Archive for August, 2008
THIS STILL STINKS, UNITED WAY CEO OF CENTRAL CAROLINA
This still stinks, why doesn’t the United Way ever learn how to properly fire someone?
I couldn’t believe this when I read it, so here’s the article so you can see for yourself:
United Way CEO ousted
August 26th, 2008 by Karen Shugart in News
Ousted United Way of Central Carolinas CEO Gloria Pace King will continue to receive her $290,000 annual salary for two-and-one-third years unless the agency can find her private sector unemployment.
The agency’s executive board voted unanimously this morning to ask chief executive officer Gloria Pace King for her resignation. Thirty-seven of 63 board members were at the morning meeting. She has until Sept. 30 to resign or be fired.
Board chairman Graham Denton at a noon news conference acknowledged King’s compensation — about $1.2 million in salary, bonus and benefits last year — was “out of step” with community expectations.
“It was a culmination of breakdowns at a number of different levels,” Denton said.
Denton said he was not aware of any large local employers threatening to withdraw from the annual workplace giving campaign unless the board took action.
Lord knows how this will shake out. The agency’s annual giving campaign is just gearing up. Clearly the forced resignation is meant to mollify pissed-off donors, but how can you do that if you’re still paying King a six-figure salary? Most United Way donors would be thrilled to get paid that kind of dough to leave their jobs
FROM CFC Treasures:
Questions for the Board:
Since when is a board required to be a guaranteed job placement organization for a fired CEO?
Re-read the sentence, “King will continue to receive her $290,000 annual salary for two and 1/3 years unless the agency can find her private sector unemployment.” I presume they meant “employment” but the main point is so what is her incentive to look for a job? SHE WILL GET MORE THAN ONE HALF A MILLION DOLLARS BY DOING NOTHING. $290,000 TIMES 2.3 EQUALS $667,000!
UNITED WAY STRIKES AGAIN.
Bill Huddleston
http://www.cfcfundraising.com
Claiming 100% Credit
CFC Treasures, August 18 post
This story was in the Washington Business Journal and the reason for putting it on the CFC Treasures blog is to highlight the issue of the United Way claiming credit for monies raised through the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). There are 277 regional CFCs and in many regions the local United Way is the contractor to the government that manages the CFC campaign and disburses the funds to the non-profits once the solicitation period ends and the disbursement period begins.
If the United Way is the campaign management contractor for a particular CFC campaign, they are entitled to some credit, but what galls many is that they do often do not even mention the CFC. This is analogous to Michael Phelp’s Olympic swimming coach claiming all the credit for the gold medals and never even mentioning the one doing the actual work.
Chuck Anderson resigns from local United Way
Washington Business Journal – by Jonathan O’Connell Staff Reporter
Chuck Anderson is leaving his post as chief executive of the United Way of the National Capital Area, opting to take a job with the organization’s national headquarters.
Anderson will serve as a senior consultant on system design for the United Way of America in Alexandria.
Angela Woods, chief operating officer of the local office, will serve as the interim CEO of the United Way of the National Capital Area. Anderson said in a statement that he was leaving with mixed emotions. “I leave with the confidence that I have made a difference and that I have helped lead this organization through a difficult time,” he said. “The present is stronger and the future is brighter for the United Way of the National Capital Area. I am looking forward to joining the [United Way of America] team and furthering my career with the agency.”
The United Way of the National Capital Area serves Arlington, Fairfax, Prince William, Loudoun, Montgomery and Prince George’s counties, and the cities of Alexandria and D.C.
Anderson joined the United Way of National Capital Area in 2003, arriving from a similar post in Delaware. Anderson’s predecessor, Norman Taylor resigned amid questions of financial mismanagement at the nonprofit 2002. Oral Suer, who held the position before Taylor, eventually pleaded guilty in the spring of 2004 to stealing $500,000 from the group.
In his five years at the helm, Anderson sought to turn around the organization’s management, image and ability to raise money. He reworked the board, hired a new chief financial officer and sold more than $15 million of real estate he deemed unneeded. But returning confidence to donors proved more difficult. Though Anderson experimented with administrative changes aimed at drawing more large individual gifts, a step away from the organization’s traditional reliance on workplace giving, the organization’s annual revenue bounced between $35 million and $39 million from fiscal years 2003-2007, a far cry from the $93 million the chapter raised pre-scandal, in 2002.
In a statement, Lynnwood Campbell, the national capital region’s board chair, said Anderson “has served us well and helped us regain our footing in an increasingly competitive environment. He is a national expert in the field of workplace giving and he has served our region and the United Way program in an exemplary fashion. We will miss him and we wish him well.”
READER COMMENTS
(1) Comments
Bill Huddleston August 14, 2008 11:37AM EST
Chuck Anderson has done a fine job at the National Capital Area United Way.
The information comparing the pre-2002 levels to the current levels is incomplete. Prior to 2002, the United Way NCA ran two campaigns in the National Capital area – one is the United Way campaign which exists in private businesses and some state or local govt agencies. The other program that the United Way ran AS A CONTRACTOR to the government, is the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC). The CFC is a completely separate campaign and the oversight of the campaign within the Federal govt. is with the Office of Personnel Management.
The United Way would report CFC results as part of its overall totals. The 2001 campaign was one where the CFC raised $50 million, and the United Way raised 43 million for a total of $93 million.
The NCA United Way did not bid to be the contractor for the 2002 CFC campaign. Since 2002, the contractor that has won the CFC bid each year has been Global Impact.
The totals for the campaigns that Global Impact has been the contractor for are:
2002 – $47 million
2003 – 50 million
2004 – 55 million
2005 – 57 million
2006 – 59 million
2007 – 60 million
The point is that for comparison’s sake, the accurate number to use is 43 million ($93M – the CFC $50 million) not $93 million.
Due to the lingering effects of the UW scandal, plus companies having many more workplace giving options (America’s Charities, other workplace giving management options, etc.) the NCA UW has not come back to its’ pre scandal $43 million dollar level, but it is unfair to use $93 million as the comparison.
Regards,
Bill Huddleston, CFC Expert
http://www.cfcfundraising.com
BillHuddleston@verizon.net
Skewed AMA Non-Profit Research Report
Skewed Research Report Results – American Marketing Association Non-profit Research Report
Where were the non-profit communicators? Less than 1% responded to the survey.
The American Marketing Association just released a report about the communication and marketing efforts of non-profits which was conducted by the firm LipmanHearne, which is on the web at http://www.lipmanhearne.com, where you can get a copy of the report.
The report has six findings, including:
Finding #5 “Marketing Spending for half of non-profits is small, reflecting the small size of most organizations.”
A total of 56% had less than +$100,000 to spend, and 42% were overseen by one individual.
Now you can argue that this finding is like finding that “The sun rises in the East.” It’s not really a surprise.
What is a surprise is the absolutely abysmal response rate that got on the surveys they sent out. In their methodology section, it says that Lipman Hearne sent surveys out to 125,000 people (It does not say if these were all AMA members or what the source of the names was). They received 1,012 responses, which is a response rate of 0.8% (zero point 8) or less than 1 percent.
Setting aside that there are 1.4 million non-profits, and we don’t know how they came up with the 125,000 names, my question is where were the other 99% who did not respond? I certainly don’t expect it to be 100%, but for a survey sent to 125,000 people that ostensibly care about the non-profit sector; I was shocked to see how few responded.
The impact of this low response rate is that the findings are skewed to large organizations, for example 15% of the respondents have a marketing budget greater than half a million dollars, and half of these (8%) have a marketing budget of greater than $1 million!
Read the report, it is interesting, and the two points I’m still left with are:
1. Where were the non-profit communicators?
Was this a design error in who the survey was sent to, or is “marketing” still such a taboo word in the non-profit sector that the people who received the report did not want to respond?
2. Do not use this report as an accurate assessment of marketing in the non-profit sector. It’s valuable and its findings certainly pertain to larger non-profits, but it simply doesn’t address the issues of smaller non-profits.
Regards,
Bill Huddleston
http://www.cfcfundraising.com
I sent these questions to Lipmann Hearne, no reply yet, I’ll post their answers if they do respond.
Regarding the AMA Non-profit Marketing Research Report
1. Who were people that were sent the original survey (e.g. were they AMA members, etc – the 125,000)
2. What’s your assessment of the low response rate (1012 out of 125,000)?
Thanks,
Bill Huddleston
MPA in Nonprofit Management
CFC Treasures by Bill Huddleston 