Webinar listing for February 2011

As regular readers know, having a culture of life-long learning is a key component of success for any nonprofit.

Leading that culture by example is the job of senior management.

"But I just can't get away right now" is the early foreshadowing of failure in this crucial area.

So, stay at your desk and choose one (or more) of over 30 webinars for nonprofits listed on the Wild Apricot Blog yesterday. A shout out to them for gathering all this information.

Go. Learn. Be brilliant......and show your staff that they should do the same.

Keys to Smart Stewardship

I'm working on a new book tentatively titled: Smart Stewardship: Making the Best Decisions for Your Nonprofit. The book will contain some new ideas on innovation, growth, going to scale and a decision tree for both board and staff to use.

This month's Mission-Based Management Newsletter contains the first of two part series on the key elements of Smart Stewardship. In the next issue, I'll lay out my decision tree.

Take a look and feedback is welcome!

Junk food or no food?

Tough times always equal tough choices. For families, for businesses, for governments and for nonprofits. And therein lies today's discussion:

Trust me, I know every reader out there works or volunteers for a nonprofit that has a great and valuable mission. That said, I challenge any of you to say your mission is MORE mission rich (not equal, but MORE) than those organizations among us that feed the hungry.

Thus, there is extra poignancy in the piece posted January 13 on the NPR website entitled "Overburdened Foodbanks Can't Say No to Junk".

I'm sure you can guess the tradeoffs reported in the story. Junk food or no food. Or less food.
And, you can see in the interviews that the staff of the foodbanks are really working the problem, not simply accepting a downgrade in the nutrition level of the food they are handing out.

Good for them, and there is NO criticism implied here.

That said, this kind of dilemma faces nonprofit staff and boards everywhere in a recession. How much less quality can/should we do? When should we stop a service rather than do it less optimally than we would prefer? These are hard strategic and mission questions, and ones I wouldn't be surprised if most readers have faced. I can't tell you what the right level of service/quality is for your organization; only you and your board can make that decision.

But I do have a couple of suggestions on process.

First, well before you have to make very hard decisions, develop a decision tree/format/sequence that everyone has input into and then agrees on. Rely heavily on your mission and values in developing this decision tree. Next, practice using the decision tree with a couple of real world cases to see how it works. Finally, apply it to staff meetings, board sessions and larger strategy meetings.

If everyone is both aware of as well as on the same page regarding HOW decisions are made, they'll be more comfortable with all the outcomes. This is not to say they'll love the decisions: Sometimes the best decision is simply the least worst.

I'd put junk food in that category.

Updates and reflections

I've had a week, no, ten days now sitting most of the day with my laptop in my, well, lap. I had surgery on January 4 (new hip) and am doing really well, thank you very much.

The reason I'm telling you that is that I've had LOTS of time to do two long delayed jobs: updating my website links and content, and starting a new book on nonprofit decision-making. The updating has allowed me to reflect and be yet again awed by how many thousands of resources are available online for nonprofits. To any of you under forty, this statement probably results in a "Yeah, so?" But to anyone over 50 who can still remember the 80's or early 90's, you are probably saying "Yeah!" because of how much improvement there has been.

And this spills over into the new book. When my first book, Mission-Based Management, was being researched in 1992-3, I did a quick (well, nothing was quick then) search on Compuserve (remember Compuserve?) for "nonprofit management" and found three (3), THREE titles, one of which was an early edition of Bruce Hopkins' terrific books on nonprofit law. There was nothing for nonprofit marketers (some stuff on fund-raising, but not on marketing) nothing on technology, nothing (NOTHING!) on nonprofit boards.

And to access the few books or papers that were there, anyone interested had to find a Foundation Center outpost at a regional or University library. If you didn't live in a town with one of these collections, you were screwed. Oh, these Foundation Center collections were also where you went if you wanted any information on the funding interests of a particular Foundation. Think how hard it had to be just to startup a nonprofit. Go google the search string "How do I start a nonprofit" and see what happens? I could darn near start a nonprofit from my house while recovering from surgery.

But back to books: If you go to Amazon.com right now and just look at the first page of results from a search for books in the area of "nonprofit management" you'll see twelve (of the 4,265 total hits) books that are ALL awesome. How wonderful for the sector.

My point is not how hard we old folks had it in the past. Rather, it's to celebrate how far we've come. If there are people who feel that nonprofits should be better managed (and trust me, that's a huge improvement in itself from 1985) and publishers who think that material will sell, it's because there's a demand for that message from board, staff and funders.

That said, with all this excellent information out there in print and online, we're confronted with the sad fact that there are still only 24 hours in the day. We can't just sit at our computers and read, or in our offices and read, or go to webinars, or look at HowCast videos. We have organizations to run.

We have all this amazing information at our fingertips that can improve our nonprofit's mission-capability and not enough time to use it all.

So what to do? My suggestion for nonprofit leaders is to set an example as a life-long learning and tell your staff that you expect them to do the same thing. Delegate the search for good ideas online and in print to all your staff (yes, all) and have regular discussions about what's been learned. You can have a book club, sure; they're great. But you can also have "website" clubs, or online magazine clubs, or .pdf article clubs, or webinar clubs where you all experience (read, listen, watch) the same thing and then discuss how to utilize what you've learned to the benefit of the people your organization serves.

Happy learning!

Your tax cuts to charity?

Interesting idea in an article today in the Chronicle of Philanthropy. A new site called Give It Back For Jobs is designed to help anyone who wants to to give their tax cut back. There's a method of calculating your tax benefits, and links to four charities as well as the option to name your own and do the donation right on the site.

As I say, interesting idea, and I hope it works!

A good resource listing

Got a note a few days back from Shawn Fisher at Online Schools about a listing of resources for students in nonprofit management at various online schools.

This blog is included (if mis-named) along with a ton of great places for you to check out.

In addition, Online Schools offers you a search option to find online educational opportunities in nonprofit management--but only at the Master's level. Since I know of a number on online schools, none of which weren't listed as "recommended, it's hard to tell what drives the recommendations, but still the resource list is good.

Just in time for the holidays

The IRS has announced that they are going to be scrutinizing nonprofits even more in the coming year. Good idea, but poor timing, to say the least.

That said, better oversight is important, and I fully support it, within the context of the new 990, and focusing on both educating nonprofits in how to best report and then going after people who abuse the system.

I read earlier some blogs that decried this "new attack on charities" but really, with so many nonprofits and so much abuse, we need some help in policing the sector. The IRS audits went up 30% from 2008-2009 and another 12% in 2010.

This article from the Chronicle of Philanthropy does a good job of laying out what's coming and what you should be paying attention to. Payroll taxes and loans to executives and trustees (which always falls into the category of what were you thinking?) are high on the list.

Check out the article and be prepared.

Is there an app for common sense?

Got an iPhone? Want to make a donation to a worthy nonprofit via an app that the charity provides? No can do.

What? We're in an era where just about everything except using the toilet is migrating to smart phones and you can't donate from your phone? What's that about?

Well, ONLY if your smart phone is an iPhone, according to this article from the New York Times posted yesterday. An Android phone is fine. Hmmmm, and I thought Apple was always on the cutting edge of awesome.

This is ridiculous, and good for Beth Kanter for spearheading a movement to get it changed.

Nonprofit Culture--a decoding

Just got my copy of a great new book on nonprofit culture. It's called The Nonprofit Organizational Culture Guide: Revealing the Hidden Truths that Impact Performance, by Paige Hull Teegarden, Denise Rothman Hinden, and Paul Sturm.

This book has a ton of good usable information for your nonprofit. Check it out!

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.

A good place to start on Cyber Monday

For many years, our family has exchanged gifts of donations to nonprofits. My wife and kids will make a donation to a charity that they like, and give me a note, or card to open on Christmas day that lets me know about the donation. I love this, and my kids ask for the same thing--sometimes even suggesting the charity.

We also do this for birthdays and other big events, and I know many other families are similarly-minded.

All of which leads me on this Cyber Monday to point you to TisBest Philanthropy. At this nonprofit site, you can purchase a gift card for the holidays, birthdays, anniversary, weddings, whatever. You can get a plastic card to give, or a note, or just have an email sent. Then, the recipient goes back to the website and chooses from one of hundreds of legitimate nonprofits from all parts of the nonprofit sector.

This is a good idea, and one I hope succeeds. In fact, I'm giving my wife a card from TisBest this Christmas...shhh, don't tell her!

Many hands, light work

Most of us donate some of our time, talent and/or treasure to nonprofits.

In the treasure department, I'm all about aggregators for charity donations. Whether loans through Kiva, or direct donations through groups like DonorsChoose, or GlobalGiving, a group of us can help an individual or small group by each pitching in a few dollars. There are dozens of other sites like these, some that get a worthy social enterprise going, or a highly creative idea, like KickStarter.

So, we have a way to micro target our donations of money, but what about our time and talent? I can volunteer on a ton of websites, but that usually means the standard volunteer positions that take up a lot of time and require a longer commitment. What if I just have a little bit of time, or am interested in solving a vexing problem for a nonprofit?

Enter Sparked, a cool and growing solution for just this problem. Not only can your nonprofit post needs, or individuals (or small groups) provide help, but Sparked also encourages and facilitates small business and large corporations to facilitate volunteering through the site.

Very cool...check it out.

Looking at Nonprofits in a better way

Charity Navigator has gotten a lot of press lately for a laudable revamp of its system of grading nonprofits, focusing more on outcomes and less on the totally useless metric of administrative percentage. Good for them, and I hope other online watchdogs as well as foundations and government funders pay attention to Guidestar's process and what they decide to look at.

Here's a New York Times story from yesterday on the subject.

Measuring true outcomes is often very, very difficult; something more funders need to both recognize and fund. Fewer and fewer charities are playing the old game of "we're doing good, so give us money and trust us". Some are still trying to sell their activity levels "we saw 300 people this month as opposed to last month", but more are concerned with outcomes, as in "we got 23 people living wage jobs this month that will help them become more self sufficient."

This is an issue all of us need to keep up on.

Here we go again...to what end?

The entire issue of congress/state legislatures looking and overseeing nonprofit management salaries drives me a bit nuts.

Here is just the latest example from today's New York Times.

I'm mildly torn: some nonprofit CEO salaries do seem high to me in my tax bracket, but so do pretty much all for-profit CEO salaries. I frankly don't believe any business person is worth multiple millions a year. If I were a shareholder of a corporation that pays that much to top management, I'd be rightly upset.

So, should donors be upset about "high" management salaries for hospitals, universities or national charities? Well, they can be, and they can withhold their donations. That's free enterprise. States and the feds can as well, but for congress (with it's free health care for life, I might add) to decide what's "high", or for a state legislature to limit CEO compensation (for for-profits as well, to be fair, at least in New Jersey) bothers me greatly.

Large nonprofits are, well, large, complex organizations, with thousands of employees and huge assets at risk. The people who run them should be paid according to market scale, with the understanding that the market is somewhat ameliorated by the mission satisfaction of what the organization is doing.

The tragedy of all this discussion is that these legislators are only looking at how to cut cost in a high profile way to get a little PR shelter. Most legislatures have been politically cowardly about balancing their budgets (i.e.raising taxes) for decades and their prior acts are now biting them on the butt. They prefer to distract us all by saying "Look at her! She's paid too much! She works for a charity! Take out your angst on her, not us!"

What about the fact that for hundreds of thousands of staff at smaller nonprofits, salaries (even at the top of the organization) have never been close to even adequate, since the same state and federal officials who now pine over .01% of nonprofit salaries have never considered paying a reasonable rate for the very, very needed services these nonprofits provide so that their employees could live reasonably?

In a society that delegates so many of its toughest problems to the nonprofit sector, shouldn't some consideration be made for the people that work there?

The more things change....

Yesterday, I had a great day working with the annual learning event for Ronald McDonald House Charities, a session I've had the good fortune to speak to three or four years running. The staff and board of local Ronald McDonald Chapters from the US and Canada are here, and they are a terrific and fun group of people.

I talked a bit about being a mission-based manager in the morning and then about innovation in the afternoon, and the group was responsive and attentive, even when they were tired in the afternoon.

What intrigued me were the one on one questions during the break. Here's the breakout:

"My board president is too controlling" (3 CEOs)
"My CEO doesn't give the board enough to do." (2 Board Presidents--and no, I don't know if they were the same agencies as the CEO's above!)

"My CEO doesn't ask for enough staff input (2 younger staff)
"My 20 something staff just want to have input on everything!" (4 boomer CEOs)

This is a pretty standard breakout these days of questions from a large group. The first set-regarding board-staff balance--hasn't changed in the 30 years I've been consulting, and I suspect never really will. The second set is coming to a head as more young staff enter the workforce and demand/expect a seat at the decision table.

Today, I go talk to the board representatives. Should be interesting to see what they ask....

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.