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Nonprofit Radio for May 16, 2014: Choosing And Living With Your CRM & What Makes A Strong Proposal

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Lisa Rau & Tim Sarrantonio: Choosing And Living With Your CRM

Me with Tim Sarrantonio & Lisa Rau at 14NTC
Me with Tim Sarrantonio & Lisa Rau at 14NTC

From the Nonprofit Technology Network’s (NTEN) Nonprofit Technology Conference, Lisa Rau and Tim Sarrantonio advise how to choose the right CRM system. Should you RFP? Who to get involved in the decision and how do you come to consensus? What do you ask for in writing? And a lot more. df

 

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Cindy Gibson: What Makes A Strong Proposal

Cindy Gibson
Cindy Gibson

Cindy Gibson is our grants fundraising contributor and principal of Cynthesis Consulting. She’s been on the funding side, and tells how to jack-up your odds of getting the grants you’re after. Including, what do program officers hate to see?

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Duitz 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 i’m very glad you’re with me because i’d suffer the effects of sarcoidosis if i was forced to endure the knowledge that you had missed today’s show choosing and living with your c r m from the non-profit technology networks non-profit technology conference, lisa row and tim sarrantonio advise how to choose the right cr m system should you r f p who to get involved in the decision and how do you come to consensus? What do you ask for in writing and a lot more? Also, what makes a strong proposal? Cindy gibson is our grants fund-raising contributor and principle of synthesis consulting she’s been on the funding side and tells how to jack up your odds of getting the grants your after including what do program officers hate to see in proposals on tony’s take two my thank you. Here is my interview from non-profit technology conference around choosing the right cr m system. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of ntc twenty fourteen the my voice just cracked the non-profit technology conference. We’re at the marriott hotel boardman park in washington, d c we’re going to talk about in sickness and in health, choosing and living with your cr m with me. Teo, talk about that. Our lisa row she is ceo of confluence and tim sarrantonio tim is an account consultant with z two systems. Lisa. Tim, welcome. Thank you. Thank you. You’re cr m you’re a constituent relationship management software isan this just choosing a tool? It is. Yeah, but and go a little deeper than that. I thought i thought this was a pretty simple thing. You pick one and you and you pick one and you’ve done the hard part is, how do you think? How do you pick? Okay, there’s there’s a lot of choices out there. There certainly are. And you know what i like about the approach of this? Because my backgrounds ten years of fund-raising so on the side of the the chooser, basically, and what i like is that we’ve all pledged to be agnostic in our approach. This is not a vendor pitch session. You and andi, i think that’s that’s going to make it really, really exciting. Okay, so how ah lisa, you you clean it up for me. How how do you start that? Where the first steps of of making this very important could be very costly but doesn’t have to be a decision? Well, like a lot of things in our technology consulting practice, the answers are fairly straightforward in that it all depends on knowing what you want the system to dio, and you’d be very surprised at how many non-profits go to choose a piece of software without having actually thought about the specifics of what they wanted to do. Okay, well, we have about twenty five minutes together, so i’m not gonna let you off that easy. We’re not wrapping up now two minutes, and we’re coming up on ten seconds. Not that i’m counting, but i don’t have a choice it’s in front of me s o we’re not letting you have that easy. We’re gonna get considerably more detail. So how do we figure out i’ll stay with you? Lisa, how do we start figuring out what we want this system to do? Who should be in that conversation? How do we make that make those choices? Well, sierra constituent relationship management, everyone. In your non-profit really is interacting with constituents and so that’s a fundamental part of the decision making process is getting input from across the organization because the serum is really most effective if it is being used by everybody in the organization it’s an enterprise class piece of software. So you need to include really all of the all of the people in your organization, one form or another, which you agree with that i would definitely agree the most interesting thing that i found is that there is a disconnect between development and finance, sometimes where they don’t speak the same language, and so getting him in that conversation early is vitally important. You know, the correlation between accounts receivable and even something basic, like language fund-raising language like fund campaign? What does that mean when it comes to actual finance, reconciliation, accounting, things like that. So all the stakeholders? Absolutely, though, when it comes the program side volunteers, board members, please get them in there. Boardmember sze wai boardmember why boardmember is because they hold the keys to the castle. Basically, i’m on two boards, actually, yeah, and you’ll be just amazed at how disconnected some board members khun b but isn’t this ah, this something that’s going to be on a day to day basis that the organization’s going to use? Sure. And why should aboard be be spending time on such a thing? Because at the end of the day, at least in my opinion, your c r m is directly tied to your mission. It’s it’s about the people that you’re trying to help and it’s not just a tool, it’s something that’s going to help you reach your goals. And so, because it is something that overall helps dictate the direction you’re going and the success that you’ll have that’s why the board needs to be involved. Okay, lisa, you want to say anything more about the board? On my experience with board involvement? It’s mostly they need to approve the purchase. If it’s going to be over a certain amount that’s really the bulk of their involvement. They are also actually in the serum because their constituents so but that’s just data in the serum. Yeah, they don’t need to attend demos or things like that. It’s it’s. Ah, but they need to know what is going on. Okay. Well, tim, it sounded like you were suggesting that they should be involved a little soon earlier than its okay toe mean youtube from people you have differences of opinions. Fine, but it sounds like you were suggesting they be more involved than lisa was suggesting more. Just, like, sort of approving approving payment and towards the end, i yeah, i do think they should be okay for directly involved. So you’re not offended. Are you? It’s hard? You don’t. And you don’t look offended. Okay, well, now you set up a challenge. Okay? Thank you. Look, ok, but, tim, you’d like to see them involved involved throughout the process. Yeah, but maybe not to the detriment. You know, the whole too many cooks in the kitchen type of thing to you’ve got to balance it. But my approach, maybe it’s, because i’m on the board to where i don’t want to just be a rubber stamp. You know, i live in chicago. We have enough of that. So okay, you’d like to actually have legitimate oversight. Absolutely. And some transparency. Okay. Let’s, grow cloudgood. Um, lisa what’s, our what’s. Our. You host these meetings for clients. When? When these early conversations? Absolutely. Facilitate that. We’ll interact with the vendors and try to make sure that all the right questions are being asked and that they’re getting the information that they need. Now, earlier today, i re interviewed peter campbell, who was doing a session. You know, peter de beer, apartment and tcb ear. It was, is he was a twenty year, i think. He’s, one of the main guys that coordinates really okay. And tcb ear listeners is ah, it was a thursday was thursday night. Friday night? No, when when’s the overflow capacity when he was the one counting how many people they were taking that’s on how many people show up? I didn’t even know that he had that role. I would have asked him all about it. Okay, well, it was a wednesday night reception before the formal opening of of ntc on thursday morning on dh there was at a bar. Okay, so his topic is r f p c s o he said, does this does this requiring our f b i you know, i did talk to peter about that cause i give presentations on our peace and we’ve looked at me. Connecting people is amazing. No, i even tell you the universe. I feel like i i volunteered to come to be part of his talk. We we’re not big fans of our peace nowadays we’re much more fans of doing a lot of upfront research and finding a few really good candidates and then having in depth conversations with them because more and more with the technology it’s made to be customizable and so in the past, you have an rp where you’d check up check off. Yes, yes. No, no. And then the one with the most checks, winds and big requirements matrices and now, it’s, because the systems are made to be customizable it’s. Not a question of if they can do any particular thing. It’s a question of fit. Does it make sense for them to to be customized, to do any given requirement and that’s where you need to engage with the vendor and really have a conversation rather than an over the transom? R f p with a long bunch of requirements? Ok, tim is doing a lot of nodding. Yes. Yeah, our fees are very interesting from the vendor side it’s something that when i first started my job i never thought that i see as many and what’s what’s fascinating is they’re all different, but they all are at the core. The same thing that basically leaves it was just talking about in regards to just ask questions that that’s that’s really, at the end of the day, that’s all you need to do. I don’t have this big check list because when my approach personally is that i’m not just hitting. Yes, i’m actually linking to support guides for features and so that’s my personal approach. I know some vendors that they outright just say we’re not going to do any arm piece if we see in our p we’re not gonna answer it and ours is mawr case by case. Is it a good fit? It’s more consultation in terms of the approach, but every time i see it, i go. I’m going to be hitting wire and a bunch of times and make cell spreadsheet, and they’re all different and it could be easily covered in a half an hour conversation. Okay, you didn’t think that shooting getting dink, dink dink you’re listening to the talking alternative network to get you thinking. Nothing. Good, do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss our culture and consultant services a guaranteed to lead toe right groat. For your business, call us at nine one seven eight three three four eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven 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. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Hyre oppcoll and i like conversations. I prefer conversation’s over over documents since and please describe, you know, in an email or something or or a proposal, i’d rather i’d rather talk myself. That’s metoo how about you, lisa? I’d like to talk sometimes, okay, not so much right now, you little but a mike in front of your eyes that’s why they’re still i’m still back on that. Some of the vendors don’t respond to our fees. I’d never understand that. I mean, if you’re in here to be bill business, you do have to respond to our peace and frankly, there’s important things that you need to ask vendors to write down and document project plans, pricing sometimes technical approach it’s important, you can’t just get rid of the requirement to write things down or respond to very specific things of interest, but i do think the over the transom approach doesn’t work well with serums because you’re really you should be able to really quickly xero in on three, two, six serums that are really good candidates, and you do that by triangulation is what i like to call it, which is a process of asking pierre’s doing your own internet research, accessing guides like idealware air’s kind of consumer lorts for software posting on listservs. So you get a variety of different sources of information and that triangulation will lead you pretty quickly to some really good options that you’re going to then go into more detailed and it’s just a better approach to choosing a cr m then than just sending an r f p that you probably don’t fully understand that you got off the internet somewhere to thirty different companies and wasting twenty seven of their time. It’s not a good process way could be considerate of the vendors. Exactly. I think we can extract. I’d like that. Yeah, person a czar’s metoo system representative you mentioned idealware lisa, which i have heard and i’ve read their survey, and i think i covered it on this show. They don’t, they do, and they do an annual survey of serums. Or maybe it was just a one time, two years every two years, every two years, and it was a very comprehensive short. It wasn’t a chart format of features, and i’m remembering correctly. Yeah, they have felt one of those nice bullet charts with you. Know yes, no kind of stuff, but they do all kinds of other cell for comparisons this well, but that that does have a really good place to start if you’re looking at serums, okay, because it’s free idealware dot com is that where we find that dahna work dot or god? Or ah non-profit i’d forgotten that it’s it’s, i think it’s dot org’s we google idealware idealware yeah it’s a a cz the lisa rolling your eyes, right where’s that for i’m not going to call you out for the working google. Can you form a good folk? Are alright? I actually did the demonstrations for the idealware report for work, okay? And i can attest, it is utterly comprehensive and agnostic it is it is probably the best starting point for someone who wants just a general overview of well, where do i start that go to that? Go to that report? Absolutely. And it’s unranked it’s just it’s just saying this is what it does, this is what it doesn’t d’oh, and and they basically that the process is very interesting. There’s there’s a syriza questions it’s, it’s almost like an rmp innocence that they ask you and then they follow-up with a demonstration a half an hour demonstration to get into the report, and then they follow-up with a full hour demonstration of the system itself to really drill down for each of the systems that every single system oh, i don’t remember everything every single one, the people who get into the top, like ten or something that there the duitz they’re the ones doing the long form demonstration, but every single potential isn’t at least doing a half an hour and that’s split between a relatively small staff way love idea where they’re absolutely fantastic people over there. And, you know, i love maine too, which is where they’re based on outstanding resource latto okay, all right, so what’s, our what’s, our next step on we’re tryingto do this chronologically, i think ueno everybody should be in the in the party and we of our triangulation research that we’re doing what’s our what’s, our next step, you need to get them in there for demonstrations and to kind of assess the fit because it’s not just about the product it’s about the company and there understanding of what you’re trying to do with the implementation and so you really need to engage in a personal level. I think it’s gives the best results block off a half day haven’t come in, do some demonstrations, have some conversations and assess again the fit. Not a half a day for each one the whole day. You know, half a day is about all most people can take before their brains are full. Right? That’s for all of our three to six now for each one i each one having so many hours? Yeah, you know, i think don’t try to talk you out of it. I know it takes that long because he’s serums most of the time they’re they have a lot of features and it’s very important. That staff e-giving come to see in the different areas whether it be development, event, management, project management or grants management so on and so forth. And they all need to see that their needs are being adequately represented in the product. I see. Okay, so there’s different time slots, i guess, for different constituents within the organization in tow. Let’s have the finance team for forty five minutes and let’s have development, et cetera. Okay. Yeah, okay. I’ve been in situations where there’s been. Excuse me. Twelve people on the call. And the one thing i would stress, though, is try to keep internal discussion like philosophical talking to a minimum. You know, we should already been passed that you’d be surprised where people like erupt into arguments about like, well, no, this is how we do membership. And it was like, what? Wait, i’m sorry. Do you need to know about if there’s an end date on this form? Because we have that but it’s so yeah, i would say a minimum an hour, the definite thing that you need to ask for his references arika hoos hoos are you using a current system? Do you have any clients that have converted from that? Can i talk to them? Converted from from your using like cr m a and you’re looking at sea rmb ask? Has anyone come from sierra? Okay. And if not that, you know that’s fine. Don’t concentrate so much on geographic area. A lot of people say, well, i would like something on, you know, in new york on dh that i get that to a certain extent. But i would mork concentrate? Kind of like what lisa was talking about in terms of the fit? Ah, what do i want to use this for? I want to talk to somebody similar size are you volunteer or based like my non-profit where it’s all volunteer? Or do you have staff? How many staff? How many constituents? So that that’s my general recommendation to now we’re starting, teo now the narrow the field. But if we started with three to six that you had suggested, lisa, we’ve had our product demos we’ve checked references actually checked the references right? Don’t actually call, but don’t ask for them. I guess that that’s an important second part of the reference process, is actually speaking to them. You’d be surprised how many non-profits i work with it? Never check references. I am shocked, actually, i i’ve i’ve heard that too. I mean, we’re not around siara, but even employment decisions, right? And they ask where or what you know, they ask for references for whatever purpose and then they don’t get checked. It’s a capacity in your capacity building issue? I agree, i think it’s good dismaying. Ok. Even a quick email, you know. You don’t have to outright call them. Just drop him a line if they don’t get back to you. It’s people are busy, but at least try. Okay? All right, we’re narrowing the process. What’s. So, what’s, our next step is we’re down down to a field of let’s say we’re down to a field of two, all right? From our three to six where we’ve got to, well, i like to go down to one. I mean, hopefully i think that’s our goal you talk teo gonna run two parallel exactly after the three to six you’ve had these sessions would be ideally, you really would have one that you’re feeling is the one that you want to pursue and that’s the one that you’re going to check the references for and do all the other due diligence, which is kind of the last stage of the process. You’re negotiating a contract, you’re finalized, pricing. You’re getting really detailed on schedule, we’ll we’ll get to those, but we’ve glossed over consensus. What if finance and development and program? Oh, and the ceo don’t come to a consensus, you know, i haven’t seen that much, and i i’ve done this. For a lot of organizations, help them tio come to consensus and usually it’s pretty pretty. Clich really that’s been my experience. Everybody seems to coalesce around one. I had one where where they did go back and forth. It was a very, very big ticket purchase. And the choice was between something conservative that was thie. Everyone else is using this system like no one gets fired for buying ibm versus a very, very high tech, relatively obviously more risky, high tech, newer thing where they would be leading the way. And that was really ah, a big decision for them. And they did have to involve a lot of board committee input to see which direction they wanted to go to in which one did they put him on the team? I was wondering the same thing. I was disappointed they actually went for the conservative approach, but the but they ended by saying, you know what? We’re coming from the dark ages, so this is just bringing us up for today. We’re going to implement this and live with it for a few years, and then maybe then we’ll be ready to to go to the high. Tech thing, so that was actually a very good philosophy. They weren’t seeing it as something they were goingto have forever. They were seeing. It is just a step up from where they were starting, which was excel spreadsheets and index cards or something like that. They had spaghetti custom code that had been developed twelve years ago that had just taken on a life of its. And they had long out out ground long ago. Alright, so usually tim, do you usually see a coalescing around around one? I do, um, it’s ah, you know typically it’s going to come down to one or two and a lot of people, and i’d actually don’t discourage this. Go with your gut. What instinct is that i think is important lots of things in life, but that’s a topic it’s just it’s just very interesting to see, because i also think corporate culture is important too. And i know that’s harder to quantify. But if you just get a feeling that like you’re being pitched all the time yeah, uh then that you’re going tohave that almost throughout the entire usage of your systems then support it’s going to go from sails all the way down, teo say support implementation so i think that it’s an important thing tio to kind of take into account, too, but obviously you’ve got to make sure you’ll like it and it’s going to work for your mission on an everyday basis. Okay? You know, from the data entry person all the way to the e d who needs the reports? Okay, we’ve made our choice. Now, lisa, you were said earlier with flesh. Just a little bit about what needs to be documented. Wave made our selection. What do we need to get in writing? Commitment’s, etcetera. What are we thinking about? Their yeah. It’s. Another area that i see non-profits habitually not doing as much as they should in the area of negotiations. I’m always so surprised when i send over our contracts and they come back without any markup. It all they just signed him. And i’m not even sure they read. Hm? Yeah, and this i they don’t necessarily understand that software is negotiable, that the price that is quoted is negotiable and there’s a lot of terms and conditions in those contracts that also should be negotiated. And so that’s something that a consultant actually can really help you with. But you want to make sure that you’re not paying for that your payment is tied to deliver balls, not just will work for ten hours, and you pay us for the hours independent of what we do and that there’s a schedule that there’s remedies if things go wrong, that they’ve really thought through the project plan, you also want to look at the personnel because you don’t want to get the most junior people on the team who they just hired, who doesn’t know the product themselves thatyou wantto, you know, review resumes and approve project interests, so on and so forth, there’s a lot of things that you can do to ensure or at least increase the chances that your project will be a success because these types of projects can go wrong many, many, many ways that’s a whole nother talk the hundred ways that you can screw up your serum implementation and at the contract time is where you really want to try toe put all those things, i think through all those things, and i have a contract that tries to prevent them from happening. You go ahead. I was just going to say the biggest stress, uh, that i’d love to piggyback on because that’s a fantastic point is data conversion. Well, we’re going to get there, ok? So we’re going to get there now. We’re now going to import or we’re gonna convert. We’re going to make our change. What do we need to be? Well, okay, anything more you want to add about being at the contract stage? Absolutely. And conversion. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Figure out what is in the terms specific to data conversion. Is the vendor going to help you have duplicate merging if everything in your spreadsheet is in all caps, are they going to help with that? Are they going, teo assist in any sort of, you know, clean up our, you know, reconciliation and things like that. And you know, how many hours is it going to take for them to do that? What do you specifically paying for? And if you’re opting for kind of a stripped down version like what help are you getting with that as well? Ah! Latto non-profits and i’ve seen vendors and this horrifies me that they just give this like blanket quote, and it doesn’t take into account. Oh, this is seven access databases that we need to convert and combined and just get a specific number that you’ve drilled down and understand off all the things. The absolute details on what data conversion actually includes. Okay, i thought, okay, now we’re into conversion. What kind of support you would be expected? Well, it’s, everything well, it’s, everything you just mentioned. What? What? Uh, i don’t know what else could go wrong and conversion. Mrs issue, this is a huge process tonight you’re going. The main thing is to have people doing the conversion. You have done it hundreds of times before. It’s not actually technically risky. It’s just can be a variable amount of effort on dh that’s. What? What messes up projects? Okay. All right. Let’s, move. Too bad mapping, by the way. Mapping watch. Jorgen joe, i know this show now have drug trail on this show. Youjust transgressed. Okay. Wow, i’ll roll it back. Role may be available. How does how does this field translate into the new systems field? Basically his first name equal to first name, you know? And then it gets progressively. Much work complicated it’s. Okay, that’s all how do we know when we’ve outgrown now? We’ve had our system for several years, and how do we know when its not working? What are signs that well, people are complaining what’s happening? How do we know? I don’t know if you don’t know, then you probably haven’t. It should be obvious, i think i mean, you can always do more and do better. I haven’t been in any non-profit where there weren’t opportunities to do more with their enterprise software that they were not exploiting, but that doesn’t mean they should ditch it and again, with all that non-profits have to focus on if there aren’t clear and obvious issues with their existing systems, i wouldn’t be focused on don’t mess with it. You probably have other things to work out. If it feels like you’re hurting cats with your data, then maybe it’s. Time to look. But if it’s not coming up on a day to day basis, then yeah, probably you’re fine because we could get training. Sure you revisit anything that the vendor might have released, you know, check their release schedule. Check the release notes, see what’s. New all right, maybe it’s covered and you just didn’t know it were going to leave it there. Lisa row is ceo of confluence. And tim sarrantonio is account consultant for z two systems. Thank you very much. Lisa. Tim, thanks for being the guests. Thank you. My pleasure. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of and t c the non-profit technology conference. Thanks so much for being with us. I am grateful to everybody at non-profit technology conference and and ten the non-profit technology network for setting us up at the at the conference. Got lots of great interviews, many more to come generosity, siri’s sponsors non-profit radio. And that makes it possible for me to travel to cool conferences like and to get amazing interviews to share with you generosity. Siri’s hosts multi charity peer-to-peer runs and walks. They do all the behind the scenes stuff that you’ve heard me mention, the licensing, the permits, the portable bathrooms. Ah, the emcees, the announcers, all the tech equipment for the timing. They take care of all that. And they have that charity support team that helps you get participants and then helps you with the fund-raising by participants, the statistic that they share is that first year generosity, siri’s fund-raising exceeds the average third year fund-raising where charities have hosted their own events so you can get the you can skip the first two years and jump right to the third year in fund-raising if you join with generosity siri’s as one of their charity partners, and they have events coming up in new jersey, florida, atlanta, new york city, philadelphia and toronto. Talk talk to dave lynn he’s, the ceo, pick up the phone seven one eight five o six, nine triple seven you can talk to him, see what they’re about and see if this makes sense for you. Of course, you can always go to the web, they are at generosity siri’s dot com and i am grateful for your listening and your support. I don’t want to take this moment to just thank you as i do from time to time. I’m very grateful that you listened to the show week in week out if you’re getting email alerts from me, you welcome me to your inbox every thursday, it’s only once a week, but i’m grateful for that also we’ve been doing this show for very close to four years, the fourth anniversary is coming up in july. The two hundredth show will be in july. That’s that’s really something, um, and i’m grateful that the audience has built up to over nine thousand listeners, and i thank you very much for being part of that. Thank you for listening. Thanks for your support. You know i’m always interested in your feedback. You can get me on twitter through my site. Tony martignetti dot com through the facebook page always interested in your feedback and i’m glad you’re with me. Thank you that is tony’s take two for friday sixteenth of may twentieth show of the year with me now is cindy gibson. She is our practice temic she has a phd and over twenty six years of experience with non-profits, she has had leadership roles for several national foundations and non-profits she was a non-profit times top fifty power and influence, sir she’s principle of synthesis consulting, c y n th e s i s and you’ll find her on twitter as at caen gib si n g i b cindy gibson welcome back. Hi, tony. Sorry you can’t be in the studio all the time. It was nice to have you first, but you live in boston, but we’ll work at another time. Um, so we want to talk about what makes, uh, what makes a strong proposal you have? Ahh. You have some wisdom around this? Yeah, i think i’ve written about a thousand proposals, and i think i read about ten thousand of them. Oh, ok. Yeah. And it’s amazing how much the same issues keep coming up. So should we presume that your last five hundred that you wrote were stronger than your first five hundred ways there? You used to read them. And what? What? What’s what’s, one of the first things that comes up often, um, one of the first things that comes up there’s actually, three things that really stand out everybody knows i think pretty much the basic, you know, components of a proposal. But though there’s a couple things that i think that people don’t always get and the biggest one i think is it’s very, very often people won’t include a strong mark it analysis or sort of where they fit in the larger field or in an issue area. Um it’s sort of what’s your value proposition, if you will. How how? How is this organization? How is your organization unique? What is your value added? What makes you distinctive? In other words, why should we fund you and not some other organization that you work with? On the flip side of that is how do you compliment other organizations in the field that maybe doing similar work? So it’s both sides of that coin and i it’s very rare that you see that explicitly stated, ok, how do we define the market to prepare the our market analysis? Well, that’s a good that’s a good question, i think that it just depends. I mean, i don’t want, you know you don’t want to get to granular about it. I mean, certainly in the private sector, it’s a little bit clear what your market is, but for example, if i’m talking about i’ll talk about an area i know well, you’ve civic engagement. How do you get young people involved in civic life? It’s, a fairly defined field and people in that field? No, the other organizations, they all go to conferences together, they said the same tables and coalitions. It’s that kind of when i say market, i mean, that loosely defined it’s really looking at who are you working with? Who’s working on these issues and the field and indicating even that, you know, who’s working on these issues in the field, sometimes you’ll read proposals and it’s really amazing how people will come in with a proposal like it’s the first time she’s anybody’s ever thought about doing a particular strategy, and it just shows the program officer right off the bat that you’re not knowledgeable about the field in which you’re working or that you’re presuming the program officer doesn’t know and that you’re you’re what you’re purporting to be a unique idea has actually been seen lots of times from other other other organizations. Yeah, and there i have to say there’s nothing that makes program officers matter for more irritated as when grantmaker say, we are the only organization that does fill in the blank very rarely healthfully one organization that does anything those it’s really presumption list and it’s just it’s a red flag right away. Yeah, okay, well, i know you have a bunch of things that funders hate to see we’ll get we’ll get two more of those. So would you in your proposal, would you just caption this as as a market analysis? It depends. I mean, if sometimes you know as we know and as all grantmaker now this’s, what makes grand seekers annoyed is that every foundation many foundations tend to have very different proposal application guidelines. Some as we know, do come by who do come together and do what’s called a common application like particular states. Some foundations world say here you can fill out the same application for all of us but that’s still relatively rare. Unfortunately. So how you fit that value proposition is going to depend on you know what the thunders asking for, but somewhere in there should be some kind of intimation whether it’s, you know, usually there’s a there’s a section called you know, the qualifications of the organization are the capacity of the organization to carry this out. And, you know you might want to include it in there. You might want included in the summary about your project. I don’t think it takes five pages to say what your value at it is a lot of times. Ah! So really, is it really depends. Okay, all right. But you it belongs it because you said a lot of times this is not included. So this is, well advice to make your make you stand out. Yeah. I mean, i think otherwise see again. And this gets to another thing. People forget sometimes when they write proposals that the program officers usually not the only person that looks at this document and the proposed the program oster has to turn around and sell it to the either the board or the senior. You know, administrative staff for the president, who’s never making the final decision about what gets funded, which is often not the problem. Officer, um, that it’s very helpful for that person to be able to go into those meetings and say right off the bat. This is why this organization that’s really different. And this is why it’s really important that we supported on dh not you know again. But a lot of grand seekers will just not understand that it is a selling job for the program. Officer. Yeah, this goes tio what? You and i said, i think the first time you were on you’re you’re helping your job is to help the program officer sell your proposal and your program to the people you mentioned, whether it’s, the board or a senior program officer who makes but you’re helping them become your sort of sales team in the foundation right there, your advocate, and so give them out. But again, it’s important to remember that about where it stops sometimes, and that gets sort of backing into that jargon and proposals it’s always amazing to me because i’ve done a lot of reading of proposals in evaluating them out as a consultant for other organizations. I’m not particularly steeped in an issue sometimes, and i will get completely stymied by some proposals where there’s all kinds of acronyms that are not spelled out there’s it seems so basic, but it is so easy for organizations to get caught up in their own, um, work and their own spaces that they don’t think about somebody else reading this thing. This is something that i tell people all the time, and i i think it’s so important is that organizations give their proposals or their draft to somebody who knows nothing about their field, who does nothing about their work. You know, if you can find somebody your neighbour, i don’t care who it is, somebody to really eyeball. What you send in is really helpful, because that will tell you whether you’re what you’re writing is compelling on its own, and whether it’s going to sell on its own, regardless of who’s reading it. Ok, there is a bigger world out there, aside from your program and your work. Let’s, go back to something that you just you still touchdown was talking about. How you compliment similar organizations doing similar work. Right? Is that? Is that part of the market analysis? Yeah, i think it is. I think it shows that, you know, once you say, you know where this is, how we’re distinctive, this is, you know, why you need this organization to do this work when you say it also compliments a lot of other work going on the field, it actually sends a message that you’re collaborative because in the nonprofit sector, you know, most of the results that we get are going to come out of the collaborative and collective efforts of a number of organizations, not usually just one. And, you know, there is this ethos of collaboration in the sector is opposed to competition in the private sector, so the more you can say that we are collaborating with these other organizations and here’s how we’re complimenting their work. For example, a local non-profit or state non-profit or coalition might say, you know, we are regional or a local, so we’re able to bring the lessons were learning on the ground to the national groups that are working on this issue may be at the federal level on, and that gives them the national group. Some data, you know, about how things are working on the ground and what we’re seeing so it’s sort of conveys that you’re not only providing value to these other groups that ditch you’re actually intentional about it, okay? And you’re informed and you’re doing this collaborative work. Yeah, and you also have your eye on larger impact and it’s not, you know, we’re just going to keep doing this on our bubble in our little town or state, we’re actually doing something that has that’s that’s looking towards longer term impact, whether it’s policy change at the federal level, whether it’s regulations, whatever you’re doing okay, what else do you recommend to set proposals apart? Well, so another thing that i see a lot is that and every proposal guidelines will ask for this, um, they ask you usually for describe the need for the problem that you’re trying to dress on that your opportunity to say, you know what the problem is and to talk about the statistics in the data that support the need for, you know, for what’s going on, for example, you know, if you’re doing high school dropout trying to stave off dropout rates he would talk about you know, what the rates are and why it’s such an important issue. Um, and then they ask you, you know what you’re going to do about it, which is where you described your program or your project, and when i find sometimes is that a lot of times is that groups tend to fall in one of the categories of their either really good at talking about the issue, talking about the problem, why it’s so important? Um, and great analysis of the causes of it, um, but they’re not so great at saying what they’re going to do about it. On the flip of that is that some organizations will will launch sort of more into the what they’re doing and the work and they’re excellent describing all sort of the elements of their program or when they’re doing, but they don’t really say how it’s addressing the need it’s really important to make that connection and it sounds obvious, but this is where, again, having somebody look at your proposal and we’ll assess it and say, wait, i’m not understanding you just described a huge problem, but i’m not seeing how your program actually, is addressing this really important. Okay, we’re gonna take a take a break. And when we come back, cindy and i will continue talking about what makes your proposals strong. And also mohr, that program officers hate to see you stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. 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 alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. And welcome back, cindy, have we covered all the suggestions that you had for for making a proposal strong before we get teo that the don’ts? Well, i have a couple just a couple quick things, you know, a lot of this overlaps with don’t but that we’ve talked about, but i would say that a lot of proposal writers and grand seekers know that an inevitable question on any guideline application is how are you going to sustain this work, which is what is your fund-raising plan or your business plan and it’s really surprising how many people will say? Well, we’re going to approach corporations and foundations and individual donors, and then they don’t say it in more detail. What do you have a plan for that what’s your strategy? Are you going to focus on one segment more than others? And why is that that’s really important? Another thing that goes along with that is when i worked at a foundation, we actually had a separate section asking about what’s your communications plan. Um and again, ah lot of grant seekers will say, well, we’re going to do some op ends, we’re going todo, you know, we’re going to go on twitter and social media and say, you know what we did if they’re doing, for example, a research study or report that doesn’t really say anything, it doesn’t say what you and what you’re trying to do with the social media coverage is trying to tell people about it, and what impact is that gonna have is going to make any difference? Neither how will you know whether it’s made a difference? And this is the testament, i think all grantmaker zee hate is, you know, the evaluation. How do you know if you have achieved success and again, the answer to that is not well, we’re going to assess our work through ah survey, you know, or we’re going toe ask grant asked participants in our meetings for feedback, you know, all of that is great, but it’s not really telling the investor ah, what difference it made overall, just because people had a great experience at a meeting you put together about a particular issue doesn’t mean that you’ve really had an impact on the problem. Yeah, neither of the three of those whether it’s fund-raising communications or assessment is a plan the way you described it, it’s just it’s sort of aspirational. This is what we plan to do, but but is not a detailed plan. It’s not none of those were a plan. Really? Yeah, i think that’s a good point. And and i would say a plan and then the and the crowd is although that is plan for what, you know, sort of it’s always before what question or to what end? All right, so a couple of things that you said specifically that hyre people reading and program managers officers don’t want to see a cz jargon. And of course, on tony martignetti non-profit radio, we have jargon jail. So we’re very sympathetic with that, um, and also that you’re the only ones doing it. You’re unique. What else? What else did they do? These people hate to see. Ah, well, not answering the questions separately, but it was not a common. I just made that. You know the answers air vague or their elusive, or they ignore them all together. Um, one of the i just did a eh stepped in for a program director who had left a foundation. And so i did a number of proposal. Reviews on site visits and one of the questions that they have on their proposal guidelines, which they’ve just revamped, is what outcomes do you expect to see? Um and i know and i understand why and how non-profits are reluctant to distill what they do down to numbers, but that’s, what the thunder was asking and what i found was that people either talked around the question by describing vaguely what they were going to do their goals, um, or you know what their strategies were, but they weren’t telling me what’s going to come out of this? And can you be very specific about what you’re going to do? Are you going to serve four hundred people, then say that, um, that’s not particular, but that’s i understand that’s not impact, necessarily, but it is an output that can lead to an outcome which might be something like we start four hundred people and people were healthier, you know, that kind of thing, so but but the thunder asked for that specifically, and i was really surprised how many people were confused by that. On the other hand, i did go back to the thunder and say, you know you might wantto put on your website or in the application guidelines somewhere a clear definition of what you want and what’s that what? What you mean by outcome? So that would help grantspace occurs to give you more of what you want, so it works both ways, i think, is a very common that questions get ignored or talked around with explicit questions in applications. Oh, yeah, yeah on i have to say, i’ve been guilty of this myself when i wrote proposals because, you know, that was your first five hundred in the first five hundred days, you know? Well, you wouldn’t get argue that good marketing is sometimes, you know, the best market and goes a little around the truth, but, um, it is true that people i would say less ignore the questions than they do, um, sort of try to talk around them or compensate if they don’t really have an answer by the reiterating something or again talking about larger goals or strategies rather than impact on influence on results. And why you and really making a case for why you you should be invested in running through a lot of what we’re talking about is making these connections, whether it’s between the need and your work or the your work and the outcomes and the impacts. It’s making this yeah, making covering the full spectrum. Yeah. I mean, it’s strategy. It really comes down to are you being strategic? Um, and i know again people hate generally the whole logic model idea. Andi, i understand that, but it is, and it can be really helpful exercise for non-profits to work through because it really separates all these pieces, um, that we’re talking about that then puts them together in a cohesive model and frame. And so doing that exercise in my experience really helps organizations put together stronger. A more cohesive kate. Okay, we have to. We have to wrap up. But the logic model that that sounds like is that that sounds like something that we might talk about in another show. Teacher. The logic model. Yeah. There’s. Lots of resource. Is that out there about that? Go help. They’re still some of the fear that people have about it. Okay, well, we can use that. We can use that. Maybe for next time. Okay. Thanks very much, cindy. Thank you. My pleasure. You’ll find her on twitter at caen, gibbs si n g i b and her practices synthesis consulting, c y en th e s i s next week an archive show i will, i will pick a winner. 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Nonprofit Radio for May 9, 2014: Robertson v. Princeton

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Doug White: Robertson v. Princeton

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Doug White is the author of “Abusing Donor Intent: The Robertson Family’s Epic Lawsuit Against Princeton University.” He returns to Nonprofit Radio to tell how trust eroded between donor and university, and a $35 million gift from 1961 ended in a messy lawsuit. He’s got lots of lessons to share to help you avoid the same mess. df

 

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Oppcoll hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oh, i’m very, very glad that you are with me today i’d be thrown into cerebral ischemia if it came to my ken that you had missed today’s show robertson v princeton doug white is the author of abusing donor-centric the robertsons family’s epic lawsuit against princeton university, he returns to the show to tell how trust eroded between donor and university and a thirty five million dollars gift from nineteen, sixty one ended in a messy lawsuit. He’s got lots of lessons to share to help you avoid same kind of mess on tony’s take to roughly halfway through the next installment of the non-profit radio knowledge base. I am very glad to welcome back to the show and back to the studio. Doug white, author, professor, advisor to non-profits and philanthropists he’s on the faculty in the masters in fund-raising program at columbia university abusing donors intent is his fourth book you’ll find him at doug white dot net. Welcome back, doug, wait, it’s, good to be back in to see you again. You have to ask the question that’s on everybody’s mind though cerebral ischemia. What is that that’s? A well, that this week that’s that’s what i’ll suffer if i find out that someone had not heard this week’s show a cerebral it’s a form of a stroke. I say, since t mia’s had a sense that’s what it was, but i wanted to ask you, being an attorney and all, you probably come up with all of these terms. Yeah, well, we make the well back when i was practicing law now, we would make the things up there the way wood or we would defend against people who had made them up as if the slip and fall in aisle seven on the relish that caused it, and an approximate cause of the ischemia twelve years later, that that was there was actually a cause and effect relationship and that’s what we were trying to defeat it’s great to see things haven’t changed and that’s actually kind of a segue way to a lawsuit story. I don’t know sure that’s true and that’s why i don’t practice law any longer because i was not interested in the relish bill in aisle seven, but this lawsuit that we’re going to talk about is a lot more meaningful than then slip and falls and trip and falls. You. You spend your a lot of time thinking about ethics and fund-raising last time you were on, we were talking about your book around ethics, and this is donorsearch trust and loyalty. How were all these? How are all these related in your in your professorial authorship? Mind? Well, someone might accuse me of having a cerebral something else because of all of the mishmash that goes on in my head on this stuff, but i won’t. But really, i think that there’s a lot to think about in the nonprofit world that we don’t otherwise think about, we think about fund-raising and we think about boards and all of those things are important, but i’m tryingto get a handle on what society does with its non-profit sector and how the non-profit sector responds back, and so it takes me to these corners that are really weird, and in this particular case, it took me to a story that had something to do with trust and a lot of money and a huge university. And the question is, how could someone accuse princeton of doing something so egregious and that’s? Not an easy question to answer. In fact, when i went into this story, i didn’t think princeton was really all that guilty of anything. Ah, okay, because as i read through the book, i sensed you trying to be objective, but in the end, i was left with the sense that you felt princeton really had wronged this. The robertson family. You want to tell the end right now? I’m trying to get people to buy the book here in the story. There you go, there’s. Going to be oil or alert, we only have an hour together. There’s. Lots of information that people going by the book around because you were just going to work or school is going to touch the were scratching the surface that’s right in a mere hour. The book is very well worth buying. Nine i’m just kind of yes, i know your last here, but now that was the that was okay. We’ll get into the details of that. But i think it’s sort of a tease, you know? No, no, it is that was kind of what i was left with, and two thousand six i had finished the book called charity on trial and was interviewed on television station in washington, and somebody brought up the princeton case because i had written about it a little bit, it hadn’t gone anywhere. It was still in the lawsuit stage, and the interviewer asked what i thought of the princeton case, and i thought that princeton had a pretty good case to defend themselves on. I said that at the time, and i felt that for a long time because i like i’m sure many many people feel like a place like princeton really has its act together and is a pretty good place. And i i say that knowing that it’s, i still feel that way. But there were issues that i discovered along the way that i felt really made them look bad. Okay? Okay. And we’re going toe t c we’re going to follow your evolution. Okay, you’ve, you’ve you’ve come, you’ve come around. Your thinking has evolved. Let’s, let’s not tease any longer. This this goes back to ah nineteen. Sixty one gift from charles roberts heimans set up a little bit for you. Charles robertson, co founder of the great atlantic and pacific tea company, the mp supermarkets nineteen sixty one gift to princeton university. Well, let me just do a little bit of a nuance on that. Exactly. The wife, marie robertson, who is the heiress of the mp fortunes. She funded it, right? She actually tent. Technically. Did fundez yes way say that there were donors, but technically, there was one donor, and that was marie robertson. Okay, but charles robertson, her husband was such a large player in the gift. You’re gonna hold my feet to the fire on the details. Well, you’re an attorney, and i can’t well, i was i was that’s the second time now you’ve used i’m not an attorney anymore. Oh, you’re uncovering, attorney. Yeah. I mean, i do fund-raising more than i do. Attorney work. It plays a part, but i didn’t say it disparagingly. I say it with no i d s marriage, but but you should hold me to the fire because you wrote a book and i’m glossy on the, you know, ignoring details. Okay. Yes, go ahead. Marie robertson was actually the donor. Yeah, technically, but we think of them as donors and that’s. Fine. She was the heiress of the mp fortune and her one tenth share of the stock when it became available to be invaded after the trust was dissolved in nineteen. Fifty seven was about ninety million dollars. She got ninety million dollars one day from the trust. And charles, her husband, her second husband. I was an investment adviser and he knew two things. One is not only should this stock portfolio within the family be diversified, he also did not have any faith in the management of the mp at that time after the original. People died off. He didn’t think it was going to go anywhere. And he was actually right on dh. You could predict anything, but in this particular case, he was right. The mp actually filed for bankruptcy just a few years ago. I don’t know it’s status today, but it did have a lot of difficulty. Miss stock did go down, so they were right to a diversify. And also the other part of that in terms of wealth management planning was to make a charitable gift to save on huge, huge taxes. The marginal tax rate at that time was ninety one percent. So this brought them to the woodrow wilson school at princeton university. It did. Ah, charles was a graduate of princeton, so let’s get that out and they were both very interested. Or he was really the intellectual driver behind the gift and it’s purpose. He was very interested, but they both were. They were both interested in international relations. This was an air of that. Today we find it hard to even think happened. There was an optimism in the united states, and there was a lot of challenge because of the height of the cold war too. In nineteen sixty one, kennedy had just been elected. And so there was the sense of america. Khun do it. There was this idea that we were going to go to the moon, which we did. There was this idea that we could almost conquer anything which we didn’t. But there was a sense, this vibrancy and the robertsons felt that it would be really great if we could go to a really great school like princeton, the woodrow wilson school which existed before the gift, by the way, and have people go into the foreign service of the government to go out and spread american values, not in any political sort of away or ideological sort of way other than democracy, but do it through the idea of foreign service through a peaceful way. And so the idea was to get students who were at the woodrow wilson school graduate program to then go into the foreign service. The negotiations ensued, of course, a lot of talk about what the donor’s objectives were and how to achieve those objectives of a sze yu put it, you know the broad goal of strengthening the foreign service in the united states and using the doing that through the woodrow wilson school, their phrase was strengthening the united states government pretty clear all it’s clear, but it’s also abroad. The specific phrase that i think we are probably going to have to talk about a little bit is the phrase particular emphasis, the idea that students would go into the foreign service area or some branch of the government that had dealings with the foreign service and that the school would put particular emphasis that’s in the document on putting those students in those positions. Okay, we’re gonna take our first break onda of course, doug white stays with us. We’re going to keep talking about the the evolution of this, the the gift and the lawsuit and the lessons of course, that’s, you know, that’s important that we want to leave you with takeaways so that you can avoid something like this may not be epic in your in your case, but could still be very seriously want help you avoid problems like princeton had with his donors. So stay with us e-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternate. Network waiting to get you thinking. Dahna cubine do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss. Our culture and consultant services are guaranteed to lead toe right groat for your business, call us at nine one seven eight three three four eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation checkout on the website of ww dot covenant seven 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. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Hyre welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m sorry, i can’t send live listener love today directly live, because we’re pre recording today. But does you were listening live? I send you my thanks. Thanks for listening. And, of course, podcast pleasantries to those of you listening everywhere else but live very glad you’re with us. The ah, now we have an hour, but we only have an hour. So we have to fast forward a little bit now, too. How things started, teo devolve from, uh, charles and marie the parents to bill robertson, the son of charles and marie. Things started to break down over time in the in the relationship. One of the interesting aspects of this case is they started to break down a lot sooner than princeton had been saying. Charles robertson himself was very upset. Within a few years of a gift with the lack of results at the school, he had done a lot of research on what the school could do. He had talked to important government officials before setting up the foundation. And by the way, this was a foundation to support the program at the woodrow wilson school. Today, it would be known as, ah supporting organization back in nineteen sixty one, they didn’t have that, but that’s what effectively acted as and so he was on the board as well as two other family members. So there were three family members and for people from princeton on the board of this foundation called the robertson. Foundation that’s important, i think three family members for people from princeton. Absolutely. That was important for a lot of reasons that turned out to be one of the reasons that there was eventually a lawsuit, but it was also important for the irs to give its blessing to the charitable stature of this organization. So charles robertson knew that princeton would have the four votes they would have control. There was no real question in his mind, but he also wanted to have the families input too over the years over the generations. And so there was this balancing act that they were trying to accomplish, and i think they were all going into this in good faith. There’s no, in my view, any question about that? At the point, the gift was made, but there was always some question as to what the school was going to do. In other words, this was going to be a great program for international relations, and it is today, and i want to be clear about that it’s one of the best in the united states or the best in the world. But the gift was made in order to make room for students to go into the foreign service. That was the whole point of the gift. That was the point of the gift. It wasn’t to make the woodrow wilson school great. It was to put people into the foreign service or in the foreign relations positions in the united states government and that’s what wasn’t happening. And only a few years after that, charles robertson started to look at this and say, what’s our progress, and over the years, i don’t know the exact figure right now, but up until twenty or two, i would say perhaps thirteen to fourteen percent of the students actually went into the government, which was an abysmal failure from charles robertson’s perspective and so on. He was upset from pretty pretty much the beginning, and i got my hands on documents that proves this. This was not something that bill robertson is inventing ah he’s able to show me letters that his father wrote angrily. I mean, there was a lot of emotion in these things to show that he was very upset with the progress of the woodrow wilson school bill robertson comes into the picture because he’s young at this point in nineteen seventy two i think he graduated from princeton himself, so he wasn’t really old. He came out of the board after one of the other family members went off and took basically his father’s place on the board on his family portion of the board in nineteen eighty one after his father died. And so bill took over that mantle of keeping a sharp eye on the progress of the woodrow wilson school graduate program and continue to be unhappy with it. So it did go from charles to bill, but another dynamic here that we don’t often times take into account. What i tried to describe in the book was bill’s intense loyalty to his parents and in this particular case, his father, he felt that his father and mother put this gift the hugest gift basically that had ever been given to a university to that time. And he felt that things weren’t being done correctly and and his mother, too, was very there’s. Ah, something. And you say in the book that that bill feels very strong that his mother relied on on princeton and this gift up until her death? Yes, on dh. Trusted them? Yes, yes, this trust was a big deal, and trust is a big deal in all of our lives, and i don’t know that we really analyze it well or feel a about it their way we might, but i feel strongly that both bilich excuse me. Both charles and marie were hoping for more from this gift, and they were trusting princeton probably more than they should have been, but that’s another issue point is that by the time bill took over his seat on the board, things were not improving. And so bill kept up that as i say that that i on on the progress, that isn’t what triggered the lawsuit. But that was always ah, thorn in the side of the of of the meetings on dove, the progress of the woodrow wilson school, they were not happy on dh there. I don’t know that there was based on what i’ve seen. I can’t say that i would actually say that there would be a point in that forty year history where they were ever happy. No. Okay, um, i have my favorite character in in the in this epic lawsuit, but i’m not going on that i want to hold that, um, print co-branded in investment committee plays a big role here, and i think that has a lot and has a lot to do with the donor university relationship. Print go. You’re right, it’s the princeton investment company, i think. Oh, company. Yeah, those committee no close close. Not not bad. I’m gonna check you on that. Okay. Okay, go ahead. Check me out. Okay. While you’re doing that, i didn’t bring the book with me, so i never bring the book because i don’t want to be, you know, on page seventy four you said all right, i’ll have to check later. This is the problem. Open book tests in high school. That’s why they don’t want to go ahead. All right. So the idea of going into a broader strategy for investing was anathema to bill, as it would have been to charles. In fact, part of the original document talked about how investments had to be put together. The idea was that print cho had been established a few years earlier, and the princeton and down, which had gone into several billions of dollars. At that point, i was going to be managed in a more modern way from the more traditional life and bill was away in the early eighties. Now we are in the early eighties. Yeah, we are actually. And charles did not want to get too risky with the investments, and neither did bill and bill, by the way, grew into a financial investment advisory capacity in his own right outside of this. And so he had some chops when it came to investing, and he also didn’t want to go to what became a pretty big norm at university investment houses. And that is to say, by the nineties late nineties, especially the idea of alternative investments was very, very popular, and the thieves were hedge funds head from investing foreign in foreign companies. Yes. Now every every i have to say that what i was in this business of the in the investment business for charities, i understood that there were lots and lots of asset classes and and that’s fine, the way we should always be on the cutting edge of understanding how finances and investments work. But they’re became a time when everything was going up and this happened throughout the two thousands to ana and what became really popular was what we call alternatives or the alternative investments like you say hedge funds and other things. And bill was really against that idea and print cho was going forward. He went down to print go because they were in another office and said, show me around and tell me what’s going on, and he was just not impressed with the idea of alternative investments and, quite frankly, again oppressions being what it is in twenty late that’s exactly what brought down these university endowments? In fact, princeton was so reliant upon investments they had about fifty percent or a little bit more in their endowment devoted to alternatives which, when i was in the world of old investments back in the early nineties, we would think of two or three percent of a large and and so it got turned upside down, and that the tension was whether print coe should be investing the foundation assets along with the university endowment or and in the eyes of the roberts of bill robertson that it should not print go should not have control over the investment exactly. And that’s what triggered the lawsuit that issue, if you’re looking at one moment where the decision was made to actually file a lawsuit, it was when bill robertson finally got fed up after the after the board for two three voted to go to print cope, put the assets into print going by the way that thirty five million dollars had grown to about eight hundred million dollars that thirty five million dollars had grown to about eight hundred billion dollars by two thousand. Wow. Okay, that’s. Excellent perspective. All right, now we’re in the lawsuit. What else did the the lawsuit alleged besides the investment? Misappropriation? Well, not miss probation, but there were a couple of expenses and things like that. That right lawsuit alleged what happens? And you probably know this much better than i. But i learned this a little bit more during the course of writing the book. There was a complaint filed. We feel something is wrong, x and then there’s a response. And then in the process of looking at the issue’s, the plaintiffs have an opportunity to go through what’s called discovery. And in the process of that discovery, they discovered a lot of things that they didn’t know beforehand, so the original complaint had to do a lot with print go, and it also had a lot to do with why students were going into the foreign service. But during discovery, the plaintiff’s found that a lot of the money wasn’t being spent well, either. For example, people excuse me, other departments at princeton were getting money from the foundation, and those departments weren’t really helping with the woodrow wilson, sir? Yeah, the school princeton defends that and says, i’ll just use the phrase they use academic freedom. They say that academic freedom allowed them to make all of these decisions and bill’s perspective, as well as as well as the attorneys. Of course, for the family was that academic freedom, while it’s a cherished concept and we really want to make sure that we never really violated it still has its limits. You can’t, for example, well, maybe you can. We don’t know this never was adjudicated by judge or a jury so it’s we’ll never really know. But there was this this comment during the depositions, where the attorney for print for the robertsons asked one of the president’s what? What kind of expenditure would be allowed. And the person said, well, almost anything. And the attorney said, well, how about the hiring a basketball coach? Would that be allowed? And he said yes, oh, my yes, oh, my that’s a university president that was the university. Yes saying this i forget whether it was the president or dean, i think it was the president and he said yes, because if we need to hire someone at the woodrow wilson school who likes basketball or whose husband or wife, teacher, our coaches, basketball or some connection and that brings that person to the woodrow wilson school, then we will spend that money on the basketball coach’s salary. Well, you can imagine how the robertsons would react to that and understanding that there is an idea, a fundamental, cherished ideal of academic freedom. We still are violating something very fundamental when that answer comes to the fore. Um, now listeners know that we have jargon jail on tony martignetti non-profit radio, but i didn’t want to put you on a very simple, you know, the complaint that’s just i’m going to get you out of jargon job because i’m glad that you’re back the third time on the show so an attorney is going to get me out of attorneys, do it all the time when we’re not all they are not. I’m not practicing law. I am not practicing law. Is that explicit? If i made that clear, those who do practice law often are getting people out of prison. It’s one of the noble or things that we do is restore someone’s freak that they do. They do pronoun trouble, eyes restore freedom to those erroneously held incarcerated. So, yeah, the complaint is just that’s the way you you have a complaint. So that’s, how you start a lawsuit and discovery is the exchange of all kinds of documents. And in this case it was e mails and letters metoo certainly notes of notes of conversations you wantto there was a lot. There was a lot in there that, as you said, the robertsons discovered that they hadn’t known about what was going on with the money in this discovery process. Thousands of pages. Yeah, thousands of pages. Not all of them were stingingly terrible now, of course, but a lot of it’s, very mundane. Very, very monday. And you just have to sift through it because you never know when that nugget is going to pop out. But, yes, they found that this money was being spent all over the place at princeton and princeton will say, look, a woodrow wilson school is a great place. Okay, well, there’s, no question about that nobody’s arguing that but what we’re talking about is the intention of the donor and the document that was signed in nineteen sixty one that princeton agreed to, and so that the woodrow wilson school is a great place is true. But your relevant to this this question, the other thing was academic freedom. We can spend money pretty much however we want to. And the robertsons wanted to pull back on that. The another big issue in this was the how the robertsons legal fees were being paid and that was being paid through the banbury fund. Another robertson family foundation let’s touch on that. Just, like, got it? Just a little. Okay. Princeton didn’t want that to happen, and the robertson said that they could do it. They got opinion letters from their attorneys and also had some precedents from the irs, both in private letter. Rulings and revenue rulings. So they were, i think, firm ground. But princeton still fights that battle today. They still say that it was improper for the banbury fund, too. Pay the robertson legal expenses. But from what i could say they were they were in a good place to do that. The robertsons work. Okay, um, starting to hint at some of our lessons for later on there was issue in the complaint also or in the in the subsequent complaint after the discovery around financial transparency. Yes. And disclosures that had not been made to the yeah, robertson’s family. Towboat robertson. So not only do we have these money, these dollars being spent their being spent without the family’s knowledge one was a building that was being constructed almost entirely from the robertson. That was wallace hall. Yes. And if you ask bill robertson what the big reasons he went to court where wallace hall was one of the three and a large part of that was they were not told this was taking place. So in other words, they took the position that not only could they use this money outside of director connection to the woodrow. Wilson school they didn’t have to tell the family about it for two three days. This warner hall. I’m sorry. While us all was not part of the woodrow wilson school, not at all. It was not so to bill robertson. This is as far afield as hiring the basketball coach and paying for it exactly. He was very upset about that, and i don’t blame him. I mean, there were a lot of places where princeton didn’t have toe go to a lawsuit that could have done so much, and we’ll get to those in lessons later on. But when wallace hall came about, bill was livid. Yeah, well, s o you know, the institution does bad things, and then it covers it up and that’s the that’s, the financial transparency that was that was lacking and became part of the the complaint. Um ah, we need youto hang tight for aa for a couple of moments while i express my gratitude. Teo, the show’s sponsor, which is generosity siri’s and they sponsor of a host multi charity five k runs and walks peer-to-peer fund-raising and its generosity siri’s that makes it possible for me to do the show. And bring outstanding guests like doug white to talk about something that, you know, maybe you have a vague recollection about it if you’ve been in fund-raising long enough, but whether you, whether you recollect it or not, there are incredibly valuable lessons for relationships between donors and charities that come out of this. This epic lawsuit between the robertsons and princeton university and generosity siri’s makes it possible for me to have doug and host him and have him explain what went into this and what we can all take away from it. Generosity siri’s a sigh said, hosting five k multi charity runs and walks so your charity becomes a charity partner with generosity siri’s and participates in one of the events that they do throughout the country. They’ve got them coming up in new jersey, florida, atlanta, georgia, new york city, philadelphia, toronto you can just pick up the phone and that’s the way i like to do business. I like to pick up the phone and just see what things they’re about. I could talk to dave lynn he’s, the ceo. They’re at seven one eight five o six, nine, triple seven seven one eight, five or six, nine seven. Seven, seven, which i prefer to say. Nine. Triple seven if you prefer the web, of course, they’re on the way. If you don’t have to pick up phone’s, just that’s. What i like to do business, um, but they are at generosity. Siri’s, dot com, if you if you prefer that way. The non-profit radio knowledge base i am putting shows together bye topic to create a knowledge base and so that when you have a need, the knowledge base will be a resource that agra gates, all the advice of our expert guests over many years of doing the show this week is bored fund-raising that is a huge topic that causes lots of headaches and lots of frustration among sea level people, in charities and among staff and charities and among boards in charities. Um, so check out the video that i have this week on the links to the many interviews on that topic board fund-raising i’ve been collecting shows and doing shows for very close to four years so there’s, plenty of material and bored fund-raising is certainly one of the topics that has come up many times for for guests, and that is tony’s take two for friday, ninth of may nineteenth show of the year you will find that video and and the links on my site at tony martignetti dot com the great you’re still here, right? I am cool, i’m glad you don’t know what i was impressed with that that was very good. Thanks. Sponsors. Exactly due to their generosity, siri’s is helps. Helps fundez show. Um, so we have now this lawsuit and the discovery and the and the amended complaint based on what the robertsons learned through discovery. And this lawsuit is on for six between six and seven years. I imagine the relationship was it was pretty damn difficulty between the foundation board and the princeton university. Ah, the administration and the people who are on the board from princeton university. They have to get together for board meetings. Excuse me? Yes, they do. And the bill, sister catherine ernst described it as having a boardmember and then an attorney, then the boardmember and then attorney all around the table. And not only the family, but also the princeton side of the board. It was very tense. They describe how in the early days when charlie was alive, that the relations were very good. There would be lunch at the president’s house. There would be a lot of camaraderie, even though problems were developing. The relations were pretty good by the time the lawsuit comes around. Nobody’s talking. Anybody aboard? Yeah, board meetings. And it became the antithesis of what? And again, i teach board governance at columbia, and we talk about the need for transparency and fluidity and, you know, trust. And none of that was was was there during this lawsuit so it’s very, very tense there, even they were actually having meals in separate rooms. That’s, right, they family released in the same family. Boardmember zand, the princeton university board members would would have lunches in separate rooms. That’s, right? They did need an adult to come in and take the it was. They ended up doing that for the settlement, but at this point, it was just, i can’t imagine how tense that had to be. Yeah, and over six, seven years, yes, right, yes. Okay, um, let’s. Bring us to the settlement. Twenty eight ah lot of things are going on. First of all, it’s true that the robertsons we’re running out of money, even though the banbury fund was funding the lawsuits, the law ofthe fees added up to about forty five million dollars on each side, which is an incredible about the money and even a place like the banbury fund was starting to feel that now, if i’ve been a part of those teams, i’d probably still be practicing law. Yes, i would have been. The buildings are so easy when you’re in a lawsuit, but i just never got that far. I stuck it out for two years, and i never made it to this level. Well, the judge and retired, the one that everybody bonded, teo in light and respected. He retired. The judge’s clerk left to go work for the princeton lawyers, which was interesting. The new judge could only give it one day a week. And that was maria psychic. And she was only going to be able to do it for one day a week, which stretched the lawsuit out even further. Give doug a car, their problems. And so there was a lot. Of delay and and i get this even though we kind of make fun of this from time to time, that even though there was a delay and there was a slow down, the work still had to be continued. The law fees were continuing. And so the question of being able to pay for this was a very acute one for the robertson family. On the other side of the coin, the princeton investments were going south because the crisis was taking place. And they were, as i say, and alternatives and so they were having a liquidity problem. I think they probably only source of liquidity. Most fat during that time was probably tuition paying parents was just a very tight time. They might not acknowledge it that way, but that’s pretty much how i see it. So they were both ready. I think, to talk settlement. They had tried beforehand they didn’t get anywhere. Bill originally wanted to take the entire endowment away and put it somewhere else. And that would have been a really riel problem for princeton, because if for no other reason, it would have been a real blow psychologically to this story, i really? University. I get what they wanted to do there. So they were going back and forth. And the question was, should we force the university of the repay all of these dollars that they had misspent, which could have been an excess of about two hundred billion dollars back into the foundation? Or can we just take the foundation away? Or can we split away from the foundation and they wanted independence? They wanted to say, okay, we want money to go do our own thing, that is, to say what my parents were doing, who his parents were doing, and the and princeton really didn’t want that, so they said, okay, what we’ll do is we’ll consider chopping off some of this money and giving it to you if you let us keep the rest of it and you guys go away and that’s basically, what happened? They did bring in an adult david girlfriend from milbank tweed who came in and his whole approach was saying not to say who had the better argument legally, his approach was, how can we get out of this mess? And i think he was a good voice. He was not. Part of the litigation, and he was a good voice to be brought in at this time, and he actually did the settlement. He was very good. And the settlement wass that princeton would reimburse the banbury fund the forty five million dollars for the legal fees. And in addition to that, over a period of time, the university would pay fifty million dollars to a new foundation. It’s called the robinson foundation for government. And it now exists it’s, a family foundation and has its own work and does what it’s predecessor was supposed to do that is to put students into the federal government just but it is completely independent. Totally invested in university. Yeah. And then the rest of the money, which probably added up to around six hundred fifty or seven hundred million dollars. Because during that period of time, during the crisis, the endowment came dahna shade. But let’s say six hundred million then was left. I don’t know exactly. The robinson foundation, by the way, was dissolved the original one. And so the money that was in it and was left for princeton went into its general endowment specifically for the woodrow wilson school. And today the robertson family does not have anything to say about how that money is being used. There is a complete divorce. Okay, i think that can bring us to ah, something’s that charity’s can can take away. Um, i still have a revealed my favorite character, but we haven’t talked about that person. Um, agreements, should we start with ah, i mean, this was all went back to the to the phrase, um particular emphasis. So do we, which was in which was in the original document creating the foundation? Yes, let’s. Talk about what? What level of scrupulous nous we need to have around agreements with donors. Let me preface it by saying the this this conversation, this part of it right now has a lot to do with understanding that this lawsuit was a story and it’s true and it’s big but israel reason for being important is that almost any charity and almost any donor can get into this bind. So it’s not just ah, large family or a large university. Any endowed gift or any restricted gift really, really needs to be put together with what i would call the lessons. Yeah, you want to bring us, we could easily be talking about a ten or fifteen thousand dollars gift easily, easily and that’s really one of the big messages here, this isn’t just about princeton it’s got a lot of interest, but it’s not just about princeton and so donor-centric aridjis both have to be aware of this when we say when we use phrases like in with particular emphasis, it has a meaning, but it doesn’t have an absolute meaning doesn’t mean that one hundred percent of the students are goingto go to the federal government, but it also doesn’t mean zero percent or ten percent. So we have to have an understanding you and i about what particular emphasis means if it were seventy or eighty or ninety percent, i don’t think charles robertson would have had any problem. I think even if he were sixty or sixty five percent, part of the problem was not just the results, and this is another thing they discovered was that princeton never really cared whether the students we’re going to go and the evidence of that was they never asked on the application whether they were interested in going into the federal government. So there was that part of the equation, so and i think you can relate to this as an attorney, we sometimes think of the laws being black and white and here’s what’s, right, and here’s what’s wrong. But a lot of phrases we use our are vague on purpose. They they’re meant to be because we can’t assign a value our ah specific numeric value to the word emphasis. We just can’t do that. And yet, it’s an important idea in an agreement. So if a person is making an agreement today, one lesson is too if you’re going to use that kind of a phrase, define it a little bit more than they did. One one word that gets us into trouble, i think in fund-raising agreements and that is the word in perpetuity of the phrase in perpetuity. Because in perpetuity has has a meaning if you look it up. It’s very clear what that meaning is it means forever and forever has a meaning. And so, by definition we cannot put into legitimately into an agreement in my view the word perpetuity because we cannot know what’s going to happen forever. So we have to be more careful in crafting the language that we’re using. I once made a gift to my own high school. This is a in the nineteen eighties of deferred gift. Where’d you go to high school exeter, phillips, exeter. And it was back in the day when pulled income funds were popular. You probably remember that yourself. None of our listeners will. There were there was a thing it’s, an antique drug in jail. Again. Well its way. But we have to define it’s now an out of date. Really, uh, life income gift. A method through which donors got variable income for for their lives. And the variability became a big issue when interest rates were declining and the varying the variations were all down. And these have pretty much falling out of favor among among non-profits so that’s enough. So income funds. When i was doing the agreement, they said, and i want to do honor my english teacher and they said, this is back in like, nineteen, eighty four they said, you know, this going to sound weird, but we might not teach english forever, right? I thought, how is that possible? But it may not be possible. But it was also not conceivable that we wouldn’t be riding horses forever, so we had an escape plus saying that if this ever did happen that they be able to use it to a purpose as close as possible, something something that deals with ian practicability of yes, continuing the gift yes, and i’m tryingto bring the send tryingto respond to your question about how donors can and charities khun b take steps to avoid what happened to princeton so that we don’t just use words capriciously. Um, we just have about a minute before a break and there’s certainly board implications here, too. I mean, the princeton board reviewed the documentation and probably was involved in in a good degree and in the negotiations board oversight of gift. Yes, this is a good example of that. Now, i don’t really fault the board at princeton to too much because it was nineteen, sixty one and not twenty fourteen, and so we’ve learned a lot in the last half century about board oversight and so forth, but that said thie gift was basically shoved through. It was a last minute quick kind of a thing had nothing to do. With there at the time, current capital campaign and the president really did not have the fullest discussion with the board about this gift, and they should have. So board oversight of that process is really critical. We all go out from the break, and when we come back, doug and i will keep talking about the lessons from this epic lawsuit robertson v princeton you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. 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 alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m bill mcginley, president, ceo of the association for healthcare philanthropy. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. As we make our agreements more specific and and defined terms as you’re suggesting, we can actually get into trouble because the specificity now binds us two teo, try to predict what’s going to happen and try to predict what issues are goingto a result. So there’s a there’s a balance between specificity and flexibility there is, and when i was saying earlier that we need to be more specific, er not use words capriciously, you’re right, i had that in mind to that there is a balance and it’s there’s always going to be tension. And so the question is, how do we avoid this kind of a thing going into the future? And one of the things that you can avoid has nothing to do with the agreement. It has everything to do with relations. If princeton had done so much differently, this wouldn’t have gone to where it went. But it was the lack of trust, the erosion of trust over the decades that really set the stage for this. Then you can go to the agreement say you’re not doing this well if you have the trust going on at the same time, you don’t need to go to the agreement, to say you are or are not doing something but that’s it so that’s probably the best lesson that anybody can learn from a charitable perspective anyway, to stay in touch with the airs at the donors and the heirs forever. This is an obligation, and if you don’t feel you can do that, you don’t feel you, khun obligate your success is that the organization to do that, then don’t promise to do that that’s part of the deal here and plan giving when i was in plan giving, doing these kinds of things and talking to you too plant giving directors, i would say you’re you’re actually making an agreement here that will go on for well past the time you’re here, and probably perhaps well past the time you’re even alive. So many generations of successors after you are going to have to do what you’re agreeing to do today, keep that idea in mind when you make these agreements and this particular agreement, nothing was going to erode the idea of a federal government or the need for foreign relations, but still there could have been mohr a trust and more. Specificity, i think, in the agreement, although i don’t think the specificity was the issue here, i think the idea was pretty clear, i mean, with particular emphasis might be a vague term, but it does have enough of a meaning and enough of an understanding by people who consider the table to know that thirteen percent just doesn’t cut it. You know, you know, the good communications and keeping in touch, and in this case, there were there were different presidents who at any time i thought when, when there was a new president, he or she could have said, you know, we’ve made some mistakes in the past, obviously i was not in charge then, but here’s what here’s, what happened and here’s what we’re gonna do, teo, make sure that this doesn’t happen again, that humility is so crucial, especially in a non-profit i can understand boisterousness from ah for-profit especially if it’s a big one, but at a non-profit there’s this extra special place that non-profits haven’t talked about that in the other book, the non-profit challenge where that humility plays a large large role or should now, just so you’ll know, since this book was published other organizations, air writing reviews and trying to talk with both me and princeton. Princeton refuses to talk about it. They give the same press release that they give that they gave after the settlement. They do not want to acknowledge that something went wrong. How they could possibly agnostic. Now i can understand them having a defense, but to say they were totally in the right, it blows my mind, you know that? Yeah, that sounds like lawyers giving advice on driving the decisionmaking vs people who are more interested in the in the long term relationships with donors and alumni. That was paul volcker’s perspective. I interviewed him because he’s, a princeton alum, and he also had a perspective on this situation at the woodrow wilson school. And he was complaining about the woodrow wilson school separately and before the lawsuit ever came, so he was doing it entirely independently. And when the lawsuit came around, he told me, i think the lawyers are driving this. They’re saying, princessa can admit to nothing but i’m thinking, okay, i get that it’s not good, but i get that. But here we are, what, five years? Seven years. Six years after the settlement and they’re still saying we didn’t do anything wrong. Is bill robertson willing to talk now? Yeah, bill’s bill’s going to be speaking with me up in boston next week? Oh, what could had bill roberts instead of you? You could have that would’ve visible the name and the lawsuit instead of the guy who just follows it later on in the gundam maybe it’s somehow it’s done now, right? Alright to settle for this on second best. Okay. And so, as we are crafting these agreements again, the board’s role in reviewing agreements whether whether it is appropriate to buying this organization forever in perpetuity, or should we stop short of that and the board is really the last step to that could raise a red flag for the organization. It is, unless you can come to some agreement as to what in perpetuity means, as they did at the a museum of ma metropolitan museum of art a few years ago. When philippe de montebello said, we think in perpetuity really means seventy five years on the donor agreed to that. Well, that’s ok. And this is the definition. There was a definition, right? So in perpetuity didn’t really mean what it means in the dictionary. Fine, but yes, you’re right. I think the board has to be very conscious of that. My favorite cara doctor, we didn’t talk about her, but you dedicated the book to jessie lee washington. I did, i don’t want to. I’ll let you explain, but we just have it. We just have a couple minutes explain the crucial role. Jessie jessie was an employee of the university was asked to look into endowments at the divinity school and found some irregularities and did a report, and it was put away for a while. Ah, then she left on dh. Then the lawsuit became really big, and she said, you know this? What i was working on in the divinity school is very similar to what the lawsuit is alleging. So she came out and went to the lawyers for princeton with seth lap ido and said, i have a story to tell you, and when she got on the phone, seth said, we’ve been waiting for you to come he don’t know who it was going to be, but he figured there would be some other person in princeton, who would be familiar with this activity that princeton was doing in the endowment accounting and she really represent she she, i think, was very courageous. She put her reputation on the line and said, i am willing to go on the record to say what’s wrong here, and he dedicated the book to her, and i did that was so touching, and i think she’s well, she’s, my favorite because i believe that most people want to do the right thing and she’s a perfect example of stepping forward, being courageous the way you described most people in non-profits and donors want to do the right thing. I think you’re right. I know you’re right. Doug wait, author, professor, advisor non-profits and philanthropists. He hangs out at columbia university teaching at the masters and fund-raising program. You will find him at doug white dot net. The book is abusing donorsearch intent. The robertson family’s epic lawsuit against princeton university it’s a very, very good story and very well told doug white, thanks so much. Thank you is good to see you again. Pleasure next week from the non-profit technology conference choosing the right cr m system. And also cindy gibson, our grants fund-raising contributor on what makes a strong proposal, our creative producer is clear. Meyerhoff sam leaving, which is our line producer, shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. This music you’re hearing is by scott stein. He’s in brooklyn. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. 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If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. 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 way. Look forward to serving you. Talking.

Nonprofit Radio for May 2, 2014: Numbers In Your Stories & Research Pre- And Post-Event

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Brian Mittendorf: Numbers In Your Stories

 

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Prof. Brian Mittendorf teaches accounting at Ohio State University. He wants you to rely on financial info to improve your narratives to donors so you raise more money and you’re clearer where it’s being spent. Be assured, I will not permit a dry recitation of the only subject I dropped out of in college. (Does he look like a young Ron Howard, or what?).

 

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Maria Semple is our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder. This month we’ll talk about how research can support your cultivation events.

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Duitz 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, but you knew that and i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the frustration of a dia de okucani zha if i came to learn that you had missed today’s show numbers in your stories. Professor brian mittendorf teaches accounting at ohio state university. He wants you to rely on financial information to improve your narratives to donors so you raise more money and you’re clearer about where it’s being spent be assured, i will not be parading a dry recitation of the only subject that i dropped out of college and research pre and post event. Maria simple is our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder. This month, we’ll talk about how research can support your cultivation events on tony’s take two between the guests planned giving is fund-raising not fund raiding. We’re sponsored by generosity, siri’s they host multi charity five k runs and walks very grateful for their sponsorship, and i’m very glad to introduce brian mittendorf he’s, a professor of accounting and management information systems at the ohio state university’s fisher college of business before that, he taught accounting at yale, he serves on the editorial boards of the accounting review and journal of management accounting research at ohio state. Brian teaches courses in non-profit and governmental accounting and managerial accounting. His block is counting on charity. You’ll find him on twitter at counting charity. Professor brian mittendorf. Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for having me, tony that’s. A real pleasure. The first question i have to get to get off my chest is your you have all this background in accounting. How in the hell is it that assets? Always equal liabilities, plus owners equity this’s. Why? I dropped out of accounting at carnegie mellon university. It always seemed like just a total fiction makeup. The numbers game. How does it always happen that those two things those two columns on those will teach arts come out equal. That magic now is what does it know, though? So if you actually, you know, i like this stuff. Oh, i will take the question literally. I do mean it, though, if you think about it and that it’s reflecting everything that an organization has, which is a value. Okay, and think. Of the size of the pie and liabilities and owners equity just kind of say who has claims to that pie so here’s all the app here’s, all the assets hears everything that we have that of worse. And then the next question is, who had claims to those things? Liabilities, air claims by third parties and equity or in the case of non-profits net assets are kind of the amount left over that the organization has claimed teo or for business the owner. Oh, so that’s why it always have to be the case? Because any time you have asked that somebody has to have a claim to him and so lie bilich inequity or just split up, who has the claim? I wish i understood that in nineteen, eighty two or so because yeah, okay, but, uh, yes, it’s, everything you have and then somebody has to. Somebody has to have ownership of it. Either you are somebody you owe money to or something like that. I say i never i really didn’t understand that. And i dropped that. I did drop out of accounting and like the second second week, i just i wasn’t getting i could. Make the teach art, but then i could never put the numbers into it, but i could make the cross very easily if you don’t you’re not alone, okay? Not not the i’m actually i’m impressed. You’re you like a challenge and so ah bring on account on to talk for thirty minutes. I’m sure is the challenge, so i appreciate it. Not the most exciting subjects from no, no. Well, we’re going to make it. Well, i don’t know if we could let’s not overstate the case. I don’t know if we could get exciting. Exciting? I don’t know if exciting is possible, but we can at least make it interesting. And maybe have a little fun too. Okay. No, i’m you know, the topic doesn’t scare me. It scared me in nineteen. Eighty two it’s. Why? I dropped out, but i’m out of the course. Not the whole university. Um, all right now i’m you. Ah, you suggested some interesting. Ah, some interesting ideas to talk about. Andi. I like it. So what? What seems to be the problem with the use of numbers by non-profits? Well, it probably really, from my standpoint. Probably treyz backto what? You i kind of already mentioned in that that is ah lot of people have an aversion or to accounting or at least don’t find it interesting. And so it’s, not really at the centre piece of what people are doing, but, you know, if you think of they say accounting is like the language of business or what have you, which i don’t know about that, but if you do view it in the language than the financial statements are book, they’re telling a story and so there’s a whole story out there that some extent people either don’t fully exploit to explain what the organization is doing or don’t fully understand, perhaps. All right, so you would like to see it these numbers more involved in the maura part of the narrative of the storytelling since, since their analogous, the numbers are telling a story, but we also have these narrative stories that we tell about the work that we’re doing and the outcomes we have and the impact that we make in the world. You’d like to see the two of these sync up. Yeah, i mean, i think to the extent that non-profits get in trouble, it’s in circumstances where they have ah, they’re storytelling, and then they have their financial statement, and the things don’t really match up that well. Ah, and it isn’t necessarily ah ah, problem of bad intent, it’s just that the elearning part isn’t kind of melted into the entire entire narrative, and so i think a lot could be done to bring those things together, and that would help donors and potential donors understand better how money is being spent, how their investment is going to be spent definitely cause i think if if donors aren’t given that information, then they’ll probably make assumptions and you get into trouble. When’d donors assume their money’s going toe one thing when they find out that later that it’s going to something else which might have been a perfect, perfect thing to be putting it into. But donor’s assumed it was something else. And so then donorsearch only either don’t trust the organization or find some other organization that they think is going to do something different. Where is that? The organization kind of is more up front about, you know, here’s our priorities here’s where our money goes ah that’s still a lot of trust with donors. How do you go about your research, teo? Determine that these two are not sinking up? Well, so i mean, in many ways, i’ve brought this into the classroom. I teach accounting students primarily and so they’re interested in the accounting rules. But i try teo gonna force them to think about what the financial statements given the rules that we learn about how to do the accounting. What are those financial statements tell us about the non-profits so i actually have my students ah, each semester, choose a non-profit get their financial statements and present on that non-profit say, what is the non-profit commission? And to what extent is the financial statement match up to that mission? Because in a sense, i think most to the extent that financial statements are used, people will look up this overhead ratio or look up, um, some rating agency that’s just going to pull a couple numbers and calculate something and those those tend to not tell the whole story either. Yeah. And what do you ah, what do you and your students typically find as they’re doing these the’s case studies for you? I guess you get a mixed bag and you get you get some organizations that, ah, their finances tell the story that’s very consistent with their mission. And i would say, for the most part, the students think that the organizations don’t take enough advantage of that. They don’t communicate that it clearly as they could, and then there’s other organizations where the students said they’re spending money on things that i didn’t realize they were spending money on, and probably most owners didn’t realize it either. And again, that’s not necessarily a problem. Ah, but the problem being if there could be a disconnect between what donors thinking what’s actually happening? Yeah, yeah, no, i mean, i could see where that that is a problem on because you mentioned donorsearch art assuming things and that’s that’s when you get into trouble and then the media starts assuming things because the disclosures aren’t clear, if if it’s something that gets to the media and then then you gotta really then you got a real problem on your hands. How come you choose non-profits too motivate your students over corporations? Well, that happens to be my particular interests, both in teaching and in a lot. Of my research, i look att non-profits governments to some extent too. But so the course is focused on non-profit and government accounting. Not to say that there’s not there’s tons of interesting things you can get about corporations from their financial statements. But if you think about it for accounting students, you know, they they have ah, a series of eight or nine accounting classes. They will have one that’s on non-profit uh, so much like people in the nonprofit sector. I think that people don’t realize how big the sector is and how important it is to the economy. You kind of get the same thing. Ah, in business education as well. Business students are surprised when they learn how much of the economy non-profit account more yeah, isn’t it? Roughly? Ah, tender. Ten to fifteen percent of our fifteen or sixteen trillion dollars economy. Yeah, i guess. The usual things that here about ten percent, ten or eleven percent unemployment through non-profit, right. And not only employment, but the economic activity also. And asset ownership. Yeah. So there’s a lot of a lot of assets held by non-profits as well. Now may be a lot of that. Is in healthcare sector and education, but there’s still a lot of activity and a lot of employment in the non-profit community. And so especially when i teach mba students, i tried to sneak in non-profits as well, because they don’t coming in don’t they don’t realize how big of the sector is we’re going to take our first break on, brian and i are going to keep talking about this and all these assets that are out there in the nonprofit world who has their claims on them were goingto see how we’re going to we’re going to go back to these t charts, it’s, it’s, very it’s, all it’s, all planned it’s all people don’t think i plan the show, but but i do. This is we’re going to talk about thes t charts and who has claims on all these vast assets around non-profits and whose responsibility is it that these things come out equal and that those true story gets told around your numbers so that’s a lot to cover? I think bryan and i are up to it stay with us. They didn’t think the shooting getting dink dink, dink, dink, you’re listening to the talking alternate network. You waiting to get you thinking? Dahna good. Do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss our coaching and consultant services a guaranteed to lead toe, right groat. For your business, call us at nine one seven eight three three, four eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com oppcoll dahna are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and 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. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna oppcoll welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent got live listener left to send toe allentown, pennsylvania. Carter at new jersey and new bern, north carolina live listener loved to you also in south korea we’ve got soul and gwang myung on your haserot live listen love to everyone listening live and, of course, podcast pleasantries to the many thousands of you listening at your leisure on the device of your choice. Um okay, brian. What? Ah, what kinds of things specifically do you and and your students? Oh, by the way, where’s where’s, ohio. I thought you’re gonna have lots of students listening to you. Brian, where l come, ohio has not checked in as live listeners. Students are out of class. They’re preparing for graduation now. So that’s very convenient. Okay, you’re going tohave bring lots of live. Listen now, we didn’t know when you were going to doing the show at the time. But out of class preparing it’s only it’s only may second already exams. Yes, exams are done. Graduation is this weekend. My god, what kind of kick schedule you have there? You know, carnegie mellon was never that carnegie mellon. In nineteen eighties was never that easy. Early eighties was not that easy. I don’t know we had a much more rigorous calendar than ohio state. All right, we just switched semesters. I see we have the may mr starting up next week’s a little short, short one month and then summer session starts in june. Ok. All right, i guess i guess you’re it’s an accredited university, isn’t it? Ohio state and share it. Okay, i was just questioning, wondering. All right, um, what kinds of things to you and your students see specifically that non-profits heir not being consistent about between the narrative they’re telling maybe in their annual report, or ah or on their website and the numbers that they’re reporting teo to the irs, things like that? Yes. I mean, i’m there there are some some cases where there’s a clear disconnect. Yeah. So i’m just thinking of it. There’s a one that i was just looking at this week national cancer charity, that if you go to their website, they kind of left here the things we do. And they list all their activities to achieve their mission. And it’s we provide financial assistance to those dealing with cancer, we have activities and support for those deal with cancer, we prevention, public education and kind of the end. Oh, by the way, we also provide international support. And if you go to the financial statements there ah list of programme activities in terms of dollar amounts, the international aid, the distribution of pharmaceuticals is by far the largest amount o and financial assistance on his way down the line. And so you kind of wonder what? Why air they’d listing things in the opposite order on their website than they do in terms of where the money goes. Ah, now, the times those are maybe perhaps more extreme examples where you see a big disconnect. I’d say the much more common thing in terms of a disconnect is we have the narrative on the website, and then we stick in there a little pie chart showing what percentage of our expenses go to programs, and we kind of agreed never to discuss accounting again. Um, and so there, it’s, just you just don’t get in understanding. You could just get this pie chart and people feel obligated to provide the pie chart but don’t want to give much more than that. Okay, well in that in that first case, i’m that makes me worry whether that cancer charity doesn’t want people in the u s to know that so much of their money eyes going abroad. I mean, if they don’t like you said, if they’re not disclosing where it’s going and why, then we’re left to wonder, and i’m wondering, are they are they trying to deceive the us donors so that they don’t know how much is going abroad? Yes, i guess that’s the biggest concern is if you have a circumstance like now i know in this case it’s often this because of these gifts in-kind organisations they’re offered by pharmaceutical companies, we have stuff to donate overseas. Will you help us and gladly help? And so it might be in terms of their the amount of time and energy they put into something it might not be that high in their lives. But in terms of the finances, that is kind of where the money ah is going. So you know what the worst case scenario in this case would be? That the organization is completely aware of where the money is going on, and they don’t want donors to know it. Ah, probably a much more common thing is that the organization itself isn’t quite aware that the money is not going, and they exactly in line with what they believe their priorities to be. And that was just what was there more you’re going to say about that? Well, no, just, you know, the extent of it donors maybe are somewhat averse to paying attention to all the details of accounting. You have the same sort of thing internal or an organization believe this is their priorities and believe this is what they’re spending their time and energy on and it’s just not born out in the financial statements on they just might not be aware of that that, you know, look how much of our money went to this particular activity. Ah, that shouldn’t be as i have a priority of death, maybe we should kind of redirect our resources. There may very well be a disconnect between the office that’s doing the accounting and the office that’s doing the marketing, communications and the fund-raising exactly, yeah, and i think we i mean, we’ve seen examples of this. As well, where another well known cancer charity had actual fundraisers for its organization asking people for funds to help support cancer research, not realizing that the organization itself didn’t support cancer research. It supported patient advocacy. Ah, prevention things like that, and they actually weren’t putting money into research. And again, that’s not that there’s anything wrong with it choosing where to put the money, but the fact that those in the organization didn’t even realize where the money was going that would suggest that there’s a communication breakdown internally. Well, that’s a very serious case. You’re raising money for work that your organization doesn’t do. I would question in that case where’s the where’s, the leadership coordinating between these two functions, the mission and the business and the fund-raising there’s three functions correct. And i guess you know, this is probably the story with accounting in general. Accounting is not going to solve problems and it’s not going to bring donors in, but it can. It can help identify problem. And so if you kind of realize that here’s our communication about what we care about and here’s where the money is going ah, if you pay kind of attention to where the money you’re going in the financial statements, you can learn a lot about the extent to which you’re doing a good job of actually living up to those priorities is the the method of disclosing finances? Is that usually just the annual report? So in terms of communication donors or what they actually file, yeah, no, i’m thinking of communications to donors, right? We could talk about the irs and the sec, but its communication communicated this to donors, you know, that’s not exactly clear, so you get different things. So yet so the annual report might have a page or two on on finances. Ah, some organizations eventually just dump their form nine, ninety out on online and consider that their effort it transparency. Some will get audited financial statements, which provides some extra credence to the financial statements. But still, i think just sticking your audited financial statements is kind of the bare minimum that kind of say they’re available, but we won’t bother to interpret them for you. Is that what the ah, the annual report often does, doesn’t it doesn’t it talk through the the financials or no, not always? Ideally, ideally, that would that would be great is if it talked kind of about program accomplishments and in that context to say, oh, by the way, one of our accomplishments is we’ve achieved this much say, if you’re interested in research, we’ve given this many grant and this is how much money we’ve given to those grants, and this is what percentage of our budget those amounts represent. Probably the more common scenario is you get a lot of ah, a discussion about program, accomplishment, and then kind of at the back, two pages of the annual report, you get the financial, uh, the extent to which that those can be brought into the discussion. Ah, it helps avoid this issue of eye if there’s one thing that people in the nonprofit sector seem to agree on it’s, that they don’t like that people fixate on this overhead ratio. Ah, and wait, overcome that is to say, if that’s not what matters let’s communicate the financial information that does matter-ness we did a show a few months ago october on the overhead myth letter that was signed by the the three charity watchdog agencies charitynavigator, guidestar and the better business bureau wise giving alliance. I had those three ceo’s on talking about the background behind the overhead myth letter. What? And what led up to it and why they all agreed that it something like that needed to be signed so you could listeners could go back, teo last october on dh find that show um, brian, you have unexamined or two of charities that you think are doing well with the coordination between numbers and narratives? Sure, i mean, so i mostly look at larger, larger organizations, but there will be more well known anyway. So the one that comes to mind that i’m constantly impressed with the michael j fox foundation, which focuses on parkinson’s research if you kind of go to any other communications, their website or their annual report, they make a big point of their mission is to go out of business, you know, they were working to go out of business, they’re going fund research to get rid of parkinson’s and their financial statements bear that out, but more than that, they include them in a lot of their discussions, so they demonstrate we’re trying to go out of business and you can see it, because if you look at our financial statements, we don’t have extra reserves. We spend everything we can because we’re in a hurry and most of our program funds go towards funding research grants and here’s, how many research grants we’ve given and here’s how much that was and here’s, what percentage of our budget you know, it’s very a big part of their communications is to say, we are in this is urgent, and you can see it by the way we act. Yeah, so the numbers and the narrative are in sync and rely on each other. Exactly, and you don’t have to be an organization that in aa in a hurry to make that sort of that sort of story work, you can always say were in order innovation. It wants to have an impact for a long time, and as a result, we need permanent endowment fund and here’s how much success we’ve had in raising those and here’s why we need more, but the extent to which that those that narrative is tied to the financials, i think it helps avoid this issue of people making assumptions about the financials. It could also be helpful in a campaign. I mean, if you if you do, you want to last in perpetuity and you have a small endowment that’s not going to support that, for instance, or if you’re very low in cash and you need to have maybe ah non-cash campaign you know it was a short burst or something. I mean, you, khun, rely on your number, your your accounting to ah, to bear out the need for some type of a campaign. Oh, i agree completely. Yeah, i mean, to the extent that people use accounting in in their communications, that tends to be here’s what we do with the money, but perhaps just as important is to communicate here is how much we need ah, here’s, the extent of our needs and that can be pretty powerful. You could even go so far as to perhaps compare you’re balance sheet in the areas that you’re trying to raise money for let’s say, i’m still think of ah fund-raising campaign with the balance sheets of some comparable organizations and see how, you know we’re coming up short. Yeah, because i think to the extent that donors have a field organization, it’s, that they’re they’re mohr aware of more visible organizations, so they assumed that those organizations are larger and have more reserves, and that might not be the case. You can essentially say, hey, here’s, our reserves are out like he said, relative to appear organizations um, you might expect us to have a lot more than we d’oh. Yeah, you can on. And you can have a very visible organization in the social networks and not be a very big organization at all. Exactly. Yeah. Um, is there another one that that you like a lot somebody doing well, i’d like to have some encouraging stories. Sure. Yeah. I mean, i think in terms of in terms of a big turnaround, i would say live strong or what used to be the lance armstrong foundation. Ah, there. You know, may maybe they had before. They had so much money coming in. They had the luxury of not kneading really in depth communications about finances. But, you know, they very recently in most recent and past twelve months, i would say, have in their communications, emphasized muchmore kind of the breakdown of the programme costs. How much? Not just here’s. The percentage that goes to a program. But here’s, what we fund, we planned this advocacy. We fund this particular program for counseling, etcetera. So there are a lot more detailed in their communications with donors. And they do a lot more to discuss their financial needs. Have you noticed? They’ve been out in the open, essentially saying we’ve been hit hard by the lance armstrong controversy and here’s how much it affected us and here’s, how much we need to continue doing our job. So they’ve been way more up front about their finances on recent, yeah, they’ve come around, so you didn’t see them being as open in the past. When that we were. I’m doing very, very well, financially. I guess not. I mean, a part of my day has just been that they need wasn’t there, but they did. I have a lot of funds coming in, and there was a lot of misunderstanding about where the funds were going, and i think they’ve taken a concerted effort to fix that. We just have about a minute and a half or so before we have to wrap up, where do you think the responsibility lies in the non-profit for for creating this coordination that we’re talking about? Ah, that’s. A good question. You know, i think. The leadership of a nonprofit organization can do a lot to bring to emphasize that accounting matters where the money goes is a big part of what we do because, you know, i might be repeating myself, but if an organization isn’t kind of proactive in this sense, then you kind of left with donors making some assumptions, or you’re left with watchtower organization or, like you said, reporters or something digging in and finding something that they might think doesn’t match an organization’s financial. So to the extent that an organization can manage, the narrative can say, here’s, where our money goes and here’s, why? Ah, then all the better and now i don’t think accountants are aren’t goingto take the lead on this their their goal really is to generate the information and make it as unbiased as possible. But the extent that leaders in the organization can, you know, emphasize accounting is being a part of the narrative, i think that’s kind of where we’re alive, all right, we have to leave it there. Brian mittendorf is a professor of accounting and management information systems at ohio state university. You’ll find his blogged at counting on charity. And you’ll find him on twitter at counting charity. Brian, thank you very, very much, thank you just only doing it. Thank you, real pleasure. Likewise, storytelling and financial transparency and its coordination between the numbers and the narrative obviously critical to fund-raising something else that could be critical to your fund-raising or part of your fund-raising plan might be a five k run or walk, and our sponsor generosity siri’s does just that they run multi charity peer-to-peer runs and walks, they do this the back end work this a ll that all that behind the scenes stuff like lesson licenses and permits and making sure that you have enough portable restrooms and you have a fluid stations on the course, and there are shirts and race bibs and there’s a proper timing mechanism so everybody knows their their time as they come across, they take care of the web pages for your organization and for all the participants so that they could do the fund-raising and they also have a charity support team which will help you with the team building and the fund-raising around the event and you will find generosity siri’s at generosity siri’s dot com or you could just pick up the phone that’s the way i like to do business, you can speak to dave lynn he’s, the ceo, and there were seven, one, eight five o six, nine, triple seven they have events coming up in new jersey, florida, atlanta, toronto, new york city, philadelphia, so i hope you will check out generosity siri’s i’m very grateful that they are sponsoring the show my block this week has that planned giving is not fund-raising but it’s fund-raising that’s the video on my site this week, i often hear organizations say that they can’t do plant e-giving because they don’t want to hurt the other, i plan to give the other fund-raising programs that they have, in effect, that they’re they’re running their annual fund, they’ve got their major gift program, those are typically the ones that that people think of and they don’t want planned e-giving to hurt those other other methods of raising money and it’s actually one hundred degrees from that planned e-giving creates much stronger donorsearch ships and enhances other types of giving, especially you see that in annual giving. Think of who we put in our wills you have your husband, wife, children, grandchildren and when someone puts in your organization alongside those dear loved ones, they think pretty darn highly of you and the charitable work that you’re doing, and they’re not going to reduce their e-giving in other methods to the contrary, what i see is enhancements and growth in annual e-giving from people who make the plan e-giving commitment so that’s it there’s a video on my blog’s says little bit more about that. That plant e-giving is not fund-raising and that is that tony martignetti dot com and that’s tony’s take two for friday, second of may, the eighteenth show of this year. Maria semple is with us she’s, the prospect finder she’s, a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com and her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now she’s our doi end of dirt cheap and free ideas. You can follow maria on twitter at maria simple. Hello marie. Welcome back. Hi, tony. How are you? I’m doing very well. How are you? Just fine today. Terrific. We have two follow-up something from last time you were on. We talked about you. Mentioned actually something that the postal service runs called called every donordigital and we promised we promised that we would fill that out a little bit. Yeah, actually it’s called every door direct the reed or organ hoexter and in there, george, very different donor endure, but, yeah, i think we were talking about it at the very end of our last call together, when we were discussing census data and delving deeper into zip codes and finding affluent zip codes and so forth. And you asked, well, what would you do with the information? And i said, well, one possible thing you might do is get involved in this program that the u s postal service has called every door direct. I think it’s also goes by neighbor male andi it’s, a very interesting program, because within a zip code, tony, you can actually break down some household income data by route. Um, so if you were interested, for example, in within even a specific zip code in trying to create some sort of a postcard that would go to every household that had the highest affluence in terms of household income, even within that one specific zip code. You can break it down even that much further, and so i thought it was a pretty interesting programme and perhaps worthy of a mention. Each piece to mail out is seventeen point five cents that’s cheap, that’s cheap, yeah, and also they should, though i i’ll just press that, though, by saying that they should have a nen depth discussion first with their printer or their printers air very much tied in a lot of printers are tied in with this program, so they should either discuss with the printer or with the postal service to see what would be cheaper to go with they’re non-profit rate, they’re indicia, or is it cheaper to go with this program? But anyway, i thought it was pretty interesting because of the fact that you can really delve down by household income and really just get it to those households only yeah, and the other thing that the postal service promises is that you you you don’t have to know the addresses within the within the zip code that you’re targeting. You just specify the zip code and this other data that you’ve mentioned and they will they will guarantee that it gets delivered to all the addresses in that zip code that meet your meat, your criteria without you knowing what those addresses and names are exactly ugly and that’s a big stumbling block for a lot of non-profits is, they have a sense of where the pockets of wealth might be, but they don’t know, you know, short of driving up and down those stairs leading flows in those mailboxes, they don’t really know exactly how to do that. So this is very, you know, very geographically focused on dh it could be something to explore the printer that i was having a discussion with about this is based in new jersey there called chatham print and design, and i was asking them some specifics around this, and they were the ones that kind of enlightened me to the fact that in some cases, depending on how many zip codes they wanted to hit and so forth, it might be cheaper to use their non-profit indicia instead. So you know something to think about something teo delve into, and i’ll make sure i provide the postal service web site where people can get started on exploring further provided on your facebook page, good woman all post two takeaways later today, and the program again is called every door direct the postal service. So we want teo talk also today about research for events ah, pre and post your cultivation events that’s, right? So, you know, very often, non-profits will hold smaller cultivation events either in somebody’s home or in their facility on there really geared more toward major donors, right? Or your plan e-giving donors, for example, and so i thought it would be interesting to talk about what are some of this steps he could do from a research point of view before the event to prepare adequately. So you know who to target and what to talk about? And then after the event, what additional research do you think you should do after the event? Ok, so i guess pre event we’re starting with who were going to invite exactly so with the board, if i would think that you’d want to start it, they’re typically it is a boardmember or someone close to a boardmember who might be hosting an event at their home. And so you would try and ask your your boards to provide the names of maybe five to ten people that they think that they can invite to this event and of course, ideally thes people should have from financial means to contribute. Ah, larger gift to the organization. Um, and, you know, the board then might also need some i guess you would call it education around why we’re even hope holding this event. No, now you’re suggesting these be people who can make a larger gift because we’re envisioning a pretty small event, right? This is not a major event with hundreds of people where you’re you’re, you’re prepping us for something smaller and a little more intimate. Yeah, you know, depending on the size of the home, i would say somewhere around twenty, twenty five people might be a nice, comfortable number. That’s why? I said, you know, if you’ve got the board and, you know, coming up with the name of, say, five to ten people each by the time the invitations go out and you get the actual level of, you know, yes, responses to attending you might really end up with a good, solid twenty or twenty five people coming to the event and the advice on how many people you need to invite to get twenty or twenty five? Well, you know, you could have attrition rates anywhere from you, no one third to a half in terms of, you know, getting the invites out and then even right up to the day of the event, you could end up having cancellations because of things that just come up in people’s lives that’s why i always suggest kind of over invite on and, you know, we’ll make it work, okay? And then once we know who these people are, what are we still doing pre event tio to make it clear where board members and thie ceo and other sea level people should be who they should be spending their time talking to so there’s probably some sites that we’ve covered in the past, but i think the top websites, for example, that they might want to go to. Of course, you want to start with google, google that person’s name. We’ve talked about this before in terms of putting quotation marks around the person’s name so that you’re you’re getting that name or if there’s a middle name or initial, you might include that in their if the spouses coming along google’s spouse’s name is well on dh find out where they’re connected to other nonprofit organizations. Eso sometimes you might have some prominent people on the list, and you already know perhaps where they’re employed, but you don’t really know that much about where they’re spending their volunteer time and their donors so you can break google down even further by having them target just the sites that have a dot or gora dot edu in the search results. Okay, so that’ll that’ll give you something some good information there also another great sight that i think would be good to delve into is the federal election commission website. We talked about that one? Yeah, try and figure out where else they are. They’re donating. I was on a webinar a couple of weeks ago that actually talked about the high correlation between ah, political donation dollars, and then how that could translate to the non-profit sector? Um and that was ah, webinar that i had attended just a few weeks ago, and i thought that was very interesting because they actually played place quite a bit of emphasis on finding people who are contributing high levels of election dollars there, i thought, well, this is something that non-profits should perhaps take a look at when they’re thinking about who’s going to be attending their cultivation events. We’ve done a show on political fund-raising too, i’m pretty sure i think we devoted a show to it. I know it wasn’t part of a conversation, i think we devoted something to it. Political fund-raising how about your own your own database to you’d like to know if the person made a gift recently so that if you see them at the event, you can thank them very much for that gift that just came in recently or if there’s some other information in your in your c, r, m or fund-raising database you so you should be looking there, too, i think. Oh, absolutely so, you know, first off, hopefully you do have a good c r m keeping track of some of this great donordigital but yeah, knowing a little bit about how much they’ve given when their last gift. Wass um and then also knowing, you know, safe your your organization has various areas of programming let’s say you’re a why, for example and you might have programs for the very young and and and older populations you might want, teo figure out, did they even designate that their donation had gone toward, say, youth programming so that when you’re having that conversation and thanking them for their past support, you can allude to their past support specifically toward x y z program so that that would really, i think, go a long way, so that donor knows that, you know, you’ve taken the time to understand where my passions like, okay? And there are lots of sites that people can go to, and we’ve talked about scores of them through the through the shows we’ve done together, so once you’ve once you’ve done the research now, you need to share it so people know who, what this what this background applies to and who to be talking to about it exactly. That’s absolutely right. Okay, so you share it with the sea level people who are going to be there and a cz you suggested, hopefully they’re boardmember is there? Andi, you know what? You know, they have little conversation starters type especially if i think if it relates to the to the organization to the person’s relationship with the organization like a recent gift or something, or when where the giving has been the way you suggested, right, and keep in mind. Part of the reason why you also have the cultivation event is to get some new people in the door that haven’t made a donation to your organization before, right? So these are people that this could very well be their very first touchpoint with the organization. So you want to make sure that you are broadening your your talk during that cultivation event to enable people to understand what you know that a brief history of the organization in terms of you know who you’re serving now you’re some of your success stories and where the organization is looking to be poised to go in the future. We have to go away for a couple minutes, maria and i will keep talking about you’re a cultivation vents will move to post event, and i got lots of live listener love, stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. 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, come, we look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is claire meyerhoff from the plan giving agency. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at tony martignetti non-profit radio. Oppcoll live listener love let’s start in the uk bury st edmunds welcome i love it’s it’s berry bur why st edmund’s is he is st edmund’s buried there? Or is that something aspirational? St edmunds is alive and you’d like to bury him. I’m very interested that’s a that’s a cool name bury st edmunds you uk welcome live listen love to you musashino japan! I kind of feel like i said that with an italian accent musashino! But so if i’ve mispronounced that i apologized, but you’re musashino. I’m not sure in any case you are ponyo korea has joined us on your haserot we had others from korea before beijing ni hao always listeners from beijing, and we have listeners in italy, mongiardino and murata, and i’m going to be in italy and not too far from either of those cities. I see they’re there in the north of italy, i’m going to be it at a resort in lago de guarda speaking at the festival del fund-raising i love that name festival del fund-raising the week of may twelve maybe you’re going to be there. It’s right on the lake it’s, a resort on the southern tip of lago de guarda live listeners love to everyone who is with us, us and maria simple you’re with us from new jersey, you’re still there, right? Yes, i am. But i wish i were going on that trip. It sounds fabulous, just fabulous. Yeah, i’m i’m leaving on the the twelfth of ah living on the eleventh of may mother’s day yeah it’s going teo and your festival del fund-raising bonem biaggio grayce that’s as far as i can go. So that’s not talking more italian, i’ll embarrass myself. Um, except for the except for the city in japan, i’m very good at pronouncing that in italian and, you know, i apologize to musashino. All right? We’re after are cultivation event now and, uh what what ideas have you got for us? Well, i think that right after the event happens, i’d say within twenty four to forty eight hours, ideally twenty four hours the team that put together the event staff board volunteers should really have a conference call that that should be scheduled as part of your overall event planning. Build that right in and understand that you know, the people who were involved and attended who are part of the organization should be on that costs you could really debrief, um, people attending the event will hopefully understand that they’ve gotta have their listening ears on at the event because post event, they’re going to be asked to put those same listening ears on and be asked follow-up individually with some of these people that have attended the event, these events, the key is really in that follow-up tony, as you well know, listening ears, but that’s interesting for, like, bunny ears. Yeah, you do want to listen to the person’s feedback about about the evening? Yeah. What did you think? What was there anything that you liked about our programming? Is there anything that concerns you mean, this is an opportunity for people to perhaps, you know, air cem concerns, you know, your previous guests just talking about the financials and so forth. Maybe if you’re talking to somebody who is really into financials and numbers, they might start asking some very specific questions on that follow-up call about how the organisation is run fiscally on dh if you don’t have the answers so at your fingertips that’s okay, it’s okay to say that, but just indicate that you will certainly get that information right out to them. It feels like when i put my listening years on, then i would be wearing my father’s old shirt as a paint smoke, and i’d be laying down for a nap. I dont know just something about think about listening years makes me sound, but but it’s not juvenile, it just that’s the way i’m thinking. Well, no, i mean, because there’s, there’s, there’s a difference between hearing what somebody says and truly listening to what somebody says, pardon me, i’m sorry, but i was busy. I was busy doing something else, never hearing, of course, that’s a stupid joke. Yeah, no, you’re absolutely, yes listening, listening skills. And this is a perfect time to be listening because you do want to know what resonated with the person you’re trying to cultivate them to bring it to the organization. You want to know what resonated and and what didn’t. Yeah, and in terms of prospect researcher donorsearch research, this is precisely the type of information that you’re going to get on that on that follow-up phone call with the attendees that you’re simply not going to find. For the most part, online, you’re going to be hearing information about how they feel about your organization. You’re not going to find that anywhere online is a prospect, a researcher, right? I mean, there’s not going to be some, you know, hopefully there’s not gonna be some block post about your organization and really, really feel about it. It’s usually they should have any negative feelings, god forbid. But, you know, you want to be able to bring that information, then back to your organization and say, you know, g, you know, i just had a great follow-up phone call with this attendee and, you know, he really liked what he heard about what we were going out i had going on with our youth program and is much, much more interested in having additional conversations with us around that that information must get into your donordigital base that becomes part of what you’ve done, your prospect research on, right? Yes. And and now we know we have this motivated donor, and by the way, you’re point is very well taken that the best some of the best prospect research may be the best comes directly from the person’s. Lips, we’re not going to find it anywhere else where? S so now we know we’ve got this cadre of people who we’re moved by the event and, you know, we know who wasn’t moved, so we know not to spend more time with them. That’s also valuable information, but for the ones you well, yeah, for the ones who were moved, where do we how do we take our research to the next level now? Well, you might then start looking through if you have access teo wealth screening services, make sure that you put their name through that service and you could even do that pre event if if you’d like on dh certainly sites like link in to determine, you know, a little bit more about their background in terms of their professional background, if they’re on lincoln. Um and, you know, a host of other websites that you and i have talked about in the past, but you’re really trying to determine you know what the best approach is going to be to this individual, what their level of wealth is and where else they’ve given before so any and all resources that you have access to in terms of doing that, reese search that are in the public domain, you’ll want to get access to that also. There’s. You know, we talked about tony, that research that you can’t really find online. You know, you might have somebody who’s very interested in the organization. But it could be a timing issue. This if you find out that they’ve got several children in college, for example, maybe a boardmember happens to know that it’s really important to know. In addition to all that the what about the person you need to figure out who in the organization? I should say, who in the organization is going to continue the cultivation, maybe it’s the person who invited them? But maybe that person isn’t comfortable and maybe someone else in the organisation is more appropriate, yeah, that’s, that’s absolutely right. I’ve had i’ve helped put together some cultivation events where people have said, you know, i’m very comfortable inviting these people, but i’m not going to be comfortable in the follow-up and the ask certainly not the ask they might be okay to stay involved in the cultivation bays. Some people just really don’t want to be the one to make the ask and if that’s the case, you certainly as the non-profit executive, you don’t want them to be the one to be make the ask because thie ask is likely either to get botched or not happen at all. Yeah, and plus, you just have ah volunteermatch boardmember or not who’s uncomfortable. You’re asking them to do something that they said they’re not comfortable doing that’s that’s a bad practice, right? Exactly. All right, so you find the right person, you developed a strategy, and hopefully then you ends in a solicitation that that’s that’s what it’s all about right that’s? Why we start the whole process with identifying and researching, and ultimately it really does need to end up with an ask somewhere along the line. Otherwise, all of that work to put together the cultivation event will have been for naught. I couldn’t agree more marie simple she’s the prospect finder you’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com, and on twitter, you’ll find her at maria simple. Thank you very much. As always, maria, you’re very welcome my pleasure to have you again next week. Author and professor doug white returns for the hour we’ll talk about his new book abusing donor intent the story of the epic lawsuit from two thousand one, when the family of a thirty five million dollar donorsearch dude, princeton university very grateful again for our sponsor generosity siri’s you’ll find them at generosity siri’s dot com our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell, social marketing and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Our music is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio. I hope you will be big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. They didn’t think the shooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. Nothing. You could oppcoll. 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