The Virtual Interim ED

A few weeks ago I began a new consulting gig as the Interim Executive Director of the Friends of Oakland Animal Services (FOAS).

No big new thing there. I've taken Interim ED assignments half a dozen times before. But I've not taken an assignment like this during a time of official Shelter-in-Place orders (but, really, who has?).

Previously, the only "virtual" consulting I've done has been limited to very short engagements. A few conversations, and advice, dispensed by phone or email. I've also been conducting my Basic Grant Proposal Writing course online, but again, for each student, it's a limited amount of contact and a few messages exchanged while they complete the class.

This is an entirely new adventure, with my work - at least to start - being conducted entirely online, via email, phone, and a seeming endless number of Zoom and Google Meet video calls. It's a very different experience, having staff that I've never in person, and building relationships with them, and with my Board members.

Hopefully, it won't be too many more weeks before the Shelter-in-Place restrictions in the Bay Area ease to the point where we can meet "in real life," but even after that, it won't be a daily thing. This is a small organization, with no actual office space. They mostly worked remotely already. When shelter-in-place ends, many of our regular meetings may be in person, but the bulk of the work will still be done remotely.

At FOAS, our work is changing along with the rest of the world during this global pandemic. We will find ways to transform the organization that will be stronger and even more successful than before shelter-in-place. This is a new and different way for me to be an Interim ED, but the challenge is exciting, and I'm looking forward to seeing what develops.

Introducing Online Training in Grant Proposal Writing

From 2003-2018 I presented the class Basic Grant Proposal Writing Skills for Nonprofits at the Community Foundation Santa Cruz County about three times each year. During that same period, I also did custom versions of the class for several individual organizations and smaller coalitions of nonprofits.

All-in-all, well over 1,000 individual nonprofit professionals have gone through my grant proposal writing trainings, and have been very satisfied with the results.

Over the last month or so, I've updated the materials again. This time, with the goal of translating it into an online class. I'm quite pleased with the results, and am officially launching the class today.

I've divided the course into eight major presentations, plus three short lectures, in over three hours of video. All of the lessons have downloads, including the slides, worksheets, and other resources.

The major lessons are:

1. The Charitable Giving Landscape
2. Making Your Fundraising Case
3. Getting Ready for Grants
4. Starting Your Proposal
5. Goals and Outcomes
6. Methodology, Evaluation, and Sustainability
7. Budgets
8. Putting it All Together

Throughout the course I put an emphasis on the modes of communication, good storytelling, and what funders are looking for (including strong outcomes statements).

The cost of the course will be $64.99 (students at the Community Foundation typically paid $65/each for the same material), but, to get the course launched, I am offering it to my regular readers for only $9.99 through this link (limited time offer).

Please let me know your reaction to the course, and if you have any ideas for what online course you'd like me to develop next!

Fundraising Success You Can't Buy

These days more and more nonprofit agencies are looking to online social networking tools and sites, such as Facebook, to see how they can use them to increase donations (and if you're not on Facebook, why aren't you?). Well, here's a great Facebook fundraising success story:

The story began Aug. 11, when Jenni Ware of Redwood City lost her wallet at Trader Joe's, and a woman standing behind her in line — Carolee Hazard of Menlo Park — offered to pay the stranger's $207 grocery bill. The two exchanged addresses. Ware found her wallet later that day and repaid her grocery "angel" $300 - with $93 extra to perhaps get a massage.

But Hazard asked her Facebook community what her friends would do with the bonus amount. Swift electronic responses urged Hazard to give the money to charity - the local food bank, since the act of kindness began in a grocery store.

Hazard, a green activist and former Genentech biochemist, loved the idea, and she not only sent in the $93 that Ware had given her as a "thank you," but matched that amount herself. So did a Facebook friend. And another. And another. Kids have pitched in 93 cents. And since the story has been pushed out on Facebook's own site, others are donating what they can, too, even $9.30.

Hazard has since started the "93 Dollar Club" on Facebook, where people across the globe can easily read the story and comment on the good karma phenomenon. There are links on that page where people may donate to their own food banks close to them. And commenters say they are reading - and giving - from Iran, Israel, Spain, Portugal, Turkey, the Czech Republic, Australia, Hungary, Sri Lanka and beyond.

The result for Second Harvest Food Bank of Santa Clara and San Mateo counties, where it all began? Nearly $10,000 raised for Silicon Valley's hungry in a week — the most raised in such a short period of time, according to the food bank.

So, yes, it is quite possible to raise large amounts of money using social networking sites. This is not the only such success story I have come across, and they come from Facebook, from Twitter, MySpace, and beyond. But - and it's a huge but - the secret to nearly each of the success stories I have read is giving up control.

An old expression about good press coverage is that it's like "advertising you can't buy." Well, good viral fundraising is pretty much the same. To be truly "viral" it has to come from your supporters, not your staff, and it has to come on their schedule, not yours, and it has to be their ideas.

Now, that doesn't mean you should be doing absolutely nothing. You should be setting up your Facebook fan page and cause page, and have a Twitter account, and each should be linked and pushing content to your official web site (well-equipped with donation buttons).

Start using these tools as extensions of your current campaigns and to bring in new donors who prefer electronic methods of communication and participation. But don't expect dollar miracles overnight. The magic comes when one of your supporters (or potential supporters) has a "grocery angel" experience of their own and decides to launch their own campaign.

When they do, you'll want to be ready, and easy to find, with an established online presence that they can point to. Because, if you're not online, in place, and ready to receive those donations, another organization will be.

Visit the $93 Club on Facebook (may require Facebook login)

Regifting is Good!

Last week, I received an email from Ashley Gatewood of MissionFish.org saying, in part:

Since the holidays are now over, we’re encouraging people to consider regifting items they received but don’t have a use for by selling them on eBay and donating the sale to a nonprofit. It can also be a great way for people who got a new item, like a digital camera, to turn the older model into funds for their favorite cause.

MissionFish is an official nonprofit partner of eBay and makes it easy for both organizations and individuals to set up charity fundraising auctions online.

Nonprofits can register on the site and either run their own auctions, or have their supporters auction items for their benefit. Individuals who have items they want to sell can search for a cause by name, type, or topic, and select a beneficiary for their personal auctions.

Early in the new year I will be experimenting with a "regifting" auction and reporting back to you about my experience here.

The future of online fundraising

I received an email from a college student asking if he could interview me about ePhilanthropy and the future of online fundraising.

The questions gave me an opportunity to think creatively about the application of some web 2.0 concepts, such as tagging and feeds, and how they can improve our practices.

His questions and my answers follow. Let me know what you think...

> * How did Internet change the way nonprofits fundraise?

Maybe a better question would be, "HAS the Internet changed the way nonprofits fundraise?" Because for a lot of organizations, it still hasn't.

There are certainly plenty of new tools, but most nonprofits (outside of universities and hospitals) are traditionally very slow to adopt new technologies. This is for a few reasons, including: budget, being "people focused," lack of staff/resources, and budget (did I mention budget?).

Still, for those organizations that are on the ball, technically speaking, it has broadened their tools for appeals. The most obvious direct items are "Donate Now" buttons (either their own or using an ASP) and email. The less direct way is using the 'net for promotion, communications, and visibility.

Email can be used for a direct appeal, or for newsletters with indirect asks. But, again, limited budget and staff to implement these has kept most smaller and medium sized organizations from fully realizing the potential benefit of these tools.

I mention budget a lot. Email is cheap to use, and scales cheaply, but can be costly to implement effectively (opt-in systems to avoid spamming, software or ASP's beyond the basic MS Outlook, and the staff to actually manage lists and write the messages).

> * Is traditional fundraising still part of the fundraising mix?

Most definitely so. For the reasons listed above (slow implementation, budget, etc.), but also because of human nature.

While online tools are fabulous for meeting new donors, and younger donors, there is nothing that can ever compare to the personal touch of the in-person ask.

Even snail mail has a place, as it's far easier to make an emotional connection with a photo you can hold in your hand than with an email that may or may not properly display images based on the user's software settings and operating system.

In the area of Foundation grants, the worlds are merging somewhat as more and more Foundations accept online applications. It is traditional fundraising in terms of the skills required for completing the applications, but they are adapted to the online world.

For that matter, you could say that all online fundraising is just an adaptation of traditional methods. It's the medium that has changed - or expanded - not the message or the appeal.

> * The future of online fundraising?

More effective integration of cause and effect using tags and feeds. For example, it's entirely feasible for a news website to automatically match stories (IE: flood in India) to donation opportunities (IE: International Red Cross).

They do this now, manually, with major disasters. But with proper use of tagging, RSS, etc., it's entirely possible that even "minor" local stories (IE: car crash kills drunk driver) can automatically linked to local causes (IE: local United Way or MADD or AA chapter).

What I'm saying is really, technology gives us the opportunities to be more pro-active and less passive in our efforts. Rather than waiting for a potential supporter to come to our web site or sign up for our email newsletter, we will be able to find them based on what they're reading and hook directly into their online experience.

> * Why are many nonprofit are still waiting with their online fundraising?

Money, or the perception of no money. While many of these tools are low or even no cost (use of blogspot.com as a communications platform), they are loath to give even the impression that they are wasting resources.

Example: An organization I know of that was given very nice, high quality office chairs from a defunct dot-com. They were not allowed to use them because it gave the impression that they were extravagant. Many nonprofits live in this poverty mind-set.

Any assets must go to the clients. Anything that doesn't directly benefit them is seen as a waste. What they don't see is that a small investment in online tools will create a return that can be used for mission and services.

> * What will make a website a good ePhilanthropy site?

See "the future" question above. It's the integration of information and ask. Don't make the potential donor search for the means to give.

Have the opportunity linked directly into the inspiration. This is the answer.

The Temporality of Digital Knowledge and Copyright Bozos

Pam Ashlund of the Nonprofit Eye Blog has a new posting about "the Temporality of Digital Knowledge" - the notion that for all the wonderful online information we have at our fingertips, the idea that the Internet is a permanent repository of information is a false one. How many times have you gone to your bookmarks to find a particular reference and landed at a blank screen marked, "401 Error - page not found"?

Pam suggests downloading and saving the information you need, rather than rely on bookmarks or tags, but acknowledges the ethical problems regarding copyrights. She then calls for some sort of permanent solution to the problem of vanishing online data:

I'm not proposing new legislation here, but rather the quest for a solution. Maybe a volunteer effort to archive this fantastic, but vulnerable virtual library. It would be a shame to have to continually re-create the wheel every time a user gets tired of administering a website.

This is my battlecry - save our on-line nonprofit resources! Otherwise all the social bookmarking in the world won't matter.

I second her call, but also recognize the many legal and ethical issues involved in saving information that one does not "own."

I also found Pam's posting relevant in relation to a book I'm reading currently, called Freedom of Expression®: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity by Kembrew McLeod (follow the title link for a free pdf download or instructions for ordering in print).

McLeod blames new, stronger copyright and patent laws for the death of creativity and a dangerous situation in such far-flung fields as agriculture and medicine. Drawing a line from Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land to the patenting of the human genome, McLeod argues that being able to build on another's work is central to the creative process. As Isaac Newton said, "If I have seen farther it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants."

He doesn't argue against copyrights or patents, just the over-enforcement and extension of copyrights virtually forever. He refers often to the Constitution, and the founding fathers concept that copyrights were for a limited term to encourage and support creativity, but that eventually all knowledge and creativity would belong to "the commons" for the betterment of all mankind.

How this relates to Pam's dream project of a repository of nonprofit information will be clearer if you read some of McLeod's book, but it's a fascinating idea.

NOTE - I apologize for the irregular posting here as of late. Between holidays, personal health issues, and, of course, working it's not always possible to write posts that are up to the quality that I strive for. December may also be spotty, but I am not giving up on blogging. Please bear with me - thanks!

Get younger, wealthier, (better looking?) donors online

Network for Good, an online service that facilitates online charitable donations, has just released a report looking in detail at $100,000 in online giving to 23,000 nonprofits. Some of what stands out from the results are the differences between online and offline donors: they're younger and more generous.

Some more highlights (click here for their summary and link to full report):

- Online givers are young (38-39 years old) and generous, giving several times more than offline donors on average.
[Compare that to an average age of 60+ for "traditional" donors]

- Virtually all of them (96%) have given to charity before, but a sizable proportion (38%) is new to online philanthropy.

- Online giving is tracking to the trends of online shopping and banking, and it is the avenue of choice for donors during disasters.

- Most people give online during the week, during business hours - most commonly, between 10am and noon.

- Giving online follows the same "long tail" phenomenon seen in online sales of books and music.

- Most online giving goes to disaster agencies.

- People say they give online because it's easier than writing a check and a fast way to respond to disasters.

You don't have to be responding to a disaster to get in front of these young, generous donors - They also use the net (and Network for Good) to find organizations for their year-end giving as well.

Does that give you any ideas? If you're not already set-up for, and actively promoting, online fundraising this better give you some ideas.

Tags: nonprofit, online giving, charity, donors, fundraising

Google Spreadsheets

The other day, I posted here about a collaborative writing tool called "writeboard." Today, I want to continue on the track of online collaborative software, and tell you about Google Spreadsheets.

I have to confess that I'm a bit of an Excel geek. I don't know why, but I love spreadsheets. Google is on the road of eliminating Excel from life.

Google Spreadsheets look and behave like an Excel spreadsheet in almost every aspect. You can upload documents that you've previously created in Excel, or create a new document online. The "Format," "Sort," and "Formula" tabs do the work of several of Excel's menus. About the only thing missing is the ability to draw borders.

Small spreadsheets opened quickly and are respond well to your input. I did slow the application down a bit by uploading a very large document with 14 sheets to it. Other than that, it passed every test I through at it.

To collaborate, just click the "share" link and enter the email address of your co-worker. The only catch is that they need to have a (free) Google account too.

Getting your board to work together on budgeting or reviewing monthly financial statements has never been easier. No more excuses of lost attachments, just go to the web site and click away!

The incredibly good news is that Google Spreadsheets are free to use. The "bad" news (just a minor inconvenience) is that you need to already be signed up for another free Google service, such as gMail, to gain access.

If you'd like to test this out, but don't have a Google account yet, let me know (email link under "About Me" to the top left) and I'll send you an invitation to join gMail and to play with one of my test spreadsheets.

Collaborative Writing Online

Have you ever wanted to find an easier way to collaborate on a document with somebody - or even several people? Do you find it gets cumbersome to be comparing different drafts being emailed back and forth from different sources?

What I'd really love to find is a full-featured word processor that can be accessed online, with documents stored on the server where multiple authors could write and edit and always know what the latest version is.

Writeboard (.com) is not quite what I've dreamed of, but it is a major step towards that. Simple documents can be created and stored - for free - on their servers. You can then invite guests to review and edit your "writeboards." Each time you edit you have the option of saving it as a new version. Versions can then be compared with a couple of clicks.

This is no way to co-author a book, but it is perfect for getting input on simple business documents and letters. For nonprofits, you can use this for collaborating on everything from fundraising letters to mission statements to meeting agendas.

If you'd like to see a writeboard in action, but don't want to sign up for the service, send me an email and I'll invite you to edit one of my test documents (email link under "About Me", top left).