We’ve spoken, in a previous blog, about how to engage new nonprofit board members. You are looking for “the 5 C’s”: connections, capacity, care, community and cooperation. Your candidate is most likely to join your board because she cares about your mission and may have other personal motivations.

It is in everyone’s best interest to clearly define the terms of engagement up-front. It’s a joint responsibility. Time, money and process are the three biggest issues and there are lots of ways to dampen board members’ enthusiasm and effectiveness.

Let’s start with board meetings.

Are schedules and agendas set well in advance? How many meetings are you expecting a board member to attend? How long will they be and will travel be required? Will expenses be reimbursed? How much preparation will be required? Is there clarity about who will decide what?

One organization sent me a 90 page package of information the day before my first board meeting. I scrambled to read it. Then the bulk of the meeting was spent reviewing the same materials. Other, smarter trustees hadn’t bothered to look at them.

My view was that the organization should expect us to be prepared and commit to getting us well-curated materials 10 days in advance. (Too often the board gets information that is way too detailed or “motherhood and apple pie.”) Then we could use our meeting time for discussion and decision making. More work for all of us perhaps but a much more productive and satisfying experience.

Committee work can suffer from similar problems and warrants the same discipline starting with a clear definition of roles. A friend of mine agreed to serve on a nonprofit’s finance committee and then discovered that the job came with (significant) involvement in the audit committee. Oops.

Board members often are expected to be donors too; it’s important to lead by example. One common question is whether they should be required to make a financial contribution at a specified level. Opinions vary but I am a believer in giving according to one’s means and getting a sincere thank you from the institution for whatever that may be.

My final bit of advice is to avoid “nickel and diming” tactics. A donor signs up for an annual gift. Then there’s the gala, and the matching gift campaign, and the special program drive and the… Frustrated, my solution has been to say “Here’s the money. Apply it to whatever you like but please don’t come back for more and make me feel bad.”

The generational issue goes beyond fundraising too.

Peter Brinckerhoff, author of Generations: The Challenge of a Lifetime for Your Nonprofit, notes that most nonprofits have worked at staff and board diversity in terms of gender and ethnicity but few have considered generational diversity. He also offers some interesting tidbits about generational roles:[1]

• The Silent Generation (born 1925-1945, 30 million) are still very active in nonprofit management, funding and volunteering.
• Baby Boomers (born 1946-1962, 80 million) make up 70% of nonprofit senior management and 65% of nonprofit board membership.
• Generation X (born 1963-1980, 45 million) make up a large part of the US nonprofit work force.
• Millennials (born 1981-2002, 70 million) have been raised on “service projects” by their Boomer parents.

Millennials do bring new philanthropic attitudes and expectations, and may require new kinds of information and engagement. Here are some frequently noted Millennial characteristics and some implications for fundraising:

• They are not particularly loyal to institutions but are passionate about specific causes and helping people. They are idealistic but also like to think of themselves as investors and want to see impact. They’ll start their own charity if they don’t like what they see. (Communicate your mission powerfully. Demonstrate concrete results through stories and metrics.)
• They were born on this side of the digital divide; technology is like oxygen to them. They live a life of constant connectedness via social media, websites and search engines, and mobile technology. (Cross them off your direct mail list. Don’t expect them to show up at the gala. Beef up your website and online giving. Consider a social media campaign.)
• They tend not to compartmentalize their giving from the rest of their lives. They buy products that support charitable causes and like to participate in work place philanthropy. According to the Millennial Impact Report (2013), over half are interested in monthly donations. (Don’t assume they will respond to big campaigns or one-off events. Be creative.)
• They want to do. They want to be inspired and actively involved. (Try activity-oriented fundraising events with youth appeal or a “young professional” group. Provide volunteering opportunities where they can interact and use their skill sets.)

So yes, the world is changing and Millennials are different. But take heart; at the end of the day, it comes back to the 4 Questions and answering them from the donor’s perspective. Your average Millennial may not give big now but if you can draw them in and keep them connected to your cause, you may be able to form a lasting relationship that will pay off later.[2]

[1] “Understanding the Different Cultures of Different Generations” 

[2] Sources include “What Makes Millennials Give to Charity?”
and “How Millennials Are Disrupting Traditional Charitable Giving”
and “Generational Gap: Giving to Charity” 

Let me start by saying that I like needs lists almost as much as recognition opportunity lists. (Yes, I am being facetious.) My basic objection is that they both tend to be institution-centric laundry lists.

But in reviewing the hospital’s list, it occurred to me that another problem is that needs lists – and fundraising communications in general – all too often fail to explain the why’s and the how’s, in terms that are meaningful to donors.

Take this sampling of items from the hospital’s list of philanthropic support needs:

• Hybrid operating suite – Surgical theater equipped with advanced, flexible technology to enable minimally-invasive surgery, facilitated through intra-operative 3D imaging.
• Pediatrics – Advanced neonatal care and elevation of nursery to II-B level to care for babies born prematurely, or with life threatening neonatal disease.
• Geriatrics – Support for the Quimby Center’s fellowship and House Calls program provides training for the next generation of geriatricians and better care for seniors.
• Healing garden – Plans are being made for the creation of a healing garden for patients and families.

My pen was itchy. This felt heavy on the how’s and light on the why’s. Here’s what happened when we took a quick stab at some edits aimed at building a stronger case for why this is important:

• Hybrid operating suite – To improve patient outcomes and decrease recovery time, we need to invest in a surgical theater equipped with advanced, flexible technology that will enable minimally-invasive surgery, facilitated through intra-operative 3D imaging
• Pediatrics – To better serve patients with more complicated pregnancies and births, we need funding for advanced neonatal care and elevation of nursery to II-B level to care for babies born prematurely, or with life threatening neonatal disease.
• Geriatrics – Geriatric care is a growing and critical need for our aging community. We seek support for the Quimby Center’s fellowship and House Calls program provides training for the next generation of geriatricians and better care for seniors.
• Healing garden – Experience shows that hospital healing gardens provide solace and relief from stress. Plans are being made for the creation of a healing garden for patients and families.

As a donor, I found the brief cases much more compelling. Knowing why each opportunity is important for achieving the hospital’s mission of providing compassionate, top notch care to local communities makes a difference. (Remember Question 1: “Are you doing important work?”!)

Some organizations err in the opposite direction: lofty or vague why’s and not a lot of how’s. Donors, especially significant donors, will want to know how their gift will make a difference. (That would be Question 3.)

For example, one ballet company’s “Donate” web page begins by noting that ticket sales account for just 40% of “all the great work you see at the City Ballet” and then goes on to list membership categories with benefits ranging from a monthly e-newsletter to special events, guest vouchers and opening night parties. I wondered, how would my money be used?

Another ballet company’s “Support” page was more forthcoming: “You have helped us to become one of America’s finest ballet companies and we thank you. Your gift will allow our artists, musicians, crew and staff to continue to offer diverse programming as well as in-depth education and outreach programs to our State’s students, teachers and special-needs individuals.”

It also offered targeted giving opportunities for such things as supporting an innovative production of the Nutcracker and contributing to a scholarship program for young dancers. Another nice touch was a “Request a donation” offer (on a first come, first served basis) of free tickets to qualifying nonprofits.

As a donor, I found the second company’s pitch much more tangible and motivating.

The Boys & Girls Clubs of the Peninsula (BGCP) offers what I consider to be a much better model for annual reporting. I have shared their Report to Stakeholders with several nonprofits and invite you to take a look at it. 

Why do I like it?

The report offers lots of facts and impact-oriented metrics, addresses all of its stakeholders, and takes a long term perspective that reassures the reader that BGCP leadership knows what it’s doing. It essentially reads like a business plan.

It also addresses all of its stakeholders including its three customers: youth, schools, and funders. For funders, it is easy to find the answers to G2G’s four questions: Are you doing important work? Are you well managed? Will my gift make a difference? Will the experience be satisfying to me?

BGCP’s Executive Director (ED), Peter Fortenbaugh, was kind enough to talk with us about their annual report. We’d like to share his explanation of the inspiration for it, what’s involved in developing it, and why it is worth doing.

Our report partly reflects my business experience preparing a company to go public. If you’re asking for an investment in a business, you must present the need your company has identified and describe your solution for it, backed up with data. We’re also asking for an investment in our organization, if you will, so we need to be just as disciplined about making our case.

BGCP’s development director when I became ED suggested the report. Part of the reason to do it is for me as ED. I need to be prepared to answer the question, “How are we doing?” It’s a forcing mechanism once a year to hold yourself accountable with full transparency on what has worked and failed, and an opportunity to get agreement on goals.

The report has helped us gain a lot of supporters. Not everyone cares about it but many sophisticated donors do, so it helps us stand out. We want and are able to get board members who challenge us and ask: “Why is this bad and and this good?”

Developing the report is not a “do it and you’re done” kind of exercise, and it’s not really a lot of extra work. It’s more a compilation, a pulling together of things that we do to plan and manage our activities on an ongoing basis. The metrics, for example, are all things that we are tracking internally anyway.

It also becomes a template of sorts for a lot of grant writing: “Here’s our story and our message.” Every grant and granting organization is different, of course, but you can cut and paste and massage for the particular audience you are addressing.

Thank you, Peter!

So, start “being careful” from the start, when you are crafting the gift agreement. For example, when we decided to rename a Harvard building in honor of a generous donor, we specified that if the building were to be torn down, the donor’s name would go on another building.

Some organizations build in a standard clause with an expiration date of – say, 75 years – for naming rights. Others have learned from harsh experience to prepare for the worst; one institution found itself chiseling the name of someone convicted of a felony off one of its buildings. (Yes, that’s now a clause.)

“Being careful” also involves being sensitive to the donor (and/or his or her family) if and when the time comes to retire a donor name. I am happy to offer a positive example from my own experience.

My great-great-grandfather Thomas Dee was a prominent businessman in Ogden, Utah, where I grew up. After his death in 1905, his nine children made substantial donations to several town institutions. An elementary school was named in recognition of the family’s contributions to the Ogden School Foundation.

After serving faithfully over several decades, the Dee Elementary School was slated for closing at the end of the 2015/2016 school year. Plans were underway for the construction of an innovative new school focused on STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) at a nearby site, to replace it. School District leadership proposed that a new name reflecting the school’s new mission be selected.

I learned about this from a Dee family member who still lives in Ogden.

The District had approached him about the name change early in 2015. He said he was fine with it but observed that other family members might feel differently. He suggested that the District write a letter explaining the change and the reason why to Dee family members.

The District’s Director of Communications began working on a letter, circulated a draft to a few family members for review, and requested an address list for as many family descendants of Thomas Dee as we could muster. The plan was to issue the letter before the renaming was publicly announced.

It was a good letter, acknowledging the significance of the Dee family name in Ogden and all the contributions it stood for both historically and currently.

Even more importantly, the entire process was thoughtful and empathetic. There has been no family backlash that I know of; I certainly was fine with the change. The District now has kicked off a public campaign to invite names for the new school that reflect its new mission.

Well done!

If potential donors and volunteers are not aware of existing needs, they will be less likely to engage in philanthropic behavior. Also, more often than not people respond to a perceived need, rather than an objective need.[1]

So, at a minimum, you must get your story out there. And you must communicate it in a way that resonates with whoever you are trying to convince of the worthiness of your cause. Here’s the critical part: You cannot make the assumption that they see the world the same way you do.

There are very few things that everyone agrees on. Let’s take a relatively straightforward example. Your kids deserve a good education, right?

Your town concludes that aging facilities, advancing technologies and changing demographics calls for a new elementary school that will require a significant investment. How will the parents of a five year old react? Yes! And a retiree on a fixed income? Oh great, higher taxes.

The more controversial the cause, the more challenging and important the communications will be.

The Movement Advancement Project (MAP) is an interesting case study. Founded in 2006, MAP is an independent think tank that provides research, insight and analysis to help speed equality for LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) people.

Whatever your position on gay marriage, there is a lot to learn from the care with which they communicate their message, and the impact that changing from a rights-based argument to a love-based argument has had on public opinion and ultimately the law.

MAP offers resources to help educate and persuade public audiences (e.g., policymakers, media and the American public) and help support LGBT movement audiences (e.g., LGBT organizations and funders). Effective messaging is a core program area, with resources and information about how LGBT organizations can frame issues and run communication campaigns. Among its premises:

Like any movement for social justice, the success of the LGBT movement requires advocates to communicate… in ways that emphasize common ground emotional connection and shared values. And it requires framing conversations in ways that allow non-LGBT audiences to understand the harms LGBT Americans experience through their own eyes.

MAP’s “The Art and Science of Framing an Issue” presents a 12 step approach for answering the question, “What is this about?”  Its “Communications Campaign Best Practices” offers a useful framework and tools for effective campaigns. 

Have effective communications helped the LGBT cause?

MAP also tracks and analyzes the LGBT movement’s progress, pointing to advances that while not entirely due to communications of course, would suggest “yes.” For example, 89% of Americans support equal employment rights for gays and lesbians compared to 59% in 1982, and 57% say homosexuality is acceptable versus 34% in 1982.

In educating people about your cause, make sure to do it from their perspective. And be sure to use their language. Language is about sense making, about how someone thinks about the world. If I’m promoting public education, and someone’s politics tend to the right, I may talk about our duty to help the poor. With someone in the liberal camp, I’ll phrase it as achieving the goals of equal opportunity.

Getting to Giving regulars will note that this is not the first time that I have got on my bandwagon about communications. Here are two other blogs that may be of interest: “The Art of Simple Nonprofit Communications” and “Top Ten Tips for Effective Communications.”

[1] The Palgrave Handbook of Global Philanthropy, edited by Pamala Wiepking and Femida Handy, Palgrave Macmillan, NY, June 2015

• Personally modeling philanthropic behavior can send a powerful message to colleagues and employees.
• Offering opportunities for employees to do community service or offering matching gifts to designated causes can be motivating and make employees feel good about the company they work for.
• Sending a clear message about company values including sustainable business practices and corporate social responsibility is essential.

Some entrepreneurs go a step further. I am reminded of one investment firm whose founder feels that profits are for more than making partners wealthy. A portion is allocated to a fund that is used strategically to attack what are considered to be the most urgent social problems in the country.

Social enterprise offers another way of thinking about philanthropy, broadly defined as making a positive change in the world. It is a rapidly evolving field where for-profit and nonprofit ventures take entrepreneurial approaches to solving social challenges. You can think of it as three main streams:

• Nonprofit strategy and governance, which focuses on improving the performance of non-profit organizations across all sectors.
• Business for social impact, such as business models aimed at serving lower-income markets for a more equitable world; or innovative products and services for addressing environmental issues.
• Financial resources for social change, a hybrid vision for philanthropy that is being practiced under a variety of banners including impact investing, social investment and venture philanthropy.

Finally, you can be entrepreneurial in your personal efforts to make the world a better place. Be innovative in pursuing opportunities to support your chosen cause. Consider what you can offer, in the way of time, talent, treasure and networks. Partner with others to assemble the resources needed for success. Start now, learn as you go, and enjoy the satisfaction of making a difference.

The recent Volkswagen meltdown is a chilling corporate example of Buffet’s warning. It also illustrates this oft-heard advice: “Better to be proactive than reactive.” (Or, as the Chinese proverb goes, “Build the well before you are thirsty.”)

Nonprofits are not immune. Remember the Lance Armstrong debacle? (Livestrong has survived the doping scandal but not without scars.) Some people argue that the stakes are even higher for nonprofits, as organizations whose mission it is to “do good” and whose coffers rely on donor trust.

Some nonprofits have started to build full-fledged risk management systems similar to those used in the private sector, where boards are charged with oversight. That may be overkill for some organizations, but every board should be thinking about and monitoring reputational risk.

“What kinds of risk do we face?” is a good place to start. The answer will vary depending on the organization but, in general, you’re only as good as your total performance, and the risks of failure are embedded in a host of day-to-day interactions and transactions with a variety of stakeholders.

Donors usually appear at or near the top of the worry list, when it comes to nonprofit reputational risk. You have convinced them (or are trying to convince them) that you are worthy of their trust and their hard earned dollars. What can go wrong? A few examples:

• Misuse of funds. Theft and fraud are obvious no- no’s. But failure to use funds for their intended purpose also is a risk; the Red Cross came under fire for not using a substantial portion of Hurricane Sandy donations for immediate relief.
• Poor accounting. It may be an innocent mistake due to a lack of proper sign offs or an inexperienced employee. Or not; some United Way branches were accused of misreporting contributions and expenses to make themselves look more successful.
• Unethical donors. My favorite example is the father who asked whether a large gift would get his son into HBS. When it emerged that the son was 12 years old, I said “Sure. But I won’t be around or tell anyone about this conversation.” He got it. (And we didn’t get the gift.)
• Unfortunate partnerships. Cause-related marketing has run rampant but you have to be careful that your partners are appropriate and must rely on them to keep their reputational noses clean. Ditto for corporate sponsorships.

You get the idea. It’s a discussion worth having with your nonprofit’s management team.

What levers can you use, to manage reputational risks? Disciplined control systems are important, but a culture that values ethical behavior and professionalism in dealings with all stakeholders is as if not more important. And it starts with board members, as role models and stewards.

All that said, a colleague of mine pointed out (actually, he wrote a whole book about it) that crisis is not a question of if, but when. In other words, &%$#@ happens. It doesn’t have to be the make or break moment of your organizational life, however, if you follow these ten commandments of damage control:

1. Full disclosure
2. Speak to your core audience
3. Don’t feed the fire
4. Details matter
5. Hold your head high
6. Be straight about what you know, what you don’t know, and what you are going to do to fix the problem
7. Respond with overwhelming force
8. First in, first out
9. No swiftboating
10. They dissemble, you destroy

You can learn more about all that in Masters of Disaster: The Ten Commandments of Damage Control by Christopher Lehane, Mark Fabiani and Bill Guttentag.

Sitting at work, I get an impersonal call from a call center hitting me up for a donation. Where do I start?

Really, the college now outsources even asking for money? A third party in a room in North Dakota reads a script asking me for dough while I hear other script readers babbling in the background?

I am all for efficiency – and maybe the Development staff can prove it works – but please count me out. Where I come from, if you ask someone for money, then you ask them for money. You don’t send a third party. Unless you’re the Mob.

I remember the traditional call from an existing student. Yes, they’d be reading from a script but it seemed right. Almost authentic. And, in any case, it was good form and in my case effective.

Maybe the school can’t even find students willing to work for a measly $12 per hour. Or $15. The inhumanity. If this is “progress,” I want no part of it.

Generally, I am not a fan of professional telemarketing and fear that it is giving philanthropy a bad name. It’s not just the invasiveness or impersonality; you also wonder how much of your money is really going to the cause. Many a nonprofit has come under fire for high-cost marketing services.

As a donor, I would be much more receptive to a call from a grateful scholarship student than a call center. As a fundraiser, I believe that whether you are a university, medical center or animal shelter, getting people who really believe in your cause to make the solicitation gets much better results.

That said, telemarketing must work for some organizations or they wouldn’t do it. And, donors shouldn’t use it as an easy excuse to discount a worthy cause. I am reminded of this story from one of my friends, a very successful volunteer fundraiser. He calls it the Peanut Butter Story.

It begins with a call on a donor. After some discussion, the donor asked if my friend liked peanut butter.

“Yes,” my friend replied.

“Well, then, no money from me,” the donor shot back.

“Why not?” asked the puzzled fundraiser.

“Well, I wasn’t going to give you any anyway, but now I have a reason.”

In my terminology, that’s not a reason, but an excuse. I hope that you (and I!) don’t run into too many characters like that.

“What do you think?” she asked. My short answer: Restricted gifts clearly are a two-edged sword.

From the donor’s perspective, the bigger the gift, the more you want to make sure that your money is used for purposes that you deem important. Restricted gifts are a vehicle for specifying your wishes, and can make it easier for the organization to track and report how the money actually is being used and the difference it is making.

On the other hand, a restricted gift – by definition – does place some constraints on the organization, and does involve some extra record-keeping.  The 7% figure seems high to me, but may reflect the average size of gift. The extra work may not be worth it for a donation of, say, $100 but represent an insignificant investment in, say, a million dollar gift; you have to draw the line somewhere.

I am less concerned about the control issue, so long as the proposed gift fits your mission. Money is fungible and you should be able to make it all work out. A land conservation group may receive money for land acquisition or for stewardship; both should be welcome as key to the organization’s purpose

One way to solve the restricted gift problem is to think creatively about categories of giving opportunities.

For example, one university offered scholarship, research and several other set categories as class gift opportunities. That approach facilitated solicitation discussions by guiding the development person to the right type of opportunity, and still provided considerable freedom in targeting the resources.