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Nonprofit Radio for August 14, 2015: Doing Good Better

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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William MacAskill: Doing Good Better

William MacAskill is the author of “Doing Good Better,” a book that introduces effective altruism for individuals. There are worthy takeaways for your nonprofit as we discuss how your donors can give smarter to make the greatest difference.

 

 


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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d grow a xanthou granuloma if i if you joined us to me with the fact that you missed today’s show doing good better. William mccaskill is the author of doing good better, a book that introduces effective altruism for individuals. There are worthy takeaways for your non-profit as we discussed how your donor’s khun give smarter to make the greatest difference, he’s with me for the hour on tony’s take two third sector today, we’re sponsored by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com time to welcome my guest, william mccaskill, associate professor in philosophy at oxford university and co founder of the nonprofit organizations giving what we can and eighty thousand hours. They’ve raised over four hundred million dollars in lifetime, pledged donations to charities and helped spark the effective altruism movement, which will be talking a lot about you may have heard about will and his organizations in the new york times, the wall street journal, national public radio and ted talks. He lives in oxford, england, but he’s calling from somewhere on the west coast. I’m not sure where to talk about his new book. Doing good better how effective altruism can help you make a difference published just in april bye. Gotham books, an imprint of penguin random house he’s at will mccaskill on twitter. Well, mccaskill welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. I’m going to speak to you. It’s. A pleasure. Where are you calling from? Calling the man view just outside of san francisco. Okay. Cool. Is it? Is it beautiful there in in mountain view today. It’s beautiful every day and manage everything as opposed to as opposed to oxford, which is probably not beautiful every day. No it’s, really gray and rainy most days wait. Experience being in the california summer love it. Wonderful. Welcome. Um, effective altruism. What you’re you’re working at the intersection of economics, psychology and philosophy. What is this about effects? Vocalism is about using your time and money as effectively as possible to make the world a better place. That means taking a scientific approach using high quality evidence, good data. Careful, logical reasoning in order to ensure that when you give to charity or when you choose a career you’re aiming to use to make a difference, they’re using it did not just make a difference, but to make the most difference, you can’t the most the biggest possible difference. That’s, right? And so there’s a lot of economic theory wrapped up in this and it’s effective altruism is is and the book is devoted to individuals, and they’re giving, right? Yep. Okay, but we’re going to draw a lot of lessons for non-profits because there are there are valuable lessons there in in what you’re recommending for for individuals. Um, i love i love stories. So could we and you introduce ah, the, uh, the theory of effective altruism with a ah de worming story in kenya. Can you can you share that, please? At sure. So in the nineteen nineties, michael claimer who is ah development economists of it he was he was working in kenya and he’s working with a charity called i c s that did a variety of education programs for the poor and that currency on dh. He was working with him on dh. He just had the obvious question, which was well, have you actually tested this to see if it works to see how effective it wass andi answer was that they had on dh. In fact, at the time, basically, no one had bean doing high quality experiments to test different development program, and so what they did was they started investigating a ll the different things that this child he was doing, andi, the results were really interesting, so they take something that seemed very obviously like you have a big impact distributing textbooks, for example, to schools where they only have one textbook for classroom on dh they to save me, the textbooks buy-in seven schools, then they just monitor seven other schools where they wouldn’t do any intervention in order to compare what the difference wass andre actually found there was no effect. Meeting textbooks didn’t have didn’t include outcomes totally will thinking, well, it’s, totally counterintuitive we would all think that students with more textbooks are going tto learn better have better education outcomes because they don’t have to share one textbook for twenty children the way it often is it’s just so intuitive, completely counterintuitive the things that we think obviously that’s really effective. Often end up having no impact can’t even have a negative impact, harmful and then other things which we would not even know about or think others very boiling or underwhelming can be extraordinarily effective. So, for example, what they ended up testing. So we tested textbooks, flip talks all these just had no effect. And then they ended up testing de worming school children. So over the billion people worldwide suffer from intestinal worms on dh they can be cured very cheaply for less than dollars per child. And so they find hyre rolling out masti worming programs to a number of schools and they found an extraordinary effect on increasing school attendance. It was really quite remarkable on when it was followed up with later on it was found that the children had been de wormed. Had improved earnings on were ableto work more violence as well. So that’s, very boring, extremely unsexy program end up having this extraordinary impact in terms of improvements to the lives of the poor and kenya. Love it. Yeah, you it’s not something we would think of. It takes a development specialist on and i think i think you make it clear. That hey just was talking to a friend who worked for the world bank or one of the development programs, and they suggested that person suggested de warming, and it led to the results that you describe, but yeah, you know, actually, i get a physical chill when you’re listening to you tell the story, just like it did when i was reading it. Yes, intuition leads us astray so, so much. And if we really want to make the most effective, biggest change possible, we have to be more ah, analytical, more really a little more cold hearted, considerably more cold hearted than we are about are giving decisions. That’s why, i think i mean, we take this approach when we buy products, so you know, if you you wouldn’t just normally buy a product that someone just comes up to you in the suite and pictures you want you want toby, we kind of if you’re buying a laptop, you’d want to look into it. You’d want to ensure that you’re getting you might look at the views online. You want to ensure that, uh, you were buying the best laptop you can for e-giving price, i’m just saying we should take a similar sort of approach when we’re giving to charity, we should be trying to look up, not just like, does this charity have glossy leaflets with smiling children? But actually, if i give a certain amount of money what’s the outcome of that going to be and how can i spend my money is such that, you know, i can get the best value with my donation. Brilliant. Okay? And you devote the first half of the book to siri’s of five questions we have just about two minutes before our first break, but of course we’re together for the hour, so not to worry, why don’t you introduce? Are the first question and just talk a little about it and, like, roughly a minute and a half or so. Okay, so the first question is how many people benefit and by how much? So this is the thought that when you’re going to do any sort of activity, whether that activity of your non-profit or donating or cubine volunteering thie impact you have should be cast out in terms of impact on people’s well being, and that means if you can benefit more people. If you could benefit the same number of people by a greater amount, then that’s better to do and that’s just crucial neato. Look att, um, the outcomes actually, a program has rather say when looking at charity, you know, how much is the ceo paid or what the overhead costs. They are actually that important? Because it what we should care about ultimately is just how is this money that we’re giving, turning into improved improvements in terms of people’s quality of life. Okay, let’s, go out for that break. Now we’ll take care of this. When we come back, will and i are going to talk about the rest of the questions, of course, and continue with this one. How many people benefited by how much we’ll talk about quality what’s, a quality you’re gonna learn and ah, what was going on in triaging at a red cross hospital in rwanda in nineteen ninety four. 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. Let’s. Do a little bit alive. Listener love, let’s. Start domestic because we got of course we’ve got the listeners abroad. But let’s, start with the st louis, missouri, new york, new york. Thank you. New york city. Thanks for being here. And hubert, north carolina. Course i got my place in north carolina. Live listener love there’s. More coming. Of course. Podcast pleasantries always go out to the those listening. Wherever, whatever, whether you’re washing dishes or driving a taxi podcast pleasantries to those left listening, doing all those things and and and other things and of course, affiliate affections to our many affiliate am and fm stations across the country. Affections to those affiliate listeners. Never forget them. Got badly of listeners all all different channels, all different categories. So multi multi-channel non-profit radio will let’s. Um, again, i love stories. This this is such a wrenching one. But that brings tio tio light this this first question of how many people benefited by how much? What was james urbanski up too? Just a little briefly in in rwanda in nineteen. Ninety four. Yeah. So, james opinsky was workings doctors without borders in rwanda in nineteen, ninety four during genocide on. And he was one of the only non-profit workers still there. When the genocide is happening on the story, it tells of a particularly have a long day for him. He was manning a tiny hospital, and it was just a huge number of casualties coming in far more than he could speak. And, uh, you know, the level of tom what? The severity of the council he’s. Very extreme, indeed. And that meant we had to do was in good. Doctor does and engage in triage. Uh, andi, because the conditions were so extreme, he actually he had to just sign each person coming in a number that actually scott taped to the forehead. So one meant fleet immediately. Two men wait on science. You know, it’s. Not as urgent plants, feet within the first twenty four hours. And so you men ever believable. And the best they could do was provide morphine and blankets so they could pass away and comfort. And this is obviously an absolutely harder but having situation to be in. Uh, but it still asleep. The importance of and the necessity of making hard strayed off. So if james urbanski had simply throwing up his hands and said, well, i’m just gonna speak whoever’s first in front of me, you’re gonna treat people randomly that would have been a much worse outcome he would have save a few lives would have helped far fewer people. Ah, nde, we might think, oh, it’s so lucky that, you know, we’re not in situations like this in a very real sense, our situation is similar whenever we’re trying to do good whenever philantech if charity or volunteermatch time where making decisions about who we help who don’t on dh, especially when it comes to charity, that could benefit, of course, people in the world these things literally are life and death for someone on dh that means we can’t just say, ok, i’ll just give, you know, whatever happened to have heard about whatever alien to me, we do need to go through this process of hard tradeoffs and thinking, how can i benefit people by as much as possible? Accepting that means we’re gonna help some people and not help others quality qu up? Sorry, q. A l y que es. El y what is ah, quality so quali it’s a little bit of technical terminology i used in my book and it’s metric used by health economists in order to assess the size of the impact of a health program. So what quality stands for is quality adjusted life year. The idea is that with two ways by which you can give someone a health benefit seriously, you khun extend someone’s life. So you, khun, make someone live longer than they would otherwise have lived and extending the life i’m or about les is only better. Or secondly, you conclude some quality of life while they’re still alive, accusing someone of migraines uh, we’ll extend their life, but it will make the quality of life better world of life and the quality adjusted life takes into account both of these way’s benefiting someone on dh enables us to make comparisons a ll different sorts of health programs so that you can work out which have the greatest benefit for that given the manner family you mentioned migraines. Your migraine sufferer yourself, right? Yeah. That’s like, yeah, i know. I learned from reading the book. I know you have migraines and back pain. This is sir. Yeah, i know. And they were very alien to me as i was lying right here. Anything, anything else going on that we should know about? Are you ok today? I’m doing pretty well today, okay? Very good. Okay. Now, typically on non-profit radio we have george in jail, but you did not transgress. Ah, but because you quickly defined and i am on the one who introduced quality, so you’re not you’re not a. You’re not a scofflaw subject to george in jail, so not to worry. If in case that was the case, i was causing your concern. Yes, there there guests who come out with a great deal of anxiety about jargon, jail. But you need to you needn’t worry at least not about quality, so so we can use that, yes, you’re welcome. We can use this measure to evaluate on rank the success and the effectiveness, the outcomes of different charities in the health related the missions. That’s exactly. Right. So the ideas if you, uh, do you know, cure someone of sight that would be moving. So the you survey data tto find out how bad different sorts of conditions are on dh people. The airplane today they’re kind of quality of life. A fifty percent compared tto foot being fully excited. And so if you can cure someone of blindness for two years, that would be moving from fifty percent to one hundred percent health quality of life for two years, which would equal one quality just like you. Okay, um and i think the take home for non-profits around this first question of the five is that you want to be sharing how you are improving lives and you want to show those metrics, if that’s your work that’s, right? And also, if you’re choosing between different programs, then it’s not enoughto look at you know how much does this cost a bed net? How much does how am i spending purty worming tablets or persons out? You actually want to find go that extra step and say okay for all these things. How is the action comes later. Hey, into people’s. Well being and if some programs and doing that helping far fewer people, we’re helping them buy much less in extent then you should probably be deeper advertising those and focusing on the ones that we do have the biggest impact. So it’s it’s these intermediate measures like distributing books or that you say, you know, the nets, that we shouldn’t be paying attention to its thie well, variously called i hear it, you know, the outcome or the impact of that? I mean, that middle activity that’s, exactly right on duitz particularly important because some of these intermediate netflix like distributing textbooks, as you say, actually don’t have any improvements, at least in some context, in terms of people’s well being, okay, all right, let’s, go to aa let’s, go to our second question, which is, is this the most effective thing that you can do, please flush out out? So the idea behind this question is the different social programs very massively and how impactful there on dh. In fact, most social programs, when tested seemed to have no impact at all, even among those that do, and even among those in fact, very good in terms of the impact. They have you can still do far, far more good if you choose to focus on the very best programs. Um on dh. That means that when we’re thinking about doing good it’s not enough to just think, okay, i want to make a difference. This thing has an impact. Therefore, it’s a good thing to do, but we need to ask, is this the most difference by making, uh and, you know, i give examples such as within mountain developing world education providing free school uniforms has a significant effect on improving educational outcomes. School attendant kayman for children in in subsaharan africa? Why is that what you might think? Yeah, why is that what’s that connection between school uniforms and improved performance? Yeah, so in many countries, it’s just a requirement the child has to have a school uniforms to ten school and you might think, you know, it’s a silly policy, but it does exist in some countries on dh that means that some families they just can’t afford school uniforms for that somewhat revealed seeming reason they can’t send their children to school her mind. So by providing a school uniforms with you, enable the family. Send the child to school. Remarkable. Yeah. Give us another. Can you send another example? I love these of including school attendance. Uh, it could be, but doesn’t have to be just just another example from the most effective method. Yeah. So another example. I mean, within healthcare amglobal health. Uh, the easiest to see. So there are many activities you can do that we’ll save lives tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, like providing pants avectra vitals to be hiv, for example. But the most amazing example is the eradication of smallpox so far over sixty million lives since it was eradicated. Nineteen seventy that’s, actually, more lives would have been saved, have abdicated if we prevented all wars for political famines or genocide on all terrible effects from that time, that’s incredible. In terms of the death coul unification of smallpox was better than world peace on day only cost one point four billion dollars in the money of the time, which means the cost for life saved was about those twelve dollars, so it’s just extraordinary example of incredible impact. Yeah, uh, and even though spending ten thousand one hundred thousand dollars to save a life it’s, incredibly good use of money. Examples like smallpox show that the very best pieces of money just, you know, even better again. And we still have opportunities that almost as good as that. By distributing long lasting insecticide metoo bed nets to protect children from malaria. I’m such a screw the against malaria foundation. There you can save the life of about three and a half thousand dollars. Statistically, speaking on dh that’s again, just this absolutely huge impact and, you know, far, far better even than merely very good ways, right? Yeah. You do that in the book a few times, merely. Very good, but i exactly and there’s a big difference between that and the best. Right? Right on. I have to just repeat with something. You said that the eradication of smallpox was a larger lifesaver than world peace. Yeah. Then world peace would have bean would have would have been right. All right. Um, this is startling. In fact, in the whole twenty, essentially, even when you include world war one, world war two smallpox killed more people before it was eradicated than a war. Mmm. Damn. Yeah. It’s so? So moving especially i mean, we’re just this month was the anniversary of the the two nuclear bombs dropped in in japan for got taken and all those lives still more than all those lives and all the others in all the world wars. Mom. All right, so there’s a lesson here for non-profits again, in terms of what, where they’re going to focus their their time and precious money. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it really means, i think intuitively we think if something’s very good. So again, this is thinking about what programs you might see. You and charities often pursue a variety of different programs like oxen, what in several care, you know, whole big distribution it’s probably the case that some of these programs do way more good than others. So in business, you might have heard of the eighty twenty, where eighty percent of the value comes from twenty percent of the effort. But the same thing applies and charity or doing good as well. It’s just a spot in a small number of the programs that doing far, far maurine sons of impact than many others. And that’s. Why it’s crucial to find out what those are really scale those up and de emphasize those that are not that don’t don’t don’t measure up, you know, now we’ve been talking a lot about health and poverty. Where do cultural organizations fit into this? This methodology, our art and history, museums, theaters? How do they, how do they fit this scheme so ultimately? Ultimately, i think it’s going to be hard to justify donating toe, you know, are just three museums when the comparison is he could be donating toe saving lives and very poor countries. And i mean the way measure it is in terms of again how many people benefit and by how much so spending a certain amount elearning museum, how many people are being affected by this so obviously attending museums, wife sametz enriching experience, you could ask by how much and what people’s lives and how many people are coming through every year on then so that’s one thing, then there’s a second thing that you might think it’s just in-kind of reason to do charity that’s outside this framework. So but concerned about those sandwiches at helping people as much as possible, you might think it’s just intended clea very important, too. Uh, it was a great works of our preserve historical artifact on that might be lying again. I think, you know, we should think about the trade offs we have to make. So if you’re funding or spending the time on the museum, in-kind how valuable is it to deserve this work of art? Where? That’s cashed out in terms of the loss of the opportunity to be saving up people’s lives. Andi, i think as soon as you put the the decision, you know, in that in terms of that trade off, which is the decision we face, then i think it becomes quite that hard. It’s justifying, you know, spending philanthropic money on things like museums and a rather than lifesaving interventions in poor countries. All right, we’ll take a break, we’ll is going to stay with us, of course, for the for the second half. So there’s mohr of doing good, better coming up as well as tony’s take two have to ah, talk about pursuant because they’re our sponsor and they do full service fund-raising they have web based tools for small and midsize shops there really a perfect fit for for this, for this audience, for our, for our listeners, um, they have a ceo who grew up in non-profits trent ryker he’s been in the community for over twelve years, not quite as long as me at eighteen, but he knows that there are you’re out there with a lot of passion and under resourced, which really, i don’t even really, like euphemisms, you need more money. He understands that, um and that’s. Why there are online tools that are scalable, too small and midsize shops to make you maur effective fundraisers. Last week, i talked about one of those, which is their prospector platform, helps you find your upgrade ready donors. Trent riker leads this company. They are their data driven, their technology enabled, they’re smart. They can help you. That can help you raise more money. Pursuant. Dot com. Third sector today, they blogged tips, insights, best practices for the non-profit community, they have a podcast. They have lots of contributors. It’s curated by amy devita, who is a very smart lady. I think it’s, valuable and informative. One of their current posts is top twenty fund-raising books now mine is not down there, but i didn’t write one, so i can excuse that. But if i did, i’m certain that it would have been topper than top two. I would a top the top twenty if i if i had written a book on fund-raising they are at third sector today. Dot com, check them out my video start your planned giving program here is that tony martignetti dot com start with charitable bequests. When you embark on a plan giving program, the video explains why so that you can pitch it to your ceo and you’re bored and that is tony’s take two for friday, fourteenth of august thirty second show of the year. Well, mccaskill, the associate professor in philosophy at oxford university, of course, still with us. Well, let’s, let’s, you feel like we’ve done justice for ah, question number two is this the most? Effective thing you can do. Yeah, i think so. Ok, then. Guy had introduced the third question, please. Oh, the third question is, is this area and neglected on dh? I think that’s crucial because things in general have diminishing the terms. If you have one coffee that makes you feel great, you know, they enjoy it by the fourth or fifth thing you’re feeling kind of set on dh that’s just for social programs as well we can normally, and it comes out in two ways. One is, it means that you can do the most benefit people who are the very porous because the lowest hanging fruit in terms of things that improve people’s lives not yet been taken. Uh, andi that’s insect crucial because the scale of global inequalities so today so it’s actually almost unimaginably ugly, where the port of billion people in the world live on less than one dollar fifty on dh what that means is today and when what? What that one dollar fifty per day means is what one dollar fifty could buy in the us which if you think that it’s a bag of ice or something so it’s already taken to account the fact that money goes verbal overseas on dh, that means that in general, if you want to improve people’s lives, i’m focusing on the port of people, you know, often the most effective thing to do. And then the second aspect is focusing on neglected causes. Where, if a certain cause ariel, that he gets a huge amount of funding, then it’s just going to be very hard for your additional donations or additional effort. Latto have as much of an impact. Andan example, i give is talking about disaster. Believe, yes. Where? Yeah, where natural disasters. Because they’re so salient because they get so much publicity at they received muchmore in funding pro casualty than why we call ongoing natural disasters like, uh, tuberculosis, malaria on neglected tropical diseases, hiv aids. These are killing far more people every single day. The natural disasters do they get a lot less attention on dh? Therefore get this funding. And that means that you can do more good by donating to these ongoing problems than you can by donating toe natural disaster relief. And and yeah, that marginal dollar that you contribute does so much less around natural disaster relief than it can elsewhere in these. What you call the ongoing natural disasters that that’s the diminishing returns. Yeah, that’s, right. And that’s not to say that we shouldn’t have disaster relief. You certainly should. It’s very important that gets funded. The question has just given how everyone else is acting what’s. The additional benefit of my actions. Yes, that incremental and that’s it’s equivalent to the kinds of questions that james urbanski was asking in in rwanda. What what? What is the most effective thing that i can do? Where is my time on? Dh his expertise as a doctor best spent to be most effective. Yeah, on dh not dealing with the with a z you said, you know, as the cases came in, but we think that way we we see on cnn the disaster videos and all of a sudden there’s a text to give campaign and it’s so easy to do it. It’s just it’s dropped in our lap. But that’s not the best decision making. Yeah, i think so. I think this actually almost provides an argument explicitly against, um, donating our working on causes that you feel in-kind intuitively very emotionally compelled towards because it’s probably the case, that those are the things that most salient to you many other people also finding intuitively compelled towards and so a very heavily funded. So i think this is too for example, poverty in the united states so almost muscle poured education united states, uh, he’s a very salient probably see these big problems, but they’re very salient problems toe many people in the us, and that means they get much more attention than problems that are much less alien to us, even though they’re even more extreme, like provoc like extreme poverty, like terrible lack of education, basic health problems in poor countries. Listen here for ah, non-profits i think again around program choice, but also career choice. Why don’tyou around whether this is a neglected cars, when just let’s, let’s, talk on the individual level, a little around career choice. Yeah, so i talk a bit about, uh, a guy called big louis who became a doctor because he wanted to help people, and it was in the course of being a doctor. He is also very good statistician. You start to wonder, well, how much good does a doctor actually do? You know how much of an impact maybe we making in the world? And you think it might be obvious? So if you’re a surgeon and maybe a performing like sergent saving surgeries every day? No, the inside gregg hand was if he wasn’t that surgeon, then someone else would, uh, do the same work in his place. And in particular him becoming a doctor. It’s not like he’s, the average doctor in the us. There’s eight hundred fifty thousands positions. By becoming an extra doctor, he’d be just a hundred, a hundred fifty thousand first doctor. Yes. So? And when you know as a kind of healthcare system as a whole, you’re going to treat the most important, um ilsen elements first. So that the impact of an additional doctors just sleep in-kind more minor condition. And he incorporated that. Now zsystems ended up working out. He was doing an equivalent amount of good most in terms of quotes adjusted life years again, or qualities there was equivalent to about saving to a three lives so far, far less that actually you would have thought intuitively, yes. And that’s. Because as a doctor than of its country, like the u s and u k, all the kind of all the most effective how on dh programs and interventions are goingto be there going to be performed. Whatever you do, whether it’s in a very poor country than that, not nearly not nearly as likely to be the case, so again have a bigger impact there and is a second suspect as well. So greg actually ended up not pursuing medicine. I mean, not pursuing not going to africa or another poor country for some of some poor country in order to work there instead stayed working in the uk in order to do good to his donations instead on dh that’s relevant because it’s past not many people do again that is neglected coming on, and that means he could target his donations to the very most effective virality andi it’s, a path that i call earning to give twenty two good not just to your dahna kleber, but your ability to donate yes, choosing a career path that enables you to donate and target versus choosing a career path in the nonprofit ngo sector. That’s exactly like all right, all right. And i think often you, khun, you know, you’re able to pay for several charity workers with your donations, depending on sorts of opportunities you have available to you. You, uh you make the point, i think. Very eye opening that the average reader of this and certainly everybody in the u s everybody in the u s is the one percent that we have come to reviled through through the campaign, you know, the campaign against the one percent, um, that started he really here in the city, we’ll make that make that point for us about all of us being the one percent, yeah, so normally when people use the one percent provoc furling domestic inequality on going to people who are abuzz about three hundred fifty thousand dollars per year on domestic inequality is very extreme, and i’d like to see currency like the uk and us have a much more equal distribution of wealth. No, uh, it just pales in comparison to the scale of global inequality and, in fact, to be in the richest one percent worldwide, then you only need to be earning about fifty thousand dollars a zone individual post tax on. Certainly everyone in buy-in the u s is at least some of which is fifteen percent of the world’s population. So even people that we think is a very poor living on the poverty line in the united states, a stealing of its fifteen percent of the world on again piece a ll these figures are already taking to account the fact that money goes much further overseas. What’s called purchasing power parity adjusted on board, and i’m going to go to doug and dale that you will explain it, but i think he did it’s already adjusted for the difference of cost of living across across the different countries. That’s exactly why on dh so what this means, i mean it since it’s easy to see these figures and feel sadden to the floor, i actually think we should flip it around and think, well, actually, we could have this amazing opportunity. So by luck of being born into a rich country, you’re being able to move to a rich country where among the just people in the world on dh, that means we have an incredible power to do good just by transferring in hawaii is effective way some of those resources to the poorest people in the world and using some of the literature from happiness. Economics uh, i give estimates about just how big an impact should we expect that to be? And they call it the hundredfold multiplier. So even if all you were doing was literally just making yourself for the buy one dollar, making some very poor people in the world richer by one dollars, you would be having hunt. That money would have one hundred times the impact in terms of people’s well being. And so it’s. This extraordinary opportunity. We have startling, you know. I love yeah, okay, thank you for explaining that was a very uplifting comment and our explanation and i overstated it is there’s. Not everyone in the u s is in the one percent, but even those at poverty level in the u s are in the richest fifteen percent, askew said thank you, it’s, very startling. Dahna but we just have again about two minutes before before a break question number four is what would happen otherwise what’s going on here, so here the crucial issue is come the difference you make up the difference between the good you do and what would have happened, even if you’d not acted as you did. So one example is that’s relevant to non-profits i think is if you’re fund-raising so suppose you raise a million dollars in a fundraising campaign, you might think, oh, the amount of good i do is just the value of that million dollars from my charity, but you’ve got to think about what would have happened otherwise, how much of that money wood have been donated to some other charity, even if you do not run that fund-raising campaign on dh if it were the case. That it would all just being donated to some other charity on on the travel team is just as effective as you going. Actually, this fund-raising campaign had no impact at all. And some arguments for thinking that there is often the case over those charitable giving remains just two percent in the u s state. They fixed it that for quite some time, certainly i think we’ll seek peace. The effectiveness of many fund-raising campaigns, partly. You’re just taking money away from kayman other charities. All right, let’s, let’s. Take that break. And when we come back, will and i will continue talking about the theory of effective altruism and its lessons for your non-profit 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 and they are levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guests directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Duitz if you have big ideas but an average budget, tune into tony martignetti non-profit radio for ideas you can use. I do. I’m dr. Robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Very interesting that that that drop was by dr robert penna who’s. Been a guest on the show. I’m going well, i’m not going to give you a chance to explain, but direct people to the bookers. We want people to buy this book for a lot of reasons, but one of them is will has has a commentary on something that ken berger, who has also been on the guest, been against multiple times, actually, former ceo of charity navigator he’s been on many times. Bob bennett was on once, i think just once on dh will have some commentary on on article that burger and penna wrote and, well, i hope you’re going to forgive me. I gotta leave it there because i don’t have time to go into it, but it’ll it’ll be increased demand for your book. Okay, okay. Okay. Yeah. Did you notice that i did not choose that drop? The producer chooses the drops, so i did not put that in to be provocative to you. So please don’t think that. Okay? That’s. Just purely coincidence. All right. So our fourth question. You know what would happen otherwise. So where’s a lesson that we can draw here for for non-profits before we move on to the fifth question, yeah, so one, like i said, was thinking about, you know, if you’re running a fund raising campaign, how much of the money would have been no need to be other ways if you can find to track that another is in terms of the impact and how you’re measuring the impact you’re having. So an example, i gave us a the scared straight program, very popular social program in the us, where juvenile delinquent skin taken to prison for a few hours to scare them out of a life of crime on dh on its face, it might look like an effective program because the juveniles go on to commit fewer climbs, that he had been committed in the past. So you might think, oh, therefore, the the program was effective, but that’s not thinking about what would have happened otherwise. And in fact, when the program’s being tested, it seems to increase rate to criminality. So if those juvenile delinquents hadn’t been taken on the scared straight program, they would have gone on to commit even fewer clients. Yeah, and that’s, obviously crucial it’s a program that’s actually doing harm for society. In fact, one estimate put suggested that for every dollar invested in the program, society bore the cost of two hundred thirty dollars as a result of increased canals. Startling, yeah, and scared straight has been the subject of cable tv shows and lots of popular press and yeah, remarkable. Ah, yeah. All right. Due to time, you know, we have tio we got to move to our our fifth question. What are the chances of success? And how good would it be? Great. And this is away toe compare very concrete ways of doing good. Like i was talking about sleeping bad net. So the women children with things are more than certain, like lobbying for political change or time expiate societal norms shift on dh you might think, oh, it’s, just impossible to make these comparisons unquantifiable but i think that’s too hasty on dh. So i think that you, khun, make progress on this by using the idea of expected value which is this idea looking at the probability of success and looking at just how good would success b on dh then you multiply those two together and that’s. The expected value. So if you’ve got a one in a hundred chance of saving one hundred lives, uh, i meant at least as good as you know, a guarantee of saving one life right point. Zero one times one hundred that’s like one in a hundred chance of saving a hundred people. Good as a guarantee of safe. What so, from one hand on dh flew this. I think you can start at least get a laugh. Comparisons of how good certain sorts of systemic change. Operations are i give one example again on a personal level of someone deciding whether to earn, to give, for deciding whether to go into politics and with her we look at what the odds of her successfully becoming an aunty or in the cabinet ministers in the uk come and then secondly, time looked like, well, if she were that successful, just how much of an impact would you be having on dh using this? We got conclusion, but it was likely that she be able to do an awful lot more good by becoming a politician, and i just kind of going to give him donating her the kind of concrete, measurable challenges on. So i think there’s, like power their toe have a more vigorous, reflective way of thinking about in a systemic or lower probability, but hyre upside change versus more concrete, measurable ways of doing it right. So to not fear that which has a low probability but which has an enormous pay off exactly was the smallpox eradication was that? Well, actually, no, you make a point that there was already some political will behind that, so that wasn’t deemed to be a very small probability of success at its out at its outset, was it? I think it probably waas was don’t know looking had ever been eradicated before on so it’s still, i think, would have seemed like a long shot on certain people. Marchal we did manage to achieve it. But again, yeah, even supposing that had just seen they thought, okay, this is only a ten percent chance of this working off center given, given the size of the how good the outcome would be, it would have clearly still being very worth doing. Yes. And so i think a lesson for non-profits is to not fear those low probability but very high payoff programs and work that’s what being effective, um, does not necessarily mean only doing things where you can quantify and a short time period, the impact you have it. Yeah. And of course in leading to the second, which leads directly into the second half of your book, which we don’t have time to do, we do another hour for that. But the concern about too much distraction and overemphasis on ceo pay and proportion of revenue that goes to overhead administrative costs those those those things are, i think you call them distractions. Yeah, i think that’s exactly like when you’re thinking about giving to a charity. You know, it’s just in the same way as if you were buying a laptop. You don’t care how much tim kirk is paid as a ceo. You don’t care how much apple spends on its administration costs. You just care about the quality of the products and how much that costs. I think we should all play the same to the case of champion. Brilliant. We have to leave it there. Well, thank you so, so much. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. The book is doing good better how effective altruism can help you make a difference you want to follow will on twitter he’s at will mccaskill next week i’m working on it. It might be an innovative way to pay your frontline fundraisers. Incentive pay if that’s not next week. It’s coming soon. I’m working on it. But next week will be great anyway, whatever it is. Of course, if you missed any part of today’s show finding on tony martignetti dot com, where in the world else would you go pursuant? Full service. Fund-raising you’ll raise truck loads more money, and i’m not talking about to axl avis rentals that get your kids back to college. I’m talking seven or eight axel platforms and flatbeds that carry wide loads like prefab houses and culverts filled with money. Pursuant dot com. Our creative producers claire meyerhoff, janice taylor is line producer today show social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein. Thank you for that information, scott. 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 do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist. I took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane. Toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up 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 and and no 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 talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It zoho, 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 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.

Nonprofit Radio for September 19, 2014: Buyer Beware & Managing Your Big Spike

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Don Jean: Buyer Beware

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Don Jean is CEO of FocusedBuyer.com. He’s got tips for buying smarter, from accounting services to zoo animals. How do you start a money-saving buyers club? What belongs in your procurement policy and how do you compare alternative suppliers? Don’s got a good story about horse linament.

 

 

 

Maria Semple: Managing Your Big Spike

Maria Semple
Maria Semple

After a big event, gala, run/walk, open house or ice bucket challenge, you’ve got lots of newly-engaged people. How do you break them down into manageable sets for cultivation? Maria Semple is our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder.

 

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be stricken with pseudo member anus still mastitis if i had to form the words to say you missed today’s show hyre beware don gene is ceo of focusedbuyer dot com he’s got tips for buying smarter from accounting services to zoo animals what belongs in your procurement policies and how do you compare alternative suppliers also managing your big spike after a big event gala run walk open house ice bucket challenge you’ve got lots of newly engaged people how do you break them down into manageable sets for cultivation? Maria simple is our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder on tony’s take two get off! Ellis is back, responsive by generosity siri’s they host multi charity five k runs and walks. I’m very glad that don jean is with me, he’s, a ceo and co founder of focusedbuyer dot com, he has many years of experience with big us and uk businesses routinely buying billions of dollars of goods and services. He’s, a member of the institute of supply management and cornell university’s athletic hall of fame dahna jean welcome to the show. Good morning, tony. Thank you for this opportunity to speak with you and your non-profit radio colleagues. Cool. Thank you very much. My pleasure to have you. We’re talking about buying buyer beware, but you like to call it procurement. What? Why is that? Well, procurement takes in all the aspects of purchasing from the time that you’re thinking about purchasing a product or service for your organization to actually contracting for it, to the performance of the suppliers around the contract, to the payment of the invoice that submitted by the suppliers to the warehousing of the data around the actual transactions. So it’s the whole process, then so buying would be very limited. Part of will be one part of the entire procurement process, i guess. Is that right? Yes. The buying the buying process tony’s is just the actual transaction of saying i want to buy this and a supplier saying i’ll supply it and then that happening. Okay, so there’s a rationale, because on non-profit radio we have jargon, jail and right out i didn’t. I hate to put you in. Jargon jail. So i’m trying to explain why we were going to use the word procurement instead of just buying oh, okay. All right. So you’re not in jargon jail. You could have been, but i i i was i was lenient. But what? Your step? All right, why do we need a procurement policy? Well, first of all, any organization or business needs a policy which is a statement of principles or intent or protocols to run the organization and business and these policies, they include the fundamentals of operating in a foreign organization or business such as who’s in charge. Uh, also includes well established best practices and or guidelines such as who raises money. How is money raised? How is money spent? It includes the procedures than that. I’ll allow you to carry out the policies, and it applies to all the state color’s involved. So this was the leadership board members, employees, customers and suppliers, and it’s, a clearly documented policy and communicated to everyone in some cases, uh, people who received the communication are actually asked to sign and acknowledge that they received it. A purchasing policy is really a subset of an overall policy. And it’s around how employees and volunteers spend money for products and services needed to run the operations and administrative functions of organizations or businesses, and the purchasing folly should include managing the money to be spent accounting for the money that has been spent and ensuring the money is being spent as wisely as possible. All right, don, we’re going, we’re gonna have a chance. We’re gonna get into the details get too far ahead of ourselves. So even a small mid size shop, i mean, if they’re not spending tens of thousands of dollars on on purchases, do they still need to have a procurement policy? Yes, they do, tony and the reason for that is if you look at television or radio, listen to radio and read newspapers, you’re fine, and i’m looking at stuff on the internet. You’re finding that even in small businesses small organization, small non-profits there seems to be a trend where someone is being cheated, either with in the organization itself or a supplier is cheating the organization. Oh, and it all comes to buyer beware and it’s important that everyone have guidelines and rules so that the buyer beware process does not come into play regards to the size of the organization. All right, so organizations need to be thinking strategically, carefully about purchasing, even if we’re talking about just like paper, and, um, i don’t know, maybe some consulting services and, you know, small, small purchases that typically now they’re probably just going online and buying from a source that they’ve been using for a long time, or they go to the store and use their credit card, even even in those cases, they need to be thinking more about this whole process, right? So from from a standpoint of small purchases in my investigations, i’ve found across a broad range of organizations, including non-profits that somebody could be paying anywhere from nine dollars, a ream for a ream of paper, five hundred sheets of paper down to three dollars, and oftentimes it’s, you know, people say, well, nine dollars, i can pay nine dollars, but you maybe should be paying three dollars, and that all is tied up into making sure you have a process in place, the other the other issue is how do you generate economy of scale? So just because you’re a small non-profit doesn’t mean that there aren’t other small non-profits that are not in competition with you in terms of what you do, where you could, uh, collaborates and increase the economy of scale of your purchases in a blanket order process a process where each individual non-profit could buy from it, but get a better price for everyone. Alright, so that would be like buying club you’re saying? Well, it would be it would be a buy-in club, and it could be organized among the non-profits or it can be organized by a third party supplier. Okay, cool. All right, well, i’m going toe to spend some time talking about that. Let’s, let’s, get back to the procurement policy, which we were starting to get into. Why don’t you just take off? What? What? Some what belongs in that policy? Sure. So, uh, purchasing procurement policy should include being in line with the financial controls of the organizations. So for instance, the financial controls may say we want a three way matching process to assure that there’s no fraud or illegalities in the procurement to pay process. And we know that the fraud and evil of gowdy’s they happen on a regular basis. But the three way matching process is something that says a person. Who’s authorized the purchase. Creates the purchase order someone else who’s authorized to receive the product or service. Actually documents that receive receipt and someone else who is involved with finance and the accounts payable process actually transact the payment of the of the envoys. Right. Wait. I have a purchase order in place. And when they have a receipt covered dahna done way too much into the weeds. I just want you to please just take off. Just take off major items like like credit cards. I’m sure belong in there. You know, just just what s the major time from competition belongs in there buying from competent. Okay. Okay. With competitions when i mean it was competent. Okay, conducting negotiations belongs in there buying. How do you buy from supportive stakeholders buying from employees and their affiliates, such as family members. Latto how do you define relationships between suppliers and vendors and the persons who are buying? What are some of the conflicts of interests? For instance, two employees have some type of ownership privately in a supplier or is there they have some public ownership where they own some stock in a public company? Also around the security of information in terms of how information is communicated to suppliers back and forth and whether there needs to be a non disclosure agreement, things such as gratuities and quid pro quo. You know our crew tootie’s accepted by by employees and quid pro quo meaning employee says, hey, i’ll give you this contract if you give me four tires for my jeep, okay, meals and entertainment no, if you’re invited to a ball game or a golf outing, or maybe you’re going out weekly for lunches and dinners and there’s no real business reason for that it’s just become habit trips to places of business, the cross and reimbursement of that when you go visit a supplier and compliance with rules and regulations around safety, health, environmental and governmental types of regulations, and then how do you capture the content, the data in the information around all of your procurement transactions, and last but not least settling disputes and disagreements? How does that process work and unfold between buyers and sellers? All right, we’re not gonna have time to cover all that, and i hope you acknowledge thiss can be kind of boring stuff. Do you realize that you realize you do? Realize that okay, i do realize, ok, we’re going. We’re going to hit just a couple of those that are probably the most popular let’s start with credit cards, which, you know, you don’t even call them credit card, you call them procurement cards? Yeah, this is a credit instrument that is used the organizations and businesses want to cut down on the actual, uh, transactions inside the procurement process. So they used credit cards where stuff happens on the phone call between the buyer and seller, and i’ve been involved in credit card purchases that have reached thirty thousand transactions a year in one hundred twenty million dollars worth of procurement. And in those scenarios, the difficult part is determining that the credit card’s been used appropriately by the holder of the credit card. In one particular case, i recall that a particular employee every month was buying oil, and we couldn’t figure out why there was a need for this much oil. So we said we’d look into it a little bit, and it turns out that the person was actually buying horse liniment forces for their horse farm horse liniment the horse. The horse liniment story. Yeah. Okay, that’s a good one. So what? We have just about a minute or so before first break, so keep that in mind and then we’ll have more time after the break. But what? What can we do to make sure that credit cards, procurement cards if if you prefer, are used appropriately? The details around the transaction are most important and what happens with a credit card? You get a summary statement at the end of of each month, and then employees and sometimes financial people are asked to latto to audit those to make sure it’s correct. But the problem is that summary statements don’t give you a lot of detail, so it would be helpful if you could come up with the process a business process that makes it easy for people to create a ghost purchase order and send it to accounts payable with line item detail so that the accounts payable, people can match it one for one with the accounting summary statement let’s go out for a break, and when we come back, don, you’re not going to keep talking about that. You’re talking about different levels of control and i want to you. Want to talk about how that fits within a small organization that it isn’t gonna have made very well, not have accounts payable, so stay with us. We’re going to keep keep talking about buyer beware. Thank you didn’t think getting dinged. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get me to thinking. E-giving cubine this’s. The way we’re hosting part of my french nufer city guests come from all over the world, from mali to new caledonia, from paris to keep back french is that common language. Yes, they all come from different cultures, background or countries, and it comes tires to make new york they’re home. Listen to them, shed their story, join us, pardon my french new york city every monday from one to two p m. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll duitz welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent sorry, i can’t send live listener love were pre recorded today, but i do love our live listeners, and of course, i send pleasantries to those who are listening to the podcast. All right, don let’s, let’s continue with the credit cards. So your concern is that there be oversight of these purchases, but what if we don’t have an accounts payable office? Well, normally the small non-profit will have someone who is responsible for the financial aspects of the business and what it would, what you would do there. In that particular cases, you would put a policy and procedure in place that the person who was using the credit card had to generate the ghost purchase order and do the match and send the documentation to that one person for a final review. All right, so there has to be some review of these procurement card or credit card purchases. Yeah, i mean, like i said before, tony, every day you’re seeing people have stealing thirty thousand dollars or embezzling one hundred thousand dollars or doing something illegal for ten thousand dollars and when you get involved in looking at how that all happened, it happens in the procurement of payment process that’s where the controls breakdown that’s where the opportunity to at least do some cursory auditing is is possible to prevent that. At one particular case, i’m aware of a a small company who i had a system in place, and i suggested that they do something different. And they said, now we’re happy with what we’re doing. And just recently i read in the paper where they were embezzled for about six hundred thousand dollars in their procurement payment process. Oh my did you send an email saying i told you so? I did not know i would have i would have that would have been the subject with capital caps with a exclamation marks. I told you so. Yeah, it’s amazing tony. Just what? What folks are doing these days? I’m not sure whether it’s the economy or or whether it’s the state of you know how we live these days, but everybody’s looking for an angle and everybody’s looking for finding something for free. And unfortunately, in the procurement to pay process, lax controls give you ability to come up with what people say this was found money for myself? Six hundred thousand is about right? I mean, i would i would do it. I would risk my reputation for six hundred thousand it’s the five and ten thousand. You know, the twenty thousand? I just don’t. I don’t think it’s worth it. If you’re gonna do it, do it big. You know, it’s got to be deep deep into six figures before i would risk my reputation. I mean, everyone’s got their price. I’m giving people an idea where mine is. So you know, you know howto get my attention on. Be suspicious of people zoho own horses, right? Right. Right. Let’s move. Teo buyers, this idea of a buyer’s club. What could’ve non-profit do? How would they reach out to affiliated do or what? Not not even affiliate? Just other non-profits too joined their purchases and and have some leverage. Well, it’s an interesting question. So in the world of chambers of commerce, many of them, whether they’re local or state, have sub chapter’s are set up for non-profit. And they meet on a regular basis to discuss various types of opportunities and processes were together they can improve. Their businesses, they go through legal aspects of setting up a non-profit how you, how you go after funding in terms of better ways and to how you can join together for economy, of scale of purchases. So that’s one way another way is from time to time there are expose, which are just for non-profits in fact, i just attended one this weekend here in the lehigh valley of pennsylvania, where there were probably twenty five non-profits who had tables in a large mall right shopping mall, and i visited each one of the tables, and it became clear to me that when i asked the question around the economy of scale, they all had the same answer. We don’t know how to generate economy of scale, and i said, well, we could do it with just twenty five non-profits here in the mall and, you know, we’ll work on that with you, and they said, wow, that’d be great, you know, give me a follow up call so there’s a number of different ways where economy of scale can be grown all right, do you object to me calling this a buyer in a buying club? Is that? Ok for you with you. I find, you know, some people call it cooperative supply. Yeah, that doesn’t sound it’s cold. You guys have a way of making this sound dull. I mean, there’s there’s good information here, but cooperative supply. I don’t think you’re gonna get too much people too many people’s attention, but if you call it a buying club, i think that people that’s something people can grasp a little easier than cooperative supply. So i’m okay with buy-in club. All right, thank you. So, do we have to weigh reach out to non-profits whether they’re in expo with us or that we just know them, they’re in our community, whatever. And we just say, you know, maybe we can collaborate on buying together and save some money, isn’t that easy? It’s that simple, but what it takes is that in a non-profit it takes a decision around, you know, who is going to take that charge? You know, you know, who’s doing the buying currently in some small non-profits you have several people in several different areas making the purchases and doing the procurement for for the non-profit and other non-profits you have one person and all that stuff is filtered through that one person to make the procurement, so a lot depends on the organizational set up. And but once the organization set up is determined, okay, it’s a matter of reaching out to those people cross the non-profits and facilitating a buying club atmosphere, i think that’s great, i mean, there’s there’s considerable money to be saved in day to day purchases if if non-profits collaborate that way. Yeah, there’s there’s no question that there is and i would say hundreds of millions of dollars are left on the table because many non-profits don’t act in that mode. In fact, i know i know non-profits who are organized locally, but they also have st chapters. In some cases they have national chapters and there’s. They’re not currently doing any buying club type of collaboration let’s move to exploring multiple suppliers because that’s something that a buying club could do. But even a non-profit acting on its own should be doing why better tohave multiple suppliers of the same thing? Well, one of the reasons is that many suppliers have different types of products and services that give you the same end result, but in some cases are less costly because they’re more efficient and how they accomplished making the product or providing the service so it’s important to reach out to a number suppliers to make sure you you have a cross section of the suppliers, capabilities, and and the innovations that they have in terms of bringing products and services to you. It’s also a good idea to be planning your purchases so that you don’t end up in a crisis buying situation. Yeah, that’s one of the major miscues of, uh, many folks who are in the world of procuring and who were doing purchasing, whether you’re a small company organization and non-profit social organization, people do not plan their purchases. So what happens is you get to the end of the line when he i really need this tomorrow or needed a few days, and they find out that, you know, in order to get it, they have to pay a premium or they can’t get what they really need, and they have to substitute something that is okay but doesn’t do what they needed to do. It’s it’s the worst aspect of procurement when you do not plan for the purchase and you run out of time. You’re in a negotiation weakness every time with the supplier, vendor or seller who you’re going to and say, i need this. Tomorrow, you’re going to pay more money for it, it’s, just that simple. So you’re either going to spend time planning or you’re going to spend money, but you’re going to spend one or the other exactly that’s, exactly right, tony in. And unfortunately, yeah, waiting to the last minute is easy. Yeah, okay, sitting down and planning something out takes a little bit of time and takes a little bit of moxie in order to say, ok, what do i really want? But don? Yes. Okay, alright, i’m sorry. So so yeah, so you’re like a sari is going to plan ahead of time. And as as you are trying to find alternative suppliers, how would we go about doing that? I mean, we buy all our office products from staples dot com. We’re going to find alternatives. Well, alternatives that alternatives can be found in a number of different places. The’s, air capable and qualified potential suppliers. Of course, whenever you reach out to look for suppliers, not only do you have to find out who they are and where they operate from, but then you have to find out if they’re capable and qualified to be able to supply to but there’s without giving anybody a plug there’s something called thomas register dot net, which has i think that was a plo. Thousands of suppliers, thomas registered dot net. I think that was a plug done and the other the other areas are the chamber of commerce members. When you belong to a chamber of commerce, you can be involved in just buy-in doing work inside the chamber and getting to meet all of the different members who can be the pliers and cellars and it doesn’t mean that you have to buy everything from staples stables that doesn’t necessarily have have the best prices. I can tell you that just from my own research, staples and other large big box stores have good prices, but not necessarily the best prices and not necessarily the best merchandise. Three other place you could go is you can use search engines such as yahoo, google or being which khun khun xero you in on particular suppliers in particular areas, there are a number of small business expose that happened regularly. In fact, i attended one in new york city not too long ago at around peered ninety, which was an excellent place to meet new suppliers uh, with new processes and products on then there’s a number of diversity organizations and expose where people are trying to, uh, improve and increase the amount of spend that’s happening with diversity suppliers such as minority suppliers, women, own suppliers, veteran own suppliers and so forth. So on there’s something called mcrae’s book, which is another listing of suppliers it’s like thomas register and, of course, there’s always the angie’s list for services both local. And statewide. And then there’s something called institute supply management, of which i’m a member of which, which has literally hundreds of thousands of members across many types of products and services. And then there’s the referrals from, you know, friends, and and also from fellow non-profits i have i have a referral for office supplies. I happened like w b mason and so in i like them that their prices are lower. Yeah. W donations a great, uh, great supplier. And there very good competition to the other big box stores. Yeah, for sure. All right. We have just about two minutes left. Done. Once we have all these alternative suppliers in just a couple minutes. How do we decide between them? Well, the first, the first step, tony, is too. You need to create. They clearly defined request for proposal that levels the playing field so that everyone you reach out to knows exactly what you want to buy. That’s, that’s really important and and there’s. Lots of things you need to consider in terms of putting a request for proposal together. You know, for instance, let’s say, you’re putting a roof on your house, you know, you could get single warranties that air. Twenty, twenty five, thirty years. Okay, but in addition to that, you can get warranties that cover mold and mildew. So some singles, you know, we’ll give you a ten year warranty inside the long warranty for moldy mildew damage, and some will give you curling damage against sun damage. So you need to, uh, make sure you have a clearly defined request for proposal. You need to take into account the things that you need, uh, and want okay to get the best value for your money. And then once you do that and you get it out and you get the offer’s back, the next step is to make sure you do a standard kind of an evaluation of those potential suppliers. No, some type of format that allow youto lineup the proposals next to each other and evaluate them. I’ve used something called critical success factors which say, these are the important things that need to happen and does this supply or meet them? And then what are the key performance indicators or how do they meet them? And then i line those up across the different suppliers. It’s a it’s. A formal process. But again, it’s like planning. Okay, if you plan it well, you have the opportunity to save money. And if you evaluate supplier proposals well, you have the opportunity to save money. Don, we have to leave it there. I know you want to leave people with your email address. If they’d like more information. What is that it’s done at focused buyer dot com. Alright. And the site is focusedbuyer dot com. Check that out, don gene. Thank you very, very much. Thanks very much, tony. My pleasure to have you take care, everyone. How thoughtful. Yes do take care. Thank you. Don generosity siri’s they host multi charity five k runs and walks. You know them? They have a charity support team as part of the process when you are one of their charity partners and that support team helps you with your fund-raising the’s are people that you talk to on the phone. You talk to them. You don’t have to email them. You don’t the chat with them. You can talk to them. I like that. They will help you get more runners and help you motivate the runners that you get. So that there’s more donors for your non-profit that’s the whole purpose of this event. Talk to dave lynn he’s the ceo see about becoming one of their charity partners. They have events coming up in new jersey, miami, new york city and philadelphia. You can talk to dave at seven one eight five o six. Nine triple seven or the web generosity siri’s dot com can we get off? Alice’s back second week in a row. I’ve asked that question. I kept the video on top at twenty martignetti dot com for another week. I’m interested in what you think about the way l s has been treated in the media. What do you think? I think we should give them a chance to manage this enormous spike in money and donors let’s see how they do. What do you think i’m interested? Please comment on the video. Tell me what you think. It’s at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s. Take two for friday nineteenth of september thirty seventh show of the year. Maria simple. You know her she’s, the prospect finder she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot. Com and her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects now she’s our doi end of dirt, cheap and free. You can follow maria on twitter at maria simple glamarys simple. Welcome back. Hello there. How are you? I’m doing very well. How are you? You’ve been sailing. I have been sailing. It’s been a fantastic summer. How is yours? My summer was very nice. You were you were sailing for a couple of weeks and it occurred to me that when you’re sailing your pretty. Um all right, what i want to say you’re at the mercy of the weather. I definitely hear priorities completely change and focus when you’re on the water. We spent about ten days on our sail boats, of course, over the course of time, anything could happen with wind and weather, etcetera. So we got very lucky. For the most part, it was very good. How do you know you’re going to get back home on time? Well, way build in plenty of extra buffer time to have to stay an extra day or two someplace if the weather doesn’t get bad. But we do have a built in gps, so it kind of tells us what’s how long it’ll take us to get from point a to point b do you also have a built in engine? Oh, definitely built in and you do aren’t. So is that considered cheating for sailors? If you if you resort to your engine or now, not if you need to get out of a storm. That’s for sure. It’s not okay, that’s a good thing to have. All right, you have some thoughts generated from the l s ice bucket challenge what’s on your mind. Well, you know, i was thinking about it and thinking about how you know that that happened on such a magnitude and scale that, you know, most non-profits are not going to experience, but i was thinking about how this could sort of applied in non-profits who we’re getting into a season now in the fall, for example, where you might be hosting a run or a walk or your galas are coming up, certainly in the fall and spring there’s a lot of them. So i was thinking about, you know, how do you sort of manage this hopefully new influx of names that are going to be captured by your organization so first and foremost, i hope everybody’s capturing all of that information when people register your collecting those those critical data points that you want to make sure that you have obviously, you know, name, but address a cz well as where they’re employed. So if you can at least collect that piece of information that’s going to fill in another piece of the puzzle for you, should that person kind of moved through your pipeline to be more of, ah major gift prospect or a plan giving prospect at some point? And of course, you’re also going to collect email address kapin absolutely, and i want to stay engaged with them and, you know, people are usually feeling pretty good right after interacting with your organization through a walk or a run or a gala so it’s an opportunity to really capitalize on their good feelings that they have for the organization, so i would recommend that you actually have a smaller, maybe syriza’s two or three cultivation events, at least one cultivation event. But if you’re you’re a larger organization or, like a less for examples national in scope, right? So you’ve gotta have the a regional affiliates getting involved if you are a national organization, but you want to think about what could we be doing to host smaller cultivation events and get these people further engaged with the organization? So certainly people that are going to show up to a subsequent event, you know, as far as i’m concerned, all right? They’re showing additional interest in the organization on dh they are probably worthy of of doing a little bit more in depth research on before coming to that second follow-up say cultivation event that you would be having all right? So events very good for cultivation. What else? What else? How else can we sort of breakdown this file of hundreds, you know, because we’re going to keep it to scale the audience hundreds, maybe even into the thousands? How else can we sort of figure out who did continue to cultivate among this big, big news spiking in donors? We’ve got or or yeah, donors or runners, walkers, whatever. So if you happen to have a relationship already with a ah company that provides elektronik screening of your database, this would be an excellent opportunity to screen some new names very similar to what a college or university does every fall, right? They take the names of all the incoming parents and the students, the parents of students, and they make sure that they’re there screening that to try and figure out, how are we going to start engaging these people from their point of entry with our organization? So you want to kind of have that mindset? So if you have, you know, ah, relationship or maybe this is the time to start one with an electron ic screening company, that would be the ideal right? Just screen all the names and try and let those best prospects filter to the top for you that way, and those would then be the people that we would invite to the cultivation events you’re suggesting i would definitely invite to those top prospects to your follow-up event something you want to extend an invitation to a many people, as you can obviously, um, uh, depending on space and so forth is to where you’re going to be having these follow-up events. But if it’s going to be okay in a in a boardmember home, or maybe a boardmember has ah. Ah, a membership to a local country club and would be willing to host a small cultivation event there you want to think about, you know, managing your audience sizes, but for sure it’s an opportunity to screen them, try and figure out, and and if you don’t have a budget for doing a screening of paid screening service, you know, think about there’s, you know, a few sites that you could go to that are either going to be free or very low cost that are going to at least point you in the right direction and try and help you figure out, you know, where you want to start prioritizing this new pool of names that have been interacting with your organization? Um, you want me to kind of go through your arse, and i would do if i didn’t have a budget at all and screen some of those names on manually? Yeah, you’re are doi end of dirt, cheap and free. So you gotta you gotta live up to it, and then and then now these may very well be sites that we’ve talked about in the past, so if we have, you know, don’t don’t you have to go into a lot of detail, but definitely that’s ah, share a couple of sight, right? So obviously google, right? So you want to definitely google their name, make sure you’re putting parentheses around their name so that you’re researching their name as as an entirety, as opposed to any place that maria or simple would be mentioned on the web. You want to make sure you’re you’re researching the name as an entirety? You don’t mean you want to try and figure out, you know, somebody’s property where they’re living their primary and secondary properties. Certainly their primary property is probably, in most families that’s going to be the largest asset that is owned by by sea, individual or the couple. So you want to try and figure out a little bit more information about the value of of the home that they’re in. So whether you’re looking at a property assessment database to try and figure that out, or if you look at something like zillow dot com again, if you’ve collected that address information at the point of registration, you’ll have that so, you know, it is possible to manually do a lot of what thes elektronik screening services do it’s just going to take manpower so you might want to think about in advance of that event. Well, who’s going to be available, what hands do we have available to us as volunteers? Maybe you’ve got some board members who would be willing to step forward and take a list of, you know, names say, you know, we’re going to be assigning you a list of ten names to research, and we’re going to give you a set of sites that we need you to go to after the event and then start doing some of this research on our behalf, and so certainly property assessments would be one of them, okay, you want to try and figure out something about their property? Um, lincoln would be another good place try and figure out where the person might be employed, and so that would be giving you some information about whether they have their own business, whether they are tied to a larger corporation that might have matching gift opportunities that might have other opportunities to engage that corporation say through, ah, corporate giving program or a formal foundation, and certainly, if that individual happens to come up as a corporate insider. Now you’ve got a pretty good prospect there, because now this is somebody you can tap into for a gift of stock to the organization and gift of appreciated securities, and that benefits them by donating that. And, you know, we’ve we’ve talked about that before in terms of seeking out those types of corporate insiders to engage with your organization. Yeah, a couple of things, maria, you said, putting names in parentheses when you’re searching, you use google is example, but i think you meant quotes, right? Putting them oh, i did mean quotations. Yes, i didn’t mean to say parentheses sametz quote, yeah, sorry also you you read my mind thinking about boardmember xero there a couple of ways that board members could be involved or other volunteers don’t have to be, but but i was thinking of board members, especially for hosting the cultivation events. But then, as you said, also doing some of the from this follow-up research, these could be very good tasks for key volunteers board members? Absolutely, absolutely, because this is something that they could do on their own time from their home and justice if you’ve got that that pool, that manpower pool waiting, post event and knowing that they’re going to be having ten to fifteen names, whatever it is, however many names you’re going to be, kind of, you know, giving each volunteer to manage just pulling together some research on this is a great way to get them involved, you know, especially those board members who say, you know, i’ll do anything for the organization just don’t make me ask for money. Well, this’s a function that totally supports the fund-raising function, however, they don’t have to get involved in making the ass oppcoll now i’m not trying to get boardmember zao out of doing that, of course, but you do have some people who might just be better on that behind the scenes, providing you with that back-up and now you’ve got some board members who are going to be engaged at a different level and might say, well, gee, got, you know, i didn’t know we could so simply find out this this additional information that’s going really leverage and propel our fundraising efforts to a whole different level, so i would imagine that just getting them involved. In a small pool of names like this for them to research that they will then say, you know, what else can i do to help our development efforts with? With regard to research? I’ve had so many guests on saying how beneficial it is to plan your after event activities before the event, and i think that that benefit is emerging, because if you’re thinking about what you want to do to cultivate people who were engaged at this event, if you’re thinking about that in advance, then you’re going to know what data points you’d like to know in advance, and you can include that in your registration. So for instance, you might then asking the registration, where do you work? And some people may refuse to tell you for some reason, but a bunch of people probably won’t refuse. And so if you’re planning in advance to know what you’re going to do, then you know the data you’re going to need. You can put that into the upfront registration and other activities early on, right? Right? I mean, in this day and age, there’s absolutely no reason why any registration process for an event should be. Done manually at all he’s got so many different event registration systems out there, but you know, you’re able to collect every one of these data points, and like you said, you can make something like collecting their company data anon optional field, not a a mandatory required field because don’t forget, they’re there might be a lot of retired people right attending your event so it wouldn’t be appropriate for them to be filling that field in any way. So definitely always provide that optional field of collecting that data point because you just don’t know where, down the line that data points going become crucial for your your development efforts. The very best of the sites that will help you with your events, of course, is generosity siri’s, and you’ll be able to capture all this at the front end and with the help of their support team, you’ll figure all this out in the beginning so you can have valuable cultivation after then. All right, maria was very important. We got to take a break. When we come back. You and i will, of course. Keep talking about managing this big spike in donors. Stay with us. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll hyre have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Lively conversation, top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m lawrence paige, no knee author off the non-profit fund-raising solution. Dahna i still wish lawrence would pronounce his name panjwani be so much nicer than paige nani like martignetti i would never do that, but martignetti panjwani would be beautiful. Maria semple, we can’t do anything to change your name to make your italian, but no, but i am one hundred percent italian. So mei mei my maiden name is mackay. So i’ve seen that right. Maria mattei. Sam simple. I’ve seen that around. Yeah, so i totally agree with you. Yeah, tony, he should definitely be saying it panjwani i have to petition. Lawrence, do you know lawrence panjwani ideo yeah. Wait. Maybe if we just start using his name that way, so he forced into it. He won’t know. We’re talking about him. He’ll think we’re talking about some other larry. Larry panjwani sells salami down the street. All right, what else have we got for managing this big spike in and donors or attendees to our to our event. Well, you know, i was just thinking as we were going to break about, you know, you were talking about, make sure you have that follow-up event sort of planned and so forth beforehand. And i was thinking, well, you know, one of the things that you’ve heard, i’m sure in the past before either from mayor from other guests is that if you ask for money, they’ll give you advice, but if you’re bringing people in to ask him for advice will ultimately want to give you money, right? So you’ve heard that i’m sure a ton of time, so it would be really fun may be at this event tohave, you know, you’re photos and videos you’ve had a guest on in the past that turned me on to something called an emoto that you can pull together photos into these really cool videos afterward, but you bring them together and then just get them into an environment where maybe you’re asking them about what did you think went really well with our gail? Oh, our walk, you know, you’re kind of, you know, playing off of the good feelings that they’ve had engaged them further, but, you know, in terms of additional research, we were talking about corporate stock, for example, you know, try and determine if there are corporate insider and then before i get thrown into jargon jail just to remind everybody if you’re a corporate insider at a at a public company that means that you are considered to be a you know, on the board of directors or the top executives at a company, or you have been owned ten percent or more of the outstanding stock of that company. That means you’ve got to report all your trading activity. So all of this data is available on the seas, database, securities and exchange commission, so that’s sec dot gov or on the corporate website itself, there’s usually a tab called investor relations, and right there they’re going to be listing all of the corporate insiders and so forth. So again, if you’ve collected that data point to find out that a person works for x y z corporation, visit that corporate website, go to the investor relations tab, click into their their their latest proxy statement that they filed usually comes out once a year, very often in the in the late spring or summer is when people are filing the company’s heir filing these proxy statements and look at that last proxy might be known on the website as by its technical number, which is death d f fourteen, eh? So look at the proxy and try and find that person’s name, do a search to a control f on your keyboard, input the person’s name and see if their name shows up on that corporate proxy. All right? And that is all for the potential of generating gifts of stock from that person that’s, right? That’s, right? So and if the person is listed on the corporate proxy, their age is going to be listed there. Toni and so you know what that could mean for planned e-giving purposes? Well, if they’re sixty or over that they could potentially be a plant giving prospect long, longer term. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. So then you would think about ok. Well, if you’ve got a database that’s allowing you now to do that level of segmentation and tagging and flagging, he’d be able to at least say, okay, well, we you know, because seen that he’s listed on this corporate database that as an insider we’ve got an age listed of, you know, say, fifty eight, fifty nine whatever, you might want to flag them as somebody who could be a potential that you would want to start talking to are cultivating in that direction for for plant giving down the road. Okay, that all sounds very good. We still have ah, a couple of minutes left. Any other ideas that we haven’t talked about for managing this big spike? Well, you know, you’ve got your local newspapers write, um and you’re actually or your previous guest was talking about local chambers as being ah place to look for individuals, so find out, usually through your library website, you can have access to the local newspapers in their entirety for free, so run their names through the through the newspaper database to see if they’ve been profiled by another non-profit or maybe they’ve been given some sort of a citizen of the year award. Those types of biographical articles are great because they’re going to point you to information about those familial relationships, whether they’re married, how many children they have, what communities they live in and so forth and give you a lot of great background information. So, um, i would say, make sure you’re also researching as one of your stopping point if they’re mentioned in any of the local press you’re thinking about this was all generated by the ice bucket challenge for ah amigo, traffic, lateral sclerosis, what’s what’s your thoughts on how the media that the media is just reporting, but how people are critiquing a less what what do you what do you think? How do you and how do you feel they’re managing this enormous spike that got foisted on them? Very, very, very luckily very luckily indeed, yeah, it’ll be so interesting to see, i think that, you know, everybody, as you said, has their opinion about what should be happening with all of this, and and i agree with you totally let’s let’s see what they do because i’m quite certain that they’re going to be very capable of handling this in the appropriate manner and, um, it, you know, certainly, if they weren’t already engaged with using an electron ic screening service, they will be now. But, you know, it’s it’s an opportunity for us as as professionals who work in the fund-raising arena to kind of look at this is anabel lutely wonderful case study going forward, however it’s going to be handled one way or another, and i’m sure it will be handled very well. I’m part of the american marketing association they have a non-profit conference every year. Ah, and next june or actually july, i think when they have there their conference, i’m really hoping that there’ll be somebody there from this organization speaking because this will be so long, it will be a year after the, you know, the challenge really happens that i’m sure there’s going to be so many wonderful lessons learned even from a marketing standpoint of what to do for further engagement. So i’m taking very much a wait and see approach i’m eagerly awaiting to see how this will all come out myself. Maria simple is the prospect finder you’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com on twitter she’s at maria simple maria, thanks so, so much. Thank you, pleasure always next week your development committee is critical. Greg cohen is from cause effective also an interview from the non-profit technology conference. Or maybe fund-raising day start to bring those to you from fund-raising day back in june. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com remember generosity siri’s, you can have this big spike that marie and i were just talking. About they are at generosity. Siri’s, dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Our music is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. E-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting dink, dink, dink, dink. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, wanting to get me to thinking. I think. Come, join us for the thirteenth annual vigil for international peace and ecology on sunday, september twenty one. From nine a, m to six p, m celebration of live music and dance performances spoke a word human-centered ein art installations in a world peace flag ceremony that celebrates the united nations international day of peace. That’s sunday, september twenty one from nine a, m to six p, m central park numbered band shell by the bethesda fountain. For more information or volunteer, go to www. Dot vigil number four. International peace dot org’s that’s, the number four in the earl, or call to want to chip in to five, four, three two that’s a two one, two, triple two, five, four, three two we’ll see you there. Hyre you’re listening to talking on turn their network at www. Dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. I’m montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking.

Skip Wealth Screening For Planned Giving

Torn window screen

photo credit: quinn.anya via photopin cc

I consistently preach this to clients and audiences: small-and mid-size nonprofits need not spend money on wealth screening to find potential Planned Giving donors. You have all the data you need in your fundraising or CRM database.

Query your data for age and giving consistency and you’ll find your best Planned Giving prospects.

If you don’t have age info, consistency alone will work if you’ve been around for many years. Lots of my clients go back many decades, sometimes into the late 1800’s. But 20th century roots will be fine for you to rely on giving consistency as a proxy for age.

If a donor has been giving for 30 years, for instance, they’re probably in the age range you’re after.

If you don’t have giving data going back far enough to extrapolate age, then before you pay for an age overlay from a screening service consider this. Can you survey your donors with a reply card in your next mailing? If you don’t want to ask for date of birth, ask for age. It’s worth considering before you make the plunge into age screening.

An important word about giving consistency. Ignore gift size.

I literally mean if a donor has given you just $5 a year, and they’ve done it for 18 years out of the past 20, or 25 years out of the past 30, then they are an outstanding prospect for a charitable bequest, which is a gift to you in their will. (I said a lot about starting your PG program with bequests in this series for GuideStar.)

The students at Fairleigh Dickinson University’s Center for Excellence heard me say this just last week.

Age and giving consistency. That’s all you need to get started in Planned Giving.

Large shops will want to move beyond bequests, so they may wisely invest in wealth screening further down the road. But it’s not needed at the outset.

Small- and mid-size nonprofits can have very respectable PG programs that start and stop with gifts by will.

To launch any program–big or small–you can skip wealth screening.

#Fundchat: A Great Community

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The community that’s grown around #fundchat, a weekly Twitter chat, and now the #fundchat blog, is everything I love about the nonprofit community.

Kudos to Brendan Kinney the #fundchat founder! Back in March 2012 he was a guest on Nonprofit Radio to talk about his baby.

Since its infancy, #fundchat has taken off. During a 7-day period in November, 221 people used the hashtag in 847 tweets to reach 672,000 people.

The #fundchat community is a smart, experienced and fun bunch of fundraising pros who are development officers, consultants and marketers. I’m proud to be part of the group.

Each week in the chats we take on a fundraising topic and Brendan throws out 5 or 6 related questions. There’s lots of cross-talk as we ask each other to elaborate.

Storifys of recent chats include:

Giving Tuesday Post-Mortem
Improve Your Major Giving Program
Online Donation Form Check-Up
Launching A Career In Nonprofits

The chats are on Wednesdays at noon eastern and there’s info on the blog.

The blog! In October Brendan expanded the #fundchat blog to include nearly 30 guests. There are many new posts each week, such as:

Best of #Fundchat 2013 by Brendan
Are You Proud of Being a Fundraiser by Lucy Gower
An Open Letter to Fundraisers: Things I Wish You Wouldn’t Do by Mary Cahalane
8 Ways to Improve Your Fundraising Letters by Mary Cahalane
‘A Miracle On 34th Street’ and Donor-Centered Fundraising by Richard Freedlund

I love the #fundchat community! Join us!