes list-making easy. You can create lists for all sorts of projects and sync them over all devices and programs. They even have an Outlook plug-in! Remember the Milk has options “up the wazoo” so if you use an organizational system like GTD you’ll find it easy to make your project lists here. What I like most about Remember the Milk is it’s simple design and usability.

Those are just a few of the numerous applications out there that help organize information, remind you to get things done, and find more time to spend on mission-related things for your non-profit organization.

Do you use any of these Apps or are there others that you prefer? Do you have a favorite? Please scroll down to the comment box and share your experiences!

One final note and commercial interruption . . . I wanted to mention that I wrote a guest article on about.com about where to get started with social media. I invite you to check it out and share it with others. Thanks!

What won’t non-profits do to excite their board volunteers?

May 17, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, leadership, organizational development, Planning, volunteers

I ran across an awesome article while “Googling around” the other day. It was titled “Nine Keys for Reinvigorating Board Leadership,” and it was written by Paul Connolly, a Senior Vice President of TCC Group. While digesting this article, my mind first turned to those executive directors who I’ve seen in the last decade that actively try to disengage their board volunteers. After mentally traveling down that road (ugh … and it is an ugly road), I got more positive in my thinking and focused on all of the crazy things I’ve witnessed in the name of “board engagement”.

The following are just a few quick things I’ve seen over the years:

Of course, many organizations have turned to the good old fashion “mission moment” as part of their board meeting agenda.
How many “board retreats” have I seen organized all in the name of “engagement”? Ugh … too many!
One organization I worked with decided that social opportunities such as “Happy Hour” should be a part of their engagement solution.
I’ve heard some boards talk about putting together a mentoring program that hooks new board members up with tenured ones.
One organization I know even rented a trolley, loaded up its board volunteers and donors, and drove it from site-to-site as part of a facilities tour strategy focused on getting key stakeholders re-engaged in mission.
Oh yeah. You can’t forget about the “big conference” strategy where the executive director takes a board member (or a few) to one of those big inspirational conferences. When everyone returns, those board members are asked to “make a presentation” back to their fellow board members about what they learned. Hopefully, sparks of excitement ignite interest and activity.

Oh, the things I’ve seen. I could go on and on and on. I doubt that there isn’t anything an executive director, who actually wants an engaged board, would do to achieve this goal. Of course, when this topic of conversation usually comes up, there is an overwhelming desire to bypass “strategy” and go right to “tactics”

When I read the article by Paul Connolly, I had a moment of clarity because he didn’t go right to tactics. He focused on the following nine strategies:

Encourage board members to tell each other what motivates them to serve.
Educate board members about the organization and their responsibilities.
Hold the board accountable for its own performance and conduct a candid board assessment.
Compel the board to continually plan for the future and focus on results.
Infuse board meetings with more meaning.
Add some new board members and graduate some existing ones.
Nurture future leadership.
Develop a synergistic board-CEO partnership.
Consider alternative models for governance.

Ohhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhh! Has your curiosity been piqued? I know mine was. If you are intrigued and want to learn more about more deeply engaging your board volunteers, then I have two suggestions:

First, I strongly urge you to read Paul Connolly’s article “Nine Keys for Reinvigorating Board Leadership“.

Second, circle back here to DonorDreams blog and engage your fellow non-profit professionals in a discussion using the comment box found below. We can all learn from each other, especially if we share examples of what we’re doing and what has worked (or not worked) for us.

So, are you one of those executive directors who focuses on deepening board engagement? If so, why? If not, then why not? What things have you done or seen others do in the name of board engagement? Did Paul Connolly’s article trigger any ideas? If so, please share.

Here’s to your health!

How Can Non-Profit Organizations Use Google Hangouts Effectively?

May 14, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, Mondays with Marissa, Planning, technology

When Google launched their social network, Google+, people were all excited because it was a real alternative to Facebook. People were even saying that Google+ might be a “Facebook Killer”.

Flash forward to today. Facebook is about to about to go live on the stock market this week and is still one of the most used and growing social media sites. Google+ is still alive and well, but mainly with an active tech focused community.

One of the reasons I think Google+ hasn’t died is because of its interactive feature — Google Hangouts. Put simply, Google Hangouts are video chats with up to 10 people. While participating in a Hangout, people can watch the same YouTube video together and discuss it live. People can share presentations using SlideShare or even share their own computer screens.

Google Hangouts can be a powerful tool for nonprofits in a number of ways.

First of all, meetings can be held from anywhere. If you only need to meet with a few people and everyone’s availability is tight, then a Google Hangout might be a perfect solution for you. As long as each person has a computer with internet access and webcam (all of which are pretty standard when it comes to computers these days), your special event planning meeting can take place within a Google Hangout. It used to be that you had to pay a lot of money to use a video conferencing services, but today all you need is a Google account.

In addition, Google Hangouts can help build a sense of community with staff. If you work at an agency where people work from home or different locations, you can have a Google Hangout water cooler session. People could log in and just chat about the news of the day, or the latest happenings around the office.

Google Hangouts makes team-building in a virtual environment possible. This may seem like a small thing, but as someone who used to work from home, I missed the social interactions that would happen in an office. If I were able to set something like this up, it would have helped me feel more connected to my co-workers.

Finally, and perhaps the most exciting thing about Google Hangouts is that they can now be broadcasted to everyone using Google Hangouts On Air. A few months ago, President Obama participated in a Google On Air Hangout where a few people were live in the Hangout with him, but everyone could watch along via YouTube. This same functionality is now available to everyone.

Using Google Hangouts On Air, you can broadcast your special event to people all over the world. Or if your staff is scattered over a large geographic area and you have an important public announcement to make, why not use a Google Hangout On Air to have a mini staff meeting to share that big news? Are you having a guest speaker at one of your events? You could easily share the speech with people who couldn’t make it.

Oh one more thing, Google Hangouts On Air allows you to record your Hangout, which makes it easy to share with others after it is over.

The roll-out for Google Hangouts On Air will be happening over the next few weeks, so make sure you sign into your Google+ account and check it out. For more information, you can watch this video:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ohlHn6Kt5YM]

What do you think? Do you think Google Hangouts is a viable solution for your organization when it comes to video conferencing? What are your thoughts about the usability of Google Hangouts On Air? Let’s discuss it using the comment section below!

Want to change your non-profit organization? Then change your people!

May 4, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising, organizational development, Planning, volunteers

Today, we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Burn the Boats“. In that post, he talks about two different theories of change. One school of thought advocates that changing behaviors drives organizational change. The other school of thought speaks to the idea of changing the environment / structures to affect organizational change. I just love the story John shared in the beginning of his blog post by Napoleon Hill. If you have a little time today, I strongly encourage you to click-through and read Burn the Boats.

I see non-profit organizations struggle with this ALL THE TIME. One classic example that I’ve witnessed (and have seen over and over again) is how many agencies develop a resource development plan and then go about trying to implement it.

One example that bubbles to the top of my mind is an agency that was heavily dependent on a special events strategy to raise money. They were running a special event fundraiser every other month. After completing a resource development planning process, they came to see how damaging those activities were. They decided to cut the number of events in half and pivot strongly to an individual giving strategy focused heavily on person-to-person solicitation tactics.

One big challenge was that the agency’s staff were all event minded people. They were hired because of their skill sets and experiences in planning, implementing and evaluating fundraising events. Another big hurdle was that their board of directors and fundraising volunteers were all events people, too.

To John’s point in his post “Burn the Boats,” the organization tried to persevere with its people. It asked for technical assistance from its national office. Of course, they invested in training opportunities.

In the end . . . Do I really need to finish this sentence???

I’m with John . . . BURN THE BOATS!!!!

Jim Collins in his book “From Good To Great” talks about getting the right people on the bus and then finding the right seat for them. In situations like the one I just described, I think there are ways to have polite conversations with volunteers about finding a new seat for them on the bus when the environment on the bus starts changing.

As for staff, there are two options if you’re going to “Burn the Boats”. You either gracefully terminate staff (providing severance packages, etc) or you hire more staff with the skill sets you need to implement the new plan (and find new things for the old staff to do).

I suppose there are other less harsh ways to still “burn the boats”. For example, you can ask your biggest annual campaign donor to change their annual support from an outright contribution to a challenge gift. However, this still doesn’t change the fact that there are people being asked to do something they don’t have experience or well-developed skills to do.

I respect that this is a tough post with which to start your weekend. Sorry! Do you think John and I are being too harsh? Are there better ways to go about affecting change? Do you have any examples of change at your organization that you’d like to share? Please take a moment to weigh-in using the comment box below. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Who should be “driving the bus” at your non-profit agency?

April 19, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, leadership, organizational development, Planning

In my travels, I’ve seen hundreds of non-profit organizations, and I must admit that they come in all sorts of different sizes and shapes . . . Big ones, little ones, short ones, tall ones, skinny ones, fat ones . . . you get the picture.

However, one question has haunted me for as long as I’ve worked in the non-profit sector and it is the title of this morning’s blog post:

“Who is responsible for driving the bus?”

Yes, I’ve heard all of the “best practices” and expert advice. I’ve sat through too many training events. Heck . . . I’ve even been the trainer for a number of those training events and sounded very much like the expert on this subject.

However, this question still haunts me because I see everyone answering it differently.

For example, staff are obviously responsible for day-to-day operations, but who gets to decide:

Which programs get run?
What impact and program outcomes get measured?
What new BIG grants (that might require new programming and new things to be measured) should be written?

I suspect that many of you have answers for these questions. I also suspect that there are many different answers. Some of you might see this as a question of “micro-management” and others of you might see “policy implications” all over the place.

Many moons ago, when I worked at my local Boys & Girls Club, I was presented with an opportunity to apply for a very large state grant. Many of you have probably heard of 21st Century Community Learning Center grants (this opportunity is part of the federal No Child Left Behind legislation). When I was presented with this opportunity, these were some of the facts I was facing:

The grant (if received) would increase the agency’s budget by more than 25 percent,
We would need to open a new site by asking a local school to share some of their space with us after-school (aka new collaboration with memorandum of understanding spelling out responsibilities of all parties)
The grant would result in hiring more staff (e.g. increasing overall staff size by 25 to 50 percent) and serving more kids (expanding membership by approximately 25 percent)
The type of staff we were accustom to hiring would change because the school district obvious wanted us to hire their teachers (and pay them the after-school stipend rate negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement)
The grant would require some different programming and outcome measurements.
The grant also required that some serious thought be put into “sustainability planning”. How would we continue serving those kids after the five-year grant expired. How would we fund it? Where would we provide service?

I was in favor of applying for this grant. It was a game changer for the organization. However . . . how much authority did I have as the executive director to make this decision. Sure, at first blush, the question was simple . . . “Apply for this one grant? Or don’t apply?” . . . but one question leads to another and then another.

So, what parts of this decision belong to the board of directors and what parts belong to staff? AND what parts needed to be shared between board and staff? AND what happens if there wasn’t agreement?

In the end, I engaged the Program Committee and came to the table with my “case for change”. We talked about it, agreed on all fronts and made the recommendation to the board of directors. The grant was written. We were selected to receive funds. We signed the contract with the state board of education. And the rest, as they say, is history.

That was easy . . . Right? NOPE! Because I see everyone making similar decisions in very different ways. Why? Because it isn’t easy and every non-profit organization has a different culture with different levels of organization capacity.

Is there a RIGHT answer to this question? I think so.

I believe there are A LOT of policy questions wrapped up in aforementioned example, and all policy issues clearly belong to the board of directors. Additionally, I see grants the same way I see “contracts,” and every non-profit bylaws document that I’ve ever looked at has clearly stated that entering into a contract is the responsibility of the board.

So, why do I see so many non-profit and fundraising professionals working alone on identifying grant writing opportunities, writing the grant proposals and committing the agency to the terms of the grant agreement (or asking their board after-the-fact to rubber stamp the grant agreement)?

Why do staff let this happen? Is it because we really don’t want the headache of having to build consensus? Or is it because of time constraints? Why do boards let this happen? Is it because they don’t know what the right answer is and in the end would rely on staff to inform their opinion? Or is it that they don’t understand their roles & responsibilities as board members? Or is it simply lack of time? And regardless of how you answer these questions, does it really change the fact that there is a “right answer” to the big picture question and our responses to these smaller questions really just amount to nothing more than rationalization and justification for doing something we know is wrong?

Today’s post really does raise some serious governance issues that most non-profits of all sizes and shapes struggle with on a daily basis. Please scroll down and use the comment box to share your thoughts as well as examples of how your agency has dealt with this issue. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

IdeaEncore: A non-profit online resource center

April 18, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, Planning, technology

If you are like me, then you have surrendered yourself to Google and have come to accept it as a “sign-of-the-times”.

Need to know the best chicken salad recipe? ASK GOOGLE!
Want to know the store hours for the Thai restaurant in downtown Elgin, IL? ASK GOOGLE!
How many movies has Samuel L. Jackson appeared in? ASK GOOGLE!

These are all searches I’ve recently conducted (and yes, Samuel Jackson has been in more than 115 movies and still counting). It used to bother me that I was becoming so reliant on Google for even the simplest things, but I am finally at peace with it. The only thing that still bothers me is when I go to Google and it seems to take me forever to find what I’m looking for. However, this may be a thing of the past for non-profit professions now that IdeaEncore exists.

The other day, I went to Google and asked my all-knowing cyber-overlord this question: “Where can I find a resource development assessment?” One of the links took me to an interesting site called IdeaEncore that describes itself as follows:

IdeaEncore is a user-generated knowledge management and online file sharing system. IdeaEncore offers free and easy registration, online file sharing, some free file downloads and free file browsing. Preview, post, or find documents by browsing user-generated items in our nonprofit resource center.

This looks like a “virtual library” where non-profit organizations and content providers like authors and consultants share resources. After snooping around a little bit, it looks like some of the stuff is free and some of it comes with small download fees. Content areas are diverse including topics such as: fundraising, board development, alumni, outcomes measurement, legal, facilities, alumni, and much more.

When I used to work for my local Boys & Girls Club, I periodically felt bad for other non-profit organizations that didn’t have a national organization working on their behalf. One of the greatest things the national office provided was an online intranet site full of resources . . . manuals, templates, samples, and all sorts of “good-for-you” stuff. As I clicked through the pages of IdeaEncore, I found myself thinking that non-profits without a national organization now have access to something kind of similar.

Perhaps, now non-profit professionals can stop “re-inventing the wheel” and start sharing resources with each other.

For a better idea of what you can find on this site, here is a list of “types of resources” that others have uploaded for sharing:

Agreements / Contracts
Analyses / Research / Studies
Articles / Position papers
Books
Brochures / Fliers / Viewbooks
Definitions
Evaluations / Assessments
Exhibits / Displays
How to / Guides
Law / Regulation / Compliance
Newsletters / Publications
Podcasts
Policies / Procedures / Processes
Software / online tools
Surveys / Data collection tools
Workbooks
Workshops / Training materials

Apparently, non-profits also can set-up their own “group” with various membership restrictions. This means that non-profits now have the capability of setting up their own file sharing platform for their employees, board members or various stakeholder groups (kind of like an intranet platform but specifically for your own agency).

I typically end my blog posts with a plea asking you to please use the comment box to share your thoughts and wisdom because “we can all learn from each other“. Today, I salute the folks at IdeaEncore because they’ve taken this idea to heart and created a neat platform for people to do exactly that. So, rather than seek your comments today, I am urging you to visit this website, and bear witness to the “power of sharing”.

Here’s to your health!

Getting your ducks … er … volunteers in a row

March 28, 2012 DonorDreams Planning, technology, volunteers

Putting your nonprofit organization’s resource development plan together can be a monumental undertaking. If you do it in an engaging and collaborative manner, then you are likely temporarily expanding your resource development committee and inviting various stakeholders (e.g. event volunteers, foundation staff or board members, and donors) to come to the table. This could easily result in 8 to 16 volunteers jockeying for position around your planning table.

I have used this approach before. Yes, we experienced challenges such as:

getting everyone’s calendars aligned,
communicating effectively and trying to avoid crazy, overlapping, and confusing long email threads,
keeping track of action items (not to mention injecting accountability into the process),
collaboratively working on building one document that didn’t result in 20 different versions attached to countless different email threads, and
sharing files with each other (Note: “the cloud” did not yet exist at the time of the project I am referencing).

A few months ago, a very dear friend and fellow consultant — Teri Halliday — introduced me to an online product called “Basecamp“. She swears by it, and I trust her like I trust my mother. So, I purchased the service and it changed my life! (Yes, dramatic but very true) There isn’t a week that goes by where I don’t think back to the resource development planning process that I described a few paragraphs ago and wonder how different things would’ve been if I would’ve had access to Basecamp.

All of the challenges I described in the previous set of bullet points would’ve disappeared. Once everyone registers and links to your online workspace, you can:

work on collaboratively building documents in the Writeboard section,
keep everyone’s schedules in lock step with the Calendar section,
communicate with each other using the bulletin board functionality in the Messages section,
keep track of action items using the To-Do section (and OMG the system even reminds people their tasks are coming due), and
share documents using the Files section.

It is true that people who don’t want to be engaged won’t get any more involved in a project just because you’re utilizing an online project management tool. When you see this dynamic at play, your problem isn’t that you’re disorganized . . . you have a recruitment problem!

However, I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen well-intentioned volunteers who want to be involved just walk away from a project because it is disorganized and hard to collaborate with other volunteers. It is this problem that Basecamp can help you resolve.

OK . . . I must admit that I am in LOVE with Basecamp. I am like a man with a hammer, and now I see nails everywhere! 🙂 I can see busy families utilizing Basecamp. I can see for-profit companies who operate in offices sprinkled across the country utilizing Basecamp. I obviously see the benefits for non-profit organizations who constantly engage busy employees and volunteers on a multitude of projects (e.g. strategic planning, resource development planning, special event fundraisers, annual campaigns, etc).

While I wish I could say that this “Software as a Service” (SaaS) was free, I cannot say such a thing; however, I think it is reasonably priced with one plan costing just $20 per month (and no long-term contract to sign).

I am sure some of you are wondering what has gotten into me this morning . . . am I a paid spokesperson or something like that? No! No! No! I am just a huge fan of things that work, and I have worked in the non-profit sector long enough to know that a tool like this can be a godsend. I say every day on this blog that “we can all learn from each other” . . . so I decided to put my money where my mouth is today.

What other tools (either free or paid service) has your non-profit agency used to help organize your volunteers and projects (e.g. Doodle.com? Google docs? GoToMeeting? BigMarker? Microsoft Project?)??? Please take a moment to scroll down and share your ideas via the comment box.

Here’s to your health!