Potpourri

Returned to my pile of reading today to see some interesting stuff. To wit:

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has an excellent story about cities that lose a great deal of property taxes to charities who own their own buildings. Some cities have been charging fees for years, and I don't think that this is a bad thing in some form. After all, the organizations use police, fire, and other services just as much as for-profit or private citizens. The three cities where the issue is most severe are Boston, Baltimore and Seattle, based on the key indicator of "unpaid" nonprofit property taxes as a percentage of the city budget. Boston's is 11.6% (and Boston does charge fees), Baltimore 5%, and Seattle 4.9%. No right answer here.

Another Chronicle story worth reading is about "The Vanishing Donor", donors who aren't giving over and over because the nonprofit they give to is not meeting their needs. Interesting research is cited about how donors feel that nonprofits don't tell them what they do with donations, never contact them without asking for money, waste money on trinkets (90% of which are pitched), and don't say thank you, either enough, or at all.

Sounds pretty straightforward to me. Be transparent, say please and thank you, and worry about customer service in fund raising as much as you do in other charitable services. Sp why don't more organizations do just that?

Business Week this week talked about companies who are banning emails once a week--making people actually talk to each other....another good idea, but sad that it has to be mandated.

Another story was on a cell phone for tech-averse people that is just a...wait...wait...wait...a phone....it just makes phone calls. Nothing else. And the phone is incredibly popular.....To me this is a great and long overdue product, but more importantly a warning to all of us that think that the more tech we add in to any recipe of services, the better.

Tech IS terrific, and no one who knows me would ever call me a Luddite, tech works for nonprofits ONLY when it is used to enhance mission capability. But when it just pisses people off....not so much.

Goin' to Kansas City

Headed out today to work with three Goodwill's who are sharing information and best practices. Good people. Should be fun and informative. Free bonus: it's my last trip out of town for the year--according to United, I've been on 94 flights this year.

Short updates:
-My bookclubs are back. My major contractor restarted the clubs in January. We'll be reading books I've already read, but I look forward to the conference calls and conversations, and this will also give me time to read new things on my own.

-It's exam grading time for my Kellogg class. All the final projects are due today and I'll be grading in the hotel room in KC. This is a new exam format for us and I'm eager to see how it works out.

-This month I'm working on two new publications: business development, and life long learning for nonprofits, both of which I hope to post on my downloads area by Christmas.

-I have mixed feelings about the idea of a separate nonprofit agency in the US Department of Commerce. Seems good to focus on our needs but sure to wind up with more regulation. The Brits have their own agency, and ALL government funding goes through it...which presents some problems. On the other hand, if such an agency could come up with uniform reporting requirements for all nonprofits, it would be worth its weight in....paperwork reduction?

-Finally, a fun closing of a circle. Last Tuesday, I visited a friend (Allen Gouse) who runs the Easter Seals of Greater Hartford. He took my to the Easter Seals work center, where people with disabilities do light manufacturing, fulfillment, etc. Turns out its in the same building where my Dad used to work. The building was long abandoned, and renovated into what is essentially a nonprofit center. I remember sitting in the back seat of our car watching people come out of the factory waiting to pick up my dad at that building, and to have the structure used for this purpose is just too cool for words. My parents, who were two of the eight original founding board members of the Hartford Association of Retarded Citizens, would be thrilled. Me too.

Off to KC.

Conflict of Interest

Two days of rain, wind, ice, snow, very cold, all a week after a 70 degree day. Welcome to winter.

More importantly, my December newsletter is available online. This month's topic is "Conflict of Interest."

Interestingly, I had scheduled the topic for the December issue some months ago, and then coincidentally got hit with a number of inquiries at training gigs in the past three weeks, including a board president who told me that he didn't really understand why there was all the fuss about conflict statements, and one ED who said her board was resisting signing the statement she had developed.

Ugh. This is a must-have for all nonprofits in today's environment, and I urge you not only to have a conflict of interest statement for your board and staff, but also to post it right on the front of your website. Be transparent here, too.

Thankful and full

Back on the road today (after a terrific Thanksgiving visit with two of my three kids) for my last Kellogg class of the year (sniff!). Talking tonight on performance measurement, sharing the lecture time with Janet Froescher of United Way of Metropolitan Chicago, who is doing amazing things and, in my view, re-inventing the UW business/effectiveness model.

Then, I'm off to Connecticut to do three sessions for the annual conference of the Connecticut Association of Nonprofits in Hartford. Some on generation change, some on leadership and decision making.

Over the break, in addition to being thankful, I worked on my full day presentation on my new book (tentatively) titled Generations: The Challenge of A Lifetime for Nonprofits. It's due out in early March. I'll post about the book in more detail as the publication date gets closer.

And, four more pod casts go up online this week. More about that tomorrow or the next day.

Let's go prey on the weak....

The current Business Week has a horrifying story
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_47/b4010059.htm?chan=search
called "Habitat for Hustlers".
It tells the story of mortgage hustlers who go to Habitat House owners (who usually carry 0% mortgages) and entice them to take equity out of their home and a new variable rate mortgage. Many have been trapped, and may even lose their homes.
Ugh on the lenders.

But....wait...Double ugh on Habitat for selling off its mortgages to a wide variety of lenders with no right of first refusal. To me this again highlights the need for organizations to not just chase the money. I know that selling off mortgages lets HFH build other houses, but they need to think through using a reputable equity firm, or having some long term control over the mortgages to make sure that all the good they do is not erased in a foreclosure three years down the road.

Philanthropy Day #1

This week, I speak at two National Philanthropy Day events. Yesterday I was in Bonita Springs, FL, between Fort Myers and Naples. Tomorrow, I'm in the central Pennsylvania town of Altoona.

I spoke to a very attentive and receptive group yesterday morning, and then went to the Philanthropy Day awards ceremony, where individuals and businesses were lauded for their philanthropic efforts. After the awards, particularly the one for a young man from Haiti, there was hardly a dry eye in the house.

Inspiring words from the ceremony:

Regarding one awardee who has given away millions over his lifetime: "He was once asked by a friend "how much we would have been worth if he hadn't given all that money away?" His answer: "I would have been worth nothing"

Quote from another awardee: "I never saw a hearse with a U-Haul behind it."

Great event. I hope it inspires others as much as it did me.

Stupid, stupid, stupid

I was reminded again last night how dumb it is for our sector to have "administrative costs" as its primary metric of goodness.

My class at Kellogg was on Organizational Development, and, of course, part of any good OD program is regular training for staff. But, as one student with experience as a nonprofit staff person said, "That adds to our admin costs...and that's the biggest no-no we have."

Another student chimed in...."You had us read on the need for better health care benefits, and I agree staff want them, but it adds to our admin percentage, and thus it will never pass our management council."

I kind of went off a bit, telling the students that grading a nonprofit based on its admin percentage is like grading a car based on its weight. Interesting, but meaningless.

Of course, the funders disagree with me, since admin is easy, sounds important, and seems to reduce non-mission spending. But there has never been a direct (mission) cost that didn't have an associated indirect (admin) cost associated with it. By hammering on admin, by setting silly percentage targets for the entire sector, we are hurting the sector in very real ways.

Whatever happened to "capacity building"--wasn't that all about building administrative (and mission) capacity?

One exception to this rant-measuring admin year over year at the same agency has some management value. But to say (as I have heard from foundation people) that an admin percentage higher than 12% is unacceptable is....idiotic. For starters, agencies vary widely. Second, I'll guarantee that the foundation's admin % is higher than that, third who picked 12%.? My guess--someone picked it out of the air.

Anybody think FedEx is well run? Nordstrom's? How about the "great"companies in "Good to Great"? I'll bet serious money that their admin percentages are way higher than 12%.....

Hmmm. That's a good task for my Kellogg students.....

Put your money where your mouth is....

I waited a few weeks to post this: Kiva.org, the online microlending site, got hammered, a good hammered, but hammered nonetheless with a huge volume of hits, after they were featured on "Frontline in a great piece. You can see it here.
http://video.yahoo.com/video/play?vid=d49a36dd0a9e20af1bd2ec7a53c56abd.1100479

I think that the Kiva folks are really on to something here. They take the best of p2p, and the best of micro-lending, add in a little social networking, and all of a sudden you have a terrific way to help an individual help themselves.

Check out Kiva...and tell your friends. You can even put together a group and all lend to the same small business person...

Great stuff.

A vote for better donor management

I hope you voted.

On with life: donor management has become a larger issue as more nonprofits seek to keep a wide variety of donor profiles, gifts, preferences all in order. Of course, software has been developed, but which will work best for your nonprofit?

TechSoup to the rescue. Today's issue of "By the Cup" brought this link to an article that reviews and compares eight different software packages for donor management.

Take a look and see if this makes sense for you.

A week to....remember, or forget?

This week: Been in O'Hare 5 times totaling about 9 hours, changed time zones 6 times, gone through security 5 times. All forgettable. Talked to great groups in Tahoe (trends in nonprofit management) and Hilton Head (ethics in nonprofit management); both wonderful groups with terrific questions. Best of all, rendezvoused with my wife at O'Hare (how romantic) and headed for Ann Arbor to see middle son for final parent's weekend--very memorable.

Stayed at a great place in A2 (that's Ann Arbor), for the fourth time. Highly recommend the Ann Arbor Bed and Breakfast. Terrific people, wonderful location, great food and conversation. Pat and Bob make you feel right at home. And, like any B&B you get into, or overhear, great conversations.

From this morning: Two couples (both about my age) who had just met while eating, were talking about certain relatives. Man1 (from couple one) "My nephew is about 36. Graduated from here (Michigan) with an engineering degree went to work for Qualcomm for 10 years, had a great job, then you know what he did? He quit, and is in the nonprofit management program "(he said this as if it were a disease) "at Notre Dame. Now why would you do that?"

Woman2 (From couple two) "Well, both our kids, one a physician and the other an attorney, have given up their jobs in the past two years to go work overseas for NGO's. Both are about the same age as your nephew."

Man1 "What's an NGO?"

Woman2 "A nongovernmental organization, kind of like a nonprofit here in the US."

Man1 "Why would people do that? I mean throw everything away? I mean....."

Woman2 "All I can tell you is that my children have never been happier."

Man1 as he got up to leave. "Well, I'm glad they're happy, but I don't get it...."

Man2 to his wife (sotto voce) "Obviously."

That conversation recharged my batteries.....

Leadership and nonprofits

Last night's class at Kellogg was on Leadership in Nonprofits. It's always a lecture I look forward to....seems to hit a response chord with the students. Last night less so, since most of the students were exhausted from their Net Impact conference work.

But the discussion did move well, and I was intrigued that most students felt that the key leadership skills for nonprofit leaders and for-profit leaders are the same. This is a gradual trend over the past 4 years....more and more students see the intersection between the two kinds of organizations and wider and wider, and I think that's the way it should be.

I'm in the air most of the week, Sacramento, Tahoe, Chicago (5 times at O'Hare) Hilton Head, Ann Arbor. First talk is on Trends and Decision-Making in Nonprofits. Second one is on Ethics in Nonprofits. Interesting groups, too. We'll see what kind of push-back I get....

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder....

When Mondays are as good as Fridays

Yesterday, I was at the NetImpact Conference in Evanston. I was moderating a panel on the Tech and Philanthropy. (I mentioned this a few weeks back). The panelists were amazing, as are their organizations.

Linda Erlinger, Executive Director of DonorsChoose.org
Jessica Flannery, co-founder of Kiva.org
Dennis Whittle, founder of GlobalGiving.com

All these organizations are on the cutting edge of philanthropy, taking the p2p model and using it to connect donors and individual needs and recipients. The middle-person is out of the loop--and I think that is a good thing.

What struck me most, though was the passion that all three of these wonderful people bring to their work. They simply LOVE what they do.

I reminded me of a saying my grandfather used to have...he told his grandchildren to find something to do where "Mondays are as good as Fridays"...I've told my kids that, and I wish more people could say TGIM rather than TGIF.....

And nonprofits, with our mission, our passion, our good works offer such places. IF we remind our employees (who are also mostly overworked and underpaid) of the point: the mission, and the results of the mission being done.

Check out the websites---they are fascinating places.

Better website content?

Techsoup has a great set of articles, tools and suggestions on ways to make sure your website content is up to best practices, and meets the wants of your audience. A really good step by step guide.

This is a must for small, emerging organizations, but also a great review for any nonprofit with a website, new or old. Check it out, and while you are on the site, sign up for the free weekly newsletter.

I see such a range of quality in nonprofit websites. Some are great, some look like they were put up five years ago and left alone. I saw one yesterday for a national organization that was....hopeless. Hard to navigate, boring content, didn't answer questions, ugh.

Make sure that your site doesn't face the same fate....

The IRS is comin'

Excellent article in the October 12 issue of the Chronicle of Philanthropy on the IRS's increasing efforts to audit and watch nonprofit activity. They are particularly concerned with excessive exec pay and inappropriate loans to ED's and board members. The Director of the tax-exempt office, Lois Lerner has added nearly 12% more staff in the past year, mostly to the audit division. And, it appears that size does not matter: the IRS is going to audit large and small organizations.

The point? Make sure you are clean, clean, clean...and ready to cooperate.

An organization on whose board I served until September got an audit inquiry letter from the IRS last winter. I was audit committee chair at the time, so was closely in the loop. After one conversation, and shipping a few documents, the IRS said no problem, have a nice day. Why? Because we were completely clean, transparent, and totally cooperative. The "anomaly" they saw was easily explained, but at the same time there was nothing else to make them concerned.

Don't think that, because you are a small organization, or because your organization is new, or because you do good works (who doesn't?) that you can ignore the IRS rules and regs. You can't, and you put your mission in peril if you do. Remember, we have a special tax status because we are special organizations. We have to act like it and merit the community's trust in us.

I recently listened to an exec rant about how the IRS should spend its time on auditing big business, not charities, and how she was going to "stick it to them" if they darkened her door. She talked about calling her Congresswoman, and writing letters to the editor. I suggested that she might just put all that energy into making sure her audit committee had its records in order.
She bristled, and I told her she sounded like the driver on the highway who, when pulled over by the trooper for speeding, didn't argue that they were going too fast, but that others were going even faster. The law is the law, and the IRS's job is to enforce it.

And our job is to meet both the letter and the intent of the law. If we start feeling our good works give us a hall pass...let me change my metaphor....a get out of jail free card, we're both wrong and wrong-headed.

The charitable sector, and every one of us in it, needs to be above reproach, not looking for an angle. And if we screw up and the IRS notices, it's our fault, not theirs.

Fundraising, Firefox and other tech thoughts

There's a great Fundraising Toolkit available on Techsoup....these people are very good at what they do. This is a deep and wide set of resources for getting started, networking, going after grants and individual donations. Definitely take a look.


For newbies, Techsoup is an amazing resource for all things tech--as well as lower cost software---as well as pretty good soup recipes. Seriously. Check them out.

In other news, Firefox 2.0 is out, (and available in about 3 days) and I'm looking forward to taking it for a spin. I've used Firefox for 3 years now. No crashes, no bugs, no viruses. And a much, much better product that IE. In fact, the new IE-7 has tabbed browsing, something that has been in firefox for three years. In general, I love open source software. I use Firefox, Nvu (HTML editor), Thunderbird (email) and have just started running Open Office, which is really impressive. My experience with open source is that it has been cleaner, faster, safer and more innovative, and...it's free.

I really believe that nonprofits can benefit from using open source. Philosophically it's right up our alley, the cost is right and the quality is high. I urge all my clients to try one app, then another. I understand the IT people's concern, but I can tell you I've never had a client complain.

A great repository of open source apps (some VERY technical, others for regular users) is available on SourceForge. Take a stroll through it.

Cleaning out....and remembering

This week is a long time coming...I'm cleaning out my office in early prep for moving to Virginia. I'm going through client records, financial reports, old software, and many, many books and journals.

Because I had so much storage space, I tended to keep rather than pitch, resulting in a journey down memory lane when I looked at client organization lists from 1985, booted up disks (with some difficulty) from 1990 with strategic planning reports, and leafed through journals that hyped the new and unknown entity called the "Internet".

Fun to remember all the great people and great organizations I've been privileged to work with. Great to see how far the sector has come. A bit depressing to know that my time on the field of play is limited--and that some of the changes I hoped to be part of will probably not come in my lifetime.

But overall--a good feeling. Cleaning out takes longer than it should; so many ways to get distracted. But it really is beneficial to pause and reflect now and then.
.

Backup your backup

My last post was on a fateful day. About two hours after I posted, my hard drive on my laptop failed. Ugh.

But not as bad as it could be, since I had backed up the previous Monday. I had to leave town for Seattle and Idaho almost immediately, but had a hard drive on order. I thought through which (few) files I had worked on between the backup and the crash, and figured it would be no big deal. I knew that reformatting the hard drive and installing all the software would be a pain, but that's tech.

Being on the road for 6 days with no laptop felt like walking through the airport in only my boxers, but I was grateful for friend's laptops, and my thumb drive (which had all my training presentations on it.

Got home on the 12th, worked on the reinstall for a bit and then dropped it again to go to Boston
. Got home monday and spent some time before heading to Kellogg for a great class. Tuesday I really hit it, and then the realization smacked me in the face:

I had only backed up SOME things, not EVERYTHING. My email was gone, my newsletter mailing list (some 1400 people) was two months out of date, my podcast recordings had vanished, etc.

My fault. I was in a hurry, and didn't double check what I had backed up.

Double ugh.

So, now, two weeks later, I'm back up with some digital wounds to heal. Regular readers know I rant about backing up and disaster plans.

From now on, I'll rant about having a backup (person) check your backup.

Finding Community in the Sixth Circle of Hell

I'm heading home from New Paltz NY....beautiful area...and, it's fall, so the colors are amazing.

Yesterday though, was a different story. O'Hare went down early in the day, and was backed up all day long. Hundreds of flights were cancelled, most delayed. My commuter flight from Springfield to Chicago was cancelled, as were the next two, so I drove the 200 miles, and then dropped myself into the inferno. Lines were 15 minutes for the bathroom, an hour for customer service....you get the idea.

I was standby for a flight at 4:00 that actually left at 6:30. After two gate changes, the plane actually arrived, off loaded the passengers and loaded the lucky ones with boarding passes. When all of them were on board, there were about 40 of us waiting for an unknown, but small, number of seats. Since we had trekked together from gate to gate, and had depended on each other for information, we had developed a loose bond.

The gate agent explained that he had 6 seats.

He started calling names.

The first person stood up-----and the group broke out in spontaneous, sustained applause. Good for you...a pat on the back, a high five. Smiles all around. The other 5 people got the same reaction as they were called to board. The 34 of us who were left didn't quite want to leave, to spoil the moment....it sure turned a long day into a memorable one for me.

What power community has.

Mission mania

Last night my Kellogg class were told to find really bad missions online to bring to class and discuss. I had them critique them before class, and then we talked about them after I gave my spiel on what I think needs to be in a good mission statement.

Sadly, the students had NO trouble finding awful mission statements. Some were hundreds of words long. Some were nearly unintelligible, the grammar was so bad. Some talked about the founders but not what the organization's mission is. Ugh.

If you haven't checked your mission for a while, take a look. It may be a candidate for improvement.

Off tomorrow on the start of what is essentially a two week speaking and kid visit tour. Tomorrow I head to New Paltz, NY for a meeting of nonprofit financial managers. Friday to Quincy University in Quincy Illinois to talk about management. Should be fun.

The next generation....

Sorry, not Star Trek, but I will use the term "engage", although it doesn't sound as good as when Patrick Stewart says it....

We need to engage our young people in charity, on all levels. While schools encourage/require high schoolers to volunteer, and college campuses overflow with opportunities to help, each family should look at ways to help their children fall into the good habit of charity.

Carol Weisman has the prescription and the how to in her terrific book:

Raising Charitable Children

This is a really good resource for your community, your workplace, your book club, your civic group, your united way or your family.

Check it out!