Nonprofit Bridge

Earlier this week I attended the New York Times Nonprofit Excellence Awards, sponsored by the NonProfit Coordinating Committee of New York.  Best practices discussed included:

1. an overall management focus on results
2. a governance structure that moves the organization forward
3. strong, transparent and accountable financial management
4. inclusive and diverse organizational practices

The winning nonprofit organizations included:

• Center for Urban Community Services - nation’s largest provider of social services in supportive housing as well as a comprehensive human services agency that implements new practices, shares knowledge and assists in shaping strategies so persons who are homeless, low-income, living with mental illness or other special needs can live successfully in the community
• Families United for Racial and Economic Equality - organizes low-income families to build power and change the system so that all people’s work is valued and have the right and economic means to decide and live their destinies.  7 full time employees;  budget is under $500,000
• Good Shepherd Services - leading youth development, education and family service agency that provides a safe passage to self-sufficiency, serving 18,000 anually, focusing on high-need communities in Brooklyn and the Bronx.  (Good Shepherd received the top award for ‘overall excellence’)
• Witness - uses video and online technologies to open the eyes of the world to human rights violation

At the awards reception, I spoke to the staff member at Witness who had been primarily responsible for creating an online dashboard to track how well the organization was meeting its goals whether they had used any special technical tools.  No, just common applications like Word & Excel, and the tool can be accessed through their web site.  When informed that Witness had won the award in communications rather than the top award, Executive Director Gillian Caldwell said she was thankful because this was an affirmation that they were achieving their mission, even though this award provided a considerably smaller financial benefit than the top award.

Congratulations to all four organizations which provide a model for us to aspire to.

I joined over 1800 at last week’s Fundraising Day, sponsored by the Association of Development Professionals.   I focused on sessions covering online fundraising;  highlights are below:

• Many nonprofits are clearly still struggling to coordinate offline and online strategies.  Per Sheeraz Haji, President of Convio, only a handful of their clients are doing this well.  Steve Birnbaum of Jacobson Consulting suggested that the challenges are often not technical but organizational, e.g. getting people to talk to each other.
• Online fundraising continues to increase dramatically, but overall it’s still less than 1% of total fundraising revenues.  (Some large nonprofit organizations are doing much better than this, however.)
• Harry Lynch and Paul Habig of SankyNet offered a variety of techniques to accelerate online revenues – their presentation is available online.
• Tim Lash of International Rescue Committee offered tips on eadvocacy, and also suggested a simple three step approach currently in use by SaveDarfur.org
  1. sign a petition
  2. tell a friend
  3. donate
• A panel with representatives of Convio, Beaconfire Consulting & Carnegie Hall reiterated the need for synchronization of offline / online efforts, as well as how to make a site visitor ‘known’ by offering multiple reasons to submit an email address.  ASPCA is particularly good at doing this.
• Using peer to peer fundraising was also suggested since supporters will often prefer to use their own web pages for fundraising rather than an organization’s page created solely for an event or other fundraising initiative.

As most of us in the field know, nonprofit salaries usually fall short of their counterparts in the private sector.  A new posting at Payscale, Nonprofit Jobs: Flexibility and Opportunity at a Cost, points out that there are opportunities for late career changes and baby boomers to fill the gap in personnel recently reported by Bridgespan.  The article also points out the advantages of working for nonprofit, so we shouldn’t only focus on the compensation.

An especially interesting quote was from Roberta Chinsky Matuson who said, “the most challenging part will be for the employee to recognize that they will work with an extremely limited budget and resources.”  As a technology resource focused on online fundraising, I believe even the smallest organizations have options even with limited resources – but it can be challenging at times.

As it is probably obvious by this blog’s name, I am fascinated by change, both personally and professionally.  Earlier this week I attended a presentation on Change Management at the NYC Chapter of the Project Management Institute, featuring Peter de Jager Some of Peter’s major points were:

• The major changes in our lives involve getting married (or not) and deciding to have children.  In comparison, most changes which take place at our organizations are trivial.
• When a change is presented / announced, the most natural response is ‘Why?’
• Asking ‘if there are any questions’ to employees after a change has already been decided is of little value, especially if staff have had little involvement in the decision.
• The process of how a change was decided upon should be openly communicated so that staff don’t feel that the decision ‘came out of nowhere.’
• To be sustainable, change must be ‘your’ change.
• Change doesn’t have to be difficult.  Change is often a positive force in our lives.

Peter described the change process model developed by Virginia Satir which traces the steps from the ‘old’ to the ‘new’ status quo, as well as the five stages of grief outlined by Elisabeth Kuber-Ross.

Peter’s presentation was so captivating that I practically forgot about the light food that is provided at many PMI meetings.  While change has often been a challenge in my life, this session provided a useful reminder that it is a necessary part of life, and can be reframed to be viewed as a positive force, not a source of dread.

On June 5, 2007, I participated in a panel at the Boston Technology Conference which discussed how CRM and CMS tools can be effectively used by nonprofit organizations.  Below are some major points:

CRM: A set of processes and supporting technologies used to acquire, retain, and enhance the relationships with all different constituent groups who interact with an organization.

CMS: Software tools that allow non-technical users to update a website without having to be a website designer.

Chris Atwood of SalesForce discussed how a CRM is used for marketing, sales and customer service.  He also mentioned the importance of identifying constituent groups (e.g. donors, volunteers etc.), outlining processes and workflow and the role of nonprofit staff in managing, analyzing and reporting donor data.  While Chris’ presentation was clearly not product specific, he pointed out that all nonprofits may receive 10 donated licenses to use SalesForce through Sales Force Foundation.

I then presented on how content management tools can be used to quickly add / edit / remove web content, and described types of CMS products (e.g. locally installed, hosted, open source vs. proprietary) available.  I also outlined several variables to consider when selecting a CMS:

• Staff expertise
• Frequency of site update
• Approval levels needed
• Type of site content
• Budget
• Stability of vendor
• Integration with other systems
• Availability of support

I also discussed the issue of whether to integrate CMS and CRM tools.  Integration provides the advantage of being able to easily send out segmented emails and web site content oriented towards specific groups of constituents.  Joomla, an open source CMS products which was presented briefly by Pradeep Suthram of PicNet, is especially strong in this area,   PicNet’s Nonprofit Soapbox, a hosted CMS tool based on Joomla, was also mentioned.

We ended our presentation with a recommendation of various resources:

• Idealware – evaluations of nonprofit software
• Npower Seattle – support for nonprofit organizations
• Techsoup – online resource
• Joomla! – open source CMS
• Drupal – open source CMS
• One Northwest – focused on environmental organizations
• Groundspring/Network for Good – Internet fundraising, email & advocacy for nonprofits
• Selecting a Content Management System – resource provided by SF based consulting firm
• Open Source CMS – ‘try before you install’

Thanks to Tech Foundation for sponsoring this conference and to Chris & Pradeep for sharing their expertise.