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Nonprofit Finance for Hard Times: Leadership Strategies When Economies Falter

Book Store Leadership — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 17:35:07 GMT

Nonprofit Finance for Hard Times: Leadership Strategies When Economies Falter
Susan U. Raymond, Ph.D.
ISBN: 978-0-470-49010-5
Hardcover
195 pages

During this time of upheaval and instability with the country's financial markets and economy, you might be wondering how your nonprofit can emerge stronger from this unprecedented turmoil and prepare for future economic cycles. Practical and timely, Nonprofit Finance for Hard Times: Leadership Strategies When Economies Falter helps your nonproft get strategic in the weak economy.

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Book Review: Step-by-Step Guide to Raising Your Next Million

Susan Carey Dempsey — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 22:14:25 GMT

And once you’ve done your feasibility study and determined that pursuing your goal may be difficult but achievable, you’ve got to take a deep breath and proceed in a methodical fashion. Make sure all the basics are in place: an appropriate pool of prospects, good leadership, a clear and compelling case for support, and a comprehensive plan for achieving your goal.

You might add one new tool to that list: a small but helpful book that’s the latest in a series of one-hour, digestible reads: “How to Raise $1 Million (or More!) in 10 Bite-Sized Steps.” This guide is drawn from real life experiences by Andrea Kihlstedt, who has worked as a fundraising consultant for nearly three decades with scores of nonprofit organizations. While the process of major gifts fundraising can, on the one hand, be boiled down to one page of principles or at the other extreme, explicated in lengthy seminars, Kihlstedt’s approach is to illustrate some of the most critical points with a series of enlightening and often entertaining anecdotes.

In a conversational but straightforward style, the author recounts a number of experiences she’s obviously encountered at numerous nonprofits in the course of her consulting career, with names changed to protect the innocent and avoid annoying those who don’t play well with others.

For most veteran fundraisers, a sense of humor when dealing with difficult people may be an often underestimated but powerful trait. And many of those professionals and volunteers will recognize such characters as Art, who tried to persuade his fellow board members that their community nonprofit could easily raise half a million dollars by asking 500 people to buy paving bricks at $1,000 each. Or the big-shot Bill, who looked like a good choice for campaign chairman, until the executive director noticed how he liked to be the center of attention, but took on little of the work.

“Ten Bite-Sized Steps” does indeed break some familiar material into a quick, entertaining read, but it offers a bit more. By recounting how different members of a campaign team – chairmen, committee members, executive staff, fundraisers – adjusted and coped with the foibles and weaknesses of one member or another, Kihlstedt invariably teaches a lesson about overcoming a challenge and ultimately attaining success. For campaigners who will encounter many challenges over the course of a campaign, maintaining equilibrium, optimism and, yes, a sense of humor will be difficult. By observing and absorbing the experiences Kihlstedt uses to illustrate her pivotal points, readers will have a chance to re-invigorate their own and possibly their teams’ spirits, and renew their focus on the goal. Since the publisher, Emerson and Church, offers discounts for quantities purchased for boards of directors and staff, it’s a way to keep everyone enthusiastic and empowered through the entire campaign.

“How to Raise $1 Million (or More) in 10 Bite-Sized Steps,” by Andrea Kihlstedt. Emerson and Church, Publishers (www.emersonandchurch.com)

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

The Stacked Deck

Lilya Wagner — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 15:47:13 GMT

The Stacked Deck
By Lilya Wagner

David sat back with a satisfied sigh. In another week he and his organization were going to celebrate real victory! Because of his work and management of a capital campaign, the goal of nearly $10 million had been reached – and ahead of schedule. Besides that, he had incrementally increased the annual fund income and added to the endowment fund, in spite of the dire economic circumstances of the country and his city.

The constituents and friends of his organization had pitched in with unprecedented vigor, and he felt the warm satisfaction of having led in that team spirit. Seeing a volunteer who had hesitated to get involved in the first place accompany him to close a major gift had been one of the highlights of his professional life. According to what he had learned, particularly through The Fund Raising School training he acquired over time, having a peer participate in major gift cultivation and solicitation was a significant success factor, and he was happy to give credit to his boss and volunteers for the significant sums they brought in. He knew his boss appreciated his work and enthusiastically participated in bringing the campaign to a successful closure.

Then his face clouded and he shut his eyes as a rush of memories stormed to the forefront. His euphoria faded as he remembered some conversations. First, he could still hear his boss telling him, “I’m retiring. Yes, I know. It’s a bit earlier than I had expected but now with this campaign behind us, I think I can do so and not leave you or the school in a lurch.” David sighed. His boss had been uncommonly supportive, he knew. He had heard plenty from his professional friends and in particular a senior-level fundraiser who’d finally quit her job because the better she did, the less her boss liked it. Why? Because it demanded more activity and accountability on his part (the board was watching and wasn’t pleased with his avoidance tactics). His boss went on, “But we’ll have a major celebration and I will remind the search committee for my replacement that fundraising has been very important in building this organization to its present prestigious status.” David would miss him, but he was fairly confident that his success of the past five years of either reaching or exceeding his goals would carry him through the transition and on to more years at the institution.

Imagine his surprise when he learned that a consultant was being brought in to conduct an audit of his department. Presumably, the organization’s leadership wanted to see if they were on course and what they should consider for the future. Why? was the first thought that popped into David’s mind. Then he relaxed. With the growth of his program and his evident success, perhaps all the assessment would do would be to show that he was doing well, and perhaps even convince the leadership that his work deserved more support. He had quickly learned that the organization’s future focus was going to be on program development – not that they had anything for which to apologize, but it seemed like the physical plant and fundraising would not be a priority anymore.

David expected to be included in the preparations for the assessment. After all, that was accepted protocol, business as usual. Once again he was surprised when a consultant showed up, bypassed him, and began interviews. Wasn’t he going to be asked for recommendations on whom to interview, particularly donors and volunteers? Apparently not. David was justifiably insulted, and disappointed when he learned who had been selected for the interviews — that the deck had been stacked! Why? he once again had to ask himself. What was going on here? Should he take this as a hint? Was the fundraising program in danger of being downsized? Was he not needed anymore? Normally an upbeat person, David couldn’t fight the dejection and depression that hit him, and hard. Clearly, he was being marginalized. Maybe it was time to bow out rather than fight unworkable situations.

Finally he made the decision that it was better to resign while showing positive growth and much success, rather than risk a downturn in both funding income and his reputation. He took little comfort in the sympathy of his professional friends and family. He truly cared about the organization and this didn’t bode well for his department. He also worried about what would happen to his donors, those whom he had cultivated and had cared for with sincere feeling.

David gathered his wits and wisdom around him and began a job search. He had to learn how to present himself and his success, how to match his skills to a particular job opening and modify his resume accordingly, and he had to keep up his confidence and self-respect – perhaps the hardest task in view of what had happened.

As he proceeded on his job search during a tough economic time, he had to do a lot of personal evaluation and soul-searching. Did he really want to stay in fundraising, he asked himself? Was it time to turn to some other career the experience and expertise he had acquired over the years? As we leave David to his job search, we can ponder along with him the following conclusions:
Life isn’t fair. Get over it.
It’s not about you. It’s about the leadership, and more often than not, it’s about the particular point in time in the organization’s life.
There’s only so much a professional can do. Sometimes circumstances divert a successful path.
No matter what you do as a fundraising professional, sometimes it just doesn’t work!
Sometimes it’s better to bow out while on top rather than go down with the ship (yes, he knew he was mixing metaphors but at that point he didn’t care).

P.S. I was recently asked if the content of my columns is real. Yes, every column is based on real-life incidents, sometimes a bit disguised by a combination of events and circumstances to protect the innocent and not divulge the identity of the not-so-innocent. If you have nightmares to share, write coplilya@cs.com.

Dr. Lilya Wagner, CFRE, is an experienced fundraiser, consultant, editor and author, teacher and trainer. She can be reached at coplilya@cs.com.

Nonprofit Guide to Going Green

Book Store Fundraising — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 19:24:06 GMT

Nonprofit Guide to Going Green
Ted Hart, Adrienne D. Capps (Editor), Matthew Bauer (Editor)
ISBN: 978-0-470-52982-9
Hardcover

Nonprofit Guide to Going Green is your comprehensive learning tool to guide nonprofits and NGOs towards becoming greener. A desktop reference for any charitable organization to become greener, this essential book gives your organization the support it needs to take proactive steps to protect the environment while fulfilling its mission.

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» Buy direct from Wiley

Planned Giving and Fundraising World in State of Confusion Over Estate Tax Repeal

Jonathan Gudema, Esq. — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:13:15 GMT

What day? What’s so dreaded about the estate tax repeal?

Truth be told: it is not the lack of estate taxes in 2010 that is so dreaded. It is the feared return of the Carryover Basis and what that would mean to planning and estates in 2010.

Let’s start over again. Planned giving professionals should always be on the lookout for new tax planning opportunities to encourage giving – during life or in one’s estate.

Are there any opportunities here – with the estate tax repeal of 2010 – for gift planners?

Not an easy question to answer.

Firstly, the repeal is only for one year. Even if there are some charitable planning advantages in 2010’s law, they will be gone before we know it.

Secondly, contrary to the rantings of the so-called Anti-Death Tax lobby, the repealed estate tax is not good for charitable giving. It may not be so bad, especially if bequest donors don’t get to their attorneys in time to change their wills. But, it is definitely not a law that would encourage more charitable bequests. More likely the opposite since it may encourage people to drop charities from their wills.

Thirdly, and the point of this article, charitable tax planning opportunities generally exist when there are tax savings reasons for giving to charity. Are there tax savings opportunities in 2010 as a result of the estate tax repeal?

This takes us back to the beginning of the article: Carryover Basis.

When Congress passed the so-called Estate Tax Repeal, they had to make up the projected loss in revenue from somewhere. So, sneaky Bush administration officials came up with a great idea: Let’s tax capital gains at death in the year of the estate tax repeal to make up for some of the lost revenue on paper from the repeal. Hocus pocus if you ask me.

Up until 2010, the U.S. had not seen in modern times (maybe ever) a tax on capital gains at death except for one year – 1976 – and it was repealed because of the confusion and challenges it caused. The first quote I found on the internet summed it: Legal scholar Lawrence Zelenak called the short unhappy life of carryover basis “one of the greatest legislative fiascoes in the history of the income tax.”

Before 2010, all capital gains property in one’s estate would receive a “step-up in basis.” In other words, the code essentially wiped clean any capital gains at death – no surprise since the same asset was facing upwards of a 55% estate tax.

In 2010, there is a step-up in basis for up to $1.3 million in each estate for appreciation on capital assets. Additionally, surviving spouses receive an extra $3 million exemption on appreciation of capital assets, before having to start paying capital gains taxes.

Before 2010, surviving spouses generally never paid any estate tax – there was what we called the marital estate tax exemption. Either the government figured it wouldn’t look good to force widows to sell their mansions to pay estate taxes, or it is just easier to go after an estate when the surviving spouse is dead – less trouble.

Now, surviving spouses might be in for a big surprise once their $3 million of stepped up basis is exceeded. Time for widows to pay some taxes!

There are a lot of potential twists to the 2010 estate tax system. How is the $1.3 million of free capital gains allocated among appreciated assets? How does the surviving spouse allocate his or her $3 million of free capital gains?

My question is: how will people prove that the asset they inherited received some of the free step-up in basis? Will surrogate courts issue certificates indicating how much step up in basis certain properties receive?

Questions for executors of estates: what if we can’t prove the cost basis for this stock that has split and/or merged umpteen times? Ask the IRS and they will tell you that without proof of basis, it is assumed to be zero (i.e. pay capital gains on 100% of the value).

What about estate plans that didn’t anticipate the estate tax repeal? Unintended consequences such as surviving spouses effectively being cut out of their late spouses’ estates because the will or trust called for all assets not affected by estate tax to pass to children or others?

What about Credit Shelter Trusts? These are designed to lock away the federal estate tax exemption amount in a trust, typically income to surviving spouse with limited right of principal invasion, remainder to children. This year, there might be no need for this type of trust – maybe the kids should get the money outright?

The questions go on and on. Congress claims that they want to retroactively undo the estate tax repeal – before the 9 month filing deadline for decedents’ estate tax returns. Watch Congress push off until September 1, 2010, for a last minute attempt at fixing this mess before the estates that pulled the plugs on January 1, 2010 have a chance at zero estate tax. My prediction: 2011 will come and federal estate taxes will return to 2001 levels of $1 million exemption and highest federal estate tax bracket of 55% – and they can blame George Bush for that one.

Charitable Planning

The short answer to my original question (Are there any charitable planning opportunities in the estate tax repeal?) is no. Even if many people will be paying more in taxes via the carryover capital gains tax, I can’t see any logical way to promote gifting to avoid a one year tax – one at a relatively low rate of 15%.

You could try to make the case that Charitable Remainder Trusts should become very popular as devices for avoiding this one year carryover basis capital gains tax. I wouldn’t bother.

Attorneys might tell their clients to designate highly appreciated items in their estate to charities. The challenge would be whether the estate can sell the asset on behalf of the charity or would the charity be forced to accept the item for the capital gains tax to be avoided? This could make for some interesting questions in dealing with valuable tangible property or art – not so fun for nonprofits not equipped for owning these types of things.

What should we be doing?

Educating is the key. Any time we, planned giving professionals, have the opportunity to educate our donors about estate planning; it’s an opportunity to provide a needed service and a soft sell of bequests and other planned gift options.

Plan a seminar with a top estate planning attorney. My guess is that these types of presentations will draw standing room only crowds.

Find an article that is informative about the challenges of estate planning under the current scheme. Include it in your planned giving newsletter. Just make sure you send it out before Congress changes its mind and retroactively changes the 2010 law.

Most planned giving dollars are from bequests – period. So why do we planned giving people spend so much time promoting various complex giving arrangements? The answer is that we need something interesting to put out there – get people’s attention, get their minds thinking. Even if at the end of the day most planned giving prospects will only include you in their will (and probably not tell you), planned giving marketing would go stale quickly if all we ever speak about is bequests.

That’s the business. We market all of the fancy stuff, give people something to think about, and most go with the simple, least challenging option.

And, this new world of estate tax repeal certainly gives us interesting, thought provoking material to communicate with our donors. Even if we don’t have any exciting new charitable tax savings to announce.

About the Author

Jonathan Gudema, Esq. is a Managing Director in Planned Giving at Changing Our World, Inc., a philanthropic consulting firm advising nonprofits, philanthropists and foundations on effective strategies. Keep up with his blogs at http://plannedgift.blogspot.com/2010/01/planned-giving-and-fundraising-world-in.html

http://theplannedgivingblog.wordpress.com/

He can be reached at jgudema@changingourworld.com

CauseWired Alaskans Pick, Click and Give to Charity

Tom Watson — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 14:13:13 GMT

CauseWired Alaskans Pick, Click and Give to Charity
Thursday, January 21, 2010
By: Tom Watson

Socially-conscious social media is working up north: Alaskans have taken to the Pick. Click. Give. campaign, which is leveraging platforms from Facebook and Twitter to YouTube and Causecast to draw attention to and explain the Permanent Fund Charitable Contributions Program. The program began officially in 2009 to allow Alaskans to donate a portion of their PFD to qualifying Alaska nonprofits of their choice while they filed online for their PFD. An underlying goal is to encourage individual philanthropy in Alaska. Here’s a Q&A on the program with my friend Aliza Sherman, a veteran digital guru and co-founder of the social media firm Conversify! in Alaska, and Jordan Marshall, initiatives & special projects manager for the Rasmuson Foundation and project manager for Pick. Click. Give.

1. Last year, Pick. Click. Give. raised more than half a million dollars for Alaskan nonprofits – how did it work and how was it unique to Alaska?

ALIZA: The entire Pick. Click. Give. awareness campaign is based on something inherently unique to Alaska: our Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD) or the annual payment each Alaskan receives as part of a pay out to share in the state’s oil and gas profits. No other state provides a similar fund or payment to citizens of their state.

The overarching goal of the Pick. Click. Give. campaign is to draw attention to and explain the Permanent Fund Charitable Contributions Program. The program began officially in 2009 to allow Alaskans to donate a portion of their PFD to qualifying Alaska nonprofits of their choice while they filed online for their PFD. An underlying goal is to encourage individual philanthropy in Alaska.

Additionally, through social media, the Pick. Click. Give. campaign is working to give exposure to the program and motivate Alaskans to participate and to encourage their friends, family and followers to participate as well.

The previous year (2008) was spent assessing Alaska nonprofits based on a number of criteria to ensure that they qualify for the program as well as to set up the technical aspects of adding a list and way for Alaskans to check the organizations on that list they wished to support with an amount of their choice.

2. You’re using social media to spread the word – which platform works the best for you? What have you learned about how causes and social media work?

ALIZA: We’re on our third year of learning about not only social media for cause-related missions and messaging but also of using social media for not only hyper-local outreach but hyper-rural outreach as well. In partnership with first Rasmuson Foundation and then the Pick. Click. Give. program, we’ve explored Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube, and Causecast as well as blogs as social media tools for education, outreach and activism.

While it is hard to say exactly which social media platform is working the best for actually driving Alaskans to pick the organizations to support when filing for their PFD, we can say the following:

The Blog – Each post averages over 100 views. The post about Facebook for nonprofits exceeded 200 views. Currently, there is little comment participation but we can assume people are reading the information and interested in reading the blog.

Facebook – We’re at 352 fans. In the scheme of Alaska nonprofits, this is a solid number. Compared to other Alaska-related for-profits, this is small although even Alaska companies struggle to break 1000 fans.

Twitter – We’re at 213 followers. Twitter is still relatively nascent in Alaska but we are also finding we are struggling to get Alaskans on Twitter to follow and retweet. This may be a learning curve on the part of Alaskans who tend to be very conservative about following others on Twitter. They tend to use Twitter more like Facebook – conversations with actual friends.

YouTube and Causecast – Because of the video PSAs created for the campaign last year and this year, we wanted to leverage those on the most popular video sharing site (YouTube) as well as the one dedicated to causes (Causecast). This year, we added some simple clips of representatives from several of the nonprofit organizations that received donations from the program last year to explain specifically how they’d be using the money. We wanted to emphasize that the money from Pick. Click. Give. was making very specific impacts and define what those were.

MySpace is a mixed bag right now, often feeling – and behaving – like a red-headed stepchild, but I’m a firm believer of leveraging that network for it’s multimedia capabilities and to reach another strata of Alaskans who may not be on Facebook or Twitter.

3. Were smaller organizations able to keep up with the larger ones? How did they do it?

Some of the charities that did the best succeeded for several reasons unrelated to the size of their organization. In the case of a certain animal rescue group, for example, this was the first time they had put themselves out there for support from individual Alaskans and people jumped at the chance. Still others had tremendous success by sending out reminders in newsletters, via email, and dipping their toe into social media for the first time.

4. The Permanent Fund Dividend is unique to Alaska, but what can nonprofits take from the campaign?

ALIZA: There are several takeaways for nonprofits from a social media standpoint:

- Be Targeted. Social media can be effective as not only a global or national communications tool but can also be calibrated to be hyper-local and even hyper-rural. For smaller nonprofits whose scope doesn’t reach beyond a state or a region or a town, social media can still prove useful and can be that finely targeted.

- Pick the Right Tools. While I firmly believe we have the right mix of tools for a strategic social media-powered campaign, we did set out with additional tools that we’ve pared down because they were too time consuming with little return. Holding onto MySpace is only possible because it takes less resources to maintain than Facebook or Twitter. Holding onto Twitter while the numbers are smaller is a strategic move to be ready for the 3rd year of the program when I believe more Alaskans will be used to Twitter communications.

- Coordinate Efforts. Social media tools can be linked together and coordinated in such a fashion that they can be utilized with a very small staff. Last year, I ran the bulk of social media efforts alone as just one campaign of many that I ran simultaneously for other clients I consulted. This year, we are lucky to have one additional person devoted to social media a few hours a week and have better internal coordination with our project partners such as Rasmuson Foundation and the Nerland Agency (the ad agency that developed the programs brand and the PSAs).

JORDAN: No matter which state you live in, the success of the fundraising depends on making a personal connection with your existing and prospective donors. It’s one thing to create a broadcast message about a new tool for giving, but it’s entirely another when the homeless shelter makes a personal pitch to you asking for help. The beauty of Pick Click Give may be that it reminds people that they can make a big difference in peoples’ lives, so when they get “the ask” from the nonprofits they’re more inclined to act.

5. What could a grant-making foundation learn about the campaign – for instance, could some of the best practices be replicated?

JORDAN : Grant-making foundations are in the unique position of being able to facilitate long-term change. A foundation can help pull together the key players and invest in the big ideas. This allows the individual nonprofits to focus on delivery of their services and programs, rather than shouldering the responsibility of managing a campaign.

6. What was the most surprising result of the campaign?

ALIZA: From a social media standpoint, I was surprised at how many Alaskans we could reach on Facebook, especially in VERY rural areas. I was also surprised by how few we are reaching – and galvanizing – through Twitter. Again, I don’t believe Twitter is a lost cause here in Alaska because Alaskans are on an upward curve of learning and adoption. But I was hoping this would be the year that we’d do gangbusters on Twitter and it has yet to happen. Still, we have an excellent foundation to continue using Twitter for communications about this program over the next year so I see this as an important step to the overall social media picture.

About the Author

Tom Watson, author of CauseWired: Plugging In, Getting Involved, Changing the World (Wiley, 2008) is Managing Partner of CauseWired Communications, a consulting firm advising nonprofits and causes. He can be reached at tom@causewired.com.

GlobalGiving Founder on Haiti: 'When You're Poor, Everything Becomes Harder to Recover From'

Tom Watson — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:05:50 GMT

GlobalGiving has been a marketplace for charitable projects since 1997 and has a history of supporting programs on health, poverty, agriculture and the environment in Haiti – and the site swung into action at the first news, working with key on-the-ground partners to rush medical supplies and emergency aid to the stricken nation. As the GlobalGiving team raced to direct resources to Haiti, I spoke briefly with Mari Kuraishi, the co-founder and president.

What’s GlobalGiving’s perspective on what Haiti faces during these terrible days?

Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, and in 2009 ranked 149th out of 182 countries according to the UN’s human development report. That’s to say that one in five Haitian children is underweight for their age and GDP per capita is $1,155 — 2.5% of US GDP per capita ($45,592). This is a country that is least able to recover from a natural disaster like a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. On the one hand, that seems obvious. When you’re poor, everything becomes harder to recover from, because you just don’t have any slack in the system.

What do you think philanthropy’s role will be?

We don’t know the scale of the losses yet in Haiti. While it’s impossible to compare, the cost of the 1995 Kobe earthquake (a 7.3 earthquake) has been estimated at $100b in property and infrastructure damage. Human losses in Japan were 6,400 killed and 15,000 injured. The cost of recovery in Kobe? As of 2006, $3b in insurance losses, and $9b in long-term private finance to rebuild.

Most Haitians don’t have access to formal credit markets — even at a fraction of the Kobe earthquake costs (huge amounts of productive economic assets were destroyed in the Kobe earthquake), the resources they need will not be coming from the capital markets. Philanthropy and official foreign assistance will have to fill the gap for Haiti. And given the weakness of the government in Haiti, I think official foreign assistance can only go so far to help — the role of NGOs becomes even more important. That’s where I think the generosity of the American public and the power of NGOS that have long experience in Haiti, from Partners in Health to the Lambi Fund, will come into play.

How can the outpouring of online concern, donations, and activism translate into real relief on the ground?

At GlobalGiving we’ve dealt with massive disasters like the tsunami in 2004, and more localized disasters like the Szechuan earthquake in 2008. We’ve observed that disasters, more than any other event, mobilize a huge swath of the American public to give. What’s more, corporate partners of ours—from Liquidnet to Gap to Nike to Hasbro -- have all responded immediately that they will match donations, some for their employees, others for the public in general. So I have high hopes. As of 2pm today (Jan. 13), we were coming up close on matching the number of donations on the first day of the China earthquake disaster.

Longer term we MUST focus on increasing resilience of the poorest countries to disasters like this. While earthquakes are not climate change induced, we know that climate change will increase the frequency of weather related disasters. And it turns out that while it’s possible to invest to a certain extent in “disaster preparedness,” actually one of the most important things you can do is invest in female empowerment, specifically education.

To this point, David Wheeler at the Center for Global Development has just published a very interesting paper that touches on extreme weather events and countries’ ability to adapt to or recover from them. The fact is that the cost of a disaster is not just borne by a country in the abstract, they are borne by real people. And data from weather related disasters suggests that women suffer disproportionately from natural disasters — David quotes Oxfam pointing out that “In the 1991 Bangladesh cyclone … four times more women died than men.”

What can we – should we – learn from this?

Haiti has long been a “fragile” state. We’ve known this for a long time. We also could have known, if we’d thought about it, that it was incredibly vulnerable to external shocks precisely because it has so little slack in the system. It’s a time bomb that’s gone off, and honestly, it’s not the only one. All the climate scientists tell us that extreme events will increase — so I think while the current disaster is a human tragedy that the world will be tested to respond to in anything resembling a timely fashion, this should be a wake-up call to look into what we can do to defuse future time bombs.

To assist Haitians in their hour of need, please visit:
http://www.globalgiving.org/haiti-earthquake/

Or see onPhilanthropy’s round-up of charitable relief efforts:
http://www.onphilanthropy.com/

About the Author

Corporate Sector Pitches In and Encourages Donations

Susan Carey Dempsey — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:05:48 GMT

FedEx assisted relief organizations by transporting 78 pallets of supplies, and donated $425,000 to the American Red Cross International Relief Fund, Salvation Army, Direct Relief International, and Yéle, Wyclef Jean’s charity.

Yele has been one of the causes benefiting from an unprecedented outpouring of donations via text messages – raising more than $7 million through the support of all four major US carriers — Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile — whose customers will not be charged for text-messaging mobile donations. As of Thursday, AT&T said its customers have pledged $2.63 million to the Red Cross, and Verizon Wireless customers have given more than $1 million to the agency. Sprint customers have contributed more than $882,000 in mobile-giving donations, a spokeswoman said Thursday.

The mobile giving effort is organized by the Mobile Giving Foundation in concert with the mGive Foundation. In the Red Cross' case, phone users can text the word "HAITI" to 90999 to donate $10, and when prompted, hit "YES" to confirm the donation.

The donation is added to the cell user's bill, and receipts are available.

Other text-message codes for donations include:

Text the word "YELE" to 501501 to donate $5 to the Yele Haiti foundation.
Text the word "HAITI" to 20222 to donate $10 to the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief Fund.
Text "HAITI" to 25383 to donate $5 to the International Rescue Committee.
Text "HAITI" to 85944 to donate $10 to the International Medical Corps.

Among other corporate responses, ITT donated $100,000 to Mercy Corps plus 5 water treatment units to provide water for 100,000 people. Goldman Sachs, Google and Coca-Cola were among corporations announcing $1 million donations. DHL deployed its Disaster Response Team to manage logistics for inbound freight at the airport, including transfer and distribution of incoming relief goods. Microsoft announced $1.25 million in cash and in-kind donations, plus employee-donation matching up to $12,000, and said it was mobilizing an employee response team and providing technical support of NGOs operating on the ground.

Walmart, in addition to donating $500,000 to the American Red Cross, provided $100,000 worth of donated pre-packaged food kits requested by the Red Cross.

Target donated $500,000 to the American Red Cross, as well as more than 1 million meals. Office Depot, in addition to giving $10,000 to Doctors Without Borders, sponsored a BCLC Disaster Help Desk for Business. Businesses seeking guidance on how to help and how best to coordinate with NGOs and government assistance programs are encouraged to visit the site.

Responses were coming from the international business community as well. According to the Financial Times, Virgin Atlantic said it was flying key medical workers and relief agency staff to Haiti in its flights to Miami, Orlando and Jamaica during the coming days, while British Airways said it was preparing a Boeing 747 with capacity for up to 50 tons of cargo to fly to Haiti on Saturday.

Denis O’Brien, the Irish owner of Digicel Group, Haiti’s largest mobile phone provider, pledged $5 million. Digicel said it wanted to send extra technicians to the island to work on its network, although on Thursday the company’s head of public relations, Antonia Graham, reported that: ‘We've been trying to get into Haiti but our plane got turned back because the airport's full.’

Other corporate donations include bottled water from Nestlé, medicines from drugmakers Abbott and AstraZeneca, and a $500,000 pledge from Unilever to the United Nations’ World Food Programme.

To learn more about the growing response from the American corporate sector, which has surpassed $31 million in these past few days, please visit Business Civic Leadership Center’s corporate response page. You can also follow @BCLC on Twitter.

About the Author

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

Mission-Based Management: Leading Your Not-for-Profit In the 21st Century, 3rd Edition

Book Store Leadership — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:07:06 GMT

Mission-Based Management: Leading Your Not-for-Profit In the 21st Century, 3rd Edition
Peter C. Brinckerhoff
ISBN: 978-0-470-43207-5
Hardcover
303 pages

This Third Edition of Mission-Based Management provides comprehensive, hands-on guidance that addresses your unique concerns as a nonprofit manager and policy-maker.

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