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Nonprofit Radio for December 5, 2014: Corporate Sponsorship Coup & Board Unity Or Dissent

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Gail Bower: Corporate Sponsorship Coup

Gail BowerGail Bower, president of Bower & Co. Consulting, shares savvy strategies for bagging high performing sponsorships.

 

 

 

Gene TakagiGene Takagi: Board Unity Or Dissent?

Should “shut up” be part of your board meetings? Gene Takagi, our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO), returns to weigh the pros and cons of dissent on your board and speaking with a singe voice. 

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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 love this time of year, the holiday time between thanksgiving and christmas. For me just a lovely time to be in new york city it’s vibrant people are apologetic and forgiving and friendly that’s ah, great time this this whole month of december love it and i’m glad you’re with me. I’d be forced to bear the pain of e s n a filic, asafa jj itis if i had to swallow the knowledge that you missed today’s show corporate sponsorship coup gail bauer, president of bauer and company consulting, shares savvy strategies for bagging high performing sponsorships and bored unity or descent should shut up be part of your board meetings. Jean takagi are legal contributor and principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group neo returns to weigh the pros and cons of descent on your board and speaking with a single voice between the guests on tony’s take two fund-raising day and jack nicholson. We’re sponsored by generosity, siri’s hosting multi charity five k runs and walks i’m very glad that gail bauer is in the studio from philadelphia she’s, the author of how to jump start your sponsorship strategy in tough times. She’s, a consultant, coach, writer and speaker with more than twenty five years experience in marketing and leading some of the country’s most important events, festivals and sponsorships, you’ll find her at gail bauer dot com her sponsorship blawg is sponsorship strategist dot com. And on twitter she’s at gail bauer b o w e r welcome gail bauer. Thank you. Thanks, tony according to be here. Thank you for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to have you you would like us to be tossing out the the gold silver bronze a platinum, i presume. Also platinum. All these levels of sponsorship, these air not meaningful, not meaningful. Yes, they cause the nonprofit organization to give away value and leave a lot of money on the table and a whole lot of other problems. No good. Ok, we’re going. We’re going to dive into that right. So that’s, the that’s, the old model correct and the newer model were calling high performing sponsorships. Sure at high performing organizations, right? So organise a sponsorship as a marketing driven activity for corporations. Has been around for ever non-profit organizations have been a little slow to move in that direction, and there have been a lot of changes and a lot of aa lot of reasons why that’s a good strategy on dh? Slowly there non-profit sectors moving in that direction. Okay, should we start with what value we’re bringing to a relationship? Identifying that, or should we start with who we want to partner with and see what their needs are? Where should we start this? I think the best place for anyone to start thinking about sponsorship is really understanding what the value is that they have to offer. Okay, so that’s that’s, the first place we start looking there and inside. So we’re looking inside now is the board involved in this process way offer. Sometimes the board members are but usually it’s more the staff. The board usually has more tangential roles in sponsorship development. Okay, opening doors, making introductions. Ok, so the networking part of it correctly the friendraising and bringing people to the organization. How do we start to identify what the value is that weaken? Bring to this sponsorship relationship that we’re gonna be going after? Well, an organization needs to do a little bit of soul searching, they need to understand more about their brand, they need to understand, especially about their audiences and who they who they reach, who they interact with, and how and factor in how important their mission ist so those three things the they’re strategy, their brand, their brand strategy there, their mission? Because i don’t want them to do something that’s outside of their mission, and especially their audiences and how they can allow a corporation to connect with those audiences. So those three things to find the value we identify these were putting these in a written package that’s going to be a part of our sponsorship pitch that that’s a good play, it doesn’t have to be that formal, but certainly being able to articulate that value, being able to articulate why a sponsor would want to be connected to that audience needs to be something verbally said it, it’s woven into any written materials as well. All right, so this is the special stuff that we bring to a relationship because we don’t want to just be going hat in hand and asking for whatever twenty five thousand dollars or million dollars, whatever it is, without recognizing, without having the company recognized that we bring enormous value to correct the organization should feel very strong and bold about what they what it is that they have to offer two responses to a sponsor they don’t want yet definitely do not want to feel like a dickens character, you know? Yeah, you’re right. You bring something very special and let’s talk a little more about the people that you reach in your organization that a cz one part of what you identified, the people you reach in and how you reach them, going to say, well, more about the sure most organizations have a lot of different audiences that they work with, serve, interact with, and it can range from the constituents that they actually serve. Two, you know, very high end, very high end but high, highly affluent donors. Eso understanding more about the demographics and the psych. A graphics of all these audiences will then help us point a direction to the kinds of corporations that want toe engage with and interact with these with these audiences. Okay, break that down for me. How does it how does knowing that help you identify where you’re where your efforts should be? Should be leading? Okay, so corporations sell their products and services to particular audiences. They know a lot about their customers or their clients. If it’s a beat, obese or service company, so they’re trying to reach a particular audience segments and many non-profit organizations serve these same segments. So for example, a major donor group, a segment of bay jer donors who are affluent, highly educated, perhaps, you know, skewing a little older. Forty five plus might be a very attractive demographic for, say, a financial services company to reach. Okay. That’s, the alignment, the correct your retirement. Okay, yeah. So we then have to do a lot of research to try to find companies that are consistent and with an aligned with what it is we’re bringing in our package. Correct. How do we do that? So that’s like a pretty big task. It’s a pretty big test. But once you know what you’re looking for it it can go pretty quickly. So you you have to understand a lot about how different industries work. How does the banking field work? How does ah, consumer product company work. What? What is it that they’re looking for? But if you always stay focused on what a for-profit company ultimately ultimately wants is they’re trying to sell something. So the way that they do that the pathway to doing that might take him in a different direction. But they always want to sell. So knowing that can help move your can help you focus your research. All right, if you got i’m interested in like, a good client story, you can share an interesting sort of alignment. Even if it’s not a charity where you help somebody, aline recognize what? What kind of company they should be aligned with and help bring something to fruition. Sure. So i earlier this year in early twenty fourteen i love stories. That’s. Why? Yeah, no that’s. Great. So earlier this year i worked with a home builder association. Actually. And they have ah, a significant anniversary. They have many different events. They produce a home show. They produced various activities and events for the consumer population for where they’re homebuilder. Members could be part of on dh. So one of the things that they did was to partner with a bank because obviously banks sell mortgages, and they’re also trying to reach people that are buying homes. So they collaborated with with a bank, and this was actually a bank that had turned them down for a sponsorship. And we went through this process, help them to find a strategy and build their skills, and especially build their confidence because they had a lot more to offer than they were really recognizing. And they landed a very healthy five figure sponsorship to your deal. Very, very healthy. Five figure of sponsorship for this event. For the next two years. They were so excited. I love that they were turned down and then they went back there, go back the next year, way we went back to two months later, two months because i went, i took them through this training program and coach them through it. And they were a little nauseous. But they they went in and said what i told them to say and they did it. It was go out of the company. How did they persuade the company to give them a meeting? Months after the company had decided it’s not a fit. The board chair actually knew the bank president very well. So that was the end. But what i coach them on is going back and talking to them about their business objectives and really focusing on how they could help them fulfill those business objectives. Whereas before they were doing the gold silver bronze approach, so did they get feedback like it’s. Hard to believe this is the same organization that came to us two months ago that we turned down because they get anything that i don’t think they got that say, although maybe the bank people were thinking that but they were really excited about the possibilities and about the partnership moving forward. Outstanding that’s. A very, very good it’s that’s a great cake store because they got turned down and then they worked with you. And then they got approved. Yes, it was a great i had tears in my eyes when she reported back when it was really awful. And you were in the background. You were coaching? Yes, coaching in the background. Okay. Excellent. All right. We’ll go out a little early for a break. We come back. We got a lot more to talk about. Regarding corporate sponsorship. Coup with gail bauer from philadelphia and we’ve got lots of live listener, love, love it, 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. Got lots of live listener love philadelphia p a we got a couple of people from philadelphia and no one is probably gil’s partner shot out. Teo to barry barry brentwood. We hope that barry be better. Be one of those two were presuming you are. Brentwood, california. Blandon, pennsylvania, near philadelphia, georgetown, texas. Honolulu, hawaii, bayonne, new jersey live listener love to all of you my my grandmother used to live in bayonne, right on the newark bay. Like thirty west thirty first street, i think, right last street, right on the newark bay, new bern, north carolina chevy chase, maryland, oakland, california live listener love it will go abroad very shortly. Skill bauer, part of what you’re offering to accompany could very well be opportunities for their employees. Right, like, maybe volunteering. I’m thinking. Volunteering? Yes. Okay. Yeah. There are all kinds of opportunities for volunteers. Of course. The nonprofit organization has tohave a strong volunteer program put together, which can be, you know, challenging, sometimes for smaller organization. But the corporate side can they love having opportunities for volunteerism? And it could be a great way to expand, expand what an organization is doing. Yeah, and that goes to the point that you don’t want to create something that you don’t have or isn’t consistent with your mission. Correct? Just to achieve a sponsorship. Correct? Because that that sometimes takes you away. You know what way off track? Yes, but it’s tempting it is tempting because you’re being offered money. Well, creating a volunteer program. Well, we don’t really work with, you know, most of our work is all done with professionals. You know, maybe they’re counselors, you know, credentials or something. You know, we don’t have a volunteer opportunities, but maybe we could create it for this lucrative five figure sponsorship. Right? That’s. Bad that’s. Bad thinking. Well, it’s it’s, when you’re working on sponsorship, you always have to be thinking into the future. And sometimes a sponsorship opportunity can come along. That actually can propel something that you do want to move forward too. So if having a robust volunteer program is something that you wanna have happen and you can expedite it more quickly through a sponsorship poke, then yes, that’s. Great. And sometimes it can be a surprise. I worked on the new orleans jazz and heritage festival for many years and the year after katrina sin oko sorry, excuse me, shell oil came in as a sponsor on day one of the things that they did was to provide a very large pool of volunteers, which was really invaluable because if you remember, after katrina, half the population of new orleans left, we could not have produced the festival without without that volunteer staff, and it was terrific, so volunteerism can be really important for an organization what’s we’ve identified what it is we’re bringing, and we’ve identified companies that are properly aligned similarly aligned, who should we approach let’s, say let’s say so let’s start with a large company, but you know your ah midsize, maybe organization, and they’ve got an office in or, you know, some kind of retail outlet or something in your community. You start at the local level, or do you go to the national office? You, if you’re an organization that is regionally or locally based, then you wantto work with the regional or local decision makers. So if they have a retail branch, for example, of a bank branch or it’s a retail. Organization. A retail company, you can get to know the branch manager or the you know, the general manager of the store. But the decision’s probably not going to be made there, though, that that person, depending on the company, could be an influencer of the person who’s making the decision, the decision’s going to be really made out of the marketing or communications or public relations office generally, depending depending on what the opportunity is. For example, if a new organization had an opportunity that was more environmental, they were an environmental organization. It could be made out of the csr office, the corporate social responsibility office. Or if the organization has some kind of a diversity initiative, then it could come out of the chief diversity office. Okay, adversity. Office of interesting. I was only thinking of marketing. I was thinking marketing budgets that’s where this would all be, but not necessarily right. Yeah, it’s usually marketing. But one of the things on a more sophisticated way of working a high performing way of working in corporate sponsorship is to really help an organization leverage sponsorship opportunity across multiple departments within the company. So if we have any corporate listeners listening, tuning in that’s that would be a tip that i would have for them to have to involve as many departments into your sponsorship opportunity is possible because that way you’re getting more value out of that investment and driving mohr business outcomes, not just marketing. This is on the non-profit side, you want to be looking, then at possibilities for maybe diversity volunteer opportunities, which should be hr hr. What else? Corporate public relations if there’s an environmental theme, corporate social responsibility, there could be sales initiatives there. If you had a media partner, they’re trying to drive sales and they’re trying to drive circulation and they’re looking at there could be a content opportunity. There could be an opportunities to bring there the writers or the radio personalities tto life s so there are all different kinds of, you know, all different kinds of channels, so that the idea is for the nonprofit organization to think really broadly and very creatively about all these ways to tie in. Excellent. I love it. Well, now we’ve identified who were going to and and where we should be starting who should? Who should make the initial inquiry? I guess if there’s a relationship like a boardmember, then they should make the first inquiry that yeah, that if you have a really somebody got relations, yes, that would be a good one, but to make the macon introduction or go, you know, go to lunch together, but see it’s, usually the development director, chief development officer, or sometimes there’s a corporate person on the staff of the nonprofit organization so that’s usually the person, if it’s a very small organization than sometimes it’s the executive director. But you want to make sure that the person i had this is another point of having high performing organizations selling sponsorship is you want to make sure that the person has both sales skills and marketing skills. Set your you’re actually in business development when you’re on the corporate sponsorship frontier. All right, why don’t you distinguish the two between sales and marketing? Yes, well, marketing is attracting people to you, and sales is actually selling going in closer yes, selling enclosing something. Yeah, and with corporate sponsorship, the type of selling that you’re doing is more of a consul. Tate of process. You’re building a relationship. You are, you know. Challenging the organization or the company and really helping to drive their business goals. So there’s a lot of relationship building and trust building that has to happen. This does not have to be around events, right? Event sponsorship. No, i mean, it works very well for sponsorship marketing. The hallmark of corporate sponsorship is that it’s experiential. So so that there’s a face to face interaction, that’s involved with it. But there are many ways that programs could be tied into it or other marketing initiatives or other kinds of opportunities within an organization and could very well then be longer term. Correct. I think you had said in the example you were talking about the building association, um, wasn’t that the homebuilders association one that a couple of year because there are a couple of sponsors that was a two year sponsorship for their home show, right? But it could there could be annual sponsorships that happened for organizations as well. Oh, so the event was a part of that? Correct. So it could be an event and just not stop with the event, but it continue, like could be leading up to and could be after, right? The that particular case, they sponsored boat two years of home show that that’s what that’s what? I just think that a lot of times the constraint is on ly around events were hosting an event, we need sponsors, right? And you want people to think broader than that? Correct ideo because you’re otherwise you’re missing opportunities you when you’re starting sponsorship, it takes a lot of propulsion to get your sponsorship program moving, so you want to focus on your best opportunity? You don’t want to waste time on a smaller opportunity, so you want to put more eggs in the baskets that are going to drive the best results and then and then keep building up these other opportunities. So if you only have one significant event and it seems to have a lot of potential, i would focusedbuyer rather than dispersing my energies across other opportunities. So for example, i’m working with an environmental organization in philadelphia right now, they’ve got one new event to other events that they’ve been building and building, and there are undoubtedly others opportunities for sponsors within their organizations, but we have been just been focusing on those that that new event in the other two events that they’re trying to really build. All right, you’re back in the meeting now, first meeting introductory meeting a lot of listening, i presume a lot of listening eighty to eighty percent of your time should be about listening twenty percent of your time should be talking. All right, what what kinds of questions are we asking so that we get answers and have things to listen to? Yeah, so that there are three things that you want to be doing when you go into a sponsorship opportunity like this and into this kind of discussion number one you want to build trust, and we build trust by having that other person and that company’s best interests at heart, especially that person, because that person is going to be making the decision. And so you want to be building a relationship and one part of this twenty percent of your time, you’re doing three things. You’re enthusiastically conveying information about your organization and about this opportunity, and you’re asking really good questions which i will get into in a second. You’re asking really good questions that are going to help you uncover the business objectives. Of the sponsor and at the same time build that trust and build the relationship. So you want to ask more questions about what their business objectives are? What are they trying to accomplish in there? Marketing plans for twenty, fifteen and beyond? You know, if you’ve done your research, you may have found just the perfect hot button that is something that they could focus on. So for example, maybe there’s a new product launch or there’s a merger that’s about to happen when either of those two kinds of situations and many others happened there tend to be more marketing dollars available, so you want to find the one, you know, the key priorities that the business has coming up, all right? And in the other twenty percent while you’re talking, you’re making an initial pitch, but, you know, trying to close this is just an introductory meeting, but but you’re trying to explain the alignment between your organization and there’s, correct? Yes, and you’re you’re enthusiastic leak, you know, conveying information about what that sponsorship opportunity is and to, you know, to sort of have corroborated what you’re thinking is the right approach for them. Yeah, so and then you’re asking questions, and as they’re talking, you’re listening and listening internally to think, yeah, i’m right on this, this this this event is, you know, this priority that they’re having is exactly what i should be focused on. All right, now you go back, you had your first meeting and let’s say, you know, there’s, some interest, okay? Basically, the the tenor of it is let’s keep talking, you go back, and now you’re obviously putting together everything that you heard and weaving that into what you’re trying to get out of this correct. And so if you’ve left that first meeting and there’s equal enthusiasm and they, you know, you feel like you’ve gotten all the information that you need, then you would go back and you would develop a proposal for them, and you would give them lots of different suggestions, you know, several different options and let them choose how they might be involved with your organisation. And so in the proposal, then you had outlined the different ways that they could be involved different opportunities that you’ve defined in the process of developing your sponsorship strategy for your organization. Now, if we’re not allowed to call these gold silver bronze? How are we explaining what’s available and what it would cost? Ah, well, in the proposal, you’re outlining what? You know what the value is, what the benefits are for each of the different options, and no, you don’t want to call it gold, silver, bronze, but you want to make sure that each of these different opportunities number one drives some business goal of the other theirs, and that integrates the company into something of the organizations, whether it’s a program or event let’s just taken event for now. S o, if you wantto weave it into the event in a meaningful way so that the the sponsor is really contributing something valuable to the event. So, for example, a long time ago, i worked with gibson guitar as a sponsor of one of the events that i was involved with fender, i prefer fundez yeah, fender was involved offenders involved too, but they weren’t you know, not not this year. Yes, gibson was involved, and so an idea that we had we didn’t have time to execute it, but one of the ideas that we brought to them was, wouldn’t it? Be great. Gibson has a lot of endorses and so we thought would be really great if we had an area where there endorses who are also playing on the festival’s could sign autographs. So you want to bring something that’s really meaningful to the event? Not just, you know, slap logo’s on things. Was that for the new orleans jazz and heritage festival? Yes, it was. With all right. Now we have presented the proposal, and it has happened with the client that you worked with in the home building association. Now we get a no way. We thought, you know, there might be something there, but we don’t see it any longer. Well, that can happen. So you have to go through a lot of you know, you have to go through a lot of prospects at the door. Might still be open door. Might still be alright. Let’s, continue with this prospect. Yeah, definitely need a pipeline. Right? You need to close a hundred percent, but let’s, continue with this one. Um we’d like to know what? What is it that didn’t doesn’t appeal, right. Exactly. So when you get that far along it’s, you know when you’re to the point where you’re writing a proposal. There’s probably pretty good interest, but if there’s not interest, suddenly yes, that that’s a great approach. You want to find out more about what what went wrong or why they’re not interested, or perhaps there’s a question? Or maybe they don’t understand something, but usually the response people get is that they wantto learn more about the they want to explore the costs more. They will come back and say, well, we don’t have this, we don’t have fifty thousand dollars in our budget. We’d rather do forty thousand dollars where we only have twenty thousand dollars or something, but still encouraging exactly. We can offer you less exactly for lower dollar direct, right? So that that’s what you do is just negotiate. How do we come up with these numbers that were going toe put two different alternatives that we’re offering is it’s strictly based on what our needs are if you just did. But based on what your needs are, then you really wouldn’t run a prophet in in having corporate sponsorship. S o there’s pricing sponsorship is one of the trickiest things to discuss because it’s one part art. One. Part science there, about two minutes left. Yeah, so it’s, based on it’s, based on the value that the sponsorship is delivering to the to the organisms that tough to pin down. Yeah, so there is some quantitative value. And then there are some qualitative intangibles that are factored in and that’s. Part of the strategy that you would develop is toe also developed the pricing strategy as well. Maybe other organizations could be helpful to you who have who’ve, or is there not really going to be willing to share so much about their details of their sponsorship? Sometimes other organizations air charging so little that that’s, not helpful. So don’t follow other people off the cliffs, correct? Let me finish with what it is that you love about the work that you’re doing twenty five, thirty years in in sponsorship work. Yeah, i’ve done every side of sponsorship development work, i’ve helped sponsors secure deals, i’ve sold sponsorship, and now it just brings me really great joy to see organisations you know suddenly have a paradigm shift and then be able to go out there and boldly, boldly go where they’ve not gone before and generate more revenue and really propel their organizations forward. And it just i really just gets so touched and so excited when somebody gets what i’m saying and they’re able tto to move their organization forward in that way. It’s it’s really thrilling your passion is clear. Gil bauer, you’ll find her at gail bauer dot com her sponsorship blawg is sponsorship strategist dot com and you can follow her on twitter at gail bauer. Thanks so much for being guests. Thank you. My pleasure. Thanks. Next up is jean takagi on board unity or descent? First generosity siri’s they host five k runs and walks small and midsize non-profits can’t get enough runners. Tau host their own event. You’re going to have twenty five people thirty you can’t host an event like that generosity. Siri’s brings the small and midsize charity community together so there can be a fun and valuable fund-raising run walk in new york city where i am seed their event. Just last month, there were twelve charities raised over a hundred fifty thousand dollars. They hosted one in philadelphia, nine charities raised over seventy five thousand dollars. They offer, you know, fund-raising portals and dashboards and social media tools and, ah, charity support team that you actually talk to. But all of that is to just bring small and midsize shops together tau host valuable fund-raising run, walk the events coming up in new jersey and also miami, florida. Dave lynn is the ceo. Please tell him that you’re from non-profit radio, you know, i like to talk to pick up the phone and talk to people seven one eight, five o six, nine triple seven if you prefer generosity siri’s dot com my video this week highlights to fund-raising day videos and also a jack nicholson movie on how aloma shared ideas about upgrading donors and marcy brenholz and i talked about thanking donors so that they’ll stay with you you after year and keep on giving. I played both of those on the show not too long ago, but i also want to share the fact that there is video of those two interviews from fund-raising day and the jack nicholson movie that i recommend is from nineteen seventy four it’s an excellent murder mystery, and this probably gives it away. It co stars faye dunaway and if you want to know what that movie is that i’m recommending, you have to watch the video. The video is that tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday, fifth of december forty seventh show of this year. December already jean takagi, you’re out there, right? I am. Honey, i know you are. You’re the managing attorney of neo, the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. That’s still true, right? Absolutely. And fire yourself. All right. And you also still edit the popular non-profit low block dot com and on twitter, you’re at g tak gt a k right. All correct. Okay. Just like the check. Double check the biographical information every every once in a while. And plus, being an attorney, i don’t like to ask questions that i don’t know the answer to, so i knew that was all correct. All right, gene, we’re talking about unity and dissent on your board this arose from, although we’re not going to nit pick the details of this, but this arose from a university of virginia proposal that that board members silence their descent and there was a little bit shocking for some people to read in the paper when they read about ebba talking about so sad, discouraging or actually prohibiting dissenting board members from publicly expressing their view. And that was just a proposed policy that somehow got released to the public, and some people were very, very upset about it thinking of it, a censorship on dh that caused them once, you know, the public was made aware of it. There was all sorts of articles in the washington post and other newspapers about it, and they rescinded that part of the proposal, but they kind of added a more common governance thought after about well, you can talk about your descent publicly, we won’t. We won’t chill that from happening, but once a decision is reached by the board. The board members each have a responsibility to ensure that the board’s actions and decisions are successfully implemented. So they really downgraded their initial thought. But it was a a source of a lot of controversy at the time. And i think it’s a really interesting subject. Yeah, i love that. Some dissenter released to the public, the non dissenting policy and that there that’s interesting at virginia. I just this is just a small detail, but they call their board the board of visitors. I thought that was interesting. Hey, i i i do it. Well, i don’t know what the historical artifact of that is, but it is their governing body. Yes. This’ll all go back to the days of this is from thomas jefferson, i think is the founder of via university that’s what a little bit ironic and some people’s mind about, right? You know, quenching public dissent? Yeah, this statesmen who spoke out of, um and they’re doing just the opposite. But askew said it turns out they’re not doing it, that that part of the proposal was was killed. There is, in fact, value in diversity and dissent. On aboard, right? Yeah, absolutely way need tohave open discussion then, in a lot of governance, experts will say having a culture that encourages open dissent is actually one of the most important indicators of bored effectiveness, the opposite being, you know, usually a culture of group think and rubber stamping one person’s decision and all just sort of reinforcing, you know, the first point of view that comes up rather than actively debating and thinking about, you know, critically thinking about what would be the best decision of the board amongst all of the possibilities. So so every board vote should not be one hundred percent in unanimous. In fact, it’s you’re saying it’s a good sign if there’s there is disagreement. Yeah, but, you know, from from time to time and that’s, you know, a pet peeve of mine and many other lawyers that work with non-profit boards to see by-laws that say board actions will only be taking taken if there is a unanimous vote in favor of aboard actions. That’s part of it really just chills, you know, the board from discussing, you know, individual boardmember from discussing their dissenting opinions. That’s part of some by-laws of some organizations, that has to be a one hundred percent vote. Yeah, i, um i got is an uncommon to find consensus. A required vote. Teo get bored. Action. Well, but consensus could be an easy majority or two thirds or something, but but you see it often that it’s one hundred percent unanimous requirement. Yeah. It’s not uncommon. I wouldn’t. I would i would say, you know, it’s, not the majority of by-laws permit that, but certainly i’ve seen several, uh, that that require one hundred percent consensus vote in order to take aboard action. And that is to promote their culture. What they feel like is a culture of unity. Mmm. All right, there are ways of dealing with the descent in a in a board discussion on dh valuing the honesty and the openness and the diversity if you just if you just manage and facilitate the conversation yeah, you know, you’re absolutely right. And i think it takes a really skilled chair of the board or whoever is the presiding officer at the board meetings to really encourage that. That dissent without letting it, you know, devolved into infighting and ah, and, uh, a culture where nobody wants to be there. And everybody is apprehensive about showing up at the next board meeting because there is that culture of stress and tension and disagreement. So it is a bit of a balancing act, and i think it actually like many, many things take some exercise in some effort. Teo, create that culture of open dissent where, you know, people can descent. This takes place in families too, doesn’t it, tony, especially in italian cultures, open dissent and at the dinner table, but always mine afterwards. Yeah, i went after the thanksgiving dinner at my cousin’s house. When, when i was walking down the sidewalk in getting into the car to drive home, i realized how quiet it was. I felt like i had been in a springsteen concert for, like, four hours. And then i was back at home and my ears were almost ringing. Yes. So there’s a healthy descent at least among my cacophonous family. Yeah, for sure. And my part of the family. And i have ah, through marriage, some italian family as well. Yes, it is this healthy dissenting atmosphere, but it’s very vibrant it’s encouraging of discussion. Um, and at the end of the day, they can move forward. So, you know, creating that culture is not necessarily the easiest thing, especially for non-profit board, who may not meet so often like the way family gets to meet andi, everything gets remedy, you know, the next time they have dinner. But when you meet, like once every other month or once every quarter ah, and that’s, the only time you see these people, you may be a little hesitant about, you know, starting a fight by by presenting a dissenting views. So i think it takes practice. And, you know, one way you might practise is and there’s some dangerous to this as well. But in short, formal, just say creating a doubles advocate for a particular issues, you know, and particular issue, maybe where the board all seas, the thing you know, in the same light and would all vote unanimously in favor of it. Maybe at that time assigning one person to just raise issues and take the other part and encouraging discussion to see what happens. And you may end up with still the same opinion, but aboard that’s learned to discuss things a little bit more. Vigorously and critically look att issues and way ah ah, conflicting viewpoints, there’s a policy governance model from interestingly, from a married couple, the carvers that has some very good ideas for howto manage this whole process and maintain good governance. Yeah, and they’re they’re aspects of the carver policy governance model that i really like, and it is a model that encourages discussion, even passionate disagreement, i think they say to rip represent the diversity on the board, hopefully the diversity in all kinds of ways, on the board, with different perspectives in different ways of looking at things. But i think part of the model says is once you’ve made a vote, you know whether it’s a unanimous vote or if it’s a five for a slim majority vote and that’s enough to take board action, the ceo and the staff have got to treat it the same way. It’s a board decision in favor of going a certain direction and that’s what needs to be implemented. And so the carver model goes on to say, you know, if a boardmember descent, you know, with that, well, you should absolutely record that descent. So in a five, four vote, you’ll record those who have presented their dissenting opinions, not necessarily by name. However, if they don’t want their name to be to be entered into there, if they’re minutes or public, they may feel that that might, um, chill feature board discussion if they’re not in the majority. So, you know, it could just indicate that there was a five four vote and anybody who wants to be on record as dissenting should have their name recorded otherwise, maybe not, but if if if you do disagree with it and you want to go out and publicly say it, we don’t chill that process, you let them say that, but they’ve got to balance that with a duty of confidentiality, so they have to make sure that they’re not releasing confidential information out there. They have to be careful of not chilling board participation in future discussions. So if they go, you know, john smith disagreed with me, and he came up with all sorts of terrible arguments in favor of that. Well, that’s not going to be a healthy way to descend, you know, naming out individual board members who disagreed with you and, you know, taking down their argument without the chance for them to present the other side. And then i think what’s important about the carver model. The balance is that if a boardmember disagrees, they should go on to say, on the record, whoever they’re speaking out to in the public, that the process used by the board with proper so they disagreed, but they were in the minority. But the process used was proper to get all those things out there and that hopefully we’ll create a good culture of open dissent and ability to express dissenting views in public without harming the organization. All right, there was a lot in there that this is getting into the details. Very interesting of good governance, right? I mean, a lot of times we talk about good governance and it stops with well, you should have a conflict of interest policy. You have a whistle blower policy document retention. But this is getting into the process of board meetings that created good governance and proper oversight. Yeah, and you know, onboarding typically take actions and board meeting. So how boardmember ings air run? How their chairs, what type of discussions you choose toe have. Board meetings when in the meeting do you take your, you know, place your most important discussions? Maybe it shouldn’t be approving the board minutes right at the front where everybody, you know has the energy to vigorously discuss important issues. Maybe that gets put in the back. So prioritizing what you’re goingto, you know, discussed at the board meetings and creating that culture of open descent and possibly allowing everybody toe argue different points beforehand, circulating that in the board agenda and sort of meeting prep materials would be a very good and healthy way to get bored to be able to discuss the most important things to the organization because boards are ultimately in charge of the organization. You mentioned the agenda, and this ah, this carver policy governance model, which, by the way, you’ll find it. Carver governance dot com has something to say about the agenda who should be creating the board agenda because that could that could be a source of of dissension also is what belongs on our agenda for the month or whatever. For the for the meeting. Yeah, that’s, that’s absolutely true. I don’t actually, i’m not familiar with how, how carver’s model treats who will create the what’s? What typically done is is bored chairs. After conferring with the executive, the executive director’s, ceo of the organization developed the agenda. But i think knowing what i do about policy governance, it is openly encourage other board members to chime in as the chair developed the agenda to figure out what topics are most important to the organization and figuring out at that point how to proceed with finalizing the agenda and the meeting materials beforehand on dh that’s, very consistent with what carver recommends in there in there model, which is that the board developed its agenda. Not that the ceo create the agenda for the board. Yeah, you know, that’s, uh, i don’t wantto go too far off, but that’s sort of the problem with when the board acts by written consent because whoever drafts that that consent and circulates it is possibly planted just one point of view and argued only one side of it. And that can be very persuasive. And nobody has had a chance to look at the other side. So developing an agenda with only one point of view can make things look very, very one sided in developing organisation that just rubber stamp the chair’s decisions. Okay, we’re going to go out for a break for a few minutes. You mentioned a consent agenda for the break you’re in, george, in jail for that, and we come back. I’ll offer you a quick, a quick parole stay with us. Like what you’re hearing a non-profit radio tony’s got more on youtube, you’ll find clips from stand up comedy tv spots and exclusive interviews catch guests like seth gordon, craig newmark, the founder of craigslist marquis of eco enterprises, charles best from donors choose dot org’s aria finger do something that worked and they are levine from new york universities heimans center on philanthropy tony tweets to he finds the best content from the most knowledgeable, interesting people in and around non-profits to share on his stream. If you have valuable info, he wants to re tweet you during the show. You can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit radio twitter is an easy way to reach tony he’s at tony martignetti narasimhan t i g e n e t t i remember there’s a g before the end he hosts a podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy fund-raising fundamentals is a short monthly show devoted to getting over your fund-raising hartals just like non-profit radio, toni talks to leading thinkers, experts and cool people with great ideas. As one fan said, tony picks their brains and i don’t have to leave my office fund-raising fundamentals was recently dubbed the most helpful non-profit podcast you have ever heard, you can also join the conversation on facebook, where you can ask questions before or after the show. The guests are 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 guess directly. To sign up, visit the facebook page for tony martignetti dot com. Duitz i’ve got more live listener to love to send out ottawa on ontario, canada, ottawa, the capital city of canada welcome live listener love to ottawa in china we’ve got coming! Ni hao my first guest, gail bauer, did some work in china for the great wall foundation. I believe it is. I know she did work with a couple of clients in china. We’ve got hanoi, vietnam, we’ve got turkey, germany and seoul, south korea on yo haserot turkey and germany. I’m sorry, we can’t see your cities your mask, but we know that your country is represented live listener love to you and naturally podcast pleasantries, everybody listening in the time shift wherever the heck you maybe arjun takagi the you didn’t actually say the phrase consent agenda. I put that together for you and locked you up in george in jail, but you said consent and you were referring to agenda, so i’ll give you half a break. So could we explain what consent agenda is sure, andi, you know, i didn’t realize that i did not say that i thought i was accused and i was guilty, okay? But i don’t think we’re a consent agenda. Is basically a group of routine, typically procedural, self explanatory, noncontroversial decisions that the board has to make, like approving the minutes of the last meeting, approving committee actions that were very non controversial and it’s done all in one action. So rather than going through them one by one and having a lot of discussion about each one if they don’t deserve that discussion, it’s just something that should have been read before the meeting. It’s all presented on the consent agenda, one person moved to adopt it, it gets seconded, approved and then it’s done and you don’t have to spend, you know, half to your board meeting talking about thes routine on controversial board actions that everybody should have read before hand and instead of, you know, having them read it at at the meeting and wasting everybody’s time. Thank you very much. Probation granted a parole parole granted program when how do we know when a boardmember has gone too far? You suggested that its fine for board members to speaking descent as long as they’re they’re not speaking on behalf of the board and they and they say that, but when does a boardmember go? Too far. Yeah. I wish i had one easy answer to that. And i think i mentioned before, you know, balancing against being a balancing that openness against the duty of confidentiality. So not giving away any confidential information and also not harming any individual on the board or sabotaging, if you will, the board action that ultimately was taken by majority vote, even though you were dissenting on it. So if you try to unwind and unwrap it, that that’s probably not acting in the best interest of the organization could harm the organization and their four year breaching your fiduciary duties. But exactly when when you cross the line is not always clear. For example. And if you thought the board had approved an unlawful action both well, that’s going to be you do need to speak out. And at worst case, you need to bring it to the attention of ah, the authorities in much more common cases. Maybe it’s something if you if you feel very strongly about that, you send a private letter out each boardmember and ceo. And if somebody asks you about it, you just say you disagreed with it vigorously. But the process used again was proper, and a majority voted the other way. And if you really can’t live with that decision, think about resigning from the board, okay, the private letter to the individual boardmember is that’s an interesting approach, but that’s discreet but still could be very firm, right? And i think it allows you to state your argument in a way that you can get all your points across the way you might not be able to do at a board meeting when you know everybody’s interrupting each other and there’s this vigorous discussion amongst, you know, five, ten, fifteen, twenty people all trying to chime in in a short amount of time. Would you be asking if you felt that strongly about something for the board to reconsider its decision and have the discussion again at another board meeting? If it’s the type of decision that can be reconsidered, maybe it’s something that’s going to be ah, strategic ah plan for the future and not a contract that has already been signed on dh where you can’t back out of it. If it’s something that far off enough that the board decision can be reversed in the organization can change course without any harm, and then yes, i think the board can reconsider it if if they didn’t get a chance to hear your arguments, perhaps because the board meeting pets short didn’t give a chance give you the opportunity to put out all your points that you thought were very important, sending it in a board letter, at least to the chair of the board. But but possibly toe all board members and and the executive might might be the right thing to do. Do you see money? Occasions? And we just have about a minute and a half left where an outside facilitator could be valuable for for these these kinds of difficult discussions in board meetings. Yeah, you know, i think when when the board starts to disagree each other and creates this culture, not only have open dissent but of open, uh, hostility, yeah, so just where they can’t stand each other anymore, i think you really need to get a facilitator to help figure out the process and howto get boardmember to understand their different viewpoints. You also have tio select board members very carefully not only fruit for their diversity and skills and backgrounds, but also for their ability. Tio operate in a culture that that encourages dissent on where they they’re not afraid to speak out, even if they may not be in the majority view point. That’s, that’s really important in our democracy and certainly in aboard as well my voice just went up like a high school girl like you often voice cracked like a fourteen year old, and i do that all the time. No, but it is very important. That’s a very, very interesting point two to bring in the recruitment process the not only the skill that you might be seeking real estate attorney, whatever, but fitting into the culture of the organization and the culture of the board. I i think that could even be a valid statement for the organisation when it when it, you know, thinks about all of the valleys that it wants to to promote is encouraging dissenting views as a core governance or organizational values sametz okay, jean, we’re gonna leave it there. I want to thank you very much. You will find jeans, blawg at non-profit law blogged dot com and on twitter, you’ll find him at g. Tack again, jean, thanks so much. Thank you tell you, have a happy holiday, thank you very much, you two we’ll talk next month thanks next week, amy sample ward returns you know her she’s, our monthly social media contributor and the ceo of and ten non-profit technology network. She’s. Always excellent. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com generosity siri’s remember them good things happen when small charities come together and work together. General city siri’s dot com. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is on the board is a line producer. Shows social media is by julia campbell of jake campbell. Social marketing on the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules are music is by scott stein it’s cheap red wine be with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Go out and be great. What’s not to love about non-profit radio tony gets the best guests check this out from seth godin this’s the first revolution since tv nineteen fifty and henry ford nineteen twenty it’s the revolution of our lifetime here’s a smart, simple idea from craigslist founder craig newmark yeah insights, orn presentation or anything people don’t really need the fancy stuff they need something which is simple and fast. When’s the best time to post on facebook facebook’s andrew noise nose at traffic is at an all time hyre on nine a m or eight pm so that’s when you should be posting your most meaningful post here’s aria finger ceo of do something dot or ge young people are not going to be involved in social change if it’s boring and they don’t see the impact of what they’re doing so you got to make it fun and applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to dio they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones. Me dar is the founder of idealist. I took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe. Add an email address card. It was like it was phone. This email thing is right and that’s why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were on dh and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical 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 sacristan. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five.

Nonprofit Radio for February 7, 2014: Corporate Coffers & Committee Confab

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Linda Lysakowski: Corporate Coffers

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 Gene Takagi: Committee Confab

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. Oh, i’m very glad you’re with me. I’d suffer the embarrassment of a calcula if i had to shoulder the burden of knowing that you were going to miss this week’s show corporate coffers. Linda, listen kowski a c f r ee is a development consultant with nearly thirty years of experience. She wants you to systematize and formalize your corporate appeals. Pay attention to small companies and be more strategic with cultivation and committee conned fab jean takagi is back. He’s, our legal contributor and principal of the non-profit and exempt organizations law group neo he’s, all about committees this month. How are bored cities? Different than advisory committees? How much authority should be delegated to them? And what are the pros and cons of executive committees between the guests on tony’s? Take two. I have an abundance of alliteration. Were brought to you by rally bound peer-to-peer fund-raising and by telephone bill reduction consulting. T brc. Getting your money back from phone bill screwups. My pleasure to welcome to the show, linda. Like kowski, she is. One of one hundred professionals worldwide toe hold the advanced certified fund-raising executive designation. She has thirty years in non-profit development, and one of her many books is raised more money from your business community. She’s at linda lissa kowski dot com you could follow her on twitter where she’s at l listen, kowski llc linda, listen, caskey, welcome thanks, tony it’s. Glad i’m glad to be here. Happy to be with your audience today. Thank you very much. I’m glad you are too, and i i think it’s safe for me to speak for them to them, for them that that they’re glad you’re here too. Tell me about this cfr lots of lots of people are cf ari’s certified fund-raising executive, but you’re in advanced certified fund-raising executive right, and they’ve been certified fund-raising executive i used to be able to say i was one of fewer than one hundred, but just recently, with unless couple of months, we accepted number ninety nine and number one hundred into the fold on and it’s really an honor to be counted among the cfr ese it’s. A long, grueling process but i think it’s well worth it in the end. It’s it’s a process that you go through your really dedicated to this profession and a hundred of us at least are on. Did you have to be invited? Teo too do the work to get the a before your c f r ee. Well, the processes that you have to be a c f ar e already. Andi, i have been in the profession ten years or more. And then what makes us a little bit different from the cfr e to see if our reprocesses you take an exam and the review committee looks at your exam and make sure there’s no ethical violations on your record and then you’re automatically approved with e f r ee it’s really a four step process? It’s the application itself, and then you do take a written exam, which is obviously a little bit harder than the cfr e exam. And then you put together a portfolio showing your work and at least two a p f r ee piers will review that portfolio and then the third part of the fourth part of the process is an aural exam. Where again, about three, of your peers will take you through. About a three hour process where you give your oral answers to questions that are thrown at you by this group. So pretty grueling process. Ok, i happen to be a u a c f r ee ultra advanced there’s there’s. Only one of us, though. Come on, that that’s pretty cool. I guess i’m gonna have to try to get to be number two in that group. I don’t think you’re qualified. I’m sorry. Probably not. It’s the next level up, but it sze very secretive. Yeah, like the masons for, like free masons. Usc fr ee. Okay, so i have to learn a secret handshake that well, if you’re qualified. But i don’t believe that you are. I’m sorry. Okay? We’re talking about corporate giving. And specifically, i think small companies. But but before we get into big versus small there’s lots of forms of corporate giving, right, but it’s way beyond just just money. Yes, yes, there is, you know? And i think sometimes we kind of forget the many ways that corporations do contribute to the non-profit world besides e-giving cash, which most of us are familiar with cash or grant, there is in-kind there’s corporate. Volunteer programs, which can be really magnificent for a lot of organizations. And some corporations like to do sponsorship. Not so much of sponsorship of events, but other sponsorship may be sponsoring one of your program. Something like that. So there’s a whole variety of pockets you can delve into. Yeah. There’s also giving of inventory, right? Gif ts in-kind right. Right. Okay. And i’ve had some clients really be very successful with gifts. In-kind i could also tell you a bunch of horror stories about gifts and well, okay, we’ll hold the heart stories, but just, uh well, maybe, but we know that just want to set the ground work. We know there’s lots of different ways that we could be approaching cos on dh. You also want people to think broadly about the kinds of companies they approach. You will identify a lot of under the radar businesses, right? Right. And i think a lot of times we tend to always look at those big companies in our community whether their banks are hi tech companies. But there’s, every community has a couple companies that everybody thinks someone it’s like. Okay, how can we raise some money from the business sector and they all tend to think of a big company. I called the willie sutton theory that’s, probably because i spent a lot of years in banking before i was involved in the nonprofit world. But, you know, they one day it’s really sudden white, he robbed banks and he said, because that’s, where the money is and sometimes that’s the impression that we get some of those big companies about us for all the money is i have no live near las vegas and in our community, it’s, let’s go after the big casinos because, look, i have all this money, and we just kind of roll up with our little plastic cup and asked him to fill it with money, and it doesn’t always work that easy, right? So let’s, identify some of the the under under the radars and you like your name, like pest control movers, landscapers, right? Small, small companies that are often get overlooked by the way that that willie sutton story according to wikipedia, he didn’t really say that. That’s a pocketful. You know, i just heard that recently to that it was actually a reporter who described that statement. To him, but by still called the willie sutton xero describe doing me whether he said it or not, i don’t think we’ll take away your cfr designation because i hope not it’s, not that that’s, not really an ethical breach. It’s, just a little fib a little fairy town not doesn’t reach the eye to the level of ethical oversight, i guess in the next edition of the book will have to say that statement was described to willie said it or not, ok, let’s, talk about some of that well, how to get started with this. I mean, i would think now we have lots of different size companies on we have lots of different ways that we can approach various sized companies, so that creates a lot of variables. Should we be starting with what our goals are? Starting with gold is always important looking at how many companies, realistically or in your community, how many you think you might be able to reach and that’s going to be based a lot on how many staff and or volunteers you have to reach out to that business community, and i really stressed the word volunteers because sometimes the staff people think they have to do this all by themselves, and i have found that the best way to reach the corporate sector is tohave appear make that peer-to-peer solicitation. So if you have volunteers on your board, your development committee, a special committee that set up just to do a corporate annual appeal, you be able to use what i call the five to one rule, and this is a pretty common thing and fund-raising that no one volunteer is to make more than five calls when you’re talking about going out, personally visiting with someone and that’s what we’re talking about because personal solicitation is really the only way to get to the corporate community. I find direct mail doesn’t work, and most of the time, phone calls don’t work because the decision makers don’t take phone calls or open mail, okay, you through a lot of stare in terms of volunteers and how to approach and whether events versus one on one is best. So we’re going to unpack that we’re going to take a break for a couple minutes when we come back. Linda and i well, keep talking about corporate coffers stay with us e-giving thinking, duitz co-branding you’re listening to the talking alternative network duitz waiting to get a drink. Duitz nothing. Cubine do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss our culture and consultant services a guaranteed to lead toe right groat for your business, call us at nine one seven eight three three four eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com oppcoll 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 conscious people be better business people. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Buy-in welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Time to send some live listener love stew start domestic new york, new york, minneapolis, minnesota, new bern, north carolina live listener love to you, seoul, korea got many people in seoul and others that are whose city is masked. So soul i wonder if you know the three or four people in seoul who are listening. Or do you ah, do you all know each other? I wonder. Can non-profit radio bring you together in soul? And of course, for our korean listeners on your haserot many in japan, tokyo, ujiie and one or two others were not sure who are who are masked japanese sorry to our japanese listeners. Konichiwa. Ok, linda, listen, kowski let’s unpack some of that stuff that you let us into let’s begin with how to approach the companies. You you suggest in in your book a cultivation event? Yes, i think cultivation events are a great way to get to know the business leaders and have them get to know you. Lots of times. The organizations think they just go knock on the door or send a letter and suddenly they’re going to raise all this money from the business sector, but these businesses a run by people, we have to remember that, and people need to get to know your organization before they’re going to support it. So i’ve had some very successful cultivation events were business leaders are invited in, always hosted by another business leader not hosted by your executive director or someone within your organization. And i think that’s one of the keys to success here is who does the invite king? I remember one working with the homeless shelter group, and they had keep business leader in their community, invite other business leaders in they thought they’d get about twenty, some people. They sent out seventy five invitations, and just about everybody they invited showed up mainly because of the host so that’s a big teo successful cultivation event. You profile that example in the book and then go a little further and talk about how how moved the breakfast attendees were yes, what we did was we started this it’s seven thirty in the morning and on the east coast, especially of the united states, i think you know, if you want to get business. Leaders have it first thing in the morning because they want to come in, get out of there and get back to their office before the day gets away from them. So we had a seven thirty eight, fifty eight, fifteen very brief agenda. We just kind of explained a little bit about what the shelter was homeless shelter, what they did, but the figment really sold these people was a tour which was led by a former guest of the shelter who was now gainfully employed at his own apartment. And when he took these business leaders around and showed them the shelter and said ice asleep over there in the corner, it really hit home that this organization was doing something valuable for its community, that it was turning people’s lives around, then it was making the business environment better. So of course they were really eager to support the organization, and some of them wanted to write out checks immediately, even though we had said that we’re not asking you for money at this event, and we actually didn’t take their money. We said, no, we’re going to come back to you later, but you know, we just want you to see the shelter and see what we’re doing here, and it really made a huge impact on that community talking about business leaders, companies what’s your experience with professional practices like lawyers, maybe dentists, orthodontists i think that’s another category i usually often call it business and professional again. I think the best way to get to doctors is through another doctor in the best way to get the lawyers is through another lawyer. These are all really busy professional people, and they don’t often have a lot of time, but they will make time to speak with a calling. So the key is getting your volunteers who can open the doors to these people and that’s, how you’re going to be successful and what’s our next step then after this cultivation event, which moves people i love the idea of hosting it on site that’s, that’s just so brilliant instead of having it at a restaurant or a hotel or something having if you have a facility where you can tour people around, i just think that’s a very is you cited that could be really moving what’s the next step after the after the event the events over now, okay, after the event, then one of the things that i suggest people is that they hold an annual corporate appeal involving volunteers, and what we did, for example, with that shelter is the volunteers who were so excited about it. A zay said some of them wanted to write out a check. A lot of them said, hey, when you’re ready to go out and talk to people about contributing to the shelter, count me in. I’m ready. Teo, help you with this project. So we developed a list of volunteers based on that cultivation breakfast and those volunteers all set. Okay, i’ll see these five people. I’ll see those five people. And we organized a really well honed annual corporate appeal and there’s a whole chapter in my book outlined how you go about doing that, it would probably be take up the rest of your show. And maybe the next three shows teo, tell everyone how it worked. But the key is involving volunteers letting them choose who they want to go see and seeing their peers. Because that’s, what gets you in the door and that’s what’s going to get you? The money. You need a long run. I would like people to know, too, that the book is very detailed in terms of how to go about these steps that has a planning timeline and a sample invitation and a questionnaire for after the after the event. So there’s there’s. A lot of good advice in the book and detailed advice. And linda, i think, did you wantto offer a listener discount? Tio? Anyone who’s interested in the book raised more money from your business community and within the next couple of weeks also have an accompanying workbook. Be released. Raised more money from your business community this year. That gives you step by step directions on and that code. If you go to charity channel dot com and look at the bookstore you just put in the code all lower case, linda al i n d a twenty fourteen books, and you’ll automatically get a fifteen percent discount not only on that book, but on any other books that you order at the same time. So okay, so you go to charity channel dot com and the code is linda twenty, fourteen books. Right? Okay, usually i like to see, that could be non-profit radio or tony rocks or something, but linda, think about linda twenty fourteen books we’ll work, it’ll get you the fifteen percent. Of course, if used tony rocks, you get thirty five percent. But buy-in but not this. Not this time around. All right, so we’re talking about volunteers. Volunteers are critical to the success of this. Do we need to train these volunteers? Oh, absolutely. Even though volunteers maybe radio i’ve done this a zillion times you want to i sort hesitate to use the word training sometimes because nobody thinks they need training, but we always had a kickoff celebration where we invited all the volunteers to come in. Somebody in the organization made a compelling case for support, and when i worked in the university, for example, we would have a student come in and talk about the fact that they were not there on scholarship, they wouldn’t be able to afford the university. So we have somebody that makes a compelling story for why we’re doing this, why we’re raising money and then you do need to give people some basic guidelines about, you know, how to make the call and how to fill out the pledge forms and when to make a report back to you. So it is there’s some work involved in it, but i think it really can be very, very helpful if you can get these volunteers in twos and excited just again remember that these are business people, they don’t want toe meat for three hours at a time, they want to come in, probably first thing in the morning and have a meeting that’s over within about an hour to an hour and a half and make it is easiest possible and keep your timeline short don’t give people a six month time frame, they’re only making five calls, and they should be able to do that and about a six week time frame. You recommend a five call limit because i presume you don’t want people to be overwhelmed by a list of twenty or twenty five names or something exactly what happens is something you all we have, some over enthusiastic volunteers payable. I know this person and i know that person and give me fifteen or twenty calls, and what happens is they never make any calls because fifteen or twenty just too intimidating. They pull out their list and they say i’ll work on that tomorrow. I don’t have time to think about it today, so if you give them five it’s a very manageable number now, i wouldn’t say we never she sometimes we have somebody who only makes three and that’s fine. If they’re three quality calls, sometimes we have somebody who could do six or seven, but i try to keep it to five to one because that’s a pretty realistic number and it’s proven to work. What if the person comes back and says i’ve done my five tonight? Can i have five? Five more were ready to do what? Okay, yeah, so you will give them or after their dahna naralo e-giving five to start with, okay. After they’ve done their initial, they can they can come back with more. Okay. And and what are they asking in these calls? Well, they’re there, then, presenting a case for support, which shows that you have various ways that businesses can support you. They can give a gift. They can restrict a gift, maybe, for example, to scholarships for school. Something like that, they could give a gift in-kind i’ve had some organizations that have been ableto build about a third of their building because they had everything donated from landscaping to excavation to furniture, toe windows to cement so you could get gifts. In-kind you can get cash, you can get other volunteer support, but primarily we’re looking at things in effect, the bottom line, so we’re looking at cash and give in-kind mostly all right, why did you tell one of your gift in-kind disaster stories? If if it’s not too long, well, i could give you a couple of them just one one took one pick the most of that, i think is probably the most interesting one because i live in the state of nevada, i had someone offer, give this wasn’t really a gift. In-kind it was a cash gift, but they had a real struggle was trying to determine if they should take a gift in-kind from a brothel because here, it’s illegal business in many counties so that they’re not offering gift in-kind are they okay with things that would really be quite interesting? Yeah, i mean, but gives in-kind i’ve had gifts of land offered which needed a half. A million dollars worth of oil remediation, that’s a gift in-kind you probably don’t want to take well, yeah, because you don’t want to have contaminated soil. Tohave teo remediated, but you’re glossing over the brothel example, but i we’re going to linger on this for a couple moments. I thought you might find that one interesting. Yeah, well, you were right because i go to the lowest common denominator. You know, mike sense of humor’s generally basin lowbrow in the gutter. Andi, i’m proud of that. S o have have you had clients offered gifts from from brothels? I have and some have taken them, and some haven’t, because they said they’re not doing anything illegal in that particular county, but others don’t take them because they feel like it flaunts the mission of their organization. But the pto gifts in-kind and unusual gifts like that are you have tohave gift acceptance policies in place that say what you’re going to accept and what you’re not going to accept. Interesting. Right there is the issue is do we want to take money from organizations that are contrary to what are companies that are contrary to what our beliefs are? What our mission is about that could apply for, well, really could apply in just about any circumstances, but i’m thinking particularly of, like domestic violence, possibly or health related charities, certainly any of the faith based religious charities and that’s where, you know, you really need to be careful about what you’re going to accept and the things that volunteers need to have before they’re asked to go out, make calls, they need to know what kind of gifts you’re going to accept. What other kind of support does the organization have to give two volunteers that are making these five calls? Well, i think they need to have a staff that’s going to support these volunteers because volunteers are going to i guarantee there’s a volunteer they’re going to call you say, oh, i’m supposed to make this call today, but i lost my my information that i was supposed to hand out can you send me another fact sheet, or can you send me another pledge card? I don’t have one and i have an appointment this afternoon, those of the kind of things that staff need to be there to support people and i think most importantly, what you need to give here’s a program that’s worthy of support. If they feel in food that your program is really doing a lot of good in the community, they will be proud to be part of your team. That’s going out asking for money so that to me is the most important thing that you need to provide volunteers. How about the chair of this annual business appeal? How do we how do we make sure we have the right chair person? Well, that’s a really important that because you wanna have a chair person that is well respected, well known in the community, can command respect is enthusiastic themselves. I had one gentleman wants to volunteer for a volunteer firefighters group, and he showed up at a meeting with and this is a top ceo in the county. He showed up with a fire helmet and red suspenders because he was so into what this would do it. He didn’t even take the time to change that e one to make his commitment well known that he supported the volunteer firefighters. He thought they were doing fantastic work, which they were, and his enthusiasm was contagious. Everybody else got excited about the campaign because he was excited about it. Outstanding. Okay, um, we have just a couple minutes left. Linda, tell me what it is that you love about the work that you do and you’ve been doing for for thirty years. I think what i really love the most is being able to help people fulfill their missions and so many of the things that, you know, i can’t just take off and run to africa and help dig wells or do a lot of different things, but i can help people raise the money to do those wonderful things. That’s what i enjoy about it the most. Because when charities come together, they can do when people come together should say into charities they khun do enormously good work that individuals can’t do that government and corporations aren’t suited for right? Absolutely. Ok, linda, listen kowski i want to thank you very much. Why don’t you remind people how they can get the discount on the book, go to charity channel, dot com right, and then put in the when you look at the book list, just put it in. It’ll ask you if. You have a discount code and you put in l i n d a all lower case. L i n d a twenty fourteen. Okay, linda, on the strength of this conversation we had i’m going to promote you to ultra cfr. So you are now ready. Well, thank you. I’m going to put that in front of my initial see if anybody recognizes. Thie organization is small but distinguished. You’re now you’re now using u a c f o r e. You will find linda. Listen kowski at linda lacey kowski dot com. And on twitter she’s at l lacey kowski llc. Thanks so much for sharing your expertise. Linda. Thank you, tony, for having me been a pleasure. Okay, bye. So long. We are sponsored by rally bound. You know them? You’ve heard me talk about them. They do software for peer-to-peer fund-raising at rally bound dot com. And we’re also sponsored by t b r c telephone bill reduction consulting. And they find errors in phone bills when ah, the phone company has charged you for things that you didn’t ask for or overcharged you. From what you were quoted, they will find those errors and ah. Get reparation, get money back for you. Who needs that fancy word? Reparation, that’s, not it’s, not really. Even a reparation. They get your money back from the from the greedy phone company that miss build you, and they’re being they’re at t brc dot com, the the show segments today, corporate coffers and committee conned fab, remind me of a ah, a bit. That was on the johnny carson show in nineteen sixty eight, and johnny’s guest was jack webb. He was the star in creator, a creator of the nineteen fifties and sixties tv show dragnet, and his character on the show was dependent joe friday. So i want to play this for you from johnny carson show nineteen sixty eight. Money kottler hyre general robbery when i got a call from the acme school bell coming dahna in a robbery. Yes, sir. One. My clappers, yes. Yeah, yeah, you know those things inside of falik makes a claim. The players that’s, right? We called flappers in business, okay? What’s that nothing, sir. Not gonna have the facts. Glamarys were stolen on this kayman napor copper clappers. Where were they kept? Buy-in you have any ideas who might have taken the copper clappers from the floor? Well, dahna fired-up managed for e-giving. What was his name? Latto cooper. You think that’s, right? I think. Latto cooper got my cover. You know what his plot cooper is from? Yeah. Upleaf. It makes it worse. They were clean playing copper clappers. Treyz what do you think, cleveland’s plus, hoover would cop, you’re clean spurs. Only one what’s that kleptomania. First discovered, the copper clappers were coming. My cleaning woman hyre. See if i got the facts straight here. Clolery clipper discovered your old copper clappers kept in a closet. We’re coming by. Clark cooper. The kleptomaniac from cleveland now, is that about it. What what’s that fiver mental maniac krauz upleaf kopperman clean copper clappers. Look after the club again, bob collaborating. Excellent. Nineteen. Sixty eight. Johnny carson and jack webb. That is tony’s take two for friday, seventeenth of february sixth show of the year. Jean takagi is back. He’s a manager. Tony, you know what to say. Hello, eugene. So, look, the guy doesn’t even know the protocol has done this. I don’t know forty times or something. Hang on there, gene. But but hello gina’s managing attorney of neo the non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco. He edits the popular non-profit law blawg dot com and is gi tak at g tack on twitter hello jean takagi it’s been nearly that’s, right? Your it’s, your excitement, enthusiasm i it’s exudes the audience and the and the guests. We can’t help it. Okay, we’re talking about committees this week. You are concerned that whether where you’re questioning whether there should even be bored committees right aboard doesn’t necessarily have tohave committees. I’m just questioning the concept of whether every non-profit should have committees, and particularly for small non-profits with small boards of directors, committee’s may make sense, and sometimes they may not make sense, but there are a lot of kind of misconceptions about whether you have tohave committees. Okay. And what what is what governs? Whether you, whether you have to or not basically, i mean, you know, the usefulness of a committee is where aboard has got a lot to two, got a lot of governance responsibilities, and they may want to delegate some of those off two smaller groups that might be able to address the civic issues with more focused expert teeth. And, you know, it may be particularly helpful to be able to recruit persons outside of the board, to participate in committees as well. So those are good reasons for having committees but it’s not a good reason to have a committee. If you largely just bring people in without much direction, they sit around talking, you know, come up with a few pieces of advice and share it with the board, who sort of disregard that advice and decides on their own what to do. And a lot of committee members feel very disempowered and not very productive feel that it’s not a very productive use of their time to participate on committees, and they largely become ineffective. Yes. So there are clearly issues of efficiency on dh or inefficiency. Let’s, get some some terms down. We could have standing committees. We could have ad hoc committees. We can have a task force. Can you help explain these? Sure. Well, typically, you know, standing committee, the committee that has a perpetual existence until you know the board or some body decides that that committee doesn’t need to exist anymore, but talking generally perpetually existence and ad hoc committee is usually organized to address a specific task on dh at hot committees are often referred to his task force taskforce is although i don’t really see the difference between the two. They have defined life spans, and usually, when the assigned task is completed or can’t be furthered anymore that’s when when that committee saw what would be an example of something that an ad hoc committee would would be working on, they might work on the capital campaign or ah, particular event, for example. Okay, i saw some examples of leadership transition to if they’re if we’re in search of a new ceo. Yeah, absolutely. That’s. Another great example. Okay, it was just a good but now it’s just it’s. Just a good one on important. Well, thank you. Okay. Let’s, see, eso now weaken also have board committees and advisory committees. And you mentioned having people outside the board on committees. So can you help us understand this? This distinction? Sure. You know, i think it’s a really common misconception that you can have somebody that’s not on the board served on a board committee. The first distinction is that a board committee is made up of on ly board members and nobody else you can have other committees that are not bored committees. And they could be delegated with authority to andi, those other committees, non board committees all refer them to right now, khun b, composed of both directors and bond directors or simply just non directors. People from the outside and why i actually prefer the term non board committee toe advisory committee is that these committees could be delegated with management authority and they can have significant authority. Um, but the difference between the board committee and these non board committees is that only a board committee can be delegated toe act with all of the power of the board and there’s certain limitations to that authority as well. But boredom it ease khun act. In place of the board, in many, many circumstances where as a non board committee could not actually do that for pete’s sake. Okay, so non board committees, though, can be can be authorized by the board. Teo, do some narrow function or something, right, but not but not be delegated all the responsibilities of the board is that is that is that correct? Yeah, so they can actually have substantial authority, but they can’t act in place of the board. So where aboard action is necessary. Often times it will say a board or a board committee can take this ac action, but a non board committee would not be able to do that. What a non board committee might be able to do, though, is tio make decisions on fund-raising or on policy advocacy or program decisions. They might be able to approve a lease or something else. The board may wantto ratify those actions later and board oversight over committee actions is really unimportant. Part of governance, too, okay, and all the authority given a committee, whether it’s, a board committee or non board. And i guess even whether it’s standing or ad hoc all is given. From the full board. Is that right? Yeah. Generally that’s, right? So so the board of directors is going to delegate certain authority to to these committees, and they’re going to want to get some sort of report back from what these committees, if they’ve been given any sort of authority to take action so that the board khun khun, monitor and provide oversight over those committee actions. Now, i think the standing committees aren’t those aren’t those fairly common. Yeah, i think it’s it’s very common for organizations dafs standing committees, although, you know, i might venture a pretty aggressive guess and say that a lot of standing committee’s it’s not the majority of standing committees are pretty useless. Uh, okay, to be careful for a lot of smaller organizations, a lot of standing committees are again not very useful in acting in place of the board, and they might be good for giving advice. But then there there might not be a need for perpetual existence on dh they’re off. They’re obviously gonna be many, many exceptions to that, i would say generally, boards have to be very careful about having standing committees that are not active in that air not tasked with specific duties that feels very, very empowered to carry out those duties and provide recommendations to the board or take actions in place of the board if they’re bored committees or take management actions if there’d been delegated without authority. Yeah, otherwise, if these committees become ineffective and boardmember start to feel their time is being wasted, you’ve got a big donor relations problem among your most committed or formerly most committed volunteers. Yeah, absolutely. That’s. I mean, if you’re a boardmember tony, would you like to sit around at a committee meeting for two hours and then report back to the board and the board just listens to the report and then just move on carrying on businesses normal without taking any action on those? You know that reporter recommendations let’s, let’s, talk about the executive committee on di. We pulled listeners and you helped pole gene before the show. Thank you very much. One of the questions was do you have an executive committee of your board? And ninety percent looks like maybe a little more than ninety percent said yes, and and the remainder said no? Nobody said not sure. So thes executive committees, at least for listeners of non-profit radio, are very common. But there’s pros and cons yeah, absolutely on dh. So, yes, i think executive committees, they’re probably the most common form of committee. Um and they may make a lot of sense for a larger organizations, especially if they’ve got boards that have difficulty meeting on a relatively frequent basis and executive committee is a good way to continue to provide oversight over the organization in between board meetings and the executive committee may be ableto act in place of the board. Teo, you know, past what bank resolutions to open up a bank account and and do some of the sort of ministerial duties that that boards need to do some time. So for those reasons, executive committee’s could be very valuable the danger or the primary danger. I think with executive committee that if you over delegate authority to the executive committee, you could empower the board. So the executive committee could be the core leadership group that sort of takes hold of the organization and just creates a power discrepancy between the executive committee, board members and all the other board members so that the executive committee pushes through its agenda and takes all the action’s necessary to push through its agenda, leaving the rest of the board disempowered and feeling inactive and not very helpful to the organization at all. And just as he said before, with no disengaging your your your biggest donors which typically include includes many of your board members, you could do the same thing by giving too much power to an executive committee than dis enchanting those boardmember donors who are not part of that committee, where do you draw the light? Well, not where? How do you draw the line about? If we are going to have an executive committee, how much authority that committee should have versus the full board or other committees who decides this well, it should be the board and that’s where way commonly don’t see anything defined in terms of limiting the executive committee’s authority and that’s, one of the sources of problems often by-laws say that the executive committee just can act in place of the board in between board things and that’s the limit of the authority that’s been given to the executive committee, so they’ve got almost blanket authority to do almost anything in between board meetings and that’s, not a good governance structure so e-giving specific tasks or limiting executive committee, too, performing only certain tasks and maybe acting maura’s a reporting body to the rest of the board. Maybe the way too structured for most organizations, there are some organizations where the executive committee needs to be given a little bit more authority, but the board has gotta be ableto exercise oversight over those executive committee actions as well. So getting reports back at the next board meeting ratifying perhaps the most important executive committee actions taken after vetting the supporting information is really part of a board studio. All right, we’re going toe go out for a break. I want to send some live listener love, too. San francisco, california, rocklin, california state college, pennsylvania and at least one person is masked in the u s so if i haven’t sent live listener love to you, you’re you’re masking yourself, and we know that you are the national security agency in in in suburban washington, in virginia, stay with us, jean, and i’m going to keep having our committee confab. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. 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Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. I’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Podcast pleasantries out to everybody lift, listening on the time shift and especially listening. Not now, but he will be on twitter at counting charity. Brian, thank you very much. I’m glad your morning commute is so much better now because you listen to non-profit radio while you’re driving carefully, i hope you’re listening. You driving carefully? Are you? Are you at the speed limit or below? This is critical, brian. Thank you very much. We have listeners in iran. We have lots of listeners in china shen jin, non jing and others in china wishing you happy. New year cerini inquire chaillou. Okay, jean takagi. Um let’s say there’s a woman who wants tio these heir, not her words. These air. These are my words. There’s, a consultant who wants to basically kill executive committee’s. Eliminate them in all cases. Simone joyo. Do you are you familiar with her work? Or have you seen her around? I you know, i think she writes for the non-profit quarterly. I believe that’s where i saw it on, by the way. She’s a safari also not a u f o r e. She has not attained the ultra designation yet. I have. Not bestowed it upon her, but i don’t know her that dragon tail for you, tony. I know you, weren’t you, jeanne. Now you were not listening in the first half of the show. Jean, you were, i snagged you. If you were listening the first half of the show, you would know that the ufc ari, is something that i hold, which is an ultra advanced certified fund-raising executive. I hold it. And now, in the first half of the show, i bestowed it upon guest linda lacey kowski. But i have not bestowed upon anyone else but that’s. Okay, gene, i’m sure you were prepping for the show. I know you were. I know you were busy thinking about our our committee conned fab conversation. So there are people who, well, simone, anyway, she feels very strongly about there should not be executive committee’s at all. I think it’s ah, great discussion toe have come for some boards. But, yeah, i think that’s, really just being provocative and stimulating, whether executive committee’s should really be granted with broad authority. I think for the most part, especially with larger boards and boards that may be spread throughout the state or throughout the country. Executive committee’s still can be very useful. Okay? But it’s a worthwhile discussion to have and your point earlier was that it’s the full board that should be deciding this, not just the chair and the and the ceo, right? And it should be in a good note that only the board can create a board committee and and executive committee should be aboard committees. Executive committee should be a committee that’s composed of only board members. And if that that’s the case again, the board is the only body that can create an executive committee to chair the executive director they can’t commit. Create the committee themselves. Okay, how about staff support for board committees? What should that look like? Well, first reference, there’s. A great article in blue avocado that came out recently on staffing committees. And i recommend that all your listeners staff support of committees is is just so crucial it really important to make sure that the committees are well equipped with the information they need? I had to carry on their duties and connected to what the organization is actually doing on the ground, and not just in theory and in documents so providing that support understanding for it, for the staff. That better involved in providing support to the committee’s, understanding why the committee members are there and are looking to help the organization and understanding how to best communicate information to them and facilitate the way for the community committees toe act including, you know, figuring out how to get the information to them in the right form, within the right amount of time, in advance of a meeting or an action that needs to be taken, providing them with the right facilities and, you know, even providing the right food and drinks that that’s the incentive to bring the committee together, all of those things could be tremendously helpful. We talked earlier about the advisory committees on another poll question for listeners was, do you have advisory committee or committees? And about sixty three percent said they do and the remainder well, about thirty, thirty percent said no, and then the rest weren’t weren’t quite sure so, like two thirds do have advisory committees let’s explore this little deeper than they could be valuable, you suggested it, but let’s go deeper in bringing outside expertise into the into the into the organization and supporting the board. Yeah, and i can’t emphasize enough that i think an advisory committee and non board i’m sorry, non board, i meant non board, i know you, you prefer non board. I screwed that up. Non-cash well and advisory committee khun b ok, for the bombs were committees that are delegated with management power, so if they’re going to strictly have advisory privileges, i like advisory committee. I don’t particularly like advisory board because board suggests that their board members with fiduciary duties, if you have a fiduciary duties, you have potential exposure to personal liabilities for failing toe live up to those duties, and we’ve talked about that. Yeah, so the great thing about being an advisory committee members if it’s truly advisory, you don’t have any fiduciary duty, and that makes it much easier to recruit individuals who might not have the time or it might not have the desire. Teo sort of meet all of the fiduciary duties of being a boardmember but really like the organization which case, you know, you can recruit them on an advisory committee. That committee might just meet once every six months, or it might meet even less than that, or it might just be a body of people who executive director can phone, you know, phone every once in a while just to bounce ideas off of on get they’re a pain in perspective, so in that way you could just really widen your resource pool, forgetting expertise, piri instant perspective that might be missing from the board. And i just think it’s such a valuable tool that many organizations are able t utilize, but a lot of organizations are really not taking advantage of the ability to do that. I think that’s a shame if they’re not not utilizing that that very valuable cool it sounds very valuable for the, uh well, here we go. Very valuable. Yes, it sounds really useful for the for the ceo have that that list of advisors that he or she can call and pick their brains and, you know, sort of be even in, like, an off the record discussion because we’re not in a board meeting and we’re not talking to someone who has the fiduciary duties. Yeah, think it’s, so valuable to be ableto have that for for the executive director and the executive director might have know their own sort of clos closely. Held advisory body and the board might actually have its own advisory body as well on dh it’s, nice for the board to be able to participate and network amongst themselves and, you know, boards have fund-raising responsibilities, as you often discuss with some of your guests. But acting is ambassadors to the organization and bringing in not just financial support but expertise to the organization and introducing them to people who might be interested. It can also result in future donors as well. And so i think advisory committees are just fabulous ways toe teo grow the resources of an organisation just about a minute or so left jean i think i saw on your blogged link to a site called board cafe. Yeah? Are you familiar with that? Is that that? I presume? I’m pretty sure it was your board. Your your block. So it’s. Not a resource that you’d recommend. Yeah, i think board cafe was adventure initially launched by compass point non-profits services, based in san francisco. It’s, a management support organization that’s recognized widely is is one of the best in the country on dh. It may have been taken over by the the online magazine blue avocado i mentioned earlier, i’m not sure that board kapin still exist. The blue avocado doesn’t that some edited by jan mathos oak of the california association of non-profits and is a fantastic online journal highly recommended for a number of non-profit issues, including h r and committees and what’s the name of that site again that she edits at blue avocados, it’ll be on, i think, blue avocado dot org’s okay, we have to leave it there, gene, thank you very much. Great, thanks durney always a pleasure. Jean takagi, managing attorney at neo non-profit and exempt organizations law group in san francisco, you’ll find him at non-profit law blawg dot com and on twitter at g attack next week, it’s valentine’s day i heart foundations cindy gibson will be in the studio to talk about the details of building relationships with larger public, private and corporate foundations remember rally bound in your thoughts and prayers, rally bound and telephone bill reduction consulting, of course, joe magee and yourself rabinowitz they support non-profit radio, you know their stories, you’ve heard me talk about them, you’ll find that rally bound dot com and t brc dot com our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is on the board, as our line producer shows. Social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two, point zero and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. Our music is by scott stein of brooklyn. 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