Here we are in 2012 with the US economy starting to improve. As public confidence in the nation’s economy regains its footing,  nonprofit organizations should utilize one of their most precious asset—their networks.  Identify connections with your stakeholders: The people who benefit from your mission directly and indirectly, the people who support your mission directly and indirectly. Create a plan to strengthen the bonds with individuals in your networks. Focus on people with the ability to deliver all manner of resources to help deliver the mission .The goodwill, future financial support, and contacts developed by networking during this period of economic resurgence  will be the silver lining to emerge as the clouds of recession lift. Networking is the art of identifying, cultivating, and engaging friends of your organization. These relationships ultimately may yield monetary support, non-financial support; they can become ambassadors who cultivate more friends. Now is the time to identify these potential friends, hone your message, and plan how to best deliver the message. By getting your staff, board of directors, and other volunteers ready for brighter days, you’ll build your capacity to thrive when recovery is more firmly established.The best place to start is a meeting of the board of directors, who must constantly stay mindful of their critical role as emissaries for the organization. They know the mission, they know the goals, they know the good that the organization brings to the community. How do they communicate this value? How do they spread the good news with people they work with, play with, pray with?
Start with a conversation. Take some time at a staff meeting and the next board meeting to talk about reaching out to friends to share your mission. There may be members who are doing this now. Identify them before the next meeting. Ask them to share their techniques with the group. Use their experiences to kick off the discussion. Listen for the ideas that have been most successful. Share a summary of the results with all who can benefit from these experiences.
Continue the conversation. Be sure to put the discussion on the agenda for subsequent meetings. Find out in advance who is trying the new techniques. Ask one or two of the new practitioners to report on what they’re doing.
Engage communications experts to share advice. Do you have a director of communications on your staff? If not, does one of your board members or volunteers have communication expertise? Strategize with this person about your approach to engaging networks. Incorporate messages that are consistent with your brand so your staff and volunteers are talking about your work in a unified and consistent way.
Twitter? Facebook? Blogs? Is someone on your team familiar with social media and willing to show others how to effectively use these tools? It’s likely that this person will be younger than most of the team. If so, this is an excellent opportunity to let an up-and-comer show their stuff. An effective plan for social media can engage people you otherwise might miss who will support your mission once they learn what the organization is about.
What’s your story? Nonprofit organizations have numerous stories about your clients’ great experience with your services. Incorporate telling stories as part of “conversation time.” A program staff person or a volunteer probably has more than one such story to share. Let your group hear a story or two each time you meet, and encourage your board, staff, and volunteers to retell these stories when they are out engaging their networks.
There is a reservoir of good will out there, ready to hear about the good you do. And every day, your volunteers and staff talk with many people who will want to help bring the “good” you deliver to more people. Your organization’s job is to forge links through staff, board, and volunteer networks so you can grow the circle of friends and supporters. When you take the time to apply creative approaches to communication through networks, you engage and energize people for your mission. It takes commitment and work, but it will put your organization in the strongest possible position as the economy gets ready for the next great leap forward.

This week it’s all about Relationship Fundraising.  And the guy who wrote the book on the subject is Ken Burnett.  If you’re raising money for charitable purposes, you should have his book close by.  Relationship Fundraising: A Donor Based Aproach to the Business of Raising Money. Jossey-Bass is the US publisher. Second edition: 2002.

I recommend that you check out his blog. A post in 2009 “2020 vision” is definitely worth a look:  http://www.kenburnett.com/Blog2020vision.html.  A sample:

Fundraisers will wake up to the fact that they are selling neither their organisations nor their causes, nor their missions and certainly not all the nuts and bolts and insignificant minutiae of what they do. Rather they are promoting joy, the warm glow, the exhilaration, the sense of achievement and fulfilment, even the meaning of life. As business life and political life are so discredited now, the timing for all this could not be better now.

Great food for thought. Particularly for nonprofit boards who think “someone” (preferably staff) just go ask for and get money.  Mr. Burnett teaches us to reach out to prospective donors, befriend them to the mission, acquaint them with the good you do and the people who benefit from that goodness so there’s a desire to be a part of the good works.

Makes lots of sense to me.  Please tell me if it makes sense to you.

Several months ago, I featured a series of short essays on “Board Essentials.”  They covered four topics:

1. Parameters of board governance
2. Role of the nonprofit board
3. Strategic work of the board
4. The board as hub of the nonprofit

Today, I’m writing about the board’s role in assessing and supporting the CEO of the nonprofit.  Performance review is a Board Essential that’s easy to neglect.  Every year, or every other year, there is likely a new chair/president of the board. Rotation of officers can create a situation where CEO assessment can get overlooked.  It’s important to have a reliable, annual process in place that engages the whole board in the process.

I advise my clients to have the CEO start the process with a report on his/her achievements in the past year, highlighting things of importance that need attention next year.  This self-assessment should be based on the job description.  And any items flagged last year that were to be attended to in the year now coming to a close.  So there’s a cycle to this.  And it’s a priority for the elected chair of the board.

There’s a deadline for submission of the CEO self-assessment report.  The board chair forms a small work group or the executive committee or an ad hoc personnel committee to do the follow-up work with the CEO.  The full board is apprised of the process and is asked to discuss and then vote it’s agreement, or not.  Once a process is set and the CEO report is in hand, the committee meets.  The group discusses the CEO report.  Do they agree with the assessment?  Do they want more information?  When they’re ready (within two weeks of receiving the report), the board chair arranges a meeting of the committee with the CEO.  There’s an open discussion.  Things that went well are identified. Things that need some attention are also identified.  Do all parties agree?  The chair prepares an executive summary for the board which is confidential and between the board and the CEO.  Staff input to this process might be sought if the group feels it will be desirable and helpful.  But the board should plan and implement this element with care.  The idea is not to have staff evaluate their CEO’s performance.  This can easily devolve into “end around” activity that undermines the CEO authority in the staff relationship.  Having a person on the board with strong HR experience who can help organize this so the outcome is viewed as helpful and constructive to the volunteers as well as to the CEO.

BoardSource http://www.boardsource.org is a good place to go for best practice tools in facilitating this process.  Their publication Assessing and Supporting Your Chief Executive is an excellent e-document to purchase and use as a guide.

The idea is not to allow “we always did it this way” to set in.  Change is good. Change is healthy.  Finding ways to institutionalize change so it’s productive and not destabilizing can help keep the nonprofit performing at its max capabilities and not get stuck in old, tired ways of operating.

Nearly every authority on nonprofit governance I know agrees:  One element of board responsibility is to contribute to the nonprofit they serve.  The concept does make sense.  If members of the board of directors are reluctant to give we’re off to a rough start in our fundraising.

And while this concept makes eminent sense to me, and I expect to you, too, how do we start a conversation that’ll move us in this direction if there’s been no clarity about board responsibilities up to now?

Here are three ways to get the subject on the table for serious consideration:

• Ask the board chair to appoint a group to write a board job description. If you have a governance committee, it’s a natural task for them. If you don’t, appoint a small working group. But be sure there are a couple of members who get the concept and will be willing to argue for “board giving” to be among the responsibilities.
• Has there been board training on governance in the past couple of years?  If not, get a session organized and on the agenda. And bring in a consultant, or a volunteer leader from another nonprofit in your community where board giving is part of the drill.  Be sure the volunteers and not the staff are leading the discussion.
• If you have a chair of the board and a chair of the development committee who are “with the program,” start an informal conversation with them about getting this addressed and put before the board for action.

Remember:  Your chance for success is greater if the charge is led by volunteers.  And further: That you don’t start by mandating a minimum donation.  In the first one, two, or three years make the amount voluntary.  But do discuss the “ouch factor:”  If I don’t wince when I write the check, it’s probably not enough.

Give it a go!  Remember that most donors expect giving to start with the board of directors.  Charitable foundations frequently want to know that all board members are on board and donating.  It just makes sense.  But if it hasn’t been practice ’til now, start the conversation. You’ll get there.

Nonprofit organizations that have been around for a bit (number out of a hat: five years) should consider implementing a planned giving program.  Revenue from wills, trusts, insurance policies from your donors can be a good boost to income for the mission.  From the start, I recommend that your finance committee prepare a policy on how planned gifts will be used by your public benefit organization.  Bequests and trusts of $1,000 and more can go to a board designated fund for your nonprofit’s long-term purposes.  This money can build a reserve for you that can earn interest income as well as growth of principle value.  Over time, this fund can generate revenue that can be used to help underwrite operations.  Some nonprofits set a policy allocating 5% of principle value each year for these operations costs.  Discuss your plan with the experienced accounting firm that conducts your annual audit and prepares your audited financial statements under AICPA standards.  You want to be sure you’re in compliance with local, State, federal law.

If you’re going down this path, I also recommend that your development committee recruit an experienced Estate Planner: an attorney who writes wills and trusts for clients, has significant experience in this area, and who has a passion for your mission.  And will join you as a volunteer with the clear understanding that s/he will not earn income from your nonprofit.

At the same time, creating a Gift Acceptance Policy that indicates how donated income comes in to your organization and gets properly allocated will be very helpful to you down the road.  Over time, you might receive real estate or common stock and there should be predetermined procedures on how these gifts will be handled.  Also, some donors may want the executive director or development director to serve as a trustee or executor of their estate.  This is a conflict of interest and should be avoided.  A competent attorney in these matters will advise you properly and help keep you out of wickets that can become rather sticky.

Once the development committee and Board of Directors are in agreement on how to proceed, you want to let your donors know of this new program.  Writing appropriate announcements for your newsletter, noting your program in your annual fund appeal can help get the ball rolling. And working with local funeral homes to have memorial envelopes available so families looking to direct memorial gifts to a “charity” that they know was important to the deceased person can consider you.

These simple steps can lead to a well thought out plan that can bring great benefit to your nonprofit.  Starting in a thoughtful, conservative way can get you on the right track.