United for Justice with Peace is a wonderful non-profit based in the Boston area.  They are unincorporated and were kind enough to be our guinea pigs, as we worked out some of the kinks of getting an organization set up without 501(c)3 status or other documentation.

UJFP mission statement is extensive and awesome.  Basically, they’re working for global peace through social and economic justice.

In their own words:

The individuals and organizations that comprise United for Justice with Peace express our profound grief for the thousands whose lives were cut short in the September 11, 2001 attacks, and extend our heartfelt condolences to all those who suffered losses in the event. We stand with people of conscience the world over in condemning unequivocally these horrendous acts of violence. In pursuit of a world without terror, the Coalition adopts the following principals:

• We seek global peace through social and economic justice.
• We will not support war, no matter what reason or rhetoric is offered by politicians or the media. War in our time and in this context is indiscriminate, a war against innocents and against children. Further militarization or restrictions of our society will also have dire consequences on human rights and civil liberties at home.
• We are opposed to the use of military and economic aggression that targets countries and peoples to apprehend the few who are culpable. Those responsible should be brought to justice through genuine international cooperation and through judicial process based on the rule of law.
• We oppose the diversion of positive human energy and material resources away from basic needs of health, education and affirmative social supports and toward the destructive and dangerous uses by the military.
• We stand in defense of our constitutional civil liberties and reject the rush to repressive measures. We cannot be secure by limiting our liberties, as some of our political leaders are demanding, but only by expanding them.
• We oppose anti-Arab, anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant and all forms of racial, ethnic, and religious violence and bigotry.
• We call for addressing the serious humanitarian crises in Afghanistan and other affected regions through genuine international cooperation under the leadership of neutral, independent aid organizations.
• We call for root causes to be addressed. Millions of ordinary people in the Middle East are angered at US support for the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the inhumane economic sanctions against Iraq, US support for repressive regimes, and the actions of unaccountable global economic institutions dominated by the United States, which have perpetuated poverty and despair at home and abroad. U.S. cultural domination over a pluralistic world and the unwanted forward deployment of U.S. foreign military bases are also a source of anger. Until these policies have been changed we will never be safe, and we will continue to betray the ideals of freedom, justice, and democracy which we rightly prize.
• We are committed to nonviolence in all actions done in the name of the coalition.
• We are committed to being a coalition which welcomes new voices and collaborates with other communities working for similar goals.

In summary, UJP is pretty great.  Check out their website, which has a wealth of information, resources and more details about their mission and what they do.

Donate to UJP

Are you an unincorporated non-profit? Need card processing?  Sign up with DonationPay now.

And, once you’ve got one, how to optimize it:

If you can get through these (admittedly dry) videos, you should have a solid understanding of what a Google Adwords campaign can do, how it should and will work, and what you can do to improve yours.

Good luck!

A.J.

And I hope you do too. . .

Because I am an intermittent blogger at best, I end up accruing a large number of interesting gems from the Interwebs and elsewhere that I intend to share or reference later in my blog and then sometimes get lost in the shuffle.  I always think I’m going to use my favorites in one big, extensive blog post that really ties the room together, but alas, it’s not happening today.  There is literally no end to the useful information available online, but today I thought I’d just leave you with a hacky little list of food for thought:

1.) This 2008 article from the Harvard Business review is detailed and asks hard questions and about the viability, clarity of mission and operating procedures of healthy non-profits and offers extremely smart suggestions on how to improve.

2.) 10 Essential Social Media Slideshare Presentations For Non Profits is just what is sounds like.  Which is to say: awesome.

3.) 10 Blogs (actually 15) Pamela Reads.  You should listen to her.  She’s smart.

4.) The Arts Resource Network has a lot of information for emerging artists and arts-related non-profits.

5.) More on Founder’s Syndrome and how to tell if your founder has a little case of it.  Don’t let the picture put you off.

6.) 3 Apps And Networks Spurring Social Good.  Allyson Kapin is just amazing, she really is a wonderful resource for the non-profit world.

7.) A list of ‘how-t0′ resources for grantwriting.

8.) How A Non-Profit Brand Goes Bust, Part 1 was Nancy Schwartz’ opening salvo analyzing the KFC-Susan J. Komen brouhaha and how it weakened the brand.  Here is her in-depth analysis on the situation.  Right-on as per usual.

9.) I’ve been reading the Mission-Minded blog lately and you should check it out too.

10.) Wild Apricot’s tips on how to keep your organization Free of Spam Complaints.

Thats it for the day but I promise a real post for the next time, folks.

A.J.

The Procession of The Species, in full swing

This weeks (or, er, this months, I suppose) NPO of the week is so incredibly specific to Olympia, so ingrained a part of the little pocket of shaggy, radical culture, so wild and yet utterly ordinary to the town that I feel I may not be able to adequately describe it for the uninitiated.  I will make a- possibly vain- attempt:  The Procession of The Species is a fabulous parade that happens once a year, through the non-profit of the same name.  People from Olympia- children and adults alike- dress up as various iconic characters of the natural world, flora and fauna, bodily systems, etc.  Basically, it’s a celebration of all things organic and of life, in general, and is accompanied by seven weeks of art, music and dance workshops.  The cost of registration for the Procession is two cans of food for the local food bank.

Here’s some sped-up clips from the Procession this year:

The artistic pageant happens on Earth Day, when us Northwest folks are starting to get cross-eyed from the constant drizzle and monochromatic landscape.  It’s always a bright burst of color that enlivens the downtown business community and brings a smile to the city as a whole; a giant, relieved exhalation that, at long last, spring is here. Here’s how the Procession started, in their own words:

‘In January, 1995, a group of Olympia residents wanted to organize an event both to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Earth Day and to support Congressional renewal of the Endangered Species Act. The group decided on a positive statement of support in the form of a community celebration. They developed ideas for action and agreed on several basic tenets along with three simple rules. These became the group’s working principles. The Procession of the Species Celebration was born!’

And here, from their website, are the three rules for participants in the Procession:

-no written words

-no live pets

-no motorized vehicles (for Procession creations, but of course motorized wheelchairs are okay!)

And their organizational mission:

To empower communities to engage in cultural relationships with the natural world as a means of sustaining efforts of environmental protection and restoration.

Commendable, no?

The Procession is fabulously fun and really brings the community together.  I attended every one of the five years I lived in Olympia, and though I missed it this year, I’m happy to announce that DonationPay is helping Procession take their fundraising efforts online.

This year, Procession of The Species is raising money to keep their studio space open year-round.  The studio and the organization are vital arts resources for the community and a way for teachers, students and interested individuals to create more and more elaborate works of art for the annual celebration.  The studio is staffed completely by volunteers and is open to the public as a space to build  beautiful costumes, displays and other pageant materials for the Procession.  It’s awesome, believe me.  Procession also puts on art and music workshops, does educational outreach work, and offers a comprehensive starter kit for people from other cities who are interested in starting their own Procession.

All in all, it’s a great organization and one that is totally emblematic of the Olympia ethos.

Consider donating to The Procession of The Species today; it will make a positive impact on the whole community.

Donate to the Procession

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.

Go Teenagers!

It’s hard to find literature that will be appropriate, helpful and motivating for kids who are looking to participate in the non-profit world.  A lot of teenagers have strong and complex feelings about issues within the community or on a larger scale, but don’t have a lot of practical ideas as to where to outlet their energies.  In middle and high school, I often fantasized about starting up a shelter for battered women/bookstore/cafe/free lending library- I had a lot of big ideas and I knew which causes really struck a chord in my heart, but as far as activism went, I mostly bounced around youth groups in my area, like S.Y.P.P. and E.Y.E.S. (Empowered Youth Educating Society, now defunct).  So much of young life is about imagination, about dreaming big (I planned to open the hybrid shelter/cafe as soon as I’d won my screenwriting Oscar and, of course, the Pulitzer) and that kind of energy can be a bracing and welcome force in the activist community.

My DonationPay counterpart, Noah, started an organization in Berkeley, in his teens: Project Great Outdoors.  His non-profit has gone onto a long and successful life and was originally born of an intelligent, engaged teenagers’ grand imagination, social conscience and infectious energy (which has certainly been a boon around the office).  One of these days, I’m going to rope him into writing a fabulous post about his experience as the young helmer of Project GO, but sadly, this is not that day.  My point, really, is that with some support, resources and adequate information, teenagers can get a lot done, out there in the non-profit sector.

Here are some resources and inspirational tales to help them get started:

1.) The Teen Guide to Global Action

2.) Generation Change: Roll Up Your Sleeves and Change The World

3.) Be The Change, Change The World

4.) Volunteering: The Ultimate Teen Guide

5.) Freedom’s Children: Young Civil Rights Activists Tell Their Own Stories

6.) It’s Your World- If You Don’t Like It, Change It

7.) Future 500: Youth Activism and Organizing in the United States

8.) Youth-Led Community Organizing: Theory and Practice

9.) Let Me Stand Alone: The Journals of Rachel Corrie

10.) The Journey Is The Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon

All these books are available on Amazon for very reasonable prices.

The last two on this list won’t apply to everyone, but they certainly provide models of how to be a proactive person in a complicated society.  I received the last book, The Journey is The Destination, as a gift on my 18th birthday from a dear friend and it has continued to inspire and motivate me for the last twelve years.  If you are lucky enough to be the parent or friend of a budding teenage activist, help them get out there in the community and give them all the support you can.  They’re going to need it.

Happy Monday.

A.J.

Shameless Promotional Blog Post Ahead. . .

Here’s the deal: our service was initially conceived as a convenience fee-based service to help non-profits manage the cost of online donation processing.  The idea was that donors would pay their own processing costs, saving your organization a boatload of money.  As I may have testily mentioned, Mastercard changed their regulations so that convenience fees are no longer acceptable . . . except for government organizations and schools.

All our programming and design time on the old convenience-fee site is not for naught, because we now are  making our convenience fee service available to acceptable institutions.  In the case of Saddleback Children’s Center (no affiliation with Rick Warren’s church of the same name, btw), they’re using our service to collect tuition payments and donations.  Using our service will save them many thousands of dollars in processing costs per year, and the parents who are paying tuition understand that they’re helping relieve a financial burden on the school.  Our online application for this service is quick, easy and can save your school that theoretical boatload of cash.

Convenience-fee processing is also a great idea for municipalities and government organizations; in fact, we’ll soon be launching a whole site dedicated to providing this service, CityPay.   Cities can sign up to get DonationPay pages where their power users can pay utility bills online, make donations, or pay tickets.  Our convenience fee of $3.00 per $100.00 covers all processing costs, effectively saving your city from paying out a substantial percentage of your incoming monies.

Anyhow, thought I would let everyone know, that our convenience fee service is not fully dead- in fact, we’re seeing more and more interest in it now that it’s not available to absolutely everyone (and isn’t that always the way?).  If you are a qualifying organization, we can help you save a ton of money!

And, of course, if you’re simply a non-profit looking for an absolutely bill-free processing service, DonationPay is right for you.  We truly are excited to be able to offer such low-cost, comprehensive processing service to non-profits.  The amenities of our service far outweigh any others out there (custom-designed payment pages, easy management tools, great service, etc.).  Our service is by far the best available, especially for such a low cost; full-service processing like ours (PLUS, for pete’s sake, free design services), from our competitors like Network For Good, charge up to 5%, have massive set-up fees ($200.00 or more just to get started) and charge monthly fees.  We are quite a sweet deal, if I do say so myself, and our compulsively friendly and knowledgeable staff will do everything we can to get your organization the best rates available and provide the most enjoyable customer service experience.  All right, my pitch is over; I promise this blog will have only occasional flashes of blatant self promotion and, well, we can just chalk this up to one of those times.

To make up for it, here’s a video of the Wegman dogs baking bread:

Enjoy.

Code Pink Marches On Washington

For my first non-profit of the week after quite a long hiatus, I thought I’d write about one of my favorite organizations, Code Pink.  Code Pink is a national, large-scale non-profit that organizes and unites women across the world in the struggle for peace.  They have a website of commendable depth- you could get lost for hours in that thing-but here I’ll just show you their awesome, empowering Mission Statement:

‘CODEPINK is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into healthcare, education, green jobs and other life-affirming activities. CODEPINK rejects foreign policies based on domination and aggression, and instead calls for policies based on diplomacy, compassion and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence.’

Code Pink began as a coalition of American women who were deeply against the initial invasion of Iraq by the Bush administration.  They wanted to play on the administrations Terror Alert Color System: you know, red, orange, yellow to signal levels of terrorist threat . So, Code Pink was born and has now grown into one of the largest American organizations in the world consistently working to put an end to ongoing violence.   Code Pink is not an organization for only women; they do encourage men to join them.  However, they are, as they say, ‘particularly eager’ to see all types of women begin devoting themselves to the peace effort.

Some recent highlights on Code Pink’s great-looking and easily usable website: Jodie Evans account of her ‘arrest’ of Karl Rove, their blog post about the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Day of Action, and their truly AMAZING Resource Toolbox for emerging organizations and activists.

And here are some Code Pink ladies, taking on John McCain and The Beach Boys.

No matter what your political affiliation (and I know I’ve made mine awfully clear in this post, though I’ve been trying to steer away from this sort of thing, mostly), you have to appreciate non-violent protests disrupting big government, you know, unless you’re a monster.  Peaceful assembly and dissent is one of our constitutionally protected rights and I love that the amazing women (and men) of Code Pink are using every tool at their disposal to engage in political discourse, educate and empower.

Learn More about Code Pink

Donate Now

Locate Code Pink Groups In Your Area

Detroit is Pretty Awesome, You Guys

Well, it’s been a light week for the blog, because I am vacationing (and very successfully, thankyouverymuch) in Detroit, to help ring in my best friends brand new masters degree in graphic design.  Since I’ve already written a bit on the topic of web design this week, I thought, in keeping with the theme, I’d put together some more design resources for those of you out there building, re-building or being fed up with your existing sites.  I’ve been walking around the beyond-beautiful campus here at Cranbrook and reading, in crumbling marble letters on their red brick buildings, one of their aesthete’s credos: A Life Without Beauty is A Life Half Lived.  I wonder, seriously, what my own corresponding tenet of website appreciation would be. . . A Site Without Usability is Scarcely a Site At All?  A Site Without Proper Search Engine Optimization is But Half a Site?  If You Hate The Way Your Website Looks, Then Go To Art School and Learn How To Change It?  A Beautiful Website Is Only Half The Battle?

Regardless, here are some items to help you with design implementation and inspiration:

16 Sites For Web Design Inspiration: this has some sites with CSS and WordPress theme examples, many of them a nice resource if you’re looking to start building a new site.

A Couple More CSS Galleries: One and Two

50 Favorite Design Resources From Pronet

The Ten Commandments Of Web Design

Design Blogs I like:

Outlaw Design Blog

Abduzeedo

Colorburned

And Finally. . .

A List of The  50 Best Web Design Blog Posts from 2009- I’ve gotten through almost all of these and they are uniformly awesome, so put on your reading glasses and get started.

Good luck finding inspiration, everyone.

-A.J.

That 404 error makes me want to go ape s–t.

I’ve been thinking this week about the merging of form and function.  We generally don’t think about websites as works of art; they’re far too utilitarian and work-horsey.  Most websites can perform a variety of tasks- you can spend or receive money, interact with all different types of media, share opinions. . . and, well, we all know there are a thousand other options for making an ass of yourself online, on nearly every site on the web- like this ridiculous Twitter fight (language NSFW) between Scott Baio (oh, Bob Loblaw, I’m so disappointed in you!) and the biting wits at Jezebel.  The duties a website performs can seem secondary to the design, to the naked eye, but anyone who spends more than a few hours on the computer a day can tell you that an attractive site is nothing but a lovely shell, without usability and functionality.

The sites most people love are the ones that have the elusive form/function combo- sites you know immediately how to use and navigate and where you never find yourself more than a few clicks away from where you want to be.  Some web designers air more on the side of attractive flourishes and elegance and some are more concerned with the practical side of things (for the record, Noah and I are generally fans of usability above all else).   Truly great websites have an equal measure of both.

An awesome web designer will help you create a site aesthetic  that is attractive and relevant to your organization and they should also be able to create a usable site with a funnel that will take your visitors where you want them to go.  Building a smartly designed site with conversion in mind isn’t like painting a picture- it’s more like assembling the components of an intelligent machine.  You want your site to work tirelessly to take your traffic to your donation page (if that’s what you want) and also let users comfortably navigate without giving them easy opportunities to leave your site.

When you’re working with your web designer to develop your site’s aesthetic, you don’t want to seem like a complete doofus. A website is not going to look exactly how you see it in your minds eye, or how you might draw it after a visit from the muse, a bottle of Jack and a run-in with some oil pastels.   You must weigh your desired functionality equally with your desired aesthetic.  Basically, what I’m saying is be willing to make some compromises in the service of usability (not utility).  Much of the time, you’ll be able to get what you want while making smart choices about functionality, but in those times that usability has to take aesthetics to the mat. . . well, I can’t make this call for you.  But usability should win, every time.

Here are some resources to bring you up to speed on basic web design principles:

Smashing Magazines Excellent List of Web Design Tenets

And here’s some stuff NOT to do.

This fiddler will tell you what graphic design is:

And a crazy time-lapse video.  If only we all could design sites so fast.  Sigh.

And. . . fin.  Have a nice Tuesday.

-A.J.