Category Archives: Fundraising Fundamentals

Nonprofit Radio for October 11, 2013: I Had A Great Interview But I Didn’t Get The Job & Storytelling

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Susanne Felder: I Had A Great Interview But I Didn’t Get The Job

Susanne FelderSusanne Felder, a consultant in outplacement at Lee Hecht Harrison, says there’s more to getting a job than having a good resume and interview. We talk about research; confident networking; panel interviewing; dodging salary questions; and what to do in the last 30 minutes before your interview. (Originally aired August 31, 2012)

 

 

Rochelle Shoretz: Storytelling

Publicity Photo RShoretzRochelle Shoretz, founder and executive director of Sharsheret, has a compelling story herself as a two-time breast cancer survivor. Sharsheret has built a culture of compassionate storytelling to help its members through their cancer diagnoses and treatments. Rochelle shares ideas on identifying storytellers; supporting them; giving them multiple ways to share; helping them through this very personal process; and why it’s all worth your time.

 

 

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio for august thirty one big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I do hope you were with me last week, i’d be mortified to learn that you have missed last week’s show i’m recording today’s show weeks ahead of time, so i don’t know what you would have missed last week, so give me a break, but i do know that it included are smart and charming legal contributors jean takagi and emily chan from the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, and it was a very good show enlightening, valuable, funny, very funny hope you didn’t miss it this week. I do know what we have. I had a great interview, but i didn’t get the job, suzanne felder, a consultant in outplacement at lee hecht harrison, says there’s more to getting a job than having a good resume and interview, we’ll talk about research, confident networking panel interviewing, dodging salary questions and what to do in the last thirty minutes before your interview recorded at the fund-raising day conferencing june in new york city this this past june and that was hosted by the greater new york city chapter of the association of fund-raising professionals and storytelling, rochelle shoretz, founder and executive director of shark share it has a compelling story herself. As a two time breast cancer survivor, shards share, it has built a culture of compassionate storytelling to help its members through their own cancer diagnoses and treatments deshele will share her ideas on identifying storytellers, supporting them, giving them multiple ways to share, helping them through this very personal process and why all of that is worth your time between the guests on tony’s take two you can still get a free copy of my book if you take my charity registration survey use hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation with us on twitter here’s my interview with suzanne felder from fund-raising day earlier this year. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve, hosted by the association of fund-raising professionals greater new york city chapter with the marriott marquis hotel in times square, new york city with me now is suzanne felder. Suzanne is a consultant in outplacement with the firmly hecht harrison susanne welcome, thank you. Pleasure to be here, i’m glad to have you. Thank you. Thanks for taking time on a busy day. Your seminar topic is i had a great interview, but i didn’t get the job. We’re talking about successful interviewing techniques, and i’m doing a lot of interviews today at the conference. But this is the only one to help jobseekers, so generally, we’ll have time for details, but generally what do you see peoples short comings in around interviewing the biggest problem is that people really don’t understand the job, but they’re interviewing for the best practices is to really figure out what is the company looking for in you and two show the best sides of what your talents are to meet the company’s needs and people just don’t take the time to really figure that out, so that so it sounds like research research research is the place to start. So let’s, just, uh, set the scene. We’ve we’ve seen a job advertised or we’ve heard about a job from a colleague what’s the research we should do around the job and the company well, we certainly want to find out everything about that company, see what they do with their mission, whether it’s in the for-profit or not-for-profits sector company, charity, charity, right? Right. So find out, do some research about them on, and then go to lincoln and find maybe some people in your network that might be affiliated with that non-profit or in the past have been with that non-profit and do some real good on the ground research asked people about the culture find out what they’re commitments are and if it really suits your own style and if that’s true, then keep pursuing it and reach out to that non-profit and see if there might be some interest on their part. Okay, now, if it happens to be a bigger organization, you’re going to be working in one business unit of of the charity. How can you find out about what that team or that department’s culture is like? Um, you really are asking your friends what they know about that, even if they haven’t worked there, you know, people have a long reach on, they tend to know people who know people who at one point lived, you know, work there. So it’s really about networking effectively? I can’t say enough about the importance of networking in this market. We have find that about seventy five to eighty percent of people are getting their jobs through direct networking. Oh, meaning they’re they’re finding out about the jobs that hit this hidden job market that we hear about definitely there’s a hidden job talk about that so and what that is and why networking. Helps you break through it well, sometimes non-profits agencies even businesses or not in the position to really announce that they’re looking for whatever their reason is, but they’re sort of on the look out privately, so it’s it’s worthwhile to be having conversations with people and suggesting that you are interested in various really named the targeted cos that you’re interested in pursuing and then have conversations with people that are in a position to hyre because sometimes hiring managers are not ready to hyre but once they know something about your background, you’re on their radar. Okay, that’s, the way to really advance yourself for the future when the job actually becomes a reality. Now i think it’s a bad practice you’d tell me if i’m right, you’re welcome to say that i’m wrong that really you just start your networking when you start your job search well, networking actually, i have to disagree with you because networking should be something that’s going on on going. Actually, i guess i don’t say i’m training coach people tohave a gn active network at all time at all times correct, don’t just start when you’re in a job search completely. Agree that’s, right and that’s what what we find is that people often are saying to us that have had long runs with really good non-profits and for-profit companies that they really lost track of the importance of their network, they were doing well with the company that we’re there for ten years, they were going up the ranks, and they just sort of people left the firm, and they didn’t keep shack where they went, and now all of a sudden they’re looking to re and find them, and it feels a little awkward to them, like, you know, they had for gotten them. And now that they’re in the different side of the table, it’s ah it’s a big awakening and they’re saying now they will never do that again. They will be available for people and keep their network engaged well and that’s, right and that’s the other side of networking. I mean, you have to be available to help others when you’re not in need of help yourself. Absolutely it’s about being a giver on we took about donors thes it’s giving of yourself and that’s an ongoing thing. And the people who it’s funny what? I have found personally is that people who have often been helping others helping others always through their career, they feel most reticent about asking they feel like they should be the ones just helping and i say to them, you’ve been so kind, it’s it’s, time for you to receive it’s it’s, pay back time for you and please do not ever feel remiss about that, especially if you’ve been giving but interesting there’s so accustomed to giving that they’re reluctant to approach their their own network. Yeah, receiving is a lot harder for them, and then i understand that, but it’s, they’ve in-kind it’s time to gets him something back and and it’s perfectly acceptable, and what we are finding is that people are more than willing to be helpful. People that never works, spect it to be helpful are becoming the most helpful, so the second tier, the third tier of their degree of separation, if you will are, tend to be the most helpful, because don’t we all want to just help people? Don’t most people want to help others? One would think, but now, in this process, you find out who really is genuine and who is less and then those that are very close to us they just might not be able to help in a substantial way, so they feel like they should hang back and not be too close to you because they feel badly they can help. But this is the time when we really need people tio be there for us, even if it’s just emotionally to be understanding that you’re going to get through it. But it’s a challenge on dh we’re talking a lot about networking with friends or friends of friends. What about going to networking events? Where it’s a room full of strangers, that’s always a good process to get good at it’s like a social experience because people really have a hard time talking to strangers. So we heavily encourage people to go to conferences, professional conferences, places where they’re goingto be around people like themselves who are from their fields and just get more and more comfortable with talking, if you will. Talking to strangers. Yeah, well, and i imagine that helps in the interview process completely completely what we do it. We have harrison as we give them the opportunity to comfortably talk. About themselves, which is not very natural for people. You know what? Tell me about yourself, and what do you do? And what you good at is not what comes off of most people’s tongue, naturally. So we give them opportunities to always be introducing themselves and give them lots of networking groups to join. And people just come out of their shells. It’s. Remarkable how, after a couple of months of being around others, they’re perfectly comfortable to do that. Yes, talking alternative radio, twenty four hours. 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 fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for the truth. Join me. Larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot. Com. For details. That’s. Ivory tower, radio, dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com so our subject is interviewing, but this is all feeding the interview. This all came. This networking are networking discussion. All came from doing the right research around the job and the culture of the organization as much as you can find out about the organization right now, in your seminar description, there are three r’s and researchers at first, but resource is what’s. Your advice around resource is on resource is finding out. What you bring to the table? What what resource is that the candidate brings us? I believe that’s the idea that we’re getting at how can you help that organization and pinpointing what your real strengths are and how that can help advance that organization? That’s really what you want to in part to them and you’ll find out about the organization’s needs as you’re doing your due diligence, your research find out you might find out some of the shortcomings that the organization has and see how you can plug those gaps. Absolutely, you want to know what value khun ad so you might brings a special connection or a special perspective to that non-profit you know, say it’s, a science institution, and you happen to have background in science that’s evaluated that is extremely important, and you’re not the average say fundraiser, if that’s your field, your fund-raising that happens to really know a lot about science, and therefore you could speak more passionately about it, so that would be really important aspect that you want to bring out to the non-profit do you have specific advice around? Dahna when you’re subject to, ah, panel interview, i mean the panel could be two people, but it could be as many as five or six. Wait, how do we that’s incredibly intimidating you walking into a room of let’s say it’s the worst case? Six strangers and they’re all sitting on the other side of the table. How do you prep yourself for that that’s? A real challenge is one that we do address because it’s called like the stress interview and it’s to see how you stand up in aa extremely unusual circumstance. What you normally would not be the target of a conversation like that in real life. So we tell people, introduce yourself to each person individually. Make sure that you have eye contact with each person and shake their hand, make yourself known and remember their name so shake their hand. Just go down the line of the table is absolutely when you were coming room. Yes, when you come in, introduce yourself individually to each of them make an impression on them that you’re confident and you know you want to engage with them. And then if the questions are coming a little bit too fast and too furious, there are ways to slow. It down a bit of humor on that always helps break the ice a bit, because sometimes people just lose sight of the fact that you’re only a person and you’re a pit under under the gun. So i’ve had a client to have said things like, oh, i made it like it was jeopardy, and i say, all right, i’ll take i’ll take jim for two hundred, and then i’m going to take, you know, the next person, arlene for lina five hundred, but yeah, so it kind of everyone has to laugh at that because you realize that, you know, how many can you do it once? Obviously, it’s, just one on. They are trying to see what? What it’s like for you to trial under fire? S o we try to get people to realize that humor is a good thing and it helps people relax as well helps you relax. You can always take a drink of water. Give yourself a moment to think, and companies are looking to see what what you’re about. You also have to realize if that is their culture, to be that way, to be very in your face. You have to know is that for you? Is that is that you? Yes. You. It may not be for you about about preparing for the serial interview. You know, you’re going to have three interviews in the day. Each one is going to be a test forty five minutes. I would think. How do you how do you prepare for that? That multiple interview where you could be on you could be on for close to three hours in a row, but with three different people, right? Ah, you want to be prepared to give a good examples of a variety of things that you’re about, like different facets of a diamond and you don’t wantto be repeating the same story of store three times. And then there are other they say, oh, yeah, she told me that he told me that story. I heard that already. So you can have to come prepared for your interview with good what we call them accomplishment stories, if you will, on s o that joe have maybe six or eight really important projects that you’ve worked on, that will really show you off to best advantage. You can come in with a portfolio. And have some points of keywords for yourself to remember that you want to make sure that this project gets put on the table. And then you mix it up so that everybody is hearing some different stories out of you. And each can bring out different facets of what makes you successful growth that you’ve money that you’ve brought in from non-profit. Have you created new event? Have you doing outreach brought in new community members brought on board members? These are things that are important, usually to fund-raising organ operations. What if i feel that i’ve gotten a question that’s, inappropriate or illegal, around age or pregnancy, or? Sexual orientation? How do i how do i handle that in that moment? Yes, in that moment, you might want to say, can you rephrase that question? Or is that a chance to give him a chance to realize that that might be a really uncomfortable thing to be talking about and that you sort of object teo to getting that question? John, you might say, is that relevant to the job? Or i’ve heard people say they’re asked whether or not they have young children. Obviously the employer is trying to get at are you going to be away if the child is sick? S o sometimes people will say, oh, is this a very, very family oriented company is, you know, doo doo doo family events? Is that why you’re asking? So you try to soften it? You try not to be in their face about a fact that that’s really overstepping their bounds, but to some extent you have to pick your battles because you are looking for the job. So although this does also inform the culture of the organization that it might not be the right fit completely, completely do take note that if they’re overstepping that this might be a real invasive place and that they’re expecting a whole lot from you. That is really not normal. And that might not be if you say a good fit. No. Alright, um the third of the three r’s thatyou have his references it’s important? Who you select for your references what’s your what’s your advice around that references can go back twenty years. I could go back from beginning of your career. I don’t think people think about i think they think of the last job, right? And that is certainly not the whole scope of what is appropriate to use references khun b people that were above you people, that it could be people that reported to you it could be your peers pier level it khun b a your boss’s boss anyone that knew the quality of your work and speak for you those are appropriate references. They could also be if it’s for a community organization. It might be something that you do on your private time that you’d like to have that person reporting about your experience with you, perhaps in your community service. So you want to get a variety of references that will reflect all sides of what your background is, good people when they’re asked tio provide a reference often asked, what do you want me to say? You know what should i talk about it? It’s okay, give that advice around what, what you’d like them to be specific about. Yes, it is because oftentimes if you’ve worked with someone five years ago, they might forget exactly which projects you worked on together, so people kind of need prompting, like, so you want to remind them remember, we did this, such and such together, and we had this result, so by you’ve sort of writing out some pointers about what your relationship together was, like it’s really informative, it helps them. It takes them off the hook of the pressure of oh, i forgot. What am i going to say? And it’s also you feeding them what you felt was the most important aspect of the project so that they’re goingto right. Quite cogently and importantly about what you did. Yeah, and it might just be a conversation to a lot of references. I just checked my phone. No. Yes. That’s right now. Another thing about references. When you have a company, the company you might have just come from in the corporate world, this is very true. The company often will on ly just verify that you worked there and how long that you worked there, so that can be a bit of a problem if you know your best references of the people that are still there, the way to overcome that would be to look at people that have gone on moved on to another organization, and then they’re not under that up that corporate policy hr restriction of not being able to give a reference, but you don’t see that so much in charities that unwillingness to say more than just confirm data report it’s not a strict it doesn’t seem to be a strict people are a little more willing to talk about the other thing that people are very surprised about is that cos you can ask what person salary was and you know it can be verified. The new employer can ask for your w two, which seems really invasive to find out. What did you actually make on paper? Yes, napor connects with you too. You can ask your w two so, it’s, when you talked about salary, which is a whole other chapter, you know, how do you dodge the salary question, which we do recommend that you try to keep that salary question off to the side as best you can, okay, but at a certain point, they’re gonna want to know, are you like, within the ballpark of the range that they’re interested in on? You can always say, this is what my package was, this is where i left off at and then just back away from it and say, i’m very interested in this organization, and i really it’s more important to me to talk to you about the opportunity, and we could always i’m sure if we’re on the same page, we’ll come to a mutually agreeable point with salary. Okay, well, i was going to ask how to dodge the salary question, but you just you just did it. Yeah, it’s that important? I think everyone is very nervous that they’re going to be put on the spot. Now, when you’re working with the recruiter, it seems to be an easier conversation to have because the recruiter is representing you and the recruiter wants to know, are you in the ballpark for what they will go for? You know, if you’re completely at a different salary rate much hyre they might be a fruit, you know, footless kind of conversations. So you do want to be forthright with the recruiter? You try to keep that conversation in the background if you’re going directly in number about the last hyre half hour before the interview. So my remains of your scheduled for two thirty it’s now two o’clock let’s say i’m already on site. I’ve arrived, so i guess your advices get there earlier. Yes, to make sure you’re not late. Yes. Okay. Now what do i do with this last half hour? Last half hour. Okay, so you’re coming in. You certainly want to have at least fifteen minutes to be ableto fill out any forms if they have them. So that there’s going to be at least fifteen minutes. That’s going to be for that show up early is that we show up early before. Oh, certainly show up early on. That gives you a time. Tio really, look around and assess what you’re seeing. Look at the interaction of the people in the organization with the receptionist and i see the culture, you could really learn a lot by just watching and observing fifteen or twenty minutes, right? Absolutely come and go watch people come and go. And if the receptionist is not busy, have a chat with the receptionist. You learn a lot about the organization, find out what their experience has been. Have they’ve been there a long time? It is a lot of benefit that you could actually gather, and then it helps inform you of howto handle yourself in the interview, you might learn of events that are coming up for special projects that are on the table that you might not have known. So it’s always a good idea to be highly respectful and interactive, if you can, with the front desk, because that front test person is going to be giving the first frontline response to the hiring person as to what was your impression? Oh, there might be a receptionist might actually be asked, absolutely, and if you come in all huffy and and annoyed and you didn’t get through security fast enough and whatever happened and you come in all in a in a rage, they’re taking note because you’re on, you’re on from the minute you walk in that door. Okay, so collect your thoughts, get yourself together and remember, the clock starts when you walk in that door at reception. Right? Okay. Okay. Um, we have just maybe a minute or so men and a half left. What about the resume? You have advice around resumes, resumes or something that can be targeted, targeted for particular jobs. Don’t think of your resume as a static item. That just is the same for every place that you’re applying for because each job has slightly different requirements. And just like you have many facets, you want a feature, the ones that are most important to that non-profit so you do want to tailor your resume to be very appealing to their needs. We certainly suggest a summary statement. This is that used to be years ago. You did an objective. Okay. And now, it’s really about summarize you quickly summarize your strains what your capabilities are, and then you go into your accomplishment statements. Okay? We have a couple seconds left. Anything else you want to say about resumes? Well allows you. Specifically length if i’ve been in the non-profit world for fifteen, seventeen years, is it okay to have a two three page resume? Two pages the limit? People get a little weary of reading and you don’t have if you’re going twenty, twenty five years, you don’t have to give all your experience you could just give like the last fifteen years is certainly enough, and you could always speak to further back if they are interested. Okay, we’re gonna wrap it up there. Perfect. Suzanne felder is a consultant in outplacement with the firmly hecht harrison, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve at the marriott marquis in times square, new york city. Suzanne, thank you very much for being a guest, thank you so much. Appreciate it with pleasure and momentarily you’ll be listening to tony’s take two and then real shell shoretz will be with me stay with us after this break. I didn’t think that shooting getting dink dink, dink dink you’re listening to the talking alternative network duitz e-giving e-giving you could 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. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and their voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna lively conversation. Top trends, sound advice, that’s. Tony martignetti, yeah, that’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m travis frazier from united way of new york city, and i’m michelle walls from the us fund for unicef. Hi there and welcome back, it’s, time for tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour, i have a charity registration survey on my blogged been there for a few weeks. If you finish the three minute survey, then you’ll get a free download of my book, charity registration state by state guidelines for compliance and the fee for that could be as high as two hundred ninety nine dollars, depending on the size of your charity. I really want to understand more about your experience with this morass of st charity registration laws that’s why i wrote the book to help charities sift through all the regulations i’m working on a project that will that i really need your help with. So please share your experience. Even if you don’t know that much about charity registration, i’d be grateful if you would take the three minutes teo to do the survey, and at the end of the survey, you’ll be offered a download for of my of my book that post is called help me out and get my book free that’s from august thirteenth and it’s on my blogged at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday. The thirty first of august thirty seventh show of the year with me now is rochelle shoretz rochelle founded shark threat to connect young jewish women fighting breast cancer following her own diagnosis at age twenty eight, they’re based in teaneck, new jersey. You’ll find them at sharp, share it dot or ge rochelle served as a law clerk to see supreme court justice Ruth bader ginsburg in 19:90 nine since sharks are its founding in two thousand won, they have launched eleven national programs, responded more than two, more than nineteen thousand calls and e mails request for help from those affected by breast cancer shoretz programs and services are now open to all women and men deshele record lectures a lot about breast cancer for audiences across the country. She is a member of the federal advisory committee on breast cancer in young women. You may have seen her on the today show, cbs news or fox news today. She’s on tony martignetti non-profit radio deshele welcome. Thank you. I’m very glad that you’re with us from tina. How are you doing out here? Supplier? We’re good, we’re good, we’re getting. Some nicer weather. Okay, um, you’re you founded sharks share it. I think around a kitchen table dining room table was done. And i’m sorry that the wrong room. Okay, well, it’s a bigger issue. I mean, maybe you don’t have anything. You don’t have a need in kitchen. Sorry, iraq. Okay, so it’s around a dining room table. Since we’re talking about storytelling, why don’t you take a moment and tell that dining room table story? Sure. Well, i was diagnosed with breast cancer for the first time when i was just twenty eight years old, and it occurred to me that although we had so many organizations for breast camps are advocacy research, we didn’t have an organization that address some of the unique needs of young women facing breast cancer and those metoo could include, i think, like fertility, career, parenting, genetic, social life, relationships on everywhere i went, i happen to be the youngest woman in the waiting room by an average of twenty years. And so shar sharon began as an effort, really, to collect the stories of and the experiences of young people facing breast cancer and more even more specifically, jewish women and families facing breast cancer because jewish families tend to have an increased risk of hereditary breast cancer could be ten times higher than the average than the average woman. And so there were fight of us around the table that first night, that dining room, table on by, you know, talked about the need for an organization that address some of those unique concerns. Way were five, and then we became ten. And now where more than sixteen hundred peer supporters nationwide. All right. And what is the the annual budget of sharp share? It gives people a sense. So when you’re eleven, which is what we are in now, the annual budget is about one point, eight million dollars. All right. And how many employees? We have fourteen, staff people, and we run eleven national programs with the help of more than five thousand volunteers nationwide, you have very heartfelt, compelling videos on the site and some on youtube. How do you find your story tellers? You know, we really we reach out in lots of different ways. And i think in our experience, we found that the more with the more we reach and in the more diverse in the more diverse mode abilities we used to reach women, the more diverse the stories we get back, we find stories in a few ways. First, we find them through social media using facebook and twitter and ask people to share their stories whether it’s on thanksgiving day, for example, we might ask people toe right in what they’re thankful for. As a young breast cancer survivor on twitter, we might say, you know, tweet us, you know, the things that you’re most grateful for in twenty twelve so you find some of our stories on social media, we use our blogged to share stories, but also to get storytellers to share their email sometimes will do an e mail blast and a good example of that was my fortieth birthday, which was just a couple of weeks ago. I shared my fortieth birthday wish, and we asked others to share theirs as well. And so we got some stories that we were going to talk about that later on because you got a great response. I know too, that to that talk about them very traditional means of focus groups, for example, where we have women come into the office and share their stories and we can either take those weaken, videotape them, audiotape them on, and then have them transcribed so that we can use them for other purposes. Okay? And we’re going to have a chance to talk to you about some of the the i don’t know. I don’t mean to sound heart like, you know, cold calling them channels, but method’s something different methods like the like the face-to-face focus groups that your record, but right now i’m just trying to focus on how you identify storytellers, and sometimes they just come to you, write and tell you that they want to share their story with others. Sometimes they dio, you know, for some breast cancer survivors, that could be a very empowering way to close the loop on their breast cancer experience, where they’re sharing their story in the hopes of inspiring and empowering others. Sometimes we have to reach out and encourage people to share their stories, whether it’s with incentives or just by explaining to them that that’s another way of contributing to the organization in a non financial capacity on dh sometimes we, you know, it’s sort of low hanging fruit, they’re already sharing a piece of their story. We can tell that it’s a compelling story, and so we reach out and just sort of nudge them along and say, you know, you told us a little bit about your experience, but we could, you know, we would really benefit from sharing that same story with, you know, lots of people and, you know, would you mind sharing some more? So we find them out those ways you can view this as a cz, a volunteer opportunity, and we dio you know, sometimes people think that being a volunteer means coming into the office or e-giving tremendous amounts of time or contributing in terms of dollars, but really, being a storytelling could be a wonderful volunteer opportunity that doesn’t require people to go too much out of their way, or tio reach into their pockets and you sometimes these stories are written right? And and sometimes video or audio recorded that’s right on dh. Then sometimes they can be longer, and sometimes they can be shorter. You know, a tweet, for example, is one hundred forty characters. A facebook post might be a paragraph a block post might be three paragraphs some might be written some people feel much more comfortable writing, but others feel more comfortable speaking and in whatever way we can capture their story. That helps us. That helps us collect more stories because we find people in lots of who feel comfortable with different avenues of expression. How do you overcome the conundrum that people might like, tio, write their story. But on the web, viewers are more interested in watching video than than reading, you know, that’s, an important that’s important challenge, and i think we all face in the nonprofit sector. You know, people feel more in control in some ways of the written word and certainly more comfortable behind the pen and behind the camera. But we find that our viewers really liketo watch on and it’s easier to share when we can just ask them to it’s linked to something on youtube or share a web based link. You know, we try to we try to identify those who will come across well on camera whose stories just feel more compelling because they have a great, almost like a stage presence in a certain way. Sometimes we use basic incentive. You know, come on in for a day of videotaping an and that encourages people tio take the leap, and and sometimes we just note that it doesn’t have to be a professional camera set up. You know, it could be your iphone, for example, that you stick on video mode and just shoot yourself speaking honestly into the camera, so we try to make it not to professional and too intimidating, because as you said, the truth is people to respond mohr two videos in some ways than they do to the written word, and we’ve had many guests on say that video does not have to be high production value to be compelling and sincere and moving. I think that that’s, true, but i would take issue with one piece of it, i think, as a non-profit leader, one of the things we’re always watching for quality control and brand management, and so an organization like ours that really strive keep a very professional face. There are so many breast cancer organizations that are not necessarily as as focused on that sort of professional, the professionalism with which we pride ourselves. We really struggled with that balance on the one hand, no, it doesn’t have to be a twenty thousand dollar two minute clip. On the other hand, when we send something out that is videotaped on a shaky camera or that doesn’t look professional, it does in some way reflect on our own ground. And so we walk a fine line between sort of that honest, almost raw quality of video and something that looks too professional to polished to almost teo and focus on attacking at heartstrings say a little more about some of the my voice is cracked like i’m a fourteen year old more with me with me, and we’re not even in the same room. I’m it’s that your charm comes across the phone line. You say a little more about the contest you mentioned and some of the incentives that you might offer toe to induce women or men to tell their story? Yeah, you know, sometimes it could be something as simple as dinner, right? When we do a focus group in our office will say, you know, they’ll dinner reserved at seven, you know, come share your story and people will come around the table and the focus groups i should. Emphasize they’re not just for storytelling, although that is an integral part of what ends up happening inevitably it’s also an opportunity for us to get feedback on programs and fund-raising initiatives and other core aspects of what we do at the organization um, sometimes it could be a simple and incentive as dinner. Sometimes it could be, you know, a t shirt it could be, you know, a reimbursement for travel expenses. It comes in all shapes and sizes on doesn’t have to be monumental mean t shirt or just expense reimbursement. People are moved by small, by small offerings there moved by small offering than i would even say it’s not i wouldn’t even say that that’s what sort of pushing them over the edge? I think i think people want to share their story, they think it apparently there is a need to share in some people, and we are just tapping into that and sort of pushing it along a little bit just wouldn’t even say that the incentive is what makes or breaks the desire to share that desire is built into some people, they find it empowering and when you give them a knave anew that feels comfortable, whether it’s the incentive that makes him feel comfortable, the environment you set up in the office that makes him feel comfortable. The, you know, personal phone call that you might make to encourage them to come in and share their story that’s the little those of the little things that help push them over the edge and make them feel even more comfortable sharing there’s a very touching video done by a woman named brenda. And she tells the story of ya l who ended up not surviving her cancer. But the video is really it’s. Very, very moving. Do you want to say a little about that? Yeah. That’s a video that we produced for our tenth anniversary. We wanted to share the stories of families that had established major gift in support of star shoretz programming on. We wanted really to understand what it was that compelled them to give. And the reason we wanted to understand that was we wanted to be able to share their stories with other family members and friends who might also be considering larger gift. Um, and we felt that that would be the easiest way to translate their own desires to the actual gift it south. And so we highlighted for families, although i should say before we narrowed down to four families, we started with six or seven potential stories and then narrowed it down to the four that we wanted teo highlight on the video on dit was we really didn’t know what to expect. You know, the cameras followed these families around for a few hours in a given sunday and really just have them share what compelled them to give and establish their major deft, and the stories are beautiful, you know, each one different, you know, one was the story, the one that you mentioned about a young woman who connect metoo another pierce support or shall we have just about a minute before break? Ok, so guys tell the story of brenda and yell. So it was a young woman who was connected to another pierce supporter and the peer supporter passed away and our, you know, our young caller wanted to establish a gift in her memory to make sure that others living with advanced breast cancer had a place to turn on. You know, the story came out. Beautifully it’s touching. It is compelling, and it also incentivizes others who are thinking about a major gift. We’re gonna take a break. Rochelle will stay with us, and we’ll continue talking about storytelling that hope you stay with us also. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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 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 monty taylor. Dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Duitz welcome back with rochelle shoretz and she is the founder of shar share it which you’ll find it sharp. Share it dot or ge s h a r s h e r e t dot org’s deshele the shar sharon is a chain or necklace in hebrew so it’s a little more. And what you call your members explain that sure are pierce supporters we call link as though they were linked in a jane and it’s actually come full circle because when i was diagnosed with breast cancer a second time, i started to use the services that we created as an organization. And so i was the first link, and then ultimately now depend on, um on on other links in our chain chain is miles long now, right? Yeah. Stands the country were in all of the state. So you had a very successful written block post because we’re talking about righting versus video. But your your birthday block post did did very well. Got a lot of comments. Brought attention to shar. Share it once you share that. Sure. So my fortieth birthday was a couple of weeks ago and celebration of happy. Thank you in celebration of my birthday, i wrote a block post about the imp significance of turning forty and all that had changed in the breast cancer arena since i was diagnosed at twenty eight and i specifically highlighted and shared another story, the story of my grandmother, who had also been diagnosed with breast cancer when i was younger and how much the breast cancer story had changed in the eleven years since my diagnosis. And we were amazed at the response, we posted it as a birthday wish, and then we asked our readers and our stakeholders teo, write a birthday wish back to me and we i think we had over one hundred responses. We shared it in in many modality, so it was on facebook it was on our block. We tweeted about it. We sent it out by email, we really blasted it on. The response was beautiful and in fact the staff as a gift to me collected all of the responses and put them together as ah, birthday book on, and it was beautiful and encourage people to share their own stories. They talked about their own grandmothers who had been diagnosed with breast cancer. They shared some of their own stories, and again, these will be the seeds for further storytelling. We will be able to look back at all of these responses and pick from them others who might be interested in sharing their stories and greater and greater kapin more incentive again, as we talked about, i see stories everywhere. You know that movie i see dead people. I stories. I see stories everywhere. It just went on a hundred mile bike ride with a boardmember on. I set her at the end of the ride. Linda, you should share your story on the block like writing something. And she did right away and again, we sent it out to all the riders. Everybody who had been on the ride. There’s. You know, really, everything we do there is an opportunity for someone to share their story. It might be why they participated in an event that might be what they learned that a given event it might be, you know, a reflection at a milestone. There’s. Always the potential to turn something that seems programmatic into something that elicit emotion through storytelling. That’s. Excellent. And how do you feel that all this story telling is helping shark share it well, you touched on it a little before the break. We really used the stories in many different ways, we use him for programmatic purposes. So for example, we anecdotally they provide feedback to us on the program that we provide, and perhaps programs that we need to provide that we need to develop. We have them in marketing materials like brochures and newsletters, we use them in fund-raising efforts, whether it’s a thank you letter to donors or video that we’re producing for major givers on, we really try to find lots of different ways to use the same story or different stories to engage our diverse audience. What kinds of reactions do you get to the stories you know, i think we keep the story israel, which makes the stories even more compelling. You know, stakeholders these days are very sophisticated, so they didn’t know when you’re trying to get their heartstrings. But when the emotion is wrong, when the story israel on when people can relate to it, i think we find any way that the response is is great, certainly more effective than just shooting statistics in a brochure or, you know, highlighting accomplishment. It gives a face and a voice to the experience that we are addressing. How do you have? Yeah, yeah, please. Go ahead. Finish your thought. But how do you help the storytellers overcome their fear of you? Said people really want to do it, but suppose they have this fear, or maybe maybe even while they’re in the midst of story of writing or being interviewed or telling their story right in the middle of it. How do you help them overcome these fears? Well, i think the most important thing that we dio way provided a safe space for the storytelling. You know, people might be very excited about sharing their story in aa, you know, at the at the onset. But once they start to tell it, once they start to share it, it becomes very personal, very raw. They start to hesitate. So we try to set up a safe space throughout the process. The first will guarantee that we will share whatever edited version of their story with them before it goes public. We guarantee we highlight for them very specifically where that story will appear. It will be in the newsletter, it will appear on the web. It will. We might use it for a brochure, and so they have a very concrete understanding of what’s going to happen with that story. That being said, you know, we still went in sometimes two challenges that we have to address on the fly. I’ll give you a specific example. This is not a verbal story, but a picture story. We did a picture. A picture exhibit of rochelle. I’m sorry. We have just about a minute left. Okay, so we did a picture display of ten of our women and one of the women who was very comfortable when she took her photograph ultimately started to hesitate. And so we have to narrow down where we were going to use that photo. So i think keeping the safe space safe, ensuring and basically ensuring that you are going to communicate with the storyteller helps them feel more comfortable sharing their story. It’s really it’s all very compelling and touching. And i want to thank you very much for for sharing all this valuable information and also your own story with our listeners. Rochelle, thank you very much. Now, my pleasure deshele shoretz founded sharks shoretz to connect young jewish women fighting breast cancer they now work with people dealing with ovarian cancer as well and it’s open to men, women of all races, nationalities, etcetera. You’ll find them at sharp, share it dot or ge i want to thank my guests, of course, suzanne felder and rochelle shoretz also the organizers of fund-raising day for hosting me on the exhibit floor and allowing me to get that susan felder interview next week. I don’t know what’s coming up next week, give me a break because i’m recording this on august fourteenth and next week is going to be september seventh, but i do know that the september seventh show will include the smart, charming and resourceful maria simple, our prospect research contributor, and i know it’ll be a very good show and funny. I host a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy that is called fund-raising fundamentals. It’s, a ten minute monthly podcast devoted to fund-raising it’s on itunes, it’s on the chronicle website. If you like this show, then please check out fund-raising fundamentals continuing to wish you good luck the way performers do around the world russian theater folks say poca de pere, neither down nor feathers. That comes from wishing a hunter bad luck, which is really good luck to come home from the hunt empty handed. So you wouldn’t want to say thank you to that, because they’re giving you a bad luck wish, even though it’s a good luck wish. So what russians will respond with is shorty, go to the devil. And to think thes people contribute to the international space station. I don’t know, but it all seems tto together. Um and i want to thank janice taylor for her, continuing to give me these language lessons and artists. Good wish, explanations. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is also our line producer. Shows social media is by regina walton of organic social media, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, september seventh at one to two p, m eastern here at talking alternative dot com. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get in. Nothing. Cubine are you a female entrepreneur ready to break through? Join us at sexy body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday, said noon eastern time to learn tips and juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and to find your version of giant success with sexy body sake’s soul. Every thursday ad, men in new york times on talking alternative 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. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership, customer service sales or maybe better writing for speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Told you.

Nonprofit Radio for October 4, 2013: Thriving In Today’s Economy

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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My Guest:

Joy Hunter Chaillou: Thriving In Today’s Economy

Joy Hunter Chaillou

 

Joy Hunter Chaillou is co-author of “Nonprofit Investment and Development Solutions.” We’ll talk about today’s economy and how to succeed in it with your investments and fundraising. And how the two are connected.

 

 


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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. Oh, i do hope that you were with me last week. I had some for lymphedema if it came within my ken that you had missed the non-profit outcomes toolbox part do. Dr robert penna discussed the wave of reliance on outcomes measurement and gave concrete steps and tools so that small and midsize shops khun stay ahead of the trend toward outcomes assessment. And that was part two of our interview from an earlier show and optimize your social profiles. Amy sample ward, our social media contributor, had tips to find tune your profiles on the social networks while staying true to mission and brand. Also using your profiles to promote campaigns, and she shared her sixty seconds style stop this week thriving in today’s economy. Join hunter show you is co author of non-profit investment and development solutions. We’ll talk about today’s economy and how to succeed in it with your investment policies and fund-raising and how those two are connected roughly midway through on tony’s take two i love planned e-giving and last week i was remember reminded how much i love it. Plus i wasn’t be become the blackbaud conference just yesterday, we’ll talk about that. I’m very pleased that the book non-profit investment and development solutions brings joy hunter show you to the studio she’s right here with us. She has over eighteen years of experience in non-profits and investment management, including several years at the american heart association as a vice president of planned e-giving uh, love that she’s, now a consultant on our practice, focuses on governance fund-raising staff, training and board education, very active volunteer she’s, a founding boardmember for the association of fund-raising professionals chapter in westchester, new york, she’s on the board of girls inc westchester and the children’s support foundation she’s on the professional advisory committees for the central park conservancy, lighthouse international and the new jersey symphony orchestra. Joy hunter show you welcome to studio thanks, tony it’s great to be here oh that’s great! I’m glad it’s great it’s, wonderful to have you the sub title for your book is a guide to thriving in today’s economy how would you describe today’s economy for non-profit? Well, let’s see, i think that things have really changed. A lot since two thousand eight, you know, back in two thousand seven dollars were coming from all sides, the markets were flourishing, organizations were counting on the dollars that were promised to them. And, you know, since then we’ve seen an evolution of retraction, government retraction where government dollars were being continuously promised, even through some of the trying times of two thousand eight, two thousand nine and then we saw government dollars being promised, but not coming, you know? So it was taking three, six, nine, twelve months for dollars to come, and then there were decisions made on the government side where dollars just disappeared. So, you know, organizations counting on two million dollar grant from the government were not receiving it and had to figure out how to fill gaps. So that was, you know, one side of things on the private side with the individuals, you know, individuals had felt wealthy, so they were giving mohr without thinking through strategy on dh what we’ve seen again on the private side with individuals is that retraction, the sense of not just, hey, i’m going to give to all of these organizations because they’re asking, but now there’s more strategy around, they’re asking they’re giving there’s more budget planning around, they’re giving on dh, so basically we’ve seen the same. The same thing with foundations is that their strategy and there’s focus on budget, and they’re looking for more from the non-profits now than ever is terms of why should i be giving you these dollars and so non-profits are having to go through and focus on what are the strategies that i need to use in order to attract the dollars that are out there and connect with the donors who could be the best partners for us and helping us reach our mission. So there was this contraction from government and other institutional sources and also from individuals and at the same time, greater demand for services across big parts of the sector. Oh, yes, absolutely, i mean, we’ve seen it in multiple reports over and over, we see that the demand for services on the rise and that it’s very difficult for organizations toe actually fulfill that demand with the issues of the retraction of funding coming in. What do you think it’ll take for ah, for there to be a change in the individual mind set can can we go back to two thousand seven on the individual side or you really think those days are you are not going to be seen again? I think those days are probably over. I think that individuals now have a sense of responsibility around they’re giving and on the fact that they’re thinking strategically about they’re giving is actually my opinion. It’s an outcome that’s very positive from all of this, i think that it gives non-profits an opportunity to create a greater bond and loyalty with the organization with their individuals excuse me, and by communicating what they’re doing to make a difference, like why it matters that they are in existence and that their programming is happening and this forces them to step up their game, and particularly in terms that i think a lot of what we’re seeing in terms of impact reporting. Exactly. Yes, i think that that’s exactly the outcome is the impact reporting, and i know that that’s a challenge for non-profit let’s. See, now i work with non-profits every day and i know the impact reporting. You know, it comes with an expense. It comes with the use. Of resource is, you know, capital and human resource is, and so organizations have to try and figure out, well, how am i going to do this impact, reporting that donors are demanding, but really, there are very simple waste organizations to do that, and the sense and the book really is that the boards need toe own part of that answer, like, how do we report it? What you will be focused on? The boards need to have a sense of responsibility around helping the leadership of the organization form what they’re going to create. A ce faras case for support and impact statements were going plenty time to talk about board hans abilities and other other people’s roles and responsibilities. It just occurred to me that the person who was my guest the past two weeks in the first half of the show and it would admonish me ah, before i wouldn’t admonish you, but he would admonish me for calling it outcomes reporting, i mean, for calling an impact reporting he calls it outcomes reporting impact is what you do, but outcomes is what that change creates in the world, so i will apologize. Bob bob penna doctor penna, dr penny. I’m sorry. Outcomes. Reporting. But congratulations on your book. Thank you. I might have said that. Maybe should said that earlier. When? When was it? Ah, released. I was i was at a party several months ago. Yeah, and it was released near the beginning of the year. Actually so easily. I was a late comer. You had many parties that before the one i was invited to lincoln mayor june the way didn’t do a lot of parties. I should’ve capitalized on the opportunity. Tohave parties. I think i was taking a deep breath after the book was published. It was a lot of fun. It was also a lot of time and work, so i kind of like happen. And now it’s exciting to talk about it. So you know, it was fun to have a party. And now it’s exciting to talk about your show. And so there was just a party. I was invited to the only party there was that’s. Right? Tony, i wouldn’t leave you out of any parties. Do you think this interesting occured to me? Do you think it’s it’s harder to co author a book or toe author? Solely that’s. A very interesting question. I have to say that roger was very easy to work with co author roger matt lost? Yes, and so it was fun to have his opinions and input, and i think that that was a great experience and i haven’t written a book on my own, so i don’t know what that looks like, but i do like the team partnership of writing something together or doing something together in a lot of parts of my life, so i think that i probably upto have a partner if i was going to write another book. Ok, well, that may speak to your personality to you like to be collegial and part of a team and certainly in all the volunteer work you’re doing when you’re working on committees. Interesting. Okay, um, the book is very comprehensive, and we just have the hour, but s so we focus on just a couple places there’s, different roles we were alluding to a couple minutes ago within the non-profit the they’re volunteers rolls on the board and ah, there’s requirements and responsibilities for, um, for staff as well. So why don’t we want to start with just a couple minutes before break? Um the role of the advisor, the investment consultant, and we’ll have plenty time to go into it after the break, but i just introduced us to that idea. Yeah, but generally the chapter was created because as a result of all the changes in the economy and there were a lot of investment dollars that were mismanaged, it organizations, you know, endowments were affected in a very a very big way, and there were investment advisors out there who knew how to manage money, but they didn’t understand non-profits they didn’t understand the mission backing our relation to the dollars that’s very important, teo, to connect so it’s the dollars that you’re creating revenue, but you’re creating revenue too fulfill a mission and so there’s, this sense of understanding that’s necessary, especially as economies are changing and it’s more difficult teo, to manage towards those mission related goals. Where organ where not non-profits need to be selecting advisors who have a sense of expertise around the investment management, but also an expertise and understanding of the sector what’s happening in the sector, the motivations in the sector of the use of the dollars, the importance of a spending policy investment policy statements in terms of plan giving, you know, gift annuity programs like, what are they really all about? What’s the money for so there’s a lot of nuances around the dollars that are invested for non-profits and there needs to be a certain level of expertise by the advisers that air working without its organizations that that will help them reach their goals if the expertise is not there. A lot of times, the non-profit is at a disadvantage because they’re not getting the full perspective of what they could get through the, you know, through the investment management, with all of those goals in mind. Okay, andi, we’ll talk a little about how teo, make sure you have the right investment. Seldman helped give tips for hiring the right one on and then the other rolls around the investment committee on the board and the fund-raising staff and the financial staff as well. So that’s all after we go away for a couple minutes, hang in there talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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 fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s, time for the truth. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society politics, business it’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to go what’s really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about so gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s. Ivory tower, radio dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com george hunter show you is co author of non-profit investment and development solutions, and we’re talking through the book. What is thie advice you might have for a non-profit that is looking to hire an investment advisor? Um, you need to really think through what you’re looking for in terms of thie, the expertise of that individual, so the knowledge of what their their knowledge of what they’re doing in terms of their team or their practice of investment management, you know, are they are do they service fiduciaries with you? You know, what platforms are they going to invest the money on that’s all really important, but the part that, you know, i emphasized in the book that i really want organizations to be mindful of our questions, that you would ask a boardmember you know what? What connection do you have to our mission will kind of volunteering? Do you do? How involved are you in the nonprofit sector? You know, are you aware of the challenges that we have today around asset resource allocation, like finding the assets that we need to function in addition to managing the assets to goals around our spending policy and or goals around if it’s a gift annuity program, for example, around the needs for the actuarial tables, the rates that we’re paying out, you know, ask them questions specific to the investments that you have and the goal of those investments and there’s a list in in the book, there’s actually checklist in the book for you to take a look and ask those questions and, you know, we make it a guide for a reason just because we wanted to be useful and so there is a full list in there, but honestly, i think that when looking at that chapter and looking at what you’re the attributes of a financial adviser thatyou wantto that you’d want to consider, you know, some organizations are too small to have endowments, and they might say, well, we don’t have investment advisors, but, you know, every advisor that you’re working within your organization should have some connection to the sector, not just being experts at what they do, but also understand the needs and the issues around around the sector. So one example that i have, if you will, i work with an organization who spent a lot of money getting their governance documents in order, and they hired a law firm who did not work with a lot of non-profit organizations, they used up all their budget and still didn’t complete the project, and then they ended up with the document retention and destruction policy that they couldn’t implement because it was so complex that the organization couldn’t feasibly, you know, actually implement the policy. So they came back to me to talk about, you know, changing that and and that’s what you want to avoid, you know, you want to really work with a partner who understands your sector and their area as well. So that’s really the emphasis, the smaller organization that you alluded to should they have an investment adviser? I mean, suppose there annual revenue from all sources is maybe one hundred thousand dollars. Should they have an investment advisor? You know, i mean, i think it’s helpful to have an investment advisor on your board, tony, because it’s, um it’s gives you perspective around the future, and it also again it’s a helpful person. Tohave, you know, perspective that’s on you. But that’s as a volunteer as a volunteer. Now, as far as having an investment advisor i’d say that probably is not the case at that point because you probably need that money to be in cash, but there’s plenty of banks that you can partner with that understand the non-profit sector, you know, you have a community resource is in banking and investment management that understand the sector, and you even do have some investment advisors that will be willing to work with smaller organizations, you know, for not a big fee and the whole the cash account, and they’ll give you some guidance around maybe cash management and help communicate with your accountant at that time of year as well. So, you know, i’m not saying go out there and find yourself an investment adviser. You don’t necessarily need to do that but definitely find a partner, even a bank partner or an investment partner, you know, involuntary capacity or in a day to day capacity that understands your sector needs ok, like the idea of ah, volunteer for the smaller organizations now, do you have? Ah, ah guide, you know, at what asset level? Or maybe what annual income level do you think a professional advisor could could be useful and affordable? You know, the book primarily focuses on organizations that have endowments, right? So you have a certain level there where you’re talking about organisations that probably have at least a million dollars to manage, you know, five hundred thousand a million dollars, however there’s, not a set level, you know, i work with one organization that has had outsourced accounting for, you know, a number of years and all of a sudden this organization that’s been around for five years that has a less than five hundred thousand dollars budget has issues with restricted dollars in some accounting principles that they’ve never had to deal with before, and what they’re realizing is that they don’t have the expertise on the board or in this outsourced accounting resource to provide them with the support they need to get to the next level and to do this more sophisticated accounting. So when was the time going to be right? Well, the time’s right now, because there’s restricted dollars coming in the door. So when would the tide me right to have an investment advisor? You know, maybe you start getting more sophisticated stock gifts, and you need to have an advisor who can help you create, you know, have input on your gift acceptance policy, perhaps, or help you create an investment policy statement. You know, it’s not going to be a sophisticated as having an endowment. And you need all those resource is but i think again, it kind of just the emphasis on having a volunteer who can interact with you on dh has the expertise as a financial advisor is very helpful on every board because any organization, no matter what size, could receive a sizable stock gift or an interesting stock gift. You know, that’s, maybe different too. Not just the typical, but maybe a typical that you need an expert to help you figure out the value. And tio bilich would date it even sometimes stock it’s just older people holding paper certificates. Those air, you know, everybody doesn’t know howto negotiate those this person’s got got a certificate it’s beautiful. You know, it could be framed. Although it’s it’s it’s not a work of art. It’s it’s got value. Um monetary. You no cash value. You know what do what do i do with this piece of paper? That is a thousand shares of ibm from thirty five years ago. You know, i just, um example that i’ve run into sometimes with plan to give it. And i’m sure you do, too. All right, this investment adviser, financial advisor here, she has to be held to standards, right? And they were going to develop benchmarks for them, too. Work against? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, i think, you know, just any anybody work with, you want to create that you’re heavier that that for your development officer, for your executive director, you know, for your board and for anyone that you hyre to work with you, you want to have some some standards, you know? And i think again, ah, they think the checklist in the book is helpful whether you’re small organization or large organization to take a look and ask the questions to those individuals of how their involvement is in the sector. A ce far as you know, you want the attention that you deserve as an organization. So you need to have somebody that’s willing to meet with you three times a year. At least, you know, to talk about, well, what’s happening in this sector. How do you think the markets would affect us if you haven’t an investable assets or what opportunities do you think are out there based on what you’re seeing with your clients, for us to market to our donors, ideas about what they could gift to us. So using the perspective of, you know, maybe the markets are doing really great and there’s a lot of appreciated stocks out there, and then the financial advisors are going to have perspective on that, and you can that could tail spin into your marketing campaign. They used to reach out to your donors, so having a conversation and having someone opened having a conversation kind of a review with you a few times a year, i think that would be a benchmark. You know, when you start talking about larger endowments, you know, there’s a lot of different benchmarks, tony. I mean, there’s so many things that it gets very sophisticated, it does, and you’re looking for services and involvement. You’re looking for individuals or teams who were willing to help you with your marketing, you know, help you educate your donor’s, help you educate your staff. You’re looking for added value services. What are they going to do? To help you support your mission goals, are they going to help you train your board? You know what? How khun making contribute to your organisation as part of the team? Teo move things forward with your mission by connecting with your board members and your donors and your executive staff. So it’s more than just what are they doing to have? Ah, prudent investment management practice and of course, that measurement is all about, you know, looking at the performance based on your goals as an organization, you’re spending policy kind of the risks that you’re willing to take so that’s, you know, i think that’s but broader answer then you might have been looking for but, you know, that’s kind of to say that there’s not one or two benchmarks, it depends on the size it depends on what they’re doing for you. Yeah, a lot of factors on dh let’s talk about the volunteers that may be able to help with creating some of those benchmarks for the financial advisor the investment committee of aboard should every is there are asking a different way is there is there are a level of non-profit that doesn’t need to. Have a nen vestment committee. Well, i should everybody have one. No, everybody shouldn’t have one. I don’t think it’s a necessary committee for every every board i’m on, i’m on a few boards, as you mentioned and they’re smaller and we don’t have investment. Committee’s, we don’t have a need for that. You know, once you have an endowment or a quasi endowment or, you know, significant now twenty martignetti non-profit radio jargon jail. I’m going to let you go on endowment as that’s pretty widely recognized, however, quasi endowment gets you skirting very close to the prison bars. Eso define define quasi endowment for quick parole, so typically an organizational call it a quasi endowment if they don’t really have endowment dollars coming in, but the’s air dollars that they’re preserving to use for operational purposes or to meet program goals. But there’s, no endowment principle around it. Where there’s a spending, you know, a spending percentage that’s dedicated from this dollars. Okay, so it’s a little bit different? Because donors haven’t said you need to put this money in and use x percentage board has directed, right? It wants toe preserve this as endowment, right? They want to preserve thiss thes dollars on dh you know, what i’ve noticed is that it comes at a certain level, so, you know, when you have five million dollars sitting in the bank, you need to do something with it and you don’t want to spend it on operating expenses. You wanted to go tour program and you have a more sophisticated model towards using the dollars basically so, you know, i would say investment committee’s, so investment committee’s, if you have dollars that you’re ready to invest, so these air dollars that you let’s say you have your cash reserves and you’re comfortable is a board with your cash reserves at six months or twelve months, whatever that might be, and then all of a sudden you have more than that. Okay, so now what you going to do with those dollars that you’re willing to say we are commited tio not spending these dollars? This is not for operating expenses. We don’t need them to cover our reserves, so we’re going to invest them once you get to that, invest them, you know, mode or to that point, you need an expert to help you invest them. You don’t want to just randomly make decisions that’s when you look at we need investment policy statement, which is basically a road map that says here’s, how much risk we’re willing to take as a group for this organization, here’s, how we’re going to prudently manage these dollars going forward here are all the points, as far as you know, asset allocation so how much in stocks and bonds and cash, you know, here’s, how we’re going to diversify it? Are we going to have small, large, you know, alternative investments? That’s really, the diversification kind of jargon, if you will or terminology rather. So once you get to that point, then you want to get a group of experts in a room or dedicated volunteers who understand well, the mission of the organization and the goals as faras creating a spending policy, you know, like, how much money do we need from this pool of assets in order to fund the program that we have the objective of funding? And and also, you know, the investment, the markets, the economy, you know, typically an investment committee has a lot of investment professionals on it, and then you start interviewing investment professionals to help you to help orchestrate that group to lead them, if you will, through a process of developing a formal investment policy statement and spending policy, and what’s the relationship between the committee of volunteers and the professional that they that they end up hiring well, i mean, they’ve hired a professional, right? So you say they’re professionals, well, they would look at them is, you know, there is his or her boss, right? Like a ce faras that goes, but i think the real relationships when they’re successful is a partnership. And so, although the individuals in the room might be investment professionals and have, you know, outlooks on the market and that’s what they do in their day job and so there in the no, you know, the objective of thie investment professional who leads them is to help them diversify their thinking and to focus on the objectives of the nonprofit organization versus their personal relationships with money were their focus in their job and their firms perspective on the economy and that whole thing. So the role is to have a partnership where you allow the financial professional that you hyre to guide. You through a profit process that’s focused on the mission of the organization versus just looking at the markets, so not just looking at how did it perform, but are we reaching our goals? So if we had a goal to spend five percent of this chunk of money every year, you know you might have a plan with that financial professional that you’re goingto make seven percent a year that’s kind of the goal, you know, then don’t look for ten you know what i mean? And and so it’s really interesting because that’s, what i see a lot is when organizations have investment committees who are very sophisticated sometimes thie expectation is to outperform the market where the rial expectation when you’re working with investment professional who’s focused in the nonprofit sector, is to not outperform the market it’s to get as much as possible with this little risk is possible to meet the mission goals. I also see sometimes there are people on the investment committee who are sophisticated investors themselves, professional advisors, but they’re not acquainted with the non-profit side and all the all the features and peculiarities that you’re alluding to when you say you know you want a professional advisor who is familiar with what’s happening in the nonprofit sector, right? I know i see a lot sometimes tension because the volunteers have one perspective and the professional advisor or in bigger organizations, advisers have the other perspective that they were brought on for, but sometimes there’s conflict between the two of them. Yeah, i see disconnect there often, you know? I mean, it’s very funny because i was speaking to a board the other day and they were talking about revenue generation, and they were talking to it, like, like the organization with selling widgets, you know? And i had to explain to them, you know, we’re not selling widgets, we’re connecting with donors, and we can’t project the outcomes like you would if you were selling a product because these were people that were marketers and and sales people out in the for-profit world, you know, and and so it’s, a little bit different the same way on the investment side, one of the concepts that hope we could talk about later, perhaps, is the bryant blind risk modeling tony so that’s the model that we talk about in the book that addresses the fact that there’s going to be investment professionals and individuals with multiple perspectives on money, on an investment committee, and and that there’s, a way of helping them test them, basically, to help them understand how to think together about the non-profit versus thinking from their individual perspective, we got to go away for a couple minutes when we come back. Tony’s, take two and joy hunter show. You stays with us, and i hope that you do, too. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get me anything. E-giving cubine 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. Hi, i’m lost him a role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna 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. Oppcoll time for tony’s take too i’m sorry, i can’t send live listener love today, but because we’re pre recorded a couple of days, but all the regular listeners are, but you’re out there. North carolina, new york city, california, washington, oregon from time to time texas welcome live listener love if you’re out there and, of course, to everybody else. Who’s listening live and asia asia always checking in korea, japan welcome live listener love to you, china, of course, australia, we’ve been hearing from australia not realize that’s, not part of asia give me a break, but it occurs to me that we sometimes have australia listeners to so live listeners love to everybody and of course, those podcast pleasantries. Many thousands of people listening to the podcast pleasantries out to all of you listening in time shift. I love planned e-giving and i was reminded of this just late last week when i delivered a pretty short, like twenty minute program to a group of seniors at a parish at a church on long island, and they were just such a delightful group, you know, i don’t think there was anybody under sixty five and certainly the vast. Majority were over seventy. All retired, i’d say. And they were just a delight to be with, you know, they even though they’re all ah facing, you know, lots of doctor’s appointments and their own health issues and even deaths of friends. Um, they were still just ah, you know, sort of a relaxed and easy going group to be with. They called themselves. Yes, young, energetic seniors. That was a name of the group. Yes, whatever the you know, the there there, paris. And it was the yes group, and they were just a joy to be around. And it just reminded me how much i love planned e-giving. And if there’s one thing i miss about being ah wage slave and an employee as a director of planned e-giving it’s it’s. More of that face-to-face donor contacts. You do some as a consultant, but not as much. And it was just a lovely morning, and i was only there for about an hour, like i said, twenty minute program, but was a real pleasure, teo, to be with the young, energetic seniors. Earlier this week, i was at bebe con the blackbaud conference outside washington d c and i got tons of interviews, did eleven interviews for future shows on things like dr seuss and digital storytelling and board fund-raising fraud, protection, very interesting conversation and fraud protection, protecting your checks and the paper that your checks are printed on very interesting, creating a sustained e-giving program moving more donors into your thousand dollars e-giving society on and lots of others, and they’ll be, as i said on future shows, and i thank everybody at blackbaud and the b beak unconference or about twenty, three hundred people. There was great to be on the on the, uh, the expo hall stage doing these interviews all day earlier this week, it was it was monday and that is tony’s take two for friday, fourth of october thirty ninth show of the year. Joy is still here in the studio. That’s good. I’m glad you didn’t run out let’s talk about another role just for a few minutes because we we do want to spend time on our strategic development plan two over on the fund-raising side, but another roll involved in all this the the fund-raising staff what’s their what’s, their role with respect to the investment advisor the investment committee. How are these all supposed to be integrated? Wouldn’t it be great if they were all integrated? That’s, the that’s, the that’s, the nirvana we’re shooting for. How do we how do we start to get their will? You know it’s so interesting, tony. Because i the whole premise of the book, was to bridge this. These ideas, you know, they invest the importance of investment management and the importance of, you know, asset and revenue generation. You know, like, where the money is going to come from boards really good about focusing on most boards. Really good about focusing on, you know, investment management and, you know, looking at the budgets and dictating kind of like, well, here’s, how much money we need to reach strategic goals, but not necessarily as focused on, you know, what is going on with the development team? What are their needs? How are they going to reach these goals? You know, what’s happening in the in the environment as faras, you know, donor kind of the evolution of the donor, the interest of the donor, like were talking about earlier and kind of strategies and solutions around that. And, you know, one of the things that i talk about with organizations and we try to connect in the book around is the communication strategy of the fund development team. You know, through the chief development officer, director, development, you know, whoever has that key role to the board members like that relationship and the importance of the relationship. So i can’t say that i specifically see the connection to the investment committee, per se it’s more of a relationship with the board on board. And, yeah, okay, well, since you spent a lot of time talking to organizations about this relationship, what, what what should the fund-raising staff be doing itself? Tio keep the board informed and toe move them to understanding the problems around you can resource generation, and i would call it fund-raising talking about the same thing. What should the fund-raising staff be doing toe help educate the board that’s, you know that’s, my favorite thing to talk about wayne. S o basically, you know, they need teo give the board the tools first, any education, so education being they need to have a part. And i know this can be complex sometimes at the board meetings to talk about what’s actually happening in fun development, apart from here’s how much money we’ve just raised, but teo be involved in the conversation around, you know, what is the current environment look like? Because the board members sometimes there they lose perspective on this, but, you know, they’re not doing it there today, right in the fund-raising staff is absolutely and, you know, and they have responsibility, the board members around strategy and being effective community advocates, you know, being out there and helping contribute to the development efforts on and again, they lose perspective of that sometimes, and i think that the fun development team can help them to reengage and tio reconnect with the perspective around their role and responsibility the board members, that is, by giving them updates, here’s what’s happening with our donor base should just be a part of every every agenda i think this fund-raising absolutely, i mean, i absolutely think so because it’s important. To keep connection, i think that one of the disconnects i see though it is when the fund development team, even if they’re doing that let’s, say they have representation on the board there, talking about it at the board meeting, they’re having expectations around what the board members should be doing as far as going out there and helping them to generate interest in new donors and prospects and dollars, and they don’t give them the tools. And so i think it’s important for the fun development team to be part of whether it’s aboard retreat it does need to be usually a separate time, but giving the board the tools, helping them understand what a case for support iss not just the mission of the organization, but, you know, does the community know that the organization exists? You know, if the organization disappeared tomorrow, would the community notice without impact and then would they care? You know, in answering that question, why should the community care that we’re here is something that every boardmember should be able to dio i’m not so sure they’re able to do that. What about a development committee of the board should that? Be on should be in every organization, it’s just two people. Yeah, i absolutely think that that there needs to be that focus. And i mean, for so many reasons, if it’s to help support the efforts of the staff and educating the rest of the board members, you know, i think right boardmember talkto boardmember differently than fund-raising staff talked to board members, it’s just it’s the nature of the relationship. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, playing giving, you know, you’re always working up that’s you love playing, giving right? And my big thing with organizations that are trying to move their plan giving forward is that they even advocate on the board to love plan giving with them, you know, that is so important, and it is a peer-to-peer we would talk about peer-to-peer asks with the board and development, we don’t always talk about peer-to-peer communication and leveraging the board to help you move your goals forward. Excellent way, i think, of describing the role of the development committee on the board to be advocates for the fundraisers, the development staff who, as i said, you know, we agreed can’t talk to the other board members the way fellow board members can so advocating right for resource is understanding what’s happening in the culture in the community? Non-profit fund-raising wise, etcetera, yeah, absolutely, i think so kind of the tool kit that i talk about that case for support and all that in interaction and giving them some perspective around how to articulate, you know, why it matters that the organization exists. The second piece of it really is i’m looking at the impact statements or the impact goals, so thinking about maybe specifically by program like, what are we doing? And how is that what they have? What are the results that were having one of the outcome’s not impact, but outcomes like you’re talking about? Dr pendant pan is being channelled, okay, so the outcomes, what are our goals for outcomes? And then whatever our accomplishments around outcomes and how do we articulate that? And then finally, every boardmember should have a personal passion statement, they should know why they’re sitting in the seat they should know, you know why? Why? It matters for them to tell their story out there in the community. And so those are the three things that i think that the development team could dio in order to engage with their board and move forward there. Other mission goals. All right, let’s, talk a little about the strategic development plan, which we’ve alluded to a few times. What? What is it? Nufer so it’s, my favorite term, i’m getting out. I’m in, i’m making all your favorites. Favorite topic, favorite term. You know, we’ll have detail. We’ll go into detail just broadly. How would you, you know, like, define it so broadly? It’s ah, road map for the development team to meet their goals, to think through the target segments that they’re reaching out to to think about the initiatives that they’re using to reach out to them, to think about the timing and the responsibility around each of those like who’s going to do that so don’t put twenty things down it and initiatives if there’s only one person to dio those things, you know that i see that all the time on dh, then if there’s any dollars associated with it, so it really gives up a measurable plan, teo reaching the development goals and an important that it’s scaled appropriately a staff of one or two devoted to fund-raising can’t do what a staff of a dozen khun do you know, in terms of events and then there’s grant grant, you know, grantspace be a part of their their responsibility, but then also grow individual fund-raising and have an annual fund with its monthly sometimes weekly production goals toward the end of the year on then support a golf outing, you know? I mean, one or two people can only do so much, it sounds like you see a lot of plans that are just unreasonable. Yeah, and i also see a lot of a lot of organizations that are smaller and doing all those things that don’t have a plan, which makes me always concerned because if you have fifty million things that you’re focused on is you just went through, you know, all these different initiatives, you know, having a plan helps to put things in perspective. So for example, if you are to people and you have all of these events, you know, when you put it on paper, you can show executive leadership, you know? Okay, so here’s, what we have, this is what we’re doing. Does this look feasible to you, you know? And then it does put perspective around things, and it also it it creates accountability, tony, so that you’re not just doing things to do them because you’ve always done them, but you’re doing them and it’s in an or innocent organized way that you can say, and here’s, what we got from this so it’s worth, the energy that we’re putting toward it is a strategic development plan like this created by staff and then approved by the board or what’s the what’s the process or is it just all among staff? Well, my, what do you like to see? What i like to see is the organization create a task force to help the developed the strategic plan so that you have multiple perspectives because i think that sometimes you’re missing out on some targets, segments or the perception of the community on who you are as an organization. So some initiatives that you could use that may be outside of the box thinking to create a strategic development plan and that would include, you know, that’s a meeting that happens, you know, maybe two meetings, the task force meetings tto help the development team create the plan. And then where does it go after the task force or the test forces? Employees, the note, the task, force’s, donors, board members, community members, staff get together, maybe it’s, conducted by the development officer, and then the development officer goes back, creates a plan, comes back to the development committee, an ideal situation who looks at it, blesses it and then gets it approved by the board. Excellent. Yeah, we got to go away for a couple minutes. Joyce stays with us for another segment, and you better also. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Latto durney 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 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. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Let’s go deeper on the strategic development plan. What what elements do you like to see in it? Well, i like to see the target segmentation be very specific, so that means that if we are going to talk about loyal donors, i like, for example, with plan giving that portion of the chart. You know, i like to see all of the areas first of all, more broadly represented, so individual corporate foundations, all of those areas represented in the plan on dh, then to break it down further looking at, you know, the types of individuals. So if we’re going to talk, for example, about playing giving, as i mentioned, i don’t want to just see loyal donors, you know, i like to break out gift annuity donors, legacy society members and then loyal donors, you know, in a with parentheses around kind of how we’re defining that so specific definitions with with corporations, for example, i like to see what types of corporations are we trying to reach out to what makes them different from one another? Because what’s, really the key, once you’ve identified your target segment, is the initiatives that you outreach to them that’s the activity right, that you’re going to dio and it has to match up with that audience that you’re trying to reach. So if you’re too general about the audience, then you can’t match up the activities. We end up with a plan that’s not feasible because so there’s the target segments, right? What else? What else are you in there? What’s. The other thing that needs to be in there is who’s responsible for the activities. So instead of just putting you know, we’re going to reach out to loyal donors with thes three mailings and do this. Thank you’s. It actually says that the staff is going to sorry. Excuse me. Well, i’ll give joy a chance to take a sip of her iced tea. Just ah, explain that they were going to the elements of a strategic development plan. What? What joy likes to see in them feel better. I’m sorry about that. Yeah, so? So when you put the roles and responsibilities in a column, you then it becomes clear what you can give to the board. Like give it back to the board to do eyes in terms of stewardship. You know what? What activities? Are going to be focused for executive leadership on what activities the staff needs to dio and that way. Sometimes when we look at it that way, when we have a small shop where there’s maybe one or two people in development, it gives them a broader team, you know, when they’re thinking through oh, yeah, well, i could delegate this to the board. They really should be engaged in writing thank you notes and that’s part of our stewardship campaign. So so that’s another element that the last element that i think is really critical is tio think through initiatives in terms of acquisition, cultivation and stewardship, and sometimes i think acquisition and cultivation end up in the same bucket because we’re constantly reconnecting with donors and trying to cultivate to the next level. Um, and but when we divide those responsibilities or those areas up, we end up with a really good plan that again, we can we can understand who should be working in that area. You know, if a development officer is a one man shop, they need to be out there connecting and getting new dollars in the door, you know? But the stewardship has to happen so who’s going to be doing that, and again, it it creates clarity. Um, the last element is really that budget line on that column and that’s an important column, because if you’ve identified that something is a critical initiative, you wanna have dollars associated with that initiative to go back to the board and say, look, this is really important for acquisition strategy. We’re going to need a thousand dollars to do this mailing or two thousand dollars, so you need to really identify who you could tell them who you’re going to go after. Who’s the target what’s the initiative who’s going to be responsible, how much it’s gonna cost. And then you can have another column for well, what happened after we did that, which is my favorite, which is measuring results because without knowing what the effect is that something you really shouldn’t be doing it again? You know this also, the plan serves as a very good, i think reminder for boards as to what their responsibilities are, because you, as you said, you want to see who’s responsible for each activity. This is a very good way. Maybe of educating the board. As to where they fit in in the overall fund-raising plan? Yeah, and the reason i talk so much about strategic development plans is because organizations typically spend a lot of time and boards in a lot of time on the organizational strategy. So we’re you know, we’re doing a strategic plan were strategic planning. We have a vision spent all this money on a consultant, and here we go and here’s our big plan and this’s the budget. Now go get the money, and there really needs to be a strategy around getting the money, and it should be formalized just like the vision of the organization is and that’s kind of the whole point of bringing it up. Ok, is our development plans something we we look back to a couple times a year to see benchmark against our you know, of course, the outcomes, the results are important. We’re looking back at this from time to time. Absolutely. I mentioned the development committee should be in place for any size organization, and they should be reviewing this on a monthly basis with the development officer to make sure that they’re doing what they can to support that. Individual reaching the goals and to help the the organization move toward their mission achieving their mission, that is, and it should be an active document. Tony so it’s not a strategic plan that sits in a drawer. Basically it’s a development plan. That’s it’s, actionable items. And you should be checking in with it, you know, on a monthly basis to make sure you’re doing all the things you set out to dio. And if you can’t, then it needs to change. So it’s not like it’s set in stone. It really can change. But then you better think about how the revenue from that activity that you were counting on how it’s going to be generated if it’s not going to be generated through that particular segment. Yeah, i hate to see the development plans or any plan strategic plan more, more globally. That is done. And then it’s, like checked off. Okay, put it in the three ring binder. Put it on the shelf. Ok, we’ve done that let’s move on to something else and then never revisited. We have just a couple minutes left and i want to ask you what it is that you love. About the work that you do. Volunteer work. What do i love? What do i not love about what i do? I mean, every day i wake up and i have a giant smile because i get to smile a lot and i’m sorry for interrupting you love moment, but you’re smiling all the time. It’s. Remarkable. Thank you. Yeah. No, i mean it’s. Amazing. I get to touch so many organizations and i feel like, you know, everybody’s mish, i get very passionate about a lot of missions. You know, i have to be very careful because i get engaged and i want to help everyone. I think that that sense of being able to help to move missions forward just a little bit further every day is just very fulfilling. Its really a wonderful, wonderful opportunity i have in my life join hunter show you she’s, co author of non-profit investment and development solutions published by wile e. You can find her at her email. She offers j h sh o u c h a l l o u at yahoo dot com. If we were if we were in french, i would not have had to spell. I mean, if we were in france, i would not have had to spell your name, but i did for thanks so much for being guest house. My pleasure. Thank you for having me my pleasure. And thanks for coming in the studio. I like that a lot. Next week, it’s going to be an archive show, but i don’t know which one. I promise you. I will. I will pick a winner. They’re all winners, but i’ll pick ah first, you know ah, best in show winner if you like this show, then you’ll want to catch my podcast that i do for the chronicle of philanthropy, which is devoted to fund-raising only it’s fund-raising fundamentals. It’s a monthly each episode is ten minutes. You get short bursts of fund-raising brilliance and there’s a new one out this week on crowdfunding, and that is on the cardinal of philanthropy website, and you’ll also find fund-raising fundamentals on itunes. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz, our line producer shows social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point oh, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules our music is by scott stein. Oh, i hope you’ll be with me next week. Friday, one to two p, m eastern. Talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get him. Cubine are you a female entrepreneur ready to break through? Join us at sexy body, sassy soul, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday, said noon eastern time to learn timpson juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and to find your version of giant success with sexy body sake. Sold every thursday ad. Men in new york times on talking alternative 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. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier and make more money. Improving communications, that’s. The answer. Talking.

Nonprofit Radio for September 27, 2013: The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox & Optimize Your Social Profiles

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

My Guests:

Dr. Robert Penna: The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox

Robert Penna 2Dr. Robert Penna, author of “The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox” discusses the wave of reliance on outcomes measurement, and gives concrete steps and tools so that small and mid-size shops can stay ahead of the trend toward outcomes assessment. We also talk about Easy Bake ovens and my Eagle Scout project (as an example of what NOT to do). This is part 2 of our interview from a previous show. Part 1 was last week.

 

 

 

 

Amy Sample Ward: Optimize Your Social Profiles

Picture of Amy Sample WardAmy Sample Ward, our social media contributor, has tips to fine tune your profiles on the social networks like Twitter and Facebook, while staying true to mission and brand. Also, using your profiles to promote campaigns. She’s CEO of the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) and her book is “Social Change Anytime Everywhere.”

 

 

 

 

 


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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. Oh, i hope you were with me last week. I’d suffer ventricular ticket. I screwed that up. I’d suffer ventricular tachycardia if it came to my attention became within my ken that you had missed the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Dr robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox, discussed the wave of reliance on outcomes measurement and gave concrete steps and tools so that small and midsize shops khun stay ahead of the trend toward outcomes assessment. That was part one of our interview from an earlier show and news sources new source maria simple are doi n of dirt cheap and free ideas is also the prospect finder, and last week she had advice for you on which news sources are best for your research and also a new free source from the foundation center foundation directory online this week, the non-profit outcomes toolbox part do from a previous show and optimize your social profiles. Amy sample ward, our social media contributor, has tips to find tune your profiles on the social networks like twitter and facebook. While staying true to mission and brand also using your profiles to promote campaigns and amy’s sixty seconds style stop she’s, the ceo of non-profit technology network and ten and her book is social change any time everywhere got lots of guests live in the studio is going to be lots of extra special live listener love as well as everybody listening worldwide. We’ll get to that right now. We’ll get to my previous interview with dr robert penna and the non-profit outcomes toolbox, bringing robert penna welcoming him back now, we were just before the break talking about the outcome statement should be meaningful, achievable, sustainable on dh the book goes into a little more detail, even oh, and i’d like to because i’d like to help our listeners achieve an outcome statement. You say that should be bound in time and number the outcome statement. What does that mean? Well, what it basically means is rather than saying, we’re going to change the world, it’s, that we’re going to specifically a change ah, certain measurable of facet of characteristic of someone for a certain number of people within a certain given period of time, so the idea said we’re going to achieve x for why number of people within two months, three months, one year, whatever it may be so that the idea is that first off it’s it’s tethered to ah, a certain number of people that you’re going teo achieve this for, and also a certain specific times. So that, for example, the investor knows when the payoff comes, let me give you another reason why this is crucial if you were if you read the book and i know you know you did, you probably came across the work capacity ten thousand times capacity. You don’t have to read the book to hear about capacity over the building, and i don’t know, but over here, this is a very, very specific use. If you haven’t outcomes approach, it automatically begs the capacity question, because if you are clear about what it is you want to achieve from that flows what it is you need to get there, which then challenges you to say, do i have that capacity most non-profits and i hate to use generalizations, but i think in this case, it’s true, most on profits and most people who are aware of the non-profit space, when you talk about capacity building the first thing they will think about his dollar signs. All right, we’re having a pass it e capacity raising effort. What? It’s a fund raiser. True capacity, however, has three levels. All right. The first one is structural capacity. How is the organization run? How is it managed? What’s the relationship between the board and the executive leadership what’s the quality of the training of the staff, et cetera. The second is what i call functional capacity. Basically, what that means is if you go, you do have the tools to do what you say you’re going to do. If you were an education organization, then you need educators. You need a curriculum. If you’re counseling organization unique counselors and you need some sort of models, they’re all your inputs. Yes, exactly. The third one, and perhaps the most important one is the implementation capacity. The’s are the thousand and one little things that not just non-profits, but anybody trips up, trips over when it comes to actually doing a job, it could be, for example, twenty. You or i are going to put up a curtain rod and it turns out, we don’t have a level. Well, if we don’t have a level, how we’re gonna make sure the curtain rod is level that’s an implementation capacity issue when you talk about a non-profit it could be everything from the from the requirement to provide transportation so the clients could actually get there to something like intake if you want. If you’re goingto have seventy five people, let us say graduate from your program will do you have the capacity for a nen take to actually process those seventy five people? So they’re not standing on line three hours and losing interest in wandering away who’s going to answer the phones let’s say you have a a an outreach effort going on and you have a training program and you put the word out on the street. But then it turns out that your non-profit is really run all by part timers, and most of the time, if anybody calls to get information, they’re either going to get just a phone that rings or they’re going to get an answering machine. That’s a capacity questions. So if you’re doing this correctly, it really forces you to look at a number. Of things including the capacity that you have to actually achieve the goals. If you don’t have it, then you either have to upgrade the capacity nufer have scaled back the goals and flowing from this quantification of of what you want outcomes to be is measurable because they become measurable when you’ve quantified and bound in-kind time number so we can, in fact, measure things that are i have previously been so just vague sort of objectives. Let me give you a classic example on this may sound like a bit of a stretch to euro to your readers, but you and i being roughly the same age, i think you have. You have readers we have listen that’s, right, our reader listeners, because they’re all gonna buy your book, my readers, just the non-profit outcomes toolbox published by wile e you recall when when when we were kids, we had things like, you know, lincoln logs and the directors were there, and they were even wood and the logs were made for right? Okay, this is going to sound like a bit of a weird one, but compare, think back, compare when you’re building one of those things. Too. When your mother built a big cake, your mother baked the cakes you took all the ingredients she pour them in a bowl should put him in a pan, she put in the oven and she lost at that point total control of what was going on. No one’s going to know whether cake was good or bad until after it was done. It came out. It was cool when you tasted it, and if something were on, there was nothing you could do. Thinking back, however, to the example, the lincoln logs with the tinker toys, the directors that we had a guide. The guide showed a step by step where we should be at every point in time if at any point in time, what we’re building didn’t look like the picture we could stop, we could go back and we could fix it, that’s one of the differences of working with outcomes as opposed to not when you don’t work without comes we have to be the only position you’re in is to hope for a good end result, but you can’t control it because you have no idea, really what’s going on with the variables. If you’re tracking using an outcome system, all right, and it is bound in time and is bound in number, and you do know that by a certain date x number of people should be at stage four. If they’re not there, then you still have time to fix it. If you have no clue where they’re supposed to be, or what we could do was hope for good results of the end. And if you don’t get it, well, then we did. You say sorry, better luck. Next time, you don’t know that as a child actually had an easy bake oven, i didn’t have the lincoln logs. My brother had elearning logs. I had the easy bake oven. They should also be your outcome statement verifiable, and this is all really, i’m i’m breaking it down the way you do in the book, but just flows naturally from the way you’re describing it. We have to be able to verify where we are time versus goal on dh and reassess, say more about verifiability. Verifiability basically means that some third party can look at it without spending a ton of money, because again, and this is that not to take anything away from professional evaluators, but evaluation cost money and professional evaluators and professional valuation services. I mean, these people are very good at what they do, but the point is that hopefully what you’re doing is verifiable in the easier way i mean, is there’s an old saying, you know, chicken soup is good for the soul? Well, it could be, but it’s, hard to tell. You know, what you want to do is you want to stick to things that have some fairly easily discernible evidence that can be seen and that’s what it means, my verifiable it means staying away from outcomes to talkabout, as you said before, well, somebody feels better about themselves in their place in the universe? Well, that’s a little bit nebulous. And so i would recommend that if you’re looking to create a good outcome statement, a good outcome for your program that you stay away from the cosmic, the psychic, the overly emotional and definitely the extraterrestrial. Okay, so first step to create a proper outcome statement is what decide what you want to be different at the end of this program. So you’re definitely looking forward toward the end, with the end in mind begins, and you say that the book begin with the engine dart with what do you want to be different about a certain situation or a certain set of conditions as a result of your program, start there. If you can’t define it, then maybe should rethink what you’re doing and in determining that you need to be bound in number and time and those miserable those of the descriptions as you working back, which is yes, but the idea is what you wanted start with is a change you want to start with being able to define a change. We’ve kind of alluded to this, but the basic basic idea of the changes what’s called the backs measures change in the behavior, attitude, condition, knowledge or status of those you seek to serve. So you start with the change in their behavior, their attitude, that condition and knowledge or the status and it doesn’t have to be a person. It could be a forest that could be it could could be a watershed. The status goes from being threatened to not tear being safe to being protected. But the idea is you start with the change and defining if you can’t define it, then my suggestion is you start to rethink a lot of organizations. Start with the problem. And then the next question is, what do we do? Well, what do we do? That’s that’s. The wrong place to start the place to start is first off. What changes do we want to bring about? Secondly, what resource is will it take to do that? Thirdly, you know what actions or programs will it take to effectuate that it’s? A total reverse of the usual way of approaching most of these issues. That’s. Ah, sort of a summary of of developing your own outcome statement. And there’s, obviously a lot more detail. In the book again, the book is the non-profit outcomes toolbox, we have just about a minute before the break, how do we start to apply on outcomes analysis? You have a lot of tools in the book, but how do we get there? Well, first off an easy thing by the book, but beyond that, there are any number of very, very thoughtful people who have created some of these tools that are out there. The problem is that most non-profits i don’t know about them. Everybody, for example, is heard of the logic model. Well, what they don’t understand what the logic model was originally intended to do was to intended to be a supposed to the way a lot of people are suggesting it be used. Today there are alternatives to this, and the book is one way of finding out about them, and reinventing the wheel is not necessary. These wheels have already being been admitted to the question is knowing which ones work for you. And that was the whole concept behind the toolbox approach to the book that perhaps we can talk about after the break. Okay, way are going to take a break. If you’ve not heard of the logic model, then you’re with me. So i’m going to ask robert after the break to just briefly talk about that. And then we’re going to talk about some of tools and lessons you can learn from the for-profit from the corporate sector in outcomes measurement. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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 oppcoll are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time. Join me, larry. Shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me. Very sharp. Your neo-sage. Tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s. Ivory tower radio, dot com e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dahna welcome back to the show. Our last segment. Let’s define the logic model because maybe i know it by a different name, robert, but you may know that what is that? That is actually the name of it, of the logic model is a away that non-profits have had for some years now of planned it’s, one of the tools that they’ve used for planning how to get to the outcomes from the starting point. But the logic model became very well known when kellogg adopted at the kellogg foundation. Same is the cereal people, the telephone, isha and united way of america adopted. And in both of those cases they kind of put the word out amongst their there either case of kellogg, that grantees, and in case of the united way of america, the local affiliates, that this was one of the earliest outcomes frameworks that you could potentially use not doing under do plug. But in my previous book, outcome frameworks, that was one of the things we talked about, because the idea was there were these various models, and how do they compare one to the other? And what were the pluses and minuses of all of them that had never been done before? Which is why i wrote that previous book, but the logic model truly was meant as a graphic illustration of cause and effect within a program that this input will lead to that which will lead to the third, which will lead to the fourth and hopefully get you two the the the the end point that you that you desire, the problem is it was never actually designed to be a management or tracking tool. And when organizations and there are a lot of people, very thoughtful people who do use it for this personally, i think it’s cumbersome and what you wind up with since the whole design was a flow chart, very often you wind up with all of these various lines at the doubling back on each other. So some of someone i know, okay, so we’re past that now that we’re in the outcomes toolbox, right? And why did you choose the toolbox metaphor? Kinds of the toolbox was very simple. Let’s go back to that curtain, rod, you and i, we’re going to put a human. You don’t go back to my eagle scout. No, no, i’m still sinjin. I’m going to go back. To the curtain rod, you’re not going to put up a few minutes ago without the level. Let’s say you’re putting up the curtain, ron and all the tools you had. We were craftsman. And at one point you needed that level that i mentioned and you say, bob, give me a level. Well, if the level i gave you was a stanley, would you refuse to use it? Because it was a question like all the other tools? Probably not. You would. You would use the tools at hand. Okay. In that non-profit space, most of these frameworks, our proprietary, this one belongs to ran. That one belongs to the rental of ill institute, the third one’s associated with this with this person or this institution. As a result, what traditionally happened was, let us say, a representative of that organization or the consultant came in and they would wind up basically saying to non-profits my model b a, b, c or d it’s the bass dramatic of outcome frameworks. It slices it, dices it chops, it walks the dog. It does everything. The problem is, none of them do everything. All of them do something. All of them. Do several somethings some of them do some things very well, but none of them do everything well. And so what we wound up doing was inadvertently offering them the space, a defense, eighty percent solutions to one hundred percent problems. It’s telling people, for example, that the logic model was the be all and end all was one such example. My concept is, and the reason is called the toolbox in the book, i do not care about the authorship, the ownership, the providence or anything else about any of these tools. If it works, i want you to use it, and i’m not going to tell you not to use it because you’re not using the other pieces of the same sex that’s the concept truly a toolbox reaching grab what works for you, and if you’re not oriented towards tools, think about it as a kitchen, you know, again, you know, if you have ah, you know, one brand of, you know, say, blender and another brand of you’re not going to not use them to the same meal because the different brands you’re going to use, what you need now, you’re in my space because now i mean that’s for my easy bake oven days. Okay, right. The kitchenware. That’s. What if that’s why i went there? I can see that was resonating with much more comfortable with spatulas than i am. Phillips head screwdriver. First time i used when i had to go to the emergency room that’s because you were trying to scrape a pan with. So the book has a lot of model of of these tools. Talks about, i don’t know, maybe a dozen or so. Some of the simplest ones are you get what you measure results based accountability, even one from mckinsey and company capacity assessment tool. But maybe not those necessary. But a lot of the tools in the toolbox do emanate from corporate outcomes. Measurements. Some of the some of the latter ones. A lot of, you know, there’s. A lot of what are what? No. Why is it translatable? I mean, from for-profit enough, for-profit you know, a lot of times not-for-profits community is worried about things that come from corporations. Yeah, with peter drucker. Except for money. Then i will write a cz investigators investors. But but now there is that fear. What were some of the lessons peter drucker made the comment that non-profit should be run more like business. And everyone thought that, you know, he was he was the prostate, and he was ah, heretical and my god, you know, corporations of big, nasty things. And after all we care, you know, we were the non-profit sector. The truth of the matter is that no one is more interested in outcomes in the corporate world. Now they tend to call the court that their outcomes profitability, market share, etcetera. But the idea is they’ve been leading the way literally since, you know henry ford was putting model tease out of on assembly line, there are tools, for example, like six sigma, there are tools eichsteadt saying, sabat against there are tools like six, six, six sigma six sigma. The question is, what the hells of sigma and where the six of them that’s explained in the book it’s basically a measure of quality. All right, six sigma focuses on how many failure rates are there per million opportunities to fail. I mean, you don’t really have to get into that, but the concept is it has some key insight something for example, like t q m t q jargon jail. Oh, ok, you know, you know, take your total quality, man. You know, i didn’t know what i mean. That’s what a quantum! And i’m not gonna go lock myself in georgian jail. What it means is critical to quality most non-profits when they’re designing a programme, do not ask this question, as the corporate world does with corporal world is launching and launching an effort one of the first things under six six but they would do is say, what is the most critical part of this that we need to have? If a non-profit were to adopt that kind of that kind of concept and that kind of analysis, it could go very, very far towards helping them focus on the most important parts of a program, the key things that they absolutely must have. But this is a a perspective that is very often far into the non-profit space, but very, very built into the corporate space, particularly using something like six sigma, i see a future masters degree in non-profit outcomes engineering yet it’s perfect, exactly there’ll be exactly well, but when we have maybe a moment, so we can talk about something called serve qual, which they use in pizza hut, if you imagine, think a tool from pizza being used in the non-profit space now that’s the that’s the suggestion that we talked about, regrettably, we’re out of moments right of moments, but the lesson is don’t be fearful of what comes from the non-profit from from the for-profit sector because these are all important, easily quantified things that corporations are focusing on, like earnings per share in a quarter, right? Exactly. And how do you get there? What do you need to do to get there? The book is the non-profit outcomes toolbox, a complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results published by wally wiley and sons, you’ll find robert penn is blogged at outcomes, outcomes toolbox, dot com robert, thank you very much for being on the show. Pleasure. Thank you very much for having it was a pleasure and enjoyed immensely. Thank you. Very valuable interview and and a really valuable book. That non-profit outcomes. Toolbox. I got to start sending live listener love because we have in studio love. It’s. Incredible. My sister in law, christi weber. My niece by marriage. Morocco. Weber. My father in law, which also happens to be by marriage, pete drum, live in the studio, it’s. Unbelievable friends, jason kapoor and mark silverman, friends of mine from here in the city, and i, a visitor from from baden hyre, germany. Julia lights, julia, guten tag, all live listeners, all in the studio. At this moment, of course, we’ve got live listeners around the world, including kandahar, afghanistan, which is where my nephew is listening from shout out to him in afghanistan. Right now, we take a break when we come back. Tony’s, take two, and then amy sample ward, optimize your social profiles hanging there. They didn’t think that shooting, getting dink, dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get me anything. Nothing. Cubine 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 free 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. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re going invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Durney 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. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent let’s ah, let’s, move into tony’s, take two this week on my blogged is let’s help a non-profit listener listener matt from minnesota, centene emailed me a question that his office was having a problem with seems that about six thousand of their end of year appeal letters went out asking people for the wrong donation amount because the spreadsheets or the query didn’t quite line up on dh. It had incorrect previous year’s donation amounts, so a fifty, dollar donors from two thousand twelve was said in the letter to have given fifteen hundred and was asked for a two thousand dollar gift when something more like seventy five or one hundred would have been appropriate and that went out about six thousand people. So matt was wondering, what do you think we should do? And i’ve got a bunch comments on the blogged from people around the country offering advice, and you can give your advice. Also, most of the comments run along the lines of send a very contrite letter, you know, apologize very explicitly and say that you’re taking steps so that it never happens again and that, you know, we value every donor. We’re very sorry and please don’t stop supporting us that’s the way most of the comments run, but you can give your advice to matt in minnesota, the post is called let’s help a non-profit listener and it’s on my block at tony martignetti dot com. I also want you to know that i’m going to be at bebe con this coming monday. The thirtieth of september b become is the blackbaud conference it’s going to be at the gaylord conference center outside washington, d c i’ll be there all day monday, doing interviews for the show got interviews lined up on mobile giving e-giving tuesday, which is a hashtag on twitter e-giving getting different society level gif ts building a fund-raising board fraud protection and a bunch more amy sample ward will be there as well. I’ll be talking to her as if we don’t talk to her enough, but she’s going to be there be becoming also, and i’m giving away some consulting time on monday. Two hours there’s two different ways to win one hour of consulting time you can either ah tweet on using the hashtag non-profit radio on monday and if you do that, you’ll be entered into a contest, and the other way is if you’re at the big con, come to the stage where i’ll be doing the interviews on the exhibit floor and drop your business card in the bowl and i’ll select a business card at the end of the day and one of you a tte. The conference will win a free hour of consulting it’s your choice can have either plant e-giving consulting or charity registration. Two different ways to win i’m giving away on our of sorry two hours of free consulting on monday, so have to either see you would be become or see your tweets using the hashtag non-profit radio, and that is tony’s take two for friday, twenty seventh of september thirty eighth show of the year. I’m always privilege to welcome amy sample ward back she’s, the ceo of the non-profit technology network, and ten her most recent co authored book is social change anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement her block is amy sample, ward, dot or ge and she’s at amy r s ward on twitter. Welcome back, amy, thanks for having me, you sound terrific, you’re you’re in toronto, on skype, right? I am. Can you hear me? Ok, actually, yes, sounds very, very good, actually sounds almost sort of studio quality. You must be in a nice, quiet room. What were you doing in toronto? I i’m not. I’m actually in a hallway, but i’m glad it soon. Good. I’m here for our test interactions with the conference yesterday, and a lot of it was a lot of fun, actually, people from all different sides of the non-profit technology, a topic coming together and a lot of a lot of case studies sharing what they have been working on, things like that, okay? And, uh, you want to share one thing that is memorable for you so far from the conference. I was really excited how many people were there ready to talk about data, not as a like idea, but people saying, oh, so we’ve been measuring x and we have seen this trend have you seen it? You know, and really jumping into commerce stations with the expectation that everyone else was also really looking at their impact, really trying to quantify what they were doing and, you know, share their tips or commiserating in some failures together. Cool sounds like a lot of valuable cross talk, all right? Yeah, i guess you’re going from toronto to washington area for b becomes yes, exactly. Okay, we’ll talk about that a little later. I know i’ll be seeing you there, but we want to talk about today optimizing your social profile. So we’re getting a little a little a little tactical today. Sometimes we’re sometimes were strategic and little, well, theoretical, but always valuable, but today would be a little tactical. Um, wait, we got to keep our social profiles, whether it’s, facebook, twitter, these have to be aligned with our work. How do we how do we make sure we’re doing that? Well, it’s, you know, i think a lot of people start from this place where they have heard that, you know, social channels, all these social profiles are an opportunity to extend their brand or you really make themselves visible out there. And so that here these kind of jargon, jail type phrases and think, oh, great, so we just put up a facebook page and, you know, put slap our logo on it, just like our website. Excuse me. Hey, but in reality, that’s not what? Extending your branded but also doesn’t match what’s happening there. It isn’t a good representation of your mission. So how can those channel really serve that goal? Well, think about it. Not just and here’s your logo and your profile picture, but who are the people behind your organization or who had that? Supporters? You know, how do you how do you let those social channels? The social, but also really clear photos, text, etcetera. You could explain just what you do, you know, it’s an opportunity. All the webs, you know, website like present that different but targeted across across the web. You know what i think about organizations that do kind admission direction well, you, whatever channel you’re on, you know, it’s, but it feels different each one feels like, you know, a different room in the same house, you know, the living room is maybe still the same style of the people that lived there, but it has more couches and maybe a fireplace, and then you go into the kitchen and again, maybe same style of the people that lived there, but this is where, you know, there’s more lights, there’s, a bunch of cookery, etcetera. So so how how do you make that on the different social profiles will, first of all, don’t forget that they’re trying to help you. You know, you don’t want to try and hide all of the different components of that facebook page, for example, let those pieces be there because people on facebook, i expect them to be there used them to your advantage, you know, you don’t and feel the furniture out of every room where all the way across the house really put, you know, make those counters. The best darn couch is, they could be in the living room, even though maybe there you’re branded colors and they met kayman uniform makes sense, but before and even before you start there, i mean, you have to take a look at which channels you should even be in, you know? You’re talking about a lion with where your people are, you know, you you have to know that and what we’re just what sites are appropriate for your for your work and your people exactly, and some of that, you know, i’m always surprised when i think data is important and helpful and valuable, and if you can look at data to say, oh, wow, you know that the demographics of these certain tools or that you know, our our community, probably there that’s only one side of the equation just because you may have a bunch of, you know, parents between the ages of thirty six and forty five in your community, it doesn’t mean that they necessarily want to be engaging with your programs and content on facebook just because demographically, they’re probably on facebook, they maybe see facebook is a, you know, a place to go share photos of beds with their parents. You know what? It’s nine o’clock at night and they’ve finally gotten tohave happen our to themselves, they don’t want to. Spend a half hour with you, you know, maybe there’s a different channel for your for engaging with your community beyond just what the demographics say. So i think you have to also look at what is the content you even delivering just because your people, maybe you’re on twitter, the content you’re sharing with them, maybe can’t ever fit in one hundred forty characters are maybe isn’t something they’re going to pick out of their twitter street. You know anyone? Who’s just opened up twitter and let it sit there it’s just flowing by so finding a match between like you said, your community and the channel, but also your content in the channel and made it may just not make sense to be posted there. Okay, we’re going toe were to take a break on dh. Well, amy and i have ah, well, extra time today, so we’re going to keep talking about aligning your work with the social networks where you where you ought to be, how to keep consistent with the brand and even, you know, if you happen to be in a campaign, how to do that promotion successfully and when we come right back. It’ll be mohr live listener, love. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll 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 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. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lots more live listener love we’ve got listeners in moscow in chung ching, beijing and shenzhen, china, for those in china knee how? Seoul, korea, seoul always checks in always multiple people in seoul i love that anya haserot for our listeners in in korea and also tokio japan frequently have people from japan could each awhile. All right, amy, um let’s, let’s, wait, we got to get to some details here so we don’t leave people which i know concerns you as well, you know, we don’t leave people with more questions than answers, so let’s let’s get in. I mean, how do you how would you test whether twitter that’s a great example because it does go by so fast? What questions would you asked to determine whether twitter is a good platform for you? Treyz well, i mean, i think we’ve talked about this on the show before and that is try to do some research, ask people directly, you know, do you want to be engaging with us on this channel? A are you using this channel? You know, just try and get that information, but there is nothing like the empirical proof of just testing. It and, you know, setting up a profile even if it isn’t, you know, necessarily the most intense organizational profile, and you have a mess of content strategy if you just want to devote a couple weeks testing the channel tested out, see how it goes, keep track of what you’re doing, you know, organisations that have really been able to increase amount of engagement on twitter have done things like, you know, don’t just track all we put, we tweeted, and people reply just but say what time of day did the most retweets happened? Not just when did you tweet, but when we’re other people finding your content and re posting it, you know or how many times did people reply or or retweet a certain post versus another one? Okay, what was special about that content? You know, really tryingto understand the mechanics of what’s going on with the community there because, you know again, it is both the content and the people that your you have to try and match, so testing it out is the only way to really you know, prue? What? What does that what doesn’t work okay? And then, of course, you have all your analytics, the analytical tools also, exactly. Okay, let’s, talk about the profile now, since you know we’re supposed to say we’re focusing on the profile what you get let’s, keep with the twitter example, but then we’ll look at a couple others because you and i have some extra time together today twitter, twitter, your your limited number of characters you khun you can devote to your profile how how do you know what belongs in there? Upleaf well, i think what what belongs first of all is the shortest version of what you can say about your mission. Next is who it is that’s tweeting because at the end of the day, no one thinks it’s actually quote unquote your organization, they know it’s, some staff, a person or people, so call it out, make that transparent, and then leslie is including a link backto either you know what i mean to your website, but i would encourage you not to just use the home page of your website to send people to a more tailored entry, whether that’s, you know, maybe a community page where you linked to your different social profiles and then expect people to be, you know, clicking back and saying, oh, this is where you know they engage or maybe of a specific program area you want a link to but include that direct connection back to the website let’s, talk about facebook profiles. What if you have? If you’ve gone through your analytics, you determine that facebook is a suitable platform for you is what you’re goingto do on your facebook profile. It’s going to be different than twitter? I mean, it allows more media, too. Yeah, exactly. And you know it, what you do with that profile, especially on a channel like facebook where there’s, just so much content opportunity, you’re setting the tone for how you want people to engage with that page, are you? You know you have a really engaging, bright fun, you know, header, photo and and you are posting photos along with your text well, that’s encouraging the community to also pose that you know, that’s, the content they seize on the page, or are you you know, do not even have a header image, and then you just have your logo is your profile photo, and you’re just, you know, constantly posting links. To your website? Well, if that’s the nasty example no one’s going to post because they don’t have a link to your website to share, you know, you really think about it as, like here’s, the example of what you want the community to do and build it out around that which is why, you know, some of the most engaging facebook pages, the ones that have, you know, the most number of people that like it, but also consistently engaged with paige are ones that have photos of the community or, you know, photos from events that the organization has done things where people go to the page and they see it as hears that window into the programs and the impact the organization is having and of course, you want to be there. Don’t you want to be a part of the fun impact and, you know, making that mission happen? Of course, you know, on one side, we certainly think that’s what people be on our website, but they just get so heavy and bogged down with every piece of content we’ve ever created and, you know, on the social profiles we get highlights the really great engaging pieces first, here we are talking about twitter and i get a little phone quick phone alerts when i give a new twitter follower. I just got a new twitter follower as we’re sitting here talking about twitter kapin remind, you have to be my niece who’s sitting in the studio, but no would take whatever the hell we can get it. And if you want to join my niece, you khun, you can follow me at tony martignetti um, let’s let’s keep keep going because, you know, i get i get a little ah troubled, always talking about twitter and facebook. Let’s, let’s, pick another couple profile what’s, another what’s, another another site that you see non-profits spending time on and doing well and again after you’ve been through your own analytics and you’ve tested it as amy was describing, you’ve described that this other channel, which is about to talk about, might make sense for you. What? What should your profile look like on that channel? What do want talk about amy? You know, i’ve seen some non-profits re certainly really doing a great job on instagram and, you know, it’s, obviously a morning platforms so you’re not going to see, you know, on facebook, sometimes you see a big organization has, like, you know, a thousand likes on a poster on a image, and you’re just not going to have a thousand likes on your instagram photo or video, but you’re still gonna have some, you know, andi, what i think is great is that organization you’re already planning and creating this content well, you have images, and you you have what, mr graham? So, you know, each channel could be the same quote unquote, like horse, which is packaged in different ways that makes sense for that channel. So including instagram in your your list of outlets, i think it’s great a great thing to test out to try see if you have community there because it’s so unlike facebook, where if you posted, you know, multiple posts and multiple photos and one day people would, you know, get a little turned off the algorithm is hiding your post already from, you know, most of your your fans, instagram there’s, no filter, no one, you know, whatever isn’t in the cds in the feed and it’s not the kind of channel where organizations they’re saying like if you post multiple times in a day, people are getting tired of it instead they’re like oh, cool, what are you doing now? You know, because that’s, the culture of that channel is cool. What what’s the photo? What are you doing now? And just kind of scrolling through them? Okay, now you and i devoted segment not too long ago, teo tumbler so and listeners could go back and look for that. So we’ll we’ll skip tumbler, but what’s, another what’s, another site you you’d like to talk about? Same, you know, same same you know what? What should you profile be focused on? Yeah, i mean, i think one as faras like this conversation of extending your brand and really you leveraging what the components of that platform are to engage people, you’ll bring them into your content. I think youtube is super underutilized because for non-profits you can have so many of the additional youtube customization tools and components for free so you can have a totally branded youtube channel. You could have called action and your video i mean there’s just so much that non-profits they’re missing out because, you know, even if you don’t have huge, like documentaries it’s not hard to create videos, especially now that, you know we’re all we’re all create them with their phone, even so having these short pieces, whether captured at events or, you know, even like a thirty second video that says we’re about to launch a campaign tomorrow you get ready and it’s just it’s just kind of there to make people feel like they’re in the know, and they’re part of your work again because you can post it to a channel that’s totally branded you could have, like, like folders, you know, hear all the videos about this topic on people can scroll through, i think there’s a lot of potential with youtube non-profit durney kapin okay, maybe we should devote a show. Teo youtube. Okay, okay. And those folders appreciated referring teo playlists. You can have a playlist on different topics like on mind theirs. B b com twenty twelve there’s different conferences have been too there’s. One for stand up comedy, i think that’s the folders you’re referring to yet played their playlist. Okay, okay. All right. You know, since we have the luxury of time, is there one more channel? You want to. You want to talk about? Hyre no. Okay, i don’t want to just spot, okay? Okay. Because you think about it. That’s ok? We got it. We got other topics. We don’t talk about depth on channels. Um, let’s, talk about your campaign. If you happen to have a campaign, whether it’s a thirty day campaign or, you know, a more traditional sort of campaigns, you know, might last three year, three, four years, you know, some capital campaigns go on that long. How do you expose that campaign within your within these the social sites profiles? Well, and then this goes back to the earlier point about really taking advantage of the specific functionality that each platform has, you know, unique teo like with facebook because that’s leverage that is very in the example. You have two photos that you get to take advantage of. You have that big header image, but then you also have your profile photo, and again, just how you are setting the tone for the kind of engagement you want there campaigns have also been really successful at taking advantage of that profile photo and encouraging people to eat to share that and they get their own profile photo. And really spreading the campaign message or brand that way, you know, because it’s facebook makes it very easy just click on something and say, make-a-wish my probono so where, you know, on other channels, it may not be quite as easy, but you see, you see similar profile photo based campaign extensions on twitter, you know, where they have, you know, i think it’s called a women are things like that where you’re just adding kind of an image layer on top of the photo, so it has a little, you know, i’m sure you’ve seen them stars are a little banner along the bottom that says, you know, media campaign hashtag etcetera so i think that’s a really clear called action for a campaign is like, okay, today we’re launching everyone make this your profile photo, for example, andi, i think one of the most recent, very large scale example that that was the hrc campaign about turning facebook red. Okay? Ohh even write human rights campaign. Yes. Ok. Yeah. And you know beyond just the image on the on the various profiles associated to a campaign. You also have the opportunity. If you are, you say running. A campaign where you’re really encouraging engagement on twitter and you know you have a pacific campaign hashtag go edit your twitter bio to say we are running this campaign the hashtag learned more so that as people retweets your tweets and they’re like, oh, my retreated this, i’m going to check him out, they don’t open up, you know your twitter profile and see okay, you’re some organization based wherever you know, make sure that you’re you’re actually updating the profile information on the different channels when you’re running a campaign and not just the image or don’t just start posting the content, make sure that you know the profile itself when people find you explain the campaign and just your organization. It’s probably so easy to forget toe update your profile here you are doing all this multi-channel strategy around a campaign on don’t forget toa talk about it and you’re and publicizing your profiles exactly because you set the profile up, you know it’s, not something that people keep up to date and that’s that’s sort of i mean, that’s really subsumed everything everything you’re saying you got news all the time profile is not something you only look at when you set up the accountant on don’t look at it that’s all subsumed in what you’re saying, right? Okay, especially during campaign times when you’re getting in theory, hopefully a lot more new people singing your social profile. Well, they’re saying that for the first time, they want to know why. Five friends, we’re just talking about you and of all that you have is information about your general mission. Well, they don’t know why they’re friends were talking about you, you know, it’s a great place to put some of those campaign hooks and called action just in a couple of minutes. We want to emphasize something that you and i have always talked about. This is not only multi-channel online, but you’re offline strategies have to coordinate with all this as well. Exactly. So that was your if you are planning to have any direct mail pieces, you know, make sure those match up and it’s a great way to think we checked before time. Direct mail drops with when you launch things online, so send an email that says, hey, we’re going to be, you know, standing up for this campaign a couple days later and direct mail piece comes and then you know, that same day or the next day, you really launch it on social well, by the time you tweeted they’ve already seen it three times in really personal ways that got emails, they got, you know, postcards and now you posted about it on twitter there, ready to actually engage. Excellent. Okay, we have to leave that topic there. It’s time for your your first sixty second style stop. Wei had this. We’re talking. Yeah, we’re talking about either travel or leisure or food. What? What do you have? Sixty seconds. Only sixty second style stop. Oh, my goodness. Well, i was thinking about this today because i am actually traveling and my at least my personal tip is whatever i need right after i land whether it’s, my pajama or, you know, food, whatever. I put that in my like purser carryon bag because i hate feeling like i have to unpack my entire suitcase just to go to bed when i get to the hotel in the night or something, you know that way, whatever you actually need in your first few hours where you land is in the same bag outstanding. Cool. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. From the hallway in toronto. Amy sample war. Exactly. Any simple board ceo of non-profit technology network you’ll find her blah, gamey sample war dot or ge, and on twitter at amy rs ward and i’ll be seeing you on monday with your co author, alison kapin, right? Yeah, and looking forward to it. Okay, cool metoo haven’t seen you for a while. Bye, amy. I think i got some last minute live listener love new bern, north carolina, paradise valley, arizona bloomfield, new jersey and bill in court, france welcome live listener love and, of course, always to our podcast listeners podcast pleasantries, always grateful for the podcast listeners next week. Roger, matt lov and joy hunter show you are the co authors of non-profit investment and development solutions, a guide to thriving in today’s economy, and they will be with me for the hour over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities listen each week, you know how to reach me. If you’d like to talk about sponsoring the show, we’ve got one that’s going to be starting next week, early october. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer, shows social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point. Oh, the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules, and our music is by scott stein. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one to two p, m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com e-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting thinking. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. E-giving nothing. Good. Are you a female entrepreneur ready to break through? Join us at sixty body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday, said noon eastern time to learn timpson juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and defying your version of giant success with sexy body sake. Soul. Every thursday ad, men in new york times on talking alternative 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. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking dot com.

Let’s Help A Nonprofit Radio Listener

Image by Daniel Go, Creative Commons license
Image by Daniel Go, Creative Commons license

Nonprofit Radio listener Matt emailed me, asking for advice on a sensitive direct mail fundraising problem at the Minnesota charity where he is a gift officer.

Let’s help him!

With a bit of editing for conciseness, here’s what Matt says:

“We have a direct mail that just got out the door and was delivered to 6,000 donors today.

“I just received a call from a confused donor who received this letter. She has given to our organization before, but at a smaller level, but her letter said she has given a gift of $1,500 in the past and asked her to give over $2,000 to this appeal (she actually gave $50).

“Obviously, somewhere our spreadsheet that was exported out of Raiser’s Edge was in error.

“I was wondering if you have any recommendations on how to follow this up? A second letter acknowledging the mistake? Ignore the mistake? Etc.”

Thoughtfully, he asks that other nonprofits take care in their appeal mailings. He wants others to learn from his office’s mishap.

Matt and his office need help fast. They’ve got to make a decision and execute quickly. What’s your advice?

I’ll get us started, but feel free to disagree with me. Good decisions come from open dialogue.

Matt, I suggest you send contrite emails and then letters to each person whose letter is wrong. Explicitly apologize. Assure them the organization tries very hard to achieve 100% accuracy in its work and you regret that this time you fell short. Your CEO should sign the letter.

Time is of the essence. What’s your advice for Matt?

Nonprofit Radio for September 20, 2013: The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox & News Sources/New Source

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

My Guests:

Dr. Robert Penna: The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox

Robert Penna 2Dr. Robert Penna, author of “The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox” discusses the wave of reliance on outcomes measurement, and gives concrete steps and tools so that small and mid-size shops can stay ahead of the trend toward outcomes assessment. We also talk about Easy Bake ovens and my Eagle Scout project (as an example of what NOT to do). This is part 1 of our interview from a previous show. Part 2 is next week.

 

 

 

 

Maria Semple: News Sources/New Source

Maria 057 Low Res Color_crMaria Semple, our doyenne of dirt cheap and free ideas in prospect research, is also The Prospect Finder. She’s got advice for you on which news sources are best for your research, and a new free offering from The Foundation Center, “Foundation Directory Online.” Plus, her 60-Second Style Stop!

 

 

 

 

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent for friday, september twentieth i’m your aptly named host. Oh, you know that i hope you were with me last week. I’d be put through mitral regurgitation if i heard that you had missed cause marketing one oh one trish in naper, principal manager at alcoa foundation and mounir panjwani, business development manager at do something dot or ge shared tips for getting started in cause marketing and internal social networks. Scott koegler, our technology contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, explained how internal social networks compliment the external networks like twitter and facebook this week. The non-profit outcomes toolbox dr robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox, discusses the wave of reliance on outcomes measurement and gives concrete steps and tools so that small and midsize shops can stay ahead of this increasing trend toward outcomes assessment. This is part one of our interview from a previous show, and part two is going to be next week. Also, news sources new source maria simple are dyin of dirt, cheap and free ideas in prospect research and the prospect finder she’s got advice for you on which news sources are best for your research and a new free offering from the foundation center called foundation directory online, plus her sixty second style stop. We’re going tow! Try having one minute tips on style like travel, food and leisure from guests. I’ll be anxious to know what you think about these sixty second style stops between the guests on tony’s take two my block this week is planned e-giving saved our ass and also i want to tell you about bb con coming up, i’m going to be there will say a little about that got contests that’s in tony’s, take two my pleasure now to give you my interview with dr robert penna and the non-profit outcomes toolbox. My guest now is robert penna. He is the author of a complete i’m sorry, the non-profit outcomes toolbox, a complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results published by wiley and sons he’s, a consultant, and his work includes the application of corporate sector, outcome based tools and insights to the work of non-profits he’s done work for the n e casey foundation, the national geographic foundation and the ford. Foundation he’s, an adviser to charity navigator on outcomes. I’m very glad that his work and his book bring him to the studio. Robert. Welcome. Thank you very much for having pleasure to have you. Thank you for coming all the way down from albany. No problem. Live in the studio. In the studio. We hear an increasing amount of talk about outcomes, outcomes, measurement. Why is that? I would save it for basically two reasons. The ones historical. The fact is that traditionally and this goes back easily to the beginning of the last century. No one ever asked non-profits to be quite fair, no one ever asked non-profits to either show evidence of or to demonstrate that they were having an actual impact. That was sort of a field of dreams and concept. If we make it available, things must get better. And it was taken on faith that train people with good programs with enough money would bring about positive change. Nobody actually quite asked that all started to change in the late seventies and then into the eighties, and quite independently of one another in various spaces. This concept of a focus on results in outcomes. And evidence of the same started a crop up, and it began to coalesce and particularly as we are in an in an era of limited resource is it becomes more important than ever for non-profits to be able to say here’s actual evidence of what we’ve accomplished, as opposed to a story about how big the problem is or how hard we’re trying in his forward. Ken berger, president, ceo of charity navigator who’s been a guest on the show, says that measurement is a battle for the very soul of the nonprofit sector. Ah, it’s taking on that great a prominence? Yes, it is that actually that line comes from a from an article ken and i co co authored it really is because there are those apologised who honestly believe in its ah term used before a fair exchange of differing ideas who honestly believe that non-profits and their clients should not be held. Tio this kind of accountability that the concept of just making services available truly is the mission of the non-profit space and that as long as they’re doing that, they’re doing their job. The problem is that for all of the money we’ve spent thes problems haven’t gone away, and so the question is, shouldn’t we be putting our our resource is into those programs into those organizations that have proven that there having the most beneficial impact, as opposed to giving it to other places that are perhaps not being as effective? The problems are too big, and the resource is of too scarce not to do this anymore, but it truly is a battle within the sector because there are those who just don’t believe in it, and we’ll get to a little of what their arguments are, maybe obliquely only, but that some of the ideas are so nebulous that they can’t be measured that like a child feeling a more positive ah feeling about education or about going to school, sort of nebulous ideas like that, but actually, those, um, sort of feel good outcomes can be measured. Well, first off, i would argue that if an organization is focusing primarily or almost or solely on feel good outcomes, they’re rethinking what they’re doing. Number one but number two there are proxies. There are proxies in terms of attitude, in terms of behaviour, in terms of various other kinds. Of things that can be looked at and can be taken as fairly accurate measures of whether or not if what you want to changes in attitude, whether or not that attitude has changed so it can be done, and we’re gonna talk about some of the ways that non-profits get there and the way that we can measure these things, um, is the butt is the story is the non-profits story the compelling story is that is that dead? Well, it it shouldn’t be dead, but what it should be, what should happen is that should be put in its place. Okay? The idea of telling a story is not a bad one, in fact, that there’s a whole chapter in the book that talks about using narrative as opposed to just factoids, because people remember stories where they have a tendency to forget much more vivid right stories vivid. But the problem is, if the if the story first off focuses on how big the problem is and that’s all it, it focuses on, and there are a number of non-profits i won’t name any, but you could probably think of them. You get things in the mail. And they show you the picture of x, y or z and it’s always how big the problem is, when we’re telling that kind of story and that’s all we’re telling we are in a way, avoiding entirely the question of, well, what do you doing about it and what other results that you have that you have achieved so that’s one one reason why the story has to be put in his proper place? The second is, and i don’t know whether we’ll get into this today, but a lot of non-profits wind up telling the wrong story for the wrong reason and ofttimes to the wrong people so that something has to be carefully handled as well. Okay, we have just another minute before a break, what if not a named example? What do you mean? Telling the wrong story? A lot of non-profits will focus on an emotional story that will highlight, for example, a success story, and it will be about this client of that client, but inadvertently, what they’re doing is they’re focusing the attention on that client. What we don’t know is, is that story cherry picked? How representative actually, is it what they’re not talking about is thie the the work that the organization as a whole does it’s it’s, shall we say, it’s it’s, macro impact. They focus so specifically on the story of this particular client at that particular client, it becomes very easy for their overall message of what they’re doing to be lost, counterproductive in counterfeit. His book is the non-profit outcomes, toolbox, it’s, robert penna. You’ll find his blogged outcomes, toolbox, dot com, and he’ll be with me after this break, so stay with us talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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 are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect no more it’s time. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me, larry sharp your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio dot com everytime was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dahna welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio talking to robert penna about his book the non-profit outcomes toolbox right before the break, robert, we were talking about, um, for too much focus on problems. But the non-profit sectors exists to solve problems. So shouldn’t they be talking about what the problems are? Well, again, it has to be put into its proper place into its proper perspective. And this is not, you know, women, teo, bash the sector. Okay. I mean, we have to be honest and say this is a historical perspective and very early on this was how attention was brought. Tea to issues were literally going back to the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. Um, people, for example, he’d carry nation she’s well known for wanting tio bring about prohibition. Well, what she talked about was all of the ancillary downsides of alcoholism, all right, and the folk. But the focus was on drink. The focus was on people drinking too much. And the idea was they didn’t think, think it through to say, well, what’s really gonna happen. What other causes here. It was just focused on the drinks. So we had prohibition and guess what? All of those issues did not go away. The issues of broken families, the issues of domestic violence, the issues of unemployment, the issues of of poverty didn’t go away just because, well, we got rid of alcohol for those period that period of time. So part of the problem of the focus on just the problem is it tends to lead to simplistic answers because the concept is that progress is a lack of the problem when, in point of fact, really, the outcomes approach is that what you want to do is bring about some positive change that goes beyond merely an absence of the problem. So that’s one of the problems with focusing on just the problem, the second thing is that it kind of takes you off the hook if you think about it, for having to say, really what you have done to alleviate the problem or what success you’ve had in alleviating the problem. If every time i come back to you, pick an issue, homeless puppies, i come to you and i sent put something in the mail and tony, you know, look at all these starving puppies, and i say it was ten thousand starving puppies and you know it, justin in manhattan or something. That’s, a problem. And you emotionally are expected to resupply with a cheque will. Now, next year i come back and i say, well, now, there’s ten thousand homeless puppies. This still ten thousand homeless puppies will again. What it keeps focusing on is the problem. It does not focus on am i having an impact on alleviating situation. So that’s, a real son of short way of describing why that tends to be a ah sort of a circle, you know, like the snake eating its own tail. It really doesn’t get you where you need to pay. And you alluded to earlier the fact that we do still have deep seated, entrenched problems that we have been working on for generations like homelessness, entrenched poverty, etcetera. Exactly right be a hunger of broken family, you name it, these problems, or of worldwide. And so you might even get thes these appeals from any place on the globe. But it tends to in a lot of ways, i think the lead to a sense of defeat because, i mean, think about it if every single year you get the same appeal from the same organization showing the same picture of the same a person in need. The question starts to hate begs the question, well, what’s happening with my money, what we’ve been at it for so long, and we’re still seeing the same right? The one problem? One gentleman i speak speaking to someone’s ago, he runs a non-profit e program in ohio, and he said to me, well, do candy said, you know, we’ve been fighting this war on poverty for, you know, forty something years, and i’m not so sure we have anything to show for it. And part of the reason is that from the beginning, what we have to show for it was not the accent the accent was on making money available and making programs available. You’ve heard a thousand times there, the concept, the underserved community, right, which you could argue about whether they’re actually underserved enough but that’s a different story. But the question is what it seems to lead to. It leads to the implication that if you make services available, things will be better. Well, that’s not necessarily true. Just making them available, zach. Will will result in the outcome that you want exactly, and for years social investors you know, traditionally called funders, we’re investing in making services available rather than investing in change, and if you’re investing in change, then there ought to be sameer marks of the change. The whole concept of moving your your your your head away from the idea of being a thunder what’s being an investor is one of the first the first steps what’s a funder and interested in a funder, is interested in the dispersement of funds. In terms of the process, the paperwork who’s it going to what’s it being used for what’s, an investor interest is an investor and investor wants a return let’s talk about some more of the language differences that you point out not so much differences, but the important language around outcomes measurement that takes up roughly the first third of the book or so gent generally outputs versus outcomes outputs of what you do outcomes of what happens because of what you did okay example of an output and output is training class, and the outcome would be that somebody got a job by virtue of having been trained and more importantly, kept the job for a reasonable amount of time. When and this was this was rampant in the late sixties and seventies. Excuse me when thanks to largely to government, we got into being counting and compliance organisations were measured onto in terms of how many fannies their head in the seats, how many training training class they help? Well, that was great. But then it turned out in some cases people we trained for jobs that no longer existed or the training was insufficient, or there really was no placement attached to it. So we had organizations claiming success because they’ve had x number of fannies in the seats, or because they held so many training’s or the game, but someone certificates. But the end of the day was anybody hyre did anybody did anybody’s life improved? Well, don’t ask me that question when i focused on that were protest on how many training on the output not come from the outcomes spring from the outputs. Yes, yes, you need the outputs in order to get the outcomes and they have to be the right outputs. But again, if that is only just your focus is there’s a saying that a colleague of mine, a colleague of mine who wrote a book, if well, you fundez activity that’s usually all you get? Yes. Okay. All right. Impact, impact flows from outcome. What? Tell us about it and that’s down the road that’s down the road. In other words, for example, let us say that what you were talking about was bringing possible water. And this is something i was engaged in a t united nations potable water, fresh water supplies to certain kinds of villages. I was pronouncing potable. Is that okay? Potable vote on a laudable somebody made a tomato, somebody from and why you were calling correct one of us. I have to. But i was so it’s possible that anyone, when you’re with the united nations. So that’s a hyre i’m just tony martignetti non-profit radio it’s hyre hyre hyre stand. But you had a situation where okay you’re you’re bringing fresh water and now you could think of a host of reasons early on why you might want to do that. One of the more interesting ones to me was to alleviate the burden on the women and girls in the village usually whose job it is to do nothing while david hole water one of the reasons why their educational opportunities were so so stunted was because, well, gee, somebody’s got to get the water and that’s the woman and children’s job rather a woman and girls job. Well, let us say that you bring it in and let us say that some girl does get to go to school. Well, perhaps if twenty years later, when she’s an adult, she actually has a business and gets out of the out of the village, that might be an impact. But the problem with the focusing on impacts these long term impacts is very often the causal chain is extremely weak. The causal chain is broken and it’s kind of hard. Teo teo to take credit for some things. I mean, we’ve all heard the stories of the head start program that’s taking credit because thirty five years later, one of their graduates became the head of some, you know, ceo of some company. Well, you know, thanks, snusz because back in nineteen forty seven, he was with us in today’s end of a corporation. I don’t know about that, but i honestly would say impacts agreed to have these are the kinds of things you see in mission statements and vision statements, the long term impacts, what organizations need to do is figure out how to translate those things into measurable, achievable, significant, meaningful outcomes. Okay? And shortly, we’re gonna talk about the outcome statement and contrast it with the mission statement and talk about what the elements are and how to get to ah, no a ah, a proper and and viable outcome statement. So yeah, and and just around impacts you say in the book impacts or what we hoped for, outcomes are what we work for. We’ve talked about that means your outcomes or what you’re working toward the impact of the the longer term we we we talked about funder donorsearch versus investor, anything else you want to say about the about? Maybe non-profits looking at themselves as invest, ese. Well, that’s, that’s a very good point. I mean, when someone gives you a gift christmas gift. Okay, now we’ve all had the relative who gives us something. And then every once a while checks oh, yeah? Are you using it? You? Have you been? Did you like the sweater? Most people that give you a gift, they hope you like it, but they really don’t have any kind of control. Now. My grandmother used to give me cash. She would slip me cash in by hand like a handshake, and she would always say, spend it like you earned it. My grandmother never did that. You didn’t know i’m sorry. You know, my grandmother borrowed but no that’s, um, we’re not related event starting now, but the idea is when someone gives you a gift really the in most cases, the strings got, you know, the the very there, the influence they have over the use of that gift, et cetera. Well, the problem is, when you think of yourself, if you’re a non-profit as a grantee of donor of a donation or giving, okay, the implication that the onus is on you to deliver something back to that to that donor to that investor is i like to use use the term is much less clear than if you see them as investors and you see yourself as an invested because right from the start from the basic language, what we’re making clear is that you owe them a return investments give returns exactly. And so the mindset shifts that i mentioned before the first one is moving from the concept of thunder to investor. The second is moving from the concept that what we’re investing in is the provision of services opposed to we’re investing in change. And then what are those changes and how do you define them? And the third thing is that we are going to be satisfied with an account of activity as opposed to actual evidence of results, performance and effectiveness thes air three crucial mindset shifts that the space has to eventually and will adopt, and the sooner non-profits get on this, the better off they’ll be. You quote stephen covey saying, it is incredibly easy to be very busy without being very effective. Well, we’ve always have seen those people who can, you know, go to the office in the busy all day, and at the end of the day, what have they actually accomplished? And the answer is, you know, not a heck of a lot and that’s, you know, that’s, the wife, i’m with robert pennant he’s, the author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Let’s, talk a little about the outcome statement versus the how does it contrast with the mission statement? The well, mission statements of very often pie in the sky and aspirational mean they ought to be yes, and an inspirational okay, okay, but the idea is that the idea that we’re going to solve a problem in our time, we’re gonna end poverty. We’re gonna end homeless. Is thies air the kinds of things that you very often see working their way into? Ah, emission statement or vision statement. The problem is that how do you then actually turn around and effectuated if you basically go to an investor and they said, what do you know what we’re going to? We’re going to end and homelessness well, you’re probably not. So when you don’t, what do you could do? You come back and say i failed an outcome statement is based upon a couple of key characteristics that good outcomes have among those are all right. It’s, meaningful it’s not a cosmetic change. It’s sustainable that’s. A very, very important one, right? It’s achievable. All right, there’s. An old statement. Everyone talks about the weather. No one does anything about it. Why? Because global warming aside, it’s. Tough to do anything about the weather. All right, but if you ah, couch your your goals in not slam dunks you want, they want them to be doable with a stretch. You clearly want to push yourself. All right. But the idea is that you want it to be something that can be achieved in your lifetime on dh something that can be measurable. The sustainable part is particularly crucial. I think of my involvement. I’m a lifelong scout on fifty. Eight years old and your first join the boy scouts when i was ten kayman eagle scout well, i never made it that i was in the order. The arrow you want? Ditigal oh, no, no, no it’s different. But i have a son who was in the order of the arrow and he’s an eagle scout like vicarious thrills. But we i remember ah, project where are we going to clean up a lot. And tha this lot had been used as a dumping ground. The scouts came in and we weed whackers and rakes and tree pruners. And we’re trying to look like a park who had done right and we congratulate ourselves. Up, up, up we all went home in that night’s peace. Somebody dumped a refrigerator. It wasn’t a sustainable achievement because we didn’t have the facility for either blocking it office, stopping people from dumping again. So the concept has to be again in terms of a good outcome, one of the characteristics and aki one is this concept of sustainability, but again, to go back to your question about the difference between a mission statement of vision statement and an outcome statement a lot. Of organizations all right have a tough time differentiating in the book i refer to ah, vision approach. You may recall the book in the book, i had a picture of some futuristic city, teo illustrate that my belief is that mission statement envision statements are both great things that good ideas, they’re visionary, they belong up on the wall, but they don’t belong in terms of you every day action plan, they’re different from an action plan it’s the difference be between having the long term goal of i wanted to be fit. I want to be trimmed and having an actual diet that you’re that you’re following. All right? Um, you know, there are numerous examples we could weigh could point to okay, i’m realizing now, since we’re talking about since i’m talking about being an eagle scout, i’m really you know, i didn’t measure the the outcomes of my eagle scout project, which was teo. Make sure that address is street addresses were visible to emergency services in my little town of altum panned new jersey, which had maybe three thousand homes or so, so we looked at every home and where there wasn’t a visible address. From the street that a policeman or fireman or the ambulance could find could see it easily. We left a note in the in the mailbox, and the note was signed by the police chief, the fire chief and the head of the angelus score. But that’s just that’s just activity. I don’t know what the outcome’s were. I don’t know if more lives were saved police response times, we’re reduced fire response times are reduced. That would have been right that would come into the out moment. And what? And if you had done the eagle project as an outcome, you know, an outcome based thing that was specifically the kinds of things that you would have wanted to look at. Now that was response time reduced, you know, i don’t know anything is dramatic, is we’re lives saved, but certainly were response times reduced. You could even you could even have done it as looking at things like ups, you know? Did ups have fewer lost deliveries because they were brought to the wrong home? All right, i have thiss factual case up in albany way way. Have to hold on your case. Feeling bad about my eagle project from thirty five years ago. This is tony martignetti tony martignetti non-profit radio we have to take a break after the break. We’ll be tony’s take two for two minutes and then i’ll return with robert penna. Stay with us now. We were going into a break. I’ll have the second half of that interview next week. You could tell you know he didn’t hey didn’t like that. I said i was an eagle scout and then he said he wasn’t an eagle scout. So that’s why, i think that’s ah that’s reflecting now, that’s. Why the bashing of my eagle scout project? That was a good project that i’m i got i got raves from the first aid core and the fire department in town. I remember that was a good project. All right, yes, we go away. I’ll have some live listening love. We got lots of live listeners tony’s take two and then maria simple she’s in the studio news sources. New source. Stay with me for all that they didn’t think the tubing getting ding, ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternative network get in! Dahna duitz 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. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz durney 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. I’ve got live listener love nashville, tennessee i don’t know if you’ve been with us before nashville. Welcome new york, new york and new york, new york couple people from right here in the city and los angeles, california. Welcome live listener love to all of you. We also have someone masked in the us there’s someone else at least one of the person in the u s maybe it’s, the national security agency. I don’t know, i can’t tell, but you’re out there live listener love to all of you moving out to asia. Always lots of loyal listeners in asia, none ing china and guangzhou china ni hao and also happy mid autumn festival hope. Hope you did you save me some moon cake? I would love for you to send me some moon cake, if you will if we’ll make the trip over malaysia, we can’t tell what city maybe it’s kuala lumpur maybe not. But malaysia live listeners love to you. Welcome. And seoul, korea anya haserot will have mohr. Lots of live listener love time for tony’s. Take two. Last week i had a client tell me planned e-giving saved our ass. It’s. Exactly what? They said, and save them from what in four of the past six years planned giving saved them from shortfalls in unrestricted giving unrestricted cash planned giving got them to goal in those four years, including, of course, the recession and that’s, because the vast majority of plan gif ts and you would expect at least seventy five percent sometimes as high as ninety percent of all your planned gift doesn’t matter what kind of mission you have to be bequests and most bequests are unrestricted gif ts so that as you build your program, you gettinto lots of wills, and i’m just talking about will bequests in will’s not any of the other other many types of plant gifts just talking about wills as you get into more and more of those. The fact is that people pass away irrespective of the state of the economy, whether we’re in a recession, whether stock market is high or low, people pass away, and those requests that are in those people’s estates represent a lot of unrestricted cash for you. Not that you khun budget for it that’s unwise. But as your plan giving program grows, there will be revenue from bequests each year. And i say a lot more about that. On my blogged at tony martignetti dot com. Also going to be at bebe con on september thirtieth, this’s the blackbaud conference it’s at the gaylord convention center in maryland. And we’re running some some contests while i’m there. I’m going to be there interviewing for this show, doing about fifteen or so interviews. And i’ll be on stage on the exhibit floor, but they set up stage for for metoo podcast from and the contests are that i’m giving away two hours of consulting teo either people who were at the show or who are on twitter that day so you can tweet live that day, september thirtieth, and you have a chance to win or if you’re at bebe con, you can you can enter to win and there’s more about all of that on my block. Also a tony martignetti dot com there’s, a post devoted to be become twenty thirteen that’s coming up on the thirtieth of september and that is tony’s take two for friday, twentieth of september thirty seventh show of the year maria simple she’s in the studio today she’s the prospect find her you know, her he’s, a trainer and speaker on prospect research fact she spoke today we’re going to talk a little about that. Her website is the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now she’s our doi end of dirt, cheap and free you could follow maria on twitter at maria simple welcome to the studio. Maria. Hey, tony. Good to see you in person. I know it’s. A pleasure, it’s a it’s. A bigger pleasure than usual to have you here. Have you hear? Face-to-face you did a little speaking gig today. What was that in the city? Ah, yes. So wilmington trust hosted some of their non-profit clients and colleagues and had an opportunity teo, to do a topic on prospecting on a shoestring budget. So it was a lot of fun as our die. And you’re the perfect person for that. What was what were what was a question? That you got any common questions or ah one that you hear a lot that you want to share? Probably one of the common questions was just sort of related to, you know, what are the resource is that i typically would go to and is it worth paying for? The resource is, you know, people always want to know is always good to just use the free resource is or sometimes should we be paying for them? So and i had a chance to to talk about the new foundation center’s project that we have, which we’re talking about today, so that was good that we were able, teo dovetail that in you and i have talked a lot about free resource is, of course, as i said, you know, a couple times you are doing end of dirt cheap and free. Um, do you think you’re do you think you’re really hindering your program if you’re only relying on free resource is well, what i think you’re doing is you’re probably spending a lot more time staff time on trying to hit a number of different research resource is, whereas ah lot of the fee based resource is will compile a bunch of things under one and so on what you’re what you’re not spending on resource is you probably are expending on staff time unless you have a volunteer doing your research. Ok, ok, go let’s, talk about our some of new sources that with news sources that we talked about and then well, later on, we’ll get to the new source. The foundation center thing. Yeah. You have advice about newspapers? Yeah. So of course, one of the things that you want to be able to do is sort of keep on top of what’s going on in your local economy what the local business owners air doing, for example, who the movers and shakers are. And then certainly, as you’re doing reactive research, that means you have a name of somebody you’re looking to research. One of the sources that you definitely want to check out is news sources. So i generally will try and check out newsreel ated to where they live a cz their primary residents. But if they’re snowbirds, so for example, if you have somebody from the northeast and they spend their winters in palm beach, eso you would want to be able to check out well, what are they doing? Philanthropic lee there. Okay, cool. So you know where they’re where they’re located in you? Then you look for local news sources. You just searched the newspapers in the vicinity. Is that well? That that’s. Definitely one way of doing it. I love using, as you know, libraries. And, you know, i’m a huge proponent of our library systems. And so, in fact, if you did have that snowbird down in palm beach, i you can go to the palm beach county library. And they have magazines and newspapers that you, khun research online for free. So they will include the local re newspapers for palm beach area. And even if you’re not a cardholder, they will give you a temporary pass. A research passed to be able to research their sources. So it’s fantastic. You can get that online. Yeah. Get the free research past online and be anywhere in the country. I believe so. Yes. So you just there’s. Ah, button. You click and you just request it. And so it would give you access to those newspapers if that’s indeed where your prospect was living for temporarily do you have ah, earl for since ah, approaching winter and palm beach is a popular snowbird place. Yeah, well, it’s, palm beach county, p, b, c library dot or ge is thie site. You want to go to bbc library dot or ge? Okay, you could put that on facebook page for sure. Okay. Um, okay, interesting. So, what is the advantage to going to the library? Is it because they they’re aggregating versus trying to find the sources on your own? So going through a library resource is going to mean you’re not going to pay for the full article. So very often, if you go directly to a news source, what they’ll allow you to do in a lot of cases is to do the search to come up with a set of list of search results, but then you won’t be able to see the full article without paying for it. Whereas if you go through the portal of a library, you typically will be standing are doi in-kind now it zoya i said, like, five times already today, we’re not even family it’s, very smiths. Incredible. Well, you know, your shoe string budget, right? So you’ve got to be able teo to figure out a way to access news sources and not paying arm and a leg for them. Go through the library so you don’t pay for your feet. Content? Excellent. I’m definitely include that we i post takeaways now on facebook page on dh. That will definitely be one of the one. The bullets. Excellent one. Is there something else you want to add about this? No. Okay. Okay. Um, now, are there fee based places that you can find local news sources? Yeah. I mean, there are and i would say for for the most part, though, non-profits that are doing research on more localized basis unless you’re really looking to get into international research, right? Sew something like it used to be called dow jones interactive. I can’t remember what they switched teo, but that news source, for example, will be able to scan newspapers worldwide. And in case you do have, i could see you in more of a college or university setting where they may have alum living all over the world, and they have to be able to see what’s going on in those sources. But i think for the for the average, your audience, the other ninety five percent who might be more local you khun definitely do that. Of course, you’re your listeners who are overseas would want to take advantage of some of that, so you can definitely google news resource is fee based news resource is, and you’ll come up with some alternatives to looking on a paid basis. Okay, now we have just about a minute before we go away for a couple minutes. This presumes that you confined addresses on people or at least if not an address a locale. Teo, how do you how do you find those locales? What do you get that well in? In a lot of cases, when i’m doing my research, for example, i will be told that somebody might have a second home somewhere else. So during the course of my research, i know to be looking for that piece of information. S oh, if i know they have a secondary piece of property in another state, i’m always trying to find out what the news sources are and checking out what they might be doing. Philanthropic lee. Sometimes they’re participating in golf tournaments, galas and so forth, so it’s, kind of good to know what they’re supporting when they are doing their their snow birding, right, okay, because you can help find the vicinity. All right, we’re gonna have a lot more on this on dove course. Also, maria’s, sixty second style. Stop at the very end, so hang with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Buy-in 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 countries. People be better business people. 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. Time. 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. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Dahna with the prospect finder maria simple, and we’re talking about news sources, and then we’re going to get to a new source shortly. Maria, this part of the value of this is if you find that someone works in a place that’s different than where they’re living, right, so then you’d want to be doing this local local news search in both places. Yeah, i think that would be very valuable, you know, especially when you’re talking about metropolitan areas where you’ve got people commuting on hour or more to get to work. S o they might be doing some philanthropic efforts in the locale where they work as opposed to where they live because they well, the commute is so long, so yeah, absolutely. The’s online research access cards that you can you can sometimes get. Do they have ah, limit to how long is that for a day pass? Or how does that work? Well, ahh, yeah. I mean, they all have different rules around them, so you would definitely check out with the individual library. But for the new sources that i typically will be searching and and that search is actually a lot of newspapers across the country i go through my local county library, i have my county library card. It has a bar code on the back of the card, and that barcode is what allows me the access to being able to search things like a pro quest, which is a new stand that’s available online and another one news bank, which is available online. So again there it’s it’s, searching across multiple newspapers across the country, but that’s that’s mostly in a situation where i i i’m not entirely sure where people might be residing elsewhere, but if i know where they are, then i will definitely go straight to that newspaper of the town where they’re spending other time. And you and i have talked about this before the value of having a local library card like you’re talking about. You use your local library? Absolutely. It gives you access. Yeah. You’re saying so? Yeah. Lots of sites that yeah, and you don’t even need to be, you know, on site at the library to do the research. You anywhere. You have an internet connection, you can be doing the research. So that may be money. Well spent just on a local library card. Knowing that you could get ah, access. Yeah, well, if it’s your local library card, you won’t have to spend any money at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so long stuff had one. But if you if you find that your your local or county library does not have a good card, another source to think about is your alma mater. Because sometimes your universities and colleges will allow you access. Teo to resource is online. And another alternative is you can buy a library card. Ah, if you if you live outside that county or region, some libraries will allow that to happen. So in the fees range hundred to two hundred dollars. Okay. And if and if it’s a place that’s. Ah, popular spot for your your prospects. That may be money well spent. Absolutely. Local library. Yeah. Excellent tip about, um, it’s. Amazing about your alma mater. Another way, another backdoor way. Teo, get library access. Yeah, right. Cool. All right, let’s, move to the foundation center. They have something called fbo. They’re calling fto free foundation directory online on dh. You checked it out for us? Yeah, i did. So, of course. Staying with our sort of library theme, right? So foundation center, very specific library on doing donorsearch research on dh, whether you’re doing the search at the foundation centers library in manhattan or and any of their cooperating collections, you may be aware that they have fto foundation directory online, which is a fee based resource that they make available for free through the library’s. However, what they have now done is they have basically taken a portion of that data base and made it available, or certain search functionalities across the board available for free through a link on their website. So you don’t even have to be in one of the co operating collections. Okay, excellent. And what does it? What does it offer this this limited free service, right? So i did. I definitely found, you know, some some pros and cons. So what do you want? First, the pros of the calls start with the positive. Okay? Absolutely. Okay, pro it’s free, right? So i have to promote that for sure. Andi, i think i find that it was good for both reactive and proactive research. And we’ve talked about that before. Reactive. You’ve got the name of a prospect? Proactive, you’re just in there trying to find some new prospects. I loved the fact that you had access to researching the entire nine nineties. The text of irs nine nine text searchable its search text of the nineties is searchable, right? Do you know if guidestar they’re popular nine ninety site, do they do they have that feature? I think they might have that feature as well, but this is the first time that i’m seeing foundation center making that available for free. That’s, right? Well, oh, yeah, i don’t know if guides to write, i may be confusing. I don’t know if guide star has nine nineties of foundations yeah, they d’oh, d’oh, d’oh, andi. Also, what you can do is you’re getting a glimpse of the fto product, right? So you’re getting a glimpse says to because you’ll get a certain amount of data that you can get for free and then as soon as you go to try and do a little bit more, it’ll say, well, you need to be a subscriber, so at least it gets you in the mode of understanding how to use the tool and do the research and then and then, you know, you could decide either subscribe on a monthly basis and at what? They have various levels of subscription, or go to the local cooperating collection and used their source there. And then you can use it for free. Absolutely. Latto one of cooperating court. Cooperating collections. Yeah. So those were the real pros that i found let’s. Give the what’s the girl for this. Ok, so the girl for this is fbo dot foundation, center, dot or ge? Okay, i do love thee, even even if it’s even if it’s available elsewhere. I just i love that keyword search of nine nineties. Yeah, it’s. Really, really cool, eh? So what i did was i did a little test of the keyword search. First of all, just like you would be doing a keyword search on google if you had a phrase you want to make sure that you’re putting quotation marks around anything that’s a phrase, right? So i was testing it for the phrase foster care i was trying to see. Well, who are the funders that might come up funding foster care and you can also narrow it down by st. Right? So i did a search for who was funding foster care in new york and came up with a bunch of foundation hits, so then i thought, well, let me see if this really worked. So i went into a few of the nine nineties, and i searched for the word foster inside of thie nine ninety and lo and behold, there it wass and it appeared as one of the grants that they had made was for funding foster care. Excellent. Excellent. Now, if you don’t use those quotes, you might end up with it’s on foster brooks. So the comedian who used to play a drunk, actually what i what what had happened was i did the search without putting the quotes first, and i got a ton of hits and i couldn’t believe it and i thought, something’s wrong here what had happened was they picked up on embedded in the nine nineties companies that were foundations that were invested in foster wheeler as a company. Ok, so i thought, okay, so i’ve got to refine it further and once i re ran the search with foster care in quotes, then i got better hits. Excellent love this love the keyword search. Okay, yeah, that was great anymore. You want to say positive before we get to the what you saw some problems with? Um, no. Go ahead. Okay, good. What do you have on the downside? So, on the downside, you know, some fields are definitely fi base to research. And i think the biggest downside of all was that you could not export the results so you could not come up with that list of foundation hits and and download them to a spreadsheet to have something that might be very share a bowl with other staff for board members before you decided to do this research and behind the food that’s behind the export. So you have to take notes? Yeah. Yeah. You have to take notes, or yeah, you could construct the spreadsheet yourself. I’m sure, but okay. I just kind of found that that might be a con, but as i said, you know, you can definitely go on a monthly subscription or use it at the cooperating collection. Okay. That the only downsides? Yeah. I found more pros and cons. Actual. Excellent. All right, cool. I was like, i love the foundation. Center for people here in new york. It’s it’s right on the lower fifth of it, i think it’s at sixteenth street and at all the cooperating collections. Not only is it free to use, but they you are very generous with showing you teaching you how to use it. The librarians are there and they will spend as much time as it takes. And it really doesn’t take much because it’s a pretty simple system i ous i recall teo teo use but the librarians are very generous with their help. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, cool. Let’s. See we we’re going. We’re going toe, i guess. Wrap up. I asked er i asked you for a sixty second style stop. What do you s o? We’re opening this too. You know things like travel, leisure, food, what’s your just sixty seconds what’s your what’s, your what’s, your style stuff. So i decided to pick the topic of travel for and there’s a fabulous website and mobile app called hop stop dot com and i had to use it today. As a matter of fact, i need to figure out how to get from my location in midtown to your studio here and it told me exactly which subways i had to take to get here. Is it only for public transportation hub? Stop no, you can. You can select to be told how to walk to a location, how taxi and approximately what the taxi might cost. So you you’ve got a lot of different options that you can play around with and yeah, it’s pretty cool. I see people using hop stop dot com. My objection is that when they’re new york, if you live in new york, if you live in new york, i don’t think you should be using hop. Stop. I think that’s cheating. I think you’re supposed to use the other tools that are more difficult. It’s just it’s a part of living in new york. You’re supposed to do it the hard way, not the hop stop where you’re supposed to get the apse that the empty a the metropolitan transit authority has, you know, they use a map that from the subway token from the token booth, if you have to go paper, i just object to residents using hop stop. But if you’re visiting someplace hop stop is really cool. Perfect. We got some last minute live listener look that maura liberation last minute live listener love japan! I never want to leave you out tokyo, sugisaki, yokohama sutjipto or sugito? I’m not sure konichiwa to our japanese live listeners where’s, north carolina today in the u s didn’t north carolina and check in miree simple, thank you very much for coming to the studio. Thanks for having me always it’s a special pleasure today, as i said, you can find maria on twitter at maria simple and you’ll find her blawg her sight at the prospect finder dot com next week. I have part two of the non-profit outcomes toolbox, no more berating my eagle scout project, but we do mention easy bake ovens, so you wantto you want to listen for that? Remember easy bake ovens. I’m going way back like foster brooks references from thirty years ago, you got to keep up. Also, amy sample ward is back, our social media contributor and the ceo of non-profit technology network has tips for optimizing your profiles to boost your search results and stay consistent with your mission, and she will have a sixty second style stop. I’m interested in what you think about that little nufer teacher, do you have a sixty second style stop? I’ll i’ll share yours if you got one you want to use, you hit me on facebook or or twitter or even on my block does contact page. Let me know what you think. I’ll let you know if you have one you want to share over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities, the other ninety five percent listen each week you know how to reach me. If you want to talk about sponsoring the show and we have a sponsor starting in october, be welcoming them. Our creative producers claire meyerhoff sam legal, which is our line producer, shows social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point oh, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules our music. Listen to that bye, scott stein. I hope you’ll be with me next friday one to two p m eastern. I’ll be here in the studio. I hope you will be listening. Live one, two, two eastern at talking alternative dot com e-giving didn’t think that shooting the good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get a drink. Cubine are you a female entrepreneur? Ready to break through? Join us at sixty body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday said. Known eastern time to learn timpson. Juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and defying your version of giant success with sexy body sake. Sold every thursday ad men in new york times on talking alternative that calms. 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. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. 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