Cautionary Tale

Regular readers will remember me discussing the very sad case of Family Connections, the terrific Austin, TX nonprofit that had to close down after its ED stole hundreds of thousands of dollars not only from that nonprofit, but also from her church and the state association of nonprofits like Family Connections. She vanished after an audit, but was arrested last week after returning from Venezuela.

Why discuss this now? Well, millions of people in the US are being besieged now for year-end tax deductible donations from charities far and wide. Stories like this make it harder for nonprofits of all types and sizes to convince people to part from their money.

So, if your organization is out and about asking for donations, one thing not to do is hesitate when someone wants information on your nonprofit's finances, outcomes and impact. And that means you have to have your data and positive stories ready in advance.

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!

Building better websites

Regular readers know that I continue to push nonprofits on the fact that more and more people (and certainly EVERYONE under 35) will check your organization out (whether for donations, volunteer opportunities, job openings or actual service) online first and, perhaps, only.

Thus a key to nonprofit success is a great website. But where to start?

TechSoup (again) to the rescue. Here's a great article on Designing or Redesigning an Great Nonprofit Website.

Every nonprofit manager should read this, and then look at your own website!

Great new information on what makes a good website for donations

Here's some great material from Jakob Nielson's Alertbox on
Donor Usability on your website. A must read for anyone who is seeking to increase online donations...and who isn't?

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/nonprofit-donations.html

Video, video and more video

I've been increasingly harping in my speeches to nonprofit managers about using video on their websites to tell their story. YouTube has brought down the required quality of video (which doesn't mean that you don't have to give it any thought), and that video is a, if not the, key communications tool to get and hold people's attention.

Like any other marketing tool, you need to focus your message: Who are you appealing to? Why? Is the video for donors, or to recruit the best volunteers? Does it tell you story to the press, or inspire people to seek employment with you. Just as in the case of written materials or website pages, one size does NOT fit all. Focus, focus, focus.

Here's a good starting how-to from Third Sector New England focused on fund-raising videos.

Here's another good article from TechSoup.

GoodEye Video works solely with nonprofits on video production.

Check out what's possible at DoGooderTV.

Cautionary tale: About four weeks ago, I was in Sarasota and met a staff member of the Dattoli Cancer Treatment Center. Went to their website and was really impressed with the story telling that the opening set of videos provides. Click on each of the vertical bars (such as "About our Team") to see more of the staff and hear about the center. For something like cancer treatment, this rocks: you see the people and hear more about the process. Bottom line: I loved it.

Then, I showed it to my two techie sons. Neither were impressed. One jumped on his iPhone to show me that when he went to the site, NOTHING came up---the page has not been configured to work with hand-held devices. My other son looked at the site and asked, how do I navigate AWAY from the video for more information? It was not intuitive for him.

Lesson: Make sure your video is useful on all parts of the web, and don't get so focused on its Wow! factor that you forget to make basic navigation easy.

All that aside, video rocks....why? It tells stories. About people. In ways that get to us.

Proof? Watch this: it's from an Easter Seals/ARC in northern Indiana. Tell me that this didn't affect you.

And, if you have videos you want to share, shoot me a note and I'll post them.

Good online tools for your nonprofit

As regular readers know, I am telling audiences all the time that the future of philanthropy is inextricably linked to better use of technology. Those nonprofits that capture that perfect interface of mission and tech will thrive. Those that don't, won't.

Here are a few tools that can help you move this along.

Discussion lists: Crowdsourcing works, and younger staff, volunteers and donors all want more input into decisions. TechSoup has some guidance and ideas for you on using discussion lists.

Social Networks: There are big ones, like Facebook, and smaller ones that serve a specific purpose, like LinkedIn. I love Ning, which allows you to set up your own private social network in about 5 minutes...and its free. Think about a network for your board, or staff, or volunteers. If they are younger, they are very comfortable in this environment.

Here is some good information from Wild Apricot, posted on TechSoup, about getting started on Facebook

Speaking of Wild Apricot, their Nonprofit Technology Blog is a must read if you are into tech and charities.

Photos.....you look good!

Whenever I'm doing a gig and someone wants to take a photo for their newsletter, I always ask them to use the filter that makes me look a: 10 years younger and b: 20 pounds lighter. Somehow they always seem to have left those particular filters home. Oh well.

But photos CAN make a big difference in making your organization look better. With digital cameras being so cheap, flexible and good quality, you probably have more photos than you want to sort through, but you also want to make any photo you use, either on the web or in your print materials look terrific. But how to do that simply and cheaply?

TechSoup has a great article on this subject here. It showed up in their weekly newsletter, By The Cup, which everyone who is concerned about nonprofit technology should subscribe to.

Happy snaps, as our friends from the UK would say!

Video, video, video to tell your story

I'm in Seattle (one of my three favorite American cities) doing a two day session on staff recruitment and retention. Much of our talk is about engaging employees in their work, hiring character first, and many of the things that regular readers know I believe in in workplaces.

Two key books to help you retain more staff:
The Three Signs of A Miserable Job, by Pat Lencioni
Now, Discover Your Strengths, by Marcus Buckingham

That said, much of the discussion has moved around the power of video on websites to tell the mission story, to show what a particular job is about to potential applicants, to focus on giving opportunities. Again, regular readers know I believe in video and that YouTube has lowered the bar on the need for the highest cost highest end video.

But you still need people who know what they are doing. You need talented videographers, and then to share their product. Here's a link to an article on TechSoup about just this issue.

Want to see some examples? Go to the 2008 DoGooderTV awards site. You'll see the power of this medium.

Who to use to help you? One good source is a company that is dedicated solely to nonprofits: GoodEye Video. You can check out their website...I'm impressed with their work.

The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is even more true for video....give it some thought, and see what may be the best use for your organization.

One more marketing trap

Longtime readers, either here, or of my books, know that I feel strongly that most nonprofits have a severe marketing disability that needs to be overcome if they are to be successful in providing the most mission to the most people. That disability is a trap, and now I've realized that there aren't just one, but two, traps to fall into.

The first trap/disability wraps around the issue of needs versus wants. People have needs. People seek wants, and nonprofits often get trapped in their perspective that everything really is about needs. The feds, states, United Ways---all of them do needs assessments. Nonprofits have professionals on staff in their area of expertise, and can diagnose needs very well. Whether you are a museum curator, a teacher, nurse, or rabbi, you can look at me (or my community) run some numbers (or tests) and tell me what I need. That skill is crucial to your organization's mission-success, but it runs smack up against good marketing which is all about wants. To find out about wants, you have to ask. If you don't ask, you can't give people the things they need in the way that they want them---and you don't do as much mission as you could.

(You can read more about my marketing thoughts at the Marketing Ideas section of my website.)

So, first trap: needs versus wants.

The second trap? This one has come to me slowly, kind of like a ship coming over a horizon....and it has to do with a more complex set of thoughts around generation change. Let me summarize.

Different generations are really different cultures (and sub-cultures, but that's not the issue today). Just as we are influenced by our ethnic background, just as we are shaped by our family, we are, in a very real sense, children of the times in which we grew up, shaped by the music, the culture, the experiences, the technology that surrounded us between the ages of 12 and 25 or 30. The more I talk to people about generation change, the more I see this clearly.

Why should this be surprising? It's true with ethnicity. All of us know that Caucasians and African-Americans "see" and "hear" things differently. My African-American friends often talk about the racial code words they hear in conversation, on television, or on radio that go right over my head as a Caucasian male. So experience and background can influence worldview, right? No news there.

I think it's the same for generations. If you know someone who is a Greatest Generation member, they usually think of money differently than those of us who are younger---why? They went through the Great Depression. That's an obvious influence, but there are hundreds more, often subtle ones that make up who we are.

Here's the trap.....being blind to generational differences in marketing: assuming that what I want from my generational perspective is the same as every other generation wants. This gets us back to one of my most quoted marketing truisms: Ask, Ask, Ask, and then Listen!

I'm still thinking this through, and it may not be as profound as it seems to me at the moment....we'll see.

What do you think?

If a picture is worth.....

I've been telling audiences this past fall a lot about generation change and nonprofits, and about upgrading their websites to include video. Most boomers moan and don't even think about the idea, since they assume I'm talking about huge production cost. We (and by we, I mean boomers) were raised when a 5 minute video HAD to be professionally produced and cost thousands of dollars. And, we had to wear a tie....ugh. As an aside, a three-fold brochure also cost thousands to be professionally designed and printed--and we had to print 10,000 copies to make it "affordable." No wonder our marketing print material was old, out of date, and non-targeted....

But back to video. The bar on "good" video has changed, and YouTube changed it. If you haven't been there, go a take a look. Go to www.youtube.com and search for, say, Charity, or Nonprofit. You'll see stories about nonprofits, video produced by nonprofits, etc.

And what you'll see is that the quality of the video varies widely. Which means that video posted on your website does not have to be 60 Minutes quality. It has to be reasonably good, but most important, it needs to tell a human story. For people under 30 (by which I mean the donors, volunteers, staff and board you want) video is the most compelling way to catch their eye and tell that story.

A couple of places to get help. First, YouTube has a nonprofit program to get you started. Go here to check it out.

Second, the Chronicle of Philanthropy has an article on nonprofits using video in all kinds of cool ways.

Still pics are great---video is better. Costs are down, and impact is high. Hmmmm. Sounds like a formula for success to me.

More on nonprofits and Social Networking

JoAnn Fritz, in her regular About.com column on nonprofits has a great set of resources for anyone looking to expand their presence on the web beyond just a website.

http://nonprofit.about.com/od/nonprofitpromotion/tp/Resources-for-Social-Media.htm?nl=1

includes help on blogs, social networks, etc. Definitely worth a read. And this time of the year, it's good to think a bit about what we plan to do next year.

For many nonprofits, 2008 needs to be the year they hitch a ride to Web 2.0.

At the speed of net.

Really interesting paper (thanks to Cheryl Taylor for the headsup) from University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's Center for Marketing Research entitled "Blogging for the Hearts of Donors: Largest US Charities Use Social Media". It's well worth the read.

The paper discusses the use of Web 2.0 applications in fundraising and community awareness work. From the promo page for the paper"

" This research proves conclusively that charitable organizations are outpacing the business world in their use of social media. Seventy-five percent of the charitable organizations studied are using some form of social media including blogs, podcasts, message boards, social networking, video blogging and wikis. More than a third of the organizations are blogging. Forty-six percent of those studied report social media is very important to their fundraising strategy."

Good reading for anyone who is thinking about NOT increasing their online presence.

Get on(line) with it....and getting back into it.

The Wall Street Journal has a great story (and a good listing of resources) on younger adults working online to help charities raise their visibility, market, and raise funds in a variety of interesting and innovative ways. Whether through their blogs, or on MySpace or FaceBook, these young philanthropists are making a difference.

"A New Generation Reinvents Philanthropy" is worth the read.

As an aside, my extended absence should be pretty much done. We're over the worst of our moving chaos, and more and more of our new home is appearing as the piles of boxes are opened, emptied, and the boxes thrown out.

I actually got to answer some email last night with a degree of thoughtfulness. My mind had been so full of "gotta do this, and this, and this, and then that..." in an endless chain of priorities that I hadn't been able to sit quietly and think clearly; my mind would go right back to my "To-Do" list in about 4 seconds. Made me reminisce (not happily) about my days as an Exec of a nonprofit whose entire funding had been eliminated.....so much to do I couldn't focus well. Not a good feeling.

Anyway, more postings soon. I'm starting the guts of a really fun project on generation change for a mid-size city in the Midwest, and in about two weeks, I'm back on the road for the first of about 20 different speeches during September, October and November.

Using Web 2.0

Much has been made in tech circles of Web 2.0, the acceleration of the web with more input from users. Think Wikipedia, Threadless, YouTube, FlickR, MySpace, or the millions of online product reviews that you can access (and may contribute to) online. So are nonprofits using this giant leap forward?


The answer is yes, at least according to Social Computing Magazine, in an article entitled Non-Profits Now 'Get' Web 2.0 and Social Media, Say Experts


I was really pleased to see this level of information, and it synchs with what I've been seeing in organizations that have younger staff who are pushing more online interaction. It's fast, its reasonably inexpensive, and, best of all.....it works.

And, if you're interested in starting a smaller social networking group around your mission---check out Ning. It's fast, easy and free!

Help make your case---visibly

Google has announced that it will tutor and help nonprofits use its Google Earth service through what it is calling Google Earth Outreach. The program, complete with tutorials, allows you to use the mapping and satellite imagery to make your mission statement more compelling.

Think: "We need funds for our group homes" with a map that shows your existing facilities and the unmet needs in your community.

Think: "Where can I make a donation to Goodwill when I'm on vacation?" With a map of Goodwill donation boxes by zip code, and a map of how to get there.

Think: "Our mission is to stop deforestation" with close up images from space of what deforested land looks like.

This is a terrific resource, only limited by our imagination. Check it out.

So help me.....

Actually, the proper syntax is probably "So, help me..."

The issue at hand is my podcasts. They aren't selling. I'd like your opinion as to why.

For those who haven't been to the part of me website that deals with podcasts, take a quick look at www.missionbased.com/buypodcasts.htm and you'll see the deal, the range of topics, etc. If you like, you can download the free sample podcast and listen to it.

I developed the podcasts last fall and winter, in response to literally hundreds of requests over the years for tapes and CD's of my lectures. I tested the format and sample podcast with about a dozen nonprofit execs and board members, and asked for feedback (all was very, very good) and suggested pricing...the average was $10 each. I thought that a bit high. As my tech son says, "The diference between free and $1 is huge online, but the difference between $1 and $5 is not much". We started at $7.50 each. And did badly.

I added free powerpoints so that people could look and listen at the same time. I sent out emails to my newsletter list, and included postings on new topics here and in my newsletter.

After the first two months, I cut the price to $4 each and sales rose, for a minute or two. Given the fact that each podcast takes about 6 hours to script, record, mix, create the powerpoint and post on Yahoo, $4 seemed a steal.

Apparently only to me.

Sales were up a bit, but very intermittent.

So, let's look at the numbers for the six months ended April 30:

Free podcasts downloaded: 366
Paid podcasts purchased: 35

Not exactly a revenue stream...more a seepage.

And, during the past two months (March and April) the buypodcasts.htm page has recorded 2700 hits, so the traffic is there...

So here's where you can help. Why are sales so slow? Here are some thoughts that have occurred to me, and I'm sure you'll have better ones:

1. In a $.99 ITunes world, the price should be lower.

2. I'm ahead of the tech curve--most people who are nonprofit managers are over 40--and they don't know from podcasts. (In truth, I did have a couple of people say that (despite the clear disclaimer on the website) that they didn't own an Ipod and thus couldn't listen to them.)

3. My topics aren't the right ones.

4. The podcasts are terrible.

5. Other???????

As I said, please go to www.missionbased.com/buypodcasts.htm and download the free podcast. Take a listen, and tell me what you think, and what you advise. As someone who has spent his life helping nonprofits, this seems like a good match. As a marketing guy, obviously what people seem to need (and ask for) isn't what they want.

Any ideas, suggestions, etc. are really, really welcome.

Thanks!

Dressing down/Aging Down

One of the themes of my new book on Generation Change is that we need to "age down" our organizations...not ignore the wisdom of the eldest, but understand that we need a lower mean age of board, staff, management, etc.

Age down, and dress down, too. Well, in some situations at least...and some that may surprise you.

Two examples: One from this past weekend, and one from the AP newswire.

First, real life. Chris and I went to a terrific Valentine's Pops Concert put on by our local symphony this past Saturday. Much fun.

Back in the day, Chris and I were season ticket holders at the symphony. It was our "date night"--8 evenings of dinner and a concert a year, and much anticipated by both of us. But, as time passed, first we needed to drive kids to their own Saturday night activities, and soon there was competition for cars as drivers licenses were earned; we drifted away from the symphony. Our concert nights were traded in for things that we could do with our kids as they got older: Broadway shows, visiting musical groups like Chanticleer, Wynton Marsalis, or Spyro Gyra.

All of which leads up to the story of Saturday night....I bet it's been a decade or more since we went to our local symphony. So, as we got ready to go, I looked at my collared shirt and khakis outfit and worried that I would be under dressed. I suggested to Chris that I wear a jacket and she said I'd be fine. I disagreed, since "everyone wore coats and ties to the symphony."

Her answer: "You're showing your age."

Chris was right. The audience was what you'd expect: we were on the youngish side of the mean age. Perhaps 1,000 people there and I saw....three ties, maybe four. No suits. Lots of cargo pants, khakis and sweaters; even jeans. My recollection of the dress "code" was a decade out of sync with reality. And, I was relieved. I HATE ties. (I think it comes from a boarding school background where we had to wear ties everywhere but the shower. But that's another story.)

As a nice follow-up, an article showed up in today's paper.(this copy is from another newspaper, but the story is the same one). It concerns a dress code fight in senior citizen retirement communities. And, its an excellent example of how nonprofits are going to need to adjust their services as generations change.

Ya gotta know the territory

In this week's Chronicle of Philanthropy, there's an interesting story on tech uses gone...well, not awry, but let's say not as successful as hoped.

It's about nonprofits who are trying to use Myspace, Facebook, and texting to raise both awareness and money.

Read the story, and you'll see what I mean when I say--you HAVE to know the territory when you move into it. The successful nonprofits on MySpace, for example, have engaged college students to make sure that what they are posting does, in fact, engage people and does not just look like a clueless parent at a frat party.

Really, this all boils down to another application of the classic marketing cycle. Whether its a new service, a marketing blurb, an online application, it's all the same: figure out who your market is, ask/research what they want and give it to them to the extent you can. And, there is also a bit of ignorance here of the needs versus wants rule: We all have needs, we all seek wants.

The online world is no different.

Pre-book buzz...

With my new book on generation change coming out next month, I've been speaking on the subject and have been asked about best practices in the area. Interestingly, there really aren't a lot.

My consulting on this issue has led me to develop some metrics of my own about retirement plans, benefits, board and staff age diversity, websites, marketing materials, technology use, planning, etc., etc., etc.

Really, everything on the manager's plate now needs to be viewed generationally, and my problem as a consultant has been to view it ONLY that way, and not get into the my other 25 years of experience....and add things on and on and on to my recommendations that have to do with general good management and stewardship practices rather than just limit myself to just the generation specific stuff. Yet, if I see a problem and don't bring it up, I feel like I'm committing malpractice....hmmm.

I'm also pretty excited about the reaction to the book so far. A TON of pre-publication orders are in...more than with my other books by far. And everyone seems to get this issue.

Funny, too. I've been perseverating over the cover. Fieldstone has been nice enough to let me have significant input into the decision making process, as they did for the paper marketing piece. Today a friend pointed out that in the book I say this....

"What about that expensive brochure you just wasted your money on-because the teens you need to reach are too busy with MySpace and text-messaging to read your glossy money pit?"

My response was that the paper marketing piece is for boomer execs who still control all the money!

And, two different people told me today that they are giving speeches on generational issues.

Seems this is on everyone's mind.

As it should be. It's a huge, huge issue for the sector.