The Times, They Are A Changin'

Bob Dylan sang that over four decades ago. It's still true. Read any newspapers lately? Watched any newscasts lately? There's lots of speculation out there. The only thing certain is that we're about to see change like we've never seen it before.

So far, the news is mostly about the commercial world. The Chron and the AFP magazine, Advancing Philanthropy, are doing a pretty good job of summarizing the potential effects on nonprofits. How are you going to manage change?

Paul Otellini is the current CEO of Intel, the world's largest manufacturer of microprocessors. He's a good one for nonprofit ED's to use as a model.

Hmmmm. Okay. You're saying: Intel, $40 something billion a year. My heart and soul cause for good, $400K/year....give or take a few hundred thousand dollars. Exactly how do we make this comparison?

In the WSJ this Saturday, Otellini gave some interesting opinions on management. He said, "A CEO's main job, because you have access to all the information, is to see the need to change before anyone else does."

What's the job of an ED? To meet the mission. Take care of your clients. Maintain relationships with donors. Clearly present the cause with passion. Take care of your staff so they'll take care of you.

You have all the information. You're undoubtedly watching expenses and double checking your revenue forecast. Are you seeing the need to change?

Now is also a very good time to eliminate duplicate services. Who can help you? Where can you partner? Who can join you in the paceline? There are some unhealthy nonprofits that will not survive the next year. That change may be sad, but not necessarily bad.

Who (what organization) can provide the best service for the clients? Once the egos get put aside, that question is often easier to answer.

If your organization is struggling to make it, do you see the need to change? Now is a good time to look at options to merge with a like minded partner.

If your organization is strong, will it stay strong forever? Do you see the need to change? Now is a good time to join forces with a like minded partner.

Merging organizations is never easy, but change is always necessary.

You've Got 30 Seconds...

...before their eyes start glazing over. Can you tell someone about your nonprofit and what makes it unique from the other 9,000 nonprofits in Dallas?

Last December I talked about doing your due diligence to prepare the justification (or case statement) of why someone should write you a check. This time, I'll talk about the short and sweet way to get your message across.

It may not earn you a donation right off the bat, but it may keep you in the game a little longer. At the very least it will plant a seed that you can nurture.

A couple of weeks ago I called an old friend from work. Hadn't talked with him in months (maybe more than a year). We exchanged pleasantries, caught up, and when he found out that I was working for nonprofits, his tone changed. He assumed that I was calling to ask him for money. "That's what everyone does," he said.

I wasn't. I genuinely just wanted to catch up. A few weeks later, sitting at the dinner table with our wives, the subject came up again. He wanted to know more about what I did and for whom I wrote grant proposals.

Amazing! I have the opportunity, and I blow it!! I've got reams of important data in my brain (intermixed with old phone numbers, the jersey numbers of the 1974 Dallas Cowboys, and the final approach speeds of a few airplanes I've flown). I've written 50 plus proposals in the last year, and as I start start sifting through the details, I see the "off flags" start flickering in my buddy's eyes.

My advice for you (and my hope that I will practice what I preach) is to have your "elevator pitch" ready. That's a term from a previous chapter of my life (selling computer systems). If you're riding with someone in an elevator, and you want to get your point across, you have about 30 seconds to make it happen.

Unless you're prepared in advance, you will undoubtedly witness the glazing of the eyes and a friendly "goodbye" when the elevator door opens. So think about it now.

Take your mission statement, scrub it into a few words your mom can understand, apply what makes your nonprofit unique, and be ready to state it clearly in 30 seconds.

Keep it simple and direct. I love the catch phrase for the upcoming missions conference hosted by Buckner. "Go. Be. Do." They are saying "go somewhere, be a voice, do something."

Isn't that great?? Three words. Six letters total. Amazing! Easy to remember. Easy to convey! Perfect for getting people to be involved with missions.

You're probably going to have to write all your mission, vision, facts, factoids, and distinctions down to get it right. Then you need to practice. Mark Twain said, "It usually takes more than three weeks to prepare a good impromptu speech."

Better get started now. Who knows when you'll get that next opportunity. You don't want to blow it like me.

It won't happen again.

Twitter Your Nonprofit ?

Do you "tweet?" That's the language of Twitter.

Twitter is the relatively new micro blogging service offered by our friends at twitter.com. These guys let you send very short (up to 140 characters) updates (tweets) to anyone that signs up to get them. Those people are called "followers." You can also restrict delivery just to your circle of buddies...or coworkers.

Followers can receive these updates on a variety of web sites or via email, instant messaging, text messages to your cell phone, etc. It all starts with a simple question: "what are you doing?"

Think of it as simple social networking on a small scale. Then again that small scale has nearly a million users right now. Some are just teenagers standing in line for a movie sending updates to friends. Others are much more sophisticated and frankly, more interesting. (Don't tell the teenagers.)

Whole Foods Market, Comcast, and Dell are using Twitter at an enterprise level. If you're having trouble with your Comcast service, blast a tweet of your frustrations to the world (the default delivery option). Customer support at Comcast monitors Twitter 24x7 for "damage control." See more on this at TBR (The Bivings Report).

Whole Foods is giving Twitter a serious try. They use it as a means of marketing and customer support. It's another way to enhance relationships with its customers. Hmmmm ..... seems like I've mentioned the importance of relationships somewhere else on my blog.

Universities, government agencies, news organizations, and significantly, the Obama campaign are all starting to use Twitter to keep people informed. Can your nonprofit make this work? Sure you can. But do you want to?

Think of two things. Who will be tweeting for your cause? Who will be the followers (the ones interested in your updates)?

If you Twitter just for internal purposes - to schedule or announce visitors for a tour, prepare for the arrival of volunteers, make a late change to an internal function - your followers will just be your staff. But if you plan to Twitter to the board, volunteers, or donors, you really need to have your act together.

Your "tweeter" needs to be informed, interesting, and able to find the balance of being consistent with new tweets without flooding the followers with drivel. Depending upon your cause, you may also have to be sensitive to certain privacy needs.

Your followers need to not be afraid of new technology. That probably means they'll be under 30, but not necessarily, and they may be some of your best candidates for volunteers and new donors.

Will it work at the nonprofit level? Why not? It's a free service, and chances are you want to improve your communications and you're looking for more volunteers and more donors. It's worth a try.

A caveat. Twitter is not especially fast. Look for competitors to get into this game soon.

Brobdingnagian Vision

It's easier to call it "BV."

Brobdingnag is that imaginary land that Jonathan Swift claims Lemuel Gulliver discovered in 1703. It's any fictitious place where everything is enormous in size or quantity and especially in scope or extent.

Does it sound familiar? In your own non-fiction world, what is the extent of the problem you're trying to solve? Aids in Africa? Homeless in America? Foster children in Dallas?

Whatever it is, there's a pretty good chance that it seems overwhelming ... completely daunting ... almost unimaginable that it can ever be solved. But are you dreaming big enough?

Kids (and their parents) in the 50's dreamed of rocket packs and space travel. I loved going to Tommorowland at Disneyland. I thrilled at the rocket launch to the moon. It was terrific fun seeing all the time saving devices in the House of the Future. Just 20 years later, we actually got a microwave oven!

All that stuff is so blase now. From jet packs to instant communication, we've made absolutely incredible technological progress in the last few decades. Many of those dreams from "back in the day" have come true or will be realized in just a few more years. (Seth Godin talks about this in his terrific book of thoughts, Small is the New Big - The Future Isn't What It Used To Be. Thanks again, Seth, for stimulating my mind.)

So today, do we dream more or do we worry more? It's probably the latter given that the world is getting smaller. Anyone's problems can affect everyone. It seems that our dreams are not quite as grand as they used to be.

What about you? Are you thinking about just existing, getting along, making it to the end of the year? Or are you dreaming about solving big ... really big ... problems??

You cannot afford to forget the here and now, but if you're not already doing it, I strongly encourage you to use your BV. Brogdingnagian Vision is a multi-syllable way of alluding to "BHAG" (big, hairy, audacious goals).

Between BV and BHAG, I'm pretty sure I know which acronym will stick. Jim Collins (the Good to Great guy) and Jerry Porras coined BHAG for their books on Building Your Company's Vision and Built to Last. I love big thinkers. I'm no Jim Collins, but I do know people who are setting bodacious goals to address some of our nation's ills.

Interfaith Housing Coalition has been addressing the needs of homeless families in Dallas since 1985. They do a great job of helping accountable families break the cycle of generational poverty and transform themselves into contributing members of the community. They do it at a remarkable cost of just $25 per resident per day.

But given the increase in the number and needs of very poor families (the fastest growing segment of the homeless population) and the significant decrease of government safety nets over the last 10 years, something big needs to be done. And it needs to be done fast and cheap.

Interfaith Housing has a big idea. Based on programs in their own residential model that have been replicated nationally, they have launched a prevention model using best practices from their 23 years of experience and three other nationally known nonprofits. They strongly believe that by proactively working with very poor families before they become homeless, they can reach nearly triple the number they have in residence, avoid the huge disruption to the families (especially the kids), and do it for less.

Beyond that, the Interfaith folks think this new program will be an easily replicable model for use across the nation. That's a LOT of people getting some help.

Can they do it? Will it work? Will it catch on with others? Will it really make a difference to a lot of people across the country?

Stay tuned. The potential is enormous! Thank goodness we still have some people dreaming big ... really big.

Hugs for Nerds

Have you hugged your grant writer lately? Okay. Not all grant proposal writers are nerds.

But lets face it. Who comes to mind when you're thinking of someone who not only writes, but really understands numbers, enjoys spread sheets, gets into research, actually uses good grammar, and thrills at finding just the right word?

Hint: it's not someone on the Yahoo! Buzz Log. You might try looking up "nerd" at Dictionary.com - "an intelligent but single-minded person obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit."

A Director of Development of a ~$2M nonprofit just told me that she's covered her budget with over four months left in the fiscal year. More significantly, the organization's foundation revenue for the year has doubled from about $300K last year to over $600K this year.

Not too shabby for fund raising during these "interesting" economic times. What did she do differently in the last year?

For one thing, she got more help. A year ago she had one full time person who helped her coordinate volunteers, run special events, manage the data base, do the research, and write newsletters, thank you notes, appeals, progress reports, and grant proposals. That's a lot of spinning plates for two people trying to grow a 1.5M dollar operation.

That other full time person was replaced twelve months ago with three part time people with focus. The database person knows fundraising databases inside out. The volunteer coordinator energetically keeps finding new hearts and minds to involve in the organization. And the grant geek just researches and writes proposals.

Now to be sure, all four are working together to help each other. There is some overlap. And the three part timers are generating a few more hours each week than the single full timer did a year ago. But the small, additional investment of focused labor is paying some big dividends.

More significantly, the Director of Development can work on the big picture of "growing the business." When it comes to grants, she does the final review of all the proposals without spending time in the tedious business of matching numbers to words or ensuring that all six copies of the nine attachments are printed on three hole paper and attached to this week's proposal.

Do you have a good grant proposal writer? Do you have a forecast? a pipeline? a coverage model? These are things your favorite nerd can handle while you're building relationships with the donors.

None of this works without those donor relationships, but the paperwork has to be exactly right (and on time) if you want to see that big check in the mail. Don't forget to hug your grant proposal writer. They're suckers for just a little appreciation.

Best Nonprofits

We have lots of lists of best companies and best places to work. Fortune offers their 100 best companies at which to work.

AARP offers their list of best employers for workers over 50.

Christianity Today offers their list of the 40 best Christian places to work.

Fast Company offers their list of 45 social entrepreneurs who are changing the world.

Why don't we have a list of the best nonprofits at which to work? or volunteer? You can show how effective (to some degree) your nonprofit is at charity evaluators like Guidestar and Charity Navigator.

But how do you tout your nonprofit as one of the best places to work? How do you stand out from all the rest? Not to short change the need to be effective (see my thoughts on Due Diligence), but why not have another way to distinguish yourself from the others?

This helps you not only attract smart, competent people for the staff, but makes it a whole lot easier to attract and keep great volunteers. Success breeds success.

The best places to work are the ones that consistently outperform their rivals. The Great Place to Work Institute shows that graphically in the for profit world. I'm pretty sure the same principle applies to nonprofits.

So how do you do it?? How do you make your nonprofit the best place to work? Maybe those are more lessons to be learned from the for profit world.

Stay tuned.

Competent or Brilliant?

What’s your nonprofit like? Is it really good, semi-great, or just limping along?

Master marketer Seth Godin in his book, Small is the New Big makes the point that people and companies can either be competent or brilliant. Given those two choices, I think you would hope your organization is competent. Or would you?

Godin contends that competent organizations have “a predictable, reliable process for solving a particular set of problems. They solve the problem the same way, every time.” Sounds good to me.

Competence is a good thing when you’re going out for your favorite burger and fries. You want what you want. You don’t want any variations. You depend on getting exactly those flavors you crave.

A competent burger joint in my neck of the woods is Gazeebo Burgers. They have maybe the best vege burger in town. It’s good food at a good price. There buns are great! It’s always consistent. It’s something you can depend on when you’re hungry. The good folks at Gazeebo Burgers are very competent in what they do.

But it’s real tough to get a green hatch chili burger there.

A brilliant restaurant a couple of miles away is Tramontana. These guys get a “wow” when it comes to satisfying your taste buds! But their menu changes on a regular basis. It’s almost always great…but not always always great. Sometimes, they don’t come close. It’s those times that I find myself wishing for that good ol' Gazeebo burger.

The Tramontana chef creates menus based on what provisions are available. He adapts to what is in season. Often those creations are brilliant. But they’re not to everyone’s tastes. That's the risk he takes with changing menus.

So there are my (and Godin’s) comparisons of a competent eatery to a brilliant restaurant. The competent is consistent. To the point of always being the same. Not a bad thing as long as you don’t have to adapt to change.

Now are you getting my point about organizations? When is the last time you looked at your strategic plan? When is the last time you had to change because your clients or your donors were facing new challenges?

It’s good to be competent. Necessary even. But you have got to have a little of that brilliant gene in your organizational DNA. You need it not just to react and adapt to change, but to anticipate it. Otherwise you may soon find a brilliant burger joint moving in around the corner.