Nonprofit Leadership, Innovation, and Change

December Giving Carnival

December's Giving Carnival has been a great one.  We had eight submissions and I'm very impressed at the quality and depth of insight from everyone who submitted.  Below are my executive summaries and a link to each submission for you to read and learn more about the person who wrote it.  Enjoy. . .

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Jeff Brooks at the Donor  Power Blog came up with four very interesting types of fundraising styles for Executive Directors. 

• The Technocrat - Who tends see fundraising as the "neglected stepchild"
• The Poet - Who seems to be very intellectual in her views of fundraising
• The Consensus-Builder - Who seems be like water and always take the path of least resistance
• The Entrepreneur - Who is usually a founder of the organization and can either play a large role in fundraising, or neglect it

To read more from Jeff, click here.

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Maya Norton at The New Jew: Blogging Philanthropy gives her simple answer, "a lot."  She describes how fundraising is affected by the leadership of an Executive Director by making sure it is set as a priority, that the organization continues to offer personal development training, and to have great landing pages built for international visitors.  To add my two cents, all three of these are important decisions that can only by an Executive Director.

To read more from Maya, click here.

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Roger Carr at the Everyday Giving Blog makes some great insight by first explaining what the responsibilities of a nonprofit executive are.  After defining the responsibilities he sums it up by saying, "I believe the level of leadership demonstrated can make or break the ability of the organization to raise the funds it needs."  Roger talks about how an Executive Director needs to inspire confidence in his donors and continue to maintain great relationships with his board to motivate them to donate and ask for donations.

To read more from Roger, click here.

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Jeremy Gregg at The Raiser's Razor took a little different approach and asked, "Why do donors give money to your nonprofit?"  Jeremy says they give because they trust and love you.  Digging deeper he says donors are not donating to a cause, they are donating and investing in the leaders who will be making a difference in the community.

To read more from Jeremy, click here.

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Phil Cubeta at the Gift Hub asks, "Who leads and who follows?"  He suggests a collaboration between staff, Board of Directors, and the donor to establish a "mission match."  Where all three groups of people are on the same page and it takes a leader to get these three groups of people to collaborate with one another.

To read more from Phil, click here.

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Arlene Spencer at Seeking Grant Money Today had a great response, "it depends". 'No duh?', right?  She goes on to list sixteen different situations and attributes that affect a leader's ability to fundraise.  Arlene lets us know that we shouldn't put all the responsibilities onto one executive because that person always has his or her limits.  Instead, fundraising toward the mission of the organization should be everyone's responsibility.

To read more from Arlene, click here.

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Kelly Kleiman at The Nonprofiteer makes some interesting insights about how leadership affects fundraising based on how large the organization is.  This was the last submission that I read, but offers some of the greatest ideas.  Her entire submission is in the comments section.

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Christopher Scott at Nonprofit Leadership, Innovation, and Change defines two ways that fundraising is affected by an Executive Director's leadership capacity.  The first is the qualities that a leader needs to possess.  The second is that a leader has the ability to attract, train, and develop other people who can fundraise on his behalf.

To read more from Christopher, click here.

Why I use Windows

I spend a large amount of time on a computer.  Most of my fellow computer users are ‘Mac People.’  Since they use a Mac and I use a PC, they often say, “Once you swich over to a Mac, you won’t go back.” 

However, take a look at this picture and you will see the 14.4 billion reasons that I continue to use a PC with Windows.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has donated over 14.4 billion dollars to public schools, AIDs research, Malaria prevention, and many other areas to help people living in extreme poverty.  If it wasn’t for Microsoft, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation wouldn’t exist, and as a nonprofit leader I feel I’m obligated to repay Microsoft and Bill for their tremendous contributions to the planet.

Yes, a Mac might be a better computer, but a PC with Windows helps more people.

Helping those close to us

Holden makes this great post about how we are most likely to make donations to causes that we have a personal relationship with. 

I'm going to take it a little deeper and say this is why it's hard for people to send money overseas to those in need.  It's hard to send money to India when you know there are people five minutes down your road who are suffering in poverty. 

While at a city council meeting about three weeks ago, there was an argument on whether the City of Turlock should have a year around homeless shelter.  A business owner tried to use the rhetoric that we don't want to have a homeless shelter because homeless people will come from other cities and use it, meaning they will be in our city.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we all U.S. citizens?   Aren't we all human beings? 

Why should it matter where someone is from, what color his/her skin is, or if it's a male or female?

The Best Way to Make a Difference

Mark Sanborn tells this story about a generous Starbucks customer who gave the cashier $100 to purchase coffee for as many customers as possible.

I believe one of the best ways to help someone is to do it in a way that you're not recognized for your effort or contribution.  The person that gave the $100 knew he/she wasn't going to be  given an award for being a philanthropist, leader, or nominated for the Starbucks Customer of the Year Award (I'm not sure if they even have one). 

It's great when a man donates 2 million dollars to have his name put on a building at a local univeristy, but when someone does something like this Starbucks customer, that's truly that highest and most rewarding way to give.

Are we "Professional Beggars?"

While sitting in a meeting last week I heard a leader of a large not-for-profit say, “We are professional beggars.”  Everyone found it to be quite funny, and I can understand why he said that, yet I’m not sure if it’s true.

I'm very interested in hearing your thoughts on this, you can leave me a comment or drop me an email.

Fundraising

The flow of money through non-profits

I love reading the Andertoons made my Mark Anderson.  Here is one that I found that I really enjoyed.   I believe it describes the flow of grant money through many non-profits.   A non-profit spends lots of time researching and writing proposals for grants, and once they obtain the money, it goes 'through' the non-profit directly to the people that need it.  One of the great things about non-profits is how there are large foundations out there who have the sole purpose of fundraising money, and giving it out to other non-profits that are working 'in the trenches' making a difference everyday.  The United Samaritans Foundation is one of those non-profits.  They are doing so much work 'in the trenches' that they hardly have time to fundraise, so it's awesome that there are other non-profits such as the United Way that focus mainly on finding money to help fund non-profits like the United Samaritans Foundation.

www.squidoo.com for A Day of Hope

We have created a ‘lens’ at www.squidoo.com for A Day of Hope. Here is the URL. www.squidoo.com/adayofhope which is our main page. This is the page that gets updated for our meetings; www.squidoo.com/adayofhopemeetings. Many more are soon to come. I will be building a ‘lens’ on our upcoming car wash, as well as a ‘lens’ for our golf tournament at Saddle Creek Resort in Copperopolis, CA and all of the other fundraisers that we are going to have.

Lots of exciting stuff on the way, so stay tuned.

If you have any questions about A Day of Hope, just drop me a line and I would love to talk with you about how we can get you involved.

'Thank You' dorm students

We have all heard of the stereotype of those lazy poor college students.

I am here to blow that stereotype out of the water.  The last two years A Day of Hope has experienced something amazing.  Year after year we go around the dorms before Thanksgiving knocking on the doors asking the students if they would like to donate any food for us to use in our Thanksgiving baskets.  The results have been so amazing.

The last two years the small dorms of California State University, Stanislaus have stepped up on a massive level . The last two years they have fed nearly 50 families for Thanksgiving with their generous contributions.

Everyone from A Day of Hope would like to say ‘Thank You’ for your generous contribution, not to us, but to the hundreds of people who had the pleasure of eating a Thanksgiving dinner because of you.

A couple of questions for you

The University of Chicago just reported that they received a anonymous $100 million dollar gift from an individual.  WOW!  This is amazing, but let’s take a second look at this.  This will positively affect about 1,200 undergraduate students that attend The University of Chicago making up 25% of it’s total students.  However, here are a couple of questions that I wanted to ask:

What if this man would let people know who he is? 

What if he used it as an example to display for others?

What if other people were inspired to donate more money to the school if they knew who he is?

I’m not saying that he should come out and say who he is, nor am I saying that it would make a difference if he did.  I’m so proud that someone would donate that much money to a school and not worry about getting the credit.  That was just a couple of questions that I was thinking.

Good job!