Sunday Miscellany

I've had the luxury of nearly two weeks here in late summer, which has been terrific, made all the better by visits from two of my three kids, great weather and lots of boat time.

But, I set the time aside to have consistent focused time to work on the 2008 set of nonprofits that are participating in the Generational Readiness Assessment Project funded by the Foellinger Foundation. Nine nonprofits from the Allen County, IN. area are participating and I've spent much of the last ten days mulling over their data. I'm due to get them their reports and recommendations in the next few weeks, and I'll try to post the areawide findings if it's OK with the people at Foellinger. Interesting project.

In other news, Heather Carpenter at the Nonprofit Leadership 601 blog has included me in her list of "The (50) Next Generation Nonprofit Leaders You Should Know."

Thanks, Heather---and you're right, I don't quite know if I fit in "The Next Generation" or the last one! But I appreciate the thought, and I'm certainly in good company--it's quite a list.

Most importantly, check out the new Communique from The Listening Post at Johns Hopkins.
Titled "A Nonprofit Workforce Action Agenda" it makes some great suggestions on recruiting and retaining the best young people into our sector. Thanks, Lester, for yet another great contribution.

Want to learn more?

As most readers know, there has been an explosion of programs in nonprofit management over the past twenty years, both here in the US and overseas. I'm often approached by participants after lectures who tell me that they used one or more of my books in their classes, and I ask them where they studied and they tell me..."The nonprofit management program at X University", and I had no idea that there even was a program there.

I also get calls and emails from people looking to further their education, or from undergrad students wanting to go to grad school and study nonprofit management. It's been a problem to find a good resource on this issue, until the Kellogg Foundation funded Dr. Roseanne Mirabella at Seton Hall University to do some research. That effort led to the first good, searchable listing of nonprofit educational opportunities both in the US and overseas, along with a great FAQ. You can search by undergrad, graduate, PhD, credit, continuing ed, and online courses.

Here's the site: NonProfit Management Education. Thanks, Dr. Mirabella!

There's also a listing on the Nonprofit Academic Centers Council site. The NACC's mission is:

" to support academic centers devoted to the study of the nonprofit/nongovernmental sector, philanthropy and voluntary action to advance education, research and practice that increases the nonprofit sector's ability to enhance civic engagement, democracy and human welfare. ",

and the board is full of prominent people in the field. You can see the member organizations/programs by clicking on the appropriate link.

So, if you are looking to go back to school, or if you have a staff member that you want to develop, here's a great place to look for a program.

Learn, learn, learn.

Good stewardship for technology

As technology wends (some would say worms) its way into more and more of our daily lives, we need to remember that owning a computer/printer/server is, as with any other machine, NOT a set-it-and-forget-it situation.

Think about your vehicle: Whether its a car, van, truck or motorcycle, you'd never let it go years without changing the oil, cleaning it, checking the tire pressure, renewing insurance and license stickers and all the other maintenance items that come with the ownership of this important machine.

Same with technology--and this is multiplied by the number of machines you have--the desktops, laptops, printers, servers, routers, wireless access points, PDA's, cell phones and, of course, software.

I only have four machines to worry about--a home desktop, my current laptop, an old laptop that I keep in reserve, and a cell phone. Still, I have to regularly update software, screen for viruses, renew security software licenses, etc. Much of this I automate, but I still have to pay attention to this task, and I couldn't do it for 20 computers: I have a regular job.

Oddly enough--so does your IT person, whether or not he/she is a full-time IT, or just the poor soul who got stuck with adding the IT work to their job description because they were dumb enough to let people know they knew the difference between RAM and ROM.

(If you like that RAM/ROM joke, and/or if you are in that situation or know someone who is, buy a copy of "The Accidental Techie", by Sue Bennet. The joke comes from there...and it's a terrific resource.)

At any rate, what to do to stay on top of all your technology's needs for update, maintenance, heck, simply to know what your organization actually owns? There's tech management software, and TechSoup has a great article on Managing Your Organization's Technology Assets that I highly recommend. Chris Peters discusses what you need and how to make the best decision.

Check it out and get organized!

Mission and Values case study

Last week, I had the pleasure of facilitating a strategy retreat for Nexus, a nonprofit that provides a variety of services, primarily residential, to troubled teens and their families.

As you might expect, Nexus is financially dependent on government revenue, and the staff and board are considering diversifying to other services, other geographic markets, etc.

The strategy session ran on Tuesday night and Wednesday through about 2:00PM and included 21 senior staff and 6 board members. We went through the usual discussion of organizational status, SWOTs, national trends, a decision tree, and key markets. We closed with a prioritization process that allowed everyone to contribute.

Sounds pretty normal, at least for those of you who are involved in planning, right?

Not at all.

From the get-go, these people were focused on a number of important things.

First their mission "To change lives through our cornerstone values" and those values: "Honesty, responsibility, courage, care and concern".

I asked the group who could recite their mission and the values, and not only did they tell me that pretty much all their staff could, but that in treatment sessions the consumers (again, troubled teens) would be asked every evening what they or someone else had done that emulated their values.

In the retreat discussions that followed, ideas that were floated often received pushback based on one value or another. This discussion was vigorous, and very much aimed at resolving conflict based on the mission/value framework.

Wow. This is exactly what I talk about ---living your mission, living your values, dealing with decisions based on those key items. In fact, this month's Mission-Based Management Newsletter is about Vision, Mission, Values, but Nexus puts my thoughts into action.

And, Nexus takes it a step further. They have strategic, long-standing Key Focus Areas (KFAs) that guide their planning (they show up in each treatment location's plan) as follows:

1. Raise the standards of clinical and educational competence.
2. Develop, recognize and invest in the potential of our staff.
3. Adapt, diversify and grow.
4. Promote Nexus and build external relationships.
5. Improve technical competence.
6. Provide respectful physical environments for consumers and staff.

These are great and not just words on paper. The organization really is focused on these, and tries their best to live them. The KFAs are not short term--they provide the over-arching strategic focus that so many organizations (for profit as well as nonprofit) are lacking.

Congrats to the Nexus leadership, both volunteer and paid, for being a role model for other organizations as they consider their next strategic steps. I'm impressed.

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.

Credit Cards

As people who hear me speak know, I often point out that iF your nonprofit's website doesn't accept credit cards and PayPal, you've lost money. Period. The increasing number of people who are comfortable ordering online are less and less prone to want to write a check. In fact, fewer and fewer "checking account" customers, particularly under 30, EVER actually order checks from their bank.

Some older execs point out that credit cards cost a percentage of the revenue received (usually 4-6%), and I counter that 94% of something is better than 100% of nothing.

So what to do? TechSoup has the answers, of course. They always do on tech for nonprofits. Check out this article on the Techsoup website about credit card options and methods for your nonprofit. While you are there, make sure to check out TechSoup Stock, the donated (new) software available for nonprofits and libraries.

And, here's an article on selecting an online donation tool (software), also on the TechSoup site.

Happy fundraising!

Good data on volunteers

Many thanks to Nicole Pharm for turning me on to a great source for data on volunteering in the US from Volunteering In America. Check out the site and you can find data by state, city, some new research findings and how we volunteer.

But be careful---I went to the site and, even though I'm not a volunteer specialist, suddenly looked up and an hour had slipped by....the data is really interesting! If you are a volunteer coordinator, or planning on expanding your volunteer activities, check this out.

Character first for boards

I just returned from having a terrific two days with the Ronald McDonald House Charities board leadership session in Oak Brook. Great people, lots of fun discussion. I certainly learned a lot.

Yesterday, the group was focused on better board recruitment and retention. Most sessions on this start with what skillset the organization needs. We started with something different: what kind of person you should seek to have on your board. This set the group back a bit--they were ready to talk about skills. I pushed them to talk about character, and we got a great list going. Things like this:
Integrity
Dependable
Open minded
Entrepreneurial
Smart
This is not a complete list, but you get the idea.

Then we talked through a good laundry list of skills needed, repeatedly noting that the skills needed by any nonprofit change and should change in sync with their strategic plan.

But when we got done with those two lists, we focused on which is more important to start with: character or skills?

My feeling on this is strong: focus on character first. This is very consistent with pretty much all good leadership development advice: Hire character first in employees. Why shouldn't that extend to board members?

As John Maxwell says in his leadership writing: "You can't coach tall." Character first.

As you evaluate your board recruitment, make a list like the people at RMHC did: what kind of person do you want on the board? It will help avoid a lot of pain further down the road.

Google, and other free stuff

I was stunned recently when I asked a room of 200 or so execs how many of them had taken advantage of Google's $10k per month offer for free ads......not only did no hands go up, but most didn't know what a Google ad was....talk about opportunity lost. If you are in their group, check it out at Google Grants. Think about it---you want more volunteers in their 20's? You want more donors in that demography? TRY THIS! It's FREE.

Other free stuff---you should sign up for the free Fieldstone Alliance Tools You Can Use newsletter. Yes, they are trying to sell books, and yes, they are my publisher, but the stuff that they put in the newsletter is useful right now, even if you don't ever buy the book.

For instance, the current edition is about conflict resolution in the context of increasing collaboration and has some great ideas. Check it out.

I'm on my way to Chicago to teach at the Leadership Institute for the Ronald McDonald Houses from all over North America. I've worked with them before and they are great people. I'm looking forward to it.

Great attitudes during tough times....

I had a wonderful day with a group of nonprofits from Sarasota, sponsored by the Community Foundation of Sarasota (and a shout out to all the staff for making my day so easy). What a great group of nonprofit staff and board. Nonprofits in Florida are facing very very tough times, and so the topic of the day "Mission-Based Management in Difficult Financial Times" drew a crowd: the room was packed.

You might expect a lot of doom and gloom in a room like that, but people were upbeat, attentive and appreciative to the nth degree. Very inspiring, but then rooms of nonprofit staff always are to me.

I go back in December to talk about "Social Entrepreneurship" and in February to talk on "Generation Change in Nonprofits". I'm looking forward to both trips.

Mission-Vision-Values

This morning I was working on my August edition of The Mission-Based Management Newsletter, which will cover the topic of Mission, Vision, Values. In looking up some good resources I came across a fascinating (to a mission-nerd like me) website called Missionstatement.com, which has collected hundreds of mission statements, not only for nonprofits, but for schools, corporations, government, and individuals. Interesting reading, at least for me.

At the Alliance for Nonprofit Management meeting, I had the pleasure of hearing and then talking briefly to Darian Rodriguez Heyman, who is the ED of the Craigslist Foundation. In his talk, Darian told us about a new foundation online presence and asked for input from the group. Over and over, he repeated the mantra that was guiding the Foundation in its development: "Less time searching, more time doing good."

I loved hearing such focus on a key idea. While that statement is not their mission, it is a guiding principle for a major product, and allows the staff and volunteers to say focused on the desired outcome.

This is a great example of developing a project mission, but more importantly, using that project-mission to help guide the process all the time, not just at the outset.

The cost of higher educution and nonprofits

One of the concerns I have about nonprofits recruiting and retaining the best and brightest is the cost of higher education which, as a percentage of average family income, is an enormous barrier. Not only does it stress out current nonprofit staff who have kids and are trying to figure out how to pay for college, but for someone coming out of undergraduate or grad school with a $20k, $30k, even $90k debt, the ability to work in a low-paying nonprofit is severely limited.

The recent federal bill to "fix" this problem is a start, but a poor one. Basically, a 22-year-old has to go to work for a nonprofit, work ten years, and then she sees some minimal help. Ten years? Ten YEARS? Ten years for a 22 year old is half their life so far, at least the part they can recall. Not much of an incentive, particularly for the average 22 or 23 year old who is still figuring out their place in the world, where they want to live and work, and what their real passion is.

We've always used financial incentives to push people toward desired outcomes. Whether its the ability to deduct interest costs on your mortgage to encourage home ownership, had rapid depreciation allowances to encourage businesses to build, or drill for oil. Let's put together a real program that helps both students and parents.

More and more families are taking out loans, rates for loans are rising: student loans now cost 6.8% and parent loans 8.2%. Rates went up last year to help cut the deficit. And, private lenders have stepped back from lending given the mortgage crisis....

Here's my suggestion:

A student with a federal debt (in his/her own name or that of his or her family) goes to work for a nonprofit. During the year, the debtor pays only interest on the loan. After one year, if he or she does the job, 5% is cut off the principle. This continues moving forward for as long as the individual works for a (any) nonprofit. The second year, the forgiveness is 10%, where it stays for each of years 3-5 and then it moves up again to 15% per year until the loan is retired with one last 10% forgiveness in year 9.

Thus, the student receives immediate help (interest only) and a reduction in one year, not 10.
Will congress change the law? Unlikely.

So, what can communities do? Set up the same program locally with some variation. I'd love to see community foundations put money aside for debt reduction for employees at nonprofits, corporations and service organizations like Rotary and Lions set up scholarships for graduated students who work for nonprofits. Local governments could offer property tax relief to nonprofit workers buy homes in the community they work for, and state governments could target the areas where the most workers are needed and offer incentives as well.

We want well educated employees. We know we can't pay our employees salaries that are competitive with the for-profit sector, and we know that our mission-satisfaction makes up for that to a point. But mission-satisfaction can't help here: we have to come up with a better way if we want the best people.

Green Nonprofits-resources

Everyone wants to do their part to green up, lower our carbon footprint, and be better environmental citizens. The Mission-Based Management Newsletter in April dealt with this topic in depth, and the Chronicle of Philanthropy had a set of resources recently that I wanted to share.

First, GreenNonprofits has just opened, and will be doing some work to allow nonprofits to be certified at green. Check them out at www.greennonprofits.org

TechSoup has a bunch of resources including a listing of recycling centers for your old tech. Take a look: www.techsoup.org/greentech/index.cfm

If you own (or are going to own) a building for your nonprofit, take a look at the US Green Building Council which has some great information on greening up your building both in design and use.
www.usgbc.org

Alliance, and a new resource

Fun to be at the Alliance for Nonprofit Management meeting in Dearborn...great to see so many friends and catch up.

A new resource announced today from Microsfot looks interesting...MS is calling it NGO Connection, and it advertises free/low cost software, TA, etc. I'll check it out but you should too.

Free stuff--a reminder to those who like this price...

I got a bunch of questions last week (yes, on vacation) from people associated with nonprofits who have heard about offers from Google and SalesForce.com. Yes, there is great free stuff (from both companies) or heavily discounted (in the case of Salesforce) available for nonprofits.

In Google's case, it's up to $10,000 a month in free Google Ads, which is, believe me, HUGE. If you set up the ads correctly, you can have them send people to your services page, your fundraising page, your volunteer page, or all three! Here's the information on this offer: http://www.google.com/grants/

In Salesforce's case, you can get their client management software free, or at an 80% discount. Again, a terrific offer, since this software rocks. http://www.salesforcefoundation.org/product

Remember that both companies have an application process, and it's not a slam dunk. But, check them out.

Books, anniversaries, and Alliance

Back from a great 10 days on vacation, in NH with kids and significant others, seeing long-time friends, and relaxing on Squam. Much fun.

I read quite a bit, including taking a run at True North, the second book by Bill George, the author of Authentic Leadership. I'm about a third through and like it a lot. Authentic Leadership was very popular with my book clubs. I'll post more about this book when I finish.

In other book news, the 3rd Edition of Mission-Based Management is underway. I'm pumped about the update, and will post intermittently as I make progress and add new sections.

However, the biggest book news for me is that Generations has been awarded the 2008 Terry McAdam Award for "Best New Nonprofit Book" by the Alliance for Nonprofit Management. I'm really pleased and honored, particularly since the runner up this year is Forces for Good, which is an awesome book.

I'm headed out to the Alliance for Nonprofit Management annual conference in Dearborn tomorrow, do a half-day on Generation Change, see lots of great friends and, as a bonus, collect the award. The Alliance meetings are always a highlight of my year, and I'm looking forward to it.

Finally, today is Chris's and my 30th wedding anniversary. I have been SO lucky to have such a great wife and fantastic marriage...it certainly has been the launching pad for all my work....

I'll post from Dearborn....

Book Club is over

I knew it had been far too long since I posted, but had no real idea that my last entry was April 1. Sorry.

Much has happened between then and now for me, as I'm sure it has for you. Professionally, I've traveled to 12 states, given presentations on Generations and Nonprofit Stewardship, and met some amazing people. One trip was particularly fun: a return to New Orleans, where I went to grad school. Sad, amazing, wonderful and awful all wrapped up in a two day package.

Yesterday was the final set of calls for the book clubs that I've been facilitating since 2004. Budget cuts have caused the cutback, and while I am sad to lose both the conversations each month and the impetus to get my reading done, I certainly understand the sponsoring organization's prioritization. A good four years, for sure.

And now, I get to read more of what I choose!

And, in book news, the update of Mission-Based Management is underway. I sent my suggestions for improvement off to Wiley last week, and their editorial board meets soon to (I hope) approve the third edition. SO much has changed since I wrote the second edition in 2000. Should be fun work.

Tomorrow, I head to New Hampshire for a family week, and will do my best to post more regularly, starting with a list of what I think should be on every nonprofit staff and board's reading list.

Mission-Based Management, 3rd Edition?

I'm in the early stages of re-working the second edition of Mission-Based Management into the third edition. It's hard to believe that the second edition came out way back in 2000 (when I referred to a strong economy and balanced federal budget). Much has changed.

One thing that prompted the update is the number of undergraduate and graduate classes that use the book as their text. While I don't want to turn the book into an academic tome, there may be some things that students and professors want that I can include.

Hence my question: If you have used MBM, either as a teacher or as a student, what would you do to improve the book? Any and all suggestions are welcome....either email me at peter@missionbased.com or post a suggestion here for all to see.

In advance, thanks!

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?