Trends in non-profit governance?

September 12, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance

great carnac I was reviewing some old non-profit board governance material this morning and came across a document talking about “trends in non-profit governance“. In other words, the person who wrote that paper thought s/he was able to predict the future. Of course, this document was written more than 10 years ago, which got me thinking it might be fun to review some of their trends and determine where they were right or wrong.

The following are just a few of the trends that I found interesting:

As I review this list, there are a number of thoughts and questions running through my head. Let me spill those things out in the following bullet pointed list:

How many non-profit board have gotten smaller over the last decade? I wonder how that is going for them? Are they more effective or less effective?
Wow! They nailed the technology trend. I see many agencies conference calling people into meetings and doing some business via email polling and voting. (Not that I think it is very effective.)
Huh? The FROM-TO pertaining to fundraising is a little comical. I cannot tell you how many non-profit boards I’ve worked with who are very reluctant fundraising solicitors.
Really? Once in a blue moon, I run into a non-profit board that has an annual performance evaluation process in place for their executive director. More often than not, I see boards doing everything in their power to NOT evaluate the CEO.

The following are a few interesting resources I dug up online pertaining to some of these trends:

The Bridgespan Group: “Size of the board“
blue avocado: “Executive Director Evaluation Survey Form“
National Council of Nonprofits: “Ethics and Accountability in the Nonprofit Sector“
The Bridgespan Group: “Recruiting and Vetting Nonprofit Board Members“
nonprofit hub: “15 Ways to Transform Your Board of Directors into Fundraising Champions“

While clicking around for these links, I came across another great document titled “Emerging Trends in Nonprofit Governance“. It looks like it was presented at the ASAE & The Center’s Annual Association Law Symposium in 2009. This document contains all sorts of best practices, and it is definitely worth the click.

I’m not sure if I would put any of these things under the classification of “trends“. I think most of the trends stuff that I’ve reviewed today can better be described as “best practices“.

So, let me go out on a limb this morning and identify what I see as a real trend in non-profit governance . . .

Serving on a non-profit board will
continue to be difficult and entail hard work!

Duh! 😉

I hope when non-profit bloggers revisit this post a decade from now they will be able to say, “That Erik Anderson really nailed that trend.” LOL

When reviewing the initial list of “trends” that I shared at the beginning of this post, what questions and thoughts initially spring to mind? Has your agency made the “FROM-TO” transition on any of those trends? If so, which ones? Are you currently working on any of those changes in your non-profit governance? If so, which ones and what are you doing to facilitate the change?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

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

Is your non-profit agency using Twitter wrong?

September 11, 2013 erik technology

A few months ago, I had a horrible experience with my favorite airline. Long story short . . . delay, delay, delay, delay, loaded on the plane, equipment malfunction, delay, delay and finally up-up-and-away. A whole day was lost. However, in that catastrophe, I was able to learn something about Twitter and the new age of customer service. In the last few weeks, I’ve been reminded of this experience when two bloggers talked about Twitter. So, I thought I’d we’d look Twitter a little more closely today, especially as it relates to non-profit organizations.

Tweet: Customer service

As I sat on that airplane for hours with cranky passengers and screaming babies, I remembered something I had read in The Social Media Bible about a similar experience that the author — Lon Safko — had on a Continental Airlines flight. In his example (found on page 8), his assistant used her smartphone and tweeted about her experience making sure to copy the airline on her tweet. No sooner had she taken her seat and a flight attendant was bringing her a glass of champagne with an apology.

With this story in mind, I whipped out my cell phone and started tweeting my displeasure.

Sure enough, the airline’s customer service representatives were paying attention and asked me about the situation. They checked into other flights. They tried to help, and when they couldn’t do anything, they apologized and compensated me with some rewards points.

The point of this story? Twitter is a TWO-WAY communication channel that for-profit companies are learning to master.

I recently read a blog post from Rachel Sprung at Social Media Examiner titled “4 Examples of Excellent Twitter Customer Service“. If you have some time this morning, I encourage you to click-through and read Rachel’s post. She shared additional good stories about Jet Blue, Nike, Seamless, and Comcast. It is worth the click!

Tweet: Donor communication

I am on Twitter every day. I’m not there very long. I’m not a Twitter expert. I’m sure that I am doing lots and lots wrong in the eyes of social media experts. However, I do see lots of content and most of those who I’m following are non-profit organizations.

I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a non-profit organization with a Twitter account engage in a discussion with a donor, client, or almost anyone. I’m sure it happens, but I’ve never seen it and I’m following 1,808 people/agencies.

I recently read a blog post from Steven Shattuck, who is the VP of Marketing at Bloomerang. The post was titled “11 Mistakes Nonprofits Make On Twitter And How To Avoid Them“. And oh yeah . . . does he hit the nail on the head! Here are just a few of the mistakes he points out:

Broadcasting instead of engaging
Talking too much about yourself
Neglecting hashtags
Not tracking results

I won’t share all 11 mistakes, and I also won’t tell you how to avoid those mistakes. Why? Because you need to click-through and read Steven’s post. As with the previous post by Rachel which I mentioned in the previous section, Steven’s post is also definitely worth the click!

Tweet: How should your agency use Twitter?

This is a tough question to answer because I suspect it may vary slightly from agency-to-agency. However, some of the better non-profit organizations are tweeting the following:

picture of the day (demonstrating impact of their programming)
sharing stories about clients, donors, volunteers and board members
thanking followers for sharing content (e.g. “thanks for the RT” or “thanks for the MT”)

Back in the stone age before there was Twitter, I knew non-profit professionals who would dutifully read the newspaper every morning. When they saw an article or something about a volunteer, donor or board member, they would clip the article and send it to the person with a kind note.

What is stopping your agency from clicking through a few of your Twitter followers profiles and re-tweeting or mentioning something about their content/tweet? After all, it is akin to clipping something out of the newspaper, right? And it sends the message — loud and clear — that you care enough about them to read what they are tweeting. Just a thought!

If you want to read more about what other agencies are doing with Twitter, here are a few good online articles that I’ve found:

Sprout Insights blog: “5 Nonprofits Using Twitter Right“
Twitter.com: “Twitter for organizations & nonprofits“
SlideShare presentation from Blackbaud: “Twitter For Nonprofits“

How is your agency using Twitter? What is working? What isn’t working? How are you using Twitter to engage board volunteers? Donors? Clients? Volunteers? Please use the comment box below and share your experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Cash back for non-profit donors? Hmmm … Ah-ha!

September 10, 2013 erik Fundraising

laughing1 Sometimes I see things at just the right time and in the right place, and it results in me seeing something differently. Usually, when this happens it results in an AH-HA moment. This is exactly what happened to me yesterday when I opened an email from my friends at Non-Profit Humour featuring their latest piece of satire (reminiscent of the Onion newspaper) titled “Charity offers cash to get people to donate“.

Here is the part of the post that caught my attention and almost had me fall to the ground in laughter:

“The charity started the program quite by accident when a donor event turned ugly. A frustrated fundraiser couldn’t get key donors to make extra pledges.

“Sara just lost it at our wine and cheese party a month ago, and asked out loud what it would take to get our donors to give. She pulled out a $10.00 bill and waved it around just to make a point and sure enough all of our donors started signing pledge forms,” said Snidely. “That’s when we realized that all the stuff we were doing was all wrong.”

The visual of some fundraising professional reaching her breaking point and waiving around cash for pledge cards was hilarious to me. However, I know that I’ve been close to that breaking point and many of you probably have, too.

And by “breaking point” I, of course, mean being flummoxed and absolutely frustrated by what more it will take to engage donors in a manner that inspires loyalty. Just yesterday in my post titled “Uh-Oh: ‘The only time I ever see you is when you’re asking me for a donation’,” I rattled off a long list of things many non-profits employ as part of their donor communications program. If you missed yesterday’s post, here is that list:

newsletters
bulk email / eNewsletters
annual reports
impact bulletins
computer generated gift acknowledgement letters
handwritten letters
donor recognition societies (featuring stewardship activities)
donor receptions
donor surveys and focus groups

I went on to talk about how important it is to add a Moves Management component to this laundry list that involves engaging your agency’s volunteer solicitors in reconnecting periodically with those who they solicited for your annual campaign.

laughing2 So, the title of today’s blog post had the word “AH-HA” in it, which implies that my friends at Non-Profit Humour inspired a light bulb of some sort.

The thing that struck me while reading their satirical piece was that maybe non-profit organizations would do better with inspiring donor loyalty if they STOPPED looking at the aforementioned laundry list of tools/tactics as a “Donor Communications” program and STARTED looking at it comprehensively as a “Donor Loyalty” program.

The second part of my AH_HA moment was that there are soooooo many great examples of “loyalty programs” that work in the for-profit sector, this situation surely screams out for some young, entrepreneurial non-profit agency to engage in a benchmarking project.

I am literally at no loss of benchmarking ideas when it comes to loyalty programs. Consider this initial list:

Hilton’s HHonors program
Holiday Inn’s Priority Club
United Airline’s MileagePlus
National Rental Car’s Emerald Club (e.g. pick a car from any aisle)
Starbucks’ My Starbucks Rewards (e.g. their gold card)

laughing3 Yes, yes, yes . . . I know what you’re thinking: “Our agency doesn’t have things like hotel rooms, flights and cups of coffee to give away like these for-profit corporations.” But are you sure about that? Because I’ve attended many charity auctions in my life.

You’re already spending money on donors all in the name of “loyalty,” right? After all, those newsletters and special donor receptions cost you money — both direct and indirect costs.

What if some creative marketing genius told you that you could bundle up many of the aforementioned engagement tactics/tools and create a multi-level donor recognition society? In such a brave new world, newsletters, special tours of your facility, receptions and phone calls from board members might be seen as “rewards“.

I’m sure some of you aren’t biting on this idea yet, but you should check-out what the Indiana University Foundation is doing with its donor recognition societies. For example, if you give a combined $2,500 to the foundation in one calendar year, then you can join the prestigious 1820 Society. And membership has its privileges! Just check out these “rewards“:

Invitations to campus and regional events
Insider communication from IU leaders
Other opportunities to stay connected with IU

Some of you are probably worrying about those donors who tell you to: “Save your money and stop sending me stuff and fussing over me! I don’t make a contribution to your agency for you to spend it on recognizing me!”

Ah, yes! Those donors exist. And those donors are loud. However, many of those donors are the same ones who stop contributing because they don’t see their contribution being put to work or having the impact they envisioned.

Your mission — if you choose to accept it — is to engage your donors in a way that inspires loyalty and doesn’t irritate them.

I wonder if there is a for-profit company in your town that will give special discounts to members of your donor recognition society? Oh wait . . . I suspect your National Public Radio (NPR) station has blazed this trail. I’m particularly fond of WBEZ’s High Fidelity monthly giving program (aka loyalty program).

Does your non-profit organization provide donor recognition societies? What types of “courtesies” do you offer those donors? If you’re not buying into today’s big idea about “loyalty programs,” please share with us what you’re doing to inspire donor loyalty. Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.

Here’s to your health!

Uh-Oh: “The only time I ever see you is when you’re asking me for a donation”

September 9, 2013 erik Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising, volunteers

stewardship1 Last week I was out with a friend for a glass of wine after work. We hadn’t seen each other in a few months, and we were catching up on lost time. “How are you? How is the new job? How’s your wife? Kids? Grandkids?” You know the drill. It was during this exchange that he dropped the bomb: “So, how is your partner? Ya know … the only time I ever see him is when he is asking me for a donation.”

I’ve been doing non-profit work for a long time now, and I’ve trained myself to recognize this for what it is worth. Whenever I hear donors say something like this, I immediately think of it as a cry for help. It is a donor who is screaming for attention. They want to know:

Was my contribution appreciated?
Is my contribution being put to work in the manner in which I was told it would be during the solicitation visit?
Is my contribution making an impact?

This is classic Penelope Burk stuff right out of her book “Donor Centered Fundraising“.

What does your donor communication program look like? Does it include:

newsletters
bulk email / eNewsletters
annual reports
impact bulletins
computer generated gift acknowledgement letters
handwritten letters
donor recognition societies (featuring stewardship activities)
donor receptions
donor surveys and focus groups

I suspect many of you utilize some of these best practices, but are you missing the most powerful and simple stewardship activity of them all? My gut feeling tells me that the answer to this question is probably ‘YES’.

If you are using a “prospect assignment process” that allows you to pair prospects with volunteer solicitors who they know well, then you need to take it one step further and design a stewardship program around those relationships.

You should not assume that two people who know each other fairly well don’t lose touch with each other. It happens all the time. Take a moment to mentally review everyone in your life with whom you own a phone call, email or letter. I bet that list is longer than you originally thought.

If you want to improve your donor loyalty rate (and stop losing donors for silly reasons), then I suggest you do these two simple things:

Amend your written volunteer solicitor job description to include one more task that includes two personal touches (e.g. phone call or sit-down meeting). The first conversation is a simple touch focused on saying thank you and updating them on how their contribution is being used. The second touch is equally as simple with a reiterated message of appreciation and an update on how their contribution is having an impact.
Develop a tickler system and poke your volunteers when it is time to make these two calls. We’re all busy, and reminders are necessary. You shouldn’t expect your volunteer solicitors to remember when stewardship calls should be made.

stewardship2 These personal touches do not have to be all about your non-profit organization. I suggest that you train your volunteers to be less obvious. For example, both stewardship touches could be as simple as three minutes worth of messaging in the middle of a lunch meeting or after-work cocktail. It should feel organic and nature. It shouldn’t feel forced or contrived.

Making these additions to your donor communication program will likely improve your donor loyalty rates, but it should also help your volunteers become better solicitors . . . less reluctant and more confident.

If there is one thing I hear all of the time from volunteers, it is how fearful they are with “over-soliciting” their friends for charitable gifts. I believe this is rooted in the fact that volunteers aren’t involved in the stewardship process. So, they have doubts that the right things are being done in between solicitation calls to demonstrate return on investment.

So why not involve them?

Oh yeah . . . there is one more added benefit to adding these tactics to your stewardship plan. You end up stewarding your volunteer solicitors at the same time because you are providing them updates to share with their friends and your donors.

Does your agency have something like this folded into its stewardship program (e.g. Moves Management)? If so, how well does it work for you? Have you tracked your success? What was the impact on your retention rates? What were your challenges and how did you overcome them? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can all learn from each other.

By the way, my partner is a subscriber to this blog. So, my shout out to him is: “I think you should reach out to you-know-who and schedule time to catch up over a glass of bourbon.” 😉

Here’s to your health!

Is your non-profit organization dead or alive or BOTH?

September 6, 2013 erik organizational development

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 “Alive AND Dead,” John shares a thought experiment that was devised by Austrian physicist Irwin Schrodinger. It was a mind bending story about a box, a cat, poison, food and a conclusion that proves that the cat is dead AND alive until someone opens the box to check the situation out.

Yes . . . my friend, John Greco, shared a story that was used to demonstrate the nature of quantum mechanics in a blog post about organizational development.

Yes . . . I am going to go down the same rabbit hole this morning and apply all of this to non-profit organizations by sharing two stories. One story is about an organization that was both alive AND dead. The other story is about an executive director who was also both alive AND dead.

I encourage you to click through and read John’s post. But, if you haven’t done so already, please keep in mind that the basic premise to all of this is best summed up in John’s own words:

“It seems our perception is reality only until we see reality. In this sense, during times of great change, we can be living and working in a world that no longer exists if we do not actually see the changes in the world we are actually living and working in …”

The agency is alive AND dead

alice2 If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it hundreds of times. And I bet you have, too. I will omit the names to protect the innocent.

Once upon a time . . . there was a non-profit organization that everyone in the community looked upon as being big, strong and invincible. Their staff was well regarded. They had very impressive volunteers who sat on their board. They are what I describe as a “blue chip agency“.

Ask anyone in the community and they would tell you that the organization was awesome. Ask any donor what they thought, and they’d swear the agency was a terrific investment. Ask any of the agency’s board members, and they’d tell you that they can do ANYTHING (and they actually believe it). Ask the staff and you’d hear the same thing.

As the story goes . . . one day someone gets the bright idea to run a capital campaign and double the size of their existing facility. Donors are engaged. Millions of dollars are raised. The facility is expanded.

Putting aside the question of “alive vs. dead” . . . let’s re-frame it a little differently. Did this agency have the “organizational capacity” that everyone thought they did?

As we learn from John’s blog post, the answer is both ‘YES’ and ‘NO’ until you open the box and take a good look.

In this story . . . everyone perceived that organizational capacity existed; funding was secured based on those perceptions and the building was expanded. Unfortunately, when you looked a little deeper this organization didn’t have the capacity to raise the necessary annual operating dollars to run a facility twice its original size.

For a period of time, this agency was both alive AND dead.

The CEO is alive AND dead

alice3 We’ve also all seen this situation.

Once upon a time . . . there was an executive director who was well thought of by their peers. They were doing what was necessary to keep the agency together and everything moving in the right direction. Donors love the executive director. The staff would take a bullet for their boss. The board of directors continued to say nice things on the year-end evaluation.

This person seemingly had lots of job security, but one day everyone in the community wakes up to the news that the board voted to fire the CEO.

(Spoiler alert . . . before you start asking ‘who’ is Erik talking about, let me confess that this example is an amalgamation of many different situations that I’ve seen over time.)

So, what happened to precipitate this reversal of good fortune for the executive director? Here are just a few real life explanations that I’ve seen turn things upside down very quickly:

A major grant or funding source is lost and great stress descends upon the agency.
One employee decides they should be the executive director and starts rocking the boat.
One board member has been unhappy for quite some time about (insert issue here) and decides to stop being quiet. They finally have the courage to stand up in the face of general contentment and makes it an issue, which gets traction quickly.

For a period of time, this executive director was both alive AND dead.

The moral to these stories?

head in sand A non-profit organization that doesn’t invest time and resources into evaluation and critique is akin to an ostrich sticking its head in the sand.

Does your agency . . .

Host a critique meeting after each of its special event fundraisers?
Formally evaluate its executive director at the end of every year?
Host a critique meeting after its annual campaign pledge drive?
Formally evaluate every board board volunteer at the end of every year?
Host an annual meeting for donors to learn more about your agency? And survey your donors to solicit feedback on how they think you’re doing and what you can do better?
Formally evaluate every employee at the end of the year?

If you answered ‘NO to any of these questions, there there is a possibility that your organization is both . . .

Dead AND Alive

As always, John sums it up better than I can, when he says:

“Help people look into the box. One key component of change management is communicating the need for change early and often. It is selling the problem. It is noting the forces and effects that require change. It is articulating the “burning platform.” It is projecting out in compelling fashion what the consequences are if we don’t begin transitioning.”

Is your organization dead? Is it alive? Is it BOTH? Using John’s words, what does your agency do to “help people look into the box“? By the way, I know someone who can help you look inside that box and provide an outsider’s perspective. 😉

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit board and staff go together like chocolate and peanut butter

September 5, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance, organizational development, volunteers

at each others throat Over the years, I’ve met non-profit board volunteers who didn’t see value or the need for staff. Likewise, I’ve met countless numbers of staff who complain about their board members. I’ve also met executive directors who deliberately do things to disengage their board volunteers (e.g. taking on fundraising responsibilities, reducing the number of board meetings, etc).

Why is it that these two very important stakeholder groups sometimes can’t get a long? I suspect the answer to this question is layered and complicated, but the following must be in the top three:

There is a blurry understanding of what each other’s roles are.
There is an unequal division of responsibilities.
No one is paying attention to what it takes to nurture a productive relationship.

Last week, I was on vacation in Michigan visiting friends. One of those visits was with someone who served on a local non-profit board. He served for more than a decade, and he was the board president for almost one-third of his tenure. When I asked him how things going, the news wasn’t good. He was burned out. His fellow board members were burned out. Things were falling apart. A merger with a neighboring agency was inevitable.

When I asked “What happened?” the answer was simply: “We don’t have any staff. It is an all-volunteer agency. It is us against the world.”

I think it is an indisputable fact that . . .

Board need staff AND staff need the board!

So, what can be done to turn this relationship FROM something that looks like the scene at the end of the movie “War of the Roses” TO something like this vintage 80’s television commercial:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJLDF6qZUX0]

I’ve reached back into an old board development training manual and found the following characteristics of an effective board-staff partnership:

Common expectations
Cooperative planning
Open and honest communications
Respect
Mutual evaluation

If board and staff can accomplish these things, it will result in clarity around the following questions:

Where are we going?
Why?
How are we going to get there?
How will we know if we achieved what set out to do?

Have you ever worked for a non-profit agency where board and staff weren’t on the same page? How did it make you feel? What was the result? How does your current agency achieve some of the characteristics spelled out in the aforementioned bullet points? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.

Here’s to your health!

Non-profit governance: The work of the board, part 4

September 4, 2013 erik Board governance, Fundraising

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.

Governance: The Work of the Board, part 4

Raising Money

By Dani Robbins

board fundraising Welcome to part four of our five part series on Governance. We have already discussed the Board’s role in Hiring, Supporting and Evaluating the Executive, Acting as the Fiduciary Responsible Agent, and Setting Policy. Today, let’s discuss the Board’s role in raising money.

As previously mentioned, Boards are made up of appointed community leaders who are collectively responsible for governing an organization. As outlined in my favorite Board book Governance as Leadership and summarized in The Role of the Board, the Fiduciary Mode is where governance begins for all boards and ends for too many. I encourage you to also explore the Strategic and Generative Modes of Governance, which will greatly improve your board’s engagement, and also their enjoyment.

At a minimum, governance includes:

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

One of my goals for this blog is to rectify the common practice in the field of people telling nonprofit executives and boards how things should be done without any instruction as to what that actually means or how to accomplish it.

What “Board members being responsible for raising money” means is:

The Board sets the fund raising (also called resource development) goal; embarks on the campaign; opens doors; introduces staff; “makes the ask” when they’re the most likely person to get a yes (regardless of title or ranking, you always send the person who is most likely to get a yes to a gift request); picks up the tab for lunch when possible; and thanks the donor. The Board is also responsible for setting the strategic plan which may include a goal to increase contributed income. Each Board member should be expected to make a significant gift, reflective of their personal circumstances, as well as raise additional money.

I do not recommend give or get policies.

Give or get policies allow Board members to avoid personally giving; and 100% Board giving is critical for a successful campaign. Potential donors will ask if there is 100% Board giving, and the answer must be “yes“. Why should anyone else support an organization whose Board members do not? Moreover, how can you ask for someone else to financially support an organization you do not financially support? I can hear someone out there saying “I give of my time,” and that is wonderful, but it’s not enough. Board members should also financially support the organizations they serve.

I also don’t recommend set giving requirements.

Set giving policies, intended to be minimum gifts, actually end up being the entire gift. Such policies alienate potential board members who may bring a lot to the table but cannot personally give at the set level. It also leaves money on the table for people who can give more. Finally, it eliminates the Resource Development Committee’s opportunity to seek out and personally ask each Board member for a specific (to their circumstances and level of engagement) gift. It takes away the chance to say thank you for your engagement, removes the possibility to steward Board members as donors and minimizes the chance of a larger gift. Any policy that works against your goals is not a good policy.

The Board cannot and is not expected to raise money alone.

The staff is responsible for training the Board; coordinating the assignments; preparing the askers with relevant donor information; drafting and supplying whatever written information will be left with the donor, including a case statement (also called case for support) and a letter asking for a specific dollar amount; attending the ask meetings as appropriate; documenting the meeting in the database; writing the formal thank you note; and creating a plan to steward (or circle back to) the donor going forward.

The executive director cannot raise money alone. The development director cannot raise money alone. Fundraising works best in a culture of philanthropy when both the staff and the Board are working together to increase contributed income.

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

Is your non-profit website using pictures to tell a story?

September 3, 2013 erik technology

Last week, my friends at Network for Good sent me their weekly eNewsletter with links to all sorts of good things. One of the links took me to an article by Caryn Stein titled “10 Amazing Nonprofit Websites“. With a few free minutes on my hands, the headline was like a fishing lure, and I was hooked. I wanted to know:

Who are those agencies?
What made their websites “amazing”?
What do those sites look like?

The following images are the front pages from three of the ten non-profit webpages highlighted by Caryn. As you scroll down, I encourage you to take a good look because I think there is a common thread running through all these home pages.

What did you see? As you scrolled through these three website homepages, what went running through your head?

For me, it was the pictures that captured my attention. I found myself thinking:

Who are those people?
What is their story?
How did the agency help them?
Is there a happy ending?

It has been said millions of times that a picture is worth a thousand words. Since a webpage packed with lots of verbiage has been proven by SEO experts to chase people away, then why wouldn’t you use as many pictures as possible to pull people into your agency’s story?

Last week, I introduced you to Christopher Davenport’s storytelling resources and his book “Nonprofit Storytelling for Board Members“. Starting on page 10, Christopher introduces the concept of “The 4 C’s of Storytelling,” which are:

Character
Connection
Conflict
Conquest

I won’t expound on these ideas because you’re really supposed to go buy his book. (Disclaimer — I am not affiliated with Christopher Davenport and do not profit from your purchase of his products.)

However, I bring up the 4 C’s because the three websites from the Network for Good eNewsletter article remind me of how much one picture on your website can do when it comes to the four elements of storytelling. After all, doesn’t the picture essentially introduce the character? Doesn’t the image also initially create a connection and get you wondering about the conflict and potential resolution?

Of course, nothing is ever easy when it comes to technology. So, the moral to today’s story isn’t as simple as “go add some pictures to your agency’s website“.

Lenka Istvanova wrote a great post titled “How to Increase Traffic To Your Website With The Help Of Images” at Koozai blog. She goes into great detail about:

Alt Tag
File Name
Image Size
XML and Image Sitemap

As I said, nothing is ever easy when it comes to technology, online marketing and ePhilanthropy. My best advice to non-techie people is to: 1) fight through the urge to give up and 2) hire employees and recruit volunteers who are techies to help you.

One final note . . . a few months ago a non-profit executive director friend of mine was contacted by a company claiming that her agency used a picture on their website that didn’t belong to them. Not only did it not belong to them, but there was no photo credit. This honest mistake by an employee cost the agency thousands of dollars in fines.

Does your non-profit organization make effective use of images on your website? Are you pulling people into your agency’s story? After capturing their attention, where are you taking them and how are you telling your story (e.g. YouTube video, article with more pictures, etc)? How are you using images on your website to enhance SEO? Where are you finding your images and ensuring you aren’t violating copyright laws?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.

Here’s to your health!

What is your non-profit predicament?

August 30, 2013 erik Uncategorized

In a post titled “My Predicament Is Not My Problem,” John makes a distinction between things that are “problems” and things that are “predicaments“. In short, he talks about how predicaments are a special kind of problem that require different leadership skill sets and approaches.

Here is how John sums it up:

“And, while predicaments are (of course) problems, they aren’t problems that can be solved in any ordinary problem solving way. And therein lies the problem. For when leaders treat predicaments like problems — analyzing the components, fast-acting on this part or slow-tweaking that part, they make their predicaments worse.”

predicament2 I find this distinction really fascinating, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since I read this post. So, I’ve been focused on identifying some non-profit related “predicaments” and here is what I’ve come up with . . .

Over the last decade, donors’ needs have shifted. Investing in an organization’s mission isn’t enough anymore. They want to see results . . . outcomes . . . data. But wait! That stuff is boring and they want it all wrapped up in an engaging narrative that is spun by someone who is a good storyteller. Too much data or too much storytelling, and the whole experiment in philanthropy seems to fall short.
The Great Recession started in 2007 with a stock market crash occurring in 2008. Before the crash, many non-profit agencies’ fundraising plans appeared to work well enough to get them what they needed to function. After the crash — what some people are calling ‘The New Normal’ — those same fundraising plans for some agencies don’t seem to work as well, but abandoning the plan and starting from scratch doesn’t appear practical or reasonable.
In the middle part of the 20th Century, non-profit boards were composed of local business leaders who were CEOs and owners of local businesses. Fast forward to the end of the 20th Century and the early 2000’s, and big box stores have replaced locally owned businesses. CEOs and business owners are located in major cities and in some cases halfway around the world. Many non-profit boards are full of middle managers, and many people are left asking “Who will be the next generation of big time local philanthropists?“

In John’s post, he talks about needing a special kind of skill set to solve “predicaments“. Specifically, he points to interpretative thinking skills, patience, and sustained attentiveness.

Heading into this Labor Day weekend, I’m asking you to scroll down to the comment box below and consider doing two things:

Share your opinion on whether or not the three things I’ve identified above are “problems” or “predicaments” or neither. You are also welcome to talk about other “predicaments” you see in the non-profit sector or at home in your agency.
Do you or others in your agency possess the special skill sets that are identified as being necessary to handle “predicaments“? Are there other skills you think are necessary? If you, your employees and your board don’t possess these skills, how are you planning to acquire them?

Enjoy the long weekend and please take a moment to contemplate and respond to these questions. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Engaging your non-profit board volunteers more effectively

August 29, 2013 erik Board development, Board governance, organizational development

Board member engagement is a common thread running through many of my blog posts. This isn’t because I’m a broken record. The fact of the matter is that so many of the things that plague non-profits are simply “symptoms” of a bigger problem. Yep, you guessed it . . . the root cause of many of our challenges in the can be traced back to our boards.

So, a few days ago I received an email from Suzanne Culhane. I don’t know Suzanne, but she is a fundraising consultant for Bob Carter Companies. Apparently, one of my posts hit her just right, and she took to heart my frequent rally cry at the end of many of my posts to “. . . please share your thoughts . . . we can all learn from each other . . .”

So, in the spirit of complying with my own point of view, I’m going to use my bully pulpit this morning to share Suzanne’s tips on “How to get your board members to be more effective advocates for your cause“.

Here is what she recommends:

Only elect board members who are passionate about the mission and rank the organization as number one or two in terms of their own volunteer and philanthropic priorities.
Implement an annual give/get requirement end enforce it! This is best done through an annual commitment form which includes personal fundraising goals and volunteer responsibilities (e.g. committee and event involvement). This keeps board members focused on giving personally and asking others to do so.
Conduct an annual commitment review session should be conducted with each board member. In addition to personal giving and fundraising, this individual meeting should also offer the opportunity to discuss the board member’s experience of serving, any unfulfilled interests, challenges and concerns. That is, the organization must regularly invite individual feedback from leaders.
For empowerment, periodic interactive workshops should be conducted and all board members should be fully support by the staff in their undertakings on behalf of the organization.
Celebrate all accomplishments and victories as a team! Organizational impact and fundraising results should be regularly shared with the board.

For the record, I love all of these ideas (except I waffle on the give/get policy and only suggest it when a board’s culture is devoid of philanthropy). I’ve personally used all of these suggestions when I was on the front line and as a consultant. They are best practices, and they work!

So, let’s keep this going. Sharing is fun. What else do you do at your agency to engage your board volunteers? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. Why? Yep, you guessed it . . . because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!