My winning horse! Photo by Dan Dry, from http://www.kentuckyderby.com/news/photos/kentucky-derby-137-winners-circle

I’m not a betting gal, but I am good at picking a winner.

In 2001, we were invited to a Kentucky Derby + Cinco de Mayo party, where mint juleps and margaritas were promised. It was the first time I’d ever watched the Derby–and possibly my first mint julep as well. However, more than the mint juleps and margaritas, I remember being struck by the interesting names of the horses in the race. I found it beyond funny that there was a horse for a then-trendy, now-forgotten cell phone called Startac. I decided to root, however, a horse named Monarchos, whose name struck me as a sign of the times with lots of noveau-high-falutingness. I picked a winner.

Since then, I’ve looked at the names of the Derby horses each year–well, most years, sometimes I forget–and I pick a winner based on the name. And every time I do it, I’m right. I remember picking Giacomo (2005) and Barbaro (2006), for no other reason than the fact that I’m a total italophile, and they had Italian names. I picked War Emblem during jingoistic 2002. I picked Super Saver (2010) when our economy was in trouble and coupons were de rigueur.

But I never placed a bet until this weekend’s Derby. Through a work event, I had (lucky) family members going to the actual Kentucky Derby. I looked at the list of horses and told them to put $10 on “I’ll have another” for me. I won. But this isn’t all about my savant abilities for picking winners base on semantics. (Although I do think it’s quite awesome and am a bit scared that stating it so publicly will ruin my streak.)

Since my evaluation of the horses is based almost solely on my feelings about the horses’ names, I spend time thinking about what each one means and playing with the words in my head. (In addition to being an italophile, I’m also a logophile.) This year’s race line-up included Optimizer, Creative Cause, Alpha, Prospective, Done Talking, and Liaison.

Six horses with decision-making or business-based names. Seven if you count the mafioso El Padrino. But that’s a different kind of business, and I digress.

What does that say about our world? Or what does it say about our world 3 years ago, when these horses were born and named, and have things played out in the way that their breeders might have hoped? Clearly that was a time of economic struggle, powerful political tides, and challenge in many ways. In the nonprofit community, our shirtsleeves were rolled up and our boots had straps (so we could pull ourselves up when we needed to). People were ready for decisions, action, and success.

We’ve heard and seen that the tide is changing in the nonprofit community though, and we’ve been part of it as cheerleaders, consultants, participants, and facilitators. Back in 2011 (when theses horses were 1), Matt wrote about his cautious optimism. And I think 2011 and 2012 have been good years, for the most part.

If I were naming a nonprofit horse this year, I’d want to capture the ideas behind the best practices and trends that I think will carry us forward through the next three years. If you know a horse breeder, perhaps you could put in a good word for one of these name suggestions:

• Strategy: Thinking things through and coming up with a well-informed plan will never go out of style.
• Prepare Pivot Thrive: With almost half of the Executive Directors in our community planning to stay in their current role for 4 years or less, organizations will need to embrace the Prepare Pivot Thrive mantra for transitions.
• Succession Success: In our recent career trends survey we also learned that about half of the organizations in Central Texas do not have succession plans. The lack of clarity when it’s time for transition has me biting my nails, and I’m hoping that in the next few years, we’ll whittle this number down.
• Merge and Conquer: We’re seeing more and more opportunities for strategic collaboration, and I think that the organizations who are taking it to the merger level have found new leverage for success.
• In the Clouds: Whether it’s through e-learning or some kind of virtual hosting, things are moving up for nonprofits who are embracing cloud strategies for sustainability, efficiency, and affordability.

I’m not sure that I’ll ever be bold enough to bet more than $10 on a race, but I am confident enough to state that continuing strategic work, preparing for leadership successions, collaborating–and even merging, and embracing new technology are winning bets for nonprofits.

Each year, Greenlights shines a bright spotlight on model nonprofits and programs at the Nonprofit Excellence Awards, but this year we’ll also give a shout out to the amazing people who work tirelessly behind the scenes of nonprofit success!  We’re shaking things up with new organizational categories and a chance to nominate a rock star nonprofit staffer!  Check out the nomination guidelines and nominate today or by May 29, 2012 at 5PM!

Nonprofit Excellence Award honorees receive a $1,000 grant award and will be recognized the evening of September 20, 2012 at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in Austin, Texas at the Texas Nonprofit Awards alongside OneStar Foundation’s Governor’s Volunteer Awards.  The event takes place on the evening of the first day of the Texas Nonprofit Summit, the premier nonprofit management conference for the state of Texas.

Nonprofit Excellence Awards celebrate Central Texas nonprofit organizations and individuals driving social change through exemplary achievements in the categories of:

Collaboration
The Collaboration Award highlights a successful partnership that a nonprofit has made with another nonprofit, business, foundation, or other entity that has resulted in improved impact and has achieved greater outcomes for both organizations because of their unique association. 

NEW!  Impact
The Impact Award honors a nonprofit organization, or one of its programs, whose notable performance and delivery to the community sets a high standard of quality and impact.  This organization can demonstrate ways in which it continually seeks to measure and improve impact.

NEW!  Innovation & Learning
The Innovation & Learning Award honors a nonprofit organization whose creation and application of new approaches or learning (from a workshop, conference, consulting engagement, book, etc.) to its work has advanced the organization and serves as a model for other nonprofits.  This new practice or approach is being, or has been, incorporated into the fabric of the organization and makes an affirmative enhancement to the operation or core activities of its mission.

NEW!  Board Excellence
The Board Excellence Award recognizes an organization for its success in fostering an engaged and effective board.  This organization can demonstrate the board’s direct linkage to the overall success of the organization, or in areas such as fundraising, advocacy, strategic planning, successful leadership transitions, etc.

NEW!  Nonprofit Leader of the Year
The Nonprofit Leader of the Year Award celebrates a nonprofit staff member whose masterful achievements in their role have directly benefited the organization’s operating capacity and impact in the community.  Individuals from all levels of employment are considered.

2011 Winners:

(pictured left to right)

Collaboration
CLEAN Air Force of Central Texas

Innovation
Capital Area Food Bank of Texas

Learning in Action
Austin Disaster Relief Network

Service Excellence
People’s Community Clinic

Special Recognition
Austin Classical Guitar Society

Check out the nomination guidelines and nominate today or by May 29, 2012 at 5PM!  Questions?  Contact Kate Smallwood at kates@greenlights.org.

April, where did you go?

Was it really nearly a month ago that I was flying to Vancouver with my colleagues for the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Annual Conference? The cool temperatures of Vancouver have been long forgotten now as the reality of the pending Texas summer is upon us. I’d really like to go back, so today I am going to close my eyes, turn up the A/C, and pretend I’m back in Vancouver. Rather than go on about the beauty and charm of the city or where to find THE best Ukrainian food in Vancouver, I thought I’d reminisce about my favorite session of the conference.

The description for “Does Your Board Know how to Evaluate Fundraising Effectiveness?” referenced effective management dashboards – that’s all it took to win me over. Each month I prepare a colorful, pie-charted dashboard to report to our board of directors on the current state of our fundraising program and how our board members have been helping us meet our goals. I’ve retooled and revamped it several times, not because I didn’t think it was useful information, but because I always wonder, “Is the best, most useful information for our board?”

Session presenter, Peter Drury, definitely proved that there is indeed more useful (or at the very least- additional) information that should be shared with your board to help them evaluate your organization’s fundraising success. He referenced the “dysfunctional dance” that we can unknowingly create with our board if we only focus on the present fundraising outputs and not regularly envision the future outcomes and impact we want to achieve for our organization.

The coveted take-away Peter left us with was “The ‘Beyond Cash’ Fundraising Management Dashboard.”  For the lucky ones in the room, we received the card stock, color copied, two-sided hand-out of beauty to take home with us. Fortunately for those not in the room he has made the tool available online.

The core of his message is simple– when it comes to fundraising success there is more to measure than just cash in the door.

The ‘Beyond Cash’ indicators he shares are things that most of us already track in some form or fashion (retention rate, median gift size, number of new donors, multi-year pledges), but how many of us are keeping track of our:

• Engagement Index: What percentage of your donors are making that first gift as a result of learning about you through another volunteer or donor?
• Non-Ask Ratio: What’s your organization’s ratio of solicitation contacts to “non-ask” contacts like stewardship visits or communications sharing the impact of their gift.
• Brand Strength Rating: How many of us are biannually asking our board and staff to rate their confidence in our brand?

Put all of these together, and this dashboard certainly is a great goal setting tool, reporting and evaluation document, and conversation starter to share with your board of directors. What do you think? How are you currently communicating your fundraising success to your board?

As I mentioned in my last blog post, Entering the World of Online Fundraising: A few free tools to get you started, I’ve been trying to expand my knowledge of the possibilities and challenges associated with online fundraising.  A report released this week by Convio, Insights into Integrated Marketing Constituent Behavior, provides interesting data to suggest that organizations can increase their development success by implementing online strategies that complement their traditional fundraising methods.

Looking specifically at the experiences of a large international nonprofit, CARE, Convio explored what happens when a nonprofit transitions to dual-channel marketing or, in other words, when they work to engage people both through traditional direct mail tactics as well as through online techniques. Based on their analysis of CARE’s donor data, Convio reports that dual-channel donors are the most valuable. Specifically:

Image from forbes.com

Gordon Gekko may believe “greed is good,” but in the nonprofit sector we know that “FREE is good!”  When it comes to working or volunteering in the nonprofit sector, we tend to be under-resourced, over-worked and busy as all get out.

That’s where the Greenlights Online Resource Library comes in. Did you know we have almost a hundred different articles and tools available for your FREE viewing and downloading pleasure?

Let’s take a quick tour of what’s “hot” these days.

Image from 123RF.com

By far the most popular category in our Resource Library is Board Development, with 3504 views in the past year.

What’s the most popular board resource? Check out the sample board fundraising commitment form, which has been downloaded more than 1000 times since February 2011, or the Board Member Matrix if you want to look at your current board makeup and think about top priority recruitment needs.

Another oft-visited section of the library is Financial Management, where a compilation of resources on the IRS 990 Form is downloaded quite a bit, and another favorite tool is a sample set of nonprofit financial policies.

But what about managing staff and volunteers, you say?  If you want to learn how to conduct background checks, evaluate your Executive Director, or assess the performance of staff, we’ve got you covered.  Tools for all of the above and more can be found in the Human Resources section of the library.

All this, plus resources for raising more money, communicating your story, planning for growth and more are just a mouse-click away.  And the low price of FREE is hard to beat.