Tag Archives: corporate fundraising

Fundraising Fundamentals Round-Up

This is the podcast I produce for The Chronicle of Philanthropy. It’s a monthly, 10-minute burst of savvy fundraising tips from expert guests. This first round-up includes strategies on donor cultivation; tricks for #GivingTuesday; Planned Giving; and corporate foundation giving.

Nonprofit Radio for February 6, 2015: Corporate Coffers & Committee Confab

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Linda LysakowskiCorporate Coffers

Linda Lysakowski smallLinda Lysakowski, ACFRE, is a development consultant with nearly 30 years of experience. She wants you to systematize and formalize your corporate appeals; pay attention to small companies; and be more strategic with cultivation.

 

 

 

Gene TakagiCommittee Confab

Gene TakagiGene Takagi returns. He’s our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO). He’s all about committees this month! How are board committees different than advisory committees? How much authority should be delegated to them? What are the pros and cons of executive committees?

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Welcome again to our new affiliate km use e eighty eight point five and one hundred point seven fm in salem and keizer, oregon non-profit radio for the capital and kaiser km jozy, thank you very much for being with us. We’ve got a listener of the week. Jenny are nez she’s, a huge supporter of non-profit radio on twitter, always recommending the show and sharing our tweets she’s at jenny or nez jenny, i’ll send you a video of the non-profit radio library. You pick a book and it’s yours. Congratulations on being our listener of the week jenny are nez which it’s kind of reminds me of dizzy yarn is from the i love lucy show. I don’t know. I wonder if that’s a granddaughter are you are you the granddaughter of dizzy? Have a show from the archive today? And a rich archive. It is here’s our february seventh twenty fourteen show i’ll be back at the end. Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m very glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of a calcula if i had to shoulder the burden of knowing that you were going to miss this week’s show corporate coffers. Linda, listen kowski a c f r ee is a development consultant with nearly thirty years of experience. She wants you to systematize and formalize your corporate appeals. Pay attention to small companies and be more strategic with cultivation and committee. Khanfar ab jean takagi is back he’s, our legal contributor and principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group neo is all about committees this month. How are bored? Tum it he’s different than advisory committees. How much authority should be delegated to them? And what are the pros and cons of executive committees between the guests? Antony’s, take two. I have an abundance of alliteration were brought to you by rally bound peer-to-peer fund-raising and by telephone bill reduction consulting t brc. Getting your money back from phone bill screwups. My pleasure to welcome to the show, linda. Like kowski, she is one of one hundred professionals worldwide. Toe hold the advanced certified fund-raising executive designation. She has thirty years in non-profit development and one of her many books is raised more money from your business community. She’s at linda lissa kowski dot com you could follow her on twitter where she’s at l listen, kowski llc linda lisa caskey, welcome thanks, tony it’s. Glad i’m glad to be here happy to be with your audience today. Thank you very much. I’m glad you are too, and i i think it’s safe for me to speak for them to them, for them that that they’re glad you’re here too. Tell me about this cfr lots of lots of people are cf ari’s certified fund-raising executive, but you’re in advanced certified fund-raising executive, right and the uncertified fund-raising executive i used to be able to say i was one of fewer than one hundred, but just recently, within the last couple of months, we accepted number ninety nine and number one hundred into the fold um and it’s really an honor to be counted among the cfr ese it’s, a long, grueling process, but i think it’s well worth it in the end, it’s it’s a process that you go through if you’re really dedicated to this profession and one hundred of us at least are. And you have to be invited. Teo too do the work to get the a before your cf, ari. Well, the process is that you have to be a c f ar e already. Andi, i have been in the profession ten years or more. And then what makes us a little bit different from the cfr e to see if our reprocesses you take an exam and the review committee looks at your exam and make sure there’s no ethical violations on your record and then you’re automatically approved with e f r ee it’s really a four step process? It’s the application itself, and then you do take a written exam, which is obviously a little bit harder than the cfr e exam. And then you put together a portfolio showing your work and at least two a p f r ee piers will review that portfolio and then the third part of the fourth part of the process is on aural exam. Where again, about three, of your peers will take you through about a three hour process where you give your oral answers to questions that are thrown at. You by this group sametz pretty grueling process. Ok, i happen to be a u a c f r ee ultra advanced there’s there’s. Only one of us, though. I know that that’s. Pretty cool. I guess i’m gonna have to try to get to be number two in that group. Well, i don’t think you’re qualified. I’m sorry. Probably not. It’s the next level up, but it sze very secretive, like the masons for, like free masons. Usc fr ee. Okay, so i have to learn a secret handshake that well, if you’re qualified, but i don’t believe that you are. I’m sorry. Okay, okay. We’re talking about corporate giving. And specifically, i think small companies, but but before we get into big versus small there’s lots of forms of corporate giving, right, but it’s way beyond just just money. Yes, yes, there is. You know? And i think sometimes we kind of forget the many ways that corporations who contribute to the non-profit world besides e-giving cash, which most of us are familiar with cash or grant there is in-kind there’s corporate volunteer programs, which can be really magnificent for a lot of organizations. And some corporations like to do sponsorship? Not so much of sponsorship of events, but other sponsorship may be sponsoring one of your program. Something like that. So there’s a whole variety of pockets you khun delve into? Yeah, there’s also giving of inventory, right? Gif ts in-kind right. Right. Ok. And i’ve had some clients really be very successful with gifts. In-kind i could also tell you a bunch of horror stories about gifts and well, okay, we’ll hold the heart stories, but just, uh well, maybe, but we know that just want to set the ground work. We know there’s lots of different ways that we could be approaching cos on dh. You also want people to think broadly about the kinds of companies they approach you. We’ll identify a lot of under the radar businesses, right? Right. And i think a lot of times we tend to always look at those the company’s in our community whether their banks are hi tech companies. But there’s, every community has a couple companies that everybody thinks someone that’s like. Okay, how can we raise some money from the business sector? And they all tend to think of a big company. I called the willie sutton theory that’s probably because i spent a lot of years in banking before i was involved in the nonprofit world, but, you know, they one day it’s really sudden white, he robbed banks, and he said, because that’s, where the money is and sometimes that’s the impression that we get some of those big companies but us for all the money is i am to live near las vegas and in our community, it’s, let’s go after the big casinos because, look, i have all this money, and we just kind of roll up with our little plastic cup and asked him to fill it with money, and it doesn’t always work that easy, right? So let’s, identify some of the, uh, the under under the radars and you like your name, like pest control movers, landscapers, right? Small, small companies that are often get overlooked by the way that that willie sutton story according to wikipedia, he didn’t really say that. That’s a pocketful. You know, i just heard that recently to that it was actually a reporter who described that statement to him, but by still called the willie sutton xero describe doing me, whether he said it or not, that’s hard. I don’t think we’ll take away your cfr designation because i hope not it’s, not that that’s not really an ethical breach. It’s, just a little fib a little fairy town not doesn’t reach the eye to the level of ethical oversight, i guess in the next edition of the book will have to say that statement was described to willie said it or not, ok, let’s, talk about some of that well, how to get started with this. I mean, i would think now we have lots of different sized companies on. We have lots of different ways that we can approach various sized companies, so that creates a lot of variables. Should we be starting with what our goals are? Starting with goals is always important. Looking at how many companies, realistically or in your community, how many you think you might be able to reach and that’s going to be based a lot on how many staff and or volunteers you have to reach out to the business community. And i really stressed the word volunteers because sometimes staff people think they have to do this all by themselves and i have found that the best way to reach the corporate sector is tohave appear make that peer-to-peer solicitation. So if you have volunteers on your board, your development committee, ah, a special committee that set up just to do a corporate animal appeal, you’ll be able to use what i call the five to one rule, and this is a pretty common thing and fund-raising that no one volunteer is to make more than five calls when you’re talking about going out, personally visiting with someone and that’s what we’re talking about because personal solicitation is really the only way to get to the corporate community. I find direct mail doesn’t work, and most of the time, phone calls don’t work because the decision makers don’t take phone calls or open mail, okay, you through a lot of stare in terms of volunteers and how to approach and whether events versus one on one is best, so we’re gonna unpack that we’re going to take a break for a couple minutes when we come back. Linda and i well, keep talking about corporate coffers, stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Time to send some live listener love stew start domestic new york, new york, minneapolis, minnesota, new bern, north carolina live listener love to you, seoul, korea got many people in seoul and others that are whose city is masked. So soul i wonder if you know the three or four people in seoul who are listening. Or do you ah, do you all know each other? I wonder. Can non-profit radio bring you together in soul? And of course, for our korean listeners on your haserot many in japan, tokyo, ujiie and one or two others were not sure who are who are masked japanese sorry to our japanese listeners. Konnichi wa ok, linda, listen kowski let’s, unpack some of that stuff that you let us into let’s begin with how to approach the companies you you suggest in in your book a cultivation event? Yes, i think cultivation events are a great way to get to know the business leaders and have them get to know you. Lots of times. The organizations think they just go knock on the door or send a letter and suddenly they’re going to raise all this money from the business sector, but these businesses a run by people, we have to remember that, and people need to get to know your organization before they’re going to support it. So i’ve had some very successful cultivation events were business leaders are invited in, always hosted by another business leader not hosted by your executive director or someone within your organization, and i think that’s one of the keys to success here is who does the inviting? I remember one working with the homeless shelter group, and they had a key business leader in their community invite other business leaders in they thought they’d get about twenty, some people, they sent out seventy five invitations, and just about everybody they invited showed up mainly because of the host so that’s a big key teo successful cultivation event. You profile that example in the book and then go a little further and talk about how how moved the breakfast attendees were yes, what we did was we started this it’s seven thirty in the morning and on the east coast, especially of the united states, i think you know, if you want to. Get business leaders have it first thing in the morning because they want to come in, get out there and get back to their office before the day gets away from them. So we had a seven thirty eight, fifty eight, fifteen very brief agenda. We just kind of explained a little bit about what the shelter was homeless shelter, what they did, the thing that really sold these people wasa tour, which was led by a former guest of the shelter who was now gainfully employed at his own apartment. And when he took these business leaders around and show them the shelter and said, i sleep over there in the corner, it really hit home that this organization was doing something valuable for its community, that it was turning people’s lives around, then it was making the business environment better. So of course they were really eager to support the organization, and some of them wanted to write out checks immediately, even though we had said to them, we’re not asking you for money at this event, and we actually didn’t take their money. We said, no, we’re going to come back to you later, but you know we just want you to see the shelter and see what we’re doing here, and it really made a huge impact on that community talking about business leaders, companies, what’s your experience with professional practices like lawyers, maybe dentists, orthodontists i think that’s another category i usually often call it business and professional again. I think the best way to get to doctors is through another doctor in the best way to get the lawyers is through another lawyer. These are all really busy professional people, and they don’t often have a lot of time, but they will make time to speak with a calling. So they the key is getting your volunteers who can open the doors to these people and that’s, how you’re going to be successful and what’s our next step then after this cultivation event, which moves people i love the idea of hosting it on site that’s, that’s just so brilliant instead of having it at a restaurant or a hotel or something, have it. If you have a facility where you can tour people around, i just think that’s a very as is you cited that could be really moving what’s the next step. After the after the event, the events over now, okay, after the event, then one of the things that i suggest people is that they hold an annual corporate appeal involving volunteers, and what we did, for example, with that shelter is the volunteers who were so excited about it a z i said some of them wanted to write out a check, but a lot of them said, hey, when you’re ready to go out and talk to people about contributing to the shelter, count me in. I’m ready. Teo, help you with this project. So we developed a list of volunteers based on that cultivation breakfast and those volunteers all set. Okay, i’ll see these five people. I’ll see those five people. And we organized a really well honed annual corporate appeal and there’s a whole chapter in my book outlined how you go about doing that. It would probably be take up the rest of your show. And maybe the next three shows teo, tell everyone how it worked. But the key is involving volunteers letting them choose who they want to go see and seeing their peers. Because that’s, what gets you in the door and that’s what’s going to get you the money and need a long run? I would like people to know, too, that the book is very detailed in terms of how to go about these steps that has a planning timeline and a sample invitation and a questionnaire for after the after the event. So there’s there’s a lot of good advice in the book and detailed advice and linda, i think, did you wantto offer a listener discount? Tio anyone who’s interested in in the book raised more money from your business community and within the next couple of weeks also have an accompanying workbook being released. Raised more money from your business community this year that gives you step by step directions on and that code. If you go to charity channel dot com and look at the bookstore you just put in the code all lower case linda al i n d a twenty fourteen books and you’ll automatically get a fifteen percent discount not only on that book, but on any other books that you order at the same time. So okay, so you go to charity channel dot com and the code is linda twenty fourteen. Books, right? Okay, usually i like to see that could be non-profit radio or tony rocks or something. But linda, i think of that, linda twenty fourteen books. We’ll work, it’ll get you the fifteen percent. Of course, if used tony rocks, you get thirty five percent, but in, but not this. Not this time around. All right, so we’re talking about volunteers. Volunteers are critical to the success of this. Do we need to train these volunteers? Oh, absolutely. Even though volunteers, maybe sadio i’ve done this a zillion times you went, i sort hesitate to use the word training sometimes because nobody thinks they need training. But we always had a kickoff celebration where we invited all the volunteers to come in. Somebody in the organization made a compelling case for support. And when i worked in the university, for example, we would have a student come in and talk about the fact that they were not there on scholarship. They wouldn’t be able to afford the university. So we have somebody that makes a compelling story for why we’re doing this. Why we’re raising money and then you do need to give people some basic guidelines about you know how to make the call and how to fill out the pledge forms and when to make a report back to you. So it is there’s some work involved in it, but i think it really can be very, very helpful if you can get these volunteers in twos and excited just again remember that these are business people, they don’t want toe meat for three hours at a time, they want to come in, probably first thing in the morning and have a meeting that’s over within about an hour to one hour and a half and make it is easiest possible and keep your timeline short don’t give people a six month time frame. They’re only making five calls, and they should be able to do that and about a six week time frame you recommend ah five call limit because i presume you don’t want people to be overwhelmed by a list of twenty or twenty five names or something. Exactly what happens is some annual we have some over enthusiastic volunteers payable. I know this person and i know that person and give me fifteen or twenty calls, and what happens is they never make any calls because fifteen or twenty just too intimidating, they pull out their list and they say i’ll work on that tomorrow. I don’t have time to think about it today, so give them five it’s a very manageable number. Now i wouldn’t say we never she sometimes we have somebody only make three and that’s fine. If they’re three quality calls, sometimes we have somebody who could do six or seven. But i try to keep it to five to one because that’s a pretty realistic number and it’s proven to work. What if the person comes back and says, i’ve done my five tonight? Can i have five? Five more ready todo eso you will give the more after that don’t always give him five to start with, okay? After they’ve done their initial, they can they can come back for more. Okay. And, uh, and what are they asking in these calls? Well, there you are again, presenting a case for support, which shows that you have various ways that businesses can support you. They can give a gift. They can restrict a gift. Maybe, for example, to scholarships for school. Something like that, they could. Give a gift. In-kind i’ve had some organizations that have been ableto build about a third of their building because they had everything donated from landscaping to excavation to furniture, toe windows to cement so you could get gifts in-kind you can get cash, you can get other volunteer support, but primarily we’re looking at things in effect, the bottom line, so we’re looking at cash and give in-kind mostly. All right, why did you tell one of your gift in-kind disaster stories? If if it’s not too long, well, i could give you a couple of them, just one one took one pick, the most of it was that i think is probably the most interesting one because i live in the state of nevada, i had someone offer, give this wasn’t really a gift. In-kind it was a cash gift, but they had a real struggle was trying to determine if they should take a gift in-kind from a brothel because here, it’s illegal business in many counties so that they’re not offering the gift in-kind are they way? That would really be quite interesting? Yeah, i mean, but gives in-kind i’ve had gifts of land offered which needed a half a million dollars worth of oil remediation that’s a gift in-kind you probably don’t want to take well, yeah, because you don’t want to have contaminated soil. Tohave teo remediated, but you’re glossing over the brothel example, but i we’re going to linger on this for a couple moments. I thought you might find that one interesting. Well, you were right because i go to the lowest common denominator, you know, mike sense of humor’s generally basin lowbrow in the gutter on dh i’m proud of that s o have have you had clients offered gifts from from brothels? I have and some have taken them, and some haven’t, because they said they’re not doing anything illegal in that particular county, but others don’t take them because they feel like it flaunts the mission of their organization. But the key teo give in-kind and unusual gifts like that are you have tohave gift acceptance policies in place that say what you’re going to accept and what you’re not going to accept. Interesting right there is the issue is do we want to take money from organizations that are contrary to what are companies that are contrary to? What our beliefs are, what our mission is about that could apply for, well, really could apply and just about any circumstances, but i’m thinking, particularly of, like domestic violence, possibly or health related charity’s certainly any of the faith based religious charities and that’s where, you know, you really need to be careful about what you’re going tio except and the things that volunteers need to have before they’re asked to go out, make calls, they need to know what kind of gifts you’re going to accept. What other kind of support does the organization have to give? Two volunteers that are making these five calls? Well, i think they need to have some staff that’s going to support these volunteers because volunteers are going to i guarantee there’s a volunteer they’re going to call you. Oh, i’m supposed to make this call today, but i lost my my information that i was because the handout can you send me another fact sheet, or can you send me another pledge card? I don’t have one and i have an appointment this afternoon, those of the kind of things that staff need to be there to support people and i think most importantly what you need to give volunteers as a program that’s worthy of support. If they feel in food that your program is really doing a lot of good in the community, they will be proud to be part of your team that’s going out asking for money so that to me is the most important thing that you need to provide volunteers. How about the chair of this annual business appeal? How do we how do we make sure we have the right chair person? Well, that’s a really important that because you wanna have a chair person that is well respected, well known in the community can command respect is enthusiastic themselves. I had one gentleman wants to volunteer for a volunteer firefighters group, and he showed up at a meeting with and this is a top ceo in the county. He showed up with a fire helmet and red suspenders because he was so into what this would do it. He didn’t even take the time to change that e one to make his commitment well known that he supported the volunteer firefighters. He thought they were doing fantastic work, which they were and his enthusiasm was contagious. Everybody else got excited about the campaign because he was excited about it. Outstanding. Okay, um, we have just a couple minutes left. Linda, tell me what it is that you love about the work that you do and you’ve been doing for for thirty years. I think what i really love the most is being able to help people fulfill their missions and so many of the things that, you know, i can’t just take off and run to africa and help dig wells or do a lot of different things, but i can help people raise the money to do those wonderful things. That’s what i enjoy about it the most. Because when charities come together, they can do when people come together should say into charities they can do enormously good work, that individuals can’t do that government and corporations aren’t suited for right? Absolutely. Ok, linda, listen kowski i want to thank you very much. Why don’t you, uh, remind people how they can get the discount on the book, go to charity channel, dot com and then put in the when you look at the book list, just put it in it’ll ask you if you have a discount code and you put in l i n d a all lower case l i n d a twenty fourteen. Okay, linda, on the strength of this conversation we had, i’m going to promote you to ultra cfr, so you are now right? Well, thank you. I’m going to put that in front of my initial see if anybody recognizes thie organization is small but distinguished, you’re now you’re now using new a c f o r e. You will find linda, listen kowski at linda lacey kowski dot com, and on twitter she’s at l lacey kowski llc, thanks so much for sharing your expertise, linda. Thank you, tony, for having me, it’s been a pleasure. Okay, bye! So long. We are sponsored by rally bound. You know them? You’ve heard me talk about them. They do software for peer-to-peer fund-raising at rally bound dot com. And we’re also sponsored by t b r c telephone bill reduction consulting. And they find errors in phone bills when ah, the phone company has charged you for things that you didn’t ask for or overcharged you from what you were quoted, they will find those errors and ah, get reparation. Get money back for you. Who needs that fancy word? Reparation that’s not it’s. Not really. Even a reparation. They get your money back from the from the greedy phone company that miss build you and they’re being they’re at t brc dot com the the show segments today corporate coffers and committee conned fab remind me of a ah, a bit. That was on the johnny carson show in nineteen sixty eight and johnny’s guest was jack webb. He was the star in creator, a creator of the nineteen fifties and sixties tv show dragnet and his character on the show was lieutenant joe friday. So i want to play this for you from johnny carson show nineteen sixty eight my name’s. Friday. I’m a cop. I was working general robbery when i got a call from the acme school bell company. They’re gonna rob, been a robbery. Guess what, my clappers. Yeah, your flowers. Yeah, you know, sings inside of falik makes a claim. The players that’s, right? We got on clappers in business, okay, hyre what’s that things are not going back. What kind of plans were stolen on this case or copper clappers? Where were they? Osili you have any ideas who might have taken the copper clappers from the plaza? Well, there’s one, i fired-up manage where he’d get even. What was his name? Latto cooper. You think that’s, right? I think what? Cooper got my cover. You know, with his plot, cooper is from, yeah, cleveland. Yeah, things. What makes it worse. They were clean, clean, copper clappers, right, what do you think? Cleveland’s plug cooper would come pure clean cover covers. Only one reason. What’s that. He’s a kleptomaniac. Over discovered the copper clappers were coming. My cleaning woman, clifford. That figures see if i got the facts straight here. Player clipper discovered your old copper clappers kept in a closet. We’re coming by. Clark cooper. The kleptomaniac from upleaf kayman now is that about. Latto what’s that fiver text. But romania. Claude hooper, from cleveland kopperman clean copper clappers, were kept in the closet. Yes, back-up clobbering. Excellent. Nineteen. Sixty eight. Johnny carson and jack webb. That is tony’s take two for friday, seventeenth of february sixth show of the year. Jean takagi is back. He’s a manager. Tony, you know what to say. Hello, eugene. Look, the guy doesn’t even know the protocol has done this. I don’t know forty times or something. Hang on there, gene. But hello, gina’s managing attorney of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blawg dot com and is gi tak at g tack on twitter hello jean takagi it’s been nearly that’s, right? Your it’s, your excitement, enthusiasm i it’s exudes the audience and the and the guests. We can’t help it. Okay, we’re talking about committees this week. You are concerned that whether where you’re questioning whether there should even be bored committees right aboard doesn’t necessarily have tohave committees. I’m just questioning the concept of whether every non-profit should have committees, and particularly for small non-profits with small boards of directors, committee’s may make sense, and sometimes they may not make sense, but there are a lot of kind of misconceptions about whether you have tohave committees. Okay. And what what is what governs? Whether you, whether you have to or not, basically, i mean, you know, the usefulness of a committee is where aboard has got a lot to two, got a lot of governance responsibilities, and they may want to delegate some of those off two smaller groups that might be able to address the civic issues with more focused expert teeth. And, you know, it may be particularly helpful to be able to recruit persons outside of the board, to participate in committees as well. So those are good reasons for having committees but it’s not a good reason to have a committee if you largely just bring people in without much direction. They sit around talking, you know, come up with a few pieces of advice and share it with the board, who sort of disregard that advice and decides on their own what to do. And a lot of committee members feel very disempowered and not very productive or feel that it’s not a very productive use of their time to participate on committees, and they largely become ineffective. Yes. So there are clearly issues of efficiency on dh or inefficiency, let’s. Get some some terms down. We could have standing committees. We could have ad hoc committees. We can have a task force. Can you help explain these? Sure. Well, typically, you know, standing committee, the committee that has a perpetual existence until you know the board or some body decides that that committee doesn’t need to exist anymore but talking generally perpetually existence and ad hoc committee is usually organized to address a specific task on dh at hot committees are often referred to his task. Of course, taskforce is, although i don’t really see the difference between the two. They have defined life spans, and usually, when the assigned task is completed or can’t be furthered anymore that’s when when that committee saw what would be an example of something that an ad hoc committee would would be working on, they might work on the capital campaign or ah, particular event, for example. Okay, i saw some examples of leadership transition to if they’re if we’re in search of a new ceo. Yeah, absolutely. That’s. Another great example. Okay, it was just a good but now it’s just it’s. Just a good one on important. Well, thank you. Okay. Let’s, see, eso now weaken also have board committees and advisory committees. And you mentioned having people outside the board on committees. So can you help us understand this? This distinction? Sure. You know, i think it’s a really common misconception that you can have somebody that’s not on the board served on a board committee. First distinction is that a board committee is made up of on ly board members and nobody else you can have other committees that are not bored committees. And they could be delegated with authority to andi, those other committees non board committees order for them to right now, khun b, composed of both directors and bond directors or simply just non directors. People from the outside and why i actually prefer the term non board committee latto advisory committee is that these committees could be delegated with management authority and they can have significant authority. But the difference between the board committee and these non board committees is that only a board committee can be delegated toe act with all of the power of the board and there’s certain limitations to that authority as well. But boredom it ease can act in place. Of the board, in many, many circumstances where as a non board committee could not actually do that for pete’s sake. Okay, so non board committees, though, can be can be authorized by the board. Teo, do some narrow function or something, right, but not but not be delegated all the responsibilities of the board is that is that is that correct? Yeah, so they can actually have substantial authority, but they can’t act in place of the board. So where aboard action is necessary. Often times it will say a board or a board committee can take this action, but a non board committee would not be able to do that. What a non board committee might be able to do, though, is tio make decisions on fund-raising or on policy advocacy or program decisions, they might be able to approve a lease or something else. The board may wantto ratify those actions later and board oversight over committee actions is really an important part of governance, too, okay, and all the authority given a committee, whether it’s, a board committee or non board and i guess even whether it’s standing or ad hoc all is given from the full board. Is that right? Yeah. Generally that’s, right? So so the board of directors is going to delegate certain authority to to these committees, and they’re going to want to get some sort of report back from what these committees, if they’ve been given any sort of authority to take action so that the board khun khun, monitor and provide oversight over those committee actions. Now, i think the standing committees aren’t those aren’t those fairly common. Yeah, i think it’s it’s very common for organizations dafs standing committees, although, you know, i might venture a pretty aggressive guess and say that a lot of standing committee’s it’s not the majority of standing committees are pretty useless. Uh, okay, be careful for a lot of smaller organizations. A lot of standing committees are again not very useful in acting in place of the board, and they might be good for giving advice. But then there there might not be a need for perpetual existence on dh they’re off. They’re obviously going to be many, many exceptions to that, i would say generally, boards have to be very careful about having standing committees that are not active and that air not tasked with specific duties that feels very, very empowered to carry out the duties and provide recommendations to the board or take actions in place of the board if they’re bored. Committees or take management actions have there been delegated without authority? Yeah, otherwise, if these committees become ineffective and boardmember start to feel their time is being wasted, you’ve got a big donor relations problem among your most committed or formerly most committed volunteers. Yeah, absolutely. That’s. I mean, if you’re a boardmember tony, would you like to sit around at a committee meeting for two hours and then report back to the board and the board just listens to the report and then just move on carrying on businesses normal without taking any action on those? You know that reporter recommendations let’s, let’s, talk about the executive committee on di. We pulled listeners and you helped pole gene before the show. Thank you very much. One of the questions was, do you have an executive committee of your board? And ninety percent looks like maybe a little more than ninety percent said yes, and and the remainder said no? Nobody said not sure. So thes executive committees at least for listeners of non-profit radio are very common, but there’s pros and cons yeah, absolutely on dh. So, yes, i think executive committees, they’re probably the most common form of committee on dh they may make a lot of sense for a larger organizations, especially if they’ve got boards that have difficulty meeting on a relatively frequent basis and executive committee is a good way to continue to provide oversight over the organization in between boardmember ings and executive committee may be ableto act in place of the board. Teo, you know, pass like bank resolutions to open up a bank account and do some of the sort of ministerial duties that that boards need to do some time. So for those reasons, executive committee’s could be very valuable the danger or the primary danger. I think with executive committee, that if you over delegate authority to the executive committee, you could disempower the board so the executive committee could be the core leadership group that sort of takes hold of the organization and just creates a power discrepancy between the executive committee, board members and all the other board members so that the executive committee pushes through. Its agenda and takes all the action’s necessary to push through its agenda, leaving the rest of the board disempowered and feeling inactive and not very helpful to the organization at all. And just as he said before with back-up disengaging your your your biggest donors, which typically include includes many of your board members, you could do the same thing by giving too much power to an executive committee than this enchanting those boardmember donors who are not part of that committee, where do you draw the line? Well, not where? How do you draw the line about? If we are going to have an executive committee, how much authority that committee should have versus the full board or other committees who decides this well, it should be the board and that’s where way commonly don’t see anything defined in terms of limiting the executive committee’s authority and that’s, one of the sources of problems often by-laws say that the executive committee just can act in place of the board. Um, in between board meetings and that’s, the limit of the authority that’s been given to the executive committee, so they’ve got almost blanket authority to do almost anything. In between board meetings and that’s, not a good governance structure so e-giving specific tasks or limiting executive committee, too, performing only certain tasks, and maybe acting maura’s a reporting body to the rest of the board. Maybe the way too structured for most organizations, there are some organizations where the executive committee needs to be given a little bit more authority, but the board has gotta be ableto exercise oversight over those executive committee actions as well. So getting reports back at the next board meeting ratifying perhaps the most important executive committee actions taken after vetting the supporting information is really part of a board studio. All right, we’re going toe go out for a break. I want to send some live listener love, too. San francisco, california, rockland, california state college, pennsylvania and at least one person is masked in the u s so if i haven’t sent live listener love to you, you’re you’re masking yourself, and we know that you are the national security agency in in in suburban washington, in virginia, stay with us, jean, and i’m going to keep having our committee confab. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon. Craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger, do something that worked neo-sage levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard. You can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Podcast pleasantries out to everybody lift, listening on the time shift and especially listening. Not now, but he will be on twitter at counting charity. Brian, thank you very much. I’m glad your morning commute is so much better now because you listen to non-profit radio while you’re driving carefully, i hope you’re listening. You driving carefully? Are you? Are you at the speed limit or below? This is critical, brian. Thank you very much. We have listeners in iran. We have lots of listeners in china shen jin, non jing and others in china wishing you happy. New year cerini inquire chaillou. Okay, jean takagi. Um let’s say there’s a woman who wants tio these heir, not her words. These air. These are my words. There’s, a consultant who wants to basically kill executive committee’s. Eliminate them in all cases. Simone joyo. Do you are you familiar with her work? Or have you seen her around? You know, i think she writes for the non-profit quarterly. I believe that’s where i saw it on, by the way. She’s a safari also not a u f o r e. She has not attained the ultra designation yet. I have not. Bestowed it upon her, but i don’t know her that drug in jail for you, tony. I know you, weren’t you, jeanne. Now you were not listening in the first half of the show, jean you, if you were, i snagged you. If you were listening the first half of the show, you would know that the ufc ari, is something that i hold, which is an ultra advanced certified fund-raising executive. I hold it. And now, in the first half of the show, i bestowed it upon guest linda lacey kowski, but i have not bestowed it upon anyone else but that’s. Okay, gene, i’m sure you were prepping for the show. I know you were. I know you were busy thinking about our our committee conned fab conversation. So there are people who, well, simone, anyway, she feels very strongly about there should not be executive committee’s at all. I think it’s ah, great discussion, tohave for some boards. But, yeah, i think that’s, really just being provocative and stimulating, whether executive committee’s should really be granted with broad authority. I think, for the most part, especially with larger boards and boards that may be spread throughout the state or throughout the country. Executive committee’s still can be very useful, okay? But it’s a worthwhile discussion to have and your point earlier was that it’s the full board that should be deciding this, not just the chair and the and the ceo, right? And it should be in a good note that only the board can create a board committee and executive committee should be aboard committee. So executive committee should be a committee that’s composed of only board members. And if that that’s the case again, the board is the only body that can create an executive committee. The chair, the executive director they can’t commit. Create the committee themselves. Okay, how about staff support for board committees? What should that look like? Well, first reference, there’s. A great article in blue avocado that came out recently on staffing committees. And i recommend that all your listeners staff support of committees is just so crucial. It’s really important to make sure that the committees are well equipped with the information they need to carry on their duties and connected to what the organization is actually doing on the ground, and not just in theory and in documents so providing that support understanding for it, for the staff that better involved. In providing support to the committee’s understanding why the committee members are there and are looking to help the organization and understanding how to best communicate information to them and facilitate the way for the community committees toe act including, you know, figuring out how to get the information to them in the right form, within the right amount of time in advance of a meeting or an action that needs to be taken, providing them with the right facilities and, you know, even providing the right food and drinks that that’s the incentive to bring the committee together, all of those things could be tremendously helpful. We talked earlier about the advisory committees on another poll question for listeners was, do you have advisory committee or committees? And about sixty three percent said they do and the remainder well, about thirty, thirty percent said no, and then the rest weren’t weren’t quite sure so, like two thirds do have advisory committees let’s explore this little deeper than they could be valuable, you suggested it, but let’s go deeper in bringing outside expertise into the into the into the organization and supporting the board. Yeah, and i can’t emphasize enough. That i think an advisory committee and non board i’m sorry, non board. I meant non board. I know you. You prefer non board, i said, screwed that up non-profit ese well, and advisory committee can be okay for the bomb for committees that are delegated with management power. So if they’re going to strictly have advisory privileges, i like advisory committee. I don’t particularly like advisory board because board suggests that their board members with fiduciary duties, if you have fiduciary duties, you have potential exposure to personal liabilities for failing to live up to those duties. And we’ve talked about that. Yeah. So the great thing about being an advisory committee members if it’s truly advisory, you don’t have any fiduciary duty, and that makes it much easier to recruit individuals who might not have the time or it might not have the desire. Teo sort of meet all of the fiduciary duties of being a boardmember, but really, like the organization. Which case, you know, you can recruit them on an advisory committee. That committee might just meet once every six months. Or it might meet even less than that. Or it might just be a body. Of people who executive director can phone, you know, phone every once in a while just to bounce ideas off of on get they’re a pain in perspective, so in that way you could just really widen your resource pool, forgetting expertise and experience and perspective that might be missing from the board. And i just think it’s such a valuable tool that many organizations are able teo utilize, but a lot of organizations are really not taking advantage of the ability to do that. I think that’s a shame if they’re not it’s, not utilizing that that very valuable cool. It sounds very valuable for the, uh well, here we go. Very valuable. Yes, it sounds really useful for the for the ceo tohave that that list of advisors that he or she can call and pick their brains and, you know, sort of be even in, like, an off the record discussion because we’re not in a board meeting and we’re not talking to someone who has the fiduciary duties. Yeah, i think it’s so valuable to be ableto have that for for the executive director and the executive director might have know their own sort of clos. Closely held advisory body and the board might actually have its own advisory body as well on dh it’s, nice for the board to be able to participate and network amongst themselves. And, you know, boards have fund-raising responsibilities, as you often discuss with some of your gas. But acting is ambassadors to the organization and bringing in not just financial support but expertise to the organization and introducing them to people who might be interested. It can also result in future donors as well. And so i think advisory committees are just fabulous ways too. Teo grow the resources of an organisation. Just about a minute or so left jean i think i saw on your blogged link to a site called board cafe. Yeah. Are you familiar with that? Is that that? I presume? I’m pretty sure it was your board. Your your block. Right. So is that a resource that you’d recommend? Yeah, i think. Bored cafe was adventure. Initially launched by compass point non-profits services, based in san francisco. It’s, a management support organization that’s recognized widely is is one of the best in the country on dh. It may have been taken over by the the online magazine blue avocado i mentioned earlier i’m not sure that board cap they still exist. The blue avocado doesn’t that some edited by jan mathos oak of the california association of non-profits and is a fantastic online journal highly recommended for a number of non-profit issues, including h r and committees and what’s the name of that site again that she had it at blue avocados. It’ll be on, i think, blue avocado dot org’s okay, we have to leave it there, gene, thank you very much. Great, thanks always a pleasure. Jean takagi, managing attorney at neo non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, you’ll find him at non-profit law blawg dot com, and on twitter at g tak i’m back next week. Friday the thirteenth matt scharpnick explains elegant and strategic design what is it? How do you achieve it? And why is charity water so talked about also amy sample ward returns she’s, our social media contributor, ceo of n ten non-profit technology network and based in portland, oregon. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com remember there’s a g? Never mind we’ve heard enough. Of that. K m, u z eighty eight point five and one hundred point seven fm in oregon, salem, kaiser and the mid willamette valley. Welcome again, thanks so much for being with us. I do stand up comedy. I did a set last month, and the video is up at tony martignetti dot com. Check it out. Our creative producers, claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer. The show’s social media is by susan chavez. Susan chavez. Dot com on the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico. Of the new rules on music is by scott stein, with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be going duitz what’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything people don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine am or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you gotta make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealised took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s, why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gifts. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five.

Nonprofit Radio for February 14, 2014: I Heart Institutional Funders

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Cindy Gibson: I Heart Institutional Funders

Cindy Gibson Headshot 2:14 Nonprofit radio showCindy Gibson, principal of Cynthesis Consulting, has over 26 years working in and supporting nonprofits. How do you show the love to private, public and corporate foundations? What’s the role of your board and technology in building relationships with funders? What’s the right mindset to have going in?

 

 

 

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent i’m your aptly named host it’s valentine’s day happy valentine’s day. I hope that you have lots of special valentine’s that’s a special people in your life and you’re and you’re sending them some, uh, some love and some special wishes today. Reach out to a valentine that you haven’t talked to for a while and i’m very glad you’re with me today i’d be forced to endure geo trick oh, cece, if i came to learn that you had missed our valentine’s day show, i heart institutional funders cindy gibson principle of synthesis consulting has more than twenty six years working in and supporting non-profits how do you show the love to private public and corporate foundations? What’s the role of your board and technology in building relationships with funders what’s the right mindset tohave going into this relationship on tony’s take two my professional development survey we are brought to you by rally bound peer-to-peer fund-raising and by telephone bill reduction consulting trc i’m very pleased that cindy gibson is with me today. She is a practiced emmick. She has a phd and over twenty six years of experience with non-profits she has had leadership roles for several national foundations and non-profits she was a non-profit times top fifty power and influence sir she’s a principal of synthesis consulting you’ll find her on twitter as at caen gib cindy gibson welcome to the show thanks for having me tony it’s a pleasure you sound loud and clear there you sound like you’re next door but i know you’re not you’re in the yurt in massachusetts in the boston area is that right i am getting out of a lot of snow appear ok and we had a lot down here which what kept you from moving yeah that that that’s okay next time maybe where where in massachusetts are you i’m in boston okay um what come non-profits be doing better around relationship building with with funders cindy oh my gosh that’s such a huge question way haven’t our toe floor pardon me we haven’t our to explore it well let me say a couple things about it generally one of the things that we have all heard if we worked in a non-profit ing on any kind of fund-raising training which we probably all have, is that ninety nine percent of fund-raising is about people that people give people give to people again. We’ve all heard that ad nauseum, but what has really struck me is that a lot of non-profits while they get that about individual fund-raising, you know, for individual donors, they don’t necessarily get it about institutional thunders, you know, there’s more than seventy thousand foundations right now in the united states, all of which are unique and all of which have lots of people in them that have their own biases and quirks and personalities. So it’s important to get to know those folks on dh when i find is this is generally speaking, of course, some non-profits don’t operate that with that in mind, and so they they have, they tend to do some things that are probably not the best practices on i can’t talk about those if you want, we’ll get to them, okay? Oh, okay. Um, so that you’ve been on both sides of this relationship. You have worked for funders and also grantees is that? And you have your doctoral degree. Is this put all this together? That’s. What makes you a practiced emmick sort of i mean, i i was a, um i actually started out in video production for a very big non-profit that was run by norman lear, the television producer, so i really started i really learned about marketing and communications way back when before they, you know, before they became really recognized as an important part of non-profit work on dh, then i went into more foundation work, and i actually i should back-up say, was that development director for several years as well, um then worked and got into consulting and now work with mostly thunders but still it’s non-profits on program development in strategic planning, so i worked in a very large foundation full time as a program officers. So yes, i’ve worked on both sides of the death, and this makes you the practical academic record exactly like yes, because then i was getting my phd and did a lot of work with non-profit advocacy groups as a phd during a lot of research on that, so i’m able to straddle both of those worlds can talk in the thunder speak and which, you know, sometimes devolved into academic speak, but i can also work with practitioners because i have been a practitioner, i’ve been on the ground now in our discussion, we’re not talking about government funding, is that right? We’re just why? Why is government funding different than the corporate or the private or public foundation funding? I think it’s a little bit more formal it’s, certainly much more codified in terms of their ten government, tends to have a lot of, um, templates for their funding applications. You need a lot of data, you need to be really prepared for those application processes. I think there are some personal aspects of that relationship in terms of government funding, but i don’t think it’s, as um, is quirky as it is with foundations, every foundation, as you know, it’s very different, okay? And i guess sounding like tougher to build a relationship with a program officer at a government agency that it would be at the funders that we’re going to be talking about. I just my personal experiences that i think it’s a little bit harder government does tend to be more of a faceless bureaucratic institution, then i think some sounds so nineteen, eighty four bleak and certainly it’s. Not government fund-raising has certainly not been something that i have been immersed, nor joy necessarily want to be that’s the way it sounds. Okay. All right, well, we’re not holding you. Yeah, we’ll just i want to make that distinction to everyone stands what we are, what we aren’t talking about. We’re talking about all the other institutional funders. All right, so you said you have some some ideas around. Did you see a phrase it as good practices or bad practices way could start there? Well, let me just let me just say going back to what i was talking about at the opening, that you know what non-profits do sometimes even though they say they understand the importance of developing relationships with, i’m going to say foundations, meaning generally, you know, corporate institutional foundations, family foundations, all kinds of foundations, they tend to operating campaign mowed a lot of times, and they jump in and say, you know, we need to raise a million dollars from ah foundations by the end of next year, andi so they start jumping in about you know which foundations to re approach with the stuff we’re doing or they look at their calendar and guidelines, you know, of these foundations, and they start dreaming up something that seems to be a match and then tried to sell it through a proposal or a letter. Ah, that usually doesn’t work because, again, there’s no connection between the organizations and who they’re trying to reach out tio perfect examples, they just had coffee with somebody the other day who runs a medium sized non-profit that’s been around for a while, and they used to get most of their income from their conference fees. But as the years have gone by, the conference has sort of not been attracting as much and earned revenue, so they need to branch out and do other kinds of fund-raising in the first thing she said to me is, well, we need to raise six million dollars by the end of next year, and my question to her was, well, okay, so who are you looking at? And do you have any kinds of relationships with them? And, you know, she stared at me blankly and said, well, no, you know, we’re just we just think that they’ll get it basically, and and then i asked her, have you ever invited him to your conference before? Have they come? You know, no, they never have so it’s a great example of how they sometimes non-profits don’t think about these kinds of things. Another thing they don’t think about right away is whether they should even be targeting institutional thunders for their funding in the first place. You know, in a lot of meetings, i’m sure a lot of your listeners have where non-profits will sit down, the staff will sit down and they’ll say, well, we want to get money from the gates foundation, you know, we’re in education non-profit why shouldn’t we get money from the gates foundation and failing to think again about that? Five million other people would like to get money from the gates foundation, and even particularly small and midsized organizations are probably gonna have a really hard time, even if they know somebody at the gates foundation getting money from them. So that’s that’s sort of another thing that that i see a lot a lot happened, okay, we’re goingto take our first break, and when we come back, cindy and i, cindy, you and i will will explore some of these. In detail and start going into whether you should. I mean that’s, a very good threshold. Question. Whether even, should be approaching institutional funders hang in there. You didn’t even think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network to get thank you. Think xero good. Do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss. Our culture and consultant services 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. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three the conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent got to send some valentine’s live listener love new york, new york mountain view, california and westchester p a live listener love out to you we also got south haven michigan valentine’s live listener love let’s go abroad lugano, spain somewhere in el salvador’s, little mast we can’t tell what city el salvador live listener loved to you let’s say hello to japan konnichi wa tio witco, kush agha and tokyo i know you don’t celebrate valentine’s day, but we do here and you could be a valentine even if you aren’t in the confines of the united states. You certainly get valentine’s live listener love from non-profit radio from me from the heart. Okay, sin. Give cindy gibson. Um, how do we know whether we should be going to institutions for the money that we need in this? In your case, that great hypotheticals. Six million dollar gap within the next year? Uh, well, i think first of all, you have to do your research again. This is something that everybody says, but it’s amazing how many non-profits don’t take the time to dig down and really look at the institution they’re approaching, another examples i had a friend who works in a higher education organization in the development office and, you know, this is an office that’s got amazing numbers of staff to do this kind of research, and she said they hardly ever do it. They have again start where they’re doing stuff about possible foundations without thinking about, you know, whether they’ve even look to see if there’s a match in terms of the foundation’s interests and what they’re doing now can’t. The foundation center is a good resource for that, right? Correct on guide star and in my opinion, one of the best ways to see what foundations air funding our toe. Look at your quote, competitors, people, other organizations in your field to see who they’re getting money from. How would you how would you go about that? It’s? Very easy. You can go look at guidestar again. You can look at their web sites. A lot of times organizations will have ah, ah, a link to our donors or our supporters. Um, you sometimes can see them in the nineteen nineties or in the foundation center. Annual reports. You know, there’s. All kinds of ways to find out another way you can do that as another friend of mine, who’s, a great fundraiser, says that he actually will call up some of his colleagues and other organizations and ask them to make an introduction for him. Granted, that doesn’t always work because sometimes organizations are competitive and they get a little proprietary. But he said he found that it works for him and and in return, he will then introduce some of his colleague organizations to funders when they asked that’s very interesting, very collegial. Okay, so even if it works just a quarter of the time still, you’re getting you’re getting warm introduction vs cold introductory letter or letter of inquiry? Correct again, you know, i would say that cold introductory cold calls and cold proposals and e mails probably only work about one out of a thousand attempts. Oh, my goodness, i will say, is the former development director i have had not happened. One but that’s very rare. Okay, so so we need to be developing the relationship before we ask for money. So this is is that what you’re that’s? What you’re proposing, it is and i think that goes back to getting back to digging around for research is the second part of that is once you figure out if there is a match with what you’re selling, and i do want to say one thing about again trying to decide whether you’re right for institutional thunders is just because, again, you just because you may have somethingto sell them, which, again, sometimes a lot non-profits don’t i really have something to sell institutional thunders they think they do because they get very wrapped up in what they’re doing in its great work, and we all, i think it’s, great work, but there’s a tendency for all of us to get steeped into our own narrative. I might run a terrific after school arts program that’s great in my community, but taking that to ah, larger funder not not a local thunder, for example, who might be interested that somebody like, you know, a bigger national or even state funder may not be the best approach. So really, really thinking about, you know, whether there’s a match if you do decide there’s a match and if you think there is a good match and you do have something to sell. Then the next step, of course, is finding out who’s behind jews, institutional walls and how you can get to those people. How can you develop those relationships? Okay. And i only know the, um the foundation center as a source for who’s who’s on the board of a non-profit of a foundation is that is looking at the board members the good wayto ah, good way to see whether there’s a relationship that might exist between your organization and there’s. Well, so the first step is yes. I mean, go the foundation center. Ask around to your colleagues, as i mentioned. Look at their lists and who’s funding them again. This is not a linear process. I mean, it’s. Clearly, you know, something that you have to sort of work at all different angles. You scour lists and lists and lists and look at who are who are their trustees, who are the program’s staff members and sometimes who are who are the staff members that aren’t necessarily in the program that you’re interested in, but that are related to that program area and the institution that you never you never you be surprised you. Might know, or you might know someone who knows again look into their funding, contact them, there’s lots of ways to get it. Who’s, the president of the of the institution, you know all kinds of ways to look at an institution, and you really should look at it thoroughly. And then the next step is the personal, um, aspects of this, which all comes down to networking. Andi, let me let me bring in the role of your own board as you’re trying to determine where the relationships may exist, hoping that there is one all those lists that you talked about, those should be shared with your own board as well. Right? So starting with the basic premise is that all non-profits i don’t care how small they are, um, or helping they are they have networks, um, that they need to work and they have power in those networks. And i think getting non-profits toe understand that sometimes it is difficult there’s always six degrees of separation among all parties involved in these kinds of relationships, building exercises and that’s what you have to look at clearly the board can’t stress this enough is your number one? Resource for developing personal relationships? Um, if you don’t have a board that’s going to help you make those connections, you need thio either get one on dh. You do that by developing a relationship with your board chair so that you can identify potential board members that do have connections that you need to work and that i should say, isn’t aside that’s not just people with money putting them on you more, but people who may have lots of different networks within your community, like, you know, they know the real estate developer or they know the head of the local bank get some on your board or, you know, people who can help you just reach out to different places that you may not be able to reach out to. Um so what do you do with the board? You get into the habit of asking your board every single board meeting to look at who you’re looking at in terms of approaching, um and their names on a list of the names of the people in associating with that institution and one of the things i’ve actually been the chair of? Ah, couple development committee’s on a board, um, one of the hazards of knowing howto fund-raising when you get on board, you always end up being the chairs are well, they’re using you for your expertise the way you’re suggesting listeners do with the person who knows the developed the local real estate developer. Right? Well, see you. So what? What i try, i will speak from my own personal experience, and it seems to have worked well is that i’ve usually as the board a person who works on development, um, and p s it’s really good to have a development, share your board, who really focuses on this and who works directly with the director of development of that organization to prepare those lists for every board meeting. And so what we tried to do in the boards i sat on is that we integrate every board, meaning we not only build in on a permanent agenda item fund-raising you know, we make that a priority for a board meeting and takes an intentional you need to be intentional about that, but we also i would allocate ten or fifteen minutes every board meeting to pass those lists around during the board meaning and ask the board members to check off whom they knew at these various institutions if they knew anyone what their connections might be and give them five or ten minutes to do that, and then you can collect those that information before the board meeting ends because we all know if you don’t do that and you say i’ll follow up with you on, i’ll send you this email and ask if any of the lifts it’s really hard to get those responses back. So this way, you really make a point of getting boardmember every meeting to think about who they know, another thing you should put on that list at the very end is the question who isn’t on this list that i’m giving you that should be on dh that, you know, i might be able to help us get into another constitutional thunder that you might know of. All right, so you yes. You want to see this as a regular part of board meetings? Yep. D’oh, i will say that i’m not naive. I mean, i know that this is not something that a lot of non-profits and board feel comfortable if you know i know a lot of remembers hate fund-raising they have a negative perception of it, you really have to work to change the culture of those boards and speaking from personal experience, i have to say that it that takes time, you know, you have tio, um, integrate this notion that it’s everyone’s job fund-raising, um, talking about, you know, a giver get policy where every boardman member makes a contribution but also commits in writing, preferably on that can talk about that, but to joe, nate, um, other things, and that includes connections, you know, saying i will give you a personal contribution, but then i will also help you get access, teo, at least five other people, including people who work in institutions that, you know, might be able to give you money. So getting bored, you know, to do that, sometimes you can train them sometimes i bring in people who are really great at this and do trainings with board members, um, and the other thing you have to do is you have to make it pleasant for them, you know, if you’re asking them if you’re following up on a boardmember who says i know? Joe blow at this foundation and following up, by the way, is really important people don’t do that, but if following up with boardmember and saying, ok, so, you know, this person work with us just to develop a strategy to getting in front of this person and if, you know, take them with you on the visit before you take them two on the visit, make sure that you give them the research on the back-up they need to speak comfortably a lot of board members, even though they might know somebody and a foundation doesn’t mean that they know what to say once they get there. Okay, so, you know, making it easy for them to work with you gives them it’s just more pleasant for them, and they start to understand the process more. Okay on. So we’re starting now we’re moving from you found where the relationships are. Two howto start to make introduction to the to the institution, to the people that are known in the institution. Um and so you okay? I understand. You’re suggesting the boardmember is going to make that introduction? How best, teo, how best to structure that meeting should should. You invite the the program officer or whoever it is that’s known at the at the funder to come to your office to see maybe to your facility. To see the work that you’re doing is that is that kind of introduction. Every meeting. I think there’s some other things to say yeah, i mean, there are other things to do. I mean, there are ways to get noticed it’s not just, you know, it’s, not just your board, it’s also, you know, who does the executive director? Not director might already know that person. And so it really depends on what kind of relationship you have ahead of time. You know, what kind of meeting structure? Okay, you have to be so set up a strategy for each from actual fundez tronvig approach is going to be different every meeting you’re going to have to it that’s what? I mean, this is this is time consuming work, and it really takes constant attention to making sure that somebody is paying attention to, you know, which means can we get which people are going to that meeting who’s? What are we going to say? Are we even going to ask for money at this meeting? You know, all of those things have to be taken into considering okay, we’re developing a strategy just as t follow the parallel that you mentioned early on which same thing we would do with individuals weii, we know. Someone or we want to know someone how do we get to them? Who could make the introduction and what’s our strategy for that individual it’s identical on the on the institutional side, i would say yes in terms of of that relation. And then of course, then there are differences in terms of, um, you know, institutions, individuals are goingto a general statement, but individuals generally are going to be a little bit more interested in the personal relationship that they may have with either your organization or the issue that you are focused on. And that is actually the case for a lot of family foundations as well, and foundations that are located in the local errors, they’re really interested in local funding. National or bigger foundations are not going to be attuned to, you know, the personal interests. You know, for example, i am a a family foundation, and a lot of times, you know, that’s a small foundation but it’s run by or involved individuals who are, you know, may have a personal connection to the free health clinic in their community. Their relative went there and got great service, so they really wantto support that. Organization so you’re going toe have a little different? Um, angle, when you going to talk with, um, could be much more personal to them, then you would going into a new institutional thunder that doesn’t have that that’s a little bit more formal, they’re not going to care as much. I don’t think about the fact that their brother went there to get service, although of course that helps, but they’re going to be much more interested in, you know, what is this organization you’re talking about? What are you doing? What’s the evidence that you have that you’re better than any other organization i should fund, you know, what’s your value at it, and i will say it’s an aside, that is one one thing that non-profits overlook a lot when they go to meet with institutional thunders is toe understand that these people see hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people who were doing very similar things that you might be doing. And if you can’t tell them where you fit in your quote market, what makes you valuable? What makes you distinct of? And then what? How your work compliments what other people are doing in your field? I would say nine times out of ten it’s not going to be a strong cell for them. Okay, way really important. Remembers a lot more to say about that. Okay? Yep. Thank you. Because we have to go out for a break. And when we come back tony’s take two and then cindy and i are going to keep talking, but we’re going to move along to social media. And what is true networking? How do you get yourself out there to be known within the work that you do so stay with us. Oh, that’s, right? We don’t have a break. I just ah, i’m thinking on the old model i just transition two talking about the amazing sponsors that we have that helped me to bring the amazing guests that we have, like cindy gibson rally bound, for instance, they do peer-to-peer fund-raising you’ve heard me say this a couple times in the past, they are a rally bound dot com they create help you to create campaigns that are friends asking friends to give to your cause. You get a discount as a non-profit radio listener, as people have done, i’m very glad that people are talking to joe magee at rally bound. It doesn’t have to be a run walk, ride or race could be, but does not have to be event based. Um, joe was telling me about grades of green in los angeles. They used rally bound to raise twenty three thousand dollars through their youth corps. This is a group of advisors who are in grades three to twelve, and each of them in the youth corps set up personal e-giving pages ask their friends to give, and they raised twenty two thousand dollars grades three through twelve that’s, i think, is pretty cool. You can speak to joe magee that rally bound he’ll answer your questions there’s no pressure that they just don’t work like that. He is at triple eight seven, six, seven nine o seven six or rally bound dot com also tea brc cost recovery is a sponsor yourself rabinowitz besides saving money on phone bills, he can save you money on credit card fees. When donors make a credit card gift, you don’t change companies, yussef talks to your existing credit card processor to get them to lower the fee that you pay on each. Transaction those feeds add up. I’m sure you’ve seen if you if you haven’t take a look at your last bill, those credit card fees are taking money out of your pocket and sometimes cos ray’s their rates. Ah, and sometimes more than once a year. Even so, yussef will get you a lower rate and then actually monitor your bills for three years to make sure that the fees don’t rise and if he doesn’t lower your rate, you don’t pay him. I’ve known yourself close to ten years he’s also no pressure. I just don’t work with people like that. You can talk to yourself at two one, two, six, double four, nine triple xero which would also be to one, two, six, six four, nine thousand or he’s at tbe rc dot com. I have a professional development survey on my block. I’m interested in what you do to keep current and fresh in your work clearly non-profit radio is an integral part of that there’s, no question about that, but what else are you doing? Webinars conferences, blog’s books, whatever it is you’re doing, i’m interested doesn’t matter whether you’re in a non-profit or your consulting. I’m interested in how you keep up with what’s new around non-profits the survey is on my block at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, fourteenth of february valentine’s day and this is the seventh show of the year coming back from the break. That really wasn’t a break, but because we used to take a break. But that was my mistake. Cindy gives him still with us, right? I am here’s, your paper shuffling. I hope you’re not reading from papers. Hope not. Okay, um, so let’s, talk about getting out there a bit. You have some ideas that are beyond what i think people typically think of is as networking in getting your you and your organization known you have a lot of ideas, but i think the first one clearly is can’t stress this enough. As the executive director has to be out in the world, they have to be visible on. And they have to be seen as an influential in the field. They have to be at the table when there are meetings of their peers. Um, they are it’s great for them to be to put them make. Sure, they’re on panels at conferences where institutional thunders are going to be over there. Staff i i think it’s important to ask the executive director, too, right or blogged, you know, funders notice that stuff a perfect example is a an organization that i pulled in to write an article with about something for you pretty well known magazine in the field. Um, that article caught the attention of a very, very large funder, um, in on the west coast to now wants tohave an entire conference with fifty or so other funders based on that article on dh, this is a an executive director who absolutely refused to even consider writing anything because she didn’t have time to do it, and i feel like that’s missing a huge opportunity, going to make the time to do that stuff i think you need to be as you touched on tony about social media think you it would be good, teo, you know, get a twitter account like tony and i have on by, you know, constantly tweet what you’re doing or get your staff to tweet what you’re doing. Ah, funders air getting on twitter a lot of the staff of foundations are on twitter andi even the presidents are starting to get there much more slowly, but they are, um, ask other people who you know that are influential teo and on social media to tweet and talk about the stuff your organization is doing as well and funded that their network and then also, um, aside aside from your own twitter stream, would be the importance of who you start following you want you want to be following all the all the funders that you’re interested in that’s, right? And because you’ll learn from that you want to be listening as well as talking on twitter? Absolutely. And when you see, for example, that a donor or a program staff member has perhaps tweeted something about, you know, their latest publication or whatever, you can either retweet that or you, then you can follow up with them and send them a direct message and say, hey, you know, i just saw your tweet, we have ah project going on like this, just in case you’re interested, you know it. And if a donor does recognize you, if the fun a thunder does tweet something about you or put it on, lengthen or on facebook always respond to that, you know, even if even if that thunder doesn’t say, well, we just funded this organization, even if they’re just talking about you or your issue, try teo, monitor that stuff and make sure you follow-up and say thank you, and, uh, they love to talk to you about this sometime if you have a chance. That’s ah, that’s just good good engagement online practice is correct and as we know more and more, fund-raising becomes more more moving toe online, you cannot separate engagement anymore from from fundrasing and it’s a critical thing for non-profits to think about it, they move forward. What about over on linked in if you if you find groups that are around the cause or causes that you’re involved with participating in groups, i think that’s a great suggestion example is, you know, just the other day i was scrolling around linked in, and i saw that robert wood johnson foundation, for example, had a group that they were had a group, that they have a group on there for professionals who are working in the health arena, and so i clicked on it and i said, you know, send us your name and we’ll we’ll see whether you qualify and and turns out they did, and so now i’m on that that group, so i never would have thought of that, had i not been, you know, just sort of looking around on lengthen so it’s a great suggestion, i think i want to say again, this amazes me how you forget this is that when you’re having, when you’re non-profits having a special event or an open house or a conference or some kind of public event invite thunders, they’re invite prospect thunder’s not just your current owners invite people that you’ve always wanted teo get in front of to those events, it’s just a really easy way to get in front of these people and let them know that you’re around, and you’d be surprised sometimes they show up and that gets this is a really important point, i wantto emphasize, is that it? I don’t think it’s the best strategy for even when you do have a contact in a relationship with this person, say on twitter or is to just go right in and start thinking about ok? How much they got money from them now that i have this connection, one of them a strategy that i used as a development director and i’ll pass this along because it worked well for us and this organization was that every time our organization would do a new publication or we were mentioned in the new york times or we had, like, some sort of shout out from on influential i would pull together that information, and i would look att i would send it to two types of thunders the people who already funded us as well as i had a list of prospect fundez foundations that i’d wanted to get in contact for a long time, and i would send them a different kind of note, and the note would basically say, we know you’re interested in this issue. We just happened to have done this new publication or hears this article that mentions us, and i didn’t ask him for money. It was basically just saying thought you’d want to know about this, and we would do that for about six months or so just to let those thunders know that we were around and to get it in front of them. And so by the time that we were ready to try to make a strategy to get in front of them, tow, have a conversation. Um, they were already somewhat familiar with us. They knew our names at least and just a p s. If you can get your board or your executive director to write personal notes at the bottom of those kinds of notes or an email, so much the better. Okay, the and that’s, another parallel with individual fund-raising were that’s, right? Were routinely inviting potential donors to events not only existing, not only donors potential donors as well. Another parallel. Um um ok, um, let’s see? So you’re something you’re concerned is that too much of the thinking is around. It is being a transaction and not a genuine relationship. I think that’s a great point on dh it’s something that i talked to people about it cause i get asked a lot about networking because i, um known for that i love connecting people. I have lots of different networks on one of the first things i say that people is. Is that if you go in too? Ah. Networking and i’m going to a meeting quote to network if you go into that meeting with the attitude that i need to reach this person because i can get something from them or i want to get money from them, so i really need to go network with them. I don’t think that’s gonna serve you well in a long time. It’s not even genuine it’s it’s not genuine is not a relationship. It’s ah, i’ll give you a perfect example of that transaction. I had a, um coffee with a person who runs a nonprofit in new york. You drink a lot called me a lot of coffee meetings you have well, networking e i don’t drink coffee and i hardly even drink tea, so no whoa, no e-giving teo can’t invite somebody over sabat skim milk and no, because i really do believe in people who know me know this. I meet with everybody who just about everybody who asks me to me or talk to them or to make a connection or help them make a connection because they think it’s important, and it does come back to you over the long term, even when you’re not looking for something in return, it does help in a long term, and again, this example is this is a man who runs a really great non-profit and he was in trouble, he was having trouble financially, and he wanted me to help him broker some relationships with some foundations, and i suggested a person who was fairly high up in the food chain and a very large foundation that he should meet with and his first response wass why would i want to talk to this thunder she’s not interested in what we do she’s never going to find us? They’re never going to find us, and, you know, it had to gently remind him that every opportunity that you have to get in to these places, whether or not they’re going to give you money or not, it doesn’t matter. It’s all good. You never know when that contact is going to lead to something else thunders talk to each other program officers talk to each other all the time about organizations, and they are really good about saying, oh, we can’t fund this organization, but maybe you can it just so happens that this person and i was trying to connect him with is known in the foundation world for being a huge connector, and that if she can’t fund you, she will remember your organization and recommend it to other funders and other foundations. And he actually sent me an e mail a couple days later and said, i’m so glad you said that to me. I just i really needed to be reminded of that. We have to take a break. When we come back, i’m going to ask cindy whether program officers are nice people. Nick, stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? 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Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We got more live listener love, let’s. Go abroad, teo teo to asia and without soul and five other people whose locations are masked in in south korea, but certainly wishing you valentine’s and on your haserot, also in japan, shirakawa joined us and beverly, massachusetts not which is not in asia it’s far but it tze not far from cindy gibson. Ah, it’s ah, but is not in asia you, despite what most new yorkers think, live listener love and valentine’s day wishes to beverly massachusetts r program officers. Nice people, cindy it’s. A great question, but it’s like asking, you know, are all radio announcers. Nice people are are all chefs nice? Of course. But in ah, seriousness. I think you would get different answers to that. Depending on who you asked, i actually have a friend who’s written a hilarious article about the various types of program officers that he’s given them all names and everything. Which is quite funny. Where can we find? Where can we find his article? Well, i’m actually trying to get him to publish because he’s, of course, like a lot of people are scared. It’s, hard to be, you know, honest. It’ll block out what goes on in foundation on and raise money at the same time. Um, but but for the most part, my experiences that program officers are are nice people in terms of their there tio advocate for you on and i think that’s important to keep in mind, yeah, let’s, let’s explore that they’re they’re advocating for you to their organization and they’re bored, right? And you need to help. How do you how do you how do you help them do that? Well, first of all, you a couple things you listen, i can’t say this enough a lot of good fund-raising is learning when to shut up and when to talk and when to listen to what they’re saying to you on dh because they are there to help you. Now that doesn’t mean that you you have to be a sink offense to program office there’s a lot of grumbling goes on legitimately from non-profit people saying that, you know, program officers are pain in the butt, they can be gay keepers, they can throw obstacles in your way, they can make a completely unreasonable demands, and that is a whole other show that you could explore about the tension that that happens between program officers and program staff and non-profits lots to say about that. But you, you know, you do want to go in with a sort of attitude that my work deserves your support. This is a really great thing that you should be supporting, and then how can we work together to make that happen? You know, ah, great story about another story is that when i was at carnegie foundation that i used to work at, i had a very entrepreneurial woman come to see me, whose whose organization you would know your listeners would now on, and she came with a friend who who actually happens to be a friend of mine as well, just for moral support. And she proceeded to tell me all about organization and how great it wass and i didn’t get a word in edgewise, and so when i finally got to talk to her, i said, you know, i love your organization personally, but this is never going to pass muster with our decision makers because it just doesn’t fit and it’s their job to basically throw a wrench in everything we we advocate for because that’s their job, they only have a limited amount of funds and they have to decide. So i gave her a bunch of advice about here’s what i think you could help you get through. You should change this, try to look at this. I didn’t want to change her program, i didn’t want to give her, you know, i didn’t want to make her completely jump through hoops, which i have to say, a lot of program office or sometimes d’oh all i was saying is, if you literally just massage the language a little bit and changed the angle that might help, what happened was i got a request that completely ignored everything i said to her on dh i had to write or a turn down and say, you know, it’s nice about it, but they said i’m sorry, but this isn’t gonna work and she was furious with me, you know? So from that side of the desk, i have to say it’s, it’s, it’s frustrating when you want to help and you can’t wait can’t move on yet. Do you still have that friend, the friend who came with the fan? The fan you’re still friends are ok, right? You didn’t lose a friendship over this. Did you permit? You did lose a friendship over there. I know. He actually agreed with me and he was he was embarrassed, but the woman was still talks about it. He still talks about it. The woman wasn’t listening. Didn’t listen to you, didn’t yeah, stand aside. She then went around me to the president and, you know, that’s always no that’s, usually not a good idea. And most presidents will kick down, kick them back to you. Of course. Yeah. And so, you know, anyway, so the other thing i wanted to say, a couple things is you have another thing i would recommend with your prada monsters is that you be honest all the time. I know it’s hard, to be honest. They know it’s not rewarded a lot of times. But, you know, you have to make a choice. You know, you can lie to them on dh. That that’s a risk you could take, and it might work for you. But if they find out that you’re lying and they usually dio through other program officers again or their colleagues you don’t win at all. I mean, i’ve you know, i’ve had i’ve heard of grand cheese and i’ve experienced snusz of, you know, the executive director’s air leaving or they aren’t making their budget, and i had to hear about it through a third person, and it really isn’t a great way way have we have just about a minute or so left. So on, um, on the note of be honest, which i always advise clients to do, i want to leave with this. I want you, teo, tell us what you love about the work that you do, cindy um, i love the variety of it. I love that i get to work on different kinds of issues with all different kinds of of organizations, and mostly i love that i get to work in a sphere that reflects the values that i feel personally committed to. Cindy gibson is a practiced emmick. You’ll find her at synthesis, consulting and synthesis spelled with a c because her name is cynthia synthesis consulting dot com and also on twitter at caen gib si n g i b cindy, thank you so much for being a guest in sharing. So it is my pleasure. Thanks for having me. My pleasure next week. You do not want to miss this, its face off atlas of giving and giving yusa for the first time they will be face to face rather than talking at each other in the media. I should say in other media, other media forbes dot com dubbed it the philanthropy food fight. And i wish i had thought of that. Each of these companies that does broad analysis of fund-raising results has problems with the way the other measures and forecasts they’ll talk through their issues. We will take your questions and i will moderate that’s next week. Remember rally bound and telephone bill reduction consulting joe magee and yourself rabinowitz they support non-profit radio. They’re good people. Please check them out. Rally bound dot com and t brc dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point oh, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Our music is by scott stein. Be with me next week for non-profit radio big. Non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. They didn’t think that shooting the good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. You waiting to get in? Cubine 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. 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