All posts by Tony Martignetti

A Conversation With Naomi Levine

She’s the free-spoken executive director of the Heyman Center for Philanthropy and Fundraising at New York University. We sat down for a lively chat last year at the Helmsley Park Lane Hotel, where I hosted a reception for my radio show. (We were in the Leona Helmsley suite. Woo hoo!)

Mrs. Levine shared her thoughts about professionalizing fundraising and enhancing its stature; the role of trustees; government oversight; motivation for small charities; and the future of the charity community. The video is below.

I’ll also play the interview on my show this week (along with Marc Ecko and Craig Newmark interviews).

My YouTube channel has over 70 high def videos with the likes of Seth Godin; Majora Carter; Rachel Sklar; Charles Best; and my stand-up comedy. Check it out!

Nonprofit Radio for March 2, 2012: BFD: Board Financials Dilemma

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Sponsored by GE Grace corporate real estate services.

Listen live or archive:

My Guests:Andy Robinson and Nancy Wasserman: BFD: Board Financials Dilemma

Andy Robinson
Nancy Wasserman
What do you do for board members who can’t read your balance sheet? The authors of “The Board Member’s Easier Than You Think Guide To Nonprofit Finances” can answer that. Andy Robinson and Nancy Wasserman explain why understanding finances is critical so board members preserve your good work and protect themselves. Do their eyes glaze over when the numbers come out? We’ll help your board achieve financial literacy.

Please take a moment to take the survey for this week’s show with Andy and Nancy!

You’ll find it below. If you could also share it with other nonprofit professionals, I would appreciate it. The more people who take it, the better the results and the better the show! Thank you!

 


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Here is a link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/QGRZ57C


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Dahna hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your aptly named host and its march second, two thousand twelve well, i hope you were with me last week because there were some excellent interviews last week like this one take on teens aria finger she was that she is the ceo of do something dot or ge, and she had ideas for motivating teens and getting their passion points, finding their passion points to get them engaged in your work. Also pursue your hero’s journey. His journey took him across the u s in a vw microbus, inviting two hundred of the country’s most famous and powerful to coffee. Eric sapper stine is chief creative officer at living wonder, and he shared some of his amazing lessons. Both of those were pre recorded at last year’s next-gen charity conference, then last week also had going greater into google search. Maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor, dug deeper into google search how do you search results different when you’re logged in or not logged in? Plus advanced search tips? It was a short course on search to help your prospect research this week b f d board financials dilemma of course that’s what b f d means what do you do for board members who can’t read your balance sheet? The authors of board members easier than you think god to non-profit finances, i can answer that. Andy robinson and nancy wasserman explain why understanding finances is critical to board members so that they preserve your good work and protect themselves to their eyes glaze over when the numbers come out, we’ll help your board achieve financial literacy also, roughly thirty two minutes into the hour on tony’s take to my block this week is our irs is helping you. They’ve got some helpful web content on a new site for non-profits i’ll talk a little about that we’re live tweeting the show this week as we do every week. Join the conversation, use hashtag non-profit radio if you have questions for our guests, send them bye twitter using that hashtag this show is supported by g grace corporate real estate services and i’m very grateful for their support even though i just flubbed that sentence, i really am grateful for their support now we take a break. And when we return, b f d board. Financials dilemma. Stay with me. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Durney are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help bilich we take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hyre oppcoll. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Metoo welcome back, it’s, b, f d board, financials dilemma andy robinson provides training and consulting for non-profits in fund-raising board development, marketing and earned income. He specializes in the needs of groups working for human rights, social justice, environmental conservation, historic preservation and community development. Nancy wasserman has over twenty five years of experience in community finance and social enterprise development her particular skill is working with clients on projects that must satisfy both financial and social or community goals. They worked together to co author of the book the board members, easier than you think i’d to fund to non-profit finances published by emerson and church, and i’m very glad that their collaboration brings them both to the show. Andy nancy, welcome. Thank you. Thankyou. Tony. Pleasure to have you about both. Andy. Pleasure to have you back. Good talk with you again. Thank you, nancy. Why is this important for board members to care about the financial condition of a charity? Because that’s, really? What? Your charges as a boardmember. You have the responsibility to make sure the organization is achieving its mission. And the way the best way to do that is to make sure it. Has the resource is it needs to do it, and the financial statements and the finance non-profit finances how, you know, pretty quickly, what’s going on, especially if you’ve you’ve got that information. You also have some responsibilities to the community to deliver non-profit and that does achieve its mission and does it in a responsible and raducioiu fiduciary appropriate way so boardmember czar have a fiduciary duty to the charity, right? Absolutely. To the charity and to the public at large. Okay, s so why do you say the public at large? What? Because the in the u s the internal revenue service typically gives charity’s a ah non-profit designation, which allows them to receive contributions and issue tax deductible receipts and because they us is forgoing that tax, um, on knows on those dollars and giving the public a public benefit, the irs exercises oversight of non-profit charities and make sure that they really are delivering on their charitable purpose. So there is some public money in here it’s foregone before gone tax revenue at at a bare minimum, often there’s also direct public money from government grants or government contracts. And how about financial problems that can occur within the within the within the charity, like you bring out an example in your book of people not getting their salaries paid things like that, you know you there. Is that that oversight potential here you you are running a small business on dh. You want to make sure that your employees they’re well cared for, that you’re achieving your mission in the world at large sometimes in charities will see folks, you know, giving up salary on dh or deferring payment out of the goal of achieving the mission of the organization in the long term that seriously hurts the organization because people are really watching what’s happening with the money. Where is it coming in? Where is it going? Out? And andy isn’t their potential personal liability for board members when when their problems like this. Like nancy’s describing? Well, let me first cubine disclaimer here, which is that neither nancy nor i or attorneys then we can’t give people legal advice. Okay, well, there’s, no way haven’t nobody’s given you. The listeners have not given you a retainer fee, so you know, okay, i won’t play this. Um, if there is nonpayment of payroll taxes for example, of accusation goes into debt, doesn’t pay the irs or state taxing agencies boardmember czar individually liable for that? Um, most expenses boardmember czar protected from being personally liable on, but there are some exceptions, so i don’t know that that’s what drives this conversation? I mean, four members are simply looking at the balance sheet as a way of making sure that they’re not personally liable. That’s one level on this conversation, but there’s a whole lot more levels having to do with stuff that nancy was talking about. You are we being efficient? We meeting our mission? Are we tracking our work so that we know we’re being effective and that’s really what financial management is about? Indeed, okay, there’s certainly a whole spectrum of reasons why boardmember should care. I just wanted to bring out the last one, which is there is the potential of personal liability. Um, let’s see, wei have just about a minute before a break, and i’m hoping, nancy, why don’t you introduce the idea of the the financial dashboard? And then we’ll talk a lot more about it right after this break? Sure, the financial dashboard is something we introduced. That really gives you a one page sense of how’s, the organization doing what what i’ve found happens with a lot of non-profits is that they, um, they give their boards just reams of paper. And all of a sudden you get the budget and the the performance in the balance sheet and there’s, fifteen pages of financial statements and most boardmember zeev unwanted, who do know how to read. Financials don’t plow their way through it. And so the dashboard is is essentially a one page opportunity to get a sense of how are you operating financially? Are you being efficient, and are you having an impact and let you do it in a fairly simple way? And we’ll talk a lot about that one pager right after this break, i hope you stay with us. E-giving ending duitz e-giving ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving. E-giving good. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one, two, seven, two, one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back for b f d board, financials dilemma my guests or andy robinson and nancy wasserman, co authors of the board members easier than you think guide to non-profit finances and well, we’re live tweeting the show and we have a guest live tweeted this week. She is mazarene treyz is from austin, texas. Mazarene hello, thank you for doing the live tweeting today you can follow mazarene her ideas at wild woman fund on twitter and you conjoined, of course, the conversation right now using the hashtag non-profit radio and andy, i want to throw a question to you quickly. We got a question on twitter from mazarene what if an executive director was found stealing one of the things nancy and i were talking about that kind of fraud issues earlier? Would you give them a second chance? Oh boy, well, i’d be curious to hear nancy’s answer to this. My initial response no, followed by it depends and, um actually was on the board of an organisation where we found the opposite problem, which was the board of executive director was pouring money into the organization. He emptied out his retirement account, but it wasn’t telling. Anybody? He did this because thie grants weren’t coming through, and he was too embarrassed. So that’s a that’s, a that’s, a problem of being over generous, though it is paying for it himself. Yeah, we ended up filing the guy. Yeah, and the reason was he wasn’t disclosing to the board with the board needed do its job, right? Right. And i would say the issue in that case isn’t so much as, uh, misdirection lying. So i am. I am, you know, obviously kept is a bad thing, but the board needs full disclosure from the executive director to be able to do their job. Well. And i know that’s really where i would go on that. How about you, nancy? Andi was curious to hear your answer. I know. I would say again, like andy, it depends probably depending on the amount of severity and this situation. You know, if if the executive director was borrowing twenty dollars, from the petty cash when they forgot to bring their wallet toe work one day um, clearly that’s not not egregious enoughto fire somebody. But if they’re helping themselves to the to the checking account and redirecting grants into their own bank account? Yeah. Probably caused tio tio fire them even if they pay it back, right? That really? Because they pay back with interest, that really doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, the thing about non-profits is, you know, they’re not your own private fiefdom or your own private business there. Is there a community engagement where the reason you know you have? Ah, board of directors that are the final legal responsibility for the organization. So you really shouldn’t be operating it like your own private business. Let’s, talk a little about the dashboard now, nancy, the financial dashboard we introduced earlier it’s a one pager which i think will be a relief to people that they’re not getting a sheath of financial forms and balance sheets. But what? What do you think? What key parts that should be in this financial dashboard that sort of streamline the overview for board members. I would say that that there’s really three parts to it there’s a financial part where you’re looking at, you know, sort of what’s our total budget. Um, you know, every board member of every organisation should be able to very quickly say whether the organization is a three hundred thousand dollars a year organization or five million dollars a year. Organization. That’s sort of a basic sense of scale. Um, are we making money or not? Do we have net income? Hyre, uh, do we have cash on hand? Those kinds of questions do we, uh, do we have network? So we you know, if everything had to be liquidated today, um, would there be any, any money leftover or any value left? Geever um, that that was tangible value? Not just, uh, goodwill? Um, we also want to be looking at at how efficient the organization is and efficiency changes, depending on what the organization does it it’s really sense of being able to measure you you against yourself or against industry standards and it’s, you know, the level of what it costs to deliver services, for example, to severely challenged populations versus what it takes to deliver services toe highly educated people in an urban area where they’re all easily able to get to something. The costs levels are going to be different, and and we’re not saying that they should be the same, but to know what it costs for you. To serve your clients, what it costs to have volunteers and then the impact and i don’t know, andy, if you want to talk a little bit about that impact, how you measure whether you’re meeting your mission or not, and they’re often knew miracle measures that you can think about, you know, if you’re a land trust, how many acres air you preserving? If you do mentoring with children, how many adult children matches do you have? I sometimes this is long term tracking, which is hard for a grassroots organizations to do, but in most field there are ways of measuring your impact in terms of the number of clients you’re serving, or the number of audience members who are involved and hopefully there’s some measures that you can come up with that act, the quality of your work as well. Okay, so people here is we could get this all on one page. He would have data from two years ago. You’d have data from last year. You’d have data from the current year. He could lay them out and see what the trends are. All right, that’s, the financial dashboard i love how you guys have this little dance worked out where nancy talks about the financial and efficiency parts, but then she throws it over to her co author, andy for impact, and you have it all worked out, sort of sort of taking the show over, but okay, it’s, in a good way, which which leads me to a question i said, i have to ask when two of when you co author a book, how do you decide whose name comes first? Did you just do alphabetical order? Did you flip a coin or i see i’m too narcissistic to co author with anybody but but how did you guys work that out? How did you decide that? Andy andy’s alphabetically? First on first names on last names on the honest truth is he did a lot of the writing work where as i did helped him with content, so it was very easy for andy to go. All right, so if i had come in, you wouldn’t have looked only at martignetti you would have lost her, looked at toni, and then i’d have fallen maybe to the bottom, which is probably what i would have had much to contribute to this. So you’re wise not to take you anywhere, even though i pitched you. Otherwise, you name is well known in a certain community. We might have put you first on the your publisher would never have approved that one of the questions that we ask before the show that relates to what we’re talking about now is, do you believe all your board members have at least a general understanding of your financial position? And seventy percent said yes, thirty percent said no, so that’s, pretty good, seventy percent, but the thirty percent. They’re not really very confident, right genera, and that was just a for general understanding. Okay, so the, uh, that’s the dashboard. Andy, should these things be devoted only to you the authority of the finance committee? No. I mean, i think a really good use of the finance committee is, well, stuff down. Rest of the board can understand. It provides thing and support to the rest of the board. Serve as mentors and back-up for the people on staff. We’re doing this. This book is not about house staff. Members need to do financial management mohr effectively. But the reality is a lot of people who are executive directors or even finance directors need help. And one of the goals of finance committee is to give them that help when they need it. So away to think about this is excuse me. If the board is operating at a high altitude and the staff is down on the ground slashing through the week, the finance committee is sort of in the middle there, providing a bridge between those two groups of people. And so that means that financial dashboard is for the whole board to review, right? Yes, absolutely. Was that a heck? Yes. Was that you could say? Hell, yes. Okay. Okay. Wei have another question on from twitter. Reminding listeners you can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit. Radio board members need to look at the impact of the organization. Andy, i guess this is for you since you talked about impact, how do you measure if you’re meeting your mission or not? I guess she’s looking for a little more detail. Okay, well, obviously depends what your mission is. There are some standard benchmarks for how you’re doing. Uh, if you work with substance abuse, there are networks that do that that can talk about ways of tracking your impact. For example, how many people come through a program, get clean and stay ugly if you are a food bank and you’re delivering food to the community? There’s a number of metrics there that come out of arika america’s harvest, i forget the name of the national network, but they’ll tell you how much money you should be spending more or less based on the population that you’re serving and how much when he pounds of food you can put out into the community pretty much every non-profit, um, subset has symmetric that irrelevant, and the trick is to learn the ones that are relevant. Your type of organization and then trying to adapt them to your particular need. And that would be important for the executive director toby recognizing certainly, and then right. And then conveying that too. Lord. Yes. And in some cases, depending on the size of the organization, there is some board work to help find those numbers. I mean, i work a lot with really small organizations who has a staffer overwhelmed and it be great to say to a finance committee on a volunteer basis, i’m trying to figure out what the relevant metrics are for i type art type of organization who would be willing to do some research and bring that back to us. Doesn’t aboard metoo. But, you know, in the larger organization, yeah, that’s gonna fall staff one of the other questions we asked pre show was, does your board have a committee devoted to financial issues? About eighty percent said yes and the remainder roughly twenty percent said no, nancy does there? Does there have to be a finance committee? There does not have to be a finance committee. I think it really depends on the size of the organization. The level of support. That the director might need you know, how complex the organization is and a zoo also how savvy the board is. If most of the board understands financials and feels quite comfortable with it in a small organization, you could get away without a finance committee. I’d say you want one in any organization that’s about to undertake any kind of major financial growth or change or, uh, new initiative in a larger organization. It just is a great way to assist either the finance manager or the executive director and developing budgets and exercising oversight, because things don’t happen exactly as people planned them with me today. Or andy robinson and nancy wasserman, co authors of the board members easier than you think guide to non-profit finances, let’s, let’s talk some about diversifying income sources. Nancy, you make a point of of having that in a couple of chapters of the book, why is that important? First, you never want to be totally reliant on just one thunder. You don’t want to be in a situation where if that one funders suddenly says, we don’t like what you’re doing, um, that you’re suddenly scrambling in having to find other. Ways to support your activities and your programs on what you do for this, folks. I think we’ve seen a lot of that in our recession. Agencies that rely exclusively or too heavily on, say, government fees for services or maybe even government agency grants, oer and oer foundation grants those of all sources that have been cut back. Indeed, that’s, true and that’s, part of what it’s both diversifying types of financial support but also the number of supporters within each types. So you’re not totally reliant on just one foundation or won a charitable donor-centric donors on dh foundations and government and your own revenues. If there’s a way for you to do that, we have a comment again from twitter. I’m just going to point out tio, the person who wrote that, john, that we did talk earlier about individual personal liability for non-profits. You may have missed that part of the show, but you can always catch it on the archive on itunes on our itunes pages non-profit radio dot net. Then what are andy some of the sources of income that non-profit might look to that that they’re not currently exploiting. So there’s three big buckets here, tony, the first buck, it is private e-giving private giving is foundations, corporations, individuals and, of course, lets people leave behind when they pass away the big category there’s individuals within private e-giving about eighty percent of the money year after year comes from people, and most of the groups that i work with don’t invest enough time and energy using money from individual donors. So that’s the first category second category is public funding that goverment funding from the state local, regional, municipal, all the government levels. And as you already indicated, this is a shrinking resource right now and the groups that i think you’re getting hammered the worst during the recession or they were relying on government. The third bucket is earned income, which is non-profits arching for the services they provide or in some cases selling goods, unity, and of the three that’s the biggest of all this is sort of the surprise for people is that earned income is about the same amount as private and public funding. Put together when you look at all the non-profit across the country that’s. Interesting. Yeah, you don’t generally see that in in fund-raising reports like e-giving yusa, because earned income is not part of their there. Sorry about private philanthropy there now very clear, the numbers a little skewed, because if you’re a private college and you’re charging tuition, that shows up has earned income. If you’re a private hospital and you’re charging non-profit hospital in, you’re charging for medical services that shows up as earned income, so those numbers really sort of skew the data. But i’ll i worked with a number of organizations where i’m always pushing him to say, is there something you do that you could package up cell? Do you have some skill that people would buy from way have to take a break? We’re going to talk more about earned income right after this break, stay with us. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com i said we’d come back immediately and talk about earned income, but even though i am narcissistic, i forgot it’s it’s, my this is my turn now so it’s time for tony’s take two for a moment or two. My block this week is our irs is helping you. They’re new site is called i r s stay exempt and of course there’s a link to it on this week’s block post, and that site has courses and webinars and other resource is that the irs has produced for new organizations and for existing organizations, and then they have a section called also in depth topics, and i have links not only to that site but to a few of the topics that i know that charity struggle with and that i’ve had guests on to talk about applying for tax exemption, unrelated business income and four o three b retirement plans and the unrelated business income actually is sort of a spin off topic from what we’re about to i’m about to talk about with my guests earning income so the content from the irs it’s all plain language, it’s really very easy language. Teo to grasp it’s a little hokey in some places. There’s, an instructor named coach in a bunch of the bunch of the content you’ll learn from from that guy coach. But, you know it’s, an enormous bureaucracy trying to be accessible and helpful. And i admire that so on my block this week, our irs is helping you, my blog’s that tony martignetti dot com and that’s the new girl from what it used to be. Tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday, march second, two thousand twelve it’s march already. And this is the ninth show of two thousand twelve. Andy robinson and nancy washington. And with me, we’re talking about b f d board. Financials dilemma. Andy earned income. What? What kind of charity possibly do? What’s a should be looking at tio. Try to make some money off their activities. Their work? Well, the question i always have groups that air wondering about this is what you have. What, you two or what do you know somebody else onto have or do or no most non-profits during the service business way deliver services. Sometimes we have expertise in that area and, you know i mean there’s a structure brainstorm that people could do around this. A lot of what we do in the nonprofit world is give it away, and the really entrepreneurial organizations look at what they’re giving away and they say, it’s paying market for this and, you know, we can we can spend the rest of the show talking about this. I don’t know if you want to, but, um, there’s a lot of opportunities there, and i see many, many organizations could be more self sufficient financially if they got at figuring out what they know and how to package it up. Okay, is there an example you can share with us? Ah, charity that didn’t realize what they had and and then ended up being able to exploit it and make some money from it. Well, i’m the author of a book on the subject about selling social change, and but my favorite ample of this, um, you know, for a group for years in tucson, arizona, caldnear search their seed bank on made of american crops and you know, what they do is protect eats from going extinct by planting them and growing them and distributing them and probably thirty percent. Of their of their income, its seed sales. I mean, there’s the bank and they receive selling what they recently started doing, which was fascinating as they opened something they called state school. And these are people who want to learn about how to protect seeds, grow them as amount of the next generations, really about sort of biological and genetic buddy, okay, money, and they come to arizona for a week and they get trained and everything you need to know to run your own. C back and it’s, an organization that was sitting on this for probably thirty years, only recently realized that people would pay for that knowledge in a classroom setting. Oh, they have been doing that all for free while they hadn’t been training other people. They’ve been taking care of this, but they hadn’t been teaching on. I said, okay, and they realised there are there, you know, the whole renaissance of local agriculture in our country right now. And they thought we could tap into this there’s a market here for people who want to learn how to do this. And so they started doing this, and they’re doing this four or five. Times a year and it sells out, and they’re starting to move it around to other parts of the country. So i mean that’s one example that’s an example of knowledge, they had a knowledge and a skill that was very marketable that’s, right? And until you have you know what, you need a finalist for better words, does he need someone in the organization who had an entrepreneurial gene who can look around and say, you know what, somebody’s going to want to buy this and not every non-profit is blessed with people who think that way, and i think part of what nancy and i are trying to do in our professional lives is to get more of that thinking out into the non-profit community. Andy related. Teo diversifying income. I had a comment from linkedin this woman had just had a board meeting this earlier this week regarding the need for transparency and distribution of responsibility when it comes to finances, bookkeeping and reporting function of their historic non-profit theater, they’ve been doing their thing, they’ve been doing things their way a long time on dh one big problem is that they have a banker on the board and he doesn’t see the problems s so it sounds like and and then she says i was able to get the check writing privileges moved to another person. This is sort of segway ing into ah, conflict of interest conversation. But it sounds like maybe he was the only one writing checks. Um, i secured a nice grant from a foundation and they want a financial audit. I’m moving for a review. However fear we won’t get any more money once it’s known how ignorant the board is about accountability. Nancy drew and he’s laughing. Nancy let’s, bring you back. What would you what would you say there? Well, you know, how are we defining accountability here? Is there a lack love? But what a financial audit might uncover is in propriety. But it sounds like that’s, not the case. More likely, it’s going to it’s, not the financial audit per se, but the form nine. Ninety that you filed with the irs. Which asks you now to tell us who does the board looking financials. Um, how does is the board of informed? Has the board seen an audit? Uh, did they review it and approve it? It’s really? You know, there there’s sort of two sets of questions, the very pragmatic did did you get an audit? Did you review? What did you look at it? And then the the more important question in my mind, which i think is the question we’re trying to answer with the whole book, which is, does the board really understand what all these numbers are telling them? And ideally with with a financial audit and accountant has come in and spoken directly with the board of directors and walked through each and every page of it and talk about why the financials are the way they are and what they mean? Um, and i think both andy and i have seen, you know, numbers of organizations where there’s a lot of people sitting around the table on dh, they leave it to the banker or the investment professionals, too. You know, they well, they know about numbers, and they handle it and it’s really something that everybody needs to know how to do if only to make sure that the mission of the organization is fully addressed by by the board and the organization. This also relates, teo, the conversation about diversifying income and hear this woman, i believe she’s a fundraiser there, a volunteer fundraiser on dh trying to diversify income source, getting a grant but fearful that the grantmaker not be renewed because there isn’t the transparency and accountability that thie the the grant source will probably be. Yeah, and this is another point that was raised. He sort of came out sideways is this question about separation of duties, which is, you know, in a healthy organization, people break up that work, one person opens the envelope, somebody else writes the checks, and somebody else approves them and somebody else, uh, get the, uh, bank statement and balances the checkbook, and the idea here is that you’re trying to avoid mischief, yeah, and fraud. And if somebody says, oh, i’ll take care of all of these things, you know, maybe they have good intentions and they’re going to be perfectly honest about it, but you really need to break that into separate pieces so people can have oversight over each other, let’s, segway into conflict of interest, andy define for us what conflict of interest is we hear it so often. Yeah, well, my sense of it, at least in terms of the context we’re having here, is that if you serve on a non-profit board, your job is to put the needs of the organization above your own personal needs. And where this plays out sometimes is people who try and receive a benefit from serving on the board at the personal benefit it has nothing to do with advancing the mission of the organization where they get tricky is that in a lot of voluntary organisations, there are inherent conflicts of interest. If you goes to a private school and you’re on the board, your job is to advocate for policies that are going to benefit the children in the school, and in some case, that means they’re going to benefit your kid individually and sort of sorting those things out can be challenging, but the bottom line is the decisions you make have to put the needs of the organization in front of your own personal needs. Nancy, how can we try to avoid conflicts of interest? One of the best ways is tohave ah, a written conflict of interest policy, where you’ve already addressed some of the situations that are likely to happen before they happened, where you sit there and say, you know, no defined what it is that is seen as either a riel conflict of interests or a perceived conflict of interest. Um, which might be a case where somebody was, for example, um, can somebody bid someone who serves on the board of directors bid on a project while they’re still on the board of directors or not? Or do they have toe resigned before they even submit a bid? Or do they only resign if they’re awarded the bid? Or do they have to resign? Or can they simply step out of the room for the discussion? Those are the kinds of questions that got kind of can get kind of challenging um, particularly when any member of the board stands to benefit financially from any decision of the board that’s an outright in my mind it outright conflict of interest and, uh, in most boards, you want to make sure that person doesn’t participate. And it’s it’s always easier to have that discussion when there isn’t ah, hot potato sitting in the room, that’s somebody’s thinking that they have every right to be part of the discussion on do you have to therefore bring up both the fact that somebody in the room is feeling uncomfortable that this person is present and it gets a little bit more tense in those sorts of situations prevention, having a written policy that folks have already talked through and everybody feels responsible for making sure it’s so prevention ahead of time, much better than dealing with it when it’s a crisis or potential crisis and, you know, it also is the transparency issue. You want to make sure that your presentation to the community at large is bonem it is as unaccountable organizations that that gives everybody equal opportunity to benefit from three organizations purchases. Is this the kind of policy a boardmember should sign and review every year or something like that? It’s not a bad idea, you know, it depends on the nature of the organization. I you know, i worked with a community loan fund and that’s absolutely required that you disclose your conflicts of interest each and every year and that you review the conflict of interest policy every year bonem the other thing that you know, incredibly important, disclosed, disclosed disclosed way have just a minute before a break, andy, anything you want to add to conflict of interest discussion. I think the main thing is that if you see it, you have to name it after. If you’re boardmember and you smell something like this, you have to have the courage to bring it up and nancy said, it’s much easier to do this if there’s an existing policy in place first, if somebody sees something like this andy again just a few seconds before break, who should they bring it up to your i’ma boardmember who do i talk to? Well, i would probably go to the chair first and say, i think there’s something fishy here, let’s, talk about it and i would start there, and then presumably, the board, the chair will bring it to the full board. Andy robinson and nancy washington are my guests. We’re going to take a break. When we return, we’ll dive into some financial statements to wrap up, stay with us, talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcast are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio. Nancy let’s. Talk a little about financial statements. What? What? Uh, what are the basics? First what’s the overview. There’s. Really? Two major statements that everybody has to deliver once the balance sheet, which is a snapshot on any given day, typically the end of the month or the end of the quarter. The end of the year. Um, which outlines what the organization owns and what they owe and what they’re worth, which is the difference between everything they own. Less everything they owe as faras it’s paper value is what they would be worth on that day. Uh, the other major statement is the statement of activities also called the profit loss or a p n l which is? Where do you get all your money? Your income your revenues from and then what does it goto pay for all your expenses and the bottom line? There is your net income at the end of end of a certain time period. The statement of activities is more like a movie. It covers a period of time. Uh, typically, uh, the beginning. Of the year to the end of the most previous sorry, the most recent months. So if we were on a board today, we probably wouldn’t see the thie statement of activities through the end of february because somebody would have had to have it all cleaned up as of yesterday. But we could expect to see something through the end of january and depending on what your fiscal year, wass would determine the begin of the beginning period. We talked earlier about full disclosure, so i’m going to make a disclosure the on ly accounting course that i’ve ever taken i dropped out of because i was i was i was going to fail, so so i’m like perfect for this book, this it’s very informative, and it is an easy read, and it is helpful guide um, nancy helped me understand i this was always seem like magic to me on a balance sheet. How is it that the assets equal the liabilities? How does that always come out so equal? I mean, its intended that way. Obviously. How does that possible? Seems like magic. Now you’re asking somebody who was not trained as a classically trained accountant. You can’t pull back now. Your name is on the book, you’re name is there. I’m looking right at it, says nancy wasserman’s. But it’s, um, it’s based on double entry bookkeeping, which was developed by the chinese and it’s follows up from the abacus. And i was sort of, uh, uh, amplified by the italians in the renaissance. Essentially, when you put an entry and double entry bookkeeping, everything that goes up, something has to go down and it all balances out in the end, in the cash comes out. And if your balance sheet that’s like number one is the balance sheet, if the total assets does not equal the total liabilities and equity, it is an incorrectly prepared balance sheet. There’s a reason they call it a balance right about yes, exactly. I love that my italian forebears had something to do with confusing me. Now in the current day. Um okay. What? How can we help? Boardmember is nancy who whose eyes kind of glaze over when they get to the balance sheet. Aside from looking to see whether the two the assets and liabilities equal which they always do right step number one is a balance number to do your total current assets. In other words, what? What? Khun b cash within a year’s time exceed your current liabilities. The things you have to pay off with cash in a year’s time. And so are you liquid or not? Do you have? Do you have cash available to do things? This’s? The place where you’re looking for those payroll liabilities or payroll tax liabilities? If there’s a number there that’s frighteningly large, you’ve got a big problem. And if its payroll tax liabilities, he was a boardmember maybe personally liable. Um, what are your long term liabilities look like? Is that that’s your debt? Basically. And, you know, does it make tense to you? Is that number reflects the debt? You know, the organization has your net net assets now, you know, the language of accounting is kind of like greek. And i sometimes think they made up all these names to make it even more confusing. It would be so much easier if it was it was italian. It could be it would be. And where there’s a lot of cognitive is and it’s a romance language. I think it would be oh, i’m sorry, no problem, but that total net assets number, which simply means, you know what? What’s this organization more if it if it had two legged liquidate today and if that’s a negative number, you should be concerned. And certainly many of organizations where that is the case. So those are the big things on the balance sheet, you know, does it? Does it short of make sense to you to the fixed assets and their value? Um, feel like what you have if he suddenly see something that shows that you have a fixed asset of, you know, equipment worth one hundred thousand dollars, you’re scratching your head because you have no idea what you have for equipment something’s wrong with and you should and should ask that question. Absolutely. You mentioned earlier frighteningly large numbers mean is part of what we should be doing is looking for anomalies. That’s really what you’re looking, you’re looking for things that you know that don’t make sense or don’t feel right or that you can’t if you can’t, if it doesn’t feel right and you can’t really explain it, you want to ask questions from and the numbers you know, the thing about numbers, they’re pretty, they’re very ghetto. They’re either on or off and, um it’s harder to lie with numbers. So you’re going to know right away that you could have frighteningly large numbers with the complex organization, and that would be fine from if if they’re bad hosed out. If there’s cash in the bank, if it feels like there’s equity, this is ah critical subject. Another question that i asked on the on the pre show survey is for those charities that do have a board committee devoted to financial issues. Are you confident that each committee member is fluent in your numbers and understand your financial position? Only twenty five percent said yes, the remaining seventy five percent were either no or not sure on dno was pretty large about sixty percent way have to stop there. Andy robinson and nancy wasserman are co authors of the board members easier than you think. Guide to non-profit finances published by emerson and church andy. Nancy, thank you very much for being guests. Thank you. It’s. Been a real pleasure. And also thanks to your publisher, kathleen brennan at emerson and church for her promotion assistance for the show next week you know his company and you may be wearing his name on your hoody market go ceo of the very consistent brand echo enterprises has ideas on branding and other business lessons applicable to charities, and craig newmark, the founder of craigslist and craigconnects, shares his thoughts on simple communications. Thes were both pre recorded at last year’s nextgencharity conference keep up with what’s coming up! Sign up for our insider email lorts on the facebook page like that page the pages, the timeline check it out! We got a new banner banner photograph, which will be rotating on dh the whole new timeline format like like it look at it and like it khun, listen, live our archive if you haven’t didn’t catch us live archives from itunes, you’ll find our itunes paige at non-profit radio dot net subscribe listen, any time on the device of your choice on twitter, you can follow me or you can follow the show’s hashtag non-profit radio my thanks again to mazarene treyz for for live tweeting today’s show the show is sponsored by g grace and company if you’re worried about the rising cost of rent for your organization. Or, if you need a plan for real estate that you’re non-profit owns, grayson company will give you a thorough and complete board analysis so that your real estate decisions are made transparently and thoroughly. George grace has been advising non-profits on their real estate decisions for over twenty five years. Gee, grace, dot com or eight, eight, eight, seven four, seven two, two, three, seven. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the owner of talking alternative broadcasting. Janice taylor is our line producer. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one to two p, m eastern here at talking alternative dot com. Dahna i didn’t think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get him. Dahna cubine looking to meet mr and mrs wright, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as filling as possible, then tuning on thursdays at one pm for love in the afternoon with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all with distinguished authors. Industry grew ours, and experts on everything from wine to fashion join us as we discuss dating, relationships and more on talking alternative dot com. Hi, i’m julie, hi, i’m julia, what are you wearing? Welcome to j and j’s. Secrets of style and beauty. We know there’s, beauty and style, and all you do, whether it’s a job interview, first date or wedding, we also know that not everyone understands what works best for him or her. We’re here to help. Think of us as your personal beauty style and grooming guru’s, as industry experts will give you the best information for men and women on howto look phenomenal tuning tuesdays at eight pm tto. Learn how to look your best. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality. In fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s. Time for action. Join me, larry. Shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio, dot com for every time i was a great poster. Every tower radio dot com e every time i was a great bust. Every tower, radio dot com every time i was a great bust. Every tower radio dot com the average guy was a great pushed avery tower radio dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven it will make you smarter. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking all calm.

Our IRS Is Helping You

I feel bad for the Internal Revenue Service. It’s disliked because it collects taxes and feared because it enforces tax collection. Loathed and feared is no way to go through life.

But IRS has programs to help 501(c)(3) charities. Their website, IRS Stay Exempt, has courses, webinars and other resources for new and existing organizations, as well as “in-depth topics.” Here are four that cover areas I know charities struggle with:

Applying for Tax Exemption (Teaches a lot in just under 17 minutes. The Q & A dialogue is hokey, as an enormous bureaucracy tries to be accessible and friendly; kudos for trying.)

Unrelated Business Income (Learn from Coach, a self-assured “knowledgeable and straight-talking IRS agent.” He’s also modest. You can also learn from Gene Takagi and Emily Chan, legal contributors to my radio show. We covered UBI last August.)

403(b) Retirement Plans for Employees (If you work for a charity, you may have one of these plans as part of your employee benefits. I find many people don’t know what they have, even as they’re contributing to it.) (12m)

403(b) Retirement Plans for Employers (How to keep this part of your benefits package in compliance.) (13m)

I’m not an IRS insider. I’m more on the fear-and-loathing end. I learn about IRS offerings by getting their Exempt Organization Update emails. You can subscribe here.

Learn more. Loathe less.

Nonprofit Radio, February 24, 2012: Take On Teens, Pursue Your Hero’s Journey & Going Greater Into Google Search

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Sponsored by GE Grace corporate real estate services.

Listen live or archive:

My Guests:

Interviewing Aria Finger at NextGen:Charity 2011
Aria Finger: Take On Teens

Aria Finger, COO of DoSomething.org, gives ideas for motivating teens and finding their passion points to get them engaged in your work. (Pre-recorded at last year’s NextGen:Charity conference.)

 

 

Interviewing Eric Saperston at NextGen:Charity 2011
Eric Saperston: Pursue Your Hero’s Journey

Eric’s journey took him across the U.S. in a VW microbus, inviting 200 of the country’s most famous and powerful to coffee. Eric Saperston is chief creative officer at Live In Wonder, and he learned some amazing lessons over coffee. His story is told in the Disney documentary, “The Journey.” (Pre-recorded at last year’s NextGen:Charity conference.)
 

 

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: Going Greater Into Google Search

Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, and our regular prospect research contributor, goes deeper into Google search. How do your search results differ when you’re logged in or not logged in to Google? Plus, advanced search tips. It’s a short course on search to help your prospecting.
 

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

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If you have big dreams but a small budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

I interview the best in the business on every topic from board relations, fundraising, social media and compliance, to technology, accounting, volunteer management, finance, marketing and beyond. Always with you in mind.

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Make sure to tune in at 1pm ET on Friday and participate in the live tweet by following the #NonprofitRadio hashtag on Twitter.

Here is the link to the audio podcast: 080: Take On Teens, Pursue Your Hero’s Journey & Going Greater Into Google Search

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Dahna welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent of your aptly named host it’s february twenty fourth, twenty twelve if you were with me last week, then you would have caught my guest, penelope cagney. She was she is the author of non-profit consulting essentials. What non-profits and consultants need to know. We talked about how to make the relationships with your consultants work, whether they’re helping you with fund-raising governance management or something else this week. Take on teens. Are you finger ceo of do something dot or ge gives ideas for motivating teens and finding their passion points to get them engaged in your work. This was pre recorded at last year’s next-gen charity conference and pursue your hero’s journey. His journey took him across the u s in a vw microbus, inviting two hundred of the country’s, most famous and powerful people. Two coffee, eric sapper stone is chief creative officer at living wonder, and he learned some amazing lessons from from those coffees. His story is told in the disney documentary the journey this is also pre recorded, a tte next-gen from last year and also going greater. Into google search. Maria simple, the prospect finder. Our regular prospect research contributor, goes deeper into google search how do your search results differ when you’re logged in or not logged into google? Plus advances? Search tips on google it’s a short course on search to help your prospect research between those segments, it’ll be tony’s take to look at some outstanding posts from my block recently, we’re live, tweeting the show we do every week, use hashtag non-profit radio to join that conversation on twitter. The show is supported by g grace corporate real estate services, and i very much appreciate their support. Right now, we take a break, then we’ll return turned with the first of my next-gen charity interviews. Take on teens, so stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s a lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, are you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio. Very happy now to give you a pre recorded interview from next-gen charity conference last year, take on teams with aria finger here’s that interview welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven we’re at the tribeca performing arts center in downtown manhattan, and my guest now is aria finger she’s the ceo of do something dot or ge in that responsibility, she covers marketing and cause campaigns, finance, business development at do something, and her message today was about inspiring young people and that’s what i’d like to talk with you about are you welcome to the show. Thank you so much pleasure to have you here. What? Thank you effusive generally welcome that’s great. So our audience is small and midsize non-profits why don’t we start? Just generally do you think they’re doing everything they can to bring young people to their cause is well, i hate to answer that, no, but i would have to say that not-for-profits heir not having enough fun. Young people are not going to be involved in social. Change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun applicable to these young people. Look so otherwise. A fifteen and sixteen year old, they’re better things to do. If they have xbox, they have tv. They have their cell phones. Okay, on dh when you say young people, do you do mean teenagers? Is that to us? Young people is twenty five and under. But our target market is teenagers, and we think that’s a really untapped resource. Okay, but obviously the future of social change is in today’s teenagers. Course. Okay, um so what is it? Do something thing doing tio that we can learn from? Well, i think a few things to one is using technology. So a lot of people, when they talk about cell phones, they talk about mobile aps. They talk about iphones that have about blackberries. Young people don’t have those things. Young people have boring old regular cell phones that text message. So and they send thirty, three hundred text messages every month. So let’s use that is that is that the average thirty seven receive more than a hundred girls. In forty two hundred girls are crazy, so why not use what they already do? Lets go where they are, let’s go into their hands into their backpacks, wherever they keep their cellphones to get to them onda second thing is, i would just say use their passion points, so don’t tell them what to care about. If they care about sports, i find out what derek jeter’s causes or find out what dwayne wade’s causes and you something they’re passionate about to get them even more excited about, you know, the cause and the work that you’re doing, whether it’s sports, music, entertainment, whatever. Okay, if we want to be in the within the forty, two hundred mics for, ah, sixteen year old girls text that we want to stand out, what do we need to be texting them about? How should we be approaching them so we can stand out in this message? You know, one hundred fifty messages a day, i think just by texting them, you’ll be standing out because so few not-for-profits air really using mobile to the best of your abilities, but i would say ask for something a lot of people when they take someone, they just push out. Hey, we’re doing this hey, come volunteer here and they’re not expecting anything from you, so treat them as part of your organization, asking their opinion. Ask him with you. They want you to do ask them what they think. It’s better just expect a response because teenagers like to talk a call to action. So teenage called to action? Yeah, but you want something back from them and engage them in that conversation, do you? You actively survey text message over the text has a link to a survey or something like that. We don’t do a link to a survey because they mostly don’t have smart phones. But so a great example is last week we sent out a text that said, what do you think of college? A it’s? You know, awesome. And i’m excited to go be over her price, not worth it. See, i have no idea, and we sent out one hundred thousand people and we got sixteen thousand people to respond and our sixteen percent so amazing just immediate response rate. And then we were able to send that out to the young people and say, hey, you know, this is what your peers had to say. Let’s have a discussion right now about education and poverty in this country, you know? Okay, how else can we use text? What else should we be doing? Diving deeper and help non-profits think about the details of their own promotion and branding and what they could be doing. Well, the other thing is, you need to get a short coat. So for instance, if you are, you know sloan kettering, you’re short code could be cancer or cancer sucks or cancer bites or whatever you want. But you need to figure out what that short coat is. And then wherever you go, if you have any advertising on taxi tops or banners or wherever you can say, you know, text cancer sucks. Teo a number, you know, three, eight, three, eight, three is do something short code. And then even if people don’t have the web right with them, they can sign up right on their mobile phone, no matter where they are. Concert event, volunteer event. Whatever. Okay, excellent short code. Give us one more. One more thing that we ought to be doing. Well, the last thing do something doesn’t dio because we don’t fund-raising anyone, twenty five are under, but i would talk teo the mobile giving foundation, and see if there is an opportunity for you to use text to give or any of those platforms, whether it’s at a fundraiser or just in general, if you have any public service announcements or anything else in the mix, all right, now you just said something very interesting do something does not fund-raising twenty five and under now presumed that you weren’t fund-raising among fifteen sixteen year olds, but your why not under twenty five? And why are we talking about engaging youth if if you’re not engaging under twenty five for fund-raising because we just we don’t believe in it. We want our young people to take action. We want them to donate genes. We want them to create awareness campaigns. We want them, tio, you know, advocate for music, education and so fund-raising it’s awesome, but every other not for-profit in the world is doing a lot of it so we can leave. It altum okay, okay. Other other calls to action clearly. Exactly. You also mentioned passion points. How are we going to assess what the passion points are for the teams that were trying. Teo, bring, bring, bring into the family. I mean, first you can ask them, but you can also look at, you know, why pulse or any other source out there that gives you teen trends of the moment. So last week you would see that the hunger games was the biggest trailer to hit, you know, tv ever and teens are really crazy about this book and this movie. And so how can you use hunger games, which is ah, movie about sort of oppression by the government and lacking freedom of speech and all these actually teachable moments? How do you use that? To get young people to get involved in what you’re doing? Just follow pop culture. Okay, okay. Let’s, follow pop culture. So where where should the forty and fifty year olds who want to engage the fifteen and sixteen year olds be looking that they have sites they never even heard of? Where should we be going to follow team culture? S o they can email me and ask and i’ll let them know. Or like i said, why pulse dot com it’s a great place to go and it’ll letter. Why? Why, yes, pulse and it sort of is the pulse of teens technology cause and they will give you they have a daily email and they’ll tell you sort of everything that’s going on in the teen space and that’s actually where i get a lot of my information. Ok, is there another suggestion? Where else can we look? We’re struggling where people are parents and maybe even grand parents, but they don’t know how to connect with their grandchildren at on this level. What else besides wipe all? Well, i mean just you can just go to basic things you can see. They’ll say what the biggest opening weekend was for a movie that came out. You can see what is on the itunes top ten list and all of those which is publicly available. You know, you could do a quick google search on you know what teens are watching and reading these days? Oh, teen choice awards, people’s choice awards any of those award shows that people are doing then you know, who’s hot in the teen world. Okay. And try to find the connection between what? What is? Trending and what your work is i mean, there’s always going to be that exactly every day at ten o’clock do something. Does this thing oppcoll tenant ten and so we have ten minutes at ten a m where the whole office comes together and we talk about what’s going on in the news. So, like, you know, we check out the new york times, cnn people dot com whatever and try to relate anything that’s trending in the news to cause on how to make that relevant to teenagers. So any time you can sort of hook onto new stories that teenagers care about, you’ll be able to give your organization’s message legs that it didn’t have before. All right, i’m gonna stop. There were stopped on legs. Are your finger? Are you? Finger is seo do something. Dot org’s he’s. A terrific suggestion. Really very valuable advice. Are you? Thank you very much for being a yank you very much. Pleasure. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven. Are you finger? Thank you again. Thanks. Bye. You didn’t think to get independent. You’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving. E-giving good. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free second reading. Learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m samantha cohen from the american civil liberties union. Now i have for you another next-gen interview with eric sapp. Kristen pursue your hero’s journey he’s a very interesting guy, very interesting journey here’s that interview welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio live coverage of the next-gen two thousand eleven charity conference. We’re in lower manhattan at the tribeca performing arts center, i guess now is eric sapp wriston his film is the journey, which is based on a trip that he took around the country cold calling ceos, entertainment icons, authors, artists, global leaders and taking them out for a cup of coffee and conversation. Except kristen, welcome to the show, tony. Glad to be here to play pleasure to have you. You must have learned a lot, and i listened to you when you’re onstage, and the one that caught me was one of the people that you spoke to was volkswagen mechanic. If you were driving a volkswagen, won’t you tell us a little about your story? And that way we’d get into what the volkswagen mechanic share? You bet you know, i graduated from college and i decided i was going to take a year off and follow the grateful dead and work of ski. Season and aspen and challenged by my mentor to make the trip more meaningful, i decided that when i wasn’t following the dead and work in a ski season, i was going to call up some of the most powerful people in the world and take them out for a cup of coffee. And ah, as john steinbeck, who wrote a book called travels with charlie, said, sometimes you take a trip and sometimes the trip takes you, and this trip has taken me well beyond what i even could have imagined. I spent four years on the road. I picked up three other travellers. We learned how to use a video camera. We shot over five hundred hours of footage interviewed over two hundred of most extraordinary people on the planet ended up getting a development deal with walt disney studios, turned our journey into an award winning feature film that played in theatres, and he put us on the today show, cnn, new york times and launched us into an international speaking career and brought you tony martignetti non-profit radio also, you know which it is mentioned that in your credentials, well, that’s, because i was just about ready to say that cause that’s that’s now, i think the evolution of this journey has now brought me to this moment. Thank you. Equally is amazing. Is the other movement who was the mentor in your life? You know, i met a college professor who has gone on to be one of the top leadership consultants in the world, dr tony smith. And when he was getting his master’s thesis, i ended up walking into a speech communication class. And that meeting ended up changing the trajectory of my life. He was the one who stood for me to be greater than i thought i could be. You interviewed? Well, you met you sat with jimmy carter and no jerry garcia’s. Well, but i’m really intrigued by the volkswagen mechanic because you mentioned him just as an aside and on the stage. And i’m really interested in what he or she shared with you. You know, when you have ah, nineteen, seventy one volkswagen bus. One of the nice things about that is you get to meet lots of volkswagen mechanics on a journey. And you know, the breakdowns are are super important and valuable. And you know when i met this mechanic. The thing that really struck me is that that the journey was never about, you know, ceos or necessarily, you know, becoming financially successful. Though i met many people who are financially successful. Ah, the definition that we carried with us for, uh, the criteria in which we wanted to meet people was, are they getting up in the morning, excited and going to bed fulfilled. And this particular volkswagen mechanic that we met in houston was just he ran his shop like the ritz carlton. You know, you sat down to give you a cup of coffee. Really made sure that you were well taken care of. And i was just moved by his passion. He loved what he did and you know, the that he was really who he was being that really struck me. It just reminded me that you don’t have to. And i guess that really relates to the to the non profit world. Is that it’s? You know, success is what you measure. You know, it’s what? You determine its successful. A lot of people think that success is something in the future where if you accomplish enough things, you do enough things that someday you’ll be successful, but i tend to believe that success is with you right now, doing today and every day excellently, whatever it is you’re doing and then sooner or later you may get a reward which you may interpret a success, but it’s only a reward for doing excellently, whatever it is you say you’re going to do, and this volkswagen mechanic really just showed up with that level of excellence and compassion and and it just it was really moving and recognizing to that success isn’t from external sources were, as you said, where we most people are enjoying success right now, just not recognizing it. It doesn’t have to be recognised externally and brought to you, but that were in it right now. Totally one of the things that that i to on all the time is that success is what we measure, right? So my invitation to people is always tio to get really clear about what your measure of success is and don’t let other people dictate what success means to you. So for example, i’m a big fan of the hero’s journey and you know, if you if you go down a path that’s uniquely your own by definition, you can’t be successful unless retroactively. And what i mean by that is that if you’re a real estate agent, and this year you sell thirteen homes and then next to you sell fifteen homes, well, we can measure that your three home was more successful than you were last year, and everybody gets that. But if you are on a heroic journey in which you are following your instincts and you’re going down a path nobody has trod before, then you can’t be successful unless retroactively because there’s nothing to measure because the people who love you are trying to measure your success, and right now, it’s unclear what you’re doing. And so even the people closest to you, the ones who love you the most, were tried to guide you off of that path because they want to guide you to a place they can actually understand and measure. So if you for me, for example, when i was talking about, you know, i was traveling around the country, and i was telling people that i was going to call the most powerful people in the world and take him out for coffee. Nobody understood what that was going to turn out to be. You know what that was going? So everyone tried to advise me against it. Now flash forward a few years later and my movies playing in theatres and i’m on the today show. Then people go that’s, what you’re doing now, now you bring back the elixir. You bring back the goods, though community goes, oh, now we see i believed in you all the time, but it’s that space in between and i think that space in between prevents many people from living extraordinary lives because people are afraid of being judged and and misunderstood and ostracised. But i think if you’re on the hero’s journey, that is just par for the course with their ah categories of sort of lessons that you learned, they thinks fit into some generalized lessons that that that you share with people and you’re from your conversation after meeting after meeting to hundred the most extraordinary people on the planet. I mean, obviously people have asked me to try to come up with some of the commonalities of successful people. And so mike white, my question just is so if you’ve heard it a million times, nothing it’s not all insightful is really, really not much to it your your question is a shallow question your question is, equally is profound. You know, if i if i thought about a couple of salient messages that i’ve i’ve learned from the people that i’ve met, um one it’s it’s super important to trust your instincts toe to meditate, to be quiet, tio, to listen to that voice inside and trusted, you know, when you ask people oftentimes some question they go, i don’t know on my follow-up is well, if you did know, what would it be? You know, it’s like it’s your ultimately the journey is you against you and to get really clear about what you’re up to in the world. Oh, and and trust yourself. I think another lesson i learned from these amazing people is is teo be humble and to ask for help that if you can figure out what the what is thin, go seek out lives people and get the how and i think on stage you shared with the audience that that was one of the primary lessons that seeking help, but we’re it’s not about ego it’s about the people you bring around you. Yeah, you know, i think that it prevents people from living extraordinary lives if they get their ego out of out of whack. You know, i’ve done so many things in my life and and i don’t really have any credentials to do any of them. And so, you know, i’m very clear about what my vision is and then sought out people much smarter than me to help guide me and that people love to do that. If you’re passionate and you’re clear, you could get access to the most powerful people in the world that will give you insights, direction, support, money, resource, arses. But you have to be willing to ask for help, you know, i interrupted you. Go ahead. There were some some common lessons. You will understand you. Another common lesson is finish what you start. You know where it we’re a culture of easy starters, but very few finishers and tenacity is a great value. And even if your friends are advising you against that path, it depends. You know, i guess there’s another insight there too. And that is be really careful on who you’re taking counsel from. There are a lot of cynics out there and people who have gone and have not pursued what they believe is their higher purpose and out of good intentions, they will try to guide you away from that. I didn’t listen to just anybody. I went to talk to people who are getting up in the morning, excited, going to bed, fulfilled, who had been successful over multiple generations, who have done extraordinary things. And when they told me to jump, i’d say how high. But if i met somebody else know doesn’t mean that cynics can offer you a great insight i took, i took insight from everybody i could be on a bus and all of a sudden, you know, a city bus, and somebody offered me a great pearl. I’d like thank you and a za counterpoint to this, the cynics and naysayers or some of my best allies, because i’m an optimist and i tend to look for what’s possible and the people who are cynics are looking for whats not possible and often times if you’re open to hearing them, they could point out something. That you’ve missed and also make that part of your plan. So i i’m just i’m a sponge. I listened to everybody, but then again come back to my own intuition and and then now choose i love your inspiration toe follow what you believe in, take advice, but you would stick to that that path i mean, tenacity, the passion sort of things that you you got when you invited the audience to yell out, you know, what does it take to be successful too? I forget i don’t member how you phrased it, but a cheese or what virality what separates those who achieve from those who do not know and the audience rattled off. You know, ten answers from courage to communication, teo having a vision and and the differentiating factor for me was what separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. Ask others for help. I’m gonna leave there. Alright, tony it’s been a pleasure. Thanks for let me sit. And for anybody that your listeners are interested, we have a website which is www dot live in wonder dot com l i v i n w endy r and there’s tons of videos, and we have a new book on living wonder, and we have our movie, the journey, and and we’d love to get a message from me, there’s, a contact us button. And right now we have a campaign to inspire the world to live in wonder. So if you’re out there living and wonder, please let us know we are eric sacristan. His film is the journey there’s, much more to his story, and you’ll find it at live in wonder. Dot com. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven. I want to thank eric sapperstein again, sitting down with us, tony it’s. Been a pleasure. Thanks for my privilege. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam lebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping hunters. People be better business people. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back to the show, it’s time for tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour my block this week. I don’t know what’s on my block this week, i’m recording this twenty february twenty fourth show about three weeks early, and i don’t know what’s going to be on the block when you’re listening to this. So i’m going to point you to two recent posts that have gotten a decent number of comments one was share my optimism for twenty twelve i’m always optimistic at the beginning of a new year, and this one is certainly included really doesn’t matter that we’re in the midst of a recession. I’m still just optimistic at the beginning of every year, and a bunch of people agreed with me so you could see that post share my optimism for twenty twelve another one that did pretty well was say thank you before you have to. This was the story of a one of my credit cards that got compromised and the card was canceled and i had a few automatic payments on it and the companies that i had those payments with, along with their requests for the new number the new credit card number. They had started thanking me, but they had never done that before. And i had been a customer of theirs for, like, five or six years for each of them. So it just got me thinking that they’re not really thanking me out of gratitude there thinking because it’s embarrassing. Now, if they don’t thank me when they’re tryingto get the new number and just get back into my pocket so that didn’t sound like genuine gratitude and ah, and i blogged about it. So that’s ah, that post is called say thank you before you have to. These are both on my block at tony martignetti dot com note the new girl tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, february twenty fourth, the eighth show of twenty twelve with me now is maria simple, the prospect finder, our regular prospect research contributor she’s, an experienced trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects now, ria simple. Welcome back. Thanks a lot, tony it’s, great to be here with you again. Always a pleasure to have you were talking about going greater into google search this week. Google search results have changed very recently. What? What’s what’s up there? Yeah. You know, i thought we might devote some time talking about this because i started seeing headlines in some very reputable publications like mashable. Dot com and the headline read, google merch is emerges search and google plus into social media juggernaut. And then i read another article through comes stant contact that said, google blurs the lines between social and search. I got to thinking about what would the impact be on the overall prospect, a research community where in most cases are first place we turn to for information on individuals, foundations, corporations, whatever is google, right? I think. And i found something that said in september of two thousand eleven, google represented sixty percent of all searches that was that was, according to experian hitwise. And so i got to thinking about what is all this going to mean? So let’s, break this down a little bit first, just to kind of give people a little bit of background, you know, google set up something called google plus so their own social media network okay? And i kind of didn’t pay too much attention to it for a while, and i knew that eventually i would have to get on board and open up a google plus account, and not only for me personally, but for my business. Then i realized what the impact would be, whether you had this account or not in terms of your potential search results. So let’s talk about this a little bit, because in addition to google plus, which they say has now has ninety million users and they’re expecting it to grow very quickly. This is this is google’s expectations. Um then you couple that with what they recently just launched in the last few weeks, which is search, plus your world. So it impacts your search results, whether you’re logged into your google account or not. So i wanted to take a closer look at that, and i did some experimenting. And would you like to hear about some of the search results and how they were influenced us to whether i was lobbed into google or not? No, not really. I think we should skip that now, of course. That’s why we’re here? Of course we’re interested in your results. Yes. Ok, so what was interesting thing? First thing i did was i went ahead and i set up a search on somebody’s name who you’ve actually had on your show. And i wanted to see how the search results would differ because you and i are now connected in a circle in google plus, right? We are, i thought, well, let’s, see how the search results would be impacted now i love google plus, because i don’t know the name of the circle that you have me in, which is probably annoying pseudo friend, radio host. But you don’t know the name of the circle that i have you in either, which is why i don’t and it’s glamorous prospect researcher, but but that’s inside. So i have you in a colleague circle that’s, very thoughtful, very nebulous. Okay, all right, so but we are connected on google plus. So? So who did you search? So who did you search? Scott koegler actually had on your show talking about google, plus another regular contributor yet, and i know that you’re actually connected to him on google plus because i actually was able to see that he was in one of your circle, so you might be a perfect example for me to test. So i logged into i went ahead and i logged in, and when i put his name into the search engine without any parentheses, so again, i was not searching for the phrase scott koegler so it really picked up anywhere where there was mention of god or koegler is that how you do exact phrases? You do parentheses. Okay, we’re goingto get around. Okay. Later on, we’re going talk about advanced searches. Well, okay. And, uh the search results came up at two million three hundred sixty thousand. Now again, it wasn’t as a phrase, but it turned out that there were twenty personal results. So this is how google categorizes thie search plus results there your personal result? How do you tell personal from non part from the general right? So the personal results cama with a little icon of a person’s head. Oh, that little bust i’ve seen that ok? Is that? Does that little bust your personal results? Meaning that somebody in your world that you’re connected teo in in google has has shared something about this. So it turned out that all those twenty personal results, in fact, were things all shared by you, that that would make sense because there were things like your facebook posts on your on your radio show page, your block posts, etcetera, anywhere that now i only kind of printed out for myself is page one of the results. But anyway, those those twenty results all had to do with the fact that you had shared it. Which makes sense. And i pretty much expected that those results would look like that because of the fact that i knew going into it. You were connected to god. Okay, okay. So, interestingly enough, though, when i when i toggle off now, there is a way to to see your search results, um, so that you can opt out three result. You can see the results as if you weren’t signed in. Is that what you mean? Ok, so how do you do that? Talking right next to the top of the search results page, you’ll see the icon will have a little person’s head and right next to it, it looks like more of a a little circle of globe, i think that’s what it’s supposed to represent the globe? So if you click on that, then it filters out away all of those personal search results, and when i did that, interestingly enough, none of those for top twenty results came back at all connected to you, which means i don’t i don’t rank it all. I’m right in the global world. I’m nothing so in the global world, yeah, and and and it’s even more depressing when i want to tell you about my search results on plan giving and prospect research, but anyway, we’ll get to that a moment so very interesting anyway, that that that would happen that way. So my takeaway on that is make sure that you have an opportunity, whether you’re you know, especially if you’re logged into google while you’re doing your searches that you go ahead and you toggle off the personal search results so that you might get more of those relevant results because don’t forget, when you’re doing as a prospect researcher let’s say, you’re you’re profiling an individual. This is an unknown individual, you’re not connected to them in any way you want. To be ableto have google bring back the most relevant results for you, and we’ll talk about how you can use, i think the advanced search page, which would be even more used as a prospect research so someone in an office they could accidentally be logged into their google plus are not a sort of locked into google plus, but just logged into google somewhere. Maybe they were just looking at a google doc or something like that some other property of google’s, and then they go into a search, they need to know that their search results are going to be personalized, and they might prefer to have the global depending on what the purpose of their searches but if they’re doing, if their office that they’re definitely gonna want to global, right do if they’re at home and their log into google and they’re looking for a fun restaurant or the best pizza place in the neighborhood to eat at, well, then they might want to incorporate their friends. Searchers are absolutely something like that because that now you’re changing the whole scope of why you’re doing the search. Okay, um, i’ll tell you that there’s a link. If you want to even share it on your block at some point, that gives a really good overview. Basic overview with some videos and so forth that google has put together and it’s at google dot com forward, slash inside, search forward, slash plus dot html, and i’ll send you that link, tony, that we can get that we’ll put that on the block. I’m sorry, we’ll put that on the facebook page. We’ll put on the show, i’ll shoot you that lincoln that would. That does provide a pretty decent, basic overview of what’s going on there. Now. One of the other things that i wanted to talk about was wade just talked about controlling what you see, but also i don’t think google is going to be you’re not going to be able to ignore google plus anymore. Andi, we’ll talk about this just for a minute. You mean, in terms of having your own account, we’re having our or non-profit having a non-profit having its own write what you would call a business pages, but why do okay? Because being now as a non-profit being found and the relevancy and so forth is going to come into play and it’s really kind of changing up the whole thing in terms of search engine optimization. So i think that no longer can people ignore google it’s just too powerful, too large and expected to grow the google plus, at least is expected to grow rather large, okay, and listeners can can listen to my interview with scott koegler excuse me, we talked about this several weeks ago about getting a google plus business page for your non-profit right, right, so that might be something they want to consider doing because they would want to, of course, be found and so forth, so that is definitely something not to be. Ignored so let’s talk about then what can you do with google ignoring the whole google search plus your world thing? Okay, why don’t you just introduce us? We have just about two minutes before break s so you just get a started and then we’ll come back, okay? Great. So what we’re going to do is talk about google advanced searches, which are extremely useful. How do you find out? How do you find the advanced search so well, i’ll talk about that in a moment exactly how to get to that. And then also setting up of google alerts could be their use oppcoll for a prospect, researchers so those are two aspects of google that you can use whether or not you are a google user on google, plus user or a google search plus your world use their again understanding how to utilize some of what we’ll call the you know what existed already old school, google style, and they would be very useful, awful okay, any prospect? Researcher? So the advanced search, how do we find that? So what you would do is that used to be easier to find, but at this point what? I would say is put your search term into into the google search box at the very and then you get your search results. He hit search, you get your search results at the very bottom of the page, you will see something that says google advanced search, and then i would suggest that you clicked through on that page and then that would bring back to you an entire new set of items that you could do a search on and filter your search results much further, so that they’re more relevant to what you’re looking for. Okay, so you find this on the bottom of the first results page that’s, correct cab called advanced search. I think, personally, i think that’s the easiest way to get results, and then we have just about a minute or so before no, we don’t really have much time for a break, so we’re going to take a break. And when we return, maria will return, and we’ll talk more about google advanced search tips. So stay with me talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit, you’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martin durney non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking. Welcome back to the show. I’m with maria simple maria samples with me. We’re talking, going greater into google search, and we’re just about to get into advanced search tips. We we you know how to find it. What’s your first suggestion, maria with advanced search. Okay, so right before break, we talked about going in and just doing a search on, say, a kn individual’s name. So if you were searching doing prospect research on a person, you could put their name into the regular search box. I would highly suggest that you, when you do that, you put quotations around the name. So if we were researching tony martignetti, we would want to make sure that it had quotes around the names so that google didn’t pick up any search where the word tony or martignetti showed up, right? And now earlier you said it was parentheses. I’m sorry. What did i just say right now? You just said quotes. It is, quote, quote. So so sprint okay princessa steak before. Okay? Yeah. Quotes. Okay. I was wondering because courts are standard, but i thought maybe quote, quote. Okay, definitely quotation. Mark. Okay, so you’ll put quotation marks. Around the person’s name and then that will let google know you’re looking for that as a search treyz um when you then get your first paycheck search results all the way at the bottom, you’ll click on advanced search and then let’s say there are just way too many search results for you to want to filter through this advanced search page will do that leg work for you. There is a box called search within a site or domain and here’s what i suggest that everybody does their doing there prospect research you want you’re interested, of course, in knowing where somebody is connected in the nonprofit world or perhaps, uh, connected to their alma mater. Perhaps they’ve given a lot of money there, so i would normally when i do my prospect research, i would put the person’s name in and have have it filtered, bound out by dot or ge and dot edu, so i’ll perform the advanced search twice, so i would look for tony martignetti with quote and i would search for it and tell google hit back to may the on ly search results that come back with a dot or go after it and then i would do the search again with a dot edu i would be interested in knowing if your name is showing up on the web sites of any non profit organizations, it could very well be that i’m going to come up, and i think this happens to me all the time when i’m doing research, i will find if your name is ana non-profits website is having given on as part of their annual report, so if you’re listed on an annual report and let’s say you are in the president’s circle and you’ve donated at a level of, you know, five million and above tony let’s go big here. I was thinking that was kind of small example, go ahead, so five million and above, i’m at least gonna have a pretty good idea that, yes, tony is definitely a major donor here, very close he’s not showing up in the ninety nine dollars and below level. So it’s not going to give you an exact a gift that tony has made, but at least it’s going to give you the range that tony has made other organizations, and i think that could be particularly useful as you’re thinking about your approach to a donor and how much to potentially asked them for excellent and also if you did, as you said, the dot edu, then you could might find where they’re on the water is right, and maybe not even then ferilli donating to the alma mater, but that could be a piece of the puzzle that you didn’t have you just didn’t know, and maybe you are somewhat activewear here alumni association. Or maybe you go back to our alma mater and you do some speaking there, etcetera, and and it has shown up on their website, so anything connected to a dot edu where your name shows up? Of course, your name is it’s, probably not all that common in the united states, but if you were searching, you know, john smith, then this maybe not even quite useful, because you’re you’re going to come up with an awful lot of john smith who have donated to their alma mater. Interactive, etcetera? No, if you search my name under dot gov and you’ll find my prison record well, you have to go to the right state. Let’s, go in the right state. But i’m not revealing which which state that is that in which i have served the time. Okay, that’s. Excellent. So what else is there under advanced search so you can search down by date. So let’s say you’ve already done some research. You had previously researched a prospect. Maybe it was a year or two ago when you’re really just going to refresh the data so you can actually have google search back the results to you in the past twenty four hours the past week, the past months, the past year. So let’s say you’re just looking to get the most recent search results on an individual’s name. You can have it filtered down. Now they’ve got other different types, filters and so forth. But i think that in terms of a ah prospect researcher and the type of information they’re looking for, a donor prospects relevancy in terms of having the most timely information on then also where also they showing up in the non-profit space. Yeah. And also you might know that there’s some reason that some one of your prospect is in the news. So then you want to do something just within the past. Twenty four hours. You don’t want all the back history. That’s, right? Right. So if it really is something that’s just hit the news recently, you khun definitely have google filter down those results to just the past twenty four hours, which is particularly useful. Can we talk about google alert? You know what? We just have one minute left, so i don’t i want to i want to have you come back, which you were going to do anyway, because you’re you’re on once a month. So why don’t we devote some more time to that than just the one minute that we have now? Is there anything else that you can recommend about going going greater into google? Well, i think that i would encourage people to go ahead and sign up for a google account or a google plus account on just to really pay attention to what their search results are ta going on and off that little icon of the head so that you can see how the search results are going to be impacted for you and as much as possible, use the advanced search page, i think it’s going really filter down and get the most relevant results that you’re going to need for your own research efforts. Maria semple is the prospect. Find her you’ll find her at the prospect finder. Dot com and maria will look forward to talking to you next month. Ok, great. Thanks, tony. Thank you very much. My thanks. Also, of course, to aria finger and eric sacristan and the organizer’s dahna next-gen charity conference next week. Andy robinson and nancy washington on their book the board members easier than you think guide to non-profit finances your board members who don’t know how to read a balance sheet should listen. They can be taught it’s not that hard, and they’re putting themselves at risk and also your good work if they don’t learn how to read your balance sheet, keep up with what’s coming up. Sign up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page like us. If you like the show like the page, you can listen live our archive, you’ve taken care of the live, but if you want to catch us archive goto itunes, subscribe and listen. Any time on the device of your choice, you’ll find our itunes paige at non-profit radio. Dot net on twitter you can follow me and use the show’s hashtag use it widely the hashtag is non-profit radio the show is sponsored by g grayson company are you worried about the rising cost of rent for your organization? Do you need a plan for real estate that you’re non-profit owns gee grace and company will give you and your board full analysis so your real estate decisions are made transparently and thoroughly. George grace has been advising non-profits on their real estate decisions for over twenty five years. G grace dot com or eight eight eight seven four seven two two three, seven. Our creative producers claire meyerhoff sam liebowitz is the owner of talking alternative broadcasting and he’s, our line producer. Today, the show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday one two, two p m eastern at talking alternative broadcasting, which you’ll always find at talking alternative dot com oppcoll you didn’t think that shooting getting depending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. 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Respect Small Donors

Wrapped Pennies by Ben Popken on Flickr
I emphasize it as a prime takeaway in every workshop, webinar and keynote I do: the best Planned Giving prospects are those over 55 who have a long, consistent giving history, and when you screen for consistency, ignore the size of the gifts.

Donors who give you only $5 a year–and have been doing it for many years–are outstanding prospects for a planned gift. You need to thank your small donors.

They may be testing you, to see whether you appreciate small donors, as they anticipate a larger gift. Or, they may be giving all they can (or all they feel they can) during life. Because they love your work so much, there may be a gift in their estate.

The savvy Planned Giving officer at New Jersey Institute of Technology knew this well. Monique Pryor wisely nurtured a relationship with Helen and John Hartmann, who had given NJIT around $25 a year for thirty years. Last week the college announced a $5 million gift from Mrs. Hartmann’s will, the largest in the school’s history.

You don’t thank small donors because they might some day be large donors. You thank them because it’s the right way to treat your donors.

Your small donors deserve your respect.

(My thanks to Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, and a regular contributor to my radio show, for sending me this story.)