Tag Archives: Emily Chan

Nonprofit Radio, December 2, 2011: SoMe 4 PG & Your Nonprofit In Politics

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Kristen Schultz

Kristen Schultz: SoMe 4 PG

Kristen Schultz, senior vice president for Crescendo Interactive, shares her research on the best uses of Social Media to support your Planned Giving program: videos; testimonials; blogging; technical info and more.

Please take a moment to take the survey for this week’s segment with Kristen! You’ll find it here at the end of the guest and segment descriptions. Thank you!
 

Emily Chan

Emily Chan: Your Nonprofit In Politics

Emily Chan, one of our regular legal contributors from the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law firm, identifies the limits around political campaign activity and electioneering. We’re approaching a presidential election year. What can your nonprofit do and how does the IRS decide if you’ve crossed the line? Under the First Amendment, what can your employees say?
 

 


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Dahna welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I hope you were with me two weeks ago when we had your plan. That was jason hutchins as my guest, he’s, the president of non-profit solutions. And he told you why you need a night plan and what belongs in it. We talked about budget equipment outsourcing the cloud and mme, or to help you avoid an crisis and the goods on google plus pages are tech contributor scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. He’s on with me once a month, you kicked the tires on the recently released google plus pages for organizations. Should you take one for a test drive? How are they different than facebook pages? And last week i hope you enjoyed your thanksgiving. I hope you did not go shopping on thanksgiving day this week. So me for pg kristen schultz, senior vice president for crescendo, is going to share her research and interview results on the best uses of social media to support your plan to giving program video’s testimonials blogging tech in from technical information and she’s joining us from camarillo, california our next guest on the show is also from california. It’s going to be your non-profit in politics emily chan, one of our regular legal contributors from the non-profit and exempt organizations law firm in san francisco, identifies the limits around political campaign activity and election earing we’re approaching a presidential election year. What can your non-profit do? And how does the irs decide whether you’ve crossed the line under the first amendment? What can your employees say on tony’s? Take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour my block this week is thank you. There are many things i’m thankful for, and i’ll talk a little about those on tony’s take two. We’re live tweeting this week we have a guest live tweeter manette singleton from atlanta, georgia. Thank you very much, lynette, thanks for joining us. You can follow lynette she’s at s c g for non-profits and that’s a number four and to join the conversation on twitter with lynette’s live tweeting use hashtag non-profit radio this show is sponsored by g grace corporate real estate solutions. We’re going to take a break. And when we returned, kristen schultz from crescendo. So me for pg, stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police crawl. Offset. Two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five, zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hyre hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com oh! Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio, i guess now is kristen schultz. Kristen is an attorney at crescendo interactive. She specializes in online marketing and social media for planned gif ts she speaks widely and is a principal faculty member of gift college christians on the board of the american council on gift annuities and isa boardmember for the partnership for philanthropic planning of greater los angeles, you’ll find her on twitter at crescendo tweet and her planned giving blogger is kristen schultz dot black spot dot com i’m very glad that kristin’s work brings her to the show. Christian schulz welcome tony, pleasure to have you on you did some research and some interviews to try to discover best practices for planned e-giving why don’t you tell us what your methodology was? Yeah, i was receiving questions on social media in my work with plan giving, charity and charities were asking me why my organization use social media were planned gift. Is anyone using these tools successfully? And how much time will this take? And really what they want to know is what is the return on their investment are they going to achieve any result from these efforts? And so i began looking for information in this area and found a lot really on the current giving side, but nothing specifically directed towards certain gifts. So i started to compile my own information i it took a survey and advertise it broadly and receive the numerous examples from charities across our community and began to share those as best practices that they spoke this last year and next year. Well, ok, and how many websites did you look at? How many charities did you hear from? I would say over a hundred different sites, and then i personally interviewed sixteen charities that i thought were the best example i found, and those are the ones i featured in my study, ok? And did those i guess the sixteen since you thought those were the best? Did they cluster around any particular mission? Charitable work? No, they were all different, i would say the majority of securities that are doing social media, our educational institutions in that makes sense because they’ve bought vast alumni networks and they’re already doing that for their students on. So i found a large group in the college and university field, but i have examples that are hospitals and medical centers and community foundations, all different types of organizations, okay, when i think that’s reassuring to charities to know that whatever their mission, they can do well with social media for planned e-giving maybe we should just give a little encouragement a little inducement, perhaps teo be using social media and promoting online giving? Well, obviously that’s an increasing trend right online, giving it is it’s an increasing trend and there’s been tremendous growth in that area there surveys produced by blackbaud, and they do the online giving report on video online e-giving group in two days ten by thirty five percent and at the same time, we’ve seen this rise of social media so there’s this explosion and growth on the web charities air trying to find easier ways to communicate more efficiently and cost effectively, and social media certainly is a place to be. Even if you think it’s a bad your donors or not, there they are, they’re there i looking at pictures of the grandchildren, and they’re on these mediums every day, and so it’s a perfect place to capture their attention? Do you find people who think that facebook, twitter linked in four, square are fads? Uh, you know, there certainly are some people that think that, but i think the majority of recognizing, like, the internet, a lot of people don’t want to set a plan giving websites, and now they realize that the direction the technology is going and we to be there and the charities that are there are going to capture that audience, and i didn’t mention google plus and i guess right, i guess you could say, you know, the i’ve seen written that tweeting it will be will be around for a very, very long time and there’s, the question is whether twitter would be around for a long time and that sort of captures, you know, the concept of meeting people online will, i think, is unending, but just whether it’ll be facebook ten years from now or google plus or something else that we don’t we’ve never even heard of, so i think the concepts will endure is just what platforms? Yeah, certainly we’ve seen changes in technology, you know, starting my face-to-face book, and now there might be a migration to google plus, we’ll have to see, but i think the idea is that individuals are out there, they’re using social media on a daily basis and whether you like the concept or not, that is where your supporters are at and if the captive audience and so i think there are a lot of charities that are really leveraging that they’re posting on facebook i daily basis, they’re not necessarily using it for fund-raising purposes and i don’t think that’s the goal, but they’re using it to build a relationship, and that really is the key. When we talk about plan, get what you want, a relationship and how should ah non-profit start in social media for planned e-giving yeah, i think the most important thing is to find out where your community is and the way you do that is through testing and listening there’s a lot of literature in this area that cantor kind of social media guru for non-profit she’s written about this non-profit technology network and ten has a lot of resources, but the idea is that you need to find out where your community is, and the best way to do that is to set up a facebook page, set up a twitter account, start posting and tweeting, advertise with your email on your website, and see where you are followers or your fans are at. And then, you know, this is the medium that’s working for me, and then you need to try some different types of posts or tweet to see what your community response. Teo so it’s a matter of really testing, listening and it’s going to be different for each organization. Christian schulz is senior vice president at crescendo. We’re talking about social media for your plan giving programme. We’re going to take a break. Please stay with us tooting, getting dink, dink dink, you’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz get in. Cubine are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, back-up two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics. Politically expressed buy-in, montgomery, taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m leslie goldman with the us fund for unicef, and i’m casey rotter with us fund for unison. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Durney welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio kristen schultz from crescendo interactive and i are talking about social media for your plan to giving program kristen i since you mentioned that this is not necessarily for getting gifts directly, but really just in large part building dona relationships. One of the poll questions that i asked listeners for before the show is whether you’re non-profit is using facebook to build donorsearch ships on day, three quarters of the respondents said either yes, quite a bit or yes, slightly and twenty five percent. We’re not using it at all, so overwhelming majority using facebook to build dahna relationships, what do you like to see in in terms of goal setting for social media around planned e-giving i think in terms of gold, you have to set some basic objective and then begin to track your results. I like the smart objective that non-profit technology, uh, network uses smart. I mean your specific about your goals, they’re measurable there, attainable the relevant and their time bound. For example, in the plan giving context, it might be that i post a link to sign up for my organization can give you use letter on facebook and i might that’s the goal of achieving thirty new sign up in the next thirty days so that’s, quantitative and it’s time down. But once you’ve set a basic objective like that, you can use some of the measurement tools to actually measure how you’ve achieved your results and absolute organizations want to see they want to see that they’re achieving results from their social media efforts. Where will we find the and ten groups? Do you know? Do you know there you are, l ten ntn dot or ge and that’s the non-profit technology network? Is that right? Okay, i have a lot of resource latto resource is out there for people who are dafs or social media experts who are actually doing the actual posting. Most of the organization’s i’ve talked to in the plane giving arena are not posting to the page. They have a general charity facebook page and there ford and post to that person. Okay, so let’s talk about some of the methods that non-profits can use are around social media for plan giving. What did you see around the use? Of video. Yeah, i’ve seen a lot of the area video, and i think this is a growing area. Facebook allows you to drop videos on youtube and establish a link, or you can record a video via webcam. Texas am university is an example of security that has dropped number of donors testimonials. I had a great one a couple of months ago. A couple of made a request through their will, and they are a couple that has spent generations of their family, their children and grandchildren through texas a and m. And so they shared their story and talked about why you should contribute teo and m in their requests, gifts and the benefit of social media with dr stories and testimony, menu testimonials and videos that individuals can respond right on the paint and so you can share in that enthusiasm. Both seems staff testimonials where staff members, charities will talk about why they’ve made a commitment to their will on and then mission videos are very popular. The citadel foundation has a great video talking about the work of their organization. Save the chimps are really wonderful, custom branded video that shares images of their work so there’s a lot you can do with video about facebook and all summer long, andi want toby reassuring to our writings, which is small and mid sized non-profits that that these videos don’t have to be high end there’s been there’s really compelling stuff out there? That’s really just like a flip cam, right? Really, you could drop anything on facebook that meet their specifications, but you’re just simply dropping the video out there and establishing a link, you know, youtube or where, and it just doesn’t need to be, you know, high production value as long as that you mentioned some donorsearch s timoney als and another question that i asked around facebook and since you mentioned it for listeners before the show is, are you using facebook to support your plan to giving program? Nobody said yes quite a bit about a third a little more than third said yes slightly and then all the rest, about two thirds said no, they’re not using facebook at all to support planned giving so summer some are using it for donor relationships generally based on the first question, but on this on this question, not really using it. So much for plan e-giving and that is true, and i did my survey there’s only a small group that it’s starting to use facebook and twitter and lengthen and some of these platforms for planned gift. But i think it’s a growing group, certainly we’ve seen a lot of growth the current giving side no securities air out there talking about their efforts, and they also have cast donation button paypal account’s attached to their facebook pages. But yeah, there hasn’t been a lot said about this in the plane, getting community and that’s why this research was so interesting to me, and i wonder if if some of that reluctance to use facebook for planned e-giving is because the older, older community sixty, people sixty seventies and eighties are reluctant to use facebook beyond, you know, just tracking keeping in touch with family. I think that some individuals you that correct, but it’s actually not if you look at these fucking site survey’s biggest growth has been in recent years women age fifty five plus they are online and again, they’re looking at grandchildren’s pictures and they’re on their facebook pages every day. And so there’s actually a growing group of seniors who are out there one of the individuals i talked with david moore from chapman university he’s got a facebook page that’s just dedicated to his plane getting group, and he established it because he found so many of the seniors who were supporters of the university were out there on facebook. So it’s surprising, but there is a growing group there and it’s, a group that you can capture their attention if you are out there with a present for your carrying on with kristen schultz, senior vice president for crescendo interactive. We’re talking about planned your social media for planned e-giving remind you that we are live tweeting when that singleton is guest live tweeting for us. Use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation on twitter and if you have a question you want to call in, we can’t take your call at eight seven seven four aito for one two oh eight, seven, seven, four aito for one two oh, you mentioned the quests kristen, is that really the place to start? If if you’re a small and midsize shop, is that the? Is that the place to start your social? Media effort? Yeah, it really is. The majority of plan gifts are still bequest. Request our blanket virtually any charity can offer and it’s interesting. Because if you look at the statistics, lawyers got confidence survey, sixty five percent of adults have no plan. And so a lot of individuals have not even begun to plan for their future. But planning when it does start its beginning earlier than we previously thought. It’s actually not a sixty five at forty forty five, the average age for the first will of actually forty four. And this is based on a study that was reproducing if key eventjournal average age for first requested forty nine and you can see actually metoo start capturing the attention of individuals in their forties when we talk about plan gift. Okay. And of course, i want to keep myself out of george in jail on the show we have judge in jail. And, you know, i said bequests. I just wanna make sure that everybody understands that that is a gift in someone’s will i think most people understand that, but i want to stay clear of dark in jail because if i’m in george in jail than be nobody to talk to you way we just have to hang up now would be the end so that we don’t want that. How about getting testimony? Sorry, getting technical information to either donors or advisors? How much of that did you see? I would say the most common plan getting post on facebook or tweet on twitter are short they’re typically wanted two lines with a short length back-up teo plan getting website and it’s really important to use a short link when you’re linking teo anything on your site, go to billy dot com or tinyurl dot com the best toasts are always the ones that linked to interactive tools or ask the reader to take action or respond. One organization i’ve seen it done quite well in marquette community foundation in northern michigan. They are on facebook and they have established a series of link on facebook. Teo will kit, and they invite people to download this freak it it’s a guide to planning your will and trust and that’s led to request discussions on the page. Uh, it’s resulted in vivid when someone asked questions on the page, and it seems that they’re interested to get planner will then take the discussion off the page and going have a normal visit, just like you would do with any plan gift, and that resulted in commitments for the organization. Both cast cash gift, but also bequest. Okay on dh that’s ah, technical information for donors. Did you see much use of technical information for advisors on being promoted around social media? I mean, i know technical sites exist for planners and advisors, but did you see non-profits encouraging advisers to go there through their own social media? I have not seen as much of that, but what i have seen is that there are a couple of non-profit that have advertise seminars for sessions for advisors, you, twitter and facebook, and i’m thinking of a jewish organization, the washington dc area, that sundown fairly effectively, but yeah, i don’t see a lot of post directed towards advisors from charity. Ok, let’s, talk a little about blogging. I know you. You have some have some tips about blogging. What? Just let’s again. Tryto encourage people. Why should there be a plan giving block? Yeah, i think that blogger is your own expression the way teo. Talk frankly about your work, your mission. And there are some organizations that have done that very effectively. Valencia college foundation in florida. Sorry, where was that? Was valencia? Yeah, valencia kottler foundation that gives planner there. Dahna marino has a great blogged herb log is on the word press platform and she’s featured a number of different types of plant gifts. She’s talked about the quest, uh, stock gift. She in a bequest post, will post her bequest language so individual knows how to include the charity in their plan, she always post to a gift acknowledgement, forms a form where the individual can fill that out, acknowledge a guest and join their legacy society on and all of her posts link back to her plan, getting website and her email and so she’s using the bloggers away to drive people to the plan, giving sight for more information and what’s your advice around driving people to the bog. I think that’s a great idea as well, it’s just that unless you build a really comprehensive block, you won’t have all of the information that you might have on your plan giving sight so you would have to make sure that you have big coverage of the different gift model and also, you know, some really motivating stories, but certainly she’s making a good example, someone who has built up a plan getting file, she actually files and takes her block and all of her blog’s are filed under plan giving. So if i wanted to find all of the information on plan giving on her block, i would just click on plan giving and she’s built up a fairly comprehensive list of posts on plan getting topic. So i think you can grow that over time, but it might not include all the information you might have on your plan getting website, you know, write clearly, and i was just i’m asking about howto promote the blog’s that people go there, people go there to see it, and then they find the information elsewhere. How does she promote or what? What’s your advice around promoting the block well, when i drop a block, i always tweet to it right away and so my twitter followers no, i’ve just posted something and then my block also migrates over to facebook so a charity can connect their blawg to their facebook page and by tweets also migrate over to facebook, and then i have my facebook page and my twitter account linked, smiling, then account, and so anyone whose only sin will be able to view both of those. And so when you connect your accounts like that, i think it really saved you a lot of time you only have to post or tweet in one place and the information then migrates over to the different platforms. So you’re reaching different audiences, and i know that he does that also effectively, they post to the block with your face. So all these are inextricably intertwined. They’re all pointing to each other. Okay? And then the block is the source of information deeper information you said their links and archives pointed to from there right? I also spoke to someone from unicef foundation and they have a great block. They feature donorsearch stories and they will post their facebook page a link to the block every time they have a new story. Alright, kristen, we have to leave it there. That’s video testimonials, technical information for donors and advisors and blogging. Christian schulz is senior vice president for crescendo interactive. She mentioned that she actively tweets. You can follow her on twitter at at crescendo tweet. Kristen schultz, thank you very much for being a guest. Thank you, it’s. Been a real pleasure having you. We’re going to take a break, and when we return, it’ll be tony’s take to my block this week. Thank you, and then after that, we’ll have emily chan talking about your non-profit in politics, so stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics. Politically expressed buy-in, montgomery, taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight, three. Conscious consultant. Helping conscious people. Be better business people. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable race? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back, it’s. Time for tony’s. Take two. My block this week is thank you. Thank you very much for listening to the show whether you listen live or to the podcast. There are a thousand of you that download our podcast from itunes and i’m very grateful for that. I also thank my clients for trusting me with their plan to giving work or their charity registration work. Thank you. Also to the eleven hundred people who get my weekly radio email alerts. I am grateful that you let me into your inbox thinly veiled as a radio show. Thank you. Thanks to those who follow my blogged and comment on the block, i have a lot to be thankful for. And there’s mohr gratitude expressed on my block this week. The name of the post is thank you and you’ll find my block at mpg a d v dot com. Thank you. That’s tony’s, take two for friday, december second. Joining me now is emily chan. Emily, how you doing? I’m doing really well. How are you? Excellent. Very good to have you back on the show. Emily is an attorney at neo-sage non-profit and exempt organizations law. Firm in san francisco, and she is principal contributor at the non-profit law blawg dot com. You can follow emily on twitter under her name at emily chan. Emily we’re talking this week about political activity we’re coming up on a presidential election year just generally what is the rule around political activity by non-profits so today we’re going to focus on five, oh one, three organizations, but it would be like public charities, and the general rule is that they’re absolutely prohibited from engaging in political campaign activity on so generally this means things like no contributions, no endorsement by the organization and no use of the organization’s resources by one candidate without giving equal opportunity to the other candidates. And i want to thank you for catching me. You’re very thoughtful when i say non-profits that’s really not right? We’re talking about five o one c three, the charitable part because there are lots of non-profits that are not five or one c three, not charitable, so thank you for that and you didn’t even even called me out and possible jargon jail violation was because i missed used the term we’re not talking about non-profits like labor. Unions or or membership associations were talking about exactly as you said, the charitable sector of the five o one see threes, but thank you you mentioned not using the charity’s resource is what what kinds of resource is do. Charities need to be careful about their employees possibly using or or the or board members possibly using so there’s actually quite an array of resources that could lead into political campaign activity if used improperly to touch upon the first one you mentioned about staff on board members there’s, a major confusion area for many five on three organizations about what their staff on board members could do in their individual capacity. Because people have first amendment rights so many times individuals want to engage in political campaign activity on their own behalf, sometimes it causes problems. So for example, when that individual uses their organizational email address, they make statements at an organization sponsored event basically things out with lead one to believe that it’s the organization speaking or asking that person to speak or supporting what that individual says. The organizations want to be very clear in making that separation between what an individual khun d’oh in. Their individual capacity on what the organization is prohibited from doing so that’s interesting just use of the company or the sorry the charity’s email. I mean, i think people probably use their office e mail all the time because it’s just so much easier than switching back and forth between that gmail account or something, but so if your if you’re using your charities email, then that’s gonna that’s gonna look like you’re speaking on behalf of the charity? Yes, it certainly could, and so organizations will wantto have policies to make sure that the individuals are aware of this. But i think in most cases, it’s not intentional. I don’t think the individual wants to get the organization in trouble, but as you said, it may just be a matter of convenience or just not being knowledgeable about the kind of restrictions on the organization. So the organization should really put this into a policy and educate their staff on board members about what they can’t dio another issue with the board members or officers in the organizational when they used their titles and they speak and then are identified as being what say, the president of such organization in most cases, you want teo avoid that one possible. But if identification is going to be used in that way, really have a disclaimer that it’s just for identification purposes, because, again, there needs to be a difference between, you know, joe speaking on behalf of joe it’s, president, when joe, as the president, speak on behalf of the organization. So if someone is introduced, then at an affair on and they are going to be talking about a political statement, so so let’s say, somebody introduces joe, and they say that he’s a board member of a charity and then joe goes and and gives his political opinion about whether it’s a candidate or an issue, you’re saying that the use of that charity’s name in the introduction could cause a problem it could. But again, there are ways to add more protection around that. So asking the host of the defense to put that disclaimer out there that it’s just for identification purposes, having now disclaimer language in let’s, say the event brochure just to be sure that the attendees who were coming in other outsiders who are seeing this know that it’s just being used. Teo identify this joe from another job, but it’s not actually on behalf of the organization that he people excellent advice? Is there a difference between talking about political candidates on dh political issues or they or it doesn’t matter if they’re certainly is so with this absolute prohibition? It’s a facts and circumstances, of course, many things god organizations care about are going to be related teo elections, i mean, the people who are in the office can really influence the kind of policy and, you know, laws that our leader decided, so there are some cream izabal election related activities. The best way i’ve had it described to me is that these air yellow light activities you always want to proceed with caution because of the fact that given any kind of facts and circumstances, it could cross over into this prohibited activity. So the kind of things that organizations can do with the would be activities like voter education, such a voter guide doing voter registration like we’ve seen get out the vote candidate education, so sending all the candidates to educate them, dr policy issues and also issue advocacy and if you have this in particular, is one area that organization should be cautious about as faras crossing into political campaign activities, especially if they have advocacy on certain wedge issues. So the kind of issues that really distinguish one candidate from another, such as, you know, pro life, pro choice, looking at all the facts and circumstances if an organization is only doing this in election years really close to the election that’s not going to look right to the iris, others, but if, for example, they do it all the years, including non election years made do with the same kind of mean and scope, and they’re really doing it then to highlight their charities agenda, then that’s going to be something that issue ads that is permissible okay. And again, the name of that test that the irs applies is facts and circumstances. Is that right? Yes, like most of their test way. Then you come back. Okay, well, i guess i’m context is important, but but it also that’s such a sort of a nebulous test that it doesn’t really give a lot of guidance to non-profits to charities, right? And so that’s again why these are yellow light activities. Proceed with caution certainly seek experts to help you, especially if you’re doing something that could be seen as possibly being in support or in opposition to a candidate for public office. It’s really important to note that because the rule as a friend and it comes right out of five one two three in the internal revenue code is absolute, the revocation is the penalty, so that is pretty severe. River give me revocation of charitable status. Yes, on so that’s a severe penalty that you know the death sentence, any charity? Generally speaking, you see more of intermediate penalties. And so there’s also a penalty tax that the irs can impose on the organization and managers who approved knowingly approve a political like senator. But because that way let me stop you. How does that penalty tax work tax on attacks on what so it attacks of the political expenditure. But it can be imposed on the organization, so that would be ten percent. And then it also could be imposed on a manager who knowingly approved the political senator. And that would be two point five percent of the political on does that mean the manager would be personally? Liable to pay that tax? Do you know or work in the charity? Pay it on the person’s behalf. The person would be personally liable. And there’s also a second layer of attacks that can come in if the organization does not collect it or the manager, another manager, or that the manager refuses to approve the correction. So again, there’s some serious final piece because the public charities really are not supposed to be election hearing organization there there for public purposes for the public. Good. Look, let me ask you, emily, how come things like voter education and voter registration? You mentioned how come those things are allowed? These are seen of activity that helped facilitate democracy, but the same concept, the pie again as far the organization needing to be mutual and nonpartisan. So, for example, with voter education guide, he should not be guide that rank candidate. They really should be informative so that it allows the individual to make the decision of who they will vote for voter registration again, that can’t be just targeted to certain political affiliation or, you know, some kind of group them that would be aligned more with party affiliations. Of the post suggest getting people to register so these guys really need to be fair and balanced on dh oh, my god, fair and balanced. That’s fox is to say that and then they told they can’t know that’s a bad phrase. Lynette singleton, don’t don’t tweet that out fair and balanced thes things need to be nonpartisan. They need to be neutral, right? Right? Is that it? Okay, um, something about the organization should keep in mind with all of its activities because again, they can help the facility with democracy help educate the public, but they really shouldn’t be making that decision for the public for who they vote for. Okay, what if a charity invites candidates to speak or invites a candidate to speak? How does that work if they want to have, like, a political night where the candidates themselves speak that impermissible election related activity? But again, there are certain back-up that the organization wants be sure they take care of so all candidates should be invited to speak. If you’re having something like a debate, you know each candidate should be able to have equal time to speak there should be unusual moderator creating as much of a mutual, unbiased environment as possible will be important. You know, no campaigning, far fund-raising should be taking place, and no one from the organisation should be making statements to support or oppose someone who was there. Okay, again, neutral, you even mentioned neutral moderator very good. Okay, we’re going to take a break. Emily chan is going to stay with us, of course, for our last segment, talking about your non-profit and politics and election earing. So stay with us. Talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to me, my chauffeur, ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You’ll hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. They get non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting. Are you concerned about the future of your business or career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment, be more effective be happier and make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking. Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back. Emily chan is with me she’s one half of our regular legal contributing team of jean takagi and emily chan. And they’re both with the non-profit and exempt organizations law firm in san francisco. Where is jean takagi this week? Emily? How come, she’s? Not with us? Xero jean is here. He’s taking care of some other matters that the office is busy. You know, that’s how the holidays go. Nice he’s in the office and you can’t come to the phone right away. He’s. Not in the office. Cubine is not the office. All right, you’re covering will be on the next. Okay, i keep document these things. There are records you mentioned training a couple of times, what’s what’s the best way to train employees about what the policies are so that they know that the constraints, the first step to training, i think, is having a policy, i think that’s something that many organizations don’t have when it comes, teo advocacy related work, having the organization first become aware and informed of what they need to know is so crucial to then passing on that training, too. Volunteers dafs so once they have the policy, it really just be something of going through the policy together of revisiting that every year and making sure it’s up to date with the law and making sure that that handbook essentially is acceptable to anyone who would be having access to things like the organizations, email or social media accounts or would be staffing and events. Something we haven’t talked about yet is on individuals, election choices. Can i use the charity’s email or platform and and say what i’ve, how, how i voted or how i feel about a candidate? I don’t know, not about a candidate, sorry, but can i say how i have voted or how i intend to vote that is most likely going to be viewed closer along the lines of prohibited political campaign activity, again, using the organization as a platform than to an outsider, it certainly can have the appearance of the organization itself now engaging in this prohibited political campaign activity, even if it was an intentional, really, you know, organizations should not be able to indirectly circumvent the rules, so in that case, organization should not be publicising how individual votes and individuals in the organization should not be. Using organizational resources are platform teo voice that since this fact in circumstances test is so nebulous, i’m going to guess that social media is going to be kind of a gray area, depending on what the activity is like. Like if the organization lynx let’s se teoh somebody’s into account its website. Yes, that’s correct. A social media is such a dissolving field right now, there’s a lot of uncertainties and question marks far how the wall will fall down on this, but it certainly creates more opportunity for organizations to unknowingly or even knowingly violate the rules. So the irs has suggested, basically, from most of it, revenue rulings, another information that’s coming out that it is going to hold charities responsible, for example, the links that they have established on their web site. Two other pages, so what’s item bob chat room bulletin for its face. But this is all being treated the same way printed material has been treated traditionally by the irs. Not something organization needs to be careful about, because, you know if you link to a page one day that page, maintain tomorrow and you may not know that so any kind of connection you have to outside link should be revisited and ensure that they’re not putting the organization in a bad position. How does the irs find out about these things? Do do we know? Do they randomly check oars that when somebody blows the whistle, how does how did they find out? There are many channels for which the irs will start investigating an organization. It may come from news reports from reports from the public from things that they know internally, but win organisations so out of form ten twenty three they also put their website. And so that is something that the ira certainly will look at at the initial stage, and it’s something that on record too. So there are many ways to find out what an organization is doing, especially today on and if you are let’s, say, a controversial organization, it would not be surprising them that the media would also be paying a lot of attention. He was, well, way talked about linking to candidates website. What if the organization links to all the candidates websites with that, then be election education or you think that would be over the line? It depends of course, so that the best you can always say no family depends what gene gene over here getting no, i’m joking it again. We want to look at the purpose for why they’re linking to begin with. So it’s it’s something more similar to a voter education guide where it’s saying, you know, descriptions about each candidate’s and then providing it as like a more information line that’s that’s more like, you know, neutral information being passed on to the individual. If it’s something though we’re now it seems like one candidate is getting, you know, kind of more favoritism, mama sight or, you know, kind of less exposure like you have three candidates on your main page and to that air four clicks in, so there are a lot harder to find then. Now the facts and circumstances changing there’s no real purpose for linking it. That also raises the question of why the winks or even they’re really it would depend on all the facts and circumstances for why those wings are on the page to begin with. And your answer that it depends, i think, is perfect because it is because charity’s it is a nebulous test. Facts and circumstances and charities need to be very, very cautious and risk averse. Yes, on a great point that comes out of the question to questions about the different ways that organizations can connect tio candidates. So i believe you mentioned things like friending or re tweeting or liking their pace. I mean, these are all questions that the irs is going to have to deal with. So from a more conservative standpoint, you know, organization stands, they want to be very cautious about kind of avoiding any situation that could potentially lead to being seen as a favour to them. No, again, if there’s no real purpose in doing it, it’s probably best to not put the organization at risk by testing the waters in those areas where the irs is not clear yet on how it’s going to take a position on the kind of action. Emily chan is an attorney at the non-profit and exempt organizations law firm in san francisco. She’s, a principal contributor to the non-profit law block, which you’ll find at non-profit low block dot com. You can follow her on twitter at emily chan emily, thanks very much for being on again. Thank you for having me, it’s. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Give our regards to jean. I want to thank my guest this week, kristen schultz and, of course, emily chan and the net singleton thankyou for live tweeting lynette, you’ll find lynette at singleton consulting group that’s her company, and you can follow her on twitter at s c g the number four non-profits next week fund-raising throughout your life cycle, what does fund-raising look like in these stages of a non-profits life brainchild, startup adolescents, maturity, stagnation decline? And how do you avoid the last two of those stagnation in decline? We’re going to talk about fund-raising throughout your life cycle with jeff sobel principle of jeffrey sobel consulting and marrying major and planned gif ts are these two compatible? What do their courtship and marriage look like? 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Nonprofit Radio for September 23, 2011: Research On Women Donors & Learning Lobbying Lessons

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

Interviewing Samantha Cohen at Fundraising Day NY 2011
Samantha Cohen: Research On Women Donors

Recorded at the Fund Raising Day conference in June, Samantha Cohen of the American Civil Liberties Union reveals how to reveal the giving potential for your female prospects that is often hidden.
 

 

 

Gene Takagi and Emily Chan
Gene Takagi & Emily Chan: Learning Lobbying Lessons

Are you anxious to comment on the proposed Jobs Act? Our legal contributors Gene Takagi and Emily Chan explain the limitations on lobbying by charities. What activities are lobbying? How much can you do? And how do you report it?

 

Here is a link to the podcast: 060: Research on Women Donors & Learning Lobbying Limitations


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Here is a link to the podcast: 060: Research on Women Donors & Learning Lobbying Limitations
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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host and it’s friday, september twenty third, two thousand eleven i certainly hope you were with me last week when we talked about learning office lease lessons. First we talked through the walk through how do you find the best space and use different spaces to strategically head into your lease negotiations? My guest was george grace, who has done this work for dozens of non-profits then what least terms do you need to be careful about? And what are the negotiating points? I was joined by attorney robert j smith and kate piela, executive director of dance new amsterdam, and we talked through the dance companies less than desirable lease to bring out lessons to help you get the best lease next time this week, it’s prospect research on women donors recorded at the fund-raising day conference in june. Samantha cohen of the american civil liberties union is going to reveal how tow reveal reveal how to reveal wth e-giving potential for your female prospects that is often hidden and learning lobbying limitations are legal contributors jean takagi and emily chan explained the limitations on lobbying by non-profits what activities are lobbying, how much can you do, and how do you report all that on tony’s, take two in between the segments, thinking is underrated. My block post this week, the aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. We’re going to take a break. I hope you’ll stay with us and then prospect research on women donors. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s a lawrence h bloom two, one, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, are you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Hi there and welcome back right now i have a pre recorded segment for you from june at fund-raising day in new york, we talked with samantha cohen of the american civil liberties union about prospect research on women donors hears that pre recorded sessions welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven at the marriott marquis in new york city. My guest right now is samantha cohen. She is director of principal giving at the american civil liberties union. Samantha welcome, welcome. Thank you. Pleasure to have you samantha’s topic is prospect researchers research on women donors how to research female donors and out of female research female, major and planned e-giving donors what is the importance of females in individual giving? Let’s start with that, samantha. Well, i think it’s very important to realize that women are outliving man, and at the end of the day, the wealth transfer is going from the man to the women. So a large proportion of e-giving will be directed by webbing, women, both outright and very much a steak gaps. Is it often hard to find the what the wealth of women? Is it often? In the husband’s name now the deceased husband’s name or is that a problem? That certainly can be a problem, but you can you can find some of the resources. I think the key with the research is to pay very close attention to the holistic picture when you’re doing a profile, not just looking at the particular name on the real estate records, but looking at all of the real estate records, looking at the names on the e-giving history when you could look at it as a whole, you get a much better sense of what the individual. Okay, so you’re advocating holistic prospect research? Absolutely okay, not only looking at the financial records you’re you’re part of the workshop was really about using the prospect research to on on women to best advantage, but what do you as a gift officer? What do you like to see as the product that’s that comes from the prospect researcher? So i am very dependent on prospect research. Sure, i am certainly interested in the wealth indicators i’m looking at the estimated wealth capacity, the gift capacity, but i am as interested in the indicators that tell me about e-giving. Priorities. So i’ll give you a very good example. We had a fabulous case study that i talked about today, and the research showed some great wealth. All of the real estate was in the husband’s name, all of the giving history was in both of their names and e-giving seemed to be to certain extent schizophrenic it seemed to be all too human and health services and education for half the guests, and the other half of the gifts were women’s rights and reproductive rights, and that didn’t make sense holistically. So i use that to drive a lot of questions, asking the couple individually what their priorities were came to find out the only thing they shared wass thie, my organization, and that, in fact, we were their single biggest shared priority, which, when i looked at their other giving based on research, were five figure gives suggested to me that there was a seven figure gift for us so that’s a great example of your talking about researching female prospects, but again, holistic approach. You have to be talking to the husband as well, if he’s still living? Absolutely, absolutely. What about other family? Are you often? Involved bringing in other family members aside from the spouse, we are very involved in doing multigenerational giving, and we actually talk sometimes two, three and four generations of families and it’s very interesting that families, when we’re dealing with wealth at the top one percent top ten percent that those families often erm having formal meetings, formal discussions and learning about who the power players are within those discussions within those families is incredibly valuable. We had done on older, older child, for instance, very influential to the mother and father. Absolutely. We had done some research and found that the man was in the health insurance business very, very wealthy. All of the money was his, and he had generated it. But in conversations with him came to find out that the family, he, his wife and the children make the decisions as a family, but that it’s, very democratic and the women in the family actually usually out vote the math. So instead of continuing to meet with him alone, i asked if i could come and meet with the women. So the role of women is not only because greater longevity no, not at all, they’re making a lot of the decision now you said you are very interested in the wealth indicators. What do you like? Sort of specifically like to see from prospect research in as you’re preparing? I want to see if there is political gether. If there is political giving, i’m looking not just amount, but who and what they’re giving it to. I want to see real estate, i want to see a publicly traded company information i’m also interested in news articles about why companies were founded as particularly valuable when i’m dealing with a woman and she has owned and founded her own company, finding out more about why she created that company and they’re often profiles business journals and community journals. That information could be very directive into how these in having these conversations is there. Is there value in? Well, clearly there is value in the financial information. Are you reluctant to meet with someone before you have some prospect research on them? What’s your what’s, your personal pride election that way so i want to have something i want to know some of what i’m going into, but i’m not going to have the lack of that information stop me from meeting. So with some people, you confined very little and some you confined, nothing is not going to stop me from having the meeting. There is nothing more powerful than standing face to face with someone and asking the questions, that thing. The thing you’re listening to the talking alternate network. E-giving thank you. Good. 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 hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading. Learn how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m kate piela, executive director of dance, new amsterdam. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. And how important do you find the meeting to be in feeding back to prospect research? I think that’s something that has been missing a lot in the business there’s a lot of push out of information from research officers are not very good at sharing it back. We tend to like to do a full circle, so i’ll come back and say, i heard that they were very involved, maybe in a different country, maybe in a different state. Can we do some research there? I’ll bring that back, our researcher will do more information, and it becomes his fabulous feedback loop that includes the donor that just creates this beautiful fall fall because there’s there’s nothing better than sitting with someone right over a meal for an hour, hour and a half or in their office for thirty minutes that i’ve always thought that’s the incredibly valuable prospect research you’re finding out wealth of information you find out more than you ever can from the database, and it sounds like you’re using the written material when you do have it to inform the questions that you’re going to ask, right? I mean, you’re you’re running the meeting? Absolutely. Talk a little about running them, running the prospect meeting for us. So for me, for the meeting, i don’t want to spend a lot of time talking about mission or about the organization. I already know the organization, they often know the organization and with our members, they’ve known it probably longer and better than i ever could. So i want to know about that. I want to ask questions like, how do you make your philanthropic decisions? Why do you give to us? Why did you first give to us? Do you and your husband make the same decision to have the same have the same priorities? Those of the questions i want to ask and learn about when do you make your decisions? I wanted to drill down and find out, are they ultimately are their assets that they can give that we couldn’t find? Have they considered including real estate, how they concluded considered including in a state gift? So i normally spend probably two thirds of the meeting asking those sorts of questions, finding out a lot more about what they do, why they do it, and then i’m going to make a solicitation, i don’t like meeting without making the ass outstanding gift officer. Of course, you mentioned the hard to find assets. What kinds of questions do you ask to try to find out about what’s? Not so public. So one of the things that we’re seeing a lot of now as the economy is starting to finally take up is an increase in pose cos they’re starting to go public again. Let’s, identify that now. Tony martignetti non-profit radio we have george in jail. I would hate for you to be subjected. Jog, jail, right? I don’t have my keys. I sometimes have warden. I don’t have them. So just define aipo for people. So when i po it’s, an initial public offering and it’s when a private company is listed on a public exchange, the dow jones, the nasdaq on a public exchange so the public can invest in it, brings in a huge influx of cash to the business and becomes often a liquidity event on opportunity for the owner before the company was private to get some of their investment out. Okay. And though so, there could be some significant tax benefits that can be syntax considerations if you think of it as a year in which you have more money. What do you do with that money? So so how do you how do you get to dahna? Well, you would know, i guess, from the research that they do own a privately held business, i will and that’s normally about all i know. Okay, so how do you go from there? I will ask questions about how the business is doing. What’s going on with the business from research, i will also often see an uptick in marketing material. So all of a sudden, there are more news articles on the business, there’s, more press and there’s no reason why, after ten years in business, they should be in every business journal for the last six months. It’s suggest to me they’re trying to build their brand and something is going on, so i’ll actually ask about that. And then at that point, someone could often say, well, we’re on the verge of going public, and then i can have a whole different conversation you want to give stock now, do you want to give stock after there’s a whole different conversation? So i’m looking for information. To know where the business is. Conversely, it could also be looking tio here that someone is divesting themselves of a private business. They’re retiring, they’re going to give it to their kids, that’s a whole different liquidity event. So i’m looking for those and that’s information that i confined sometimes for research, but much more from the conversations that’s an outstanding example of using the research to go much, much deeper in your meeting this’s tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of the fund-raising fund-raising day two thousand eleven with samantha cohen, director of principle you have the right principle giving at the american civil liberties union, and we’re talking about prospect research for females with female prospects and using that using that research wisely, i’ll ask you sort of ah, you know, softball question, what else would you like to say about using the valuable research? I think that we need to use the research we have. We need to be careful. We need to be analytical in that research, but we can’t depend solely on recent okay, lack of research shouldn’t stop you from getting out the door. That’s right on. How much of your time would you say you spend out of the office not nearly enough, but i would like to be out of the office at least seventy five percent of the time. Okay? And what is it that keeps you in when you’d like to be out or if you if you don’t want to say that so much, what strategies do you have for getting more time out of the office in with donors and prospects? How do you minimize that office? Time to get you more out a targeted portfolio, so really weeding out the prospects in the in the portfolio that aren’t going to produce. So i’m doing a lot more qualifying meetings to look at people to figure out know this person is not going to be a major donor, and i’m removing them from the portfolio so that my portfolio is becoming much more targeted, which allows me to spend more time with fewer people, produce better results, okay? And as you’re as your meeting with those better prospects, let’s, go back to the cycle ing back of information to the prospect research team. You use a call report for that if you have a sit down what’s the what’s the mechanism for getting that information back to prospect research. So the formal mechanism is a contact report that i write within twenty four hours of the meeting meeting think memory things get lost, so i write it down very quickly. I get that into our database very quickly, and then i’ll often go and sit down with our prospect researcher when i’ve had a particularly illuminating meeting and share with her the types of things you wouldn’t necessarily put into writing. Yes, okay, and might that conversation include people that the person knows who? Maybe a c l u knows or doesn’t know your prospect knows them absolutely connectors and new prospects are things that regularly come up in our durney meetings that we share not just one on one with our prospect researchers, but as a major gifts team, we often have conversations about that and you’re your portfolio what’s the what’s, the age range of your portfolio. I have donors in their twenties, i have donors in their nineties, so we are full, full across the board are average, doner is in their sixties, but the age of our large donors is quickly decreasing, so we’re getting over forties and fifties, it has as much to do with our targeting and multi generational conversations. Is anything else? Okay? The conversations, the meetings that you have with women let’s, let’s focus on women that’s the subject of your seminar women in their eighties nineties how do you how do you talk about there? Differed or plant e-giving how do you open that conversation with them? So when somebody reaches their eighties and nineties, they’ve often already got their plans sorted out. So it’s a little late to be asking to be included in someone’s estate, although we certainly wouldn’t shy away from making the ask it is a little late, but if we if we talk about people women in there, maybe a little younger in their sixties and seventies, we’re talking about a similar generation. I’m often asking questions about what they want to leave behind as a legacy, and i’m asking questions about do they want their gifts and their legacy to reflect the life that the woman maybe shared with her husband? Is it about honoring his memory? Is it about honoring him or, as we often find, once the husband passes away, the woman has a different focus and wants to make gifts that matter. So asking about priorities and legacy and what they what message they want to leave behind to their families into the world that’s often what the conversation is about how do you manage it if you’re in that situation the husband has recently, he passed. Well, let me ask, is most of your portfolio women, or is there another proportion? I would say it’s probably sixty five percent women, okay, they’re slightly slightly when you’re when you’re dealing with a man or a woman whose spouses recently deceased, and you suspect that it was the spouse who was the primary giver, my mary-jo donorsearch too american civil liberties union. How do you approach that surviving spouse? Wait, i think the most important thing is we do approach them, we don’t assume because the spouse who was the instigator of the e-giving has deceased, we don’t see him that e-giving can’t continue, and i think that’s a very key point, you don’t just let people go away exactly, and we don’t leave them alone for months and years on end. Obviously you need to be respectful and not be there the next week, but we want to let them know that we’re still they are and that we still care and we’re still interested in them and so we try to have a meeting pretty quickly, and often it becomes a nostalgia conversation about this, about the husband, about why he gave, which will allow us to talk about what do you share those some of those same values? Are you as interested as your husband wass in civil liberties? That conversation can lead us while my husband was interested in a particular area, but i’m more interested in this area of your work, so we can recon target our messaging that’s good that’s a home run. They’re still interest in your work. Just a different part of it. Absolutely or we may find they may not be interested at all, at which point we can talk about the possibility of a gift in memory of they’re loved their loved one. Alright, so still keeping the door open until they absolutely say no more, no more giving to your organization, but it’s it’s nass ity tour you don’t really give up until you actually shown the door. How many years do you have in individual giving? I’ve been doing individual giving for fifteen years. Shows senior out senior senior gift officer c o l c a c l u is lucky to have you, samantha. Thank you. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven. I’ve been with samantha cohen. She is director of principle e-giving yes, at the american civil liberties union and samantha, i want to thank you very much for being a guest was a pleasure. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much. That was my pre recorded segment from june fund-raising day here in new york city. Right now, we’ll take a break, then, after the break, it’s, tony’s, take two, and then after that, learning, lobbying limitations with our regular legal contributors, so stay with me. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Yes. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you concerned about the future of your business or career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. Website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications, that’s the answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com hello there. Welcome back, it’s. Time for tony’s. Take two. My block post this week is thinking is underrated back in what for me were dark days when i was a lawyer practicing law i usedto have to account for my time in six minute increments tenths of an hour and there were lots of billing codes for things like court appearances and drafting motion for summary judgment and responding to motion to dismiss and telephone conferences. But there was never a billing code four thinking about your case, and i always thought that a lawyer’s best contribution to a client’s situation, which is usually a problem situation not always, but usually would be thinking, i’ve spent my time thinking about your case strategically and the attorneys who were involved in the other parties that are involved and your needs. And but there was never a billing code for thinking, so my day’s got much brighter because i only practiced law for about two years. And now, in the brighter sonny your days, i do a lot of thinking, and i don’t have to account for my time anymore in increments of six minutes and that’s what the block post? Is all about encouraging you to think just spend time thinking actively consciously about things that are moving and important to you, whether their personal or professional. In the blood post, i mentioned a lot of things just as examples that i spend time thinking of an and that i spend a lot of time on vacation and also on the subways, actively just giving thought to things in my life and that’s. What the block post thinking is underrated is about encouraging you to do the same, and that is tony’s take two for friday, september twenty third, two thousand eleven want to welcome jean takagi and emily chan are regular legal contributors. Jean takagi is principal of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blawg at non-profit law blogged dot com. Emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage, the principal contributor to the no non-profit law blawg, gene and emily. Welcome back. I think it’s a pleasure to have you. We’re talking this week about lobbying limitations. So what? Gene are some of the activities that could constitutent lobbying just so people are are conscious of what they might be doing that could become lobbying great question tony and way to think about a lot of wealth, so jobs loving is essentially attempting to influence legislation and the activities that might constitute lobbying our writing legislation, trying to meet with legislators or legislative bodies and influence how they might act on a proposed bill and things of that that nature. We might do that with a ballot measure and go out to the people or talkto our members or the public and tell them to contact their legislatures about specific bill constitutent ok, and can also include the use of social media and blogging. Absolutely, tony, great point, so blogging is just on dh social media use is just another way to communicate, and if you’re communicating to legislative bodies or legislators, legislators better have have their own social media sites or have their own blog’s and websites, and many of them do that khun b lobbying and if you are getting your members or you’re encouraging the public to engage in the same types of activities to influence legislation and contact legislators, that could all be lobbying using social media and blog’s and twitter and facebook and all the rats, okay, so i want to come back to social media in a few minutes after we’ve talked about some of the some more details because that’s that’s really interesting and also the point of the possibility of someone posting on non-profits site and whether that might be considered lobbying, but i think we need to do a little detail work first, and emily, there are laws, there are no, they’re not laws yet there are bills and acts under consideration now that non-profits might be interested in commenting on one way or another, right? Yes, tony so loving is getting some renewed or re energized attention as of late because of some things that were seeing on both the federal and state level recently on the federal level, there was the budget control act that was fined and that’s calling for one point five trillion dollars cut decided by that twelve person bipartisan committee, and certainly there are many non-profits better concern that they’ll be at the chopping block with that cut. Additionally, we just saw the proposed job will act. I’m spoken about which will limit the charitable deduction for certain we’ll be individuals, and then on the state level, we’ve seen some pushback in massachusetts. The attorney general earlier this year tried to propose legislation that would require prior approval by the attorney general’s office before non-profit could compensate executives, but these are the types of legislation that non-profits may want teo voice an opinion on or put out communications that reflect the view on that, encourage others to contact legislators or for themselves to go ahead and do that as well. Right? So we’re not just talking about federal law, but also and any state initiatives that could impact non-profits and that they might want to comment on and emily so how do we decide how much lobbying a non-profit can do? So in the internal revenue code for public charities under five, oh, one, seat three, it says god, public charities cannot engage in more than an insubstantial amount of lobbying and the default test for that is really all facts and circumstances. The irs will look at everything, including the time spent the resource is such expenditures on decide whether the organization has now stepped over that line into substantial lobbying activity that really leaves many organizations uncertain and scared in many. Ways, because there is no strict percentage or limit on that. So what organizations can do is elect to be measured by something called an expenditure test, which is under section five a one eighth of the internal revenue code. And unlike the people in this one, is measured only on expenditures. So it really gives organizations a better gauge as how to measure their own lobbying limits within compliance with the law. Okay, holy cow. All right, so that’s a ton of stuff. So? So you have to do lobbying that’s? Well, i shouldn’t say less than substantial because that’s not what’s in the code. So you have to do lobbying, that’s insubstantial or or less if you’re a five a one c three. Right? Okay. Cancel amount of total activities. Another way too. Wait, i’m sorry. Say that one more time in a substantial amount of total activities. Ok? And so then there are two different tests you’re saying to measure whether you’re you’re meeting that threshold or your or your exceeding it, right? Is that that’s standard? I should say that standard or you’re exceeding it. Is that right? Yes. That’s correct. The default. Substantial part. Okay. There’s the expenditure testament organizations can elect to be measured by filing a one page form. Okay, before we go into too much detail. So let’s talk about the substantial part test you say substantial, substantial part of what substantial part as activities. So it goes back to the language and five oh one c three and saying that organization can army engaged in an insubstantial amount of lobbying and there’s no exact equation as to how the irs will do this, it will just look at all facts and circumstances. Okay? And you said that this is the default test. So careful around jargon jail, because for lawyers, default is very clear. But for others may not necessarily be. That means that everybody’s covered by this test, unless they choose the other one, right? Yes. That’s correct. And then that’s, when they would file a form form fifty seven sixty eight and elect into the expenditure. Okay. And jean, let me turn to you and ask when should a non-profit or what types of non-profits should try tio or should apply to be under the expenditure test. Well, it’s going to be most non-profits tony that are going to be benefiting from from falling under that test. The five oh one h expenditure test really works out for all charities, particularly if their annual budgets are under seventeen million dollars a year. And i would think that that’s going to cover most of the people listening, okay, organization and how do you come up with that number? What is that? But under the substantial part test that emily was talking about again, if you don’t do anything, and that’s how the irs is going to look at your lobbying and they look at everything assembly was talking about and the general rule of thumb that people use that professionals use and trying to give guidance. Tio non-profits is saying that well, there is an old court case that five percent of your organizations, time and effort spent on lobbying. That’s not substantial. So it’s okay to do up to that amount, but anything over them that we’re not really sure of. So if we took a look at five percent that’s that’s going to be not a lot of money for a small charity for, you know, a million dollar charity we’re talking about a cz little as a five thousand dollars when we go into the expenditure test, their specific limits that we know we would need teo comply with in order to stay under that threshold, and the limits are pretty generous. Tony twenty percent of your first five hundred thousand dollars in expenditures in furtherance of your mission would be insubstantial. So that’s one hundred thousand of your first five hundred thousand dollars that you spend would be insubstantial fifteen percent of the next five hundred thousand ten percent of the next five percent of the next. It ends up being tapped at one million dollars. So when we look at that one million dollar mark, and then we go back to the substantial part, tess, we know that at about seventeen million dollars that’s when the substantial part tests and expenditure test looks to be fairly, even if we’re just looking at that five percent mark as the rule of fun rule of thumb with substantial part test okay, biggest benefit of the bible in h expenditure tests for most smaller non-profits tony is that all volunteer time spent on lobbying doesn’t count of lobbying? Volunteer time doesn’t spend doesn’t count, so so you can have lots of volunteers going out and knocking on lots of doors or leafleting and doing things, and none of that time counts. None of the expense of that time counts toward the calculation. Well, none of the volunteers time town on that calculations are only expenditures. That you might have in that equation would be factoring what staff time that you might be paying for to organize the volunteers and maybe some printing materials. But for low cost or no cost lobbying measures, the five of one age expenditure test is of great benefit. Okay, we’re going to take a break, and my voice just cracked like i’m fourteen years old, and when we return, we’re going continue learning, lobbying limitations. This is excellent detail to stay with us. Talking alternative radio, twenty four hours a day. 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 lebowitz, 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 hunters. People be better business people. Dahna this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing effort. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is. We do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com talking. Lively conversation. Top trends. Sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio. And i’m ken berger from charity navigator. Welcome back to the show i’m with our regular legal contributors, jean takagi and emily chan. We’re talking about lobbying limitations. Gene, you mentioned that where this five percent is based on an old case. So how come it’s ok to rely on this old case? Because we don’t have anything else, tony so we don’t really have anything else to rely on. There may be some private letter rulings, but theres so specifics with facts and circumstance is that they don’t really touch on an overall level anymore. So all we have is that old court case that’s at five percent of time and resource is that that was insubstantial and okay, okay, and you invoked a lot of mathematics. You know, i went to law school because i’m poor at math, so but i was able to follow your explanation, but that’s about as far as i can go, so don’t bring in any algebra or anything. Just keep it tio addition and subtraction. Andi, i’ll be okay. So and what is the form that non-profit uses to elect the the more advantageous one that’s for small non-profits the five oh one h test it’s form fifty seven. Sixty eight and has emily mentioned one page form super easy to fill out one of the easiest forms that the irs has? Okay, fifty seven, sixty eight there’s no t on the end of that it’s not fifty seven. Sixty eighty no tony from from the earned income was that elearning yeah, i like the tee form. See if you can find some more of those that have a tv in them. Okay? And then let’s just based our conversations on those. So so we have to do research. Well, you do find all the forms and have teas, and then we’ll talk about that that’ll be the subject for future future shows that you’re on so let’s see, emily, how do we oh, so let’s, talk a little about social media now, okay, so now we know the two different tests. So emily suppose somebody posts puts a block post aren’t just comments on a block and a non-profit advocating, you know, opposition to the charitable deduction limitation that you were that you mentioned earlier. Does that fall under lobbying? Tony it’s really going to depend it’s going to depend on the facts and circumstances around that situation? Social media is certainly a place where the risk is there, um, and it really is going to fall on how the organisation is monitoring its own social media. So, for example, what kind of user agreements it has if it has a moderation policy, the dance that an organization takes on the way that they control their own platform is going to possibly affect whether the irs decides to say that that’s lobbying and challenge them and as well how courts are going to interpret the factions. There’s actually a really good resource that recently came out from alliance for justice called influencing public policy in the digital age. And it’s, a resource precisely on social media and a lobbying an election related activities. Ok, is that alliance for justice dot org’s? Do you know it isn’t free and it came out okay. Okay. It’s. Always troubling when you know when you when you guys say and i think this related to earned income also it depends on the facts and circumstances. That’s, it’s, it’s. So nebulous though, hyre. And you also said emily it it depends on the way the non-profit is monitoring their blawg. What do you mean there and could you could talk a little bit louder for us, too. There are different schools of thought as teo, how organizations should approach monitoring their own platform. So on one hand, organizations can decide to have moderating policies where they say they will take down information, not violate their community by lines of their terms. And if something were to happen, such as lobbying by a user who came on, you know, they may be able to show good faith, but at the same time they take on that responsability and apparently the administrative burden of monitoring that forum. On the other hand, there are organizations that choose not to moderate the forms, and they just put out a disclaimer that they don’t moderate it. They don’t stand behind necessarily what’s being put on there and it’s not a reflection of the organization. While that does take away some of that burden, then of going through in filtering the comments, it may be more difficult than to show that they are taking the responsibility to ensure that they’re not engaging in substantial amounts of lobbying lobbying, and it also creates a bigger risk that then, you know the free for all on their forum for whoever comes across it and whatever they want right there, you can’t just say we don’t monitor it and it’s not the opinion of of our non-profit that’s not going to be good enough? You can say that, but there is a question as to what position that puts you in certainly the law and the irs. They’re trying to catch up with these new avenues of social media and how to apply these very traditional rules to these new forms of media that, you know, create opportunities that weren’t previously available. Yeah, the laws are not keeping up with the changing digital landscape, certainly let’s. See so jean, did you find any there’s tea forms? Gene on the break, by the way, looking way had a two minute break it and i thought you come up with half a dozen by them. So there must be a reporting mechanism. If we’re concerned about the substantiality of lobbying activity, there must be some way that non-profit have to report backto irs. Absolutely so the form nine ninety is their annual information returns and whether you form filed the form nine, ninety or the nine ninety easy version you have to file a schedule c, which reports all of your lobbying activity and there’s two ways to report it. So if you are under that substantial part test, you didn’t do that that five o n h election and you fall into the substantial part test. You have to last her a lot of questions about whether used volunteers and what other resource is air being used for lobbying? But if you file that five o one h election, as i recommended for most organizations, especially smaller organizations, then you just record your expenditures and on the social media issue that really works out to your benefit as well, tony, because how much money did it cost to lobby when he just got a comment back from somebody that put in a lobbying position? It might have cost you almost nothing, right? So then you don’t worry about it so much if you paid that election and we’re talking here about the tax implications. But there is another federal requirement around lobbying activities to reaching that’s, right? So if you’re gonna be live ing on federal issues, you may also have to look at the registration and reporting requirements in the lobbying disclosure act, and those can be fairly complicated, but those air outside of sort of the tax requirements of around lobbying and you’ve got to talk with attorneys who understand the lobbying disclosure act on the federal level and possibly if you’re looking at state level issues or local level issues, you’ve got additional registration reporting with state and local authorities as well. Okay, so, uh, substantial, and what about the let’s? Say the pastor? This comes up in new york, a lot of pastor on a pulpit around election time on dh he or she is advocating for either one of the one of the ballot initiatives for against or for or against a candidate. Jean how does that fall into what we’re talking about? Well, when they’re talking about a ballot initiative, then we’re talking about a form of lobbying. So in the case of a pastor preaching to his congregation or even to the broader community we’re talking about typically grassroots flopping, which is lobbying where you’re going out to the people and telling them how to vote or tell their legislatures on how to vote sametz i’m going to actually back-up one step, however, if the people on a ballot initiative, if it the people themselves of the lawmakers and not the legislators, legislative bodies, then that would be called direct lobbying because you’re going directly to the people who make the law the people themselves. Well, but if you’re on the if you’re on the pulpit, you’re talking teo anaugh audience of congregants, and they’re all voters. What is that then? It’s still lobbying? So if you’re if you’re got a position on the law and telling them how to vote on the law, it would be lobbying the one thing that you mentioned that might be a segway for another show tony is, is when pastor on the pulpit start telling you who to elect for public office. Okay, now we’re talking about candidates, not issues, right? Okay? And in that case now we’ve got an election hearing activity and five a onesie three organizations, including churches, are prohibited from engaging in that type of political activity where they’re endorsing a candidate. Okay, that does sound very good. Why don’t we talk about that next month? Because there’s an election in november so we can talk about election earing and the limitations around that in october has that sound sounds perfect and, well, look way need that. Yeah, yeah. The subject is off the table if there’s no tea forme because tony form. So forget about it. You know we’ll do election next time. That’s. Emily chan and jean takagi emily gene, thank you very much. My pleasure, gene is principal of neo, the non-profit exempt organizations law group in san francisco. And emily chan is an attorney at neo. I want to thank both of them and also my first guest, samantha cohen from the american civil liberties union and all the very thoughtful people at fund-raising day who enabled us to have that booth on the exhibit floor to do the interview with samantha and and a bunch of others. Those interviews have been playing for the past couple months next week. It’s employee engagement deshele dorsey from changing our world is with me to talk about how your non-profit khun gained from company programs in giving, volunteering, mentoring and even loaning executives and also our regular prospect, researcher contributor maria simple, the prospect finder will be with me as well next week. You can keep up with what’s coming up! 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Nonprofit Radio for August 19, 2011: Explaining Earned Income and Leading the Leaders: Motivate Your Board to Fundraise

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

You can subscribe on iTunes and listen anytime, anyplace on the device of your choice.

Tony’s Guests:

Gene Takagi and Emily Chan
Gene Takagi & Emily Chan: Explaining Earned Income

Our legal contributors, Gene Takagi and Emily Chan of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations Law Group, break down what earned income is. Why it can be good. Why it can be bad. Why you need to understand it to keep your office out of trouble.

 

 

Kerry Kruckel Gibbs
Andy Robinson
Andy Robinson & Kerry Kruckel: Leading the Leaders: Motivate Your Board to Fundraise

From the Fund Raising Day conference in New York City, consultant Andy Robinson and Kerry Kruckel, Vice President for Development and Communications at WNET TV, reveal how to move your board to be the best fundraisers they can be.

 

Here is the podcast: 055: Explaining Earned Income & Leading the Leaders: Motivate Your Board to Fundraise


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

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Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio. We’re always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I hope you were with me last week for got women donors from the fund-raising day conference in new york city last june, we talked about successful initiatives to expand your female donor base through targeted and appropriate cultivation, solicitation and stewardship. My guests were michelle walsh from the us fund for unicef and travis fraser from united way of new york city. Then it was linked in for prospect research. Our new regular contributor, maria simple, the prospect finder, was with me to share strategies for using linked in to find people and organizations who could be your board members, volunteers and donors. This week we are explaining earned income. Our legal contributors jean takagi and emily chan breakdown. What earned income is why it can be good. Why it can be bad. Why you need to understand it to protect your non-profit and keep it out of trouble. Then it will be leading the leader’s. Motivate your board to fundraise pre recorded at that fund-raising day conference in june consultant andy robinson and carry kruckel, vice president for development and communications at w any tv public tv in new york city reveal how to move your board to be the best fundraisers they khun b on tony’s, take two from my blog’s, say what’s on your mind. I learned a lesson about better communication from somebody who sat next to me on an airplane this past weekend, and that is tony’s. Take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour we’re live, tweeting today, use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation on twitter. We take a break, and when we return, i’ll be joined by jean takagi and emily chan to explain earned income. Stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Bilich hey, are you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com lively conversation top trends, sound advice, that’s, tony martignetti non-profit radio and i’m samantha cohen from the american civil liberties union. Welcome back to the show and thank you, samantha cohen. Jean takagi is principal of ennio neo non-profit exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blawg, which you’ll find at non-profit law blogged dot com. Emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage principal contributor to the non-profit law blawg. They’re both joining me to talk about earned income. Jean emily, welcome to the show. Thank you, tony. Pleasure to have you back. Jean earned income. It can be good. It can be bad. What are we talking about? Well, when we’re talking about her dinkum, we’re talking about income that said, made by non-profits that’s not true. Donations through grants through charging fees, usually for services. Good. Jean, let me let me interrupt you for a moment. Could you talk a little louder? Jane is better. Yeah, that is better if you can keep up that. Thanks. Great. So earned income is about making income from services or goods or other assets that the non-profit may have to sell. And it’s not just asking for donations or grant on it’s. A way to diversify a non-profits revenue sources. Which is a good thing. Especially in times when other revenue sources from donations and grants maybe somewhat precarious because of the economy ah, and it helped to create a self sustaining program of the non-profit another really good thing in a way for non-profits toe leverage, goodwill and other ass. Yep. Okay, so this is income aside from your fund-raising a cz you said sale of goods or services there, there there there’s a lot of earned income out there, isn’t there? Jane? Absolutely. I believe emily sighted in in a recent block post that about seventy percent of the income reported by non-profits is actually derived from earned income sources and not fund-raising okay, so the majority of the of the income all right, and emily this khun b, that could be a downsides and non-profits too, right? Yes, there are to mean reasons why non-profits should be aware of this concept of unrelated business income because first thurs attacks that the irs imposes on income coming from unrelated business activities and second for public charities there’s a requirement that the organization be operated primarily for exempt purposes. So if there is too much unrelated business activity happening, that can actually jeopardize the status. Of the organization. Okay. Jargon jail have to getyou for unrelated business income. Unrelated to what? Let’s, break this down. Yes, on that really? The key concept here. So within earned income there could be activities that are considered related to the exam purposes for which the organization was formed. And then there can also be activities that are considered unrelated to be exact purpose of the organization. Three irs defines this three part of a trader business that’s regularly carried on that’s not substantially related to furthering the except purpose. So really, it gives the definition for unrelated business and that’s kind of how we see which activities are considered related or whether they’re considered unrelated. Okay, so i think the key phrase there is substantially related. Gene what? How does the organization decide whether it’s earned income is or is not substantially related to its a charitable mission? It’s definitely a fact specific inquiry, tony. The general idea is that related business advances the organization’s charitable mission without considering where the profits go. It’s the activities himself that contribute, importantly toe advancing the mission. So even if there was no money generated from that activity, the charity would think that running that business is a good idea because it helps again further, the mission furthers, uh, the interests of the charitable class of individuals trying trying to help no unrelated business is one where the activities really have nothing to do with advancing the mission, but they’re carried out to generate revenues that will be used later to advance the mission and it’s that’s unrelated business that could be subject to the unrelated business income tax and that can get a charity in trouble if it’s engaged in a substantial amount of of that type of unrelated business activity. Okay? And you you draw and a n’importe distinction. I think, between the activity that creates this earned income and the place to where that money goes once it comes into the organization, we’re interested in the former, right? Exactly. So for this analysis, we don’t get her where the money goes. We’re just looking at the activities himself, okay? Yeah, go ahead. Sometimes very difficult to tell. Tony, for example, does selling clothes or other retail items really further a charitable mission. And, you know, on one side, you might say, well, it looks like a department store. It looks like a boutique, but it can for their mission if, like, goodwill, the operation of the business provides education, job training and work experience for disadvantaged class of individuals so it can be very fact specific, and we’d look at all the facts and circumstances to determine whether it’s related or not. Okay, and we have just a minute before the break. So so the activity that we’re interested in is the activity that generates the revenue the income let’s call keep put consistent generates income, and you’re comparing that to the tax exempt purpose, which would be the charitable mission. And that’s, how you’re determining whether the income is related or unrelated? Why am i explaining this? Right? That’s? Exactly. Right. Okay, cool. All right, so we’ll take a break, and when we come back, emily and jean will stay with us. We’ll talk a little bit more about how to determine where, where this related or versus unrelated income fits. And what happens if it turns out to be unrelated. Which sounds ominous. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio stay with us. E-giving attempting to getting thinking. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get him. Good. Duitz 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. Looking to meet mr or mrs right, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as the building as possible? Then please tune in on mondays at ten a. M for love in the morning with marnie gal ilsen as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all tune in as we discuss dating, relationships and more. Start your week off, right with love in the morning with marnie gal ilsen on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Schnoll welcome back, we’re with jean takagi and emily chan explaining earned income. So, emily, maybe we could talk about a couple of other, maybe just fact situations where i guess the irs has determined or, you know, or some court has determined that that something was definitely related or unrelated income. Can you give another example, besides the one that gene had with the goodwill? Sure, another common example is with museums that generally have this charitable and educational purpose, but they also generate income through activities like a gift shop or having a cafe. So now we’re looking at the specific activities, and the irs doesn’t a kind of a broad stroke with activities it’s going to look at each activity and even within that activity kind of separate parts. So starting first with the gift shop, i’m emily, before you go further, can you can you speak a little louder? Force? Thank you better. Yeah, it is better, thank you within a museum, gift shop, museum, maybe selling items that i’m advanced charitable and educational purposes, for example, their reputations of the art that’s displayed on other items like that, but they also may be selling things like seven years to the city for which is located, which really is not going to be considered substantially related to charitable and educational purpose at the museum. In that case, the irs look att each item, maybe even and determine whether that’s related or unrelated, and so it can get quite nuanced if we done looked to the cafe. Now we’re talking about some of the activities where the irs also make exceptions. So some cafes in a museum may be considered related if they fall under the exception of being there for the convenience of the members and the patrons who come into the museum. But then, if we’re looking at a cafe that open to the public that list, they have the street entrance. Now it’s starting to look like a commercial cafe for-profit cafe, in which case we are arrest may come in and say, this is unrelated income, and now the museum has to be concerned about the two issues we raised earlier of pre-tax or possibly okay, that’s really interesting. So so within this category of earned income, some of it can be related and some of it unrelated, and then the non-profit has to. Account for those separately, like within the same cafe or the same museum store? Yes, on so this is. And another misconception that comes up is not an activity itself, such as running a cafe can actually generate both unrelated and relieving income. I’m so again, and she noted it’s just very fact specific and the na me but they’re not the museum when it reports it’s income in its annual information returned to the irs got toe actually list out every item that generates related versus unrelated business income so it would have to say, well, we we sold some t shirts and mugs of the city city souvenirs. This generated this much income that would be subject attacks. We thought this many art prints and books on art which would be related and not subject to that attack. Yes. Ok, so they do have to account separately for all these different categories of related versus unrelated. Wow. Okay, so is that so it’s fragmented? I mean, they’re the income is fragmented and that’s exactly what the irs calls that they call it the fragmentation rule. Okay. And let’s talk a little more. Jean about the consequence of of unrelated, it earned income. It’s, you and emily both mentioned the unrelated business income tax is that what gets applied to unrelated income? Exactly, and the whole idea be behind the unrelated business income tax was to address the problem of unfair competition with for-profit businesses on dh back in the fifties, when when the law was first created, there were a bunch of large non-profits like universities buying for-profit businesses and not paying taxes when running them within the non-profits can imagine that a small business it could be very upset if this big non-profit competitors came in, didn’t have to pay tax and had this huge competitive advantage over the small business owners, plus the additional advantage of not paying property tax, et cetera, the other the other advantages, aside from not paying tax on the income right, exactly, exactly right. And so you could see how they would be this unfair competition if non-profits weren’t tacked on this unrelated business income, and there is a one thousand dollar general thresholds first, one thousand dollars sort of escape, but beyond that, then it’s considered substantial enoughto require that the non-profit file a special information return or tax return. Reporting it’s, unrelated business income tax and the income tax is a tax on the normal corporate tax rate that a corporation would have to file a for-profit business would have to file, which is generally somewhere between fifteen and thirty five percent rate. Okay, and there’s an additional return to report this beyond the nine, ninety it’s not just a schedule in the nine, ninety that you that you ah, that you file correct it’s a separate return called the form nine, ninety and just like the nine, ninety, it has to be publicly disclosed. Okay, tea for taxable. Maybe. I don’t know. Okay? Or tea for tony, i think it’s the nine. Ninety tony for i prefer that. Okay, so who should be making this call mean, does this this is definitely require an attorney? If you have this earned income that you know, outside you’re fund-raising income, you’re getting money for goods and or services? Does this have to be an attorney making the call as to whether it’s related or unrelated her candid account into it? Or or who? Offgrid i think it’s a mixture of individuals that really can help make this decision. I’m in one respect there really is a business decision that has to be made by the organization and its leaders, even if the organization is generating related income. I mean there’s questions about whether there’s capacity the resource to support it and weather engaging in these activities might even lead to something like mission creep, where the organization starts to move further and further away from the reason it was organized. I’m certainly having the help of experts can be incredibly useful for an organization as kind of our discussion is highlighting there’s so many nuances to this rule, and unfortunately, the irs doesn’t give kind of a straightforward, bright line threshold to say where you’ve crossed that line and now have based on certain consequences, such as getting your tax exempt status provoked. So i certainly think there are many people who could be useful durney i’m with jean takagi principle of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. Emily chan is an attorney in that firm. So emily, you just mentioned possible revocation of your tax exempt status. What? We haven’t gone that far yet. What? What is that about? So public charities when they first formed one of the requirements under the internal revenue code is not this organisation be primarily operated for the exempt purpose? The issue with unrelated business income is now is there’s too much unrelated business activity? The irs is now saying you’re no longer being primarily operated for related purposes. Unfortunately, though the iris has not said definitively at what point can you say now? We were engaged in substantial on really business activity many people ask for, like percentages or income amounts, but unfortunately, the irs hasn’t spoken on that. Many practitioners fall on the twenty percent rule of thumb of, um, the amount of generated income coming in, but sometimes being office may reap are looking at the amount of resource is the organization is actually dedicating unrelated business activity as opposed to how much income is generating let’s stop for one moment. So on emily, i have to remind you speak a little bit louder, please. So twenty percent you’re saying some practitioners use a twenty percent. What are we taking? Twenty percent of if that’s your if that’s the test, you’re using twenty percent of gross income from unrelated businesses, okay? And and some practitioners think that is a threshold for for what, when you have to report it or or what it’s a good rule of thumb common amount that many practitioners fallen for when the organisation should be concerned now that they may be e-giving into too much unrelated business activity in which consequences could be oh, i see. Ok, so there isn’t a bright line. There isn’t a bright line as to how much is too much. Some practitioners use twenty percent. I don’t there’s some practitioners who think as long as it’s not above forty nine percent that you’re okay, yes, but certainly arrange again because the irs hasn’t said exactly at what point they believe that the line is drawn and partially because the analysis is still back specific, it may just be difficult for the irs to say definitively across the board this is the one amount where every organization must follow-up right, i can jump in turn, please, you know the irs is really looking at all. The resource is being used by the non-profit that’s directed at the unrelated business. So if it’s, using ninety percent of its resource, is not to engage in charitable activities, but to engage in the unrelated business and the unrelated business is only generating ten percent of the total gross income. Well, that’s still probably too much unrelated business activity devoting ninety percent. You know of your resources towards it on dh. That could lead to revocation of exempt status even below that twenty percent rule of thumb. Because we’re really not just looking at the income, really looking out at how the organization is using its research. So on the sort of congress sight, if it was using only five percent of its resources and it was generating eighty percent of the growth income of the non-profit that may be okay really generated so much income is just so little resources are going towards that, and then the other ninety five percent are all going towards furthering its charitable purposes directly. So it’s it’s really more than just the percentages, but anything over twenty percent, i think emily cause that is a good rule of particularly for account that he may not be looking at the activity level, but looking at the numbers and saying, hey, you better talk to an attorney when you get to that level of income from unrelated business. Okay, interesting. So i just want to recap a little where we’re talking about earned income, which is different than your fund-raising income, but so it’s a part of your gross revenue apart from fund-raising income discerned income and then earned income could be either related or unrelated. And we’re talking about now the consequences of having too much of the income unrelated. And jean, you had said the threshold for reporting is a thousand dollars. Is that right? That’s? Right. Ok, so if you have over a thousand dollars of unrelated income that’s, when you have to file the nine ninety tony form nine ninety tony form that that’s, right? And i should add, actually sort of define what growth income means without trying to get into jargon jail here. Okay. Income for this purpose is means the gross receipts, less the cost of good souls. So, for example, if we had t shirts and we sold two thousand dollars worth of t shirts and the t shirts costs us twelve hundred dollars, how then are gross? Income is only eight hundred dollars, so we wouldn’t have to file the nine. Nineteen. Okay. Okay. Ah, are there? Are there exceptions to the so what’s could be unrelated business income, gene? Yeah, they’re they’re exceptions to the whole area, unrelated business income tax and whether it would apply and the common exceptions that that we talk about are the three basic ones. When is the volunteer exception? So if the unrelated business is carried on by all volunteers, that will be an exception, and those activities will not generate income that’s subject to that unrelated business income tax. The other one emily mentioned is when activities unrelated business activities are carried on for the convenience of members or patients or students, and that might be like a hospital, gift store or bookstore in in a and the university or the example that emily brought up a cafe inside a museum that serving just the museum patrons. That’s called the convenience exception and is another exception where you don’t get charged with that unrelated business income tax. And the third exception that’s often cited is the donated good exceptions and that’s when you run an unrelated business like a thrift store. But all of the goods inside the thrift store were donated so similar to again the goodwill model. In some cases and and other thrift stores that are run by non-profits it’s a business and it’s unrelated but it’s all donated goods so they don’t have to pay the unrelated business income tax there’s one more modification we call separate from these three basic exceptions that everybody should know about and that’s the passive income modifications. So if you’re generating a lot of income from interest and dividends and red ilsen royalties but it’s passive, you’re not doing any activities, teo, get that that income it was just based on investments that will not be subject to the unrelated business income kapin but it gets so complicated that they’re exceptions on exceptions and exceptions, those exceptions? Yeah, no kidding, especially. I’m sure about the passive income when you start getting two rents and especially ranson and there’s prints on commercial property. Okay, let’s, not go that far. But i am interested in the volunteers that first exception volunteers doing all the work. So? So if you had any employees like in a thrift shop supervising volunteers, then then you wouldn’t qualify for that exception. Is that right, jean? It would be we would look at it from a substantiality points. So it’s substantially, all of the workers were volunteers. Then we’ll get that exception. You may still have a back person sort of supervising all the volunteers, and that could still work out. Ok, ok. And emily, the donated goods that does that exception have to be one hundred percent? Or is that also? Ah, substantiality test there for that exception, we’re looking again at it reality. So with many thrift shops, we see this happening. But certainly, if there’s a combination of exceptions to the unrelated business income roll and then there’s one or i think school that are considered unrelated. Then again, the fragmentation role, as we talked about earlier is going to be triggered on the organization is going to need thio mark each category. Make sure it accounts for that. Okay? Fragmentation, substantiality unrelated business income in the nine ninety tony form jean is there anything we want to wrap up with? We have just a minute left. Anything we haven’t said about earned income that you think small and midsize non-profits should know well, apart from the whole related and unrelated part, that big driving force behind designing to engage and earned income ventures is deciding whether you really got the capacity to do it, and it makes sense it’s compatible with your mission. You’ve got the right assets that are worth selling probably want to pick the low hanging fruit first do stuff that you’re already good at because you don’t want to surprise your staff with managing a totally unknown entity and unknown venture on distracting them from from doing the mission and want to get involved too. As he plan about that, you need to know the laws and risks involved. Whether you’re selling goods, maybe sales tax are involved, you may have new employment issues and intellectual property issues, social media issues, licenses, permits, insurance and all of those things. So getting some experts to help you making sure you have the capacity to do it ahead of time. Those those are my best tips for you jean takagi and emily chan gene is a principle of neo the non-profit exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the non-profit non-profit law blogged at non-profit law blogged dot com emily chan is an attorney at neo-sage principal contributor to that blogged emily gene, thank you very much for being on, we look forward to hearing talking to you again next month. We look forward to it as well, tony. Thank you, real pleasure. Thank you. We take a break, and after the break, tony’s take two and then leading the leader’s motivate your board to fundraise, so stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics politically expressed. I am montgomery taylor, and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes, or get your human resource is in touch with us. Website is improving communications, dot com, that’s, improving communications, dot com, improve your professional environment, be more effective, be happier, and make more money improving communications, that’s the answer. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. I’m leslie goldman with the us fund for unicef, and i’m casey rodder with us fun for unison. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. My block this week is, say, what’s on your mind and that’s the topic of tony’s take two on an airplane just this past weekend from chicago to new york. I was with a girl who was just very forward about saying things that that a lot of us would filter. So there was there was she’s, twenty four years old, elisa, and it was clearly, you know, some disorder that just made her say what was on her mind just as i entered the just entering the row to sit down, she asked me what’s your name, how old are you? Are you married? So, you know, that’s got me thinking, you know, she was very charming and sweet and at the same time, you know, unashamed, um and it just got me thinking, you know, they’re there we censor ourselves a lot, and we suppress things that maybe sometimes appropriately suppressed i mean, we can’t all be saying all the things we’re thinking with we’d all be without jobs without friends, but some things i think way sensor maybe should be said and and ah, not avoided just because they might be very sweet or, you know, unmanly. If you’re a guy or maybe because they might be, um, you know, a sign of weakness, so i just raised my consciousness about censoring myself and saying more things that i’m thinking and letting people be more aware of what my thoughts are in the right circumstances. And so i thought that might be a benefit to you because so much of our work is relationships in our inn. Non-profits so that’s say what’s on your mind, it’s on my block, which is that m p g a d v dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, august nineteenth. We’re now going to move to leading the leader’s motivate your board to fundraise. This was pre recorded at fund-raising day in new york city this past june, and here is that interview. Welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven were in new york city times square at the marriott marquis, and i’m joined now by andy robinson and carry kruckel andy is principal of andy robinson consulting. Carrie kruckel is vice president for development and communications. Wnt channel thirteen here in new york city. Welcome both of you. Thank you. It’s pleasure beings for having us. Our pleasure. Your seminar topic is leading the leaders how to motivate your board to cultivate major gift. I’ll tell you, we’ve done about half a dozen interviews today, and the board has probably come up in four or so of those of those six so far, but now critical the board’s role in fund-raising and how do you want to start the start? The topic? What? What? What is their responsibility? Well, where i would start this topic is i’d say we have to define fund-raising so it’s not just asking for money. It is the whole cycle of behavior. It’s identifying prospects, it’s cultivating it’s asking it’s, thanking it’s, recognizing its involving and so all that stuff. And if we define fund-raising is asking for money. There are a certain number of people, including a certain number of board members who will never get there. Okay. On the other hand, if we define fund-raising as this larger piece of work that we all have to do, then i would argue pretty strenuously they that there’s a place for everybody in that cycle, even the board members who hate to ask for money. There’s just the old fund-raising or something they can do? Absolutely there friendraising there. Friendraising yeah, we call it friendraising fund-raising atar side, which is the same thing. And it’s absolutely critical because actually, my feeling is that you don’t want every boardmember asking for money. Let’s, let’s try to go through a little life cycle of a boardmember how do we make sure we recruit board members who want to participate in this in his willingly? So, andy out recognizing that there may always be some that will will object strenuously and never maybe we’ll get to the difficult cases, maybe, but in the light in the opening lifecycle, how do we how do we recruit correctly? Andy? Well, the first thing is transparency mean, let people know when they’re joining your board that this is one of the expectations and i’m a believer and job descriptions, i think you specify what expected. Boardmember and i think the job description has to be reciprocal, meaning we’re gonna expect you to raise money on one side on the other side, we’re going to train you how to do it, we’re going to support you or give you some options and how you participate. Oh, so there actually is organization responsibility. It’s reciprocal? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, where a lot of lorts fail and be interested to hear your take on this carry. A lot of boards fail is they bring people on and they say, go raise money and they kick him in the butt and they supposed about the door do it there’s not training, but on the morning there’s not support. I mean, there’s, this sort of fantasy that they’re all they all come in as skilled and willing fundraisers. And that is rare. Carrie, how about you? For the recruiting side on the recruiting side were very strategic. And w n e t we have a committee that’s, just a people. So of my board of forty, only eight are formally asked by the chairman to be active solicitors for deb unity. And they partner with me. I trained them on. We have a whole business plan that they stick, teo, that we establish the beginning of the year. Now, just as important to that group a zach repairs to the organization is all trustees do. We asked him to give when they joined the board, we have a give and get yes expectation it’s very clear it’s not give or get you have to give not all of our trustees khun give it the same level, but they all have the ability to additionally get one of the criteria for recruiting a boardmember sir, is what is the network that they’re in what’s their orbit in sphere of influence and that’s we played too. We played to that strength rather than to a place that they may not be familiar. So that’s really key. So everybody comes in with a certain capacity said, but only a handful of people work with me on act, actually soliciting gifts, large gifts, the rest friendraising yeah, just once just one fifth of your board, but the andes to the point that andy made there is a role for everybody, so rule for only one fifth of your board is actively soliciting, right? But i would say another two to three fifths of our board are actively friendraising calling me all the time with great leads, contacts, ideas, and then the development committee is a very tight, working operation that, you know, we activate when we’re ready yeah, god, those eight people self selected or you hand picking the ones you want to turn into solicitor’s i’m in the process of handpicking because i just joined the organisation fifteen months ago, so i inherited a wonderful development committee, but some on that committee still are not comfortable soliciting. They’re more comfortable, say, leading a major gala that raises three million for the organization so that’s that’s significant in a different way, but know, as i handpick in this new new year, we have two new co chairs and they they go about fund-raising from a different very different points of view. One is a seven figure donor and annual basis, and one is a six figure donor, and so we tackle it different ways. One is very entrepreneurial and, you know, a tremendous seller, great talker, the other one is very focused wants to close five gifts at a million or more. So you create this this dynamic of what’s a business plan for each of them that kind of gets the whole committee where they want, and that also suggests the support that the organization has to provide in terms of a business plan, you’re talking about a business. Plan for each of them that’s i’m sure developed in collaboration with them, but your staffing that plan on dh you’re proposing the plan to them, right? Staffing that committee is probably fifty to sixty percent of my work. It’s a big part of my job and you say an interesting word, it’s, a business fund-raising is totally a business, and until trustees see how that business is an operation, they don’t really trust the process. I kind of think they might be asked out there on a whim, asking for money, but there are three major categories of running a very solid development shop, whether your staff of three or staff of seventy like we are, but you have to have those principles in place and regularly talk about them so that the trustees feel like there was a very strong foundation that’s pushing this for them and supporting them and support them now. And he talked earlier about proper training of a new boardmember what? What is training look like wnt for a new boardmember around fund-raising around fund-raising? Yeah, um, it’s pretty informal. I mean, we have formal orientation for all of our board members when they join and then every year all the board members get a mini kind of refresher, but when it comes to fund-raising, we sit down and we establish our goals and objectives together, i usually come in with a set of recommendations that i review with the chair and the co chair, but i really trained them as they get ready and go out. I equip them with basically the case for support, so anytime they’re out socially or if they’re setting that i’ve set them up for they know the elevator pitch, but until they’re actually going out on a call, i don’t train them until they’re going on a call. So that’s basically a really sell that briefing, and then you know, half an hour on the phone or sit down where we kind of go through that solicitation. Every solicitation is different, all right? But i don’t formally trained them. I don’t bring in outside consultants to train them. I’ve been doing this for twenty two years. Why generally, you know i might this year will be my first let’s see will be my second year kicking off the committee for the fall can i probably will have three new committee members, so i’ll probably take forty five minutes to kind of go through the rules of the game and how they’re set up tio have a great experience and a win win for the organisation, right? And then i’ll do one on one training and what kind of feedback do you like to see from a boardmember after they’ve been in the kind of meeting that carries talking about preparing them for afterwards, how do they feed back what they’ve learned in that meeting to the organization? Yeah, it’s a good question. First of all, the classic way we do this, i don’t know if this is true it w n e t the classic way we do this, we go out hairs, it’s a boardmember with a staff member and sometimes boardmember zehr skilled enough to go out alone and do asks and that’s fabulous, but i think that’s the exception rather than the rule. So usually what this looks like is thie carries of the world are sitting down with the boardmember after the meeting’s over, and sometimes you’re doing this in the car, you know, when you’re sitting in somebody’s driveway and what did? We learn how excited is this person? Are there other next steps that we need to take who’s goingto leave who’s going to take that next step? Who’s going to lead on that? How do we follow up with that person? It’s not a bad idea to produce some sort of scratchy where you actually have a standard set of questions you’re asking each other to debrief the meeting. So you actually have something you can then put in the database and use that to manage the relationship? What do you like to see andy in terms of the other relationship? Sorry, the other board dishpan ce abilities, aside from soliciting let’s say we have boardmember is that our? We’ve agreed, mutually, either i don’t solicit or you’re not comfortable listening, and we understand it. What are the other roles? Well, this could be an entire phone call baizman entire interview unto itself, but just off the top of my head, one is identifying prospects, even if they’re not willing to approach those people individually. Another one is creating opportunities to educate people, so if you’re at a radio station, you could bring him in and give mature if you’re a land trust you could take him out on a hike. If you’re working with children, you could bring them in to see the kids doing what they’re doing. It’s a cultivation piece on the back end? I’m a great believer in boardmember is picking up the phone and thanking donors, even people they don’t know and saying, hi, my name is andy robinson, i’m a volunteer boardmember with name of organization, i am not calling this evening to ask you for money, pause, you know, they collapsed on the other end of the phone, right? I’m just calling to say thank you, and these phone calls are revelatory because a lot of board members expect they’re going to get grief and people. Wow, i love your organization is so great it’s a privilege to give and it’s a really good way to ease people into fund-raising without the ask part that’s just half a dozen things they could do what i liked about that that last ideas having boardmember calls that ghetto learned the exuberance that’s out there, even if they’re calling fifty dollar donors, you could have boardmember calling fifty or hundred dollar don’t love that, yeah, i would love that. And then they learned that. There’s, this, this is base of support. It doesn’t only exist among the six and seven figure donors, and the variation on this and i’ve done this several times is tohave. Donors come to a board meeting and do a little donorsearch. Because a lot of board members think donors air from mars don’t know when they’re different species. And actually, they’re just like everybody else. Except they love your organization more than most people know. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. 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 hunters. People be better business people. Buy-in this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. 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And i’m travis frazier from united way of new york city, and i’m michelle walls from the us fund for unicef. No. Durney carrie, how are how are you using boardmember sze who the ones that are not soliciting the other, the other four fifth what are some ways that they are directly involved in fund-raising they are every board member’s assigned to a committee wnt so we have seven committees, so they’re all engaged in some aspect of the mission of the non-profit my job, as i see it is the chief fundraiser is, too connect the fund-raising relevance to other parts of the opposition they may be working on, so if they’re working on programing, or if they’re working on investments or finance is what is the value of that work to the role we do and fund-raising so making the connections is really in part because a cz you pointed out they all have thinking about fund-raising they may not all be actively engaged, so the challenge is is how do you how are they experiencing the kind of the mission in a way that they’re feeling connected that keeps them kind of, in a sense, cultivated as prospects themselves and that’s a really big challenge? Because if you’re on the audit committee, that is not really a very inspiring everybody wanted wnt everybody want to be on the education committee because that’s where the programs that work with kids, mostly and that’s what they want to do because that’s exciting, but there are other fiduciary responsibilities, so it’s a challenge? So what we do is the ceo, the chairman, and i actually spent a lot of one on one time with our trustees, we take them out to lunch, we try to meet every trustee twice a year, just one on one intimately because board meetings, you really can’t connect on an intimate level. You really getting business done that’s a really valuable idea, i think connecting the leadership with the ceo with the with the boardmember include maintaining that relationship, you created friendship and trust there, but then we also i’m a big believer in events as a way to keep the trustees kind of socially connected. They don’t have to come to all the events, but they come to one or two a year in the months that you’re not doing boardmember ings w n e t we do a lot of screenings for new shows that we’re airing and that’s when we have trustees president, we give him a role, we ask himto welcome the guests, we ask him to go meet three or four people, so they always have a role in friendraising on the external side when they’re not doing the work of the board. I’m with carrie kruckel, vice president for development and communications, wnt thirteen and i see, um and anne robinson principle of anne robinson consulting their topic at fund-raising day two thousand eleven is leading the leaders how to motivate your board to cultivate major gifts, and this is tony martignetti non-profit coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven in new york city. Andy, what do you like to see in terms of the relations, the working relationship that carry started tow talk about between the ceo and the board around? Fund-raising well, i think the first thing is that there are ceos, executive directors who embraced fund-raising get it who are excited about it, and there are those who don’t and i have been development staff, it organizations where we had one and where we’ve had the other and this was was work is a whole lot easier if the ceo gets it and embraces it and understands it. So i’m going to start with the assumption you have one of those if you do the answer, the question, i think, is to have shared expectations that air clear about who’s going to do what and to find ways to engage people at the board level who will lead on this and the way i think about this and someone taught me this term is to have a successful fund-raising board, you need someone who is the spark plugs on the board when it comes to fund-raising because usually the way this works is staff are saying to the board, you need to raise money, you need raise money, we need help, and this is basically going to your supervisors and saying to them, you’re not doing your job well, which is tricky, she’s ill should that sparkplug be the chair of the development committee? Well, that works for me, but i’m less about the title, and i’m more about the personality, the attitude i mean, if you don’t like sparkplug, we can work with the word coach, we can work with the word cheerleader. I like the word enforcer, okay, but one spark plug, good to spark plugs. Better threespot plugs you have a really good fund-raising board, and if you can invest this person with a title like chair of the development committee that’s great, but i have seen it work really well when the chair of the development committee was more about the details and logistics, but they weren’t the one who did training and inspiring and enforcing. So i’m good either way, but somebody at a board level has to has to be that person, and the role of the ceo is to make sure you have that person to support them and doing that, make sure that they can do their job at a peer to peer level on the board. Okay, carry it sounded like you had something to say around around that relation that ceo board relationship, i would add that your board chair and your president, ceo and fundraiser have to compliment each other, so if you know what you have going into the mix and you don’t have the right balance of strengths, then you need to recruit very actively. Having a strong ceo who likes to solicit as well as the chairman can often be very problematic if they’re both looking for, you know, the chance to close on a gift and you have a donor who’s got two very aggressive people at the table that’s pretty tough, so i, like i’ve always looked to find a nice balance if the current ceo i work for is somebody who’s ah, wonderful articulator, but not necessarily was comfortable with making the ask or the clothes i’m looking for a chairman or a trustee to support him. Who has that complement the personality i generally find they’re just going backto. One point is, is that it’s really the rule the fundraiser to fill that gap? Knowing what your strength or as a professional fundraiser and playing those up, i probably can wear twenty different hats a w entity at any given time to support the trustee or their ceo or the chairman in an ask or a cultivation, because i’d have so much experience and see where the gap is in terms of how they’re going to relate to a potential donor. And i think that’s a number something non-profits can’t overlook is hiring the right fundraiser who has that kind of experience and working in a lot of different settings. On gonna frame this slightly differently. And i think this is complimentary. Really? Good development directors are good at getting other people to ask for money. Yeah, and, you know, doing it themselves? Absolutely. But the good ones are empowers. And trainers and supporters and that’s another way of what you just said. It’s a good point. Can i raise a second point, please? We’re talking, quote unquote. Major gifts and carry rolled out the six figure gift in the seven figure gift. And there are plenty people listening to this who will find those numbers to be frightening. Yeah, a thousand dollars is some organizations of thousand buckle is a major gift. The principles are the same. It’s. Not about the amount of money. It’s people who we consider major donor prospects, they get treated differently. They get more attention, we get more face time with, and we’re trying to find a way to engage their interests in a personal way. And that is really irrelevant about the amount of money we’re talking about. Okay. Excellent point. Thank you. And i agree. It’s. Very good. Carrie. What do you like to see around the the organization’s support of board? Members who are who are actively engaged in fund-raising what what kind of role is the organization playing toe to support those boards? Boardmember well, what i love to see that i don’t see much is an entire organization that understands the rule of the board and threw their department say their area of expertise, whether it’s, a on the mission delivery side or the education cider, the outreach side is that the leaders of those departments are justice. Capel is a fundraiser and communicating the progress of the mission of the non-profit to that board tends to fall into the lap of the fundraiser of the chief fund-raising almost every time you’re managing all aspects of the board, so but that’s, what i like to see, even an organization that doesn’t have it is a readiness and an understanding that we all are cultivating our board on the ceo or i’m the vice president, this department, i have a role in that, so i do spend time with my colleagues training, preparing them, helping them understand their role each year in terms of how they would interface with their committees that they’re managing, but i think that’s a really key part because it can’t just fall in the hands of the chief fundraiser at any size organization because it’s, very time consuming fund-raising really has to be out there also asking for gifts of other donors, not just working with the trustee’s. It was kind of building that pipeline, and so if you’re internally managing all components of the board, it’s very challenging, so i look for that but it’s really hard for non-profits to achieve that, you know, andy would have about thirty seconds left. What do you like to see you? So you have to be a little brief in terms of the organization supporting its member, its board members well, love, um, show appreciation, even if they don’t do absolutely everything you want them to do, reinforce anything that’s a positive behavior in this direction because these people are volunteers, they’re doing this on their own time with their own love, and we need to show appreciation even if they don’t do it perfectly if they do it pretty good. That’s a step forward, so i would honor that. Andy robinson is principal of andy robinson consulting carry kruckel is vice president for development and communications. W n e t thirteen there seminar topic is leading the leaders how to motivate your board to cultivate major gifts and this is tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand eleven in new york city in times square. Carrie andy, thank you very much for being guests. It was a real pleasure. Thank you, thank you for having us. That was my pre recorded interview from this past june the fund-raising day new york conference next week. Google plus for your non-profit our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, scott koegler is with me to size up the newest big splash in social networking and also break down the silos, integrating communications, pr and fund-raising for better results from the fund-raising day conference in june, my guest will be meghan galbraith, managing director at changing our world for this week. I want to thank jean takagi and emily chan of the non-profit exempt organizations law firm and andy robinson and carry kruckel as well as the organizer’s of fund-raising day two thousand eleven for their hospitality from week to week, you can keep up with what’s coming up. Sign up for our insider. Email alerts on the facebook page. While you’re there like us and become a fan of the show, you know where facebook is. Just go to tony martignetti non-profit radio. When you’re in there, you can listen live or you can listen. Archive. The archive is at itunes. 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