resource development – Page 42 – The Healthy Non-Profit

Non-profit lessons from the Illinois primary election

March 20, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising

It is Tuesday, March 20th, and for those of you living in Illinois it means that Election Day has finally arrived. For me, it couldn’t have some sooner. While I am one of those strange birds who loves the act of voting, I am also really ready for all the political yard signs to come down. I guess I am just visually tired of them. Or, perhaps, I’m just getting old and cranky.

While walking the dog yesterday, I was reminded that politicians don’t really have a corner on the yard sign market. As a matter of fact, some non-profit agency’s have found creative ways to integrate yard signs into their marketing efforts. Here are just a few examples:

Many moons ago when I ran a rubber duck race fundraiser, I used yard signs to help promote online adoptions.
The Boy Scouts of America sometimes use yard signs during “Back to School” time to support recruitment and encourage kids to register for the Cub Scouts in their community.
While walking the dog yesterday, I came across a non-political yard sign in someone’s yard advertising Easter Sunday services for one local church.

While I don’t think yard signs are the most effective marketing tool in your non-profit toolbox, I do believe they can be effective in some circumstances. Here are just a few suggestions for those of you contemplating their application:

Use yard signs in a cross-channel marketing approach. For example, how many politicians do you see ONLY using yard signs? Slim to none! Those candidates lose. Successful candidates use yard signs in conjunction with television, radio, door-to-door brochures, etc. When it comes to messaging, don’t use this marketing tactic to “generally” promote your agency. You use yard signs to promote something specific and actionable like a special event, prospect cultivation open house, recruitment drive, etc.

Focus . . . don’t scatter your yard signs. You can’t buy enough yard signs to sprinkle them throughout your community on small streets in little subdivisions. Identify the busiest streets and ask residents on those main arterial routes to proudly display your sign in their front yard. You do this by knocking on their door and asking permission (even if you don’t know them or have a previous relationship). This will maximize how many people see your signs and keep your costs down.

K.I.S.S. — Keep it simple. Remember, less is more when it comes to small yard sign design. People are likely traveling by in their cars anywhere from 30 to 45 mph. They won’t be able to read small text. A few key words and a web address or phone number is about all you can do. This isn’t a mini billboard (and even if it were, most effective billboards also follow this same principle).

Sure, many of us find yard signs obnoxious, but this shouldn’t deter you. Why? Because everyone reads them. How do I know this? Because politicians wouldn’t be using them if they weren’t effective. The only catch is that you need to use them effectively.

Has your agency every used a yard sign approach to promote something? If so, how did it work? What lessons did you learn. Please scroll down and share your thoughts and experiences in the comment box below.

Here’s to your health! (And happy election day, Illinois) 😉

Erik Anderson
Founder & President, The Healthy Non-Profit LLC
www.thehealthynonprofit.com
erik@thehealthynonprofit.com
http://twitter.com/#!/eanderson847
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http://www.linkedin.com/in/erikanderson847

Does your non-profit cell phone policy and apps violate clients’ privacy?

March 19, 2012 DonorDreams Mondays with Marissa, technology

Apps. There’s a ton of them. Need to track your most recent run? There’s an app for that. Want to keep track of your expenses? There’s an app for that. Need to go to the bathroom in the middle of the a movie and don’t want to miss out on any of the action? There’s an app for that.

We all know there are plenty of smart phone apps out there, but do we really understand what they do once they are downloaded onto your phone?

This past week, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, Yelp and fourteen other social media sites were listed in a lawsuit for distributing “privacy-invading” applications. According to a PC World article, these applications are accused of collecting user address book data and storing it on their servers without the user knowing.

This issue is at the top of many minds in the technology field as just last month, the popular social network Path issued a public apology after it was discovered the company used address book data to notify users when their friends had joined the network.

So what does this mean for your non-profit agency? Well, not much if your agency doesn’t allow staff members to use data based applications on their phones. I am guessing though, that nowadays that is a rarity.

When I read stories like this, I often think of non-profit organizations that deal with HIPAA on a daily basis. Many of the employees may have access to company smart phones that allow employees to check in on email while away from the office. Or what if the agency doesn’t supply cell phones and staff members use their personal cell phones to update the organization’s Facebook page?

Phones are so smart these days that . . .

information from the email the staff person replied to,
the new Facebook friend that was just confirmed, and
the phone call that was just made

might be added to the phone’s address book and sent to third-party servers without the user even being aware.

In the case of the HIPAA abiding non-profit (and even those who wish to protect board member and donor information), there could be a violation without anyone’s knowledge.

Even if your agency doesn’t need to protect the identity of their clients, do you really want address book information being shared without your knowledge? These days, with security breaches more rampant, you can’t take privacy seriously enough.

So what can we do?

Decide if your organization really needs to use cell phones. Yes, it is nice for staff members, but is it necessary? Can you get by without them? A radical idea, but it just might be the right one.

If you decide that cell phones are needed, consider providing them only for “necessary staff” instead of allowing staff to use their personal phones. I know this costs money, however; it ensures more control over the use of the phone on behalf of the agency.

Also, consider what type of phone is needed. Does the user really need all of the bells and whistles of an iPhone or can she be as productive with an older generation Android device?

In addition, regardless if phones are being provided by the agency or not; a clear and strict technology policy must be in place and understood by all employees.

If staff members are provided smart phones, what applications can they use? If it is decided that apps can be downloaded to agency phones, then make sure the person overseeing the policy reads up on the privacy policies of the allowed apps. Most of them can be found online in either the iTunes App Store or Google Play Store. Keep in mind that these policies can change.

Audit your agency’s technology. If your organization currently allows staff members to use their personal phones, there is not much you can do other than make them aware of the issue of apps and how they can compromise your clients’ privacy. However, on phones provided by your agency, see if any of these applications are already downloaded and check out their settings to see if any sharing options can be turned off. When in doubt, hard reset the phone and start all over.

I will be the first to admit that managing the technology of business is not easy. And these privacy concerns do not make it any easier. However, until applications stop sharing information, taking the time to address these issues now could mean avoiding a sticky legal situations later.

I’d love to hear how your organization manages cell phone usage for staff members. Do privacy issues concern you? Let’s continue this discussion in the comment section below!

Is your non-profit organization on the road to Abilene?

March 16, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, leadership, organizational development

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

Today we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Jerry’s Trip to Abilene“. In this post, he uses Jerry Harvey’s story about one family’s ill-advised trip to Abilene, Texas to talk about a concept many people might refer to as “Groupthink“.

In John’s blog and Jerry’s story, none of the four family members really wanted to take a trip Abilene on that hot summer day in Texas. So, how did it happen? The answer is amazingly simple . . . take a self-sacrificing suggestion from one person and add it to three other people’s desire to accommodate the group and THAT is how it happens.

Ohhhhh, come on now! This happens at your non-profit agency all the time. Let me refresh your memory with this fictitious example:

The executive director explains to board members that something must be done. There isn’t enough private sector fundraising revenue being generated. If more donations aren’t secured soon, then the agency will run a budget deficit at the end of the year.

Someone speaks up and suggests the agency run a unique, new special event fundraiser that they just saw another organization run in a different community. Another person jumps on the bandwagon with a suggestion pertaining to venue, and another person jumps in with a suggestion pertaining to who should be recruited to chair the event. The last person shrugs their shoulders and makes a neutral comment about how this is the most excited they’ve seen everyone get about a fundraising idea in the last decade.

(Side note: the resource development professional has their head buried in their hands trying to choke back their tears.)

So, the event is held, the bills are paid, and it is discovered that a little bit of money was generated but not nearly enough to avoid a year-end deficit. During the post-event critique meeting, everyone seems to pile on negative comments, shake their heads and tell the group that they knew it wouldn’t work.

(Side note: the resource development professional still has their head buried in their hands trying to choke back their tears.)

What went wrong? Well, it is the same thing John Greco said in his blog, and the same thing Jerry Harvey said in his original Abilene story. (By the way, please circle back and read those links.)

So, what should you do to make sure this doesn’t happen to your non-profit organization?

Invest in diversity!

When recruiting boards and committees, make sure that you have a diversity of different kinds of people around the table. Too many non-profit organizations chase critical thinkers (aka contrarians) away because they can be “pains in the butt”. They are the people who like playing devil’s advocate, and they can be difficult especially when you’re desperately needing to build consensus. However, they certainly come in handy in situations when you can’t afford to take a trip to Abilene.

So, non-profit professionals need to be skilled at asking the right volunteers to get involved in the right conversations. Or perhaps we need to get better at facilitating constructive conflict. Or better yet non-profit professionals need to get better at leadership and applying a strong teachable point of view.

Did the fictional story about adding one more special event in an attempt to desperately raise some cash resonate? Do you have a story to share about a personal “trip to Abilene” that you or your agency might have taken? Do you have additional suggestions on how to avoid that long and hot road to Abilene? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts. Remember to also check out other blog posts on organizational development by John Greco at his blog johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly.

Here’s to your health!

Where are all the new board members?

March 15, 2012 DonorDreams Board development, Fundraising, organizational development

Let’s face facts . . . your non-profit board has gaps in it. How do you know that? You know it because you and your board members sat down with one of any number of different board composition gap assessment tools (available in the public domain) and you did the math. You looked at demographics, experiences, skill sets, interests, fundraising, and social networks, and everyone at that board development committee meeting was able to see gaps.

Guess what? This happens every time and it happens in every organization. There is no such thing as the perfect board.

Hopefully, your board development committee is doing a gap assessment every year before it goes out to recruit board members. While your gaps may not regularly change, the reality is that your circumstances and the external world around you is in a constant state of change, which affects how you look at your gaps and approach your prospecting and recruitment efforts.

For example, you might have built a very strong “governance board” with gaps around fundraising acumen. In most years, this might not have been an issue because you had very strong grant funding from key foundations. Unfortunately, let’s hypothetically say that Wall Street decides that a major market correction was necessary and the stock market takes a historic tumble. Where do many foundations secure the money they give away every year? Yep, they distribute their investment income. With your foundation income streams in a state of flux, your fundraising gaps on the board have become a major liability. Perhaps, this year’s board recruitment efforts should focus on identifying prospects who possess private sector fundraising acumen and experience and come from a diversity of different social networks.

It is at this point where I have personally sat in board development committee meetings and the conversation always seems to bog down. The brainstorming and prospecting dialog oftentimes lead to someone saying, “There isn’t anyone in our community who I know that fits that description.” Even better, I’ve heard people say, “That person doesn’t exist in our community.”

I suspect that these reactions are a result of:

The committee giving up after mentally examining all of the “usual suspects”.
The composition of the committee being such that there isn’t very much diversity from a social network perspective sitting around the table.
Being unsure of how to determine what skills and experiences people bring to the table.

Regardless, you need find ways to push past this obstacle and stimulate a dynamic brainstorming exercise around prospect identification.

I’ve seen some non-profit professionals bring lists of people to that meeting such as: Chamber of Commerce membership lists and Rotary Club (or Kiwanis, Lions, Jaycees, etc) rosters. In my opinion, this can definitely help people start thinking; however, I’m always left with this one question:

What about your donor database?

Many of us have these amazing database programs with thousands of names. These are people who must have liked us at least at some point in time. In fact, they liked us well enough to write a check. For some of those people, they love our mission so much that they support us regularly.

If you are an “excelling organization,” then you have more than just names and dollars in that donor database. You’ve been collecting data pertaining to birthdays (aka age), occupation (aka skill sets and acumen), interests and experiences, and service club participation (aka social networks). If you aren’t this good and haven’t been collecting and recording this type of information, my suggestion is that you figure out a way to start doing so immediately.

Your donor database is an amazing tool on so many different front, and it isn’t just something you use for fundraising. It can and should be the best board development tool that your board development volunteers turn to every year when they start prospecting and brainstorming.

So, the next time someone on your board development committee suggests that your community has “run out of” board prospects, I encourage you to say poppycock and pivot quickly to your donor database for an endless supply of names to consider.

Does your organization use its donor database as part of its board development prospecting process? If so, what have been your experiences? Which board composition gap assessment tool do you use? Where did you find it, and can you point others in that direction? What is the biggest gap that you’re seeing on non-profit boards in your community (e.g. too many Baby Boomers and not enough young prospects or not enough people with fundraising skills, etc)?

Please scroll down and take 60 seconds out of your busy day to share an answer to one of these questions. Why? Because we can all learn from each other and something you share today might actually make a HUGE impact in someone else’s agency. It is time to “pay it forward”. Please?

Here’s to your health!

Tips from the unemployment line for struggling non-profits

March 14, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising, Planning

My local United Way published a brochure titled “Help for Hard Times Guide” as a way to help people with their financial decisions during tough economic times. Yesterday, I came across a copy of that document and the following quote on the inside panel grabbed my attention:

“Reduced income is going to require expert money management. This checklist will help you get started.”

While this is as obvious as the nose on your face, it struck me that this is also the case for non-profit organizations who are dealing with falling revenue. So, just out of curiosity, I decided to scan the checklist and see if there was any good advice that might also apply to non-profits.

The bolded text is the United Way’s advice, and the italics text were the thought I had while reading:

Determine your financial resources. What a great idea. Make a list of all the agency’s “resources” and determine what can be maximized and leveraged. Even more important might be to review all revenue streams and circle back around to those donors and funders for personal conversations about their support and if they can do more to help.
Plan a realistic budget. While this is always a good idea, I’ve seen too many non-profit budgets with “plug numbers”. During tough times, an extra special dose of reality is probably sound advice. Real numbers with real strategies behind those revenue numbers.
Stop all use of credit. This might be difficult to do, but it is still sound advice. How many times have you seen a non-profit dig itself into a hole that it can’t crawl out of all in the name of “tough times”.
Alert your mortgage holder or landlord. Yes, engaging the bank or landlord might open up unforeseen opportunities. It might engage a stakeholder in a fruitful, solution-oriented discussion and you might see things that weren’t obvious to you.
Alert your utilities. Same thought as the previous bullet point. There might be some payment plan options that you weren’t aware of. They might even be able to help you better understand how to reduce your agency’s usage and save money.
Alert creditors. Ditto . . . same as the last two thoughts.
Set priorities. Sometimes there are more accounts payable than there are accounts receivable. Right? Well, if and when this happens, it is probably smart to know what gets paid first.
Cancel unnecessary purchases/services. We all have things that we can live without (e.g. cable service, newspaper subscriptions, etc). Surely, the same is true for your agency. However, when we get used to things, we tend to forget that they aren’t essential. Engaging volunteers and an outside set of eyes might be a very valuable exercise for a non-profit executive director.
Consider refinancing. Restructuring loans and stretching payments over a longer period of time might free up some working capital during lean years.
Sell unnecessary items. Determining which assets are essential to the mission today versus what you might be sitting on for tomorrow (e.g. vacant land, old office furniture, etc), might create some working capital and make your cash flow situation a little easier.

Impressive . . . nice job United Way! Not only did you create a good resource for people in the unemployment line, but you also created a nice checklist for struggling non-profit agencies.

Of course, these are all temporary fixes because it is difficult to live forever with inadequate resources. Once these adjustments are made for survival, it is advisable to quickly pivot to engage your agency’s donors, board members, and volunteer supports in creating a resource development plan. This ensures that your focus isn’t just on managing what’s left and instead is on developing goals and strategies to secure the necessary funding and get back to a place where you’re thriving and mission-focused.

What additional tips would you add to the United Way’s punch list that I shared with you? Please scroll down and use the comment box below to share some best practices because we can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!

Planning can be scary so don’t do it alone . . . invite your donors to help!

March 13, 2012 DonorDreams Donor-centered fundraising, nonprofit, organizational development, Planning

There are those of us who like to make plans in the dark and by ourselves. I suspect some people like to do it that way because the act of planning is revolutionary and involves tackling the scary monster that most people recognize as “CHANGE“.

And doesn’t change involve “death”?

Ahhhh, I bet that got your attention. I suspect many of you are scratching your head over that logical leap, but is it really that big of a leap? Consider the following quote from Anatole France that I found online at BrainyQuote:

“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another.”

So, if planning equals change and change equals death, then through mathematical transitive properties . . . planning also equals death.

I know some of you are there with me on this ethereal point and others of you are still shaking your head. Regardless, let’s all agree that planning equals change, and both planning and change are scary propositions for some people. Keeping this in mind, let’s circle back to the question begging to be asked:

Who should you invite to the planning table?

While some people are very cautious and want to control the process and outcomes, I don’t subscribe to that paradigm. I am a firm believer that those people who are involved in planning are the people who you most need to roll up their sleeves once the planning process concludes.

So, if you like to be the Lone Ranger and have time to single-handedly implement (and fund) your nonprofit organization’s strategic plan (or marketing plan or resource development plan or any other kind of plan), then I encourage you to lock yourself in a closet and start writing that plan. However, if you want others to roll up their sleeves and open their wallets, then the answer to this question is that you need to find ways to involve all stakeholders including: board, staff, clients, volunteers, community supporters, donors, collaborative partners, etc.

This does not mean throwing caution to the wind and working in total transparency for the entire world to watch, worry and fret over. After all, there are times when revolutionary ideas are aired and debated during the planning process. For example, imagine how uncomfortable it might be for an organization to examine the merits of totally changing its mission in front of an audience of donors who have fallen in love with and funded the current mission.

Does this mean donors should be cut out of the planning process? Nope! However, getting the right donors involved does require great thought and care. Asking a trusted donor and friend of the agency to serve on the planning committee means creating ground rules and setting expectations upfront.

Does this mean donors should be ignored until the plan is ready to be unveiled? Definitely NOT! While focus groups and surveys are great ways to secure donors’ feelings and opinions during the planning process assessment phase, it needs to be done thoughtfully. Asking donors to share their thoughts means giving consideration to what they actually have to say regardless of whether or not you agree with it.

Are there risks? Yes, of course, there are, but you can do this!

Don’t take my word for it. I found this great Do-It-Yourself resource guide on strategic planning for those of you who prefer a more traditional planning model. Click here to read more about “Step One: Who Should Be Involved?”

If you didn’t like the first quote about change from Anatole France, then try this BrainyQuote from Robert Gallagher on for size:

“Change is inevitable – except from a vending machine.”

What have been your experieneces with involving donors in strategic planning (or any planning for that matter)? Did you experience difficulties? If so, how did you handle it? If you haven’t included donors in any of your planning processes, then what is holding you back and what needs to happen to help you feel better about doing so?

Here’s to your health!

Kissing While Driving for non-profit agencies

March 9, 2012 DonorDreams leadership, organizational development

Today we’re focusing on a post that John titled “Kissing While Driving“. In this post, he uses an Albert Einstein quote to investigate the perils of “multitasking” in the workplace by employees. He puts forward that employees who are running back and forth between various projects are likely only doing an “adequate” job at best for their employer because as Benjamin Franklin once said, “Haste makes waste”. More importantly John concludes:

this likely impacts employee engagement and loyalty,
can be dangerous for the company whose reputation is based on quality, and
is less than satisfying for employees who take pride in their work.

Reading John’s post brought me back to my “frontline” days of non-profit work. I honestly think this blog post is even more applicable to non-profit agencies because of how they behave in “resource deprived” environments. When I was the executive director of my local Boys & Girls Club, I used to laugh when people asked me: “What is your job?”

I used to describe my work as a daily “sprint” through a series of very diverse and challenging situations.

7:00 am — network with donors at Rotary Club
8:30 am — meet with development director about an upcoming special event fundraiser
9:30 am — prepare meeting materials for upcoming Finance Committee meeting
10:00 am — meet with program staff about a recent hiccup that was brought to my attention by a parent or collaborative partner
11:00 am — double-check the bank deposit against the donor database report and check log; go to bank and make the deposit
11:30 am — Troubleshoot a tech problem that an employee was experiencing (and was preventing them from doing their job)
Noon — Go to lunch with a donor or board member
1:30 pm — Hop on a conference call for the state alliance
2:30 pm — Last minute prep for the board development committee meeting
3:00 pm — Attend the board development committee meeting
5:00 pm — Walk through the clubhouse facility to see programs in action and catch staff doing “good things” as well as connect with the mission
5:30 pm — Respond to email and catch up on stuff that washed into my office throughout the day (possibly screening some cover letters and resumes for a job vacancy)
6:00 pm — Pull together some paperwork and process grant receivables
7:00 pm — Prep for the next day, do a little planning, or take advantage of the silence in the office and write a few sections for a grant application or upcoming newsletter
8:00 or 9:00 pm — Go home for some sleep so you can do it all over again tomorrow.

While every day wasn’t always like this, most days were this way. It is the cross that a non-profit executive director must bear when they operate in a resource deprived environment. It is exhausting, and it produces a situation where many mistakes are made. It is a minor miracle anything got done and that any progress was made. In the end, it was one of the top three reasons I chose to leave the frontline and go to work for the national organization.

Hmmmmm . . . yes, I’d say it was a lot like “kissing while driving”. I wasn’t very satisfied. I wasn’t as engaged in the things that were most important to the agency. I made mistakes and felt horrible about making them. I ultimately left for what I thought were greener pastures.

In hindsight, I wonder what I could’ve done differently:

invested in a volunteer program to expand human resources
engaged board members and donors in seeing and help solving these challenges (rather than celebrating the insanity)
adjusted the agency’s strategic plan to focus less on growth and more on deepening the impact

Of these three ideas, the one I think might bring the highest return on investment is the second bullet point that speaks to engaging board members and donors. As I look around at all of my non-profit friends, I see too many of them placating their boards by always saying “YES” rather than walking them through “cause-and-effect” scenarios pertaining to board room decisions (e.g. budget, staffing structure, new programming, etc). I also see many of them telling donors whatever they think they want to hear just to get another signed pledge card.

I have a hard time believing that if board members and donors saw what your day REALLY looked like that they wouldn’t want to jump in and help solve those challenges. Right? And with multiple people focused on solving these challenges, I suspect the odds go up dramatically that either the car gets stopped so the kissing can continue OR the kissing stops so that some work can get done.

In the end, it is your leadership that will solve this problem. Perhaps, it is a new Teachable Point of View that you adopt as the leader. Or maybe it is your embrace of tools like GRPI or RASI. Regardless, it most likely starts and ends with you. So, what are you going to do about it?

Are your days as crazy as the one I described above? What tools do you use to tame that beast? Have you ever engaged board members or donors in this discussion? If so, what were the results? Please use the comment box below to weigh-in with your thoughts. Remember to also check out other blog posts on organizational development by John Greco at his blog johnponders ~ about life at work, mostly.

Here’s to your health!

Cookies, honor and Rush Limbaugh

March 8, 2012 DonorDreams Fundraising

I trust that most of you are up-to-speed on the controversy swirling around Rush Limbaugh and his recent comments about feminism, contraception, and prostitution. If not, I encourage you to Google it because I won’t waste another inch of space talking about it here on this blog. However, I will spend a little time this morning talking about what every non-profit organization in America needs to walk away from this news story learning.

Last night I was watching some “opinion-based programming” on one of those alleged cable news stations. When the Rush Limbaugh story aired, I started looking for the remote control to change the channel, but I changed my mind when I saw a graphic showing all of the sponsors who recently pulled their support over this controversy and one of those sponsors was the Girl Scouts.

I must admit that my first reaction was “WTF” . . . why were the Girl Scouts paying Rush Limbaugh to air cookie commercials? My second reaction was “I need to re-think my support of this organization”.

Your brand is important, and it represents something. In the case of the Girl Scouts, this is what their brand represents to me:

empowering young girls to believe they can do anything they put their minds to doing,
positive self-image and self-esteem,
feminism,
equality,
non-discrimination.

In my community, the Girls Scouts were one of the first youth development agencies to develop a nondiscrimination policy banning discrimination against kids and adult leaders based on their sexual orientation. Nationally, the Girls Scouts took the word “God” out of their pledge and made it optional for kids to say because they didn’t want to discriminate against girls who didn’t believe in God.

It was these issues that helped me form the aforementioned conclusions about the Girl Scout brand.

In a matter of just a few minutes last night, one news story called everything I believed about them into question.

The lessons that every non-profit organization needs to take away from this example is:

Your brand is important and it defines you.
Each of your donors holds a mental image of what you stand for in their mind.
When a donor sees something that doesn’t match up with their image of you, it can have devastating effects.
Everything you do provides an opportunity for the community and your donors to see your brand at work.

In the case fo the Girl Scouts, they made a mistake. They purchased radio ads and didn’t realize that some of their ads would air during “opinion-based programming” like The Rush Limbaugh Show. Ooooops!

However, your brand is also at risk every time you take your clients out in public. I once talked to a donor who saw his favorite charity at a Chicago Cubs game. As you can imagine, some of that non-profit’s clients were misbehaving and the donor openly questioned whether or not his contribution was having any impact.

Your brand is also at risk if your facilities or vehicles are poorly maintained. Both of these things are a direct reflection on who you are and what you stand for. Driving clients around town in a van or bus that doesn’t look safe tells donors that you either don’t value safety or don’t allocate their contributions wisely.

We all make mistakes, and the Girl Scout council in Portland, Oregon made a mistake that landed their national brand in a national news story. It can happen to you, and it can happen even if you are very careful. The best suggestion I have to offer is to make sure your agency operates with a written crisis management plan. If you are looking for a good resource to guide your efforts, the Colorado Nonprofit Association offers a nice white paper and template that you can access by clicking here.

Has your agency ever found itself in a similar situation as the Girl Scouts? If so, how did you handle it? Do you have a crisis management plan in place? If so, what does it look like and how often does the board of directors review it? Please use the comment box below to share your experiences and thoughts.

Here’s to your health!

What do you do when your donor has “Gone Fishing”?

March 7, 2012 DonorDreams Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

About a week ago, I ran out to California to visit an old and very dear friend. His name is Denny, and we met two decades ago while running Boy Scouts camps.

As I have done on a number of previous vacations including this one, I’ve continued to blog. However, today is my last day in California. It is a travel day, and I am not feeling especially well. So, when I opened this window this morning, I decided to “mail it in” for the first time ever and just post something that says “Gone Fishing”.

As I started to do exactly that, a thought rocketed through my head:

What do you do when your donor has “Gone Fishing”?

When you run a donor-centered fundraising program based on deep and meaningful relationships, it isn’t uncommon to know when your key supporters leave town.

So, if you consider yourself a truly donor-centered fundraiser, what do you do when your donor comes home? Here are a few ideas from a sick, road weary traveler:

Send them a card or an email that just says “welcome home” and “we missed you”.
Pick-up the phone, welcome them home, and ask how things went.
Invite them out for a cup of coffee and ask them to share the highlights of their trip.
Investigate the possibility of incorporating them into your programming (e.g. ask them to share pictures from the vacation via slide show with your clients, etc)
Invite them out for coffee and update them on what occurred while they were gone.

If this sounds a bit unusual to you, then please ask yourself what you’d do when a friend or family member comes back from an out-of-town trip. Wouldn’t you call them? Wouldn’t you totally want to see the pictures?

Please use the comment box below to share your thoughts and experiences. Now, if you’d please excuse me, I took a shot of NyQuil, and I’m going to go take a nap as I wait for my airplane.

Here’s to your health!

Asking donors for advice? Buckle up!

March 6, 2012 DonorDreams Donor-centered fundraising, Fundraising

I have a number of different bloggers who I really enjoy reading. One of those “favs” is Gail Perry who writes “Fired-Up Fundraising”. Last week, I received an email notice from Gail announcing that she published a blog post titled: “5 Insanely Successful Ideas for Getting in the Door to See Your Prospect“.

I just love her advice, and I suggest you click over and read her tips, too. While there isn’t anything there that you haven’t practiced, it really is great to see all of this written in one place.

However, Gail’s second tip — “Advice visit” — stopped me in my tracks.

The gist of this tip is:

Pick-up the phone
Ask the donor if you can have some time because you’d like to secure some “advice”
Set the appointment

I totally agree with Gail that this is a great way to get some “face time” with your donors. There is nothing more flattering than getting asked your opinion. Right?

So, where is the catch?

In my experience, I’ve found that asking for a donor’s opinion goes beyond just asking their opinion. It includes acting upon that advice or being able to explain why that advice was not acted upon.

Don’t believe me?

Imagine a situation where you ask a donor to help evaluate a special event. They offer some advice that just doesn’t align with your vision for the event, and you decided to ignore the suggestion. However, the donor is very excited about being asked their opinion and can’t seem let go of it.

What do you do?

This might cause some fundraising professionals to take a pass on asking donors for advice; however, it doesn’t have to be that way.

Here are a few suggestions for those of you wanting to engage donors by using the “Ask Advice” tactic:

Be genuine at all times.
If the advice isn’t what you expect, share your thoughts in a respectful manner.
If the ideas shared are complicated or seemingly unrealistic, ask them to help you explore their suggestions. You might be surprised. Or the donor might just learn more about your agency.
Always circle back with the donor and share with them what happened (or didn’t happen) as a result of their advice.
If their advice isn’t used, be able to explain why not.

Do you remember the last time your opinion was asked for and it wasn’t used? If so, I suggest you keep that memory close to your heart before employing this donor engagement tactic. It will serve as a great compass that should keep you on the path to success.

Have you ever found yourself in this situation? How did you handle it? Please use the comment box below and share your experiences. We can all learn from each other.

Here’s to your health!