A Visual Guide to Giving

It's that time of year again - at least it's the time when nonprofits make one more appeal before the year ends - and before they start appealing again in the new year. Nothing like a deadline - real or self imposed - to make something happen.

Earlier this month, a terrific infographic on giving, Charity: Who Cares?, was released by mint.com and WallStats.com. As a visual kind of guy who thinks in terms of who gives what and why, I love this kind of information.

It puts into perspective the $300B given to charities and the $404B given to WalMart every year. According to mint.com, the charities collect less than a third of what they need to keep the lights on. Nothing like a little context to get your brain spinning about reality.

The data for the infographic comes from three sources:

1. Charity Navigator, one of the most significant, independent, national charity evaluators (Guidestar is another)
2. The National Center for Charitable Statistics, established in 1982, it's the national clearinghouse for nonprofit data
3. The Center for Philanthropy, the nationally renowned center of nonprofit studies at Indiana University

These sources are about as neutral and accurate as can be. However, there is always someone who wants to disagree. Based on the comments at the bottom of the chart, the report does step on a few toes.

Decide who and what you want to believe. While you're thinking about it, I hope you're doing all you can to nurture your individual donors. If you haven't noticed, they're kind of important.

One last note: to keep your brain spinning, take a minute - literally - to check out theYouTube explanation of just how much is a trillion. Some say trillion is the new billion. Think big.

Less is More?

The year end nears. For those of us in development, it's the final push to get those moving letters and compelling proposals to people and foundations still perceived to have deep pockets. While I'm asking for amounts from $5,000 to $20,000 and much more - there are fundraisers that are doing just fine at $25 a pop.

Mr. Obama did pretty well at that before he became President. There's an excellent report from PBP Executive Reports that looks at the lessons from the Obama campaign. Over time he grew his e-mail list from 90 thousand addresses to 13 million and attracted nearly 4 million donors. The average donation according to some reports was just over $100.

Amazing numbers! Yet there are three contradictory articles in the latest Chronicle of Philanthropy.

One report states that Social Networks Produce Dismal Results. Caroline Preston reports that out of 250 nonprofits surveyed, 74% said they had raised less than $100. Few of them could determine how many volunteers or how much money they had actually raised through their forays into social networking.

Another by Ben Gose Urges Charities and Donors to Focus on Small Gifts. Gose reports that Wendy Smith's new book, Give a Little, reminds us all how the little gifts can really add up. Individuals gave $229 billion dollars in 2007. For some context, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave just $2 billion the same year. Smith contends most of those donors are from households earning less than $100,000 per year.

Finally, Sean Stannard-Stockton writes an excellent article on tactical philanthropy using Twitter. He makes a great point that Twitter is THE new forum for discussing philanthropy. It far outstrips traditional media among young readers. All those young readers are the ones making small donations - for now. What will they give as they get older??

More significantly, Stannard-Stockton states: "...philanthropy is no longer a topic of discussion reserved for the ultrawealthy, nonprofit executives, or academic researchers. As with any topic that goes mainstream, many insiders will complain that the subject is too nuanced for the masses to understand.

But the people and organizations that can figure out how to speak authentically about philanthropy to a mainstream voice — without dumbing down the subject or talking over the heads of the newly formed crowds — will dominate the discussions about the nonprofit world in the coming months and years."

My $12.96 GoodSearch contribution this year isn't much. Some nonprofits turn up their noses at the pennies per search concept. Some don't. They are getting checks of over $1,000 this month. The pennies add up.

Heaven is in the details. Details are often very small. But they always make a difference.

A Bridge Too Far?

In Dallas, the much touted DonorBridge opens to the public tomorrow. Communities Foundation of Texas, the Institute for Urban Policy Research at UTD, and the Center for Nonprofit Management with support from The Dallas Foundation will publicly launch this new online tool.

Think of it as a master connector. If it works, it will link nonprofits, donors, and supporters. There's no reason to believe it won't work. The smart folks at Blackbaud, a savvy software and services company, are behind the technical end of this.

Since early this year, hundreds of Dallas area nonprofits have spent thousands of hours establishing their digital footprints on DonorBridge. Will it pay off or is it a bridge too far?

In 1977 their was an epic film about WWII in which the Allies tried to shorten the war by taking several bridges deep in enemy territory. One Allied advisor at the time suggested that the operation was to aggressive. Too big. Too optimistic. He said, "I think we may be going a bridge too far."

What about DonorBridge? Is it too aggressive? Too big? Too complex? Too optimistic? Will people really use it?

DonorBridge is unique for North Texas - maybe for the nation. It's consolidating regional nonprofits into a one-stop "shopping" experience for donors. It's trying to simplify the confusing milieu of information and numbers regarding nonprofit management, governance, effectiveness, programs, and stewardship for anyone who cares.

It is a big bridge. That's necessitated by the number of nonprofits in the Dallas area. What we really need is a simple bridge - an effective means of crossing the information gaps quickly and easily.

Who will use DonorBridge? According to Paco Underhill, 60% of the wealth in America is held by people 55 and over. Will the "old dogs" use it, or will it only be the "kids" who shop online and are comfortable with Twitter, Facebook, and text messages?

DonorBridge is a terrific step to bring some consolidation to the sometimes baffling array of overlapping choices we have locally. But like much new construction, its benefits may be best realized by future generations - givers who find the simplest ways to cross the bridge.

Hats off to the builders of DonorBridge. Your efforts today will make a difference in the world tomorrow.

Who knows? Tomorrow may come sooner if we can teach old dogs some new tricks.

And remember this - the Allies failed in their attempt to take a bridge too far. But they won the war.

The nonprofits are fighting wars worth fighting. DonorBridge is one more tool to help win those wars.

Give It Up

So what can nonprofits give up for Lent?

Give something up?? Are you kidding me? We're just barely making it as it is!

Hear me out. This blog has been brewing for days. Hope it's not too late. It is Ash Wednesday night.

In trying times, in a highly competitive landscape, it may be a good idea to do something counterintuitive. Unless you're on a really good roll, maybe a little change isn't a bad idea. Here are a few things you might consider changing for the next 40 days:

1) Give up meetings. Do you really need to have a staff meeting each week? A conference call every Monday? A board meeting every two months? You can still talk to these people if you really need to. A break in scheduled meetings will be a very refreshing change for people having trouble sleeping because of stress.

2) Give up editing every grant your grant writer puts in front of you. If you trust the person writing proposals, give them the responsibility to get it right and get it done. You'll get an extra few hours every week that you spend "improving" proposals. And you'll probably get more proposals submitted in 40 days than you have in the last 60 days.

3) Give up watching the news about how bad the economy is. At least give it up after 12pm so you can sleep better at night. Maybe the extra 15 minutes will give you more time to focus on your mission.

4) Give up an hour a week you spend on your assigned job and spend it with one of your constituents - client or donor. You'll be amazed at what you learn - and you'll probably do your job better.

5) Give up staying tuned to your regular source of news and information all day long. If you look for a new source every day for 40 days, chances are you'll find at least two or three keepers. Not a bad addition for a rapidly changing world.

That's it for for now. There have got to be more things we can give up. Stay tuned.

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.

Conversation with the Mayor

Had a little visit with my buddy, the mayor, earlier this month. Okay, it wasn't just me. It was me and 200 or so others active in the nonprofit world of Dallas.

And, though I believe Tom Leppert is a good guy, we're really not buddies. But I sure have to give him credit for spending time answering questions off the cuff on a wide variety of subjects. I'm not sure previous Dallas mayors have spent time in a town hall meeting like the one organized by the Center for Nonprofit Management on January 16th.

The Center is an active member of the National Council of Nonprofit Associations, the national coordinator of the Nonprofit Congress. Other nonprofit groups are meeting in various cities around the country in preparation for the upcoming national meeting in June. There they will address the three current national priorities for nonprofits:

1. Organizational effectiveness and efficiency (a familiar subject in earlier postings)
2. Acting collectively for positive change (a more familiar subject from the past)
3. Public awareness

There were a lot of good ideas and good questions from this meeting. For example, are nonprofits asking what the donors want? Public awareness is not a one way information push.

The mayor believes that the future of Dallas is in the hands of the nonprofits. He wants to encourage an entrepreneurial attack on problems from different angles. Some solutions will work. Some will not. Even in failure, there is value from this approach.

Mr. Leppert went on to say that unless the poorer rooftops of the city are improved, the more wealthy rooftops cannot continue to support the city. His goal is to make Dallas more competitive. Not just in Texas. Not just in the U. S. He wants Dallas to be more competitive among world cities.

Hear, hear, Mr. Mayor. Set that bar high. Extremely high. We've got a lot of work to do.

Help From The Vols

So you've got a bunch of volunteers showing up to "help" in a few weeks. What are they going to do? What are you going to do?

Which of those questions is more important?

If you just wait for them to arrive, hand 'em a bottle of water and a t-shirt, point them to the tools, and show them where to go to get started, you can get some pretty good stuff done.

Sometimes free labor is just worth what it costs.

You're competing for volunteer time with other organizations who love to use volunteers. If the time is well spent, the vols will want to come back to you.

If you're not ready to efficiently make the most of their time or if they feel like their contributions are minimal or just a band aid for what's really needed, you may not see them again.

Depending upon your staffing, you might not always be able to prepare much in advance. You may not even have a process to hand off to a temporary volunteer coordinator. It is what it is.

That just means you spend more time recruiting new volunteers...re-inventing the wheel for your next lalapalooza. What are you going to do?

It's your choice. Spend the time before the vols show up so that they make real progress, learn to love your mission, and want to come back as experienced volunteers (and recruiters), or spend the time recruiting the next batch of vols so you can throw something together and make things look good. For a while.

It's your choice. What are you trying to accomplish?

O yeah. Did I mention that good volunteers often turn into good donors of things besides time?