540: BFD: Board Financials Dilemma – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This Week: 

BFD: Board Financials Dilemma
What do you do for board members who can’t read your balance sheet? The authors of “The Board Member’s Easier Than You Think Guide To Nonprofit Finances” can answer that. Andy Robinson and Nancy Wasserman explain why understanding finances is critical so board members preserve your good work and protect themselves. Do their eyes glaze over when the numbers come out? We’ll help your board achieve financial literacy.

This originally aired on March 2, 2012 as show #81. This is show #540. Take a trip back in time with me. Of course, in 2021, your board members still need to understand your financials.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

444: Your Ultimate Communications Toolkit & Automated Fundraising – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

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This week: 

Your Ultimate Communications Toolkit 
Our 19NTC panel of communicators explains how to develop your communications plan and the core principles you need to abide by. They’ve got templates, checklists and worksheets galore! They’re Vanessa Schnaidt from Cause Communications and Gabriel Sanchez with First 5 LA. 

Automated Fundraising 
Brian Lauterbach is from Network for Good. He reveals how automation can enhance your donor communications, engagement and stewardship. This was also recorded at 19NTC.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com 

383: Financial Management Software – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Karen Graham, executive director of Idealware, and Andy Wolber, technology consultant to nonprofits.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

338: Idealware New Release! – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guest this week:

Karen Graham, executive director of Idealware.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

296: Purpose Driven Branding & GuideStar Platinum – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Laura Ferry, founder and president, Good Company. 

Also, Eva Nico, lead on nonprofit strategy & evaluation at GuideStar. 

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

161: Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox & Optimize Your Social Profiles – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Dr. Robert Penna, author of “The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox.”

Amy Sample Ward, CEO of Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN) and co-author of “Social Change Anytime Everywhere”

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://tonymartignetti.com

160: Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox & News Sources/New Source – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Dr. Robert Penna, author of “The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox.”

Maria Semple, The Prospect Finder, consultant in prospect research and author of “Panning for Gold: Find Your Best Donor Prospects Now!”

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://tonymartignetti.com

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Hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent for friday, september twentieth i’m your aptly named host. Oh, you know that i hope you were with me last week. I’d be put through mitral regurgitation if i heard that you had missed cause marketing one oh one trish in naper, principal manager at alcoa foundation and mounir panjwani, business development manager at do something dot or ge shared tips for getting started in cause marketing and internal social networks. Scott koegler, our technology contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, explained how internal social networks compliment the external networks like twitter and facebook this week. The non-profit outcomes toolbox dr robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox, discusses the wave of reliance on outcomes measurement and gives concrete steps and tools so that small and midsize shops can stay ahead of this increasing trend toward outcomes assessment. This is part one of our interview from a previous show, and part two is going to be next week. Also, news sources new source maria simple are dyin of dirt, cheap and free ideas in prospect research and the prospect finder she’s got advice for you on which news sources are best for your research and a new free offering from the foundation center called foundation directory online, plus her sixty second style stop. We’re going tow! Try having one minute tips on style like travel, food and leisure from guests. I’ll be anxious to know what you think about these sixty second style stops between the guests on tony’s take two my block this week is planned e-giving saved our ass and also i want to tell you about bb con coming up, i’m going to be there will say a little about that got contests that’s in tony’s, take two my pleasure now to give you my interview with dr robert penna and the non-profit outcomes toolbox. My guest now is robert penna. He is the author of a complete i’m sorry, the non-profit outcomes toolbox, a complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results published by wiley and sons he’s, a consultant, and his work includes the application of corporate sector, outcome based tools and insights to the work of non-profits he’s done work for the n e casey foundation, the national geographic foundation and the ford. Foundation he’s, an adviser to charity navigator on outcomes. I’m very glad that his work and his book bring him to the studio. Robert. Welcome. Thank you very much for having pleasure to have you. Thank you for coming all the way down from albany. No problem. Live in the studio. In the studio. We hear an increasing amount of talk about outcomes, outcomes, measurement. Why is that? I would save it for basically two reasons. The ones historical. The fact is that traditionally and this goes back easily to the beginning of the last century. No one ever asked non-profits to be quite fair, no one ever asked non-profits to either show evidence of or to demonstrate that they were having an actual impact. That was sort of a field of dreams and concept. If we make it available, things must get better. And it was taken on faith that train people with good programs with enough money would bring about positive change. Nobody actually quite asked that all started to change in the late seventies and then into the eighties, and quite independently of one another in various spaces. This concept of a focus on results in outcomes. And evidence of the same started a crop up, and it began to coalesce and particularly as we are in an in an era of limited resource is it becomes more important than ever for non-profits to be able to say here’s actual evidence of what we’ve accomplished, as opposed to a story about how big the problem is or how hard we’re trying in his forward. Ken berger, president, ceo of charity navigator who’s been a guest on the show, says that measurement is a battle for the very soul of the nonprofit sector. Ah, it’s taking on that great a prominence? Yes, it is that actually that line comes from a from an article ken and i co co authored it really is because there are those apologised who honestly believe in its ah term used before a fair exchange of differing ideas who honestly believe that non-profits and their clients should not be held. Tio this kind of accountability that the concept of just making services available truly is the mission of the non-profit space and that as long as they’re doing that, they’re doing their job. The problem is that for all of the money we’ve spent thes problems haven’t gone away, and so the question is, shouldn’t we be putting our our resource is into those programs into those organizations that have proven that there having the most beneficial impact, as opposed to giving it to other places that are perhaps not being as effective? The problems are too big, and the resource is of too scarce not to do this anymore, but it truly is a battle within the sector because there are those who just don’t believe in it, and we’ll get to a little of what their arguments are, maybe obliquely only, but that some of the ideas are so nebulous that they can’t be measured that like a child feeling a more positive ah feeling about education or about going to school, sort of nebulous ideas like that, but actually, those, um, sort of feel good outcomes can be measured. Well, first off, i would argue that if an organization is focusing primarily or almost or solely on feel good outcomes, they’re rethinking what they’re doing. Number one but number two there are proxies. There are proxies in terms of attitude, in terms of behaviour, in terms of various other kinds. Of things that can be looked at and can be taken as fairly accurate measures of whether or not if what you want to changes in attitude, whether or not that attitude has changed so it can be done, and we’re gonna talk about some of the ways that non-profits get there and the way that we can measure these things, um, is the butt is the story is the non-profits story the compelling story is that is that dead? Well, it it shouldn’t be dead, but what it should be, what should happen is that should be put in its place. Okay? The idea of telling a story is not a bad one, in fact, that there’s a whole chapter in the book that talks about using narrative as opposed to just factoids, because people remember stories where they have a tendency to forget much more vivid right stories vivid. But the problem is, if the if the story first off focuses on how big the problem is and that’s all it, it focuses on, and there are a number of non-profits i won’t name any, but you could probably think of them. You get things in the mail. And they show you the picture of x, y or z and it’s always how big the problem is, when we’re telling that kind of story and that’s all we’re telling we are in a way, avoiding entirely the question of, well, what do you doing about it and what other results that you have that you have achieved so that’s one one reason why the story has to be put in his proper place? The second is, and i don’t know whether we’ll get into this today, but a lot of non-profits wind up telling the wrong story for the wrong reason and ofttimes to the wrong people so that something has to be carefully handled as well. Okay, we have just another minute before a break, what if not a named example? What do you mean? Telling the wrong story? A lot of non-profits will focus on an emotional story that will highlight, for example, a success story, and it will be about this client of that client, but inadvertently, what they’re doing is they’re focusing the attention on that client. What we don’t know is, is that story cherry picked? How representative actually, is it what they’re not talking about is thie the the work that the organization as a whole does it’s it’s, shall we say, it’s it’s, macro impact. They focus so specifically on the story of this particular client at that particular client, it becomes very easy for their overall message of what they’re doing to be lost, counterproductive in counterfeit. His book is the non-profit outcomes, toolbox, it’s, robert penna. You’ll find his blogged outcomes, toolbox, dot com, and he’ll be with me after this break, so stay with us talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Do you need a business plan that can guide your company’s growth? Seven and seven will help bring the changes you need. Wear small business consultants and we pay attention to the details. You may miss our coaching and consultant services a guaranteed to lead toe. Right, groat. For your business, call us at nine. One seven eight three, three, four, eight six zero foreign, no obligation free consultation. Check out our website of ww dot covenant seven dot com oppcoll are you fed up with talking points? Rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over intellect no more it’s time. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the isaac tower radio in the ivory tower will discuss what’s important to you society, politics, business and family. It’s provocative talk for the realist and the skeptic who want to know what’s. Really going on? What does it mean? What can be done about it? So gain special access to the ivory tower. Listen to me, larry sharp your neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven new york time go to ivory tower radio dot com for details. That’s, ivory tower radio dot com everytime was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com dahna welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio talking to robert penna about his book the non-profit outcomes toolbox right before the break, robert, we were talking about, um, for too much focus on problems. But the non-profit sectors exists to solve problems. So shouldn’t they be talking about what the problems are? Well, again, it has to be put into its proper place into its proper perspective. And this is not, you know, women, teo, bash the sector. Okay. I mean, we have to be honest and say this is a historical perspective and very early on this was how attention was brought. Tea to issues were literally going back to the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. Um, people, for example, he’d carry nation she’s well known for wanting tio bring about prohibition. Well, what she talked about was all of the ancillary downsides of alcoholism, all right, and the folk. But the focus was on drink. The focus was on people drinking too much. And the idea was they didn’t think, think it through to say, well, what’s really gonna happen. What other causes here. It was just focused on the drinks. So we had prohibition and guess what? All of those issues did not go away. The issues of broken families, the issues of domestic violence, the issues of unemployment, the issues of of poverty didn’t go away just because, well, we got rid of alcohol for those period that period of time. So part of the problem of the focus on just the problem is it tends to lead to simplistic answers because the concept is that progress is a lack of the problem when, in point of fact, really, the outcomes approach is that what you want to do is bring about some positive change that goes beyond merely an absence of the problem. So that’s one of the problems with focusing on just the problem, the second thing is that it kind of takes you off the hook if you think about it, for having to say, really what you have done to alleviate the problem or what success you’ve had in alleviating the problem. If every time i come back to you, pick an issue, homeless puppies, i come to you and i sent put something in the mail and tony, you know, look at all these starving puppies, and i say it was ten thousand starving puppies and you know it, justin in manhattan or something. That’s, a problem. And you emotionally are expected to resupply with a cheque will. Now, next year i come back and i say, well, now, there’s ten thousand homeless puppies. This still ten thousand homeless puppies will again. What it keeps focusing on is the problem. It does not focus on am i having an impact on alleviating situation. So that’s, a real son of short way of describing why that tends to be a ah sort of a circle, you know, like the snake eating its own tail. It really doesn’t get you where you need to pay. And you alluded to earlier the fact that we do still have deep seated, entrenched problems that we have been working on for generations like homelessness, entrenched poverty, etcetera. Exactly right be a hunger of broken family, you name it, these problems, or of worldwide. And so you might even get thes these appeals from any place on the globe. But it tends to in a lot of ways, i think the lead to a sense of defeat because, i mean, think about it if every single year you get the same appeal from the same organization showing the same picture of the same a person in need. The question starts to hate begs the question, well, what’s happening with my money, what we’ve been at it for so long, and we’re still seeing the same right? The one problem? One gentleman i speak speaking to someone’s ago, he runs a non-profit e program in ohio, and he said to me, well, do candy said, you know, we’ve been fighting this war on poverty for, you know, forty something years, and i’m not so sure we have anything to show for it. And part of the reason is that from the beginning, what we have to show for it was not the accent the accent was on making money available and making programs available. You’ve heard a thousand times there, the concept, the underserved community, right, which you could argue about whether they’re actually underserved enough but that’s a different story. But the question is what it seems to lead to. It leads to the implication that if you make services available, things will be better. Well, that’s not necessarily true. Just making them available, zach. Will will result in the outcome that you want exactly, and for years social investors you know, traditionally called funders, we’re investing in making services available rather than investing in change, and if you’re investing in change, then there ought to be sameer marks of the change. The whole concept of moving your your your your head away from the idea of being a thunder what’s being an investor is one of the first the first steps what’s a funder and interested in a funder, is interested in the dispersement of funds. In terms of the process, the paperwork who’s it going to what’s it being used for what’s, an investor interest is an investor and investor wants a return let’s talk about some more of the language differences that you point out not so much differences, but the important language around outcomes measurement that takes up roughly the first third of the book or so gent generally outputs versus outcomes outputs of what you do outcomes of what happens because of what you did okay example of an output and output is training class, and the outcome would be that somebody got a job by virtue of having been trained and more importantly, kept the job for a reasonable amount of time. When and this was this was rampant in the late sixties and seventies. Excuse me when thanks to largely to government, we got into being counting and compliance organisations were measured onto in terms of how many fannies their head in the seats, how many training training class they help? Well, that was great. But then it turned out in some cases people we trained for jobs that no longer existed or the training was insufficient, or there really was no placement attached to it. So we had organizations claiming success because they’ve had x number of fannies in the seats, or because they held so many training’s or the game, but someone certificates. But the end of the day was anybody hyre did anybody did anybody’s life improved? Well, don’t ask me that question when i focused on that were protest on how many training on the output not come from the outcomes spring from the outputs. Yes, yes, you need the outputs in order to get the outcomes and they have to be the right outputs. But again, if that is only just your focus is there’s a saying that a colleague of mine, a colleague of mine who wrote a book, if well, you fundez activity that’s usually all you get? Yes. Okay. All right. Impact, impact flows from outcome. What? Tell us about it and that’s down the road that’s down the road. In other words, for example, let us say that what you were talking about was bringing possible water. And this is something i was engaged in a t united nations potable water, fresh water supplies to certain kinds of villages. I was pronouncing potable. Is that okay? Potable vote on a laudable somebody made a tomato, somebody from and why you were calling correct one of us. I have to. But i was so it’s possible that anyone, when you’re with the united nations. So that’s a hyre i’m just tony martignetti non-profit radio it’s hyre hyre hyre stand. But you had a situation where okay you’re you’re bringing fresh water and now you could think of a host of reasons early on why you might want to do that. One of the more interesting ones to me was to alleviate the burden on the women and girls in the village usually whose job it is to do nothing while david hole water one of the reasons why their educational opportunities were so so stunted was because, well, gee, somebody’s got to get the water and that’s the woman and children’s job rather a woman and girls job. Well, let us say that you bring it in and let us say that some girl does get to go to school. Well, perhaps if twenty years later, when she’s an adult, she actually has a business and gets out of the out of the village, that might be an impact. But the problem with the focusing on impacts these long term impacts is very often the causal chain is extremely weak. The causal chain is broken and it’s kind of hard. Teo teo to take credit for some things. I mean, we’ve all heard the stories of the head start program that’s taking credit because thirty five years later, one of their graduates became the head of some, you know, ceo of some company. Well, you know, thanks, snusz because back in nineteen forty seven, he was with us in today’s end of a corporation. I don’t know about that, but i honestly would say impacts agreed to have these are the kinds of things you see in mission statements and vision statements, the long term impacts, what organizations need to do is figure out how to translate those things into measurable, achievable, significant, meaningful outcomes. Okay? And shortly, we’re gonna talk about the outcome statement and contrast it with the mission statement and talk about what the elements are and how to get to ah, no a ah, a proper and and viable outcome statement. So yeah, and and just around impacts you say in the book impacts or what we hoped for, outcomes are what we work for. We’ve talked about that means your outcomes or what you’re working toward the impact of the the longer term we we we talked about funder donorsearch versus investor, anything else you want to say about the about? Maybe non-profits looking at themselves as invest, ese. Well, that’s, that’s a very good point. I mean, when someone gives you a gift christmas gift. Okay, now we’ve all had the relative who gives us something. And then every once a while checks oh, yeah? Are you using it? You? Have you been? Did you like the sweater? Most people that give you a gift, they hope you like it, but they really don’t have any kind of control. Now. My grandmother used to give me cash. She would slip me cash in by hand like a handshake, and she would always say, spend it like you earned it. My grandmother never did that. You didn’t know i’m sorry. You know, my grandmother borrowed but no that’s, um, we’re not related event starting now, but the idea is when someone gives you a gift really the in most cases, the strings got, you know, the the very there, the influence they have over the use of that gift, et cetera. Well, the problem is, when you think of yourself, if you’re a non-profit as a grantee of donor of a donation or giving, okay, the implication that the onus is on you to deliver something back to that to that donor to that investor is i like to use use the term is much less clear than if you see them as investors and you see yourself as an invested because right from the start from the basic language, what we’re making clear is that you owe them a return investments give returns exactly. And so the mindset shifts that i mentioned before the first one is moving from the concept of thunder to investor. The second is moving from the concept that what we’re investing in is the provision of services opposed to we’re investing in change. And then what are those changes and how do you define them? And the third thing is that we are going to be satisfied with an account of activity as opposed to actual evidence of results, performance and effectiveness thes air three crucial mindset shifts that the space has to eventually and will adopt, and the sooner non-profits get on this, the better off they’ll be. You quote stephen covey saying, it is incredibly easy to be very busy without being very effective. Well, we’ve always have seen those people who can, you know, go to the office in the busy all day, and at the end of the day, what have they actually accomplished? And the answer is, you know, not a heck of a lot and that’s, you know, that’s, the wife, i’m with robert pennant he’s, the author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Let’s, talk a little about the outcome statement versus the how does it contrast with the mission statement? The well, mission statements of very often pie in the sky and aspirational mean they ought to be yes, and an inspirational okay, okay, but the idea is that the idea that we’re going to solve a problem in our time, we’re gonna end poverty. We’re gonna end homeless. Is thies air the kinds of things that you very often see working their way into? Ah, emission statement or vision statement. The problem is that how do you then actually turn around and effectuated if you basically go to an investor and they said, what do you know what we’re going to? We’re going to end and homelessness well, you’re probably not. So when you don’t, what do you could do? You come back and say i failed an outcome statement is based upon a couple of key characteristics that good outcomes have among those are all right. It’s, meaningful it’s not a cosmetic change. It’s sustainable that’s. A very, very important one, right? It’s achievable. All right, there’s. An old statement. Everyone talks about the weather. No one does anything about it. Why? Because global warming aside, it’s. Tough to do anything about the weather. All right, but if you ah, couch your your goals in not slam dunks you want, they want them to be doable with a stretch. You clearly want to push yourself. All right. But the idea is that you want it to be something that can be achieved in your lifetime on dh something that can be measurable. The sustainable part is particularly crucial. I think of my involvement. I’m a lifelong scout on fifty. Eight years old and your first join the boy scouts when i was ten kayman eagle scout well, i never made it that i was in the order. The arrow you want? Ditigal oh, no, no, no it’s different. But i have a son who was in the order of the arrow and he’s an eagle scout like vicarious thrills. But we i remember ah, project where are we going to clean up a lot. And tha this lot had been used as a dumping ground. The scouts came in and we weed whackers and rakes and tree pruners. And we’re trying to look like a park who had done right and we congratulate ourselves. Up, up, up we all went home in that night’s peace. Somebody dumped a refrigerator. It wasn’t a sustainable achievement because we didn’t have the facility for either blocking it office, stopping people from dumping again. So the concept has to be again in terms of a good outcome, one of the characteristics and aki one is this concept of sustainability, but again, to go back to your question about the difference between a mission statement of vision statement and an outcome statement a lot. Of organizations all right have a tough time differentiating in the book i refer to ah, vision approach. You may recall the book in the book, i had a picture of some futuristic city, teo illustrate that my belief is that mission statement envision statements are both great things that good ideas, they’re visionary, they belong up on the wall, but they don’t belong in terms of you every day action plan, they’re different from an action plan it’s the difference be between having the long term goal of i wanted to be fit. I want to be trimmed and having an actual diet that you’re that you’re following. All right? Um, you know, there are numerous examples we could weigh could point to okay, i’m realizing now, since we’re talking about since i’m talking about being an eagle scout, i’m really you know, i didn’t measure the the outcomes of my eagle scout project, which was teo. Make sure that address is street addresses were visible to emergency services in my little town of altum panned new jersey, which had maybe three thousand homes or so, so we looked at every home and where there wasn’t a visible address. From the street that a policeman or fireman or the ambulance could find could see it easily. We left a note in the in the mailbox, and the note was signed by the police chief, the fire chief and the head of the angelus score. But that’s just that’s just activity. I don’t know what the outcome’s were. I don’t know if more lives were saved police response times, we’re reduced fire response times are reduced. That would have been right that would come into the out moment. And what? And if you had done the eagle project as an outcome, you know, an outcome based thing that was specifically the kinds of things that you would have wanted to look at. Now that was response time reduced, you know, i don’t know anything is dramatic, is we’re lives saved, but certainly were response times reduced. You could even you could even have done it as looking at things like ups, you know? Did ups have fewer lost deliveries because they were brought to the wrong home? All right, i have thiss factual case up in albany way way. Have to hold on your case. Feeling bad about my eagle project from thirty five years ago. This is tony martignetti tony martignetti non-profit radio we have to take a break after the break. We’ll be tony’s take two for two minutes and then i’ll return with robert penna. Stay with us now. We were going into a break. I’ll have the second half of that interview next week. You could tell you know he didn’t hey didn’t like that. I said i was an eagle scout and then he said he wasn’t an eagle scout. So that’s why, i think that’s ah that’s reflecting now, that’s. Why the bashing of my eagle scout project? That was a good project that i’m i got i got raves from the first aid core and the fire department in town. I remember that was a good project. All right, yes, we go away. I’ll have some live listening love. We got lots of live listeners tony’s take two and then maria simple she’s in the studio news sources. New source. Stay with me for all that they didn’t think the tubing getting ding, ding, ding ding you’re listening to the talking alternative network get in! Dahna duitz are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Hi, i’m ostomel role, and i’m sloan wainwright, where the host of the new thursday morning show the music power hour. Eleven a m. We’re gonna have fun. Shine the light on all aspects of music and its limitless healing possibilities. We’re gonna invite artists to share their songs and play live will be listening and talking about great music from yesterday to today, so you’re invited to share in our musical conversation. Your ears will be delighted with the sound of music and our voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz durney i’m dana ostomel, ceo of deposit, a gift. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’ve got live listener love nashville, tennessee i don’t know if you’ve been with us before nashville. Welcome new york, new york and new york, new york couple people from right here in the city and los angeles, california. Welcome live listener love to all of you. We also have someone masked in the us there’s someone else at least one of the person in the u s maybe it’s, the national security agency. I don’t know, i can’t tell, but you’re out there live listener love to all of you moving out to asia. Always lots of loyal listeners in asia, none ing china and guangzhou china ni hao and also happy mid autumn festival hope. Hope you did you save me some moon cake? I would love for you to send me some moon cake, if you will if we’ll make the trip over malaysia, we can’t tell what city maybe it’s kuala lumpur maybe not. But malaysia live listeners love to you. Welcome. And seoul, korea anya haserot will have mohr. Lots of live listener love time for tony’s. Take two. Last week i had a client tell me planned e-giving saved our ass. It’s. Exactly what? They said, and save them from what in four of the past six years planned giving saved them from shortfalls in unrestricted giving unrestricted cash planned giving got them to goal in those four years, including, of course, the recession and that’s, because the vast majority of plan gif ts and you would expect at least seventy five percent sometimes as high as ninety percent of all your planned gift doesn’t matter what kind of mission you have to be bequests and most bequests are unrestricted gif ts so that as you build your program, you gettinto lots of wills, and i’m just talking about will bequests in will’s not any of the other other many types of plant gifts just talking about wills as you get into more and more of those. The fact is that people pass away irrespective of the state of the economy, whether we’re in a recession, whether stock market is high or low, people pass away, and those requests that are in those people’s estates represent a lot of unrestricted cash for you. Not that you khun budget for it that’s unwise. But as your plan giving program grows, there will be revenue from bequests each year. And i say a lot more about that. On my blogged at tony martignetti dot com. Also going to be at bebe con on september thirtieth, this’s the blackbaud conference it’s at the gaylord convention center in maryland. And we’re running some some contests while i’m there. I’m going to be there interviewing for this show, doing about fifteen or so interviews. And i’ll be on stage on the exhibit floor, but they set up stage for for metoo podcast from and the contests are that i’m giving away two hours of consulting teo either people who were at the show or who are on twitter that day so you can tweet live that day, september thirtieth, and you have a chance to win or if you’re at bebe con, you can you can enter to win and there’s more about all of that on my block. Also a tony martignetti dot com there’s, a post devoted to be become twenty thirteen that’s coming up on the thirtieth of september and that is tony’s take two for friday, twentieth of september thirty seventh show of the year maria simple she’s in the studio today she’s the prospect find her you know, her he’s, a trainer and speaker on prospect research fact she spoke today we’re going to talk a little about that. Her website is the prospect finder dot com her book is panning for gold. Find your best donor prospects now she’s our doi end of dirt, cheap and free you could follow maria on twitter at maria simple welcome to the studio. Maria. Hey, tony. Good to see you in person. I know it’s. A pleasure, it’s a it’s. A bigger pleasure than usual to have you here. Have you hear? Face-to-face you did a little speaking gig today. What was that in the city? Ah, yes. So wilmington trust hosted some of their non-profit clients and colleagues and had an opportunity teo, to do a topic on prospecting on a shoestring budget. So it was a lot of fun as our die. And you’re the perfect person for that. What was what were what was a question? That you got any common questions or ah one that you hear a lot that you want to share? Probably one of the common questions was just sort of related to, you know, what are the resource is that i typically would go to and is it worth paying for? The resource is, you know, people always want to know is always good to just use the free resource is or sometimes should we be paying for them? So and i had a chance to to talk about the new foundation center’s project that we have, which we’re talking about today, so that was good that we were able, teo dovetail that in you and i have talked a lot about free resource is, of course, as i said, you know, a couple times you are doing end of dirt cheap and free. Um, do you think you’re do you think you’re really hindering your program if you’re only relying on free resource is well, what i think you’re doing is you’re probably spending a lot more time staff time on trying to hit a number of different research resource is, whereas ah lot of the fee based resource is will compile a bunch of things under one and so on what you’re what you’re not spending on resource is you probably are expending on staff time unless you have a volunteer doing your research. Ok, ok, go let’s, talk about our some of new sources that with news sources that we talked about and then well, later on, we’ll get to the new source. The foundation center thing. Yeah. You have advice about newspapers? Yeah. So of course, one of the things that you want to be able to do is sort of keep on top of what’s going on in your local economy what the local business owners air doing, for example, who the movers and shakers are. And then certainly, as you’re doing reactive research, that means you have a name of somebody you’re looking to research. One of the sources that you definitely want to check out is news sources. So i generally will try and check out newsreel ated to where they live a cz their primary residents. But if they’re snowbirds, so for example, if you have somebody from the northeast and they spend their winters in palm beach, eso you would want to be able to check out well, what are they doing? Philanthropic lee there. Okay, cool. So you know where they’re where they’re located in you? Then you look for local news sources. You just searched the newspapers in the vicinity. Is that well? That that’s. Definitely one way of doing it. I love using, as you know, libraries. And, you know, i’m a huge proponent of our library systems. And so, in fact, if you did have that snowbird down in palm beach, i you can go to the palm beach county library. And they have magazines and newspapers that you, khun research online for free. So they will include the local re newspapers for palm beach area. And even if you’re not a cardholder, they will give you a temporary pass. A research passed to be able to research their sources. So it’s fantastic. You can get that online. Yeah. Get the free research past online and be anywhere in the country. I believe so. Yes. So you just there’s. Ah, button. You click and you just request it. And so it would give you access to those newspapers if that’s indeed where your prospect was living for temporarily do you have ah, earl for since ah, approaching winter and palm beach is a popular snowbird place. Yeah, well, it’s, palm beach county, p, b, c library dot or ge is thie site. You want to go to bbc library dot or ge? Okay, you could put that on facebook page for sure. Okay. Um, okay, interesting. So, what is the advantage to going to the library? Is it because they they’re aggregating versus trying to find the sources on your own? So going through a library resource is going to mean you’re not going to pay for the full article. So very often, if you go directly to a news source, what they’ll allow you to do in a lot of cases is to do the search to come up with a set of list of search results, but then you won’t be able to see the full article without paying for it. Whereas if you go through the portal of a library, you typically will be standing are doi in-kind now it zoya i said, like, five times already today, we’re not even family it’s, very smiths. Incredible. Well, you know, your shoe string budget, right? So you’ve got to be able teo to figure out a way to access news sources and not paying arm and a leg for them. Go through the library so you don’t pay for your feet. Content? Excellent. I’m definitely include that we i post takeaways now on facebook page on dh. That will definitely be one of the one. The bullets. Excellent one. Is there something else you want to add about this? No. Okay. Okay. Um, now, are there fee based places that you can find local news sources? Yeah. I mean, there are and i would say for for the most part, though, non-profits that are doing research on more localized basis unless you’re really looking to get into international research, right? Sew something like it used to be called dow jones interactive. I can’t remember what they switched teo, but that news source, for example, will be able to scan newspapers worldwide. And in case you do have, i could see you in more of a college or university setting where they may have alum living all over the world, and they have to be able to see what’s going on in those sources. But i think for the for the average, your audience, the other ninety five percent who might be more local you khun definitely do that. Of course, you’re your listeners who are overseas would want to take advantage of some of that, so you can definitely google news resource is fee based news resource is, and you’ll come up with some alternatives to looking on a paid basis. Okay, now we have just about a minute before we go away for a couple minutes. This presumes that you confined addresses on people or at least if not an address a locale. Teo, how do you how do you find those locales? What do you get that well in? In a lot of cases, when i’m doing my research, for example, i will be told that somebody might have a second home somewhere else. So during the course of my research, i know to be looking for that piece of information. S oh, if i know they have a secondary piece of property in another state, i’m always trying to find out what the news sources are and checking out what they might be doing. Philanthropic lee. Sometimes they’re participating in golf tournaments, galas and so forth, so it’s, kind of good to know what they’re supporting when they are doing their their snow birding, right, okay, because you can help find the vicinity. All right, we’re gonna have a lot more on this on dove course. Also, maria’s, sixty second style. Stop at the very end, so hang with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Buy-in are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping countries. People be better business people. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems blocked? A little help can come in handy when choosing an alternate route. Your natal chart is a map of your potentials. It addresses relationships, finance, business, health and, above all, creativity. Current planetary cycles can either support or challenge your objectives. Time. Montgomery taylor. If you would like to explore the help of a private astrological reading, please contact me at monte at monty taylor dot. Com let’s monte m o nt y at monty taylor dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Dahna with the prospect finder maria simple, and we’re talking about news sources, and then we’re going to get to a new source shortly. Maria, this part of the value of this is if you find that someone works in a place that’s different than where they’re living, right, so then you’d want to be doing this local local news search in both places. Yeah, i think that would be very valuable, you know, especially when you’re talking about metropolitan areas where you’ve got people commuting on hour or more to get to work. S o they might be doing some philanthropic efforts in the locale where they work as opposed to where they live because they well, the commute is so long, so yeah, absolutely. The’s online research access cards that you can you can sometimes get. Do they have ah, limit to how long is that for a day pass? Or how does that work? Well, ahh, yeah. I mean, they all have different rules around them, so you would definitely check out with the individual library. But for the new sources that i typically will be searching and and that search is actually a lot of newspapers across the country i go through my local county library, i have my county library card. It has a bar code on the back of the card, and that barcode is what allows me the access to being able to search things like a pro quest, which is a new stand that’s available online and another one news bank, which is available online. So again there it’s it’s, searching across multiple newspapers across the country, but that’s that’s mostly in a situation where i i i’m not entirely sure where people might be residing elsewhere, but if i know where they are, then i will definitely go straight to that newspaper of the town where they’re spending other time. And you and i have talked about this before the value of having a local library card like you’re talking about. You use your local library? Absolutely. It gives you access. Yeah. You’re saying so? Yeah. Lots of sites that yeah, and you don’t even need to be, you know, on site at the library to do the research. You anywhere. You have an internet connection, you can be doing the research. So that may be money. Well spent just on a local library card. Knowing that you could get ah, access. Yeah, well, if it’s your local library card, you won’t have to spend any money at all. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so long stuff had one. But if you if you find that your your local or county library does not have a good card, another source to think about is your alma mater. Because sometimes your universities and colleges will allow you access. Teo to resource is online. And another alternative is you can buy a library card. Ah, if you if you live outside that county or region, some libraries will allow that to happen. So in the fees range hundred to two hundred dollars. Okay. And if and if it’s a place that’s. Ah, popular spot for your your prospects. That may be money well spent. Absolutely. Local library. Yeah. Excellent tip about, um, it’s. Amazing about your alma mater. Another way, another backdoor way. Teo, get library access. Yeah, right. Cool. All right, let’s, move to the foundation center. They have something called fbo. They’re calling fto free foundation directory online on dh. You checked it out for us? Yeah, i did. So, of course. Staying with our sort of library theme, right? So foundation center, very specific library on doing donorsearch research on dh, whether you’re doing the search at the foundation centers library in manhattan or and any of their cooperating collections, you may be aware that they have fto foundation directory online, which is a fee based resource that they make available for free through the library’s. However, what they have now done is they have basically taken a portion of that data base and made it available, or certain search functionalities across the board available for free through a link on their website. So you don’t even have to be in one of the co operating collections. Okay, excellent. And what does it? What does it offer this this limited free service, right? So i did. I definitely found, you know, some some pros and cons. So what do you want? First, the pros of the calls start with the positive. Okay? Absolutely. Okay, pro it’s free, right? So i have to promote that for sure. Andi, i think i find that it was good for both reactive and proactive research. And we’ve talked about that before. Reactive. You’ve got the name of a prospect? Proactive, you’re just in there trying to find some new prospects. I loved the fact that you had access to researching the entire nine nineties. The text of irs nine nine text searchable its search text of the nineties is searchable, right? Do you know if guidestar they’re popular nine ninety site, do they do they have that feature? I think they might have that feature as well, but this is the first time that i’m seeing foundation center making that available for free. That’s, right? Well, oh, yeah, i don’t know if guides to write, i may be confusing. I don’t know if guide star has nine nineties of foundations yeah, they d’oh, d’oh, d’oh, andi. Also, what you can do is you’re getting a glimpse of the fto product, right? So you’re getting a glimpse says to because you’ll get a certain amount of data that you can get for free and then as soon as you go to try and do a little bit more, it’ll say, well, you need to be a subscriber, so at least it gets you in the mode of understanding how to use the tool and do the research and then and then, you know, you could decide either subscribe on a monthly basis and at what? They have various levels of subscription, or go to the local cooperating collection and used their source there. And then you can use it for free. Absolutely. Latto one of cooperating court. Cooperating collections. Yeah. So those were the real pros that i found let’s. Give the what’s the girl for this. Ok, so the girl for this is fbo dot foundation, center, dot or ge? Okay, i do love thee, even even if it’s even if it’s available elsewhere. I just i love that keyword search of nine nineties. Yeah, it’s. Really, really cool, eh? So what i did was i did a little test of the keyword search. First of all, just like you would be doing a keyword search on google if you had a phrase you want to make sure that you’re putting quotation marks around anything that’s a phrase, right? So i was testing it for the phrase foster care i was trying to see. Well, who are the funders that might come up funding foster care and you can also narrow it down by st. Right? So i did a search for who was funding foster care in new york and came up with a bunch of foundation hits, so then i thought, well, let me see if this really worked. So i went into a few of the nine nineties, and i searched for the word foster inside of thie nine ninety and lo and behold, there it wass and it appeared as one of the grants that they had made was for funding foster care. Excellent. Excellent. Now, if you don’t use those quotes, you might end up with it’s on foster brooks. So the comedian who used to play a drunk, actually what i what what had happened was i did the search without putting the quotes first, and i got a ton of hits and i couldn’t believe it and i thought, something’s wrong here what had happened was they picked up on embedded in the nine nineties companies that were foundations that were invested in foster wheeler as a company. Ok, so i thought, okay, so i’ve got to refine it further and once i re ran the search with foster care in quotes, then i got better hits. Excellent love this love the keyword search. Okay, yeah, that was great anymore. You want to say positive before we get to the what you saw some problems with? Um, no. Go ahead. Okay, good. What do you have on the downside? So, on the downside, you know, some fields are definitely fi base to research. And i think the biggest downside of all was that you could not export the results so you could not come up with that list of foundation hits and and download them to a spreadsheet to have something that might be very share a bowl with other staff for board members before you decided to do this research and behind the food that’s behind the export. So you have to take notes? Yeah. Yeah. You have to take notes, or yeah, you could construct the spreadsheet yourself. I’m sure, but okay. I just kind of found that that might be a con, but as i said, you know, you can definitely go on a monthly subscription or use it at the cooperating collection. Okay. That the only downsides? Yeah. I found more pros and cons. Actual. Excellent. All right, cool. I was like, i love the foundation. Center for people here in new york. It’s it’s right on the lower fifth of it, i think it’s at sixteenth street and at all the cooperating collections. Not only is it free to use, but they you are very generous with showing you teaching you how to use it. The librarians are there and they will spend as much time as it takes. And it really doesn’t take much because it’s a pretty simple system i ous i recall teo teo use but the librarians are very generous with their help. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Okay, cool. Let’s. See we we’re going. We’re going toe, i guess. Wrap up. I asked er i asked you for a sixty second style stop. What do you s o? We’re opening this too. You know things like travel, leisure, food, what’s your just sixty seconds what’s your what’s, your what’s, your style stuff. So i decided to pick the topic of travel for and there’s a fabulous website and mobile app called hop stop dot com and i had to use it today. As a matter of fact, i need to figure out how to get from my location in midtown to your studio here and it told me exactly which subways i had to take to get here. Is it only for public transportation hub? Stop no, you can. You can select to be told how to walk to a location, how taxi and approximately what the taxi might cost. So you you’ve got a lot of different options that you can play around with and yeah, it’s pretty cool. I see people using hop stop dot com. My objection is that when they’re new york, if you live in new york, if you live in new york, i don’t think you should be using hop. Stop. I think that’s cheating. I think you’re supposed to use the other tools that are more difficult. It’s just it’s a part of living in new york. You’re supposed to do it the hard way, not the hop stop where you’re supposed to get the apse that the empty a the metropolitan transit authority has, you know, they use a map that from the subway token from the token booth, if you have to go paper, i just object to residents using hop stop. But if you’re visiting someplace hop stop is really cool. Perfect. We got some last minute live listener look that maura liberation last minute live listener love japan! I never want to leave you out tokyo, sugisaki, yokohama sutjipto or sugito? I’m not sure konichiwa to our japanese live listeners where’s, north carolina today in the u s didn’t north carolina and check in miree simple, thank you very much for coming to the studio. Thanks for having me always it’s a special pleasure today, as i said, you can find maria on twitter at maria simple and you’ll find her blawg her sight at the prospect finder dot com next week. I have part two of the non-profit outcomes toolbox, no more berating my eagle scout project, but we do mention easy bake ovens, so you wantto you want to listen for that? Remember easy bake ovens. I’m going way back like foster brooks references from thirty years ago, you got to keep up. Also, amy sample ward is back, our social media contributor and the ceo of non-profit technology network has tips for optimizing your profiles to boost your search results and stay consistent with your mission, and she will have a sixty second style stop. I’m interested in what you think about that little nufer teacher, do you have a sixty second style stop? I’ll i’ll share yours if you got one you want to use, you hit me on facebook or or twitter or even on my block does contact page. Let me know what you think. I’ll let you know if you have one you want to share over nine thousand leaders, fundraisers and board members of small and midsize charities, the other ninety five percent listen each week you know how to reach me. If you want to talk about sponsoring the show and we have a sponsor starting in october, be welcoming them. Our creative producers claire meyerhoff sam legal, which is our line producer, shows social media is by deborah askanase of community organizer two point oh, and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules our music. Listen to that bye, scott stein. I hope you’ll be with me next friday one to two p m eastern. I’ll be here in the studio. I hope you will be listening. Live one, two, two eastern at talking alternative dot com e-giving didn’t think that shooting the good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get a drink. Cubine are you a female entrepreneur? Ready to break through? Join us at sixty body sassy sol, where women are empowered to ask one received what they truly want in love, life and business. Tune in thursday said. Known eastern time to learn timpson. Juicy secrets from inspiring women and men who, there to define their success, get inspired, stay motivated and defying your version of giant success with sexy body sake. Sold every thursday ad men in new york times on talking alternative that calms. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. You’re listening to talking alternative network at www dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. This is tony martignetti athlete named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication. And the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking dot com. Hyre

081: BFD: Board Financials Dilemma – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Andy Robinson & Nancy Wasserman, co-authors of “The Board Member’s Easier Than You Think Guide to Nonprofit Finances”

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com

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Dahna hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i’m your aptly named host and its march second, two thousand twelve well, i hope you were with me last week because there were some excellent interviews last week like this one take on teens aria finger she was that she is the ceo of do something dot or ge, and she had ideas for motivating teens and getting their passion points, finding their passion points to get them engaged in your work. Also pursue your hero’s journey. His journey took him across the u s in a vw microbus, inviting two hundred of the country’s most famous and powerful to coffee. Eric sapper stine is chief creative officer at living wonder, and he shared some of his amazing lessons. Both of those were pre recorded at last year’s next-gen charity conference, then last week also had going greater into google search. Maria simple, the prospect finder and our regular prospect research contributor, dug deeper into google search how do you search results different when you’re logged in or not logged in? Plus advanced search tips? It was a short course on search to help your prospect research this week b f d board financials dilemma of course that’s what b f d means what do you do for board members who can’t read your balance sheet? The authors of board members easier than you think god to non-profit finances, i can answer that. Andy robinson and nancy wasserman explain why understanding finances is critical to board members so that they preserve your good work and protect themselves to their eyes glaze over when the numbers come out, we’ll help your board achieve financial literacy also, roughly thirty two minutes into the hour on tony’s take to my block this week is our irs is helping you. They’ve got some helpful web content on a new site for non-profits i’ll talk a little about that we’re live tweeting the show this week as we do every week. Join the conversation, use hashtag non-profit radio if you have questions for our guests, send them bye twitter using that hashtag this show is supported by g grace corporate real estate services and i’m very grateful for their support even though i just flubbed that sentence, i really am grateful for their support now we take a break. And when we return, b f d board. Financials dilemma. Stay with me. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Durney are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you, too? He’ll call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight, three that’s two one two, seven to one eight, one eight, three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help bilich we take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hyre oppcoll. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Metoo welcome back, it’s, b, f d board, financials dilemma andy robinson provides training and consulting for non-profits in fund-raising board development, marketing and earned income. He specializes in the needs of groups working for human rights, social justice, environmental conservation, historic preservation and community development. Nancy wasserman has over twenty five years of experience in community finance and social enterprise development her particular skill is working with clients on projects that must satisfy both financial and social or community goals. They worked together to co author of the book the board members, easier than you think i’d to fund to non-profit finances published by emerson and church, and i’m very glad that their collaboration brings them both to the show. Andy nancy, welcome. Thank you. Thankyou. Tony. Pleasure to have you about both. Andy. Pleasure to have you back. Good talk with you again. Thank you, nancy. Why is this important for board members to care about the financial condition of a charity? Because that’s, really? What? Your charges as a boardmember. You have the responsibility to make sure the organization is achieving its mission. And the way the best way to do that is to make sure it. Has the resource is it needs to do it, and the financial statements and the finance non-profit finances how, you know, pretty quickly, what’s going on, especially if you’ve you’ve got that information. You also have some responsibilities to the community to deliver non-profit and that does achieve its mission and does it in a responsible and raducioiu fiduciary appropriate way so boardmember czar have a fiduciary duty to the charity, right? Absolutely. To the charity and to the public at large. Okay, s so why do you say the public at large? What? Because the in the u s the internal revenue service typically gives charity’s a ah non-profit designation, which allows them to receive contributions and issue tax deductible receipts and because they us is forgoing that tax, um, on knows on those dollars and giving the public a public benefit, the irs exercises oversight of non-profit charities and make sure that they really are delivering on their charitable purpose. So there is some public money in here it’s foregone before gone tax revenue at at a bare minimum, often there’s also direct public money from government grants or government contracts. And how about financial problems that can occur within the within the within the charity, like you bring out an example in your book of people not getting their salaries paid things like that, you know you there. Is that that oversight potential here you you are running a small business on dh. You want to make sure that your employees they’re well cared for, that you’re achieving your mission in the world at large sometimes in charities will see folks, you know, giving up salary on dh or deferring payment out of the goal of achieving the mission of the organization in the long term that seriously hurts the organization because people are really watching what’s happening with the money. Where is it coming in? Where is it going? Out? And andy isn’t their potential personal liability for board members when when their problems like this. Like nancy’s describing? Well, let me first cubine disclaimer here, which is that neither nancy nor i or attorneys then we can’t give people legal advice. Okay, well, there’s, no way haven’t nobody’s given you. The listeners have not given you a retainer fee, so you know, okay, i won’t play this. Um, if there is nonpayment of payroll taxes for example, of accusation goes into debt, doesn’t pay the irs or state taxing agencies boardmember czar individually liable for that? Um, most expenses boardmember czar protected from being personally liable on, but there are some exceptions, so i don’t know that that’s what drives this conversation? I mean, four members are simply looking at the balance sheet as a way of making sure that they’re not personally liable. That’s one level on this conversation, but there’s a whole lot more levels having to do with stuff that nancy was talking about. You are we being efficient? We meeting our mission? Are we tracking our work so that we know we’re being effective and that’s really what financial management is about? Indeed, okay, there’s certainly a whole spectrum of reasons why boardmember should care. I just wanted to bring out the last one, which is there is the potential of personal liability. Um, let’s see, wei have just about a minute before a break, and i’m hoping, nancy, why don’t you introduce the idea of the the financial dashboard? And then we’ll talk a lot more about it right after this break? Sure, the financial dashboard is something we introduced. That really gives you a one page sense of how’s, the organization doing what what i’ve found happens with a lot of non-profits is that they, um, they give their boards just reams of paper. And all of a sudden you get the budget and the the performance in the balance sheet and there’s, fifteen pages of financial statements and most boardmember zeev unwanted, who do know how to read. Financials don’t plow their way through it. And so the dashboard is is essentially a one page opportunity to get a sense of how are you operating financially? Are you being efficient, and are you having an impact and let you do it in a fairly simple way? And we’ll talk a lot about that one pager right after this break, i hope you stay with us. E-giving ending duitz e-giving ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving. E-giving good. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one, two, seven, two, one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people be better business people. Hi, this is psychic medium. Betsy cohen, host of the show. The power of intuition. Join me at talking alternative dot com mondays at eleven a. M call in for a free psychic reading learned how to tune into your intuition to feel better and to create your optimum life. I’m here to guide you and to assist you in creating life that you deserve. Listen. Every monday at eleven a, m on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back for b f d board, financials dilemma my guests or andy robinson and nancy wasserman, co authors of the board members easier than you think guide to non-profit finances and well, we’re live tweeting the show and we have a guest live tweeted this week. She is mazarene treyz is from austin, texas. Mazarene hello, thank you for doing the live tweeting today you can follow mazarene her ideas at wild woman fund on twitter and you conjoined, of course, the conversation right now using the hashtag non-profit radio and andy, i want to throw a question to you quickly. We got a question on twitter from mazarene what if an executive director was found stealing one of the things nancy and i were talking about that kind of fraud issues earlier? Would you give them a second chance? Oh boy, well, i’d be curious to hear nancy’s answer to this. My initial response no, followed by it depends and, um actually was on the board of an organisation where we found the opposite problem, which was the board of executive director was pouring money into the organization. He emptied out his retirement account, but it wasn’t telling. Anybody? He did this because thie grants weren’t coming through, and he was too embarrassed. So that’s a that’s, a that’s, a problem of being over generous, though it is paying for it himself. Yeah, we ended up filing the guy. Yeah, and the reason was he wasn’t disclosing to the board with the board needed do its job, right? Right. And i would say the issue in that case isn’t so much as, uh, misdirection lying. So i am. I am, you know, obviously kept is a bad thing, but the board needs full disclosure from the executive director to be able to do their job. Well. And i know that’s really where i would go on that. How about you, nancy? Andi was curious to hear your answer. I know. I would say again, like andy, it depends probably depending on the amount of severity and this situation. You know, if if the executive director was borrowing twenty dollars, from the petty cash when they forgot to bring their wallet toe work one day um, clearly that’s not not egregious enoughto fire somebody. But if they’re helping themselves to the to the checking account and redirecting grants into their own bank account? Yeah. Probably caused tio tio fire them even if they pay it back, right? That really? Because they pay back with interest, that really doesn’t matter, does it? I mean, the thing about non-profits is, you know, they’re not your own private fiefdom or your own private business there. Is there a community engagement where the reason you know you have? Ah, board of directors that are the final legal responsibility for the organization. So you really shouldn’t be operating it like your own private business. Let’s, talk a little about the dashboard now, nancy, the financial dashboard we introduced earlier it’s a one pager which i think will be a relief to people that they’re not getting a sheath of financial forms and balance sheets. But what? What do you think? What key parts that should be in this financial dashboard that sort of streamline the overview for board members. I would say that that there’s really three parts to it there’s a financial part where you’re looking at, you know, sort of what’s our total budget. Um, you know, every board member of every organisation should be able to very quickly say whether the organization is a three hundred thousand dollars a year organization or five million dollars a year. Organization. That’s sort of a basic sense of scale. Um, are we making money or not? Do we have net income? Hyre, uh, do we have cash on hand? Those kinds of questions do we, uh, do we have network? So we you know, if everything had to be liquidated today, um, would there be any, any money leftover or any value left? Geever um, that that was tangible value? Not just, uh, goodwill? Um, we also want to be looking at at how efficient the organization is and efficiency changes, depending on what the organization does it it’s really sense of being able to measure you you against yourself or against industry standards and it’s, you know, the level of what it costs to deliver services, for example, to severely challenged populations versus what it takes to deliver services toe highly educated people in an urban area where they’re all easily able to get to something. The costs levels are going to be different, and and we’re not saying that they should be the same, but to know what it costs for you. To serve your clients, what it costs to have volunteers and then the impact and i don’t know, andy, if you want to talk a little bit about that impact, how you measure whether you’re meeting your mission or not, and they’re often knew miracle measures that you can think about, you know, if you’re a land trust, how many acres air you preserving? If you do mentoring with children, how many adult children matches do you have? I sometimes this is long term tracking, which is hard for a grassroots organizations to do, but in most field there are ways of measuring your impact in terms of the number of clients you’re serving, or the number of audience members who are involved and hopefully there’s some measures that you can come up with that act, the quality of your work as well. Okay, so people here is we could get this all on one page. He would have data from two years ago. You’d have data from last year. You’d have data from the current year. He could lay them out and see what the trends are. All right, that’s, the financial dashboard i love how you guys have this little dance worked out where nancy talks about the financial and efficiency parts, but then she throws it over to her co author, andy for impact, and you have it all worked out, sort of sort of taking the show over, but okay, it’s, in a good way, which which leads me to a question i said, i have to ask when two of when you co author a book, how do you decide whose name comes first? Did you just do alphabetical order? Did you flip a coin or i see i’m too narcissistic to co author with anybody but but how did you guys work that out? How did you decide that? Andy andy’s alphabetically? First on first names on last names on the honest truth is he did a lot of the writing work where as i did helped him with content, so it was very easy for andy to go. All right, so if i had come in, you wouldn’t have looked only at martignetti you would have lost her, looked at toni, and then i’d have fallen maybe to the bottom, which is probably what i would have had much to contribute to this. So you’re wise not to take you anywhere, even though i pitched you. Otherwise, you name is well known in a certain community. We might have put you first on the your publisher would never have approved that one of the questions that we ask before the show that relates to what we’re talking about now is, do you believe all your board members have at least a general understanding of your financial position? And seventy percent said yes, thirty percent said no, so that’s, pretty good, seventy percent, but the thirty percent. They’re not really very confident, right genera, and that was just a for general understanding. Okay, so the, uh, that’s the dashboard. Andy, should these things be devoted only to you the authority of the finance committee? No. I mean, i think a really good use of the finance committee is, well, stuff down. Rest of the board can understand. It provides thing and support to the rest of the board. Serve as mentors and back-up for the people on staff. We’re doing this. This book is not about house staff. Members need to do financial management mohr effectively. But the reality is a lot of people who are executive directors or even finance directors need help. And one of the goals of finance committee is to give them that help when they need it. So away to think about this is excuse me. If the board is operating at a high altitude and the staff is down on the ground slashing through the week, the finance committee is sort of in the middle there, providing a bridge between those two groups of people. And so that means that financial dashboard is for the whole board to review, right? Yes, absolutely. Was that a heck? Yes. Was that you could say? Hell, yes. Okay. Okay. Wei have another question on from twitter. Reminding listeners you can join the conversation on twitter using hashtag non-profit. Radio board members need to look at the impact of the organization. Andy, i guess this is for you since you talked about impact, how do you measure if you’re meeting your mission or not? I guess she’s looking for a little more detail. Okay, well, obviously depends what your mission is. There are some standard benchmarks for how you’re doing. Uh, if you work with substance abuse, there are networks that do that that can talk about ways of tracking your impact. For example, how many people come through a program, get clean and stay ugly if you are a food bank and you’re delivering food to the community? There’s a number of metrics there that come out of arika america’s harvest, i forget the name of the national network, but they’ll tell you how much money you should be spending more or less based on the population that you’re serving and how much when he pounds of food you can put out into the community pretty much every non-profit, um, subset has symmetric that irrelevant, and the trick is to learn the ones that are relevant. Your type of organization and then trying to adapt them to your particular need. And that would be important for the executive director toby recognizing certainly, and then right. And then conveying that too. Lord. Yes. And in some cases, depending on the size of the organization, there is some board work to help find those numbers. I mean, i work a lot with really small organizations who has a staffer overwhelmed and it be great to say to a finance committee on a volunteer basis, i’m trying to figure out what the relevant metrics are for i type art type of organization who would be willing to do some research and bring that back to us. Doesn’t aboard metoo. But, you know, in the larger organization, yeah, that’s gonna fall staff one of the other questions we asked pre show was, does your board have a committee devoted to financial issues? About eighty percent said yes and the remainder roughly twenty percent said no, nancy does there? Does there have to be a finance committee? There does not have to be a finance committee. I think it really depends on the size of the organization. The level of support. That the director might need you know, how complex the organization is and a zoo also how savvy the board is. If most of the board understands financials and feels quite comfortable with it in a small organization, you could get away without a finance committee. I’d say you want one in any organization that’s about to undertake any kind of major financial growth or change or, uh, new initiative in a larger organization. It just is a great way to assist either the finance manager or the executive director and developing budgets and exercising oversight, because things don’t happen exactly as people planned them with me today. Or andy robinson and nancy wasserman, co authors of the board members easier than you think guide to non-profit finances, let’s, let’s talk some about diversifying income sources. Nancy, you make a point of of having that in a couple of chapters of the book, why is that important? First, you never want to be totally reliant on just one thunder. You don’t want to be in a situation where if that one funders suddenly says, we don’t like what you’re doing, um, that you’re suddenly scrambling in having to find other. Ways to support your activities and your programs on what you do for this, folks. I think we’ve seen a lot of that in our recession. Agencies that rely exclusively or too heavily on, say, government fees for services or maybe even government agency grants, oer and oer foundation grants those of all sources that have been cut back. Indeed, that’s, true and that’s, part of what it’s both diversifying types of financial support but also the number of supporters within each types. So you’re not totally reliant on just one foundation or won a charitable donor-centric donors on dh foundations and government and your own revenues. If there’s a way for you to do that, we have a comment again from twitter. I’m just going to point out tio, the person who wrote that, john, that we did talk earlier about individual personal liability for non-profits. You may have missed that part of the show, but you can always catch it on the archive on itunes on our itunes pages non-profit radio dot net. Then what are andy some of the sources of income that non-profit might look to that that they’re not currently exploiting. So there’s three big buckets here, tony, the first buck, it is private e-giving private giving is foundations, corporations, individuals and, of course, lets people leave behind when they pass away the big category there’s individuals within private e-giving about eighty percent of the money year after year comes from people, and most of the groups that i work with don’t invest enough time and energy using money from individual donors. So that’s the first category second category is public funding that goverment funding from the state local, regional, municipal, all the government levels. And as you already indicated, this is a shrinking resource right now and the groups that i think you’re getting hammered the worst during the recession or they were relying on government. The third bucket is earned income, which is non-profits arching for the services they provide or in some cases selling goods, unity, and of the three that’s the biggest of all this is sort of the surprise for people is that earned income is about the same amount as private and public funding. Put together when you look at all the non-profit across the country that’s. Interesting. Yeah, you don’t generally see that in in fund-raising reports like e-giving yusa, because earned income is not part of their there. Sorry about private philanthropy there now very clear, the numbers a little skewed, because if you’re a private college and you’re charging tuition, that shows up has earned income. If you’re a private hospital and you’re charging non-profit hospital in, you’re charging for medical services that shows up as earned income, so those numbers really sort of skew the data. But i’ll i worked with a number of organizations where i’m always pushing him to say, is there something you do that you could package up cell? Do you have some skill that people would buy from way have to take a break? We’re going to talk more about earned income right after this break, stay with us. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com i said we’d come back immediately and talk about earned income, but even though i am narcissistic, i forgot it’s it’s, my this is my turn now so it’s time for tony’s take two for a moment or two. My block this week is our irs is helping you. They’re new site is called i r s stay exempt and of course there’s a link to it on this week’s block post, and that site has courses and webinars and other resource is that the irs has produced for new organizations and for existing organizations, and then they have a section called also in depth topics, and i have links not only to that site but to a few of the topics that i know that charity struggle with and that i’ve had guests on to talk about applying for tax exemption, unrelated business income and four o three b retirement plans and the unrelated business income actually is sort of a spin off topic from what we’re about to i’m about to talk about with my guests earning income so the content from the irs it’s all plain language, it’s really very easy language. Teo to grasp it’s a little hokey in some places. There’s, an instructor named coach in a bunch of the bunch of the content you’ll learn from from that guy coach. But, you know it’s, an enormous bureaucracy trying to be accessible and helpful. And i admire that so on my block this week, our irs is helping you, my blog’s that tony martignetti dot com and that’s the new girl from what it used to be. Tony martignetti dot com that is tony’s take two for friday, march second, two thousand twelve it’s march already. And this is the ninth show of two thousand twelve. Andy robinson and nancy washington. And with me, we’re talking about b f d board. Financials dilemma. Andy earned income. What? What kind of charity possibly do? What’s a should be looking at tio. Try to make some money off their activities. Their work? Well, the question i always have groups that air wondering about this is what you have. What, you two or what do you know somebody else onto have or do or no most non-profits during the service business way deliver services. Sometimes we have expertise in that area and, you know i mean there’s a structure brainstorm that people could do around this. A lot of what we do in the nonprofit world is give it away, and the really entrepreneurial organizations look at what they’re giving away and they say, it’s paying market for this and, you know, we can we can spend the rest of the show talking about this. I don’t know if you want to, but, um, there’s a lot of opportunities there, and i see many, many organizations could be more self sufficient financially if they got at figuring out what they know and how to package it up. Okay, is there an example you can share with us? Ah, charity that didn’t realize what they had and and then ended up being able to exploit it and make some money from it. Well, i’m the author of a book on the subject about selling social change, and but my favorite ample of this, um, you know, for a group for years in tucson, arizona, caldnear search their seed bank on made of american crops and you know, what they do is protect eats from going extinct by planting them and growing them and distributing them and probably thirty percent. Of their of their income, its seed sales. I mean, there’s the bank and they receive selling what they recently started doing, which was fascinating as they opened something they called state school. And these are people who want to learn about how to protect seeds, grow them as amount of the next generations, really about sort of biological and genetic buddy, okay, money, and they come to arizona for a week and they get trained and everything you need to know to run your own. C back and it’s, an organization that was sitting on this for probably thirty years, only recently realized that people would pay for that knowledge in a classroom setting. Oh, they have been doing that all for free while they hadn’t been training other people. They’ve been taking care of this, but they hadn’t been teaching on. I said, okay, and they realised there are there, you know, the whole renaissance of local agriculture in our country right now. And they thought we could tap into this there’s a market here for people who want to learn how to do this. And so they started doing this, and they’re doing this four or five. Times a year and it sells out, and they’re starting to move it around to other parts of the country. So i mean that’s one example that’s an example of knowledge, they had a knowledge and a skill that was very marketable that’s, right? And until you have you know what, you need a finalist for better words, does he need someone in the organization who had an entrepreneurial gene who can look around and say, you know what, somebody’s going to want to buy this and not every non-profit is blessed with people who think that way, and i think part of what nancy and i are trying to do in our professional lives is to get more of that thinking out into the non-profit community. Andy related. Teo diversifying income. I had a comment from linkedin this woman had just had a board meeting this earlier this week regarding the need for transparency and distribution of responsibility when it comes to finances, bookkeeping and reporting function of their historic non-profit theater, they’ve been doing their thing, they’ve been doing things their way a long time on dh one big problem is that they have a banker on the board and he doesn’t see the problems s so it sounds like and and then she says i was able to get the check writing privileges moved to another person. This is sort of segway ing into ah, conflict of interest conversation. But it sounds like maybe he was the only one writing checks. Um, i secured a nice grant from a foundation and they want a financial audit. I’m moving for a review. However fear we won’t get any more money once it’s known how ignorant the board is about accountability. Nancy drew and he’s laughing. Nancy let’s, bring you back. What would you what would you say there? Well, you know, how are we defining accountability here? Is there a lack love? But what a financial audit might uncover is in propriety. But it sounds like that’s, not the case. More likely, it’s going to it’s, not the financial audit per se, but the form nine. Ninety that you filed with the irs. Which asks you now to tell us who does the board looking financials. Um, how does is the board of informed? Has the board seen an audit? Uh, did they review it and approve it? It’s really? You know, there there’s sort of two sets of questions, the very pragmatic did did you get an audit? Did you review? What did you look at it? And then the the more important question in my mind, which i think is the question we’re trying to answer with the whole book, which is, does the board really understand what all these numbers are telling them? And ideally with with a financial audit and accountant has come in and spoken directly with the board of directors and walked through each and every page of it and talk about why the financials are the way they are and what they mean? Um, and i think both andy and i have seen, you know, numbers of organizations where there’s a lot of people sitting around the table on dh, they leave it to the banker or the investment professionals, too. You know, they well, they know about numbers, and they handle it and it’s really something that everybody needs to know how to do if only to make sure that the mission of the organization is fully addressed by by the board and the organization. This also relates, teo, the conversation about diversifying income and hear this woman, i believe she’s a fundraiser there, a volunteer fundraiser on dh trying to diversify income source, getting a grant but fearful that the grantmaker not be renewed because there isn’t the transparency and accountability that thie the the grant source will probably be. Yeah, and this is another point that was raised. He sort of came out sideways is this question about separation of duties, which is, you know, in a healthy organization, people break up that work, one person opens the envelope, somebody else writes the checks, and somebody else approves them and somebody else, uh, get the, uh, bank statement and balances the checkbook, and the idea here is that you’re trying to avoid mischief, yeah, and fraud. And if somebody says, oh, i’ll take care of all of these things, you know, maybe they have good intentions and they’re going to be perfectly honest about it, but you really need to break that into separate pieces so people can have oversight over each other, let’s, segway into conflict of interest, andy define for us what conflict of interest is we hear it so often. Yeah, well, my sense of it, at least in terms of the context we’re having here, is that if you serve on a non-profit board, your job is to put the needs of the organization above your own personal needs. And where this plays out sometimes is people who try and receive a benefit from serving on the board at the personal benefit it has nothing to do with advancing the mission of the organization where they get tricky is that in a lot of voluntary organisations, there are inherent conflicts of interest. If you goes to a private school and you’re on the board, your job is to advocate for policies that are going to benefit the children in the school, and in some case, that means they’re going to benefit your kid individually and sort of sorting those things out can be challenging, but the bottom line is the decisions you make have to put the needs of the organization in front of your own personal needs. Nancy, how can we try to avoid conflicts of interest? One of the best ways is tohave ah, a written conflict of interest policy, where you’ve already addressed some of the situations that are likely to happen before they happened, where you sit there and say, you know, no defined what it is that is seen as either a riel conflict of interests or a perceived conflict of interest. Um, which might be a case where somebody was, for example, um, can somebody bid someone who serves on the board of directors bid on a project while they’re still on the board of directors or not? Or do they have toe resigned before they even submit a bid? Or do they only resign if they’re awarded the bid? Or do they have to resign? Or can they simply step out of the room for the discussion? Those are the kinds of questions that got kind of can get kind of challenging um, particularly when any member of the board stands to benefit financially from any decision of the board that’s an outright in my mind it outright conflict of interest and, uh, in most boards, you want to make sure that person doesn’t participate. And it’s it’s always easier to have that discussion when there isn’t ah, hot potato sitting in the room, that’s somebody’s thinking that they have every right to be part of the discussion on do you have to therefore bring up both the fact that somebody in the room is feeling uncomfortable that this person is present and it gets a little bit more tense in those sorts of situations prevention, having a written policy that folks have already talked through and everybody feels responsible for making sure it’s so prevention ahead of time, much better than dealing with it when it’s a crisis or potential crisis and, you know, it also is the transparency issue. You want to make sure that your presentation to the community at large is bonem it is as unaccountable organizations that that gives everybody equal opportunity to benefit from three organizations purchases. Is this the kind of policy a boardmember should sign and review every year or something like that? It’s not a bad idea, you know, it depends on the nature of the organization. I you know, i worked with a community loan fund and that’s absolutely required that you disclose your conflicts of interest each and every year and that you review the conflict of interest policy every year bonem the other thing that you know, incredibly important, disclosed, disclosed disclosed way have just a minute before a break, andy, anything you want to add to conflict of interest discussion. I think the main thing is that if you see it, you have to name it after. If you’re boardmember and you smell something like this, you have to have the courage to bring it up and nancy said, it’s much easier to do this if there’s an existing policy in place first, if somebody sees something like this andy again just a few seconds before break, who should they bring it up to your i’ma boardmember who do i talk to? Well, i would probably go to the chair first and say, i think there’s something fishy here, let’s, talk about it and i would start there, and then presumably, the board, the chair will bring it to the full board. Andy robinson and nancy washington are my guests. We’re going to take a break. When we return, we’ll dive into some financial statements to wrap up, stay with us, talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m carol ward from the body mind wellness program. Listen to my show for ideas and information to help you live a healthier life in body, mind and spirit. You hear from terrific guests who are experts in the areas of health, wellness and creativity. So join me every thursday at eleven a, m eastern standard time on talking alternative dot com professionals serving community. This is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio friday’s one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcast are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office needs better leadership? Customer service sales or maybe better writing are speaking skills. Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. If you’re in the new york city area, stop by one of our public classes or get your human resource is in touch with us. The website is improving communications, dot com that’s improving communications, dot com improve your professional environment. Be more effective, be happier. And make more money. Improving communications. That’s. The answer. Talking. Welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent on tony martignetti non-profit radio. Nancy let’s. Talk a little about financial statements. What? What? Uh, what are the basics? First what’s the overview. There’s. Really? Two major statements that everybody has to deliver once the balance sheet, which is a snapshot on any given day, typically the end of the month or the end of the quarter. The end of the year. Um, which outlines what the organization owns and what they owe and what they’re worth, which is the difference between everything they own. Less everything they owe as faras it’s paper value is what they would be worth on that day. Uh, the other major statement is the statement of activities also called the profit loss or a p n l which is? Where do you get all your money? Your income your revenues from and then what does it goto pay for all your expenses and the bottom line? There is your net income at the end of end of a certain time period. The statement of activities is more like a movie. It covers a period of time. Uh, typically, uh, the beginning. Of the year to the end of the most previous sorry, the most recent months. So if we were on a board today, we probably wouldn’t see the thie statement of activities through the end of february because somebody would have had to have it all cleaned up as of yesterday. But we could expect to see something through the end of january and depending on what your fiscal year, wass would determine the begin of the beginning period. We talked earlier about full disclosure, so i’m going to make a disclosure the on ly accounting course that i’ve ever taken i dropped out of because i was i was i was going to fail, so so i’m like perfect for this book, this it’s very informative, and it is an easy read, and it is helpful guide um, nancy helped me understand i this was always seem like magic to me on a balance sheet. How is it that the assets equal the liabilities? How does that always come out so equal? I mean, its intended that way. Obviously. How does that possible? Seems like magic. Now you’re asking somebody who was not trained as a classically trained accountant. You can’t pull back now. Your name is on the book, you’re name is there. I’m looking right at it, says nancy wasserman’s. But it’s, um, it’s based on double entry bookkeeping, which was developed by the chinese and it’s follows up from the abacus. And i was sort of, uh, uh, amplified by the italians in the renaissance. Essentially, when you put an entry and double entry bookkeeping, everything that goes up, something has to go down and it all balances out in the end, in the cash comes out. And if your balance sheet that’s like number one is the balance sheet, if the total assets does not equal the total liabilities and equity, it is an incorrectly prepared balance sheet. There’s a reason they call it a balance right about yes, exactly. I love that my italian forebears had something to do with confusing me. Now in the current day. Um okay. What? How can we help? Boardmember is nancy who whose eyes kind of glaze over when they get to the balance sheet. Aside from looking to see whether the two the assets and liabilities equal which they always do right step number one is a balance number to do your total current assets. In other words, what? What? Khun b cash within a year’s time exceed your current liabilities. The things you have to pay off with cash in a year’s time. And so are you liquid or not? Do you have? Do you have cash available to do things? This’s? The place where you’re looking for those payroll liabilities or payroll tax liabilities? If there’s a number there that’s frighteningly large, you’ve got a big problem. And if its payroll tax liabilities, he was a boardmember maybe personally liable. Um, what are your long term liabilities look like? Is that that’s your debt? Basically. And, you know, does it make tense to you? Is that number reflects the debt? You know, the organization has your net net assets now, you know, the language of accounting is kind of like greek. And i sometimes think they made up all these names to make it even more confusing. It would be so much easier if it was it was italian. It could be it would be. And where there’s a lot of cognitive is and it’s a romance language. I think it would be oh, i’m sorry, no problem, but that total net assets number, which simply means, you know what? What’s this organization more if it if it had two legged liquidate today and if that’s a negative number, you should be concerned. And certainly many of organizations where that is the case. So those are the big things on the balance sheet, you know, does it? Does it short of make sense to you to the fixed assets and their value? Um, feel like what you have if he suddenly see something that shows that you have a fixed asset of, you know, equipment worth one hundred thousand dollars, you’re scratching your head because you have no idea what you have for equipment something’s wrong with and you should and should ask that question. Absolutely. You mentioned earlier frighteningly large numbers mean is part of what we should be doing is looking for anomalies. That’s really what you’re looking, you’re looking for things that you know that don’t make sense or don’t feel right or that you can’t if you can’t, if it doesn’t feel right and you can’t really explain it, you want to ask questions from and the numbers you know, the thing about numbers, they’re pretty, they’re very ghetto. They’re either on or off and, um it’s harder to lie with numbers. So you’re going to know right away that you could have frighteningly large numbers with the complex organization, and that would be fine from if if they’re bad hosed out. If there’s cash in the bank, if it feels like there’s equity, this is ah critical subject. Another question that i asked on the on the pre show survey is for those charities that do have a board committee devoted to financial issues. Are you confident that each committee member is fluent in your numbers and understand your financial position? Only twenty five percent said yes, the remaining seventy five percent were either no or not sure on dno was pretty large about sixty percent way have to stop there. Andy robinson and nancy wasserman are co authors of the board members easier than you think. Guide to non-profit finances published by emerson and church andy. Nancy, thank you very much for being guests. Thank you. It’s. Been a real pleasure. And also thanks to your publisher, kathleen brennan at emerson and church for her promotion assistance for the show next week you know his company and you may be wearing his name on your hoody market go ceo of the very consistent brand echo enterprises has ideas on branding and other business lessons applicable to charities, and craig newmark, the founder of craigslist and craigconnects, shares his thoughts on simple communications. Thes were both pre recorded at last year’s nextgencharity conference keep up with what’s coming up! Sign up for our insider email lorts on the facebook page like that page the pages, the timeline check it out! We got a new banner banner photograph, which will be rotating on dh the whole new timeline format like like it look at it and like it khun, listen, live our archive if you haven’t didn’t catch us live archives from itunes, you’ll find our itunes paige at non-profit radio dot net subscribe listen, any time on the device of your choice on twitter, you can follow me or you can follow the show’s hashtag non-profit radio my thanks again to mazarene treyz for for live tweeting today’s show the show is sponsored by g grace and company if you’re worried about the rising cost of rent for your organization. Or, if you need a plan for real estate that you’re non-profit owns, grayson company will give you a thorough and complete board analysis so that your real estate decisions are made transparently and thoroughly. George grace has been advising non-profits on their real estate decisions for over twenty five years. Gee, grace, dot com or eight, eight, eight, seven four, seven two, two, three, seven. Our creative producer was claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is the owner of talking alternative broadcasting. Janice taylor is our line producer. The show’s social media is by regina walton of organic social media and the remote producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio is john federico of the new rules. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one to two p, m eastern here at talking alternative dot com. Dahna i didn’t think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get him. Dahna cubine looking to meet mr and mrs wright, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as filling as possible, then tuning on thursdays at one pm for love in the afternoon with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all with distinguished authors. Industry grew ours, and experts on everything from wine to fashion join us as we discuss dating, relationships and more on talking alternative dot com. Hi, i’m julie, hi, i’m julia, what are you wearing? Welcome to j and j’s. Secrets of style and beauty. We know there’s, beauty and style, and all you do, whether it’s a job interview, first date or wedding, we also know that not everyone understands what works best for him or her. We’re here to help. Think of us as your personal beauty style and grooming guru’s, as industry experts will give you the best information for men and women on howto look phenomenal tuning tuesdays at eight pm tto. Learn how to look your best. Are you fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? 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057: The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guest this week:

Robert Penna, author of “The Nonprofit Outcomes Toolbox: A Complete Guide to Program Effectiveness, Performance Measurement, and Results”

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com

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Zoho welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio we’re always talking about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m your aptly named host. I hope that you were with me last week for first segment the goods on google, plus our tech contributor and the editor of non-profit technology news, scott koegler shared insights into whether google plus is different than what we’ve already got in the social media space and how to help you to decide the answer to the question should we jump into google? Plus, when organization page has become available and we also did a live google plus hangout second segment last week was breaking down barriers. Megan galbraith, managing director at changing our world, had strategies to get public relations, communications and fund-raising working together for greater efficiency this week, the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Robert penna, author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox a complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results discusses the wave of reliance on outcomes, measurement and how small and midsize non-profits khun ride it comfortably alongside big shops and learn lessons from the corporate community on tony’s, take two from my block this week if donors are investors, then they need a motley fool. I think we’re going to see the rise of investment advisory services. There were a few, but mostly for the wealthy that recommend giving to some charities and against giving to others, which is very different than what we have in the space today. That’ll be on tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour we’re live tweeting today, use the hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation with us on twitter. We take a break right now, and when i come back, i’ll be joined by robert penna. We’re going to talk about the non-profit outcomes toolbox, so stay with me. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com. We look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set to one, two, nine six four three five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Geever hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio. My guest now is robert penna. He is the author of a complete i’m sorry. The non-profit outcomes toolbox. A complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results published by wiley and sons. He’s, a consultant and his work includes the application of corporate sector, outcome based tools and insights to the work of non-profits he’s done work for the n e casey foundation, the national geographic foundation and the ford foundation. He’s, an adviser to charity navigator on outcomes. I’m very glad that his work and his book bring him to the studio. Robert. Welcome. Thank you very much for having pleasure to have you. Thank you for coming all the way down from albany. No problem. Live in the studio. In the studio. We hear an increasing amount of talk about out comes out comes measurement. Why is that? I would save it for basically two reasons. A one’s historical. The fact is that traditionally and this goes back easily to the beginning of the last century. No one ever asked non-profits to be quite fair. No one ever asked non-profits to either show evidence of or to demonstrate that. They were having an actual impact that was sort of a field of dreams and concept. If we make it available, things must get better, and it was taken on faith that train people with good programs with enough money would bring about positive change. Nobody actually quite asked altum that all started to change in the late seventies and then into the eighties, and quite independently of one another in various spaces, this concept of a focus on results in outcomes and evidence of same started a crop up, and it began to coalesce and particularly as we are in an in an era of limited resource is it becomes more important than ever for non-profits to be able to say here’s actual evidence of what we’ve accomplished, as opposed to a story about how big the problem is or how hard we’re trying in his forward ken berger, president, ceo of charity navigator who’s been a guest on the show, says that measurement is a battle for the very soul of the nonprofit sector. It’s taking on that great a prominence? Yes, it is that actually that line comes from a from an article ken and i co co authored it really is because there are those apologised who honestly believe in its ah term use before a fair exchange of differing ideas. You honestly believe that non-profits and their clients should not be held tio this kind of accountability that the concept of just making services available truly is the mission of the non-profit space and that as long as they’re doing that, they’re doing their job. The problem is that for all of the money we’ve spent thes problems haven’t gone away. And so the question is, shouldn’t we be putting our our resource is into those programs into those organizations that have proven that there having the most beneficial impact, as opposed to giving it to other places that are perhaps not being as effective? The problems are too big, and the resource is of too scarce not to do this anymore, but it truly is a battle within the sector because there are those who just don’t believe in it, and we’ll get to a little of what their arguments are, maybe obliquely only, but that some of the ideas are so nebulous that they can’t be measured that like a child feeling a more positive. Ah, feeling about education or about going to school, sort of nebulous ideas like that. But actually, those, um, sort of feel good outcomes can be measured. Well, first off, i would argue that if an organization is focusing primarily or almost or solely on, feel good outcomes, they’re rethinking what they’re doing. Number one. But number two, there are proxies. There are proxies in terms of attitude, in terms of behaviour, in terms of various other kinds of things that can be looked at and can be taken as fairly accurate measures of whether or not if what, you want to changes in attitude, whether or not that attitude has changed. So it can be done. And we’re gonna talk about some of the ways that non-profits get there and the way that we can measure these things. Is the butt is the story is the non-profits story the compelling story is that is that dead? Well, it it shouldn’t be dead, but what it should be, what should happen is that should be put in its place, okay? The idea of telling a story is not a bad one, in fact, that there’s a whole chapter in the book that talks about using narrative as opposed to just factoids, because people remember stories where they have a tendency to forget much more vivid right stories vivid. But the problem is, if the if the story first off focuses on how big the problem is and that’s all it, it focuses on, and there are a number of non-profits i won’t name any, but you could probably think of them. You get through with the things in the mail and they show you the picture of x, y or z and it’s always how big the problem is when we’re telling that kind of story and that’s all we’re telling we are, in a way, avoiding entirely the question of well, what are you doing about it? And what other results that you have that you have achieved? So that’s one one reason why the story has to be put in his proper place? The second is, and i don’t know whether we’ll get into this today, but a lot of non-profits wind up telling the wrong story for the wrong reason and ofttimes to the wrong people so that something has to be carefully handle is okay, we have just another minute before a break, what if not a named example? What do you mean? Telling the wrong story? A lot of non-profits will focus on an emotional story that will highlight, for example, a success story, and it will be about this client of that client, but inadvertently, what they’re doing is they’re focusing the attention on that client. What we don’t know is, is that story cherry picked? How representative actually is it what they’re not talking about is thie the the work that the organization as a whole does it’s it’s? Shall we say it’s it’s macro impact? They focus so specifically on the story of this particular client at that particular point that becomes very easy for their overall message of what they’re doing to be lost, counterproductive in counter falik snusz his book is the non-profit outcomes. Toolbox, it’s, robert penna. You’ll find his blogged outcomes, toolbox, dot com, and he’ll be with me after this break. So stay with us because you didn’t think to getting dink dink dink. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, get in. Thank you, cubine. Are you stuck in your business or career, trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future. You dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight. Three backs to one to seven to one eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna looking to meet mr or mrs right, but still haven’t found the one. Want to make your current relationship as filling as possible? Then please tune in on mondays at ten am for love in the morning with marnie allison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all. Tune in as we discuss dating, relationships and more. Start your week off, right with love in the morning with marnie gal ilsen on talking alternative dot com. Are you feeling overwhelmed and the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Metoo welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio talking to robert penna about his book the non-profit outcomes toolbox right before the break, robert, we were talking about for too much focus on problems, but the non-profit sectors exists to solve problems. So shouldn’t they be talking about what the problems are? Well, again, it has to be put into its proper place in its proper perspective. And this is not, you know, women teo, bash the sector. Okay, i mean, we have to be on it eyes and say, this is a historical perspective and very early on this was how attention was brought. Tea to issues were literally going back to the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds pompel people, for example, he’d carry nation she’s well known for wanting teo, bring about prohibition. Well, what she talked about was all of the ancillary downsides of alcoholism, all right, and the folk. But the focus was on drink. The focus was on people drinking too much. And the idea was they didn’t think think it through to say, well, what’s really gonna happen. What other causes here? It was just too focused on the drinks, and we had prohibition and guess what? All of those issues did not go away. The issues of broken families, the issues of domestic violence, the issues of unemployment, the issues of of poverty didn’t go away just because we we got rid of alcohol for those period that period of time. So part of the problem of the focus on just the problem is it tends to lead to simplistic answers, because the concept is that progresses a lack of the problem when, in point of fact, really, the outcomes approach is that what you want to do is bring about some positive change that goes beyond merely an absence of the problem. So that’s one of the problems with focusing on just the problem, the second thing is that it kind of takes you off the hook if you think about it, for having to say, really what you have done to alleviate the problem or what success you’ve had in alleviating the problem. If every time i come back to you, pick an issue, homeless puppies, i come to you and i sent put something in the mail and tony, you know, look at all these starving puppies and i say it was ten thousand starving puppies and you know it, justin in manhattan or someth that’s a problem and you emotionally are expected to resupply with a cheque will. Now, next year i come back and i say, well, now, there’s ten thousand homeless puppies, this still ten thousand homeless puppies will again. What it keeps focusing on is the problem it does not focus on am i having an impact on alleviating such chelation so that’s, a real sort of short way of describing why that tends to be a ah sort of a circle, you know, like the snake eating its own tail. It really doesn’t get you where you need to pay. And you alluded to earlier the fact that we do still have deep seated, entrenched problems that we have been working on for generations like homelessness, entrenched poverty, etcetera, exactly right be a hunger of broken family, you name it, these problems, or of worldwide and so you might even get thes these appeals from any place on the globe. But it tends to in a lot of ways, i think lead to a sense of defeat, because, i mean, think about it if every single year, you get the same appeal from the same organization showing the same picture of the same a person in need. The question starts to it begs the question, well, what’s happening with my money, what we’ve been at it for so long, and we’re still seeing the same one problem. One gentleman i speak there speaking to some months ago, he runs a non-profit e program in ohio, and he said to me, well, do candy said, you know, we’ve been fighting this war on poverty for, you know, forty something years, and i’m not so sure we have anything to show for it. And part of the reason is that from the beginning, what we have to show for it was not the accent the accent was on making money available and making programs available. You’ve heard a thousand times there, the concept, the underserved community, right, which you could argue about whether they’re actually underserved enough that’s a different story. But the question is what it seems to lead to. It leads to the implication that if you make services available, things will be better. Well, that’s not necessarily true. Just making them available, zach. Will will result in the outcome that you want exactly, and for years social investors you know, traditionally called funders, we’re investing in making services available rather than investing in change, and if you’re investing in change, then there ought to be sameer marks of the change. The whole concept of moving your your your your head away from the idea of being a funder. What’s being an investor is one of the first the first steps what’s a fund interested in a funder is interested in the dispersement of funds in terms of the process, the paperwork who’s it going to what’s it being used for what’s an investor interest is an investor in investor wants a return let’s talk about some more of the language differences that you point out not so much differences, but the important language around outcomes measurement that takes up roughly the first third of the book or so gent generally outputs versus outcomes, outputs or what you do outcomes of what happens because of what you did okay? Example of an output and output is training class, and the outcome would be that somebody got a job by virtue of having been trained. And more importantly, kept the job for a reasonable amount of time when and this was this was rampant in the late sixties and seventies. Excuse me, but when thanks to largely the government we got into being counting and compliance, no organisations were measured onto in terms of how many fannies their head in the seats, how many training training class they help? Well, that was great, but then it turned out in some cases people we trained for jobs that no longer existed or the training was insufficient, or there really was no placement attached to it. So we had organizations claiming success because they’ve had x number of fannies in the seats or because they held so many trainings. Well, they gave us so many certificates, but the end of the day was anybody hyre did anybody did anybody’s life improved? Well, don’t ask me that question when i focused on that we’re focused on how many training on the output not come from the outcomes spring from the outputs. Yes, yes, you need the outputs in order to get the outcomes and they have to be the right outputs. But again, if that is only just your focus is there’s a saying that a colleague of mine, a colleague of mine who wrote a book, if well, you fundez activity that’s. Usually all you get? Yes. Okay. All right. Impact, impact flows from outcome. What? Tell us about it and that’s down the road that’s down the road. In other words, for example, let us say that what you were talking about was bringing possible water. And this is something i was engaged in a t united nations potable water, fresh water supplies to certain kinds of villages. I was pronouncing potable. Is that okay? Potable vote on a laudable somebody made a tomato, somebody from and why you were calling correct one of us. I have to. But i was so it’s possible that anyone when you were with the united nations so that’s a hyre i’m just tony martignetti non-profit radio it’s hyre hyre standing. But you had a situation where okay you’re you’re bringing fresh water. And now you could think of a host of reasons early on why you might want to do that. One of the more interesting ones to me was to alleviate the burden on the women and girls. In the village usually whose job it is to do nothing while david hold water one of the reasons why their educational opportunities were so so stunted was because, well, gee, somebody’s got to get the water and that’s the woman and children’s job. Or rather, a woman and girls job. Well, let us say that you bring it in and let us say that some girl does get to go to school. Well, perhaps if twenty years later when she’s an adult, she actually has a business and gets out of the out of the village, that might be an impact. But the problem with the focusing on impacts these long term impacts is very often the causal chain is extremely weak. The causal chain is broken and it’s kind of hard. Teo teo to take credit for some things. I mean, we’ve all heard the stories of the head start program that’s taking credit because thirty five years later, one of their graduates became the head of some, you know, ceo of some company. Well, you know, thanks, snusz because back in nineteen forty seven, he was with us in today’s end of a corporation. I don’t know. About that, but i honestly would say impacts agreed to have these are the kinds of things you see in mission statements and vision statements. The long term impacts, what organizations need to do is figure out how to translate those things into measurable, achievable, significant, meaningful outcomes. Okay? And shortly we’re gonna talk about the outcome statement and contrast it with the mission statement and talk about what the elements are and how to get to ah ah, eh, a proper and and viable outcome statement. So yeah, and just around impacts, you say in the book impacts or what we hoped for, outcomes are what we work for. We’ve talked about that means your outcomes or what you’re working toward the impact of the the longer term we really we talked about funder donorsearch sis investor. Anything else you want to say about the about? Maybe non-profits looking at themselves as invest, ese. Well, that’s, that’s a very good point. I mean, when someone gives you a gift. Christmas gift. Okay, now we’ve all had the relative who gives us something. And then every once a while checks are you using it? You? Have you been? Did you? Like the sweat in most people that give you a gift, they hope you like it, but they really don’t have any kind of control now. My grandmother used to give me cash, she would slip me cash in by hand like a handshake, and she would always say, spend it like you earned it. My grandmother never did that. You didn’t know i’m sorry, no migraine with a borrowed but no that’s, um, we’re not related even starting now, but the idea is when someone gives you a gift, really the in most cases, the string of scott, you know, the the very there, the influence they have over the use of that gift, et cetera. Well, the problem is when you think of yourself, if you’re a non-profit as a grantee of donor of a donation or giving, okay, the implication that the onus is on you to deliver something back to that to that donor to that investor is i like to use use the term is much less clear than if you see them as investors and you see yourself as an invested because right from the start from the basic language, what we’re making clear is that you owe them a return investments give returns exactly. And so the mindset shift is that i mentioned before the first one is moving from the concept of thunder to investor the second is moving from the concept that what we’re investing in is the provision of services opposed to we’re investing in change, and then what are those changes and how do you define them? And the third thing is that we’re going to be satisfied with an account of activity as opposed to actual evidence of results, performance and effectiveness. The’s a three crucial mindset shifts that the space has to eventually and will adopt, and the sooner non-profits get on this, the better off they’ll be. You quote stephen covey saying, it is incredibly easy to be very busy without being very effective. Well, we’ve always have seen those people who can, you know, go to the office in the busy all day, and at the end of the day, what have they actually accomplished? And the answer is, you know, not a heck of a lot and that’s, you know, that’s, the wife, i’m with robert pennant he’s, the author of the non-profit outcomes toolbox. Let’s, talk a little about the outcome statement versus the how does it contrast with the mission statement? The well, mission statements of very often pie in the sky and aspirational mean they ought to be yes, and an inspirational okay, okay, but the idea is that the idea that we’re going to solve a problem in our time we’re gonna end poverty, will end homeless. Is thies air the kinds of things that you very often see working their way into? Ah, emission statement or vision statement. The problem is that how do you then actually turn around and effectuated if you basically go to an investor and they said, what do you know what we’re gonna do? We’re gonna end and homelessness. Well, you’re probably not. So when you don’t, what do you could do? You come back and say i failed an outcome statement is based upon a couple of key characteristics that good outcomes have among those are all right. It’s. Meaningful it’s. Not a cosmetic change. It’s. Sustainable that’s. A very, very important one. Right? It’s achievable. All right, there’s, an old state. Everyone talks about the weather. No one does anything about it. Why? Because global warming aside, it’s. Tough to do anything about the weather. All right. But if you a couch your your goals in not slam dunks you want, they want them to be doable with a stretch. You? I mean, you clearly want to push yourself all right. But the idea is that you want it to be something that can be achieved in your lifetime on dh something that can be measurable. The sustainable part is particularly crucial. I think of my involvement. I’m a lifelong scout. Around fifty eight years old. I first joined the boy scouts when i was ten. I mean, eagle scout. Well, i never made it that i was in the order. The arrow you want? Ditigal oh, no, no, no it’s a different. But i have a son who was in the order of the arrow and he’s an eagle scout like vicarious thrills. But we i remember ah, project, where are we going to clean up a lot and throw this lot had been used as a dumping ground. The scouts came in and we weed whackers and rakes and tree pruners. And we turned it looks like a park when we’re done all right. And we congratulate ourselves. Up, up, up we all went home in that night’s peace. Somebody dumped a refrigerator. It wasn’t a sustainable achievement because we didn’t have the facility for either blocking it office, stopping people from dumping again. So the concept has to be again in terms of a good outcome, one of the characteristics and aki one is this concept of sustainability. But again, to go back to your question about the difference between a mission statement of vision statement and an outcome statement a lot of organizations have a tough time differentiating in the book i refer to ah, vision approach. You may recall the book in the book, i had a picture of some futuristic city, teo illustrate that my belief is that mission statement envision statements are both great things, a good ideas, they’re visionary, they belong up on the wall, but they don’t belong in terms of you every day action plan, they’re different from an action plan. It’s the difference be between having the long term goal of i want to speak? I want to be trimmed and having an actual diet that you’re that you’re following. All right? Um, you know, there are numerous examples we could have that we could we could point to okay, i’m realizing now, since we’re talking about since i’m talking about being an eagle scout, you know, i didn’t measure the the outcomes of my eagle scout project, which was teo. Make sure that address is street addresses were visible to emergency services in my little town of altum panned newjersey, which had maybe three thousand homes or so so we looked at every home and where there wasn’t a visible address from the street that a policeman or fireman or the ambulance could find could see it easily. We left a note in the in the mailbox and the note was signed by the police chief, the fire chief and the the head of the ambulance corps. But that’s just that’s just activity. I don’t know what the outcome’s were. I don’t know if more lives were saved. Police response times. We’re reduced fire response times are reduced. That would have been right. That would come into the out moment. And what? And if you had done the eagle project as an outcome, you know, an outcome based thing that was specifically the kinds of things that you would have wanted to look at. Now that was response time reduced. Yeah, you know, i don’t know anything is dramatic is where lives saved but certainly were response times reduced. You could even you could even have done it as looking at things like ups, you know? Did ups have fewer lost deliveries because they were brought to the wrong home. All right, i have thiss factual case up in albany way. Have to hold on your case. Feeling bad? About my eagle project from thirty five years ago, this is tony martignetti, tony martignetti non-profit radio. We have to take a break after the break. We’ll be tony’s. Take two for two minutes, and then i’ll return with robert penna. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Dahna are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed, i and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you concerned about the future of your business for career? Would you like it all to just be better? Well, the way to do that is to better communication, and the best way to do that is training from the team at improving communications. This is larry sharp, host of the ivory tower radio program and director at improving communications. Does your office need better leadership, customer service sales, or maybe better writing, are speaking skills? Could they be better at dealing with confrontation conflicts, touchy subjects all are covered here at improving communications. 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Roughly my block this week is if donors are investors, then they need a motley fool motley fool is an online investment advisory service actually recommends stocks, too, its members and my thinking is, and this is sort of related to what robert and i are talking about if donors are in fact investors to non-profits then are we going to go beyond just ratings that charity navigator and guidestar offer into recommendations, overt, explicit recommendations, invest in this non-profit this other non-profit is not a good recommendation, not abi, maybe it’s ah, hold or maybe it’s even a cell? Um, there are organisations like this that do services like that they’re a couple do them mostly for the wealthy rockefeller philanthropy advisors is probably the best known, but i think if if if donors are becoming investors than we’re going to see this trickle down, too, the average moderate income, modest income investor in non-profits and then, you know, with the with the comparisons across non-profits b bye sector like and with that sector be charitable mission would it be geographic, so that may be the best healthcare investment, as as an investor is a certain hospital or or ah non-profit clinic in aa county or in a town or in the city? Um what it would have come to the point where it’s, you know, your investment in the indianapolis dance company is most likely to pay off or more likely to pay off, and what does pay off mean than some other investment in some other indianapolis arts group or or dance company? So i think related to what robert and i are talking about and just interesting, you know, um, non-profit investment advisory services, you know, are we headed there? There’s more about that on my block at mpg a dv dot com and that is tony’s take two for friday, september second, bringing robert penna welcoming him back now. We were just before the break, talking about the outcome statement hyre should be meaningful, achievable, sustainable on dh the book goes into a little more detail, even oh, and i’d like to because i’d like to help our listeners achieve an outcome statement. Ah, you say that should be bound in time and number. The outcome stable? What does that mean? Well, what it basically means is rather than saying, we’re going to change the world, it’s, that we’re going to specifically a change ah, certain measurable of facet of characteristic of someone for a certain number of people within a certain given period of time. So the idea said, we’re going to achieve x for why number of people within two months, three months, one year, whatever it may be so that the idea is that first off it’s it’s tethered to ah, a certain number of people that you’re going teo achieve this for, and also a certain specific times. So that, for example, the investor knows when the payoff comes, let me give you another reason why this is crucial if you were if you read the book as they know you know you did, you probably came across the work capacity ten thousand times capacity. You don’t have to read the book to hear about capacity over the building in no, no, no, but over here, this is a very, very specific use. If you haven’t outcomes approach, it automatically begs the capacity question, because if you are clear about what it is you want to achieve from that flows what it is. You need to get there, which then challenges you to say, do i have that capacity most non-profits and i hate to use generalizations. But i think in this case, it’s true. Most on traffic. It’s a most people who are aware of the non-profit space when you talk about capacity building the first thing they will think about his dollar signs. All right, we’re having a capacity capacity raising effort. What? It’s? A fund raiser. True capacity, however, has three levels. All right. The first one is structural capacity. How is the organization run? How is it managed? What’s the relationship between the board and the executive leadership what’s the quality of the training of the staff, et cetera. The second is what i call functional capacity. Basically, what that means is if you go, you do have the tools to do what you say you’re going to do. If you were an education organization, then you need educators. You need a curriculum. If you’re counseling organization unique counselors and you need some sort of models, they’re all your inputs. Yes, exactly. The third one and perhaps the most important one is the implementation capacity the’s are the thousand and one little things that not just non-profits but anybody trips up, trips over when it comes to actually doing a job, it could be, for example, twenty you or i are going to put a curtain rod, and it turns out we don’t have a level well, if we don’t have a level, how we’re gonna make sure the curtain rod is level that’s an implementation capacity issue when you talk about a non-profit it could be everything from the from the requirement to provide transportation so the clients could actually get there to something like intake if you want. If you’re goingto have seventy five people, let us say graduate from your program will do you have the capacity for a new intake to actually process those seventy five people? So they’re not standing on line three hours and losing interest and wandering away. Who’s gonna answer the phones let’s say you have a a an outreach effort going on, and you have a training program and you put the word out on the street, but then it turns out that your non-profit is really run all by part timers and most of the time, if anybody calls to get information, they’re either going to get just a phone that rings or they’re going to get an answering machine that’s a capacity questions. So if you’re doing this correctly, it really forces you to look at a number of things, including the capacity that you have to actually achieve the goals. If you don’t have it, then you have to upgrade the capacity or perhaps scale back the goals and flowing from this quantification of of what you want outcomes to be is measurable because they become measurable when you’ve quantified and bound in-kind time number so we can, in fact, measure things that are i have previously been so just vague sort of objectives. Let me give you a classic example on this may sound like a bit of a stretch to euro to your readers, but you and i being roughly the same age, i think you have. You have readers we have listen that’s, right, our reader listeners, because they’re all gonna buy your book, my readers just the non-profit outcomes toolbox published by wile e you recall when when when we were kids, we had things like, you know, lincoln logs and directors were there and they were even wood and the logs we’re made for, right? Okay, this is going to sound like a bit of a weird one, but compare think back, compare when you’re building one of those things, too. When your mother built a big cake, your mother baked the cakes you took all the ingredients she pour them in a bowl should put him in a pan, she put in the oven and she lost at that point total control of what was going on. No one’s going to know whether cake was good or bad until after it was done. It came out. It was cool when you tasted it, and if something were on, there was nothing you could do thinking back, however, to the example, the lincoln logs with the tinker toys, the directors that we had a guide. The guide showed a step by step where we should be at every point in time, if at any point in time, what we’re building didn’t look like the picture we could stop, we could go back and we could fix it. That’s one of the differences of working with outcomes as opposed to not when you don’t work without comes we have to be the only position you’re in is to hope for a good end result, but you can’t control it because you have no idea really what’s going on with the variables. If you’re tracking using an outcome system all right, and it is bound in time and is bound in number, and you do know that by a certain date x number of people should be at stage four if they’re not there, then you still have time to fix it if you have no clue where they’re supposed to be, or what we could do was hope for good results of the end, and if you don’t get it, well, then we did, you say, sorry, better looking altum you don’t know that as a child actually had an easy bake oven, i didn’t have the lincoln logs. My brother had the lincoln logs, i had the easy bake oven dahna they should also be your outcome statement verifiable, and this is all really, i’m i’m breaking it down the way you do in the book, but just flows naturally from the way you’re describing it. We have to be able to verify where we are time versus goal on dh and reassess, say more about verifiability. Verifiability basically means that some third party can look at it without spending a ton of money, because again, and maybe this is that not to take anything away from professional evaluators, but evaluation cost money and professional evaluators in professional valuation services. I mean, these people are very good at what they do, but the point is that hopefully what you’re doing is verifiable in the easier way i mean, is there’s an old saying, you know, chicken soup is good for the soul? Well, it could be, but it’s, hard to tell. You know, what you want to do is you want to stick to things that have some fairly easily discernible evidence that can be seen and that’s what it means, my verifiable it means staying away from outcomes to talkabout, as you said before, well, somebody feels better about themselves. In their place in the universe, well, that’s a little bit nebulous. And so i would recommend that if you’re looking to create a good outcome statement, a good outcome for you program that you stay away from the cosmic, the psychic, the overly emotional and definitely the extraterrestrial. Okay, so first step to create a proper outcome statement is what decide what you want to be different at the end of this program. So you’re definitely looking forward toward gin with the end in mind begins, and you say that the book begin with the engine dart with what do you want to be different about a certain situation or a certain set of conditions as a result of your program, start there. If you can’t define, then maybe should rethink what you’re doing and in determining that you need to be bound in number and time and those miserable those of the descriptions as you working back, which is yes, but the idea is what you want to start with is a change you want to start with being able to define a change. We’ve kind of alluded to this, but the basic basic idea with the changes what’s called the backs measures change in the behavior, attitude, condition, knowledge or status of those you seek to serve. So you start with the change in their behavior, their attitude, that condition and knowledge or the status and it doesn’t have to be a person. It could be a forest that could be it could could be a watershed. The status goes from being threatened to not tear being safe to being protected. But the idea is you start with the change and defining if you can’t define it, then my suggestion is you start to rethink a lot of organizations. Start with the problem. And then the next question is, what do we do? Well, what do we do? That’s that’s. The wrong place to start the place to start is first off. What changes do we want to bring about? Secondly, what resource is will it take to do that? Thirdly, you know what actions or programs will it take to effectuate that it’s? A total reverse of the usual way of approaching most of these issues. That’s. Ah, sort of a summary of of developing your own outcome statement. And there’s, obviously a lot more detail. In the book again, the book is the non-profit outcomes toolbox, we have just about a minute before the break, how do we start to apply and outcomes analysis? You have a lot of tools in the book, but how do we get there? Well, first off an easy thing by the book, but beyond that, there are any number of very, very thoughtful people who have created some of these tools that are out there. The problem is that most non-profits i don’t know about them. Everybody, for example, is heard of the logic model. Well, what they don’t understand what the logic model was originally intended to do was to intended to be a supposed to the way a lot of people are suggesting it be used. Today there are alternatives to this, and the book is one way of finding out about them and it reinventing the wheel is not necessary. These wheels have already being been invented. The question is knowing which ones work for you. And that was the whole concept behind the toolbox approach to the book that perhaps we can talk about after the break. Okay, way are going to take a break. If you’ve not heard of the logic model, then you’re with me. So i’m going to ask robert after the break to just briefly talk about that. And then we’re going to talk about some of tools and lessons you can learn from the for-profit from the corporate sector in outcomes measurement. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Buy-in oppcoll this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing effort. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile market. Their motto is we do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com told you. If you have big ideas and an average budget to tony martignetti non-profit radio, we dio. I’m jonah helper, nari team in co founders of next-gen charity metoo welcome back to the show. Our last segment. Let’s define the logic model because maybe i know it by a different name, robert. But you may know that what is that? That is actually the name of it. If the logic model is a away that non-profits have had for some years now ah planned it’s one of the tools that they’ve used for planning how to get to the outcomes from the starting point. But the logic model became very well known when kellogg adopted at the kellogg foundation. Same is the cereal people, the telephone, isha and united way of america adopted. And in both of those cases they kind of put the word out amongst their there either case of kellogg, that grantees, and in the case of the united way of america, the local affiliates, that this was one of the earliest outcomes frameworks that you could potentially use not doing under do plug. But in my previous book, outcome frameworks, that was one of the things we talked about, because the idea was there were these various models, and how do they compare one to the other? And what were the pluses and minuses of all of them that had never been done? Before, which is why i wrote that previous book, but the logic model truly was meant as a is a graphic illustration of cause and effect within a program that this input will lead to that which will lead to the third, which will lead to the fourth and hopefully get you two the the the the end point that you that you desire, the problem is it was never actually designed to be a management or tracking tool. And when organizations and there are a lot of people, very thoughtful people who do use it for this personally, i think it’s cumbersome and what you wind up with since the whole design was a flow chart, very often you wind up with all of these various lines at the doubling back on each other. So some of someone i know, okay, so we’re past that now that we’re in the outcomes toolbox, right? And why did you choose the toolbox metaphor? Kinds of the toolbox was very simple. Let’s go back to that curtain, rod, you and i, we’re going to put a human. You don’t go back to my eagle scout. No, no, i’m still sinjin, i’m going to go back to the curtain rod, you’re not going to put up a few minutes ago without the level. Let’s say you’re putting up the the curtain, ron and all the tools you had. We were craftsman. And at one point you needed that level that i mentioned and you say, bob, give me a level. Well, if the level i gave you was a stanley, would you refuse to use it? Because it was a question like all the other tools? Probably not. You would. You would use the tools at hand. Okay. In the non-profit space, most of these frameworks, our proprietary, this one belongs to ran. That one belongs to the rental of ill institute, the third one’s associated with this with this person or this institution. As a result, what traditionally happened was, let us say, a representative of that organization or the consultant came in and they would wind up basically saying to non-profits my model b a, b, c or d it’s the bass o matic of outcome frameworks. It slices it, dices it chops, it walks the dog. It does everything. The problem is none of them do everything. All of them. Do something, all of them do several somethings some of them do some things very well, but none of them do everything well. And so what we want of doing was inadvertently offering them the space eighty pence, eighty percent solutions to one hundred percent problems. It’s telling people, for example, that the logic model was the be all and end all was one such example. My concept is, and the reason is called the toolbox in the book, i do not care about the authorship, the ownership, the providence or anything else about any of these tools. If it works, i want you to use it, and i’m not going to tell you not to use it because you’re not using the other pieces of the same sex that’s the concept truly a toolbox reaching grab what works for you, and if you’re not oriented to its tools, think about it as a kitchen, you know, again, you know, if you have a, you know, one brand of, you know, say, blender and another brand of you’re not going to not use them to the same meal because the different brands you’re going to use, what you need now. You’re in my space because now i mean that’s for my easy bake oven days. Okay, right. The kitchenware. That’s. What if that’s why i went there? I can see that you is resonating with much more comfortable with spatulas than i am. Phillips head screwdriver. First time i used when i had to go to the emergency room that’s because you were trying to scrape a pan with so the book has ah, lot of model of of these tools talks about dahna maybe a dozen or so. Some of the simplest ones are you get what you measure results based accountability, even one from mckinsey and company capacity assessment tool. But maybe not those necessary. But a lot of the tools in the toolbox do emanate from corporate outcomes. Measurements. Some of the some of the latter ones. A lot of, you know, there’s. A lot of what are what? Why is it translatable? I mean, from for-profit tuna for-profit, you know, a lot of times not-for-profits community is worried about things that come from corporations. Yeah. Peter drucker. Except for money. Not a cz investigators, investors, but but now there is that fear. What were some of the less peter drucker made the comment that non-profit should be run more like business, and everyone thought that, you know, he was he was the prostate, and he was ah, heretical and my god, you know, corporations a big, nasty things, and after all we care, you know, we have a non-profit sector. The truth of the matter is that no one is more interested in outcomes in the corporate world. Now they tend to call the court that their outcomes profitability, market share, etcetera. But the idea is they’ve been leading the way literally since, you know henry ford was putting model tease out of on assembly line, there are tools, for example, like six sigma. There are tools that i said heaven saying, sabat against there are tools like six, six, six sigma six sigma. The question is what? The hell’s, a sigma and where the six of them that’s explained in the book it’s basically a measure of quality. All right, six sigma focuses on how many failure rates are there per million opportunities to fail. I mean, you don’t really have to get into that, but the concept is it has some key insight something for example, like t q m t q jargon jail. Oh, ok, you know, take your total quality, man. You know, i didn’t know what i mean, that’s what it cost him, and i’m not going to lock myself in jargon jail. What it means is critical to quality most non-profits when they’re designing a programme, do not ask this question, as the corporate world does with corporal world is launching and launching an effort, one of the first things under six sigma they would do is say, what is the most critical part of this that we need to have? If a non-profit were to adopt that kind of that kind of concept and that kind of analysis, it could go very, very far towards helping them focus on the most important parts of a program, the key things that they absolutely must have. But this is a perspective that is very often for into the non-profit space, but very, very built into the corporate space, particularly using something like six sigma, i see a future masters degree in non-profit outcomes engineering yet it’s perfect, exactly there’ll be exactly well, but when we have maybe a moment so we can talk about something called serve qual, which they’re using pizza hut, if you imagine, think a tool from pizza being used in the non-profit space now that’s that’s the suggestion that we talked about, regrettably, we’re out of moments right of moments. Well, the lesson is don’t be fearful of what comes from the non-profit from from the for-profit sector because these are all important, easily quantified things that corporations are focusing on, like earnings per share in a quarter, right? Exactly. And how do you get there? What do you need to do to get there? The book is the non-profit outcomes toolbox, a complete guide to program effectiveness, performance measurement and results published by wally wiley and sons, you’ll find robert penn is blogged at outcomes, outcomes toolbox, dot com robert, thank you very much for being on the show. A pleasure. Thank you very much for having it was a pleasure and enjoyed immensely. Thank you. Next week, september eleven giving what of the trends been? What can we expect going forward around that? My guest will be christine cronin, president of n y charities dot or ge? You can always keep up with what’s coming. Up on the show, sign up for our insider email alerts on the facebook page there’s a link to sign up and get those weekly alerts while you’re there, click like become a fan of the show, you can listen live or archive you’ve been listening live. You can listen archive on itunes subscribe and listen anytime, of course. On the device of your choice, go to non-profit radio dot net for our itunes paige on twitter hope hopefully you were following us today. The hashtag is always non-profit radio you can also follow me on twitter that non-profit radio hashtag use it with impunity use it unashamedly when you’re talking about the show, the show creative producer is claire meyerhoff, the line producer of tony martignetti non-profit radio and the owner of talking alternative broadcasting is our own sam liebowitz. Our social media is by the expert regina walton of organic social media. This is tony martignetti non-profit radio, where we always talk about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent, i hope you’ll be with me next friday one to two p m eastern here on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com hyre i didn’t think that shooting getting thinking. You’re listening to the talking alternate network. Get in. Things. It’s! 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053: A Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guest this week:

Mazarene Treyz, author of “The Wild Woman’s Guide to Fundraising”

Read and watch more on Tony’s blog: http://mpgadv.com

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Hey, welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio for friday, august fifth i’m your aptly named host, you may recall, and i hope you do that. Last week i had a conversation with darian rodriguez hammond. We talked about his book non-profit management one o one and the nationwide social media for non-profits conferences that he hosts, and it was also so you want to start a non-profit we welcomed our new legal contributors, they’ll be regular on the show, jean takagi and emily chan from san francisco to explain the ups and downs of starting a non-profit what are the alternatives to creating a non-profit how do you get five? Oh, one c three status what you’re getting yourself into if you go ahead, that was all last week, and this week it is wild woman fund-raising mazarene treyz consultant and author of the wild woman’s guide to fund-raising is with me for the hour to share her thoughts about career, social media grants, manship and whatever else we get into, we’re live and taking your calls and twitter posts for this wild woman from texas on tony’s take two at roughly thirty two minutes into the hour six essentials for startup planned giving program from my blogged right now, we’re going to take a break, and when i return, i’ll be joined by mazarene treyz. We’ll talk about wild woman’s guide to fund-raising. Stay with us. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight, one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. Is your marriage in trouble? Are you considering divorce? Hello, i’m lawrence bloom, a family law attorney in new york and new jersey. No one is happier than the day their divorce is final. My firm can help you. We take the nasty out of the divorce process and make people happy. Police call a set two one, two nine six, four, three, five zero two for a free consultation. That’s lawrence h bloom two, one two, nine, six, four, three five zero two. We make people happy. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com. I’m ken berger of charity navigator, and you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio. I am joined now by mazarene treyz mazarene is a consultant to non-profits and individuals based in austin, texas. She’s, the author of the wilds woman guide to fund-raising published by chatter ranga press she’s worked with non-profits since two thousand. Won is a frequent speaker on topics related to fund-raising board improvement, career management and mohr and it’s. A pleasure to welcome mazarene to the show. Mazarene treyz welcome. Ok, thanks, tony it’s, great to have you the wild woman happy to be here, it’s. My pleasure to have you the wild woman guide to fund-raising what is a wild woman and our men? Welcome in this community because this handup being assured. You know, i made it because i was kind of describing myself. One of the things i think it’s important for fundraisers to be able to do is to speak the truth and that’s kind of difficult sometimes when so many people are looking to you beauty. Yes, person. So i just wanted to say, you know, it’s a wild thing to do to actually be able to say, hey, here’s what’s really going on? Let’s fix, you know? Instead of just trying to pretend everything is fine, that’s what wild me and go while you can apply to anyone involved in fund-raising not just women, obviously, of course. Oh, yeah, that’s, that’s fine in my book that just to help people, you know, navigate the situations that might come up in a fund-raising environment and as the title suggests on but you explicitly say you wrote a fun primer. Why did you feel the community needed a fun primer? I don’t know, i don’t wantto, you know, name any names, but i liked it a lot different fundrasing books and didn’t really speak to me. They were they were being kind of dull, and they just sort of there kind of plotted, and i wanted to make something that was more like hands on how to when i first got into the field and nothing i thought fund-raising which brand? And i realized, wow, it’s marketing events, social media it’s always thinks that, you know, i had no idea about when i first started, and i wish i’d had a book that would just take me through it step by step, including, you know, how to get a job a swell. As you know, managing were put conflict and, you know, even doing some efficiency practices called, like, you know, from lean management techniques. And your book covers all those topics you just talked about, andi, i have found, and i’ve interviewed other authors who feel the same way that in the not so distant past, you know, the books were very theoretical, conceptual and not so much do this. Do that just last week, darien rodriguez haman he edited a collection of that. Those types of articles written by thirty three or thirty five other people. You know, this is what to do. Do this step, do that step, then do the third step. And i think your book is very much similar. You have a lot of detail in it. Not theory. Yeah, yeah. That’s the start of the chapter. It says what it is, what you need to do it when to do it and then what to do specifically it’s just all on the first page of each chapter. And then you can go through and get more details through the whole chapter. And then i also have, like, a cd in the back. Of the book that, you know has template and things that will help people just apply it immediately to their fund-raising office because honestly, yeah, theory doesn’t work so well for me, i really prefer, you know, tell me what to do, i just want to get it done, you know, everybody stop for time these days, and yeah, i wanted to acknowledge that and that’s the need in small and midsize non-profits yes, so you start with you open with your you and your family background, and i think that’s interesting. Why? Why do you want people to do some sort of self assessment? The reason i decided to begin it that way is because i think that before you can start to fund-raising you have to acknowledge where you come from, and some people are very comfortable from a upper middle class background. Other people are working class, and i know that this is acknowledged in england more but there’s more clash consciousness, but in america it’s, much less so on dh. So what? I want to help people understand woz when you’re talking to people across all different economic strata for your non-profit acknowledge who you’d be. More comfortable talking with and who? I’s going to be kind of hard for you to talk with, you know, for whatever reason, and that way, you will be a better fundraiser, because you’ll acknowledge your biases. And, yes, you’ll understand what your biases are, recognized them and and deal with them, because, of course, fund-raising is all about relationships, so it helps to know where you’re coming from, and that helps youto understand others. I think definitely, yeah, i mean, i wish more people were just sort of examine themselves, you know, and say, wow, you know, i really enjoy talking to ceo, but you know, somebody in our program team, i’m having a harder time where, because of, you know, there was a class background, you know? So, so let’s, let’s, talk a little about, just sort of a teaser, because we just have about a minute before ah, break about career, you know, getting getting that job. Why don’t you tell us quickly? And then we’ll talk more in detail after the break. What’s up. What? How wow story. Okay, what how wow story is a story that helps you understand what you bring to the table and help you communicate that to somebody who might be hiring you. So you tell them what you did, how you did it, and then the wow at the end is oh, wow, you know, it could be something from your personal life is not to be professionally related thing, but it does help you get a job in any field when you can articulate you know what the well was and how it illustrates a quality that you have, whether it’s tenacity being a good researcher or whatever i’m with mazarene treyz she’s consultant and the author of the wild woman’s guide to fund-raising we’re live and taking your calls eight, seven, seven, four aito for one two oh eight, seven, seven, four aito for one too, and we’re also live tweeting use the hashtag non-profit radio if you want to talk to me and mazarene we’re going to take a break and then we’ll continue talking about career and wild woman fund-raising you getting anything, including getting thinking things you’re listening to the talking alternative network duitz getting anything duitz cubine are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Dahna are you feeling overwhelmed in the current chaos of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics, politically expressed hi and montgomery taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com looking to meet mr and mrs wright, but still haven’t found the one i want to make your car relationship as fulfilling as possible. Then please join us, starting monday, may second at ten am for love in the morning with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all. Please tune in and call as we discuss dating relationship and more. Start your week off with love in the morning with marnie alison on talking alternative dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Welcome back, i’m with mazarene treyz the author of the wild woman’s guide to fund-raising some of the the sort of a little provocative and certainly fund that she has, you know, she’ll have chapter title and then there’s something in parentheses. I’m saying, i’m saying she like you’re not here mazarene i’m sorry, you you will not like managing volunteers. Wild women motivate events a k a kicking ass and throwing parties phone a thon. Yo what’s, your ring tone love that love that on there and there are other so we’re talking about the career chapter a little bit or one of the crew chapters, you know, getting the job you recommend interview questions for people to ask of the non-profit and whether it’s, the executive director or the person that they might that might be supervising them directly if that’s, not the executive director, some of those questions were interesting. What, like, why did the previous person leave? And the boss’s management style? What? Why do you why do you encourage these sort of pre programmed questions? Well, you know what has to be a two way interview? I mean, think about it, you know you want to know what situation you’re coming in, too, to see if they’re setting you up for failure or not, you know? I mean, ideally there not right, but if they ask you to raise a million dollars in the previous year, they raised under half a million and you’re one person shot bob that’s a red flag, if you ask simply, you know, how many times is this suspicion been filled in the last five years? And they tell you a new person comes every year that’s another red flag. So you want teo not necessarily say why the last person leaves, because they might be you’re really defensive at that point, but you do want toe ask, you know, fidelity questions, you know, kind of danced around a little bit, but, you know, get your answer that you need to get the, uh and also, you need to know kind of like how often you want to meet with your boss and one of the sad things about really small non-profits sometimes communication could break down very, very quickly when you don’t have weekly meetings that’s been my experience and for me personally that the management style i prefer i like weekly meetings to just, you know, check in with somebody and say, hey, am i on the right track here? You don’t have taken our could take fifteen minutes, but you just want to make sure that you’re not going off the deep end, you know? And and i think that when you let those slides, for whatever reason, you increase the likelihood that things were going to go awry, and you’re going tohave, teo, you know, cover your pass or, you know, you’re gonna have teo really try tio, you make up things that you didn’t know you were doing wrong, you know? And, you know, some of that gets teo setting expectations correctly, too framed and so let’s, talk a little about that. So the you talk about expectations and boundaries? Yeah, definitely. So boundaries are really important in relationships and in business, and, you know, you may have seen the recent mother jones cover article called soup, you know, speeded up for no more pain it’s basically about super job, where on i did long about this as well, and my blog’s welchlin fund-raising dot com, but a lot of these one person shops are essentially super jobs, which means you’re doing the Job of 5 or 6 people and when you said expectations in the interview and they say, okay, well, you’re gonna manage the volunteers, do all the events, all the grants, uh, and you’re going to major gifts and you’re going to dio give planning and plan giving, right? And you’re going to dio, you know, all of the appeals, and you’re going to do the newsletter and the graphic design i mean, you have to manage expectations even in the interview, tony, and you really have to say, look, you know, i’m really good at these three things, and i feel comfortable doing these three things, and i would like to know if there are plans to hire more people to do these other things that you seem to think i should also feeling, because, i mean, you might think that’s suicide, but it’s not because when you teach people that you have boundaries, you teach them how to treat you, and they realize that they have to respect you more than if you just lay down and took everything you know, what i’m saying? Of course, and plus, aren’t you? Let’s say you’re not getting success in this interview process, are you just better not having that job? If those are the kinds of expectations? Exactly? Yeah, definitely i agree, you know, you may feel like what? I have to take the job, i really need the money, but ask yourself, you know, on the last time you were really fulfilled unhappy, working ninety hours a week, you know, maybe not, you know, like, i’m not lazy, and i don’t think a lot of people in fund-raising aren’t lazy, but i think that there can be time when you know due to economic necessity, people are laid off and more casks are placed on people in the profits, then reason we should be placed a mouse on don’t anyone listening can relate, but that it’s not just happening non-profit checker but if you read mother jones article or my blood post about it, you’ll see that it’s happening in air traffic controller sector nursing lecturers at universities, hotel maid ah lot of people are feeling the squeeze, and i really feel like we have to push back about that on those air. Very interesting, very recent examples we can’t take. Your calls from mazarene eight, seven, seven, four aito for one two oh, and we also live tweeting and we’re getting some tweets were goingto talk about blogging and a couple of minutes andi will get to the subject’s people are tweeting about the hashtag two uses non-profit radio all one word yeah, it’s interesting. You also talk about communication in the small shop and the thinking for someone who hasn’t worked in one would be we must be talking all the time because there’s only two or three or four of us. But what happens in that small shop is everybody’s off doing so many millions of things that there isn’t enough office communication? So i think you’re your right toe and insist on weekly meetings. Thanks for saying that. You know, i would really love to have a what? How wild story about how incredibly, i changed office communications, but i don’t you know, i have to go back to your previous thing. I have a small anecdote. Teo, help people really talk themselves up in a non-profit interview. So, here’s what? How? Our story that i did about, uh oh, gosh years and years ago now, but it’s still true i had i was working as a consultant for non-profit called the gentle muses in boston, massachusetts and i what i did for them is they all wanted they were argast working in hospitals, they also want to go out and work a senior living center, too. So i made a big list is senior living centers, and then i called them, i cold called them, and i got twenty knew gig about five per harvest paid gigs from about a week of calling and following up with people. So that was what happened on the wow is, you know, they got, you know, thousands more dollars from my outreach, and the organization grew stronger. So, you know, that will show, you know, your tenacity, your willingness to take risks on and tio make poll calls on behalf of your non-profit you know, and i think it’s important for any fundraiser to be able to do just even when you call and say thank you, you know that that’s that’s helpful, but it’s also warn people up for the next fifty something absolutely for after you get the job, you spent some time talking about career well. Not so much career, but really conflict in the workplace on and i think that’s interesting you you talk about rank is, um on dh define rank is, um, is abusive behavior toward those who have less power? I’m paraphrasing, why don’t you distinguish for us between the somebody rank ists and the nobody rankest i’d love tio um so where i got these thought constructs was from robert fuller’s book, and he wrote a book about somebody’s in nobody’s and another woman who’s bash name i can’t run right now, but she was about to do battle between somebody and nobody’s they they’re trying to create a dignitary in society. So what that means is try and treat everyone with dignity, not just the person above you or, you know the person was convenient to be treated like me, you know, treat everybody with dignity and respect. You know, whether it’s back-up probono partner or somebody who’s receiving your services o r know somebody on the street that you meet or volunteer in your own organization, and the differences between somebody’s and nobody’s is, uh, somebody rankest will try to make the people around them feel like they’re less than what they are. So there are, like kind examples in my book, but some of them are the seeding giant, the tyrant, the number, the gate keeper on dh. So for example, if your boss never says a loaded recorded by you that’s a number rank that they’re pulling now it could be your secretary doesn’t have to be your boss. It’s just an example. Others somebody rank you could be well, that’s set up somebody’s and then nobody rank. It could be how people react to use treatment so it could be the dog kicker that’s a nobody rank uh, somebody who’s going to pretend it’s not happening. The watcher uh, so people react to bad treatment in different ways. There’s also the retaliate er somebody who’s going to try to get back at the person who, you know did that to them, the avenger. But the two franks ok to pull our the persuader and the activists. And what the activist does is acknowledges the rank is, um, that’s inherent in the structure. And you’re just what people are doing anything and then persuading other people to acknowledge it, too, and try to make a difference set. Of rules, whether it’s in the employee handbook or just, you know, acknowledging what’s happening in the moment on and actually, sixteen countries have outlawed rank is them in the workplace, and they’ve actually, you know, nailed it down, and they’ve made it clear this is what it is and here’s, why we’re not going to tolerate it and it’s grounds for dismissal, but in america we haven’t managed not even once they diminished outlaw that yet, and i think, you know, that really contributes people quality life as well as you know, we’re pretty happy mazarene treyz is with me. She is the author of wild woman’s guide to fund-raising you’ll find her blog’s at wild woman fund-raising dot com you talk about managing up and you you encourage. Well, actually, you say wild women buck the system and we’re going to encourage fundraisers to be activist, which you’re talking about and to manage up. And i love this quote, if the staff are all burned out, you have to look at the person holding the flamethrower eleven you’re laughing, that’s great! I hope the audience is laughing too, because that’s a quote from the book where and you might even be looking at the executive director. Of course, right, you might. Yeah, and i just want to emphasize that this book could rank you could be anybody. It’s not just the top people. I just i just want to emphasize that. But if staff are running himself ragged, you know, is it because you need ten people, child? And you really do need to hire more people? I mean, then you do have to look at the senior leadership, you know? And you khun sort of get clues to the to whether there are problems by asking the i think insightful questions that you recommend in the interview. So, you know, absolutely the interview should be a conversation, and i agree that you’re gathering research about the organization just like they’re doing their own research on you. And you, khun try toe at least, i think, minimize the likelihood of walking into a bad situation where everybody has burned out bye bye having that asking those sort of probing questions in the interview stage. Yeah, and, you know, if they aren’t ready to answer them, you know, they just seem really shocked and taken aback when you asked. You know, uh, what are your strategic goals or what are some difficult decisions that you need to make right now? Um, then you just might want to ask yourself. Look at the contents of these simple questions that can’t handle them. Then do it dahna work to the place. I mean, you want to make sure that they’re being straight with you from the get go. Another more red flags, right? Right, right, right. Yeah. But a lot of these interviews go really well, they say, you know, if you can ask them, how do you celebrate what’s working here or, you know, how do you ah, manage conflict here or cool? I learned from an owl. You know, if you can say those three questions that will just a view so much time. I mean, if they say you’re not gonna learn from anyone, we don’t celebrate what working at all and whoever has a conflict, if they look uncomfortable that point, they talk to each other, you know, then you have to understand that sometimes people are prepared your questions. And they might also not be telling the whole truth about that. I pulled the listeners before. The show asking in the past six months did you have an office personnel conflict that bothered you? And ninety one percent said no. And then and then a small ten percent our nine percent actually just said said yes and it was handled well, nobody said yes and it was handled badly. So thie the audience is either not admitting to or his is all living or working in mostly working in very congenial places, at least in the past six months. So that’s pretty cool. Yeah, well, i’m really happy to hear that your listeners are good places and hopefully they stay yes, let’s turn a little bit tio social media before we take a break in a couple minutes, we well, the one of the poll questions also came actually directly from your book. I love these categories that you have. I asked on the web, are you whether you’re a creator, a commenter, a collector, a joiner, a seeker, a spectator or inactive? Nobody said, inactive and the most most popular, but close to sixty percent said that there’s, a creator of a blogger, webcast a website or something, a podcast or something similar on dh. Then sort of evenly distributed among spectators who like to watch and joiners who like to join groups and commenters who like to comment on other people’s videos and blog’s, we got a live tweet asking about how do you get the courage to blogger mean, blogging is a simple element of, well, an essential element of social media is not simple, so someone asks, how does she developed the courage to blogged? Okay, i’ll tell you right now, you’re blogging for your organization that’s totally different blogging for yourself. I developed the courage to block because i was angry and i really didn’t care anymore. If i ever get a job in the field again, i was like, you know what? I really just think you think you could be said, i’m going to say them, i hope people see me for who i really am and, uh, cheers understand that this is the package, you know, i feel like fund-raising they’re more respect, and i feel like, uh, we have a sort of a responsibility. Teo, speak our truth and tio organized for a better doctor mazarene way have to we have to take a break, we’ll come. Back. But i think the lesson there is be passionate. Give a damn about what your blogging about. Yes, we have to take a break. Of course. Mazarene will stay with us, so i hope you do, too. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Are you feeling overwhelmed in the current payoffs of our changing times? A deeper understanding of authentic astrology can uncover solutions in every area of life. After all, metaphysics is just quantum physics. Politically expressed buy-in, montgomery, taylor and i offer lectures, seminars and private consultations. For more information, contact me at monte m o nt y at r l j media. Dot com are you stuck in your business or career trying to take your business to the next level, and it keeps hitting a wall? This is sam liebowitz, the conscious consultant. I will help you get to the root cause of your abundance issues and help move you forward in your life. Call me now and let’s. Create the future you dream of. Two, one, two, seven, two, one, eight, one, eight, three, that’s to one to seven to one, eight one eight three. The conscious consultant helping conscious people. Be better business people. Hey, all you crazy listeners looking to boost your business? Why not advertise on talking alternative with very reasonable rates? Interested simply email at info at talking alternative dot com if you have big ideas and an average budget to tony martin, any non-profit radio we dio, i’m jonah helper, nari team in co founders of next-gen charity zoho. Those are the nextgencharity boys on i’ll be at the nextgencharity conference in november before the break, i forgot to mention it’s tony’s take two first so mazarene take break just for a couple minutes. I get to talk for just a few minutes about this week’s block post, which is six essential elements for startup planned e-giving program my blog’s at m p g a d v dot com the three things that i think you need to have in place before you can start a plan giving program are the first of the of the first three of the six at least ten years in history the organization’s history because think about it you’re asking someone to include the organization in their will at the most basic level, those the most common type of plan gift, or maybe some more sophisticated a state plan, and so they have to be comfortable that your organization is going to live longer than they do so an organization is just like two or three or four years old. Of course, everybody hopes that it’s going to live forever, but a donor talking about putting you in their state plan really needs to be more confident than you know, then just a hope. So look for that at least ten years. History in the organization. Consistent donors over fifty five, fifty five is roughly the age when people start thinking about using their estate plan as a charitable vehicle. May we certainly should have a state plans long before that, but as a charitable vehicle that’s roughly the age, though, and you need some consistency in in there, giving among those people over fifty five, meaning that they’ve been supporting you for a while, not necessarily at high levels. Definitely not. Thank you very much. That was great applause. It is a brilliant idea. I agree. Nobody knows where that nobody knows where that applause came from. Sam doesn’t know, but i appreciate that that’s more than i got when i did my stand up comedy board support. Your board needs to be behind every significant initiative in the organization without exception. If you’re going to inaugurate a planned giving program that’s a significant initiative your board needs to be behind it, and they ought to be thinking about their own plan gift for the organization. So those are the first three of the six. The other three are how to get started, including marketing. And starting with requests. Again, you’ll find my blogging m p g a d v dot com. And that is tony’s take two for friday, august fifth, bringing mazarene treyz back. We just gotta laugh. Thank you very much. He gave me a laugh. So we were just talking about yes, the courage to block and blogging about something you love, right? Oppcoll? Yeah. I started my block because i wanted to promote my book, but i realized that it was so much more than that. It was a way tio reach out to people, the partner with people to help people in whole new ways. It cubine thought of, like, starting a newsletter, i know you haven’t e newsletter because i get it and i really love it. Thank you. You’re welcome on dh. So and part of what we’re talking about is being that activist, and we actually got some live tweets from at pamela grow and at powerful har they love the fundraiser as activist, and so you’re block was just another form of your activism, right? Definitely, yeah, i think so. I mean, think about it if you want to change the world, you’ve gotta have money to do it, you know, that’s the bottom line, and so everyone should be concerned about how to get money to make the changes they want to see, you know, and that’s why? I think everybody in the nonprofit organization should be involved in fund-raising in some way, we don’t advocate their responsibility to make sure the organization continues. Teo, for bilich mission you advocate something in the use of social media that you do very widely throughout the book, which is integrate the online and offline. As you mentioned, your book has, ah, disk that comes with it. They’re also numerous references to your blogged for additional articles on specific topics. What so, as non-profits are struggling with what to do thinking about social media. How should they be integrating the online and offline? I love that question. Why? There’s a lot of ways to do it, for example, just with plain old stewardship there’s freeways to thank people online right now if you’re not already thanking your donor’s, obviously the ones that don’t want to be anonymous. If you’re rethinking them on twitter, facebook, lincoln and your lincoln group and on your blogger and sidebar of your website, you’re missing an opportunity, teo cultivate them so that you can ask again so i would definitely recommend that people who are involved non-profits just get twitter, facebook and lincoln accounts for that reason. If no other reason you don’t have to be a techno with to thank people online and dc shout out if you go to twitter splash dc shout out they do that constantly, they just saying people all the time in their twitter stream and it’s, very powerful, and they just say, here’s, what this person gave you know, d c what? What organization is that you mentioned there in d c? I think i actually forget with the organization of that story i used as an example, but if you just go to their web page, i mean go to their twitter stream, you’ll see. There are things that that organization could do if they just have five or ten minutes a day, right? Yeah, yeah, i mean, you could use what’s called a hoot suite dot com and it’s a church o t, as you know, i e thank you for explaining because i wanted to keep you out of jobs, hoping to keep you out of jargon jail all day, and you just did it for yourself. Some people may not know who sweet ah lot of people do, but yes, and so what does who sweet do? Well, it helps you schedule all of these updates to these different social networks, so if you’ve got five minutes at six pm and you, you want to thank people across facebook, lincoln and twitter, you could do that just by putting these little boxes and do it all at once and you can set it up to be whatever you wanted to be could be a week from now could be a month from now on dh so if you had a big major donor who doesn’t mind being publicly saying and you want to say thank you so much, major donor act for your generous gift of ten thousand dollars it’s really going to help the kids do? Why you know, then that’s that’s that conflict tweets are you want to shorten it up? You could do that to you could make a link to the blood post that talks about it or whatever you want to do or even media coverage. So when you see that there tools and please that make it easier for you to not have to spend all your time on this, you know there’s no reason not to regina walton, who does the social media for this show uses hoot suite what’s, another online easy resource for people who really just have five or ten minutes a day to devote to their their charities, social media, social networking? Well, what i would do is possibly participate in pamela grows a small mom profit chat on twitter, it’s on fridays, it’s two fridays a month from twelve to one and it’s the hashtag is sm np chat and if you participate in hashtag chats, you khun get your questions answered and so this one she has different teams each week, but you can also just ask questions in general, for anyone who’s there i’m often there she’s often there, she’s kinda like the grant grew i love her, and i think she was a wonderful person. I’ve never met her, but we met through twitter and twitters a place where you can make connections with people, um, that you would never have access to before, and i’ve actually talked to a lot of people that i’ve met on twitter on the phone, on dh even done business with them so it’s sure to be powerful tool to be involved in half czech chats, and then the other benefit from that, even just once five minutes out is that you’ll get more followers on the more followers you have, the more your broadcast radius increases so that more people care about what you’re talking about. Pamela grow is live tweeting with us. We’ve gotten some tweets from her and incredible coincidence that you should mention that because she and i were on the phone this morning before the show, talking about how i can collaborate using the show with sm and peach at so hopefully that thankfully that comes to fruition. Yes, yes, we’ll see. Well, of course, now pamela’s on the spot, because now i’ve broadcast that that i’m interested in doing that. So if it doesn’t come to fruition way, know which end the trouble came from? Hello pamela, you have some very simple suggestions for for websites or blog’s when the two are increasingly the same today. Like focus above the fold and testing your website, those air really some very simple things that that charity’s khun khun do quite simply right? Oh, yeah, yeah! So the foal in case people who are listening, i don’t know it’s the part of the green that’s above where you have to scroll down. So when you get your website before you click the right hand side to scroll down that that’s the top you’re upset that big doing all your work for you so that’s where your donate button should be the sign up for your newsletter should be on anything else you want them to do. If you want to look a good example of a website that does that you could look at mercy corps dot com or rather it m e r t y c o r p s dot org and they focus above. The hole? They have an army of development staff. I’m sure they got an army of staff as well, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t look at them and say, oh, yeah, we should still that, you know, it’s not that difficult. Look at the big non-profits better doing it right and say, how can we emulate what’s working? You know, the treats are coming in and one of welcome fundraiser beth to the show. She said she did not did not know about disease, that somebody, you know? Oh, well, you know, it’s okay, if she says she did not know about tony martignetti non-profit radio, obviously it does now, and i want to thank att dom di jones for tweeting about tony’s take two and repeating what the three elements are to get started on a plane giving program. So, thanks, all this live tweeting is cool. This is the first week we’re doing it. You’re talking about twitter mazarene but this is the first week we’re live. We’re for show where we’re live tweeting oh, i love that. So do i. I think we’re gonna keep it up. Um, we have just about a minute and a half before a break so let’s introduce the topic of grants, manship and getting grants. I pulled the audience before the show on, by the way, they’re always every show that’s live will have a link to the pole actually, now we’ve gotten smarter. Take that back. We’ll have the pole embedded in the block post for that week’s show, so you should be signing up or so you should be subscribing to the blogger mpg a dv dot com, because then you’ll get the post when they come out for it show and each live show, we’ll have the pole embedded within the block post altum so what did the audience say? I asked for those seeking foundation grants what’s the toughest part about a third said doing the research and about a third said getting turned down, and then it was split about twenty and twenty between complying with the submission requirements and finding time to sit and write. Nobody said complying with the guidelines after being accepted, so they’re all the listeners air, so ecstatic about having been accepted that they don’t, they’re happy to comply with the guidelines, so my guest is mazarene treyz and when we reach, he’ll be thinking about those poll results on. When we read return, we’ll talk about grants manship with her. So stay with us. You getting anything shooting? Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network e-giving. Things. Cubine looking to meet mr and mrs wright, but still haven’t found the one i want to make your car relationship as fulfilling as possible. Then please join us, starting monday, may second at ten am for love in the morning with morning alison as a professional matchmaker, i’ve seen it all. Please tune in and call as we discuss dating relationship and more. Start your week off with love in the morning with marnie alison on talking alternative dot com. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Oh, this is tony martignetti aptly named host of tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent technology fund-raising compliance, social media, small and medium non-profits have needs in all these areas. My guests are expert in all these areas and mohr. Tony martignetti non-profit radio fridays, one to two eastern on talking alternative broadcasting do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? Would you like to incorporate professional video marketing mobile marketing into your organization’s marketing campaign? Mission one on one media offers a unique marketing experience that will set you apart from your competitors, magnify your brand exposure and enhance your current marketing efforts. Their services include video production and editing, web design, graphic design photography, social media management and now introducing mobile marketing. Their motto is. We do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. Contact them today. Admission one one media dot com talking. No. Kayman welcome back to tony martignetti non-profit radio with the author of the wild woman’s guide to fund-raising calling from texas mazarene treyz and the tweets are still coming in. I wanna welcome a v masters welcome to the show says had never heard of it. Now, obviously, has you can also post comments on the show’s facebook page. You know where to find facebook and then just tony martignetti non-profit radio you’re welcome to post comments. There were also were watching that as well as the hashtag non-profit radio so mazarene grants manship ah, a lot of people think that research is the is the toughest part. You have some good ideas about research and some resource is in the book. Oh, yeah, thanks. Well, in case anyone listening doesn’t know, you can use the foundation centers platinum database for free, probably in your town. If you go to foundation center dot borg flash i believe it collection. I could be wrong, but if you type it into google, you’ll figure it out. Yeah, they they have what are called cooperating collections throughout the country. That’s what you’re referring to? Precisely? Yes. And so for example, if you’re in austin. Texas, where i am, you can go to the central library and the second floor has free access to their platinum edition database, which costs over a thousand dollars a year, and you can get incredible amounts of data. Everything from who’s on their board do what they’re giving tio tio up to the minute, maybe even like every six months or so they’ll be updating us, or sooner if the downturn is effective giving and also, if you’re in portland, oregon, you could also go to the central library there and research grants latto second floor as well. That’s where i moved from thie other thing you would want to know about if you just don’t want to go outside because it’s really hot right now today, it’s like one hundred six here. And i know it is about for like much of the south. If you i want to see inside, you can use what’s called a nova search? No, the search me n o z a z like zebra, right? Yeah, like zebra. Exactly. The nose, the search and you can search foundations in there for free it also it will charge you too. Search individual but if you want your foundations, you could do that right from your desk wherever you are right now. And you can if you just want to start with small grants. Uh, that would be a good way to get your foot in the door for ah, different foundations and the small family foundations in your area. This is what i’ve learned from pam grow, actually, she is so good at this. Ah, and she said, you know, when you ask for too much in your first act, it’s actually really insulting to them, so even just asking for a thousand dollars is safer than asking for ten thousand as a first asked for a lot of these foundations. You have very specific advice about how to do the research at the foundation center, which i’m just going to plug him as well. It’s a nationally right now, probably internationally recognized outstanding resource for for doing grantspace research, you have some. Oh, and i should also want to say in a lot of the library’s maybe all the coordinating collection libraries throughout the country. There’s help! Right let’s talk about this briefly. They’re librarians that are trained to help you use the foundation search of the foundation center database? Yes, yes, there they are, and they will help you learn how to use it, whether it’s for corporate foundations or whether it’s just for private foundations. Thie other thing i’d like to mention is my very first fund-raising education came from the foundation center in new york, and i took a couple classes in how to look for grant and it was really useful, but well worth the money. If you’re in the new york city area, go take a class that really helped so let’s talk about some of your very specific advice on howto research. What is it we’re looking for when we when we’re using this great foundation, sent a resource, you are going to look for geographic area that they fund, you know, whether or not they’re located in that area, it doesn’t matter it’s mainly what they find so you want to put in your state, and then you’ll want to put in national, so if they give national grant that, that could still apply to you. Uh, if you’re in america, that isthe sorry if anybody tuning in is in another country, i’m not sure. What you do in canada, for example, but you start there and then and even go down the side of the condition center database, search and look for your key word. So if you are a non profit that helps people with developmental disabilities, you could look under a mental health, you could look under social services, human resources and then be even more specific under that. And you could also look at not just people who give me friend, but what grant have been given in the past with the foundation’s donorsearch which is useful because maybe they they aren’t necessarily putting it out anymore, but they used to give grants to someone in your town, and you might be able to go collaborate with them on a joint grant or talk to them about why they gave you them and get some i d but when they would be giving in your area again. So the key thing to do when you research is call them up. I’ve gotten so many people emailing you saying, well, how do i find grant? And you know, how do i figure out what they want the best way to do it? Is, call him up, call it the program officer and say, hey, we are this non-profit in this area doing this thing. Do we have a chance at this grant? And i’ll tell you, right then, yes or no or, like they’ll say, look on ly, if you know the relative of the chair of the board chair. Otherwise, probably not. I want to add that pamela grow tweeted that she’s found that even the smallest libraries participate in the foundation center collection. On her recommendation is toe reserve a day. So this is really it’s, not just in the big cities. Oh, yes, and what about way have just about, like, a minute and a half left? Well, like a minute left, it’s. Incredible. What do you what do you hope for the charitable sector? What do you what do you not see that you’d love to see in the charitable sector? I would love to see non-profit unions rising all across the country because i feel like all non-profit workers need to be treated better and they need to have more job security, and they need better health insurance, and they need to be compensated fairly for their mileage, and i feel like even the downturn we can offer people common courtesy he’s so i feel like non-profit workers need more protection, like just about every other worker in this country, and i’m sorry i’m getting all political on you, but that’s, really? What i hope is that we form or non-profit unions, we have the gideon our workplaces, and we make sure that the top people at non-profits make no more than in ten times with the lowest paid person name mazarene treyz you’ll find her at wild woman fund-raising dot com she’s, a consultant to non-profits and individuals based in austin, texas. Her book, the wild woman’s guide to fund-raising mazarene, thank you so much for being a guest. Oh, thank you, tony. I really love it and power to the people. Have a good day, thank you very much, mazarene next week, the female theme continues got women donors howto approach motivate and take care of your female constituents, and i’m going to welcome maria simple, the prospect finder, as our regular contributor on prospect research, so she’ll join some other regular contributors that we have next week. Maria and i will be talking about using linked in to find boardmember sze volunteers and donors keep up with that’s coming up! Sign up for our insider email lorts go to that facebook page, get the email alert so that you’ll know who’s coming up from show to show while you’re there, please like us, become a fan of the show and you can subscribe. Listen to the show at any time on itunes that’s it www dot non-profit radio dot net on twitter you can follow me are hashtag of courses non-profit medio i want to thank everybody who was tweeting today. Dan blakemore, emily chan a v masters dom di jones powerful her pamela grow there are a couple of others i didn’t get a chance to write your name down. Thank you for all the live tweets terrific, we’re going to keep that up. The creative producer of the show is claire meyerhoff, our line producer and the owner of talking alternative broadcasting is sam liebowitz, our social media’s, by the excellent regina walton of organic social media. This, of course, is tony martignetti non-profit radio, where we always talk about big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Help to be with my next friday one p, m eastern, right here on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. Dick tooting. Getting ding, ding, ding, ding. You’re listening to the talking alternate network, waiting to get you thinking. Things. You could. Looking to meet mr and mrs wright but still haven’t found the one want to make your current relationship as fulfilling as possible? Then please join us starting monday, may second at ten am for love in the morning with morning alison as a professional matchmaker. I’ve seen it all. Please tune in and call as we discuss dating relationship and more start your week off with love in the morning with marnie alison on talking alternative dot com. Are you suffering from aches and pains? Has traditional medicine let you down? Are you tired of taking toxic medications, then come to the double diamond wellness center and learn how our natural methods can help you to hell? Call us now at to one to seven to one eight one eight three that’s to one to seven to one eight one eight three or find us on the web at www dot double diamond wellness dot com way. Look forward to serving you. You’re listening to talking alt-right network at www. Dot talking alternative dot com, now broadcasting twenty four hours a day. Do you want to enhance your company’s web presence with an eye catching and unique website design? 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