Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Derrick Feldman: Mastering Millennials
Derrick Feldmann, co-author of The Millennial Impact Report, shares the research on how 20-32 year olds connect, get involved and give to causes they’re passionate about. (Originally aired December 13, 2013)
Gene Takagi: Your Board Calendar
What belongs on your board’s calendar and agendas? What should they discuss? Which actions should they take? Gene Takagi is our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO).
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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I ran a bit to get here we have a listener of the week. They’re big, big fans of non-profit radio always sharing posts on twitter, give local america this week, they tweeted, you know we’re going to our two you were fans and can’t help ourselves! I love this! Follow them on twitter. They are at give local fifteen in twenty fourteen, fifty three million dollars was raised throughout to smash that in twenty fifteen give local day this year is may fifteenth. Give local america thank you very, very much for loving non-profit radio i’m glad you’re with me because i’d be hit with actinic keratosis if i got exposed to the idea that you missed today’s show mastering millennials derek feldman, co author of the millennial impact report, shares the research on how twenty to thirty two year olds connect, get involved and give the causes that they’re passionate about that originally aired in on december thirteenth, twenty thirteen also your board calendar what belongs on your boards, calendar and agendas? What should they be? Discussing which actions should they take? Jean takagi is our legal contributor and principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group neo on tony’s take to a social change e newsletter on my latest stand up comedy gig, we’re sponsored by generosity siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks and here is mastering millennials. Derek feldman, co author of the millennial impact report, shares the research on how twenty to thirty two year olds connect, get involved and give two causes they’re passionate about. We’re improvising a little bit right now because derek feldman, who wants to be in the studio, is supposed to be in the studio isn’t in the studio, but he’s he’s on by phone in a cab, we’ll find out exactly where he is. Derek feldman leads the research team on the millennial impact project and is ceo of achieve, a consulting company he co authored caused for change, the why and how of non-profit millennial engagement published by wile e he roots for he writes for philanthropy news digest of the foundation center and the huffington post impact channel on twitter. He’s at derek feldman spelled with two ends derek feldman welcome thanks so much, tony. I think i’ll be there with you soon. Okay. Where are you self? Tell me where you are. Well invited tunnels. So know what side of the city. And so i think i’m about ten minutes. So our eight minute ok, the tunnel. Which time we have a bunch of tunnels which tunnel you near that lincoln? Oh, my god. You’re what time did you leave? Where’d you leave from indiana, i think. Well, it’s, a lot of traffic, but i’ll be there. I promise. Don’t worry. We’ll get okay. All right, now, that’s. Ok, we can improvise by phone, and then we’ll get you here when you get here. Um what you tell us why we should be even be be studying millennials? Why did you, uh, it was an interesting time is i was looking at, uh, how to understand that i connect with just donors in general about five years ago or so i looked at how we can help clients and individuals better engaged just donorsearch general and one of the most interesting things that they started to do that i realized that millennials, those in their twenties, early thirties, although some disagree with the cut off its roughly in the early thirty, thirty one thirty two, i started to see some interesting differences between how their connection preference and how somebody who is a boomer had a preference true as well. And i thought boy thieves are the donors of the future. We better start trying to understand what their expectations are supporters so that’s kind of how it kind of got me interested in in the discussion, okay, and what’s the the history of the research you’ve been at this for several years. Yes, so we are embarking upon the fifth year of the research we’ve had the last four years. We’ve really focused and brought down that sort of engagement to focus on, as you mentioned, how to connect, and then how they involved, then how they give study marketing communication messages, solicitation of churches and so forth. And so this is the study of the reported twenty thirteen with the fourth year of the study, and next year we will be in our ship of the chronicle of philanthropy. How melanie alumni are engaging with their institutions, why or why not from their expectations as well and then in addition to that, be focusing on the corporate causing gatien inside. So how employees millennial employees in particular our viewing, they’re causing gatien through their company and what they want to have happen? Okay, so the first don’t know we’re talking about the ages twenty to thirty two, right? Is that that’s? What? Your research. Okay, yeah, i know. There’s some a cz you mentioned there’s some no questions about where the age cuts off, whatever what? What’s a general. Why what’s not, but what? Your research was twenty to thirty two. Correct. Okay, okay. And i’m sure that there are differences within that group even write a lot of twenty year old. You’re not like most thirty two year old. Yeah, absolutely. And this is something that we’ve had teo look at overall when it comes to even social media engagement and sure, amy can talk about that well, the first year that we did the study hi uses a facebook and even in our own studies, over the course of the four years, we have seen facebook and the younger peer the generation, those twenty to twenty five that uses the cleaning high uses of instagram image. Based type platforms like pinterest and so on, and so their differences between that and even as we look at the upper end of that, right? So those that are in the early thirty’s, late twenties where starting family and they’re still in tropic exploration and sort it right in the middle. I like to say and there at a time where it’s not necessarily there giving to a lot of causes, and they’re starting to be much more, uh, sophisticated in their types of e-giving approaches so it’s a big age range, lots of changes going on. New technologies are always fabulous. That changed some of this, but also in combination of technologies, we see the actual individual going through their own philanthropic exploration. Well, yes, okay. Studying on individual basis as well, right? I absolutely do. You have you have any objection to the term generation? Why? No. In fact, you know, here you want it like generational terms and letters and so forth that craigconnects and wind and summer climbing season the next one. Now in that at all. I think the one thing that we are seeing is this trend of, uh, discussion around, you know? Do we have to this label, you know, millennial millennial? Or is it just somebody’s in their twenties or even a young adult and so on? I think that will move away from the term millennial in the next three or four years, our studies, we’ll look at other things, but but if in terms of just using that that name and knowing slideshare it does help some people understand what? Yeah, i mean, that’s, the advantage of having phrases that we understand. So i was just curious. It doesn’t matter to me what i’m happy to say millennials. I was just wondering if there was any particular, any objection you might had to gen gen y or something. Okay, all right, so the first really sort of phase of long term activity with non-profit is connecting. Yeah, absolutely. What do we what do we see among among millennials and how they get connected and what it is that moves them to connect? Exactly. So we have this’s an important feature that a z we were even looking at the continuum of involvement, right? So how somebody moves from hearing about a cause to pure action, what they’re doing, and so on way sort of been in this been in this mood that that we have to help the millennial move along and educational component that helps them understand the issue that caused issue, much more importantly than necessarily the institution or the organization itself. Uh, so what we have what we have really looked out over the course of the last couple of years, how can we better position? Because issue to try and connect with millennial interests in order to get them to act or commit to the cause? And we have discovered that when the issue is really at the forefront because that’s what they’re sharing right shared common value and shared common issue the individual tenth have hyre reactionary. So this would be an example of saying, if you care about giving water to everybody in africa, well, you know, join us, participate, we’re leading with the issue versus saying this is who we are, these are the three things we stand for all that other stuff just like it because you heard about the brand right now, and so we’ve got a little bit of differences between those and the connection point have been much stronger when we focus on the issue. Okay. Interesting. So that that’s that’s really, the affinity is for the cause. Now, i just heard a little background noise. Does the cab driver know that he’s in a recording studio? He does, doesn’t he actually has been really great. So i have to get my cab driver really good. Yeah, make sure you give it up. Give it generous. You make sure you give a generous tip and and if he’s any kind of performer, ask him if he’s a performer, maybe he could be on right now. Really focus. Okay, okay, i don’t know. Plus, i don’t know if he has a sag after card, so we may not be able to let him on if he’s not in the union that way would be able to do it anyway. And and in this, in this connection phase, the the millennials are what? How extensive is their use of oven organization’s website? And we have just like, a minute or so before before our first break. Yeah, very, very, very important. We’re seeing that one of the first things that millennial does is look at the digital environment in which they’re attracted to from the issue so here’s a good sort of play on how we’ve seen action happened. Mooney a was interested in cause some impulse repeats it might be from a peer still use google we directly into website, digital environment and from that environment they do a couple key things. One is they’re trying to figure out if the issue necessarily does not what they’re wanting to do. The second thing is understanding how that organization our cause is related to that issue, and then third is going to a social network to see how they’re talking. And so we’ve seen that happen time and again, as we do usability testing and so forth to watch them do that what’s also important in that non-cash bro, quick is the use of the imagery to compel them to act and perform at least in action in the digital environment first. Okay, excellent there’s a lot. There we’ll stay on this subject. Subject what? That what? That connect continuum looks like it’s. Very interesting starting going right to digital website. But then switching to social okay, stay with us. You’re tuned to non-profit radio. Tony martignetti also hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a quick ten minute burst of fund-raising insights, published once a month. Tony’s guests are expert in crowdfunding, mobile giving event fund-raising direct mail and donor cultivation. Really, all the fund-raising issues that make you wonder, am i doing this right? Is there a better way there is? Find the fund-raising fundamentals archive it. Tony martignetti dot com that’s marketmesuite n e t t i remember there’s, a g before the end, thousands of listeners have subscribed on itunes. You can also learn maura, the chronicle website, philanthropy dot com fund-raising fundamentals, the better way. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent let’s do a little live listener love mainz, germany welcome live listen, love to you, hyung zhao, china and shanghai, china knee how and social korea anya haserot i decided to start abroad with live listener love today from a cab on the west side, somewhere between the lincoln tunnel and seventy second street. Derek feldman, co author of the millennial impact report we’re talking about mastering millennials, so derek so the the non-profits website in the long term is not not as important to the connection, but initially it sounds like it is important. Yeah, it is. And tony really excited i’m actually here. Oh, you’re downstairs. Okay? All right, so why don’t you push the button for the floor number two and i’ll just speak while you’re while you’re on your way up, okay. Derek has made it to the studio at one twenty five west seventy second between columbus and amsterdam. There was one time when amy sample ward had to run. Frequent listeners will remember that and she will remember as well. I know she’s listening somewhere. Um, she had a run here and ah, little tap dance and she was a lot of breath, but it was no big deal. Derek derek took the civilised way. He took a cab so he will not be out of breath. He’ll be all poised a soon as he walks in and it’s very exciting. I can hear the elevator door opening and he’s actually, you know, he did not take the elevator. Derek feldman actually coming up the stairs, i’m pretty sure didn’t want to wait for the elevator because we’re ah, we’re only on the twelfth floor, so he’s going to have now we’re on the second floor. Um uh he’ll be here shortly. Um can tell whether he took the stairs or the elevator. The person on the stairs walked past, but so what’s interesting about the, uh, the use of the website is, as i was saying, it is important in the beginning, but then after that it’s ah it’s a switch to the social to the social platforms, so they’re clearly needs to be ease of transitioning someone from your sight too twitter, facebook, instagram, you know, however you believe you’re going to be connecting if you want to keep millennials. Engaged? All right. Derek is here. It’s. Okay, he’s. A lot of breath. But he did take the stairs and it’s only as something. One storey walk miree looks cool. Welcome, derrick. Hey there. How are you? Great. Welcome. You don’t get out the year. The second person to do this, amy sample that same problem. Ah, months months ago when she was still here in new york, she had she had to run. Okay, so take a breath. We were just talking about i was just recapping, like the importance of the website and the importance of making sure that it’s easy to jump from this website to social channels. Because that’s what millennials want to do for the long term for the longer term? Absolutely. So what will also see from there is is that we will watch a millennial initially taken action on a site, but it also has a sharing component so it could be something like sign a petition and then shared with your friends and then also going to their social networks. Todo eso quick called action on the site zacklin on the website exactly, but because what we really want digital sites to do is help the millennial commit to the cause issue, right? So it’s, if i want water? Yeah, are you in for helping with water? A small action and then also saying, great. Now we want you to share your experience. This is where we share ours. You share ours too. Okay? The er and so so the website becomes less important people. You oh, you know, you know, you’re not finding millennial’s going back to the website very much after first first connection. Correct? Well, that’s sure. Yeah. And so the website has then become much more of ah, platform than to to continue to act upon so later on, there might be email campaigns, solicitations, those kinds of things, but whichever would drive back to the way exactly, sir, if they’re driven there. Well, they’re certainly going back. But if not driven, they’re getting long term information from the social network. Exactly. Okay, now, part of your study included video, right? You were watching people interact with non-profit websites? Yeah, we did use their testing. And so besides us just saying, hey, this is what we found out. We thought we should actually put this stuff in front. Of millennials and get and record their reaction to it. So we performed. We had about a hundred millennials nationwide that we put different types of solicitations infront of communication messages, digital experiences, we had them go through websites tell us what you like, what you don’t like. Tell us what you didn’t like with a solicitation. Why wouldn’t you give for? Why would you? And so all of that way actually shared some of that on her site. We plan to do more and share more of that in the next year. Well, i’m thinking of it. Why don’t you give the earl where people confined the research and downloaded? Yeah, so all of the research is available for free and thanks to the case foundation stephen jean case foundation want in washington who’s really been helpful in allowing this for the field, and you can find that at the millennial impact dot com. Excellent. Thank you, dahna since the website is important at the connection phase, should we be thinking about being mobile optimized? If we’re going to be optimized for millennials? Absolutely. This is something that’s been really interesting even around the text space first year we did this study haiti happens within two weeks after we started with that? Oh my gosh, where, you know the study is the real researchers will be flawed and later on, even in this year when we look at text e-giving overall it is remains in that year we did the haiti ans and it was eighteen percent of our pool had text to give this last year we had about eighteen and a half percent that have text to give. So for the last four years in our city and i can’t say everybody else’s studies, but in hours we have found that it’s been a little constant. What has risen during that time is the use of mobile engagement for transacting and so forth. So going to a mobile friendly website and then actually donating are taking a cause action after a connection, of course, comes involvement. Exactly what we what we see around involvement generally before we get specific s o i think the trends about eight, nine years ago wass in the field at least let’s create a young professionals group. That was our way to get to get millennials and young professionals right so segregated. Yeah, always like that in all good intentions, right? We figured that if we create this group, they’ll see they’re like minded friends, they’ll do certain things, and at the same time, they’ll be able to actually learn from each other and get more engaged in the cause. But we were doing something very interesting is that we’re still we’re separating them from the true cause work of it. All right? So what we have discovered is this full integration together and secondly, is that we have to, as causes, allow an opportunity for our millennials and quite frankly, any age volunteer advocate to do things with us in a very short amount of time. So as you and i sit here right now, and if i wanted to do cause work for ten minutes, i should be able to do that and have that opportunity, and millennials want that too millennials they’re wanting the opportunity to actually be together at times, but also independently work and do cause work out the day when they can’t doesn’t mean i have to go down in the soup kitchen. How could i have the soup kitchen virtually as well? So that’s the trend that we’re seeing ok on dh also a lot of learning if there is going to be volunteer work i saw i saw references in the study too learning online versus making learning online available. Yeah, one of the biggest complaints millennials have told us is, you know, i go to a volunteer experience the first half hour is you teaching me what i’m going to dio and their complaint is, i don’t know if you know this, we live in an a on my environment, you can train us online prior to us getting there. You khun witt you know it’s an extra half hour, you’ve wasted thirty minutes exactly okay also a lot of interest in connecting with like minded peers, right? Seeing that as the reason for volunteering exact right? And so some the initial engagement of causes either happens by themselves or with peers in pierre. Engagement is really hype, you’re fund-raising it’s high with millennials and so on and when it comes to peer involvement, it’s the same thing. But here is where we get really challenged is that our organisations are not necessarily set up to do peer involvement tight service so for instance, if they go to the soup kitchen while randy, you’re over there. Derek, you’re over here and you over there, i know you all came together here and you wanted to do this is appear thing, but we’re going to separate you and that’s another again, another complaint that we’ve heard wait, talk about pure fund-raising or peer-to-peer fund-raising our runs, walks and rides popular very they are very, very and, you know, i’m not, and i think run race, walk is an incredible opportunity to expose people to cause work. The question is, what do we do with it? After that, we had about sixty three percent had participated in a run race walk in the highest one of the highest fund-raising components besides just giving out right as well, event based, i’ll fund-raising too. And so once we get this opportunity where we’re bringing our friends our peers altogether, and this is where amy can talk as well, that then how do we convert that to true engagement? The thing that a board of directors will do is say, oh, my gosh, derek brought ten of his friends. These ten friends now loved the cancer society that’s. Not true, they love america and they don’t love necessarily the rest. And so we have to be really cautious and we have always viewed, and we’ve put out some stuff there to say that you have to have a chain a drip campaign to engage them back in the cause because in art, as you said, connect involved, give we’ve skipped connect involved in pierre fund-raising and went directly to the give. Now sometimes we try to educate them as quick, but we haven’t had them act on behalf the cause except to give. So we got to rework it a little bit more and get them to act now to the next step. Okay? And one of our sponsors like to leave this in his rally bound, which does software for runs, walks, rides you say you say, what do you say? Runs, races? Walks was a run walk race, it’s all the rights is in there doing that right now. We’re gonna work it all in. Okay, after we are we’re connected to involved. Now we get to giving and again generally, you know what? What do you see from the group? That a man. Our population. Probably has the least available to give right cash wise non-cash wise, i’m not and that’s not the only gift that people can give. Yeah, so i’m glad you mentioned that because i do want to make a statement that is we have looked at millennials, they view all the assets they have as valuable to the cause and that asset goes b the traditional form of philanthropy is time, talent, treasure? Well, i will have to come on here and say that there’s actually an expanded view for millennials, it is skill that they have it is the time that they have it is the money they have and the network they possess, their ability to tap into that network for you end too, in their voice, i mean, they’re considering all of those equal assets and opportunities for causes when it comes to giving, we have seen that a substantial amount of the giving efforts have involved peers, as i mentioned a little earlier, and what we do have, though, is this high level of transparency and expectation that there is some sort of feedback mechanism that will occur upon gift, and i’m not talking about the form. Letter that you get after you give right the twenty four hour rule that we want to try. And teo, this is the so we asked you to give us ten dollars, to given at tau africa, you know, help somebody help in individual. Well, in thirty or forty days, i’m going to report back to you how that net actually had an impact on that individual and not waiting a long time on that reporting or that feedback, but actually bringing that shorter within the fifteen to forty five day mark is what we’re really looking at within fifteen days. Yeah, we or at least working on behalf of the cause there’s a great there’s, a great cause to call generosity water if you haven’t checked them out and online, they actually show the process they get through after they get your money. And and the greatest thing any organization can do is communicate along the way. You might not have impact for a full year. It doesn’t mean that you’re not working on their behalf and that’s what we forget and way think that the only thing our donors want to hear is when it’s completely job done. Mission accomplished and we’re not we don’t need to go that george bush, i didn’t mean to do that. Make-a-wish on aircraft carrier mission striked out job done way that’s not the first report that doesn’t have to be the first report job done exactly so and this is where social media engagement is an incredible opportunity we can say all right, you know, after you give in fifteen days, i’m going to communicate with you and say you should check out our facebook, here’s here’s five images that are in our facebook environment right now from the people that were working with on your behalf if you want to continued updates head to our facebook environment because that’s where we can give that to, i would never use the word environment, but but you can see how we can use that social media engagement and say to our program, people, i need you to take three photos of the beneficiaries this week so we can continue to update our donors in real time of what’s going on and so forth and show the people that were actually helping in the cause. So so we have seen that in the use of annual every time we do the study is without. I mean, it happens every time. It’s no annual reports. I don’t want that physical thing. It takes too long, and but we have to look at how millennials are doing things in general, in the consumer side and just in overall is that feedback loops in general have been much quicker. I mean, if you post something on facebook and nobody responds to it, it’s an immediate feedback like i shouldn’t opposed to that as well. So feedback overall in our society has been much quicker. I think the first time i took the g r e i, it took me two months to get my my actual score. You had to wait in the mail, and then the last time i took it, which was a while ago, but they had it would tell you right there, you ready to find out your score? And of course, you freak out right in that moment thinking our life is going to be all dependent upon this next thing, but yeah, how important are pictures, pictures and video very, very important imagery and amy’s, they intend, has been doing some great studies around this to that imagery not only has hyre reaction posting commenting and engagement, then just text does to us well in overlapping text upon imagery, we saw really hyre amar’s high action or its high accelerates meaning either, like retweeting, are commenting or posting upon that. Okay, excellent! Derek feldman is cursed because he was late in december twenty thirteen when that originally aired that caused me to be late today. It’s unbelievable. I i took a cab and then we hit a red light and i jumped out and ran for the last three blocks and derek feldman, i blame you let’s do some live listener love because there’s a ton new york, new york st louis, missouri, new bern, north carolina. San francisco, california. Cartersville, georgia, bethesda, maryland live listener love to each of you podcast pleasantries, of course to everybody listening to the podcast, and i think we’d better start adding affiliate affections because we’ve got lots of affiliates listening, so if you’re not in the live or you’re not on the podcast, but you’re listening from an affiliate affection going out to you and there’s more live listener love coming tony, take two and jean takagi on your board calendar are coming up first. I have to mention generosity siri’s because they host multi charity five k runs and walks, they offer a fund-raising portal and a dashboard and all the social media tools that you need for the fund-raising that’s why you’re in the five k run, andi, have a charity support team that you actually talk to these people. This is not accuse people you talk to to get help with your fund-raising and they handle all the details of the day like the sound system and starting finish arch and the permits and the medals and the licenses and the porta potties what’s a five k without porta potties, everybody’s drinking water, you’ve got to have those, so they put all this together for small and midsize non-profits that wouldn’t be able to host their own event. Events coming up in brooklyn, new york, northern new jersey and miami, florida. Talk to dave lynn, pick up the phone that’s how i like to do business he’s a good guy, he’s the ceo of generosity siri’s he’ll tell you how it all works. Tell him you’re from non-profit radio seven one eight five o six. Nine, triple seven or, if you prefer generosity siri’s dot com non-profit radio alumnus jonathan lewis hosts and e newsletter i thought you might like to know about it’s, about social change leadership he’s a very smart guy. And the ah, this is thies air his thoughts about the sector. I read it. It’s ah scott sort of quirky headlines. But if if those if quirkiness is not your thing than look past those because he has very good ideas but if you love quirkiness, then you’ll love these headlines to and you could get his e newsletter at cafe impact dot com my stand up comedy video from a show i did last month is up at tony martignetti dot com lots of stories that i tell seventh grade unrequited love and revenge for important dating and law school. Ah, it was a really that was a very, very good set. I felt very comfortable i felt like was my best set ever last month and that’s at tony martignetti dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, twentieth of january twentieth of february. Who? I swear i need an intern so i could blame this bad copy on somebody. Twentieth of february seventh show of this year. Jane takagi is with us. He comes back every month. He’s, the managing attorney of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, he edits the popular non-profit law blawg, dot com and he’s at g tak gt a k on twitter. Welcome back, jane takagi. Johnny, how are you? I’m doing terrific, lee. Well, how are you out there? I’m doing great. Thanks. Wonderful. My voice cracked. It wouldn’t like a seventh grader. Wonderful. Um, we’re concerned about our boards calendar this month. Why? No, i think it’s a valuable to just refresh us. We haven’t talked about this for a while. The fiduciary duty that aboard has to the organization, can you can you re acquaint us with that? Sure. Well, in shorthand, tony, you know, the board is ultimately responsible for everything that goes on with the organization. So looking back and seeing how the board was performing both in terms of compliance with the laws and advancing its own mission and having enough money to do to carry on its activities. The board is responsible for that. Looking ahead, looking back but it’s also responsible for looking ahead for the organization and trying to figure out what’s the best way to advance the mission going forward and noting that the environment is constantly changing, fund-raising demands are constantly changing. You may want engage in new activities. Demand for services may be up, so you’ve got a lot on your plate is a board member and the two legal duties that we talk about her the duty of care of exercising reasonable care for somebody in the position of that type of responsibility and duty of loyalty, which means putting the best interest of the organization ahead of even your own interest. And two carry out these duties. We ah, as board members have certain things that we should be looking at month to month and every single year on do you have these sort of listed in dahna suggested board calendar? Yeah, i published a sport art of lincoln about non-profit board calendars, and that was just really teo give non-profits an idea of the type of recurring things that board should. Be discussing, of course, the board should itself prioritize what it believes they’re the most important issues with respect to the organization and get those on the calendar. But i think, you know, being a boardmember kind of a tj thing, we shouldn’t just go in there in the meeting, sit down, listen to report and then rubber stamp whatever did the executive director wants? Do i think we need to really plan ahead for what we need to get done? And you know it? As i said, boards are responsible for everything and the only meet a few hours a month or a few hours every couple of months, there’s a lot to be done and when things should be done, is justus important as if they get done? Sometimes. So you want to make sure, for example, you approve a budget before the year is upcoming so you can provide proper guidance to executive about how to make it, you know, the expenditures and a long list of other item. Yeah. And before we get into all your recommendations that we have, um, that you make a point that the calendar should be set in advance right there. Should be certain things set aside for each meeting back in in, you know, december looking ahead or january looking for the for the full year, right? I i absolutely i think before the end of the year, whether you’re on a calendar, you urine and maybe to simplify things, we’ll talk about a calendar year in november, december, you should map out some of the important topics that you’re going to emphasize the next year’s meetings all over the next years, meetings and planted ahead. Okay on dh, i’ll tell you what, let’s ah, how come we get the linked in your link to an article? Why don’t you? Would you be willing to put that on the, uh, on the facebook page after the after the takeaways or posted this afternoon? Would you put a link to your link to an article in the comments to the takeaways? Yeah, after that, the great ideas located on the non-profit radio facebook page exactly. Cool, thank you. Um all right, so let’s dive into some of the things that should be done. Ah, time and well, it should be done through the year. I like the one that is reviewing. The executive, the executive director’s air ceo’s performance yeah, and, you know, a zoo board were obviously volunteers tip typically, and we’re going to delegate management of the day to day operations of the non-profit toe a manager, we’re not going to be there all the time, so evaluating the performance of executive and how that person is carrying out the management of the organization may be one of the most important things that we have to do, including selecting and making sure that we have the right exec in place. But the performance review, i think, needs to be figured out soon after the year. See again, you can provide proper guidance to the executive in a timely manner and not to delay that too long. So if we’re on a calendar fiscal year, i think that’s your first one of your first discussions, important discussions that you should plan ahead and get on the counter for your january meeting. And is this performance review delegated to the executive committee or some other committee? Or because this is a this is a very this is one of the most important, i think, activities i mean, they’re all important, but i think this ranks up there pretty high. Yeah, well, so the discussion of the executives performance should be done with probably the full board, so that the full board has a chance to provide input on this non-profits range dramatically. And how many boardmember they haven’t committees they have. So, you know, if it’s if it’s an organization that has an executive committee or a governance committee, perhaps that committee could be delegated with actually carrying out the performance evaluation. But the discussion of the executives performance should be done with the full board, and probably again soon after the year end. Okay? And if it’s a smaller board, how would the results of the discussion and the evaluation get conveyed to the executive director? Ceo? Has that done? Yeah. So? So a smaller board might want to delegate the task of actually verbally delivering the performance review to one or possibly two people, two, two directors to provide to the executive director beforehand in terms of gathering all of the information, sometimes that’s done with the consultant in terms of figuring out how tio, what criteria you’re evaluating the executive director on not just financials, but also on programmatic results also on the relationship, on culture of the organization, on how they’re prepping the board of directors and keeping them informed they’re a bunch of criteria involved in soto have have the right type of performance metrics for the board is really important that might be developed by a separate committee of the board, even if first small board they might have signed that toe like two or three or four people to really focus on that let’s move to the program evaluation. And i’m deliberately talking about that one before financials because, well, you and i have talked to you and i spent the whole show one’s talking about the board’s program review responsibilities dahna and sometimes they get gets short shrift behind financial review, so i want to talk about programs first, okay, uh, thank you so much for saying that turn and reminding the listeners of that show as well, you know, non-profits is you and i both know and and i think everybody knows when they really think about it don’t exist to provide tio create a very high bottom financial bottom line, they existed to advance their mission and carry that forward, so ultimately, you need the finances to make sure you’re able to run those programs, but if the programs aren’t actually creating any change or creating any benefit to the intended beneficiaries, then you’re really failing ilsen organizations viewing the programs that you know, along with reviewing executives performance, which will be based in part on how the programs are doing, is of tantamount, important. So yes, i think that needs to be reviewed very carefully in the difficult part about it is how do you measure impact? And i hear a lot of organizations go well, you’ve got to develop, you know, metrics t get that done, and you’ve got to make sure that you’re really advancing the solution to the problem. And so sometimes i think we might be asking too much of some smaller organizations for smaller organization to provide metrics about how they are ending homelessness in the united states might not be appropriate for an organization that’s really just tryingto provide the band age to feed the homeless in their local geographic area and it’s how well they’re feeding those individuals or how many people there feeding that might be really the basis of their mission. And they may be looking to other organizations to really solving the problem through policy and in other areas, but providing the food has a great importance to feed, to feed the homeless in and of itself, and i don’t think we should miss miss out on that when we’re determining what metrics to measure. But figuring that out is the board responsibility. I’m going to try to find that programs show where you and i talked when we take our when we take our break donorsearch my site and see if we can find the date for that show where you and i talked about programs let’s, let’s, move them to the financials. What what is this something that should be done every system in every month? Or and i know this is separate than the budget approval, which we’ll talk about, but should we be looking at financials every single month or sorry, every single meeting? Sorry, it may not be monthly every single meeting i think financial should be shared with with the board in advance of every single meeting and there’s probably a small discussion that deserves to be taken, taken place every meeting, particularly a financial performance versus budget to see if things are going in line with what we expected or if they’re going completely different, in which case we’re going to have to revamp our plans and we figure out, you know, staffing and everything else. Ah, so financial is a small financial review at every meeting i think is important, but a broader financial review after the year end, i think, is really important because that that khun inform how we’re going. Teo, create the budget and maybe the strategic plan, if you will modify the plan for the year a swell. So we we do want to make sure that we’re not going insolvent. That money is coming in is projected or better than projected or were able to reduce the expenses to make sure that we’ve got enough to cover everything. Could this be part of a consent agenda where it’s all reviewed in advance and then at the meeting, everybody just approved that consent agenda and it’s things to be done pretty rapidly? Yeah, consent agendas are such time savers and such an efficient mechanism of long as you put the right things on that consent, you know, agenda. If the financials are going exactly or very close toe what everything was budgeted and they’re no surprises in there, yes, it can probably, you know, belonged on the consent agenda for the the every meeting updates of the financials. In fact, he may not even need to approve the fine financials, so in that case, it’s, not really even part of the consent agenda is just part of the material is given out in advance and maybe a minute or two given for any questions that anybody might have about those financials. But you know there there should be one meeting reserved for a longer review of the financial performance and then certainly a meeting or delegation of budget approval that happens as well. Let me give some live listener love, and they were going to go out for a break for a few minutes. Honolulu, hawaii falls church, virginia and we have some live tweeters gotta think our listener of the week give local fifteen thank you very much for live tweeting and also laurie are finch. Thank you so much, lorie. Stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked, and they are levine from new york universities heimans center on philantech tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests were there, too. Get insider show alerts by email, tony tells you who’s on each week and always includes link so that you can contact guest directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Lively conversation, top trends and sound advice. That’s. Tony martignetti non-profit radio and i’m lawrence paige nani, author off the non-profit fund-raising solution. Dahna oppcoll buy-in my goodness, i wish he would pronounce his name panjwani kills me paige durney ah, little more live listener love let’s, go abroad osaka, japan. Konnichiwa also in south korea, gun po and soul on your haserot jean takagi the nine ninety nine. Ninety review and you like to see the nine ninety or think of the nine, ninety as as a marketing tool? Yeah, i really do. And it’s been there’s been a really interesting development? Recently, there was a gentleman named mr mallon move that filed a claim against the irs to make sure that the nine nineties are all disclose herbal in elektronik format and an available for public view. Right now, you can go on to a non-profits site guide star, which i know you’re familiar with toe look at night nineties, but those air limited to the last three years unless you have a subscription. I think so. If the iris is compelled to make them all digitized and searchable, that could really create new forms of looking at non-profits at how well they’re reporting that there making a difference in their communities and you know that will really increased importance in terms of fund-raising. In terms of building support in terms of finding collaborators, because everybody will be able to just quickly look and scan through your night nineties and find out what you’re doing and what you say you’re doing and it expect you to put your best foot forward. So if it’s done sloppily or, you know, just just without any care and to think of it, just the financial document anymore is really the wrong way to look at it. So i i think the board needs to get involved and say this may be something that every major donor and every foundations we’ll start to look at quite carefully and we should prepare the night ninety that way. Yeah, excellent thinking scrutinising it like you would other other marketing pieces on and also it’s signed under penalty of perjury by an officer. So write accuracy is therefore important. I wantto remind us about two shows. First, i found the one where you and i talked about you’re you’re bored and its responsibilities around programs on dh that was january tenth, twenty fourteen. The segment was called program you’re bored on then on this nine ninety subject wait, i had a guest, you eat huge tomb who’s a c p a. And that was on the september eighth twenty fourteen show and that was devoted to using the nine. Ninety as a marketing tool. We went through section by section places where he felt you could put ah, much better descriptions than just what you would do for if it was merely a financial compliance document. The way you’re saying, jean, let me say how how critically important heidtke think your show is in terms of sharing those resource is out with non-profits throughout the country, especially smaller non-profits that i think, really value it’s. Thank you, tony, for jean do side lighting there’s so thoughtful. Thank you very much. Well, you’re you bring a lot of that to us. You know, people you know might say, well, why illegal? Why have have legal every month. But, you know, you put a color to it on a reality to it where the rubber meets the road and it makes a lot of sense. And you, you avoid talking about the ethereal and the abstract. And so you bring a lot to jean, but thank you. Thank you. We love each other. See that? Well, i mean, and now he needed ah, alliteration for san francisco san francisco affection. Um, let’s see, fund-raising should also be reviewed, right? I mean, this is obviously this critical critical to non-profits the board is should be involved. Yeah, absolutely. And i think everyone non-profit has a different culture, and i, you know, i’ve seen, like, really interesting debates. I’m sure you have as well about the board’s role in fund-raising about whether they should be actively involved or contributing in some other way, but yes, every every non-profit board should be hyre everyone non-profit boardmember should give i think, uh, something that meat is meaningful to that individual boardmember don’t want to exclude people from joining the board because of income o our economic situations, but definitely a meaningful amount, and they can contribute in other ways a swell by providing volunteer services. They’re acting as ambassadors of the organization, but i think having a discussion about the board’s role in fund-raising is something that should be done every year and possibly bringing in a consultant and talking about things like plan giving don’t you think that’s important, i do funny you mentioned yes of course, of course i do. We’ve had lots of guests talk about the board’s role in fund-raising and they should be the leaders in any initiative, including plans e-giving for sure, the also something that the board should be looking at it is a gift acceptance policy, if if they’re accepting gifts that are aren’t just cash and stock. Yeah, you know, too many times i see provisions that board put in violence and says things like we will accept gifts of any type in any nature is not provide any further guidance about that, and those lawyers were obviously terrified that, uh, some staff person might accept any gift just the report, it said, we will take any gift and some gift gives you really don’t want oh, my gosh, yeah, i’m sorry i interrupted you, but i’m thinking of this one client years ago is was offered like a three foot strip of land that was disputed, so it was like three feet wide by one hundred feet deep, and it was a dispute, a dispute between them and the donor and their neighbors, and this was they were trying to pawn it off on a charity was awful. Oh, my god. So, especially around real estate, but that’s not the only thing that should be covered in your gift acceptance policy. Yeah, i mean there’s some really interesting cases of, like, fine art as well on dh, you know, if you if you receive a contribution to find our but you’re told that you cannot sell it and the maintenance costs of keeping that that fine art are restricted in the grant agreement so that you have to keep it at a certain bear metric pressure and temperature and it’s got to be behind ah, a certain amount of security, you know, the carrying costs of, like, let’s say you get a million dollar painting, you’re so happy about it, but then you find out that it cost fifty thousand dollars a year to maintain it and you’re not allowed to sell it and you’re not a museum. So what you going todo? Yes, yes, jean, we have just a minute left so you’ll you’ll post the the the links to your link to an article let’s, just finish with something that sort of subsumes everything we’re talking about your board in just a minute or so. You’re bored really should be asking important big type questions absolutely so that the board’s role in the fear of management of the ports misunderstanding their role is if the boarding gate isn’t in micro management, the board’s got a look at the big issues that affect the organization. Look at the past aside, i said before to make sure that the compliance and that the financials and that the program is really advancing the mission. They gotta think about looking forward because you’ve got a vast we a changing environment on all levels, on policy level, on legal levels, fund-raising levels and you’ve got to look ahead and really take a look at the big picture and see the forest through the trees. If you’re if you’re a director on the board, we have to leave it there. Gene takagi is bloggers the non-profit law block dot com and on twitter he’s at g tack and if you goto go to his site and read his bio, you’ll see that he has very prominently in the first sentence of his bio. He mentions jean, thank you very much that you are contributor to non-profit radio it’s right in the first sentence of your bio. Thank you so much good to talk to you. Always great talking teacher. Thank you. And i’m glad you’re a part of the show. Gotta do more live listener love quickly taipei, taiwan joined us. Ni hao tigre, argentina, iran and cobb orca mexico live listen love to you next week the convening world we can do much better with much, much better with conferences and also follow-up to the auction’s in cash calls show last december. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com give local america there are listener of the week thank you so much on twitter there at give local fifteen, thanks so much for your support of non-profit radio. Our creative producers claire meyerhoff. Janice taylor is today’s line producer shows social media is by susan chavez, susan chavez, dot com and our music is by scott stein you with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent janice taylor what’s happening with our cat stein music. Go out there and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything? People don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s, when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing. So you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist. I took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane. Toe add an email address their card it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dno. Two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts. Tony talked to him. Yeah, you know, i just i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It sze, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just do it. You put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expected to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
