Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%
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Michael Davidson: Your Engaged Board
Michael Davidson says your board members are happiest when you ask them to do more–not less. He tackles how to recruit and maintain an engaged board. He’s a consultant and board coach and former chair of Governance Matters.
Maria Semple: In-Kind Gifts
Maria Semple, our prospect research contributor and The Prospect Finder, returns to share her advice about in-kind gifts. How do you find these non-cash gifts, their value and the right appraiser? When do you need an appraiser? Maria answers all. (Originally aired on October 10, 2014.)
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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. We’ve got a listener of the week. Congratulations, michelle clan in boulder, colorado. She tweeted that she’s challenging her board toe listen to six shows before their next board meeting. I love that non-profit radio is helping michelle’s board, and i hope they’re gonna listen to this week’s show very relevant about boards. Congratulations, michelle clan non-profit radios listener of the week i’m glad you’re with me i’d be forced to endure bronco candid i assists if i inhaled the idea that you missed today’s show you’re engaged board michael davidson says you’re boardmember zehr happiest when you ask them to do more, not less, he tackles how to recruit and maintain the engaged board. He’s, a consultant and bored coach and former chair of governance matters and in-kind gif ts maria simple, our prospect research contributor and the prospect finder, returns to share her advice about in-kind gif ts how do you find these non-cash gif ts their value and the right appraiser? When do you need an appraiser? Maria answers it all that originally aired on october tenth twenty fourteen between the guests on tony’s take two sincerity still trumps production value responsive by pursuant full service fund-raising data driven and technology enabled, you’ll raise more money pursuant dot com very glad, very glad to welcome back michael davidson. He has helped over a hundred boards, has over thirty years, working with non-profit boards and leadership of many organizations. He’s, lead consultant for the united way boards, serve new york city board training program and teaches at the new school university and adelphi university, along with being former chair of governance matters. He’s been an attorney, criminal prosecutor and bakery owner. Those cookies were delicious. His coaching practices at board coach dot com michael davidson, welcome back. Morning, tony. Great to be back. It was you were on. This is really momentous too. May you were on the very first show that’s amazing it was it was july fifth, two thousand ten. And that was back when it was called the tony martignetti show. Yes, i didn’t even think to include non-profits with that it’s it’s about me with that. Um but yeah, so five and a half years ago. That’s amazing and we’re still talking. About board way. We’re always talking about boredom. Would exgagement ford fund-raising yes, you had a block post recently that stimulated mito to think that you need to come back. The engaged board have some traits of unengaged board. Yeah. It’s. Really interesting that the thing that prompted this article was a kind of a ce national study which said that, you know, boards are all committed to the mission, but a very large percentage of them are unengaged and and that’s the reality. I mean, that’s, that’s what? I see boards who people get brought in, they have a great they believe in the mission. Whatever the mission is and their extraordinary number of wonderful missions that people get involved in and they bring him in and they put him on board. But no one quite knows what to do with them and how to really engage them. And i keep looking at that question is i work with boys and for me, it’s thoughts to boil down to this a really simple stuff that i think organizations khun d’oh. The first one is that people get connected because they believe in the mission they want whatever it is, it’s, they always come with passion. They come into a passion for this particular cause whether it’s, you know, helping in greve families or a particular a disease that you know that they think really needs to be addressed or theater or whatever it is, and then they sit him around a table away from the mission. Yeah, and the connection with that mission kind of dissipates into the details ofthe finance and management and oversight and all that kind of stuff, and they get further and further away from the passion. Okay? And so for me, one of the keys is you kind of keep keep him connected with the passion, and there are very simple things that boards do to do that, okay? We’re going. We’re just like overviewing of the you get these three areas of traits of engagement were overviewing them and then we’ll get into detail on great. We’ll come back and hit him each one, so okay, what’s, the what’s, our second engaged board trait that the second one is having high expectations and enforcing those expectations. It’s a job enforcement enforcement like a cop. Okay, but not, you know, good cop, bad cop, good cop. And i can’t marry the cop murray, the cop fremery company on a corner that you know, you know, and it’s making sure that it’s everybody’s clear about what the job is that they agree that they’re going to do the job, and then there’s a process to encourage, supposed to enforcement, encourage and car encourage them to continue doing the job at the best of their level. And the thing that’s really interesting about that is it’s counterintuitive. I got a board executive director ization. Oh, my god. If i asked too much of my boy, the leaf and that’s. Not true, i think it’s totally the reverse. I thinkyou mohr. You ask of people the happy they are okay. In the end, they engaged. All right. Excellent. Well, go into detail on that. And then. Well, the third round. The executive director has responsibility. Absolutely. The executive director’s key, i believe, to the whole process. Too many executive director zoho my god, the board is by boss and i better not push adam and i better not try to tell him what to do because the fire me so i can’t tell them what to do. And that’s totally wrong. T e d is the professional in the room. We all arts board members were all amateurs. Thie edie knows what the organization needs and has. To really serve as a coach for the board behind the scenes, working through the chair, working through the officers, working through the executive committee but always serving as a coach to move the board forward in the direction that the organization needs. You’re coming at this not only as, ah coach on consultant for boards and organizations, but you’ve you’ve been on many boards and you’re on many boards right now. Right now. Two, two alright, i know i know you wouldn’t do it to have been on many in the but yes, ooh now, yeah, yeah. Okay, won’t you shout out ones you’re on? Well, one isn’t really interesting organization and it’s a great story, actually, about boards, it’s going critical community works and we worked to bring theater into schools, and we work to connect schools with theater and all sort of connect kids with a history of their neighborhoods. It’s a very interesting connection between education and theater and arts and history, and we went through a period, actually where we almost closed the doors, the model, the business model was no longer sustainable. Uh, schools no longer had the money to pay for these kinds. Of things in the school to bring kids to plays and things like that because the nature of budgets and we were almost ready to shut down and the board with some great board members really did a very tight analysis of cash flow and of what programmes were sustainable and what programs we’re not sustained. Serious introspection, siri’s introspection with detailed analysis, detailed financial analysis of what? What sustainable and what’s not sustainable. And we cut what’s, not sustainable. And we’re left with a few basic things that are sustainable and i think the organization’s going to revive and it’s a lot of it is his board work with the executive director. And just a minute before our first break what’s the what’s, the other organization, the others. My synagogue board. I’ve been on there for too many years. Okay, like i come off. Come on. I used to be chair. I left for a while. They brought me back. It’s, you know it’s. A community obligation for me. Okay, well, what’s the name of the society for the advancement of judaism run the upper west side napor side of new york city. Okay, there’s, another upper west side. Somewhere in the world. All right, you’re gonna get something. I do enough of this new york centrism. I mean, personally, i’m the center of the universe, and then new york revolves around me, but it’s also, you know, it’s. Another sort of center around. May i do enough of that? So don’t get in trouble. All right? Let’s, go out for this break when we come back, michael and i’m going to keep talking about these three traits of engaged boards and of course, i’ve got live. Listen, love, etcetera, 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. Okay, michael davidson. Um, let’s, go back to the first part. Now, personal experience. It starts with a personal connection. It’s yours with a personal connection, but you have to maintain we’ve got to keep it up. You got you got you, you’ve got to keep it up. And there are really two very simple things that boards can do to keep it up. One is you bring the mission into every board meeting. So as part of the agenda for every board meeting, you have somebody telling the story. Yeah, either a staff member or a client, someone who comes in to talk about the impact that this program has had online client story lines. I mean, that could be tearful, it’s tearful, and it serves a number of purposes. First, it reinforces the mission connection. But the other thing that it serves when you asking boardmember is to go out and raise money they got have stories to tell, no one’s going to get interested about statistics of a program and the numbers and so on and so forth, right, they’re going to get interested in the impact on dso boardmember sze have got tow have these stories, but what’s important about the way adults remember things right? We don’t remember stuff that we’ve read as well as stuff that we’ve heard. So you have a real person in there talking about a real event versus a couple of paragraphs, there’s just a couple of paralyzing the latest program achievement exactly where so so you do that, then the other side of us, he bring it into the board boot. The other side of it is bringing the board members out to the program. So you build in an expectation, which is we’ll get the expectations, but you build in an expectation that every boardmember has to visit a program twice a year. Shut off to the program, just go there, watch it, talk to people, ask questions, learn about what’s going on and then another expectation is every boardmember is expected after they visited a program to come back to the board and tell this story report their report and so they talk about how they reacted to this. So now you get to results from that right? Number one, it reinforces that you got to go visit program because you don’t want to be the only boardmember who never had a story to number one and number two. Now, i’ve got my story that i heard, and i’ve got your story that you heard from us, and now i’ve got twice as many stories to tell about the organization so it’s two very simple things that maintain the mission connection. And then on top of that, every board meeting you’re hearing a story exactly right so it’s in front of them, not that’s, not a special that’s. Not a special meeting. That’s every every meeting, every meeting. It’s on the ejecta, it’s on the job. Okay, um, yeah, i guess. I mean, you said it, but i want to dive a little deeper with it. The boards tend to lose that. That personal connection, the passion that brought them there turns into a monthly budgetary analysis, staffing levels, competitive analysis. You know which things are important too. But that becomes the sum, the whole thing that’s, right. And that and that’s, when the board members get together and it’s, you know, another part of it which i didn’t quite push in that in that. Article is that it’s about the group it’s about the team part? A big part of what motivates board members is being part of the team. We don’t liketo operate on our own, not we’re not good as human beings. Is that right? We are best in groups. We all know that we do our best. We are best our best selves come out in groups, something some groups not so good. But mostly our best selves come out in groups. And so you want to reinforce that sense of a team at the board meeting? Yeah, so it can’t all be just a little business, and the more you know, the detailed business it’s got to be the big stuff that that we joined together around, and you give people an opportunity to express that as they asked questions from the staff member or the client has come in from the boardmember what had a, you know, a visit that they’re reporting on, and that conversation builds the sense of a team i’m standing. Yeah, sometimes it’s really simple. The emotion comes through that’s, right? And you know, it is it’s about the emotional tony. You’re absolutely right. We were not rational creatures. We are emotional creatures. We will use our rationality to explain emotions that’s good and maybe to control them sometimes, but mostly we way run by our emotions by our sentiments and that’s that driver have we got to pay attention to that? You know, i sought out my professional life is a lawyer. So all the legal stuff about boards, i know it, but i kind of forget it because it’s not as important as the emotional side and we have plenty of guests talking about the legal side. Yeah, yeah. Good genes. Akagi are regular legal contributor, often talking about board the fiduciary obligations, etcetera. Yeah. All right, let’s. Go to the expectations. Yeah. Let me ask you a threshold question. Do you like to see expectations in writing absolute for a perspective board? Absolutely. Coming on the board. Here’s what we expect you got that right? You recruiting me to come on my on your board? I’m asked the first question i ask is so what’s the deal and i want to see it. You know, if it’s just told well you’re supposed to do this, you’re supposed to do that it’s kind. Of vague, right? I want to see it in writing, okay. And seeing it in writing. Well, first of all, to get to that writing. Where do you get to that? Writing from where do you get to that written list of expectations? The board has got to agree to it, you know, like a job description. Yeah, but it doesn’t come from the outside. It’s gotta come from the inside. There’s. No outside authority that can write that. That contract for you, it’s got to come from an agreement on the part of the board members. This is what we expect off ourselves. Okay, so that’s that’s that’s a conversation. So the executive committee works on this are usually, ah, governance committee. So the governance committee would take a look at what? What are the expectations for board members? Come up with what they would propose. Put those on the table, have a conversation with the board and get the board to approve it. The vote on it? Yes. This is this is it. This is what we expect, and they and their very specific, you know, how many board meetings were you expected to attend? Yeah, that every boardmember is expected to serve on a committee the number of side visits, the personal contribution site visits are the program yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, the broker was just ok the contribution, how much? Everybody i believe every boardmember should write a check it’s going to be different in different organizations, but they got to demonstrate their old commitment. What’s the expectation for fund-raising you expect around the fund-raising do you ah, like to see all board members have a certain the same minimum? Or is it more tea to your yoga really varies? You know, much bigger organizations that have, you know, museums, theatre groups, and so on they will put in and many others too, if they’re more, um, more mature organization will put in a number five thousand dollars, okay, smaller organizations, they struggle with that our listeners are more small, make it small and many eyes they they struggle with that because they say, look, if i put that hyre number half of my board can’t do that, you know? So what we do with the smaller organizations, for starters, is simply say every boardmember is expected to make a personally significant contribution, so what is personally significant mean, you have to have a conversation about that, and for me, i have a i have a kind of ah rule of thumb, right personally significant means you have to think before you write the check, right? Ok, over the check that you don’t have to think about that’s not significant, right? It’s got to be significant relative to what you do, maybe it’s a hot one of the top three charities or some other standard like that. Once you get it started, then you congratulate inching up overtime, ok, but you started with the notion of it being personally significant, and you like to see this as you said, personal gift not not, give or get it’s, give and get given and given and that’s an injunction conjunction okay, we’re both lawyers do that. So that’s, right, former, former well and happy yeah, i’m happy about it. So, yes, it is, and because i believe every boardmember has got to make a personal commitment, right? And i believe they’re better board members if they’ve got as they say, skin in the game and that they’ve written a check and they’re going to pay more. Attention, because they’re they’re investing in this, and they’re also getting out and are also getting involved in, you know, selling tables for the gala, the gulf, whatever it isyou know all of that kind of work as well, but it’s kind of because they can’t do that work unless they put themselves on the line. You can’t go to your friends and ask him to contribute for the gala because if we’re going to say, i hope you’re what are you doing? Yeah, you know, we dwelled on this. We’re talking about expectations gentle, but we dwelled on fund-raising because i found something that i i was asked to do some board we search some research about boards back when i was an employee is on my st john’s university. No, no letter home where you really saved me. I’m in france, tony from nineteen, ninety seven it was an article i found fund-raising realities every boardmember must face, quote to demonstrate their commitment boardmember sze must first make a generous gift proportionate to their means. End quote nineteen, ninety seven we were still talking about this. We were always told years the same story. Yeah, the dynamics don’t change? Yeah, yeah. Why is that? Because, that’s, the reality of what we’re dealing with, right? We’re dealing with the reality ofthe volunteers with dealing with the reality it’s a uniquely american phenomenon. Okay, we take people ordinary people from all walks of life, right? And we asked them to be responsible for charitable organizations to be the stewards of these organizations, to guide the organizations to support these organizations. It’s a very strange phenomenon. If you think about it, right. When you ask people, you know, i want you to serve on my board. So here’s the deal. Right. Okay, i’m expecting you. Come six meetings a year. I want you to serve on a committee. Okay? I’m asking you to pay for the privilege. And as a bonus, you get to ask your friends for money. Okay? That’s the deal, right? It is, but we do it. So it doesn’t. The dynamics of what make this makes this challenging. Never change. They never change because it is inherently a challenging back-up proposition. Tohave all of our charitable work, all of our non-profit work run by volunteers. Yeah. Okay. Okay. That’s. A very articulate explanation. That’s. Why it’s the same in nineteen nineties not going to stop lt’s not going eighteen years from now. We have the same conversation. All right? Hopefully we know a little bit more with some or expectations a cz you’re departing the board, you want to know why people leaving? Yeah, and sometimes these conversations are really interesting exit interviews, the exit interviews. So i’ve been involved on on the selection panel for a thing called a non-profit excellence awards non-profit excellence awards, which is award given every year in new york city for excellence and non-profit management. So one of the organizations that we were doing a site visit on this year, i was talking about the fact that one of their very serious major contributors on the board was announcing that he was gonna leave. So one thing is, oh, my god, but, you know, we love you buy or someone sat down with him and said, well, what’s going on tell us why you’re leaving and basically what he said was he says, look, i’ve been on this board for five years, i’ve been on the finance committee for five years, i do finance every day, i’m tired of doing finance. I don’t want to serve on finance anymore, so i’m getting off the board and the chairman said, you don’t have to serve a fine and it’s not the only connection i already committee. What what would you like to be interested in? What would get you interested? And he wanted to serve on the program committee, which worked on the evaluation of programs on their metrics, on their outcomes and things like that? Bingo! He didn’t leave that’s a grand slam grizzly. I didn’t lose the big donor major, but what’s happened. And now he’s happier and the organization hasn’t lost his ten. Now, sometimes in an exit interview, it doesn’t quite work that way when you find out from someone stepping off about the board. What was your experience? What worked for you? What didn’t work for you? How do we how could we make it better? Who does these exit interviews? Ceo. Exactly. Director, i think not. Fellow boardmember fellow boardmember. Yeah, i would. You know, it could be the chair. Yeah. Could be the chair of the governance committee. Is the trouble? Could be with the executive director. That would be the board relationship. Yeah, so? You figure it out, you know, probably the most neutral. If there’s trouble. I mean, there might be trouble. Yeah, but usually the most neutral. Be the chair of the governance committee because that person might be having some trouble with chair of the board. Yeah, you mentioned is governance committee now? Twice. What? That’s? Not a very common committee. It’s more and more common. It is what we expect of our governance committee. Well, it used to be what was the nominating committee. Ah, so it’s job was bored. Recruitment. Now, it’s it’s taken on a larger roll off of the life of the board. So it looks at the by-laws it looks at board procedures. It manages the process of evaluation on which we hadn’t gotten to of board members. Because once you have those expectations, expectations are only useful. If you review and evaluate let’s talk, you know what you mean? That piece of paper, your notes, the guy, the guy wanted his notes at the beginning and handed it to him. And now he’s holding them now into quarters. Not looked at it once. You know this, you know the self atop your head. Give me. The notes back stop fiddling with that. The director is that folded up in the little quarters was gonna rip it up into shreds. Putting his shredder alright board of al u ation. Yeah, so we have expectations. You have expectations, right? So it’s a number of different ways sometimes boardmember typically serve a three year term. That’s who we should like that folk. So sometimes what you do is when the person is coming up for for potential renomination. That’s when you do a review, should this person be nominated again for another term? That’s one way another way is i think i’ve left. I’d love to have and some organizations do it every year there was a conversation chair, the governance committee chair of the board, depending upon who you know, it was best to have that conversation with each boardmember every year. So how you doing? How have you done against these expectations? How do you feel about your performance? What are you hoping to do next year? So it’s that you know it’s the kind of a thing that any manager would do with an employee that their supervising right? You don’t just given employee job. Description and hope that they fulfill it right? You review them on a periodic basis so with a boardmember you do it once a year and you find out what’s going on and hopefully re energize the person, maybe you find different things for them to do and that they’d be engaged in, and someone so it’s an active process of interaction with every boardmember we’re just a couple minutes left here. I want to get teo the executive director’s responsibility in feeding you call it meat eating meat to the board and that’s it’s a really subtle process, but it’s really important and there’s two sides to it. One is there are really important questions that board should be dealing with, you know, what’s our financial future what’s our prospects. What of our programs are sustainable? What pro? What should we be seeking for outcomes of our programs? Where we going now? Sometimes executive directors don’t want their boards in cage that knows that because they want to make those decisions themselves, but they are the sea important things that you can get an executive can get important understanding and knowledge from smart board members and and make it a collaborative process. So they got a they have to be willing to trust the board. Teo, do this kind of stuff. But so how did the executive director get to do it? They do it suddenly they do it through the board chair. They do it to the executive committee. They make suggestions. They guide the work, they ask questions. You know, my my first experience on a board, i was a young lawyer, right? So i got recruited to this board of a senior service agency on the west side. They needed a lawyer on the board, so i got to be on it again. The western again. Oh, god. Not that we hear you’re new york accent, so it’s. But sooner or later, i became a lawyer, became the board chair, right? I would meet every week with the executive director, and she would tell me what she needed from me. She would tell me what she needed from me to get from the board. And we worked this a tina and that’s, a good executive director does that she’s a partner with the board chair and guiding the work off the board. But at the same time has to be willing to trust the board and be willing to put some of these meaty issues on the board table, because that means that he or she are not going to able to totally control him, right? The board is going to have a say on these questions as they should, and if if the if the offerings heir to minuscule who’s when we start to get disengagement, of course i mean you we recruit smart people, yeah, with good experience in all of their professions and lives and businesses, and we don’t give him challenging challenge do right? It doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, the more the challenge, the happy where you are. Yeah, that’s your that’s the irony you said earlier and i intruded to thee. The more you give, the happier you’re bored will be that’s, right? Yeah. Okay. All right. Let me ask you last minute. What do you love about this work? You’re doing around boards, it’s the people they’re so interesting and it’s the missions this so interesting. I mean, the range of things that people find important to do in life and to achieve in society is enormous. And i never would predict it. I mean, right now, right now, i’m working with a group that works with kids newyork city again in harlem, right? Teaching, um, ice hockey. Okay? And and and the parents and the kids this’s important? Not just sports, but charitable. They’re really changing kids lives by ice hockey. I dealt with another organization, new jersey, now across the river, right provides support for families who’ve lost the joy of a child. Grief counseling. Yeah, everybody thinks about grief counseling for adults who’ve lost spouses, right? But for you, no. So the rates for me what’s exciting is this range of things causes interests that people can get engaged in. Michael davidson, board coach many years experience over one hundred boards working with them, you’ll find his practice at board coach dot com. Thanks so much, michael. Why pleasure. Welcome back. So you get in five years. You have, you know, i know it won’t be that long. Yeah. Tony’s take two and in-kind gift’s coming up first. Pursuant. Online tools for small and midsize shops they’re committed to our community ceo is trent ryker. He saw the passion for mission in the twelve years he worked in non-profits also saw how under resourced so many organizations are the tools that they have are smart, they help your fund-raising you’ll raise more money and they are affordable pursuant dot com my video is still up on how sincerity trumps production value. You can see the earthquake in new york city last week, and i read from a hilton hotel letter in brooklyn broken english, but the sentiment definitely came through on that video is at tony martignetti dot com that’s tony’s take two for friday, thirteenth of november forty third show of the year. Here is in-kind gif ts with maria simple marie sample is back she’s, our monthly prospect research contributor and the prospect finder she’s, a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donorsearch prospects now she’s our doi n of dirt, cheap and free. You can follow her on twitter at maria simple. Welcome back, maria! Hey there, tony, how are you? I’m doing very well. How are you today? Just fine. Thank you. Go that’s. Good. We’re here to talk about gifts in-kind on this fall. Afternoon what way are we are but i first need to just quickly mention to you that apparently i am having a three year anniversary with your show this week. Really? You’ve been tracking your well, you know, who’s been tracking it is lincoln. Oh, really? You saw an anniversary notice on lengthen. This is this is your third year it yet it sent out an anniversary notice. Tio my connections and i all of a sudden started getting all these congratulatory notes this week. So i thought, well, that isn’t that appropriate that here is my my weak teo, reconvene with you so it’s been three wonderful years. Wow, that’s really something i would if you had asked me, i would have thought it was i would’ve said it was more like two holy cow that’s. Terrific. I get those notices i but i don’t always read all of them. Usually i just read the birthday notices. I don’t always read all the work anniversary notices, but i also noticed they send them out throughout the month, so they don’t. They don’t only come in the beginning. So maybe i just maybe i haven’t gotten yours yet. You’re three. Three year anniversary, but happy anniversary. I’m glad you’ve been with me for three years. Thank you for having me for three years. Wonderful. Oh, thank you. My pleasure gifts. In-kind let’s. Make sure everybody understands what a gift in-kind is. Yes. That’s, right, let’s do that first before i get thrown off into jargon jail first, first out of the gate here, so gets in-kind would really be anything other than monetary donations. So typically they would be considered donations of food, clothing, medicines, furnishings, office equipment, building materials and, you know, even sometimes services that air provided by somebody could be considered ah, gift in-kind as opposed to a gift in cash that they might give to your organization. So if they’re providing some sort of a specific service and then not charging you for it, i know that, you know, sometimes consultants will do that on on a pro bono basis, so that would be considered a gift in-kind as well, i could throw out another example that i’ve worked on a few times. Gifts of artwork, art collections are also gifts in-kind i worked on a really interesting one once it was a presidential memorabilia collection. And it included a picture. It included the resin, the one of the nixon resignation letters, original signed. I think there were five or six that he signed, and it also had a picture of that famous picture of jimmy carter, menachem begin and anwar sadat. You know, the three of them are shaking hands well, thiss was a deep into six figure art collection, but so they can be really interesting on dh cars. I’ve worked on a couple of classic car donations also, which can be quite valuable. I know you mentioned automobiles. I was just thinking of classic automobiles, but, um, yeah, they can be that could be kind of fun to work on. Well, so, you know, it must have been interesting. I’ve never had the opportunity myself to be working directly with, uh non-profit while they’ve been, you know, fortunate enough to receive something, you know, of that type of value on also, you know, it got me to thinking about, you know, well, what if i were a small to midsize non-profit and have the millionaire next store living in our community and maybe people didn’t even realize they were housing any type of art collection or one or two even significant pieces in their home? And you know what? You know? What do you do? What is the next step that you do if you find out that perhaps it’s somebody’s left it to you and there will or they could be making the gift while they’re still alive? When then, you know, it got to be really complicated as i started to research this a little bit to try and figure out. Well, what is the non-profit need to do first, in terms of valuing the artwork? So what did you do? I’ll tell you what organizations i kind of came up with that are reputable in terms of places you would turn to, but i’m curious to know how it worked out. How did you appraise the artwork? Yeah, well, let’s, let’s, take a step back and make sure he understands the for a gift that’s valued over five thousand dollars. And again, like maria said, this is we’re talking about non-cash gifts, so not this is not cash or stock, but something other than that. Over five thousand dollars, the irs requires what’s called a qualified appraisal and that’s a term of art and the qualified appraisal has certain requirements, and a qualified appraisal has to be done by a qualified appraiser and that’s also a term of art, and they’re certain credentials that the irs requires the place that i turned for the presidential art collection anyway was thie american association of appraisers i think i’m pretty sure they’re based here in new york, and i believe i contacted them first for some recommendations specific, too presidential memorabilia, was it perhaps the american society of appraisers? Because my research shows that they’re the oldest organization founded in nineteen thirty six, and they think they are in the new york area, okay, could have been, but i think there’s another one, too, which i think is triple a american association of appraisers or american appraisal association, so we could try either one of those, but yours is here’s more bonified because you actually research that i’m remember i’m living off the top of my head. Yeah, i actually am. I can actually post a list, uh, post show onto your facebook page, but there were actually sort of six top societies or associations, if you will that that my research turned up one. Was that one i just mentioned the american society of appraisers which, according to this particular web site that lists them, says that this one is the oldest and then there’s the art dealers association of america, thie appraisers, association of america. Well, there’s the triple oh, yeah. There’s that could’ve been it. Okay, please go. Thie appraisal foundation, thie international society of appraisers and the private art dealers association. So i thought that was all interesting. Then i got to wondering if you can actually turn to any of the major houses that actually, you know, the auction houses like those that you might be seeing featured on something like antiques roadshow. Ah, but i didn’t know if that was, uh, if people turned to those types of auction houses to help, you know, evaluate the worst oven item. Certainly an auction house, i suppose, would get involved once there. It actually want to, you know, offload that particular items so that they will end up having the cash. Uh, i i would imagine that would be the case for any non-profit other than a museum who would want that gift, perhaps as part of their dahna display, yeah, it’s it’s it could go broader than that, you know, there are ways that non-profits khun use gifts in-kind in their mission that that are permissible and are not so obvious, like hospitals can use artwork because they can decorate waiting rooms and hallways and things. One of the classic car donations that i worked on was for a university, and we were anticipating using the classic convertible in there athletic recruiting because they thought that seventeen eighteen year olds, when they’re thinking about what college to go to to play sports, might love driving around in a being driven around in a fifty seven chevy, i’m pretty sure that’s what it was convertible, so there are different charitable uses that they’re not as obvious as like you said, you know, the museum, there can be other charitable purposes for for these types of gift no, yeah, i hadn’t thought of that. That sounds great, actually, i can i can really see how an organization might want to step back and think about how it could fit in, as you said to their overall mission or two attraction like in the case of the college or university. There with their son sports department. Really wonderful stuff. And of course, there’s. Also the other examples you gave you no services could be gift in-kind so that’s obviously being used used up immediately a point that i want to make. Two is it’s sort of subsumed in what were saying? I’ll make it explicit. You have to find the right kind of appraiser. There are like i mentioned presidential memorabilia there. Our appraisers are specialising just that. So if you had a ah, a fine art photograph that was being donated to you you need to find someone who specializes in not only find our photography but they may even specialize in the particular photographer the artist or the era if it’s ah it’s ah it’s! Not a contemporary piece of art so you have to find and this goes into the irs requirements. Do you have to find someone who specializes in precisely what it is you’re being given? If it’s an automobile automobile appraisers it’s just like a medical specialist you have to find the right kind of person. Maria, let me ask you about trying to find gifts in-kind i mean, these don’t only come from wealthy people, i don’t want people to be left with that idea. They’d only come from people of wealth. What about ways of ah, finding gifts in-kind in your community? Well, that got me to thinking about not not just the individuals in your community who i might be capable of doing this. But then i started thinking about all of the corporate programs that are in place, for example, that have gifts in-kind as part of their overall corporate social responsibility, so they may have a corporate giving program, a corporate foundation, then they may have a separate set of programming related to in-kind on dh. Then i was wondering, well, how could a non-profit potentially find who are the corporations in my area? Or, you know, i’m a non-profit in need of, um, you know, whatever women’s closing to help the women in our shelter be closed in the winter months or something like that, you know, where could i find that actually found? Sure, there’s multiple websites, but i found a non-profit website that that looked like it would really be helpful front for your listeners to know about and it’s a good three sixty have you? Heard about that one. Oh, i don’t know. It is what is a good three. Sixty dot org’s. Yeah, good. Three. Sixty dot org’s. And so you can go into this if you are a non-profit and you’re, you’re in search of product donations. Um, and you cannot go. You can see the companies that are there. And then, if you’re a company that wants to list your product donations, you can list what you have available on dh. Of course, if you’re an individual that would just like to donate to this particular or a good three sixty dot org’s, you can do that as well. They’re looking for monetary donations. Always. So i just thought it was a pretty interesting, almost like a clearinghouse. It looks like to me. Yeah. Okay. Well, that’s, why you’re our die end of dirt cheap and free. Anything else you found out there about trying to find these types of gif ts? Um uh, i was thinking about this might be more suitable for organizations that are, you know, related to being near the water or maritime or marine environment organizations. But, you know, i have touched upon yacht’s in the past. And trying to figure out, you know, yacht owners and so forth. But, you know, sometimes there will be people who would like to actually donate their yacht, just like people would want to donate a car supposed to try to sell it on their own. So boatinfoworld dot com would allow you to search by state or county or zip code for a list of boat owners near you. So, you know, if we have anybody in the, you know, marine related industry listening to the call, they might want to check out boatinfoworld dot com to get a list of boat owners. Um and it could be something that they would want to start cultivating relationships with those individuals getting them and involved in cultivation events, etcetera. You always go the marine wear because you have a sailboat. I know you don’t have in-kind wave that in dahna that’s. Ok, you are you donating your sailboat? No, not anytime soon, you know? Okay, you work quick. Answer that too. Okay? Okay. Where? L should we go with this? What if in terms of well, i’m sorry? Was there anything more about finding potential gifts? In-kind or is we? Exhausted that. Um then i start thinking about real estate, and i was wondering, well, how would you find out if you want it to proactively find if there is real estate, that could be potential for donation? And i was thinking, well, i guess if you got involved in developing a solid relationships with realtors in your area or, you know, even the banks, um, that, you know, unfortunately these last few years, we’ve seen such high foreclosure rates and so forth there might be some opportunity there if you have conversations with bankers in your community or realtors to find out about some potential properties that could become available, you know, before as a donation. All right, we have to go out for a couple minutes, we come back, i have a couple of tips about real estate gifts that marie is talking about, and we’ll keep going on gif ts in-kind 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. I’m peter shankman, author of zombie loyalists, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, maria simple. Hey there, what would i say in jersey? What up? How you doing? Yeah, doing that’s just yeah, i was born in jersey and i was raised there, so i don’t like that that kind of organized crime overtone around new jersey, but sopranos obviously hit that home. A couple of things that i wanted to reinforce about real estate that that you have brought up real estate can be a very, very good gift for non-profits it can also be a really lousy gift. You have to do your due diligence around real estate and basically it’s the same as if you were buying a home or condor coop do the same too diligence before you put that charity name in the oppcoll the the chain of title so you want to do an environmental assessment phase one. If that raises any issues, then you have to go to a face to assessment if the land has buildings on it or a home, whatever you want to make sure that the building is all in code. So there’s there’s that kind of an inspection, a building inspection title search to make sure that there wasn’t there isn’t some defect in the title, basically all the things you would do as i said that you, if you were, if you were buying the place to yourself, whether it’s got dahna buildings on it or not before you took ownership of a piece of property, you want to make sure that it’s clean in all those ways environmentally title code and building inspection wise. Oh, and if you do all that, then you can end up with a really valuable gift of real estate. So you you bring up an interesting point. I hadn’t really thought about that chain of title that you just mentioned hyre so if i’m understanding you correctly, does that mean if if somebody were to approach an organization let’s say while they’re alive and they say, you know, i’ve got this undeveloped piece of land we want to leave, too. I would like to donate to your non-profit organization, and if you decide to say pay well, great and take that piece of wind and then immediately sell it and let say it’s sold within, you know, three months time, and if you didn’t go through maybe something in the environmental assessment and then somebody down the line says, wow, i can’t believe x y z non-profit, uh, ever owned this piece of land it happens to have had, you know, contamination on it or whatever you’re saying, it could end up coming to bite you in from almost like a pr perspective if your name’s somehow attached to it. This’s like a law school exam there’s a bunch of things in the inn. That hypothetical you just gave me? Yep. Pr. Yes, but i think even potentially worse than that. Although pr can be pretty bad. There’s a potential for legal liability. If it’s if it’s an environmental mess, then all the owners in the past and i’m not environment the lawyer, but i know a little bit a very little about it all. The all the owners in the past are potentially liable for not having cleaned it up or possibly for having contributed to the mess. So and that applies to individuals to so yeah, that’s. This is why we do environmental assessments. You can. You can. Get in some really sticky legal trouble if they’re turns out later on a couple of owners later or something to be an environmental problem and, you know, you didn’t know about it, you didn’t insure against it, things like that. Go ahead. I i was just wondering, what about, in the case of somebody who is willed, a piece of land or a property that had some sort of an environmental issue from years ago? Let’s let’s, you know, think about somebody who may be owned a family run gas station for a number of years, or something like that, or on oil related business oil tanks or something, and then the spouse dies. The person continues to all the remaining spouse, continues to own the property, has no heirs and decides to leave it in her will to a non-profit so then i’m wondering what the impact is mean in this case kayman non-profit to say no, we don’t want it no, thank you. Yeah, again. Sounds like a law school, hypothetical, by the way, i do recognize you turning the tables on me, asking me questions on guy, and i don’t appreciate it, so you may not. Reaching your four with me? Yes, thie the amount of time that you have tio renounce a gift. I’m pretty sure that’s what it’s called in a will varies from state to state it’s typically ninety days or, you know, maybe longer for any beneficiary of a gift by will to turn it down. You don’t have to accept something that’s in a will. So if in your hypothetical the non-profit would want to do its due diligence around that real estate before it accepted the gift, and within the time period that it can still turn it down, if it doesn’t want it. The only thing that came out of your earlier one was you said the the charity sells the real estate that’s a whole other issue. If it’s sold within three years of the time of the date of the donation, then that has implications for the donor’s charitable deduction. The donor’s charitable deduction gets reduced because if the charity unloads, i’m using an unkind word, but i’m not using a loaded word but gets rid of that gift within three years of the date of donation. Then it’s presumed that the donation was not part of their charitable mission not within their charitable mission and therefore that the irs goes back to the donor who claimed the donation and that and the deduction associated with it possibly years earlier and reduces it from a fair market value to a cost basis. Don’t a deduction on that could be a huge difference between what it costs the donor to get something and what the market value of it was when they made the gift so big implications if charity does not use a gift if does not use a gift for at least three years, i have to go out in about a minute. Maria so i kind of took over your segment, but but you were asking me questions. So it’s your fault? Um, well, no, i mean, you know, you’ve given us so much food for thought, really? And i think, you know, the bottom line is you really have to be able to, you know, seek out the right appraisers, seek the advice of financial and law professionals when you’re going to be getting any sort of a significant gift. Ah, oven in-kind gift any non-cash related gift that you really do need todo your homework and and and know what what to look for here, i think it’s, good stuff. There are a couple of liars publications that will help you publication five twenty six, which is called charitable contributions, and also publication five sixty one, which is about gifts in-kind and those qualified appraisals and qualified appraisers i was talking about. Okay, maria, we got to leave it there. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, tony maria simple are doi end of dirt cheap? You’ll find her at the prospect finder dot com and on twitter she’s at maria simple. I’m pre recorded this week, so can’t do riel live listener love by city and state, but the love still goes out of course live listener loved everybody listening live on this day podcast pleasantries, too, are over ten thousand, whatever you do in painting a house, washing dishes, driving subway, ing, walking, running, tread, milling, elliptic, politicizing whatever you’re doing podcast pleasantries, toe all those listeners and affiliate affections to our am and fm station listeners throughout the country. Korso, of course, just the latest of many affiliate affections out to all those am and fm terrestrial listeners next. Week get creative poetry and other arts in your meetings and events with lissa piercy. If you missed any part of today’s show, find it on tony martignetti dot com. Where in the world else would you go pursuant, you’ll raise pillowcases more money. I’m not talking those accent pillows that you toss on your couch. I’m talking those twelve foot long pregnancy body pillows that fill a queen size bed where your husband doesn’t fit anymore, filled with money. Pursuant dot com, our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the line producer, shows social media is by diner russell, while susan chavez is on maternity leave. On our music is by scott stein. You with me next week for non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent go out and big ring. 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 applicable to these young people look so otherwise a fifteen and sixteen year old they have better things to do if they have xbox, they have tv, they have their cell phones me dar is the founder of idealist took two or three years for foundation staff to sort of dane toe add an email address their card, it was like it was phone. This email thing is fired-up that’s, why should i give it away? Charles best founded donors choose dot or ge somehow they’ve gotten in touch kind of off line as it were and and no two exchanges of brownies and visits and physical gift. Mark echo is the founder and ceo of eco enterprises. You may be wearing his hoodies and shirts, tony, talk to him. Yeah, you know, i just i i’m a big believer that’s not what you make in life. It zoho, you know, tell you make people feel this is public radio host majora carter. Innovation is in the power of understanding that you don’t just put money on a situation expected to hell. You put money in a situation and invested and expect it to grow and savvy advice for success from eric sabiston. What separates those who achieve from those who do not is in direct proportion to one’s ability to ask others for help. The smartest experts and leading thinkers air on tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent.
