Keeping your Organization on the Road with a Dashboard

An important element of running a successful development program, and a successful organization, is to have effective management and reporting tools in place.

This article from BlueAvacado presents a nice model for reports to the board that help managers present information about the organization at the adequate level of detail, with coding that aids in comprehension. They call it a Dashboard and it looks like this:

Just like a traffic light, the green areas represent areas where things are running smoothly, yellow represents caution, and red represents danger. You can create one of these matrices for each major area of operations: Development, Finance, Human Resources, Programs, Compliance, Risk Management, Board Involvement, etc.

The key is to focus on measurable indicators of performance, rather than process oriented issues. Also, give appropriate levels of detail: not too much & not too little. Also, the benchmarks should be set at the time that goals are determined so management can quickly grasp which elements are working and which ones need more attention to support the the organization's needs and goals.

Check it out:

http://www.blueavocado.org/content/nonprofit-dashboard-and-signal-light-boards

Choosing the right email provider

Here's a helpful blog post from Heather Rast at Insights & Ingenuity about how to go about choosing the right bulk email provider when you are running a small or medium-sized shop. She also includes a list of helpful articles and resources for email marketing providers that should be very helpful for anyone looking to do email marketing for the first time.

Contact, Belief, Ability

A very helpful article by Kim Klein about identifying major donor prospects:

https://www.compasspoint.org/askgenie/details.php?id=53

In sum:

"You are looking for three things in each prospect:

• Evidence that the prospect is connected with someone in your organization,
  so that you can establish contact.
  
• Evidence that the person believes in your cause (or a similar cause), which
  includes evidence that the person gives money to similar organizations.
  
• Evidence that the person has the ability to make the size gift you
  want."

Advice on Planning a Charity Auction

I ran across this how-to on planning a charity auction on CharityNetUSA. It's a good intro to the nuts and bolts... http://charitynetusa.com/blog/?p=103

For my part, I think auctions can be a great source of revenue, but they require creativity, persistence, and a dedicated staff person or volunteer to do it "right."

Consider doing a themed auction- targeted to the audience you are trying to draw, or something that will bring home your mission. Be thoughtful while making solicitations for gifts. What can the donor get out of it? How does their product or service play into the theme of the event, or appeal to the audience?

Approach items it with the eye of a marketer. Can you group related donations to create a package that is more valuable than the sum of its parts? Package together theatre tickets with a limo ride and a dinner downtown and promote it as a killer date night! Can you provide an experience that the bidders could never put together for themselves? If you have access to important or famous people, see if you can get them to donate their time doing something fun or valuable with the winning bidder. Get a famous golfer to donate a round of golf for the winner and two of their friends. Or get and influential business or civic leader to donate a business lunch and see how much people will pay to bend his or her ear! Your celebrity's time doesn't have a fair market value, so bidders can deduct the cost of their bid above whatever expenses are involved, making it a more attractive way to give.

And just like all fundraising, in-person solicitations work better than more passive forms of asks. Many folks throw together a silent auction to augment their galas, and just stick the auction items in a corner for people to bid on in a rather passive manner. This doesn't give donors the visibility they could get for their donation, and really isn't optimizing the value of what is donated. So consider getting a professional auctioneer to do a live auction. It will put the fundraising activity front and center and since it's a public event, a good auctioneer can play on the peer pressure and competition to raise the bids.

I thought this was a particularly apt article from Marketing Profs about marketing in a recession.

Basically, if you can maintain or amp up your advertising when tough times convince your competitors to cut back on their messaging, you're sure reap major benefits that will far outlast the recession.

Be sure to read the original New Yorker article that inspired the Marketing Prof's comments:

For philanthropy courses, students become the givers - The Boston Globe

What better way to learn the value of giving than by actually doing it? It's an idea that I've been mulling over lately, and am glad to see it in action as described in this article- College students exploring philanthropy by going through the process of vetting charitable groups for real grants.

For philanthropy courses, students become the givers - The Boston Globe

I've been thinking lately about using this idea to help coach people who feel hesitant about fundraising, too. I think most people have a hard time, especially at the beginning, asking for money. But once you understand the mental, emotional, and spiritual process of deciding where and why you donate your money, the whole things starts to look and feel a little different.

I know I'm not the only professional fundraiser in the world who found her self giving more once she got into the business of asking. I think giving and asking naturally go hand-in-hand.

Giving declined in 2008

Total charitable giving declined by 2% last year according to a recent report. Given the fact that Americans have seen their home values and stock profiles tank, this is actually much better than you might have expected.

Giving to religious groups, united way groups and voter registration drives actually went up.

Giving to the arts, health, environment, and education dropped by 5%. And giving to human service organizations dropped by 13%, which is especially hard since they are seeing increased need and government budget cuts all at the same time. This is something I'm going to keep in mind when I plan my giving for this year.

Overall, it is heartening to know that when times are tough people aren't cutting donations first. As this NPR report notes, now is the most important time to tell your donors about the good work that you are doing.

Listen to the NPR story.

Read the report. (PDF)