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Kami Griffiths, Karen Lincoln, & Alicia Orozco: Digital Inclusion Furthers Impact
More people than you’d expect don’t have home access to the internet. This has implications for those you want to help. Our panelists from the 2016 Nonprofit Technology Conference have each made digital inclusion a priority, and they share their wisdom. Kami Griffiths leads the Community Technology Network; Karen Lincoln is from The Stride Center; and Alicia Orozco is with the Chicana Latina Foundation.
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We start with the basics, then move into goals and metrics. Finally, colleague engagement, so you’re not alone making your plan and executing. Diane Leonard is president and owner of DH Leonard Consulting.
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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’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to endure amblyopia if i saw that you missed today’s show digital inclusion furthers impact more people than you’d expect don’t have home access to the internet. This has implications for the people you are trying to help. Our panelists from the twenty sixteen non-profit technology conference have each made digital inclusion a priority, and they share their wisdom. Kemi griffiths leads the community technology network karen lincoln is from the stride center, and alicia orosco is with the chicana latina foundation and your annual grants plan. We start with the basics, then move into goals and metrics. Finally, colleague engagement. So you’re not alone making your plan and executing it. Diane leonard is president and owner of d h leonard consulting attorneys take two, mohr ntcdinosaur goes responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We b e spelling dot com here is our panel on digital inclusion welcome. To tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntc non-profit technology conference in san jose, california, at the convention center, i guess now are camby, griffiths, karen lincoln and alicia roscoe. Cam e is executive director of community technology network she’s seated next to me. Hoexter haris carry in lincoln director of business and operations, the stride center and alicia orosco is manager of administration special projects at the chicano latina foundation. Ladies welcome. Thank thank you. Thank you. You have a very provocative, interesting topic digital inclusion to further your impact. I’m going to start in the middle there. Karen turns out that everybody in the country does not have access to the internet at home. I’m shocked to learn actually you’re not alone in being shocked. A lot of people are very surprised by that. Somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty five percent of americans do not have access to high speed internet in their home, and a huge percentage of them don’t even have digital literacy skills twenty to twenty five percent throughout the country. Yes, does that include? Does that include in urban areas? Or is it mostly suburban sametz rule? No urban it’s both definitely. Is checking your nodding vory right here in silicon valley? Yes, right here and in san francisco it is incredible. Do we know what the percentages here? Just in the local area or i don’t have that number, but we know that there is an inclusion issue here and it’s broken down by income, age and education level. So in san francisco, they did a report recently, and it showed fifteen percent didn’t have access and that’s in san francisco where you think everybody’s connected all the time, but there’s pockets of poverty, there’s people who don’t have homes and where did they access the internet? So a lot of people are going to libraries and other places to get online. So san francisco’s, lucky in california in general, is ahead of the curve compared to the rest of the country. But there’s still a divide even though some people think that everyone’s go to cell phone, so we’re all connected. But that’s, not the case what we all hear about libraries as the alternative? Are there other alternate besides libraries? What are they? Anybody? So? Community centers, recreation center, senior centers, other non-profits that provides services sometimes also offer access to computers, but you don’t always get training at those places. So that’s, what a lot of our organizations are focused on is the training. Yeah, okay, so not only the access, but also literacy. Yes, setting for this machine, but i don’t know how to use it. Yeah, it’s not doing me much good physically. Okay? And children are failing in high in schools because they don’t have connection at home and they are in schools where they’re five to six students per computer at their school. Eso it’s really they’re they’re incredible, they’re doing homework, they’re doing essays on their phones, their parents, phones and i take my hat off to them because they haven’t given up. But that’s not right. Also having access to things like libraries and community centre of senators doesn’t serve everybody because if you are home mound are don’t have access to a vehicle are living in a neighborhood was not try safe to go out at night. You don’t have the ability to use those other surgery, even maybe cost travel it, zach public transportation. It’s not free. You know, some people may be a burden just to get to the alternative and we have met families who packed their kids who have homework with the computer. They haven’t go park in the library parking lot to get the wifi and the kids, they’re doing their homework because if they go inside, they get timed out within an hour. Most of the computer’s already occupied parking in the library parking lot for wifi access. Yes, this is happening right here in san will say yes, and if you don’t have a car, you’re outside on a bench or they call him the leaners there, leaning against the wall using the internet from in the building? No, yeah, yeah. All right, that should be enough motivation. All right, so now the issue is that we are in our organization’s trying to help these people. We’re trying to reach them. You know, i hear it ntcdinosaur talking about so much about multi-channel engagement, but if two people can’t access the channels and don’t have to use the channels again, we’re not reaching them. Andi, we’re we’re trying to provide services a lot of times to this population. How do we write this is talking about how our organizations supposed to duitz hair themselves. To reach these people, all right, let’s, start close this time. Cam e how do we start even assess what the problem is, omar, our constituency is that where we started? It’s a good place to start and not everybody does that they jump right in and they’ll have a bank of computers there are they literally let their clients use their own computers, which isn’t necessarily the best idea caused after, oh, yeah, and or you’re helping them apply for jobs? They’re sitting next to you and you’re applying for the job on their behalf because you just want to help them apply. But what i would encourage folks to do is to partner with agencies who are already doing computer literacy or adult literacy or some way don’t take it on yourself to train your constituencies or help them connect to the internet, but know who the partners in your community are and work with them tio get them the training that they need. So we want people to be able to apply for jobs on their own, ideally in their homes, privacy, some degree of privacy, exactly, and taking their time cause a job application isn’t something. You should send six out in an hour. It should take an hour just to find one application that you want to fill out and then several hours to do research and fill out the application, you know appropriately and it’s it’s a time intensive thing and at the library is alicia said you’ll time out after an hour, and so libraries aren’t always the solution for job seekers. So for non-profit, who has stumped by this issue of their clients not being online, we’ll go to where the training happens partner. But if you have a needs assessment that you’re deploying into great digital literacy or digital inclusion into that survey, see you have some data to prove to the foundations that this is a need that you should give us funding for. So we can help these people get online at home, that they can provide access to their children to do homework so they could do job search liking, connect with family using skype research information, entertain themselves, whatever it is, the internet is this amazing revolution, and they should be able to join in. Karen, what are some of the things we should be asking if we’re doing a survey the way kapin suggesting to determine if we have a problem among our constituency. For one thing, you need to be careful about if asking if they have access to the internet or if they have internet access because a lot of talk about that’s duvette right? Yes, i do. I’m gonna buy community foundation, which is a two and a half hour ride, and it cost me six dollars to get there and years to come back, and i get timed out after an hour. Are you using your phone and your phone isn’t really where you’re gonna build skills that are transferrable, et cetera in the morning, you all three of you a very good teacher because i feel like i’m mastering sort you’re tuned to non-profit radio tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals. Archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Dahna duitz what should we be asking in a in a survey tool. So i would ask things like, do you have access at home? What do you want to use the internet for? Is it because you have a sense of isolation and you want to connect with your family? Are you looking for a job? Are you trying, teo? Better understand your health. I would get a better understanding of what skills they bring to the table. They may say they know how to use their computer. But does that just mean that they know how to look up? Something on an internet page are? Do they know how to create a word document? There’s? You really need to dig into what skills they bring to the table with access they have today and what their goals are with that usage. Okay, elisa, you’re doing a lot of nodding. Absolutely. So are you connected at home? Do you have equipment? You have actual computer. Is it working yet? We find that a lot of them are. You know, door stops like you said, karen, but but someone might answer that question. Yes, yes, we have one. But it’s worthless. Exactly. So on and then you know, your questions are very important. How would you benefit from having a working computer and knowing how to use it at home? And, you know, i i ask everyone who’s listening to us to start listening everywhere you go, if we go to a hospital, if you see your doctor, if you go to unemployment anywhere that you go it’s school, everything is oh, you can get it online. Cam. He was at the tax place you can download of the forms online. Um, so a lot of people don’t have that ability. Well, but but if you can’t here’s the altum won’t know the idea that the thing we want people to know is that the world has gone there, but not everyone has access to the world. This is a social justice issue. Are we leaving a percentage of human beings out of the twenty first century and it’s not because they don’t want to? We live at least here in this area where we are one of the most expensive areas in this country. People have two and three jobs just to pay rent, several families living together um so when you tell them that they’re going to have to pay forty nine, fifty dollars a month for their internet and then buy a computer. Well, say so are our listeners are oppcoll in non-profits themselves it’s form so they know size non-profit so well, they may not, but, you know, we’re raising consciousness. But now we want to approach. The problem is, how do you ten thousand plus listeners approach to approach your constituents who don’t have access? I mean, how can you help them geever gain access? Or how can you deliver your own services knowing that we have this enormous void? That twenty to twenty five percent of population was much bigger? Go on. Okay, let’s, continue. Karen, you want to you want to pick up with where do we take this next? Now we’ve done some assessment work. We know what our constituents are lacking. How can we help? So it would say there’s primarily to things that we can do in both alicia and can we spoke about this earlier today, one has become familiar with the organizations in your area that are teaching digital literacy. Non-profit work is very self referential. Nobody could do everything. Become familiar with what services are available in your area for your constituents and additionally, get the word out there. It’s so so unknown how big of a gap is being created, our population and how many people are being disenfranchised. And the only way that change happens is through awareness. So we all need to start talking about it also fight now, if you have a refurbished or in your community, for instance, we did that a lot in our project. So because they usually make computers available at no cost or very low cost, and then they offer support for those computers wave they do break down, so refurbishing companies are important, and they’re springing up all over so low cost internet is other there’s. A lot of companies coming out low cost internet options. So internet essentials from comcast is one that’s been out for about four, five years, and now they have a pilot for seniors. That’s ten dollars a month and it comes with one hundred fifty dollars voucher for a computer. So comcast has something low caused it. And t there’s mobile beaconfire ogle citizen so know what the low cost options are in? Your community that people can apply for, you know, advocate to your city government or your region to get low cost of free accessed in low income areas. So google fiber is doing some really interesting things connecting low income housing to free too free internet and so getting the low cost or free option of both the internet and the connectivity is very important, but not everyone knows how relevant it is to them. So having the training is absolutely essential tell them understand why it’s relevant and then how to use it safely because the safety part, especially for older adults, there’s a huge amount of fraud and older adult community, and they’re getting scammed out a lot of money. So if we can make sure that people, once they’re getting trained online, they’re learning how to do it safely. Okay, karen e i will just mention that there’s also a lot of lobbying that has bean done with the p u c with our legislature in sacramento. Yes, because there are merger’s happening and the comcast offer of nine ninety nine. There was because they were so kind and wanted to help people. In fact, they were forced by the government and then they sat on it and did nothing. The california emerging technology fund had money to give dahna in-kind grants to all of us to get the word out and that’s how it began by us getting involved in telling people if you have a child in school receiving lunch, you know, free or reduce you qualify for this. Well, i invite you all to look up california emerging technology fund because they are very involved in lobbying and trying to get access to california. Their goal is eighty percent. By next year, twenty, seventy percent california’s connected access in home? Yes. What would we search if we’re not in california? I don’t know anybody else, but i just got this major breeze. Yeah, yeah. Shivering on anybody wondering why the air just got turned up. Eighty percent don’t bilich they’re just got turned up to percent if we’re outside california. What we be googling what terms should be searching to find the equivalent to what elisa is talking about in our in our home state. So there’s a national digital inclusion alliance and i think the earl is digital inclusion latto orders something nd eyes yeah, and there’s a list serv and there’s a lot of us on and there’s lots of conversation. So if you were to join that and say, hey what’s happening in salt lake city national digital inclusion alliance and there’s a conference coming up in a kansas city in may for folks who are interested in this world of digital inclusion and any other resource is weaken, we can shut out at this point nationwide, i think just put in digital inclusion in your google search, you know, and and i and some of these organizations, you know, ah, city c e t s california virgin technology fund might be able to help you to say okay, because they are involved, actually national ing to a certain degree, they latto washington got india, you can’t just give up, and i’m happy to point people to other resource is i’m wanting to build my own network of who’s doing what in sharing resource is and that’s the only way i think i can get better at doing this work and to help us build a movement where were training the trainer because that’s what si tiene dozes trains trainers to teach free computer classes and works one on one with individuals and and i really think that’s one of the only ways to meet the need is to meet people where they’re at in the language that is it that they speak using the device that they use and to show them the things that they need to know how to do. And so if we can replicate that in a large way across the country and eventually the world that’s a way to address the people we should reach you if they would like to participate taken email me at cam e am i at seti en bay area dot or ge? And we’ve got resource is on our website and there’s, another conference for people in this space called shelby schools health library, broadband coalition that’s a yearly conference that happens in d c i’ll be going to that speaking. Shelby shelby is schools, health library, broadband coalition, it’s a mouthful. But there’s really great folks that go there too. And it’s all about getting people access to the internet. And why do they need to use it in the skills to use it? Okay. All right, there’s. More. We have more time together, so way, haven’t beat this topic up yet. Let’s, take a look. I’ll give you a couple of seconds to think about, and we’ll take a commercial break because i have to highlight and ten swag item we have from upleaf. Coloring, coloring and are outstanding. Piela hannah has taken some liberties with the owl. I already started to color this in, but this is from upleaf and of course, they don’t give you the cold sheets, but coloring pencils as well. And karen, i need your help. You have this to the intend to my intense swag pile? Yes. Sheet and the pencils. You got a pencil? It is a color color. That’s okay, one fell sixty. Okay. Thank you. Arika god. All right, so what more do we have to cover on this very important topic? Let’s? See what e-giving who’s with me? I would like killing program delivering. We haven’t talked about program delivery. I just want encourage everybody to think about volunteering in their community to help make a difference in this area. If you know how to send an email and you’re a good communicator, somebody in the community could benefit from you helping them learn how to use the computer. So if you have two hours to give once a week, you could really change somebody’s life by helping them use their new smartphone that they got from their adult child or used their laptop. To apply for a job or improve their resume. There’s so many ways that we take it, we take for granted what we know on this could potentially be a volunteer opportunity for some of our organizations who listen, i guess they could create something around digital little received within their community way have, for instance, you cannot latina foundation supports latina women to go to school hyre education by wei have a programme for them. One of our alumni apply for a grant, and she got ten thousand dollars so that she could teach classes and have computer for people in santa cruz. So there’s really a lot of ways that you can figure out how to help your community. She has now taught ah hundred people how to use a computer. And it was a four week course in the old computers based on this grant, as she got on her own initiative work going to school and having a job. And then she recruited students from santa cruz, u c santa cruz to join her and teach. So it was a beautiful, beautiful project brought in students. College students obviously exaggerate and connected. Let’s, uh, i’d like to move to programme deliver how do we start to break this down if we know that there are people were trying to help who aren’t connected at home? Where do we start with this problem? I think some of the things you have to consider is not on ly what the community is, what they’re trying to do because the things you’re going to teach a group of seniors is very different than a group of job seekers, for example, but if you’re talking to people who are like food and secure or don’t have the money, you really have to find a way to integrate technology into their life so they can start to see the value of it. And i think a good way to do that is tio not on ly find out what matters to them to find some way to subsidize the program for the first six to twelve months, so it does become a part of their daily practice because if you’ve never had in your home, you don’t know what value it is, and you don’t understand why an investment of ten to forty dollars, is worth your time. The other thing? Is that for instance, if you are working with families who have children in school, we found that there are a lot of school laizans who are actually volunteers. Who are you doing this? They’re training parents on the internet. Well, not only internet how to use a computer so there is depending on who your clientele or the community you are serving is look around because i bet that there are these other organizations that are doing the work or groups that are doing this work, the school’s air, very interested in getting the parents on the internet and on their school loop or there’s different names for it. But they would love to let their computer labs to be used. We did that in santa cruz. We did there in selena’s. We did that in santa rosa. It was the school so open there, their computer labs to be used by the community school hours exactly the things we’re sitting follow-up exactly. Yeah. So okay, kayman anything you can about the program which focus on definitely part brings people. Yeah, partnering with other agencies and not taking it on yourself would be the first. I think you do. Look out into your general vicinity, and if you’re in a small town there’s no one else, you know it. Good. Take the next step, teo, learn more about other cities. They’re doing it, learn from people like us, but don’t try and do-it-yourself it it’s really difficult work, and it gets harder if you’re talking about older adults and cognitive disabilities or, um, multiple language is being spoken in any one area and that’s the kind of stuff that we’re dealing with and, you know, we don’t have computers of our only partner with senior center, so we don’t have to maintain the computers. We don’t have to run the non-profit that’s housing the computers, we don’t have to provide the meals that are drawing the seniors in there in the first place to then go to the computer center. So find an adult ed or a library or school or somebody that has perhaps something that you can you can glom onto, or you can work together. And if that doesn’t exist and then really try and build a network of people who want to help out and so good place to go would be if there’s a school or a university where you can elicit the support of a service learning program, we’re partnering with usf to do that and it’s a really great resource for us and, you know, utilizing volunteers is an amazing way to address the need, but they need to be trained and they need to be supported, and the volunteers like to get to know each other, so having a real robust volunteer program is is essential and continually helping them help their learners. So there’s going to be questions about iphones? We’ll have an iphone train there’s gonna be questions about this new website they’ve never heard of. So have that kind of training for the trainers, so they can be really good at communicating this technology to the to the learners. So it’s it’s, really? And then one thing that we’re doing is a monthly networking event we call bragan borrow so people come together just to talk and brag about the cool stuff that they’re doing related to technology, access and training, and then the borrow pieces saying, well, i’m having this challenge. Can you help me with that? So that’s the one thing i’ve been doing monthly for? About a year and a half, that’s resulted, and some partnerships and me learning a lot about the different communities are last. Braggin bar was at a veterans serving agency that had some computers, and so he had about eight veterans organizations. I’d never met any of these people before, and now we’re having conversations about technology, training and access for veterans, so that was pretty special co-branding borrow? Yeah, they were all taking ideas from others. Course or not or no, nothing want to formalize it looks let’s get together every thirty days, days or something. The one thing i want to add, if we have time is talking about evaluation and reporting on your impact is the hardest part of all of this. That, at least for us, is how do we show the impact beyond the number of people who attended a computer class or the number of hours of training that were provided? We just have a couple minutes left way get to some ideas of how to do it. Yeah, yeah, for sure. So i would say for us, it’s, knowing what the goal is of the individual for or the group and we’re not. Doing it as well as i’d like to because we don’t even have ah data collection platform, we’re working on sales force right now, so we’re hoping by the summer will have that well built out. But what is the goal of the learner? And how do we show that they have reached that goal? If if it’s ending isolation so what are the things you need to do? Technology wise, teo health and get connected? They’re not feeling isolated or for jobseeker’s that’s a little bit more clear cut? Did they get a job? Or do they feel like they’re getting more hits on their resume? So it’s really figure out what? What are you hoping to accomplish? And then how do you build in the metrics to track that goal and it’s for small non-profits it’s really difficult to do that? Well, because you just don’t have the staff tio ask the right questions, collect the data in the right way to then be ableto run reports at the end of show that there was impact there. So what what’s the small organization to do? How can they? They just get as close as they can to reporting impact? Well, you just start talking about it first and, you know, don’t beat yourself up if you can’t do it, but at least try and find out from the individual learners. Are you mark comfortable now? Whatever the goal of it. So if they want to get on social media, did they get, you know, after six months today, were they able teo do facebook because to do facebook you need an email and then did he e mail you need to know howto open up a browser so there’s all these things that you need to layer on top so that would be one thing is like, did you are you doing this now? Whereas before you couldn’t, you could say, percentage wise that’s an easy one to say like fifty percent of our learners air now able to do this thing or one hundred percent, so that would be an easy thing, but you do have to track it regularly and have it in a database, so i would say, don’t overwhelm yourself with things to collect just keep it simple and start small i do think it’s important also in addition to saying if they know how often they’re doing it i mean, i know how to do it, how often they’re doing it because if you’re really integrating that technology, it’s not just the knowledge it’s, if you’re actually using it in a consistent manner, i absolutely agree. All right, ladies, we’re gonna leave it there. Thank you. Thank you. Pleasure. Thank you. Thank you again. Candy griffiths, executive director of si tiene community technology network. Karen lincoln, director of business and operations at the stride center, and alicia orosco, manager of administration and special projects for the chicano latina foundation. Durney martignetti non-profit radio coverage of sixteen ntcdinosaur non-profit technology conference thank you for being with us. Your annual grants plan is coming up first. Pursuant they have mohr free research for you. Overcoming the major donor dilemma is the most recent. This paper will help you with the identification, engagement and cultivation of new major donors overcoming the major donor dilemma, you’ll find it at pursuing dot com, click on resource is and then content papers check that out. We’ll be spelling spelling bees for fund-raising they’ve got a new video up it’s from a night that raised money for hfc, which has helped for children. The organisation needed help for its programs, and it turned to wi be spelling. They raised one hundred ten thousand dollars that night. You see it all in the video at we b e spelling dot com now tony steak too. I’ve got no videos from last year’s non-profit technology conference. I’m capturing these under the rubric virtual organizations and volunteers viv of love, one on i’ve won on how to manage remote employees. Another is managing remote volunteers where to find volunteers, and the fourth one is leveraging your expert or tech volunteers. My video that introduces these four with the links you’ll find it, you know, where do i need to say it? Do i need to say it? Tony martignetti dot com and by the way, are you going to this year’s ntc? You’ll find info at in ten dot org’s you know it’s, an excellent conference, the non-profit technology conference that is tony’s take to my pleasure to welcome diane leonard. She has been a grant professional for over a decade and is president and owner of d h leonard consulting and grantwriting services, she has secured over thirty four million dollars in competitive grants for clients from all three levels of government and private foundations. She’s, the co host of hashtag grant chat, a weekly twitter chat for grant professionals she’s at diane h leonard and there’s an e at the end of diane on only one end make that very clear. And her company is that d h leonard consulting dot com diane leonard, welcome to the show. Thanks so much. My pleasure. You have the credentials gpc after your name. What is that? Yes. So that stands for grand professional certified that’s, the grand professional certification institute, a sister organization to the grand professionals association. Very proud to have been in the field long enough to be able to grant professionals. Well, they just make it certified grantcraft sessional c g p it could be that too. You know what? Happy to have the initials into people that feel that way you might look into that just switch just kapin called c gp certifies otherwise have grant professional certified sound like just have a comma after professional like rifle comma and seventeen o or something like that. Or i don’t know, i would look into that, see if they’d switch. It around, you know what? If i grant professional? I mean, it doesn’t that doesn’t. That doesn’t roll off a little easier. No. Well, like i said, i’m just happy to be able to be a part of the community and having thought, ok, you don’t want to speak out against your professional suspicion because cause trouble i i’m not. I will never have the gpc. I’d be a gpu. I got grand professional, uncertified, but i’m not even grandpre fresh inal, so i’d be just a u uncertified. Just have the letter. You don’t martignetti you uncertified. Okay, let’s, get into our grant plan for ah for the year. Um, sorry. I like to start with some basics we should have. Ah, calendar. Right. Looking forward for the year. Yeah, absolutely. Should have a grand calendar that lets you is the person writing france in the rest of your team. Know what is coming? We have for deadlines. Where do we need to plan to be? Ableto be a part of the grand process. It’s a stress level down. Okay. And we’re going to talk about other people who are part of this. That may not typically be thought. Of but we’re tryingto break down these misconceptions about who’s, part of the grand steam it’s more than the grant writers were going to get to that. Ok, i also noticed you say that you would like to say grant professional, but i usually see grants professional. Is there, uh, is there a split in the in the profession among whether your singular rip plural? Oh, i think more than anything, there’s a distinction for some folks will call themselves a grant writer versus a grant professional that’s usually the question we get versus a grant writer grantspace writer or a grant professional grant professional? Yeah, i’m asking the pool of single plural singular question. Yeah, i’m usually way use singular. Yeah, yeah. Ok. On the personal preference there, i think okay, the the industry has not standardize itself. There’s some room for standardization still in the industry. Well, singular versus plural. And i think these things are important. Scrutinized these things? Um, like c b g o r g p. Okay, um and so what should be a part of our grant calendar? What belongs in there? There’s. A fair amount that belongs in there. So upcoming deadlines for existing funders that an organization already has relationships with those take priority. So what will be the deadline’s related to their report to their relationship maintenance with those existing funders and then renewal applications? Also on, there should be any known deadlines for potential new funders corporate foundation of family foundation, as well as the outreach that you might make to those foundations before you choose to apply. So whether you’re goingto a funder, former participating in a webinar technical assistance session, though, should be on there too, and then, if you’re looking at government funding, we’re usually forecasting we’re not exactly sure when things will be out, so those guesses of forecasts for when you expect to see opportunities amount through the different either federal or state systems should be on the calendar as well as a trigger point, so that you’re watching those opportunities open and reminding yourself to pre plan for them the the the the outreach part of of ah being a grant professional, correct me if i’m wrong in this, in the statement, please, and i really do mean challenge me if i’m wrong that the relationship part of grantspace nw ship or grant grant? Writing is underappreciated often it is, and it’s actually one of my dear friends and colleagues, heather starbuck of just right solutions, loves to say that people give to people right and that’s not usually debated in the fund-raising community or non-profit but the reality is this is where heather takes it. A step further is that people the foundations are granting two people at the non-profit so it really it does might not feel the same as a major donor interaction or an individual donor, but ultimately, people are making those decisions. And so there is that opportunity for some dialogue dafs questions toe have some interaction, not with all grantmaker but it really it’s an important factor that a lot of folks do skip over under the stress of a deadline, and ultimately, in the long run, they probably hurting their success ratio is a result. Is it worth talking to the the grantmaker while you’re in process, you’re preparing your application one hundred percent, so i started as a grantmaker and while talking to a programme officer isn’t ever a guarantee of anything when you find a grantmaker that has the preference and the capacity we should. Maybe say the other order capacity and preference for some pre award communications it’s going to help you is the applicant to write a more competitive proposal or potentially to realize actually, maybe we’re not a good fit, so save yourself the time and it does. It helps the thunder is well in the long run again if they have the capacity and the preference for that communication because they’ll ultimately they’re receiving stronger awards as a result of that dialogue. Now, how do we assess whether they have capacity and preference? Can we just call and say i don’t have any specific question about the application? I mean, like, i understand it completely, but what do you say? How do you open that conversation if you don’t have specific questions about the process? Right? So the way that we handle and recommend that our clients do that outreach is through their research when they’re looking at an opportunity, but they’re looking at the website and they’re seeing what is the thunder actually say? Community foundation for southeast michigan says right on there, please, paul, before you apply crystal clear in their materials, they want to talk to you others. Will say, please email us or please call the program officer, please call the program director. Please email. On the flip side, there will be those that in their materials will say no increase accepted, so a lot of them were being pretty clear if they have a printed website or if they have it and you will report, they’re putting out information to try and make it easier for focused, understand what it is that they want or could allow to happen for station. But i think really what’s important that you consistently developed talking points. If you find a thunder that you’re going to have the opportunity to email with or call, maybe even meet in person and the way that we develop the talking points, they worked just as well in person as they do on the phone, or they turn into a great female. So the first thing is to do a quick introduction. Who are you and who are you? Not the whole history of the organization, which is quick, okay? Calling because based on my research about your foundations, you’re granting organizations, i think that our organization is a really strong potential grant funding partner with you because give him a thirty second elevator speech. Why do you think that your work is well aligned with theirs? Why should they want to talk to you? Okay, elevator speech or you’re at a cocktail party without a quick thirty seconds with somebody before they run away. So you’re establishing upfront that you’ve done research and you’ve thought you’ve thought this through. Okay, okay, uh, here’s, why we’re a match? What it what else? And then the last part is that you’re gonna ask, may i ask you? I’ve got a few questions that will help me understand if we’re gonna be competitive in your process and make our application the best possible for you that’s the phone call going, they’re likely going to say yes or in person they’re going to say yes and email you just dive into it, you’re going to ask him to two three thoughtful questions, thoughtful questions are things that are not in a funders frequently asked question documents, they’re not things that are clearly outlined. On their web site, a thoughtful question is if you read all their materials and you haven’t you do you have a question? Do you prefer to do a matching grant versus a one year straight project france here? Are you willing to fund salaries? Is that an eligible expense? Those are legitimate, thoughtful question could be that the way that they’ve described how they support education, you’re wondering if indeed they’ll actually support after school activities vs heimans on ly in school tutoring programs or whatever the case might be something a little more programmatic and you might say, well, they’re materials are really clear, i don’t know, i’m not sure i have a thoughtful just like anything else with people, people love to talk about themselves, so a thoughtful question to a funder all that you might want to ask you, would you tell me about a recent france that did a great job of sharing their outcomes with you? Or they did a great job of publicizing the funded work? Get them to talk about something that they funded that went well, because that’s going to give you a good example? Something to think about for what? They like, help the work that you do. How could you talk about it to them in a similar way in the application? I love it. I love it now, if you do this, if you open the door this way and have this this delightful conversation what percentile of grant applicants would you say you’re putting yourself in? You’re putting yourself in the top tier for sure? Yeah, it’s just not that it just doesn’t happen. People don’t think of the relationship part of of grant work. All right, all right. That was an excellent thank you for that digression. I took us there, but that’s not our plan. But we call it the three r’s. So the research then you do relationship and lastly, you get to be your third are of writing. Of course doesn’t start with an r but we capitalize. Alright that’s, everybody but it’s a quick thing. People skip the second r that’s what we failed to do research they do writing everything in between. Ok, we know that you know how to spell the word writing so i declare we’re going for the alliteration i underst which i love very much appreciate so it’s fine. We will know you, khun spell. All right, all right. That’s cool. I like that. Uh, yeah. Okay, so ah, and putting our backdrop calendar. We’re putting this counter together, there’s, considerable time. We have to spend looking into all these things about deadlines and africa. Not all applications, but renewal, etcetera, mean there’s a lot of time up front goes into this. It is, but it really. It ends up saving you significant time in the long run and it’s usually well paired that you’re working on your grant calendar creations. While you’re working with your peers, your colleagues in your leadership for what is that grant revenue line item look like in the operating budget for the year ahead. At the same time that your organization is pausing to budgeting work, you should be creating your grant calendar so that they’re in synergy. Yes, and not only amount, but timing, too, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay, it’s. Excellent. Nastya. I’ve had guests on talking about this hyre generally, but never heard that you have to align the revenue with with the budget. Otherwise, everybody’s gonna be disappointed if the grand budget revenue line item is off right. You is the person who was doing the right thing, and those that are in leadership responsible for that budget. Yeah, could be worse than your disappointment. Okay, let’s, take our first break. When we come back. Diane and i will continue talking about your your annual calendar, and we’ll get a little more in depth. A little more advanced. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth godin, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they only levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy, tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation, tap trends, sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. I’m melanie schnoll begun managing director morgan stanley philantech management. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i gotta send the live love that’s, etcetera, etcetera, it’s gotta go out were pre recorded, so i can’t name you by city and state. But if you are among our live listeners today, the love goes out to you. Thanks so much for being with us. Not only love, but thanks gratitude and love podcast pleasantries over twelve thousand i’m brown prepared to say it now, you know it’s happened so often that it’s over twelve thousand that’s all there is to it. It’s over twelve thousand podcast listeners it’s just that simple we’re beyond that ten thousand mark ten thousand threshold so pleasantries to the vast majority of our audience, the podcast listeners, whatever device, whatever time, whatever you squeeze us into your busy hectic schedule pleasantries to you our podcast listeners, thanks so much for being with us and the affiliate affections to our am and fm stations throughout the country. Affections to you. I’m glad that you’re listening. Let your station know that you do listen so they get some feedback. That’s always valuable affections to our am and fm affiliate listeners. Okay, diane. Leonard. Um, this this process necessarily involves gold setting. Let’s. Talk, let’s. Talk about that. Sure, having goals is really important for yourself, and so that the organization is in well alignment with grant seeking strategy and really articulating and achieving your strategic plans. Okay, so well, so what are some of the some of the goals you have? You have lots of good metrics here. I love all of these metrics that you list, um, like award percentage and percentage funded versus asked, we’re setting goals for for all these things, ideally, yes, what we find is that some organizations our only using one or two metrics to measure their grant seeking success. What’s really, there is a pretty long list of different metrics that can be used and if you together actually present you with a fuller picture of the success and where you’re seeing growth or potentially room for improvement in your grantmaking so that you can try and sharpen your skills, have better success percentages overall have a stronger return on investment on each koreans that you write as we’re setting our goals. What do we benchmark against? Is that to be organizations like us eyes that number even? Or those numbers even available to what degree does the previous year factory or the previous three years? Great questions? People tend to be pretty tight about sharing they’re different personal metrics, and so it really is about looking at your organization’s ask track record looking at one, two and sometimes three years back to see what those different their success presented percent of funders that are renewing percent of each year to see what dollar amount or what a number of total grantspace unders versus previously existing relationship. If you look at those numbers that you’ve got a longer terms history, it can show you sometimes there’s some blips, things that happened because of government funding, in or out that are beyond your control. That would impact your metrics. That’s what you want to look at more than just the past year hyre establish a benchmark where were you? And set some goals from realistic goals for yourself? For how could you improve your work? And hopefully your grant revenue is forward so it would be off color of me to ask you what you’re percentage of awards is that? Is that an inappropriate question? Not at all, totally appropriate, especially if you’re talking to a grand consultant were usually pretty public, so my success percentages stayed over sixty five percent for my eleven years in business. Okay, is that how does that rank? I don’t know two thirds proud. Of that, though, i will say that with pride. All right, so two thirds of the application that you submit over the past eleven years have been awarded. Is that right? Did i state that? Right. Okay. All right. Two thirds. All right. Excellent. Um, all right. So let’s, talk through some of these, um, percentage funded versus asked, like it’s that’s pretty straightforward. Um, again, you know, it’s it’s, i think the toughest part of this is figuring out where you fit in. Like, what? Which leaves should we be looking for ninety percent funded versus asked? Or is is fifty percent good? It’s tough it’s, very tough, and especially depending on what type of work you’re doing and what type of grantmaker you’re applying to what would be a good standard will be different. So, for example, and i ate when they publish their funded percentages mean there, so incredibly evidence all grantmaker czar, but at an age to think the last published that i saw was that thirteen percent of submitted proposals funded thirteen percent. But that’s all the work you’re doing, you’re probably gonna be happy with a different numbers than if you are solely working. With family foundations for britain families. Percent of funding renewed and increased. Can you say some something about that? Sure. So if you look back at the last year and you see which funders you received funding from, you’d be looking then to say, well, how many of those? Well, i’ve retained what percentage will i receive another grant from in this upcoming year? And ideally, what percentage could i increase in award from? So instead of getting another seventy five thousand dollars france, i should be great if i could increase and get an eighty thousand dollar grant eighty that’s modest, i was thinking from seventy five to one hundred it was eyes like crazy. I mean, you’re the pro eyes is that is that unreasonable to go expect somebody of thunder to go from seventy five to one hundred it’s so situational for something having the increase of a few thousand is a big deal for others, you’re right, you could make a much bigger jump depending on what you’re proposing mean, if you did a great job last year or over the past two years with them, um, and and you have a way of expanding the program, wouldn’t that be a credible? Argument for giving ah, what would my case would be? A thirty percent increase? It certainly could be, and i think you know, this actually goes back to that relationship point if you’ve done more than just implementer project, but rather you thought about how you can enhance your relationship with your grantmaker in addition to doing what you said you would when you said you would, how you said you wouldn’t your applications, i think you stand a much better chance of increasing your award in the future year. Yes, well, one of your metric is grant compliance. How do we measure that when you look at the different brands that are being implemented for some, if you’re talking government grant has got very strict standards from the ownby office federally, but we’re looking at grant appliance. You could measure yourself on percent of report turned in on time or early percent of grant bill turned in on time or early, even simple metrics like that go a long way, because as soon as you turn a report in late, you hurt your truck and your relationship with the grantmaker. Yes, very much. And and your credibility is diminished. Yeah. Um, labbate diane, we may have to have you back is we only have, like, two minutes left, but i i want to get to the use of your colleagues and expanding the definition of who belongs on the grant team. Please talk about that. Sure. So when we say grand team folks will say, i’m a grand team of one and what we really mean, when when i talk about grant team when those that i worked with when we talk about granting what we mean, are those organizations that play a key role in e-giving you helping you give it, tio put together competitive applications so it’s leadership for saying yes, good ideas in alignment with our plans, somebody from finance helping giving you the budget numbers it’s a vice president of programs or a program director that telling you here’s what goes in that logic model form here’s what goes in your work plan for they are they might not call themselves formally ever a grand team, but they are your pre awards frantic. Then you have a post award rant. Eam might be slightly different players. That are helping to make sure grant rented the way that it was proposed. That thunder information is being shared back by a report, if there’s a need for financial building or you do a revision to a budget there helping and working with you or your grandmamma jer, if your organization has one, they’re working together for that. So again, i might not ever call themselves a grand team formally. You might not ever see it on the organ chart. They exist. Not truly a solo role to be in grant. We have to leave it there. I hope you’ll come back again because there’s a lot more to discuss and some of these topics, and we gotta leave it there. Thank you so much. You’ll find diane’s company at d h leonard consulting dot com and she is at diane h leonard again. Diane, thanks so much. Thank you so much, tony. My pleasure. Next week, very special show atlas of giving. Ceo rob mitchell announces the fund-raising results of twenty sixteen and the forecast for twenty seventeen with us will be paul schervish, america’s professor at boston college, and professor doug white from columbia, commenting on the review and the forecast. If you missed any part of today’s show, i beseech you, find it on tony martignetti dot com, responsive by pursuant online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers, we b e spelling dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam lewis is the line producer. Gavin doll is our am and fm outreach director. Shows social media is by susan chavez, and this music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge. Somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. 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The New Year means a close look in the corners. We’ve got the legal issues you need to fine tune. Erin Bradrick is senior counsel at the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (
