• Saying Thank You

In my Seven Keys to CFC Success, the 7^th (and most important) key is “Say Thank You Early and Often,” and as basic as this principle is, I’m surprised by how many non-profits don’t do it, or don’t do it well.   It’s important to do it, and it can be done in a number of ways, including a personal note, a phone call, or in person.  As many experts have said, the more the thank you is personalized, and the more the donor knows how their gift will be used, the better. 

• Face Time Counts

This is an old sales adage, but the reason that it’s still around is that it’s true.  Even if your main method of communication is e-mail, or other electronic means, work on finding ways to have opportunities for you to have face to face communication with your donors, your supporters, as well as your colleagues in the non-profit community.

• The Sky is Not Falling

Chicken Little had it wrong, although from much of the media it would be hard to prove this.   One specific example I’m going to highlight is all the angst that was expressed about the IRS revocation of non-profit status.  First, the purpose made sense, to clean up the IRS registration rolls that had literally thousands of inactive non-profits still being reported as active.  In March of 2010 in comments section of philanthropy .com article I forecast that there number of defunct non-profits would be 250,000.   (http://philanthropy.com/blogs/government-and-politics/number-of-charitiesfoundations-passes-12-million/21832).  In June, 2011 when the IRS released the actual number of charities that had their status revoked, the total was 275,000, as reported by Guidestar.  Other forecasters had predicted that as many as 375,000 charities would have their status revoked, so I am going to say that my analysis was pretty accurate.  (http://www2.guidestar.org/rxg/update-nonprofit-report/nonprofit-resource-center-automatic-revocation-of-tax-exempt-status.aspx.   Now there may have been a few legitimate non-profits that were decertified, but the law was originally passed in 2006, so I’m not really sympathetic to the idea that they didn’t know it was coming.   More accurate data is better for everyone, including the non-profit community.

• Workplace Giving is Not Dead

For a combination of reasons, including the “Face Time Counts” adage, workplace giving is still a viable source of revenue for many non-profits.   In terms of actual giving, if the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) were a foundation, it would be the 10^th largest foundation in the US.

• One Sentence Summary of all Diet Books:

“Eat less, exercise more.”

I will be following these recommendations myself in the coming New Year and let me conclude by saying Thank You to my readers, to clients, to my professional colleagues, and to my wife and family for all of their support. 

 Happy New Year Everyone!

Bill

Bill Huddleston

The CFC Coach

www.cfcfundraising.com

billhuddleston@verizon.net

Please make sure to thank all the volunteers that make your community a better place to live!

Wwhat are some of the critical ingredients to developing stronger and better relationships with your CFC supporters? I’m going to focus on some practical keys for generating awareness about your non-profit in the CFC community, including your anonymous donors. There are Seven Keys to CFC Success, but I’m highlighting two as a lead-in to the April CFC Secret:

• CFC Success Key #3: Use all 12 months of the year! It’s true that the solicitation period is only in the fall, but there are many actions and activities that you need to be doing during the rest of the year as well, including in April. One important element is to keep communicating about the CFC, in part to combat misinformation about it. Following the “Law of the Harvest,” planting some seeds of success now, in the spring, will help you reap more in the fall.

• CFC Success Key #7: “Say Thank You Early and Often!” This is probably the most important key, yet it is frequently the most violated by many non-profits.

The April CFC “Secret”
Every year, National Volunteer Week is celebrated during the third week of April. This is a huge event, with a Presidential proclamation and a lot of media attention. It is one of the signature events of the Points of Light Institute, and has been a nationally recognized week since 1974. Since as non-profits you don’t have millions of dollars to spend on advertising and marketing, it’s critical to leverage onto events that have significant and widespread coverage, and provide an easy “hook” for traditional media to base a story on.
As part of National Volunteer Week, many non-profits have recognition events, days of service, open houses, and, at minimum, news releases thanking all their supporters and volunteers for helping the non-profit work on achieving its mission during the past year.

This is where you get to combine CFC Success Keys #3 and #7, and add a few “Thank yous” to both your known and unknown CFC supporters. Whatever your non-profit is doing to celebrate National Volunteer Week, make sure that you include a paragraph or two in written materials, or a sentence or two at live events that thanks both your known CFC donors and supporters, and your anonymous CFC supporters, including the CFC workplace giving volunteers. As I already said, if they are CFC donors to your non-profit, they will see the story that gets picked up in a local paper, or may be in attendance at “Volunteer Recognition” event. Saying “Thank You” in the non-profit world is analogous to advertising in the business world, it doesn’t have to wait for a transaction to be meaningful and appreciated. The CFC workplace giving volunteers on the other hand, may not know anything about your specific non-profit, but since they helped raise money for the CFC charities, they deserve a “Thank You” from your non-profit. I call this “planting seeds of awareness,” some will bear fruit, some won’t, but regardless, the CFC volunteers deserve a thank you.

In addition to press releases and speaking opportunities, don’t forget that you have much more control over internal information, including your website, annual reports, newsletters, podcasts, etc. Do you thank your workplace giving donors and volunteers on your website and in your publications?
If no, why not?

The first commenter is Jeff Jackson from the Packard Foundation:

Thanks Beth for you question on organizational assessments, Hildy for raising the issue on assessment effectiveness and Gregrie for raising the related issue on leadership engagement with assessments. I’d like to add to the mix my curiosity about whether there is a difference in effectiveness and/or engagement between self-assessments vs consultant-facilitated assessments (referenced by Hildy). I know there are pros/cons to both approaches and there are hybrid approaches (such as a self-assessment followed by a consultant intervention). I’m also curious about the difference in effectiveness/engagement with one time assessments vs regular (annual) assessments.

On our Packard Foundation OE wiki (see the Organizational and Network Assessment page in the link in my footer), we’ve listed a number of resources and models of assessments (yet leave it to our grantee partners to determine which approach is best for what they need). We include a link to the Funders Guide to Organizational Assessment (Fieldstone Alliance and GEO) that explains when and how to use various tools. We’ve collected pretty powerful stories on results (short and long term) of organizational assessments (albeit a small sample) and very shortly we’ll be posting some related data/stories on our wiki for practitioners/researchers to comment on (see the page on Goldmine Research Project).

Our wiki also has a link to a self-assessmet tool used annually by about 400 community-based grantee partners of the Global Fund for Children and the MTV Staying Alive Foundation (a slightly revised version). The organizations use the tool to self-assess their organization’s strengths and learning curves when it comes to 7 areas of organizational capacity. Use of the tool is still relatively new (three years with GFC and just starting with SAF), but input on usefulness has been generally positive. One of the strongest messages is that self-assessment in itself is building knowledge and capacity about building organizational capacity. The leadership engagement question is addressed since the tool is completed minimally by the ED and ideally with board, staff and client stakeholders. Both GFC and SAF make it clear in the instructions, that the assessment is meant to be an action-learning tool for the grantee partners, more than an evaluative tool for the funders.

I hope this adds some food for thought.

Jeff

Interested in nonprofit organizational and network effectiveness? Check out:

http://packard-foundation-oe.wikispaces.com/

Jeff Jackson
Organizational Effectiveness Program Consultant The David and Lucile Packard Foundation 300 Second Street, Los Altos, CA 94022 510.628-0800 ________________________________________
From: NonProfit and Voluntary Action Discussion Group [ARNOVA-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Gregrie Merkel [Gregrie.Merkel@UWCNM.ORG]
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 1:27 PM
To: ARNOVA-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: Re: Organizational Assessment tool

Hildy, You are not alone. We could dig deeper to come up with the same result. Every piece of information and all authorities may point to needing immediate change, but unless the CEO is directly motivated, the board will not see it as anything to address. It isn’t a need for money, it’s a need to listen. You know, if it isn’t broken-don’t fix it; if I don’t have to do it I won’t. This occurs with the most passionate defenders of their cause. I hear specifics and generalities every day internally and externally regarding what needs to come into play to succeed. My reference comes from discussions with others in research at many small and national nonprofits. As long as the organization is not bankrupt or void of volunteers, they will not make sweeping change or possibly any change at all. At times the comfort level has to be pushed to make a difference. Gregrie

Gregrie Merkel / Research / United Way of Central New Mexico
505 247 3671 xt 350 gregrie.merkel@uwcnm.org / http://www.uwcnm.org

From: NonProfit and Voluntary Action Discussion Group [mailto:ARNOVA-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU] On Behalf Of Hildy Gottlieb
Sent: Thursday, February 03, 2011 1:39 PM
To: ARNOVA-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
Subject: Re: Organizational Assessment tool

On 2/3/2011 10:27 AM, Beth Bagwell wrote:
Dear ARNOVAns,
I am currently looking for information regarding assessment tools for evaluating the overall performance of nonprofits. This will be used as an entry point for providing guidance to the nonprofit sector regarding strategic planning, etc. I’ve found some information on the website, but wanted to know of other tools that were recognized and user friendly.
Thank you,
Beth Bagwell

Beth’s question raises another question for me – one that has tugged at the back of my mind for a while. And that is the effectiveness of organizational assessments.

In my own experience, I have seen countless assessments, done by outside organizations who are well acclaimed for their methodologies. And from those assessments, I have pretty consistently seen several results, in no particular order:
• Nothing changes… and/or
• Plans are made to address issues raised in the assessment, but little is done to address the larger systemic issues at the heart of the symptoms, and symptoms soon re-occur (if any action is taken on the plans at all)… and/or • Organizational leaders feel no ownership of the assessment, finding themselves in the role of interviewees rather than the ones actually assessing the org themselves – or even determining what is important to assess. (Having been told they don’t know what to assess, they believe that and default to, “Well I guess we need an outsider…”) All assessment calculations are done by the outside entity performing the assessment, the final result of which is then presented to organizational leaders. Those leaders then determine which areas they agree with/ disagree with. Virtually none of what they read is surprising to them, but they don’t feel any ownership of the assessment because they neither designed nor executed it… and/or • Even assessments that are fully acted upon do not make a significant difference in the impact the organization has in the community, as assessments tend to measure organizational strength against internally-focused management checklists rather than answering the externally-focused question, “What difference does the organization want to make in the community, and what does it need to accomplish that?” …

Is this just my experience? Is there research into the extent to which (and/or what kind of) organizational assessment actually a) creates meaningful organizational change and b) increases the impact organizations have in their communities (the supposed goal of building strong orgs in the first place)?

Thanks for any observations any of you can share.

Hildy

Hildy Gottlieb
Creating the Future
Making Visionary Community Change Practical http://www.CreatingTheFuture.org

http://www.hildygottlieb.com/

520-321-4433
Twitter: @HildyGottlieb
Skype: HildyGottlieb

Complete instructions on managing subscriptions to ARNOVA-L, reviewing the archive of postings, and other useful information can be accessed from the link at the top right of the webpage at http://www.arnova.org Complete instructions on managing subscriptions to ARNOVA-L, reviewing the archive of postings, and other useful information can be accessed from the link at the top right of the webpage at http://www.arnova.org

Complete instructions on managing subscriptions to ARNOVA-L, reviewing the archive of postings, and other useful information can be accessed from the link at the top right of the webpage at http://www.arnova.org

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If you received a Kindle as a gift, you’ll find these tips from Seth Godin helpful. The books are interesting whether you’re reading them in a traditional format or on a Kindle! Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2011!

As always, Jeff’s comments are insightful, and here are 2 of the 9 headings: (2.) Focus groups can make you stupid and (3) Insider insights can mess you up. The link to the complete article in Fundraising Success magazine is below, but there is one comment that I believe is accurate, and yet is counter to the vast majority of fundraising techniques that are promoted as working, namely that educating donors is the key to motivating them to give. Here’s the quote from Jeff’s article that addresses that:

In fact, I never really understood that my copy was causing the problem until I moved to the agency side, where I was held responsible for getting results, not perfecting donors. Then it dawned on me: Trying to replicate insider insights is not the fundraiser’s job. It is directly at odds with motivating people to give. The more you try to educate donors, the less money you’ll raise.

As we develop our New Year’s Resolutions, and for many fundraisers, one is often some version of “Raise more money for _____________(employer, client, favorite cause, etc) it’s important to keep Jeff’s experienced advice in mind, concentrate on motivating the givers to your cause, not on educating them.

Regards,
Bill Huddleston
The CFC Coach
www.cfcfundraising.com

Link to Fundraising Success Magazine article:

http://www.fundraisingsuccessmag.com/article/9-things-about-fundraising-i-wish-i-had-figured-out-sooner/1#utm_source=fundraisingsuccessmag.com&utm_medium=search_results_page&utm_campaign=search_resu

One bit of guidance is that you need to thank a donor at least seven times.

How often and in what ways do you thank your donors?

It’s not just a transactional act. In addition to the requisite thank you letter, do you publicliy thank your donors, including the anonymous ones?

Regards,

Bill Huddleston
The CFC Coach

The October issue has my article about the Combined Federal Campaign, and here’s the link:

http://www.blueavocado.org/content/easiest-way-raise-money-register-cfc

http://www.blueavocado.org

Thanks!

Bill Huddleston
The CFC Coach

CFC Donors are Loyal

Which one is it?

What’s your experience? I know of CFC givers who have given to the same charity for years, as well as those that change all their selections every year.

What has been your experience?

Thanks in advance,

Bill Huddleston
The CFC Coach

SBA or SEC model for Non-profit Legislation:

While Congresswoman Betty McCollum’s proposed legislation about creating a “Small Business Administration (SBA) for non-profits has received a fair amount of press in non-profit circles, my question is would a model based on the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) organization make more sense? The core principle of the laws about capital formation is “Full Disclosure and Transparency.” That’s way public corporations have to file both annual reports (10-K’s in SEC parlance) and quarterly reports (10-Qs), as well as special reports about any “material change”, e.g. insider trading, change in the corporate structure, etc.
In the context of Rick’s question about where was the IRS or the Attorney General, it’s often very late in the game when criminal actions are discovered. If non-profits above a certain size were required to have periodic filings (since they are also a “public” entity) this could be a better model for creating early warning systems that would let both donors and officials know of potential problems sooner rather than later.
The other appeal of the SEC model is that it is one that has both government and non-government entities as a critical part of the overall structure. The SEC does not have 100% responsibility for monitoring and disclosing issues with corporations, the “Self-Regulatory Organizations (SROs)” actually have the first responsibility for monitoring and making sure corporations and broker-dealers are following the rules. Who are the SROs – they are they exchanges and other key components of the USA’s capital formation system – New York Stock Exchange, NASDAQ, etc.
In the non-profit world, the Independent Sector, the National Council of Nonprofits, the Foundation Center, and others are some of the organizations that with expanded resources and authority could perhaps take on the responsibilities of being a “SRO” for non-profits. SROs have to be willing to discipline their members, that’s one of their key responsibilities. I give kudos to Congresswoman McCollum for paying attention to the non-profit world, which many Representatives and Senators do not. If the proposed legislation has any hearings, perhaps some of these ideas deserve discussion.
Regards,
Bill Huddleston
The CFC Coach
www.cfcfundraising.com
P.S. I’m not a securities lawyer, and don’t play one on TV.

The 2010 Presidential Citizen’s Medal
August 04, 2010 | 19:36 | Public Domain

http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2010-presidential-citizen-s-medal