Non-Profit Chas

I believe that strategic plans (like business plans, college educations, and road trips) have more value in the journey than in the destination. The end result of your strategic planning process might be two pages or 20 pages. It might be loaded with all kinds of optimistic goals and lofty ambitions. It may even help you win grants or land new donors.

But those three (or 20) pages represent more than the text on the paper. The plan represents your organization’s heart and soul. Built by of board members and staff, volunteers and donors, community members and experts, a strategic plan brings many perspectives together and puts them on the same team. Many people driving hard, optimistic, and committed to the future.

Hard questions and hard answers. New ideas and revelations. Many a-ha moments. And a lot of expectations.

This isn’t to say that the end result isn’t valuable; it’s just not the whole picture. You can’t ask one person (or five people) to simply sit down and create your strategic plan. Not if you want it to mean anything. Not if you want it to hold up.

Next post: planning your strategic planning.

I read a lot. I’m currently reading “Beyond Fundraising” by Kay Sprinkel Grace and “Making Library Web Sites Usable” by Tom Lehman and Terry Nikkel. I’ve nearly exhausted our small collection of non-profit resources at the Camp Fire office.

Amber just discovered an amazing resource: Indiana Youth Institute has a free library that you can use via mail.

Once you have requested materials, IYI will mail your materials to you by priority mail. In your package, we will include a postage-paid return envelope. Just place the items in the envelope, seal it and add your return address, and pop it in with your regular mail.

Check it out at IYI Library

I’m definitely going to sign up.

When we face seemingly insurmountable odds, it is easy to seek a silver bullet to magically solve your problems. We see this in desperate fundraising appeals to wealthy donors, last ditch (and very expensive!) advertising campaigns, and so on.

There is no silver bullet.

Sure, you might win the heart of some fantastically rich and generous donor who bails you out. Of course your ad campaign might catch the right person at the right time and land you tons of clients.

Or you could buy a lottery ticket to pay your bills.

In the real world (where you live when you’re not working for your non-profit of choice), we know better. We save money and make frugal decisions. We build our resumes through hard work and incrementally successful projects. We take life slow and build on the results we’ve achieved.

Momentum takes a lot of work to build. It’s hard. It’s even harder to reverse it. So don’t think you can do it overnight, with a silver bullet that never was.

From FundRaising Success comes the article, Treat your best donors right

A couple of gems:

…that’s what a lot of fundraisers do: They hand-pick the donors who are most responsive to their fundraising programs — and put them in a radically different program. And it’s probably costing them significant revenue.

[Major donors] give more money. Duh. But this fact should inform what you ask them for. Are you asking folks who routinely write you checks for $500 to give you $20? If you are, you’re not only leaving money on the table, you’re saying loud and clear, “We don’t really know you!”

They are a more valuable asset to your organization. It helps to approach them with investment thinking. The dollars you spend on them can trigger a much better return.

They get more personal touches, like thank-you phone calls or handwritten cards, birthday cards, special reports on your work, invitations to see your work firsthand, and other appreciative touches.

Earlier this week, I met Andrew Lynn from Make a Difference Michiana, an organization that provides resources and connections for non-profits in the northern Indiana and southwestern Michigan community. He offered a lot of excellent suggestions for partnering with other groups.

Today, Andrew wrote about the effects of recession on non-profits, increased demand, and the fascinating increase in donor activity. He also offers plenty of links to other great sites. Check out his blog.

Here’s to making connections.

We’re knee-deep in “strategic planning”:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_planning right now. Like many organizations, Our “Camp Fire council”:http://campfireusarbc.org/ doesn’t have a strategic plan in place to work from. We haven’t done this process before, and weren’t sure how to go about it. We just figured we needed to do it.

I’d like to write about this process over the next few months as we build our strategic plan. But first I’ll make a recommendation:

h3. Get help.

We started the process by spinning our wheels, unsure of what a strategic plan should be. We didn’t know the format, how detailed we should get, or what kind of time period it should cover. Three years? Five? Ten? We got nowhere. We had no idea what we were doing.

Then we got some help. We turned to “SCORE”:http://score.org/, who graciously agreed to help facilitate the process. Our SCORE guys, Norm and Fred, have done this many times before and have done a great job of keeping us from veering right over the edge of the cliff again. They provided resources and a framework for the strategic plan. They’ve attended many of our meetings and have kept our expectations realistic.

For instance, we’re no longer trying to knock out a strategic plan in under a month. We’re also bringing many others into the process, rather than having four or five board members try to pen the entire thing.

And we’re building momentum. Always important.

That’s right, I said what we’ve all been thinking. Chameleons are dumb.

Or, at least, emulating a chameleon is dumb.

In the unending quest for funding, it’s tempting to apply for all kinds of grants. These grants are intended to address a wide range of issues: literacy, poverty, environment, etc. Of course, the hot new issue has a lot of cash behind it.

It seems natural…you need money and they have money. So you apply, tweaking your program to best suit the grant. Ever agile, you nimbly position your organization to best meet the grantmaker’s criteria.

And you lose. Even if you get the money, you lose.

You lose your identity.

You’ll have to do the same kind of organizational gymnastics to meet the next grant that comes along, and ultimately you’ll become an ambulance chaser. After all, how can you represent a vision for something you don’t truly believe in?

Stick to your mission. Find funding sources that match your organization’s goals. And don’t shift your colors every time a new backdrop appears.

Ian McKee from “The Power of Influence” writes about how advertising can hurt your brand, specifically through the idea that “brands that have to rely on traditional advertising are not as good as ones that succeed through word of mouth.”

This is a fascinating idea, and I admit to having made this conclusion from time to time. From a producer’s standpoint, however, this is dangerous thinking. Word of mouth may be the best kind of marketing, but ultimately it requires someone to make that recommendation. What producers really seek is awareness.

Advertising is an expensive way to buy awareness, and non-profits rarely have the budget for such methods.

Jeff Brooks comments on the same article, and hits the nail on the head:

“If we get our cues from the advertising world, we probably make the same mistakes they make. But more important—and more likely—we should be asking ourselves if we’re offering donors something truly remarkable to do. Something that would actually spread through word-of-mouth, making advertising unnecessary.”

If you offer something truly remarkable, people will remark on it. You’ll get word of mouth. You’ll get press coverage. You’ll get the right kind of attention and hit the right constituents. And that kind of awareness is far better than anything you can buy.

Non Profit Manifesto

This isn’t a long, rambling manifesto. This isn’t a thou shalt not type of manifesto. It’s a Hugh MacLeod-style manifesto, one specifically for non-profit organizations. As a typically verbose, rambling moron, I really enjoy the challenge of saying a lot with little.

• Your mission is what you’re here to do, your raison d’etre.
• Your vision is where you’re going.
• Your strategy is how you’ll get there.
• Be able to describe your mission, your vision, and your strategy in short, succinct statements that everyone can understand.
• Non-profit life is hard, but you’re not a beggar. Ask for money but don’t apologize for doing good works.
• Fee for service is the non-profit equivalent of revenue; companies can’t survive without charging for their products.
• If your customers cannot pay for the services, find people to pay for them.
• Donors are investors – they seek a return on their investment.
• Show how much you do with the few resources you have.
• The right time to ask a donor for money is when you’ve shown that the last donation was used well.
• Always say thank you.
• Tell a story in everything you do.
• Try to be the best at something.
• You might make more money in the business world, but you can make more of a difference in a non-profit.
• Remember your mission, your vision, and your strategy.

I don’t think donors really care about tax breaks.

I think most philanthropists care about supporting a cause, investing in their community, and making the world a better place.

It’s just a hunch.

Seth Godin reinforces my hunch when he writes about Charity Auctions: “The goal of a non-profit seeking money needs to be to create an environment in which the community congratulates itself on overpaying.”