Posts Tagged ‘Non profit’

« Older Entries

Meaningful Goals

Wednesday, January 6th, 2010

It is the start of a new year. For many nonprofits, it is start of a new fiscal year also. What are your board’s goals?

While working with nonprofits, we often hear about desires this time of year. We frequently hear, “We want more vitality, strength, and sustainability.” Some refer to that as goal setting.

What is the difference between a desire and a goal? Without a plan, more vitality, strength, and sustainability are just desires. Without a plan, how will you convince the staff, donors, referral sources, and others that you are serious, intentional, and know how to do it? Unless you write down your plan how will others follow it? Without milestones how will you know if the plan is working?

There is a temptation to say that step one is raise more money. Of course, that is important but is it the first step?

Think about your favorite product. If the manufacturer wants to sell more what has to happen? They need one or more of the following:

Add new features to attract the people who were uninterested last year

Lower the price to make it more affordable for those unable to buy last year

More distribution outlets so that it is easier for people to find

Broader advertising so that more people know about the product

The list goes on

Your favorite nonprofit is more likely to provide a service than a product but the principles apply. What will you change so that you can reach more donors, so that more donors will respond, or so that existing donors will be more generous? In short, if nothing changes you should expect the same response from the donors this year. Will you be happy with the same response as 2009?

For many nonprofits, nothing changed internally between 2008 and 2009. However, the economy turned down creating an external change. Without a corresponding positive internal change, they raised less money in 2009 than 2008.

Here is a counter example. Realizing the need for internal change to counteract the down economy, one organization focused on creating a better experience for their volunteers. As a result, they had more volunteers and more volunteer hours (2008 – 2,200 volunteer hours, 2009 – more than 5,000 volunteer hours).

Doubling volunteer hours is very beneficial. Of course, it was good for the clients who receive services. It was also good for fundraising.

In fundraising terms, there was a double affect. They raised 8% more in 2009. Exceeding the preceding year in a down economy is good. In addition, the volunteer hours reduced their staff time and expenses over 2008. Lower costs producing more income, who could ask for more? Net income was up more than 8% for the year.

They exceeded their goal. That is a nice in a tough year.

It is important to emphasize that an operational change (volunteer management) created a financial gain. An operational change converted a desire for more money into an achievable goal.

What are the operational changes that will change your desires into goals?

Next Step:

Define your goals

Create a concrete plan for each of your goals

Establish milestones so that you know the plan is working and there is accountability

Monitor the activity to ensure that milestones are met

Adjust the plan to improve the results

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

Follow us on Twitter

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Decision Making, Leadership, Volunteer Management, donors, fundraising, sustainability | Comments Off

Keep Growing

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

Keep growing. How many times have we heard that?

Numerical growth is only one example of growth. Is it the right one for your favorite nonprofit? It is the most popular measure because it is the most important measure to retail operations and retail is the most visible business activity around us. However, other growth measures can be more important.

Emphasizing the right growth factors creates an environment where everyone wins.

Think about doctors for a moment. Whether in a sole practice or part of a large group patient growth is minimally important. There are only X patients that can be served in a day. Numerical growth is unimportant to the individual doctor after he or she reaches capacity.

Knowledge growth is critical to the patients. They want the best possible care. It is important to the doctor because he or she wants to provide the best possible care. It is also important to the doctor if he or she wants to remain relevant. For a doctor in the rapidly changing field of medicine knowledge growth is the key to having a sustainable, relevant, and vitality filled practice.

What dimension of growth is most important to your nonprofit? Is it donor growth? Volunteer growth? Referral source growth? Client growth? Increasing client success? Knowledge growth? Geographic growth? Program growth? Reputation growth?

When the board and the leadership talk, do they talk about the most advantageous type of growth?

Have you listed all of the types of growth available to your nonprofit? Which one drives growth? Which ones change as a collateral benefit of success in the primary area?

Think about an addiction treatment center. If their client success rate grows from 50% to 60% over the next 5 years, their reputation for success will grow. Client referrals will grow. The proven success will improve their grant competitiveness and funding will grow. For them client success is the critical growth factor. Growth in the other areas is a collateral benefit.

Client success is growth with a purpose. Increasing the number of clients served is just numbers. Client success inspires the staff and volunteers, provides donors with gratification, and meets a critical need in the community.

Emphasizing the right growth factors creates an environment where everyone wins.

What are the relevant growth factors for your favorite nonprofit? Which is the primary? Which are collateral growth factors? What is the plan for driving growth in the critical area?

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

Follow us on Twitter

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Decision Making, Leadership, donors, fundraising, sustainability | Comments Off

Strategic Thinking

Thursday, December 10th, 2009

Leaders must think strategically. However, we seldom train them to do what we demand. Many who serve on a nonprofit board are serving on a board for the first time. Their employment requires operational thinking. As a result, they think about details first, the big picture second, and strategy is a problem solving tool rather than a planning tool.

Compounding this problem is the experience of the executive director. While the he or she might want to and be capable of thinking strategically, if the board is unwilling or unable to support the executive’s thinking, eventually he or she stops trying.

The failure to think strategically has consequences. Eventually, there is a decline, costs escalate, and doubts develop about the viability of the agency. The viability of many agencies across the country is in doubt.

Mission Enablers works with nonprofits of all types. We help them increase their capacity to serve adapt to the changing market, and increase their sustainability. Thinking strategically is the best way to increase sustainability and avoid decline. We restore viability to struggling agencies and help protect strong agencies from decline.

Strategic planning defines a structural break. A structural break creates a long-term, meaningful change in the future. As an example, consider a plan to increase donations. While that may create a long-term change in giving, it fails the meaningful test. Money is necessary but never meaningful. In addition, the changes are part of a peripheral activity (fundraising) rather than a core element of the mission. Examples of core business or mission related items are clients, services, quality, outcomes, the self-sufficiency of the clients, the character development of the clients, etc.

A structural break would be something like adding programming that results in a higher graduation rate. The higher graduation rate creates a change in the core business and it provides a benefit for the community, families, and the students. Another example is identifying at risk youth and providing programming that prevents their loss to society as well as providing them with a superior education.

The first step in the evolution to strategic thinking is to change the topics for discussion. When non-strategic topics dominate the conversation, strategic thinking is suppressed.

What steps can you take to change the discussion?

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

Follow us on Twitter

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Decision Making, Strategic Planning, sustainability | Comments Off

Nonprofit Decision-Making

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Success is a 50/50 proposition. Half of success is making the right decision. Half of success is being able to execute the decision.

Mission Enablers works with nonprofits of all types helping them to build their capacity to serve and increase their sustainability. Many of the nonprofits we work with are struggling. We help them find the path to success while building their capacity to serve.

One of the reasons that our clients invite us into the discussion is because of bad decisions or poor execution. No one intentionally makes bad decisions. We all do the pre-decision making analysis the same way. We gather the facts, look at the facts we gathered, and draw the best conclusion we can.

Where the process fails us is in the fact gathering. Before we make a decision, we list our options. One option usually looks better than the others do. Having selected the preferred path, we now begin the fact gathering. Our natural bias is to gather the facts that support our preferred path.

I am willing to bet that the preferred path is the best decision. Gathering facts that support it lowers the probability of success. Our experience tells us, intuitively, what the best path is. However, we need facts to convenience others. We assume they want to know why we chose this path.

A better process is to study the other choices and list the reasons they are good choices. Identifying the strengths of the other options has a different purpose than advocating for the path. If X is a good reason to choose path A, it is also a weakness of your selected path. How will you overcome the weakness?

Knowing how to over come the weakness makes your selected path stronger. Strengthening your path is the best way to ensure success. Now you are ready for what might go wrong.

Without this process, you are likely to be surprised at some point. How many times have you heard someone say, “This would have worked if X had never happened.” They forgot to look for X. When X happens, it derails everything. When that happens enough failure follows.

Every decision is a career altering experience. Good decisions build your career. Bad decisions still alter your career.

If you are concerned about your ability to analyze the alternatives objectively, assign each alternative to an associate. It is a better process because it builds the knowledge of the whole team. A team prepared for most contingency is better than one well-prepared individual.

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Decision Making, Leadership, sustainability | Comments Off

Leadership

Friday, November 13th, 2009

Leadership is a challenge for most nonprofits. This is as for traditional nonprofits as it is for churches, arts, and faith-based nonprofits.

Mission Enablers works with a variety of nonprofits. We help them build their capacity to serve and achieve sustainability. In our work, we meet many leaders. Most are great individuals, poorly prepared to do a tough job.

Here is an example. A nonprofit leader was lamenting the decline in attendance at a fundraiser. She was blaming the decline on the other nonprofits in the area because they were duplicated a successful process. She felt her board had failed to support the fundraiser by making donations, recruiting attendees, and finding sponsors.

Is she right? Does success come from having a unique fundraiser, generous board, and a board that recruits donors and sponsors? Those items make success easier but good leadership makes success possible.

Every nonprofits starts without a unique fundraiser, generous board, donors, and sponsors. If they survive five years, it is because of a passionate leadership.

A good leader can overcome limited resources and challenging obstacles. A good leader accepts the world as it is and changes it to meet the organization’s needs.

What is the solution? Should we fire the leader who blames others or has some other set of excuses for failure? Sometimes the answer is yes. The answer is no most of the time.

When the answer is no, what do you do? The first step is to recognize the whining and blaming as a poorly articulated cry for help. The simple response to the cry for help is to objectively analyze the leader’s skills and find training for the critical areas. The more complex answer is train the board to recognize the need for leadership training before it becomes a crisis. The best answer is recruit board members who are good leaders, passionate about the mission, and proactive problem solvers.

Good leaders know what good leaders look like. Passionate individuals stay engaged long enough to ensure success. Proactive problem solvers never wait for a cry for help.

By the way, good leaders never use a poorly articulated cry for help to bring attention to their needs.

How good is your nonprofit’s leadership? What is your plan for helping them improve?

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Board Governance, Decision Making, Leadership, Management, sustainability | Comments Off

Nonprofit Board Service

Friday, October 30th, 2009

If every board meeting focused on what is important to the primary stakeholder, success would follow. When the primary stakeholder is served, the agency finds peace, unity, and a sense of fulfillment. A collateral or coincidental benefit is an increase in clients, volunteers, collaborations, and donations.

The community is the primary stakeholder. Community ownership and benefit is why the IRS grants nonprofit status to the agency. The exception is a faith-based organization. With faith-based organizations, God is the primary stakeholder.

At Mission Enablers, we help nonprofits build their capacity to serve. Because that is a strategic activity, we have the privilege of attending most board meetings.

Every board in this country exists to serve the stakeholders. In the for-profit world, the primary stakeholder is the stockholder. The board must pay attention to the desires of the stockholder. Likewise, nonprofits must pay attention to what matters to the community.

Here are a few questions to ask after attending a board meeting. How much, if any, time did we spend on the following topics?

The community –did anyone ask what does community wants us to do or mention the community?

The mission – was the mission mentioned at all?

Did anyone ask how will this decision serve the mission?

The clients – were the clients, their welfare, or success discussed?

Main service – was there any discussion of the main service offered by the agency, how to improve it, create better outcomes, etc.?

Money – did all of the discussion revolve around money, disagreement about non-mission topics, and scarce resources?

Some would say that the community, mission, client, and services are all a part of the discussion of money. A properly functioning corporate board never makes the stockholders an implied part of the conversation.

The primary interests of the stockholders are growth, profits, and sustainability. Money is the primary measure so it is appropriate for the for-profit board to discuss money. Money is the way we know that the board is serving the interests of the stockholders.

The community’s primary interests are the mission and the success of the clients. Is money a valid measure? Should you talk about something that is unimportant to your primary stakeholder?

Imagine how changing the focus from money to what matters to the community will change the discussion. It is a tough transition. It is a cultural change for many boards. Cultural changes are time consuming, hard work, and messy.

Success will be more than worth the effort!!! The peace, unity, and sense of fulfillment that comes from every board meeting will be worth it. A collateral or coincidental benefit is an increase in clients, volunteers, collaborations, and donations.

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

Tags: , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Decision Making, donors, fundraising | Comments Off

Board with Fundraisers

Thursday, October 15th, 2009

Fundraisers are a waste of time, effort, and annoy people. If that is true, why would you hold one? The common answer is because we need the money. Are you raising enough money to justify the time, effort, and ill will?

Mission Enablers provides consulting services to nonprofits. Holding a fundraiser is common event. When the nonprofit is struggling, it becomes a frequent event. The theory says that with more money our financial worries will evaporate. The theory is fine. Do you know of anyone who has achieved financial health through a fundraising event or through several events?

Consider a nonprofit with a $1,500,000 budget, an operating deficit of $150,000, and declining donations. Can it afford to annoy people? Can it afford to waste anyone’s time?

The staff recommended holding a hog roast and auction to raise money. The board decided to go along with the recommendation.

When the auction was over, they raised $5,000 after expenses. The attendance was about the same as last year. There were a few new people and some of the regulars were absent. Of course, most of the board was there but they were reluctant buyers. The items were chosen to appeal to someone else.

The merchants who provided the auction items were annoyed. The auction items sold at a discount. The merchants felt their gifts were undervalued. The organizers felt that the buyers took advantage of the event and failed to honor the spirit of the event. The volunteers and staff were annoyed because they put in 835 hours and the event earned less than $6 per hour for their time. As one person put it, “We could have stood on street corners with coffee cans and earned more money per hour!!!”

They earned 3% of what they needed to balance the budget. In addition, they spent three months preparing, organizing, and holding the event. In short, they invested 25% of the available time to earn 3% of the need.

The board’s response was, “We had to do something.”

When no one wins, it is a very sad story.

Is that an uncommon story? In our experience the answer is no.

What is the solution?

There are two solutions. The first is contact everyone who attended the event and determine why. Several of those people really care about the mission. Help those caring people connect with the parts of the process that are important to them. Over time, their passion will cause them to give. Their gifts will be larger than their purchases at the auction and their entire gift will support the agency. Remember, the cost of events dilutes the value of the income. In addition, they will make their gift year after year without the reoccurring expense of the auction and hog roast.

Yes, it is time-consuming work. However, it will produce more dollars per hour than the fundraiser did. In addition, the donors will keep giving year after year. The dollars per hour next year will be even higher. How does that compare with a fundraising event?

The second solution is to invite people currently without a connection to the agency to have lunch or coffee on Friday. Each Friday have a different group of adults (5 – 10 individuals) visit. Give them a tour of your agency as well as the free food. Talk to them about how the agency is changing lives every day.

Just give them a good time and plant the seeds. Asking for money will be easier in a few weeks once the seeds begin to sprout.

Within a week of their visit call them and discover what parts of the mission are important to them. Help them see how they can easily connect to their areas of interest. Over the coming year cultivate a deeper interest. As their interest deepens, you will find multiple opportunities to increase their financial commitment. At the end of three months, the agency will have more money with less effort and everyone will be happy. In six months, your accomplishments will be impressive.

A point worth noting is that it is easier for board members to invite a friend to visit the agency and have a free cup of coffee than it is to ask the friend to attend a hog roast and auction. Board members will gladly invite 10 friends to visit each year. Impress their friends and they will invite more than 10 friends.

The third solution is to do both. However, the long-term goal is to eliminate all fundraiser. They are an unwanted tax on the faithful and a burden for the staff and volunteers.

As always, if you want help contact us.

Mission Enablers

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in donors, fundraising, sustainability | Comments Off

Nonprofit Board — Building Donor Passion

Thursday, February 19th, 2009

Last time it was about the key elements of a strategic plan and the benefits. The second benefit is a passionate nonprofit donor.

Donor passion comes from within the donor. It is impossible to create from the outside. However, one can connect the passion of the donor to the mission. The strategic plan is the connection.

The strategic plan must be concrete, creditable, and have an emotional element. One of the ways to ensure concreteness is to have firm goals. Measurable and meaningful goals are concrete.

Let us assume that we are attempting to eliminate hunger. Progress toward that goal would be a reduction in the number of sacks of food needed next year. That would suggest that the community’s problem is smaller even though the population is growing. The goal is measurable and meaningful.

Is it creditable? No. However, it can become creditable if the plan is logical and practical. If the reader can immediately see how it is possible to achieve the goals, it has credibility. If it depends on elements beyond ones control (improvement in the stock market, low fuel costs, and increased manufacturing activity), it may still work, but everyone will wait and see. Credibility will be after the fact. Can you afford to have the donors wait or is it important to have support now?

One way to destroy credibility is to have a strategic plan covering the near term. Some problems take years to solve. Offering a cure for cancer in the next 12 months, lack credibility. Offering a cure for the ten most common forms of cancer in 20 years seems believable.

The final element is emotional engagement. The plan to this point is sterile. It appeals to the intellect. That is good because the intellect is often the gatekeeper that allows the engagement of the heart.

The plan needs to talk about the changes one sees in the clients. “The clients will have greater self-confidence, new skills, and less stress as a result of completing the first class. The second class will give them …” How many donor hearts can say no to that? In other words, the supporting narrative needs to humanize the facts and planning.

Now the donor can justify the gift. The gift solves an important problem (last article), the plan is creditable and measurable, and there is a direct personal connection. The donor can say, “I am helping people …” That is very different from saying, “I give to the X&Z agency.” People are passionate about helping people. (People are passionate about their new car. It is rare for someone to be passionate about the manufacturer.)

The passion in the nonprofit employees, volunteers, and the board will also be obvious. A passionate nonprofit board is more effective. It is important to remember that referral source is a nonprofit volunteer with a different purpose. Having a creditable, concrete, and emotionally engaging strategic plan increases the effectiveness of the referral sources.

One of the most important referral sources are the clients. If they are receiving the promises of the mission, referring others is easy and natural.

With all of that support, it is easy to see how a good strategic plan creates sustainability.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Strategic Planning, donors, sustainability | Comments Off

Nonprofit Boards – The benefits of strategic planning

Monday, January 26th, 2009

The benefits are what every organization dreams about. A strategic plan will produce sustainability. The symptoms or key elements of sustainability are strong community support, donor passion, motivated employees and volunteers, an effective board, active and committed referral sources, and clients referring others.

Is it reasonable to expect that from a strategic plan?

What does it take to have strong community support? One must have a goal that inspires the community. Eliminating hunger is one example. However, there must be a plan behind that.

Passing out sacks of food is unlikely to inspire support. Passing out food feeds people but it fails to eliminate hunger.

It is important to truly solve a problem if one wants dependable support from the community.  This is especially true during tough economic times.

People feel they have limited resources to give to charity. They need to know that their gift is going to eliminate a problem.

The current economic environment has created skepticism. The banks received money from the government. People expected the money to solve a problem. The number of bank loans is below the expected level. People feel the government failed to ensure the effective use of the money.

The consumer is carrying that disappointment into other aspects of their lives. Charitable giving is one of the areas. They are starting to ask, “Who is solving the problem?” The question in 2008 was, “Who is working on the problem?”

In 2008, it was okay to be working on the problem. It was okay to be passing out sacks of food so that people could look for a job if they wanted to. However, like the government money it fails to ensure that the recipient will look for a job.

Trusting the banks to make loans seems to be the same mistake as trusting the unemployed to look for a job. It is the donor’s privilege to decide if the two problems are identical. Do you have time this year to argue with your donors and community?

The strategic plan must be robust enough to deliver on the mission. There are two options. One is to change the mission. It still needs to solve an important problem but maybe a smaller more manageable one. The other option is to create a robust strategic plan that delivers on the promise of the mission.

Many nonprofits are laying off workers. Some are closing their door. Both are suffering from a lack of support. If you want to avoid that fate, create a strategic plan that actually solves a problem important to your community.

Does your strategic plan promise a solution or just support a need? What changes do you need to make to become a problem solver?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Decision Making, Management, Strategic Planning | Comments Off

Nonprofit Boards – Why not create a strategic plan?

Wednesday, January 21st, 2009

Last week the article was about the challenges of strategic planning. While it might have been a compelling argument for strategic planning, most nonprofits will find it hard to do. Is there an easy way to do strategic planning?

The most significant hurdle to creating a strategic plan is having the time and skills. It takes time to plan and there always seems to be something urgent that delays the planning process.

The skills need to come from the board members. Most board members lack experience with strategic planning. Some have been responsible for executing parts of a strategic plan. In frequently a few have helped create a strategic plan. Rarely has anyone lead the planning process. As a result, boards place minimal emphasis on strategic planning, so most nonprofit executives lack experience.

The limited demand for strategic planning means most consultants lack experience. They primarily provide help with operational (one to two-year budget development) planning because that is what the majority of their clients want.

The net is that strategic planning is a lot like introducing new technology to the over 60 crowd 20 years ago. They talked about it. Very few did anything. Those who did had trouble. No one was committed learning how. It was rare anyone asked for help.

So what is the solution?

The solution is to create a three to five year plan to evolve the board into being strategic. An easy first step is to create a three-year operating budget. This helps stretch the thinking. It helps the board and staff look at donations and donor recruitment with an eye to the future.

The second step is to start recruiting board members who are strategic thinkers. Running a restaurant in town for the past 15 years, qualifies the person as an operational manager. Starting a restaurant 15 years ago and having 25 in 3 states qualifies one as a strategic thinker. That person is good at visioning, planning, and execution.

Which one do you want on the board? It will be easier to recruit operations manager because he or she has more time to give. In most cases, the executive director is a good operational manager also. Why do you need another one?

The third step is to do a community and client assessment next year. Put the funds in the second year’s budget. That will allow time to find the funding. It will also allow you time to develop the list of questions for use during the assessment.

The fourth step is to begin the strategic planning process in the third year. When the plan is complete, you will have evolved the board and the staff. The funding process will be more forward looking. The budgeting process will be more visionary. There will be sufficient time to gather community support. The culture within the agency will have changed.

That is a workable do it yourself process. With the help of a good consultant, planning will take about three months instead of three years. However, it is cheaper to do it yourself. Do you and the board have the commitment to manage a three evolution? Doing it quickly and paying someone to help makes it easier to sustain the commitment.

Sometimes we work with a failing nonprofit. None of them failed because they have a flawed strategic plan. In fact, none of them has a strategic plan. They fail because they put off planning or they continued to operate from a 12 month plan (annual budget). They were so busy taking care of the immediate that the future never received sufficient attention. So, part of the initial recovery process is to create a strategic plan. We are very good at strategic planning. It is the only way we are able to lead our clients out of crisis. We are so good at strategic planning, we guarantee success.

Avoid their trap. Get your board committed to having a strategic plan. No delays. Avoid postponing until the current budget need is met or the economic crisis passes or … A good strategic plan is necessary for long-term survival.

Mission Enablers

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Decision Making, Leadership, Strategic Planning, sustainability | Comments Off

« Older Entries