Nonprofit Bridge

A report released earlier this month by Charity Navigator raises interesting questions on whether special events are an effective way for nonprofits to raise funds.  Its main points were:

1. About half of all charities use special events as a way to fundraise.
2. Special events generate 15% of all contributions to organizations
3. Overall, special events are inefficient in comparison to overall fundraising activities
4. The most efficiently run special events are held by organizations that are the least likely to use special events as a fundraising mechanism, e.g. religious charities
5. Health and arts charities are the most likely to hold special events
6. Charities in the Northeast are more likely than their peers in other areas to hold special events
7. Many health charities would benefit from shifting their fundraising focus away from special events
8. Almost half of are reporting special events data incorrectly, with no recourse from state or federal regulators

These five organizations receive the most from special events: American Cancer Society, Muscular Dystrophy Association, Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, March of Dimes and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International.

Since I currently work at a health charity in the Northeast which relies heavily on special events, these conclusions make sense.  I’ve felt for a while that it may be time to start moving away from events and take advantage of new methods of fundraising.  Charity Navigator’s report also points out, however, that “there are advantages to special events that cannot be measured: raising awareness, rewarding members, cultivating prospective donors, PR exposure, and brand building to name a few. These benefits are impossible to measure, and vary greatly from organization to organization”

Charity Navigator is a site that guides donors towards nonprofits that are run efficiently and make the best use of donations.  For that reason alone, this report suggests that special events be carefully evaluated, especially since many new types of online fundraising, e.g. widgets (see Chipin for an example) are now available which further empower our constituents.

This week I attended the quarterly meeting of Not-For-Profit Webmaster Roundtable, which has been run successfully by David Milner for several years.  We discussed the arrival of super fast Internet connectivity through services such as Verizon Fios and how this will affect how nonprofit web sites are developed,

At least one organization represented at the meeting, the Rainforest Alliance, is already taking steps towards adding video to its web site, although it has not yet allowed constituents to submit their own videos.  With the amazing popularity of YouTube and other video sharing sites, it seems that it is only a matter of time until videos are widely available on nonprofit sites.

We also discussed content management systems, an area which commonly comes up for debate.  I suggested that organizations first determine who is likely to handle content updates, and then select a product which matches these users’ expertise.  My preference is usually towards packages that are easy to use even if they lack all the bells and whistles of more advanced offerings.

Other topics: how to best implement organizational blogs (make sure they are updated frequently), web statistics (Google Analytics new version is reported to be very nice, and it’s still free) and the availability of tools such as Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer to find out what pages on your web site are currently indexed.

As promised, below are my notes from Andrew Nibley’s presentation, EDonors: Fundraising in the 21st Century, from Monday’s Westchester Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit:

To maximize exposure of your nonprofit’s web site, use search engine optimization techniques.  (While this function is often handled by marketing, I handled this area while working as IT Director at Cross-Cultural Solutions.)  This should be a part of every web site redesign.

Manysite visitors don’t realize the difference between organic search engine results (which result from search engines analyzing content on your web site) and sponsored links, where organizations pay for their site to show up when relevant searches are done (even though sponsored links are usually clearly marked in Google’s results).

Promote your web site address everywhere: email signatures, offline materials, brochures, ads etc.

‘Share a story’ that relates to your mission, with photos if possible – and invite site visitors to submit their own stories.

Important content on your web site should be no more than three clicks away; this becomes especially difficult as the amount of site content increases.

When someone finds your web site, visitor registration should be top priority so you get their email address.  Don’t ask for anything more than email address.  Too many required fields will discourage visitors from completing registration.

Use information about your donors to customize web site and email blast content.  (I’ve often heard vendors encourage this, but seems like many organizations aren’t able to make it happen.)  It’s helpful, for example, to customize donation forms based on a donor’s previous giving history.  Papilia has an interesting approach to this.

Search for your organization on sites like MySpace and YouTube to learn whether your organization is listed.  Use these mediums to supplement what is on your web site since many constituents may look there first.  Similarly, find out what’s on Wikipedia and, if necessary, get someone outside of your organization to update the entry.

Andrew also suggested participating in social networks, such as Care2, Gather, LinkedIn and Eons (the 55 & older population are the fastest growing group of Internet users).

On Monday, May 14, I attended the 5th annual Westchester Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit.  Hilary Clinton spoke at breakfast and Thomas Tierney of the Bridgespan Group presented during lunch.  I also attended sessions on the fragile relationship between nonprofit CEOs and boards as well as a nice review of online fundraising strategies.

Probably the most interesting insight was presented by Tom Tierney, who discussed nonprofits’ difficulties in recruiting and retaining executive talent.  With many nonprofit leaders approaching retirement age, this is becoming an even larger problem.  While there are no easy solutions, he offered a few observations:

1. Nonprofits can no longer rely on the system of ‘hiring a friend.’  New pools of talent must be found;  it’s not always necessary (or possible) to find someone from another nonprofit with a similar mission that is already a senior executive.
2. Executive Directors usually spend most of their time on fundraising, but this is not enough to insure a nonprofit’s continuing ability to achieve its mission.
3. Nonprofits often go outside the organization to recruit talent (while corporations often hire from within).  Nonprofits must offer on the job training and coaching, as well as job rotation to develop talent

He also commented that he considered work in the nonprofit sector to be more difficult than anything he has done in the private sector;  many who switch from for-profit to nonprofit mistakenly feel that their jobs will be easier and less stressful.

More on Bridgespan’s site on The Nonprofit Sector’s Leadership Deficit

In the Information Systems Forum group that I participate in, there has been a running dialog lately about whether a nonprofit should operate as a business.   At my current organization, I’ve watched the tide change from a President who came from the business world who clearly used business principles in his management style, to a new management which has reverted to a more traditional nonprofit style.

From the technology side, there are clearly an emphasis on fundraising which affects much of the software that I use.  In addition, the nonprofit focus on ‘mission’ is very different from the bottom line objectives of a corporation.  Yet I believe there are many business principles that can be used effectively in a nonprofit environment.  As a project manager, I think nonprofits have much to gain from systematically managing projects, e.g. making sure there is a project plan and that all stakeholders are involved in the process from the beginning.

I recently completed First, Break All the Rules, part of a series of books co-authored by Marcus Buckingham that includes Now, Discover Your Strengths and a recent addition, Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance.  Some of its ideas can be applied effectively in a for profit or nonprofit environment:

1. Select for Talent, described as ‘recurring patterns of behavior that can be productively applied.’  While skills and knowledge can be taught, talents cannot.
2. Define the Right Outcomes, then let your staff decide how to best achieve those outcomes.
3. Focus on Strengths, not on weaknesses as is traditionally done.
4. Find the Right Fit, where staff can apply the talents they already have

Some core elements needed to attract and maintain your most talented staff members include:

• do your know what is expected of you?
• is recognition and praise given regularly?
• does your manager encourage staff development?
• does the mission/purpose of company make your job feel important?
• do you have the opportunity to do what you are best at?

While nonprofits are different from businesses, there’s a lot we can learn from what from business on how to manage effectively.