When I teach fundraising workshops, I always ask how many of my students can remember their organization's mission statements. Typically, only a couple come even close. Rare is the student who knows their mission word for word.
This is not usually the individual's fault. Generally speaking, most mission statements are over-written statements of principle that have very little to do with the actual work of your nonprofit. The flip side of that problem is the mission statement that's just a laundry list of programs, but doesn't explain why the programs are important.
The mission statement should be a clear and simple statement of what you intend to do to make the world a better place. Your mission should reflect your programs, not enumerate or push them.
What that means is that your mission should be sufficiently broad without being too limiting. The broadness is to define the area or problem that you work in (hunger, a disease, low-income housing, school readiness, etc.). The warning on being too specific is to allow you flexibility in how you address the problem.
"We do good things to help hungry people." - Too broad.
"We supply one bag of groceries each week to low-income families below 40% of area median income, each bag to contain items from each of the major food groups." - Too defining.
"We provide services and programs designed to end hunger and build food security among low-income families in the tri-county area." - Probably about right.
If your mission statement has you either "maximizing synergies for optimum resulting outcomes" or tied in to one specific solution to your issue, it may be time to take another look and do a little re-writing.
For further tips, Quality Service Marketing just completed a three-part article on writing mission statements on their blog. See Memorable & Meaningful Mission Statements, Part I, Part II, and Part III.
Tags: nonprofit, mission statements, vision, purpose
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Comparing Organizations and Coming up Short
I'm sure my readers are all fully aware of the difficulty of raising money from individuals, but consider this: "Giving to charity has become more challenging for donors in recent years." Or, at least, so says Cristine Cronin (Seeing the Big Picture on Charities - Yahoo! News).
Cronin writes about how well-publicized problems at such well known organizations as the American Red Cross, the United Way, and the Nature Conservancy have hurt the sector as a whole. We are all under more scrutiny, and donors we've known for years are beginning to eye us with suspicion. No longer do they feel comfortable writing checks and just assuming that their money will go for the mission that they support.
There are also more official and semi-official watchdogs issuing reports on nonprofit effectiveness, and using data that may be misleading to rate which nonprofits are "the best." Many of these watchdogs use 990 data, that is available to the public through sites like Guidestar.org, and simple ratios of administration to program expenses to make their calls.
"Tax returns were never intended to be an all-inclusive indicator of an organization's effectiveness in carrying out its mission," Cronin writes. "Nor are administrative expenses necessarily the best or the only indicator of an organization's fiscal responsibility. Ratios can be helpful if comparisons are made among organizations with essentially similar missions and programs, or where there's comparability of such factors as charities' size, longevity, or location."
These are things to keep in mind when our donors call us with questions about the next big scandal to surface, or when they ask about a line on your 990. Donors doing their due diligence is a good thing. A well-informed donor is one we can have a long-term conversation with and cultivate for more future donations. The point here is simply to welcome their questions, and to be prepared with serious and honest answers.
Tags: nonprofit, charities, accountability, fundraising
Cronin writes about how well-publicized problems at such well known organizations as the American Red Cross, the United Way, and the Nature Conservancy have hurt the sector as a whole. We are all under more scrutiny, and donors we've known for years are beginning to eye us with suspicion. No longer do they feel comfortable writing checks and just assuming that their money will go for the mission that they support.
There are also more official and semi-official watchdogs issuing reports on nonprofit effectiveness, and using data that may be misleading to rate which nonprofits are "the best." Many of these watchdogs use 990 data, that is available to the public through sites like Guidestar.org, and simple ratios of administration to program expenses to make their calls.
"Tax returns were never intended to be an all-inclusive indicator of an organization's effectiveness in carrying out its mission," Cronin writes. "Nor are administrative expenses necessarily the best or the only indicator of an organization's fiscal responsibility. Ratios can be helpful if comparisons are made among organizations with essentially similar missions and programs, or where there's comparability of such factors as charities' size, longevity, or location."
These are things to keep in mind when our donors call us with questions about the next big scandal to surface, or when they ask about a line on your 990. Donors doing their due diligence is a good thing. A well-informed donor is one we can have a long-term conversation with and cultivate for more future donations. The point here is simply to welcome their questions, and to be prepared with serious and honest answers.
Tags: nonprofit, charities, accountability, fundraising
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Full Disclosure in Board Recruitment
Liz Heath, executive director of The Nonprofit Center in Tacoma, Washington, has an article in the Tacoma News Tribune advising nonprofits to let future board members in on whole truth.
This seems like it should be such obvious advice, but it is unfortunately necessary. Many times we're anxious to recruit new talent to our boards, so we soft-pedal the requirements and expectations. Worse, we are not honest about the challenges facing our organizations and paint a rosy picture of fiscal health and sustainability that may not be entirely true.
We do the new member and ourselves a disservice when we operate that way. First we surprise them with fundraising responsibilities that they're not properly trained for, then we hit them with budget realities and possible cuts in services. The new member feels they were lied to, and wonders what else is coming around the next corner. Our relationship with this new member is compromised from day one.
On the other hand, a board prospect who was briefed on all aspects of board service - the rewards and the challenges - comes to the first meeting ready to work, and prepared to take on the tough decisions (and maybe write a check).
Nobody likes to be surprised by additional work or questions they have not had time to consider. Proper preparation and full disclosure makes board life run much smoother and is the key to good governance.
This seems like it should be such obvious advice, but it is unfortunately necessary. Many times we're anxious to recruit new talent to our boards, so we soft-pedal the requirements and expectations. Worse, we are not honest about the challenges facing our organizations and paint a rosy picture of fiscal health and sustainability that may not be entirely true.
We do the new member and ourselves a disservice when we operate that way. First we surprise them with fundraising responsibilities that they're not properly trained for, then we hit them with budget realities and possible cuts in services. The new member feels they were lied to, and wonders what else is coming around the next corner. Our relationship with this new member is compromised from day one.
On the other hand, a board prospect who was briefed on all aspects of board service - the rewards and the challenges - comes to the first meeting ready to work, and prepared to take on the tough decisions (and maybe write a check).
Nobody likes to be surprised by additional work or questions they have not had time to consider. Proper preparation and full disclosure makes board life run much smoother and is the key to good governance.
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
Capacity Building Versus Achieving Mission
Jonathan Peizer has a new posting on his "Philantherapy Blog" addressing the systemic flaw in traditional nonprofit capacity support.
In part, JP writes (the bold is my emphasis):
JP argues in favor of foundation support for capacity building organizations. (His focus is on technology, so he mentions NPower and the Erider's Network, but the argument also goes for financial, management, and fundraising capacity building organizations). By supporting a neutral third party NGO, foundations could achieve some economies of scale over funding the same solution over and over at each individual nonprofit. They would build best practices once, and have that intermediary distribute it, if you will, to the mission-based nonprofits.
I tend to agree with most of his thesis. For several years I worked for CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, which is a large Bay Area nonprofit management support organization (MSO) and we applied for grants using much the same logic (I still occasionally teach workshops for CompassPoint). The problem we faced, and which JP also notes, is that it's difficult for a large MSO to properly serve the smallest of grass-roots organizations on an individual basis.
That's where small, independent consultants, such as myself, are able to fill in the holes by working with the smallest of nonprofits that are overlooked by the MSOs and capacity building grants. The trouble is that what little funding for capacity building that does exist goes to the MSOs that are themselves nonprofits, not to self-employed consultants. Again, that's just the nature of the system.
I'm not certain what the solution is for all of this, I just found JP's posting to be thought provoking and important, and wanted to share it with more readers.
Tags: nonprofit, management, capacity building, support
In part, JP writes (the bold is my emphasis):
"There is a distinct difference in the way capacity is supported in the for-profit and non-profit sectors. Nonprofit capacity support is often dictated by an external donor base and not internal organizational need as it is in most other sectors. Nonprofits are used by donors as intermediary vehicles to meet Donor mission objectives. ... This creates a unique situation for the nonprofit sector, making it the only sector that does not have control of its own institutional capacity investments. ... Consider the success, or lack thereof, of a business that could not invest in itself because the funds it generated were restricted."JP contends that the primary villain behind this conundrum is mission-based grants. The very structure of our sector is that foundations determine their mission, then achieve that mission by operating through their grantees with similar missions. For a foundation to use its limited available funds to support more capacity building grants would mean less money for achieving their mission.
JP argues in favor of foundation support for capacity building organizations. (His focus is on technology, so he mentions NPower and the Erider's Network, but the argument also goes for financial, management, and fundraising capacity building organizations). By supporting a neutral third party NGO, foundations could achieve some economies of scale over funding the same solution over and over at each individual nonprofit. They would build best practices once, and have that intermediary distribute it, if you will, to the mission-based nonprofits.
I tend to agree with most of his thesis. For several years I worked for CompassPoint Nonprofit Services, which is a large Bay Area nonprofit management support organization (MSO) and we applied for grants using much the same logic (I still occasionally teach workshops for CompassPoint). The problem we faced, and which JP also notes, is that it's difficult for a large MSO to properly serve the smallest of grass-roots organizations on an individual basis.
That's where small, independent consultants, such as myself, are able to fill in the holes by working with the smallest of nonprofits that are overlooked by the MSOs and capacity building grants. The trouble is that what little funding for capacity building that does exist goes to the MSOs that are themselves nonprofits, not to self-employed consultants. Again, that's just the nature of the system.
I'm not certain what the solution is for all of this, I just found JP's posting to be thought provoking and important, and wanted to share it with more readers.
Tags: nonprofit, management, capacity building, support
Monday, May 22, 2006
Money is Easier than Helping
A new study by Thrivent Financial for Lutherans finds that most Americans find donating money to a charity to be easier than volunteering, and would rather write a check than help you out with physical tasks.
Still, in 2005 more than half of Americans did some volunteer work (57%), including 75% of people with household incomes of $75,000.
This is good news for your fundraising efforts. If these statistics are right, then it should be easier to ask for a donation than to recruit volunteers, and easier yet to find wealthier donors.
See Americans flip-flop on volunteerism on the Thrivent web site for the full press release regarding the survey results.
Tags: nonprofit, volunteerism, donations, charity, fundraising, surveys
Still, in 2005 more than half of Americans did some volunteer work (57%), including 75% of people with household incomes of $75,000.
This is good news for your fundraising efforts. If these statistics are right, then it should be easier to ask for a donation than to recruit volunteers, and easier yet to find wealthier donors.
See Americans flip-flop on volunteerism on the Thrivent web site for the full press release regarding the survey results.
Tags: nonprofit, volunteerism, donations, charity, fundraising, surveys
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