May 2014 Nonprofit Blog Carnival

May 2014 nonprofit carnival logoWelcome to the May 2014 Nonprofit Blog Carnival. This month’s theme was “Letting the non-profit sector go to the dogs,” and we asked bloggers to focus on how non-profit agencies can build loyalty among any number of stakeholder groups such as donors, staff, board members, volunteers, etc.
Bloggers were given extra special bonus points if they were able to weave into their post something about dogs.
Why dogs?
I think the American author, Jack London, summed it up best when he said:

A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.”

Is that quotation a bit esoteric for your tastes?
Then ask yourself this question: “Is there anything more loyal in this world than a dog?” If your answer is NO, then perhaps the non-profit sector can learn a thing or two about loyalty from our canine companions.
Enjoy this month’s carnival and please feel free to weigh-in with anything your agency is doing to build loyalty in the comment section below.
2011-12-25_22-08-07_863Donor loyalty & fundraising

  • Joanne Fritz talks about her granddogs, Mia and Sophie, in her post titled “Who’s bored? Probably not your donors” at about.com. Perhaps, Mia and Sophie can teach fundraising professionals a thing or two about the value of routine.
  • Ken Goldstein explains in The Nonprofit Consultant Blog that times have changed and donor loyalty isn’t as simplistic as a dog’s love of its owner. In his post “Are You Treating Your Cats Like Dogs?” he talks about information preferences, method preferences, and campaign preferences. As you may have guessed already, Ken is a “cat person.”
  • Claire Axelrad asks in her blog Clairification, “How to build donor loyalty and take puppy love to forever love?” in a post she titled “Just Puppy Love? 4 Ways Nothing Beats It When It Comes to Donors
  • Heather Stewart is a first time entrant to the Nonprofit Blog Carnival and is a blogger at Activate Fundraising in Scotland.  Her post — “What would Murdo do?” — has her 1-year-old Cockapoo take readers through the steps associated with building donor loyalty (e.g. clarity, relationship-building and engagement).
  • Arroyo Fundraising Fluency blog published “What I Learned From My Dog About Donor Loyalty.” This post lists 4 “lessons” from Kathie Kramer Ryan’s dog, Charles, and how these lessons can inform our work with donors. If we want donors to be loyal to our organizations, we need to be loyal to them.
  • Ann Greene’s Nonprofit Blog submission was “What Dogs Can Teach Us About Donor Loyalty.” Ann’s post is a little different from the others in this section. She suggests that we can learn something about donor loyalty from dogs, such as they are always excited to see us and provide unconditional love, but they also need a lot of attention and consistency.
  • Pamela Grow’s blog features an amazingly cute shepherd-poodle-terrier mix named Enzo. Her post is titled “Fundraising lessons from Enzo” and you need to read to the very end of the post to learn what the most effective fundraising professionals understand and practice every single day.
  • Lori Halley writes the always clever and informative Wild Apricot Blog (and she is hosting the June 2014 Nonprofit Blog Carnival). Her post — “The Low Down on Donor Loyalty” highlights her adorable dog, Teddy, and answers this interesting question: “What do loyalty programs and non-profits have in common?
  • Lance Leasure writes for Orange Gerbera blog and asked in a recent post “Are your donors as loyal as a dog?”  Lance includes his 13-year-old blind dog — Punch —  in his post. I just didn’t have the heart to exclude a geriatric blind dog from this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival. Besides, Lance offered a number of nice tips to non-profits on how to build donor loyalty. Nice job Punch (and Lance)!

BetrysStaff loyalty

  • Stephanie Arcella published “Don’t Forget Your Biggest Asset — Cultivating Loyalty in Your Employees” at Take Two blog.  Good, loyal, hardworking talent is difficult to find. With limited salary capacity, nonprofits are bound to lose their best talent if they don’t actively cultivate long term commitments from staff. Stephanie offers four awesome tips that you will likely find very manageable.

Your constituents and clients

2011-12-20_06-20-05_687Brand loyalty, marketing & social media

  • Our friends at Double the Donation blog wrote “Nonprofits — How to Use Social Media to Build Donor Loyalty.” This post focuses on how nonprofits can use social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) to increase loyalty among their constituents (individual donors, corporate partners, and volunteers). Their suggestions include publicly recognizing donors, providing relevant stories, and asking questions!
  • J Campbell Social Media blog penned “10 Ways to Build Loyalty Among Your Online Community Members.” Julia Campbell writes that nonprofit social media campaigns are still focused on the numbers game (e.g. collecting the most Likes on Facebook, the most Twitter and Pinterest followers and the most views on YouTube). She poses the question: “Instead of focusing on growing your social media numbers, how about focusing on building loyalty – retaining engaging the fans/followers that you do have?
  • Douglas Gould and Company blogged recently “Media’s Best Friend (Communications Professionals)” and talked about pitching, fetching and blog outreach.
  • Joe Garecht wrote “How to Build Brand Loyalty for Your Nonprofit” at The Fundraising Authority blog. Towards the end of this post, Joe does an awesome job of highlighting brand loyalty fundamentals (e.g. consistent imagery, emotional connections, etc).


Stories from the front line
 

IMG_20140223_093758856At DonorDreams blog, I dedicated the entire month of May to this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival theme of loyalty.
Instead of pontificating like a consultant (it is an occupational hazard at times), I interviewed former clients and other non-profit friends about what they are doing to build loyalty with a variety of their different stakeholder groups.
Please click-through any of the following non-profit agencies’ stories and you might learn something from your peers:

I hope you enjoyed this month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival submissions. I don’t know about you, but I think Saint Basil hit the nail on the head when he said:

Does not the gratitude of the dog put to shame any man who is ungrateful to his benefactors?

Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below. We can all learn from each other, which is what the Nonprofit Blog Carnival is all about.
Next month’s Nonprofit Blog Carnival
Lori Halley at Wild Apricot blog will be next months host the next Nonprofit Blog Carnival. The theme will be “Nonprofit Inspiration and Innovation.” 
Click here for more details and how to submit your blog entry for consideration in June 2014.
As I say at the end of all my blog posts . . .

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

 

Advice from a non-profit CEO on how to build staff loyalty

In case you haven’t heard, DonorDreams blog is hosting for the second year in a row the Nonprofit Blog Carnival in the month of May. This year’s theme revolves around building loyalty among various non-profit stakeholder groups such as donors, employees, volunteers, etc. If you are a blogger and looking for the “Call for Submissions,” then click here. The carnival will be posted right here at DonorDreams blog on Wednesday, May 28, 2014. Stay tuned!

In the interest of building momentum, we’ve dedicated the entire month of blog posts to this topic. We’re specifically focusing on what a variety of non-profit organizations are doing (or are looking at doing) to build loyalty.

adviceWhen I decided to ask local non-profit organizations to use my blog platform to talk about some aspect of building loyalty with a particular stakeholder group, I sent out a ton of email requests to former clients asking them to consent to an interview or send me something in writing.
The following is a letter from a former client talking about their experiences with building staff loyalty. I didn’t secure permission to use their name. So, I edited their submission to protect their identity.

Dear Erik:
I think it (building loyalty) starts with choosing the right people. Some people have the capacity or desire to be loyal in the right circumstances. If you choose someone who is not wired in that way, nothing you do will make it happen.
Once you have that kind of a person on staff, you have to provide them with something to be loyal to. 
One of my big foundations — and I think it is key with younger employees — is work flexibility.  I let them:

  • set their schedules
  • take time when they need
  • don’t require a 1-for-1

I find that I get back more than I give and have people who are willing to work on the odd weekend, can be counted on putting in extra time, etc.
 If there are opportunities to make extra money (e.g. by working a rental event, etc), I never take it unless no one else wants it. That way, staff have the opportunity. 
I support my staff in all their decisions, always assume that they have made a decision in what they believe to be the best interest of our agency, and try to use mistakes as teachable moments.  I rarely get mad with staff as I find it to be a pointless waste of emotion on both sides. They are usually much harder on themselves than I would be, and they don’t need me adding to their burden.  If I have to countermand a decision they have made (which is extremely rare), I do it in private and make sure everyone knows I support my staff but just feel like they made a poor decision that one time.
I try to share lessons I have learned with my staff and help them benefit both from those lessons as well as from learning the process of working through making a decision. 
I make them treats, cook them breakfast, make them take time-off when they need, and get them cups of coffee when they are running on empty. 
I try very hard not to share issues or difficulties in my life as it is my job to help them, not theirs to provide “counseling” for me.  At all times, I try and keep in mind that I have more of a choice about whether to lay my “stuff” on them than they may feel they have to listen to it or not.
 By the same token, I have become a lot less tolerant of new employees who do not share our values or ethics and try and weed them out before they upset the balance of our little apple cart. 
I try and let my employees know how much I appreciate them, be there with the difficulties they have, and participate in all the nasty parts as well as the good parts of everything we go through. 
I try and make less work for them rather than increasing it.
Sincerely,
BW

Thanks for sharing, BW. You obviously work very hard at building staff loyalty and have put lots of thought into your strategies.

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If you want to learn more about what other non-profit organizations are doing to build loyalty among various stakeholder groups (e.g. donors, employees, volunteers, etc), then tune in here to DonorDreams blog every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the month of May. We will also publish the Nonprofit Blog Carnival on May 28, 2014 with a number of links to other non-profit bloggers who are talking about loyalty related themes.

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

Building loyalty is like the "circle of life" with no beginning or end

In case you haven’t heard, DonorDreams blog is hosting for the second year in a row the Nonprofit Blog Carnival in the month of May. This year’s theme revolves around building loyalty among various non-profit stakeholder groups such as donors, employees, volunteers, etc. If you are a blogger and looking for the “Call for Submissions,” then click here. The carnival will be posted right here at DonorDreams blog on Wednesday, May 28, 2014. Stay tuned!

In the interest of building momentum, we’ve dedicated the entire month of blog posts to this topic. We’re specifically focusing on what a variety of non-profit organizations are doing (or are looking at doing) to build loyalty.

Staff-Kids-Volunteers-Donors:
Rinse. Lather.Repeat.
Boys & Girls Club of El Paso

BGC El PasoArt Jaime is the Chief Professional Officer of the Boys & Girls Clubs of El Paso, and he sees the challenges of building loyalty to his non-profit organization as an interconnected ecosystem of staff, kids, board members and donors. He points out that loyalty-based management is a simple concept, but it is something that is very difficult to achieve.

Here is a simplified version of how Art sees his interconnected world:

  • Hire and retain quality youth development professionals who are likable
  • Kids attend the Club because of their relationships with staff
  • Increased frequency of participation deepens the impact of programming which drives outcomes data
  • Good outcomes and impact data inspires board volunteers and provides confidence in talking to donors about the Club’s case for support
  • Good outcomes data creates great relationships with foundations and government agencies and contributes to a vibrant grant writing program
  • Long-term board volunteer relationships (who are consistently sharing awesome success stories from the frontline) with individual donors makes for happy, recurring investors in the Club’s mission

art jaimeIt all ties together,” explains Jaime. “The big challenge is creating a culture that appreciates and strives to create loyalty.”
So, how is Art trying to build an organizational culture of loyalty? He isn’t trying to over think it, and he is starting with things he can easily do. The following are just a few examples:

  • engaging stakeholders in a variety of planning activities
  • modeling loyalty in every day activities
  • recognizing staff
  • thanking and stewarding donors
  • trying to spend more one-on-one time with board volunteers
  • seeking advice and feedback from a variety of stakeholders

Frederick Reichheld is the author of “The Loyalty Effect” and one of thought-leaders on the importance of loyalty-based management. It is amazing how Art’s observations on the interconnectedness of it all is spot on with Reichheld’s words found on page 22:

If we think of businesses as atoms, with customers, employees, and investors as their subatomic particles, then we will study the way those basic components interact to create higher levels of stability and value creation.

Congratulations, Art. I think you are on the right path!

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If you want to learn more about what other non-profit organizations are doing to build loyalty among various stakeholder groups (e.g. donors, employees, volunteers, etc), then tune in here to DonorDreams blog every Tuesday and Thursday throughout the month of May. We will also publish the Nonprofit Blog Carnival on May 28, 2014 with a number of links to other non-profit bloggers who are talking about loyalty related themes.

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