Tag Archives: charity

Picture of Karen Garvey

Nonprofit Radio for June 26, 2013: Intuitive Brainstorming & The Pallotta Pall? II

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Picture of Karen Garvey
Karen Garvey
Karen Garvey: Intuitive Brainstorming

Karen Garvey, author, speaker, intuitive and coach, describes the why and how of intuitive brainstorming. It’s not your mother’s brainstorming.”

 

 

picture of Gene Takagi
Gene Takagi
Gene Takagi: The Pallotta Pall? II

Have you seen Dan Pallotta’s viral video from TED? It’s called “The way we think about charity is dead wrong.” Our legal contributor, Gene Takagi, principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO), continues the discussion from 5/10 on how we got here and what would need to change–and should it?–to achieve Pallotta’s vision of a more free-market charity sector. Also, a related conversation about the attention being given to overhead expenses as a means of measuring effectiveness.”

You can view Pallotta’s TED Talk here:



 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

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

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

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

Sign-up for show alerts!

Here is a link to the audio for this episode: Nonprofit Radio for June 26, 2013: Intuitive Brainstorming & The Pallotta Pall? II. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get the podcast automatically.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 148_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130628.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:01:16.526Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2013…06…148_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130628.mp3.982965119.json
Path to text: transcripts/2013/06/148_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130628.txt

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. Isn’t it comforting to hear all that you know, you’re in the right place. It’s friday, june twenty eighth twenty thirteen so pleased to be back in the studio even though it was your last week, too. I just love being here so muchmore than pre recording oh, i hope you’re with me. Last week it was get out and positively communicate. Sharon abbott is the author of mixing it up the entrepreneurs new testament we talked about networking your non-profit recruiting and hiring motivated people and positive communications. Sharon read my face to tell what kind of communicator i am and sec secrets. Maria simple is the author of panning for gold. Finding your best donorsearch prospects now and our monthly prospect research contributor she struck research gold in sec corporate filings. I hope you’re with me last week, i’d endure a cubine it’s ulcer if i heard that you had missed last week’s show this week intuitive brainstorming karen garvey, author speaker, intuitive and coach describes the why and how of intuitive brainstorming it’s not your mother’s brain storming and the ppa latto paul part do have you seen dan pallotti’s? Viral video from ted it’s called the way we think about charity is dead wrong. Our legal contributor jean takagi. Principle of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group continues our discussion from may tenth on how we got here and what would need to change. And should it change to achieve dan, pull out his vision of a more free market charity sector. Also the overhead myth letter between the guests on tony’s take two. It is my block this week, which is are you having fun? I’m talking about mermaid parade type fund. My pleasure. Now to welcome karen garvey. On september eleventh, two thousand one, she received simultaneous information about what was happening. That was her first experience. Learning something not through earthly means. Over time, she discovered how to intentionally tune into this connection through this conduit to universal knowledge, she provides insights for coaching seminars, media and books. You’ll find karen at the answer’s unlimited dot com. Karen garvey, welcome. Well, thank you for having me, tony it’s. A pleasure. Thanks for joining me in the studio. Um, september eleventh. What? What was happening for you then? I have an mba, and i was working as an independent business consultant at that time. So i was working out of my home and what i would typically do wood was go out for iran a few mornings a week before i began the day. And when i returned from my run about five to nine that morning i was standing in my driveway, punching the key code in to get the garage door to go up. And as i was standing there, i received information about what was happening, a visual, a sense of it, almost like a download of knowledge about what was happening. And since i live about an hour from manhattan, it was impossible for me to have any physical clues about what was going on. I put it out of my mind. I thought it was just a awful thing to have appear in my brain, if you will. But within under a minute, i had the phone ringing, somebody telling me to put the television on. When i put the tv on, it was at the moment where the broadcasters were making suppositions about what had happened to the first tower, and they were saying that a small plane and gotten off its course. But i was able to immediately connect that what i had experienced in the driveway was that i understood and comprehended what was going on even without my knowledge or being there. So i guess the big moment for me was that, you know, coming from a more intellectual background and only really caring about things that were academic and scientifically proven. It was my first experience knowing that our conscious energy is not connected to our body. While you were punching in the key code, you knew that this was happening in new york city. Yes. And you knew that it was more than just a small plane off course over jimmy. Yes. I knew it was the beginning. I knew it was intended. I knew it was planned. You know, i knew that it was oven attack nature s so yes, i got that information with sort of like a visual as well. Do you know where edward snowden is going to go for asylum? And you tell us what country he’s headed to? Wow, if i could do that. I probably wouldn’t be sitting on the air with you telling me you wouldn’t think that this is a place to reveal this is no, nobody listens to this show. Only nine thousand. But this is the place to reveal where but okay, but what do you mean you’re your bio says universal knowledge. What does that mean? What? What have come, teo, understand? And, you know, after nine eleven, it took me a while to find any language for what had happened. And then it took a lot more occurrences of receiving simultaneous information of things that were happening before i could comprehend the experience. S o i’m pretty much self taught learning how to remove my conscious thoughts from what i’ve learned from my learned experiences. You call it getting out of your body or getting out of your way whatever you wanna call it. But i learned that i can connect with non physical sources for information, and any information i get from that source is far more comforting. Liberating. It resonates with me more far more than the things that i have learned on earth from people s o what i find is it’s, is it? Some kind of a miracle or gift? I don’t really think so. I think we’re all very intuitive. It was just a confluence of events that day, you know, the magnificence of the amount of conscious energy that was being shared that day, plus the fact that i had just been for iran, so my mind was quiet and also my family and i had some personal connections to that date, so it was also intimate, so and i don’t know if that confluence hadn’t happened if i would’ve opened up on that day, but all it did was help me to find this extension of life that taps into universal knowledge, and i think that we all do it in one way or another. We just might not have a description for it or know howto how to capture that knowledge. Yeah, i mean, i certainly feel intuitions strongly, i think when i’m leaving my apartment that maybe that i’ve forgotten something. Yes, and sometimes unwisely, i dismissed him ends, and i don’t even think, oh, no, i’m not i’m not forgetting anything. I just dismissed them, and then i get on the subway. I realized i forgot to bring my my apple elected an apple each time on the subway and got my subway apple or, you know, i did forget my workout clothes or something, but there then there are times when i will pay attention to it, and i’ll stop and i’ll think, what am i missing? Yes and something. Ah lot of times not not every time, though, but a lot of times something does occur to me, and i could go back and get it before i leave my apartment. I mean, that’s, that’s, intuition. But but how do we how do we connect to that? The sort of on demand, which is what you’re what you’re describing, i mean, and you’re working coaching and workshops, you know that i can’t i’m not saying i can conjure it up. Yes, yeah, and maybe conscious, not ivory. I don’t mean that in the demeaning i understand. Exactly understand? Well, you know the what it is, it’s kind of like finding the place that your brain goes, if you will it’s almost as though i could feel shift in my brain when i’m open to that conduit. So it’s practice, practice practice i like to think about it, like, did you ever see those images? Those aren’t images that it looks like just a bunch of small dots or pixels. And when you step back and you look at it and use you, bend your eyes, it turns into a three day when you’re seeking it and seeking it and seeking it it’s flat and two day. But the day you see the three day you can practice to keep finding it and it becomes easier it’s the same way with this connection. When i practiced, i can see the three day without effort anymore because it’s so practiced, i practiced the muscle in there for me now nufer let’s translate this to something that small and midsize non-profits i think, can benefit trump. Why? I invited you to talk about intuitive brainstorming. What? What is this? Generally? Okay, what it is it’s it’s. First of all, it’s about suspending doubt that we are creatures that are finite and that we’re separate. First, you have to understand that we are connected and that there is this universe with infinite wisdom that’s trying to guide us in the direction of our focus. So what we do when i go into organizations as we begin by setting a goal, and that goal will be to overcome whatever challenge or limit the organization is experiencing. The moment whether it’s, you know, staffing issues or trying to find new creative ways to raise revenue or a new marketing idea. But whatever it is, we set a goal, and we have what it would be typical brainstorming rules. Ah, that we apply for the process. And those rules include that we’ll get to those. Okay. More, general. Yeah. Yeah, no problem. And so we just set the course of working toward our goal. In a way where there’s no interruption. We have an hour to think about it, and we start to put our energy and our focus toward that direction. And however many people department heads, or if it’s a very small organization, everyone whoever’s in that room is somehow connected to the end goal and feels as though it’s possible to get to that end goal. Can we apply this where we have maybe difficult relationship with some some fellow employees? Or maybe, ah, relationship with board members or other volunteers? Can it work with personal relationships? Also it definitely can and that’s. One of the wonderful things about it. Is that just the process of knowing that there’s no judgment or criticism or bad ideas during that one hour, it allows people to open up the possibility that they might not have thought of otherwise. It gets, you know, it gets the thinking part of you out of the way. So the more creative ideas, things that come more from intuition and from love and from heart and soul, can come forth, and those usually are the better solutions. In the end, we’re gonna take a break, and when we come back, we’ll start. I just want to probe a little more the way the universe is guiding us, but then we’ll get into some details about intuitive brainstorming. So after the break, karen garvey, of course, stays with me, and i hope that you do, too. 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 are guaranteed to lead toe right growth 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 action. Join me, larry. Shock 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 welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Time to send some live listener love let’s start abroad today. Beijing chung ching and shanghai, china welcome live listener love ni hao seoul, south korea always lovely always always glad to see south korea checking in on your haserot and in japan, tokyo is only one person in tokyo or multiple. Sometimes there are multiple multiple people in tokyo. We don’t know exactly where you are, but do you know each other? I’m are you all in a coffee shop together for for our listeners in japan. Konnichi wa ann arbor, michigan. Newport, north carolina. Malvin p a thank you for checking in live listener love to each of you and there’s more coming talking with karen garvey, author speaker, intuitive coach we’re talking about intuitive brain storming let’s say a little more wood. Well, actually not not. Let us let you can. I don’t understand it about how the universe is is guiding us. I the way i see things now is that we we either live awake or asleep when we’re asleep. We really think that this is a solo flight. Maybe you can have. Tea members or friends or people that support you, but you think pretty much that this is your journey, your legs, your brain, and you got to do it on your own. But as soon as you start to awaken, as soon as you start to understand that there’s, this infinite power that we are connected to that is eternal that’s with us before we’re born and will be with us during this journey and also be with us after we you know, after we pass on, then you start to be able to find ways that you witness this interaction, what i usually do with clients, even an intuitive brainstorming as i start to ask them to become aware of it if you’re not aware of it by asking a question of the universe every day and expect that you’ll get an answer, because this will train you to start to witness the signs in the way that the universe is connecting with you or communicating with you. So, you know, in the beginning, keep it light hearted and playful because you don’t want to have your first question be life or death. It’s, it’s a little bit harder. To discover the answer that way, if you’re very very invested in the outcome, or if you haven’t expected desire of how it will turn out. But if you start with something playful, you’ll start to see that the answer can pop up in an e mail or by someone’s conversation online. Behind you in the store, it can come through maybe not new york city so much, but where i live, it comes on vanity plates on license plates. Quite often, it can come on a sign on a building or a passage in a book, but you allow yourself to be able to accept the answer so that you’re you’re strengthening your ability to understand how we are connected and how we are guided, you know, and often times you’ll see two or three responses to the same question. So it’s about practicing it’s about seeing something differently. Also another way to strengthen this is to take stock of how you are intuitive and there’s a lot of ways, we are intuitive that many people aren’t taking taking ownership of like what you were saying earlier about that gut feeling, i left something in the apartment, but there are other things, too, like thinking about somebody that you haven’t seen in a while, and then they contact you. Ah, another thing would be just to have a sense of turning in a different direction and finding that when you made that turn opposite of what your logic would say, that there was a good reason to do it or not taking that turn and finding out that you should have listened to that feeling. Another thing is, we we oftentimes can get messages or visits from past loved ones in our dreams, and they feel very different than dreams. They don’t feel like they’re imaginative play. It feels like you’re visiting with this soul and that’s, another avenue toward understanding intuition. I have, ah, very dear friend who says there are no coincidences. Do you agree with that? I just phrase it differently. I just say that a coincidence is a purposeful intersecting of events. So, yes, there are coincidences and they have purpose, but you define them as having purpose, yes. Interesting. So, yeah, i mean, i i had something like that just this past week. I was thinking about someone contacting them, and then i got an email from them that’s it, uh but you okay? So you’re suggesting starting with a question a day now, i was thinking something like, you know, where should i have lunch today? But you don’t want to. You don’t want to be that trivial in the beginning. It’s kind of nice to make it that trivial because it’s easier to find the signs when you’re not that emotionally encumbered by the answer so you can find things that are just lighthearted. So if you’re thinking, you know, if you’re thinking of going to the smoothie place versus going to the chinese place, it’s not that difficult to find a sign, you know, you might walk out of here and trip over a pineapple, and that might indicate you should go to the smoothie place. Well, but chinese, they have sweet’n sour point way. You’re gonna wait for your second land. Okay? Right now. All right. So starting with something simple like that is okay. It’s actually easier. Much easier. Preferred. Okay, so, let’s. Go back to the intuitive brainstorming. You will lose to some of the rules. And i didn’t want to get too specific at that point. But what what are, uh, what does? Well, the second step back. How do we get started? Who? Who should we invite into our brainstorming process? You said you mentioned doing an hour session. Yeah. Who should we invite to this? It really depends on what the goal is. So any player that has some kind of responsibility or some kind of task that’s oriented toward getting to that goal should participate. So that everybody’s, aware and everyone’s energy thought energy and feelings and beliefs are all vested into the process on dh it’s about setting forth. I like one hour. Because for the average person, it takes us about twenty minutes to set ourselves aside and get out of the thinking part. We we really do critique everything and oftentimes criticize everything. So the judgment part of us, when we start to get into a more playful, imagine imaginative and creative arena, it will start. Teo, allow us to dismiss judgment and being free of judgment is a very, very important application here, so that’s part of the reason for blame being playful. I usually encourage the teammates too. I kind of have a little bit of a contest that the more outrageous the suggestion, the better, because here’s, the way i look at that, if you are going teo, aim for one particular star that’s between us on the moon and you’re only aiming for that star, you know, we might not make it, but if you aim for the moon there’s a better likelihood to get to that particular star. So if you go for the really outrageous answers, it’s going to help you to seek beyond what your typical boundary would be, and to get past those limits that would normally come upon you it’s also important that there’s no interruptions for that hour because interruptions change our focus. Like just as i was saying, how going for a run helped me to get out of myself being uninterrupted and to be playful and to have a very positive atmosphere in this circumstance helps you to stay imaginative and creative. It helps to keep you more right brain rather than left brain. You have all the time in the world to be left brain after the intuitive brainstorming session, but right now, it’s about getting creative and get an imaginative and being playful and being free and believing an infinite possibility. How often should we do these sessions? It’s it’s multiple times, right? Yeah, in the beginning, i suggest that people do it once a week because you’re exercising muscles that you’re not that familiar with. I have the same purpose in goal, and if the goal is a very long term goal, i say about a month of once a week and then you could go down to once every two weeks. If you’re finding you really have momentum even once a month after that to maintain that energy moving forward. Okay, should there be a leader of the group or is everybody equal? I usually have someone that’s, a facilitator, not necessarily a leader, but that is very familiar with the structure, you know, tries to encourage playfulness, tries to encourage people to be without limits, nonjudgmental noncritical on someone and ensuring that everybody else is especially non judgmental. Yes, everything is allowed. Yes, more. As you’re saying, the more playful, the better. All right, so we’ve done we do several of these sessions say over a month, what do are we starting to make a decision about how we’re going to proceed or we looking more for signs at that moment? Where are we now after for these let’s say, well, we’ll have a recorder, so every idea will be recorded during the session, so we’ll have a place that we can go back to initially, you know, want to take any speedy action. It’s not about developing your plan in that moment. It is about now going out, having all players seek and say, you know what? We’re in this together with this universe, there are some good ideas there might not be. The ideas that were thinking are the best in this moment, but give us evidence, give us signs, put a stepping stone down in front of us won that we feel is viable, and we feel that we can move in that direction. So in the next week you come back any share stories or even during the week, if you’re bumping into people, you can share stories because sharing stories gives validation, and it helps everybody to suspend doubt and to encourage not needing to think that this is off an off limits topic, so the more encouragement you get, the more people will see signs where they are starting to appear everywhere, from dreams to vanity license plates. Exactly. So we’re sort of opening our mind two on our consciousness too signs that i don’t know what would they have been there otherwise we just wouldn’t have recognised them. How do we hear is that? You know, for may i still really prefer the scientific ideas behind what it is that i dont here’s how i began to understand signs, because for me, it’s like really, you know, if i’m listening to tony show today and all of sudden he says the thing that answers my question, what did ugo did the universe take over tony’s brain? Enforce that sentence out of his mouth that doesn’t. That doesn’t make sense to me, but here’s how it really does work that there’s no such thing as time, so your answers are in the universe. But what the objective of this guidance is is to get you to pay attention to where the signs are so often times you have to understand that conscious. Energy is vibrations thought energy is waves, wave energy intersects with other intersects with other wave energy of other conscious thoughts treyz closely in jargon jail. Now we have a jogging jail here you haven’t you haven’t transcended basically and that’s not what i mean transcended. You haven’t transgressed okay having transgressed, but you’re, you’re almost your close transcendent. The idea is simply that, like we can’t see radio waves, but we can hear the music. The same is true with thought energy, and if your thought energy is intersecting with someone else’s thought energy or with a non physical source of energy, you’re not aware of it. It still feels like your thoughts so you can actually be prompted to think toe look at assign toe look to the left to listen to the lyric of a song and that’s the that’s. The way that it works is that you, it’s basically, like, think about an invisible couple of fingers being put on your cheek asking you to turn to the left or turn to the right or look up or listen well, i whenever i had a break up when i was younger, i always thought, you know but everybody thinks it’s the song lyrics are talking to me about how how melancholy i’m feeling but i think that’s ah, well, maybe it’s coincidence with purpose. Yes. Ok. Could be helping you through the process, is there? Ah, a minimum number of people that that this really works well with me is like, is three enough for there really? Isn’t even two people can really very powerful on dh, not self censoring. Really? Yeah. No. Yeah. Even two people is very effective. As a matter of fact, there are often times just teams that do this and you don’t even have to have the same objective. If you’re working with just one other team member, you can give a half hour to one person’s purpose and one half hour to the other person’s per purpose. If you have a very small organization, it still is effective. Having at least two players, though, helps your own personal bias is to be removed through the vision or the eyes of somebody else. Okay, i like the idea that this could be ongoing. So we could just schedule this hour a week, and maybe i have several devoted to the same. Topic and then switch topics but always have this sort of playful our you have organizations that have have done that devoted time to this over the long term. Yes, i have organizations that this is just a part of their business process. Now for two, three, four years it’s just been an ongoing part. Everyone gets used to that. This is when it’s scheduled this is when we meet, and they do look at it as the fun hour of the week share a client story, one of one of those longer term organizations can you ok, here’s a good example for fora non-profit often times, the biggest challenge is thie ongoing process of fund-raising especially if the fund-raising methods are finite and you need to raise revenue on an annual basis, and you’re starting from scratch, scratch fiscally every year. So one example of something that came out of the brainstorming for one come company one organization was that it’s, an organization that helps young people between the ages of fourteen and eighteen who have started to have issues with the law or with drugs or other different problems, and it gives them a place to maybe find different traits or characteristics within them while being guided by a support staff that can help them. And the challenge definitely is in fund-raising, you know, they have their gala, they have their golf outing. But what was generated from this process was the idea that thie donor-centric a child and have real communication with one of the people that he has is in contact with. So it’s monthly communication, maybe even photographs, a man indication of what kinds of really cool things is being done with their money and their donation. So what that does is it takes it from ah, one year donation of such and such amount of font and then it’s out of their mind, and it becomes a subscription. So every month their credit card is processed, and they have this relationship with the person which encourages them to stay with the subscription. And that came out of intuitive brainstorming works outstanding. Um, share what? What it is that you love about the work that you do with clients, whether individuals or or organizations or companies there’s a lot of things that i love about it. But one is certainly that one is definitely that. Thie benefits that you see in your business, and when he’s starting to see more abundance and more possibility and more wonderful things coming your way with less effort than you used to put in. All of that starts to kind of overflow into your personal life too. So the principles are the same. Whether you’re having these successes in business or you’re having them in your personal life, the principles are the same. You’re exercising muscles that affect every area of your life, so i love to see the personal growth that develops from the business growth and vice versa. So that’s really satisfying the other thing is that it’s fun to see that people start to believe that life can be easier to get out of that mode of life is hard, this is difficult. This is not fun. I can’t get this done and to start to see that when you link into this support that’s there for you and it’s free and that you can use it, that challenges start to fade and have the same extent or the same energetic difficulties that you used to have. So just to see that byproduct of it as well, as really satisfying, we have a lot more time. You won’t share one more thing that you love about the work. Okay, one more thing. Well, i’ll take it to a personal level if you don’t mind. I was one of those people that was, you know, falling into snags constantly relationship wise or people wise or or even my relationship with money. And in the ten years that i’ve been really focusing on this, i have probably fewer challenges than anybody i’ve ever met, and i also feel that i’m probably one of the happiest people i’ve ever met, which i’m going to tell you. A decade ago, i didn’t know it was even possible. I feel like i’m in a joint venture with the universe and yes, you are all right, karen garvey. You will find her at the answer’s unlimited dotcom. Thank you so much for being against karen. Thank you, it’s been a real pleasure. We’ll take a break when we come back a little more live listener love tony’s take two and then gene takagi is with us to talk about the poll latto paul part do stay with us e-giving didn’t think dick tooting, getting dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get in. E-giving good. 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 method i 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. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna i’m leslie goldman with the us fund for unicef, and i’m casey rotter with us fun for unison. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Metoo now more live listener love teo washington, d c, san francisco and jamaican new york. Where comes to coast? Jamaica have courses in queens. Very diverse neighborhood. So could be anybody listening in jamaica, new york. What comes to coast today and there’s? More live listener love coming from coming from abroad. My tony’s take two. This week is about my blog’s, which was are you having fun? Because last weekend i was a judge at the thirty first annual coney island mermaid parade and it was it was great fun. There were mermaids. There were mermaid ls. There were octopuses, burlesque dancers, ice skaters, ice skaters in in june, on on a float that had, i guess, in that ice on it they were skating. There was even a pabst blue ribbon float, pbr float. And that just got me thinking about summer fun. So my block this week is are you having fun? Because it is summer and my suggestion that you make time for fun, you have to make the time because you won’t just find it. But i think it’s very well worth doing. There are pictures from the mermaid parade on my blog’s at tony. Martignetti dot com, including a bunch of mermaids and that is tony’s take two for friday twenty eighth of june twenty sixth show of the year and my one hundred forty eighth show. The one hundred fiftieth is going to be on july twelfth. There’s nothing special planned for the hundred fiftieth show. It’ll be it’ll be a laid back sesquicentennial. My pleasure, as it always is. When he’s here to welcome jean takagi he’s, the principal of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, he edits the very popular non-profit law blawg dot com. And you can follow him on twitter at gt a k g attack. Gee, tak, welcome back. Hey, tony, how are you? I’m great that’s a little rhyme i made. I just i just thought that right now. Is that what i’m what an improviser. Welcome back. Okay, um, we are continuing our conversation from back in may may tenth, to be exact when we were talking about dan piela tas viral video. The way we think about charities is dead wrong. And we talked about compensation and advertising and marketing and risk taking, and we want to continue their two. Other things that you blogged about it on the first of those is time constraints that non-profits don’t have the luxury of time. What? What air dan’s concerns there. I think tony, you know, because the public and thunders appear to have really little patients for non-profits that failed, teo immediately make an impact that they can report back there’s. Just this lack of patient capital. It’s, maybe a buzz term that people use in this industry, that’s willing to wait it out and allow non-profits to develop the right infrastructure and systems, and perhaps the right, uh, foundations to go to scale before being able to deliver the type of results that the public and that institutional thunders they’re looking for, and then makes a very good point there. I have a clip of him talking about this, relating it, to analogizing it to the corporate side. So amazon went for six years without returning any profit to investors, and people had patients. They knew that there was a long term objective down the line of building market. Dahna. But if a nonprofit organization ever had a dream of building magnificent scale that required for six years, no money was going to go to the needy was all, then be invested in building the scale. We would expect the crucifixion. That’s damp latto is there? Is there something we can do about this game? And he he has a very good example that if if if charity went six years without spending money on mission, there would be there would be a lot of trouble that there would be, and there would be legal problems a cz well, there there is a principle it’s rarely used, and because there are no sort of really english or plain english words for this high risk jargon j hope that it’s called the commensurate test for pizza basically all right, commencement fancy words and just basically means that a charity has to spend its resource is in line with its mission, and that includes the amount of financial resources it has and what amount is going to program versus administrative and fund-raising so if you were to spend and and i’m not actually a man of that example that that dan produced with amazon, i’ll explain that in a second. But if you were to spend six years building infrastructure and admit zsystems to go to magnificent scale without spending a penny on program that’s going to be a violation of the commensurate test almost surely on dh there may be others from some other problems with that as well. The reason, tony, i don’t like it. Maybe you could tell me how you feel is well, when amazon was building up for six years, it was still selling books and producing revenues and inspiring confidence in its investors if a non-profit were to do nothing but build infrastructure for six years and not do any programming it’s not been inspire confidence in its investors. And it’s not really the legal problem it’s the ability to track capitol problem if it’s not showing any demonstrate, you know, demonstration of its ability. Tio achieved this massive scale of the project can’t show benchmarks along the way. And the public and institutional investors, they’re just not going to believe in this, i say all right, so there was there was mission related work going on in amazon for those six years that’s so the analogy isn’t really great. That’s my feeling okay, mission related work being sales. They just maybe weren’t profitable, but they were doing some mission related work. Okay, now, lobbying can be effective, but in making chain making social change but that’s largely, and we’ve talked about this before prohibited. Well, actually, i correctly there okay tony so non-profit public charities and engage in quite a significant amount of lobbying without passing the threshold. But locking and advocacy were generally it takes time to do. And so, in that sense, an investment in time requires some patients there and again, patients capital, it’s, it’s, an investment in time, and supporters of those lobbying advocacy efforts are going to have to wait it out to see what may happen, and sometimes a change in the laws we’ve seen with the supreme court decisions recently. Sometimes changes in the law are much, much more powerful than just direct services. Let’s move to another of dan’s concerns. The final one, which is that non-profits don’t attract profit. Tio don’t don’t make profit to attract risk. Yeah, great, great point so for-profit can attract equity owners, and they can use that to make investments in, you know, big projects that might become sustainable and be able to deliver charitable goods to communities and made on a consistent basis and non-profits can attract that equity capital because, of course, non-profits don’t have owners now i actually don’t have a problem with that. And, tony, maybe you could tell me what you think. I don’t think we want tohave charitable non-profits with shareholders who put pressures on getting a financial return for their investments think non-profits are difficult enough to run in having shareholders there is just gonna complicate things even more. Well, we’re we’re moving. I don’t want to say we’re moving to that, but there are these, um, other ways of self-funding funding social change, like, like the social impact bonds. And i think you and i have talked about those before and just these things that fall under pr ize programme related investments that are sort of that way. I mean, there’s sort of a midline yeah, i think the midline that you’re speaking up that’s, where we’re trying to go, so we don’t really want non-profits with shareholders so i don’t think we want non-profits tohave equity investments in them, but what we do want our ways for investors to be able to invest in social good, so there are a few ways to do that one is, well, already social investors could make loans to non-profit on and, you know, if they want to get a financial return, you know, in line with the fair and, you know, market rate, return for their loan, um, i’m sure charities would love that if they could go a little bit more with the risk than a bank might pick, then charities have access two new capital, but that depends upon inspiring confidence in those social investors. Private foundations can make program related investments, as you mentioned, and those who take the form of usually loans or guarantees that will be for the benefit of non-profits to run their program and the private foundations aren’t expecting sort of a big production of income or appreciation. They’ve got any equity investments in return, but they could do that already got social impact bonds that you talked about such a cool idea where we don’t really know if they’re going to work because it’s such a a new idea, but the government issues the bonds and pays on ly if the social goals are met, and so the investors and the bonds are taking a risk that the social the non-profits that air contract it with the money that the bonds produce are going to be able to to keep their goals. And new york has got a great experiment going on with goldman sachs and recidivism that’s going to be a great example for for us to see whether this is going to really produce impact or not. I think the last part is maybe those hybrid organizations, those air, not non-profits, but they’re kind of in this cool space somewhere in between traditional for-profit organizations and non-profits and these air like the benefit corporation, flexible purpose corporations, social purpose corporation, low profit, limited liability companies that kind of occupying this space in the spectrum between social good and financial returns for shareholders and i think that’s going to be an exciting space. Did you watch maria simple and i talked about finding foundations that will do these program related investments, and that show was on march. Eighth of this year what’s that goldman sachs and recidivism example that you mentioned jean i’m not aware of that. Well, basically goldman sachs is is the bond is the investor in the bond so they bought the bond and they’re going to profit on ly if the non-profit center involved are able to reduce the receipt of ism so the government will pay out based on the savings that they get from reducing prisoner wei have recidivism on so you know it’s it’s kind of a win win situation if it all works, if there is actually impact. So if the government makes the right that on the service provider on the non-profits and they do a good job of reducing recidivism, then the government will save money overall used some of that savings to pay the bondholders which in this case is goldman sachs and so, you know, theoretically a great model sticking the right partners that’s going to be the tough, the tough thing and then finding the right buyers, goldman sachs came out and, you know, took a shot of the investor here. But will the public buy it? Same problem with the hybrid organizations. We talked about, we see a lot of private individuals twisted in doing social good, who are investing in this. But we haven’t seen big institutional investors come in in a big way yet, and i think that’s follow-up do you know how much goldman sachs invested in the in the bonds? I don’t think i could be quoted for that, but i think it was somewhere with around seven million dollars, okay, all right, that’s, right, let’s say. We’ll take our break, and when we come back, we’re going to talk about the overhead myth. That letter that just came out very recently, and also an oregon law that’s related to this and putting a cap on. Well, sort of putting a cap on the amount that can go to non program related activities. So stay 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 conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in 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. Zoho dahna hyre more live listener love to columbus, ohio, new york, new york. Welcome, fujisawa, japan, can it? You are beijing, china. Many people in beijing. Are you together? Do you know each other? Beijing welcome. Ni hao. Jean let’s. Talk about the the overhead myth letter. Um, this was signed by the leaders of the better business bureau wise giving alliance, um, guide star and charity navigator and ken berger from charity navigator, ceo of ceo. There has been has been a guest. This letter is is just come out very recently ordered. I just learned about it very recently. Now it came out very recently, just a few days ago. Ok, they didn’t put a date on it. That’s the first thing i learned in grade school, you supposed to put a date on your letter and then you do the inside address and then the greeting, but they don’t have they have neither an inside address nor a date, but okay, it came out very recently on dh. Why is this creating a lot of buzz in non-profits? But it’s creating a lot of buzz? Because i think these charity, some of them are charities, ratings organizations, some of them just provide information about charities to the public. But there’s been a widespread feeling among charities that thie over admit that they’re talking about was actually perpetuated by some of these organizations in terms of rating charities, by virtue of what they’re programmatic expenses were versus their administrative and fund-raising expenses, very much the argument that pelota was talking about as well. And the feeling was that the ratings agencies were e-giving low scores to anybody that had this high overhead ratio. I know so it’s ah it’s, a little it’s, little crusty of ah, of ken berger to be signing this, to quote the letter which is against signed by all three the percent of charity expenses that go to administrative and fund-raising costs commonly referred to as overhead is a poor measure of a charity’s performance and that’s very early in the letter. And then they go on to encourage donors it’s addressed to the donors of america. They encourage, um, donors to think about on dh consider lots of other factors besides overhead myth overhead overhead. Um, yeah, it seems a little hypocritical. Yeah, and i think they go back. I think the first sentence is probably not reflective what they actually believe that overhead is a poor measure of the charity performance. I think what they’re trying to say. And i think the rest of the letter describes it is that overhead alone is a port measures charity performance because they go, they go on and say in the letter, but overhead offers insight and can be a valid data point for rooting out fraud and poor financial management. But in most cases, and i think the message to donors is this and i don’t want to detract from that messages that focusing on overhead alone does more damage than good. And i absolutely we believe in that as well. Yes, for sure. And i am trying to get the three signers of the letter as guests together. I already reached out tio the better business bureau wise giving alliance and charity navigator. I don’t have a connection to guide star, but i’m trying. I would like to have a show with the three of them to let me see if i could make that connection for you. Honey. Really? You know somebody it ah, guidestar. I do. Oh, okay. Thank you. Well, this is good. Look at this intuitive brainstorming. It works. It works. I put the message out and i got an answer right back. This is incredible, it’s. Just that in advance to pardon me. You must have known that in advance. No, i no. I mean, what do you mean, what? I must have known what they’re what your intuition told you to go in this direction. Well, the my first guest, we were talking about intuitive brainstorming. Instead of you start to put something out. Then you’ll get signs back. And i was going to start looking at vanity license plates, but but i don’t have to thank you, jean. That would be a credit that’s. Incredible. This is the works system works. Um, okay. Now, over up in oregon and i learned is not oregon. I was admonished by by tim sample who’s amy sample ward’s father. He called in from oregon once. There’s no. E on oregon. So it’s not there’s. No e on oregon. So it’s, not oregon. So those of you were pronouncing it wrong. Please be admonished. Over and up in oregon. They have ah, new law. That sort of puts a cap on how? Much charities khun spend on non program it’s kind of going against the flow of the theme that we’ve been. We’ve been focused on you, we’re going right? Is this back and forth? I know. So yes, there’s a house bill called two thousand sixty i believe it was signed into the law and is going to go into effect in a few months and basically it allows the attorney general to disqualify a charity from being able to receive deductible contributions and that’s just for state income tax purposes because federal income taxes are outside of oregon’s jurisdiction, so deductible contributions from the state income tax perspective if they don’t meet a thirty percent threshold, thirty percent programmatic expenses versus sort of administrative and fund-raising if they’re not real reaching that threshold, uh, for three years over a three year period, and they may not be able to receive deductible contributions from the state resident, and they have tio disclose that publicly, yeah, absolutely so they disclose it, or they can face a penalty of up to twenty five thousand dollars, and once they disclosed that the attorney general can come in and say, well, anybody donating to this? Charity will not be eligible to receive a deductible contribution for a state income tax purposes. Um, and i didn’t know it was over three years, the three year period. Okay, so three, if you’re if you’re spending less than thirty percent of your revenue on program for three consecutive years than in the third year, that’s when you have to disclose it, uh, when your fourth year in the force you closing the previous three years, okay? And if you fail on the previous three years going for the attorney general, but it could disqualify you. So after those three years, you would report it. Ok, does it have to be three consecutive years, or can you do less than thirty? More than thirty, less than thirty? More than thirty, less than thirty that’s? Three? But it was over five years. I think it’s three consecutive years and they don’t look at each year in isolation. They take a look at a rolling three year calendar. Oh, i see. Okay, um, what’s, your what’s, your opinion of this law that i think is draconian? Yeah, i i think it’s going to resonate with some of the public because you know, this week we also saw another story big story from cnn talked about the city worth charities in the united states and these air, all out liars, but also tremendously high overhead, racial and hardly any programmatic spending with, you know, cumulatively, like billions of dollars involved or hundreds of millions. So they just picked out the most egregious cases and, you know, outrages the public and the public puts pressure on the legislature to create laws to prevent those things from happening. And then we get laws like the one in oregon? Yeah, i don’t care for those, you know, fifty worse than you know, the irs does something similar too well, no, that know the irs different? No, i’m sorry they generalize about charity scams, but they don’t specifically name charities. I don’t like these headline grabbing things. It it tarnishes the entire sector it does for the vast majority of attorneys that are doing very good work. It’s it’s hard to sit there and get a hit from a donor confidence because of those real outlier. So you think they’ll be a public backlash in oregon? Well, i think the charitable sector is going toe push. Back a little bit on this, but i think actually this may be a trend, and we may see more states create these laws. Well, actually, the non-profit association of oregon endorsed the law. Yeah, they felt like this was kind of a benchmark minimum, although i think they said in a statement, i think there’s a comment field on the overhead mid fight where somebody, a representative of that association, made a statement that there shouldn’t be a single number threshold that indicate a good performing charity. This is a poor performing one, but they felt like thirty percent over three years was kind of the bottom line number that any charity should be able to meet. And i’m not sure that that that’s really something that you can back-up yeah, yeah, we have to leave it there. Gene, thank you very much. Great, thank you so much, durney i enjoyed it, jean takagi, you’ll find him at non-profit law blogged dot com and at g tack on twitter next week, beth cantor, author of the network non-profit and measuring the network to non-profit we talked it fund-raising day last month about engagement and outcomes, and i’ll have that. Interview unless i can get the three authors from the overhead myth to come, i don’t know if we could get them as quickly as next week, but they’ll take precedence over that beth cantor interview. We’ll run that another time if i could get the three of them, but i’ll try to get through them some time. Also next week, scott koegler, our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news returns. We’re going to talk about apse for your tablet. Check us out on the social networks youtube, facebook, twitter you know the litany. The links are on my block at tony martignetti dot com insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities. Listen each week contact me on my block to talk about sponsoring the show. Sam loves that music so much he played it a little prematurely. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff sam liebowitz. The one playing the music is our line producer and the show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media. The remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope that you will tune in next week at talking alternative dot com friday one two to eastern durney dahna e-giving thing duitz good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network waiting to get in. Dahna cubine are you a female entrepreneur ready to break through? Join us at sexy body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one, receive 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. 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 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. Told you.

Nonprofit Radio for June 21, 2013: Get Out and Positively Communicate & SECrets

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Interviewing Sharyn Abbott at NextGen:Charity 2011
Sharyn Abbott: Get Out and Positively Communicate

Sharyn Abbott is the author of Mixing It Up! The Entrepreneur’s New Testament and her strategies apply to small- and mid-size nonprofits, too. At the NextGen:Charity conference in 2011 we talked about networking your nonprofit; recruiting and hiring motivated people; and positive communications. Sharyn reads my face to tell me what kind of communicator I am.

 

 

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: SECrets

Maria Semple is the author of Panning for Gold: Find Your Best Donor Prospects Now! and our prospect research contributor. This month she pans for research gold in SEC corporate filings.

 

 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

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

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

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

Sign-up for show alerts!

Here is the link to the audio: 147: Get Out And Communicate Positively & SECrets. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get the podcast automatically.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 147_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130621.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:00:37.545Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2013…06…147_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130621.mp3.515086308.json
Path to text: transcripts/2013/06/147_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130621.txt

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, it feels good to be back in the studio. It’s been a couple of weeks. It is good to be back. Um oh, i should day o is what i mean to say i hope you were with me last week. I’d suffer a sebaceous cyst if i heard that you had missed successful software selection strategy don fornes, ceo of software advice, let us through the software selection process for non-profits also storify and cora, i announced that our social media contributor, amy sample ward, got a promotion to ceo at non-profit technology network, and then we talked about the value of storify and cora to lesser known social networks for your non-profit this week, this week was supposed to be adam grant, author of give and take, but adam had to cancel, which is a postponement? Well, it was all certainly reschedule with him, but there isn’t adam grant this week. This is what happens when you chase the celebrities, and sometimes they’re they’re busy this week. I have some pre recorded segments get out. And positively communicate. Sharon abbott is the author of mixing it up, the entrepreneurs, new testament and her strategies applied a small and midsize non-profits, too. I interviewed her at the next-gen charity conference in two thousand eleven talking about networking your non-profit and recruiting and hiring motivated people and positive communications, you’ll see sharon read my face to tell what kind of communicator i am and secrets maria simple, our regular prospect research contributor and the author of panning for gold, find your best donorsearch prospects now she shares gold panning for ah, she shares panning for research gold, using s e c corporate filings and those air to interviews from september of two thousand twelve trying to accommodate the last minute sort of cancellation that we had right now. We take a break, and when we come back, it’ll be get out and positively communicate. Stay with me. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven we are at the tribeca performing arts center in downtown manhattan. With me now is sharon abbott. Sharon is the author of mixing it up the entrepreneurs new testament talk about some of her entrepreneurial success, ideas and how those probably very well translate to your work in non-profits oh, and maybe some of her positive communication techniques also sharon abbott, welcome to the show. Thank you, tony it’s a pleasure. Pleasure to have you let’s talk a little about some of your entrepreneurial success ideas with the with our audience of small and midsize charity leaders in mind. What what’s the first thing you’d like to share. Well, what i truly believe is the better connected and non-profit is better that they will do. I taught entrepreneur skills for over twenty years to small businesses, and i would bring in and non-profit to every group that i had, and at one time i had twenty two treyz with twenty two twenty report people in every group to teach people how to be philanthropic, to teach him to get back to their community. And what i found is the skills of the needed were the same as the knob durney so i talked on how to get out in the community, how to get volunteers to work with them, how to engage other people so that they didn’t have to do all the work and how they brought in a board of directors was more proact zaptitude rather dahna board of directors by name, so that made a huge difference to the non-profits as well as one of the thing that’s really hard, especially when everyone perceives economic times being as bad as they are is that people are tired of all these organisations putting out their home just expecting a check, and so they need to get something back. And so i created all these different programs there fund-raising activities that are fun that people want to participate in that make it much easier for a non-profit to get their budget back-up where it needs to be to be self sustaining, and they don’t have to work this hard, so they couldn’t have ah lot of them do got tournaments, or they might do silent auctions. They might do a single stands. I did a big band dance for easter seals one year i did it was a costume party. We kind of did it like old victorian kind of party, where everybody came in as a character in the victorian era, very themed events, right? And that way, people, they really feel like they’re participating more in the non-profit rather than just here’s a check, you know, i’m done well, let’s, go into some detail about let’s. Start with you mentioned getting into the community. What ideas do you have specifically that non-profits khun khun execute? Well, i know in california that almost every non-profit thinks that they just need to join a chamber and then once they join the chamber there dahna there activity that they have in the chamber is actually the important part, not just joining the chamber. What would you like to see them doing? They need to be on various committees like if they were to volunteer for ambassadors. The ambassadors have to go out to every business, right? Shake hands, what you’re doing and people used to ask me, oh, you work for the chamber is you know, i’m just out here helping the chambers get better known what they need to have happen in the community, and then that brought me more business. So i thought, well, if it works for me, it’ll work for anybody and it does so if non-profit goes out and they just find out from all of from businesses what business? Needs and then takes them back to the chamber. It’s their face, they’re non-profit so that great way of becoming very active in their trainers have fund-raising valens, claire non-profits could actually be featured so they could be part of the but how about beyond joining the chamber and being active in that way as an ambassador? What other advice about getting out into the community? You know, all of the leads groups that are out there. I used to run my let’s say it’s, a business development kind of organization where people get together on a weekly basis, which most of them do, and they have coffee and everybody talks about their business years, and they said, this is what i’m looking for. This is what i have to offer, so there are business leads group, and you can find them listed in the business section of every paper there’s, a website called am city dot com that list all of the business events that that are all around the country. Ok, everything we’re going where you just search for new york and you’ll find sample is going to san francisco on business, i think it’s probably the times. Here, but in santa’s a journal. So you know, it’s one of those so am city dot com and you can see every event that’s going on every week. So if you go out to events and let’s say you meet twenty people this week, one out of twenty will either be somebody that will be on the board active in the community, help promote non-profit organized fundraiser somebody in that twenty people is going to be involved with that non-profit interesting, you really want to see non-profits getting out into the business community first. First things we’ve talked about so far been making those business connections not staying within your within the non-profit committee exactly because we have the money. Why stay in a community where everybody knows you when you go out into a community where no one knows who you are and they’re the ones who have great let’s share one more idea getting that non-profit out most non-profits don’t realize that they could do a speaking circuit rotary lions quanah is all of those kinds of social organisations, and those organizations do kind of quirky things like if you talk out of turn your find a dollar you promote your business and return to find five dollars? Well, that money is allocated to helping non-profit so if every non-profit were to go out to one of those once a week and literally their morning, noon and night, you goto seventy eight weeks and not run out of him in a year. And so you go out to these organizations. You said this is my cause this is what i’m doing. I need you. This is why here’s, the result of what happens when we get out, they literally right champ on the spot. And i know there are a lot of these groups just in the new york area you mentioned a bunch of different sessional association, but rotary isn’t there a rotary in every county? So i’m probably in one block their city there. Well, i know that at least one in every county. So this’s a big area, right? There are a lot of opportunity. Plus you mentioned all the other membership organisations lion lion’s, alanis, optimus professional business women e women network really? When you look in the paper you think when i had a travel agency in nineteen ninety one justus the gulf war was starting. I went out morning, noon and night six days a week, and i built a travel agency from thirty thousand a month, two, three hundred and seventy five thousand a month in three and a half years by doing just so it was all handshaking and getting to know people and making sure that people knew who i was, even though no one was traveling with tom, so i hid it at the worst time but managed to build my business in a way that nobody else had ever thought they didn’t spend a dime on advertising. You just had transit costs to all the meetings, and i’m joking, you know, being sarcastic, but the point is very low cost, exact neo-sage it should be fun for for executive director seo’s mean, they should be enjoying being out in the community in the business community, talking about their work. That’s the biggest issue is people have fun when they’re doing something that they’re connecting with people, and when these organizations see how much fun that you’re having, they want to be more part of it. So when when people are making oh, would you write me? A check or we, you know, we’re short on the budget. Could you help us out? It’s really kind of gloomy, and people don’t like being part of that. So you make it fun in it. Obtaining 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 are guaranteed to lead toe. Right, groat. For your business, call us at nine. One seven eight three, three, four, eight, six zero foreign, no obligation. Free consultation. Checkout on the website of ww dot covenant seven dot com are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time for action. Join me, larry. Shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac 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 know 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, larry sharp. You 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, geever. 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 yeah, i’m gonna guess you have advice about hiring, so bringing people to your organization and this stops the top, but he actually even applies to the board hiring, hiring the top. But what advice do you have about bringing people in and making sure you get people who are going to be passionate goingto love the mission and the innovative thinkers? How do we know we hyre these kinds of people? You know, i think one of the hardest things for non-profit is inviting people into their board of directors who actually have the connections, and that will make a difference for the organization. So there’s, a lot of people who are semi retired retired and they volunteer for non-profits but technically they don’t have the contacts, and they don’t have the ability to go out in the community and start helping promote other people. So if a non-profit were to look at what your database like, do you have social media contacts on what experience have you had with non-profits before? What were the results treated? Just like a job interview, so don’t take anyone on your board unless they really are bringing something to the table that’s a huge issue, there’s a lot of non-profits who just think, oh, so grateful you’ve even pasta or sometimes it’s way desperately need a lawyer or an accountant, so we’ll just take the first one that way get introduced to and we end up with just somebody who’s just brings that skill, but nothing mohr related to your to your important charitable work. And they might think that they save, you know, ten thousand a year on legal cost, but they lose one hundred thousand year by not having the right person connected with the non-profits so that’s really important that they look at, you know, what is the cost effectiveness of what a person is bringing to their nonprofit organization, right? So that’s excellent for board recruitment. How about about hiring employees within the organization? Would you like to see ceos and executive director? I have been speaking where people are unemployed for over twenty years, and i am surprised because i have a little blank card and i have them right on their what would i like to do most of anything now that i don’t have a job? And i would say twenty percent say that they want to work with the non-profit any fashion? Some even say that worked for freeze just so that they can beat heart of that community and giving back when a non-profit is looking for an executive director, that person better be a network. They better be the horn shaker they need to be up to date on technology, open minded. I’m trying different fund-raising concept instead of the same old, same old thing, because what work five years ago does not even come close to working today? And so they have to always be on top of what the technology is. We heard this morning how text messaging is so important because the thirty year olds are now not opening email and even, you know, ten percent or everybody in the world only opens was that was that aria finger was talking about texting to e j just had her as a guest before you came on, and i was talking about actually fifteen and sixteen year olds motivating them, and she said, you know, get them where they are text, right? Saving forty, two hundred messages a month for sixteen year old girls or something, right? Exactly. So you know that’s what keeping up with technology will do for someone is always looking at what else can they do? Most non-profits don’t have a log that’s a big mistake, because that, who in the non-profit you like to see doing that block duitz in the name of the executive director should be in the name of the executive director because that builds the relationship with the person who has the most visibility in the community and the most visibility and on able to make decisions for the non-profit because a lot of times you could have someone else write it in the office, but it should be in the name of the director let’s talk a little more about hiring now we’ve talked about the board, what on what the board should be looking for in the executive director. What should the executive director be doing to make sure that he or she is hiring the right people that are going to be supporting? Well, i think the skill set is going to depend on how much the non-profit is doing in the community. So if if it’s just administrative work that’s one thing that’s easy too, but the biggest give back in a non-profit is the person who has that innovative ability to figure out how they can use technology, how they khun reach out into the community, draw more people in durney there’s there’s so many different things, like most people don’t realize that you can actually go to a restaurant and say, i haven’t event coming up in thirty days, and almost every restaurant will say because you’re non-profit i’ll donate a lot right in the way i would do is i would package twelve lunches and have it lunch for a year and auction it off, you know, and just simple little things like that if you have people who are willing to go out, do things like that. Hey back-up that employee ends up paying for their own sour, and when we’re in the hiring process, how do we make sure we’re getting somebody like that in our the questions i think would be, how do you feel about being out in the business community? Are you comfortable picking up the phone and talking to people you don’t know? You know, what would you do in a situation where we need to create a new event? What would you what would you suggest? How would we go about creating an event and see how people are creative there’s also facial recognition and i teach a course it’s called about face, and it actually helps means clever figure out what your face tells me about how to communicate with you, but also how well you communicate with other people. So someone who has a larger bottom live is a good listener, right? It’s great, if you need to listen, but if they’re the person who has to be out in the community speaking, you want them to have a larger offgrid all right, we’re going to talk more about this very, very short that just want to remind listeners that i’m with sharon abbott at the next-gen charity conference two thousand eleven in new york city. Her latest book is mixed. Is this the latest mixing it up? This’s just been revised by have eight books. Okay, we’re giving credit to this one because it’s related to our topic it’s mixing it up, the entrepreneurs new testament, and you’ll find sharon abbott at sharon abbott dot com but you need to know that she spells her name, s h a r y and and two b’s and two teas in sabat and then dot com. So i should just sell the whole thing out instead of pieces. Sharon and then a and then at the end, there’s two teas and then after the others to be hyre how do we know you have a bunch of sharon abbott, dot com someone who’s. A good listener has a larger lower lip. How does that why is that true? Well, back in aristotle’s time in the fourteenth century, he began this whole study. It’s called physiognomy and judge jones in nineteen thirty five. Jones in chicago started looking at people who were presented to him in his courtroom. And he kept the law and he would have guilty. Not guilty, not guilty. And according to the jury’s findings, he was ninety percent accurate based on looking at someone’s face. So i took that information either. Wait a minute. What if we could use this for communication styling? So if i look at you, i know that you like it. When people get to the point. You want people that you’re looking at me now? They should just e i like it when people get to the point based on what makes you draw that concern your nose. But how does a physical feature convey personality? There’s a science to it? This is actually the society of reading your face, so i know that i’m going to get to the point. I’m not going to talk to take long way around, so i’m going, i’m going to actually say that she’s, right? But i think i’m a patient listener also. Well, your lip is larger on the bottom, then the top. So you’re a really good listener almost twice is good at listening as you are speaking and you know you’re good at speed, so the difference is all ego now blushing to what it was blushing cheeks metoo means you could still feel there must be some downsides. Where show me something, tell me about something that i’m shortcoming well, let’s say i needed to explain a project to you. The squareness of the bottom of your chin tells me i have to get to the point, which means i can’t tell you all about the details, but also my nose conveyed that to you to ration. But there’s there’s this point where you’re going, i don’t want to know how you’re going to build it. I just want to know when it’s going to be built, and so people who have a need to explain every detail will get very frustrated because you’re looking at and go, you know, i’ve got things to do. You just tell me what i need to do, and we’re done. This is embarrassing because she’s sizing happens there’s a pretty accurate this is not like fortune telling e-giving this’s, she’s anything? Is there anything else? Oh, absolutely. All right, one more. Go ahead. I’m getting paid now. I don’t want this is actually quite insightful. Portion right above your eyebrows is okay now for radio listeners. She’s putting her finger in between my eyebrows right in between her, i’m i mean, we’re not there’s no contact. She says that there’s no physical contact at all. It’s. Unbelievable. So this tells me that you like information in order. So you want to give me this first, then this then that in order. But i pluck my eyebrows. So if i had one brow straight across with the unibrow, not in style. No, this is the logic. This is, like minus flat right here. She’s again, she’s talking about the space between her eyebrows and the forehead. Right? So i have a logical personality. You have a logical personality. So you really want things in order? First, there’s a lot of people who you’ll see it’s just totally slanted back. Those people who they understand process and then they immediately know how it applies to them. Long term physiognomy is the physiognomy. Okay, that’s, the practice and google physiognomy and sharon abbott as well. We’re gonna go off this now, but that was that was that was pretty much on point. Yeah, i didn’t disagree with anything. You just told me about myself. I learned something. Dahna okay, let’s, talk a little about your you’re positive communication techniques since we’re talking about the way people like to communicate and your judging this by there by there face, right. What are some of the positive communication techniques that people should be using? Well, i think it’s really difficult for a lot of people to stay positive in what i believe is a perceived economy. Now, i cannot argue with the numbers, you know? We do have the highest unemployment rate of this time. There are fewer people donating to non-profits, you know, you kind of get point. So how do we actually project a positive attitude when we know that this is on everyone’s mind? So my attitude is no one came along, scraped up all the money and locked it up, and they’re not magically waiting to the day that everybody says, okay, take the money out now. So where is the money? It’s just moved, so when we’re communicating with people and we start thinking about all right, so what do i have to do to be that person that somebody wants to give, what they have allocated their ten percent toe a non-profit communicating in a positive manner instead of we need money, we need thio raise his phones, it would be when people are involved with our non-profit jesus, this is what we’re giving back to you, and the long term benefit for you is so it’s turning something around, you’re saying the same thing, but in a positive manner and making the person that you’re talking with more comfortable with the idea of being involved so the simple technique, but it’s phrasing. How you actually phrase what you’re talking about and allowing the other person. So this is where this comes into play. If you’re talking to somebody who has a larger upper lip, you make sure that they have more than enough time to talk. Kayman, let’s, let’s, give an example of fund-raising something positively that that in a positive way, we do that, that someone that i wouldn’t be well, take a negative and make it sort of a positive so people can understand making this positive communication. Give me a name. It’s, i’m cold rooms cold. I’m too cold in this room instead of saying i’m too cold and that’s an easy fix. Starting studies let’s, let’s put on a sweater. You don’t put on the jacket, you know, let’s, move a little bit. Start getting your blood moving a little bit so that you can actually be warmer. Come on. But let’s say challenging one would be i called all these people and no one is calling me back. Okay? Right. And that happens a lot. You know, when when i am actually very business oriented, which i think makes a big difference. A lot of people get into non-profit and they think it is not for-profit and non-profits have to be profit minded. So they have to know that they’re making more money than what it costs him to run the organization. So i do things like i make twenty dials. I know that ten people answered the phone. I know that if i leave five voicemail messages on ly one person’s going to call me back, is it worth my while to return those calls and call somebody who doesn’t call me back? So do i look at the possibility that that person is out of town busy, you know, family things going on and then call them again anyway. So my rule of thumb is you take a situation where somebody nobody’s calling me back, i don’t know what to do, and then they get into that funk. So how do you turn it around? So what i found is that for every organization there is a time a day, a day of the week that has the best return, so i call on monday morning at nine o’clock i’m not likely to get the right people that answer the phone because they’re setting up their week. They’ve got their sales meetings, whatever is going so i know that if i call at eleven thirty, people are kind of wrapping up their morning and they’re getting ready for lunch if i call it one thirty they’ve just gotten back for lunch. They might be late back for much. So there’s these windows of time ten to eleven one, two, three and i know that monday’s not the best day in friday’s, not the best day. So if i make my calls tuesday, wednesday and thursday, then i’m gonna have a much better ratio if i can improve my ratios even ten percent, then i improve my bottom line. So why not treat a business like a non-profit as a true business, actually track what we’re doing having results so that we know that if this isn’t working, we have to sure and start doing something. Most people keep doing the same thing over and over again, and it drives them crazy, right? The definition of insanity, but they don’t never realise all need to do a shift what it is that they’re doing so that they end up having better results. We have to stop there. Sharon abbott, one of her eight books is mixing it up. The entrepreneurs new testament one thank you very much for being a guest. Sharon. Oh, you’re welcome. Thank you, tony. Thank you. Even with my big lower lip. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the nextgencharity conference two thousand eleven. Thank you very much for joining us. Still able to speak with my fat lip? That was that was a lot of fun with sharon right now we take a break and when we come back tony’s take to get a little tony’s. Take two for you and some live listener love, and then maria simple with secrets. Stay with me. You don’t think that shooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving. Thank you, 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 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. Oppcoll lively conversation. Top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m janna agger’s, senior vice president, products and marketing from blackbaud cubine. I got live listener love guangzhou, china ni how many listeners in seoul, south korea many there are many of you are you all together? Maybe you’re all together in a coffee shop in seoul? Do you know each other? I wonder but there are many of you there and of course i wish you an io haserot lots of lots more live listener love coming up so hang in, including domestic live listeners alright, i’ll tease a little bit brooklyn, new york live love to you live listen her love to you thank you andme or domestic live listener love coming! Tony steak two two weeks ago, i was at fund-raising day new york conference at the marriott marquis i was with remote producer john federico. We were on the exhibit floor, and i learned from fifteen guests it’s and doing nine interviews, including beth cantor, sarah durum, whose ceo of big duck and professor doug white from columbia university who’s been a guest before it’s. Great fun being on the exhibit floor, lots of people coming by saying hello, i know you. I follow you on twitter love the podcast it was really very gratifying. Thank you very much to everybody who came by listeners and new listeners as well, welcome and also want to make you aware that aria finger, who is ceo of do something dot or ge, has been a guest on the show and there in fact, there’s video of her conversation with me on engaging millennials on the youtube channel, which israel tony martignetti she’s still ceo at do something but she’s been appointed in addition, president of too much information or t m i, which is an agency of do something, and they’re going to lend to non-profits and other marketers do somethings, expertise and research in mobilizing eighteen to twenty five year olds in social change. That is pretty exciting, that’s it’s obviously a growing market, and they’re a lot of non-profits, i think frustrated trying to engage the eighteen to twenty five year olds so you might reach out to t m i or too much information and aria and her team will help you there. There’s more about both of those on my blog’s at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday twenty first of june twenty fifth show of the year we’re roughly within a week of being halfway through the year. Um, right now i have for you another previous interview, this one with maria simple talking about sec corporate filings and everything you confined in those maria simple is with me. Now you know her she’s, the prospect finder she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com, and her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch now you can follow her on twitter at maria simple. Maria simple welcome hey, tony, how are you today? I’m doing great. Thank you. We’re talking about secrets. What is the this securities and exchange commission data? Well, there’s a lot of very interesting data that we can look at as non-profits to try and find some potential new donors for us as well as maybe some people who are current donors that we just didn’t realize are connected to public companies as corporate insiders. So let’s talk about corporate insiders. I want to make sure that everybody really understands what that is. We hear so much, i guess, in the news about insider trading and it’s always, you know, portrayed in a negative light. And that means that people who are corporate insiders have done something illegal with information they have as as insiders. But basically, if urine inside earthy see defines you as falling into one of three categories, you’re either one of the top officers of the company. Uh, usually there’s. About five, six, seven people around that number listed. You are one of the board of directors of that public company. Or you just happen to be a person or an entity that holds ten percent or more of the outstanding stock of that company. So if you fall into one of those three categories, you must report all of your trading activity in that company to the securities and exchange commission. And all of that data is public knowledge. Okay, so insiders have to file with the company’s about there their holdings within the companies that they’re insiders for that’s, right? And then also, public companies also file with the sec. They must right. Right? Right. So, i mean, you know, the information can be found if you happen to know that a particular process effect is connected to a public company as a corporate insider, maybe they sit on the corporate board of that particular company you can actually go to that company’s website. And typically the tab that you would be looking for in a company’s website is called investor relations. Ok, for the companies themselves do have the data. All right, on course. We can also get it from the sec. But before we go further let’s keep it let’s. Keep each other out of jargon jail. Let’s. Make sure everybody understands what is a public company. So a public company is a company that is has issued stock and its trading on the market. I guess the most famous one that we saw go from a a private to a public company recently with facebook. Right? So, prior to that all of the information was private. Uh, no, no information had to be released to the public about salary information att saturday. Other compensation data. But now that they’re a public company and the public now owns shares of that company owns part of the company, they have to be able to report all the all the goings on all the various filings about, you know not only what the corporate insiders were doing, but obviously. All the data related to other financial information for the company it’s the difference between privately held on dh public that’s. Right? Ok, so what kind of data can we find about about what we’re interested in the people, the insiders, what kind of people? What kind of info can we find? Well, the interesting information you confined if somebody is a top officer at the company, you confined there, there salary and other compensation data, and they actually have charts of that data going back over a three year period so you can actually see whether they’ve had what their big salary wass what commit other compensation that they might have maybe bonuses, etcetera? Um, really key? I think teo looking at this data is stock ownership because very often a non-profit um, especially if they are in, say, in a capital campaign or an endowment campaign mode where they’re really looking for major gift trying to get a gift of appreciated stock, a supposed to getting a gift of outright cash from a particular donor could be very beneficial. So, you know, just understanding whether or not you have people in your own fund-raising database, whether or not they may be one of these corporate insiders who can give you stock that would be fabulous to know, and, you know, the screening companies can help identify that for you if you’re not able to self identify who those corporate insiders are in your database, okay? And there could be other there’s other stuff that’s disclosed as well, like all their their fringe benefits and things, right, which can include insurance policies, that’s, right, all their employment agreement. You know, you’ve heard of people who have these golden parachutes, right if they’re released from a company, so all of that is actually outlined in these particular employment agreement eyes that maria, i’m sorry is the agreements themselves or public? So, yeah, they they actually will say, you know, if this person is terminated, thiss personnel will be subject to earning x number of dollars, maybe even shares of stock upon their termination, but i’m just curious, can you actually see the language of their employment contract? Or do you think i don’t see the language of the employment contract but within the proxy statements which is filing statement that this information is contained within that’s where you would find really? That the juicy, the meat of it all that if that is of importance to you, if you have somebody who is, perhaps, you know, a corporate insider and maybe, you know, has just been let go or will be let go. You can actually find that information just like lurking. I would if i could see people’s employment contracts. But now all right, just some juicy details. Yeah, exactly. Details. No other juicy details that i like pulling out of this is also bios of the thie entire board of directors of ah, of a public company. So it’ll give somebody’s age. So right? Yeah. I mean, you know, you do plan giving tony, so understanding whether or not somebody is maybe perhaps even a prime planned e-giving prospect based upon their age that’s disclosed in this a statement, you have a bio that would contain where they’re currently employed other corporate boards that they sit on so very often i’ll read about bio yeah, within a corporate proxy. And then i’ll realize, oh, i didn’t realize this person also sat on another board of directors. Yes. So their insider over there too. Right? So then that makes me, you know, have to you know, then i know just from that key piece of information here’s, another area i need to explore as i’m doing my prospect research that they may actually own, you know, significant shares in this other companies well, right? And just to remind people that a way that you might find that someone is an insider because you might not know it is setting up the google alerts, the free google lorts that you and i have talked about a couple of times in the past, if you have those on your major donors, then information about them and the company that they’re an insider for, we’ll come right to your rage. Your inbox? Yes, i think it should you know why? Because when they have let’s say i maria semple, where a corporate insider, maybe i sat on the board of directors of the company. I just used to use me as an example, but now you’ve learned tripoint likelihood of that ever happening. So so even test really small it’s not even worth it. You’ll start using one of your other regular anybody but me. Yeah, you’re much better off if you have much greater likelihood of being inside of me. If i traded today in a public company and i were a corporate insider, i need to let the sec know within two business days. Oh, wow. Yeah. So, you know, from a product, you know, as a prospect researcher it’s. Terrific. Because you know that if you’re looking at particular filings, you will be able to see whether that person has how much stock they have within a two day accuracy period. Okay. That’s. Incredible. So, yeah, well, all of that came about, you know, and because of the recent financial meltdown, et cetera, in the early two thousand’s, but there was definitely some new laws that went into a fake into effect under the sarbanes oxley act. And so they ended up saying, okay, you know what? You used to have a longer period to let us. Now now we’re shortening it for two days since you mentioned plan giving earlier. Something else you might find out about his people’s retirement plans with the cup with the company that’s, right? That’s, right. So might give you some some idea there as well. Whether or not they’re gonna have maybe. You know, a significant amount of money that they were going to have to do something with. So, you know, why not know about that and be prepared to have a conversation with them? So we have just about a minute and a half before our first break, what? So you mentioned the proxy statement that’s one thing that has to be filed that’s filed by the companies or by the insiders, those air filed by the company’s once a year, once a year, they’re filed with the securities and exchange commission, they’re known as to other things actually notice of annual meeting of shareholders. You might see it turned that way, and then everyone of the filings that the sec has has a number and the number that course sponsor to these. This particular sec document is called death d f like crank death fourteen a and that’s filed once a year by the company. Okay? And those air all the different names for the proxy statement? Yeah, yeah, i mean, they’re they’re known as all these different things, but if you are on the website, you’re actually looking for form death fourteen a for that particular company again. It’s on the company’s website, though, is well. Ok, now we have just about thirty seconds before, before our break. There’s, there’s, annual and quarterly statements also, right? Yes, there are. There are definitely annual and quarterly statements, and they’re they’re more related to significant happenings within the company related to really financial goings on of the company itself, as opposed to individuals connected to the company. So for the most part, that’s, the type of information that they’re going to file annually quarterly. Okay, we have to take a break when we returned. Of course, maria semple stays with me, and we’ll talk about some of the places where you can find this data. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Cerini 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, 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. Welcome back. I’m glad you’re still with us with a cracked voice cracks again again, like a thirteen year old maria, just briefly. What are the seance? Isn’t important to know the file. Name the names of some of these forms. What do these annual and quarterly statements called that people will be looking for? Well, if you’re looking for those quarterly and annual statements ten k and a k or those statements. But there are others that i think are even more interesting in terms of prospect research. In addition to that proxy, the death of fourteen a there’s, something called a form three and a form four. So form three is the initial report work that is filed by insiders as of the date that they become an insider or a beneficial owner of stock that will lift their holdings as of that day now, i would’ve thought that would be formed one but that’s not forme one yeah called for me. Okay, i don’t want confuse people. All right? It should be for more that i find very interesting is called form for, which would show any changes and holdings anytime that insider buys or sells their insider, stock and that’s the form that i was referring to that actually has to be filed within that two day period of that stock chance transactions. So let’s say there’s an example. Maybe a proxy filing may have been done and say april here for a particular public company. And here it is the beginning of september where researching this particular corporate insider if we only go on the data that was filed on the death of fourteen a document that proxy and it’s going to show the stock holdings as of april twenty twelve there’s a lot of time passed through several months. Did this person trade any stock during this time? We would like to know what their their holdings they’re still the same or not. So you would be looking particularly performed for to see if that person actually made a trade and stop between april and september, and then on the form it’s self it’s going to show you whether they bought or sold more stock, and then how many shares that they hold at the conclusion of that sale? So let’s say the conclusion of that particular transaction, i still own ten thousand shares. Of that particular stock, i can go on a web site that shows, you know, market activity. Boone is showing, you know, what’s going on in the stock market and get a general idea of how much that stock is worth in that portfolio. All right. You mentioned the corporate website under investor relations and investor information as one place too. Find this data where else? The government has its sec has its own site. Yes, the sea, which is dot gov does have a database called edgar free edgar’s. So that is definitely something that you can use teo to look for the information and using the website or even going to the corporate website is three. Two d’oh. Okay, edgar, i had always heard of edgar, but i didn’t know that it it stands for electronic data gathering analysis and retrieval. Yeah, that isn’t that smart of the is in that little clever of the sec. They should have, like, make a retrievable info analysis. And there would be maria. There you go. You should have maria get rid of edgar and replace it with maria. Okay, fun. We just have, like we just have about two minutes. Left. What are other sites where you can find this? Even though we’ve already identified some free ones, right? So a fee based site, actually, one that i myself subscribe to because i do so much of this type of research is called ten k wizard dot com and that’s actually part of the morning star document research of companies. So it used to be a stand alone, and now they’re part of morning stars. So ten k wizard, i find to be really useful. Their lowest subscription is roughly four hundred dollars a year, and it enables you to i just like the output of the data. I like the fact that i can put in an insider’s name, and it will show me every place somebody is connected to a corporate insider to lead me directly to the filings. And i can see a pdf copy of the filings. Um, so it’s it’s just a quicker way. So i would suggest for anybody who’s really going to be doing a lot of this, you might want to consider a subscription service, okay. Oh, really? They just worked. Works better than the edgar site or going to the companies. You know it, i think it just points to a lot of information very quickly. So as opposed to trying to sort through the information on the corporate side, etcetera, teo, sort through, say all the form four filings that exist on a corporate site to just see well, because it’ll just say form for, you know, and say the filing he’ll need to try and figure out what is this filing related to the person that i’m researching right now? Yeah. So, it’s, just the way you go about the research, i think it just becomes a little bit more efficient on some of the paid resource is maria sample is the prospect finder. You can follow her on twitter at maria simple. Her sight is the prospect finder dot com always a pleasure. Thank you very much, maria. Thanks so much. Have a great day. Thank you very much. I’ve got more live listener love newport, north carolina, cincinnati, ohio and reston, virginia. Thanks for joining us. Live. Love going out to you listeners in japan, metallica, tokyo for pete’s sake, it’s almost two. In the morning there. What do you what do you doing up listening to this why are you why are you listening? But i love that you are. Thank you very much next week. Intuitive brainstorming. Karen garvey is an author, speaker, intuitive and coach and we’ll talk about the new brainstorming and jean takagi returns he’s, our legal contributor and principal at the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, and we’ll finish our discussion of the dan pallotti video. The way we think about non-profits is dead wrong started that last month when he was on insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities. Listen, each week you can contact me on the block if you’d like to talk about sponsoring the show. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is 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 week on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. I think the dude getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz waiting to get in. 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. 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 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, stopped 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 thing. Talking all calm. Hyre

Picture of Don Fornes

Nonprofit Radio for June 14, 2013: Successful Software Selection Strategy & Storify and Quora

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guests:

Picture of Don Fornes
Don Fornes
Don Fornes: Successful Software Selection Strategy

Don Fornes, CEO of Software Advice, leads us through the software selection process for nonprofits.

 

 

 

Picture of Amy Sample Ward
Amy Sample Ward
Amy Sample Ward: Storify and Quora

Our social media contributor, Amy Sample Ward, got a promotion at Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN). Then we’ll talk about the value of Storify and Quora, two lesser-known social networks, for your nonprofit.

 
 
 


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

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

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

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

Sign-up for show alerts!

We’ll add a link to the audio as soon as possible after Friday afternoon’s show. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get the podcast automatically.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 146_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130614.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:02:01.721Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2013…06…146_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130614.mp3.495286205.json
Path to text: transcripts/2013/06/146_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130614.txt

Durney 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 stuff. I’d suffer stick a myth eah, if i heard that you had missed maria’s faa cues maria simple, the prospect finder and our monthly prospect research contributor there’s a lot of speaking and training, we talked about what she’s frequently asked, and artists sally west and keith, right? We’re with me from australia tell us about the love is campaign this week successful software selection strategy don fornes, ceo of software advice, leads us through the software selection process for non-profits how do you know when yours isn’t working quite right? Also, storify and cora, our social media contributor amy sample ward i got a promotion at the non-profit technology network in ten. After that, we’ll talk about the value of storify and cora to lesser known social networks for your non-profit between the guests on tony’s take to my block this week is a charity did what charities do? Beth israel medical centers fund-raising became public in the new york times. Is there anything they should? Be ashamed of my great pleasure now to welcome don forged to the show, he started software advice in two thousand five. After ten year career in the software industry, he held positions at an investment firm and as a corporate development executive at a pioneering c r m software company. He likes to observe the evolution of software markets, including the impact of innovation. Don fornes, pleasure to welcome you to the show. Thanks, tony, glad to be here. Thank you, don. What are some symptoms that, eh, small and midsize non-profits current system, whether it’s software based or however it’s based aren’t, isn’t working very well. And a lot of the non profit organizations that we speak to our on the smaller end of the scale, and they’re managing things through excel spreadsheets, maybe they have ah, ah website that was coded by, you know, employer volunteers with few they’re using microsoft outlook and trying to find emails and information in there. There isn’t a professional infrastructure for managing their operations, and that can lead to what errors in in data, what other kinds of problems certainly errors on data but difficulty finding the information that they need inability to could manage an effective workflow and no what’s going on and making sure things are getting done, having insight into you know who are their, what, not just who is donating, but what what segment of constituent is donating and being able to discover things about their their organization if you’re using excel spreadsheets than there might be different versions of that floating around your office? Yeah, that’s, that’s one of the big issues with spreadsheets now excel is an outstanding tool and that’s why so many organizations use it but you do have that version control issue, and you have just a lot of opportunity. For errors in your formulas and things like that. So you get to a certain scale when spreadsheets won’t cut it anymore. Also in pulling out like donorsearch formacion you alluded to this, you know, you want to be ableto segment, right? So that you can target people with a specific a specific approach. Sure, you’ve got you’ve got constituents who are big donors, small donors, everything in between, you’ve got constituents or e-giving for different reasons. So you really do it want to develop a marketing strategy that that identifies your various segments, and and you want to work with them in each, each segment in a unique way that appeals to you to their motivations and just expect forces, right? Thank you, and just extracting data. I mean, you should be ableto query your your database system in lots of different, with lots of different variables. Yeah, there’s so many exciting things going on in terms of analytics these days that the ability to not just automate the transactions, that is, you know, that the donations or tracking contact information or interactions, but then to be able to go back and do discovery on that information or quickly. Generated report. That type of analysis is so valuable and it’s getting easier. But it’s not as easy if you don’t have a good infrastructure in place, capturing that data in the first place. Yeah, you can’t really be. You can’t be very sophisticated. Um, what are the different types of software that might be out there that we’re gonna be talking about helping people select? Well, you know what? The court, the nonprofit organization needs to account financially differently than a for-profit organization. So now there is fundez counting, which is critical infrastructure, but then in terms of really growing out business, getting beyond the administration, too, more strategic, how you’re going to raise money and activate your constituents, you’ve got a range of different applications, and so you’ve got donorsearch which will help you track who are your best donors or who could be your best donors, or maybe a more high volume campaign of how do you get a lot of small donations from a very broad set of targets? And then if it’s a membership based organization, you’ve got member management, not your providing some kind of value to that membership and trying to track who they are and who’s paid their dues and what you can do for them and what their interests are. You have case management where you have, um, let’s say you’re a client based organization where you have clients that you’re taking care of our helping, you’ve got volunteermatch management where you’re, you’ve got a large force of volunteers and you want to keep them organized, get the most out of that enthusiasm those are those are four examples of very specific applications. And, of course, the structure of the nonprofit organization will determine what they need. In that case, there are larger, broader, more sophisticated systems that integrate these capabilities. But whether or not you go to that level of technology investment, that’s, that’s. A really important question on organization, needs to ask itself. What about event planning? Sure, event planning is another application i didn’t name, but if you do a lot of events, you need to track registration, you need to track payments for those events and and all the tasks that come along with putting on a great event. So that’s, another application that could be part of ah abroad integrated sweet or could be purchased on a standalone basis on dh. Then, of course, for non-profits that get a lot of their revenue, or even just some of their revenue from from grants, there’s always grant administration and management too. There is on both sides of that relationship for the foundation organization that might be giving that grant, as well as the non-profit that’s receiving that grant so there’s there’s software to automate that as well, i think it’s, you know, moving to another topic, which is you know what you actually need thie organization needs too sit down and think about what are our real pain points why’re we where we falling short, so not just not just thinking in terms of ji that technology is very shiny and cool? I’d love to use that, but where are we experiencing the most pain? Right now is keeping track of who are. Donors are who might be a donor. Or is it really organizing our volunteers to get the most out of them? More, you know, is that we have a difficult time organizing and managing big prevent process. If you have an outstanding grand writer, and you’re only applying for a few grantspace year, maybe you don’t need to automate that. And as we’re on we, i know you have five different tips that we’re going to talk through. But and your got into one of them. Thank you. As you’re identifying what your real problem is, is it? Is it possible to? I would think it is. But i want to make sure to get a software solution that’s going to solve that problem, but then also have add on sort of modules that would do other things, as the organization’s needs. Strange. Sure, so there’s, there are a range of solutions starting from what we refer to his best of breed, so let’s say an application that just does donorsearch midge mint and they do that very well, and they have a lot of features for doner management. They go deep into that functionality, and then they’re on the other end of the scale are integrated systems that do donorsearch management, member management, case management, event management, the whole range of applications we call that an integrated suite and, you know, in theory, maybe there are broader than they are deep, although in some cases they’re both broad and deep. Um so you you have to figure out where you want to fall on that scale. Obviously the the best of breed solution khun target a specific pain point you’re having it can typically be implemented mohr quickly you have fewer people using it, fewer people involved in the implementation and you just go and you tackle that problem with that specific, best to breed solution. When you’re talking about integrated system, you’re getting the whole organization mobilized. Teo moved to this new system you’re thinking about how do your various departments work together. The folks that are working with donors, the folks that are working with volunteers, folks, they’re working with clients, and they’re all moving to this new system. It can be somewhat of a big bang approach and requires a lot more change management, and there may be benefits down the road to have him, everyone working off one seamless infrastructure sharing data and prostheses. But getting there is a big investment and the big challenge for the organization. We have to take a break for a couple minutes done, and when we come back, we’ll keep talking a little about the what we’re on now. There’s, different the implementation, and also your tips for identifying what the what the right solution should be. So i hope everybody stays 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 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 go 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? In interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com durney welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent talking to don fornes he’s, ceo of software advice, which you’ll find at software advice. Dot com done so well, i’m talking about this implementation. It is possible than tio by these things in modules. Just just what you need immediately. And then there are systems where you can add additional modules. Is that true? I would say that that can’t be true. The modularity of the system really depends on how it was architected buy the software company. So there are some companies that do a very good job of designing their software into modules that can be turned on or off. So that you could say, deploy four of ten modules and then turn more on as ugo. But you can’t take for granted that every system is going to be architected in such a way that makes that easy. Some learn some art and that’s something really begin to is you evaluate the software. Okay. All right. So let’s, let’s, get into your five tips. You you really started with one. You introduced one the type of problem that you’re trying to solve and your advice there really sounds like is to start with the problem, not the cool technology. You know. I like to say, don’t be romanced by the technology, especially now that we’re into this cloud era and there’s a lot of advances being made and user interface, and and how it looks, who feels this software is just really attractive and great stuff. But make sure you’ve got a need for it. Don’t just go buying technology because it looks full, or because one one person in the organization, maybe tech savvy. There may be an early adopter, but then the rest of the team are, you know, luddite, and we’ll find in the same way that person did. You can. You can get yourself in some trouble where you’ve invested in great technology, but you’re not using it. And i think related to that is that you want to get what’s practical for your office. Sure. So there are there are systems that are fairly lightweight and do just the basics and sometimes that’s all you need sometimes you don’t need toe over altum e and other times you have a larger, more sophisticated organization, or one particular department is fairly sophisticated. And you really want some advanced technologies. He’s got to think about what is what is right for your organization and your your department. How do you avoid being romanced? Are seduced by the bells and whistles. That really cool? Um oh, this one. You know, this one does that to we could we could use that to and o it has this other thing. We could use that also. How do you keep your feet on the ground? I think it starts. We’re staying ok. We’re talking about a technology purchase here, but let’s, put technology aside for a while. Let’s. Sit down and say, what are our biggest challenges? Where are we? At least efficient. Where do we spend the most amount of time creating the least amount of value? Is it that we have? Everyone has their own set of contacts, you know, maybe each pitch person who’s working with. Donors has their own list of of contacts. It’s not shared. And someone leaves in those contacts. Go with, um for example. Okay, now you want to look for some kind of a donor management system that will unify all those contact to be shared even if they are assigned to different individuals. So you you want to think about where your biggest pain points are and prioritize what problems you want to solve in what order i like to say start small, think big, grow quickly. So, you know, start small. Okay? What? What problems are we going to try himself keeping it in the context of thinking big? Eventually we want to solve almost all of these problems and then moved from their issue. You have success. So i think, really just having a business discussion about the processes and workflows and what’s working and what’s not, and then once you say, ok, this is what we’re going to stall them. This is how we’re going to solve it. Then you go out and you start evaluating the technology and you stay in control of that sales process rather than letting a sales person from the software company. Show off bells and whistles that make them most attractive. You know, you say that’s, great that’s, interesting will take that into consideration, but you always come backto. What are the core problems we’re trying to solve? And how does that technology solve those problems? You talked about fundacao n’t ing software earlier. What air cem? Some basics around around fundez counting. And what sort of problems might an organization have if if they’re not doing their accounting efficiently? Sure, i think with with the counting it’s it’s important to get the right infrastructure and processes and controls in place, i said, you need to be automating a process that is it’s. That accounting process is mission critical and has to have very strict controls. You don’t want to ever get into a situation where funds are being misappropriated are or you’re not sure how much cash flow you have going through the organization, so that is an area where you’ve got to get the right system in place. And yet, at the same time, it can be very constraining, because in accounting system has to be rigid and enforced controls. You need to make sure that this software that you’re buying handles the process is the way you want to handle them, or that you are willing to adapt to how that software handles those processes. S so we may have to adapt to what the software requires us to do. Yeah, so some software is more flexible than others in accounting, often it’s a little more rigid compared to, say, a constituent relationship management system. Because, you know, we do have, you know, accounting principles that are standardized that we have to follow, so you may have to. You have to do things the way that software is built to do it. I see in ah, a lot of small shops. It seems like very routine things, like maybe checks being received or accounts payable, being ah, being received or sorry, paid always seem to seem, even though their routine, they seem like each time it’s the first time it’s ever been done. I hope that’s, not the case, for, for all organised. I think some are more efficient than others. I think it comes down to you know, what is the attitude around payables receivables? And how quickly are you going to do it and who’s doing it? So i think that getting the right software in places key there, there are so many great duitz technologies right now, such as a ch payments, you bring a payables receivables in our own organization, we’re doing more and more th which is essentially a wire transfer, but no more sent paper checks, but actually just sending the money elektronik, lee and the more modern systems are built to be able to do those kind of transactions. And i’m glad i’m glad you explained what a ch is. Because on this show, i have jargon jail, but you kept yourself out. You kept yourself out of george in jail by quickly saying, basically a ch iso wire transfer. I think it stands for automated clearing house. Do you know? Is that right? That sounds good. Okay, so we’ll take that. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. And i just meant that, uh, i guess i was going back to symptomology a little bit. You know, when i said routine things seemed to i get treated as if there is the first time every time, even though it’s it’s done, you know, it doesn’t times a month or something it always seems to be a difficult task. So andi, i see. Sorry, go ahead, you’ve got organizations for maybe you have a volunteer bookkeeper, who’s coming in once a week or twice a month or something, and maybe they’re using an application that isn’t designed for fund accounting on dh. Maybe that particular person is, ah fine bookkeeper, but not very tech savvy and so that’s, where you can get into those situations where things are just very slow moving and and no one can really tell whether the check has been cut or not, or received or not. And i think that is symptomatic of the level of sophistication of the organization or they thought, function in the organization. Let’s, go back to your to your tips for, for finding navigating your way through the right software. What, what what’s. Next on that you recommend. Well, we’ve talked about not being romanced by the technology we’ve talked about some of the different applications, and identifying the problem first and then matching the technology is the solution. I think another interesting thing is its funding technology it’s an interesting area, because there are plenty of people out there who who loved technology, who loved sponsoring technology who love rolling up their sleeves. Of course, there are plenty who don’t, but organizations can identify those constituents who can be very useful as a technology resource. So in technology, there are plenty of people who been very successful financially, so you may find donors who have a background in technology who get excited about funding some kind of technology, purchase and implementation, and at the same time, they can roll up their sleeves and help with advising on selecting that technology, implementing that technology. Then there are folks who fit that description that maybe don’t have the financial resources to contribute, but could contribute their time and skills. So technology is is an area where well, let’s, let’s, go back to that bookkeeper, you know, there may be bookkeepers who could volunteer toe do your accounting, but that probably isn’t the same level of passion relative to technology, where there’s some people that are very passionate about what technology can accomplish and would really the motivated to come in and help you either financially or by rolling up their sleeves. Uh, so i think you can be really creative as you think about technology. Maybe not just another thing that comes out of the operating budget. But could you do a special campaign around raising money to fund a technology project or forgetting time donated by folks that are tech savvy? Okay, excellent, yeah, and and as you two shut on this. Another. Another issue and that’s important, and a tip that you have is around the implementation and the training. Sure, so this is along the same theme i’ve been hitting on throughout this conversation, which is they’re really needs to be a process behind the technology, whether that process is something you seek to automate with the technology or process you switch to because that’s the process that technology automates by default, and so the people that are gonna adopt this technology and use it are really critical to its success and can also lead to its failure. So if you by technology and you don’t use it, we refer to that in the industry as sh elsewhere go that as we do surveys of technology users and buyers almost every time what floats to the top is one of the biggest challenges is adoption. How do you get everyone to start using it if you have your development folks using a donor management system, but they don’t like filling out all the fields, you know, maybe they need the email in the phone number. I just don’t want to take the time to put in that physical address. Ah, that may serve their needs, fine, but it’s not going to help the marketing group when they want to. Do that next direct mail campaign, right? Right. You can get a lot of dirty data and there you need to get those folks bought in early to get the right data and the system and clean data in the system. If they’ve always been more of a relationship person, they don’t want to use technology, maybe they do their work over in lunches or in events. You can have this whole system you’ve invested in, people are using it. So i’m i make a suggestion that may seem counterintuitive, which is get those people involved in leading the technology selection and implementation effort. Maybe they’re not the lead on the project, but they’re involved from the start so that they have a sense of ownership and buy-in and really get exposure to what the technology can do from the start. Well, they were probably gonna put one of your more tech savvy people in charge of the project. But you need to get those. Those late adopters are nanites into the process early so that they really you have an epiphany then come to believe in technology. We also need the leadership. It’s it’s gotta be it’s. Gotta be. Used properly at the senior levels. And it’s got to be encouraged and sort of enforced from the senior levels. Yes, and that would be a challenge if you’re senior management are the late adopters. Yeah, okay, not needed a champion at the most senior levels of the organization. You can say, hey, this is something we’re going to do. The time has come and everybody is going to get on board, and we’re going to get the right imam, the funding. We’re not goingto, you know, we’re not going to be too cheap about this. We’re going to get the right stuff in place, and we’re going to make the changes in how we do things around here, so that we’re really using this software and automating are our process is the right way. Don’t we have just about a minute left, or so i want to ask you, what is it that you love about the work that you’re doing? You know, i it’s, uh, a little bit nerdy, but i love efficiency. I love getting doing things better and faster. And in my own organization, it’s reflected by developing our own technology. We we rarely even by third party technology. We have a team of developers who build everything from scratch to do exactly what we want, its lead, the great efficiency and i think, whether your advanced enough to build your own or whether you’re buying software off the shelf there’s a great sense of momentum and pride that comes from getting better at what you do in getting more efficient and that’s what i love don fornes, ceo of software advice. You’ll find them at software advice. Dot com don thank you so much for sharing your expertise. Thanks for having me telling you, it’s been my pleasure right now we go away for a couple of minutes when we returned tony’s take two and then amy sample ward is with me talking about storify and cora stay with us. You couldn’t even think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternative network get in! 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 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 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. I’m chuck longfield of blackbaud. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Dahna that was chuck longfield, chief researcher research scientist, actually at blackbaud from last year’s bb con conference and i will be there this year in october. Also, thes blackbaud people are very modest, it’s hard to get them to say their titles. Janna eggers, senior vice president i think of marketing in products just, said jenna eggers from blackbaud i have to get them to be a little more ah more forward about their titles and we have something to say about titles, titles that have changed very shortly. But first i can’t send live listener love this week. I’m sorry i’m not live where pre recorded this week, however konnichi wa ni hao anya haserot you know i send live listener love also, california always checks in texas, north carolina, oregon from time to time north i said oregon, not oregon there’s no e at the end of that, i learned that dahna who else checks in new york? New york has been lately so live. Listen love to all of you and everybody else. Who’s listening live. I will be back in the studio next friday. Tony, stick to my block. This week is a charity. Did what? Charities do the ah, fund-raising we at beth israel medical center here in new york city became public because of a will contest and ah, it’s fund-raising methods were the subject of a new york times story, which is probably something that we would all rather avoid, and i don’t think anybody wants their internal office processes splashed internationally on the new york times, but i saw very little that beth israel should be embarrassed about. I think they’re fundraisers, including their ceo, who, of course, we know should be a fundraiser. I did what they were supposed to be doing did what charities do they is the story of a woman who was living in the hospital, literally living in the hospital for twenty years. She was a resident of the hospital for twenty years, and the question is, were there was the hospital’s fund-raising tactics inappropriate? And i don’t think they were. I think they had a great prospect living among them, and they would have been, i think, careless if they hadn’t cultivated and solicited this woman for charitable gift. There were some emails and some notes to the between members are between employees that i think we’re a little carelessly, unprofessionally worded, but there’s nothing unethical, certainly nothing illegal, nothing fraudulent. So i don’t really think beth israel had that much to worry about when they’re fund-raising became public in the new york times, and i say more about that on my block, the post is a charity did what charities do on my block? Is that tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday fourteenth of june twenty fourth of the year. Oh, i’m very glad that amy sample ward is with me now. She got a promotion at the non-profit technology network and ten and her most recent co authored book is social change, anytime everywhere about online multi-channel engagement her block is amy sample, war dot org’s and on twitter she’s at amy r s ward, i guess i don’t know, i guess i’ll say it because it’s it’s easier for me to say then for amy to say congratulations on being promoted to ceo of inten. Thank you. When was your promotion? Effective? Ah, effective june first. So we are in day eleven. All right? Yes. Today’s tuesday the eleventh. Um how’s it going, it’s going really well, i mean, you know, there’s there’s, not a lot of time spent trying to figure out who are these people that i work with because i already got to work with them for the last over two years, so it feels like, you know, you could just jump in and we can start moving forward on all kinds of projects are already deep in the weeds of the next ntcdinosaur will be in march in d c, so lots of lots of action, lots of good stuff happening and t c, of course, is the non-profit technology conference? Yep, right, followers of intend may not know that. So what, you’re jargon jail? All right? No, no mass resignations since your appointment as ceo. Well, not yet. Knock on wood. I i don’t think that that’s the case. I think we’re all really excited to dive into work together. I think you know, any organization that’s gone through a transition, you you kind of let yourself feel like, well, maybe, you know, maybe we’ll go in a new direction. Maybe we won’t what’s goingto happen. And so once everything’s kind of decided, well, now we can just move forward on all those. Great ideas that we’ve been having and conversations that staff have together. It’s, like one day. Maybe we’ll do this. So now we can really start putting some of that into motion on. You were supposed to be in the studio with me today, but you had to be by phone because you have something going on in your apartment, right? Yes. Since we since i’m now the ceo and ten, we will be relocating back to portland, where the antenna main office is. And as such as manhattan real estate, as soon as our landlord know that we were moving out well, he wanted to start fixing it up for the new people. So some repairman is coming. Tio, work on the bathroom. Okay, lets you get a swelled head. As ceo. You still have to be still to be in your apartment to let the let the contractors in. Exactly right on dh. Do you know when you’ll be moving? Sorry. Very sorry to see you going. You won’t be live in the studio with me anymore. Or maybe you will one more time when you mean portlanders again in july. July. Okay, we’ll see whether we get you in the studio one more time or or not, i guess depending on when your move is in july. But very happy for your congratulations on your appointment. Thank you. I appreciate it. This seems like a good time to let listeners know. Remind listeners what? What? And ten is about what? What? What kind of help can small and midsize non-profits get from non-profit technology network? Sure so and ten is a non-profit ourselves. So we definitely understand what everyone else is going through. And where? The membership organization for anyone looking to use technology to meet your mission. So there’s no organizational size requirement there’s no budget requirement there’s no missions specific or cause specific focus that we have it’s really, truly for everyone that’s trying to use technology. Teo, be a little bit more effective and more efficient and meeting your mission. So we have the ntc like we mentioned before the non-profit technology conference, which is our annual conference in this coming year in d c we’re expecting over two thousand non-profit staffers, so it’ll be a big, really great conference at but then outside of that conference, we have about one hundred webinars a year that air on all different topic hoexter tailored to all different kinds of staff in an organization because, you know, for example, if you’re thinking about online fund-raising well, there’s some pieces of that that your staff are interested in, you know what air the pieces we need to have in place? And then there are pieces of online fund-raising thatyou’re development team want to know, like, how do we make the ask successfully online? So we try and make sure that there’s something for all those different sides of everyone in organization, and we have depending on the year between five to eight research reports on those air free to download for and ten members, and then, you know, outside of all of that, really a community so there’s over eleven thousand and ten members sixty thousand, largely in the community that aren’t necessarily paid level but attend webinars or have come to the conference. So there’s the probability of sets that there’s no way that there’s someone who hasn’t gone through what you’re going through at your organization and it’s a great place to come find those piers assam questions see how they’ve navigated that website redesign or that our processor, whatever it may be, and you make the point very well that this is not on ly for technologists who understand technology, but it’s for everybody in the organization. Exactly. I mean, it’s twenty thirteen, right? We’re all using technology. It doesn’t mean that we’re all directors, but we all need to use these tools to do our job. And so it’s a place where you can go regardless of what area in the organization you work in to find resource is that help you with your job, whether you’re in communications or you’re on the program team what whatever it may be, you’ll find antenna at and t e e n dot org’s cool. Thank you very much, amy. Think well, hopefully we’ll get you some new members on dh, actually attendees at ntc and viewers of your webinars and readers of your research reports because i think it’s very valuable what and ten does, and it is a it’s, a it’s, a morass in a black box for a lot of people and that it need not be right. Let’s, talk about storify and cora let’s do it. Okay. Storify what’s. Ah, i see. It described as content curation. What is this? Yeah, but kind. I mean, if you’re going to jargon jail me for ntc jargon jail you for contents curation because that sounds wonky. Well, i asked you to. I asked you to explain it e would know that wouldn’t be the way i actually think storify is really cool tool really cool platform because it is so directly the definition of social media it’s multidirectional, its share a ball, it’s public all of those pieces that we associate with you know what? These social tools online are that storify. So essentially you could go to storify you say i wantto i want to create a story. Um, and i want it to be about, uh non-profit radio looks put in the hashtag non-profit radio that’s what you wanted to do your store storify about today after you listen to the podcast and it will pull in all the media that it finds it’ll pull in the tweets if there are photos of tony’s taking photos in the studio and posting them, if there are videos posted, whatever kind of video that it confined with that hash tag non-profit radio and what’s great is that it doesn’t just pull it in and say, here you go, it shows you these air all the available pieces of content, you know we found and you get to very simply you don’t need to be a technologist to do this, but you can just drag and drop them into your post. You khun ad your own tax so you could say here’s a great quote from one of our live listeners and then pull that tweet over. Oh, are you know whatever those kind of like annotations would be, and then when you are finished compiling it, you can either embed the whole thing in your website or in your blog’s, or you can just share it out on twitter or facebook wherever you want to share it and have it stay on the storify website. You know where however you want to move it around and it’s? Great, because then people can go back and kind of see that recap of the conversation i think it’s used really well. Bye. Uh, newspapers, new york times used store fight all the time. Tio, pull in. You know what they’ve seen on a breaking news story. Kind of in real time, things like that. I see. And on all those examples that you gave by the way of non-profit radio, which is an outstanding example to use. Thank you. They all do exist. Wei have just a minute before a break. Do you have to start your storify with a hashtag or could you just use the phrase? I guess in quotes tony martignetti non-profit radio can you start that way? Yeah, you could try it that way. It’s it’s easier with hashtags only because you know that it’s a dedicated tag that people have been using. Whereas if you were trying to just search for you know any instance of someone saying non-profit technology, for example, there was it would just be too big and nebulous. Tohave a clean, you know, conversation captured. Okay. Non-profit radio is what you meant. Yep. Non-profit technology i understand. Just flows out. No, no, no. I meant non-profit technology. If you did that generally at the phrase versus for example, the hashtag and p tech. I see. Ok, ok. But you can edit out things that are extremely us right? Yet for sure. Okay. All right, let’s, take a break and amy will return. And we’ll keep talking about storify and also kwara. Stay with us. 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 at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi there and welcome back, amy, this sounds like something that could be good for non-profit don’t have a social media team or director at all because you’re pulling in content that’s you’ve already created or that others have already created. Yeah, especially if you’re on organization where you’re having on event or you’re having, you know, you put out new report or you launched a new program or, you know, you’ve done something that’s gotten your community talking online about what you’re doing so so it’s about something specific, it doesn’t just generally, you know, i like and ten well, that’s terrific, and i would love tweets that say i like and ten, you know, it’s, not necessarily something to capture a story, so any time you’re doing something that is a little bit more time bounder or topic lee specific it’s it’s really easy because you now you have all this content and so you, khun, just like you said, even if you don’t have a social media are big communications department, you could just go pull it all together fairly quickly, but be it also means that now all those community members that got highlighted in your store if i get to feel like, oh my gosh, you know, my my tweet about the event or the photo that i took of, you know, the ballroom at the event got to be featured in the organization’s recap and that’s really cool for them as a member of the community who maybe i hadn’t ever really felt highlighted or, you know, called out by the organization before and now they’re kind of, you know, they get to shine as part of the recap, and that makes it more likely that they will share it with their communities exactly. Now, storify, when you said that it gives you the chance to either in bed or share, i guess or both the people that including the people that it shares with include the people who contributed to everything that got drawn in right duitz yes, exactly. It has a lot of built and sharing features on dh you can you can tell it not to do those things, but it try it wants to encourage you to send out a tweet, for example, tow any dahna any tweet that you included in your storify to send a reply to those people saying, hey, i highlighted you in my store if i and give them a link and then they, you know, it links back to the store if i so you can have, you know, when you have your storify account in your building, these specific stories they’ll stay on the story by account, you have a you know, profile there people can just follow your storify account if they want teo, but you could also embedded on your blogged on your website, maybe you maybe you created a storify for a specific offline event that you held and, you know, lots of people tweeted and shared photos and you create a storify well, that’s really great to go back to the event page and added there so now it’s like an archived, you know, event captured page and not just an old registration page, you can keep all that content there, so you’re extending the life of your content. Exactly. I get a tweet like that whenever i participate in a in a twitter chat called fundchat hashtag fund, and at the end of the chat, i got a tweet that says you’re included in my storify for the fir fundchat today here? No, okay, i think it’s a really great tool for twitter, chat because it’s, when you are participating in the chat, i think it’s fairly easy to follow along, but if you aren’t participating in that moment in the chat and you want to go back and look at the hash tag later, it just doesn’t make any sense. You know, you need that storify where the organizer can move people’s replies to fit underneath the question, you know, instead of in-kind of the ad hoc free sabelo that they may have actually come in that move them out of the time stamped order of when they were sent. But which question is this person answering and that kind of thing, right? Put them into a logical order. Yeah, yeah. Interesting, though, that they do come with the time stamp too. I like that. It pulls in all the all the original features of the of the piece of content. Okay, let’s, let’s. Give some time to quarrel. Qu qu o r a i won’t try to describe it since i got admonished with the store. If i so, how would you, amy sample ward to? Find describe quarrel for listeners. Sure, so cora is essentially a q and a site, so you or others could submit a question, and then you or others could submit an answer and, unlike certain other question and answer websites that you may have seen or if you have ever, like, done an internet search just for a question, and then you see all of these, like different kinds of forums and q and i websites come up where someone else’s asked that question, cora tries to keep it really limited so that there’s there’s not just like a forever stream of answers, but that there are really, you know, prominent answers to that question on which is, you know, something that kind of plays up a positive feature. So you’re not sifting through and wondering which of these answers is the real answer and it’s a place where both organizations and, uh, you know, individuals of all different backgrounds have have really established some of their energy online as a thought leader. A resource to whatever kind of niche field there in so it’s not just about tax analogy about everything under the sun and people are there you know, some people ask a question and then answer at themselves because they want teo share information about that topic, but others see questions that others have posted and go in and provide an answer. I’ve answered a question on what’s the best way to get a taxi cab in new york city, huh? So i don’t know that an expert, but i had a couple of suggestions. I see too many people standing on the curb, you’re gonna be out there, you could be in the middle of the street practically. We’ve gotta want that. You gotta be at least twenty five percent of the way into the street if you’re not. If you’re not in danger of getting run over, then you’re not going. You’re not an effective cab camp. Hell, that’s, how you’re stopping the taxi is by preventing them from driving further down the street. All right, so we just have a minute or so left. How could non-profits use quorra? Sounds like credibility is very good. How else? What? Why else? Well, i think there are lots of ways whether you want to talk about your you know, the field in which your organization works. And provide answers say, you work in public education and you want to go, you know, maybe someone has posted a question that says, what does a charter school mean you if you work in public education, you probably know, and you want to provide a on answer, i think the thing to keep in mind is that it is a very individual driven platform. And so if you have, you know, your executive director, maybe of a policy director you have, you know, whoever it may be in your organization think about having more than one person with an account and providing those answers as that credible individual that represents the organization, so that you created a little bit of space between that answer and your organization and have also said, well, of course our policy director is answering this question because it’s about public policy and we have an expert on this, you know, and that’s why we’re such a credible organization qu o r a dot com. Maybe we have to leave it there. Amy sample ward, ceo of non-profit technology network congratulations on that again. Thank you. She will remain our monthly social media contributor. You’ll find her at amy. Sample ward, dot or ge? Always a pleasure. Safe move. I hope i get to see you before you go. Yes, thank you. Bye. Amy buy-in next week. Well, before i do next week, i want you to know that i badly misused a word today. I’ll even give you him. It was in the first half. If you are, it was completely out of context. And if you are the first person to tell me what what it was and what the word means, then i will send you a social media roadmap, which is courtesy of amy sample ward. Next week, a conversation with adam grant he’s, the youngest, tenured and most highly rated professor at the wharton school of business at the university of pennsylvania. His book is give and take in march. His work was the subject of a new york times magazine cover story. Does generosity and your relationships leave you behind or get you ahead? That’s what we’ll talk about without him. Grant, insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities. Listen tomorrow to tony it’s, not just martignetti non-profit radio tony. Martignetti non-profit radio each week, if you’d like to talk about sponsoring the show, contact me on my block. Our creative producer was clear. Meyerhoff. Janice taylor is usually the assistant producer, but she’s, not here today. Sam liebowitz is line producer. Our show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Oh, i hope you’ll be with me next week. Talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. Duitz 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 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 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 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 needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Com. Hyre

Maria Semple

Nonprofit Radio for June 7, 2013: Maria’s FAQs

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

Listen live or archive:

Tony’s Guest:

Maria Semple
Maria Semple: Maria’s FAQs

Maria Semple is The Prospect Finder and our monthly prospect research contributor. She does a lot of speaking and training and gets asked a lot of questions She’ll answer the most frequent, about researching individuals and foundations.

 

 
On Tony’s Take Two, guests from Australia! Sally West and Keith Wright share the Love Is campaign.


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

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

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

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

Sign-up for show alerts!

Here is the link to the audio: 145: Maria’s FAQs. You can also subscribe on iTunes to get the podcast automatically.
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 145_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130607.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T23:01:02.147Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2013…06…145_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130607.mp3.850631152.json
Path to text: transcripts/2013/06/145_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_20130607.txt

Metoo hyre 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 it’s friday, june seventh. Oh, i hope you’re with me last week i’d suffer and our card itis if i heard that you had missed grow grass roots, michael o’brien, founder and principal of mob advocacy, had ideas on how to bring people to your cause with grassroots advocacy and divine devices desktops, laptops, tablets and handhelds. Scott koegler had tips for picking the right device. He’s, the editor of non-profit technology news and our regular tech contributor this week, maria’s faa cues maria simple, the prospect finder and our prospect research contributor does a lot of speaking and training, and we’re going to talk about what she’s frequently asked about halfway through the guests through my conversation with maria on tony’s take to keith, right, and artist sally west are in the studio. They’re joining me from australia and they’re going to tell us about the love is campaign it’s my pleasure right now to welcome maria semple back to the show she’s the prospect finder you’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research, her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects now you know her she’s are dyin of dirt cheap and free. And you can follow maria on twitter at maria simple. Welcome back, maria, how are you? Hey there, tony, how you doing today? Terrific. Lee, how are you? Just fine, that’s. Good. You do a lot of speaking. You go all over the country, i guess. Don’t you? Yeah. Mostly mostly in the north east. And every once in a while, unconference will take me elsewhere to speak. But for the most part, it is in the northeast area. Okay, mostly northeast. And you’re talking about prospect research for for individuals? Certainly. And what else? Well, also, i touch upon foundation research and business or corporate research. So most of the stuff so that people are interested in gaining knowledge on is on individuals. Ok? And before we start getting into the questions that you’re often asked and you know well, we’ll start with where you start. But when you’re given an assignment before you start going online or anywhere to any resource, online or library or, you know all the others that you have what do you what do you looking at in the assignment? And what are you thinking about? I’m thinking about what is the relationship that the person already has to the organization because that’s very important to know, and also what is the goal of the research? So is this person a donor prospect? Is this person perhaps being considered for boardmember ship at a large organization? And they’re trying to determine, you know what that person’s network is like and what that might bring to the organization? So i guess, you know, ultimately, what is the overall goal? And and is it for an annual gift versus plan gift versus a kn endowment or major gift? The goal of the gift is very important. Why? Why? Why is gift type important to what you’re going to be doing with that assignment? I might be looking for certain markers. You know, tony, if i were doing research, for example, on plan giving prospect, you know, age would come into play, i’m trying to determine where else they may have made major significant commitment, even if i could find maybe a multi year commitment, maybe through a foundation or so something like that. So, yeah, i’m interested in knowing their age. What? The goal of the gift iss and how would that distinguish from whether the person maybe was a prospect for annual giving? So for an annual gift, you know, they might they might be looking for somebody that could just sort of, you know, upgrade what they’ve been giving overtime, so i might be looking for well, if they’ve been donating to your organization at levels of one thousand dollars a year. But if i’m able to determine that they’re donating elsewhere in the community e-giving of five or ten thousand a year than that, that points to, well, we’re not asking for enough, you know where they are able to do more. So really just trying to determine where they’re giving where they’re at in their lives. Is this an appropriate time? T even asked them for a major gift. There might be something that would prevent them from doing so. Several kids in college things of that nature and as we are giving assignments to prospect researchers what information is helpful to you, it’s very helpful for me to have a person’s correct spelling of their names. So it’s interesting that’s. The first thing you say is that is that often not not correct? Every once in a while, i do come across a misspelling on a name, and i need to go back to my client and say, are you sure the spelling isn’t this way? You know, because i am finding somebody connected to that company but a different, slightly different smell, its spelling on a name, and then they’ll say, oh, yes, sorry, miss type that okay. Meanwhile, i’ve got off, you know, trying to look for a completely different individual. So, yes, spelling really important, do they have a middle initial? Are they a junior or senior? When i’m researching a male, um, their spouses named their home address and where their employees, even if they don’t know a lot about their employment history, sometimes that just knowing where they’re currently employed if there’s a common name, you know, if i’m researching tony martignetti probably not that common in there all distinguished, but there aren’t very many but were distinguished, you know, searching joe mccarthy. Yeah, that’s going to be a much more common name across the united states, so i would want to know exactly where joe mccarthy might be employed, so i know i’m researching the right guy. Okay, we’re trying to get into your were getting in your head today. I should’ve called the segment in maria’s head change it well, now it’s too late now we’re committed, but, you know, yeah, i want i want listeners. Teo, get the idea of how this process works for you. I mean, what it is like what you’re thinking about, you know, like i said, before you go to resource is anything else that that you’re you’re thinking about or or doing before you actually start the research process? You know, in this in this, like, thinking and analyzing process or stage, i should say, yeah, i mean, just really trying to get i think part of it, too, is making sure that you’ve carved out some quiet, uninterrupted time to do the research is probably important as well, so that when you’re able tto find and get yourself in a curious mind set, right, sort of like an investigative reporter mindset, so that when you’re about to start this research, if you see some sort of a clue that leads you to believe that there’s something you want to explore a little bit further, you then carved out that time and space and that mindset to be able to really explore something a little bit more in depth and also knowing when to stop knowing that every little bit of information that you come across might not even be relevant to the fund-raising process, okay, interesting knowing, knowing when to stop? No, we went to stop because you could really, you know, this is this is something i hear from people a lot saying, well, how do you know when you hit hit the right mark? How do you know when to stop? Because you could just sort of go on forever, right? You could just stay on google, for example, and just kind of keep going, but you really need to understand what what the goal is of the overall process. So, as i said earlier, understanding what type of gift you’re looking for, and then when you’re able to frame your mind set in that way, you’re able to understand what those potential pieces of information are that you’re looking for. Also, i’ll usually say to a client up front if i find information related to e-giving teo, your organization, i’m not going to note that. On my profile, because the assumption is you have that information already, so i don’t need to kind of repeat that in a profile that i’m sending back to you. All right? All right, on. I like that analogy of the investigative reporter that’s. Cool. Yeah. In fact, you know, one book. Yeah. You mentioned that one book when i first started out. Really getting into doing prospect research. I think it was called. I mean, look, i think it’s still having on my bookshelf here, i think it’s called the investigative reporters handbook. Oh, no, the reporters handbook. And that was kind of a neat tool to have on hand because it kind of gave me a bunch of resource. Is that people who do investigative journalism investigative reporting might be using and i thought, well, that must be a lot of the same resource is that prospect researchers might use? Oh, interesting. That was your very first book. Before you want one of your enterprise, i had kind of looked at and thought, well, this could be really useful. Awful for me to have, you know, on hand just in terms of resource is so i still have it sitting on my bookshelf every once in a while, i have to pull it out and look something up in there just to remind myself of a resource that i might want to check out. Okay, we have just a minute before our first break back-up what’s the well, is it going to vary where you go first, depending upon with the assignment is actually no, i do. I do have a first stop, always make, and it is a sea bass resource, and the reason why i used it is that it normally points me to a lot of markers that i would want to check out further on my own through other sources. So it kind of gives me a really good first overview glance of an individual and then has has be pointing to a lot of different sources, okay, you’re teasing us. You haven’t given us the name of the site yet? No, not yet. So what is it already? Well, on the way to after the break it out because you’re taking control. No, i run this show, you’ll say it now or we’re not taking a break. So what’s the name of the site. Sure, i’ll say it now, so the site is wealth engine. Okay, now we’re taking a break, okay? Marie goes to wealth engine first. We do have to take a break, come back in a couple seconds, and she stays with us, and we’ll keep picking maria’s brains. Find out how this prospect research process works will stay with us talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? How i’m rika keck, holistic nutrition and wanda’s consultant? If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s. Six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. 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. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We’re pre recording this week those air listening live on friday at fund-raising day in new york city, doing a podcast interviews for future shows. We’re on the exhibit floor and the marriott marquis hotel all day friday, doing interviews of speakers at at fund-raising day. So i can’t send live listener love, but i know there are live listeners out there we know california has certainly checked in, of course, often texas and oregon, north carolina, very frequent listeners. North carolina on dh asia konnichi wa for our japanese listeners in china and taiwan, always checking in ni hao and in korea on yo haserot and we’ve had occasional listeners for listeners from australia as well, not every week but occasional and that will play into tony’s take, too, because my two guests on tony’s take two r visiting from australia. Okay, maria simple, you goto wealth engine first. Why is that? I do? Because it very often will point me toward key pieces of information that i want to explore further, such as, uh, property ownership, primary and secondary properties that they might own it would. Point me toward cos that they’re connected to foundations, they’re connected to political giving charitable giving, so it gives me a lot of great information for me to then say, all right, these are all potential places. This person either is now or has been in the near past connected teo, so let me then go on to some other resource is to explore these further. Now, what about people who don’t have the budget for wealth engine? You said it’s a it’s, a fee based service? What right do you know? I would say google google could really be great, but you know what? You want to go to the advanced search page of google? So you’re really using it efficiently, and you’re able to really narrow down your search results so that you’re not getting thousands or potentially a million hits that you need to kind of comb through. Andi, i think we’ve given this site out before if we talked about the advanced search pages google in the past? Yes, we have. So why don’t you just remind listeners how to get to it so you can go to google dot com forward slash advance underscore search and that brings up a completely different search page for people to take a look at. You can look for things as an exact phrase. You can look att specifics. Right? So let’s say, you know that a particular prospect toe went to columbia university and you’re trying to figure out in your head. Well, how do they still maintain a relationship with columbia? Are they donating their are they serving on the board? There? You can actually narrow down your search results. Two on ly include hits that are on columbia university’s website. Okay, so for ah, for those of us who don’t have wealth engine google, advanced search. Very good place to start. Yeah. Okay. Um, you mentioned setting aside a block of time to do this research. How long should you set aside? How long can we estimate how long this is going to take when you have an individual’s name to research? And in particular, if you’re trying to research a couple, you should probably set aside roughly four hours of time to research an individual’s name. Okay, four hours. That’s. Quite a block it’s a half a day? Yeah. You know, i mean, you know when when you’re talking about doing this, this level of in depth research from the time you’re doing the research to the time you’re typing it, you know your data either into a ah word of file, or write straightaway into your donordigital base and populating it there that’s kind of the ideal, you know, it’s going to take you some time to gather the info phone and then type it into where it’s going to make sense into a nice profile for for the development officer that’s going to use the information? Um are you ah, are you ever asked? Hyre why should we use the the fee based resource is if if we have free ones, yes, i am asked that all the time because, you know non-profits especially, i would think a lot of your listeners tony, have very tight budgets in terms of what there of really going to be allowed to spend, but what i find is that paying teo use some of the fee based three sources really cut to the chase and get to the meat of the data that you’re looking for very quickly. So, you know, although you might sound like you know, off the top of your head, you know? Well, why do we need to spend, you know, two to five thousand dollars or something for a particular resource when i can access a lot of that information for free? Well, yeah, you can access a lot of it for free. However you’re going to all these different sites. And now with your time of going to a ton of different sites to find this information versus having it all gathered in one place on dh. You know, as i said, it really kind of just cut to the chase, so you’re going to spend the money somewhere, whether it’s on a fee based resource or on bath time to do the research. Okay? Ah, that’s a frequent tradeoff time versus money, but you’ll be more efficient if you can invest in some of these. If if someone had a limited budget, what what of the resource is you’d suggest paying for first, or does that vary based on the task? May be, you know, i think it would very based on the task, so somebody role is really just to do foundation research, right? Then they might want to expend their their research budget on sources that that really focused on foundation research. Now, if somebody’s role is really on on ly in researching individuals than they would want to set aside some funds for screening companies such as the wealth engines of the world to be able to really cut to the chase and it would allow them to then research more people in a given week. Okay, you see what i’m saying? So you know, when you’re talking about spending four hours on a name, you know, look at how many names one person than khun research potentially in a week, all right, way, and we’ve talked a lot about the foundation center for foundation research hyre is that one that you would recommend if if we’re going to invest in something on the foundation side? Or or is it something else? I don’t want to get in your mouth, you know? No, i usually use a combination all used a combination of three resource is when i’m using my foundation research the foundation center, by the way, you can access their fee based research, the foundation’s center online foundation directory online i should say they have that available at a lot of the cooperating collections. So there you can use that resource for free if you’re willing to take a trip to a nearby library that houses a cooperating collection. Um, otherwise, i would say he based i like to use foundation search dot com. I really like the way they aggregate their data and the output and hyre let’s say i’m researching for a social service agency right versus an educational institution. Say my client is a social service agency i’m interested in seeing. Well, what are the gifts in that particular category? Are they you know what? Air the range size of gifts so that i can hone in specifically on this resource i can hone in on just the social service gives it that foundation has made, and i can print that out on an excel spreadsheet and save it in a spreadsheet, i should say. And then send that to my client so they can see a sampling of the gifts that have been made in that category. And that one was foundation search. Dot com. Yeah. Okay. Is there another one? One more that yeah. Guide stars. Very good. Well guide star has a very good research capacity, and you can do both free and fee based research on guide star on the really cool thing is that if a non-profit maintains their own data on guide star than they are actually granted access to their their premium search level source. So there’s kind of ah, a double bonus really? To maintaining your own data on guidestar. Ok. And that’s also on that’s still on the foundation side, right? Guidestar. Yeah, because you’re able tto look at guidestar kind of monitors both non-profit organizations and foundations. So you can get dad on both in that source, let’s, go to the individual side. If if someone is willing to invest in able to invest in some paid resource is what do you like first couple? You know, top few on the individual side help you that i like are as i mentioned already. Wealth engine another one i like is i wave. Um, i waive has a number of resource is that they have under their banner. And they actually just changed up in the last couple of months where you can now input one person’s name and it will research. Across all the different sources that they have, such as zoom info, power search, they have foundation information, e-giving data sabat the property information. So i like, i like that resource very much as well. Okay, we’re picking the brains of maria simple, the prospect finder and our monthly prospect research contributor, trying to get at what this process is and getting at it through the questions that she’s asked in all the seminars and training that she does what’s what’s something else, maria, that people frequently ask about research. On the individual side. They wonder how. How they should be looking at people versus couples, you know, they say, well, should i? If i have the name of an individual, um, is it necessary for me to be looking at what their spouses doing? And i always say, you know, if if you can come across that data and have the time to include that in your research, i think it is important because most people are not making their philanthropic decisions in a vacuum, and they’re making those decisions as a couple, whether they’re donating from a personal cheque book or a foundation checkbook. So i really think that if you can find out where their spouses also spending time, volunteering on a board or where they’re donating elsewhere, i think you’d be really good to be able to include that if you have the time to do so, we’ve had guests to recommend that the relationship should be with a couple where, where the where there is, where there is a couple just for a deeper relationship, just as you said, there’s influence one person to the other. It’s just a, you know, it’s a broadening of the relationship, why have why have the relationship only with one person out of a couple, if you can include both right, right? And, you know, and then extended to potentially multigenerational, you know, a t some point, if you want to be able to have that legacy, continue with that family, you know, as the children start to mature and come into their own and become part of the overall, um, charitable decisions that that that couple maybe making and become more aware of it and that happens, you know, as you well know, tony at all different ages and levels depending on people’s, income and so forth, so e think it would be important to start including their children, and some of these maybe have family friendly activities for that younger set and start getting them engaged, or at least event invitations, even if even if the other, even if the kids can’t come just the thought of of an invitation i think is important. Yeah, absolutely. Okay. What’s, another f a q that you get on individual research. People say to me, you know, i’m interested in their network, uh, you know, i just really get need to get a handle on their networks. And people get hung up on that phrase and, you know, the key thing to keep in mind is a prospect. Researchers i don’t have access to certain key pieces of information that make up networks. We don’t have information about the liability side of somebody’s equation. So while i’m able to tell you how much somebody paid for their home, what the home is valued at now, how much taxes they pay on that home, i don’t know how much debt they’re carrying, not only on that home, but credit card debt and so forth never access things like credit reports, so yeah, you don’t you don’t know the liability side of a person’s balance sheet. No, no, we we can get, you know, a pretty good handle on the asset side, but not on the liability side. So a true picture of network is not something that that we have access to. Why is that important? Why would someone get hung up needing to know networth? You know, i think it’s just because it’s one of these phrases that’s thrown around out there, you know, somebody’s got a network of whatever. And, you know the forbes list somebody’s. Network, you know, on ford, but it doesn’t the net worth, i think it doesn’t even matter as much as the relationship as the person already has with the nonprofit organization or the potential for that relationship. So, you know, somebody could have a much lower networth paper but have a really significant and deep relationship with a non-profit very committed, and they’re going to be a probably a much better donor. Zampa lt’s for your small little amount profit helping in geographic community, of course, and the network’s number it’s really not something that people really should be getting hung up on. Yeah, it sounds like a red herring to me based on, you know, even just a different goals that you mentioned earlier of research. I don’t see where networth would would have a lot of value. Yeah, but, you know, it seems like it shouldn’t, but i get asked that all the time. Well, you know, you able to tell me so and so’s net worth and it’s a little bit of an educational process. Sometimes when i have to come back and say no, and this is why okay, just a minute or so again before before another break, what about political giving is that is that relevant before we get into where you might do it? Is that relevant? I do like to include political giving information, some non-profits, you know, our kind of supercharged in one direction or another politically, so it is kind of important to know where prospect might lie, but i think it just gives it a general marker as two again, where somebody’s capacity is. If they’re able to make donations annually of, you know, two thousand five thousand dollars to political donations, i think it just gives you another indicator of overall capacity for somebody to be able to donate to your non-profit. Okay, we’re gonna break there, and when we return, it’s tony’s, take to live guests for tony’s, take two from australia, and then we’ll continue our conversation with maria picking, picking maria’s brains will stay with me talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? How i’m rick, a keg, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant? If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s. Six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. Are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications. That’s. The answer. 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 hyre welcome back time now for tony’s take too and i am really i’m pretty excited to have live guests for tony take two. This is very rare joining me from australia. Keith right, and artist sally west here to talk about the love is campaign welcome. Thanks, tony. Sally, you literally flew last night, right? You arrived last night. New york city. I’ve had two hours sleep. Okay. Excellent. So, that’s. Why you’re here in new york. There’s. No time for sleep. We don’t know where you’re coming from. Where? Where? In australia. Sydney, we’re okay. But where’s blue he’s baby, you’re blue. He’s beat, right. That’s three and a half. Hour’s up, because what is that? Where you told me? Thats the paradise ijust moved from, you know louise beach tonight. No reason that i was going to come to the match. All right. Living city. Deal on the base. Okay. And keep your in this city. It’s, the australian city. Okay, i know sally’s an artist. What? What is your work, keith? Social entrepreneur. Okay. And what’s, the love is campaign that brings you to new york. You were putting on a vent on in july, which is to provide young people in new york with the opportunity to share with the world what love’s all about and it’s. Very exciting. I’ve been meeting with a lot of people in new york in the last few days and yeah, sensei stone okay there’s, a book there’s film there’s art acquaint us with some of this here we’ve created a book celis panting is on the front of the book and there’s impressions of love from around the world. Six continents have been covered with a short film on the website which talks about love, and we’re in a film festival at the moment in new york as well. And what what festival is that? That’s, the picture start film festival, which is running in this week this week? When does it in thursday and there’s unfortunately, right. So listeners not going to get that? Because streams on friday, but, sally, you have a show that’s affiliated with the love his campaign. Is that right? Or the show is separate or what? Well, it’s, a way to promote the project with the campaign. Okay, and tell us about your show. It opens on the fifth of june and it said the artifact gallery in new york, heidi for orchard street in lower east side, and the work’s, uh, a, um, and oppression, i guess you’d say off the of what i see as the beauty ofthe people’s lives that they create out of the chaotic out of their own chaos, poor ones, working on two hours sleep, but again, welcome to new york way thrive on that. Is that’s that’s actually a luxury you’re lucky to get teo. You’re trying to capture love in your heart. Yeah, love is one of the aspects. Beauty and peace, definitely so there’s, a very minimal color palette, and harley, textured and holly chaotic works, i would say. But within the works is when you stand back, there’s a simplicity in the workers well, keith, you want teo connect with non-profits in the u s, right? Very much. The case part of our trip this time is to connect with charities that are working with young people they would love to be. I would speak to those guys about the event, which is an art i intended a vent in july event takes place on the twenty eighth of july. We’ve got some campuses that we’re going to be taking around new york and having the opportunity for people to write what they think love is on those campuses, so we’d love to hear from other charities in new york and especially charities, they’re looking to raise their awareness and consider increasing their dahna poles and i want to spread a message to the world and charities that are working with children that that would be great, yeah, and and or suicide, we’ve got a project that were doing in australia around on suicide prevention, so we’d love to hear from a suicide prevention charity, too. Ok, you’ve already got a couple of charities that you’re affiliated with, correct? Yeah, we’re doing some. Work with the women worldwide initiative in new york. The point. And this week we last week we signed with let world which is a global charity. And that was a very exciting step towards describe how can listeners reach you if they wantto during the campaign that they can visit the website, which is www book love is on those details on their how to connect with us on email address. Well, they can email me directly at keith at square shaped circles. Dot com okay, say they say that your email i just one more time. It’s keith k i t h at square shaped circles dot com. Okay. And the website is book love is dot com. Correct. Okay. And sally west’s show at artifact gallery on orchard street in new york city. Runs until when? Sally from the fifteen. Twenty third of jean. And you, khun, fund out more information about the show on my website, which is w w sally west at dot com sally west art dot com sally west keith, right. Thank you very much for joining me. Thank you very much. Time for pleasure. Good luck with the love his campaign. Thank you and i will see you at the opening tomorrow night. Thank you. Thank you for real pleasure. Thank you. Thank you. Returning teo. Maria simple. You’re still there. Maria. I am here. Okay, but let me just say that. That was i’m sorry. I’m not a sequence. That was tony’s. Take two for friday. The seventh of june twenty third show of the year are almost already halfway through. Twenty thirteen. Okay, uh, let’s. Continue. Maria. We’re talking about individual research and picking your brains. We were talking about political giving. And if if that is germaine to the goal of our research, where can we find it? One of the easiest places to go to their number of resource is but i like going to the web site of the federal election commission. So that’s f like frank s e c dot gov and you can search by an individual’s name. Um, if that individual also has a very common name, they have actually an advanced search page. So if you knew that person was from a particular state, you might focus your research down to having that person’s name affiliated with that state so that you’ll know. That that you’ve got the correct person, but what i also really like about that is sometimes i’m only told that, you know, well, this person is, uh, this is their name, and we think they’re affiliated with the construction industry, but we don’t have their address or we don’t have their work address that’s not a lot going on name, and we think they’re affiliated with the construction industry. Yeah, they won’t have very much information to tell me a memory told you earlier, it’s often helpful if i’ve got their address and but if i don’t have it on biff, i’m not able to readily find it what’s kind of interesting is that on political donations, when you make a political donation, i think the minimum is two fifty or more it’s either two hundred or two fifty or more than it becomes part of public record and searchable on this fdc database. Part of what they provide in making this donation public is a gn address and very often an employer affiliation. So sometimes that those air the missing pieces to my puzzle, i’m able to find it through their political giving. So that’s kind of an extra bonus to looking at their political giving. I find anywhere else besides ftc dot gov, uh, there are a number of sites out there i think mother jones is one of them. Certainly the major resource is that i mentioned earlier, like wealth injun and i wave, they do aggregate data as well, but i do like to see that recap right on the f because i think that’s probably the source that a lot of these aggregators they’re getting it from anyway. Okay, ftc dot gov sounds like a big site. Where do we go after we’re at that? That rude girl? You would want to do a search for a campaign contribution by then. And you can search by individuals name um, so that’s very useful, you know want one caveat that i should mention about that sight, though, is, um, you you can’t use the information it says very clearly on there that you can’t use the information for any solicitation purposes at all. So really, i just do that is part of my overall data that i’m gathering on somebody, but you do need to be careful about using it to proactively prospect for new people, and by that, i mean, the resource allows you to go in and search by zip code and find out who all the big political donors are in a particular zip code. But they say that the data is seated so meaning that i don’t know, i think i don’t know the federal government’s watching to see who’s going to download the list and then mass, you know, mail out to them on so they might throw some fake names in there. Maybe i’m not sure or no, you’re names of people who work for the federal elections commission to see what, what nefarious things people might be doing with the names they find, right? So, you know, i would just be very careful don’t use the data to proactively prospect, i think that would get you in trouble, all right? And this this type of political giving, we’re talking about onl e-giving to the major political parties, is it? Is it on lee republican and democratic parties? Or does it go a little broader than that? There’s e-giving teo to political action committees as well. So yeah, i mean, it is pretty broad, it is pretty broad, so i do like to at least include that the person you know, i might even just recap it on my profile the person has donated in the last five years x number of dollars toward political campaigns, and then i might note if i can find it, you know, most of them are democrat versus republican, you know, for example, so if the non-profit needs to know more, i can actually expand on that and show exactly what gifts have been made to which political candidates can we get to the data on giving to the five oh, one c four’s that are in the press a lot because they’re the ones that were mostly not exclusively but mostly targeted and flagged by the irs determinations unit, which i’ve talked about a couple of weeks ago on tony’s take two. Can we get to that five or once before those those social change organizations? I’m not sure i don’t. I don’t recall ever seen five oh one c for specifically, but that’s a good one for me to explore. I’m kind of curious about that myself. Now that you’ve brought it up, i would have to dig a little bit. Further and find out about that. Maybe we can talk about it on a future show. Make a note for myself to find out about five a onesie for it. Okay, i think a feature of them is that they don’t have to disclose their there their donors, i think, well, i could be wrong about that, but you’ll know, because you’re going to do the research this’s the value of having regular contributors of prospect researcher like these assignments i’m giving out left and right, yeah e-giving the work. I had no idea i’d be getting a work assignment. Okay? Things i didn’t have enough teo it’s helping you prepped for the next show. This is this is a valuable aid for you. I think so. Okay. Um okay. What else? What other people? What other things are people asking you about on the individual sabat still individuals people are also asking about. They want to know if a z a general marker for wealth, they would like to know if people are owners of yachts or planes, and both of those are also part of what one can find out in the public record field. So you want to talk about some of those resources since they’re not to come and what you just listen, you know, two or three. Okay, so the yachts are all registered with the coast guard on. So the coast guard does maintain a website. It’s a little cumbersome. I actually goto ah, very inexpensive sea based resource to do that research it’s called boatinfoworld dot com dahna you can research by person’s name and find out they own a yacht. And on the airplane side you can go to the f a a website, the federal aviation administration you khun search to see somebody as a pilot license. You can also searched to see whether they were their company would own a plane so that, you know, is other pieces of information that if somebody is really, you know, high net worth individual, they might have one of those two items. Okay, for the rest of our conversation, we’re going to switch to the foundation side because that’s important too just a minute before a break. How do we get started on the foundation side? And then we’ll have time or after the break, i think probably a great place to start. Then would be just to go to two foundation center and find out for free whether or not that that last name might have foundation affiliated with it. But sometimes people don’t always use their name. They’ll come up with some sort of a creative name for their foundation, so that would be the easiest way to start is to go there with a guide star and find out and foundations center guidestar sighted again because you can do it for free on those two sites just to run their names through the search field. Okay, i know johnny carson was famous for that. I think his foundation was like the john w foundation or something like that. It was something obscurely named. We’ve got to go away for a couple of minutes. When we come back, marie and i will keep talking on maura about foundation research will stay with us. I didn’t think that shooting good ending things, you’re listening to the talking alternative network e-giving good. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com 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. Schnoll i’m can burger of charity navigator. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Dahna ken berger is so modest he’s, ceo of charity navigator and he’s just been in the news just so i’m quoted in the new york times, um, around around disaster aid. Yes, i think it was in the wake of the dahna moore oklahoma tornado, he was quoted, you know, making the point that there’s a tension between getting money, two victims fast and vetting where that money goes so that it goes to people who actually need it. But anyway, can burger, ceo of charity navigator, was a guest has been a guest. Maria, what we’ve been talking about so far on the foundation side, that was whether an individual is connected to a foundation, right? That’s, right? Ok, or whether they might have their own, their own foundation or what if you want to know if they’re on the board of a foundation. So there that’s where i do get into the fee based resource of foundations search dot com because i’m able to put in an individual’s name and find out if they come up connected as a trustee of a foundation. So again, even though they may not have their own family foundation, they still have access to another foundation as a trustee, i want to know that that’s really important information for me to know about, ok and yeah, and, you know, one, you know, one of the other things we didn’t touch upon with regard to individuals, and it kind of relates to foundations as well is whether or not somebody’s a corporate insider at at at a public company, meaning that they would own significant shares stock of that company, and then as an insider, they have to report that to the sea. Sometimes what people will do is they will take on, and that will be the influx of cash, for example that that foundation received. So if i look through and at a particular foundation, and then i see that the foundation has had an influx that year of x number of shares of stock, or or that the foundation that happens toa hold a large position of a particular type of stock that’s kind of a marker two mated. Somebody connected to that foundation may have been connected to that company. Where there’s that large dog position. And now give me another piece to the puzzle that i might want. To explore further, very interesting. So you’re looking at the finances of the foundation, not just what they give to and what the timeline is for sending your letter of inquiry and things like that. Yeah, because if i don’t really know that much about the person and i’m trying to figure out what their work history has been about, andi are connected, as they said to a foundation or ceding their foundation with stocks of of a particular company, then that might be something for me to look at, see if their name is connected to that company and maybe some news resource. Is there something like that? Maybe they’ve retired recently from a company so it’s very important for me to try and figure out, you know where that where that money is coming from that that’s really financing that foundation? Okay, all right, so, so but i’m exploring it from the from the researching, the foundation side. You look at the look at the finances in the sources of their giving as well as you know, other than mission related things. Yeah, sometimes sometimes it is important for me to have that piece and, you know, we’re also, it’s very important to know where they’re the foundation has their money invested is i was once doing research for american cancer society, and they wanted to make sure that the foundations they were approaching did not have significant assets, i think or any assets invested in stocks related to tobacco. And so my research project became very different at that point, right? Because i had to try and figure out well and, you know, and some of the, you know, sometimes it’s not as evidence there was remember what the company wass that had a significant position as a subsidiary company owned this suit very company that was tobacco related, and it didn’t it wasn’t apparent at the outset we figured out what that company really did. What is something that you’re back to our f excuse that you’re asked often about researching foundations, so they want to know, you know this foundation give to pre selected organizations, so on page nine or ten or so of a neiers, every every foundation files an irs nine, ninety pf and about page nine or ten of that of that form, it’ll have a little check box that a foundation. Can check off if they get to pre selected organizations or not. And it’s really important to know that because it could really just be a dead end foundation for you if you’re trying to knock on that door and they’re just not accepting any proposals in that case, what i say to a non-profit is, look, if your mission is so perfectly aligned to what that foundation likes to fund let’s, try and figure out if a member of your board perhaps has a connection to somebody who the trustee of that foundation so we can at least open a dialogue because just sending an outright proposal it’s really not going to get you anywhere that sounds like the first thing you should look at if you look researching the foundation is jump to whether this check off on page nine or ten is checked about pre selected organizations only right that you spend half an hour researching a foundation on ly to get to page nine and find out that you wasted half an hour, right? Exactly. But you know that resource that i mentioned earlier foundation search dot com? Actually, you can if you’re searching for foundations. Say, who donate to the arts in your particular state? You can actually tell the source toe on ly search for foundations who accept who are accepting proposals so you can actually have the tool. And again here that’s where you were talking about, you know, was it worth paying for a tool or not? Here’s a resource that will help you cut to the chase is to knocking all those other foundations off the list for you so that you’re not spending any valuable time researching it unnecessarily. And the thing that we’re going to end with is how would you execute your suggestion to find out whether one of your one of the board members on the board you’re doing the work for has a connection with someone in a foundation that that only gives to pre selected organizations? So what i’ve done in the past for some of my clients is i’ve taken those organizations that give only to pre selected may be saying in their in their county or their geographic community that they serve, um and i will outline the list of all the trustees of those foundations and circulate those names on a spreadsheet. With the members of the board and ask himto identify. They have any connections if they happen to know any of these people. So it becomes a very different task when you approach a development committee meeting or a fund-raising or ah general board meeting and say, you know, dj, does anybody have a foundation connection that they know of versus ifyou’ve proactively gone out and sought out the names of foundations in your community that you just need some help getting doors open, too? Put a list of names in front of them of those trustees. Then it becomes a very different meeting in a very different conversation for those who are interested in strategy around foundation grantspace ship. I’ve had a guest, john hicks. In the past you could go to my blawg twenty martignetti dot com and search for john hicks. H i c k s pull up that show where he was a guest and he took he talked a lot for an hour about the strategy of approaching foundations. Marie, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me my pleasure. As always. Each month, maria simple is the prospect finder and you’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com next week it is software selection. Don fornes, ceo of software advice, leads us through the software selection process for non-profits and amy sample ward returns she’s, our social media contributor but she’s no longer membership director at intend the non-profit technology network that you get booted out, we’re going to talk about it, she has an announcement, i’ll leave it! I have to leave it at that insert sponsor message over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities. Listen to the show each week you can contact me on my blogged if you’d like to talk about sponsoring the show. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff janice janice taylor line produced today’s show our 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, and as you’re listening on friday, june seventh, we are remote at fund-raising day at the marriott marquis in new york city. Oh, i hope you’ll be with me next week, and i hope next week you will have been with me. This week. Otherwise, i’ll suffer some serious, but not life threatening disease. You’ll find us every friday one to two p m eastern at talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com hyre. Hyre i didn’t think the shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network, waiting to get in. Cubine hi, i’m dahna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream. Our show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m 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 friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcast 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 shop 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, 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. Talking.

A Charity Did What Charities Do

No Smoking Guns courtesy of David King on Flickr
No Smoking Guns courtesy of David King on Flickr
Last week The New York Times exposed Beth Israel Medical Center’s fundraising operation as it became public through documents related to a will challenge by distant relatives of Huguette Clark, a wealthy woman who lived her last 20 years in the New York City nonprofit hospital. She died in 2011.

From the Times’ account, I see very little wrong and nothing egregious. New details may emerge and I’m analyzing what’s known today based on the linked article. (I’m much more interested in where the story ends.)

Ms. Clark was a major gift prospect, as she should be. She lived in the hospital for a long time and had her faculties.

Fundraising staff researched their prospect and the CEO was actively involved. All CEOs should be engaged in major gift fundraising. They wrote memos to each other and to the file.

It’s true: people inside charities routinely talk to each other about fundraising prospects and donors. They keep records in databases and paper files. They hold strategy meetings to manage relationships.

That’s what charities do.

It’s what they have to do to get gifts so their doors stay open. It is the way fundraising gets done in the charity business.

Surprisingly, the Times article lacks this context. There’s no commentary from a person with knowledge of fundraising practices to say, presumably, that there’s not much in this story that’s out of the ordinary.

What I didn’t like is the unprofessionalism of some notes and the unbridled exuberance that led a staffer to use seven exclamation marks to announce a gift of a painting. And there are snarky comments, too.

Those instances were poorly judged and thoughtless. Not illegal. Not unethical. Just thoughtless.

Never put in writing something you wouldn’t want the person you’re writing about to read. Keep your notes factual.

My greatest interest is the last paragraph of the Times’ article. Within 20 days of signing her first will, which did not include Beth Israel, the CEO met with Ms. Clark three times. Three weeks after the last of those visits she executed a new will with a $1 million bequest for the hospital. That’s the will under dispute.

Now we’re squarely in my territory, Planned Giving.

  • Did an attorney prepare the wills?
  • Did the same attorney prepare both?
  • Were they executed in compliance with New York law? (The first will is dubbed “sparse.”)
  • Were the attorneys recommended by the hospital?
  • Did hospital staff have meetings with the attorneys?
  • Who paid the attorneys?
  • How many people were in the three meetings with Ms. Clark?
  • What was said?
  • How did she react?
  • Did other staff meet her between the two wills?
  • What did they say and how many people were in those meetings?

Nearly everything leading up to the first will is business as usual, as far as we know.

For me, the end of the story begins the most interesting inquiry.