One amazing arts organization!

A few weeks ago, I had an opportunity to learn more about the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan, an amazing group helping to advance the work of cultural arts organizations in the region.  The work they are doing is quite innovative, and I think many of their ideas can be applied to other types of nonprofit organizations (which, if done well, can really help to lift up the whole sector).

The Alliance is in essence a vehicle of collaboration among cultural arts organizations in Southeast Michigan.  For example, the Alliance hosts a website called Culture-Ed.  This is a one-stop-shop where parents, teachers and afterschool providers can visit to find different youth arts opportunities.  It can be searched by artistic disciplines or by different educational themes.  Why does this matter?  Well, it allows an easy way for different parties to get the information they want, which facilitates their purchasing decision.  But doesn’t this mean that one organization might lose a potential customer to another?  Perhaps, but I think it’s more likely to create new sales for all organizations than to increase competition.  After all, a customer who can’t find what they’re looking for often just walks away, meaning that everyone loses out.  By working together (through the Cultural Alliance), organizations have helped to grow the pie so that they can all enjoy more, rather than competing for the biggest slice.

Additionally, the Alliance has helped to create a Cultural Concierge.  This is a resource for area businesses, who often purchase sport tickets in order to entertain clients or VIPs while they visit the city.  Sports tickets are easy; however, many people would likely prefer an arts event.  Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to figure out what is going on at all the different institutions on any given day.  The Alliance helps to consolidate this information to make it easier for companies, thus along for new sources of revenue for cultural arts institutions.  (On a side note, it was a board member and business person who made this suggestion – so great!)

Both of these initiatives help to bring in new revenue, but also help to reduce marketing costs for the organizations (or at the very least produce bigger bang for the buck).  The Alliance also does considerable work in helping organizations consolidate back-office operations and share resources with each other, providing a platform akin to a craigslist.

And I would be remiss not to mention the Cultural Alliance’s role in partnering with the Community Foundation of Southeastern Michigan to inspire $4.8 million in gifts in just one day.

Each of these initiatives benefit cultural arts organizations of all size, and would not be possible if not for their willingness to collaborate.  So after finding out about the Cultural Alliance of Southeastern Michigan’s inspiring work, I have just one question:  Where else can this be done?  I have no doubt that this kind of collaboration can be done throughout the nonprofit sector.  In the words of the Black Eyed Peas, “Let’s get it started!”

Consolidation of the sector?

As we watched the economy start marching towards the downturn, many nonprofit professionals (myself included) looked for the silver lining.  We suggested that a downturn might help to reorganize the sector, forcing weaker organizations to go under and nonprofits providing duplicative services to merge.  This would help the sector use its resources more efficiently, and make it easier for organizations to fundraise as it would reduce cause clutter.

Well, it seems very few organizations are considering mergers or sales of assets, according to a survey by the Nonprofit Finance Fund.  Of course, this within itself suggests our silver lining may have been a bit off.  But what I’ve noticed recently (and this is anecdotal, though evidence may exist) is that many people who find themselves without job are now deciding to start their own nonprofits.  If this is true, then it’s quite possible that the sector will become increasingly fragmented – exacerbating the challenges present before the downturn.

So what is the answer?  Many believe that the new 990 form will make it too difficult for some nonprofit organizations to continue.  Truthfully, I don’t know.  What I do know is that anyone considering starting a nonprofit needs to ask themselves three questions:

1)  Is my idea meeting a community need?

2) Is there an established organization in the area who is doing this already?  Or is there anyone else in the area who might be well-suited to take this idea and run with it?

3) Am I really the right person to lead this?  Do I know enough about setting up the business model, meeting the legal requirements, partnering with the community, and fundraising effectively in order to make this work?  (Note: sometimes the person with the great idea is not well-equipped to implement it.)

Of course, many new nonprofit organizations are both good and necessary.  After all, they provide opportunities for innovation which might not occur otherwise.  Nonetheless, the question still remains: what can be done to help the sector function at the level which is so needed – particularly in these times?

Leadership IS most important after all

I ran across a report today which identified leadership as the most reliable indicator of a nonprofit organization’s sustainability.  This falls in line with what I’ve experienced, though I am always thrilled when my gut aligns with evidence!

I had the opportunity to speak for a couple of minutes at my MBA commencement, and I spoke to some of the lessons I had learned about leadership.  I thought it might be nice to share these ideas with you all, to see what else you would add!  So here’s an excerpt from my speech.

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I’d like to share some of the things I learned through my Ross experience that I suspect will be useful for the rest of my life, and hopefully will be beneficial to you too.

First, realize that the job of a leader is not to come up with the best ideas. It is to recognize the best ideas in the room. Although it can be difficult, try to use the same level of skepticism on your own ideas that you willingly apply to everyone else’s. At the end of the day, your success will be judged on the final product – not where it came from.

Second, never doubt the potential of the people around you. Brilliance will never be limited by race, gender, education or salary grade. Grant everyone the opportunity to discover a potential above and beyond their own expectations.

Third, recognize that there will be tradeoffs. You will never have an opportunity to do everything you’d like to, or be able to implement things perfectly. Recognize the tradeoffs you make, and be sure they don’t compromise your values or your dreams. At the end of the day, you have to be able to live with yourself.

Fourth, get involved. There will be many opportunities for you to add value to your workplace and to your community. Truthfully, you will likely get far more from this experience than you ever put in. Don’t wait until you have the time, money or status to do this. Start now; your community needs you.

Last but not least, be flexible. As business students, we are, in general, very goal-oriented people. Life, however, is rarely as straight-forward as we plan for it to be. Be willing to make the left turns when they come. Make sure you take time to laugh, enjoy the present, and give thanks even in the toughest of times for the many blessings you have been given.

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So what would you add?  What would you alter?

Developing Social Media Know-how

There is certainly a lot of “buzz” about social media within the nonprofit sector, and according to a recent report from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Center for Marketing Research, nonprofits are adopting these tools more widely than their corporate counterparts.  Despite this, I would say that a good chunk of nonprofit organizations still have a long way to go in using these tools to their full potential.  So where’s a nonprofit professional to begin?

I would suggest you get involved for yourself, before you start representing your organization.  This gives you a little more room for mistakes.  Don’t sign up for everything at once; you’ll never be able to keep up with it all.  Just start with one, and add another as you feel comfortable.  Here’s how I’ve gone about it.

I started with facebook, not because I wanted to increase my social media savvy, but because I wast starting my Master’s program and it became a great way to This is a great way to stay connected with people as an individual, but with an account you can check out nonprofit groups, fan pages and causes , which will give you a lot of insight into what tools are available and how they can best be used.

LinkedIn is another site I became involved in because of business school.  This is a great way to connect with people you know professionally, as it gives you an opportunity to peek into their other work experiences (so long as they have completed their profile).  This becomes particularly helpful as you conduct a job search and/or look to make a new connection with an organization or business.  Through this system, you are able to search not only the profiles of your friends, but also their friends (depending on privacy settings).  Clearly there is a lot of opportunity to grow your network this way.  Of course, you have to be proactive about it.  Additionally, individuals can find a lot of value in LinkedIn by subscribing to groups, where they can connect and share news/ideas with like-minded people.

Although some nonprofits have attempted to develop LinkedIn groups, I would say that really there’s only two types that have been able to maintain activity in the long-term: (1) nonprofits that act as associations, bringing nonprofit professionals together, and (2) nonprofits that produce alumni from their programs.  The LinkedIn group provides a way for these people to connect with each other, which can add significant value not only to the users but also to the nonprofit, who can keep a pulse on what it’s members are involved in.

Last but not least, I opened my Twitter account.  Twitter is a tremendous resource for those people looking to get more informed about social media in the nonprofit sector.  I’ve already blogged about some of the amazing people I follow;  they will share all sorts of information, from examples of best practices to recent statistics and much, much more.  Plus, through Twitter’s search tool it is very easy to see what is being said about your organization or issue area.  If you find that Twitter is a useful tool for you, then I’d suggest you check out TweetDeck or a similar desktop application to manage your tweets.

This clearly highlights only three of the social media platforms out there, but I think these are great places to start.  The key learnings from my experience so far have been:

• You have to set your own boundaries.  I personally keep my Twitter profile public, but restrict my facebook to my friends.  I also maintain my tweets seperately from my facebook updates.  My Twitter and LinkedIn definitely have more of a professional feel than my facebook, but I make sure that there is nothing posted on my facebook that would stand out in a negative light should a prospective employer run across it.
• Twitter is all about the conversation.  If you aren’t listening to and/or engaging with people at some level, you are certainly missing the mark.  Along the same lines, don’t get sucked into the numbers game.  More followers does not equal a better Twitter experience.
• Maintain your social networks.  Visit them daily – if only for a few minutes at a time.  The longer you neglect them, the more overwhelming it will seem when you have to “catch up.”

That’s my experience.  For those of you who are newer to social media, let me know how it goes.  For those of you who have been at it for a while, please add your insights to the comments.  Thanks!

Fundraising – shaking that icky feeling of asking

So I just had an inspiring conversation with the CEO of an area foundation.  Before joining this foundation, he had twenty years of nonprofit fundraising experience, and it is clear what a dramatic impact his has had on the way he functions in philanthropy.  Our conversation forced me to realize how my relationship with fundraising has changed over time, and how this process has made me a better (although far from perfect) nonprofit professional.

When I started off, fundraising was a necessary evil.  I had ideas about different items I wanted to acquire so that  we could do more things in the education program, but soon found out that just because you want something doesn’t mean there’s any money to get –  no matter how well you can justify the expense.  As a result, I began writing small grants, and was fortunate that most of these were successful.  Fundraising through grantwriting was my work-around to the situation, a way in which I could get the supplies I wanted.

Of course, as I was promoted in the organization and became responsible for managing employees, fundraising was no longer about acquiring new stuff.  It was about ensuring your staff got paid and that the doors to the facility stayed open for the youth we served.  This certainly added to the stress level.  This was also a time that I discovered raising money for stuff was often easier than raising money for payroll, even though the staff were so much more vital to the program than anything else.

When I reached this point, I attended my first development training where I discovered that grants are not the main source of charitable giving – and not by a long shot.  Individual donors, they stressed, were the source of most philanthropic dollars.  Unfortunately, this is intimidating to a number of people whose background is in the program and not the fundraising.  Acquiring those individual dollars seems to require a certain mindset.

I was taught two lessons very early on.  First, if you don’t feel comfortable asking someone face-to-face for money for your cause, then you are involved with the wrong cause.  If you believe in your cause, though, it should be easy to make an ask; after all, you’re giving the person an opportunity to invest in something great, to be an integral part of positively impacting the community.  Talking to a number of fundraisers who talked about getting  a rush from making the ask made me realize I needed to reconsider the frame of mind with which I was approaching the situation.

Second, it is important to recognize that in a particular ask (whether it be direct mail or face-to-face), the relationship with that donor holds much more value than the gift itself.  After all, donors are more likely to want to give to a cause they already know and trust, and so may result in multiple gifts.  Rather than focusing only on the dolars raised in a particular campaign, think in terms of the lifetime value of a donor.

So now I am starting to see fundraising not as a necessary evil but as a real opportunity to impact the sector; after all, how often have we lamented upon all that we could do if we just had more money?   Of course, I’m also still figuring a lot of things out.  If fundraisers all agree that relationship is important, I have two questions about what I’m seeing take place:

• Why do so few nonprofits measure their performance in regards to customer (or donor) service?  Donors need to feel adequately thanked, need to be informed about how the money is being used, and should believe that their gift has resulted in measurable positive impact.  It is worth it to find out whether or not our donors feel this way, and if not what the organization needs to do differently.  While some donors will leave, attrition rates between 40 and 60% are totally unacceptable, and demonstrate a lack of efficiency in fundraising dollars.
• Why do many nonprofits talk at their donors instead of with them?  Agencies are constantly broadcasting their messages, through newsletters, mailings and emails, and yet typically ask only for money.  These are people who have clearly bought into the mission; maybe they have a couple ideas about programs, or maybe they’d like to do more than give money and offer their expertise.  Social media has given nonprofits a lot of tools with which to manage these conversations, and yet I see many nonprofits continually blast their supporters with organizational news/needs never attempting to engage in any level of conversation.  How many friends would you have if you never stopped to listen to their stories or asked questions?

Well, as a result of this conversation, and out of a desire to continue to refine my ability to do fundraising effectively, I asked this established fundraiser for advice.  He made a couple of book suggestions:  The Artful Journey by William Sturtevant, and Donor-Centered Fundraising by Penelope Burk.  I’ll be checking those out for sure, but I’m looking forward to seeing what comments this post evokes.

The Nonprofit – Business Dilemma

It seems like the question “Should nonprofits behave more like businesses?” is constantly at the edges of any conversation around the nonprofit sector.  (See recent posts by Carlo Cuesta and Allison Fine about this topic.)  Having had several years of experience in the nonprofit sector, and then taking a hiatus from this work to pursue my MBA, you might think it would be pretty obvious where I stand.  You’d be mistaken, though.  This question (often phrased as a statement) makes my skin crawl.  It demonstrates a lack of understanding of the complexity of the nonprofit sector, and carries with it an arrogance that is often undeserved.

Imagine a young man who goes off to work for a large corporation.  After several weeks of employment, he finds his manager to be incompetent, money wasted on projects that are going nowhere, and feels himself under-utilized.  Would you point to the faults of the private sector?  Or would you argue to that young man that this experience does not define the sector; that there are a diverse range of companies and industries within the sector, and that he should refrain from such blanket judgment?  I’d imagine almost anyone would recognize the difference between a GM and a Google, an AIG and an Apple.  And yet, people make such statements about the nonprofit sector and no one challenges them.  Seriously?  Your neighborhood association is going to run quite differently than the American Red Cross, and likely much different than those within a 30-mile radius.

So what is it that allows such conversation to continue?  Realistically, there is a lot of overlap between the day-to-day operations of nonprofit and corporate organizations.  Human resources, marketing, finance and accounting all cross both sectors.  However, while the nonprofit sector often celebrates more humble behavior, the private sector traditionally does not.  This makes it easy for such statements to be made and accepted, whether or not they deserve such merit.  Additionally, there is an imbalance of power between the two sectors (as determined by the availability of resources), and so there may be a reticence to speak out on behalf of the nonprofit sector.  All this does, however, is reinforce the concept, which further damages the perception of the nonprofit sector.

What we really need is to change the vocabulary we use when approaching this conversation.  It is not a matter of the nonprofit sector versus the corporate sector; it is a matter of good organizational practices versus bad organizational practices, or efficiency versus inefficiency.  Are there are things that are taught in business that can be useful for nonprofit professionals?  Absolutely; I’ve spent my last two years exploring just that.  However, I would argue that businesses can learn a great deal from the nonprofit sector as well.  Collaboration (with community stakeholders, clients, donors, and other agencies) has long been key to the nonprofit sector, and as more customers demand participation in the development of their products and services (think mystarbucksidea.com), an understanding of how to leverage these relationships can have a major pay-off to corporations. 

While there is undoubtedly much more to say about this topic, I’ll pause now to hear what you all have to say.  I would just add that Dan Pallotta has a blog (via Harvard Business School) called “Free the Nonprofits” which speaks to the challenges facing nonprofits due to the unreasonable expectations placed on the sector.  Whether or not you agree with all of his points, it is certainly worth reading.

Keeping up with the Joneses

So this is not a very thought-provoking post, but I hope it is helpful nonetheless!

One of the real appreciations I have for my experience with business school is that it allowed me to step out of the daily grind of my nonprofit job and reconsider what I think.  Truthfully, I was always so busy at work, I almost never got a chance to look around and see what was going on outside of my bubble.  Of course, in the MBA program most of the concepts we explored in classes were presented within a corporate context.  This meant that if I wanted to know what was going on in the nonprofit sector, I was going to  have to find that information for myself.  Through my friends at the Nonprofit & Public Management Center (on Twitter @npmcenter), I was exposed to a vast number of resources available through the great Internet.  Not everyone is lucky enough to run across such folks, though, so I thought I’d share some of my own practices in the hopes that it will help some of you all, and that you will be able to give me suggestions for other resources.

E-newsletters

If you know how to receive emails, then you can do this;  you sign up on the Internet, and you periodically receive literature delivered direct to your mailbox.  Here are three of my favorite newsletters:

• Philanthropy Today – A resource from the Chronicle of Philanthropy, this is where you can find the most recent news of what’s going on across the sector.  Although you can subscribe to the Chronicle (for $) and read all their articles, you can sign up for this newsletter and get access to a lot of articles for free.  Sign up at http://philanthropy.org/.
• Network for Good Tips Weekly – Great for fundraising tips, plus they have high quality webinars that are advertised through the newsletter.  Check out their most recent version (and opt-in for your own) at https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:CampaignPublic/id:23141.2095943551/rid:94a6b10bcb43656b119ea03277234c1e.
• NewsNotes – Particularly helpful to those of you in Southeast Michigan, Nonprofit Enterprise at Work is an amazing nonprofit capacity-building organization.  Always chocked full of great information about board governance and technology, the newsletter highlights upcoming events (which are always worth attending).  Sign up at http://www.new.org/newsnotes.

Google Reader

Blogs are a tremendous resource for nonprofit professionals, particularly as so many smart people in the sector are willing to share what they’ve learned.  Of course you can see some of my favorites on the blog roll on my site.  What is really nice is that it is no longer necessary to visit sites individually to catch up on what’s going on.  Just set up a Google Reader (via http://www.google.com/reader).  You will actually get posts about how to use it as soon as you sign up.  Then you can start subscribing to blogs, and the blog posts will be sent directly to your Google Reader.  Start with a few, and build up as it feels comfortable.  I follow about 100 blogs, but I have to keep up with these daily.  Do whatever makes you happy.

Twitter

So there is a lot of discussion about Twitter nowadays, with many people believing it is just another noise-filled channel.  I view Twitter as a great tool, which you can use in whatever fashion you’d like (this flexibility is part of what I really appreciate about the platform).  I am certainly no Twitter expert, but I do follow people who “tweet” very insightful things.  Since these people read magazines and follow blogs that I don’t , they will send out what they consider to be the most interesting tidbits from these out into the Twitterverse.  In essence, you get to skim the best of all the blogs, newspapers and magazines without having to sift through them all.  Of course, what you receive depends entirely upon who you follow.  Here are some of the people I get those most from: @philanthropy411, @kanter, @ajlovesya, @hildygottlieb, @johnhaydon, @philanthropy, and @pndblog.  You can see the full list of who I follow by visiting my Twitter profile and clicking on “following”.  I would also add that @kidsareheroes is a *great* person to follow to learn about how to navigate Twitter (particularly if you want to do more than listen and join the conversation).

There are tons of other resources available online, but for those of you who are just starting this should give you a good starting point.  Of course, if you have anything to add, please feel free to comment below!

The Mighty Individual

There is no doubt that individuals have seen their power grow relative to that of institutions.  Whereas we were once reliant on a set of encyclopedias to bring us basic background information, we now create and share this information through Wikipedia.  Whereas we were once dependent on the company and the advice of a few friends in trying to assess a new product or service, we can now go to a number of online review sites where thousands of strangers will provide insight to their experience post-purchase.  In actuality, we don’t even need these sites – through facebook we can access our hundreds of friends to ask their advice instantly.   The Internet has made people more connected to each other than ever before, and this has given individuals a tremendous source of power.  It is this that keeps many brand managers up late at night, constantly reviewing Google alerts and Tweetbeeps, and as a result of this shift we have seen major investments by corporations in social media tools.  In the nonprofit sector, lots of discussion occurs around how much staff time should be devoted to these tools, and whether or not the organization should be getting involved or if that just makes it more vulnerable to attack.

There has been a lot written about why nonprofit organizations should be engaging in social media (for example this post by Debra Askanase).  However, what I think is really exciting is the opportunity for nonprofits within this power shift.  On the one hand, you can grumble about the ability of one person to damage your brand (Domino’s Pizza has certainly felt this, and I’m sure the Dell Hell blog gave executives a headache).  On the other hand, you can embrace the opportunity for outsourcing.  Nonprofits almost constantly lament the lack of available resources; funding is tight and our staff are stretched as thin as possible.  So rather than use resources to fight the power of the individual, why not leverage it.  Give individuals the power to ask for support on your behalf.  Just imagine what reach your fundraising campaign would have if you had access not only to the supporters in your database but to their friends as well.  Allow clients and donors alike the opportunity to help you construct new programs and initiatives and find new and creative ways to measure them.  Provide people with the tools they need to be an ambassador for your organization; make it easy for them to be your advocates.  Rather than fearing the individual, take advantage of their brilliance; the ROI could be phenomenal.