The Association of Fundraising Professionals is seeking nonprofit organizations to participate in its survey which closes soon.
Canadian nonprofits are urgently needed — there was not enough data collected in past years to publish viable findings. Please participate so that Canadian information is available.
Rosetta asks: what’s one thing nonprofits could do to improve the sector? My answer is, be ruthless about money and operate with heart. Sound provocative? It’s meant to get your attention. I think more nonprofits could benefit greatly from an immersion in business thinking. After many years working with both sectors, I offer the following observations.
Nonprofits exist to ask for money, so they can do good. Businesses exist to make money, while they do the good that their customers want. See where I’m going?
The most basic transaction is at play: people willingly, sometimes even obsessively, provide money in exchange for something they desire. Where this parallel implodes is that businesses make no secret that they are selling a product or service. Their organizational structure, performance expectations of staff, and all processes that get customers in the door, paying and satisfied support this common goal. If they don’t, the business fails.
Nonprofit leaders have the same skills and resources available to them as their private sector counterparts. In fact, a recent study by the Nonprofit Quarterly showed that nonprofit leaders outperformed for-profit leaders in 14 out of 17 leadership qualities, including persuasiveness, encouraging participation and sharing credit to name a few. Business sector leaders were better at coping with stress, push and pressure and maintaining energy. This doesn’t surprise me - as the report comments, nonprofit executives rely more on personal vs. hierarchical power. A telling finding: nonprofit leaders tend to rate themselves lower.
If more nonprofits harnessed the great leadership qualities their staff possess, while adopting the established best practices of business, imagine what could be achieved. I’ll be offering a free teleseminar on this very topic in a few weeks time. Watch for registration details on this site, or get on my enewsletter list to get your invitation first.
Watson Wyatt Worldwide’s recent study of internal communications trends in the corporate sector piqued my interest for two reasons: one, I am incessantly curious and can’t resist some good number twisting, and two, these trends can often be equally reported in the nonprofit sector. This report measured the change in communications trends compared to 2004.
Among the top five positive trends are the use of web technology for training and development, and a large increase in the use of internal communications to communicate organizational change. Bravo corporate America.
What disturbed and surprised me is the decrease in these areas:
The moral of the story: if you plan on using internal communications to communicate change (as I hope you do), get buy in, etc. you also need to get input and listen to your staff, involve them in change, equip them with the knowledge and tools they need, and explain decisions and actions in ways that are meaningful to them. People today expect this. My six year old is more accomplished at consultation and negotiation than I was at 30. Staff vote with their feet, and there are always greener pastures so take the best of the trends and run with them, but make sure you are also doing what others aren’t. Your staff will be happier and your organization will be more successful.
As a communications professional, the one that has changed the world as we knew it is the internet. The onslaught, or epiphany, depending how you look at it, has turned the public relations and media industry on its proverbial ear. This is why I especially enjoyed this week’s Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants as bloggers covered the topic of social media. Check it out.
Hard to believe that when I started writing, I pecked my articles on a 20 pound cast iron typewriter. In my 20-something year career, I have been through the introduction of the computer, cell phone, fax machine and internet. Now I can work from almost anywhere, and get information in an instant. Even my old favourite Olivetti has gone digital. This is a new era and it will require a new way of thinking and communicating. Get online and get on board!
On this day of record consumerism, guilt and excess, take a moment to ponder the above statement: Love is not enough. You can love your donors, honour your staff, respect and cherish your board and volunteers, but like a good marriage, ongoing TLC is required to keep everyone happy, giving and content. So, here are my tips that are guaranteed to work for all of your relationships:
Wishing you lots of love on Valentine’s Day.
In last month’s newsletter I ran an article on how to come up with more effective communications messages in six easy steps. To walk through the steps, read the full article here. When deciding how to communicate something with your audiences, you have to start with knowing who they are, and match your message accordingly. Here are some reminders of the basics you probably already know, but are well worth revisiting:
Know your audience – You are wasting your time and theirs if you are not positioning your message in a way that will appeal to them. In a world of information overload, this investment of thought and effort will go a long way in keeping your audience interested and connected to your organization.
Know what you want to achieve – Your message has to support your overall goal, but also has to be intended to achieve a specific purpose. Without this direction, you can’t begin to match the message to the audience. With it, your message will be effective and clear.
More emotion, less logic – Don’t bog down your message in facts, data and history. To penetrate your audience’s attention and to achieve your desired result, you need to consider their driving emotion and design your message in keeping with it.
This is guaranteed to get giggles and many nodding heads at your next strategic planning session. It’s another way of saying that insanity is doing the same thing over and over while expecting to get a different result.
Dakota tribal wisdom says that when you discover the horse you are riding is dead, the best strategy is to dismount. However, in organizations, we often try other strategies with dead horses, including the following:
Origin unknown. Thanks to Vicki Kranenburg.
During the course of your career, you’ve likely encountered leaders and team members at both ends of the spectrum - the upbeat person who pushes you beyond your comfort zone, and inspires action and belief, and the naysayer who seems to be full of pessimism and 100 reasons why something won’t work. Whether you are an executive director, fundraiser or accountant, when you’re a member of an organization on a mission, you are a leader - of one, or of many. How you approach your daily work, as well as the bigger challenges has an impact on those around you.
This weekend I finally watched The Secret, given to me by my first big nonprofit client about a year ago (another reason why I love working with the nonprofit sector - great people). So I am a little late to the party, but I was pleasantly surprised that it really didn’t offer any big surprise. It reinforced my experience, which is that you get back what you put out there, negative or positive. If you focus on what you can’t do, you will get exactly that. There are many variations on this theme - "we tried it and it didn’t work" or "that other organization seems to get all the funding, so there’s no point in asking" or "we spent all that money on advertising and it didn’t make a difference". The inspiring leader balances reality with a healthy shot of aiming higher than others would. A great leader also recognizes comfort zones and crushes them! The point is to be deliberate in your planning, without putting up your own barriers before you even get out of the gate. Organizations don’t succeed, people do. The secret I’m offering the nonprofit universe today is to take a page from Eleanor Roosevelt’s book: "Do one thing every day that scares you."
p.s. if you want a lesson in defying odds and thinking like a winner, how about the Super Bowl yesterday?
Nancy Schwartz at the Getting Attention blog is on a mission to help nonprofit organizations create better taglines in 2008. Having created or rewritten more than a few in my lifetime, I have a great collection of the good, bad, ugly as well as completely nonsensical. Hint: your tagline, the "slogan" that goes with you wherever you dare to go in your communications journey, is not your mission statement. Help Nancy by completing the survey and you’ll receive a copy of her report and tips.
The 80-20 rule is not new (if you have heard of this but didn’t know the origin, it’s an historic economic principle credited to Vilfredo Pareto). Basically it means that 80% of your result comes from 20% of your effort, 80% of your funds raised come from 20% of your donors, and so on.
What if you applied this rule to your communications efforts? What if you focused more on the 20% that has the most impact? Sure signs you’re not doing this:
I have news for you - it can get better! Watch for more on how to focus on the higher value activities that will speed up your progress and gain momentum at the same time. In the meantime, I challenge you to take one hour (which happens to be 20% of the average five productive hours spent in the typical workday) this week and make a list of the activities and communications tools your organization relies upon - which are the ones that give you the biggest bang for your buck?
Sherri Garrity is a communications consultant, coach and author who helps organizations fix communications problems. Find out more…
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