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THENONPROFITTIMESTM

•January 1 2015 NPT_Layout 1 12/16/14 2:42 PM Page 1
THE NONPROFITTIMES
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Viral Campaigns
Have An Infectious
Nature That Must
Be Incubated
Participant in
the Ice Bucket
Challenge.
Photo: Sharon
L. Chapman
Tech Futures
Can You ‘Print’
Your Next
Generation
Of Donors?
BY PATRICK SULLIVAN
f you were breathing this past summer, you could
not miss hearing about the Ice Bucket Challenge.
You couldn’t avoid it even if you tried. What you
might not realize is that the ALS Association, the beneficiary organization, did not create the campaign. The organization was able to seize the moment and capitalize on
good luck and good will.
The ALS Association, based
in Washington, D.C., harnessed
the momentum of the Ice
Bucket Challenge phenomenon, created by the families of
three ALS (amyotrophic lateral
sclerosis, a neurodegenerative
disease) patients. The organiBarbara Newhouse
zation’s leaders put out daily
press releases with the total amount raised and shared
some of the best ice bucket videos on its social media
platforms. ALS Association President and CEO Barbara
Newhouse did a satellite media tour at the height of the
phenomenon. The organization gained $115 million and
nearly 3 million new donors.
“A viral campaign is a moment in time. It’s something
I
BY GEORGE WEINER
Questions that have been and are
soon to be asked by year:
1985: What’s your fax number?
1995: Are you web friendly?
2000: Is your site printer friendly?
2010: Is your site mobile friendly?
2018: Are you 3D friendly?
2020: Is your organization printer
friendly?
Five years is a long time in technology,
especially when factoring in Moore’s Law
-- where processing power doubles every
two years -- which makes it 7.5 human
years or 52.5 dog years.
Looking out toward 2020 in the world
of 3D printing, price is the key indicator
that will dictate consumer behavior and
then push the need for the nonprofit sector to respond. The current price of a
home 3D printer ranges from $500 to
$2,600. As this price drops toward the
tipping point of home adoption, be prepared for this question: Is your organization printer friendly?
Whether you are on the funding or
implementation side, the upside and
practical applications of affordable 3D
printing will be disrupting your field.
Here are some examples when looking
down the road.
Education working in the classroom. 3D printers will become the new
“projector” for schools. Lesson plans will
need to include printable materials. If
you are talking about an ancient skull,
you better have a 3D printout. Our favorite example: This Radio Lab story
(www.radiolab.org/story/taung-child/)
January 1, 2015
Viral Campaigns, page 4
(Year) Three Appears
To Be The Charm For
#GivingTuesday
3
BY MARK HRYWNA
he evolution of #GivingTuesday has made
the jump from experiment to tradition
right alongside Black Friday and Cyber
Monday as the “opening day” of the
December giving season.
Some 20,000 nonprofits in the United States
got involved the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, raising nearly $50 million, producing three-quarters of a
million tweets and millions of media impressions. There
were an additional more than 6,700 partners in 28 countries around the world.
T
Sharing Spaces, page 6
Tech Futures, page 9
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Execute with greater precision
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January 1, 2015 Vol. 29 No. 1
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Tech Futures: Can You ‘Print’ Your
Next Generation Of Donors?
4
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Information Technology Dir. Nicholas P. Turi
Viral Campaigns Have An Infectious
Nature That Must Be Incubated
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3
VIRAL CAMPAIGNS
Continued from page 1
like fire. You have to have a lot of dry tinder around for it to catch,” said Catherine LaCour, vice president of corporate
marketing for software firm Blackbaud
in Charleston, S.C.
It takes trust and empowerment of
your employees, having a nimble infrastructure and being ready creatively to
capitalize on a moment, said Madeline
Stanionis, principal and creative director
at M+R Strategic Services in Washington,
D.C. “This is a big deal. It’s really hard.
How do you get ready for your 15 minutes of fame?,” she asked rhetorically.
It starts with internal culture, said Stanionis, and that’s not something you can
manufacture on the fly. Leaders at organizations where employees are empowered
let them know, “When something happens, you notice something’s trending on
Twitter, you have the ability and authority
to react: set up a donation page, put press
in place, send emails,” she said.
If your staff is able and permitted to
jump on a hot topic, you’ll need a library
of social media creative with which to
jump in. “When we have a moment, we
want to aggressively tweet and get others to do the same, produce shareable
images on Facebook, have an email and
get it out quickly, do some advertising
and get landing pages up, ready and
easy to find for people suddenly hearing
about you,” said Stanionis.
Third, you’ll have to be comfortable
with relinquishing some control. Something viral will often morph beyond a
single organization. That last point is
something for which the Human Rights
Campaign (HRC) in Washington, D.C.,
was ready. HRC launched a campaign
when the Supreme Court of the United
States was getting ready to rule on the
Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and
California’s Proposition 8 banning samesex marriage. By the time the decisions
came down (both struck down as unconstitutional), more than 10 million
people had changed their social media
profile pictures to a modified version of
HRC’s equal sign logo.
“We didn’t see this coming,” said HRC
Director of Marketing Anastasia Khoo, of
the response. “We knew we’d built a
solid plan and done everything we could
to ensure the possibility of going viral.
We hoped for it, but it exceeded our
wildest expectations.”
Khoo said the social media component -- asking people to change their
profile pictures to a red version of HRC’s
logo -- was just one part of a larger campaign planned almost a month out. Unlike many viral campaigns, HRC’s was
heavily planned and scripted. The marketing team created a “war room” dedicated to the cases and the campaign and
had daily meetings to update progress
and the roles and responsibilities of
each staff member involved.
While a 600 percent surge in traffic
caused HRC’s website to crash and the
organization gained 300,000 new Face-
book followers in two days, Khoo said
she believes the campaign grew beyond
the organization. People changing their
profile pictures didn’t necessarily know
they were changing it to an LGBT-rights
organization’s logo, and that was okay.
“While it was intrinsically our logo (in
people’s profile pictures), we didn’t put
any branding on it. There was nothing to
say, ‘Visit hrc.org for more information,’”
Khoo said. “We made it about the movement and the people. It’s a doubleedged sword. There was a huge increase
in visibility but there’s still some work to
do, and we continue to do that work.”
A campaign going viral becomes
“something you’re not controlling,” said
Everybody wants to be the next big thing and have the campaign
everyone’s talking about. Here are five nonprofit campaigns
from around the world that really took off.
somewhat ironic that UNICEF Sweden’s 2013
campaign spread so wide. Four videos and
ad copy that read “Like us on Facebook, and
we will vaccinate zero children against polio”
helped get the organization to more than
250,000 Facebook likes. The ad was shared
around the world. While those likes might not
have saved any lives, the money the campaign generated -- enough to vaccinate more
than 637,000 children -- surely did.
Most Ubiquitous: Ice Bucket Challenge, the
ALS Association (2014). Watching people on
social media pour ice water over their heads
became a standard part of just about everyone’s existence this past summer. The Ice
Bucket Challenge generated more than $115
million and 3 million new donors for the ALS
Association, in addition to more than a few
laughs and head colds.
‘‘
4
Biggest, Best, Unique & Bold
A viral campaign is
a moment in time.
It’s something like
fire. You have to
have a lot of dry
tinder around for
it to catch. --Catherine LaCour
LaCour. You can’t control people’s reactions to or uses of your moment, but
you can control and reinforce your
brand. “Controlling brand is about consistency,” said LaCour.
She used the example of Make-A-Wish
Greater Bay Area in San Francisco. An
event generated national coverage when
the organization in November 2013
granted the wish of a leukemia stricken
5-year-old to be Batkid. “People remember Batkid, but not Make-A-Wish,” said
LaCour. “But Make-A-Wish uses Batkid in
every marketing piece to associate that
moment and give it more shelf life.”
Brian Frederick, a spokesman for the
ALS Association, acknowledged that the
Ice Bucket Challenge was bigger than
the organization. “Many people did it
because of the desire to be a part of
something bigger, engage with friends
and families and be part of a social phenomenon,” he said. “We recognize that
for many people who did the challenge,
the cause was secondary. We think that
inherent in the phenomenon itself was
the desire to do good for a cause, and
that happened to be us.”
Part of being prepared for the moment involves having a backup plan.
What happens if the campaign takes off
J ANUARY 1, 2015
Record-Breaking: Kony 2012, Invisible Children (2012). If you saw the video about Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony, congratulations,
you’re not one in a million. It’s more like one
in 100 million. Invisible Children’s campaign,
launched in March 2012, reached a nine-digit
viewership on YouTube in less than a week,
making it the fastest video ever to do so.
Boldest: Likes Don’t Save Lives, UNICEF
Sweden (2013). A shareable campaign is
great, but sharing is not enough. So it’s
and the resulting traffic takes out your
website? HRC was able to redirect people to its Tumblr blog. It all goes back to
having the organizational ecosystem in
place. “It was a stroke of luck and a
stroke of genius,” said Khoo. “It helped
us to continue our communications
cycle as the cases were heard.”
Some campaigns are exceedingly dependent on the moment, as in the case
of HRC and the Supreme Court. For others, such as the Ice Bucket Challenge
and the U.S. Fund for UNICEF’s Tap Proj-
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
Hashtag Takeover: #NoMakeupSelfie, Cancer Research UK (2014). Some woman don’t
want to be seen without makeup -- except
when it’s for a good cause. Cancer Research
UK spotted people using the hashtag #nomakeupselfie on Twitter this past March to
raise awareness for cancer research, and
crafted a Tweet that included a text donation
code. The Tweet was shared 14,000 times
and the organization raised £1 million ($1.56
million) in 24 hours and £8 million ($12.5 million) total.
Most Star Power: Do They Know It’s Christmas? 2014, Band Aid (2014). Trading on 30
years of name recognition, U.K.-based charity supergroup Band Aid -- which includes
U2’s Bono, Chris Martin of Coldplay, and One
Direction -- raised $1.5 million in minutes
with the release of its Ebola-themed remake
of the 1984 hit “Do They Know It’s Christmas?,” according to written reports. The
video has been seen nearly 3 million times
on YouTube. – Patrick Sullivan
ect from this past March, it’s the experience itself that goes viral.
The Tap Project challenged participants to put their phones down. For
every 10 minutes a phone with the Tap
Project app activated spent on a flat surface, the U.S. Fund would convert a
sponsor donation in an amount equal to
the cost of clean water for a child for a
day. The project was meant to show people that being constantly connected to
their phones is not a necessity, but clean
Continued on page 5
water is lifesaving.
About 2.6 million people participated,
with $1.02 million in donations unlocked
from sponsors. The New York City-based
U.S. Fund was also able to convert about
17,000 participants into volunteers. “We
had social sharing, but in the end the experience itself was so compelling that
people shared it, people forwarded the
link,” said Rajesh Anandan, senior vice
president of strategic partnerships and
UNICEF Ventures for the U.S. Fund.
Anandan said he wasn’t worried
about basing a campaign around a mobile-first experience about putting down
your mobile device. He said it was more
“a fun way to connect the two notions,
that you think you need your phone but
you don’t, but people need clean water.”
The U.S. Fund needed the dexterity
that Stanionis talked about when the organization saw how quickly the campaign was growing: about 50,000 people
participated on the first day and 150,000
on the second. The monetization metric
was supposed to be a donation for every
minute, but Anandan said he quickly
changed it to every 10 minutes.
“We had a projection of how much
sponsor funding we had pledged already
and how much more was coming,” said
Anandan. He didn’t want to chew
through the sponsor donations too soon,
so he “had to make that decision quickly.”
A viral campaign’s bump in awareness won’t last forever. Like the Tap Project, some have an end date built in.
Anandan’s team stopped “monetizing
the minutes” at the end of March 2013.
The issue gets resolved for other cases,
such as in the case of the Supreme Court
striking down DOMA and Prop 8. Sometimes the moment just passes and the
campaign peters out.
“You have to figure out how to convert those moment supporters to longterm,” said Stanionis. The U.S. Fund
signed up about 17,000 of those supporters as volunteers, first around clean
water initiatives and then expanded into
to the organization’s other programs.
The ALS Association is currently deciding on a strategy to engage their new
supporters. “We have millions of people
-- donors and participants -- who don’t
have an immediate connection to the
disease and probably don’t know that
much about the disease,” said Frederick.
“We’re working on a larger strategy to
keep them engaged, based on what we
know about how they came to us.”
Figuring out the next best interaction
is a tricky thing, said LaCour. “Engagement is about controlling the customer
experience,” she said. “Look at the customer life cycle and think about how to
spark interaction across that cycle.” She
said it’s important not to let your base of
loyal supporters get lost in the shuffle of
newcomers.
“Stewardship needs to happen, but
not at the expense of your base,” she
said. “The focus is how to leverage the
campaign to continue to inspire your
base. How do you keep your base talking about your cause and your organization while keeping the organization
relevant? They should be the focus.”
One thing the Ice Bucket Challenge,
the HRC’s Supreme Court campaign and
the Tap Project have in common with
one another and all other campaigns
that go viral: luck.
“It’s 99 percent luck,” said Stanionis.
“When you try to manufacture those mo-
ments, nine times out of 10 it won’t work.”
She said the 1 percent that isn’t luck
is “creative alchemy and good strategy.”
You need to know what people are responding to today, right now. According
to Stanionis, many nonprofit marketers
are “trying to be relevant in pop culture,
but because organizations go so slowly,
they’ll launch something that was popular six months ago.” Stanionis would
rather see money spent on getting systems in place. The key to viral content,
she said, isn’t big production budgets;
the best ones are produced quickly, on
the cheap, to rapidly respond to something unfolding.
Luck might be being in the right place
at the right time, but if your organization
can maneuver there and then, that’s just
good business. LaCour called it “feeding” luck. “Being ready, that’s not luck.
That’s great organizational planning and
structure and systems and being ready
to respond,” said Stanionis. NPT
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J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
5
#GIVING TUESDAY
“Moving from an experiment to a holiday was always our goal,” said Henry
Timms, executive director of the 92nd
Street Y in New York City, who is credited as being one of the founders of the
annual day of giving back. “This will return year after year. If we can do that
right, it can be not just beneficial on the
day and around the seasons, but also
much earlier in the year,” he said.
Research from Indiana University’s
Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and
the Case Foundation shows the amount
raised by nonprofits around #GivingTuesday increased by 63 percent
compared to 2013, noting nearly $46
million raised, largely by U.S.-based organizations. The increase in participating organizations helped grow the
overall giving numbers but the aggregate
total also had not yet included PayPal,
which reported almost $4 million in
contributions last year, as well as other
smaller donation processing firms.
“There’s still room for growth. This is
just the third year. You’re still seeing
new
organizations,”
said
Steve
MacLaughlin, director of product management for Blackbaud, which that day
processed $26.1 million in online donations to clients, up 36 percent compared
to last year. Transaction volume for
Blackbaud was up 50 percent, compared
with an increase of 36 percent last year
versus year one.
MacLaughlin estimated the overall
number could be more like $100 million
if information from other software firms
not reporting is extrapolated.
There’s also a lag in reporting offline
gifts. “Someone could’ve been inspired
by what a charity did on #GivingTuesday
but it won’t see it show up for days or
which will be coming out in the coming
weeks and months as data are dissected,
Timms said. “The aim was to give December a good start and it’s interesting
to see that play out,” he said.
This year, for the first time, #GivingTuesday data will be analyzed by researchers at Lilly Family School of
Philanthropy through a partnership with
the Case Foundation. (See the story on
www.thenonprofittimes.com)
‘‘
America wants to have
a bigger conversation
about philanthropy
and corporations will
want to be part of that.
Photo by Susannah Ireland
maybe even weeks,” MacLaughlin said.
The thinking is that “$26.1 million, is
that what you see happen on Dec. 31?
No. But in 2011, it was $6.6 million on
the same day. I’m not sure what else is
moving the needle that much,” he said.
#GivingTuesday is now among the
biggest days of December for Blackbaud
in terms of volume and transaction dollars, along with Dec. 30 and 31.
The online story is being told but
there’s much more to the offline story,
--Henry Timms
Una Osili, director of research for the
Lilly Family School of Philanthropy said
one of the goals is to further understand
#GivingTuesday’s impact on the overall
holiday season and how behavior might
be changing, as well as what types of nonprofits are engaged and how, whether
through volunteering or social media.
Initial estimates do show a significant
increase, particularly in online giving.
It’s hard to gauge offline giving because
it’s processed more slowly. Osili said
much of it seems to be due to more organizations participating.
Initial evidence seems quite positive,
with the overall level of engagement and
more nonprofits of different sizes involved and more transactions. “The increase in online giving shows some
potential for #GivingTuesday to be a
clear role in engaging individuals across
the U.S. and the world,” Osili said.
The overall amount raised is very important but it underestimates the potential of #GivingTuesday because of so
much offline activity, increased level of
awareness and engagement, and the vast
numbers and sizes of organizations participating in just three years, she said.
#GivingTuesday will now shift into
“listening mode,” as Timms called it, to
track, listen and learn as much as possible. That will be synthesized into a full
report to be released within the first
quarter of this year to kick off #GivingTuesday 2015 planning.
Timms was heartened by the success
in places like the United Kingdom, which
doesn’t even celebrate Thanksgiving.
#GivingTuesday in the U.K. reported a
46-percent increase in giving, an 80 percent increase in text donations, and 270
percent growth in online donations.
#GivingTuesday isn’t necessarily just
Continued on page 7
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J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
about the bottom line, either. “The reach
of this from a media perspective is massive,” Timms said, and the number of
media impressions will be huge this year.
Corporate support is among the aspects that will be tallied in the weeks
after Dec. 2 and wasn’t included in the
initial estimates. Timms expects next
year will see even more involvement on
the corporate side. “America wants to
have a bigger conversation about philanthropy and corporations will want to be
part of that,” he said.
Bank of America ran a full-page ad in
The New York Times that referenced
#GivingTuesday and its work with World
AIDS Day (Dec. 1) rolled over to #Giving Tuesday. Retailer H&M donated $7.5
million in clothing to people in need.
Avon Foundation raised $1 million for
domestic violence and CVS pharmacies
awarded $100,000 in 50 unexpected
gifts to charities, based on nominations
by local branches.
“We never got into this to be purely
about fundraising,” Timms said, noting
various volunteer efforts by charities that
day, such as the Philadelphia Orchestra
offering free concerts to the community
and supporters.
“We committed to how do we have a
Continued on page 8
#GivingTuesday By The Numbers
• Blackbaud
Online: $26.1 million, up 36 percent over 2013
• DonorPerfect
Total online: $1,441,740 with 9,302 transactions from 857 nonprofits
Total offline: $10,709,286, with 27,326 transactions from 1,690 nonprofits
• Network for Good
2,359 organizations
$4,582,194 overall, up 157 percent
$2,693,353 via DonateNow
• Razoo
$1.733 million, up 52 percent
• Click&Pledge
$2 million, up from $500,000 last year
• Salsa Labs
$470,000, up 47 percent for organizations
that participated both years
• #GivingTuesday was tweeted 754,000 times
which represents a 180 percent increase over
usage last year. During the same period (from
December 1 through December 3, ET), #UNselfie was tweeted 39,700 times (183 percent more than 2013), and more than 7,600
#UNselfie photos were posted on Instagram.
• #GivingTuesdayBucks (Bucks County, Pa.)
raised a total of $187,299, based on preliminary reports from 30 of the 100 organizations
that signed up for the day.
• #GivingTuesdayAR (Arkansas) mobilized 217
organizations to participate in #GivingTuesday. Initial reports from 19 of those organizations indicate more than $63,000 raised, with
many organizations yet to share results.
• #MDGivesMore (Maryland), which grew out
of last year’s BMore Gives More in Baltimore,
reported more than $8 million raised thus far,
with results still coming in.
• The Michael J. Fox Foundation raised
$390,549 on #GivingTuesday, in addition to
a $100,000 matching grant, through 1,647
donations.
• The Museum of Jewish Heritage surpassed
its $8,000 goal (double last year’s goal) to
fund its Interfaith Living Museum program,
which brings together 80 fifth-graders from
four schools – two Jewish and two Muslim.
Over the course of a semester, the students
work together to learn about how artifacts
can teach us about heritage and bring in
artifacts from their own homes to teach
each other.
• 92Y, the New York cultural and community
center where #GivingTuesday was created,
received the “first gift” of #GivingTuesday – a
$1-million donation from more than 20 board
members, in a fundraising challenge to its
community.
• 92Y also shared its educational outreach concert, Maximus Musicus, with nearly 3,000
public school children in New York, and, via
live webcast, schools in Argentina, Iceland
and elsewhere. 92Y’s “knit-a-thon,” spearheaded by members of the Himan Brown
Seniors Social Action Committee knitted
nearly 300 hats and scarves for pediatric
cancer patients at Memorial Sloan Kettering
Cancer Center and, with MommyNearest,
92Y collected 2,000 pieces of clothing and
5,000 toys for children in need.
• Due to the generosity of individual donors and
corporations, combined with match funding
provided by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the United Nations Foundation’s
Shot@Life campaign raised more than
$362,000 to combat pneumonia by providing
life-saving vaccines to children around the
world.
Sources: Blackbaud, DonorPerfect, Network for
Good, Razoo, Click & Pledge, Salsa Labs, 92Y
NPT Publishing Group, Inc.,
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7
#GIVING TUESDAY
conversation about values, the promise of
getting people to stop when time was all
about spending and trying to start a conversation about giving, about connecting
with people’s communities,” he said.
The University of Michigan’s #GivingBlueDay, a 24-hour fundraiser on #GivingTuesday, raised more than $3 million
but just as importantly, staff used social
media to engage everyone from alumni to
their president. “What they’re really doing
is shifting people from donors to owners,”
Timms said. “One of the shifts we think
about with #GivingTuesday is, how do
people really change to own your cause?”
There were hundreds of hours of free
training resources to the sector in preparation for #GivingTuesday. “We thought
a lot about capacity building. It’s important that we try to be constructive and
useful. What no one’s talking about now
is what nonprofits are talking about:
What have we learned from #GivingTuesday, what went well, what didn’t.
It’s just one of the interesting promises
of what happens next,” Timms said.
With nonprofit servers working overtime churning out emails this past Dec.
2, one could fear oversaturation of
fundraising appeals. There’s also the
fear that #GivingTuesday simply moves
donations from the end of the giving
season to the start -- something that data
analysis hopes to prove or disprove.
“It is growing. It’s not cannibalizing
giving because people are just asking
more,” said Jon Biedermann, vice president at DonorPerfect. “Anyone in
fundraising will tell you: the more you
ask, the more you’ll raise. People say
they only can give one time, but if you
ask again, they usually do,” he said.
In the end, Biedermann isn’t convinced that #GivingTuesday will take
away from other giving during December given the net addition of new and reactivated donors. “These are your
Sybunts, Lybunts (Last Year But Unfortunately Not This Year and Some Year But
Unfortunately Not This Year),” he said.
As #GivingTuesday grows, there will
be more creativity by charities. “You only
need to look at the results like Network
for Good is posting, lots of smaller organizations are doing very well,” Timms
said. Network for Good reported some
$4.6 million raised, up from less than $2
million last year, for almost 2,400 mostly
small or medium nonprofits.
The average gift was up about 4 percent for Network for Good’s totals, according to Jamie McDonald, chief giving
officer. “Our focus since July has been on
step-by-step tactical guidance and tools
about how to take advantage of a day like
#GivingTuesday,” McDonald said.
“A day like this that extends the giving
month into December is powerful and
important,” McDonald said, because too
many organizations depend on Dec. 30
and 31 to make their year, which is a lot
of pressure for small and medium nonprofits.
McDonald emphasized that small
nonprofits can be a part of the movement despite all the messages and exposure crowding into one day. “They
shouldn’t shy away from it because they
don’t think they have extensive resources or a big staff that can’t capitalize;
if anything we outperformed,” she said.
“We all have to be clear in the giving
economy to continue to create leverage
for small, on-the-ground grassroots organizations and that their participation
in days like this can be highly leveraged,”
McDonald said.
“#GivingTuesday is becoming a fixed
part of the landscape,” after three years
of massive growth, said Clam Lorenz,
general manager, social innovation, at
PayPal. “Our #GivingTuesday effort is
rolling into a month-long holiday campaign, without question the biggest thing
we’ve done,” he said, bigger than anything in response to natural disasters.
Shifting giving to earlier in December
“primes the pump,” Lorenz said, and
fundamentally it’s about more giving
overall, perhaps smaller, more effective
giving. The increase in gift size in PayPal
totals indicates to Lorenz that it could be
the beginning of a movement by people
who are giving as part of a plan versus
just giving in response to stimulus.
“They’re getting into more serious, committed, earnest donors,” he said.
“This effort often attracts the more
casual donor, which often means smaller
gifts but we’ve actually been surprised,
this year actually seems like true, additional donors, regular donors, are getting involved in #GivingTuesday,”
Lorenz said.
PayPal had not yet released aggregate
totals at presstime but reported an increase of about 66 percent in donations
over last year. With nearly $4 million
raised in 2013, that would project to almost $6.5 million for the 2014 version.
“By any metric, banners on our website, emails to users, we’re pulling more
levers than we have in history to encourage users to give,” Lorenz said. There are
about 170 million PayPal users around
the world.
“#GivingTuesday is very small. Most
Americans don’t know what it is,” Timms
said. “There is so much further we can
go, to get to the scale that we think we
can.” NPT
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8
J ANUARY 1, 2015
JANUARY
8 The 37th Annual Nonprofit Conference
(Rochester), sponsored by the New
York State Society of CPAs/Foundation
for Accounting Education, will be held
at the RIT Inn and Conference Center,
Rochester, N.Y.
Info: www.nysscpa.org/faeconference
13-14 The Essential Grant Skills program
of The Grantsmanship Center will be
held in Los Angeles, Calif.
Info: www.tgci.com
15 37th Annual Nonprofit Conference
(NYC), sponsored by the New York
State Society of CPAs/Foundation for
Accounting Education, will be held at
the New York Marriott Marquis at Times
Square in New York City.
Info: www.nysscpa.org/faeconference
14-16 The Legal Services Corporation
will hold is Technology Initiative Grants
Conference at the Marriott Plaza San
Antonio in San Antonio, Texas.
Info: http://tig.lsc.gov/2015-tig-conference
FEBRUARY
2-6 The Grantsmanship Training
Program of The Grantsmanship Center
will be held in San Diego, Calif., at
Father Joe’s Villages.
Info: www.tgci.com
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
3-4 The Essential Grant Skills will be
held in Tulsa, Okla., at the Oklahoma
Family Empowerment Center.
Info: www.tgci.com
2-5 The Fundraising For Impact Summit,
sponsored by United Way Worldwide,
will be held at the Astor Crowne Plaza
hotel in New Orleans, La.
Info: http://conferences.unitedway.org
16-19 The California Association of
Hospitals and Health Systems (CAHHS)
will hold its 52nd annual Hospital
Volunteer Leadership Conference at
the Hyatt Regency Indian Wells Resort
and Spa in Indian Wells, Calif.
Info: www.calhospital.org/2015-volunteer-conference
22-24 Abila software will hold its annual
user and developer conference at the
J.W. Marriott-Austin hotel, Austin, Texas.
Info: www.audc2015.com
23-27 The Grantsmanship Training
Program of The Grantsmanship Center
will be held in Albuquerque, N.M., at
the University of New Mexico.
Info: www.tgci.com
To get your event added to the calendar, email it at least eight weeks before
the event to: ednchief@nptimes.com
TECH FUTURES
about the Taung child with a printable skull
(www.thingiverse.com/thing:332463).
Dinosaur bones previously only available through a museum trip will become
a click away and will be made more powerful when connected with great curricula that nonprofits are creating.
Cause Awareness. If you are creating awareness around a specific disease,
people will expect to be able to print the
virus or bacteria to help understand the
root cause of the illness.
Environmental organizations should
have their supporters print endangered
species to gain a greater understanding
of the issue.
Support in Developing Countries.
3D printing will help solve the “last mile
problem” by being able to bring consistent resources to remote regions with a
simple print. This is an untapped potential for organizations coordinating with
field initiatives ranging from education
to building water wells. Can the wells
you are building in underdeveloped
countries be fixed with printable parts?
ENVIRONMENT
There are efforts underway to convert
recycled materials into reusable printer
filament. This work could revolutionize
recycling, closing the cycle time between
collection and commercial reuse. Even
crazier is that the 3D printer can make a
filament recycling tool (www.thingiverse.com/thing:12948).
ADVANCED 3D AND 4D PRINTING
We were just warming up to the concept of 3D printing and suddenly we’re
already at 4D? New 4D printing refers to
self-assembling 3D printed objects and
was somewhat jokingly coined by Skylar
Tibbets from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Similar to the way Xerox copier/scanner/fax machines had a huge impact on
business despite never making it into
the home, so will advanced 3D and 4D
printing. The limiting factor behind the
J ANUARY 1, 2015
promise of advanced printing is the specialty “ink” or unique raw printing materials needed to create the product.
Major institutions such as universities, hospitals, and industrial companies
will have access to this ink and be able to
execute on the work created by others.
In the same way that open source code
has been furthered by the community
and leveraged widely, so too will the
shared development behind advanced
3D/4D printing. Even though consumers
and organizations aren’t doing the actual printing, they will still be able to inform and fund the innovation.
Mindblowing uses of 3D/4D printing
that are coming:
• Human tissue printing
This is the end of the waiting list for
kidneys. The printing of human tissue
(www.ted.com/talks/anthony_atala_print
ing_a_human_kidney) opens up worlds
of medical possibilities and will shift the
focus away from donor registry building.
• Nano printing
Printing at the nano scale will enable
innovation across manufacturing fields,
technology and have practical medical
uses. The creation of nano biofilters and
even nanobots will enable easier engineering to occur at the nano scale -should be a fantastic voyage.
• Self-assembling 4D printing
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
Self-assembling printing involves 3D
printers that create smart objects that
can assemble themselves through kinetic energy. This may not free people
from the Sunday Ikea projects, but it definitely makes folks at MIT excited.
• Printing food
This is just gross. Though it excites
NASA with the possibility of printing
food in space and easily storing and processing food for long voyages.
• ‘Smart’ material printing
Since the Roman aqueducts, our
plumbing technology has predominantly relied on gravity to move water.
Water pipes made from smart material
have the potential to create a rhythm
that moves liquid through them.
Convinced yet? No one likes to be the
first penguin in the water, but being the
last one surely means starvation. At this
point it is not a question of if, but when
the technology will hit mass adoption
during the next five years. The real question that remains is who will be pushing
the purpose behind the printing - which
is why the nonprofit sector will need to
become printer friendly by 2020. NPT
George Weiner is chief whaler at online
communication, technology and fundraising firm Whole Whale in New York
City. Tweet: @WholeWhale
9
How to Create a Nonprofit GENERAL RAMBLINGS
Appeal in 20 Minutes
Warm Greeting
PAUL CLOLERY
An NPT Webinar Starring
Herschell Gordon Lewis
#GivingTuesday still has a long way to go
here’s no intent to throw a
bucket of ice over the efforts for
#GivingTuesday but one has to
wonder about the euphoria. The
final numbers will show roughly $60 million was raised on Dec. 2 by some 20,000
partner organizations in the United States
and another 6,500 or so abroad.
Earlier this year, and granted it might
be a one- or two-time phenomenon, the
ALS Association alone raised $61 million
in one week on its way to $115 million
with the Ice Bucket Challenge. In Colorado, 1,700 nonprofits generated $26.2
million in one day on Dec. 9.
It is probably a simplistic approach
but basic math shows that worldwide
#GivingTuesday brought in an average of
just $2,264 per participant organization.
Organizers said that it is an advocacy
event along with a fundraising appeal.
And, it’s only in its third year. The Colorado event is only in its fifth year and
raised roughly 40 percent of what the
worldwide Tweetfest brought in.
Henry Timms, one of the event’s
founders, said that the point is community. “We committed to how do we have
a conversation about values, the promise of getting people to stop when time
was all about spending and trying to
start a conversation about giving, about
connecting with people’s communities,”
Timms said.
It’s a welcome addition if this is
mostly new money. This was a worldwide event targeted at potential donors
who are willing to give mostly through
credit cards, debit cards and payment
processing services. Since most of those
bills won’t come due for 30 days, it
might be a bit easier to just make that
holiday gift on #GivingTuesday. That
could be disastrous for year-end giving if
gifts initiated through traditional response to solicitations ended up going
earlier via credit card and donors then
figure they are done.
The hope is that #GivingTuesday will
become the sector’s answer to CyberMonday when retailers hawk their wares
online. It seems as if philanthropy – both
time and/or treasure – is being turned
into a commodity when the example is a
retail purchase, rather than an act of
good will toward men (women and chil-
T
E
ver been called on to prepare a professional presentation ... and
wondered how and when you’d be ready to perform? To make the
challenge even more impossible, you’re told, “Oh, and we need it this
afternoon.”
After January 15, you’ll be able to chuckle as you tickle the keyboard with
confidence and capability, because you’ll be using the tips, tricks, and tactics you’ve
absorbed from what could be the most useful professional assistance you’ve ever
had from a unique webinar: How to Create a Nonprofit Appeal in 20 Minutes.
Only nonprofit professionals are invited his private webinar, scheduled at
2 p.m. (est), Thursday, January 15.
As you’re reading this announcement, questions might be flying through your
mind: Is it possible? Do principles actually exist, and all I have to do is apply my
knowledge of our nonprofit to the knowledge I’ll pick up at this webinar? How
extensive is this webinar? Who’s behind it? Who’s delivering it?
Those questions deserve an answer. Principles do exist,
and you’ll have them. This webinar takes just one-hour of your
time. You never have to leave your desk. The NonProfit Times
is the sponsor. The presenter is internationally-recognized
authority Herschell Gordon Lewis, author of many books,
columnist for The NonProfit Times, and a member of the Direct
Marketing Association’s Hall of Fame.
Here’s a sample of what will have you making useful notation after useful
notation: You’ll be in possession of simple rules – how to start the presentation;
what should constitute the “guts;” how to generate participation; words that
excite and words that dull; simple internal tests that force you to stay on-target.
Generally regarded as the most lionized living copywriter, Herschell Gordon
Lewis will add stimulus that can have an effect on anything you write from the
moment you’ve attended this webinar. You’ll avoid low-power word such as
“among” and “available.” You’ll discard many versions of “to be.” You’ll have at
your fingertips a quick litmus-test telling you whether your envelope copy, letter
structure, or email subject line is doomed before any outsider sees it.
Armed with fast and furious ammunition that really does make possible
creation of a professional presentation in 20 minutes (or maybe, as you begin
to apply these easy and fast little rules, less than 20 minutes), you’ll see and
benefit from lifetime value, especially since the webinar is priced at just $59.
dren, too). That is especially true as
more for-profit firms publically pat
themselves on the back via full-page ads
in consumer media describing their
work with charities.
Hopefully the events that raised a few
bucks in a community did bring people
together to hatch additional ideas. That
would be a bonus.
It will be interesting to see the research being developed by the Indiana
University Lilly School of Philanthropy.
They are measuring whether people
‘‘
We committed to
how do we have a
conversation about
values, the promise
of getting people to
stop when time was
all about spending
and trying to start
a conversation
about giving, about
connecting with
people’s communities.
--Henry Timms
simply moved their year-end giving up a
few weeks or if it is bringing in new
donors. “These are your Sybunts, Lybunts (Last Year But Unfortunately Not
This Year and Some Year But Unfortunately Not This Year),” said Jon Biderman of DonorPerfect.
There won’t be a real way to know
until after the traditional giving is complete and the economics of an improving economic is factored into the results.
One has to wonder if there is a Plan B if
year-end giving is impacted.
#GivingTuesday as a concept for
awareness is fine. And, it is early in the
event’s lifespan to determine if it will be
a fundraising machine. Between $50 and
$60 million is far from chump change
but might not be worth the effort of
roughly 26,500 organizations. Clearly,
many participant organizations ended
up spending much more than they took
in. The economics of the event need to
be closely examined on an individual
basis. NPT
THE NONPROFITTIMES
Follow us on
To be sure you won’t miss out, go to
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10
J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
STREETSMART NONPROFIT MANAGER
THOMAS A. MCLAUGHLIN
Strategic ≠ Plan
The two ideas can either be at odds or complementary
Heresy.
Apostasy.
Stupidity.
Take your pick. These are just some of the
printable evaluations of this column that will undoubtedly be hurled. Why will this happen? It is
because just about every nonprofit management
orthodoxy will be challenged.
Everybody “knows” that a strategic plan is a
good thing, and that sensibly managed organizations have leaders who work hard at devising a
good strategic plan so that the group can be well
run for the foreseeable future. What could be
wrong with that? Well, nothing is wrong with
striving to create a well-run organization. The
problem is that most strategic plans are not particularly strategic.
How could that be? After all, the word
“strategic” is embedded in that widely-used
phrase. Here’s the bad news for strategic plan
fans. This column can be summed up in the following three assertions:
• If it’s strategic, it’s not a plan.
• If it’s a plan, it’s not strategic.
• “Strategic plan” is an oxymoron.
Here is the heart of the problem: The phrase
“strategic plan” has become so familiar and reassuring that many managers have lost all perspective on the profoundly wrong things it says
about managing nonprofit organizations. It’s the
logical equivalent of a right-handed leftie. It’s an
interesting idea, perhaps, but self-contradictory.
Let’s look at this in a rational, calm fashion
with the goal of spelling out how to avoid the
above contradiction in terms. The first step is to
understand that the term “strategic” is often
used so broadly as to be almost meaningless.
The one recurring aspect of “strategy” that
should be constant is that it is about the future,
especially the long-term future. By contrast,
plans usually are made for a shorter time frame.
This is an under-acknowledged and under-appreciated aspect of management. It is a bedrock
point of strategy.
Strategy has some characteristics that distinguish it from an operating plan. In addition to
being about the long-term future -- three to five
years would be a good start -- it is conceptual in
nature. Strategies are really just broad ideas
about the way you want the future to look. There
is no right or wrong at this stage, and good
strategists will be the first to acknowledge that
the future probably will not play out the way they
currently estimate that it will (more on this later).
Strategies lead naturally to framing future
decisions so as to make them easier to understand. Many executives stumble when implementing a strategy because they think a strategy
should tell them what decisions to make under
what circumstances. Instead, they should set out
for crafting a strategy is to communicate the
image of a desired future for those who weren’t
in the room for the discussions. Smaller groups
have a different challenge.
Nonprofits with a staff of four and a board of
six have an easier time communicating an effective strategy than those with thousands of employees in multiple locations. This can be an
advantage, but the small size leads to difficulty
in defining boundaries, which can take up a disproportionate amount of available staff time and
shouldn’t be underestimated.
Of course, many people in an organization
Strategy Formulation vs. Work Planning
Primary
Orientation
Primary
Focus
Time
Metric
Strategy
Where to be
Ideas
Years
Operations
What to do to
get there
Operational
details
Weeks/Months
to create a strategy that is durable and adaptive
enough to accommodate most of the future outcomes that could reasonably be anticipated.
PRIMING THE MINDS
Strategies should also prime the mind for a
wide range of future scenarios and potential responses. This isn’t about predicting the future as
much as it is about thinking strategically. In virtually every field in which nonprofits operate, it is
often next to impossible to anticipate in any detail what the future will be like in five years. The
role of a good strategy is to help boards of directors and the executives think through the implications of a variety of developments while
adjusting strategies and associated decisions to
accomplish their long-term goals.
The size of a nonprofit is a major factor in
strategy formulation. One of the implicit reasons
J ANUARY 1, 2015
don’t care to be involved in formulating strategy.
After all, where can one find a sufficient number
of board members and staff members who enjoy
identifying and contemplating trends that might
or might not become important, are comfortable
with ambiguity, and who know how to use that
kind of information to help make decisions right
away? This is a particularly difficult task with
fewer hands available in a small organization.
GROUPS PRODUCE THE BEST STRATEGIES
There are at least two subtle benefits of
using a group to generate a strategy:
1. Groups tend to produce higher quality outcomes than do individuals; and,
2. It’s often hard in retrospect to trace failed
strategies back to one person. Incidentally, this
is one of the reasons that strategy formulation
tends to involve multiple people in an organiza-
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
tion: when you guess wrong, there can be safety
in numbers.
Of course, strategies are nothing without
work plans to implement them. This is where
people with a preference for plans instead of
strategies will find their comfort level because
“strategic” is often overshadowed by the more
intuitive orientation to operational tasks.
The short-term time horizon of work plans is
also far easier to deal with for many people than
the nebulous longer term of strategy. Most people will also find the apparent orderliness of task
planning to be much more comfortable than
contemplating strategic directions. Moreover,
strategy is inherently conceptual and future oriented, whereas work plans offer a more handson perspective.
SUMMING UP
The accompanying chart briefly summarizes
the major differences between strategy and operations planning. The difference between being
strategic and planning work is clear. The chart
shows why “strategic” and “plan” do fit well together, but not as a single process. First there is
strategy and then there can be planning. Strategy is broad and conceptual, planning is detailed
and operational and should occur only after a
strategy has been crafted.
Note also that whereas a good strategy
should endure for years, a good plan should and
will be changed to reflect shared learning and
the changing external environment.
Returning to the beginning, a strategic plan
as the phrase is frequently used is a contradiction in terms. Yet the two words together encompass the spirit of a good integrated planning
process that happens to have two distinct components. In practice, the ‘strategic’ part is likely
to get less attention than the ‘plan’ part. A good
strategy has to have both. Let them call it a
strategic plan but make sure to spend a solid
amount of time on both parts. Tell them everybody does it that way -- and in a little while you’ll
be right. NPT
Thomas A. McLaughlin is the founder of the nonprofit-oriented consulting firm McLaughlin & Associates and a faculty member at the Heller
School for Social Policy and Management at
Brandeis University. He is the author of “Nonprofit Strategic Positioning,” published by Wiley.
His email address is tamclaughlin@comcast.net
11
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N P T S P E C I A L R E P O RT: A C C O U N T I N G S O F T WA R E
VARs’ View: 5 Reasons Accounting
Software Installations Fail
BY TED NEEDLEMAN
e’ll deal with it when we have to”
are eight words that no consultant or value added reseller (VAR)
of accounting software ever
wants to hear. But that was exactly the reaction that
Lyndy Januszewski, a managing consultant at Sikitch
LLP, a Microsoft Dynamics VAR in Napierville, Ill., kept
hearing from a client.
Januszewski’s client, a nonprofit healthcare organization with several separate legal entities, was in the
process of implementing Microsoft Dynamics GP so
that the parent organization and its independentlyrun parts were all on the same page as far as accounting software.
Early on in the specification process, the client
speculated that it would be nice if all of the entities
could reside on a single database. Januszewski and
her team quickly realized that there were problems inherent in that approach, especially in preparing the
end-of-year Form 1099s for the vendors. But the client
latched onto the single-database concept, and with
bulldog-like perseverance would not let go -- hence
the eight deadly words.
There is software designed for just this purpose -to identify the transactions made by separate entities
while using a single unifying database. It is, however,
provided as an add-on available at additional cost
from an independent software provider (ISP). The
client just couldn’t see the need to spend the additional money.
As far as installation failures go, this one wasn’t as
bad as it could be. But addressing the issue “when they
had to” ended up being at the end of the year -- the
busiest possible time period to have to solve the problem. Sorting thousands of vendor payments by hand to
summarize all of the different 1099s that had to be prepared cost several hundred man-hours and thousands
of dollars. And that was before Januszewski’s team had
to tweak the software to prevent a future occurrence of
the problem.
While a large proportion of accounting software installations suffer little or no bumps in the road, sometimes they do go way off the rails. Januszewski’s
experience illustrates one of the major reasons an install project goes awry, and unfortunately, is more
common than one might expect.
In the above scenario, the failure resulted from the
client not fully understanding the overall business and
workflow process and the VAR being put in
the position of telling the client they are going
about things the wrong way. Almost every vendor and VAR consulted for this story emphasized
the importance of making sure that you understand organizational needs in terms of features and
implementation, why it needs these, and who will be
responsible for what parts of the install and ongoing
operation of the software.
David Geilhufe, senior director, corporate citizenship and nonprofit vertical software at NetSuite in San
“W
Mateo, Calif., was just one of the vendors to point out
a primary reason an installation can fail: “The nonprofit can’t fully articulate what it needs from and
what is important in an accounting system. Executives
struggle to ask the right questions about what the
nonprofit requires.”
Sometimes, the wrong questions, or no questions
at all, are a result of the wrong people being involved
in the specification of implementation process.
Joanne “Jo” Schneberger, a professional services consultant for Abila Software in Austin, Texas, noted that
having the right people in the process, and making
sure that those people are qualified to make the decisions, is crucial. “In some situations a CFO might go
out and purchase a new software and run the implementation themselves, but it fails when they didn’t
understand all the things that the team members
needed from the software,” she said. “It is crucial to
have buy-in from employees using the system so they
can participate in the customizations to the structure
and trainings.”
about a month, had things running smoothly.
The lesson, according to Geilhufe, is to ensure you
have the right people, process, and expectations in
place. “Include non-finance stakeholders in the accounting software decision and implementation
process to ensure that finance isn’t isolated from the
rest of your organization. Have one or more senior executives act as evangelists for the new accounting system to demonstrate management commitment to the
implementation,” he said.
“Do establish an executive steering committee,
which meets regularly, and which is in charge of the
implementation. Do set a correct level of expectations
about what the new accounting system will deliver.
Do encourage staff to ‘own’ the system and start training on the system early and continue it long after implementation so users are familiar with all aspects of
the functionality,” said Geilhufe.
Abila’s Schneberger also warned that a good educaContinued on page 14
PROBLEM NUMBER TWO
Unrealistic expectations are a second reason software installations fail. Also a problem is thinking that
your organization needs more or less than it actually
does.
“I got a call from the client of another VAR that handles one of the fund accounting products I also sell
and support,” said Matt Yezukevich, CPA, a consulting
manager at BlumShapiro in Quincy, Mass. “They had
moved from QuickBooks to this new software because
QuickBooks proved too limiting. But they also went
from about 1,000 accounts in their QuickBooks Chart
of Accounts to a system that can easily handle 20,000
accounts.”
This client, with five or fewer users most of the
time and between $7 million and $19 million in income, implemented a system configuration more appropriate for a $150 million entity. The reason for the
overkill was clear -- a director of finance who joined
from a much larger organization. Three directors
later, Yezukevich and his team were called in, drastically pared down the number of accounts and in
‘‘
‘We’ll deal with it when
we have to’ are eight words
that no consultant or
value added reseller
of accounting
software ever
wants to hear.
Sponsored by
13
Lyndy
Januszewski
tional foundation in how nonprofit accounting differs from standard for-profit
accounting is essential for a successful
implementation.
“There can be unrealistic expectations that by implementation a fund accounting software that all your issues
will be solved. If the people leading the
accounting department don’t understand the basics of fund accounting then
they can create a structure that makes it
hard to pull the reports necessary. Accounting managers aren’t always accountants in nonprofits,” she said.
PROBLEM NUMBER THREE
A third reason for software installation failures results from buying on name
or on a list of features rather than matching a product’s capabilities and features
to the needs and requirements of your
organization.
“Failure to do sufficient due diligence
during the selection process is a place
where some installations fail,” said Peter
Stam, president of Accufund in Needham, Mass. “Even if there’s an experienced finance director, they might not
look carefully enough at the details of
how their organization’s needs will be
met. They get wowed by price or some
sizzle factors pushed by the sales person
and don't look at the details of how they
will be accomplishing their critical reporting requirements.”
NetSuite’s Geilhufe echoed Stam’s
warning. Nonprofit managers who “base
their accounting software purchase
purely on a shopping list of software features are at a high risk of a failed implementation.” Instead, he said, come up
with a list of solutions to important business problems your nonprofit faces. That
list will translate to a set of critical/musthave features for the accounting system.
It’s something of a balancing act to find
accounting software that is specific for
the needs of nonprofits, but not overly
specific in terms of boxing your nonprofit into functionality that isn’t a feature of your own operations so, for
example, the difference between being
fundraising-driven versus grant-driven.
14
PROBLEM NUMBER FOUR
Good planning is critical to a successful accounting system installation, and is
a fourth reason that these installations
sometimes fail.
Donald Cassady, president and CEO of
Grants Management Systems (GMS) in
Kensington, Md., cautioned against relying on staff who might not understand the
nuances of nonprofit software, or for that
matter, might not have the IT background
required for a successful implementation.
“Unfortunately in the nonprofit world, especially in smaller organizations there
might not be IT personnel on staff. That
job is left to the person ‘with the most
computer experience.’ If this is the case, it
could be worth the expense to an organization to have an IT person on hand to
deal immediately with problems arising
within the network environment.”
Yezukevich shared one such failure his
firm got called in to handle. His cautionary
tale revolved around a public arts organization with a 25-year-old IT manager who
was good with computers. The client purchased a new accounting system based on
name and reputation and installed it without help. “Unfortunately,” Yezukevich recalled, ”the internal project director was
good with computers but didn’t really understand the way the organization was
structured. The situation was complicated
by the tremendous growth the organization was undergoing.”
Peter
Stam
The software was not set up correctly,
and after two years of struggling with the
new software, Yezukevich’s firm was
called in to consult. Hampered by an uncooperative member of the organization’s board, Yezukevich was unable to
do much but slap a bandage on the
problem, and the client continues to
fight with a software solution that’s not
the right one for their needs.
NetSuite’s Geilhufe added, “Pay attention every step of the way in the
process. Be involved and hands-on in
both the accounting selection process
and throughout the implementation.
Ensure that you start off with a list of real
business requirements rather than just a
list of features. Do create a discovery
J ANUARY 1, 2015
process, a documented implementation
plan, and an agreement by all parties involved (internal and external) that this
plan is the right one.”
Having a realistic implementation
plan with definable milestones and target dates is also a must for a successful
installation. It’s not enough to understand what you need. You also have to
have a detailed understanding of what it
will take to get there, how long each
step in the process will take, and establish target dates along the way. At least
one or more people on the planning
team, from your organization and/or the
vendor or VAR you select, should have
project management experience. While
a vendor or their VAR might assure you
that the process is “plug in and go,”
most experienced implementation specialists will have the scars to prove that’s
often not true.
David
Geilhufe
AccuFund’s Stam also weighed in on
the importance of being able to stick to a
schedule. “One of the reasons an installation can fail is not assigning an internal
project manager who has enough authority to get meetings scheduled and
light fires under staff for data and participation,” he said. “Having the internal
‘go to’ person can make a huge difference in whether or not an installation
succeeds.”
The experts said that you need to be
on the lookout for the “I did it this way
in my last job” syndrome. This can be extremely disrupting to a successful install
process if the person responsible for
critical areas has a strong accounting
background, but that background is not
in the nonprofit area.
According to Kent Hollrah, senior
channel executive – Nonprofit Solutions
at Intacct in San Jose, Calif., the key to a
successful implementation starts with
the chart of accounts design. “It’s very
important to have someone leading the
effort who understands both the organization’s needs and the special nuances
of nonprofit accounting,” he said. “Accounting for nonprofit entities is quite
different than for commercial enterprise. There is simply no substitute for
deep, nonprofit domain expertise.”
is turnover in leadership, it can result in
a canceled or delayed implementation,”
she said. And when responsible and/or
well-trained people leave the organization, it can throw a monkey wrench into
the installation, or the ongoing success
of what would otherwise be a successful
implementation.
Consultant and VAR Kent Arnold, CPA,
CEO of RBP Methods in Beaverton, Ore.,
shared a case that underscores this problem. It involved a client in the mental
health field that was growing rapidly
through acquisitions. The client was stuck
with a large number of simultaneous moving parts including third-party billing,
Medicare and Medicaid, and bringing on
staff from the newly acquired organizations. The organization also had to train
new staff members on how to use their
parts of the software in the midst of the
chaos of performing the installation of the
new accounting system.
“The person who did the initial setup
was an employee of the client,” Arnold
said. “And, he left after four months
without training anyone in how the system was configured. The client called
the software vendor, and they recommended that the client engage our firm.
We went in and simplified the chart of
accounts, reporting, and Human Resource subsystems.” RBP Methods also
arranged ongoing training so that the
client would not be caught in the same
situation in the future.
Schneberger is blunt about this area
“Don’t cheap out on training. It is important to make the investment in training at the beginning otherwise it will
cost you in the long-run. Your team will
spend all the time calling support if the
staff isn’t successfully trained during implementation.”
Training the support team isn’t the
only education that might have to take
place. If you don’t have people on the selection and implementation teams who
understand how the pieces fit together, it
might make sense to either train your
people in areas that they are not proficient, or engage a consultant that’s not
affiliated with any particular software
vendor or VAR to assist in the process.
FINALLY, NUMBER FIVE
According to Abila’s Schneberger, a
fifth reason software installs fail is turnover and a lack of training. “When there
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
Continued on page 15
Joanne
Schneberger
Accounting Automation
There are many accounting software packages employed in the nonprofit world.
Below are some of the more prominent applications.
Abila
MIP Fund Accounting
Up to three users, $249/user/month;
$149/month each user after three
800-811-0961
www.abila.com
Donald
Cassady
While there are numerous VARs who can
do a good job analyzing your organization’s needs, it’s best to leave that
process and decision in the hands of
people who don’t have a financial interest in the sale of software and/or services.
Thomas Walker, product manager for
the financial solutions line at Blackbaud
in Charleston, S.C., also weighed in on
the importance of having educated specification, implementation, and operational teams. “When you think about
training during the software selection
and implementation process, you can
break it down into two segments. The
first one is training as part of the architecture and understanding how the system is going to work from that
architectural perspective,” he said. “That
way, as design begins and goes through
any embellishment like testing, the users
that are involved in that design phase
fully understand the underlying architecture of the software.”
The second phase of that, Walker
continued, “is to begin to bring in the
end users so that they are properly
trained on the software and begin to get
comfortable with it.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
Obviously, there are a lot more than
five reasons that a project as complex as
implementing a software installation can
fail. The best defense against an installation failure is planning. Know what your
organization needs, who it needs both
internally and externally to make the install work, have a realistic timeline and
expectations, and have a plan in place
for future operation and change. Doing
your homework, and having resources at
hand to handle any surprises gives you
the best chance of having not only a
smooth software installation, but winding up with a system and personnel to
keep it operating smoothly once it’s up
and running.
Finally, here’s one last suggestion. If
you don’t know something, or you’re
not sure -- ask. That’s true before and
during the selection of software, while
the implementation is proceeding, and
after the new system is up and running.
Get help if you aren’t completely confident you can solve a problem. NPT
AccuFund Inc.
AccuFund Accounting Suite Standard
Single-user: $2,995; three users:
$6,495;
add $895 for each additional user.
Cloud-based pricing starts at
$150/month
AccuFund Accounting Suite Professional
Single-user: $6,595; three users: $8,995;
add $1,195 for each additional user
Cloud-based pricing starts at
$225/month
781-433-0233
www.accufund.com
Agilon
Agilon Business Financials
Starts at $27,000 for 1 to 4 users
Starts at $42,000 for 5 to 10 users
800-480-9015
www.myagilon.com
Aplos Software
Aplos Accounting
$15/month for one user
$25/month for unlimited users
Aplos Oversight Suite
Basic enterprise platform free to
nonprofit users of Accounting Suite
888-274-1316
www.aplos.com
Araize
FastFund Nonprofit Software
Single user, starts at $35/month; two to
five users, $60/month; $25/month for
every five more users
FastFund Premium
$75/month single, $100/month multiuser up to five users
919-460-3990
www.araize.com
Cougar Mountain Software
DENALI FUND
Basecamp Package
Single user $1,999; $357 each
additional user
Ascent Package
Single user, $2,999; $357 each
additional user
Summit Package
Single user, $4,999; $357 each
additional user
800-388-3038
www.cougarmtn.com
CYMA Systems Inc.
CYMA Not-For-Profit Edition
Basic package starts at $795
Typical 5 User System with Grant
racking: $5,800
800-292-2962
www.cyma.com
eTEK International
eTEK Fundamentals
Starting at $5,000 for one user
800-888-6894
www.etek.net
FUND E-Z Development Corp.
FUND E-Z Nonprofit Accounting
Single user $1,995; each additional
user approximately $500
FUND E-Z Nonprofit Accounting (Pro
add-on) $1,495
877-696-0900
www.fundez.com
Grants Management Systems, Inc.
GMS Accounting and Financial
Management/Reporting System
One to two users, $3,500; three to four
Blackbaud
Financial Edge NXT
Single user starting at $249/month
800-443-9441
www.blackbaud.com
J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
users, $5,000; five or more users,
$7,500; License and warranty,
$35/month/user
Revolving Loan Servicing System
One to two users, $3,300; three to four
users $3,800; five or more users
$4,300.
License and warranty, $35/month/user
800-933-3501
www.gmsactg.com
Intacct Corporation
Intacct
Typical entry-level pricing for nonprofits
is $3,600/year
877-437-7765
http://us.intacct.com
Intuit Inc.
Quickbooks Premier for Nonprofits
Starts at $499.95/year for one user
877-683-3280
http://quickbooks.intuit.com/premier/
Quickbooks Enterprise Solutions for
Nonprofits 13.0
Starts at $1,000/year for one user
866-379-6635
http://enterprisesuite.intuit.com/industry-solutions/nonprofit/
NetSuite
NetSuite Mid-Market Edition
Free donation through TechSoup for up
to 5 users at qualifying nonprofits
NetSuite Fund Accounting
Starting at $9,995/year for 5 users
877-NETSUITE
www.netsuite.com
OneNFP
OneNFP Financials
Starts at $99 per user per month
877-261-7045
www.onenfp.com
Open Systems Inc.
TRAVERSE for Not-for-Profit
Starts at $195 per user per month
800-328-2276
www.osas.com
Serenic Software
Serenic Navigator
Three users, starts
at $16,000
877-737-3642
www.serenic.com
15
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16
J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
American Red Cross ‘Vision’ Reduces
Staff, Pushes Consolidation
BY MARK HRYWNA
ive years after bridging a $209-million operating deficit, the American
Red Cross is again slashing expenses
amid a nationwide reorganization of
the 133-year-old nonprofit.
As part of a plan called “Vision 2017,” the
Red Cross will eliminate almost 5 percent of its
workforce, with many cuts already made during
the past year. Approximately 1,200 of an estimated 26,500 jobs will be slashed throughout
the chapters and national headquarters in Washington, D.C., while consolidating the number of
regional chapters nationwide by one-third.
“Vision 2017” is a three-year effort that started
in the Biomedical Services Division during late 2012,
with the majority of staff reductions and changes occurring this past fall and effective by the end of 2014.
There likely will be “a small number of additional reductions in limited areas next year (2015) in units
that did not undertake all of their reductions” last
year, said Roger Lowe, senior vice president, communications, at national headquarters.
Positions are across the organization -chapter and local biomedical services, as well as
national headquarters and a wide range of departments, with some units at headquarters seeing a staff reduction of as much as 30 percent.
“Every segment of the Red Cross is taking a
fresh look at the work we do and how we can do
it better and more efficiently, making the best
use of donor dollars. These effects will affect
nearly all of the Red Cross structure and operations,” said Lowe, who since a November telephone interview left the organization to lead the
communications team at the Washington, D.C.based Grocery Manufacturers Association. The
organization declined to reveal estimated savings associated with “Vision 2017.”
The changes occurring nationwide are “part
of an overall effort to ensure that Red Cross is
well positioned for the future, with a goal for having more resources to spend on the communities
we serve,” said Lowe. “We’re continuing to rightsize biomedical services to adjust to changes in
the market,” Lowe said, describing a new chapter structure as “a local model for local services.”
Changes within the Biomedical Services Division started earlier “because of the challenges
facing the entire industry and that extended
throughout the organization with changes,”
Lowe said. “We’re revising the structure to have
volunteer leaders to fill roles previously done by
paid staff members,” he said.
Approximately 96 regional chapters will be
reorganized into 62 regional chapters, overseeing about 240 community chapters, making for
about 300 chapters in all. As recently as just a
few years ago, Red Cross had 720 independent
chapters, each with its own payroll systems, financial audits, websites and IT departments.
During the past several years, those operations
have been consolidated nationwide.
The more recent reorganization is in response
to anticipating trends and challenges facing the
organization in the coming years, from declining
blood donations and decreased demand for blood
to rising debt and pension liabilities.
Some of the nation’s oldest and best-known
nonprofits have endured massive restructuring
F
in recent years. The American Cancer Society
consolidated 12 divisions amid an organizational-wide transformation during its centennial
year in 2013. Several years ago, Girl Scouts of
the USA consolidated from more than 300 local
councils into barely 100 while the national office
in New York City restructured staffing levels
ahead of the 2013 Fiscal Year.
The business models of revenue-raising
the Internet came of age, he said, and millennials are not interested in joining member organizations. “Certainly 2008 brought that into the
fore,” Tuck said.
“For a lot of these networks, and a lot of
these organizations, it’s not just about scale but
using that scale for impact. It’s not just how
many people you reach but how many people
you help,” Tuck said. And while there is pressure
Some Red Cross Regions
Expanding, Building
he American Red Cross “Vision
2017” plan includes reassessing
the size of its vast real estate
holdings across the country, looking at property owned and rented by the Red
Cross at the local and national levels, and determining what it has and what it will need in
the future.
“This will take several years to implement,” Roger Lowe, senior vice president,
communications, said during a November
telephone interview. Lowe has since left the
organization.
That review won’t affect a new headquarters facility planned for the Greater Indianapolis chapter. The local headquarters will be an
example of a Red Cross “facility of the future,”
said John Lyter, CEO of the American Red
Cross of Greater Indianapolis. “We’re thinking
about how we use technology and how volunteers come to us now,” he said. The current
headquarters is a 56,000-square-foot building that was built when people in central Indiana “came here for everything, so we needed
a big old building.”
He explained: “We go to where the people
are, more than people come to the Red Cross.
So you need a hub where volunteers can gather,
can at least have the technology and the stuff to
provide service so they can go volunteer in the
way it works for them.” A new headquarters will
be more like 25,000 square feet.
Lyter described the changes associated
with Vision 2017 as a “reorganization as well
as rationalization.” Indiana will have six defined chapters working as a single region, providing coordinating functions, such as training,
back-office operations and standards for service delivery, he said. Previously, Indiana was
two regions and parts of three others.
“There are about four ways to organize
the Red Cross: They all work. There are reasons to change. I’ve seen this map before,”
Lyter said, recalling a version in the 1970s
T
nonprofits that worked so well in the 20th century are “getting a little long in the tooth,” said
Alan Tuck, a senior advisor at Boston-based The
Bridgespan Group. For example, the Fidelity
Charitable Gift Fund, a donor-advised fund, is
now larger than long-time workplace giving stalwart United Way.
“Direct mail is still important but it’s not a
growth engine anymore,” Tuck said. Organizations were built-up with modes of giving before
J ANUARY 1, 2015
and 1980s that had 56 “visions” that were
similar.
Most Red Cross chapters were organized
around World War I, particularly east of Mississippi. “If you look at the rest of the world
and how it organizes, it doesn’t organize
much at the county level for social services,”
Lyter said. The state organizes in 10 districts
through systems like Department of Homeland Security, state police, education and the
Department of Health. “While we only have six
Current headquarters of the American Red
Cross of Greater Indianapolis
chapters, we’re using the state district map to
inform how we staff the place. As we work
with partners, we will have staff aligned with
the way at least state government and others
think about organizing their work in the
state,” said Lyter. He started as a volunteer in
1967 before joining the paid staff in 1976.
He’s been CEO the last 19 years.
The Red Cross in Indiana has between
4,000 and 5,000 volunteers and staff now number about 57, down about one-third from 79 in
the regions that made up the previous incarnation. The changes took effect this past Nov. 1.
The reductions came through a combination of
a reduction in force (RIF), and eliminating vacant positions. “We tried to take as many of
them [vacant positions] into consideration as
possible,” Lyter said. Some staff approaching
retirement did not want to go forward in the
new structure, he said. Staff received three
weeks’ notice and severance. – Mark Hrywna
on the financial side, he said there also is pressure from donors who want to see results. “Don’t
just tell me you care, tell me results,” he said.
United Way Worldwide shifted from a fiscal
intermediary to a community solutions organization. People no longer need United Way as a
pass-through because it’s easier to give directly
to a charity. The Y has been increasingly creating
signature programs, which have real, measurable outcomes, with a consistency in delivering
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
those programs that’s beginning to draw philanthropy, Tuck said.
Leaders of these organizations are restructuring not just as cost-cutting measures but an
effort to deliver more impact, measure and capability, Tuck emphasized.
Most changes at the chapter level were to be
in place by Dec. 31, according to Lowe. This is
the largest reduction at headquarters since 2008
when about 1,000 positions were eliminated to
help bridge a $209-million operating deficit.
In 2012, Red Cross consolidated human resources, marketing, information technology, finance and preparedness and health and safety
services operations, “eliminating unnecessary
administrative burdens,” though the organization
declined to provide an estimate as to savings.
Red Cross has been reducing its debt over the
past several years, from $613 million in 2009 to
$539 million in 2013. Its debt-to-net-asset ratio
spiked to almost 35 percent in 2012, between
years of 23.6 percent (2013) and 26 percent
(2011). It also took steps to curtail its pension plan
in 2013. The organization reduced post-retirement
pension liability from $1 billion to $558 million by
freezing the retirement system and offering a
lump-sum buyout for terminated vested employees. Red Cross officials declined to comment beyond a note in its financial statements. The plan
was closed to employees hired after July 1, 2009
and changes also were made at the time to retirement health plan coverage.
“Much of this is an internal restructuring,”
Lowe said of the current reorganization. “We’re
actually doing this in a way, in hopes that we will
continue service in the community, hopefully expand it, to serve even more people in the years
ahead,” he said. “As we’re working through this,
our goal is people who depend on Red Cross for
help in an emergency situation, training, for blood,
won’t see a difference on the ground. Red Cross is
still going to be there,” he said, including things
such as CPR classes and swim lessons.
Approximately one-third of disaster services
positions at headquarters were pushed out into
the field, Lowe said, and as part of the disaster
structure change they’re getting more decisionmaking authority on the ground.
Red Cross will continue to have a presence in
every state. Some states will have one chapter
region and others will have more, Lowe said. For
instance, Ohio will have three regional chapters
but still have community chapters in fairly large
cities. In Michigan, three divisions were consolidated into a single statewide division, with 20 regional chapters reduced to six after layoffs in
October. In California, four executive director positions were eliminated. A newly formed California Northwest chapter will encompass three
former chapters that each had their own director.
This round of layoffs began in the Biomedical
Services Division more than a year ago. Red
Cross expected to collect one million fewer blood
donations in 2014 than it did five years ago,
leading to declining revenue in the Biomedical
Services Division, which accounts for two-thirds
of the organization’s $3 billion in annual revenue. About 2 percent of the staff in Biomedical
Services was laid off a year ago, representing
about 360 of 18,000 positions at the time. NPT
17
BURNT OFFERINGS
HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS
Creative Masterclass
4 options for targeting donors
ere is given, generic to the
media-loaded second decade
of the 21st century: Our capability of knowing many specifics of our donor-targets is far greater than
it was even a single generation ago.
So, a question arises, matching that
evolutionary (or devolutionary) trend:
Do you agree that intensifying an individual appeal to match what we know
about the individual is a “so what?” alternative to emphasizing our worth as a
nonprofit organization?
You have four options when evaluating how you might compete in the nonprofit world, using ammunition distilled
from what your organization knows
about itself and about which potential
donors represent a logical bottom-line.
If only as a double-check to reassure
yourself that you haven’t let personal
prejudices replace dispassionate judgment, why not check out these options:
Do you agree? Disagree? Just ignore?
• Option Number One: I want to
match my competitive offer to potential
H
donors (no prior association with us)
with appeals worded to match whatever
I know, based on existing donors. It’s up
to the list company or local sources to
supply me with names.
Agree. Why? You’re allowing tradition
to override opportunity, but you’re in
safe territory.
• Option Number Two: I want to
match one significant factor -- age, postal
code, or professional/employment circumstance. Then, wording will match the factor.
Agree. Here’s one constraint: Anticipate serendipity -- finding what you
aren’t looking for. Use the obvious circumstance-factors to refine response.
You might discover a hidden lode -- ageranges that are unresponsive, ZIP codes
that react positively to one approach but
not to others. Be ready to re-word as a
test to see if you can intensify the percentage of positive answers.
• Option Number Three: I want to
open new gates. I’ll aim outside the agerange, income-level, and other demographic elements that have previously
driven appeals.
Agree. The obvious provisions are
that you don’t leap off the deep end into
a slough of despond and that you tailor
the appeal so participation seems logical
for those who exist within the segment.
• Option Number Four: Change
media.
Agree. Switching from or to direct
mail, from or to an online communication, or inclusion of social media shows
a twenty-first century awareness of cultural change. Note, though, that here,
more than with any of the other options,
you include a panel representing whatever media or even single medium has
been the most effective for you, dollar
for dollar. Invading new media can parallel fighting windmills.
An assumption repeated here just for
completeness is that no answer can be
tabulated and no experiment is complete until its second year, in which you
re-approach donors for renewal. That’s
where recruits whose numbers haven’t
quite risen above the break-even mark
can surge. Don’t count on this, though.
Safety lies in your original results.
A question that might accompany
every one of the others: Does experimentation make sense when you haven’t exhausted the original lode? Sure, it does.
IN THE DEMANDING
WORLD OF PEER-TO-PEER
FUNDRAISING, WORKING
SMARTER GIVES YOU
THE ADVANTAGE.
GET THE TOOLS & CONTACTS
YOU NEED TO SUCCEED AT
Competitors constantly snipe, and except
for highly dedicated and fanatical donors,
all fundraising is competitive with all
other fundraising. Inevitably, grist for our
mill is grist for other mills, and growth
comes from connecting outside our own
sphere as well as intensification within.
One more question, a repeat -- maybe
just for clarity: If you base your marketing philosophy on “Who we are” rather
than “Who you are,” are you allowing
tradition to override opportunity?
Agree. You know what Yogi Berra said
about what to do when you come to a
fork in the road. (Take it.)
That’s it. Simple enough, isn’t it? OK,
your turn. NPT
Herschell Gordon Lewis is a professional writer who lives in Pompano
Beach, Fla., consulting with and writing direct response copy for clients
worldwide. He is the author of “Hot Appeals or Burnt Offerings,” an analysis of
fund raising techniques. His most recent book is his 32nd -- “Internet Marketing Tips, Tricks, and Tactics.” Among
his other books are“On the Art of Writing Copy,” (fourth edition),“Creative
Rules for the 21st Century,” and “How
to Write Powerful Fund Raising Letters.”
His website is herschellgordonlewis.com
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18
J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
Florida Association of Nonprofit Organizations
512 NE Third Avenue, Fort Lauderdale, Florida 33301
www.fano.org marina.fano@gmail.com 305.557.1764
Director
Corporate Partnerships
Albion, MI (US)
Kohls Group Consulting is seeking a President and
Chief Executive Officer for our client, an internationally recognized leader in transformational programs
for children, families, schools and communities
based in the Midwest.
The President and Chief Executive Officer will provide charismatic, inclusive leadership to set and enhance “a best in class” standard of professional
excellence that will ensure our client’s industryleading success in addressing the social, emotional
and psychological needs of children and families.
The ideal candidate will be a self-directed, high energy, dynamic leader with a passion for positive youth
development and education possessing excellent
community relations skills and a strong record of confronting all obstacles and barriers to achieving success in the delivery and growth of human services.
This position will require the ability to demonstrate
leadership in state, national and international fields of
interest vital to the organization’s mission while ensuring its financial security, integrity and growth through
“fund and friend” development on a scale commensurate with a large human service enterprise.
Founded in 1913, our client’s treatment philosophy
is rooted in seeing the good in every child, which
serves as the guiding principle in its strength-based
approach. Our client offers a wide range of community-based juvenile justice, child welfare and behavioral health programs, education and educational
management services, as well as specialized residential programs in an upper Midwestern state and
training for education and youth development professionals around the world.
Excellent benefits package and equal
opportunity employer.
Applicants should submit their resumes with a
cover letter indicating their salary requirements to
kgc@kohlsgroup.com or Kohls Group Consulting,
N27 W23960 Paul Road, Suite 100, Pewaukee, WI
53072. No telephone inquires please.
To place an ad
in this section
call
973-401-0202 x206
or contact
mary@nptimes.com
Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals® raises funds for
170 children’s hospitals across the United States and
Canada, which, in turn, use the money where it’s needed
the most. When a donation is given it stays in the community, helping local kids. Since 1983, Children’s Miracle
Network Hospitals has raised more than $5 billion, most
of it $1 at a time. These donations have gone to support
research and training, purchase equipment, and pay for
uncompensated care, all in support of the mission to save
and improve the lives of as many children as possible.
This position will be responsible for the development
and execution of national corporate partner campaigns designed to raise funds and public awareness for Children’s
Miracle Network and its affiliated hospitals; serve as the
primary contact for his/her portfolio of accounts; provide
account leadership; achieve account fundraising and
awareness goals; and develop new fundraising campaigns
and events. This individual is responsible for building and
maintaining relationships with all stakeholders and managing the fiscal growth of assigned corporate accounts.
JOB DUTIES
• Manage and grow a portfolio of national corporate
partner accounts
• Develop, manage and evaluate strategic alliances with
corporate partner accounts in accordance with overall
department and organizational strategy
• Develop account goals and strategic business and operating plans
• Forecast, budget and track account revenue and expenses
• Plan, coordinate and execute corporate account stewardship activities
• Work in conjunction with various CMN Hospitals departments including Communications, Hospitals Relations, Accounting, Insights and the Regional Team to
plan and implement the strategic direction of individual
partner accounts
• Develop, enhance and manage cause marketing partnerships with a relatively high degree of concentration
in fundraising, public relations, sales and marketing
• Cultivate strong corporate partnerships by building and
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J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
19
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18 Peer-to-Peer Forum
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16 VolunteerHub
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To place an ad in this section, contact Mary Ford at
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J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
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THE NONPROFITTIMES
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THE NONPROFIT TIMES
21
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LEGAL SERVICES
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22
J ANUARY 1, 2015
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
COMMENTARY
RICK CHRIST
Thought Leadership?
Retiring words and phrases that have lost their buzz
aseball is known for its overused phrases and bad grammar
as much as it is for hot dogs
and beer. But, I still cringed
when I heard a college coach introduce a
6-foot, 6-inch pitcher by saying: “This tall
drink of water will give you 110%, 110% of
the time.”
Yogi Berra, the famous Yankee catcher,
was adorable with his awkward handling
of his native English. The rest of us just
sound like buffoons when we speak like
this.
Fundraising has its own Yogi-isms,
and few of us have his charm in delivering them. So, let’s retire some phrases
that over-promise and under-deliver in
terms of meaning and clarity.
Let’s start with “cloud-based software,” which used to be called “software as a service,” which used to be
called “web-based software,” all of
which are sold by “application service
providers.” In my career we’ve gone
from getting floppy disks with software
upgrades, to dialing up the vendor’s computer and hoping they’d load their own
upgrades, to accessing our files on the Internet and hoping hackers weren’t also
accessing them.
While we’re poking fun at software
firms, let’s also call them out on “solutions” -- many of which are nifty pieces
of software eagerly searching for problems. A hammer is a “solution” -- if your
problem is a protruding nail.
And, what about “industry-leading?”
I remember when Avis bragged about
being #2. Not even in Lake Wobegon
(where all the children are above average) can all the “solutions” be “industryleading.” Just for fun, I Googled (another
soon to be boring phrase) “industry-leading, cloud-based solution” and found
697,000 results with that claim in 0.38
seconds. That’s a lot of bragging. (See the
accompanying screen shot.)
The age of “emarketing,” with or
without the hyphen, is over. We used to
“e-market” (then “emarket”) with email (which later became “email”) but
email is now just one piece of a huge, integrated web of channels, including social media and mobile.
The “e” has to go. Call it “digital marketing” if you have to describe the channels about which your boss is still
uncomfortable. But really, if you’re still
focusing on digital efforts separately
from postal, your entire department
needs to be retired, not just the words
you’re still using.
“Viral” and “organic,” when combined with growth should be handcuffed
together and expelled. If “organic” means
growth that we didn’t work for, then
“viral” means growth that we didn’t really
B
‘‘
There even are
places where
English completely
disappears; in
America they
haven't used it
for years. --Henry Higgins
deserve. Campaigns used to “bomb,”
“break-even” or “succeed” and they still
do, though fewer will succeed if we settle
for “organic” and keep reaching for “viral.”
Besides, in this drug-resistant bacterial age, “viral” and “organic” make me
want to wash my hands and wear a mask.
Anybody older than 40 knows that
nice people have friends, and troublemakers have “cohorts.” Cohorts need to
be indicted along with co-conspirators
and members of a cabal.
“Deep-Dive” and “granular” is the
J ANUARY 1, 2015
next pair to get the editorial heave-ho. As
in, “let’s take a deep dive into the data” or
“if we get more granular…” Let’s face it.
The big-picture numbers are just the sum
of the little-picture numbers. There’s no
way to increase your fundraising results
by focusing on the total revenue number.
You have to focus on retention rate, giving
frequency, and average gift. So start there,
focus there, and don’t “drill down” (a “cohort” of “deep-dive”) any further. And for
heaven’s sake, don’t “drill up.” Ever.
Saying your organization has “silos”
THE NONPROFIT TIMES
is an excuse for failing to play nicely together with the other professionals who
have their own goals and their own
bosses. Of course they worry about their
boss’s priorities more than they worry
about yours. It’s your job to show them
how they can meet their boss’s priorities
by aligning with yours.
Of course, without silos, you’ll be
tempted to “interface” and “network”
more. Don’t succumb to that temptation. Instead, “meet” your colleagues (or
cohorts, if you’re part of The Van Buren
Boys) and “talk” with them.
A colleague contributed this phrase,
uttered in her presence at a recent meeting: “We want to create data sets that are
organic and breathable to set us up for
success before the campaign.” I’d love to
criticize this, but I have to understand
first what the heck this person meant.
The best I can come up with is that they
want a bar of success that looks sufficiently “data-driven” but which they can
lower if they need to declare victory
when the campaign is over.
In “My Fair Lady,” Henry Higgins laments, “There even are places where English completely disappears; in America
they haven’t used it for years.”
Let us vow, in fundraising, in 2015, to
speak from the heart and mind, not the
sound-byte. NPT
Rick Christ is vice president for digital
fundraising (not “e-fundraising) at Amergent in Peabody, Mass. His native language is New York, but he now lives in
Virginia and has been working on an Appalachian twang for the past 18 years. He
lives digitally @FundraisingRick
23
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able to check YES on your Form 990
regarding salaries for your chief
executive and key employees
set using comparability data for
similar positions.
• Learn about 94 employee benefits,
going way beyond dental plans and
summer hours.
• Get data by nonprofit field, budget
size, number of employees, and
region throughout the U.S.
• Attract and retain the best employees
by knowing how to offer fair and
competitive compensation.
Purchase your digital copy of the
2014 Nonprofit Organizations
Salary and Benefits Report today!
www.thenonprofittimes.com/store

THENONPROFITTIMESTM

Transcription

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