Tag Archives: philanthropy

Unheralded Giving

circa 1962:  Promotional headshot portrait of American comedian and talk show host Johnny Carson, for the talk show 'The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. He is wearing a striped blazer. Carson began his thirty-year run as host of the late-night series in 1962.  (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

We learned last week that Johnny Carson directed over $150 million from his estate to his foundation. The transfer was only discovered through research by The Smoking Gun. The gifts of securities and royalties were never announced by Carson or those affiliated with him or his foundation.

In the Jewish tradition, based on Maimonides’ degrees of charity, anonymous giving is among the most admired. A few years subsequent to Maimonides, in 2009, The Chronicle of Philanthropy reported increased anonymous giving.

This reminds me of the high calling of quiet, unheralded giving. How refreshing and admirable it is to see a 9-figure unannounced donation. There are surely others that never get exposed and they are equally worthy of respect. I know there are many much smaller anonymous gifts and I hope you have been privileged to work on a couple of them.

Carson’s giving isn’t strictly anonymous, because the John W. Carson Foundation is (I’m guessing) widely known to be his, and that’s where the grants to charities come from. But his silent funding of his foundation with an enormous gift reminds me how revered the anonymous donor is.

Nonprofit Radio for August 6, 2010: Social Media for Nonprofits and Using Social Networks for Fundraising.

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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

Tony’s Guests:

Regina Walton, Principal of Organic Social Media, on whether you should, where to start and what to do with social media.

John Murcott, Vice President, Karma411, on using social networks for fund-raising.

Here is a link to the podcast: 004: Social Media & Online Fundraising

This Friday from 1-2pm this week and every week!


Also, there is contest for my show!

Name the Number!

The call-in number for my show is 877-480-4120. It’s toll free, but not very memorable. Give my number a name. Create an acronym or acrostic sentence, using the letters on the phone that correspond to those digits. We need something clever and memorable, so listeners can call quickly when you have a burning nonprofit question.

Hint: 0 and 1 don’t have letters. Be clever and imaginative, for you will be rewarded.

The prize is winner’s choice: 1 complimentary hour of Planned Giving consulting, or a free copy of my book, “Charity Registration: State-by-State Guidelines for Compliance.” The prize goes to the winner’s favorite nonprofit.

I’ll judge the entries based on adherence to the number/letter scheme and cleverness. I’ll announce the winner on the show on August 20th. Send your entry to me by FB message, Twitter DM, LinkedIn message or email.


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

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

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

Sign-up for show alerts!
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 006_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_08062010.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T22:40:50.754Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2010…08…006_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_08062010.mp3.421567304.json
Path to text: transcripts/2010/08/006_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_08062010.txt

Durney hyre cerini hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio i have terrific guests today. This is your home if you feel that your non-profit is ignored, maybe by the media by consultants, big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, we’re always talking about what’s ideal for small and medium sized non-profits my guests today are going to be regina walton and she’s going to talk to us about social media should you be doing it? If so, how, where, when and at the bottom of the hour we’re going to welcome john melkis hot with karma for one one and john’s going to talk about specifically fund-raising online, this show is pre recorded, so we won’t be able to take your calls today. But there is a contest to name the calling number name the number contest the calling number again. We’re not taking calls today, but the number is eight seven seven for eight xero forty one twenty name that number for us. Please find sentence or something that triggers the that number using the digits on your phone and you’ll win one hour of complimentary planned e-giving consulting by me for the non-profit of your choice. Or a copy of my book, charity registration, state by state guidelines for compliance. Again. For the charity of your choice, you’ll see details aboutthe contest. The name that gnome named the number contest on our facebook page. Go to facebook, dot com and search for tony martignetti non-profit radio when we have lots of fans will have a girl that has that radio show in it. But for now, you have to search for tony martignetti non-profit radio goto. Our facebook fan page, like us, which means you’re joining as a fan, and you’ll see details of the name the number contest. After this break, i’m going to welcome regina walton for all things about social media. Right after this break, e-giving didn’t think dick tooting getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. Duitz cubine are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam 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. Sametz i’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size. But you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays one, too. Talking. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your host, the aptly named host tony martignetti my first guest today is regina walton. Regina is principal of organic social media. Reggina’s joining us by phone. Welcome regina, how are you? Well, how are you? I’m well too, thanks. Welcome to the show. We’re talking about social media for small and medium non-profits what? Let’s let’s first just define the space. What how do you define social media? Well, many different things there lots of moving parts right now, which i guess you know can be overwhelming if you’re not familiar with it. But the things that i think most people have heard about our sites like facebook and twitter, i would include other things like, you know, forms where people communicate with each other on usually forms or targeted based on topic or sometimes demographics are things with that that also email, i think although email at this point is around twenty years old, i think that it’s part of it because it can lead people to those sites. Okay, interesting. You mentioned something i’d like to look into it can be overwhelming. I have experienced with clients that it’s so overwhelming that they leads teo paralysis. They don’t know how to start so they don’t start, right? Do you have before we start talking about the different strategies? Do you have some advice for organizations that just may feel paralyzed? Well, i think probably the smartest thing then is to find an expert right on dh that doesn’t necessarily mean someone like me, because people do hate me to do it, but maybe you have and you probably do. You have someone in your organization who is on facebook who is on twitter? I’m not saying that they’re experts, but i’m saying that they have at least gotten over a certain level of phobia, right? Um and that maybe, you know, you can use them, you know, to kind of get you started are many b hey, who knows? Maybe they will end up being the community manager of your non-profit, you know, because you know, it might be some untapped potential there with someone, but at least, you know, try to find somebody who is already in the treyz ondas already, you know, already comfortable, comfortable because a lot. Of it is googling a lot of it is finding information. This is all very new that we’re all learning. I mean, even the even the experts are still learning, right? I mean, sites pop up every day. There’s, there’s, there’s, constant learning for you. Yeah, that’s the thing i mean and i was going to say it, people are like, oh, you’re you’re an expert or you’re you know, you should call yourself this through that on dh ii has been paid to do that simply just because it’s a constant elearning process there are articles, blobs and guides being written almost daily and it’s just so much information. So i would just say that i’m someone who keeps her finger on the pulse of what’s going on you mentioned. Alright, you mentioned email as ah as a social networking strategy. So since that is what everyone by now is comfortable with you do you have a couple of ideas that someone who’s maybe, starting on email campaign of some type could i should start with? Well, i just i meant an email from the perspective of if you just look at, you know, marketing research in terms of value, you know, email is very valuable because that person is explicitly giving you permission, you know, to market to them are to send them messages on dh so and that from that perspective, there’s just, you know, ah, high high value of return. So i would say that in a social media strategy, you ultimately want to build in a system where you have an op in email system, you might not have won initially. Ah, but those people are going to be valuable to you because, you know, they are, at least at some level vested enough where they said, ok, you can send stuff to my email box and that’s valuable that’s a lot more valuable than say, you know, someone on twitter, not that twitter is not valuable, a different kind of value, but just, you know, in terms of sheer marketing numbers, the value of an email customers, more so what can you dio? Maybe if you build a facebook page for your non-profit then, you know, maybe set up something where you have a newsletter or something on and, you know, you asked people are often for that. Andi, if they do that, you know they’re they’re asking they’re basically consenting to getting more another advantage to email is that, you know, the person has received it, they may not necessarily open it, but well, they you know, they have seen it, right? Yeah, well, i mean, i would just say the value is the fact that this person, you know, has giving you their email information on dh, that, you know, you’re going to get to deliver them something straight to their inbox that they’re going to look at in the morning or in the evening on dh yeah, they may or may not open it, and i have to let that sometimes i will opt into a loose on dh, then i’ll take myself off because then i find that well, maybe i’m not as interested as i thought it was or, you know, i always feeling like they’re kind of abusing the process, you know? So don’t overdo it if you get someone’s email because they will opt out. And what about some some goals for around email? What what might small organization hope to achieve by starting on email awareness or ah friendraising or even fund-raising campaign? Well, i mean one example, and i’m actually just referring to something that’s going on right now on social media there’s a website that is conducting, like a contest of measure who’s, the most influential person. Well, there’s like kind of an activist non-profit booth that raises, you know, fundez just go khun dej for people, and they’ve decided they’re gonna hijack the project and turn it into something good because, you know, they’re the objective of what they do on days ago, they sent out a thing and message, people saying, we’re going to hijack this project read up this is what we do. Andi, i literally got an email yesterday saying, ok, this has started on and, you know, so go onto twitter and update your status and go on to facebook and do this, so i would say that maybe one goal is actually, you know, get people engaged, you know what called action i find that i get from non-profits quite a bit in my email, um, you know, one political one or you know fund-raising one, but i find that a lot of non-profits music back how successful that is, i don’t know i’m not working on that. Side of it, but just as somebody who was kind of in the safe and get those emails that’s when i see a lot of things happening, is that non-profit will use them to get people tio take a stand or, you know, to react to do something. And you mentioned using email in that example to send people elsewhere toe facebook, twitter so why don’t we start to movinto into those areas on you? Also mentioned earlier, the facebook fan page? What is that? What does it take to start one? Oh my god, what is it? What it was just the first are easy, they already zito set up okay there, maybe let me qualify that they’re easy for someone who’s, comfortable with the platform to set up, it doesn’t take much at all. Um, the only thing i’m just going to say as a caveat is that let’s say, you know you’re a non-profit it’s a small organization, you want to make sure that the facebook page for the organization is tied to the person like tied to the president or the person who is in charge? Because example, if i’m your intern and then you let me build that page on my profile. You know, eight minutes. Time for me to go back to school. The profile is permanently tied to my account. That’s. Something that cannot be changed later. Can i cannot be changed right now. Maybe fate, maybe it’s gonna happen that, you know, so many people in this state that facebook is goingto have to build it in. Well, it doesn’t exist. We can transfer it. But as it stands right now, that account will not move. It stays on the account it was started on. So, you know, give your intern temporary access. You know, you can always change your password, you know, or whatever, but and have them set up the page on your account, and then you go in or they go in because they’re already in your account and make themselves an admin and administrator of that account. And then they can do it from their camp. But make sure that it’s anchored, you know, into, you know, with ceo account burrito, whoever is in charge so that’s just caveat. So what that face? That rampages are pretty easy to set up. Um, they’re the level of sophistication, though. Is getting pretty high and people’s expectations they’re getting pretty high, so that means if you have things like logos, um and things that can brand you non-profit used them. Andi that’s, you dragon image files and things like that there’s a special language and things that you confined. But this is the thing. It sounds overwhelming. Trust me, you can go on google and type in something like facebook. You know how to build a facebook sam page and you will get tons and tons and tons of resource is from very good sources on how to do it now, it’s goingto take you more time and you’re gonna have to still learn. But the information is out there and that’s kind of the fun thing about you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio my guest is regina walton principle of organic social media. Regina if people want to contact you ah, why don’t you tell us briefly? Tell us how they should do that. Well, probably the best way. Because this is what i d’oh get up pretty early in the morning. The best way to contact me via e mail. My email feeds everything it sees into. My laptop, my phone, everything so regina r e g in a w o l t o n at g mail dot com. That is be most direct and easiest way to find me on dh. Then from there, you no way we can continue the conversation. That’s. The easiest way to find me, and probably the most guaranteed way to get me. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. My guest is regina walton, and regina will stay with us after this break. You’re listening to talking on their network at www dot talking all calm now, broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my life style. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join joshua margolis, fitness expert, two one two eight six five nine to nine xero, or visit w w w died mind over matter. N y c dot com durney is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, are you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. With a little love and something kayman i’m tony martignetti you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. My guest is regina walton on dh. We’re talking about social media, regina is the principle of organic social media. Regina we were just talking about the facebook fan page. It sounds like that is a fairly simple and on a, uh, easily done place for a non-profit to start great you think so? Yes, i’m sorry. I mean, that was a high pitched kind of i’m yes, maybe i should say that because facebook does have, you know, fifty million people so there’s a really high chance that, you know, your core audience is definitely definitely on facebook. However, um, bigger might not necessarily be better and preparation preparing for this, i put down a list and, like an example is, you know, maybe it would be better to pick a form where there are people who deal directly with what your cause is like example, there was a there was a shelter or woman shelter regina, before you, before you launch into the example, just explain what? What you mean by forms. Well, i mean, basically, what i mean is it’s, an online space where they said earlier people congregate based on interest are based on demographics or, like example, if you like knitting, you can probably go online. I know i could go online right now and find a form that is dedicated and probably in detail you would never have imagined, but they talk about knitting on dh. They talk about all kind of little side issues that come up with knitting. And so that’s what? I mean, these air specialized space is online that deal with people’s interest and they can talk about thank you. And i thought you said form fo r m my mistake. You’re talking about online forums, forums. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, you had an example of the forum. Well, yeah, so like example there. Is there not a shelter that we’re looking? Tio have people help them. Jazz up the shelter’s for abused women are women who just needed a place to be a safe place. And so what they did was they specifically targeted, um, a form a martha stewart form, right? These were women, mostly who are very interested in, you know, jazzing up their home environments and making things pretty. So this is kind of an ideal group of people to target, and they did, and they got a lot of people to contribute help them, you know, beautify these spaces. So, yeah, i’m sure that maybe they could have found, like, you know, the martha stewart fan page, um, on facebook and try to engage people there or build a facebook page, but, you know, maybe sometimes it’s better part to be targeted and what you do, and and that all comes down to research, so i would say before any non-profit does anything you know, take the time to think about what your goals are as a non-profit and what you want to dio onda social media because there’s so much you can do maybe targeting would help. And what about using online communities for for listening about what’s going on in your space? I mean, you’re using you’re giving us a great example of raising awareness and even volunteer recruitment on you even mentioned fund-raising in that in that example of the of the shelter, what about a non-profit using these communities? Just tow, listen to what’s going on in their in their work space in their in their sort of service community. Well, that’s key. Andi, i think that that comes down to doing research. You can build a thing called google alert. Um, and specifically, google will email you any time and every time, something along whatever that term is. So you get a google alert on a term or a phrase? Yeah, andi so you can build google alert on to do that with someone just started. Google, google dot com. You just started google dot com. Usually, google tries to be pretty intuitive. Andi, i actually believe it’s something like alert google dot com or www google that com flash back flasher are ford flash alert. Excellent. Okay, thanks. Something like that. And and in general, google tends to be very intuitive regarding that kind of stuff. So even if you type in alerts and it’s something else, usually something will pop up saying, do you mean this? Um so, you know, you can start by doing research. Yeah. Researching on maybe definitely your own non-profit you should definitely be getting google. You should definitely build the google alert with the name of your non-profit actually know that if people are talking about you, you know it and maybe also maybe also the executive director, key volunteers, i mean, these airways of researching your organization and the research answers air coming right to your e mail. Yeah, trust me, i haven’t even got a google alert about me. I want to know when my name comes up and when people are talking about me on dh that’s pretty standard these days amongst brovey becky, um, you know, but also you want to find out you might have, you might have some fans out there depending on what you’ve done in the community. So there might be people who have, you know, unofficial profiles are who were just enthusiastic supporters of what you do, you know, try to find them on dh when you start building your on online presence, engaged them. Oh, hey, you know, i ran the google search and i found this post or something. Andi, i just wanted to let you know we’re building up this book fans, you know, they built a facebook fan page, so come on over. Um, durney and if that person is already in your corner right then he or she is definitely going to spread the word on dh that actually leaves me tio another side of it, which is you can’t really control, um, the internet, you might get people saying that things about you, then it comes to, you know, make take the time, tio think about, you know, maybe what you do in terms of damage control think about this in advance also. Ugh, i’m example, haiti, um, someone i know was helping a famous individual with his social media, and he got into a little bit of scandal. I’m not a little bit quite a bit on dh i was talking to the guy who was helping him, and it was this one of those things were eventually, you know, it came into, you know, just being transferred parent and damage control and dealing with it, and that seemed to kind of have it all calmed down, but you can’t be scared that people might say bad things about you. They’re carting internet trolls and it’s better to know and, you know, and sometimes people will go too far, but things like, if you know the facebook page, you know you might want to make it very explicit that, you know, we don’t tolerate abusive language here, you know? We reserve the right to delete thomas for things like that, but you be ready, but it’s it’s better it’s better for the organization to know that there is negative stuff out their way. They’re almost always gonna be some naysayers out there and be ready for them so you can use the google alert stuff to find out. Yeah, good alert, it comes up to deal with that on dh, then move on, you know, because usually what happens is, you know, they say you get sucked down really fast that they’re just kind of regina, just in the in the minute or so that we have left. What about using social media these on the online communities for non-profits to network with other non-profits i think that’s something that isn’t often photos there’s actually a non-profit that i found a really good story on basically they deal with paraplegics who happened injured and so sport accident and what this group it was online, they connected with another non-profit so the name of the non-profits life world on and they connect. It with chris and re foundation on dh they have, you know, they have similar objectives, andi so between those two groups it’s just a really easy flow of communication and the people that are vested in their cause, you know, kind of by default are vested in the cause of this other non-profit and it just kind of help to expand the base of boat. And how do you how do you get started? How do you find other non-profits that air working in your space in just the thirty seconds or so that we have left? I would say it comes down to monitoring that’s where the google searching is really going to start pulling up all this activity started getting tweets coming in thanks for my website, all that’s going to come up and that’s all searchable and that’s all those air, all being searched, i guess, by the google alerts that you were talking about, yeah, but also going in and physically googling yourself, you know, go into google and try some different terms because sometimes, you know your first choice but necessarily work, and so then you have to kind of getting a bit more. Precise, sir, changed the terms of that. Go in and play around with google it’s, okay to get some bad results, because then you’ll learn how to do that anymore. Between to give us your email one more time. People want to contact you. All right. Regina r g, a altum, w el tio and all one word. Regina walton at gmail dot com regina, thank you very much for joining us. My guest has been regina walton principle of organic social media following this break. I’ll be joined by john melkis hot, and we’ll be talking specifically about fund-raising in online communities. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. I’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size, but you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays. One, too hyre oppcoll you’re listening to the talking alternative network. I’m tony martignetti and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio in a moment, i’ll be joined by john melkis, and we’ll talk about using online communities for fund-raising in the next moment, i want to spend just reminding you that if you are planning fall events for your organization, september and october, i think tend to be pretty common months for social events of different types fund-raising events because people have largely taking the summer off if you’re planning an event like that, those events are solicitations, and those solicitations trigger the requirement to register with st charity officials in the state where you’re hosting that event so that event might be in your home state might be in your office or maybe in a major donors home or a board member’s home that may very well be in your home state, and hopefully you’re registered in the state where you’re doing the most business with st charity officials. But if you’re hosting an event and in some other state, you need to be registered with the state charity officials before you host that event because, as i said, that event is a solicitation and solicitation is what triggers. The charity registration requirements throughout the states, as i’ve said in previous shows, there are lots of other things that trigger these requirements. Email, paper, mail buying advertising space in a lot of states having a donate now button if you have ah live donate now button on your website and that’s visible obviously throughout the world in twenty ah, more than twenty states that’s a charity solicitation because the donate now button is visible buy-in those twenty states and it doesn’t matter whether someone gives through the donate. Now button, i’m not talking about donations coming through your website. I’m talking about the website, just accepting merely act accepting online gift that also is a solicitation. But if you’re planning these fall events, it took the summer off. If you have events coming up, you should register with st charity officials before you host those events. I am very interested in this topic so much so that i wrote a book about it. The book is charity registration state by state guidelines for compliance, and you’ll find the book at st charity registration dot com. My guest now is john melkis. John is vice president of karma for one. One john is joining us by phone. John welcome buy-in tony let’s talk about fund-raising using online communities, my my last guest was talking about getting started in online communities. How is the online community space valuable for fund-raising sure we actually call this type of fund-raising people two people fund-raising and for non-profit there’s multiple ways, of course, to raise money, some of the traditional ways would be to do a direct mail asked for large checks from big donors, government grants, etcetera, but a new way that people are raising money are through social networks and the people to people phenomena means the non-profits are not directly soliciting donations. They are actually encouraging people who care about the organisation. It could be evolved here, it could be someone who’s close to the organization. It could be someone who cares about the cause for them to ask their friends directly to support the cause they care about the non-profit company is the non-profit the non-profit is not soliciting it’s, someone who is someone who loves the non-profit act quickly so the people to people part, our friends asking there colleagues, their relatives of their friends to support a cause. They care about what about sort of message control if we’re going to let air constituents who admittedly love us but might not describe us ah, charity in the way that we most like to be described, that’s, that’s going to be a concern? Oh, sure, and that comes up a lot. I will say we’ve been doing this for two years now, since since two thousand eight we used to get that question more often, but less and less now, and the trade office and i think i heard a little bit from the last conversation that there is a tradeoff you do some of that control. The simple answer is the people to people aspect the social media aspect of this equation, which is user generated content, meaning people are creating creating two e mails they’re creating the the request are more persuasive than the kind of official marketing request, so i guess the way i would look at it is if you look at the popularity of a site like you to a lot of the videos on youtube or not professionally made marketing, people may cringe to think what, that some of those videos, but they’re very, very popular, and they’re very viral, so and kind of trade off a little less control. It’s not polished it’s definitely more informal, but marika and those messages, you’re often very viral. Yeah, some of the most viral videos are the ones that have what? What critics would say low production values, homegrown i’m thinking of some that come from from the military doing dances or the or the guy who dances throughout the world in different countries, in very low production, but but millions and millions of hits you’re absolutely right and this term that people use all the time called social media and it’s not always defined people just kind of talk about it as this big trend and phenomenon, but it just means user generated and you’re right, it’s not a professional, but it’s very, very popular social media, social networking. Your sight is karma for one one, and people will find that it karma for one one dot com why don’t you tell us what karma for one one is doing in promoting the people the people fund-raising sure on if you just take a quick step and we talk about social media and social. Networking in general there’s two there’s two kind of core of activities going on here. The first one is, as i was saying, social media, so content that’s generated by individuals is very popular, very persuasive and it’s very viral. So that’s just kind of as a trend. Youtube is a certainly a big example of that. But then social networking, which, of course, facebook is the big example is the same idea. Of course, it’s all user generated content you get one of the most popular web sites in the world. Facebook and no content is being written by someone on facebook, it’s, all written by mothers and high school kids and college kids, etcetera. So the reason why it’s so popular? First of all, the social media so it’s people sharing their own stories and messages with their friends? But it’s a great way to communicate. And even now, of course, it’s a good way to communicate, but she couldn’t hear even hell with all of the tools that the social networking sites like facebook and others offer. So it it’s absolutely terrific way to communicate and the way we look at the world that karma fall on. One looks at the world is you use these tools these social networking elements for different tasks in your life, most of it right now is around buy-in facebook is fun. Check out photos of your friends, kids catch up with friends from high school, etcetera, but it’s kind of addressing in need of just that basic end of day at work. Just relax and kind of see what’s going on with your friends so it’s for fun and then linked into him along and said, you know, this is a great way to connect and communicate and interact with people, but what about business needs? So you’re looking for a job you’re trying to communicate your resume, you know that type of thing and our view is x ray two so fundez covered and business and kind of searching for a job is covered. What about causes? So you care about it because you want to support it cause it’s the same idea you need tools to communicate, to share your ideas and provide a platform to support social media. So that’s where car before one one fix and where wei have similar tools to those other sites, but we focus on causes. My guest is john melkis, vice president of karma for one one you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio john, you’re on entrepreneur, a cofounder of karma four one one so i am tempted to ask you what happened to my space? Why did it decline in popularity? Yeah, it’s interesting, innit? And reborn itself a little bit, but i had this really nice picture that i used to use for discussions on social networking, and it had three pictures, one for my space, one for facebook and one for lengthen the one for facebook had kind of a nice, clean cut college student type person just very nicely dressed and, uh, you know, nicely put together something you want to talk to the length in person, of course had a suit on and was a little more professional, but the myspace person was carrying a nice a little dangerous, and that was the problem with facebook was you’re saying before important, teo kind of be more informal and let people create their content, but at the same time it needs tio you need to make sure that it doesn’t go overboard and the problem with people who are not being honest, the people were not representing themselves correctly. So maybe they took some of the potential downside that you were asking me about in the beginning and took it too far. And what one thing just to learn from this is that it’s always an issue and people do worry about it. But big picture when you try to figure out on my own and i fall this message with so many content so much content, so many updates. So much networking going on. Can anyone really control it? And on the one hand know you as a company. You can’t control every element. You could monitor it and do alerts, etcetera. But at the same time i really think that the community people understand when people go overboard and there is within reason a kind of a self policing. And i do believe that’s what happened? What myspace? The community said this is not where we want to go. This is not what social networking is supposed to do. And there was no government agency that came in. There was no police force that came in. There was no external force. It was just a community itself said, this is not what we want, so it doesn’t happen a cz quickly as arresting someone, for example, but big picture i really do think these pro social type proclivities will will win out, and that so we certainly hope for carmen four one one so it gave new meaning to crowd control. It was really the crowd acting as the police and moving away. You mentioned that my space was reborn just in the forty five seconds or so that we have before the break. How did my space have a rebirth? Yeah, uh, it’s a good question, because someone made tracks their head and say, i won’t be one mother of all social network where everyone goes and everyone uses for everything, and that has not happened whether it’s in a good way, really in any space, even if you look a email, which is so commoditized you haven’t. In boxing, send e mails but there’s hot male there’s, g mail, there’s, yahoo! Of course, they’re still outlook from microsoft, so there’s still that kind of individuality. So i don’t believe it will ever be the mother of all social networks and part of it is because people will focus, you go to facebook for fun. As i said before, you would have went inter business. I hope you go to karma for hunt, hunt for causes, and people go to myspace now for music, actually, how they started. My state started as a little area where bands could promote themselves, put up their calendar, upload pictures from their concerts and the fans of those of cages. I would say how much they love their band. Then people said, hey, i don’t have a page, just like my band has a page and that’s how my space started. But like i said, it went a little too far, and now they’re kind of going back to their roots, and they’re focusing on people who are interested in music. John, we have to take a break. My guest is john melkis, vice president of karma four one one and he’ll stay with us after this message. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Durney i really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness can help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join joshua margolis, fitness expert, at two one two eight six five nine two nine zero or visit w w w died. Mind over matter. Y si dot com. Cerini! Duitz duitz are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set two one, two nine six, four, three, five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Talking. I’m tony martignetti this is tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, my guest by phone is john melkis with karma for one one. John, how are people using social networks to do this? People two people? Fund-raising yeah, the best way to look at it would be to consider a youtube page when someone upload the video and kind of gives a quick description of it or on facebook. So you have a page with your profile in a little information, the bottom line is you get your own page. So as i was saying before, whoever this person is, who cares about the organization? So could be someone who suffered a disease that the organization support could be a volunteer, another concern, citizen, where it is you, quote unquote, make a page, and on that page you upload your picture to tell your story of why it’s important to you, and then they’re tools to share this message with your friends so they can come and check out your page, just like you might say, hey, check out this video on youtube, but kind of fun and your friends would go to that youtube page it’s the same idea, except on that page two options one you could make a donation, then that’s a key element, and that donation goes to the non-profit oh, our past the word so becomes you tell your friends this is something interesting, you know, this is my friend very connected to this cause. Could you show your support? So so that’s it it’s all as i said, user generated and what you’re seeing on karma for one one. How are the most successful campaigns being run by individuals? You know they’re great because they’re saying before, a lot of times people are familiar mohr with kind of when they’re communicating this way online, maybe they do an email blast, which which can often make sense, but it’s typically a numbers game. Maybe you have an e mail with the ten thousand names, and if you were going to send out an email blast, you would expect a very, very low open raid. Maybe a couple click throughs, you know it could have could have an impact, but it’s quite low number, however, in a campaign like this that i’m describing the people who are sending the invitation. So when i make my page and send it to my friends and colleagues, etcetera, this’s a page on you’re talking about a pain giant, you’re talking about a page on karma for one one right back. Okay, please page on karma for one one, just like you say make a page on youtube. Uh, the response rate is dramatically hyre because you’re getting the email from your friend, you’re it will get through to the inbox if they probably hurting sent e mails to that person before and their request is a lot more persuasive because it’s coming from someone you know, so the response rates are typically very good and donations think back to the obama campaign. They’re not always large gifts. This is not the same is getting a big check from a donor? They range. Sometimes you get a fifty dollar check, it could be a ten dollars take check or credit card divination, but sometimes we do get quite large donations. We’ve gotten donations on the site up to ten thousand dollars to settle a lot of pain, but i cleared more grass roots so larger responses of smaller transactions that typically the experience. We found john. Please tell our listeners how to reach you if they’d like to. Well, that certainly just go to the site and we have a number of ways to contact us. So it’s, just www that karma for one one dot com back k a r m a and then the members for one one dot com and my email address is john jail h n got murcott em isn’t mary-jo you are the old tt at karma four one one dot com john, thank you very much for joining us today. Thank you so much. My guest has been john murcott, vice president of karma for one one. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We have a facebook fan page. Please go to facebook dot com and at this point, you still have to search for tony martignetti non-profit radio click like so you like us and become a fan. We have a name the number contest neymar call in number eight seven seven four eight zero for one to zero you’ll win a free hour of planned giving consulting for your selected non-profit or a copy of my book, charity registration, state by state guidelines for compliance. Details of the name the number contest are on our fan page. I want to thank my creative producer, claire meyerhoff, producer sandy liebowitz and say affair sad farewell to former line producer matt in elko, who has made his way back to pittsburgh two and mark on continue his career in in media has a lot of experience in radio and tv, and we wish matt very, very well. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Please join us every friday at one p m eastern on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com hyre. No, i think a good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get in. E-giving cubine. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set two one, two nine six, four, three, five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life in fitness. Join joshua margolis, fitness expert, at two one two eight sixty five nine to nine xero, or visit w w w dot mind over matter. N y c dot com i’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size. But you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays one, too. Talking.

Nonprofit Radio for July 30, 2010: Relationship Building and Fundraising & Risk management and Insurance strategies

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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

Tony’s Guests:

John Hicks, President & CEO of J.C. Geever, on foundation relationship building and fundraising.

Brian Flood, Vice President of The Flood Group, on risk management and insurance strategies.

There will be a link to the podcast posted here after the show.

This Friday from 1-2pm this week and every week!


Top Trends. Sound Advice. Lively Conversation.

You’re on the air and on target as I delve into the big issues facing your nonprofit—and your career.

If you have big dreams but an average budget, tune in to Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio.

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

When and where: Talking Alternative Radio, Fridays, 1-2PM Eastern

Sign-up for show alerts!
View Full Transcript

Transcript for 013_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_07302010.mp3

Processed on: 2018-11-11T22:40:24.405Z
S3 bucket containing transcription results: transcript.results
Link to bucket: s3.console.aws.amazon.com/s3/buckets/transcript.results
Path to JSON: 2010…07…013_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_07302010.mp3.224157447.json
Path to text: transcripts/2010/07/013_tony_martignetti_nonprofit_radio_07302010.txt

Durney welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio i’m your aptly named host. Tony martignetti in this hour, we have to very knowledgeable, terrific guests are first after the break, we’ll be john hicks, john is expert in foundation and corporation foundation fund-raising among other areas, but we’re going to focus a lot on foundation fund-raising the research that goes into it, building the relationships, what to do when a foundation says no, how do you proceed and how do you proceed when you get that sought after yes, on a proposal after john, our guest will be brian flood. Brian is a third generation insurance professional and he’s going to share insights about all different kinds of insurance, the casualties, insurance and the directors and officers insurance that small and medium non-profits need to be aware of how to avoid and minimize can ever really avoid, but how to minimize risk in your non-profit this is tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. If you feel that your organization is somehow left out in the cold, by consultants or by the media or by constituents generally, then you’re in the right place. This is big. Non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. We have a break, and then john hicks joins us. They couldn’t do anything, including getting ding, ding, ding ding. You’re listening to the talking, alternate network waiting to get in. E-giving cubine. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. I’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size. But you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays one, too. Talking. Oppcoll miree this is tony martignetti non-profit radio, i’m tony martignetti your host, my first guest today is john hicks. John is the president and ceo of the j c geever in-kind fund-raising consultancy in new york city, john does a lot of public speaking for the foundation center, which will be diving into a little bit some details about the foundation center. He delivers their proposal writing proposal, writing, too and cultivating grantmaker relationships seminars throughout the country, the foundation center has coordinating collections throughout the country, and we’ll be talking about those. John is also on the faculty of columbia university’s master’s degree program in fund-raising management, he does a lot of speaking, and he also does a lot of writing he’s, a contributing author to two books, the foundation centers after the grant and wiley’s the non-profit handbook. Fund-raising and i’m very glad that john’s work brings him to the studio today. Welcome, john. Oh, thanks, it’s, great to be here. You’re an expert in in foundation fund-raising and we all know that a lot of almost all fund-raising his relationship building, let’s, let’s start by talking a little about building that relationship with foundations, how does how? Does that process start? Well, let’s do because i think that’s one of the big mistakes or big mean snow mers about foundation philanthropy that it’s all a grant proposal that we write and and that’s the be all and end all involves relationship building involves relationship building with staff professionals who run foundations, manage foundations, and in some cases, it involves building relationships with members of the board of directors of the foundation. So depending on the kind of foundation you’ll approach, the process is going to be a little different. We can talk more about that. Yeah, i do want to dive into that in a few minutes in terms of taking this through a linear process does one doesn’t does a small and medium medium non-profits start with research about foundations and trying to align the mission of the foundation with their own? Is that where we start? We’ll write. The first step in the process that we teach in the foundation center seminars is actually you begin with your own priorities. You figure out what it is that you need to do to meet the real needs of your community or constituency, and then you’re going to research foundation’s who want to accomplish the same things that you do by giving money to support your programs and that’s when you’ll turn toe a resource like the foundation center and their foundation directory online, which is certainly, in my opinion, the best one stop shopping resource in the marketplace. Tto learn about foundations, let’s, talk a little about the foundation center. I know they’re headquartered here in new york city, but there are they called cooperating collections throughout the country that people can access right. The foundation center is headquartered in new york. They have five regional libraries new york city, washington, dc. Atlanta, georgia, cleveland, ohio, and out in san francisco. But there is also a network of over four hundred cooperating collections these air public libraries, university libraries, non-profit service organizations around the country and they’ve even begun to move far. They’ve established their first cooperate collection in korea, and they’re developing networks in europe and throughout age of which is great work on their part, so it means that their intent is that anyone can have access for free use of foundation directory online at a cooperating collection and no cooperating collection is really more than about a half an hour’s drive away from probably anyone anywhere who’s trying to raise money, and those foundation center re sources are, as john said, i wantto reiterate, free in all those places that john mentioned, but john those air it’s really a a seminal program and a research package that the foundation senators put together, isn’t it? Absolutely? The foundation directory online is based on information that’s publicly available bye foundation, certainly taken from their websites and it’s updated constantly weekly. Um, you can go to their website, foundation center dot or ge, and you can locate a cooperating collection where you can access the information for your charge. And what type of information do they have on on all the seventy six thousand or so foundations that they they research? Well, actually, the number is now one hundred thousand, so isn’t i mean its presentation okay few years ago that it was seventy six, seventy seven thousand? Absolutely. So we’re the kind of information’s available is in addition to basic contact information, address phone number, members of the staff, you have information on all the trustees and officers there’s information on giving by these foundations most of the foundations they have sample grants you have access to what’s called a form nine ninety pf, which is the foundation equivalent of a tax return where you can look at their contributions and they have analyses on the larger foundations in particular, where it’ll show you e-giving down to the level of how many grants were made in a given year in a given county in any state or common wealth in the us. And you can certainly look att what types of giving, what types of missions the foundation’s e-giving too, and that isn’t that the way to start aligning the foundations with your own work? Absolutely so you’ll start with your own work, and certainly you can research across different subject areas of interest. Bye, different foundations, there’s tons of categories, tony, that you khun search across and you can combine searches. It’s, a very powerful search tool, and it’s it’s pretty easy to use, and particularly when you go into a cooperative collection there’s a library on staff who is trained in how to use this database so you’ll get hands on help when you go into a cooperating collection. Alright, so easy to use there’s professional staff helped help you if you do need help and research on roughly one hundred thousand foundations, this really is ah place where a smaller medium non-profit wants to start and again, it’s all for and this is free in the end, all the locations. Absolutely, absolutely. After you’ve done this initial research, you found maybe a dozen, maybe more or less numb foundations that you think are appropriate to ask for a grant of some type. What? What should be the next step? Well, in the case where the foundation is professionally staffed, we counsel the organization to at least try to reach out and have a conversation with someone, because even though the information you’re looking at online, even on the foundations on website, might suggest that there’s an interest, what is it that we don’t know? We don’t know if the foundation is accepting applications right now, given the economy, some foundations have delayed some of their review processes, so they’re holding back on the number of applications there accepting, but they’re not telling us this information publicly, so we learn that kind of information on a call, sometimes making a call to a foundation and you’re talking to a staff person, you will learn some of the things that they’re particularly interested in learning about your program, and that helps you write a more targeted, and i’m just a better proposal. I think this is an important point, john, that a lot of people are not aware of the foundation’s air willing. Tio take these kinds of calls, these sort of inquiry calls initial inquiry or doesn’t really depend on the foundation? Well, it depends on the foundation. Tony i i’m always issued the disclaimer that, you know, the textbook says call every foundation, but the reality is there are roughly one thousand very, very large foundations, these air mega foundations you’ve heard of them, the gates foundation, carnegie, kellogg they certainly are more than adequately staff then there’s another maybe fifteen thousand foundations below that top layer, and we can usually get through and have a conversation with those funders that leaves us eighty six thousand foundations and those air family foundations and those are usually i mean, for all intensive purposes, you really have to know the donor you might be able to talkto trust advisor and a bank, but those folks don’t typically take cold calls, and even if they do, they’re not going to be privy to what the family necessarily wants to do. It’s more in the domain of individual fund-raising i see so all right, so then you’ve, you’ve made this inquiry phone call where it’s appropriate, where they’ll accept it. What you’ve given us an idea of what we’re looking for, what what really is ah, is the next step typically? Well, once we’ve established that there’s a willingness to look at the proposal and that there’s a real interest in the program, then you follow through with the actual proposal. At this point, we get into a disclaimer, i always give it my foundation center classes end when he’s listening in who’s ever taken one of my classes, you’ll know what i mean. I always say that sixty five percent of this the success sixty five percent of the success is basically following the directions. I mean, if you can, you can pick up a box of cake mix and follow the directions. You can write a grant proposal, just answer the questions, but the other thirty five percent is you have to understand the nuances, and this is where the phone call is going to help you, but you followed through with a proposal and sometimes it’s not a full proposal, right? But a letter of inquiry in some cases it’s a letter of inquiry? Yes, the foundation wants to save a little paperwork on both ends. I have to say, one thing i am observing across my clients is that i’m seeing a lot of grantmaker is just going to the full proposal because they don’t want to have to handle paper twice, and they’re cutting down on their staff because of the economy, so don’t be surprised if they wanted to send a full application and where does building the relationship fit into this way had been taking it linearly, let’s, let’s talk a little broadly break out of that, that chronology, and how does the relationship building gets started? Well, a lot of times it is with that first step of a phone call, you have to have something of interest, but you have to remember, and i’m going to quote jules auras. He used to be a program officer at the kellog foundation, he’s written on the topic and he’s. Ah, thought leader in the industry and he says, and that shell people working foundations where three hats first had his gatekeeper there, you know, screening proposals next hat once it makes it past the screen is investigator, i’m gonna learn more about your charity learn more about your program, but i haven’t decided if i’m going to put it in front of my board. If it’s the right fit, i’m doing due diligence, but ultimately you’re going to the third hat that of advocates? So thie idea is at some point you’re going to have to have a conversation and a lot of it’s cold calls, some of it could be personal networking. You may meet grantmaker zad events or have colleagues in the field who can introduce you to some of these program officer so i encourage a lot of networking. It’s hart, this is a hard business to get ahead. If you simply sit behind your desk and on lee, right proposals boardmember zx could be important to this process, right? Let’s, help us understand how our organization’s board members are critical to this. Well, for every proposal that you’re sending out, you should that the officer director list for the grantmaker with your own board to find out if there are personal connections, they want your proposals in place and the foundation is looking at it there and then that investigative mode winning allies on the board is pretty important. The one thing you want to avoid and this is a trap i see organisations fall into is thinking they can go around the professional staff and simply lobby the members of the board to get the grant. Sometimes you do nothing more than end up antagonizing the staff of the foundation. So it’s ah it’s a very carefully nuanced process, you know, we’re bored to board pays off in spades is going to be the family foundations and its individual networking. I see, but we cannot ignore in the bigger organization the bigger foundations, the professional staff absolutely not, especially in those larger foundations, because the staff hold, you know, a lot of sway and they’re they’re there for a reason. This staffer there for a reason, this is tony martignetti non-profit radio. My guest is john hicks. John is president and ceo of j c geever fund-raising council in new york city and john’s. Going to stay with us after this break? You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Durney i really need to take better care of myself if only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up dahna is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness can help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join joshua margolis, fitness expert, two one two eight six five nine into nine xero, or visit w w w died mind over matter and y si dot com. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering the voice? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Schnoll hyre hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio, i’m your host. Tony martignetti with us in the studio is john hicks, president and ceo of j c geever fund-raising council in new york city, and we’re talking about foundation fund-raising for our audience, the small and medium non-profits throughout the country, john, we were we digress. A little talk about relationship building, let’s, let’s jump back into the sort of more linear chronology eww! Put yourself in the sixty five percent category of giving yourself a sixty five percent shot by following the directions you made that point what we’re waiting now, and we get a we get a negative response, or or might we get an inquiry for more information? Help me understand what comes next, right? In some cases, you’re going to get a ah, an inquiry for more information of the grantmaker is interested remember it’s a process of learning process on their part? Particular, if they’ve never funded you before there’s going to be information exchange, this is something i do talk about quite a bit in my seminars, the foundation center that i find that in the beginning there may be an exchange of information over the phone there, maybe even be a meeting. But once the proposal is seriously under consideration, what happens? Usually there’s a site visit particularly more money? You request they actually want to come and see the work that you’re doing, and then a lot of the information exchange becomes paper. They want more financial information on your agency, they want to do a lot more do dilgence and digging into the books, and then that takes us out to the result. And either you have the grant or you get that you get that negative that turned down the request for more information, i would think an organization should take as a good sign. It’s always a good sign turned down they’re interested, you know, it’s always a great sign. One of grantmaker i just upgraded that’s a great sign for grantmaker comes in and ask you for more information because they don’t do that unless they’re seriously kicking the tires and looking at making the grant and let’s say you do get the turn down the negative response. How should you react internally? And what should you do with respect to the foundation? Well, internally, you’re going to be frustrated. And you need to keep that internal that’s that’s the number of thes of advice, one of the challenges of getting a turned down from a foundation. And i always say this that if you if you’ve ever gotten a declination letter from a foundation, you probably share my believe that every foundation has hired the same guy to write the letter because it’s the same bloody letter. Thanks, but no thanks. Ah, this point, you’re going to use the phone again. Something i do say in my seminars to the foundation center is that a lot of grants began with a word. Now, this is like, you hear this and sales urine dating individual giving, we say six knows, and you’re half way to it. Yes, absolutely. So the whole idea is that, um, the grantmaker may have ah, a lot of interest in supporting you. They just aren’t ready to make that commitment. And so what we’re trying to get at is, are we close enough where we should continue the conversation, give them or information? Or are we just simply not something they’re interested in supporting? And we need to move on so that we can use our time well in the foundation could use its time. Well, that’s, where phone calls going to really pay off, okay, so again, hyre foundations are willing to take those kinds of calls from from organizations that they’ve declined. Some foundations are tony there isn’t that marries again. Yeah, it’s ah, there’s only as i say to my foundation sandorkraut oops, i say to my clients, there’s, only one way we’re going to find out. We try and pick up the phone, right? And you’ve gotten the positive what we’re calling a foundation and you made the transition is actually now a grantmaker to your organization, you’ve gotten a approval. How should you react? Well, in the first thing that grantmaker wants to do is to simply be gracious and say thank you and one of the more surprising things we’ve learned over the years from grantmaker zoho is that a lot of charities cash the cheque and they may send back the paperwork, but they don’t take that moment to say thank you, and you have to remember somebody’s going to bat for you, and they’ve done a lot of work and they’ve put themselves out there. Elizabeth olafsson who’s a grantmaker here in new york city with the stolen charles guttman foundation something she said once i think we all need to remember this, that there are three owners grant her board owns it because they voted to, you know, make the award our charity obviously owns it because we have the cash, but she owns it because she’s the one that went to bat for us, so thinking that person is it sounds like a very small thing, but it’s a very big thing when it comes to relationship building, so that’s number one and number two is making sure that you are totally locked into giving foundations the reports that they require when they require them. Because foundations use this, these reports really tto learn about how effective they’re rants are, so they’ve become our partner. I think there could be a potential for fallout in the relationship if the grant is made, whether in full or in part, and the organization, the non-profit is not fulfilling its responsibility back to the foundation. Well, they’re two pitfalls one must be mindful of, one is not reporting, and therefore we’re not keeping up our end of the bargain of course not using the grant for the purpose that it was intended that’s going to be very important, but something else we don’t think about and i think it merits mentioned here is what happens when things don’t work out, you know grantspace are made on under the assumption that sure this project’s going to be successful, we would never ask for the grant. We didn’t believe the project’s going to be successful, but sometimes projects just aren’t successful. Sometimes we don’t give enough kids involved, sometimes we come up short on the other fund-raising grantmaker sze understand this? What they want us to do is to communicate with them early if we have a sense that things are not working out right? Come to them earlier in the process and have that conversation. Don’t wait until the final report, then it’s too late for everyone and let’s let’s, talk a little about aligning cultures or maybe determining culture, whether our foundation would be properly called may be old school orm or cutting edge and how that might impact your relationship with them. Sure, one of the things that i spend time thinking about is a consultant one i’m doing research, andi, i’m guiding someone through the process, coaching someone through the process is i really tried to look, but, you know, beyond the numbers i look beyond what’s on on a web page, and i like to spend some time thinking about what is the corporate culture of the foundation. Sometimes we’re dealing with a very small shop foundation they’re very hands on, they’re going to expect the same kind of treatment from us, they’re going to want to have access to people inside our organization, so i look at the corporate culture of the foundation, but i also think about the foundation’s values sometimes we’re approaching a thunder with a solution to a problem and our solution a lot of times when well, whenever we get a grant, i can pretty much guarantee you that philosophically, we’re on the same page with grantmaker but sometimes there are just some differences of opinion, particularly when it comes to values yeah, there’s, a conservative and a liberal site to the foundation world, just as there is to the non-profit world, some foundations air driven by matters of faith. Some charities are, too, but the two faiths may not. Completely lined up, so we have to think about some of those nuances. First, i’ll just to decide whether we want to spend time trying to build a relationship, and then as we build relationship, how do we use that information and those perceptions to strengthen and cement the relationship? Ultimately, this is very nuanced stuff. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. My guest is john hicks, president, ceo of j c geever fund-raising council in new york city. John let’s, look a little at corporate foundation fund-raising in just the two minutes or so that we have left, what what ways would you distinguish corporate foundation fund-raising from the foundation? Fund-raising we’re talking, we’ve been talking about, well, corporate foundations and private foundations in in terms of how they’re organized, they look exactly the same and largely they operate the same. Ah, the nuance that creeps in on the corporate side obviously is corporation is associating, if you will it’s brand with your charity. So one of the things you have to think about is how does that brand benefit you benefit your constituency and how it is you know, you’re affiliation with the corporation benefit the corporation, so i tried to think about it it’s easy when you look at something like, if it’s a pharmaceutical corporation and you’re a medical charity, the connection’s air pretty dead on. But then, if you’re not let’s, say you’re a local youth service organization, you’re looking at a pharmaceutical, then you’re thinking about things like, you know, our are there a lot of corporate employees who live in the community where you’re providing benefit? Are you building a higher quality of life for the community? So those are the things i think you need to think about as you’re approaching the corporate foundations, does the non-profit maybe have a little more opportunity for salesmanship in in the corporate work? In other words, persuading the corporation are helping the corporation to see what the value could be to that company and the corporate foundation. No, i’m going to say that most of the corporation are corporate foundations, operate very much on a very objective plane, just like private foundations. Obviously, if you’re working with a corporate contributions person and they’re giving money of their own corporate coffers, that’s where the showmanship comes, i mean, maybe the easiest way of summarizing this is if if you were approaching a corporate foundation, i would be talking to you about how to develop the right proposal. People going in to talk to a corporate contributions officer. We probably talking about how to take your program and develop a really nice power point. Dad, at present. It okay, my guest is has been john hicks, president and ceo of j c geever john, why don’t you give us the company website, please? Sure, you can visit us at www dot j c geever that’s, j, c g as in george e theisen, victor e r dot com gentlemen, thank you very much for coming to the studio, and i would like to have you back, and we’ll continue the conversation on a future show. Maybe delve more into the fountain to the corporation side. Thank you very much, tony. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. I’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size. But you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays one, too. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Geever this is tony martignetti non-profit radio, i’m your host, tony martignetti joining us shortly will be brian flood to talk about insurance and risk management for your non-profit i’d like to spend a couple of minutes elaborating on something that was talked about in our very first show with my guest was stephen perrotto, and steve talked to us about planned e-giving and we talked a little about charitable bequests, that foundation of planned giving for any non-profit irrespective of size, regardless of mission, the charitable bequest is always the most popular planned gift in any planned giving program. You would expect about eighty five or so eighty five to ninety percent of your gif ts to be charitable bequests, and i’d like to talk a little in detail about marketing those charitable bequests. Stephen, i delved into a few areas using a newsletter, your website direct mail, and i’d like to go into a little more detail about some of those areas. Direct mail is a very common way, too market the idea of the charitable bequest for your organization what your mail is essentially saying is it’s important to have your state properly planned? And when you do that consider including us in your plan, you’re typically talking about someone’s will, because everyone has a will. There may be other state plan tools that work around the will, but everyone has a will, and everyone can understand what you’re talking about when you ask them to include your organization in their will. So direct mail is a very common way. I like tio, see direct mail that’s devoted exclusively to the idea of the charitable bequest. Now that can the expensive because direct mail devoted to one subject means postage and printing and maybe male house operations, depending how many your people your mailing to and you’ve just got one idea going out in that mail that’s, the charitable bequests but if you can afford the direct mail devoted to charitable bequests, it’s it’s really ideal. If you’re doing that, i like to see those mail pieces personalized, so not addressed to dear friend, but using the person’s name and address in an inside address on the letter and then addressing the letter oryu greeting them with a formal greeting. Dear mr mrs or miss doctor, not again not dear friend, i like to see these enclosed envelopes. Not windowed envelopes. I think window envelopes look too much like an invoice or a bill, and this is a pretty personal subject. This is someone’s estate plan, and you’re asking to be a part of that. So i think that merits something different than a than a windowed envelope. All the direct mail that we do for clients goes with a reply. Peace people should have the opportunity to tell you, most importantly, that they’ve already included you in their estate plan. You might not very well know that because you’ve never asked, and now you’re giving someone the opportunity to reveal to you that you are indeed already a part of their state plan and another one or two check offs on a reply card should be devoted to letting the person asked for more information about the subject. Maybe you ask, maybe they check off a box that says they’d like to attend a seminar or they would go that they would consider including you in their state plan. You’re giving people a few different ways, too self identify as having an interest in including you in their state plan, so direct mail a very common and very effective way of getting charitable bequests if you can’t afford the direct mail or even if you can but in addition to direct mail, the pieces that you’re already sending the communication devices you already have for your constituents to your donors, to your prospects. If you have a newsletter, a terrific sidebar on on a page on the newsletter so it doesn’t have to be lengthy fifty or a hundred words about the importance of having your state properly planned and the idea of considering including your organization in that plan in your will. I would also suggest you including that sidebar, your legal name and your tax id number so that someone can take that information on their own, bring it to their attorney and include your organization in there. Will they don’t have to ask you for more information. Everything they need is in that just a small article or or sidebar and a note about your organization’s tax i d number that is not private the way all of our individual social security numbers are private. Your organization’s tax i d number it’s also called an employer idea number e i n that is a public number it appears on all the form’s nine ninety thatyou have to file john. My previous guest mentioned the nine, ninety pf for private foundations that’s that that’s the annual tax filing for private foundations your organization asians are filing the nine, ninety annually just as all of us as individuals file a ten, forty annually and you’re organisations federal tax i d number is on that nine, ninety and that nine, ninety is a matter of public record. People can get it from the irs. They can often get it from your state attorney general, the charity’s bureau. They can get it from organizations like guide star or charity charity navigator. So don’t keep that tax i d number private or share it so that your donors can include you in their state plan. So there’s some ideas of marketing the charitable bequests, using direct mail, using the other communications devices that you have that you’re already using and sending that won’t add to the cost the way direct mail will. My next guest is brian flood. Brian is a third generation insurance professional with the flood group llc on long island. He has a number of non-profit clients and works with them, too control risk in their organizations using insurance. And we’re also going to talk about some ideas that that he has that are not not the purchase of insurance, but also helped too control risk in your organization. You do need to be concerned about what could go wrong, what could happen and look at ways too mitigate minimize those risks and, um, vory, please, that brian’s work brings him to the show today. Welcome, brian. Hi, tony it’s. Nice to be with you. Thank you. Thank you for joining us. Brian let’s, talk some about the sort of the basics of coverage. What are just let’s? Say, just your top two areas of insurance to start that you think non-profits need to be paying attention. Metoo we’ll find if i too work. Tio, pick two areas that i find not-for-profits seemed to have the most difficulty understanding. It would have to be, uh, directors and officers coverage. And also the employment practices. Liability coverage. Okay, let’s. Dive into those. What? What is directors and officers coverage with the directors and officers coverage? What? They were looking to protect our the people who are serving. On the board of directors and also any employees of the company for things such as mismanagement of the operations organization assets hyre things that come up with self dealing and conflicts of interest or acts that go beyond thie authority that could be granted in the bylaws of the organization. Perhaps it is a violation of certain state and federal laws. You are even a breach of producer duties, his role items that come up typical duitz that outsiders would bring against a board of directors, and so the organization can ensure its board against liability for all these different negligence is, and malfeasance is that you’re describing that’s correct at these and more on typically, these litigations can last several years, which becomes a continuous financial drain on the not for profit organization on if the organization winds up in a situation where it cannot indemnify its directors, its officers, or of its employees, either because of the allegations of a lawsuit or is the result of the organizations and solvency, then this financial burden can become the responsibility of the organization’s directors, officers and employees. And you really want to shift that burden to an insurance company. So they do you mean that they could be individually liable from from their own personal assets without this kind of coverage, right, without the proper coverage in place, its potential for the individual to be liable, which is what necessitates the coverage being purchased. I see. And could the organization also be liable again? Absent the right kind of coverage? Could the organization be financially liable for these types of wrongdoings? The organization is right. The organization’s frequently brought into suit where the entity has to defend itself, too. And people may go after the assets of the entity as well as the board of directors itself is providing a defense. Ah, part of the coverage that we would expect to see in the director’s an officer’s liability policy providing an attorney for the parties that are sued that’s correct it. Typically, the insurance company would select counsel for the defense of the suit that has brought against the organization and within the nuances of the directors and officers policies. It’s really not a one size fits all product, and it can be very much individually tailored to an organization on one of the things that is very important. To look at when it comes to defense costs is to make sure that the defence cost are providing a limit outside of the liability limit. In other words, if you have a million dollars of coverage to pay for a claim, you want to have the defence cost paid outside of that limited liability. So in addition to that limit of liability edition, too that’s correct this way. It doesn’t. The defense costs, which typically make up a very large portion of the claim, does not feed into the limit of liability that you would purchase. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. I’m tony martin, your host. My guest is brian flood. Brian is vice president of the flood group llc and insurance professional organization in a company in long island. Brian, the other type of insurance that you mentioned, i asked you to pick two of the top ones that concern you the most for non-profits and the other you mentioned was liability insurance. Can you help us understand what the issues are there, right. The other one they picked was the employment practices, likability practices. Okay, portion of it. And this is an area again. It’s it’s. One that not very well understood bye not-for-profits organizations and it’s not very well understood by the insurance community, the brokers, a lot of the brokers and agents that are out there selling it. Unfortunately, an area that again has many nuances to the wording of the coverage, and i confused it myself with general liability. So i’m guilty of everything you’re describing right on what happens here is that with the employment practices liability here, not for profit organization are finding out the hard way just how complex the employment relationship has become. Employers are subject to ah widening net a federal legislation which could include the american with the americans with disabilities act, the civil rights act of nineteen, ninety one. The asians thie age discrimination in employment act, admitting there’s many more federal, state and local employment laws that they need to comply with the equal opportunity equal opportunity commission is out more aggressively investigating employment practices clean, and they’re filing lawsuits for sexual harassment for discrimination, wrongful termination, retaliatory treatment, unfair hiring practices and other types of workplace towards and it’s frequently. When i worked with for-profit organization, i find that latto this coverage has not. Been suggested to them to purchase, and they do have a need for it because the the variety of not only direct payroll employees that they have but also the volunteers and the committee members uh, people that really genuinely interested in helping that organisation willing to donate their time in their energy, the liability then can go beyond just employees. You’re saying it can go beyond the employees, and it can also go what’s called third parties lot of people who will say you’re a good your organization discriminated against me because of, and it could be a number of items, their race, their religion there wait there’s a variety of claims that have been brought against organizations people say i was not allowed to benefit from the services of your organization, and i feel that i was discriminated against. And now it’s a third party, somebody outside of the organization that’s bringing action under this type of coverage. So it’s it’s very broad, and what it offers on dh again, it’s one that is, seems to be not very well understood and not very well just displayed out there in the not-for-profits community and in terms of the brokers being out there, teaching not-for-profits the value of it. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio. My guest is brian flood, and brian will join us after this break. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness can help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two eight six five nine two nine. Zero or visit w w w died. Mind over matter. Y si dot com. Upleaf duitz are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people well, happy. Police call a set. Two one two nine six, four, three, five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom, too. One, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. Xero talking. This’s tony martignetti non-profit radio i’m your host. Tony martignetti. My guest is brian flood, vice president of the flood group on long island in new york. Brian, would you give us the web address, please? For your for the flood group testimony? Our web address is www dot the blood group dot com excellent people confined you there. Thank you, let’s. Spend some time talking about what organizations khun do to minimize risk internally rather than the purchase of insurance which is critical as we as we talked about back-up, do you have some ideas that organizations can implement on their own internally too manage risk? Stony, when it comes to what can be done internally, there are several things that not-for-profits khun d’oh. Andi, a lot of these procedures are very good at helping support the insurance policies that they may have in place. In other words, their internal procedures become their first line of defense. And with choosing the correct agent broker toe work with them on their behalf, they can really help develop some wonderful internal controls. The basics of internal risk control include first off having it well laid out disaster recovery plan. What types? Of what types of disasters are you anticipating in a disaster recovery plan? Well, with the not for profit organization buy-in but you have one that is a food bank and they have a disaster at their warehouse destroys all the inventory in the warehouse, there would need to be a plan. Okay, what are we going to do the next day to get our organization? The warehouse is up and running again and continue providing this valuable service to the community on a lot of times, very scary hyre day one after a disaster on a lot of confusion, where where plan is not laid out and the volunteers or end or the employees of the not-for-profits i really don’t have a clear focus is to exactly what are we going to do to be able to continue this? But a well laid out disaster recovery plan could put everybody at ease where there’s on organized chain of command well, this thing of back-up suppliers alternative location to move the operations, too, a really well designed disaster recovery plan. Kim wey these things out nicely and take a lot of chaos out of a difficult situation we talked earlier. About employment practices coverage, and it sounds like there are such a just a morass, really, of federal laws and probably even state laws as well. That impact on the employer employee relationship. Is there something that an organization khun, do tow, help minimize risk around employment practices? There is a well crafted employee handbook again can be the first line of defense to help minimize employees related practices lawsuit on in that hymn book, various items would be addressed to it is the employment of that person in employment that will can the organization let that person go at any point? What is the what? Our grievance procedures, what disciplinary procedures for employees that are just not performing well? We have all these various matters that typically wind up when they’re not clearly defined and outlined an employee handbook they want to become in discrepancies and ultimately and unhappy employees could leave the organization, and they leave with the full intent of well, i feel i feel like i was very poorly treated by that organization. I’m going to retaliate and bring a lawsuit against them front was a good employee handbook will have all of this all of these procedures laid out nicely that on the last page of the employee handbook, a place for the employee to sign and date it acknowledging that they have read the employee handbook and that they understand how the organization function. This could be daunting for ah, for our audience of small and medium sized non-profits are their templates, or should templates be avoided? And should these be done out of whole cloth? How how shouldn’t organization go about crafting, say, the employee handbook? Tony, this is where i have to say the insurance industry has really stepped up nicely realizes that there are organizations that are out there that are big enough to get themselves into trouble, but small enough yet where they still need the guiding hand of a new insurance company or knowledgeable insurance broker to help put these pieces into place for them. Many of the insurance companies have designed web portals, which are basically human resource web portal that are associated with the purchase of the insurance policy from that insurance company. And your policy number becomes your id to get onto their human resource web portal. And there they have templates for the employee handbook. Where an organization called go on, download this employee handbook and then it would be suggested that they review it with their own counsel teo tailored to their specific needs, but it would take a lot of the legwork off of their plate because it is most of my life i’ve looked at our very nicely designed on. If they’re designed by the insurance company, i can pretty well rest assured they’re trying to put as much of the cautionary language buy-in there is possible help protect brian. You’ve mentioned a few times the importance of having a knowledgeable broker. So i’m going to remind people that you are vice president of the flood group, a third generation, family owned insurance agency. Why don’t you give us your web address one more time? Yes, that is www dot the flood group dot com. My guest has been brian g flood of the flood group, and i want to thank brian very much for being with us, brian, thank you very much. Thank you, tony. Enjoy speaking with you. It’s, time for me to say thank you, too. People who were involved in this show, my creative producer, claire mckeever, line producer matt in elko and the owner of talking alternative broadcasting, sam liebowitz, this’s, the tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent every friday, one two to eastern, right here at talking alternative dot com. Thanks for joining us, co-branding dick, dick tooting. Getting ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz to get you thinking. E-giving good. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set two one two nine six, four, three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom, too. One, two, nine, six, four, three, five zero two. We make people happy. I really need to take better care of myself. If only i had someone to help me with my lifestyle. I feel like giving up. Is this you mind over matter, health and fitness can help. If you’re expecting an epiphany, chances are it’s not happening. Mind over matter, health and fitness could help you get back on track or start a new life and fitness. Join Joshua margolis, fitness expert at 2 one two eight six five nine to nine xero. Or visit w w w dot mind over matter. Y si dot com. Cerini i’m tony martignetti, the aptly named host of the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. You’re non-profit is ignored because you’re smaller medium size. But you still need expertise and help with technology fund-raising compliance, finance and accounting will look at all of these areas on the tony martignetti show. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on talking alternative dot com fridays one, too. Talking dot com. Hyre

Steinbrenner’s Yankees Spending As Philanthropy

381058 13: New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, right, talks with New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner October 30, 2000 after the Yankees'' victory parade in New York City. The Yankees defeated the New York Mets four-games-to-one last week in the city's first Subway Series since 1956. It was the Yankees'' third consecutive World Series Championship. (Photo by Chris Hondros/Getty Images)

George Steinbrenner was widely known as a philanthropist, especially in Tampa, where he lived much of his life. That was the usual brand of philanthropy and his reputation is well deserved.

I’m positing something different.

Could his lavish spending on the Yankees franchise be a form of philanthropy? It benefited the public and philanthropy is a public good. His Yankees spending brought all kinds of division and World Series titles to New York City and gave fans enormous boasting rights.

Is that not a public good? Especially considering the team’s miserable condition when he bought it in 1973, when it was more a reason for embarrassment than a source of pride.

I don’t mean, “was it legally philanthropy,” or “charitable” as in the Internal Revenue Code. I’m not suggesting his expenses were deductible, or anything of the sort.

But since his money brought so much joy and pride to a city’s people, can we say his private spending was philanthropic? Weigh in and let me know what you think.

The Corporatization of U.S. Nonprofits

Courtesy of TW Collins on Flickr.
Our country’s nonprofits are swiftly becoming more like their for-profit corporate counterparts.

Recently, Reuters told us nonprofits mimic the language of Wall Street, but for years donors have demanded to be treated as investors, and the institutions have obliged, referring to “returns on investment” and negotiating gift arrangements as contracts.  More recently, foundations and individual donors have insisted on outcome metrics, best practices, benchmarking, social impact and performance standards.  All of this was unheard of 7 to 10 years ago in nonprofit communities.

Donors and grantors are not alone in creating this change in culture and enterprise organization.  Federal and state governments also unite our nonprofit and profit-making corporations.  Since Sarbanes-Oxley reforms were levied against the profiteers in 2002, serious talk about identical improvements has trickled down to those with a calling higher than profit.  (I’m uncertain what tone to take about this: lamentation; resignation; pride; excitement; exhilaration.)

To my recollection, “board development” didn’t exist 10 years ago.  At the least, it wasn’t nearly as much a part of the nonprofit lexicon as today.

Our Internal Revenue Service, through its agents and tax-exempt commissioners, measures, and pronounces about good governance, accountability, financial integrity, transparency and oversight.

State Charity Registration laws, which I study, write and speak about a lot, have been enforced more in the last 18 months than anybody I know can remember.  The IRS stepped in here, too, probing more directly in its heavily-revised Form 990, an unusual instance of a federal agency asking about compliance with purely state laws.

Even the legal form of the nonprofit enterprise is becoming indistinguishable from its counterpart.  Several states have adopted the Low-profit Limited Liability Company, or L3C.    Profit is allowed but must not be the primary objective.  (By the way, you should pay attention to Gene Takagi, publisher of the blog at that last link.)

Nonprofits are becoming more like companies.

Part of me longs for the charming days, when do-gooders came together, appointed their parents and friends to boards, raised money, and did their best with heart and head to make a difference in their community.  We cannot return to that time, and we shouldn’t.  But I partly miss it.  It was so much easier.

I’m between resignation and excitement, closer to the latter.  Funders and governments demand change and nonprofits are complying, looking more like for-profits, at a pace that is accelerating and will not reverse.

This brings enormous, promising opportunity for smarter, more efficient execution of charitable missions, which should mean better service to those in need throughout the world.  (That sentence hits on several subjects debated by bigger thinkers and more august personages than me.)  Look at organizations like charity: water and The Center for High Impact Philanthropy to discover the possibilities.  (At The Center, I commend Autumn Walden to your attention.)

What examples do you see of the corporatization of nonprofits?  Are you excited by what we’re witnessing?  Do you miss the old days, or am I alone?