"It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light."
-- G. K. Chesterton
The Wall Street Journal is out with its year-end philanthropy package, and long-time observer/critic of the sector Pablo Eisenberg steals the show with a section-heading article entitled "What's Wrong With Charitable Giving and How to Fix It?"
Those who know Eisenberg or follow him in the Chronicle of Philanthropy (where he's had a column for the past seventeen years) will recognize his concerns: "Much of current philanthropic giving, by foundations and individuals, neither meets the needs of...charitable organizations nor addresses some of our most urgent public needs." Foundations are "too bureaucratic, inflexible and cautious, and too focused on short-term objectives." Grantmaking processes and procedures "are more tailored to the needs of foundations and their trustees than to the requirements of nonprofits." And the depressed economy is making matters much, much worse.
To address these problems, Eisenberg offers nine recommendations that "would go a long way toward making philanthropy do what we all claim we want it to do":
1. Increase the payout rate. Currently set at 5 percent of foundation net assets (calculated on a rolling mutliyear basis) for grants and administrative expenses. Eisenberg would like to see it raised to 6 percent and limited to grants, which he says would add $10 billion to the roughly $40 billion awarded in grants by foundations annually.
2. Increase general operating support. Foundations allocate roughly 20 percent of their grant dollars to general operating (a/k/a unrestricted) support; Eiesenberg would like to see foundations up that to 50 percent.
3. Increase multiyear funding. Most foundations award grants on an annual basis, renewable for a year or two. But, says Eisenberg, excellent organizations pursuing long-term goals require financial commitments of five, ten, even twenty years.
4. Award grants on a rolling basis. Limiting grant decisions to biannual or quarterly board meetings serves trustees' interests first and foremost, says Eisenberg, not grantees'.
5. Allocate more funds to the truly needy. Most individual and institutional giving is directed to established charities and tax-exempt institutions in higher education, health, and the arts, while only "a small slice goes to those who require the greatest assistance." We can do better, says Eisenberg.
6. Reach out to local groups and underserved regions. Large parts of the country (e.g., the Mississippi Delta, rural areas) "are underserved by philanthropy." There are ways to remedy this, and Eisenberg mentions a few in his piece.
7. Simplify application and reporting procedures. Time is money, says Eisenberg, and time spent filling out "lengthy, exhaustive proposals with great detail" is money not spent on programs and advocacy.
8. Improve public accountability. Government doesn't have the resources to do the job and the collapse of the daily newspaper model means that soon no one will be around to hold nonprofits and foundations accountable. One answer, says Eisenberg, is to convert failing or at-risk newspapers into nonprofits. (Don't hold your breath, he adds.)
9. Fund watchdog groups. "Foundations," says Eisenberg, "are reluctant to fund activities that are controversial, generate inordinate publicity and create too much criticism" -- in other words, the very things that are the hallmark of a "healthy and vibrant democracy." If the public sector can't, or won't, fund them, philanthropy must.
As I say, a classic Pablo piece chockful of good ideas (general operating and multiyear support, more of a focus on underserved regions), a few controversial ideas (payout, diversity benchmarks), and a non-starter or two (foundation subsidies for newspapers).
But here's the question that has been nagging me all afternoon. Do his recommendations really address the problems of nonprofits and charitable giving in 2009? Or are they more of a backward-looking prescription for the problems of a sector that, like so many other industries, is in the midst of a fundamental restructuring and in five years, ten at the most, won't look anything like it does today?
Where are the recommendations related to what LaPiana and Associates, in a new report (30 pages, PDF), argue will be the trends that shape the nonprofit sector of the future (generational and other demographic shifts, the rise of social media and other new technologies, the growing importance of networks, the changing nature of volunteerism and civic engagement, and the blurring of sectoral boundaries)?
And is his critique too one-sided in its focus on the shortcomings of funders? In other words, isn't this crisis an opportunity for nonprofits willing and able to surf the five key trends outlined in LaPiana's report? Or are they forever fated to rely on the kindness of deep-pocketed strangers?
Use the comments section to share your thoughts.
-- Mitch Nauffts
Management consultant Jim Collins is best known as the author of Good to Great and Built to Last (co-authored with Jerry Porras).
In his latest book, How the Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In (click here for an excerpt), Collins explores what he calls the five stages of institutional decline: hubris born of success; the undisciplined pursuit of more; the denial of risk and peril; grasping for salvation; and capitulation to irrelevance or death.
The wild 60 percent snapback in the Dow notwithstanding, a lot of nonprofits find themselves sliding out of stage three and into stage four as they head into the critical year-end fundraising season. That's the bad news.
The good news is that it's not over till it's over. Indeed, says Collins, the signature of the truly great organization vs. the merely successful one
is not the absence of difficulty. It's the ability to come back from setbacks, even cataclysmic catastrophes, stronger than before. Great nations can decline and recover. Great companies can fall and recover. Great social institutions can fall and recover. And great individuals can fall and recover. As long as you never get entirely knocked out of the game, there remains hope....
The key to not just surviving but thriving, to being great not just good, says Collins, is to identify and hitch your organization's star to
those exasperatingly persistent individuals who are constitutionally incapable of capitulation. It's one thing to suffer a staggering defeat -- as will likely happen to every enduring business and social enterprise at some point in its history -- and entirely another to give up on the values and aspirations that make the protracted struggle worthwhile. Failure is not so much a physical state as a state of mind; success is falling down -- and getting up one more time -- without end....
There will be a lot of failure in the social sector over the next couple of years. The organizations most likely to emerge stronger after the dust settles are those with leaders, of whatever age, willing to run through walls to deliver on their organization's mission.
Are you one of them?
-- Mitch Nauffts
Our Research colleagues here at the Foundation Center have issued a new advisory (5 pages, PDF) that looks at how foundation thinking has evolved since the center conducted its last giving forecast survey in January.
Based on a follow-up survey of leading funders conducted in September, the advisory suggests that foundation giving will decline by more than 10 percent this year -- toward the middle of the 8 to 13 percent range estimated by that initial survey -- and that overall foundation giving will decline further in 2010. Indeed, consistent with findings from the January survey, a larger share of respondents expect their giving to be lower next year (26 percent) than higher (17 percent).
Other findings from the advisory:
What do you think? Will 2010 be an annus horribilis for nonprofits and the nonprofit sector? Will organizations, both good ones and those that are underperforming, fail in unacceptable numbers? Or will most find a way to muddle through and emerge stronger as a result? And what will be the most important quality or compentency for nonprofits in the new Reset Economy?
Use the comment section to share you thoughts....
-- Mitch Nauffts
Our weekly roundup of news and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Arts and Culture
“I do not think I believe anymore in forcing Eurocentric arts organizations to do diverse works or to put one minority on a board,” writes Michael Kaiser, president of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, in a recent Huffington Post blog entry. Adds Kaiser:
When large, white organizations produce minority works they typically select the "low hanging fruit," the most popular works by diverse artists featuring the most famous minority performers and directors. This almost invariably hurts the minority arts organizations in the neighborhood, most of which are small and underfunded, and cannot afford to match the marketing clout or the casting glamour of their larger white counterparts....
And when a single minority is placed on a board with no responsibility other than to represent a race, it does nothing to change the true mission, or audience base, of the organization. More is required....
Kaiser goes on to suggest that "we...build the board strength of these vital groups and work with them to build individual donor bases that match their white counterparts," and he concludes by stating, "I am not certain I am right. We need more discussion."
What do you think? Is he right? Share your thoughts below.
Communications/Fundraising
Given the state of the economy, it's impossible to know the particular circumstances of every one of your organization's donors, says Katya Andresen on her Non-Profit Marketing blog. To keep those all-important donor relationships intact, Andresen suggests a few "tweaks" to your fundraising appeals:
As always, great advice.
According to fundraising guru Dr. Stephen Goldstein, there are at least seven things fundraisers can learn from a good panhandler:
On her Nonprofit Blog at About.com, Joanne Fritz, host of this month's Nonprofit Blog Carnival, offers a selection of blog posts on the topic of fundraising. (H/t: Katya Andresen)
Impact/Effectiveness
On his blog, Ken Berger, president and CEO of Charity Navigator, explains why donors should care about outcomes and impact. For starters, writes Berger, 98 percent of all nonprofits are unable to demonstrate that their programs create impact. In fact, all "the evidence we see," adds Berger, "shows that objective data on nonprofit performance is needed and desired now more than ever."
Nonprofit ManagementIn an opinion piece in the Christian Science Monitor, Paul Lamb, a former nonprofit executive, considers the question of whether there are too many nonprofits in America and concludes that the more important issue is the cost-effectiveness, or lack thereof, of the nonprofit service delivery model.
The Minnesota Council on Foundations has compiled a helpful list of resources related to partnering -- from collaborations to mergers and everything in between. (H/t: MCF's Philanthropy Potluck blog)
Philanthropy
According to a recent study by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University, regional trends and values have less of an impact on donor motivation than income and education. But as Sharon Schneider explains on the Philanthropic Family blog, not all donors feel that way. Writes Schneider:
Charity, for me, is about living up to my inner voice, about bridging the gap between the person I am today and the person I aspire to be. And that's also why check-writing isn't the pinnacle of charity, no matter how big the check. In fact, it's just the first step on a journey of a million steps....
Increasingly frustrated by how "profoundly segregated the people trying to change the world are from one another," Dan Pallotta argues on his Free the Nonprofits blog that it's
time for a gathering that will bring everyone in the nonprofit world together, every year, for four or five days of unbelievable 20-minute talks, a la TED, to introduce each of the silos to the others; to expose them to each other's frustrations, expertise, and potential. It should be held in the biggest indoor arena in the country. And it should be open to the world....
Social Entrepreneurship
Last week, twenty-five social entrepreneurs met at FailCon to learn how to turn their failed ventures into learning experiences. Shalyn Hockey, VP of Operations at Assetmap, a San Francisco-based nonprofit that creates Web tools to help other organizations leverage their social capital, summarizes the event on the Social Entrepreneurship blog and offers ten sure-fire "equations" for failure, as well as five equations for success.
Social Media
On the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Prospecting blog, Nicole Wallace notes that of the 587 people who responded to a recent Cone survey, nearly three-quarters agreed with the statement that "new media raise[s] their awareness about causes but do[es] not motivate them to do any more to help."
Guest blogging on Beth Kanter's blog, Michael Hoffman, CEO of See3 Communications, explains how nonprofits can make the most of the video-sharing site YouTube.
Twitter has rolled out a new "lists" feature that allows individuals to categorize and create public lists of other Twitterers. Lauren Cochrane, a "geek girl" who works for a nonprofit in Australia, shares a half dozen or so list building ideas for nonprofits on her blog, Geeking for Good, including: lists of your organization's chapters and campigns, related organizations and campaigns, and media types with an interest in your cause.
Following on Cochrane's post, Amy Sample Ward counsels nonprofits to also create a list of their supporters on Twitter.
Technology
At the Case Foundation's blog, Andrew Jensen, CEO and senior consultant for Sozo Firm, an SEO and Web marketing outfit, offers some advice to nonprofit organizations on how they can improve the visibility of their Web site.
Volunteerism
A week or so ago, Greg Baldwin, president of VolunteerMatch, wrote a thought-provoking post about the Entertainment Industry Foundation's failed iParticipate campaign, which aimed to promote volunteerism by incorporating service themes into primetime television shows. Despite the cooperation of the industry, wrote Baldwin, the efforts did not result in a surge of visits to VolunteerMatch, VolunteerSolutions, Craiglist, 1-800-Volunteer.org, or Idealist. In fact, notes Baldwin, "Google and the long-tail of the Internet...out performed Hollywood on Thursday [the day of the event] 16 to 1."
In a thought-provoking post of her own, Allison Fine suggest that the iParticipate campaign was a case of "malmeasurement," of "hyperbole gone wild." Writes Fine:
We hear this kind of language so often. That the next campaign will be a "game changer," or create a "tidal wave" of interest, etc. The expectations that highlighting volunteerism within TV programs would be a catalyst for millions of people to volunteer was never realistic in the first place. The distance between raising awareness and action is too far through the light touch of a mention in a TV show. But that doesn’t mean that raising awareness isn't important....
The whole post is worth reading.
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
(The following post by Andrew Wolk, CEO of Root Cause, a nonprofit that works to advance solutions to social and economic problems by supporting social innovators and educating social impact investors, originally appeared on Andrew's blog. Click here to read a recent op-ed piece by Wolk in PND.)
There is a debate going on about how to identify and invest in the highest-performing nonprofits -- with a great emphasis on randomized control trial (RCT) studies.
The RCT, a research methodology that involves randomly selecting subjects from a larger test group to receive an experimental product or service, is undoubtedly a rigorous way of determining whether a cause-and-effect relationship exists between a given service and a desired outcome.
The current interest in RCTs is an encouraging sign of the growing momentum for linking nonprofit funding to proven results and investing in what works, particularly if we can also disseminate the information far and wide.
At the same time, RCTs raise concerns for me, as they could end up stifling rather than encouraging social innovation.
The trouble with randomized control trials is that they are extremely expensive to carry out and so only the more developed and/or the best able to access resources participate. Most nonprofits struggle with finding the funds for general operations, let alone conducting an RCT.
So, we are stuck between encouraging social innovation and the strong desire to invest in what works. I believe we need to develop a spectrum that links an organization’s stage of development, with measurement requirements, to levels of investment. The stages could look something like this:
The Social Impact Measurement Spectrum
Stage 1 - Start-up: At the earliest stage, start-ups with promising ideas could receive minimal support in exchange for a commitment to developing and tracking an initial set of measures that align with standards in the organization’s field.
Stage 2 - Proof of concept: At the next stage, the organization would have a simple, internally driven performance measurement system that would drive internal continuous improvements while generating initial data on the impact of the organization’s model. Funding would be increased to match the increased rigor of the organization’s measurement, but it would still be far less than that given to organizations at later stages.
Stage 3 - Promising, not proven: At this stage, organizations would be required to operate a full performance measurement system that is integrated with their business models and publicly share the results. They might also do an external evaluation at this stage to further elucidate their impact.
Stage 4 - Spread of proven model: This final stage would occur when an organization has conducted an RCT study with positive results. They would be able to receive substantial investment in exchange for a commitment to share the details of their model so it spread and others could learn and adopt the organization’s successful practices. The Coalition for Evidence Based Policy is building a site that will identify social interventions shown in rigorous studies to produce sizable, sustained benefits to participants and/or society.
A spectrum like this would do a few important things. It would provide a framework that would inform how a social innovation might spread; it would provide a roadmap to the kind of measurement system an organization should develop over time; and, lastly, it would give an idea as to the amount of funding an organization could expect as an innovation moved toward greater proven social impact.
-- Andrew Wolk
What do you think? Is Wolk's concept helpful and/or workable? Share your comments below....
(Consultant Thaler Pekar helps smart leaders and their organizations find, develop, and share the stories and organizational narratives that can rally critical support. Her first post in this series, Stories Are a Vital Source of Knowledge, appeared in September.)
My previous post on the Benefits and Limits of Storybanking generated this offline comment from a professor at Rutgers University: "Thaler -- a very informative and thought provoking post. My question -- do you limit your storybank contents to a select number of stories that can be used by members of an organization so people remain 'on point'? And who approves the stories to be told? Or is that approach too authoritative, too top down?"
My response: If your storybank is established to support advocacy on a specific issue (for instance, to get more farmers markets to utilize food stamps or to pass an increase in your state's minimum wage), then the organizers of your effort may wish to limit the stories used to those focused on the specific message. Ideally, you would also have stories that are personally relevant to each messenger and audience segment.
If your storybank is focused on programmatic outcomes and organizational successes, there should be no quantitative limit to its contents. In fact, I would urge you to listen for narratives and anecdotes that illustrate the values, failures, challenges, and problem-solving capacity of your organization.
What is always important is how the stories in your storybank are tagged and rendered searchable. A good way to get started is to use the tagging and search functions readily available in applications like Microsoft Word, FileMaker Pro, and Bento. Possible tag categories include program area, geographic location, population served, and age and gender of protagonist, as well as narrator, topic, action, results, expressed value, and potential application. (This applies to video and audio recordings as well as written stories.)
Remember: Stories are not commodities to be banked and forgotten. They are, instead, a valuable tool for information sharing and sense-making. And their use should not be limited to print and electronic newsletters, Web sites, and direct-mail pieces. Make certain your stakeholders are in the habit of sharing stories orally and frequently.
As they do, pay attention to the stories elicited from members of your audience. And ask yourself:
With this knowledge in hand, reexamine your storybank categories and tags. Ask yourself: What should we add? Is there anything we don't need? Treat your storybank as a changeable source of knowledge and insights into your organization's work.
I'm continuing to explore and write about how organizations can elicit, listen to, and share stories as a way to better understand and communicate knowledge about their efforts and impact. At the moment, I'm thinking about neutrality in the curatorial process -- that is, how do we maintain objectivity in the process of selecting which stories to share? If you have confronted this challenge, I'd love to hear from you! Use the comments section below, or drop me a note at tpekar@thalerpekar.com. And thanks for sharing!
-- Thaler Pekar
Our weekly roundup of news and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Climate Change
This year’s Blog Action Day, on October 15, saw bloggers from 155 countries contribute posts and resources related to climate change and the environment. For a roundup of featured posts, check out the Change.org site.
Communications/Marketing
On her Getting Attention blog, nonprofit marketing expert Nancy Schwartz shares a recent case study in which Tracy Mitchell, general manager of the Bay Street Theatre in Sag Harbor, New York, explains how she "tackled her marketing dilemmas, even before the recession hit in full force."
Community Improvement/Development
Referring to the recent incident involving ACORN workers who were caught on videotape allegedly advising individuals how to evade the law, Nonprofit Board Crisis blogger Mike Burns argues that as "in the public...and private sectors, mistakes...can be made by individual nonprofits." What is worrisome, says Burns, are the efforts by some members of Congress to use the incident as an excuse to repeal the Community Reinvestment Act, which, as Burns notes, was designed to end redlining -- the nefarious practice of "walling off" inner-city neighborhoods from mortgage loans. Adds Burns: "When [an organization’s] failing becomes a rallying cry to turn against parts of society that have limited voice, it's time for the nonprofit sector to take a stand."
Fundraising
After reading a new study from the Center on Philanthropy which found that donors who were asked to give in person by someone they knew were more likely to give than those asked by phone, mail or email, Todd Cohen says nonprofits need to "get back to basics" and "invest the time...to understand, cultivate, and engage their givers."
International Affairs/Development
A lively debate erupted early in the week as bloggers responded to an october 2 post by the Center for Global Development's David Roodman in which Roodman argued that popular microfinance site Kiva isn't quite what it seems. According to Roodman, that's because fewer than 5 percent of Kiva loans are disbursed after they are listed and funded on the Kiva site -- the way most people think the site works. After defending that practice in a separate post, Philanthropy Action editor-in-chief Tim Ogden raised other questions about the microfinance lender. Writes Ogden: "First, all losses from Kiva-securitized loans are borne by the Kiva user. Second, Kiva's monthly repayment reports are not based on actual repayment data." Then he asks: Will the "illusion...of person-to-person" giving lead to Kiva's demise, as it did for sponsor-a-child organizations in the '90s? Tactical Philanthropy's Sean Stannard-Stockton weighed in with his own thoughts on the controversy (here and here), as did Holden and Elie at GiveWell (here). By week's end, Kiva co-founder and CEO Matt Flannery had posted a thoughtful response to Roodman, and, as GiveWell reported, the Kiva team had made some changes to its donor-facing page.
On her Business of Giving blog, Seattle Times reporter Kristi Heim takes a closer look at Africa Rural Connect, an online community that uses crowdsourcing technology to find a "solution for Africa's development challenges."
Nonprofit Management
According to a recent article in the Wall Sreet Journal, the "Great Recession" is over. (And we have a bridge in Brooklyn we'd like to sell you.) If that's true, says Sean Stannard-Stockton on his Tactical Philanthropy blog, nonprofits should move quickly to "reset the future path of [their]...financial health." According to Stannard-Stockton, that means:
Uncharitable author Dan Pallotta argues on his Free the Nonprofits blog that the so-called psychic benefits of nonprofit work are overrated. Writes Pallotta:
Most nonprofits are small and starved for capital, preventing employees from fully capitalizing on their personal potential. Nearly every good idea is met with a dearth of resources, a prohibition on taking risk, or a broken donated computer. Whatever psychic benefit that theoretically might have accrued from putting those good ideas into action is outweighed by the grind of shoestring budgets and overstretched systems that is the reality....
If you work for a nonprofit, you'll want to read the rest of his post.
Philanthropy
In part three of her "Decoding the Future" series, Lucy Bernholz offers further insights into the possible future nexus of philanthropy and technology. The big issues front and center in any such discussion, notes Bernholz, include "networks + network governance, the [giving] commons, [and] cloud technology."
Social Media
Ten Gen Y bloggers, including Allison Jones, Rosetta Thurman, Elisa M. Ortiz, Tracey Webb, and Kevin Gilnack, have formed the Nonprofit Millennial Bloggers Alliance to help "young...bloggers reach wider audiences and collectively bring important issues...to the forefront." Congrats and best wishes to all involved.
Social media has moved beyond "shiny new object syndrome," says Future Buzz blogger Adam Singer, and that means the key to success for organizations (and individuals) hoping to establish a meaningful presence in an increasingly crowded landscape is to be the starting point of conversations. Adds Singer:
[T]hose who continuously start conversations in a niche become referential for the rest of that niche. And once people are conditioned to go somewhere on the web for certain type of content, it is a habit that may prove hard to break. If this place is your site, you’ll greatly benefit. This is because we have designed the web to be a very social place -- and so the places where people regularly converge will continue to grow....
On her blog, Beth Kanter explains how to put "social learning" (aka "learning in public") into practice.
Volunteerism
On Friday, President Obama visited former President George H.W. Bush in Texas to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Points of Light movement, which was created to bring "individual citizens together in their own organizations to solve problems in their own communities." Writing on the Huffington Post, Points of Light CEO Michelle Nunn argues that while the movement has been a resounding success, "the call to citizens to step up and make a difference has never been more important."
Women
Last but not least, Allison Fine offers her takeaways from the recent Voices Against Violence blogathon. Sponsored by the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham and NBC Birmingham affiliate Channel 13, the event was designed "to raise awareness of the terrible toll of domestic violence on women and communities." And it was a success, says Fine, because
the importance of the partnership between broadcast media and social media was clearly highlighted....Rather than being threatened by the bloggers, NBC and the Women’s Fund recognized the importance of building a strong relationship with them. The future won’t be social media or broadcast, it will be social media AND broadcast -- in some combination that we are still developing....
We couldn't agree more.
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
(This entry was originally posted on the Foundation Center's Philanthropy Front and Center-Cleveland blog.)
In August, a small, engaged group of nonprofit leaders joined K.C. Henry, Principal, Transitions Unlimited, at the Foundation Center-Cleveland for Rx: Strategic Planning in Uncertain Times. Rx (Roundtable Exchange), a free peer-support group for development professionals or leaders from any type of nonprofit organization, is designed for those with at least five years of experience and is limited to twenty nonprofit representatives who come ready to participate and actively contribute questions, answers, and ideas to the group. It is presented in partnership with the Nonprofit Consultants Forum. Walter Duvall, the reporter for this session, provided these notes.
The roundtable began with an exercise to identify the most pressing questions participants had regarding strategic planning. Here's a summary of the discussion:
For more information about strategic planning, take a look at these resources:
Do you have other resources you can recommend? Feel free to share them in the comments section....
-- Cynthia Bailie
Our weekly roundup of new and noteworthy posts from and about the nonprofit sector....
Corporate Philanthropy
Blogging at BlackGivesBack, Tracey Webb shares a recent item about the newly renovated Betsy Hotel answering President Obama's call to service by appointing Dr. Deborah Briggs as its first vice president for philanthropy. The hotel's "community-conscious" efforts will include backing education, medical research, nonprofit sustainability, the arts, culture, and African Relief initiatives. And let's not forget: next month the Betsy will host the John Lennon Educational Tour Bus.
Blogging at Reimagining CSR, Jessica Stannard-Friel spotlights the Boston College Center on Corporate Citizenship's report State of Corporate Citizenship 2009: Weathering the Storm. After sharing some of key findings from the report, Stannard-Friel suggests that the "recession might be a good thing for the field of CSR," in that "as companies are faced with both increased social needs and decreased resources...[one can hope] they will learn to build programs that are truly win-win."
Fundraising
Jeff Brooks, newly minted creative director at TrueSense Marketing, has moved his fundraising how-tos and marketing advice to a new domain: Future Fundraising Now. (H/t: Give and Take)
Leadership
In the latest installment of her series celebrating Hispanic leaders in the nonprofit sector, Rosetta Thurman interviews Danielle Reyes, program officer at the Eugene & Agnes Meyer Foundation.
Nonprofit Management
On her Nonprofit Leadership 601 blog, Heather Carpenter shares her takeaways from the recent Nonprofit HR Conference on the future of recruitment and hiring in the sector.
Philanthropy
Lucy Bernholz kicked off a fascinating crowdsourcing exercise on her Philanthropy 2173 blog last week by posting a map of the landscape of donors and do-ers and then inviting readers to submit comments and/or visual representations of their own. The results -- here, here, and here -- are really interesting. Be sure to check them out.
Gift Hub blogger Phil Cubeta compares the gift economy -- "the kindness done years ago that can be called upon in one's own hour of need" -- to the strategic grantmaking economy and concludes that "we need more of the true gift economy if we are to recover our humanity."
On the Foundation Center’s Philanthropy Front and Center–Atlanta blog, Stephen Sherman takes a closer look at the new Bridgespan Group study Nonprofits in America: Overcoming the Resource Gap, and shares strategies and recommendations from the report on how to help rural nonprofits succeed.
Are you thinking about participating in the second iteration of America's Giving Challenge, a month-long competition sponsored by the Case Foundation, in partnership with Causes on Facebook and PARADE Publications, designed to raise awareness of and increase interest in online giving? Before jumping in, read Katya Andresen's thoughtful list of reasons why you should and how to get involved.
Social Entrepreneurship
Twitter has added a number of social entrepreneurs to its list of suggested users -- and that, says Sean Stannard-Stockton on the Tactical Philanthropy blog, has nudged "evolving social capital markets into the mainstream." Peter Panepento, the Chronicle of Philanthropy's Web editor, wants to know which "tweeps" from the nonprofit world are missing from the list.
Being included in the “suggested users” list is "more valuable...than if [Twitter] had donated...$1,000,000 [to these social innovators]," says Nathaniel Whittemore on the Social Entrepreneurship blog. Do you agree? And how much would you pay to get your name on Twitter's suggested user list?
Science/Technology
In preparation for the 2009 NMC Symposium for the Future, Beth Kanter has been asked to gaze into her crystal ball and answer these questions:
Conversations about the future of the sector, social change, and technology are taking place all over the Internet, and Kanter pulls a number of them together. Her conclusions?
What does your crystal ball say about the future of the sector, social change, and technology? Share your comments with Kanter and her readers here. Or leave them below....
Social Media
At the Have Fun Do Good blog, Britt Bravo lists ten questions your organization should ask as it jumps into the world of social media:
As a recent article in the New York Times explains, the Federal Trade Commission has announced it will release a new set of regulations, effective December 1, that would require bloggers who review products to disclose any conflicts of interest they may have, "including, in most cases, the receipt of free products and whether or not they were paid in any way by advertisers...." On his Buzz Machine blog, Jeff Jarvis wonders whether the FTC has taken things too far. Writes Jarvis:
There are so many bad assumptions inherent in the FTC's rules:
First, Pay Per Post et al, as I realized late to the game, are not aimed at fooling consumers. Who would read the boring, sycophantic drivel its people write? No, they are aimed at fooling Google and its algorithms. It's human spam. And it's Google's job to regulate that.
Second, the FTC assumes -– as media people do -– that the Internet is a medium. It’s not. It’s a place where people talk. Most people who blog, as Pew found in a survey a few years ago, don’t think they are doing anything remotely connected to journalism. I imagine that virtually no one on Facebook thinks they’re making media. They’re connecting. They’re talking. So for the FTC to go after bloggers and social media -- as they explicitly do -- is the same as sending a government goon into Denny’s to listen to the conversations in the corner booth and demand that you disclose that your Uncle Vinnie owns the pizzeria whose product you just endorsed....
Insanity and inanity. And danger.
Volunteerism
Last but not least, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has launched the VolunTV Challenge, a competition designed to engage readers in creating story lines for their favorite TV shows that highlight real-life volunteers and volunteerism. A grand-prize and two silver-prize winners will receive a donation in their name to a charity of their choosing. Entries must be submitted by October 26. For more information, visit the VolunTV challenge site. (H/t: Allison Fine)
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
Unless you've been asleep for the last eighteen months, you know the economy stinks and folks are hurting. You've also probably heard that lots of people have been scared into a renewed appreciation for their hard-earned dollars.
This, in turn, has made things tougher for businesses and nonprofit organizations, many of which have cut hours, staff, and/or service offerings in an attempt to stay afloat until the storm ebbs.
In such an environment, managers who have been asked to do more with less are always on the lookout for advice about the challenge, as the Poynter Institute's Jill Geisler puts it, of managing people whose work is...well, mediocre. You know, the employees you might have carried in "fatter" times, even though their work is "uninspired, formulaic, lackluster, average, not awful but never great."
Before you give in to temptation and "jettison" that underperforming employee, says Geisler, ask yourself the following:
In an economy where listening and communication skills are more important than ever, the best place to start exercising them is your own shop.
For more advice about what great bosses know about mediocrity, check out Geisler's podcast on the subject here. And if you've got any timely tips for nonprofit managers trying to weather this tough economy, feel free to use the comments section to share them with others.
-- Mitch Nauffts
Fundraising
Over at the Agitator blog, Tom Bedford says there are five questions you should ask before you allocate significant time and resources to a social media fundraising campaign:
(H/t: Give and Take)
Grantmaking
After attending a talk by a well-known new media expert at Philanthropy New York last week, Wise Philanthropy blogger Richard Marker was reminded that effective grantmaking is a teachable discipline with its own competencies, ethics, and best practices.
Impact/Effectiveness
It's not enough to show funders where their money is going, says Katya Andresen on her Non-Profit Marketing Blog. You have to be able to "show real, measurable impact in a way that enables you to be judged on a social ROI or compared to other causes [in terms of] effectiveness." In the current economic environment, adds Andresen, "Donors expect something more than a receipt."
On his Free the Nonprofits blog, Dan Pallotta offers a different perspective on the idea of "taking organizations to scale."
How do you make sure that money donated to a good cause in a developing country gets to its intended beneficiaries when there is no recognized pipeline from donor to recipients? The Nonprofiteer offers a few suggestions.
Leadership
On the Social Citizens blog, Kristin Ivie writes that she is tired of hearing Millennials say they are going to start their own nonprofit because they "can't get a job doing exactly what [they] want to do at exactly the level [they think they] deserve." If you, or someone you know, falls into this category, says Ivie, ask yourself these questions before you start designing your new logo:
Excellent advice.
Philanthropy
Responding to a Sean Stannard-Stockton post about the desirability of staffed foundations doing more to share their knowledge to offset a decline in their assets, a Tactical Philanthropy reader asked whether increasing the foundation payout rate was a good idea in the current economic environment. Probably not, says Stannard-Stockton:
The 5% minimum is essentially the highest level that can be required of foundations without eliminating their option to exist in perpetuity.
I don't think that all foundations should plan to last forever. But I do think there are valuable benefits to institutionalizing knowledge and creating long lasting organizations. That being said, there are also good arguments to be made for foundations to elect higher payout rates. While doing so may force them to spend down and disband the organization, they may be able to achieve more impact through this strategy....
On the Inside Philanthropy blog, Todd Cohen applauds the publication of On the Money, a new report from Grantmakers for Effective Organizations that takes foundations to task for placing "'enormous burdens' on nonprofits through grantmaking practices such as 'duplicative' grant applications and demands for 'arbitrary impact indicators'." Given the fact that foundations "face little regulatory oversight [and] are free to do pretty much what they like," says Cohen, foundations should work harder to "address nonprofits' actual needs and challenges." Is he right?
Are we finished talking about embedded giving? Not yet. From Legacy to Leadership: Is Philanthropy Ready for the New Consumer?, a new report from marketing firm BBMG, argues "that our values and social goals are becoming as important in our consuming, donating choices as our practical needs."
Social Entrepreneurship
On his Aid Watch blog, NYU economist William Easterly (The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good) writes that when it comes to social change, a sure recipe for failure is to set big goals and stubbornly refuse to adjust them as circumstances on the ground change.
On the Social Entrepreneurship blog, Nathaniel Whittemore explains how graphical interfaces communicate essential information and big ideas better than non-graphic data. Citing as an example this recent presentation about the healthcare reform debate, Whittemore suggests that "this mode of thinking could be valuable for social entrepreneurs with disruptive models."
Social Media
Guest blogging on Beth Kanter's Blog, Kate Bladow admits to being a listener. And tools like Google Alerts help her "to separate signal from noise." Adds Bladow: "Listening helps me figure out where those good conversations are happening." Does your organization listen? If not, check out these steps on how to get started.
As part of the Case Foundation's Gear Up for Giving initiative, Kari Dunn Saratovsky talks to social media expert Beth Kanter about the live streaming platform Ustream.tv.
Women
Allison Fine offers these takeaways from a recent conference call during which she discussed with other female bloggers key themes in the book Women Lead the Way, by Linda Tarr-Whelan. "Here's the bottom line," writes Fine, "when women make up 30% of the leadership of an institution, or organization, or sector, or board, things change....We need more, real, authentic conversations about the role of women in our society."
That's it for now. What did we miss? Drop us a line at rnm@foundationcenter.org. And have a great week!
-- Regina Mahone
(Thaler Pekar, a consultant specializing in persuasive message development, helps smart leaders and their organizations find, develop, and share the stories and organizational narratives that can rally critical support.)
As I noted in my previous post, stories are a critical vehicle for sharing knowledge within organizations and a vital means for organizations to nurture understanding, make sense of complexity, and embrace change. And, as communications consultant Andy Goodman notes, a storybank -- a central repository of stories about an organization and the work it does -- can be a powerful tool for organizations.
Indeed, David Beckwith of the Needmor Fund, which recently produced 50 Years, 50 Stories, a fine written collection of stories about the foundation, talks often about the critical importance of "collecting, codifying, and passing on" stories within an organization, while David DeLong, noted knowledge management expert and author of Lost Knowledge: Confronting the Threat of an Aging Workforce, notes that the nonprofit sector overall possesses tremendous "passion and energy" for sharing knowledge.
That said, most storybanks tend to be collections of narratives from and about the organization's clients, donors, founders, and staff. The stories themselves are most often about the impact of the organization and only occasionally about the unmet need that the organization seeks to address.
The downside of storybanking lies in thinking that the act of collecting, tagging, and making the narratives available will create and help to spread knowledge about your organization. The existence of a storybank in and of itself will not increase engagement with your organization or spark, let alone sustain, a culture of storytelling and knowledge sharing within the organization. As Roger Shank notes, "A knowledge management system simply gets slower as a result of more information. It never has an 'aha' experience, recognizing how two different documents [stories] considered together can shed a whole new light on an issue."
The word bank suggests things of value locked away in vaults, passwords, and authorized access for a select few. Don't make that mistake. The collection and categorization of stakeholder stories is no substitute for the creation of a true story and knowledge sharing culture. Be careful not to bank your organizational stories under lock and key. Instead, work assiduously to institutionalize the sharing of your organization's stories among staff, board members, and other stakeholders. In a knowledge-based economy that increasingly places a premium on attention, your organization's stories, well told and widely shared, are as valuable as gold.
-- Thaler Pekar
The story on Nonprofit Street is different, of course, as mandatory furloughs turn into involuntary layoffs and the prospects for 2010 and beyond (to paraphrase the Farrellys) look grim and grimmer. Indeed, common sense would seem to suggest that launching a performance measurement initiative in such a resource-constrained environment is about the last thing nonprofits should be thinking about.
Not so, says Andrew Wolk, the founder and CEO of Root Cause, in a new op-ed piece posted to PND. In these uncertain times, Wolk writes, the "pressure on nonprofits to prove their worth has never been greater. Doing good is no longer enough. [And today], there's a spotlight on better measurement...."
Fair enough. The problems confronting us are great, the resources needed to address them are enormous, and time, in many cases, is short. Institutions, organizations, and leaders in every sector of society need to step up and deliver the goods.
But performance measurement? Is that really something nonprofits can afford -- and philanthropic investors are willing to support -- with so many immediate needs demanding our attention and dollars?
Yes, says Wolk. In fact, it may be the key to your organization's future success, perhaps even it's survival. That's the good news. The better news, he adds, is that designing a solid performance measurement system is less daunting than it might seem. Here, says Wolk, are some key things to remember:
Sounds good on paper. But what about in the real world? Is this the right time for nonprofits to be thinking about impact measurement and organizational metrics? Can appeals to effectiveness trump funders' concerns about their battered endowments? And can anyone point to advice and/or resources beyond those offered by Wolk for nonprofits who want to take plunge?
Leave your comments below...
-- Mitch Nauffts
So it was a pleasant surprise to come across a recent article by Generation Y expert Amy Lynch in the Cookeville (TN) Times that paints a more optimistic picture of my generation's response to the downturn.
Few of today's 20-somethings, Lynch reminds us, escaped childhood free of financial worries. Also know as Millennials, the oldest members of Gen Y were toddlers during the great downsizing wave of the early 1980s, were in elementary and middle school during the recession of 1991, and graduated from college just in time for the dot-com bust, the Enron fiasco, and the recession that followed the terrorist attacks of September 11. Members of Gen Y "have never experienced a sustained period of financial prosperity," says Lynch, "and they have no memory of job security. They don't even expect Social Security to be there for them later on. In one study, young adults said they believed they were more likely to see an alien spacecraft than ever to receive a Social Security check."
What does that mean in the context of the current downturn? And what qualities do Gen Yers bring to business during tough times? "Try optimism and hard work," writes Lynch. "You'd expect a generation raised on insecurity to be cynical like the Generation Xers who preceded them," she adds,
but that's not so. Prodigious volunteers and politically active (look at the record numbers who voted in this election), 20-somethings tend to bring can-do confidence to big problems. If you think of this group as trust fund babies, think again. In 2006, 37% of Ys between the ages of 16 and 19 held jobs.
Lynch goes on to list four things employers can do to ensure that their young workers weather the financial storm:
Good advice. Do you know of an organization that has done something creative to take advantage of the talents of its Gen Y employees during this downturn? What other steps can nonprofit leaders take to put the experience of their employees, of all ages, to good use? Use the comments section to share your thoughts....
-- Regina Mahone
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