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Fifty Miles and a Watch...The Consultant's View

Dave Sternberg — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:32:24 GMT

Martina’s organization wanted to conduct a feasibility study and she was given the approval to hire a consultant. Consultants should be hired by the board, not the staff, for two good reasons: 1) the board is the body in charge of the organization, and 2) having board buy-in on choosing a consultant sets the tone, indicating that the entire organization supports the project. In Martina’s case, she hired the consultant…what message does this send to the firm hired? A good planning study requires direct involvement from the board to oversee the process and be involved with its execution.

The board should have insisted on interviewing multiple firms. Doing so would have brought to light a number of important issues that ultimately had an impact on the relationship. Interviewing multiple firms would likely have helped identify the differences between a smaller firm and a large national consulting firm. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. In Martina’s case choosing a smaller firm would likely have resulted in a project managed by the partners, not a junior member.

Drawing from Martina’s experience, the following advice is at least minimal to consider when hiring a consultant. Different firms have different philosophies. Determine what is important as an end product and make that a deal breaker. Be specific about what you want in the final report and agree on the number of interviews before a contract is signed. Finally, ask to see the questions that will be asked during the interviews. Martina would have been well served to see the questions, thus having a sense of whether or not they would yield good information, avoiding information that is “scant” in nature.

Don’t rely only on the references that a consulting firm offers. Visit their website and get the names of other organizations that have used their services. Check with those as well. It is not often that a firm will give you the name of a reference that will offer poor feedback.

Martina was absolutely correct to follow her hunch and find a firm that fit the chemistry of her organization. A planning study takes time and no one should dread the “meeting with our consultant.” Often this is in part an initial impression and in part the result of authentic conversations. An experienced consultant should be willing to tell Martina’s organization what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

On that note, sometimes a planning study finds that conducting a campaign should wait. The reasons are many, but this is not a reference to the quality of program, but instead speaks to the organization’s readiness and ability to execute a fundraising initiative. Don’t be insulted, but trust that your chosen consultant is assisting you in setting a positive course for the future.

About the Author

Dave Sternberg is a Partner in Achieve, a nonprofit consulting firm based in Indianapolis, Indiana. He can be reached at dsternberg@achieveguidance.com.

Building Social Community Around Your Cause: Use social media tools to engage your audience and drive greater donations online

Bob Cramer — Thu, 09 Jul 2009 21:32:22 GMT

Social media, which are perhaps best known for their use on popular websites like MySpace and Facebook, can be similarly adopted by nonprofits to drive interest, encourage donations and build community around key issues, causes and goals.

What Can You Do With Social Media?

Today, most nonprofits have some form of static web site that offers text and photos posted by the organization itself. With the integration of social media tools, these sites can be transformed into “social communities” that allow constituents to engage other supporters while also eliciting community support for their own campaigns.

Social media tools can include message boards, blogs with reader comment capabilities, podcasts, photo- and video-sharing, and other interactive functions that enable online participation as opposed to a passive, “read only” experience. Also, users who register in social communities typically have their own profile page that tells other members a little about themselves. They can also join groups and “friend” or establish links to others with similar interests.

Such tools keep supporters and donors coming back to your website and staying for longer periods of time as they explore the community and get to know others. Further, the integration of social media enables a continually refreshed source of information new blog comments, new message board entries, new photos and video for site users to explore.

Examples of Nonprofits Using Social Media

Today, numerous nonprofits are embracing social media to build stronger ties with members and encourage their active involvement. These organizations include:

CARE (http://www.care.org/), which empowers women worldwide to combat poverty and improve their standards of living. It uses a variety of social media tools to create a strong sense of community based on supporter participation as opposed to geographic location and to encourage donations and advocacy. Through CARE’s social media community, members can post individual profiles, form specialized interest groups, make commentary to topical blogs, and network with other supporters online.

The Arthritis Foundation (http://www.arthritis.org/) is a national nonprofit that supports the more than 100 types of arthritis and related conditions. Social media tools on the AF website let members develop their own profile pages, “friend” others with like interests, upload photos, publish their own blogs about their experiences with the disease, and comment on blogs posted by others.

Is Now the Right Time?

Forging connections with supporters is especially important during tighter economic times, when many potential donors are feeling pressure to reduce their involvement and especially their contributions. Because social media tools transform passive, online audiences into active members, they help to create stronger ties that are less likely to be broken. These ties are between both the nonprofit and its advocates, and between the advocates themselves as they form friendships and bond over similar interests or concerns.

In the current economy, many nonprofits may be considering delaying social community initiatives. However, now is the right time to deliver new programs designed to engage supporters and keep activity levels high.

Also, realize that social communities are crucial for reaching younger adults who are the next generation of donors. This new and significantly large base grew up with the Internet as a regular part of their lives. As baby boomers move closer to retirement, appealing to these prospective supporters will become increasingly important.

Tips for Building a Social Community

Before launching a social media community, there are some points to consider:

1. Know your audience.
The tools you will want to invest in should be a fit with the online behavior of the people you are trying to reach. Ideally, you will want to conduct audience research to determine factors like: What other sites do they visit? What social media tools are they already comfortable with? How will they use social media to facilitate advocacy or fundraising? The answers to these questions will help you implement the features your supporters will actually use.

2. Align organizational objectives with social media tools.
Different social media tools are better at accomplishing specific objectives. For example, blogs with reader comment capabilities are a great way to get feedback on issues, while photo sharing is useful for building excitement around new programs or events. Also, since fundraising is always a top priority, make it easy to donate by placing “Donate Now” buttons in highly trafficked areas of your community.

3. Establish operating procedures.
Social communities require nonprofits to have a higher level of trust in their publics. At the same time, it is important to retain some organizational oversight to ensure communications remain appropriate and relevant to your goals. Identifying forum moderators and establishing rules for posting can help.

4. Get buy-in from organizational leaders.
A successful social media strategy requires active participation from many constituents as well as from organizational leaders. Before initiating a social community, make sure the appropriate internal personnel support the idea and are willing to integrate it into outreach activities. Ideally, those same leaders will also want to participate in the community themselves both to learn more about their constituents and to use that knowledge to shape future goals.

5. Make sure your community effectively extends your brand.
A social community should be a fluid component of your website, offering the same “look and feel” and integrating seamlessly with back-end donor management systems to enable you to gather intelligence about donors and market to them more effectively. Similarly, such integration will enable members to sign into your community using their existing name and password.

Having a vibrant social community will help you provide new value to supporters and donors online, while supporting other external marketing efforts. In particular, building online communities that connect nonprofits with constituents and constituents with one another delivers a unifying component that can be instrumental in motivating and retaining a strong supporter base that attracts new constituents.

About the Author

Bob Cramer is co-founder, CEO and chairman of ThePort™ Network, Inc. (http://www.theport.com/), a leading social media solutions provider. He is also co-founder and chairman of A.D.A.M., Inc.

Under a New Lens: Corporate Philanthropy in a Changed Economy

Elisabeth Anderson, Shannon Bond Erica Pagano — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:02:44 GMT

Under a New Lens: Corporate Philanthropy in a Changed Economy
Friday, June 26, 2009
By Elisabeth Anderson, Shannon Bond & Erica Pagano

At this month’s 2009 CECP Corporate Philanthropy Summit, attendees from FORTUNE 500 CEOs to corporate foundation presidents rolled up their sleeves to talk frankly about the new realities they face as they continue to engage in their philanthropy.

Far from taking on a somber quality, the two day conference at the Time Warner Center in New York City -- and Excellence Awards Reception and Dinner at the New York Historical Society -- was at once poignantly thoughtful and assertively hopeful. Participants were eager, perhaps more than in the past, to come together to figure out how to both maximize impact now and prepare for stability, and even growth, later. A number of key themes and trends emerged, in keynotes and workshops, and in breakout sessions and networking breaks. Three onPhilanthropy reporters granted access to various parts of the conference explore these below.

Authenticity Builds Trust
Much credence was given to the question of how philanthropy can be used to restore trust without being disingenuous. The key, it seems, is sticking to what companies know is best: building and maintaining programs with an authentic link to the business. The programs that are most often recognized and communicated about are those that produce an “a-ha” moment; the company’s interest in the cause is clear, and their contribution particularly well-aligned with what they do best. Philanthropy in times of crisis should be no different. There are no quick-hit tricks; if a company is looking to show its stakeholders it is a good corporate citizen, talk about programs built the right way. Three examples:

When the Gap Inc. was working to narrow its Foundation focus areas for the developed world, they talked to youth experts who helped them identify the need for job readiness programming in the teenage population -- a need that the Gap Inc., a company that has given hundreds of thousands of people their first job, is uniquely suited to address.
Johnson & Johnson’s commitment to global health is powered worldwide by the company’s Credo, which drives the way the business is run and sets the expectation that philanthropy be used to make social impacts; benefits to the business are secondary. “We do have secondary benefits,” said Sharon D’Agostino, Vice President, Corporate Contributions and Community Relations. “Our employees are proud and people want to work for us. This is never the goal of our philanthropy, but it is terrific.”
As Deloitte was exploring the concept of its pro bono service program, the program’s key developer, Evan Hochberg, proactively socialized the concept throughout the organization. “You have to make it important to the organization,” said Mr. Hochberg. “Final decisions should be team decisions. It’s everyone agreeing together to move in the same direction.” By empowering employees to feel a sense of ownership over a program, it becomes an authentic extension of the business rather than a knee-jerk reaction to wavering levels of stakeholder trust.

A fourth example of a well-aligned authentic program is Western Union’s Our World, Our Family program, which was the recipient of CECP’s 9th Annual Excellence Award in Corporate Philanthropy (Large Company). Our World, Our Family supports migrant families -- a key customer base for Western Union -- to address the root causes of poverty worldwide. The five-year, $50 million commitment leverages the company’s extensive network to make far-reaching and sustainable impacts on migrants and their families -- which account for nearly 10% of the world’s population worldwide.

In an interview with onPhilanthropy, Western Union’s president and CEO Christina Gold said: “I’m so proud to be recognized for this program. It represents who we are as a company.” Ms. Gold along with Luella Chavez D’Angelo, president of the Western Union Foundation, went on to explain that the program was born out of research -- the Foundation spoke with agents and customers and took a hard look at where the company had the most potential to give back. The Western Union business is built on making connections across the world, so taking this model one step further, to help migrants get settled and have access to economic opportunity makes sense. “We are committed to making migration an option, rather than a necessity,” said Ms. Gold, and despite tough economic times, “our commitment is our commitment,” she said.

So, how to maintain or strengthen corporate reputation during challenging times? Stay the course. Focus on programs that align with and reflect what your company does best as well as the expectations, ideas and passions of your core constituents.

Blurry Lines, Ever Blurrier
There is a newfound deep interest in the blurring lines between philanthropy, corporate giving and cause marketing. During this period when the public is increasingly distrusting of companies, there is fear among industry practitioners of having cause marketing initiatives look profit-driven and inauthentic. “If it’s manipulative and just to drive sales, the public will see through it in a minute,” said Shelly Lazarus, Chairman of Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide. Ben & Jerry’s CEO Walt Freese also noted that, “a company’s overall marketing mission should be separate from it social mission even if they at times join forces. Consumers need to understand that your social mission is coming from a genuine place.”

In addition, the explosion of social media as a powerful tool for advancing a “cause” created considerable debate about “best practices” for using this communication medium and its future. Although there doesn’t appear to be any easy answers, attendees talked at length about the importance of aligning programs with company values, engaging employees, and promoting transparency at every level.

Small Win Now, Big Windfall Later
“Find winning tactics now, because effective tactics dictate strategy over time,” urged CEO panelist Marc Benioff of salesforce.com. Practicing what he preached has turned what was once an easy-to-implement tactic for the company into a gold standard of corporate philanthropy over time. When salesforce.com decided to put a 1-1-1% (that’s 1% of each time, equity, and product) donation policy into place, “it was easy,” Benioff explained. “We were just a start-up.” But that policy has grown with the company, as has its impact. Similar examples abound in other sectors, like that of Target in the retail space; when Target had just a handful of stores in the Minneapolis area, donating 5% of weekly income to its communities was just a drop in the bucket. In 2009, with global reach, it’s in excess of $3 million each week.

The takeaway for attendees? Think about sustainability. Build a program now, or a piece of it -- and position it to grow as the economy rebounds and companies begin to see new growth. “Companies tend to overestimate what they can do in a year but underestimate what they can do in a decade,” Benioff said. “You need to think about the decade,” and give careful thought to new models of corporate leadership.

Trends to Take Note of
Collaboration. Systemic change. Advocacy. Sustainability. These are the topics on the tip of practitioners tongues these days, and presenters urged them to proceed with gusto.

Collaboration: “Co-funding does not necessarily mean collaboration,” warned panelist Kimberly Davis, President of the JPMorgan Chase Foundation. Still, “Corporations now more than ever need to collaborate. We should connect more often, challenge one another, encourage risk taking and share ideas. In the wake of this crisis, we have the rare opportunity to come together and create transformational change in our industry.”
Systemic change: Why scatter funding around to small projects when you could tackle, and eventually solve, a major social ill instead? Strongly correlated with collaboration, systemic change funding is the path du jour for major corporate philanthropists, who seek to work through multiple channels and with numerous partners with a goal of eradicating substantial problems. For example, panelist Bob Corcoran, President of the GE Foundation & Vice President, Corporate Citizenship at GE, discussed a recent project to fund a Canadian organization that created and executed an environmental awareness module for new Chinese mayors, which is now part of mandatory Chinese government training for new mayors. The example was cited as an innovative way of working with the public sector, vis-�-vis collaboration with another partner, to affect change on the all-important climate issue. “Companies that are just writing checks are withholding valuable participation from society,” stressed Mr. Corcoran. By educating new leaders now, GE is helping to ensure that they implement environmentally-friendly, long-term impactful policies during their tenures.
Advocacy: With companies increasingly under pressure to do more with less it is important to remember the impact their “voice” can create in shaping policies and legislation about pressing social issues. Panelist Margaret McKenna, President of the Wal-Mart Foundation, discussed her company’s unafraid approach toward advocacy projects or using lobbyists to promote hunger relief projects and organizations.
Sustainability: In the wake of shrinking budgets and increased pressure to demonstrate ROI, companies are paying increased attention to finding ways to make their contributions sustainable. Bobbi Silten, Chief Foundation Officer for Gap Inc., recommends thinking creatively about how corporate funders can support partners: “recognize the value of your brand,” she advises. “How can you help your partners use your stamp of approval to attract more support? Can our partner afford marketing support? If not can we provide it pro bono?” Sharon D’Agostino from Johnson & Johnson explained how her company takes a long-term approach to giving. “At the end of the day we are looking to help our partners increase their capacity,” she said. “We will help them create messaging or videos to promote their work. We will sit with them on panels to spread the word. This is not about us, it’s about the issue we are jointly committed to.”

The Evolving Landscape of the Philanthropy Field: What Does This Mean for the Profession?
Philanthropy is no longer a siloed, reactive activity but a critical element of a corporation’s citizenship. As corporate philanthropy becomes more richly embedded into the overall operations of a company, the roles, responsibilities, and accountability for the professionals spearheading this work has evolved. The traditional view of grant maker is being dispelled to embrace a broader set of competencies and skills required to be successful. “Philanthropy is becoming more corporate. There is increased focus and utilization of traditional ‘corporate skills/disciplines’ to do good, such as measurement/evaluation, strategic/critical thinking, organizational and communication skills,” noted Bob Corcoran, in his session titled, “Strengthening the Profession.”

He also pointed out that as society continues to demand change, long term change, “the profession needs to bring the science, scale, and voice of corporations to the philanthropy table in order to create lasting social impact.”

About the Authors

Elisabeth Anderson & Shannon Bond are Senior Directors and Erica Pagano is a Managing Director in the Corporate Social Engagement group of Changing Our World, an international consulting firm providing individualized solutions to corporations, nonprofits and philanthropists in all areas of fundraising and philanthropy. They can be reached at eanderson@changingourworld.com, sbond@changingourworld.com, & epagano@changingourworld.com, respectively.

Summit Focuses on Economy and Partnerships

Susan Carey Dempsey — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:29:00 GMT

Some highlights: Ali Velshi gave the keynote address offering his own take (not CNN’s, he made clear) that the Obama administration’s aggressive stimulus response to the economic downturn was being effective, and improvement in the economy was on the horizon, perhaps by late summer.

Taking questions from the audience, Velshi stressed that the focus of the media should still be on the people who need jobs and homes, or need help keeping them. Despite the attention paid to exorbitant executive pay packages, he declared them a “distraction,” that deserved to be visited and fixed, but that current human needs were a priority. Among his observations of particular relevance to this audience: workers laid off from auto manufacturing and other industries should be retrained to fill growing needs in healthcare, especially, and other social sector jobs.

The themes for the day were sounded by Mike Hoffman, Chairman of Changing Our World, Inc. who declared that by coming together and sharing ideas, Summit attendees could explore opportunities for collaboration and innovation, which should emerge from the nonprofit sector in the current economic crisis. Citing a meeting convened by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in Davos, he said philanthropists will increasingly seek to leverage their giving by engaging partners to multiply the effect of their resources.

The program’s focus on the economic state of the nonprofit sector was further developed in the plenary address by Clara Miller, President of the Nonprofit Finance Fund. She warned against accumulating illiquid assets - real estate, restricted endowment - and made the interesting point that fundraising is not the biggest revenue slice in the nonprofit pie - it's actually earned income. She urged the audience to think creatively and strategically (she cited an example of the dance troupe that posts their performances on YouTube, tracks in which city it has the most hits/views, and travels to that city to perform for a live audience as an example of an arts group using a new, free medium to gain exposure).

The Summit program included three panel discussions, focusing on the following:

Will Philanthropic Innovation Emerge From Crisis? Moderated by Gordon Campbell of United Way NYC, this panel suggested ways that nonprofits, and their funders, can adapt to diminished resources in smart, creative ways. Although the economic crisis is negatively impacting both the nonprofit and private sector, now is also a time of opportunity to take a really hard look internally -- to refocus, reset, and revamp -- resulting in what one panelist described as “stronger and wiser organizations.” Corporate philanthropist Dan Osheyack of TimeWarner discussed how corporations and nonprofits needed to adapt to a new atmosphere of frugality and find innovative ways to partner.

Panelists Frank Kurre of Grant Thornton and author Rodney Jackson spoke about the importance of board involvement (the days of boards reading minutes and saying "all in favor say aye" to everything have passed). The panel discussed how to keep the new generation engaged in causes/nonprofits when people are bombarded with messages/emails/facebook causes. Sara Spivey, Chief Marketing Officer for Convio, advised "targeted messaging." To the nonprofits who ask how they can achieve Obama's online fundraising success, the answer: "You have to be Obama."

Dr. Susan Raymond, Executive Vice President for Research, Evaluation and Strategic Planning at Changing Our World, Inc. set the stage for the panel discussions following Ali Velshi’s keynote. The nonprofit sector, she suggested, should seize the opportunity before it: “It is resource scarcity not resource abundance that presents us with that opportunity.” Dr. Raymond suggested that the opportunity “to find ways to drive toward efficiency and scale, in finance as well as in programs, not simply to endlessly proliferate,” should not be squandered.

“In environmental organizations alone, between 1999 and 2009, the sector added an average of 1100 new nonprofits to the environmental map per year. Organizational growth was 71%. The real dollar value of giving to the environment increased by 28%.

So, this sector is endlessly additive. In commerce, 50% of new businesses fail within the first five years. This is good because it releases money and talent to move to new and better ideas. In the nonprofit sector, we simply add. The opportunity that scarce resources present to us is the opportunity to re-engineer the way we do business,” Dr. Raymond said, as she introduced the next panel, The Challenge of Creating Lasting Change.

Moderated by Chronicle of Philanthropy Editor Stacy Palmer, this panel looked at initiatives that supported systemic change, rather than repeated, short-term fixes. Anne Black spoke of the 10,000 Women Initiative created by her company, Goldman Sachs, to invest in women’s capacities for entrepreneurial and managerial expertise -- forceful tools to promote economic growth and combat inequality in developing and emerging markets. The Economist’s Matthew Bishop, author of Philanthrocapitalism, discussed how the private sector can play a critical role. Kori Reed, of ConAgra Foods Foundation, explained how their Nourish Today, Flourish Tomorrow initiative leverages time, talent, resources and brainpower to combat childhood hunger and promote nutrition education. GlobalGiving’s Mari Kuraishi discussed the emerging global network of online donors creating a new paradigm of “scale,” in contrast to the mega-corporations or giant foundations some envision.

The Power of Partnerships: This panel, moderated by Fortune Editor-at-Large Pattie Sellers, focused on a group of complex partnerships created to tackle equally complex problems in global health. A brand-new initiative was announced that day by Claire Lyons, Manager of Global Grant Portfolios for PepsiCo Foundation and Monica Marshall, Head of Global Private Partnerships, for the United Nations World Food Programme. The PepsiCo Foundation has committed $2.2 million for a program that brings together global logistics experts from PepsiCo to help strengthen WFP’s response to growing hunger needs brought on by high food prices and the financial crisis, as well as improve its operating efficiency and response time in crisis situations. Kari Stoever, Managing Director of the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, which has partnered with the Gates Foundation and others, discussed the importance of due diligence in determining the suitability of partners for each other. Not all partnerships will succeed, emphasized Dr. Dan Carucci of the UN Foundation and Karl Brown from Rockefeller Foundation, but carefully designed partnership initiatives can bring the strengths of both partners to bear on complex issues in innovative ways.

In a time when all players in the philanthropic arena are feeling the strain on resources, finding ways to collaborate and complement each other will be increasingly valuable.

About the Author

Susan Carey Dempsey, Editor-in-Chief of onPhilanthropy, is Managing Partner of CauseWired Communications, a consulting firm advising nonprofits and causes on effective storytelling and strategy. She can be reached at susan@causewired.com