How to recognize your team and raise money

Thanks to Holderness School in beautiful Plymouth, NH for this creative faculty recognition and fundraising idea.  Instead of a live auction over Parent’s Weekend, the school held a raffle with twelve items.  Most of the raffle items were weekends at ski resorts, tickets to a Boston Red Sox game or lodging for graduation weekend.  Parents, students, faculty, trustees and friends could buy raffle tickets online and distribute them as they wished into the virtual raffle buckets.  The most popular item was a get-away weekend in Sugarbush, VT.  The catch was the winner had to select a member of the staff (at the time of purchasing the tickets) to receive the award.  For example, a parent purchases the tickets, put them in the Staff Get-Away prize, names there student’s History teacher as the recipient and should the parent win the History teacher receives the Faculty Get-Away package.  The house in Sugarbush sleeps 12 so the faculty member can invite friends and colleagues should they wish.


I think this is brilliant for a variety of reasons.  This particular raffle prize honors the staff and faculty.  The “winner” of raffle immediately passes the gift along to the teacher they named.  The faculty member gets an unexpected weekend vacation.  It builds a sense of community, much like a young child with a bunch of balloons walking along handing them out one at a time to strangers.  At the end of the event, the Get-Away raffle package received the most raffle tickets, meaning this item alone was a major revenue generator for the school.

How can you honor and reward your professional team in creative ways?  Can you create a scheme where the organization, donor and staff all win at the same time?  Does you reward program enhance your organization’s values?  Is it expected or unexpected?  What has been successful for you?

What news we want our friends to forward to us

My sister forwarded to me a NY Times article reviewing research that sociologists at the University of Pennsylvania had undertaken to study which news articles readers emailed to their friends and colleagues. The fascinating part was that gossip, news of the weird and sex were not the leaders.  Articles that inspired and were intellectually challenging were the most emailed and seem to generate the most interest.  The researchers were looking of articles that went viral.  An interesting trend was the the balance between emotional and intellectual content.

Perhaps most of all, readers wanted to share articles that inspired awe, an emotion that the researchers investigated after noticing how many science articles made the list.

How can you use this study to influence what you put into your email blasts, newsletters and communications?  Are you giving your customers and patrons what they most desire?  Can you invite guests or experts in your field to submit an article that engages your membership?  Can you enter a dialogue that creates energy and interests?

Measuring Impact

I use a metric to measure the exertion of my cross-country ski training (at least when I am not recovering from viral meningitis, then I just use the “am I standing upright” measurement).  I outline a purpose for each workout and give it a percentage grade when I am done with 100% representing my workout matching perfect my purpose.  I multiple that by the duration of the workout, 0.25 to 5 hours and then multiple by the intensity with a scale of 1 very easy and 5 a maximum effort.  An example of the metric: my purpose the other day was to ski a long distance workout at level 2 (relatively easy pace) with minimal stops and focus on a specific skiing technique.  In reality I skied 3.5 hours and focused on technique but the intensity was higher than I planned since I had to fight a headwind and skied harder than I had intended.  The calculation: purpose index is .75 (75% of my purpose) x 3.5 hours x 3 (level 3 intensity)= 7.87 index.  Had I honored my purpose for the workout the formula would have been 1.0 (100%) x 3.5 hours x 2 (level 2 intensity)= 7.0.  That does not mean the intended workout was less effective than the actual session but it puts a metric on the exertion.  I then can monitor the impact of the workouts on my races and recovery.


So how can this type of metric be applied to your enterprise?  Many nonprofits lack a perfect metric (as noted by Jim Collins in his Good to Great and the Social Sector, a follow-up book to his best seller Good to Great).  So we invent our own.  Jim notes that a symphony in the Midwest decided to anecdotally follow the number of taxi cab drivers who mentioned the symphony as an attraction while driving tourists from the airport to downtown.  It would be extremely difficult to track this as a metric.  The symphony’s assumption was that if a taxi driver was promoting the symphony then they were well positioned as an attraction in the community.  So what value works for your cause?  World Bicycle Relief could track the number of bikes distributed into an African community but if nobody is using the bikes then the metric is flawed.  So perhaps you track the number of miles ridden on the bike, the number of times the bike is ridden each day, the gross weight of the supplies carried on the bike, or the time saved by riding a bike compared to walking.  Perhaps these measurements get you more information than just the number on units distributed. 


Return on investment (ROI) is a common refrain in the nonprofit board room, a carryover from the corporate world.  In some cases this is a very effective measurement.  The Robin Hood Foundation targets poverty in New York City.  The foundation employees an economist to measure the effectiveness of their grants.  They have established an index that measure the cost-benefit ratio of their grants and support.  Their approach is very focused and scientific.  The majority of the foundation’s board members come from the corporate world and this is a language they speak with ease.  Presenting the information in this manner meets the culture of the board and staff and can be explained readily to the high-energy, high-fiance world of Wall Street.  They now their audience and they are delivering the message in a business terminology.  


What do you need to measure?  Who is your audience?  How can you most effectively monitor the impact of your programs?  Is it scientific or anecdotal?  Are you collecting right data?  Is it relevant to your donors and customers?

Commonization

Marketplace on American Pubic Media produced a story about the Toyota design theory of commonization.  A single vehicle part is designed and used on multiple models.  It costs less, requires less in research and development and is more efficient to stock.  The practice is wonderful until something goes wrong and then every model is effected.  Toyota now has a billion dollar problem to fix and has been forced to shutdown production of new cars to fix the current fleet.

I wonder if you have seen the same thing in the nonprofit sector?  I frequently hear groups discuss the need to get more grants from foundations.  If every group acted on this strategy it would overwhelm the foundations.  Giving USA provides the following data.  Foundations account for 13% ($14 billion) of the total philanthropic giving in 2008.  About 75% ($230 billion) comes from individuals.  Which piece of the pie looks more attainable to your organization?  Diversification is one model but commonization as a tactic just because another organization is having success is not strategic but rather reactionary.

Commonization has been used very successfully in a community wide efforts.  Charitable events that support multiple agencies are amazingly well received.  Old Bill’s Fun Run in Jackson Hole, Wyoming is administered by the Community Foundation of Jackson.  It provides a way for the citizens of the community to support all the nonprofits with “one broad stroke.”  It is the umbrella fundraising event for the community.  Commonization has been well received and worked extremely well in this application.

Are your initiatives thoughtfully designed and linked to your strategic plan?  Are you reacting to the success or failure of the enterprise down the street?  If you take on a strategy of commonization can you sustain yourself if the “brakes fail” as in Toyota’s case?  If you are serving for the public trust, what is in the public’s best interest?  What are the benefits of commonization for your community?

Social Media Recommendations, Less Valuabel Than Last Year

A current survey shows word of mouth is trending towards a less trust between friends who make recommendations on social media.  Last year the level of trust was 50%  this year it has fallen to 27%.  People were not always satisfied with the recommendations that received online, some of it erroneous.  Now they are looking for 3-5 additional recommendations before taking action or feeling more assured.  The research comes from Ricahrd Edelman who was interviewed on the Marketplace radio program.


With nonprofit organizations initially being the fastest sector of adopters of social media and relying heavily on Facebook and Twitter for marketing the impact of the survey may be noticeable.  How do you make sure you have authentic, transparent reviews of your organization?  Are you getting a variety of view points to give greater assurance that you are everything you claim to be?  Are you using a bullhorn to shout about your great programs or are your fans spreading the word for you?

Facebook vs. Google

How quickly can your competitive advantage erode?  A Wall Street Journal article detailed the steps that Facebook and Google’s Gmail are taking to customize their features to look more like their their competitor.  Changes to status updates, email inbox and their respective layouts are starting to erode the competitive advantage between the two companies.  It appears that once one company started to cross the design lane that separated the two, the other company moved immediately moved closer.  Competitive advantage is not a protective blanket if it can be easily duplicated.  Real competitive advantage needs to have a serious moat in front of a castle.  Force a competitor to swim across and try to scale the walls.  If you have a well designed competitive advantage then you will force another organization to expend significant resources to try and challenge your position.

Burning Your Boats

“Cortez resorted to a simple but drastic expedient. Once he and his men landed on the shores of Mexico he burned his ships.”

Allen Weinstein and R. Jackson Wilson, Freedom and Crisis, 2nd ed., 11.

 I stumbled upon a post by James Stripes about the historical accuracy Hernán Cortés‘s actions.  Mr. Stripes points out that the boats may have been grounded instead of burned but the legacy of the moment continues to have an impact on our language and motivational planning today.  Perhaps the incident is most memorable for how extreme Cortés’s actions appear.  To reach a foreign destination and immediately destroy any chance of retreat typically gets people’s attention.  Today’s equivalent would be tossing your passport, iphone, wallet, and email addresses overboard (physically or virtually).  To underscore the seriousness of his commitment to the exploration and demonstrating this a public manner, Cortés destroyed the ships.  Change became reality, the exploring party’s charge was clear and survival could not be debated.

Society sends mixed messages on change.  Marriage is proposed but a prenuptial agreement is signed.  Two airline companies merge but they remain in their respective headquarters, flying under their pre-merger logos for months.  New software is rolled out but you can regress to the old version if you wish- consider the two versions of Microsoft’s control panel with a classic and new display.  New Coke was launched but apparently somebody thought they should keep the recipe for Classic Coke just in case thing did not workout.


Sometimes change needs to be cautious and prolonged but the motivation for commitment stagnates with the passage of time.  When I was a trip leader in the Wyoming wilderness change took place the moment the van drove away from the trail head and the group was left with what it could carry in its backpacks.  A successful trip became contingent on everyone’s participation.


When a common focus is built on the foundation of a compelling purpose and the right team is gathered, change is possible.


How have you addressed change?  Do you stay in a lifeboat by a sinking ship or seek shore?  How do you secure a group’s commitment to seek a common goal?

Recognizing Volunteers

Just received the Annual Report from the Sun Valley Center for the Arts.  One of the fascinating elements about the report is that it lists volunteers before donors and provides a notation about how each volunteer donated their time and talent.  The report says a lot about an organization and its values.

How does your organization prioritize its recognition of volunteers, donors, sponsors, and in-kind donors?  Is your recognition consistent with the organization’s stated values?  Have you asked each of the aforementioned groups how they wish to be recognized and if the current process matches their expectations?  How have you been personally recognized by other causes that was particularly compelling?

Megaphone or Flute

Social media applications are offering an interesting shift to marketing and promoting causes.  The more you shout about yourself, accomplishment and ask for immediate attention the less likely followers are going to stay in-touch (the exception seems to be celebrities or organizations that are hard to duplicate).  Have you seen organizations start their Twitter experience by promoting everything they do.  Tweets always focus inwardly on their programs, people, accomplishments, deals.  Interestingly, according to a number of social media leaders this does not appear to be the most effective way to build a base of followers.  Customers and fans who you already have a relationship with outside of social media may follow you but new users may not be as quick to be part of the ‘all you, all the time’ network.

The strategy that appears to have the greatest success comes from those individuals who can serve as connectors.  These networkers are spending far more time promoting the work of others, sharing memorable resources and links.  They are acting like a whitewater river rafting guide.  As a passenger in the raft your eyes are focused down river but these social media guides are helping steer you towards the most memorable rapids.  You develop a trust and are more likely to click on a link or read their posts.

Are you using a megaphone to shout about your services?  Is it all you, all the time?  Are you a champion of your partners?  Do you help rise all boats by raising the tide?

I believe social media is teaching us how to be a Pied Pipers, playing a memorable tune and leading others along the way.  Looking for more specifics, here is a great article by Tamara J. Erickson.

 

Landing the Plane

Arriving by plane Chicago last night the orchestrated dance of landing patterns was visible watching the planes with landing lights circling the airport.  It was a great reminder of how much energy and planning it takes to land a plane in a busy airport.  The stair-step altitude approach with reductions in speed and course all to funnel the plane into a final approach to one of the runways.  
When leading an organization do we take into account the energy and expertise required to alter the course of an existing program or initiative.

  • Some secondary schools are closing foreign language programs in favor of another language or budget cuts.  The school must support the students enrolled in the existing language courses as they sunset the program.  If they are launching a new language program they must prepare for a programatic shift.  For a period of time a school may have a duplication of staff, classroom constraints, scheduling conflicts and other challenges as they navigate the process.
  • A local foundation is moving from granting individual scholarships to a model that awards restricted funds to youth organizations.  The youth programs will then distributed the funding to children enrolled in the programs.  The end result for the recipients is the same but the process has changed dramatically.  New partnerships, forms, schedules and resources have been required.
  • The Girl Scouts of America amended their business plan and in doing so launched a realignment initiative that reduced its local and region councils from over 300 to almost 100.  This transformation has take multiple years, required a significant investment of time, money and resources.  It has been a priority and other opportunities have been delayed.

Are you committed to the change you are considering?  Do you have the time and expertise necessary to “land the plane”?  Is your organization prepared to change speeds and altitude?