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Nonprofit Radio for February 20, 2015: Mastering Millennials & Your Board Calendar

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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My Guests:

Derrick FeldmanMastering Millennials

Derrick Feldmann, co-author of The Millennial Impact Report, shares the research on how 20-32 year olds connect, get involved and give to causes they’re passionate about.  (Originally aired December 13, 2013)

 

 

 

Gene TakagiYour Board Calendar

What belongs on your board’s calendar and agendas? What should they discuss? Which actions should they take? Gene Takagi is our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO).

 

 

 


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

Nonprofit Radio for February 6, 2015: Corporate Coffers & Committee Confab

Big Nonprofit Ideas for the Other 95%

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Linda LysakowskiCorporate Coffers

Linda Lysakowski smallLinda Lysakowski, ACFRE, is a development consultant with nearly 30 years of experience. She wants you to systematize and formalize your corporate appeals; pay attention to small companies; and be more strategic with cultivation.

 

 

 

Gene TakagiCommittee Confab

Gene TakagiGene Takagi returns. He’s our legal contributor and principal of the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO). He’s all about committees this month! How are board committees different than advisory committees? How much authority should be delegated to them? What are the pros and cons of executive committees?

 

 


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