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Sharon Stapel & Melkis Alvarez-Baez: 8 Areas of Nonprofit Excellence
The NY Community Trust Excellence Awards are based on tough criteria that reveal the right way to run your organization in areas like fundraising; management; board; financial; and diversity. From the Nonprofit Coordinating Committee, Sharon Stapel, president & executive director, and Melkis Alvarez-Baez, deputy director, explain the standards. They’ve been upgraded since we covered this on March 6, 2015.
Register for the Excellence Awards ceremony on December 2 in New York City.
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Duitz hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of yours if you rubbed me the wrong way with the idea that you missed today’s show eight areas of non-profit excellence the non-profit coordinating committee excellence awards are based on tough criteria that revealed the right way to run your organization in areas like fund-raising management, board, financial and diversity. Sharon staple, president and executive director, and melkis alvarez-baez deputy director explain the recommended standards. They’ve been upgraded since we covered this on march six twenty fifteen on tony’s steak too, maur ntcdinosaur goes, we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com and by we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We be spelling dot com for glad to welcome back to the show. Nakis alvarez-baez she’s been with the non-profit coordinating committee since two thousand eleven and overseas their programs and member services melkis is at and pcc and why underscore d d i r deputy director and and pcc is at and pcc and why dot or ge? Marcus, welcome back. Thanks so much for having me back. Did tohave you? Pleasure? Sharon staple she’s the president and executive director non-profit coordinating committee. She was named a white house champion of change. As executive director of the new york city gay and lesbian anti violence project, she joined the non-profit coordinating committee in october of fifteen and she’s at n pcc. And why underscore prez pea are easy. Welcome, sharon. Thanks for having us. It’s. A pleasure pushing up both ofyou. Melkis. Uh, you got a promotion since you were here last time you were you were you were deputy. Then you were deputy director of programmes. I was director, director of programmes. Now your deputy director. I share your whole thing. Cool. Congratulations. Thank you. Um, we’re talking about these eight key areas of non-profit excellence the know that these are a criterion for a competition. Sharon, don’t you start off what you acquaint us with the competition and how these areas fit in? Well, i think it’s important. Understand what? Who and what and pcc is on and why we care about non-profit excellence and and pc sees a membership organization of fourteen hundred non-profits in new york city in the new york area, and we are really the voice and information source for non-profits and one of the ways that we think non-profits need to get information or the things we think they need to know about is non-profit excellence and management excellence because we think that for non-profits to be able to really get to their mission and be able to focus on the thing that they were created to two, they want to be managed and manage themselves as efficiently and effectively as possible. So the non-profit excellence awards is really a formal way for us to teach people about non-profit excellence and two go thank you. So it’s really informal way for us to teach people about non-profit excellence and two really recognized and celebrate that excellence in the sector and melkis having been a part of not just n p c c for five years, but also the non-profit excellence awards is probably our best guide through the history of the probe. Grandma and it’s already anarchy, so i asked you, but you’re going to defer to melkis way just want to make sure you have the best person talking your subject thought so. The key areas are really the driver of our near community trust non-profit excellence awards program on dh, the awards air program that and pcc created on dh manages and so we created the program in two thousand six, so this is our milestone tenth anniversary and it’s an exciting year for us and the awards are really an opportunity for non-profits tto learn from other non-profits and so we really go beyond honoring excellence, and the awards program are truly an educational experience for the organizations that go through it, but also for the other non-profits in the sector that are able to benefit from the best practices that we highlight throughout the process. Okay, thie awards ceremony is coming up it’s friday, december second, right? Okay, that’s the same day of non-profit radio airs every every week, so you may have t pretend you make pretend it’s trouble in new york city area. Okay, let’s see, i am goingto i’m goingto take through the eight areas so that everybody knows what we’re going to be talking about for the next hour. Uh, and then we’ll cover a little more about why. These are bona fide before we actually get into them. But so number one is overall management focus on results and impact and then governance structure moves the organization forward. Financial management is strong, transparent and accountable. Organization is diverse and inclusive. Number five is human. Resource is our valued and developed. Number six use of information technology systems improves efficiency and advances. Mission communications are strategic effective and build brand latto and the final area fund-raising and resource development. Our strategic donor-centric and effective. Okay, melkis let’s, stay with you. How do we know that these recommendations these criteria are are bona fide? I mean is this is not just something. And pcc decided and foisted on the community that’s, right? What’s the process through the get to these eight areas. So when we were creating the awards program ten years ago, we looked at what other state associations of non-profits were doing, and we looked at the other state associations in particular that had standards of excellence programs. There’s about twenty three, of them now on day in total represent about twenty thousand non-profits across the country. And so we looked at what they thought matters for non-profit success and so we picked the areas where there was consensus, but also balance that out with areas that we know are important in the new york city area. So for example, diversity and inclusion is an area that appears throughout the country as part of their standards for us. It’s a discreet section in our guiding eight areas, as we feel that it’s an important topic and management area that organisations in our area need teo be focused on and managed towards. Ok, so ten years ago you crowdsourced the genesis of this yes, through all your sister organizations call a colleague organizations throughout the country, right? Okay, cool. And in the end, they’re updated every year. I’m just gonna get yes, sharon, the awards i’m sorry. The key areas have changed just since last year. Yeah, well, the key, the key areas actually remained the same. We what we did really was to try and make more clear for the non-profits that we’re applying and make more accessible for everyone who is interested in the key areas. What we meant by them. What are the standards for those areas? Where do we think organization should be aspirational and how can they be aspirational and gave sort of slightly more specific examples about what we meant in those eight key areas? So so the overarching eight areas are not change, right? The sort of description and hopefully accessibility of them are ok, you were finding there was some misunderstandings about what some of the areas are meant. You know this, tony, because you do this work, but, you know, a lot of management khun feel amorphous sometimes right, and what it means to be a good manager of religion, good organization or what it means to be effective or efficient, sometimes that’s really hard to grasp. And i think i know as as someone who has applied for the non-profit excellence awards of my former organization that sometimes the standards it’s helpful to have a little bit more clarity when you’re not doing this every single day and when you’re sort of looking into the award greater specificity, yeah, okay, cool. We’re going back for our first break. We come back, the three of us will dive into these eight key areas and get acquainted with them. 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. All right, let’s, dive in, ladies! Sharon let’s, let’s stay with you the first area overall management focus on results and impact. You want to see a clear mission statement and articulated values what’s this a little more about the values? Well, i think it’s important that organizations no, not well what i think isn’t actually that important. But what we know from the eight years of non-profit excellence is ah, clearly articulating a mission is critical. Of course we need to know why we exist in what we’re doing and and why the non-profit is is in the world, but understanding the values that go along with that what does the organization stand for? What does the organization wants to be? What does the organization i want to do around the way it treats its employees the way it approaches the issue the way it intersects or interacts with other organisations? Is justus critical as knowing that we want to end hunger? We want to end homelessness. We want to work with survivors of violence whatever the mission is now you have for each sub area within. The eight areas there’s their standards. And then there’s aspirational. There was you standard aspiration. Does does an organization not do well in the judging? If everything is standard and not very much is aspiration, i’ve achieved aspiration? Well, you know, i think it’s there’s sort of two purposes for this program, right? And so one is it’s an educational opportunity. And so any organization whose meeting all of the standards is doing great work, right? Those air what we think they are, the foundations of how folks should be using the eight years non-profit excellence, then there’s the actual competition of the awards, right? And there we have a selection committee of experts who know these eight key areas, and they are looking for aspirational, replicable, innovative and exciting practices when we’re looking at sort of overall non-profit excellence in terms of the competition, the award, okay, let’s, go into some or the area that we’re going to get the education component i know there’s a program for everyone these eight i mean, this is not is not just judging, but there’s a lot of training and help that goes along boosting lots of non-profit whoever wants to participate in let’s see, we’ll do you might can i just say another thing about overall? Management focus on results already anarchy. Yes, but i appreciate your asking. Thank you, it’s, you know, so it’s important to have a clear mission? Absolutely, but it’s also in court, important that we see organisations being able to measure review and most importantly, use data that points to organizational programmatic results, right? And we also want to see that organizations or strategic planning and thinking in a forward way. So when we’re looking at sort of the i talk with my hands too much or got tio here, somebody bumped a micro follow-up s so when we’re looking at the sort of overall area we’re looking for mission, we’re looking for vision, but we also want to know, how do you know you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing? And how do you use the information? How do you think about your strategy, given that information and how it relates to your mission? And how do you plan in a way that allows for learning environment and understanding that not all programs air perfect all the time? And so you’re going to learn the lessons, but also that you’re able to see that you’re moving toward the ultimate. Goal of your organization. Okay, so they really were to things wrapped up in what you were just saying impact reporting, basically, i mean, i’m i’m not we have to focus a little, you know, i have to make a lot more concise because we have, like, fourteen pages, so so i’m going, to paraphrase the impact reporting and also you want to see a vibrant strategic planning process, yes, and the learning environment, learning, learning from the results that you’re reporting and and then hopefully, i mean, you’re also you want dissemination of the results, right? Is that not a part of this or that? But i mean that somewhere else, but you don’t want to keep the results internal you want you want stakeholders to be seeing these, right? And i think that here we’re focused on the way that you monitor or use the results, but certainly in the governance of the organization for transparency. What you want to see, those results disseminated in communication strategies you want to see, you know, so you’ll see results because, you know, non-profits air created for the social good and to meet their missions, we want to see results used. In multiple different ways, but when we talk about sort of overall management with a focus on results we’re looking at, how are you using the data that you do? You have a data available, and if so, how are you using that data? I gotta be honest, as i was reading through these key areas is okay if i call make standards, is that is that is that is that word bother you if i call him standards or recommendations or what? What besides areas give me another word that you’re comfortable with, so i don’t offend the program. So i would say that the the eight areas and we call them that on purpose is because they go beyond standards, right? So one of the things to know what you’re right, they become aspirational. Yeah, give me a word. Besides harish, i just keep using areas. Yes. Okay, you’re right. So as i was reading through the areas, i was thinking, i mean, this is sort of a test for non-profit radio. Like how much of how much of this stuff have we talked about? Because the mission of non-profit radio is two help small and midsize non-profits with all the areas that they are struggling with a face challenged every day. So i’m sorry, you know? I mean, like, testing the show against now. S so i’ve got some shows to recommend. I haven’t got it. I haven’t got a recommendation for every single area, although we were, but we’ve hit every area, but i can’t i can’t impact report that, but so if anyone wants teo, get learn more about impact reporting. Look for the guest doctor robert penna, whose book is the non-profit outcomes toolbox and he’s been on a couple of times. More recently, he was on talking about the history of non-profits going back to the sixteen hundreds in in england. But before that he’s been on it was on talking about his book non-profit outcomes. Toolbox. Ok, ladies, let’s move on. Melkis you ready for? You want to take area to governing structure? Move the organization forward. You dealt me out with this defined. Ah, boardmember has a strong fiduciary. What does that mean? Sure. So what we mean by that is that board members are engaged in the oversight of the organization, not just in the finances and making sure that they’re engaged in the budgeting process and making sure that the finances are in order, but really that they’re holding the organisation accountable, promoting and ensuring transparency and accountability on that they’re also partnering effectively with the staff to really drive the organization forward and to support the mission of the organization. How do you tell that all these things were happening through examples right that the thie organizations are highlighting throughout their applications, right? So they give examples that really show not just that the practices exist, but that show riel impact on the organization, right? So it’s not just enoughto have a stellar boardmember show us what that stellar, what meat? What having that cellar boardmember on your board has meant for your organization has have they’ve been able to connect you to, you know, particular donors? Or have they been able to help advocate for certain policy and change that that impacts and influences the organization? Okay? And then now for semi finalists, there’s an interview is that right? Or there’s there’s onsite visits? I want to get to the semifinals, so we’re at eleven semifinalist now we’ll narrow those down to six finalists, and they’ll have in person meetings with our selection committee, okay, is there an onsite component to it? You visit officers? We’ve reformatted that part of the process and so would you used to, but you don’t anymore. We don’t anymore on dh, so they all come and meet with this election company at a neutral space and it’s great to see what different organizations do with the same space, okay? And don’t no shame in that i’m not like him shaming your in that we’re not ashamed chaillou think decision, but i think i think durney since we’re talking about the application process, one of the things that we’ve done this year in an effort to make the awards and the educational opportunity more accessible to people is we created at the very beginning of the process of readiness assessment, which is basically a yes, no check, you know, sort of list and it’s an online application it’s, an online assessment, you go online, you answer the questions and we have sort of ah scale of scoring on the higher end it’s like this is you guys are doing great, you should definitely consider applying for the excellence are on the lower end it’s like, you know, you may have some work to do before you want to actually think about applying, and we then linked to resource is in specific air specific eight excellent the areas and then if it’s in the middle, we say to people like, give us a call and we can talk to you about where you’re at because we know it’s a big lift for organizations to apply for the excellence awards it’s a multi month process for them. The first round is four open ended questions about how the areas affected their meaning or how their management is is viewed through those areas. And then the second round is an incredibly intense application that examines each of the eight areas carefully, and then you have to do as you’re saying this in person visit and it’s it’s very rigorous, and we don’t want organizations wasting their resource is applying if they’re not going to be there. But we do want to give everyone the opportunity to assess their management practices through the eight areas because we think it’s an excellent tool to get people to move in the direction of making management changes. The sticking with the governance structure, the board has a giver get policy, one hundred percent board giving melkis you wantto you wantto emphasize the importance of that? Sure so that i would say that that’s something that the selection committee is looking for across the board of all organizations of all sizes and missions, is that there’s one hundred percent board e-giving on dh the idea behind that is that if your board members don’t give, how can you convince other donors other funders to give right? And so i think, and sharon, you might be able to speak more of this as a leader of a non-profit but foundations are increasingly asking for that metric that that board members are giving it doesn’t matter what the amount is per se, but that they’re giving something to again show their commitment to the organization on to the mission. Okay, and later on, when we get teo fund-raising you ask for a personally significant, i think that’s the phrase personally significant, okay, we’ve had lots of people are talking about boards. The ones that come to mind are michael davidson. You could search his name he’s twenty martignetti dot com michael davidson’s on your selection committee. Army veteran one has served since the beginning of the program, standing all ten years, years, he’s been a guest on the show, like three, four times i let happen. Um, we both are i could, and also for board fund-raising specifically, when get to the board fund-raising part. Gail perry, whose book is fired-up fund-raising she talks a lot about board fund-raising she’s been a guest. All so you could look for her on the history of the show. Um, okay. Oversight informed board provides oversight you haven’t, you haven’t. Interesting aspiration here. The succession plan. So it’s aspirational though it’s not standard. Why? You know, that doesn’t seem like it should be a standard thing. A succession plan. I think that many organizations think about succession planning as something that stops at the leadership of the organization. And so the aspiration here is that there should be a thoughtful succession plan in place for board leadership as well. Okay, okay. That’s, the operational partner. Right? The board evaluating its own performance? Yes. Say something about that s o we’ve seen a range in terms of how what this practice looks like. So we’ve seen that some organizations will do individual assessments of board performance in terms of meeting attendance fund-raising participation at events, site visits and involvement in programs. But we’ve also seen organizations do a performance assessment of the entire board, right? So instead of individual assessments doing a group evaluation but now your standard says that is boardmember performances individually assessed him. Reported back to the individual yes. So you really want to see that as a standard, the individual performance we dio and bored performance also board as a whole performance also we do, and the ideas that were striving towards engaged board service and having an evaluation process allows board members to know where they need to up their game and where they’re doing great in terms of supporting the organization like that, you specifically say, and is reported back to the boardmember there’s no there’s, not a lot of value for the boardmember if his or her performance is evaluated and it’s only discussed among the executive committee that’s absolutely what am i learning as a boardmember if i don’t know where my shortcomings are so like, okay, we evaluate what we’re going to share it with you, okay? I don’t know, like i don’t mean really do ping pong, but it’s turning out this way, sharon, you wantto area three years comfortable with the financial management is strong, transparent and accountable. Absolutely okay, and so i think what we’re looking for here and this goes back to the idea that non-profits are built for the public trust that there’s an obligation to be transparent and to build that trust with their donors and a part of that for a lot of donors is understanding. And frankly, a lot of a lot of constituents of the organisation is to understand where the financials air at, so we want to make sure that as a team, minimum organizations or transparent about their financials, posting things like their nine nineties and their audit on their websites and making sure that those air easily accessible documents, but we also want to make sure that internally, they’re really regularly reviewing what what is their performance versus their goals, not necessarily their performance versus what life looks like right now, which is, i think, what a lot of profits non-profits end up doing, um, did you want to say something? No, i’m agreeing with you and yeah, and and i think i think this is really hard, especially when you don’t talk, i’ll just interrupt, uh, i think this is especially hard during times of economic uncertainty, and we’ve sort of we may have in parts of our non-profit sectors climbed out of the sort of two thousand eight uncertainty, although there’s still a lot of non-profits as we’ve seen in recent reports that are teetering on the edge and we want to make sure that folks are being as intentional as they possibly can in times of crisis or near crisis, right? And and so that means having a plan that goes beyond the sort of reactionary and his various you’re proactive talk about budgeting, budgeting for surplus. Exactly. Exactly, actually, that’s an aspiration? Yeah, just included. Surplus, right? And then also, we want to make sure that people are looking at their day to day sustainability because a lot of times financial, financial analysis is can often be done at a board level on a quarterly level on an annual, you know basis. And we want to make sure that the leaders of the non-profit are looking at what does this mean for your day to day? What your cash flows look like? How profitable or your programs are you investing money in the right places? Are there places that as painful as it might be? You have to say, this isn’t either profitable and profitable in the sense that the program can pay for itself. Um, or it’s? Not as related to our mission as it should be. And we need to think about the finances there. You you have something? A statement under standard, the organization’s chart of accounts is aligned with the organization and program budgets what’s a chart of account is that just an excel spreadsheet? So hopefully, i mean, i suppose you don’t know in some very small, so basically it’s, the way that your accounting system categorizes the way that you spend money, right? And some for some organizations, they could be incredibly detailed for other organizations that could be less detailed, but basically what the standard is, you need to know where every dollar is going, and you need to know whether that dollar is going to the right area, right? So if it’s restricted program funding, it should be in your chart of accounts as restricted program funding if it’s unrestricted and you’re using it for fund-raising then you should be able to tell how many dollars you’re using for fund-raising versus if you’re using for management or other purposes. Or maybe you’re using your unrestricted dollars to cover the costs of your programs because you’re funding sources don’t cover the full costs, but you should know where each of those dollars is going, and you should be able to tell people about where each of those dollars is going. Okay, we have about a minute before we take another break. Heimans and i want to get back to something if we could do this in a minute. Sharon what you were just talking about earlier, you know, the assessment for on dh, not wasting non-profits time. But it sounds like the assessment is something valuable. Is that available now? Knowing that the awards are in process or not wear? Where where can we find find it on and pcc. And why dot or ge? Do you know the the actual part of the website it’s on it’s under the non-profit excellence awards are and it’s called the assessment a readiness is matter-ness assessment? Okay? Because it sounded excellent. It’s i think it’s such a huge resource for non-profits. And they should take advantage of it all year round irrespective of whether you’re in new york and you can fly these awards or not. Okay, exactly. Okay, ladies, if you’ll indulge me for a couple of moments, we have more on these areas coming up first. Pursuant, they help you raise more money. Their tools are ideal for small and midsize shops. That’s. Why? They’re a perfect sponsor for the show because they have online proto tools that you use for yourself velocity it was developed for their consultants to use internally to manage big client campaigns, and they found that was so valuable they rolled it out for you to use in managing your own campaign. You don’t need the pursuing consultant, you can use the pro tool on your own and that tools again velocity you’ll find it at pursuant dot com we’ll be spelling spelling bees for non-profit fund-raising they make spelling bees incredibly fun. It’s fund-raising but there’s also live music and dancing and stand up comedy. If you are looking for a millennial event for your organization, i think you should talk to we be spelling there at we b e spelling dot com and there’s a very cool video there that demonstrates all those things that stand up comedy that dancing, etcetera. Now, tony’s, take two i was at the non-profit technology conference back in march on in fact, i’m going to talk about and ten more. We got to the section of the eight areas, so, you know, i was there because you’ve heard the interviews now i’ve got the video’s up, i’ve got mohr of the thirty video interviews that i got in this two and a half day conference was incredible rush thirty interviews in two and a half days all the smart guests you’ll see my introductory video with links to this batch of interview videos at twenty martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two. Okay, thank you very much, sharon. Thank you, marcus. Short indulgence. Thank you very much. Hey, well, it was important to talk about our sponsors graciously let’s move on. We’re in the next area four and melkis you want to take the organization is diverse and inclusive. I noticed that it it’s not only policies, but also practice, right? So as i said before, diversity and inclusion is one of the areas that we feel is a true value to highlight in our area. As i said, diversity is part of other standards across the country. But for us we thought we needed to have diversity and inclusion as a standalone area so that we can continue to focus on it as a riel area for management performance for non-profits and what we mean by that is that the organization’s practices and policies need to reflect a commitment to diversity and inclusion at all levels of the organization. So not just making sure that the staff is reflective of the communities that they’re serving, but also that the board and the volunteers are as well on. Do you include training’s? Yes, yes. I want to see training’s regularly with all these different constituent areas that you mentioned, right, exactly. So that everyone can effectively support and promote the mission on deliver on the performed the activities effectively that move the organization and towards achieving its policy wise. You have ah, you’re looking for. And this is a standard looking for a written diversity policy and a policy for reporting discrimination, right? So at this point organization, the selection committee is looking for for organizations to have a written diversity policy which is different from an affirmative action statement. But is where a lot of organizations just stop there on the election committee. Can you differentiate between those for us? Sure. So, sharon, you might have a better thought of these, but my for diversity and inclusion. My understanding is that the organization is stating those two areas and cultural competency as well as values for the organization and they’re informing hiring practices, promotions as well in terms of also the training of professional development that’s offering that are offered to the staff. Sharon, you might be able to distinguishing that with affirmative action. Yeah, i mean, i think affirmative action is a legal obligation, right? You’re not you’re legally prohibited from discriminate against people based on certain classes of identities. Well, we’re talking about diversity, inclusion, cultural competency and to some extent, equity, which we don’t really get into in the key areas but is an important part of the conversation. What we’re talking about is affirmatively embracing and understanding the value that diversity, inclusion, cultural competency bring to being able to achieve your mission, right? So it’s, not a sort of prescription it’s really a value and a business decision that the organization makes that we will be a better organization if we have a diversity of people. If we have a diversity of ideas, if we have a diversity of approaches to the work that we’re doing and making sure that that at a minimum that is encompassed in their policies and procedures, you know, and also assessed you have one. Of the standards assessing staff inboard diversity, yes, i mean and goals measured time against measurement against goal. Absolutely. I mean, i think that there is ah lot of people i think when they’re thinking about diversity inclusion, they often think about it as identity characteristics and that’s really important right race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, religion, all citizenship, immigration status, all of those things are really important, and we want people to be aware of and tracking where they are at, especially as it relates to the consistencies that they’re serving. But we also want people to understand diversity as bigger than just identity care characteristics. It’s also do you encouraged disagreement that is healthy and constructive? Do you have diversity of opinions and ideas that can result in innovation and moving people forward? And we know that from the literature and from the research that that makes it that that makes business better, that makes the meeting the mission better. And we also know that people who come from diverse backgrounds are going to be more likely to have diverse opinions, right? So it all sort of works together two with the aim being that it’s our job to the best work that we can do to meet our mission, and if that means that we need diverse people, which we think it absolutely does mean, then that has to be one of the key things were looking at when we’re managing the organisation, it can’t be an afterthought or as the affirmative action plan might be sort of a legal, you know, legal disclaimer in our problem exactly, exactly. Okay, let’s stay with you, sharon. Talking about human resource is the human resource is air valued and developed now in small, small shops there’s very likely not even in h r for a person devoted to this topic, i mean, it could fall to i don’t know, theo, or maybe the executive director even this this could be a tough one other thing, i think it can be tough. I’m going to take a moment to say that part of the reason n pcc exists is to provide for our members thes trainings in this information so that they don’t have to have someone on site to still know what they’re doing, so there is a resource for smaller organizations, but i think it is tough. And i think that we do our very best to keep non-profits particularly are smaller members apprised of compliance issues and legal issues so that they’re running the best hr department that they or their running the best organization is in terms of hr as they can. But this is also about and and i was actually listening to your most recent podcast where you had against talking about happiness and well being, and this really is also about what, how we treat our our human resource is, like, literally after anna lisa sherman just exactly like the happy, healthy non-profit exactly, and, you know, really, i think we say hr without understanding, we actually mean, the human beings that are in a sit in are non-profit and we need teo and study after study shows your guest last week talked about this that healthy work-life balanced work environments which are incredibly difficult to achieve and non-profit sometimes because of the under resource ing and thie over demand, but really focusing on are your employees happy and are they are? Are they finding a work-life balance that’s going to make your business more effective, more efficient? You’re going to be reaching your mission. One of things you you’re looking for a standard. His job descriptions, including for well, it’s, aspirational. I think for volunteers, you have definitely job descriptions for employees on board members. And then is it aspirational when it’s job description for volunteers or is that part of the standard? I mean now volunteers when you realise they’re considered the end of the meeting, the mission. So now you’d be looking for job descriptions for volunteers, i think. Yeah, i wantto listeners. We have. Ah, just recently replayed heather carpenter. Her book is the talent resource platform, and she was just on a couple weeks ago talking about job descript. Specifically, the the segment was called your job descriptions could search that and also going backwards. One just occurred to me. Um, fields jackson has been on the show talking about diversity and the value of diversity in your non-profit his name again. Fields. Jackson. Okay, see everything else on, uh, a charm. And you covered quite well. Oh, succession planning is important. Charon. Right for ah, in succession. In hr. We talked a little about that with melkis. Anything more you wanna say about importance of succession? Planning? No, i think i think melkis when she was talking about it, with the board that’s really important and not a lot of non-profits do it, i will say the one thing that i hear most often about succession planning is the fear to start it because it might seem to signal a departure out of the organization on and really, i think one of the things that we’d like to see is tohave succession planning be so routinized that it begins on day one of the Job that on day 1 you’re starting to think what would happen if i wasn’t here, who would be doing this and who would be doing that? Because it also helps you figure out your chord structure and are due to the right people in the right places, and it helps you figure out your strategy and who’s going to put that strategy forward, and i think we have to get over this sort of, i don’t know and it’s almost like this embarrassed like shyness about doing succession. Look, if there’s if there’s trust between the bored and the video, then i think the board chair can reassure the ceo that this is not about your departure exacts about the long term viability of the organization and a potential crisis exact a cz well, as you know, you, you might decide that you found a job that dropped in your lap, and you want to take it five years from now or ten years from now, we need to be prepared exactly it’s all those things. So hopefully there is that trust between the board and their ceo. I could have one more thing, i think that what we’re talking about, a succession planning beyond the ceo that were also thinking about succession planning as an opportunity to really invest in the staff and going back to your first point about developing the talent in the organization and just building up the bench in the organization. S o succession planning is not just about the ceo potentially leaving, but also being really smart about who you have on your staff and developing them to take on more responsibility in the case of an emergency or in the case of just more opportunity, teo, grow and and promote your staff and that feels good for the staff to they see you, they see a career path within the organization or they see that when they get to a certain level, there’s a discussion of career path within that organization. So you know that i mean that’s promotes honesty and comfort within within the organization. You working for let’s? Go to aa number six. Let’s. Go. Sharon, if we stay with you for information technology, i feel like playing this ping pong game. I don’t like it. So information technology improves efficiency and advances the mission. You got some very basic standards. I hope these are not hard to meet. Offsite, elektronik back-up surge protectors, virus scans, firewalls. Are their organizations still struggling with just the standard stuff? I think so. And i think you know melkis khun speak much better than i can t the applicants that we’ve seen with the excellence words, but i think one of the things about it is that it is hard to find funding for specifically for idea. So you may have folks who know what to do and who want to do it and are desperate to get themselves up to the standards and really want to aspire to the aspirations. But there just isn’t. Any sort of funding that is earmarked for upgrading it tea or connecting your networks, or doing any of that if you’re including this in, if you’re if you’re a grants partially grantspace porter or condition partially, of course, because you want to be very diverse and your fund-raising including that in grant application, is that realistically no, no, i think if you’re right, it is important to running your programs and someone sponsoring your someone supporting your programs. It’s a direct and sometimes indirect, but often a direct cross for your programs. And obviously each organization has to analyze what it is for them when they’re making the application on. And i also think that we should be we should be thinking there are lots of really wonderful tech organisations that work on non-profit tech and i know you’re about to talk about why i’m probably they’ll do it not now. Thank you very much. Not intend. Non-profit technology network uh and and tien and ten dot or ge, of course. Amy sample ward, the ceo is a regular contributor on this wonderful, you know, maybe sample, you know and who she’s wonderful on the show every month welchlin cubine i’m returning, it gotta get it back now. She’s back off maternity leave, but yes, and ten, of course, or amy’s on every month, i go to the int’l unconference every year, i’m just saying i captured thirty interviews in the last twenty sixteen conference. I’ll be back, i’m sure twenty, seventeen lots of and ten videos at ah, my youtube channel, real tony martignetti and also lots of n ten interviews, lots of technology interviews here on the show. Okay, just let’s. Stick with area six, the six area, just for another minute or so before i go to a break. Sharon, basically, i mean, you want to see investment in technology resource? Is that technology’s actually supporting mission? Someone’s responsible somebody’s responsible for it. And again, this is a hard position teo create as a full time employee at an organization, right? And so we don’t think that responsible employment means that you have to have an afternoon for you, you know, on on on your payroll. But we do think that you have to be working with a night provider who is reputable, who knows what they’re doing, who is responsible. And, you know, it can often create many crises in the ways that you know firewalls, air down or whatever that are in critical to the organization. So they have to be someone you can rely on is well and making sure that you’re thinking about this is an interval business structure, strategy procedure, potter, not an ad on exactly equal to your to your business to your mission. Exactly. Okay, we’re gonna go out for this break. When we come back. We’ve got two more areas communications and fund-raising stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth 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 philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have for her. 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 guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Hi, this is claire meyerhoff from the plan giving agency. If you have big dreams but a small budget, you have a home at tony martignetti non-profit radio. Did you think that i had forgotten the live listener? Love perish, perish the thought live listeners, wherever you happen to be, were pre recorded it’s ah it’s the end of september, right now, september twentieth, and were pre recorded but the live lister loved it goes out the live love is out, so wherever you, whether you are domestic or foreign, here or abroad live listener love goes to you, and ah, but send this in the yeah let’s handle ah, linguistic live love konnichi wa r ni hao on your haserot come sodom, ham, nida. And if you happen to be listening in mexico, which often is the case point a start is if you’re in the czech republic. Dobre din german gooden dog us live love to you accompanying the live listener love has to be the podcast pleasantries because we have over ten thousand listeners from itunes, stitcher and then smaller platforms like player in pod bay and the one in germany couldn’t talk two to all those podcast listeners that’s, the vast majority, the audience, all the audiences i’m grateful for, but the vast majority happens to be in the podcast audience pleasantries to all. Those listeners, all of you, each of you and our am and fm affiliate affections have to go out. You’re going to do the live. Listen, loving the podcast pleasantries. You have to do your filling affections or am and fm stations throughout the country. Let your station know that you hear non-profit radio on their station on your station. They would appreciate that. Feedback. I would appreciate that. Affections to our affiliate listeners throughout un tree melkis alvarez let’s turn to you for ah, our seventh area communications. They should be strategic, effective and build brand what you want, let’s? Open it up broadly. What’s this about. So what is this about? So this is about effective communications and planning. We think that communication should be strategic and integrated again. As we’ve said before, communication should not be an ad on or something that is just done every once in a while, communication should engage thie organization in terms of programs and other key areas of operations. It should be a organization wide conversation, and we’re proud to do that at and pc. See if we can put ourselves on the back. Andrea lee, i think that one other thing to know about communications is that it’s it’s two ways, right? So it’s, not just about what the organization is putting out there, but also how are we responding to what our key stakeholders and audiences are telling us? Are we listening right? And so it sze that feedback loop the loop and being mindful of the feedback that we’re getting and being responsive to that as well annual annual report, you want to see a robust annual report, right? So that is, i think, one of a key marketing to elena and a fund-raising tool that many organizations use and it’s it’s meant to highlight thie organizations, accomplishments from the prior year and so that’s one key way that they can communicate impact of the work that they’re doing, i would say that that’s external facing for the most part, this area also considers internal communications and the power of effective communications, too inform and motivate staff on dh so just making sure that that communications doesn’t stop with social media or e blast, but really thinking about how staff are communicated with as well. Um, you’re looking for hyre understanding among lots of stakeholders that they can act as representatives, outward facing representatives of the organization and that their empowered to do that right. So boardmember is there’s a good example? Right? So how can they be strong ambassadors for the organization? Bond? We we’ve seen organizations do this successfully when they prepare they’re boardmember sze to be effective champions, making sure that they can communicate the mission and the values of the organization and to be able to really speak to the impact of the programs and the effectiveness of the work. Other volunteers to rather volunteers. You want them, you want them to be empowered? Exact. We want people talking about the organization that they love, that they’re spending time or money with or, you know, i mean, these are critical. Resource is people e-giving you want you want them in power, right? You all right? See one of these? Oh, you have a nice ah, organization has this a standard organizations confidentiality and opened this policies and procedures sabelo about the openness policies. Is that is that basically we were were talking about yes, that is that. Okay, cover that. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then confidentiality what’s that related to well, that you have the proper safeguards in place to protect confidential information both of the staff, but also of donors. A. Cz. Well, you wanna make sure that you have the systems and policies in place to make sure that that information doesn’t go beyond the organization and that only the folks that need to know it have it. I love the one two that’s ah sites website content updated regularly. Having this static website is not going to encourage people to visit on dh, melkis says. You said the communication is to go beyond social media, and that includes your website, it’s basic. But for for guess that we’ve had on this. Well, kibby larue miller was on recently because i interviewed her as part of a panel, of course. She’s, the non-profit that marketing guide guru, guru. But give you a room, miller’s been on, and you could search a tony martignetti dot com for branding or marketing communications. We’ve had lots of other guests on talking about that. Let’s, move on. Two fund-raising general, you don’t need us for this, tony. You could do this one way. Natural not fund-raising plan e-giving fund-raising and the child administration work i do. And that’s ah, minor minor part of what you’re looking for here, that resource development is strategic donor-centric and effective, the chief executive and development staff, together with the board, set the fund-raising strategy. Why? Why is that important sharing so inclusive? I think you can. And this goes back to actually what i think melkis was just talking about in terms of of who could be your ambassador for the organisation. What you were saying about multiple people should be able to talk about the organization, and then also something you said earlier about, which is also ah focus of this area that you’re fund-raising has to be diverse in order for it to be sustainable, right? And so you can’t really rely on one type of funds and be sustainable on along over a long period of time. So hear what we’re saying is the strategy to raising money can’t just come from the development director who says, okay, that’s, why i think our options are can’t just come from the d a who says okay, this so i know or can’t just come from the board saying, like, okay, this is what we need to do, it has to be a group activity and a group strategy because everyone is going to be deployed in that strategy, and you need to be able to have people understand what it not just what the strategy is, but where they’re headed in the long term. So we think that that work has to be done holistically in the organization, ok, wait can’t spend as much time on fund-raising as we did the other areas as critical fund-raising is so what i would like to do, sharon, is where can people find these areas and all the bullet point of this, some tub sub areas and the bullet points that we’ve been talking through? Where who knows best where to find that going to be on our website? Www dot n pcc and why dot orc and you can visit our non-profit excellence awards tab all of our resource is and compilation of prior years best practices are available there, okay? And this is an incredibly valuable fourteen. Page document really, really valuable melkis we have just a little under a minute, but i want to cover the education part of this. You have a webinar for each of these a day, a key areas, right? Yes. So we have a subsequent pathways to excellence workshops where we bring back past winners to really detail they’re winning practices in each of these areas, and again, they’re meant to promote ongoing learning. But i would say that the the biggest way that organizations learned through this process is by applying and putting together their team and going through the application process and getting the tailored, comprehensive feedback from our experts selection committee. Excellent wrap up, you’re going to find that it np all of this at n pcc. And why dot org’s and i apologize that we kind of ran out of time and we didn’t cover fund-raising to the extent that it deserves that really is that’s that’s my fault? I didn’t quite manage the way i like to, so i did not meet the aspiration today for me next week. There’s no show it’s. Happy thanksgiving next week except for our am and fm affiliates, of course. I will find a very good archive show for you. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com, responsive by pursuing online tools for small and midsize non-profits data driven and technology enabled, and we be spelling supercool spelling bee fundraisers. We b e spelling dot com pursuant is pursuant dot com. Our creative producers, claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer. Gavin dollars are am and fm outreach director shows social media is by susan chavez. This music is by scott steiner. Brooklyn. Be with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff, sort of dane toe add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge. Somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze you know, tell you make people feel this is pa public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. 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 percent.
