Be More Multi-Channel

Got an old school direct mail junkie on your team? Use this 2-minute video from the President of a 93-year-old direct marketing firm to help support your argument that consumers are becoming more multi-channel in their daily lives, and expecting more from the brands (& causes) they engage with. I’m guessing they’ll listen to Debbi Barber from Grizzard Communications.

And if your team is onboard, but you had a colleague at the last AFP luncheon who was crying on your shoulder about being stuck in the fundraising rut, forward on! 

7 Questions To Ask First

A third (33%) of nonprofit executives take over from someone who was fired or forced to resign, according to the 2011 Daring to Lead report, which surveyed 3000 nonprofit executive directors earlier this year.  The easiest way to avoid getting the boot yourself is to avoid taking a leadership job at a dysfunctional organization in the first place.

Ramping in public is hard enough  - meeting & leading the team, taking inventory of a community of supporters, revitalizing relationships that may have wilted  – without finding yourself facing unexpected infrastructure failures. The

Daring to Lead report finds that a full 55% of your peer executives name technology as a “depleting” aspect of their job (it would have been the most depleting of all options surveyed, if not for the joys of HR – like evaluating and hiring/firing staff). As someone interviewing for a top job, how can you detect warning signs of organizational system decay *before* your professional credibility is on the line? It doesn’t have to be a “buyer beware” situation, after all.

You wouldn’t buy a home without insisting on a thorough inspection of things like plumbing and wiring first. The best time to negotiate budget for needed repairs is before you’re holding the keys to a fixer-upper.

It was once my day job to visit worldwide facilities and – within 2-3 days – determine and document whether a given organization had the necessary systems in place to meet their commitments in an ongoing way – no hiccups, no excuses. I was helping pick suppliers for Motorola and Dell, and I got to really live with my decisions, because the winning facilities would be mine to manage for years to come. I knew my brand – both mine personally, and my employer’s - would be blamed for any failures.  

So leaning on that background, as well as my more recent decade in nonprofit technology, I offer the following interview questions that an interviewee can ask of a hiring organization, to determine whether a given group is where you should place a career bet. 

The Seven Questions

1. Do you have a documented succession plan? Can I see it?

• This should seem quite natural to ask. You’re in dialogue because succession has become reality. If it wasn’t anticpated, why not? If they can’t/won’t produce a plan, or if the plan doesn’t make sense, ask follow-up questions.
• 34% of nonprofit executives will depart within 2 years, yet only 17% of organizations have a documented succession plan.  Given group A or B, choose to work for the group that had the tough conversations & planned ahead, or plan to spend a lot of your time teaching staff & board members about long-term sustainability.
• BONUS POINTS: Should be given to a potential employer that has an automated succession plan – one that can be triggered quickly during a time of upheaval (assigning out critical tasks to key staff & board members, for instance) or an automated onboarding plan (which will ensure that key introductions, reviews, visits and trainings get scheduled in the best order). Modern databases can help organizations take these inevitable situations in stride.

2. Please name the systems in place to accomplish the following tasks, and include main go-to person for that task, indicating whether staff, volunteer, contractor, or outside firm, etc.

• This inventory – and any deficiency therein - will be your portfolio if you take this job. Note what’s left blank, what has multiple answers, and what’s “unassigned.” Follow-up questions might be
• Are there plans to train someone on this common function?
• Are there plans to select a system for that?
• Common functions:
• Office functions
• Telephones & voicemail
• Computer & printer networking
• Staff email
• Staff & resource calendar
• Accounting & payroll
• Outcomes management
• Supporter record keeping
• Grant fundraising and foundations
• Volunteers
• Events & attendees
• Partner organizations
• Public officials
• Corporations
• Media contacts
• Website, blog updates and other social media
• eCommerce, online transactions
• Mass email communications
• You do yourself – and your potential employer – a disservice if you don’t ask for this up front. Daring to Lead found that 70+% of your peers find communicating with the public, the board, donors, foundations, and partners to be “energizing”, yet more than half of your peers described the technologies that are supposed to help accomplish those things to be “depleting”. Know up front whether you’ll be traveling light (with a manageable number of systems that work and play well with others, & provide a holistic picture without double-entry, etc.), or whether you’ll be leading a team that’s limping along with 30 piecemeal tools cobbled together (and never in sync). Or know where your potential employer has no track record at all.
• BONUS POINTS: Should be given to a potential employer that has an automated system back-up plan for irreplaceable data like supporter records and website content. If you ask when the last back-ups were performed, and who triggered them to occur (Was it personality driven? Or process driven?), you’ll get a pretty good idea of whether your own personal investment of time and talent could be derailed in the blink of an eye. Modern systems should provide automated off-site, multiple-redundancy back-ups.

3. What data is provided to the board about fundraising (and on what frequency)?

• Daring to Lead’s findings indicate that you have a 44% chance of interviewing with an organization whose board can’t come together – as a united front – and say that each board member supports the cause enough to hand over personal funds.  Before you accept a job offer, you deserve to know if the board has your back. If nobody’s even tracking that information, be prepared to be in “start-up” mode, with all the long hours and frequent diving-catch plays this mode entails.
• If the board isn’t regularly shown their own contribution to fundraising (whether count of prospects identified, tally of thank-you calls made, or a table of each board member with the total sum of “soft credits” they’ve earned year-to-date), then it’s going to be a major culture change for them if you intend to set expectations high (and I hope you will!).
• Daring to Lead found that many executives doubt they can influence their boards’ performance. This blows my mind. The report’s writers emphasize only 4 calls-to-action at the end of the 2011 report, and “Recognition by executives of their own important role in helping to improve the performance of the board” is a recommended action.
• BONUS POINTS: Should be given if an organization is fully transparent with their board members regarding fundraising, to the point where board members rightly feel they are part of the team that is sustaining the organization financially. Modern fundraising tools can automatically send dashboards (like the one here) of real-time data to board members’ inboxes. Because you can’t change performance without showing that you’re measuring it.

4. Show me the data that proves that a program activity undertaken within [insert appropriate time period – I’d suggest six weeks] produced a community benefit.

• You’re probably getting the gist by now, thinking of this as a light “audit” of what the organization knows & documents about its usage of donor funding to produce change.
• I’d urge you to “drill down” and ask to see the source document that shows a specific outcome, whether it is a legal document showing that a piece of land was conserved, or a stack of surveys indicating that students now know how to report bullying. Then ask to see how the data about this outcome is documented in a systematic way: on which report would this outcome show up?
• BONUS POINTS: Should be given if the organization can identify 2 new types of information, or new attributes, that have been added to the outcome measurement system within the past year. This means they are actually using the system, and that they know how to adapt to change. Modern systems were designed to be flexible, because providers know that the pace of change isn’t slowing down anytime soon.

5. Where are the records for staff and board professional development trainings on [insert industry-specific topic]? Can I spot-check the attendees at the most recent training on that topic?

• Take your knowledge of a trend impacting the intended employer’s industry, and find out whether investments are being made (and tracked!) in developing staff to cope with (or extract additional value from!) this trend. Need topic ideas? Just look at the workshop session titles for 1 or 2 recent conferences for organizations like this. Topic examples might be “electronic medical records” or “bullying on social media.“ This isn’t intended to be a gotcha question, and if the topic you pick hasn’t been addressed, let them explain their rationale & suggest a topic that was found to be more pressing. But then *check the date & attendees* for the most recent training on that topic. Lack of training investment tells a story. Missing records tell a story. If half the staff has turned-over since the last time a critical training was offered, that tells a story, too.
• BONUS POINTS : Should be given if upcoming trainings and topics are already scheduled for individual staff, indicating a true learning organization.  Modern systems should allow teams to assign future tasks, like trip reports and cross-training sessions, to any staff or board member – ensuring you get the most out of every investment in developing your team.

6. Over the past 6 months, highlight the items on the board meeting agendas that were initiated by staff, as opposed to board members. How could you tell who initiated what?

• Daring to Lead finds that “many executives still struggle to define the return on investment (ROI) of board-related activity.” If there’s not already a culture of the board helping executive staff make strategic decisions, you’ll have to fight that battle. If the board assembles their agendas thoughtfully and deliberately, there should already be a process for gathering input from staff.  You’ll learn a lot about how things really get done at an organization when you see how the sausage is made.
• BONUS POINTS: Should be given if processes are in place that both document and automate workflows when submission-approvals cycles are required.  Nobody will have to dig through a predecessor’s old email archive if business takes place in systems instead of via post-it notes or carrier pidgeon. Modern systems don’t require a programmer to configure, letting teams define and tweak their own reportable approval processes, keeping everyone aligned and informed. 

7. What board candidates have been identified, and what interactions have been logged while cultivating these individual candidates over the past year?

• The recruitment of good bosses has never been more important than it is now, with time-tested financial models seeming to topple over night, rapid geo-political and technological changes, and the retirement of the nation’s largest-ever generation. “The biggest angst is finding board members,” as an ED states in the Daring to Lead report. With it often taking 18-36 months to secure a sought-after candidate, you cannot afford to start from a blank page.  Scanning a list of potential candidates & familiarizing yourself with how they were identified, what their skillsets are, their giving capacity, and their engagement level will give you an excellent read on the organization’s high-level fitness for the next 12-24 months.
• BONUS POINTS: Should be given if candidate records have at least a year’s worth of historical data regarding ALL involvement – not just giving & event attendance – and if the next six month’s worth of “what’s next” cultivation tasks are documented & assigned with due dates. Modern systems facilitate automation of the moves you will make while doing the delicate courtship dance of recruitment with in-demand board members. You’ll be ever-so-glad to have some of the next few months’ worth of strategic moves already in the pipeline.

Now go forth and secure a position where you’ll really be able to deliver the impact you’re capable of. If you think any of these questions are inappropriate for a serious executive candidate to ask, I invite you to chime in and explain why you won’t need that information within a few weeks, if not days, into your new gig.

A few notes:

• This checklist does NOT address immediate financial solvency of the organization. Daring to Lead found 46% of executives reported cash reserves of less than 3 months, so do not neglect to do serious digging on that topic. If you are a CFO, perform financial audits for nonprofits, or you’ve seen a good list of financial questions to ask, *please reply to this post with a link!*
• I’d never say to ignore your instincts. Just know that *informed* instincts are better predictors of your near-term future.

Yes, daring to lead does at some point require a leap of faith. (“Jump off a cliff with me” is the West Wing quote that comes to mind…) There will always be uncertainty & fear, and, as the Daring to Lead report found, significant loneliness – reported by 70% of executives! - at the top. No organization you join will be a sure thing.

I’m just saying to inspect the safety net for human-sized holes before you take to any given trapeze. Because when you fall – and we all do, whether a critical support link in the chain fails, the roof caves in, or someone greased the bar – we need you to be able to get back on your feet, climb back up, and lead on.  If you find big holes in the net prior to taking a job, be sure you get buy-in – and budget! – to replace or repair the net before you fly too high.

Seriously Dreamy Cultivation Events

These seriously dreamy cultivation events are especially great for major donors.

I got goosebumps when my colleague Rachel Muir (founder of GirlStart & voted AFP Fundraiser of the Year by her peers) first described to me her tried-and-true method for creating high-impact cultivation events that – while NOT fundraising events, per se – seriously moved the needle on community support in the long term. Part art & part science, her approach played to the inherent strengths of current & prospective donors.

Her focus on scalability & repeatability startled me. Add that these events would cast community leaders in (well-supported) starring roles as high-impact volunteers, & my old brain started forming new synapses.

The events she created would provoke unforgettable *personal* experiences that participants wouldn’t be able to stop talking about - with colleagues, friends, and family.

I don’t remember exactly when, but at some point, I hugged her.

And then I begged her to share her strategy. And so she let me write up this Major Donor Cultivation Events guide, which includes her formula, sample events, a preparation checklist, and even a script for the *very important* post-event dialogue with participants.

As a donor, I really hope fundraisers will take advantage of this method. I can’t think of a more efficient way to provoke the necessary light bulb moments among movers-and-shakers. As a board member, I’d have been proud to invite my friends and colleagues to serve as volunteers at such events, learning about the mission  - yes – but more importantly having their own personal look at the impact being delivered. And with the focus on minimal time commitment, convenience, “ready-room” support, & the networking possibilities, I’d have been more than pleased to participate, too.

Someone needs to keep inspiring big giving that strengthens our communities. I hope it will be you.

Things are going to get “.wild”

So who do you think is going to own the new “.wild” domain next year, when anyone with cash can buy a brand new “vanity” domain? Will it be a consortium of environmental  conservation and wildlife groups? Or the purveyors of barely-legal videos, of the “girls gone…” ilk?  Cyber-squatters, suit up – it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN – what, nobody took the time to fix an acronymn that would end up as ICANDY??) says that when they start accepting applications for new domains in January of 2012, they’ll be ushering in “the next generation of creativity and inspiration.” So I was feeling creative and started considering some options, and wondering who’d get them:

Consider domains like:

• “.planet”, “.green”, (even “.verde”?)
• “.health”, “.heart”, “.cure”
• “.kids”, “.youth”,  “.empower”,
• “.school”, “.hungry”, “.learn”
• “.dogs,” “.cats” (cute kitty says “i can haz domane now?”)
• “.cause”, “.help”, “.give”

“Large businesses may have to buy addresses to keep their brands from being hijacked,” according to Pavel Alpeyev and Ketaki Gokhale of Bloomberg News, who put the price somewhere north of $100,000, with so-called “generic” domains being auctioned off to the highest bidder.  The only way nonprofits could participate, I’d bet, would be to band together, picking off “.equal,” for instance. Call me a cynic, but I don’t see anyone talking about reserving domains like “.donate” for organizations that can show societal benefits of a non-cash kind. (All sorts of arguments from “Uncharitable” are now springing to mind. Sigh.)

Now anyone who’s an adventurous theater patron & has gone to see Avenue Q (think Sesame Street for mature audiences) knows what the internet is for. And thus, of course, was born the “.xxx” domain earlier this year. Because there just wasn’t enough brand consistency for adult-content websites, out in the noise of the 90 million “.com” sites? (Somehow I’m not buying that my sons won’t stumble across adults-only content on the web because of this “partition.”) Anyway, I get that the interwebs were always going to change & grow & mutate. It’s just that, once again, I worry that nonprofits – many still adjusting to managing a website & getting it to perform for their mission at all - will be last to the table, picking up scraps.

What is this going to mean for the 8.3 million “.org” groups out there? It’s a thing that makes me go “hmmm.” I have to ask myself: are charities going to have second-rate addresses in the brave new cyberworld? My personal opinion (yes, this is just my own, personal gut instinct as a consumer, not based on research) is that websites with “.net” (13.5 million), “.info” (6 million) and “.biz” (2 million) addresses are just, kind-of, (shrug) dubious. [Oh, and I heard someone on Brooke Gladstone’s “On the Media” describe them as “low-rent districts.”] They’re like “also-ran” contenders in the evolutionary race. What, they didn’t think the interwebs would be all that? Or they couldn’t bother to do some homework before starting a new business? Or they’re just not that creative or relevant?

When am I going to see the first “.nike” advertisement, I wonder? Or “.energy,” (brought to you by which trade group?)? The International Trademark Association says this development will be a “significant marketing challenge.”

Domains, the new vanity plate

I’m guessing it will feel like more like parenting and less like an earthquake, in that things will go along – feeling steady – and then suddenly nothing will work quite like it used to, because the people you thought you knew just start acting differently over time, wanting different things, not responding as they once would. New, unexpected things will motivate them. Hopefully nobody ends up estranged. ; )

It could also be the kind of blue-sky opportunity that’s bigger than all of us. Who’s going to go get “.earth,” and shape that domain to serve us all?

Scary Supporter Horror Stories

People share their nightmares with me. Well, ok – maybe that’s overstating it. They vent. And it freaks me out.

Friends and family know I work with a lot of nonprofits. On the plus side, they tell me about the coolest groups, and how they’re getting involved. On the down side, I’m the complaint department.

So in honor of Freaky Friday, here are 13 real supporter horror stories, none of which involve zombies. Well, ok – maybe one involves zombies. I’ve changed a few details to protect the innocent (and/or guilty).

1. A one-letter typo nearly cost an organization a dedicated supporter. After years as a donor, she started getting every mailing with her husband’s name spelled wrong. His name wasn’t too hard ( “Joe”), but now every envelope, enclosed letter, and reply card read “Jow.” There was that momentary flinch every time she’d get one. Her husband made fun of her. She felt guilty for letting it bother her. Years passed. You probably don’t want to know how the situation was resolved – it’s too gruesome.
2. A volunteer got stranded out of state. It would mean he’d miss his shift at a major event. He wrote a sob-story email to the volunteer coordinator. (I got the sob-story, too, and I agreed it was a good excuse.) After the event, though, he got copied on the heartfelt volunteer thank-you note the organization sent its volunteers. It mentioned how hard they’d worked, being so short-staffed. They couldn’t have driven the knife deeper in his chest. Ashamed, he could never face them again.
3. A musician nearly cried telling me this one. She served on the board of a grassroots group, and the weather gods decided to be cruel. Months of planning went into a fundraising concert, only to have the afternoon arrive to the tune of tornado warnings on every channel. They deferred the event. Yet, ironically, no tornados appeared, and while the wind was wicked – it was the perfect night for the music of her new album. And they only raised half what they’d planned at the rescheduled concert. (This might have gone better if they had had more emails on file and could have implemented rapid-response.) I’d never seen anyone literally shake a fist at the sky before.
4. This one’s only scary because it repeats millions of times every year, and probably costs us all billions. “I gave at the office” seems to never end well. She’d always given to her workplace giving campaign, trained from being a freshout at a major corporation, signing over a portion of her paycheck every other week. But one year, she stopped because she never heard ANYTHING from the groups who got her money. I asked if the groups even knew who she was. Her face went RED – how DARE they take her money without even knowing who she was!
5. You might be haunted by this demon right now. He was a board member, but also a lawyer. He knew the value of his legal services down to the penny, and charged quite a number of these per minute at his law firm. And so he tallied up the hours he spent serving on the board, multiplied by his hourly rate, and called that his monetary contribution year after year. He certainly set a precedent here, and MANY board members chose to forego cash contributions, leaving the organization maimed from the top down.
6. And what about the time when a major gift check got “misplaced at the post office”? Was it gremlins? It was certainly embarrassing to the donor who told me he finally called – weeks after mailing – to see why it hadn’t been cashed. He left an awkward inquiry on voicemail. I’d be scared to call him back & try to explain that one.
7. Then there was the would-be donor who got virtually slapped in the process. She liked what she saw the org doing, and went to fill in an online form on the organization’s website. But she came to a required form field, where she’d have to state that she was either a doctor or a medical student. There was no way around it, though she later found there is NO actual requirement for donors to be anything in particular at all (it wasn’t a professional association). Evil red asterisk.
8. The Executive Director was leaving because her partner’s job was relocating. And away with her brain went all the years of evidence that a certain supporter had played an integral role in getting grant funding from a couple of key local foundations. This loss of memory, and the months that passed before a new ED was hired, saw this supporter adopt a new cause – wholeheartedly, in fact. And coincidentally, so did the foundations.  (And if you want that old ED’s brain back, ask yourself if you are a hungry zombie?)
9. And speaking of zombies, what about the zombie duplicate contact records I must have at dozens of nonprofits? I’m an interactive gal, so yes, I write my legislators a lot, etc. And I can tell when I’ve been in a hurry, and find myself addressed as “Dear Jen” … because I usually type out the full “Jennifer.” I’m in the biz, so these zombie emails don’t spook me, but if nobody’s minding the duplicate data, are others as unperturbed by multiple notes gnawing at their inboxes? Or do they think you don’t know or care about them? I’m pretty sure I haven’t gotten duplicate credit card offers from the same bank before, so I know the data can be tamed…
10. Maybe you've been this person: the volunteer prospect who cannot get her phone calls or emails returned. All she wants to do is give her time! Let her.
11. This will make you shudder. What about the board member who does not give? Now don’t get angry at him; he’s not giving because the staff forgot to ask. Talk about a freak accident.
12. Here’s one to hurt your heart. An organization has their gala/luncheon/whatever and makes an ask. So far so good. A happy event attendee reaches into his wallet, pulls out a check, puts it in the envelope and…well leaves it on the table because nobody told him what else to do with it. And then it gets picked up in the trash pile instead of the “take back to the office and process” pile. The once-happy-attendee is left wondering when the check will clear and when his thank you note will come. And the organization has unwittingly donated to the landfill.
13. And last but not least. A new supporter attended the big event, had a blast and decided she’s 100% going again next year and bringing her girlfriends. But then the next year, the orgnization can’t find her contact information and so doesn’t send her an invitation. The event comes and goes without her. Her feelings are hurt because she wasn't invited to the party and the orgnization missed out not on one event attendee but a whole gaggle of them and prospective long-term relationships with them.

Many of these nightmare scenarios involve information systems. Bad information. Misfired information. Information gone overboard. The nonprofit professionals who gather information and keep it immaculate, detailed, and up-to-date are like the movie heroes/heroines, who can protect the supporters, staff, and program recipients from meeting gruesome ends. Please be the supporting actor/actress to your data guru. Help them get the data you will all need to survive and thrive. Support them with tools and processes that deliver good, actionable data. For all our sakes.

Happy Friday the 13th!