I’m not proud of this, but I’m obsessed with the Proust Questionnaire feature on the back page of Vanity Fair.  Made famous by the responses from Proust at various ages throughout his life (I prefer age 20 to age 13, for the record), the questionnaire is a smart little treat.  It’s a perfect coda to enjoy after reading the magazine’s take on the whole Colzine travesty, Christopher Hitchen’s last piece (on Dicken’s, with customary affectionate but unsentimental tartness) or, say, a long piece on the lavish life of Valentino (possibly one of my favorite magazine articles- and movies- of all time, if only for the bits about the pugs).  I like the questionnaire not only because it provides essential (read: non-essential) information- Ralph Fiennes and I have the same greatest fear- being eaten by a shark- and the same greatest joy- swimming in the sea- quelle surprise!- but because it makes me reflect on what my own answers to the questions, which are simple but telling, might be.

While the extravagant preposterousness of this feature and of Vanity Fair itself is clear, I started wondering if the questionnaire could be a potentially unifying and clarifying tool for non-profits trying to find their own spirit and voice.  I think that often the most useful tools are the roughest and that’s why I decided to create a new version of The Questionnaire, for non-profits, to take a brief measure of their organizational character.

As with the original questionnaire, this one is designed to help your organization get to know yourself a little better- not just in terms of measuring metrics or creating long-or-short term goals- but in getting a holistic picture of what your organizational values are, how you operate in the world and, yes, what animal you’d be if your organization were one.  The trick here is to think of your organization as one living, breathing entity; your staff, mission, values, and practical work are now one dynamic and vibrant whole and your answers to the questionnaire should be, if nothing else, in the spirit of this unified organizational force.

I’ve linked to a PDF of this questionnaire below, so jump over to it, print and answer away!  To more thoroughly illuminate the intended spirit of this exercise, I’ve also included DonationPay’s responses to the questionnaire  (and adjusted it in two spots to make it relevant to our growing business, rather than organizational status)- we took some time to get feedback from our team on all these questions and the answers are included below.

Faux-Proust Questionnaire For Non-Profits:

What do you regard as the lowest depth of organizational misery?

An unhappy client or an uncorrectable mistake.

What do you regard as the greatest peak of organizational joy?

Helping an organization exceed their internal fundraising expectations, saying yes when other services say no.

What is the greatest flaw in your organization’s leadership?

Disorganization and chronic silliness.

What is the greatest strength in your organization’s leadership?

Love of the work, diligence.

How does your organization define success?

Having happy clients that are effectively fundraising online, happy staff members that are motivated and enthusiastic, and providing an agile service that adapts and innovates.  Also: learning, constantly.

What is your greatest fundraising success, to date?

N/A

What is your greatest fundraising failure, to date?

N/A

What qualities do you most desire in a prospective employee?

Adaptability, humor, boundless capability.

What qualities do you most admire in a prospective donor investor?

Flexibility, an innovative and strategic mind.

If your organization could be represented by the work of one artist, living or dead, who would it be?

Chuck Close.  Each tiny square and moving part has an enormous impact on the whole.

What are the guiding principles of employees of your organization?

Consummate friendliness, fairness and thoroughness.

What are the guiding principles of your mission?

Collaboration, innovation, fairness, support of progressive causes.

What is your organization’s biggest fault?

Impatience.

What is your organization’s greatest expenditure of resources?

Staff energy.

What is your organization’s greatest expenditure of capital?

Staffing.

What qualities do you most admire/desire in a volunteer?

Willingness to stuff envelopes until 3 AM.  Lots of creative energy and ideas, but no mania.

What animal would your organization be if you had to choose one?

A sea otter.  Agile but solid,  playful but potentially fierce!

Who is your organization’s greatest hero of literature?

This was a hard one to agree on, but we are all quite admiring of the tenacious, moral rabbits in Watership Down.  Building a happy and functional community through hardship and adversity is something we really admire.

Who is your organization’s greatest hero in real life?

We have lots!

We truly are lucky to work with so many organizations that are heroic and inspiring to us.  Also teachers (hi, Mom!) and all committed advocates and activists for equality, peace and change.  Also, we think Mimi Silbert (and the Delancey Street Foundation) is freaking awesome.

What historical figure does your organization most strongly identify with?

 August Escoffier (1846-1935).  Everyone here is an avid foodie and we were all in agreement that Escoffier was a total badass whose spirit and verve we’d like to emulate.   He cooked inventive yet basic meals for both the nobility and the poor in London and improved kitchen basics in a revolutionary way (he invented the Soyer field stove for the Army, heightening the chances of embattled soldiers getting proper nutrition and created ovens with adjustable temperatures and refrigerators cooled by water).  He also created soup kitchens for the stricken public during the Irish potato famine and was a generally democratic and creative person.

Your most marked characteristic?

Energy, curiosity.

Where would your organization like to live?

We’d love to have offices in San Francisco, New York, Seattle, and Austin.

What is your organization’s present state of mind?

Preoccupied with forward motion.

What is your motto?

Agility, affordability and adaptability FTW.

If your organization were to die today, what would you most want people to remember about you?

That we provided a terrific service, at a fair price point, and that we positively impacted the online fundraising trajectory of our client organizations.

Where do your see your organization in 5 years?

Giving Network for Good, PayPal, and Convio Blackbaud a run for their money.

If you’d like us to publish your organization’s Faux-Proust Questionnaire For Non-Profit’s on our blog, take a few minutes to fill it out and send it in to us at info@donationpay.org.  With your questionnaire, send in your a brief description of your organization’s mission and practical work and any other info you’d like us to print.

DonationPay Non-Profit Questionnaire

All photos taken from Chimp Haven’s website

The DonationPay office can be an emotional bunch and we have been known to get . . . worked up, over the awesome work our clients are doing.  We are moved, inspired and amazed at our clients great work, fortitude and brilliant fundraising strategies, every day.  That said, last month as we were setting up donation pages for a new client, suddenly all office work came to a screeching halt as one of our developers called us all over to experience a fantastic video on their site.  The organization is Chimp Haven and the video, no joke, moved me- and every member of our development team- to tears.  I’ve embedded it below, check it out at your own risk . . .

Aside from turning me into a blubbering mess (no easy feat), Chimp Haven is doing some truly incredible work. From their website:

Chimp Haven is The National Chimpanzee Sanctuary. We are an independent, nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide lifetime care for chimpanzees who have been retired from medical research, the entertainment industry, or no longer wanted as pets.

Chimp Haven provides:

• A permanent home where chimpanzees can live out their lives in large, naturalistic enclosures in complex social groups
• An organization managed by concerned individuals who specialize in chimpanzee care and management
• An inexpensive low-maintenance facility design
• Financial and organizational stability to provide lifelong care for each chimpanzee
• Opportunities for education and noninvasive behavioral studies

5 Things I Love About Chimp Haven’s Fundraising Pages

1.) Personality.  Both Chimp Haven DonationPay pages are carefully designed to be clean and user-friendly, but they are framed by photos, information and navigation that is bursting with the personality of the various animals that live in the 200-acre sanctuary.  There is a rotating ‘Meet The Chimps‘ portrait that showcases one of the chimps that live in the sanctuary.

2.)  Fundraising Integration.  The fundraising pages are very well enmeshed in the site aesthetic and functionality.  The Chimp Haven web designers have done a terrific job of making sure that every page has navigation that brings the donor directly to a page where they can either get more information about Chimp Haven (and it’s residents) or donate.  One of the biggest mistakes we see is organizations that have big ‘Donate!’ buttons all over their site that take the user to a page full of text, with another Donate button or link buried somewhere that takes the donor to the actual donation page- this is donor-alienating and simply too many steps to make an efficient donation process.  With Chimp Haven’s site, the fundraising component is built proudly and visibly into every page, letting donors know that the website is a preferred platform for giving.

3.) Specificity.  On both of Chimp Haven’s fundraising pages, they include specific numbers.  $75 will feed one chimpanzee for two weeks, $50 will provide essential medication for two chimps for one month- these numbers are specific, tangible and absolutely understandable to the donor.  They’re not spending time running down the various types of medications the chimps might need to take or exactly what their diet is comprised of (though that info is available and well laid-out in other areas of their site), but they’re giving enough detail to give the donor a solid idea of where their dollars will go.  The Chimp Haven ‘Best Friends’ page also wisely offers the option for donors to sponsor individual chimps, letting the donor feel personally connected to the health and well-being of one animal.

4.) Options for Giving.  I’ve already mentioned here how impressed I am by Chimp Haven’s carefully planned online fundraising strategy but they also present other opportunities for contribution.  The Chimpanzee Wish List, options for volunteering, a terrific store and information about corporate sponsorship- all these options give potential donors an idea of the full scope of ways to support Chimp Haven.  I personally most love the Wishlist because it gives, in and of itself, an idea of what the chimp’s lives are like and what they enjoy.  I’ll be putting together a care package of rubber boots, dog toys, nuts (not peanuts!), fleece blankets and the like as soon as the holidays are over to send to the sanctuary residents.

6.) The Chimps!  The greatest fundraising tool Chimp Haven has are it’s many colorful characters- the site and fundraising pages are full of information about the individual personalities, whims, and life stories of the chimpanzees and they are, every one, fascinating.  The comprehensive information, photos, and other media on the site is incredibly enriching, not distracting for site users, and really makes the website seem to be a vibrant part of the larger organization.  Making a website and fundraising pages that align with and share the stories of Jimoh, Midget, Queenie, Tracy and the rest is quite a feat indeed.

Chimp Haven is an amazing organization, with a dedicated staff, great sustaining donors and a mission that blows my mind- we’ve really enjoyed working with them so far and we look forward to helping them grow their already-great online fundraising presence.  Consider supporting Chimp Haven this holiday!  Also, for anyone interested in this organization or in chimpanzees in general, Chimp Haven will be having several open-house type visitor days over the course of the year, where they let the public check out the grounds and residents of their sanctuary- if we lived closer, we’d plan a full-office field trip to Chimp Haven to meet the amazing animals I feel I already know, from Chimp Haven’s dynamite website.  Keep up the great work, you guys!

-AJ

Support Chimp Haven

Learn More About Chimp Haven

Sponsor a Chimp

As I was reading the industry news on AllTop today, I came across an article from November that I’d apparently missed.  From Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog (which, if I’ve never mentioned it before, I love and read anytime I get a spare minute, which clearly at this time of year is once every six weeks), it’s an email from a development director at a large non-profit in New York to board members, asking them to place a call to a donor that had contributed $20 online.  A thank-you phone call.  The email is reprinted in full below, as it appears on Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog:

Dear Board Members,

I usually ask you to call and thank those who give donations of more than $500. Today, I’d like to ask someone to call and thank someone who gave $20 to the annual campaign.

Why?

Her name is Mary Smith and she sent a note with her donation letting us know that she is unemployed. She could have chosen not to give, but she didn’t. Her note means that she wishes she could give more. Giving when it is hard to give is an exceptionally meaningful act.

If you would like to call her, please let her know that $20 is an important gift. Last year, nearly $15,000 was contributed by hundreds of people who gave less than $100 each – many of these were $20 gifts. We need each of these people to make that choice to give every year. She is part of our community and it takes all of us together to make our work successful.

If you would like to call her, please let me know and I will share her number.

There are three reasons to make a call like this. First, everything I said above is true. A stretch gift is a deeply meaningful gift, whether a person is stretching to give $20 or $20,000.

Second, a healthy annual campaign is built on a broad foundation of small gifts. (yes, it’s the gift pyramid again!) We want all of our $20 donors to repeat their gifts each year and increase them over time, while many new $20 donors come into the campaign for the first time each year, filling in the bottom of the pyramid as other donors move up.

Third, Mary probably won’t always be unemployed. She has told us that she wishes to give more, and one day she will be in a position to give more. How much more depends on how she feels about us. Also, she is likely to make or revise her estate plans at some point in her life. The single most likely prospect for a planned gift is a long term donor who gave small or moderate gifts every year for more than ten years.

I spent a lot of time writing about one individual who has given us $20. It’s not a waste of time – but it also underscores why it’s so important to have a large team building and nurturing our many relationships, from our $20,000 donors all the way to Mary.

Thanks,

The development director’s commentary (again from Pamela’s Grantwriting Blog about the request described above was as follows:

The Chair responded right away, pleased to make the call. I look forward to hearing how it went.

I share this for a couple reasons. First, does anyone think I made a mistake? Why? Does anyone have a story like this to share? I’d love to hear it.

I have been with this organization for two years. When I first arrived, I was told there were issues with donor fatigue. One of the first things I did was put a comprehensive donor stewardship plan in place and jumpstart our cultivation efforts. My plan had a lot of deep personal cultivation with major donors, and more generic, less frequent outreach with those giving smaller donations. After two years I’ve seen a huge increase in giving in the major donor group, and not much movement anywhere else.

The reason for having a stewardship plan that has more personalized activity at the top of the donor pyramid is not actually that major donors are more important, it’s that there are fewer of them, so a deeper plan is more manageable.

OK.

Before I get started on my reaction to this post and to this matter in general, I want to say that I have the utmost respect for anyone trying something new, developing fresh ways to connect with donors, or doing their best to fix broken or tired methodologies around donor acquisition and cultivation.  It’s exciting to hear non-profit staff as excited, motivated, skilled and devoted to donor acknowledgement as Rene, the author of the email above, from Cinema Arts Centre in New York .  All that said, my strong feeling is that this email and this anecdote are far, far more exciting in theory than in practice.

Because I’ve heard this story before.

I worked as a waitress all through college and I’m quite familiar with this type of inspirational example. It’s the one where the manager tells you to treat every table as if it were they could award the joint a Michelin star.  It’s the one where they tell you that you need to treat the table spending $10 on two cups of clam chowder and the table of 8 ordering a $400 meal the exact same way.  Now, before anyone gets the idea that I was a mean waitress (god forbid and also, yes, I sure was) or that I’m turning up my nose at small donors, my point is not that there is inherently more value in either type of table or either type of donor.  The couple eating those cups of clam chowder likely wants one set of extra crackers, a water refill and to be left alone.  The group of 8 that want their colleague’s birthday dinner to be really special wants to be taken care of, attended to.  Yes, as a server, you make more money off the larger tables- but the smaller tables with less extensive needs give you a needed respite from the constant expenditure of social energy and often end up being an extremely enjoyable experience for all parties.   And Rene is absolutely right: proper and thorough acknowledgement of your smaller donors is what will eventually turn them into large donors.  Treating that table eating clam chowder with respect and attentiveness may bring them back with all their friends the next time a birthday rolls around.

The assumption that both tables-  both levels of financial contribution, both types of donors- want and need to be handled in the same way is in itself problematic. As is the execution.  If you spend the amount of energy required to effectively thank a major donor on small donors, those resources will eventually run out.   Cultivating great relationships with donors of all sizes is about being strategic in the expenditure of staff energy, resources, time and skills.  If there’s enough staff energy to put the same amount of time and resources into a $20 donor as a $20,000 one after you’ve completely developed, tested and proven your email acknowledgement system, then by all means go for it, but as said above:

‘The reason for having a stewardship plan that has more personalized activity at the top of the donor pyramid is not actually that major donors are more important, it’s that there are fewer of them, so a deeper plan is more manageable.’

My issue is not that the idea isn’t good- all donors do count and I particularly appreciated Rene’s description of ‘stretch gifts’ as extremely meaningful. Her point about sustaining donors (lifelong donors who contribute a small amount every year) is another very good one- building solid links with modest donors will help increase the chances that the relationship will be longterm and fruitful.  The objective of the anecdote about the Board member and the $20 donor is to show that organizations should make small donors feel just as appreciated as large donors- this is totally true, of course!  However, being aggressively pragmatic, I think the overall concept fails in the implementation- because this is not a sustainable or realistic way to show appreciation to small donors, it doesn’t hold up well as a confirmation of Rene’s point.   Yes, creating lasting relationships with donors of all financial levels is integral to organizational success.  Yes, acknowledgement is extremely important (in fact, I’ve written about it dozens of times on this blog and will likely continue to harp on it ad nauseum in future posts).  And, also yes, $20,000 can do more financially for your organization that $20.  There’s no getting around it; it’s not a commentary on the quality of the donor or the level of sacrifice necessary to generously contribute to an organization in hard times or good ones- it’s just a simple reality.  And whether the donor has contributed $20,000 or $20, the process of thanking them needs to be customized, appropriate and, above all, replicable.  Focusing personalized energy on the top of the donor pyramid is both befitting and necessary to strengthen and assure longevity in relationships with major contributors.

Well, then what about the small donors, you spoilsport?

For smaller donors, who typically outnumber those who are able to give $20,000, the thank you should be set up the same way: personal, genuine, fun and replicable.  If you’re lucky enough to have a couple hundred or thousand small donors, spend time crafting a thank-you email that will blow their socks off.  I mean, honestly, do I think it’s a terrible idea to have a board member with some spare time call a $20 donor. . . no, not exactly.  I just think the example feels more like an overly-simplified management exercise then a good example of how to be really appreciative of donors of all levels.

Small donors do not matter less than large ones- but they do have different needs.  

Organizations can do, operationally, a lot more with $20,000 than $20 and to me, calling a donor that gave $20 online to give them a profuse thank you from someone high up in the organization seems a little tone-deaf.  Like many people, I give about $25-$100 per year to several organizations and they are absolutely organizations that send appropriate, personalized and concise donor acknowledgement.  I appreciate being thanked, of course, like all donors do, but I think receiving a call from any of the organizations I contribute modest amounts to would seriously throw me for a loop.  I don’t need to be treated like my contribution is the same $50,000 or even $500 gift.  If I gave an organization 20 bucks and got a thank-you call from a board or staff member, I think my reaction would be more along the lines of  a boggled ‘Jesus Christ, get back to work!’ than . . .  warm and fuzzy.

Donors, large and small, are the lifeblood of any organization.  I’m in absolute agreement that all donors should be treated with respect and genuine gratitude, but the reality of most non-profit staffing situations doesn’t look like a management exercise and I think it’s really important to sort fantasy from reality, achievable and measurable from ideal and esoteric.  Having a board or staff member call a $20 donor is a conceptual ‘teaching moment’ about the value donor relationships; setting up a sophisticated, kick-ass, efficient system for donor acknowledgement of all different contribution levels is an achievable, scalable task, the benefits of which your organization can reap for years to come.  Instead of taking the long way around with an after-school special style message, I’d rather hear a rallying cry: ‘We’re going to make this years email thank you the best ever, and here’s how. . . . ‘

No, seriously, here’s how:

- set up a clockwork-reliable internal donor acknowledgement system before you send out your annual or holiday fundraising ask.  It’s likely your receipts are not going to serve as your actual acknowledgements- your receipts should go out automatically when the donor makes a contribution.  Set a system that kicks into effect after the initial payment has been completed.  Send your special acknowledgement email, changing only the name, in the next few days after your email and be sure to send a post holiday email that engages the donor in an ongoing relationship with your organization, maybe with news of what’s on the docket for you this year and some opportunities for non-monetary contribution to the cause.

-Make it special.  Add a link to a video of your staff singing a holiday carol or doing something fun and holiday facing, or just saying a heartfelt thank-you.  Add a staff photo or a picture that illustrates that work your donors gift helps make possible.  Set all these things to be as automatic and as minimally consuming of staff time as possible (i.e. record 1 or 2 awesome videos before the busy season, to be used in all online donor acknowledgement, have your designer or email service create a special template for acknowledgement etc.).

-Write thoughtful, concise copy for your acknowledgements.  Look at donations as a call-and-response type system- your acknowledgement is the second volley in the exchange of information, so it better be awesome if you expect the donor to come calling again.

-Get your whole staff involved.  Before any major fundraising push, have a brainstorming meeting about the message your organization wants to send to donors, as a whole.  Having a united front and incorporating input from everyone on staff will make the donation/acknowledgement system seem that much more personal and comprehensive.

That’s about it for today (exhausted yet?); I want to reiterate again how much respect I have for all practices related to donor acknowledgement and how much I believe all non-profits would be positively impacted by such a motivated and savvy ED as Rene.

Happy Fundraising!

-AJ

Since last week, I’ve been meaning to write a long post about our experience at Netroots Nation last weekend in Minneapolis.  And while it’s been edifying to- instead of writing this long and thoughtful blog post- slog through the backlog of work I left behind to attend the conference, I had trouble deciding how to cogently summarize 127 hours of panels, parties, workshops, speeches and other strange events (Hal Sparks et al. in the Sexy Liberal Tour, I’m looking at you!).  Basically, what I’ve come down to is this thing my mother used to say to me and my siblings any time we saw her doing something that she’d have been horrified to see us do- drinking milk straight from the carton, swearing, acting disgusted (rightfully) by brussel sprouts.  Any time she accidentally put on display some behavior that she was, as an excellent parent (hi Mom!), trying vigorously to train us out of, she’d say: “Do as I say, not as I do.”

I’m sure you’ve all heard this expression on occasion, probably in similar circumstances to the ones I just described.  I’ve thought about this homily often the last couple of months as DonationPay has been expanding and getting ready to relocate our office to Berkeley.  The past six months have been so filled with the chaos of rapid growth that I’ve scarcely had time to cover the bases of the most basic advice I used to give our clients when we were non-profit web developers.    During this rather hectic time, as the co-founder and primary office/client interface manager, I’ve said the word ‘should’ a whole lot, in this blog and to clients.  You ‘should’ be focusing on your blog to engage with your readers and donors, you ‘should’ be taking advantage of the wonderful mobile and social networking tools that are now blessedly at all of our fingertips, you ‘should’ be putting a lot of effort into reaching out to other organzations and allies. . . all these ‘should’s’ are things I really believe in and know to be effective communication and marketing tools for non-profit organizations and business.

And yet. . . DonationPay has not until now had a Twitter account. I’ve put about- oh, I don’t know- zero hours into connecting with other folks who are interested in what we do or what our clients are doing on Facebook. All in all, after attending a great panel on social networking for change at Netroots Nation (led by the great Deanna Zandt, with four other brilliant and awesome ladies- an all female tech panel, totally refreshing!), I was feeling unhappy about DonationPay’s lack of online contribution and very guilty about not practicing what I preach.

In Deanna’s opening remarks, she said the most powerful thing to remember about social networking, as it pertains to non-profits, advocates for change and just about everybody else, too: if you don’t join in, the conversation will just take place without you. Knowing better than most that this conversation is not only sparkling, but absolutely essential at this point to DonationPay’s growth and expression as an ethical, progressive company, has given me a sense of online social anxiety and malaise. I’ve been writing tutorials about how to become engaged using these tools but have been neglecting to use them myself, to connect with our clients and other organizations we support- Do As I Say, Not As I Do, you know?

Anyhow, thanks to the inspiring panel and a general sense of my growing and overwhelming hypocrisy, DonationPay has officially joined the conversation! Check us out on Twitter and look for lots of great updates to our Facebook page, coming soon and look for updates about new features, as well as news from our client’s great fundraising efforts across the country and the world.

Happy Fundraising and in progressive social networking solidarity,

AJ

As DonationPay expands, we look forward to developing our own studies by polling our clients and publishing independent online benchmarking studies. . . but until then, the folks at Groundwire, a fellow Northwest-based company, have done all mid-range non-profits a huge solid by releasing a benchmarking report just for them.  The report is generated from studying 43 environmental action oriented non-profits and is an analysis of the 2010 fundraising year.  Most are from the Northwest, and are small-to-midsize.  Though the sample of non-profits is fairly small , the results are quite informative and should provide some helpful measuring points for many of our clients (and others).  The primary question the report addresses is: how much web traffic and activity is ‘normal’, for this size organization and what kind of efforts does it take to get there?

Some of the items addressed in the study:

-how often content is updated on the average site

-Average page views per visitor per visit

- Homepage bounce rates

-Percentage of repeat visitors

-Differences between regional/national/local organizations, web traffic-wise

-Staff-hours-to-web-traffic ratios

There is lots more great info in this awesome report.  Check it out here.

Happy Fundraising!

-AJ

It Gets Better: Dan and Terry (some language is NSFW)

I’m sure everyone has heard by now about Tyler Clementi’s heartbreaking suicide (with an assist from his incredibly cruel, amoral roommates) and probably has heard about all the other recent suicides of bullied teenagers.  I’ll not launch into my personal feelings on this whole topic, as I’m worried I might flood my whole keyboard with tears.  I thought that our readers might, however, want some ideas as to where to direct their financial support for kids who are the victims of homophobia, violence, bullying, hate-speech or anything else in that abhorrent family.

Dan Savage, Seattle’s own sex-advice guru who has taken his whole operation national in the past 10 or 15 years, has created the It Gets Better Project, a series of video messages from normal individuals and varying types of minor to major celebrities who are sharing their experiences and assuring GLBT and questioning kids (and, really, any teenager who feels different or is targeted) that things do, in fact, get better.

One of my favorites is from the always-heartfelt Tim Gunn:

Anyhow, this great project is one of many resources available for anyone who feels like they’re stuck in an untenable situation.

Here are  more places to direct your support (as a volunteer, contributor, or just someone who helps spread the word):

The Trevor Project

Jeremiah Project 51

Washington State Youth Suicide Prevention Program

Is Your Organization Tied Up in Knots?

The foundation of a non-profit organization often begins with a single, powerful idea, originating in the mind of one individual.  This person mulls it over for a bit, gathers resources, tests the waters and gets folks behind them, does some paperwork, gets a staff together and poof!: a non-profit is born.  Okay, that was a gross over-simplification of a complicated, valiant process that can take many months or years to bring an organization to creative and practical fruition.  But my point remains the same: the founder of an organization carries the conceptual notion to logistical success (or at least, you know, existence).

Being the powerhouse behind developing an organization from it’s inception is incredibly rewarding: you get to see the mission statement you came up with effectuated in the real world.  In the case of NPO’s that provide a service while working toward a greater mission- like the NPO’s that host performances for their cause, in-house, or an animal shelter- the operational management of said organization can be especially tricky, if the founder is directly involved.   I read an incredibly detailed and interesting article on ‘Founders Syndrome’, over at Management Help, which you should check out if you have ANY involvement in the non-profit sector.  It describes a problem so common, it’s almost universal in the non profit world.  The article is applicable to corporations as well, but it struck an especially deep chord with me, as I have experienced and seen many, many organizations afflicted, to varying degrees, with what could also be called Founder’s Hubris-itis.

What to do when the founder of an organization begins to hinder it’s operational management?

This can happen for a variety of reasons: unclear delineation of staff responsibilities, too much focus on the bigger picture and not enough on the details of the day-to-day, a Board staffed with individuals who are simply a ‘puppet government’ for the founder’s whims and vision, a lack of focus on practical considerations, or a basic unfamiliarity with how the daily grind of the organization needs to be run to achieve the goals laid out in the mission statement.  No founder, of course, sets out to harm to their own organization, but it happens anyway, usually when the founder is trying to do too much within the organization without enough information, time, or management skills.

Organizations that have come down with mild to severe FS often experience the same problems over and over again: unsteady infrastructure, low morale, high turnover, an inability to affect practical changes, and chronic disorganization.  This type of constant chaos sometimes means that an organization is being run primarily on the whims and personality of the founder, rather than in a collaborative, proactive management style that originates from collective work, organization, and dedication to a common mission.  A founder who is in the throes of the eponymous disease will often disregard the concerns of Board members or organizational staff who are lower on the totem pole: it’s their organization, so the advice of the people who are churning the gears and wheels of the organization (aka: attending to all the boring stuff) can simply be bulldozed over in service of adhering to their original concept.

Sometimes it becomes neccessary to remove the founder from their position in leading the organization and this can be an uncomfortable, even agonizing change, especially if the office is already fundamentally disorganized.  However, a motivated organization can make changes to overcome FS by changing the leadership style of the founder and making attendant changes to the behavior and thought patterns of the staff and Board.

The article I mentioned above has one of the best and most comprehensive guides to helping your organization overcome Founders Syndrome.  There is information for Board members, staff, founders and practical advice on how to move forward in an organization that has been stalled by this particular affliction.  I really appreciate the no-judgement vibe of the whole piece: Founder’s Syndrome is no-one’s fault.  In most non-profits, everyone is doing intense, demanding work for probably minimal pay, in the pursuit of a certain mission or organizational goal.  Everyone is doing the best they can and this article is compassionate about how easy it is to fall victim to this insidious syndrome and will teach you how, ultimately, to overcome it.

More on Founder’s Syndrome

And A Little More

-A.J.

Hey there, moneybags

More on Non-Profit Marketing

It’s easy to make presumptions about how much money you think your organization should be raising, or how much you think others of a similar variety might be making from their donor base.  As it turns out, even in these recession years, there is an upward trend in giving online, to non-profit organizations.  This is good news, and you should be rightfully concerned if your organization is not moving forward with some new, improved online or practical fundraising options.

Convio has recently released their Online Marketing Non-Profit Benchmark Index, a survey and synthesis of online marketing data from 500 non-profits from 15 sectors.  The information is free at their site, though you have to put in your own information (email, etc.).  The survey was made of non-profits who use Convio’s services and software, so full disclaimer, but the information they gathered is actually very useful for any NPO starting to build up their contributors.  From the data in the report, it looks as if this report was taken from many already-quite-established non-profits, not so much of ones just beginning to cultivate their online donor base.

Alison Kapin from Frogloop (one of our favorite non-profit blogs, btw) has written a fairly extensive article on this subject, with an excellent, far less dry (and less shamelessly promotional) summary than the one at Convio.

It’s so hard to get an accurate idea of what should be happening with your online fundraising.  Sometimes even when you use the tools available and are doing everything right, you still can’t seem to squeeze a penny from the folks visiting your website.  And sometimes (much less often, I’ll add), you can be making errors right and left and taking your donors to a decision page before the donation form and not properly displaying your donation button and all these other basically heinous mistakes and still, STILL be making money for your organization.  But, those two examples aside, the best ways to truly build an online donor base that you can tap into again and again is to use all the best practices, make use of every tip you can find, and try, try again until you get it right.