What nonprofits do in these first ten days of the year will leave a lasting taste in the mouths of their supporters. Will it be the feeling of a warm hot toddy on a cool winter’s eve? Or a sip of eggnog that’s been in the fridge a week too long?
Here are three tips — two things you should do plus one idea that might intrigue your supporters, a best practice gleaned from the news publishing industry.
1. Say thank you, and do so in a way that reflects your brand. By now most nonprofits know they have a brand image, whether they choose to manage it or not. In the midst of the charitable gift acknowledgement letters that are fluttering in was this little gem, a handwritten note from Betty Cooper, development director of the American River Natural History Association, and artwork created by one of ARNHA’s little clients (click images to see full size):
Is it practical for every nonprofit to send out a handwritten note? Of course not. The point is that it is important to capture the feeling of the nonprofit’s mission. Run the organization like the responsible business that it is, but for heaven’s sake don’t sound like an accountant. (Sorry, accountants.)
2. Remind supporters what THEY accomplished by getting behind the nonprofit’s mission. I gave small amounts to over 20 nonprofits this year (due partly to journalistic curiosity about events like #ArtsDayofGiving) and I subscribe to probably a dozen nonprofit newsletters. I received TWO emails with subject lines that congratulated supporters. My favorite was an email from No Kid Hungry with the subject line, “Look what you helped do in 2013.” I don’t actually donate to No Kid Hungry — I prefer to support local food banks and closets like River City Food Bank — but I thought this was a brilliant piece, complete with video. Listen to the music. It’s anthemic. Listen to the words. They’re hopeful. You end up singing along, “We could do this all night!”
A more basic but still effective approach was taken by Appleseed, a nonprofit network of public justice centers. The subject line of its January 3 email was, “Looking back, looking ahead.” Betsy Cavendish, the president, wrote:
As we start a new year, Appleseed joins millions of Americans in reflecting on the past year and thinking about our potential for 2014. Before I get into that, I first want to thank all our supporters. As you may know, four Appleseed board members offered a $20,000 challenge grant in the waning days of 2013, matching each dollar we raised. I am delighted to report that donors rose to their challenge!
And now for the look back. My law school classmate Ken Stern wrote a powerful critique of the nonprofit sector last year, taking to task nonprofit organizations whose programs don’t work effectively. I’m glad to say that, as broad as Appleseed’s mission is, we are effective at what we’re doing. We’re not content to simply identify a problem and call it a day: we translate our research into lasting solutions. Here are some of those recent successes from the Appleseed network…
3. Look ahead. As soon as newspapers and magazines have finished their year-in-review and their best-pictures-of-2013, they’re off to the races hooking readers for the year ahead. City Arts, an arts magazine based in the Pacific Northwest, promoted its January issue with “The Future List: 12 Artists and Innovators Who Will Define 2014.” Why not a list of ideas for solutions, or program improvements, or hopes for 2014? As we start the new year, that’s what we all want, isn’t it? Hope that things will get better? A plan for change that we can support?
In December, just before my father’s health fell apart, I was visiting Seattle and managed to be there for Figgy Pudding, a big caroling contest that benefits a local charity.
Each caroling team has a hashtag. When you vote by text using the hashtag to identify your favorite, it generates $5 for the Pike Market Senior Center.
I just received this text:
“Your gift to Figgy Pudding 2012: already provided 23,445 meals at Pike Market Senior Center this year. Thank YOU!! Save the date: Figgy 2013 is Fri, Dec. 6.”
#ArtsDayofGiving folks and local Sacramento charities, take note!
If you’re in Seattle the first weekend of December next year, GO! It’s a blast.
Comments Off on Now THAT’S Followup – Thanks Figgy Pudding!
Driving from North Carolina to Washington, D.C. last week, my old colleague and pal Sharon Swanson (producer of the Elizabeth Spencer documentary among other career hats) and I had plenty of time to talk. About street signs like the one posted below, sure, but also about how nonprofits sometime miss the mark with events and promotions that aren’t in keeping with their brands.
This got in here because it just cracked me up
Then this little blurb caught my eye this morning, thanks to The Nonprofit Times:
Individual donors contributed about 73 percent, or $217.79 billion to nonprofits in 2011, out of a total of nearly $300 billion, according to Giving USA. Knowing your donors’ motivations can help you create more targeted asks and get more contributions to your organization. Eric John Abrahamson, Ph.D., outlined seven types of donors in his book Beyond Charity.
Communitarians give out of a sense of belonging to a community, using their gifts to reinforce collective efforts.
Devout donors are motivated by faith, adherence to religious teachings, and loyalty to religious institutions.
Investors view money as a means to create social change.
Socialites participate in philanthropy as a social activity.
Altruists see philanthropy as a way to fulfill their life purpose.
Repayers give out of a sense of gratitude.
Dynasts are born into families with deeply embedded philanthropic traditions.
Exactly. Individual donors need to be described in terms of profiles that reflect their attitudes and motivations. When I was wearing my corporate marketing hat, we called it psychographics.
So the piece at the top of this post caught my eye. I thought this membership renewal piece was downright brilliant. It appeals to the group of people who define themselves as nonconformists and 99%’ers. It is a great execution right down to the creepy charcoal illustrations, the ironic reverse psychology, and even the use of snail mail to reach an audience that uses snail mail rarely. My son will love it.
I’ve got nonprofit websites on the brain this morning and am passing along information about a great, inexpensive resource to help you improve this critical asset. Idealware, a dot.org that aims to help nonprofits make good decisions about software, has a series of five, live 90-minute webinars coming up that costs only $200. That’s a heckuva deal, and the content looks great.
Websites are on my mind because later today I’ll present my top 10 get-started tips for nonprofit communications and marketing to an independent study group associated with UC Davis’ MBA program. Allan Alday, one of the students, found me through LinkedIn while searching for someone with that expertise.
Overhauling or setting up an effective website is, of course, on my top 10 list. When I met a couple of weeks ago with Amber Stott, the force behind the one-year old California Food Literacy Center, we talked about what communications tools are most effective. “It’s still the website, Facebook and blogging,” Amber said. I agreed.
Idealware’s series is called “From Audit to Redesign: The Complete Nonprofit Website.” The series starts June 4. Even if you can’t make them all – they’re on Tuesdays at 10 a.m. Pacific – it would still be worth participating.
Here’s part of the description, but head on over to the page that describes it for more detail. And PS, although this implies that a nonprofit has an existing website, a seminar like this one could be equally helpful in creating a website from scratch.
Over five Tuesdays in June and July, join Idealware as we walk you through Website 101, review best practices for accessibility, mobile-optimized sites, and reinforcing your organization’s online brand. We’ll also take a look at the content management systems (CMS) that can give even your least tech-savvy staff members the tools to update website content themselves. Finally, we’ll talk about how your website content works alongside your email, direct mail, and social media efforts to create your organization’s communications mix.
Takeaways from the course:
Define goals for how your website will serve your audience
Learn best practices for designing an accessible, usable, and polished website
Compare your content management system (CMS) options
How to make sure your website shows up well on search engines
Create your organization’s website action plan with next steps and action items for an improvement process
P.S. I just noticed that Idealware posts “Best of the Web” monthly, a round up of articles worth reading. If you’re thinking about social media, technological solutions (e.g. cloud), data, mobile giving, etc., you’ll find some worthwhile articles there.
Comments Off on A Practical Approach to Nonprofit Website Overhaul
I popped over to Twitter to see if #GiveBig was being used as a hashtag for Seattle’s community-giving event since it wasn’t obviously promoted on the home page of The Seattle Foundation, host of the event. Sure enough, #GiveBig was beginning to heat up.
I immediately noticed that my alma mater, the University of Puget Sound, was tweeting about its “One of A Kind” capital and scholarship fundraising campaign. As I did with Sacramento’s Arts Day of Giving, I made a small donation to support the Loggers (yes, Loggers) and learn more about how Seattle/Tacoma is deploying technology to support charitable giving. And naturally I sniffed around a bit to see how different nonprofits were using the opportunity.
Not all tweets were created equal
Some nonprofits seemed to use their 140 character message spaces more effectively than others:
The Pike Place Market Foundation won my prize for “best Twitter voice.” Twitter messages tend to be a bit cheeky and I liked their “#GiveBig to the Pig” message (“Rachel,” the 550-lb. bronze pig statue at the Pike Place Market is a famous landmark). But I suppose it’s hard to replicate this particular tactic if you don’t have an iconic farm animal associated with your charity. However, this can be emulated: The Pike Place Market folks chose to include a shortened ow.ly link to take people right to a donation page. I noticed that other charities linked to their event profile page, which would have required one more click to donate. A small thing perhaps, but you lose “customers” with every extra click.
Some nonprofits’ messages struck me as more powerful than others. They moved beyond the obvious, such as focusing on the generic “it’s #GiveBig day” message, the opportunity for matching funds, or a few phrases about what they do (e.g. “serve 5,000+ homeless families ea yr” or “supporting girls and women”). Better examples: @ConservationNW got a little conversation going by encouraging people to list favorite animals. @MakeAWishAKWA tweeted a beautiful image they posted on Instagram.
A number of charities asked for help funding specific programs. @IslandWood tweeted: “Every gift of $25 on May 15th funds an outdoor learning adventure,” and @GenderOdyssey made an appeal for funding of a staff position: “It’s true! We want to hire a Conference Director!! There’s just one thing…” (the tweet continued with a link to a blog post about the need for paid staff help).
I know that the Arts Day of Giving folks worked hard to make sure the e-commerce site wouldn’t crash with the volume they hoped to generate, and it looks like Seattle’s behind-the-scenes e-commerce provider, ClickAndPledge, also kept up per the Tweet below:
BUT least two nonprofits posted that their website was down during the event. Nonprofits could experiencemore intense website traffic than they have experienced previously, since all of the push happens in a 24-hour period. Nonprofits: be ready!
Comparing Seattle/Tacoma and Sacramento:
There were a few things that I liked better about the way Seattle managed its Give Big event, and a few things I liked better about Sacramento’s approach:
Seattle wins:
For including the option of a survey (an embedded Survey Monkey link) that popped up right after you make a donation. It might have been a bit long (15 questions), but I liked the additional information about whether these are additional gifts if someone has given before.
For being able to process receipts that come through with the name of the organization as the sender (the email also had a pdf attachment with a printer-friendly version). The receipts lacked any kind of emotion, but the specific sender did underline the connection to the charity (and tax deductibility).
For giving people the option of donating to a stretch pool. Sacramento used matching funds from partners, but Seattle let community members continue to add to those matching funds. I thought this was a nice solution for people who wanted to participate in Give Big, but weren’t attached to a specific nonprofit.
For their use of Twitter pics, which looked great on a computer screen. I also noticed that Jimi Hendrix Park made nice use of this feature:
Arts Day of Giving wins:
For promoting Twitter more visibly on the home page of the campaign. Seattle’s Give Big folks did promote social sharing but you saw the Twitter and Facebook push after completing a donation. This shouldn’t be an either/or. It would be best to promote the Twitter hashtag on the home page and have easy next-steps on the screen that pops up after donating.
For a better way to list nonprofits. Both cities had a search field that made it easy to find a nonprofit if you knew who you wanted to donate to. But Sacramento created “buckets” — categories — of nonprofits while Seattle offered up a verrrrryyyy long directory of nonprofits. It felt like it took five minutes to find University of Puget Sound.
Should Sacramento be afraid of becoming too successful?
I stumbled across one other important bit of dialogue while kicking around the Seattle event: it may be beginning to wear out some participants. Seattle’s event, by the way, is now in its third year.
Humanosphere, which reports news and analysis of global health and the fight against poverty, noted that it “drives many people nuts” because people are getting deluged with emails from nonprofits who have their email addresses. It’s a big enough issue that a guest column by Joy Portella, a consultant formerly with Mercy Corps, was published in the Seattle Times.
Both note that the online giving event may be especially helpful to small nonprofits that simply can’t get their message to penetrate to the same degree on their own.
If people in Seattle/Tacoma are getting deluged with emails from nonprofits, it suggests to me that there is a cadre of people who are very involved in supporting the community. These people may indeed get a bit annoyed by the “cacophony” as Joy Portella put it.
But Sacramento has a long way to go to get more people to give charitably, on a par with other communities our size.
I just received an email from the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA (which if you haven’t visited, is a must on your next trip to the Pacific Northwest) inviting MOG friends to donate to help them win a shot at the “stretch pool” for GiveBig.
It’s interesting to see the evolution of incentive structures of online giving events around the country, as well as individual charities’ tactics for mobilizing friends and reaching out. The MOG landing page, by the way, is clickable and takes you right to the profile for the organization on the Seattle Foundation’s giving event website.
Here’s the email I received:
Dear Friends of MOG,
Today is, The Seattle Foundation’s GiveBIG philanthropic event that will amplify the impact of your gift to Museum of Glass. Can we count on your support? Plan on rallying your friends and supporting MOG as part of our community’s biggest day of giving of the year!
GiveBIG is a community-wide, one-day online giving challenge created by The Seattle Foundation that will stretch the size of your donation to MOG. What does that mean? If MOG raises 3 percent of all the money raised through GiveBIG, then we will get 3 percent of the stretch pool. The more you give, the more of the stretch pool MOG recives.
The MOG community came out in force during the first two years of GiveBIG and rasied over $60,000 in funds. Every dollar helps and we are counting on your support!
Donate to Museum of Glass between midnight and midnight today, May 15, through MOG’s page on The Seattle Foundation’s Giving Center. Click here to donate!
Thank you in advance for GIVING BIG and supporting Museum of Glass!
As of 8 a.m. Seattle/Tacoma is over $1 million with its GiveBig event. I wonder why they’re not promoting a Twitter hashtag more (Twitter is big up in those high tech parts), but I do like how they are positioning the value of the community foundation, and the option of contributing to the stretch pool if someone doesn’t have a particular nonprofit in mind.
Comments Off on Online Giving Event Kicks Off in Seattle/Tacoma Area
On April 29, Sacramento held its first online fundraising blitz and generated $411,907 for ~80 arts-related organizations with programs spread across the region from Davis to Roseville, Placerville and Stockton. Even though another big local news story threatened to eclipse the attention being lavished on the event — the vote of the NBA Committee not to allow the sale of the Sacramento Kings to Seattle, posted by the Bee at about 2 p.m. — Sacramento proved it could multi-task. People tweeted about the Kings while the Arts Day of Giving continued to generate email, Facebook and Twitter traffic.
The event was a big darned deal for a number of reasons:
It brought to Sacramento a powerful piece of technology that could benefit all local nonprofits
By creating buzz for philanthropic giving, it introduced community-minded people to worthy nonprofits, many of which had a very limited public profile
Looking at the experience of other cities that have deployed similar technology, it also successfully demonstrated how much more opportunity we have. I’ll blog some thoughts soon about where we might go from here.
I decided to test the technology by making several small donations. Dead easy indeed. If you knew which organization you wanted to donate to, you used the handy search field. But what if you didn’t know and wanted to “shop” for an object of your affections? The brain trust behind Arts Day of Giving created easily-digestible categories of arts organizations from arts education to dance, music, arts education, visual art, media and more. In each of those categories, you might see as many as a dozen nonprofits. You could click on a profile and learn more about them; seeing them in a consistent, complete framework made it a cakewalk.
As you can tell from my tweet stream, I made a series of seven rapid-fire small donations between 8:05 and 8:28 p.m. At the bottom of my first purchase screen was a link to allow me to select another charity. When I selected one, all I had to do was re-enter my credit card. Within seconds, I had an email receipt in my inbox.
The reason I tweeted my donation (which I normally wouldn’t) was to help charities vie for a social media prize worth $1,000. They had to be mentioned on a public post or tweet along with the hashtag #ArtsDayofGiving.
Who benefited most?
The Leaderboard (which is still visible) allowed charities and donors to see exactly who was winning the donation race. Sacramento Ballet received almost $50,000.
My informal visual survey of the Twitter stream during the 24 hour event revealed that Sac Ballet was the most active. They may have done a bang up job of promoting the event to their members in advance of April 29, but I suspect that the event brought them new supporters, largely through Twitter. And this is strange: Sac Ballet doesn’t promote its Twitter “handle” on its website and doesn’t seem to have a Facebook page. My advance prediction was that the Crocker Art Museum would raise the most funds because of its highly public profile. After all, it’s a place — and a place has the advantage when it comes to building relationships. Drop in anytime! But the Crocker also has a big social media footprint with nearly 18,000 likes on Facebook and almost 1,000 followers on Twitter.
But in some ways I think the biggest winners were organizations with lower profiles. The technology provided them with a way to raise visibility that they never could have achieved on their own. Case in point: @DDSOorg noticed me tweeting and sent me a message thanking me for supporting the Arts Day of Giving. I looked at their Twitter profile where they turned out to be the Developmental Disabilities Service Organization which “champions the creativity & potential within the hearts & minds of adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities using innovative strategies.” Then I looked them up on the Give Local Now event homepage. Then I gave.
Another surprising winner was the Sacramento Mandarins, a drum and bugle corps, which raised $16,000 from 78 donors.
Inquiring minds want to know
An event like this leaves me salivating with more questions than answers:
Did Twitter have the most impact on traffic to the event page?
What happened to traffic on nonprofits’ own websites during the event?
Did landing pages like the one on Capitol Public Radio convert traffic to Give Local Now visits?
Did nonprofits mostly find new donors, as has been the case in other cities? Or did they see old friends come back in a new way?
What were nonprofit’s best practices (IMHO) on Twitter during the event?
Why weren’t more individuals engaged (as opposed to organizational tweeters)? There were a few voices out there but some of the most active social media adherents (some of whom work for public relations agencies) didn’t seem to be involved.
Where was United Way? In some other cities they seem to have been involved in giving events like this one.
Tomorrow (I hope): Opportunity knocks! How this online giving technology could become an even better thing for Sacramento nonprofits? (And I might throw in a little about the risks – like rising administrative fees, wearing out the market with fundraising contests, or failing to let people know what happened with their donations, a leading reason that people don’t give.)
In 2011, I wrote about Washington DC’s “Give to the Max” online fundraising blitz, and I’ve been anxiously waiting for something like that to come to Sacramento. This Monday, April 29, that moment arrives as Give Local Now, the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, For Arts’ Sake, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission and the Nonprofit Resource Center bring us the Arts Day of Giving. As happy as I am for the arts organizations that will benefit, I’m even more excited about what it potentially means for all local nonprofits. I caught up with Susan Frazier of Give Local Now to learn more about the event — and the progress of Give Local Now’s efforts to energize local giving.
Let’s start with the basics: what do you want people to do on April 29?
We want them to go onto givelocalnow.com, where they will be redirected to a special giving page. The page will be up over the weekend but they won’t be able to donate until 4:29 a.m. on Monday, April 29. It’s very simple and quick to get to a list of nonprofits and pick the one you want to donate to. The page can handle 10,000 transactions a minute so it’s not going to slow down. Check out the tutorial about a minute in:
You can also help by spreading the word. Local arts organizations stand to win prizes including $1,000 for the organization that generates the most posts on Facebook and Twitter during the 24-hour-period, but posts must be public and use the hashtag #artsdayofgiving.
Is this the first 24-hour online giving event in the area that benefits a group of nonprofits?
It is. You have to have sophisticated technology in place, which we now have, thanks to the Sacramento Region Community Foundation. The next online giving event will benefit the full sector of nonprofits, in May of next year.
The Sacramento Region Community Foundation has been terrific. The amount of labor and investment that they’ve taken on has been stunning. It’s a real gift to the region. They both funded and staffed the development of the technology.
Technology is more and more important to nonprofits. What technology was required to make this online giving event possible?
We integrated two pieces of existing technology: a database and an ecommerce/campaign tool. The database comes from Guidestar; they branded it as DonorEdge but we renamed it GivingEdge. The secure ecommerce/campaign tool provides the landing page for the day, which will instantly track and display each donation and all kinds of statistics as the day goes along. You’ll be able to tell which nonprofits are getting what and how we’re doing against our goal.
The database allows donors to see really robust information about a nonprofit’s programs, financials, management and governance. We only have the arts organizations profiles now but by fall we hope to have good representation of all sectors of the local nonprofit community. While Guidestar includes all IRS-registered nonprofits, those organizations will have to choose to complete a profile for GivingEdge. The database shines a lot of light and transparency on organizations.
What do you hope will be raised for the arts?
We hope to raise as much as $500,000. We have $100,000 in matching donations from a variety of corporate sponsors and businesses and restaurants that are offering discounts or freebies to contributors who show a receipt for their donation via print out or on their smart phone. And this was just added: Bistro 33 locations are offering a 20% discount to donors and Harv’s Car Wash will provide a free wash. We’re deeply grateful for the support of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation, Western Health Advantage, Wells Fargo Bank, Barry and Lynda Keller, Enlow and Mel Ose Endowment for the Arts, Safe Credit Union, Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission, and the Jean Runyon Endowment for the Arts Fund, which will give a cash prize of $1,767 to the arts organization that raises the most overall during the event.
Why the particular focus on the arts?
The original initiative idea came from “For Arts’ Sake,” through Mayor Kevin Johnson’s office. They thought it would be a great use of their initiative and they knew they couldn’t do it alone.
What are you hearing from local nonprofits about their fundraising success as the local economy begins to slowly improve?
I’m hearing about a slight uptick, but there’s also a lot of concern among donors. As one donor said to me, “Darn, I thought this economic downturn would get rid of some of these nonprofits.” What’s behind that is some skepticism about whether the sector has too much duplication. Nonprofits are really frustrated with that, that they may not be able to attract donors, often because of a misperception. That’s something that this database can help with. It may show that they fill a need that other nonprofits do not, or suggest opportunities for collaboration.
What’s next for Give Local Now?
We’re gearing up with a bunch of different strategies. One of them is the nonprofit capacity piece, working through the Nonprofit Resource Center to build fundraising skills of nonprofits and their Boards through training, and to make them better stewards of the resources they have. We can help them with their message about why they’re worthy to invest in, as opposed to “help us because we’re desperate.” We’ve written a grant for a series of training sessions that will bring executive directors and Boards together to help them understand fund development better – their different roles and responsibilities as well as best practice strategies.
Another focus is measurement. In September 2011, we announced three ambitious goals: to increase the regional average of households that give to charities; increase the average household contribution of households that give; and increase the share of giving that stays here in the area vs. benefiting national or international charities. To help us track progress, we’re developing a set of measures using nonprofit partners’ results as the data source. But first, we need to get local nonprofits on the GivingEdge tool.
The third thing we’re doing is developing a whole suite of new tools that will help local nonprofits connect with donors. We are changing out the website to have a lot more donor tools on it, and to enable donors to get a lot more information about local nonprofits.
The fourth strategy is just an awareness and outreach strategy, with an underlying idea of building regional pride. If information about the cool things that are happening here were more broadly known, there would be a greater sense of pride in philanthropy.
What are some of the cool things you’re seeing?
One example is “Reason to Party,” which organizes events benefiting a cause they select as a way for 20-somethings to have fun and donate. It’s pretty inspiring. Another is the El Dorado Giving Circle, a group of several hundred women in the foothills who contribute individually and pool their donations to make an impact on a cause they select together. The Metro Chamber’s Project Inspire is another innovative way approach to philanthropy, where anyone who donates $250 or more can participate in supporting an exciting project benefiting the Sacramento area community.
Any parting words?
There’s nothing static about Give Local Now. New ideas come in everyday. I really see it as a snowball rolling down hill that’s picking up pieces as it goes. It’s a catalyst. We’re starting to attract people that can see this as a vehicle for change.
Comments Off on Finally! Online Community Giving Blitz Comes to Sacramento
[Author’s note: While “Philanthrophile” — a.k.a. Betsy Stone — has been offline here for six months during the last stages of her father’s remarkable 96-year life, she has been busily blogging about aging, gratitude, father-daughter relationships, end-of-life, hospice, siblings, memory, faith, love and loss at The Henry Chronicles.]
Last night, a hard-working and engaged nonprofit Board concluded 18 months of work by formally approving a five-year strategic direction. Woo hoo!
I called it a “D.I.Y.” strategic planning process because this small nonprofit (~$1 million budget), like most nonprofits, didn’t have the luxury of hiring a fancy shmancy consulting firm to figure out how it might best focus its strengths and resources to have the greatest impact on the community, and differentiate itself in the process. Instead, it used a methodical approach that relied mostly on volunteer resources to analyze the situation and investigate options, as well as four mini-retreats where Board members came to a common understanding. The process took about a year, although due to two sudden family health emergencies, the formal approval of the draft plan was pushed out to last night.
Up to this point, three potential strategic directions were in play, identified by the Board in May 2012. To formulate a recommendation, exploratory work was needed – work that couldn’t be done during the course of a meeting or a retreat. The work that ensued over the summer months investigated:
Changing need within the nonprofit’s sector. This included reviewing a lot of secondary research into underlying causes and the size and growth of the need addressed by the nonprofit.
The “competitive” landscape. We collected information from the community’s 2-1-1 service and met with several key nonprofits who provide related services in the community. Our goal was to understand how need is being met by other nonprofits and government agencies recognizing that they may be potential allies in addressing needs. As a small nonprofit, our intent was to identify a niche where a community or group was not adequately served by other nonprofits.
Best practices. We conducted discussions with well-regarded local nonprofits about how they monitor and evaluate outcomes, and analyzed best practices of similar nonprofits in other communities by combing through public documents and websites.
Impact measurement. All nonprofits are being pushed to demonstrate that their approach has a positive impact and this nonprofit’s entire sector is struggling with how to measure results. We were able to meet with a nationally-regarded academician about outcomes measurements related to self-reliance.
What those in need want. We created and fielded a client survey, met with government agencies and community services knowledgeable about community need, and conducted focus groups with potential clients.
Any situation assessment also requires understanding how well a nonprofit is performing now. This nonprofit was fortunate to have a partner with substantial operating expertise step up to evaluate its operational capacity. Without that partnership, we would have had to do our own capability assessment. After looking at a variety of self-evaluation tools, I turned up this excellent Capacity Assessment created by McKinsey and available through Venture Philanthropy Partners, a “dot.org” that is driving much of the national conversation about impact and evaluation. (I previously shared a case study about how a nonprofit stopped doing what didn’t work and began to concentrate its efforts on a program with tremendous impact, which I discovered through VPP’s book, Leap of Reason.)
One last, important piece of the equation needed to be in place before choosing the strategic direction: establishment of financial targets. Too often, strategic planning processes consist of nonprofit Boards brainstorming new programmatic objectives without addressing the financial requirements to sustain the mission.
Targets establish performance-related goals to be achieved by the end of a period and are used to inform budgeting and guide the strategic plan. The inherent tension between current financial performance and desired performance helps to drive changes that encourage the stability and success of the organization. This nonprofit’s targets were developed in discussion with the executive director, external accounting firm (which specializes in nonprofits), and chair of the finance committee after considering what financial measures are important to a high-performing nonprofit and/or a high-performing organization of this type, as well as the organization’s current state of evolution and development.
By September, highlights of the investigation were rolled into a briefing that was reviewed with the executive director. The executive director felt that the findings – and her own experience on the front lines of the nonprofit – unambiguously pointed to one direction.
The waters were tested when the executive director presented her recommendation to the Executive Committee of the Board. She concluded by asking, “Are there things we haven’t considered? How do we make sure we have the right kind of discussion with the Board?”
With the full support of the Executive Committee, the Board was brought together for a retreat to hear and discuss the recommendation, using the following agenda:
Welcome and introductions – Board chair
What’s in a strategic plan? What’s the Board’s role?
Where we are in the strategic planning process
What we’ve learned – highlights of the situation assessment
Environmental update, and findings from the capability assessment
Recommended strategic priorities
Board discussion of pro’s, concerns and risks to consider
Determination of next steps
Implications for budget
What are the next deliverables for review by the Board?
Check-in points: how should the Board monitor progress? Through a committee? At Board meetings?
As indicated in the author’s note at the top of this post, “life intervened” when I had to suddenly leave the retreat, although the outcome was as hoped: the strategic direction was approved.
Last night’s retreat was an opportunity to confirm and polish the strategic plan. A draft Strategic Plan document was circulated in advance to the board, with the following table of contents:
What are we trying to do and how will we get there? (summary of strategic direction)
Goals and objectives (including financial targets)
What will have to change to accomplish our goals (“from”/”to” table)
What will stay the same?
What are the expected outcomes when we get there?
What are the risks and how can we mitigate them? (risks/possible mitigations table)
Acknowledgements
During last night’s mini-retreat, the group expanded the discussion of changes that would be required to achieve the plan as well as potential risks and mitigation strategies. Goals, objectives and outcomes were approved, and the Strategic Plan in its totality was enthusiastically and unanimously approved.
Are we finished? Hardly! Now the hard work of implementation begins as well as the development of new tools to monitor progress toward the strategic plan and the factors most critical to its success.
Comments Off on A Nonprofit’s D.I.Y. Strategic Planning Process Blooms
For that conversation, she advocates using a “Matrix map” (a version of the BCG corporate portfolio analysis for you MBA types) to evaluate nonprofit activities according to their impact on mission and money. In Matsaoka’s tool, every major activity is a line of business — not just programs, but any activities that require significant management time or money. Fundraising events, holiday appeals, direct mail campaigns, etc., are just as much a line of business as a career closet.
What’s the point of putting your major activities in a fancy-schmancy 2×2 grid? Ultimately it’s about understanding and decision making.
Understanding comes first. You might discover that some things you’ve always done aren’t really valued, and they take resources that might be used in better ways. Her examples included a little-used resource library and a program that used to have funding. Matsaoka says these are “stop sign” activities (BCG called them “dogs”). You might discover other activities that are profitable but don’t have a lot of impact (“money trees”). The trick here is to see if there is a way to make them reach more people or achieve greater results. “Hearts” (or “question marks” in the original nomenclature) are activities that have high impact, but low profitability. Many close-to-the-mission activities fall here, but identifying them as money-losing (or at least not money-making) helps bring into relief the need for revenue that subsidizes these activities. And “stars,” of course, are activities that have high impact and high profitability. Highly effective fundraising strategies that do something to foster awareness of the nonprofit or cause AND support the general fund would fall in this quadrant of the matrix.
A completed example of a matrix map
Key to the Matrix Map: the strategic imperatives associated with each quadrant
The mechanics: a portfolio analysis like this one uses three variables. Matsaoka uses profitability and impact to plot a program’s position on the X and Y axes. A program’s profitability is defined as the revenue tied specifically to the program (fees, contract, restricted grants) minus “all in” expenses (including some allocation of administrative and overhead costs). Obviously, “impact” is a subjective indicator. You’re going to have to do some thinking about the criteria to determine how much impact a program has (see the next paragraph). The size of the program circle is determined by the cost of the program. (As an alternative, I imagine the number or volume of clients or encounters could be used instead of program cost/budget.) Creating such a chart in Excel is easy; once you have the three variables in their appropriate columns, select “bubble chart.”
If you lack reliable numbers, you can create a scale for any of the variables. For example, you could use a 5 point scale with 1 being low profitability and 5 being high profitability. For impact, you will have to create a scale since it’s subjective. Matsaoka suggests using no more than four factors when figuring impact. Examples: alignment with core mission, excellence in execution, scale/volume/reach, depth/comprehensiveness, fills important gap or need, community building. To that list I would add effectiveness/outcome. For example, you might rate a program 5 in terms of alignment with core mission, and 2 in terms of filling important gap if there are many similar programs in the community.
You may be wondering why a nonprofit’s fund development and marketing programs would be evaluated in the same tool with client- or market-serving programs. I admit that was my first reaction. But I do think it may be helpful to look at the array. If most of a nonprofit’s programs don’t generate revenue (as is the case with many aid-oriented programs), it is important to see that there are enough offsetting money-making programs.
Which brings us to decision-making. This tool isn’t just for understanding the situation facing a nonprofit. It’s intended to foster decision making. Considering a new program? Put it in the portfolio and consider how you’re going to get it to perform in a way that supports both mission and financial sustainability. The portfolio analysis can also be used to cull. By letting go of some programs that may be draining the organization, what will you be able to do, or do better?
Jan, with two co-authors, has a book out – Nonprofit Sustainability. Based on my quick scan as it made its way around the room, it looks like it has lots of examples of Matrix Maps. I’ve ordered a copy and will let you know what I think! Here’s a link to a pdf of a very similar presentation Jan gave a couple of years ago, with all of the slides.
Jan told the sell-out crowd for NPR Center, “The most previous and scarcest resource is the time and attention of its senior leaders.”
“Be ruthless,” she added, about making sure that your resources are invested where they will make the greatest difference.
P.S. If you get the chance to hear Jan speak, do it. Fastest, funniest presentation of this type you’ll ever see.
Betsy Stone's The Philanthrophile 