Tag: fundraising

A few tips for participating in your community's "Giving Day"

leadership, technology

give local americaI may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but when I get beat over the head with something enough times over the course of a year it becomes obvious that I’m staring at a trend. LOL! In this case, I am referencing an increasingly popular activity sprouting up all over the place — Giving Day.
I was first introduced to the idea of a concentrated one day push while working with a client in Valparaiso, Indiana. Their local community foundation had organized a day where local donors could make an online contribution and designate it to any number of local non-profit organizations. Of course, there were incentives such matching dollars and contests.
As many of you know, I’ve spent the last five months in West Texas and New Mexico working with 18 different agencies on a variety of organizational capacity building activities. While I was down south avoiding a brutal Midwest winter, I was once again introduced to another statewide Giving Day in New Mexico. Like the one in Valparaiso, it was being sponsored by a handful of different community foundations.
Finally, last week I returned home from my temporary assignment and started wading through a ton of mail that was waiting for me. While sifting through that pile, I came across a letter from another agency promoting their community’s Giving Day and they were asking me to make an online contribution.
As I clicked around on Google, I discovered there is a national Giving Day initiative called “Give Local America!” being sponsored by communities, non-profit organizations and an online giving portal company called Kimbia.
As I said earlier, I may not be the brightest or the quickest, but I suspect that I’m looking at a trend in the non-profit sector.  🙂
The Knight Foundation defines a community Giving Day as follows:

“A Giving Day is a powerful 24-hour online fundraising competition that unites a community around local causes. Hosted by the area’s community foundation, the Giving Day raises money through a single online donation platform. A Giving Day is a great way to build community, connect donors to local nonprofits, teach organizations to use digital tools and generate excitement about your community foundation.”

The foundation developed an online “playbook” for people who want to organize one of these events in their community. If you’re interested, click here to check it out.
online givingAs I started playing around with these ideas in my head, I’ve come to the conclusion that this doesn’t necessarily have to be a community-wide event sponsored by a community foundation or a United Way. (However, I do think a community-wide approach organized by a foundation or United Way is preferable)
I believe individual non-profit organizations can take these same principles and develop a focused day of giving for themselves. Perhaps, it is something at the end of your Spring annual campaign pledge drive focused on smaller donors. Or maybe it is a year-end giving strategy with a Thanksgiving theme done in conjunction with #GivingTuesday.
Regardless of whether it is community-focused or agency-focused, there are a few simple best practices that power the successes associated with planning these events. You can find those best practices at the other end of the Knight Foundation link (see link above). If you aren’t planning such an event, but you’re participating in one, then here are a few tips for engaging the most number of people in making a contribution in your agency’s name:

  • challenge gifts are an important part of the call to action (don’t just rely on the challenge being offered by the organizer . . . additional matching gifts from your major donors will drive even more traffic on your behalf to the online giving portal)
  • pre-event publicity is crucial to raise awareness among your donors (e.g. targeted mail, email, etc)
  • day-of-event solicitation (e.g. emails, blog posts, Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn chatter, etc) are important strategies to drive online traffic to the giving page
  • post-event recognition and stewardship for an entire year leading up to your next Giving Day build loyalty and a strong base of sustainable giving

Does your agency participate in a community-wide Giving Day? If so, what best practices have you used and found work well? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences.
Here’s to your health!
Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
http://www.facebook.com/eanderson847
http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Four non-profit trends pertaining to volunteerism

volunteers

volunteerismYesterday, I attended my first Fox West Philanthropic Network meeting in a number of months. I forgot how much I love those networking and professional development meetings. The program topic was “Volunteer Recruitment & Management” and featured staff and volunteers from a number of Fox Valley agencies, who spoke eloquently about their experiences.
To open the panel discussion, Bob Hotz from American City Bureau shared the following four recent trends that he sees  in volunteerism:

  1. There is a trend toward wanting to help with a specific program or project.  This contrasts with just general support of both time and money.  This seems tied to wanting to experience that my contribution of resources (time or money) will have the impact I am looking for.
  2. There is a trend toward time-defined or episodic volunteering.  (e.g. a day of service or a 5K run, does not tie up months of time or commit me to something long-term)
  3. There is a trend toward contributing expertise.  (e.g. More than just time, people want to feel that their skill sets are being put to good use.)
  4. There is a trend toward incorporating a learning component into the volunteer experience.  (e.g. It is not only what a volunteer contributes, but also what they learn and get out of it.)

Bob used this framework as a springboard for the panel to jump into topics such as:

  • volunteer recruitment
  • orientation and training
  • volunteer evaluation
  • retention
  • generation differences including needs and approaches to working with these different age groups

For those of you looking for additional resources on these topics, here are a few links you may want to investigate:

For those of you who want to have a discussion about these issues, please scroll down and use the comment box to pose questions or share your thoughts and experiences on these topics.
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

Can we please stop talking about how bad the economy is?

Fundraising

recessionThat is it . . . I am fed up and can’t stop myself from saying something that has been on my mind for a little while now. Can non-profit organizations please stop running around and telling anyone who will listen that the economy is bad and the recession is hurting their agency?
I hear my non-profit friends (both staff and board volunteers) bemoaning how bad it is and how they’ve been impacted. I know that I’ve heard it at least once a month going back to the 2008 stock market meltdown, which by the way was FIVE YEARS ago.
I totally understand why people were talking about this 12 to 24 months removed from the epicenter, but as I just pointed out more than half-of-a-decade has passed since that time.
The fact of the matter is the recession officially ended in June 2009, according to Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Don’t believe me? Just go ask Google.
In fact, the Blackbaud Index just arrived in my email inbox, and they are estimating that charitable giving rose 4.9% in 2013. Additionally, online giving increased by approximately by 13.5%.
When I see numbers like these, it always stirs my emotions when juxtaposed against comments such as:

  • “The economy is bad and donors just aren’t giving.“
  • “We can’t ask people for money while the economy is still doing so poorly.“
  • “Our agency hasn’t recovered from the economic downturn.“
  • “Our board members are afraid to ask their friends for charitable contributions as long as the economy is doing so poorly.“

Believe it or not, I heard some variation of each of these comments just this last weekend!
At first, I found myself shaking my head and asking the obvious question, “WHY?” However, I quickly stopped that when I realized that I know the reasons why. Here is what I think drives those comments:

  • Fear is irrational and people believe what they believe in spite of facts.
  • Some parts of the country are taking more time to emerge from recession.
  • Some non-profit agencies never adjusted their revenue model and resource development plan to accommodate for what economists are calling “The New Normal“.
  • Some non-profit professionals are always looking for excuses to justify poor fundraising performance.
  • Some misguided fundraising professionals and volunteers think pleading poverty and pointing at the economy makes for a good “case for support” (which really works the opposite way on how donors perceive your case).

Regardless of whether or not you believe these reasons, the reality is that we need to shake ourselves out of this mindset. Our clients deserve better and whining has never been shown to solve problems.
So, what should you do to combat this mindset? I suggest the following:

  1. Involve your volunteers in developing a new resource development plan and answering this simple question: “If how we raised money before the recession doesn’t work anymore, then what should we do to secure the resources we need to fund our mission today?“
  2. Involve your volunteers in developing a new case for support document and build consensus to stop talking to donors about the economy.
  3. Be the change you want to see in the world and stop talking about the economy.
  4. Take your volunteers by the hand and go with them on cultivation and stewardship visits with prospects and donors.
  5. Engage in benchmarking activities and compare your agency’s fundraising performance to other non-profit organizations (e.g. check out Blackbaud’s performance comparison tool by clicking here).

What are you doing to combat this insidious, self-defeating mindset that is still pervasive in many non-profit boardrooms? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. We can learn from each other.
On a side note, before you take me to task with comments about my insensitivity, please know that I know there are people out there who are still hurting. I have never said there weren’t. In fact, I know some of those people, and I am sure you do, too. However, the reality is that non-profits cannot wait until there is no more unemployment. Our agencies cannot wait until economic indicators are back to the ridiculous 1990s levels. Those who wait for that to occur won’t be in business for much longer. Let’s rediscover that often-celebrated “American spirit” of picking ourselves off the ground and doing the hard work to get our agencies moving again. 
There! I’ve said it . . . now please feel free to excoriate me.  🙂
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

How are you turning your agency's weaknesses into strengths?

organizational development

The Cracked Pot

By John Greco
Originally published on June 4, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
chinese woman1A Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck.. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full..
For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water..
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.
After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream.
‘I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.’
The old woman smiled, ‘Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?’ ‘That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.’
For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”
[Author unknown, but greatly appreciated!  If you or anyone you know has a proprietary interest in this story please authenticate and I will be happy to credit, or remove, as appropriate.]

I used to have an old, decrepit picket fence along the property line behind my garage.  It was in disrepair.  As I went about working to remove it, I couldn’t bring myself to just throw all the pickets in the trash.
I used some of the pickets to hide my garbage can and recycling container staged on the side of the house.
Last year, I used most of the rest of the pickets to create an old, arbor-like, shabby-chic backdrop for my pond (see picture, right).  Looks like its been there a hundred years, but it’s perfect, for now, to support the cardinal vine that will hug it, twist and turn through it; and when in bloom, beckon the hummingbirds…
My wife and I have had a wicker table almost since we’ve been married (our 34 year anniversary was yesterday) and it also has deteriorated (the wicker table;  not the marriage!) to the point that it no longer can be depended on to safely serve as a table.  Last weekend, I cut the legs off, and placed the wicker top in a spot in the garden, with pea gravel under and around (see picture below).  I’ve still work to do to secure it, but it already has piqued some visual interest to the previously nondescript corner…

And now I’m pondering using the wicker table legs to intersperse among the pond edge bamboo stakes!
I have, as you might have surmised, a bit of a compulsion to reuse things.  To repurpose.  To extend the utility of the unique character of things that long have seen a better day.
The Chinese woman took a pot that didn’t quite work well for it’s intended purpose, and she made it work well for another — shall we say higher? — purpose.  It could not quench her thirst as much as it had before, but perhaps we can say that it is satisfying her thirst for something different.
But there is a cost.  Her labor is returning 25% less water for her and her family using that cracked pot.
And soon I will need to redo the picket screening around my garbage cans.
And the shabby chic picket back drop surely won’t last as long as a structure made from new wood would…
Utility, and return on investment — as beauty — is in the eye of the beholder.
The author of the story above gave the cracked pot the ability to voice its discouragement and shame over its lost capability.  I am realizing now that that storytelling technique gave the author the opportunity to have the Chinese woman talk to the cracked pot, pointing out the critical contribution the pot was playing in beautifying her path, and her home.
I imagine that cracked pot felt pretty good after hearing that…
I will be listening to my pickets; and I will be listening to my wicker table pieces-parts; and I will tell them how much I appreciate their new contribution; I will tell them how they are satisfying my thirst for something, well, different.
And I will leave it to you (at least for now) to make the more explicit connections of this story, and my story, to our real worlds — for they are many, and varied, and meaningful.
For we will all be — if we’re not already — cracked pots.
john greco sig

How risk adverse is your non-profit organization?

organizational development

Trust the Break

By John Greco
Originally published on July 9, 2012
Re-posted with permission from johnponders blog
elevatorThousands of spectators flooded into the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York City.
It was 1853.
Elisha Graves Otis stood on an elevating platform. As it rose up high above the crowd, Otis took out a knife; it became immediately apparent to everyone that he intended to cut the cable!
The crowd of people feared the same results that they had read about or seen: a quick plunge, to a likely death, or serious injury…
But not this time.
With the cable fully severed, Elisha Otis’s platform did not plummet.  Otis’s safety brake produced a slight drop, until the spring kicked out into the guide rails.  Otis is said to have shouted, “All safe, gentleman, all safe.”
Otis sold 42 freight elevators in the two years after his exposition debut.
After his death in 1861, Otis’s company was left to his two sons; by 1873, they had sold over two thousand elevators worldwide.
Adapted from the Otis Elevator Blog

How risk averse are you?
I find it hard to answer that question.  I hedge; it depends.  I’m not sure I would have been an early rider of Otis’s elevator.
That’s a lie, really.  I am sure; I would definitely not have been.  No way!
But when it comes to organizational change, I’m pretty much all in.
I’m afraid that inclination hasn’t particularly helped me over the back half of my career as I’ve pitched changes in structure, policy, process, and culture…  I can paint a pretty compelling picture of the benefits, and I do alright projecting the costs.
But I under appreciate the downside risks.  I, consequently, short change the risk mitigation section of the proposal.  In fact, sometimes I omit it entirely.
The tenor of the responses are wide-ranging, but the result is disturbingly the same.  They don’t relish the ride I’m pitching.  So, no go.  They’re not on board.
I think they were all looking for Otis’s brake.
And who could blame them?  I wouldn’t have went up with Otis … and I’m sure I would have wrestled him down to the platform once I saw that knife come out …
Fear is a powerful emotion.  It stops us in our tracks.  We don’t go forward.
Or up.
Elisha Graves Otis did not invent the elevator.  He invented the elevator brake.
But the brake wasn’t his only innovation.  He innovated in influencing.  He created quite the spectacle to demonstrate the brake’s effectiveness.
Nothing to fear.
The sky is now the limit.
But we needed to trust that brake first.
john greco sig

Dear Non-Profit President / CEO / Executive Director,

Fundraising, Planning

open letterMy online friend, Marc Pitman is hosting this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival and asks his fellow non-profit bloggers to write an open letter to executive directors in honor of President’s Day.  For those of you who don’t know of Marc, he is well-known to friends and business associates as “The Fundraising Coach“. As the coach describes in his call for submissions post, he runs into CEOs who think hiring a development director gets them out of their fundraising responsibilities.
I have run into the same situation many times, and this open letter is my President’s Day gift to those executive directors.

Dear Non-Profit President / CEO / Executive Director:
Congratulations on making an important investment in your agency’s resource development program. Hiring the right fundraising professional should help take you to bigger and better things. You’re embarking on what is surely a fun and exciting organizational journey. Enjoy it!
However, the road ahead is full of potholes and obstacles.
First, please know that you can never abdicate your role as the agency’s “Chief Development Officer“. Sure, you’ve just hired someone to take on that role, but Harry Truman said it best when he said “The buck stops here.” Your fundraising role may look different now, but you will likely still be involved in some capacity with:

  • Cultivating prospects & stewarding donors
  • Soliciting donors
  • Supporting fundraising volunteers

Your focus may shift from more annual fund activities involving pledge drives and special events and move more towards major gifts and cultivating long-term donor relationships.
What is most obvious is that you’re role as “fundraising visionary” is more important now than ever before.
Why? Simply because there are more chef in the kitchen.
As you open your executive director toolbox, you will find many different tools that you need to become proficient at using, including:

  • written resource development plan
  • fundraising dashboards and scorecards
  • donor database (or CRM)
  • staff and volunteer job descriptions

However, one of the most powerful tools that you need to master is the annual performance plan for your new employee — the development director.
If I’ve seen it once, I’ve seen it too many times, where an executive director fails to provide the newly hired fundraising professional with a written performance plan. Instead, they simply say: “Go raise some money. Chop-Chop!”
Please don’t be one of those Non-Profit Presidents. You are better than that. Besides, not providing your new employee with a written annual performance plan is akin to setting them up for failure. How? Why? Because they don’t know what success looks like at the end of the year. They aren’t mind readers and don’t know what you’ll be grading them on other than raw dollars and cents.
For those of you who are new to annual performance plans, here are a few tips:

  • Make sure each objective is measurable
  • Make it clear what it will take for the employee to go from a “meets expectation” to “exceeds expectation” for each objective
  • Link the performance plan back to the agency’s written resource development plan or strategic plan
  • Ask for feedback and input from your new fundraising partner and make any necessary adjustments

Finally, once you’ve cemented a performance plan in place, sit down with the new development director and engage in a clear discussion around what your new role could and should be with regard to resource development and fundraising.
Well, I hope your President’s Day was awesome and best of luck on your fundraising journey.
As always, I raise my glass to you and say, “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

Engaging others with webinars and online radio

technology

Trainings, virtual meetings, advocacy!

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
So, in the first 13 chapters of Lon Safko’s book — The Social Media Bible — he establishes that social media is about so much more than just Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.  Safko continues expanding our understanding in chapter 14 when he writes about webinars and online radio.
Of course, webinars are seminars and trainings conducted over the internet; whereas, online radio is an audio program (or music) transmitted over the internet.
One of the pillars of a good board development / board governance plan is a training program. Unfortunately, this is a lot easier said than done.
When I was an executive director, I tried really hard to get board members to attend conferences. I brought trainers to town, and I even tried to integrate small training nuggets into our board meetings. The reality is that board volunteers are busy people and breaking away is always difficult.
Thanks to the magic of social media (and specifically webinars and online radio), non-profit professionals now have additional tools in their toolbox to engage board volunteers and other stakeholder groups.
Webinars
webinarAt my previous agency, their national office made tremendous investments in webinars (aka distance learning). The following are just a few of the training titles I saw them offering:

  • Creating a Committee Work Plan
  • Holiday Mailings
  • Implementing a Resource Development Plan
  • Managing Donor Relationships: Using a Donor Database
  • Board Development 101
  • How to Create a Board Development Plan

If you really wanted, there is nothing stopping you from designing your own trainings and using webinar services to facilitate those distance learning events.
In addition to trainings, I also see some agencies use tools like GoToMeeting and Adobe Connect combined with conference call technology to host virtual meetings.
In my experience, there are some important things to keep in mind when it comes to webinars:

  1. Participants have many distractions from the home and office (e.g. email, phone calls, interruptions), and it is easy to lose your audience if your presentation isn’t highly interactive with lots of questions, polls and surveys. Ask questions of participants in advance of the webinar and answer them during the webinar.
  2. Distance learning is not the same as in-person trainings and meetings. Keep these sessions short and sweet (e.g. 30 to 45 minutes).
  3. Participants need to be reminded to show up because (for whatever reason) these virtual events are easier to not show up for compared to real-time events.

If you are looking for FREE webinars or pre-recorded webinars to use with your board members and fundraising volunteers, check out some of these resources:

Online radio
online radioMany people have discovered Slacker radio, but online radio isn’t just about streaming music while you workout.
Many decades ago, radio was a mainstay in our grandparent’s living rooms (before the advent of television). Once television squeezed radios out of the picture, many of us just listened in our cars as we drove from place-to-place.
Online radio has liberated radio from our cars and enables music and talk shows to be heard on our work and home computers. This, of course, opens up lots of possibilities for non-profit organizations.
The most obvious possibility was already cover by Erik Anderson on October 21, 2013 right here on the DonorDreams blog in a post titled “Have you discovered non-profit radio yet?“. In that post, Erik introduced us to the Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.
If you haven’t checked out Tony’s online radio show about the non-profit sector yet, it is definitely worth it.
Of course, your non-profit organization can start its own online radio station. Why? Because it is another opportunity to get your message out there. It is marketing. It is prospect cultivation. It is donor stewardship. It can even be something you integrate into your agency’s programming with clients.
If you want to learn more, I suggest you go pick-up a copy of Lon Safko’s book — The Social Media Bible.
The Houston Chronicle also published an online article with a number of excellent links relevant to this topic. Click here to check it out.
How is your agency using webinars and online radio? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below.
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What is your agency's case for doing some planning?

Board governance, Planning

planningAs someone with two degrees in planning, I catch myself all the time with my non-profit clients explaining that the solution to their problems is that they need a plan. It might be a strategic plan, resource development plan, or board development plan . . . but oftentimes I am amazed at how many times failing non-profit agencies just haven’t invested in creating plans.  I mean, come on folks! Who hasn’t heard the old expression, “If you fail to plan, then you plan to fail“?
In recent years, my point of view around planning has evolved slightly. I now believe there is a time and place for planning. When there is too much chaos in the external environment or too much internal crisis or turnover, planning is at best a wasteful exercise and at worst can contribute to the problems at hand.
Of course, I still bristle when I hear board members say something like:

“I don’t want my agency engaged in planning. In the end, all that happens is the plan gets put on the shelf to collect dust. We need less planning and more doing!”

When I hear statements like this, it is usually indicative of:

  • an agency without a culture of planning
  • staff without an understanding of how to engage a board
  • board volunteers without an understanding of implementation tools
  • a board who doesn’t manage or evaluate its staff
  • an agency that is either standing still (best case scenario) or in crisis (worst cast scenario)

When trying to make the case for engaging in some sort of planning activity to a board of directors, I typically talk about “roles and responsibilities” of the board of directors. As you might imagine, this approach is usually met with yawns and eye rolling.
However, I recently found a blog post by Nell Edgington titled “5 Ways Great Strategy Can Transform a Nonprofit” while clicking around on a LinkedIn group dedicated to strategic planning for non-profit organizations. It was in that post I think Nell makes a much better case for planning that might be better received by resistant boards.
Here is what she says:

“People and organizations that make large gifts to a nonprofit are in effect investing in the future of that organization. And if you can’t articulate your future plans in a thoughtful, compelling way, funders won’t make that larger investment.”

Duh!
So, what has been your sales pitch to your board when trying to convince them to roll up their sleeves and engage in some planning. Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below. 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

Your agency can use Twitter to engage donors and supporters

Fundraising, technology

Tweet this!

By Rose Reinert
Guest blogger
rose1I think the morning after the “big game” is a great time to unwrap the impact of utilizing Twitter. It was hard to watch the game without seeing a ton of hashtags encouraging viewers to follow the excitement or learn more about a company or product by following it on Twitter. Lon Safko, author of The Social Media writes about “microblogging” in chapter 13, which begs the question: “What is microblogging and what does it have to do with Twitter?”
Simply stated, microblogging can be described as the act of sending a text message or sharing videos, photos, or  audio. It allows you to make friends, give and receive advice, and most of all, get up to the minute news. Of course, the most familiar microblogging tool is Twitter, which is something your non-profit should be using.
There are many benefits to Twitter, but to maximize those benefits it is important to first cultivate a strong community of supporters, and even more importantly, remain relevant. Twitter is not meant to set and forget. You need to provide real-time updates (e.g.  photos, videos and engaging questions are all great ways to attract attention).
Another way to utilize Twitter is as a fundraising tool. There are countless stories of successful fundraising through the power of Twitter. In my local community, Community Crisis Center, a domestic violence shelter raised over $150,000 in two weeks using Twitter and social media. This was unheard of in our community, but is possible with the right formula.
As I took a deeper dive into other organizations that have successfully raised funds utilizing Twitter, I stumbled on Twestival. Twestival describes themselves as, “The largest grassroots social media fundraising initiative in the world.”
twestivalHow does Twestival work?
Twestival is a movement that uses social media for social good by connecting communities offline on a single day to highlight a great cause. All local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of the ticket sales and donations go directly to local non-profits who organizers identified as having an incredible impact.
What I loved about this group was that: 1) a volunteer had to register an organization . . .  a non-profit could not register themselves and 2) you receive a mentor to help make your “event” a success. This is a great way to gather support for your organization, but you need to  be careful. More likely than not, supporters will not be sustainable for the long term (e.g. donor turnover is very high among people who contribute to your twestival). However, it is possible these individuals might continue to follow you on Twitter or Facebook and become loyal investors if you work hard at engaging them.
If you plan on adding Twitter as one of your agency’s fundraising strategies, like any effort, it must be intentional, strategic and consistent. Maximize your efforts by highlighting volunteers, special events, and educating about your mission and how you are meeting your mission.
How have you used Twitter to engage donors or share your mission? Please share your experiences with raising money utilizing social media or specifically Twitter.
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Is your non-profit ready for an increase in minimum wage?

Fundraising, Planning, volunteers

obamaWhen adjusted  for inflation, the current federal minimum wage is smaller than it was when President Reagan was the President of the United States. Democrats in Congress have been making the case to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 for the past year. Ten states in 2013 raised their minimum wage laws, and President Obama is signing an executive order increasing the minimum wage to $10.10 for all government contracts.
Here is what the White House said in a statement it issued prior to the State of the Union:

“Hardworking Americans — including janitors and construction workers — working on new federal contracts will benefit from the Executive Order (EO). Some examples of the hardworking people who would benefit from an EO include military base workers who wash dishes, serve food and do laundry.”

Of course, all of this got me thinking about non-profits who take government money and sign those contracts. Are they included in this executive action?
After doing some research . . . I’m still not sure, but I believe the answer is “NO”.
However, there is a bigger question here . . . What should your agency be doing to get ready for a prospective increase?
Now some of you probably read this question and think, “Oh Erik … you’re such a worry wart. This is just pre-election season chatter. Nothing is going to happen. This is all posturing.”
While I know you are right, the facts are still the facts, and the trend arrow is pointing in the direction of $10.10/hour. I say this because we can look at state governments and use them as a barometer, and 10 states increased their minimum wage in 2013.
head in sandIn my humble opinion, non-profit professionals have two choices:

  1. You can put your head in the sand, cross your fingers and hope the minimum wage does go up (and what does that say about your feelings for your employees and clients???)
  2. Or you can be proactive and start making plans today for what will likely happen at some point (if not next year then some time in the next few years)

As a planner, I like option two. It is like my mother always said,  “It is better to be safe than sorry.”
So, what does planning and preparation look like? Here are just a few preliminary thoughts:

  • Start talking about what this looks like with your agency’s HR committee
  • Dust off you Salary & Compensation Plan (or revise those salary scales) and assess where your employees currently are and what a potential law change would change that picture
  • Start budgeting and funding small wage increases NOW because going from $8.00 or $9.00 to $10.10 is easier than going from $7.25 to $10.10
  • Engage your resource development committee in constructing a fundraising plan for 2015 focused on increasing your organization’s revenue

I believe focusing on revenue increases is the biggest thing you should be focused on right now. Too many non-profits cut-cut-cut after the economic recession hit in 2008. Of course, this means there is no more fat to cut and all future expense budget adjustments will be cuts to organization muscle and decreases in service.
It really boils down to one question in my opinion:

Don’t your clients deserve better than program cuts and staff layoffs?

Let’s get proactive and focused on the future again!
What is your agency doing to prepare for a possible minimum wage increase? Who are you engaging? What plans are you making? Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and plans. 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
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