For Your Online Viewing....

Two places you can find me online today:

First, the July issue of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter is up. This issue's topic is "Evaluating Volunteers". You can also scroll down and see past single-topic issues. Subscription is free, if you like what you see.

This summer, I'm also doing a bit of blogging for Serenic Software on nonprofit issues. You can see my first couple of posts here.

If you're in the Eastern US, stay cool!

365,000 at risk

No, not dollars, nonprofits.

That's the number of nonprofits who have not filed their 990-N yet, and who need to by later today to not put their 501(c)(3) at risk.

I posted about this before, but today went to the NCCS website about this issue, and looked for nonprofits near where I live who are at risk-there were dozens; 4-H groups, rescue squads, sports leagues.

Some of these groups, no doubt, have gone dormant. In fact, estimates a year or so ago were that about 150,000 (c)(3) organizations nationwide no longer really were in business.

But many are...and are in peril of losing their tax exempt status. If you care about nonprofits in your community, go to the NCCS database, and just search for your state and town.

Then start calling organizations you know that are at risk.

Off to a nonprofit graduation

That's probably a misleading title, but it's true. My youngest child, Caitlin, graduates from Boston University on Sunday, and Chris and I leave today for the weekend festivities. And, like other private colleges and universities, BU is a nonprofit, complete with mission, staff, volunteers, fund-raising and a board of directors.

Universities, colleges and private schools are interesting entities in that they must, unlike nearly all non-educational nonprofits, appeal to the people who have gone through their programs: alumni. These alumni are regularly prodded to give money to their alma mater (I know I am) and offered reminders of how wonderful an institution the college, university or private school is.

And, unlike many nonprofits, these organizations only get one shot at serving their prime clientele: the student. Each student goes through the educational process, hopefully graduates, and then cannot return for more service (unless it's a higher degree or adult education).

Certainly a different mission mix than faith-based or arts organizations who want to serve a person over and over and over and where you never are "done." Many human services organizations wish they could "graduate" a person, but often can't, since the condition that brought the client to the nonprofit in the first place persists.

Interesting.

New Marketing Strategies

Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere.

If you're into marketing for your nonprofit, you might want to take a look at the May, 2010 issue of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter which is online. Topic? New Marketing Strategies.

Check it out, and if you like what you see, subscribing is easy and free. You can also scroll down to see all the past single-topic issues.

Enjoy!

New Practices in Board Terms

For many years, (probably 30, since I was an ED the first time) I've been preaching the benefits of having board terms. In that time, the concept of limiting board service has become best practice, and even required by some funders.

The standard is pretty much the same everywhere, with a tweak here or there: two 3-year terms for each member. Many organizations, due to a shortage of great board candidates, allow a member to come back on after a brief hiatus, perhaps one or two years.

Over the past two years, I've been getting emails from people challenging my stance on this issue, and I've begun to rethink the whole thing. The basic concern is that by forcing everyone to leave the board, a nonprofit can a: lose historic perspective in their policymakers and, b: lose the few true governing volunteer stalwarts who support the organization with real passion. Certainly both of these concerns are valid and worth considering.

So, what's the solution? Board turnover is still a good thing: it brings in new ideas and perspectives, and allows an organization to root out any policymaker deadwood. It gives board members a graceful exit from their job if they want it, and, like it or not, it is one of the standards by which governance is measured today.

Some nonprofits have come up with what I think is an interesting and innovative solution, one that bears watching. These organizations reserve some percentage of their board seats for exceptional board members who have both demonstrated their passion for the organization, and agree to stay. These members are offered a longer term after their first two terms, say five years, with an opportunity to extend that one more time.

I've seen this eight or nine times now, and the percentage of "reserved" seats ranges from 20% to 40%. The latter seems a bit high to me-and offers the opportunity to slide back into perpetual boards. 20-25% seems about right. On a 15 member board, 20% would be 3 seats. This "experience bloc" would certainly not always vote together, but would serve as a guide to other board members on tradition and prior activities that could be valuable. 3 members would also not be so many as to be "the old boys/girls club" and this inhibit new members from fully engaging.

As I said, I think this bears watching. I'm curious about what guidelines organizations use to pick this class of board members, and how the internal politics play out.


What do you think? Does your board have this policy in place or is it thinking about it? What percentage of seats would be reserved? Do you have guidelines? If so, please share them with us.

File or lose your (c)3

An excellent headsup in the New York Times on the risk that 400,000 nonprofits in the US have of losing their tax-exempt status if they don't file their 990 forms by May 15.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/23/us/23exempt.html

The bottom line is this: If you are a smaller nonprofit and have not filed your 990, or 990N in the past three years, on May 15 your tax-exempt status will vaporize.

Check this out and file NOW.

Innovation, Part 2

Earlier in the month, I neglected to post that the April edition of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter is up. This month, the newsletter covers the second part of a two-part series on Nonprofit Innovation.

Check it out, and remember to scroll down to see the topics of past newsletters over the years.

If you think you or your nonprofit could benefit from reading regularly, subscription is easy and free.

Great reporting on a cautionary tale...

OK, this is a story every nonprofit board member should read. All of it.

The story, from the Austin American-Statesman, is about the collapse of Austin's Family Connections. It is unusually well written and thorough. It analyzes the causes of the collapse of this successful, acclaimed service organization.

And, unlike much reporting on nonprofits that I have seen, it gets to the many (not just one) root causes.

Although there were signs easier to see in the rear view mirror, the ultimate bottom line (no pun intended, since this is a sad tale) is that there appears to have been a basic breakdown in board oversight. No audit, no audit committee, and the board allowed the ED to control all the financial reporting herself. All easy to see warning signs from the outside, but outsiders never got the chance to get in to take a look.

Again, well worth your time to read the entire article. And, a shout out to Andrea Ball for a great job with her story. I suspect it will help many other nonprofits avoid similar fates.

Kiva for college

Regular readers know I am big on aggregation models for philanthropy (as well as innovation). You take lots of people, ask each for a little bit and good things usually happen. Kiva led the way with this a few years back and now there are many similar programs, like SmallCanBeBig or WorldFlix. I'm sure there are many others by now, because the process works and the technology is there to enable the great idea.

I was watching a show on Hulu last night and this in-your-face ad popped up about someone who couldn't go to college because he couldn't pay the tuition.

All $700 of it.

That got my attention, as did the charity name: vittana.org So, I went, checked it out, looked for some background and found articles on it not only from the New York Times but also the Huffington Post.

As with Kiva, you lend money, though in this case to a non-US student (through an in-country intermediary). The student goes to school, hopefully graduates, gets a job and pays you back.

Are there issues of concern? Of course. But it's a great idea and another way to help international development.

A good day for women, a bad day for breast cancer

As regular readers know, my wife Chris is a breast cancer survivor, having been diagnosed last November. She had surgery in December and is going very well. Yesterday, we participated in the first Susan Komen Race for the Cure in Roanoke. It was a terrific event, blessed by perfect weather.

The organizers expected 1,000 people and hoped for $150K in donations at this inaugural event. They got nearly 2,000 souls and over $265,ooo in funds. And, most of that money stays here in the Roanoke Valley, helping fight breast cancer.

I knew Komen had hit the big time last October, when NFL players wore pink shoes, hats, arm bands and gloves for the entire month. Chris and I had also done a walk on our 30th anniversary cruise, discovering that Holland America does such an event on the last morning of every single cruise.

Awesome.

Outcome measures on online watchdogs

Gordon Campbell, the CEO of United Way in New York City provided this excellent post on

Helping Donors Choose: Improving Nonprofit Ratings for the Future

I not only liked Gordon's perspective, but he provided good news on what GiveWell, Charity Navigator, GreatNonprofits and Philanthropedia are doing in this area. Then, he cautions readers (who, I assume, are donors who have never tried to provide "meaningful outcome measures") that doing so takes time and a bit of trial and error.

If you have a donor who is thinking about donating to your organization, read this post and send it to them.

As an aside, I love GiveWell's tag line "Real Change for Your Dollar". Of course real change only happens if someone measures outcomes.....or as the old saying goes "In God We Trust. Everyone else bring the data".

Younger Board Members

There's been a bit of an online discussion recently about why nonprofit boards don't have younger members.

Emily Hearst had an excellent post on her Board Life Matters blog, titled Why Don't More Members of GenX and GenY Join Boards? which got a great response. Then, Rosetta Thurman took her turn in her post titled Do Nonprofit Boards Really Want Younger Members? on the Chronicle of Philanthropy site. Both posts make excellent points, but I'm compelled to add my 2.0 cents here.

First, as is well known, boards, if left alone, tend to recruit themselves (i.e., people who look, act, think, live, etc. as they do). Thus, it's important for board recruitment to be a joint board-staff effort...it's the only way to break out of the homogeneity bubble.

Second, many senior staff have come to depend more and more on boards either primarily or solely for fund raising. (As an aside: This is a very, very bad thing. When boards are concerned only with development, they aren't concerned enough about planning, strategy, financial oversight, etc.) With this increased emphasis on boards as a conduit for incoming cash, staff make the assumption that the board members need to be rich--and that only older people have, or have access to, money.

Wrong--just look at the texting response to Haiti. Younger people bring huge networks of friends and associates with them. They (and their friends) are nearly bottomless resources of volunteering and donations--even if only in small amounts individually.

Lastly, boards often don't have two-three-four board slots open at once, and younger people tend to stick together. Imagine, if you were 28 and invited to join a board whose average age was 58, how you'd feel, particularly if you were the only face under 50 in the room....oh goody, I joined my parent's Rotary Club......

We DO need to age down on our boards, and we need to do it soon. Age diversity needs to have the same priority as other kinds, and it's just as difficult to achieve. But that doesn't mean we don't need to get to work and try.

Charity at the Ballpark?

I'm off to Spring Training in Florida with my son, Adam this weekend. Adam (now 24) and I had a 15 year quest to see the Atlanta Braves (his team) play in every National League Stadium by the time he graduated from college--which we successfully accomplished. Much fun, and some great father-son moments. We've never been to Spring Training, and we'll see two games in Orlando this weekend.

My point? I was talking to Adam recently about how many musicians offer space to charities at their concert venues and then urge their listeners to donate time or money to that charity during the concert. It's a great connection to the community, and a good role model.

So where are the similar charity tables at pro sports arenas? I can't think of one place Adam and I went where one or more nonprofits was providing information, or handing out schwag, or taking donations.

I know many athletes do great things in their communities with nonprofits, and that most sports teams provide some donations, but why not this free, very visible way of supporting the nonprofit community?

Money for nothin.....

It's baaaccccckkkk, the regular hoopla over nonprofit CEO's being paid too much.

I get pretty sick of this, both when the criticism is justified and when it's not. When it is justified, I get angry at the CEO (and, of course the board of directors who are accessories before the fact) for bringing disgrace on the hundreds of thousands of hard working and very underpaid nonprofit management staff.

When the critiques are off base, I get angrier, because the media should do its work and know better.

The interesting and infuriating thing about this is how often the spotlight goes on smaller local nonprofits and so rarely on foundations and large nonprofits such as hospital groups or universities. I know the salaries are in the Chronicle of Philanthropy, but it seems the same prejudice about salaries that exists about endowments. For big nonprofits--no problem. For small ones, horrors!

But, back to the news---the CEO of Boys and Girls Clubs of America apparently scored over $1million in total compensation in 2008, over twice the average for CEO compensation at nonprofits of similar size. If true, that's worth some investigation and calling out, particularly since the Boys and Girls Clubs get 40% of their income from federal funds.

When people forget it's about the mission and not the staff, about the mission and not the board....bad things happen.

As always, the rule of unexpected consequences....

One consequence of the recession no one foresaw--lots of unemployed or underemployed people volunteering in US nonprofits. Awesome. Troublesome (for the unprepared nonprofits), but awesome.

One unforeseen consequence of the Disney volunteering promotion (Give A Day, Get A Disney Day) is the sheer number of people who have responded. Side note: are they truly volunteers? Or compensated citizens?

Whatever the answer, this wave of volunteering encouraged by Presidents, employers and other corporate and public figures is only going to grow as the number of Americans interested in volunteering simultaneously rises. Younger Americans (those 30 and under) have been trained from early on to volunteer a LOT. Now that they are in the workforce (and more and more in management) the link between business and charities are being strengthened.

My point? For nonprofits that have weak volunteer management programs, now is the time to strengthen them. For nonprofits that have no volunteer programs, now is the time to consider them. Do you have enough funds to do all the mission needed? I didn't think so. Why not expand your mission resources to include volunteers?

Coming Out of The Recession Stronger

The March edition of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter is online....this month's topic is "Coming Out of The Recession Stronger". Check it out!

A deal for book lovers....

I just learned that Fieldstone Alliance is having a winter book sale. 30% off all titles, and since all of those titles are focused on nonprofits, it's something you should take a look at.

Go here to learn the details.

Truth in advertising...I have two Fieldstone titles: Nonprofit Stewardship: A Better Way to Lead Your Mission-Based Organization, and Generations: The Challenge of A Lifetime for Your Nonprofit.

That said, there are dozens of great books for sale. Check it out.

The power of small donations

You may remember that in past postings, I've talked about the power of small donations, and how younger donors come with a network of friends who, if asked, can often make a $5 or $10 donation...instantly. 500 $10 donations total, of course $5,000, and may be a heck of a lot easier to get than one $5,000 gift.

A story in today's New York Times on the results of the many small fund-raising efforts for Haiti is a bit different, but related in the idea that small donations add up.

And, it's good news from the perspective of Americans' undying generosity.

Nonprofit Innovation, Part 1

The February issue of the Mission-Based Management Newsletter is (finally) online. This month's topic is "Nonprofit Innovation, Part 1". Check it out when you get a chance.

Tech "fun", conference fun.

I've been dealing with tech crap for the past few days and have thus been too busy to post-my laptop power source died, so after tearing it apart and finding that there was not, as advertised, an easy, plug in fix, I reassembled the computer and took it to ship to be repaired.
Then, my Carbonite backup was, to put it mildly, poor. So, I'm using a variety of workarounds.

That, however, is my problem, not yours.

I just came back from New Orleans, at a conference for organizations that work with people with disabilities and had a refreshing experience: I spoke on the topic of how to grow your nonprofit, which was a fun change from repeatedly telling people how to deal with the recession and cutbacks. Most of these nonprofits are associated with NISH, who I do a ton of training for, and I know lots of them, so it was great to see many familiar faces in the crowd. And, New Orleans is always fun.

More later--I'm snowed in again this weekend.