Guide Star has released its June 2010 Survey "The Effects of the Economy on the Nonprofit Sector".The survey consisted of more than 7,000 respondents, composed of various nonprofit sector leaders such as CEOs, executive directors, vice presidents and presidents of non-profits. The survey measured the impact of the current economic environment and its effect on the nonprofit sector. The survey produce some interesting results:
* 40 percent of participants reported that contributions to their organizations dropped between January 1 and May 31, 2010, compared to the same period a year earlier.
* 63 percent reported a total increase in demand for their organization's services between January 1, 2010 and May 31, 2010, compared to the same period a year prior.
* 80 percent indicated that their organizations were in imminent danger of closing.
* Among organizations that use volunteers, 17 percent used one or more in what had formerly been paid positions.
Being a member of a not-for-profitorganization’s board of directors allows members to be directly involved in the decision-making that ultimately decides the mission and direction of the organization However, with the transitory nature of many boards, with members often serving one or two terms, it can sometimes be difficult to set specific, consistent guidelines for Chief Executive Officer reviews.Changes among board leadership is often a given within a not-for-profitorganization, so it is beneficial to establish a process for evaluating your CEO and determining appropriate rewards that can be consistently followed, even through transitional phases within the board. Increasing scrutiny regarding CEO compensation by legislators, donors, and the general public has also made it more important that the organization has an evaluation process that is documented and aligns with its mission and goals.There are many steps that can be taken to ensure that a board’s CEO evaluation process is sound and reduces any undue risks to the organization. Read More
Name: Nadanu : "Enables non-profits, educational institutions, campaigns and businesses to use a secure, next-generation fundraising platform to increase interaction, awareness and support. Our patent pending technology will create a simple, fun to use and accessible method of collecting donations and interacting with your donors."
Quick Pitch: Nadanu transforms the electronic giving into a simple, fun and accessible experience.
Genius Idea: Based on the ancient Sumero-Akkadian word for “giving”, Nadanu seeks to make the currently complex setup, management, deployment and usage of electronic giving and interaction with donors into a faster, better experience for users and charities alike. It helps organizations reach out to individuals who care in order to secure the funding they need.
For donors, the process is as simple as dropping virtual “coins” into a custom receptacle; the service eliminates the long, prohibitively complicated donation forms we’re used to seeing. Donors can also create reminders to give and set recurring micro-giving schedules for themselves. Read More
This is part one of a five part presentation from Stephen Melanson on Verbal Branding given at The Non-Profit Toolbox meet-up at the South Shore Science Center in Norwell MA. Here is the transcript of the clip:
I'm going to talk to you about Verbal Branding and Verbal Branding as you see are new literally unique in the world as far as I know branding applications. And the goal is as you see there. To simultaneously improve sales culture, what I refer to as Brand Density, and there is even more to it than that. But Ill talk about everything. I have about twenty minutes with you, I'm going to teach you everything I can in twenty minutes about Verbal Branding. I hope you find it interesting, and I think you'll find it interesting that you can apply some of these things starting tomorrow for your non-profits.
Now here's what I believe should keep you awake at night. Your brand being diminished every single day times every single person regardless of how many there are in your organization times every conversation they have. Now I don't make that up just to make a point I work with a lot of different kinds of companies and firms and organizations. This is the scenario that I see everywhere I go regardless of the situation. So it might now start keeping you awake, but this is what I see everywhere and this is to be avoided obviously for your brand. Now I do work in a specific area of branding. Branding is a huge topic as you know. There is what's called the identity elements, logos, tags lines, the name of your firm or organization, the colors and the imagery on your Web site, things like that. Those are all identity related, I don't do any of that work. I do what called positioning, and here is my very simple definition of what position should mean to you in my opinion. How are you different and because of that difference better than the competition whoever the competition is. This is what I use for a definition regardless who I'm working with and it works every time.
The gap in the branding marketplace is a spoken application. Believe it or not in the branding world, full service branding companies do all sorts of work for their clients, they never actually deal with what people say every day to people outside their organization. That's the work that I do. Again, Verbal Branding is a spoken application, literally a spoken robust application, for this thing that I call brand positioning and that's what its called in the marketplace.
So here's what's at issue and everyone will be all relate to this. What conversation do you want or need to have when you speak to somebody? How many conversations do you think you've had in your entire business or nonprofit life? Most people say, oh five hundred, ten thousand, things like that. Right? Actually there's only, two you're either the same or you're different, there's no middle ground. And you should know that when you're in the field and you're talking to people there's only two options, you're either the same or you're different from your competition. That's what goes on in the mind of the consumer. Does that make sense?
OK, now to something I call conversational dynamics, but before I go into that in a little bit of detail, I want you to know this. This is why my best tips and I hope you remember it forever. When you tell someone your name, when you tell them what category your business or your firm is in, your non-profit, here's what I have to say. No one cares. Ok? No one cares, isn't that awful? No one cares but it's true. Nonprofit about X Y or Z, CPA firm, attorney, branding consultant, guess what I don't even care that I'm a branding consultant. So I never tell anybody that because I know that they shouldn't care because I don't even care. I care what my positioning in the marketplace is. It's totally different and what I'll tell you and I see everywhere I go is that people sell quote, unquote sell or try to raise money based on category. Listen to what people say in maybe even listen to yourself and you'll realize that what happens is they'll tell you what category of business they're in and then they'll go about talking about the positive attributes of the category alone and they have not positioned themselves for differentiation in their competitive space. Start listening for that and you'll hear it everywhere, ninety nine percent of the time. That's to be avoided.
Would it surprise you to learn that a LOT of the folks I’m working with today (and I suspect the same is true of other career coaches) are expressing strong interest in the possibility of making a career switch from the for-profit to the non-profit sector? Predictably, when things get tough in corporate world, a [...]
he erosion of the traditional business model for news has led many to go down the non-profit path. The result is a slew of new non-profit news websites. The Bay Citizen, which launchedat the end of May, is the newest and joins the likes of ProPublica, MinnPost, and the Texas Tribune, to name just a [...]
today announced the addition of a new portfolio of software, services and consulting grants to respond directly to the needs of local non-profit organizations to improve their effectiveness. These new IBM Trailblazer Grants open up IBM’s innovation technology and the deep expertise of its employees and make them available to the local non-profit sector. Through [...]
With the fight over state teachers salaries and benefits getting bloodier, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is putting his budget cutting focus on non-profit social agencies doing business with the state. Most specifically, the amount the state is willing to pay for CEO salaries and employee benefits. According to a Department of Human Service draft [...]
The analysis of data is critical to making an informed decision about your event’s online direct marketing strategy, yet many people are intimidated by the sheer volume of data tied to fundraising programs. For event marketers and fundraisers, data is often seen as an especially big mystery. They collect a lot of data, but are [...]
Legislation signed into law by U.S. President Barack Obama last month overhauls the $2.5 trillion U.S. healthcare industry and extends coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans.The wave of newly insured will benefit not-for-profit hospitals in the short-term, along with other reforms such as reimbursement protections this year and a 10 percent Medicare bonus payment for [...]
