power Steering: Building Capacity in Difficult Times
July 2009
- The Partnership Audit
- Free Resources for Doing Your Job Better
- Take the Long View
- Carpe Estam: Seize the Summer
- Plan for Success When Hiring Interns
- Initiative of the Month
- $10,000 Heart and Soul Grant Award Program Opens for Nonprofit Organizations
The Partnership Audit - A New Tool for Nonprofit Boards
By Deborah Edward, Ph.D.
The other day I was struck by a colleague discussing the importance of having a nonprofit conduct a “brand audit” as part of its self-assessment. I get the word “audit” as a business exercise to compare actual activities against standards and rules. But I hadn’t considered using such a formal model for reviewing marketing and visibility. Once I got comfortable with the phrase I was faced with another reference to auditing – this time the “gang audit” described in a New Yorker article about community policing. Obviously this term is now in vogue.
So I am proposing another new audit for our nonprofit sector – one that I believe will be of value if conducted systematically, regularly, and thoughtfully. This is the Partnership Audit – a review of how a nonprofit is cultivating, sustaining, and utilizing the formal and informal partnerships that can help a nonprofit further its mission through wise connections and synergies.
In these economic times, there has been much discussion about the potential value of mergers and coordinated services. These structures may have merit for some groups, depending on their actual challenges and values. But they are the more extreme examples of what should be a commonplace activity of a nonprofit – finding and exploiting opportunities to connect with other like-minded entities in pursuit of strengthening services, broadening reach, conserving resources, amplifying voice, or just basically doing things better, smarter, faster, or cheaper.
How important is partnership to the success of a nonprofit? One organizational development theory describes the life cycle of a nonprofit as moving from a nebulous stage to a rational stage through an expansion stage to a final – associative – stage, emphasizing the importance of growing up to become an active part of a community of practice and community of learners that leads and supports social change1.
How common is it for board to focus on partnerships? Not as common as I’d like. There are so many other regular things that boards are expected to pay attention to: the annual audit, the monthly financials, the regular nomination cycle…..why not add to this list an annual audit of the organization’s partnerships?
Why would this be helpful? It can set the expectation that every nonprofit should be continuously on the lookout for partnerships, and refrain from acting in a vacuum or ignoring other groups that may have ideas or resources to share. It can hold the organization accountable for a discipline about communication within the field that will result in better mission fulfillment. And it can provide an opening to conversations at the strategic level that help guide an organization into a better position within its community.
Here’s a sample partner audit that I encourage you to share with your board and conduct annually. The result of such reflection? Let us know what it does for you!
THE PARTNERSHIP AUDIT
- What partnerships are we currently engaged in with colleagues in our field?
a. How are they doing?
b. What value are they contributing to our mission?
c. What might change to maximize this partnership? - What partnerships are we currently engaged in with others who share our interests?
a. How are they doing?
b. What value are they contributing to our mission?
c. What might change to maximize this partnership? - What new organizations or initiatives have become active in our mission area?
• Colleagues
• Individuals
• Donors
• Government
• Collaboratives
How can we capitalize on these new resources to maximize our mission? - What opportunities exist for new collaborations or strategic alliances that can further our mission?
a. How can we position ourselves to take advantage of these opportunities? - What have we learned from our colleagues about issues that impact our mission?
- What have we taught our colleagues about issues that impact our mission?
- How can we maximize our leadership in bringing together resources to maximize our collective impact?
Free Resources for Doing Your Job Better
By Kim Wilson, Greenlights
We’re all looking for ways to save money these days without sacrificing service quality or our mental health. Here’s a list of 7 ways to do what you want to do…without spending any (or as much) money:
Professional development…for free
- Have a blog? Conference promoters want exposure, and even if your readership is small, if it’s the right demographic, you could find yourself attending interesting sessions for free with a press pass.
- Not blogging but willing to provide your time free-of-charge? Look at opportunities to volunteer at the conference. Frequently you will be able to attend specific sessions of interest to you as a room monitor or other volunteer.
Augment staff with volunteers
- In a down economy, sadly, there is an ample supply of well-qualified people with excess time on their hands. Many of them are looking for ways to keep their skills fresh and keep busy while looking for a job. Greenlights is fortunate to have one such volunteer right now who is helping us with our migration to a new constituent relationship management (CRM) system by mapping our business processes, and managing data clean-up and migration. Make a wish list of projects you’d like to get accomplished but lack capacity to do, and the skill set needed, and use your networks to find volunteers who match your needs!
Needing some expert advice, but lacking the funds to pay a consultant?
- Did you know that Greenlights members get one hour of free consulting each year? To check whether your organization is a member and/or has used its hour, contact rickarda@greenlights.org.
- On LinkedIn? Tap into your network’s expertise by posing a question through that medium. You may find that people outside of your network respond.
- Give Greenlights a call. We are available to provide answers to many nonprofit governance and management related questions. It’s part of our mission. We’re here to help. Give us a call – 512/477.5955.
- You can also check out 60+ useful tools and templates on our Online Resource Library.
Take the Long View: Donor Relationships Grow and Last through Clear and Consistent Communication
By Brian Pickett, PickettCRM
John Leonard, a noted writer, once famously said, "It takes a long time to grow an old friend." In the same vein, fundraisers know it takes time and effort to build lifelong donor support.
In this era of shortened attention spans, a big challenge over the long period is to keep communications fresh and new while maintaining consistency and clarity regarding the foundation’s purpose, activities, etc.
The solution is for organizations to take the long view and identify the overlying Vision and the underlying Core Story that they wish to communicate over the long-term. Only with this focus will they be able to continually send the clear and consistent messages that build lasting relationships.
Many organizations confuse their Mission Statement & Program Description with their Vision & Core Story, when in fact they are quite different. In the following example of a fictitious human services organization which description is more compelling?
Mission Statement
XYZ Organization helps at-risk youth in Example County avoid activities that are detrimental to their future with after-school programs that nurture decision-making abilities.
Vision
XYZ will give every child in Example County a real chance to have a brighter future. We will change lives through empowerment programs that respect each individual’s decision making power. With proven, sustainable and scalable techniques XYZ Organization will equip at-risk youth with the ability to make decisions that lead to a bright future.
The Mission Statement plainly describes what your organization does whereas the Vision forcefully tells what changes you will make in the world and provides a vivid description of how you’ll do it! Clearly, the Vision generates more excitement, is more applicable to fundraising and more useful in building donor relationships.
Similarly, the Core Story explains the important details of the cause in a way that brings sparks to supporters’ eyes. The Core Story does not replace the Program Description but rather incorporates it into a far more visual and exact description of “who” the organization is, the “reason” it exists, “how” it goes about its work, and the “strategy” that will achieve the Vision.
The Vision and the Core Story are hardly ever stated out-right in communications to supporters. Rather, these details are subtlety communicated in a myriad of ways with which most organizations are familiar. These ways can include accounts of beneficiaries’ experiences, the latest program results or even interviews with staff members. Through these messages, supporters form an “impression” of the organization’s Vision and Core Story. It is this impression that supporters reference when they read about the latest news or are called upon to support the cause.
Organizations that do not actively define and target a Vision and Core Story in their communications leave far too much to chance. The impression a supporter forms of your organization’s focus, competency, and progress may not be the one you want! If you have not done so recently, ask some of your supporters what their impression is of your work. Is this the story you want them to remember?
When your communications, actions, and results consistently support a clear long-range Vision and Core Story, your organization demonstrates the focus, accountability, and competency that build donors’ confidence. Supporters have the context to see how the little picture fits into the big picture, how just a small bit of positive news represents an exciting step towards the ultimate goal!
As time goes on and progress is made, relationships strengthen, excitement builds, and constituents become even more motivated to do their part to achieve the Vision.
Brian Pickett assists nonprofits in developing the key components of sustainable growth. Relationships are an organization’s greatest asset, a fact PickettCRM leverages to help organizations expand their donor base. For more information on strategic CRM solutions please visit PickettCRM, Houston, TX.
Carpe Estam: Seize the Summer
By Tara Levy, Greenlights
Can you remember a time when there was no new television programming for the summer? There was no new episode of Cheers, Doogie Howser, or Beverly Hills 90210, and you’d watched all the original shows during the year. You had to break your routine and do something different. Well, at least I did. I have always despised reruns. And from that, I found exciting and refreshing summertime fun.
This summer, consider taking a break from your routine and creating some summertime fun for you and your organization. Here are some nonprofit takes on some of my favorite summer activities:
Art Camp: Whether you’re a whiz with a paint brush or not, take time to develop a new skill or expand on an existing talent this summer. Sign up for professional development for you, your staff, and your board. Hone your Excel skills, improve your program evaluation, or build your fundraising muscles at a workshop, conference, or e-learning.
Walk in the Woods: Make Thoreau proud and take some time to explore the woods. Summer is a great time for off-site planning and brainstorming. When you are in a different setting, you come up with different ideas. You can build on your Strategic Plan, develop an Annual Plan, or come up with an entirely novel idea to strengthen your mission.
Daytime Movies: On a hot day, not much is better than sinking into a comfy chair in a cool, dark movie theatre. Ask board and staff to send you photos, videos, and articles they’ve saved about your organization, and compile them into a quick slideshow that you can show a donor or visitor or put on your website. Or for the low-tech version, put together a scrapbook to keep in your waiting room for visitors to browse through.
Swimming: Dive into something refreshing. Is there an aspect of your work that you really enjoy but don’t get to do often? If you enjoy schmoozing and connecting with staff and board members, schedule a lunch or coffee date together. If you enjoy researching new ideas, play around with Google plugging in topics related to your mission to see what pops up.
Relax: Remember when they told you that the vacation package was a part of your compensation? You actually earn the time and are expected to use it in the same way that you are expected to need and use your salary. Schedule some time off, and relax!
Of course, now we have Burn Notice and countless reality TV shows to keep us entertained with fresh shows while we bask in our air conditioning. How will you develop alternate summer programming to keep you and your organization fresh?
Plan for Success When Hiring Interns
By Wendy Covey and Rebecca Geier, TREW Marketing
Are you considering hiring an intern to help with marketing projects? When you have a lean staff, interns can help fill the void, bringing creativity and a fresh perspective to your organization. They can also be a huge time investment and distraction, depending upon how you've structured their work.
Here are a few best practices pulled together from our experience at TREW Marketing:
1. Recruit and hire as you would a full-time employee. Conduct a formal interview, ask probing questions, and as you make your hiring decision, think to yourself, "would I hire this person as a full-time employee someday?"
2. Set clear expectations of the internship. This includes compensation, duration, work hours, work location, and attire. Given that this may be the intern's first professional job, be as specific as possible.
3. Pay your interns. Ok, I'll admit that I've heard of several free intern situations that worked out just fine. In the past I've paid interns, which I believe in turn helped set clear expectations of professionalism expected. We would give raises for returning interns, as they were more valuable to us and it was a nice reward for their past good work and loyalty.
4. Define a project(s) for the intern that are hands-on with a well-defined scope where they can work autonomously (see #6 for more ideas on ideal projects)
5. Make sure the project has a defined timeline with a clear start and end date.
6. Pick the right project. Try to find projects that are important to the organization but you may just not be able to get to them; also try to find projects that will not be detrimental to the organization if they blow up - examples include competitive analysis, technology recommendations (social media for instance), new collateral or content development, etc.
7. Assign a mentor (may be you). Set up weekly meetings where you provide the structure, but they run. The intern should come with an agenda and prepared updates of progress, obstacles they're facing, and support they need as well as what they've learned and are enjoying/not enjoying.
8. Have interns present their work. Have interns present the findings of their project at the end of their internship - this is really important because they not only learn much by going through the process of developing the presentation, but their work is then nicely packaged for you.
9. Conduct a formal performance review with the intern. Depending upon the duration of the internship, perhaps do this twice - in the middle of the internship and at the conclusion. You can even provide performance review criteria to the intern at the beginning of the internship in order to be very clear about your expectations.
10. Have some fun! Be sure to take your intern out to lunch or happy hour with the staff and help them feel like they are part of the group. Remember how intimidating it can be to start a new job with new people.
Initiative of the Month: Basic Needs Emergency Assistance Fund
Typically, we choose a nonprofit to highlight in each issue of Power Steering as our “Nonprofit of the Month.” This month, we’re doing it a little differently and are focusing on an “Initiative of the Month.” Thanks to a $500,000 grant from the Applied Materials Foundation, Austin Community Foundation is setting up a Basic Needs Emergency Assistance Fund to help Central Texas nonprofits meet increased demand for basic needs services such as food, rent, and utility assistance. The fund will provide assistance in two ways: by enabling nonprofits to meet the basic needs of individuals and families and by helping them obtain internal capacity building services for their organization.
The gift from the Applied Materials Foundation will be directed to four local nonprofits – Greenlights, Caritas, United Way (2-1-1 Helpline), and Best Single Source. Fighting the notion that any problem is too large to make meaningful impact at the local level, the Applied Materials Foundation hopes that the fund will help these local agencies deliver short-term safety net services, help increase outreach of 2-1-1 services to vulnerable communities, and assist nonprofits in meeting the growing demand for their services through greater operating efficiencies and strategic restructuring.
This initiative is unique for its simultaneous focus on meeting basic needs through immediate funds and building capacity so nonprofits are able to operate more efficiently and effectively. Additionally, Applied Materials Foundation and Austin Community Foundation are encouraging other foundations and corporations to join the initiative. So far, Dell, 3M, IBM, RGK Foundation, and Silicon Laboratories have agreed to contribute to the Emergency Assistance Fund.
A website has been created as part of the Emergency Assistance Fund where nonprofits can post requests for basic needs funding. It will include streamlined grant applications for nonprofits and a listing of all pending grand requests for funders to review. You can learn more about the Emergency Assistance Fund and nonprofits can apply for funding at www.austincommunityfoundation.org.
$10,000 Heart and Soul Grant Award Program Opens for Nonprofit Organizations
The Heart and Soul Grant Award Program opens this month for nonprofit organizations across the U.S. Made possible by the CTK Foundation Philanthropic Fund and Grammy Award-winning recording artists Los Lonely Boys, this grant represents an unusual and creative way for nonprofits to apply for funding.
To apply for the grant, submitting nonprofits are required to write a 4-8 line poem (lyrics) that represents the “heart and soul” of their mission. The grant is open through August 15, 2009, after which a jury panel of recognized independent music artists and producers from around the country will select a winner based on the quality and impact of the lyrics.
The selected nonprofit organization will win a $10,000 cash grant and Los Lonely Boys will create a song, based upon the poem, which will be professionally produced in a recording studio. Applicants will also have the opportunity to be considered for one of several other in-kind grants. Applicants could win one of three full-sized steel string acoustic guitars, signed by Los Lonely Boys, which be used for auctions. The final grant award is a six-month license of CTK Apricot software for small and growing nonprofits.
To qualify for the grant, submitting nonprofits are required to be a registered U.S. 501(c)3 organization. The winner will be announced on September 21st, after which key members of the winning nonprofit will attend an evening gala at the Austin Museum of Fine Arts downtown where the song will be premiered by Los Lonely Boys.
“We think that the process of writing lyrics to a song, and submitting it as the basis for a grant, will be an inspirational process in every community,” said Jim Tullio - an internationally known musician and the producer of the upcoming Heart and Soul Grant Award recording. “Our goal is that both the song and the accompanying $10,000 grant will help the selected nonprofit to better educate the public about their important work.”
The CTK Foundation is the recently launched foundation from Austin-based nonprofit software provider, Community TechKnowledge (CTK). CTK found that with their last Texas-based Haiku Grant events in 2006 and 2007, nonprofits used the writing process as an opportunity to engage clients, staff and volunteers in a meaningful activity (writing a poem) that reminds everyone in each service organization about the “heart and soul” of their mission.
For more information about the Heart and Soul Grant Award and application guidelines, nonprofits are encouraged to visit the Foundation website at www.ctkfoundation.org and click on the gold Foundation tab.