321: 2017 Legal Tips & This Year’s Board Retreat – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Erin Bradrick, senior counsel at the Nonprofit & Exempt Organizations law group (NEO).

Also, Greg Cohen, senior associate at Cause Effective.

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

313: Get The Most From Your Board – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guest this week:

Eugene Fram, professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology and author of “Going For Impact: The Nonprofit Director’s Essential Guidebook.”

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

286: Virtual Orgs: Managing Your Remote Employees – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guests this week:

Heather Martin, COO at Interfaith Family & Karen Graham, executive director of Idealware. 

Also, Amy Sample Ward, our social media contributor and CEO of Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN).

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

280: Policy vs. Paper Clips – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

tony_martignetti_300x300-itunes_image2Tony’s guest this week:

Eugene Fram, professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology and author of “Policy vs. Paper Clips.”

There’s more at tonymartignetti.com

139: A Conversation With Eugene Fram – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Eugene Fram, professor emeritus at Rochester Institute of Technology and author of “Policy vs. Paper Clips.”

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 april twenty six twenty thirteen i’m your aptly named host question have you raided and reviewed the show? I haven’t asked for for many weeks, and if you haven’t done that, i’d be grateful if you did. We increase the ratings and reviews on itunes considerably the last time i asked, and if you haven’t, i’d be grateful if you did if you wouldn’t go over to non-profit radio dot net, start there and click readings and reviews and then give the show one to five stars, hopefully five and an a rating. I’d be grateful for that. Thank you very much. Oh, i hope you were with me last week. I’d suffer acute respiratory distress if it came to my attention that you had missed a conversation with amy. Sample ward part do she’s, our social media contributor and co author of social change. Anytime. Everywhere we talked about your multi-channel plan fund-raising calendar, staffing and budgeting and now you know what a home page hijack is this week. A conversation with you, jean fran lots of conversations professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology dr fram is author of policy versus paper clips introducing non-profits to a corporate model of board governance to cut out the minutia from agendas so your board can focus where it should on policy and planning roughly thirty two minutes into the hour on tony’s, take two ah that’s, a little bit of a toughie because i’m recording this about three weeks in advance, and i don’t know what’s going to be on my block, but i’ll share some gratitude on tony’s. Take two my pleasure now to welcome eugene fran he is professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology he’s, a consultant, board chair and volunteer director for non-profits he has authored a co or co authored more than hundred twenty five journal articles on marketing and non-profit and corporate governance, he wrote the book policy versus paper clips, which you can find on amazon to introduce a governance model that we’re going to talk about on twitter he’s at eugene fram four a m just like the oil filter eugene fran, welcome, welcome good morning to you. Good morning to you, it’s it’s morning in california on the day that we’re recording very early morning. So thank you for joining me this early from the left coast. It’s. My pleasure, jean. Are you are you part of the fram filter family, buddy? Chance. Unfortunately, i am not. You’re not those things still around. I don’t own a car. I haven’t had a car for years. We are fram oil filters still around. Do you know why? I think they’re still on the web. I seen them. Okay, you have but that’s, not you. I’m sorry. And that’s not me. That’s. Alright. I’m not part of the great martignetti liquor family in boston and new england either. So okay. The both of us are suffering from famous names and chronic under representation in the in those wealthy families. Yes, we’ve been born with huge handicaps. I’m still trying to overcome mind. I hope you have overcome your one hundred twenty five articles. Yeah, somewhat. But you know, my ambition is to go to a thousand. Okay, well, now that you’re in retirement, you have more time for that. But yes. That’s true. Professor emeritus jean what? What’s what’s happening with boards? Why? Why do you feel they are missing the mark? Well, boards from a governance point of view non-profit boards from the government’s point of view, frequently have retained the old nineteenth or twentieth century model off of governance, where the board has a multitude of committees and tries to eventually micromanage the uh uh, the staff in the process, nothing gets done or the organization, although it has potential as stunted growth. Ah, if it in that way, because volunteers like myself and again as i talk, i’m not talking as a non ah non-profit ceo or e d i’m talking as a volunteer director, we can’t be there day today, and we can’t, uh, manage the minutia that is no, are they not necessarily monisha or the work that really needs to be done and we can’t really manage truly professional staff, we can help. We can advise we can help. We have an obligation to set policy, but uh, but we’re simply, uh, part timers or some person has described that we’re birds of flight through the through the organization because we’re they’re traditionally three to six years, and the staff stays and works and works under different boards. Your concern is that despite the well meaning board on dh and individual members having great potential and the best interests of the organization heart you feel they’re actually through these old models stunting the organization? Absolutely. And i think it could be proven when you look at any number of organizations which has suffered this way. Do you want to give an example or to, uh well, i’ve consulted with a number of them on, but i don’t want yeah, i’ll talk t o generalities specific organizations where the the the board actually got ah, where the volunteers on the board actually got involved to the level that they were, uh, they were managing departments. Eso if the decision had to be made, the department had first went to the volunteer uh uh, advisor or whatever they call him at the time and then went to the d with the advisers either decision or concern or whatever the department had won it. So the organization didn’t grow until they finally change. They finally changed the model full time employees reporting to a parttime volunteer argast person. Exactly. Oh, my all right. Let’s, let’s. Start with the beginning of the process and we will get to the corporate model that you lay out in your book way. We’ll get to that let’s. Take a couple of discreet sort of time line points and along a board members life cycle with the organization and i’d like to start with recruitment. Makes sense, i think. Xero what can we what can we improve around our board? Recruitment? Well, the chief executive officer where, whether they be a nadie or a president ceo, as i suggest, needs to have more contact with the board with the individual board members. I think they they have tto have more contact between meetings that has to be in often and formal. Ah, and they have tio they need to get to know each other. And i suggest, uh, that they actually made quarterly to informally discuss the concerns and the challenges. Ah, that the chief executive officer is facing. I, uh there are various techniques for doing this. I recently read in the harvard business review. Uh, a recommendation. Uh, that the, uh uh uh, we’re one, uh uh, for-profit ceo actually sends a email out to the board every sunday morning. Uh, just laying out very briefly, uh, in this case, his concerns about what’s going. On in the organization and what new ideas? He has a c as he indicated in the article, he says, i don’t worry about grammar right now, gina, i’m trying to focus on recruitment, so maybe maybe in in in this board meeting is often as you’re suggesting they’re identifying gaps in the board, and maybe they can try to fill those gaps with new board members that’s, right? Ok, and but as they’re going through that recruiting process to identifying skills that they need that the board is lacking, how should they be talking to potential board members? Well, they should talk to board members that what they do is to value their contributions of time, the most important thing, and they make ah, meaningful use off the board members time they don’t ask the boardmember the potential boardmember to do frivolous things, uh, such as stuff envelopes or our or get involved with watching slide shows or commenting on slide shows as one. Now that i’ve heard of s so that they focus on, they focus on the policy in the strategic issues of the organization. Okay, we’re going to take a break now, jean and when we return. We’ll keep talking about the little about the life cycle of the boardmember. And then we’ll get into the corporate model that you lay out in policy versus paper clips. So thank you, gene is going to stay with us. And i hope you do, too. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Are you confused about which died it’s, right for you? Are you tired of being tired? How about improving your energy strength and appearance? How i’m rika keck, holistic nutrition and wellness consultant? If you have answered yes to any of my questions, contact me now at n y integrated health dot com, or it’s. Six for six to eight, five, eight five eight eight initiate change and transform your life. 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. 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. 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 with jean fran, and we’re talking about policy versus paper clips and focusing your board where the attention, where its attention ought to be on policy and planning and things like that. So jean question about in the recruitment process, the expectations around time and fund-raising for potential board members were still now just talking about the potential member what should, what should a non-profit be revealing about time and fund-raising well, they first ought to be very clear about the time commitment expected, and they ought to delve into a deep discussion with the boardmember on this because i’ve just consulted with a organization that has recruited cem very fine people who are working on people who are building their careers, and they lay out the they discuss the the time commitment for the organisation, but in the final analysis, after being on the board for three to six months of the people have, uh, huge work commitments, and they say, j i just can’t i made the time commitments. Oh, and so they had to restructure the board in a way that allows the chairman much more responsibility, i think, than a board chair should have. And what about the fund-raising expectations? Well, not all board members will enjoy fund-raising i think it’s necessary to find those who might enjoy it or have experience with it to make some commitment to it on dh. Do you want to see that as a dollar amount or more flexible based on the individual based on what the individual strengths are, if they have contacts? That’s one thing, uh, if if they have aa dollars to give or you are in the are able teo network with people of substantial wealth, that is another thing. Okay, but there ought to be. Do you agree with this one hundred percent participation personal at some level for for all board members? Yes. That’s necessary? Because foundations, when you go for grants often look at that as a board commitment, showing board commitment that they have made the financial commitment to the organization. Should these expectations be in writing for the potential boardmember? I think so. But i think it depends upon the culture of the board and they understandings that air developed at the beginning. If you, uh, if they, uh, if the board gets a lot of questions after after being on the board for a while about those commitments, maybe it’s necessary to put it in into writing, but not necessarily a legally binding contract. Oh, no, no, no, no. Okay, but just something that here’s what we’re expecting and please, you know, indicate that you’ve reviewed it. So we’re all have well have consistent expectations, right? We’re all on the same page, okay? Eso then moving. Teo orientation. If you recruited the right people, what should board orientation look like? Well, orientation, uh, should take place. I would say over i again size and complexity of the board about a six month period, andi, in the sense that there might be a half day or a couple our orientation about the organization and its mission is a mission, vision and values. Oh, and any other details that they they have to be concerned with. But then other issues ought to be ah brought up for the new board members as they as they progress through their first six months during this period, the, uh, the board chair and the ceo i need to be readily available to answer questions from from the new board members s o that they become fully apprised of the issues as they go along a two day board, uh, section in which a lot of information is thrown at the person, uh, simply doesn’t stick its a matter of repetition, understanding and going through the process themselves. And as you know, we all learned best when the when the problems are immediately in front of us. Ah, for example, uh, with board liabilities, a lot of boards will bring in a lawyer and and lay out the potential liabilities for a boardmember in their particular situation. Uh, they hear a lot about the laws, but they if you’re not a lawyer, they frequently forget it. Uh, so when an issue comes up ah, that the that there might be a a personal liability in in the situation, it’s up to the ceo and the board chair to remind the new people and refresh the older people that this particular situation might be affected by this particular legal precedent. Would you put new board members on a committee right away? Or would you keep them at large? I would keep, um, at large unless they have a strong desire to go on a committee. And of course, a sze yu know. I suggest that there are really only three committees needed. Yeah, on this is a way of getting into the corporate model. What are those three committees? Well, first that’s. Very simple. You have a planning and resource committee. Ah, that looks forward. It looks towards the strategic plan. It looks towards the resources that i have both, uh, human resource is and financial resource is it looks forward to the planning that is, that is necessary. It also has a special responsibility that the other committees don’t have and that is to, uh, teo ah, monitor and mentor ad hoc committees. Any man as, uh, special issues come up of a strategic or policy nature ad hoc committee need to be formed for that particular issue clearly, because because we don’t, we only have three standing committee, so we’re going to get it right. We’re gonna need ad hoc committee, particularly everything ascot committed to take care of the issues. They come up, come up esso and then that’s is that their their their responsibility. On the other side of the picture is the assessment committee and the assessment committee simply assesses how we have done. Okay on that includes the oddity function and the er in states such as california, where you need a separate audit committee. A subcommittee of that assessment committee performs the audit function, meets with the auditors. This all seeds up to the to the executive committee. The third committee, which has the traditional executive committee duties of of ah, of acting for the board and emergency situations and taking a final review off the various reports that air coming through before they come to the board. So it’ll give you, say, have a board of twenty one people with seven on each. Ah, you will find that, uh uh, by the time it gets to the board, uh, through the process is the large part or nearly all the board are familiar with the issues they may disagree with with some of the proposals and have other ideas at the board meeting. But everybody is full of pretty much everybody is wholly informed. You say twenty one board members as an example. So this is cannes. This corporate model worked for organizations that have just maybe half a dozen boardmember xero their way. We could divide. That in four or however we want to arrange that, depending upon the needs of the corporations of the non-profit, uh, this is a flexible model, okay? And people have used it in different ways. Ah, and, uh, for example, i once met a person, a new organization that didn’t have any standing committees. All committees of the board were ad hoc committees reporting to the entire board. They were happy with it. I would have been happy with it, but evidently it worked. It worked for them. All right. So there’s flexibility is this more what we see in corporations and you have to you have to help me out because i don’t. I’m not familiar with the corporate model. Is. Is this more typical of the way corporate boards operate? Very few standing committees, maybe not exactly the same, but very few standing committees. Lots of ad hoc committee’s. Well, this is being ah proposed by the bye. Some major consultants now, as you as you noted in the book, however, i hate to say, but i’ve been at this for more decades, uh, than i care to admit. And in turn, uh, there are a cz faras. I know, based on the sales of the first two books there, which was the first to additions, which were their sales of over ten thousand copies, i would estimate the thousands of boards have adopted it on dh. However, it is still controversial among some boards and its best used with boards who have, uh, a about a million dollar budgets and roughly let’s, say about, uh, no over ten to twelve, fourteen full time employees. Uh, when it comes to the nation type of non-profit board uh, the i think the traditional model of bored involvement in operations is necessary because, uh, they’re simply not the man power to get it done. The basic problem in the process in the change is that boards begin with board involvement in operations and when they grow, they still sick with the old model stunting the growth of the organization, frustrating the chief executive office operations officer and on dh missing huge opportunities that they could have right in their growth. Gene, i’m not clear on, but i’m not clear on something. Is your recommendation for smaller organizations teo to stick with a more traditional, smaller younger organizations? I guess yes. More traditional sport model. If you have an organization with a budget, for instance, i know one that i’ve been very close to, uh, it has only has a budget and does great work. Charitable work have two hundred fifty thousand dollars a year in that case, uh uh, i would stick with the traditional oer organization, however, uh, in the book. Hey, hey. Still need tohave on audit committee of some sort. And the book describes what there’s a nest starita have that, you know, once or twice a year a cz the accounting issues and financial issues come up. And of course, the corporate model is important to have in mind as the organization grows exactly that’s the transition that they were going in. I’m just saying that’s, the transition that your urine compensation and allows you, teo, to grow two very large uh uh to a very large organization, if you want to go in that direction and it’s sort of mandated once you get a larger number of poise and, uh and, uh and larger finances to handle, if you’re in the area of over a million, if you’re in the area of one point five two, three, four, five, six million so full. I had one client a couple years ago that still had the old model on dh. They had a budget of six million dollars and, uh, the chief executive officer said to may look, i could be running away with this board, you know, they’re just not had supporting me in the way they should be supporting me there, worrying about the details of the operational details that they hear about now. That’s the policy versus paper clips. Yeah. And just there worrying about hypothetically the paper clips just to remind listeners that gene fram is professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology and the author of that book policy versus paper clips. Jean what? What can we expect? Aside from maximizing our growth potential? Sounds like more efficient operations. Um what? What else? Khun kayman organization expect if they adopt this corporate model of board governance. All right, well, uh, one is the the board members feel that they’re doing meaningful things. They think they see that there proposing projects. They’re monitoring their development. Uh, they’re getting to know the staff. Eso if the succession issue comes up, they know who. Uh, who? Ah, who the, uh, prime candidates might be, and they become really maur involved with the organization, as i indicated in policy versus paper clips. Ah, the ideal organization is a partnership between the board, the management group and the staff. They are all working together, there’s communications there, ideally and on. And they’re all focusing on the objective of meeting the needs and the grow, often the growing needs of the clients. Okay, we just have about a minute and a half or so before the break. What about employees who are accustomed to going to board members with with problems that assume that’s gotta stop? Yes, that has to stop that’s what they refer to it is the end run in the non profit organization. So the end runs have to stop, and they and everybody has to understand that it has to stop hyre so that people are not. People are not reporting to board members, they’re reporting to they’re they’re they’re supervisor or maybe it’s the ceo and president. But yes, but we can’t be going to board members for everyday problems. No, we can’t pay, uh, salary levels, uh, problems with promotions and so forth and so on. That’s particularly difficult and smaller community and smaller communities, e-giving where many of the employees might know, the, uh, the board members personally, you know, so that becomes important. So there is a transition period, uh, which can take anywhere from two to three, maybe even four years while this adjustment takes place. Okay, jean jean, we have to take a break. We’ll have plenty of time or to talk after this. After we go away for a couple minutes, i’ll come back, tony’s, take two, and we’ll keep talking to jean frame about the corporate model. Stay with me. I didn’t think that shooting getting ding, ding, ding, ding, you’re listening to the talking alternative network, get him. E-giving 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 way 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 going 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 their voices. Join austin and sloan live thursdays at eleven a. M on talking alternative dot com. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Yeah. Schnoll i’m christine cronin, president of n y charities dot orc. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Oh! Hello, i’m sorry, i can’t send live listener love this week as i’m not live, but you know that i’m grateful for the live listeners out there so lots of love to those in the us and throughout the world we get routinely get listeners from china, taiwan, japan recently ah, the uk, england and ireland of checked in so grateful for wherever you are live listener love and that’s really ah tony’s take to you know i want to thank you for listening to the show and supporting the show. I produce it for you because you’re working in or volunteering for a small or midsize non-profit a charity that’s doing great work that you’re passionate about either is an employee or volunteer and you know, it’s it’s personal i’m saying to you, thank you very much. Thank you for listening and supporting the show, and i’m very glad that you’re with me, maybe through social media, all the places that i am in social media if we’re connected there to thank you for that as well. I am grateful for your support and that’s tony’s take two for friday, the twenty sixth of april seventeenth show of the year gene let’s. Keep talking. Okay, what about you? Mentioned just briefly. Let’s. Talk a little about assessing the work of the of the ceo. Who does? Does that fall under in this corporate model? Well, that’s the, uh, that’s the assessment committee makes sense. Ideally, the assessment committee looks at, uh, two aspects of the of the ceos work and the organizations outcomes. You don’t look for processes. You look for outcomes and these khun b those, uh, those data, which are what we might call ha ha ah, hard data and that’s the data that you have with accounting records, records of membership, what a number of clients, things of that nature that you can easily major. And then there, there qualitative ah, measures that you can measure has should make sure which most or many organizations don’t major, for instance, impact on the community or or excuse me image. Ah, in the community, things of that nature more qualitative. And in that area, i suggest that you do what we call, uh uh, use in perfect metrics. In fact, i have an article out on it. And i’m sure if any of you ah, if you take a look at my website. You will. You will see it there or if you even put it on in under my name, you will find it is available on on the web on. And that is a process that i suggest with the co author, that if you use in perfect metrics over time that you khun dr process dr provoc progress and develop exchange it develop change. Excuse me, jean’s blogged itt’s a little little lengthy. So i’m going to suggest that the easiest way to find gina’s teo, do a google search on eugene fram. Yes, thank you very much. I have now have ah ah. In fact, i have an anniversary right now. I’ve just put out my hundred fifty fiftieth blawg a titled what non-profits ceos think of their boards? Other recent ones air program reductions are mandated. What can a non-profit d’oh okay, another one just for example, is management knows all what does a what’s a non-profit director to dio okay, people find you. Really? I think easiest through google search now, this years have put my name into google and there there’s a lot. A lot of links there for you this use ofhim. Perfect data. Gene, won’t you say a little more about that? Doesn’t doesn’t sound like something we’d want to rely on. Well, if your process is good and you sample reasonably well, you get data. That is not exact, but you get a feel for it. Uh, for, for example, uh, i once, uh, have was on the board of a of a charitable non-profit that was targeted, uh, to counsel. Ah. P ah, various people in the community was heavily supported by the united way. And we weren’t getting many. Ah, ah, uh uh. We weren’t getting many respondents from the inner city, so i suggest it as the boardmember uh, that i, uh, talk with some of the people in the community. What, that time no one was the settlement houses and ah, and see in the inner city, uh, which were community centers, which is a better word for them. And see what they perceived is the problem. Esso i went to them and i found out what i what they thought were the problems. And now you’re only talking to three people, but they knew the communities there and the, uh, the first thing. That happened was the aids of the community centers called, uh ah, my, uh my president and ceo and said, guess what in one of your board members coming down to talk to me? So i, uh and he said, yeah, i know. And we had agreed to this prior to that. And so i listen to these people. I came back, i gave him feedback hey made changes to try to, uh, garner a greater proportion of the clientele from the inner city. And then after a year, uh, went back and talked to the people and i said, as are many changes and they said yes, there’s been modest changes, but there’s still more that needs to be done. I fed this back to the present ceo, he made changes. And then at the end of the second year, there were there were substantial changes, and the board got out of the business of evaluation at that point. All right, so buy some buy some key interviews of the right people, right? Yeah, we don’t have statistical significance and exactly, but on everything that surrounds proper, peer reviewed research. But who can afford to do all that all the time exactly. And and the article contains practical examples. Were both myself and my co author, jerry tally, a sociologist who both of us have been in ah, an end quote in the business a long time have have used the model and have found it very, very helpful. And over time, if you repeat this, asai did and and the example i gave you it was only a about a two year run until the things started to turn around and then the ceo was evaluated on on ongoing from there you mentioned earlier something i wantto spend a little more time with the proper title. Your recommendation for title. For the the chief of the of the organization, you feel pretty strongly that executive director is not sufficient. No, uh, executive director can mean various things because it’s, used in a in a in a wide variety of ways on executive director can be a volunteer who manages the budget of a small church uh uh with a let’s say, a two hundred thousand dollars budget. An executive director khun b, for instance, one i’ve encountered recently. Ah, was the it was the head of a ten. Million dollars ah, charitable organization with over one hundred employees. And i don’t think, uh, the title executive director in the twenty first century, even in the last part of the twentieth century, gives, uh, the chief executive officer of a non-profit the position and stature that that, uh, that he or she needs toe work effectively. So what do you prefer to see? I prefer once you get into the, uh uh, make the make the transition. I prefer president and ceo because people understand their what that means, it’s clear that that person has responsibility for operations except those decisions that have to be made by the board. And that title may have significance for board members also that they recognize the responsibilities of of the president and ceo exactly on dh to add to that. And in many cases, the non-profit president ceo has more management responsibility than a number of the members of the board. For instance, if you’re a professor, you loft and, uh, i don’t have any management responsibilities. Um, never had it. Okay, you worked as an individual contributor. Same thing about a physician. Uh, who is, uh, who has a single practice. The same thing with a, uh a lawyer who is, uh, who has a a single practice or even it’s a part of a major law firm. They just haven’t had the responsibility of the that the president and see the chief executive has of of the nonprofit organization implementing this. A corporate model seems to me there’s a lot of trust between boardmember sze, between the board and the president ceo, between the staff of the organization and the president ceo between the staff and the board. It sounds like there’s a lot of trust required. Yes. You have to have trust it’s it’s. Really? I if you’re and you picked it up exactly. It is a trust model it’s a model in which you have to trust the ceo. Uh, you have to trust the staff that they are professionals. But on the other hand, it also calls for rigorous evaluation. It’s not the traditional evaluation of the border, the staff where they send out a questionnaire at the end of the year and and ask people to return it. You don’t get full returns and the questionnaire is poorly formatted. It takes investigation and robust evaluation and what are we going to do with trustees who are reluctant to give up the managing the paperclips responsibilities? How do we manage those people with difficulty? Yeah. Go hope you got something better than that. Otherwise, i’m taking you off now. I’m going to cut your mic down. If that’s the best you can do. No, uh, some people you have to give them what they might consider meaningful activities such as chairing the annual dinner on things of that nature who are not working, who are not interested in the policy. For instance, if you have a major donor who, uh, just is not interested in policy and strategy and wants to do that over time. What you hope will happen with the ah corporate model with my model is that, uh, the, uh, board will turn over to people who have these dynamic interests and understand that they have to do a robust evaluation, not a cursory one, and that the majority of the board will be those types of people. We got to take a break. Jean fran stays with me, and i certainly hope that you do, too. 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 conscious 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. I’m 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. Buy-in durney welcome back. We’re wrapping up. We have about another five minutes or so and want to continue with with jean for the that time and talk about some of the advice that you have around week board practices. There’s there’s. Something on your blogged. There are a few posts on your block about overcoming week board practices. One of those is one of those bad practices is overlooking absences. What do you suggest there, what’s the problem. And what do we do? Well, you have boardmember sze uh, who? Uh uh, fill a board members, uh, board position and they’re consistently absent. And this is a very touchy situation. They may be very fine. People have great skills, but they simply don’t have the time to attend board meetings, which obviously critical to the organization. Uh, i think the best thing you can do is to try to talk to these people, try to retain them on the board or understand, uh, what they’re missing by not attending the board meetings in some instances. Ah, it’s it, khun b a a termination discussion. For instance, i just recently encountered one and which, uh, the board chair had this discussion with the person and she said, i’m just sorry i like the organization. Ah, and and i’m i’m tied to the mission, vision and values, but i’m doing international travel and my best, the best i can do is to open up the position and resign in other cases if you can find the root cause of it and do something about it for them that’s that that could be ah, that could be another alternative, but it’s very situational on dh. Very individual to see what you can do. Teo, handle the situation you had suggested earlier. There may be a different role for the person. Maybe it’s not. Our board will be something else i can do to support the organization. Yeah, in this one, they’re, uh instance, that i just mentioned. I i had talked to this individual and i said to her, well, look, uh, it’s obvious that you can’t do anything immediately, but your role made in your job may change again. Uh, have you asked about taking a leave of absence from the board on da ah, future time. A year, year and a half. Two years, maybe. Things during that change around and so she’s still connected to the board in some way. I may even get minutes of the board and so forth. So on as a way of retaining that person’s interest in the organization because she was there. She’s, a very fine person. Thoughtful, analytical, does critical thinking and had very broad experiences. In-kind of the dream, the dream boardmember. So you try to make these accommodations. What about insufficient due diligence on the board first? How do we how are we going to recognise that? Well, i think that’s again the, uh the, uh the board chairs responsibility along with the chief executive officer. When things are not discussed in an adequate detail, that they bring the issues up that they pride to do some of the due diligence for the people. Because again, the boardmember zehr not being compensated by large they are. They have other jobs jobs that are their main main concern. And so you may need to help them along on the dew dealings. Due diligence side jean has other identified board weaknesses and and how to overcome them on his on his blogged jean what is it that you love about working on boards? Well i, uh i like the people on dh i’ve served on a number of human services are, you know, charity type boards as well as, you know, trade associations and so forth, but on the boards that especially those that are charitable in nature, you see in these organizations, people who figured early stand ten feet tall, they do much more than they are compensated for, they do it willingly, and they really have the client’s interest that mind, a tte heart, and and then in their mind, you know, i’ve seen ah, social workers in on and homes on group homes, uh, take take some of their clients to their own homes on weekends, or even take them on vacations far beyond what is required of the people in order to ah, help them overcome the handicaps that they have. You know, those are just examples, and when you see people like that really dedicated it and you can contribute in your way, you know, i can’t do those sort of things, but i can contribute to they’re doing it, we have to leave it there. Eugene fram, professor emeritus at rochester institute of technology, google him remember it’s like the fram oil filters fr am googling to find his block. His book is policy versus paper clips it’s on amazon jean, thank you so much for being a guest. Well, thank you for having me been my pleasure. I hope you will be with me next week. Consultant and author amy eisenstein returns last time she was here, we talked about her book, fifty asks in fifty weeks that was april first, two years ago, and her new book is raised more with less took her two years to write it. I hope that was time well spent, and we’re going to find out next week we’re all over the social web, you know that you can’t make a click without testa dura lisp arika smack your head hard on tony martignetti non-profit radio twitter, for example, use the hashtag non-profit radio. Check out the hashtag follow me, i’m at tony martignetti you want to know what’s coming up before the show sign up for our weekly insider email alerts that’s on the facebook page, click alerts. Our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer and assistant producer is janice taylor shows 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 were gonna be remote starting starting season in june at fund-raising day in new york city. I hope you’ll be with me next friday, one two to eastern on talking alternative broadcasting at talking alternative dot com. Hyre no. Durney i don’t think that’s a good ending. You’re listening to the talking. Alternate network duitz getting anything. Think xero cubine hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m 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 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 fed up with talking points, rhetoric everywhere you turn left or right? Spin ideology no reality, in fact, its ideology over in tow. No more it’s time. Join me, larry shop a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory 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. Talking dot com. Hyre

120: Your Database Policy Manual & Maria’s Top 10 – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Karen Hartt, philanthropic services specialist for Maine Community Foundation

Nicole San Miguel, database administrator for Enoch Pratt Free Library of Baltimore City

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, you know, i’m your aptly named host it’s december seventh, two thousand twelve december seventh sort of inauspicious day in our history. Oh, i want to welcome the november nine thousand november last month we had over nine thousand listeners per show per show. Many, many downloads that came to an average of, like ninety, three hundred listeners per show. So i wanna thank you very much. I want to welcome you very much. Yes, welcome. And i hope that you were all with me last week. I’d be in distress if i had learned that you missed the requesting brain. Professor russell james as technics texas tech university those neuro imaging research to see subjects brains light up when they elect to put a charitable gift in their will. This former planned e-giving fundraiser and director of the graduate certificate in charitable financial planning had research based advice for your cultivation and recognition of bequest, gift and donordigital baste dungeon. Scott koegler, the editor of non-profit technology news. And our tech contributor wants you to keep your donordigital base secure. So nothing. Can escape. We talked about inappropriate use, sql and inference all that last week this week your database policy manual, karen heart, philanthropic services specialist for a main community foundation, and nicole san miguel, database administrator for the e knock, pratt free library of baltimore city, walking through data entry standards, indexing search ability, naming conventions and other topics that belong in your database, policy and procedure manual. This was pre recorded at the bb khan twenty twelve conference, but their ideas apply much more broadly, not on ly to the blackbaud products and maria’s top ten maria semple, the prospect finder and our prospect research contributor, reveals the top ten sites she uses in her work. True to form for our doi and of dirt cheap. Most of these sites are free between the guests on tony’s take to my block this week. Are you listening to fund-raising fundamentals? Just a reminder that i do that for the chronicle of philanthropy as a monthly podcast and at this point, it’s time now for our first pre recorded ah first guests pre recorded at bebe con your database policy manual here’s that interview welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage. Of pecan twenty twelve, i guess now are karen heart she’s, the philanthropic services specialist being community foundation and the cold sand miguel database administrator at the naka pratt free library of baltimore city. They’re topic is reserves h policy siege emmanuel ladies, welcome. Thank you, karen. Why don’t you explain what you do as philanthropic services specialist xero unity foundation. Do you want the whole list? No, i just want neo-sage about thirty seconds. I am the database manager. I am the charitable gift annuity specialist. I write all those contracts and i also do the research for the razor’s edge. Okay. And nicole, as database administrator. What are you doing? I do everything. I process gifts. I generate letters, put information and pull it back out of the database. Okay. Everything in and out of david. Okay, let’s, just start with what they call. What you see, something charity is doing wrong around there. Procedures around razor’s edge. What? What? What? What? What is it? We’re trying to move on. They don’t have them. I think that’s probably the biggest thing, karen is not. Yep. Definitely not having procedures and data standards on how to put the data. In to get the data back out again. Okay, well, let’s, just keep it simple and start. Karen, why don’t you give us a first? A first good practice that belongs in your first year manual should be written, i presume, right? The first thing you need to do is understand how the data is in the system. And then you need to figure out how you want your data in the system because it can be the way razor’s edge trained you to do it. Or it could be how your finance people tell you they want it. But for us, the biggest thing was putting the data in in a standard format every single time. So my procedure manual starts with constituent entry, and it works off of the address standards that the united states post office puts out and that’s how we enter data based on the address standards. Do you both have multiple people entering data? Your office is? Yes. Karen is a much bigger office than mine. I’m in office of five people, and we all have to intern ada. And we have twenty five employees in six different sites. We have remote user’s on. We also have ah, secondary office down in the southern part of the state of maine, so everybody interest data not everybody has the capacity to do all the data entry, but everybody as the capacity to do constituent entering, okay and let’s have a little motivation. Step what’s the downfall. Karen what’s the problem if you don’t have standard data entry, your reports are messed up your mailing list so messed up and your executive directors on your back saying, why can’t i send out three thousand letters to three thousand people at the correct address at this time? If you don’t have standard data entry, you don’t have standard data export, you can’t get it out. Everything is all over the place all called the same thing, so you can’t do it. What should be a pretty simple query, i guess, in a lot of cases to get out everything that you should get out. Yes. Okay. So if you have three thousand records, you could have the data in multiple ways. And so if you’re doing a mailing and you have an address field that’s the post office p o box listed above the street address the post office is going to mail it to the street address. They’re not going to mail it to the p o box, but the post office the physical address doesn’t have a receptacle a mail box and so they returned the mail. And so that’s not how the post office reads addresses they read from the bottom up so your post office box, which received your mail, has to be the first address in the line going up and then the city and state yes, just above the city and state, and then your street address so that the post office khun deliver the mail where it needs to go and if you don’t know that address, standard feature and your data comes in from akash certification in the post office boxes listed first on the first address line that’s wrong and it will get returned to you. So you’ve wasted your first class mail all the time it took to process that nailing piece and the time it takes to fix the record in razor’s edge, right? So data standards are efficiencies. All right, so we need standards inputting data there has to be, i guess training you said. You have people in multiple sites, karen, be training around the policies. Yep, and i, my policies and procedures manual, is my training man. I used my training, my policies and procedures manual, to train all my new staff and to do my continuing updating trainings that i run by annually. Nicole is the is the manual changing it’s constantly. Jean well, i think you kind of have to look at it as a document that’s never actually complete, because blackbaud is constantly updating its products. People are constantly changing address or constantly being hit with different situations or events, and you just kind of have to be able to adapt its kind of like the constitution. Okay, it’s, a kapin all right, all right, the call what’s another important element of the policies, procedures. Back-up. I would take it index a table of contents index because of karen had, for instance, has a very large policies and procedures manual and how many pages can it’s one hundred fifty separate documents totaling almost three hundred fifty pages? I don’t know, five or six, i don’t know, i’ve been the d be a first for fifteen years, and i have a very established policies and procedures manual mine’s not nearly that long, but still even in just one hundred pages. Your users have to be ableto find what they need in those hundred pages. And if you have a policy and procedure manuals only five pages it’s not nearly long enough. All right, well, that’s, why i’m in your fight? Your dvds. Finally, when karen says d b a i want to keep her out of georgia. I learned right before the session. Diva, of course, is a database administrator doing business as okay buy-in index and table contents. Right. It’s gotta be searchable. Gotta be able to find it. I assume this is all elektronik form, especially three hundred fifty pages. So yeah. Ok. So it’s not it is not in a print for men like everybody, i get a lot of questions from blackbaud users to have access to my manual, and they want me to send it electronically, and i explained to them very assisting clea that it is one hundred fifty documents totaling three hundred fifty pages, and i would be happy to send you zip files of portions of the manual, but it is more than twenty five megabytes and size, and my email server does not allow me to send it, and i’m not going to upload it on google dogs, so i have a specific pieces that are categorized by my index for i would say, structure buy-in introduction, the constituent entry, and then it goes through for other blackbaud parts of the system, andi, i’ll send them the basic constituent entry procedures and along with my tips and tricks and so that’s a zip file, and i’ll send that to them. Or i have five six different procedure zip files uploaded on black buds website in their shared client document folder, and people could go access it that way. So you also have a document that, as we said a minute ago, is kind of constantly changing and constantly being updated. So a paper document isn’t necessarily the best format for your users. If you, if you make a change, you don’t have to reprint that beat one hundred pages of three hundred fifty pages. And i also like it to be somewhere that my users don’t have toe look through their desk, through their cabinets, through their drawers, through there. Finally, cabinet to find their copy of. I like them to be able to open up a file on their server very quickly and go right to it. It’s. Also a lot more searchable, electronically us, and where i have central f, i have six different. Sites that use my procedures manual, they have to be able to have access to it. And so they have an access electronically so they don’t have to print it off. Okay, let’s, move on. I’m just keeping general. And karen, why did you threw out another practice that belongs in your the procedures, um, campaigns funded appeals and how you how razor’s edge has campaigns, funds and appeals that’s the structure for sending out solicitations and what funds are associated with that solicitation, regardless of whether you’re using a named fund, we have seventeen hundred named funds at the main community foundation because that’s what we do and another orcas nation might only have three of four different funds which are, like, restricted, non restricted general or whatever. And so your campaign’s funds and appeals need to have the same naming process and the same structure so that you can find information and report on information in the same format in the same way. And you get the results you’re expecting so on dh should that naming b is that particular to the organization? Or can you share what? Some of the ideas? What your what your ideas are. Around around these naming convention well, how we think of campaigns, ones and appeals campaign is the umbrella that the appeal falls under, and then the fund is under the appeal so we can have an appeal that has three or four different funds that were raising money for and that naming structures always the year the appeal that’s, the appeal name and then thie campaign is a general name where you re use those year after year after year because we don’t do capital campaigns, we don’t raise funds for ourselves, we give money away, so we raise money to give away so an example of a campaign would be end of year. I can’t bend county fund a great capital campaign. The capital campaign is county funds. There are eleven different appeals underneath that because we have an appeal for each of the funds that’s associated with the campaign appeal, and then those appeals are done every year, so they appeal is renamed every year. The old appeal gets in activated, and the new appeal comes on and that’s, how we do our solicitations and our appeals 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, better business people. 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. If you’re in the new york city area, stopped 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. 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 bonem about you, nicole. Is something similar or different radcampaign funds our campaigns, funds and appeals are a little different because karen raises money for other organizations basically are not raises money for other organisations, but the money that she uses goes to other organizations are money stays in our organization. And we a za public library was twenty three different branches constantly have campaign appeal up campaign’s going on capitol campaigns. We also have an annual campaign, and then we also have campaigns that may be related, teo special projects. And but just like karen and i are different, every other organization is going to be different. Everybody does something very specific and can tailor razor’s edge to their specific needs. Okay? That’s the beauty and the curse of razor’s edge is the flexibility of the system. So, karen, it doesn’t have to be the hierarchy that you described. No thinking about campaigns. You know, there are lots of organizations that i help structure their systems, that they don’t even use a campaign. They use everything on the appeal level or everything just on the fund level. So it’s how your system needs to be set up. But what? You have to do is think about how that process is going to be best for you to get the data back out of the system and what works best to get the data out. And then you structure your system based on that, and then you write policies and procedures so that you have a constant naming structure and a constant format and flow of your data in and out. It sounds like you should be thinking about what you want to get out of razors edge before you’re just exactly, exactly almost work backwards. Yeah, you think about what you need and what report somebody might need toe it might. It actually dictates how the data goes in the system. On our standpoint, from i converted the database in nineteen, ninety nine took over, and so it’s my baby and i helped design how the data is in the system. But i met with all of my officers and said, what do you need for reports? And that dictated how we put the data in the system? And so i wrote my policies and procedures basically, teo, make sure that format doesn’t get lost and for those annual things that you don’t do all the time so i can refer back to them because my memory is like a sieve sometimes, and also so that if i was to leave the foundation, they aren’t hamstrung by not knowing what i did and why i did it. And so they could use that as a training tool or as a fallback to see how i record a campaign or how i record a pledge or how i record a gift and it’s also very important, knowing the reasons why things aaron there a certain way, i can’t tell you how often i pull up data in our older data in our database, and we do not know why it has been entered that way. What thie rationalization for this particular type of coding wass and or even just what certain abbreviations stand for? So i mean definitions of in your policy and procedures manual, and also, i mean, you don’t have to justify every single thing that you do, but perhaps a little bit of insight into why those decisions were made is useful, especially looking back and when staff changes, okay, if we’re going to change something in the database, we talk about it as a staff and what the implications of that change could be future and historic, and it also we’re tracking a lot of data that was in hard copy before is now in the database for a good example is success our advisors. So we have a specific way that we code our successor advisors who are advisors to an advised fund, the donor advisors not allowed it’s no longer available to us to the donor, right? And so that dictate we have that policy, that the information is recorded and raises edge it’s in a specific format. And so when we know that somebody’s passed away, we can go and to the razor’s edge database and say, oh, yeah, this is how we’re supposed to be doing it. So it’s it’s a really good way toe track for historic data as well as future data, because you might have somebody who’s in the position now, but in fifteen years they may not be there, and you might have somebody who’s passed away and it’s a huge request if there’s no documentation on how that request is supposed to be processed in the system. Then it’s, it may not be processed. How was intended to be a stalker? The call? What else should be in this table of contents that you said? Is it self important to them? Document? What else belongs here? Well, i think you just need to have some basic day today. Operating procedures? Um, such a such a gift processing what’s. You know what? What? What happens when a gift comes in? What reports need to be submitted to your business office? What are they saved as? How do you change parameters? What gift types belong in this report? What? Give types. Don’t who do you hard credit for something? Who do you soft? Cut it for something? How do you split gifts? Do you split gifts? Everybody does. Everybody does a lot of these things differently. And we have staff turnover all the time. And i could go from where i work to where karen works and not do anything right. And it would be different. We don’t record pledges unless there are material to our financial statements. So if it’s not a material pledge let’s say somebody is doing a fundraiser and they’re going to raise fifty thousand. Dollars and their pledges. And they want us to record pledges for that that’s not material. So it doesn’t go through to our finance department. We put it in as a placeholder on the razor’s edge. But then we also have a fundraiser where it’s four and a half million dollars. That is a material dollar amount. We do record those pledges. They they have a sign, documentation. They are what we call collectible pledges. And so nicole might have pledges that she runs all the time for her campaigns. And we don’t. We do one massive pledge. Maybe once every ten years, and the rest of the pledges aren’t booked because they’re not material to our bottom line. And we do pledges all the time. We have pledges that may last a year. We have pledges that may last ten years we have, you know, all kinds of pledges and it’s just the difference in the nature of the way are two organizations work where the difference in the nature of the way all of our organizations work. Not everyone non-profit works the same way. Of course. Going to start to wrap up. Karen, why don’t you share what? It is you love about being a d b a database administrator work. But i never do the same thing in the same day. Twice. I do a lot of different things every single day, even though it’s the same basic format i do gift entry. I do. And i do all the stock. So i do stock gift entry. I do charitable gift annuity entry. I work with chargeable maine to truss. I work with prospect management. I work with bringing a new funds. I opened my own funds. I do data services. Esso i never do the same thing every single day, any day. So i love the challenge of it. The puzzle of it. How to figure out getting the data in there. So it comes out the way my people need it. And i love the software. So it just makes my life so much easier doing what i do. I like that. Well, i don’t like that. I’ve spent a lot of time cleaning up a database, but i have spent a lot of time cleaning up a database. Product is gratifying and and it’s gratifying. And now everyone in my office can pull information. And is actually so excited about what they pull out it’s really amazing you, khun go from hardly being able t see any kind of of analytical data in your database to being able to pull this stuff out and just infinitely filed down your donors and they’re they’re giving histories, and they’re giving trends and what they respond to and what they don’t and in the end of the day save money and raise more money because your data is so much better. Nicole had a fabulous slide yesterday where she had it was a period of darkness where the data was a messed up and you couldn’t get anything. And then when the data was clean, it was like having a light bulb. Then you could actually find the filing, so it was a fabulous graphic, and it works really well, but there is great analogy that was karen heart and she’s, a philanthropic services specialist at the main community foundation and also with us was nicole san miguel, database administrator for the free library of baltimore city. Ladies. Welcome. I’m sorry. Thank you very much. Welcome. Thank you very much for being guests. Thank you. It was a lot of fun. Tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of bb khan twenty twelve. If it sounds quiet, the background it is. We’re the last vestiges of become twenty twelve today it continues. And thank you very much for being with us. Sounds like it was very dark, like the lights were going off, but they weren’t. We still had lights. Just nobody. Nobody in the in the in the exhibit floor, thanks to karen heart and nicole san miguel and all the folks at blackbaud who hosted me at the bb cond conference was very nice there. I missed a, uh i missed a jargon jail opportunity. Did you catch it? Hard credit, soft credit. Ah, i should. I should have jumped all over that hard credit self credit. But i was i was intimidated. These these deba is database administrators. I mean, they know the stuff so detailed. It’s. Such a specialized field. I was intimidated. I was scared to ask, you know, estimate questions or b b too challenging. So jargon jail hard credit itself. Credit that’s, basically, like when somebody gets an assist. So there’s a there’s, a main person who gets credit and then maybe somebody gets an assist and that’s that’s the hard credit versus the soft credit, an example would be, ah, husband, wife. If the husband and wife are both donors, maybe separately, or they’re both in the database, because they both want to maybe get email separately. When you’re soliciting by email, you would hard credit, perhaps the wife. Maybe she’s got the better relationship with the organization, and then a soft credit might go to the husband that’s, an example of heart credits off credit. Right now, we take a break, and when we come back, it’s, tony’s, take two, and then maria simple is with me, and we’re going to talk about her top ten. Stay with me. You didn’t think that shooting getting ding, ding, ding, ding, you’re listening to the talking alternative network, waiting to get a drink. Nothing. Cubine hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m 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. We look forward to serving you. Yeah, you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Duitz durney hi, i’m bill mcginley, president, ceo of the association for healthcare philanthropy. And you’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio. Big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back time now for tony’s take two little bit early this week, but that’s okay, i have a little extra to say my block this week is are you listening to fund-raising fundamentals just wanted to remind you that i host that monthly podcast for the chronicle of philanthropy it’s a ten minute and that one has devoted exclusively to fund-raising topics once a month, and you’ll find it on the chronicle of philanthropy website. You’ll also find it on itunes and again, that is fund-raising fundamentals also, since we have so many listeners, i’d be grateful for your help. I’m asking for some help. Would you be good enough to rate and review this show in itunes? Ratings are one to five stars and review is you write a short review, a couple of sentences um, you could start that you would start that at non-profit radio dot net, which takes you to our itunes paige or you just search for the show in itunes, and when you get that i tunes page with the list of one hundred shows on it, click view in itunes, and then itunes will open up and you click ratings and reviews. And i’d be grateful if you’d give me a rating one to five and write some words about what you think about non-profit radio, we’ve got just a couple, um right now there are fifteen reviews, and i do remember that back when we had about six hundred listeners, i asked for help, and i think at that point there were like three or maybe five reviews, and it tripled or more than tripled up to fifteen, and i remain grateful for that back when there were six hundred listeners, but now we’re over nine thousand, and i’d like the itunes paige to reflect that. So i would be very grateful if you could help me out by giving a reading and a review on itunes. Thanks. Thanks very much. And that is tony’s. Take two for friday, december seventh, the fiftieth show of the year. Joining me now is maria simple. You know her she’s, the prospect finder she’s a trainer and speaker on prospect research. Her website is the prospect finder dot com and her book is panning for gold. Find your best dahna prospects now exclamation mark! You can follow maria on twitter at maria simple a si m pl e maria semple prospect finder. Welcome back. Hi there, tony. How are you today? I’m terrific. Ru that’s. Good. We got your top ten this this week. Top ten. These are sites compile. Pardon me. It’s. Tough for me, but don’t you? Don’t you consult these every day or every week. Well, i do. But it’s, hard to pick only ten. Okay. Well, white-collar ard well, that was the constraint that the host put on you on. De so i apologize for being such a stern task, master. You know, i was a little remiss. I gotta send live listener love. Spare me for pardon. Pardon me for just a moment. Live listener love forest hills, new york. My old home used to live one hundred street sixty, seventy five and new bern, north carolina live listener love also welcome. I think this is a new listener. Cordova, spain. I don’t think you’ve been with us before. Welcome, seoul, korea. Welcome to you. Also live listener. Love, teo, new york, north carolina, spain and korea. Thank you. Sorry, maria way have to. We have to send love out to the listeners. Absolutely. Okay, your number ten. I have the list. You have the list, so i’ll say the first one you’re number ten is search systems, search systems, right search systems, dot net and it’s a way for you to be able to access public records by state, for example. So i know we have listeners from all over, and you can go into each individual state and then look at the various types of public records they have available, whether they’re free whether there’s, sea bass and it’s just i think it’s just a great jumping off point for anybody to be ableto bookmark so that they can access it and then go right from there to the particular state they’re interested in. Ok, so so it’s that’s. Interesting. So it’s state based resources because you you talk a lot about those that you like chambers of commerce, newsletters and websites and things and local business publications. You like those? Yeah, i do. I do. But what’s interesting about this is it’s. More like government public records. So you’ll get access teo information on properties. Uh oh, i’m sorry, okaying all that type of thing. So anything that sort of a government entity would be overseeing. In terms of public records, you can access it state by state right through this site. Okay, cool. That was search systems dot net, right? Right. Okay, you’re number nine maria’s number nine boatinfoworld is called boat infoworld dot com, so i’m frequently asked by non-profits when they’re kind of putting on their proactive prospecting hat you know, how can i find wealthier people in my community and my state in my county? And although, you know an indicator of simply having wealth or simply having a yacht or a boat wouldn’t necessarily equate to your organization receiving funds from that person, it is definitely a resource that i do check when i’m profiling an individual, for example, i have a known name of an individual, and i’m trying to determine whether or not perhaps they own a yacht or a boat, but really a non-profit that serves perhaps the marine community, any of the thinking about some of the connecticut based organizations or new york based organizations that really serve either an environmental purpose or some sort of an education based purpose on the water? Well mirriam out there are the benefit from knowing about this because you would have outreach to a group of people who really have an affinity for for your type of cause, way down deep, that one is not free. The first, when i mentioned was free this one sea bass, but it’s really not that expensive? I just did a quick test before we came on the air and, for example, new york steak if you wanted to buy a ll the records of the recreational boat owners in that state. Now these numbers are our prior to superstorm sandy hitting us. Of course, there were a lot of boats were actually wiped out, but there were eighteen thousand six hundred ninety six boats in the entire state, and that list was only ninety nine dollars ninety eight cents to be able to purchase as an excel spreadsheet. Okay, now, of course, there are other bodies of water that touch the united states besides just the atlantic ocean. So this could apply in texas north carolina comfort example there about you know what one could think about paying for this type of a resource that you can get it down by county. A swell by city and state. So it’s, pretty interesting, because you actually get the name of the individual and a snail mail address. Okay. Oh, interesting on and you and you can’t break it down by county so you don’t buy the whole state, but they’re more local. Organise a chef. A county has just over fifty, six hundred recreational boats registered. And that list with sixty nine dollars. Ninety eight cents there. Really? For you? No less than one hundred dollars. You can get access to quite a large list of people if you were interested in some house beginning a mailing campaign to those individuals. Now, why do you search for boats and not planes? Why do search for planes and, well, i do just not didn’t make the top ten. Well, see, i mean, i was constrained, okay? You worry about myself because i know you provide this list when i’m doing my my life workshops and seminars. Sort of a top ten. Okay, but yeah, this is when i always happened to a swell. Okay? Yeah, of course, owning a boat could be indicative of wealth, but the person could be in boat. Hell, also all right. You know, they can’t afford their vote. Or it’s. In bad shape. Okay, but it’s ah, it’s. One factor of many as your profiling a prospect. Right? Right. It’s one that’s, right, exactly. It’s one factor that i’m looking for in terms of an indicator of wealth. Okay, good. You you introduced number eight. Okay, number eight, count the countdown. I like to look a sec filings, which are securities and exchange commission filings on a resource that i used for that you can access, by the way, sec data for free through their website, however, i really like this particular resource for the weight compiled the data and the accessibility and ease of use. So it’s called ten k wizard dot com. And it is he based i actually have the lowest level of service is just over four hundred dollars, a year. And i really like the resource because i can look for those corporate insiders. And we’ve touched upon that before me in the show. Yes. And how beautiful they could be in terms of trying to perhaps gain a gift. A stock from somebody is supposed to give cash. Say a little more about why you prefer ten k wizard over the s e c. Website. I like ten k wizard because i can search by an insider’s name. So i have a name of an individual. I’m doing a research project on that individual and i can put their name in. And then i can see all of the companies that they might be connected to either as an officer at that company or sitting on the board of directors of that company. Okay, and then i can go into the individual sec reports to determine exactly how much stock they own in that company and and on the website, you cannot search by individual name, i guess. Just a little bit more cumbersome. Yeah. Okay. Definitely a little more cumbersome. So i like the resource. I mean, for me and in the numbers, you know, names that i’m researching it, it’s worth it. But certainly the website dot go of you could find similar information. Well, exactly the same information, actually, but just search ability in the output of the data. I find it a little bit better on the way. Okay, well, that’s important to know. I mean, you’re the doi end of dirt cheap and free. So but if you’d prefer to pay for the same two options right now. But if you’d prefer to pay for ten k wizard dot com so that obviously there is value there. And by the way, listeners ten is spelled out. So it’s, tnk wizard dot com you’re number seven, his foundation search dot com yes, what’s that about foundation search dot com is number seven on my list, and you can do very targeted foundation research on this particular website on dit is a sea bass to resource you can get into annual subscriptions with this particular company. Ah, and what i’d like to also mention tony is that on some of these resource is where there’s a c i was able to actually get some discounted price pricing for your listeners. How did you how did you do that? Yeah, so i was able to do that? No, how how did you do that? Because you’re because they’re contributor thiss particular resource is used heavily obvious if you do a lot of grantwriting right, so you would look for foundations that would support your organization? They also have something attached to them called big online, which is corporate research um and basically i’ll go ahead mention the code very quickly and all posted on your page. Is there in swell, tony, but the code is m s m s one two seven, and they would be able to get a free month for every year that they sign up on. That code is going to be valid for for thirty days. They mention my name and that code. By january seventh, they’ll be able, teo, get a free month for every year they sign up for the service. We will post the list the top ten list on the facebook page on and also the linked in group, and then you’ll include the free now why did you get em s and not tm? Well, that was the code they signed me. Oh, yeah, sure. Right, right. I’m sure select the code unfortunate. See the kind of credibility that being a regular contributor to tony martignetti non-profit radio gets you, i’m sure that’s you mentioned it. And that’s how you were able to get the get the discount. I’m sure you don’t have to say that. That that i’m correct, because so i’m sure that i am so you know absolutely so i got, you know, let’s let’s. See what we can do for tony’s listeners. And so they said, all right, we’ll pick this code into effect for one month for you. Excellent. Okay. And that’s foundation search dot com foundation search dot com and you get a membership that varies from one year up. Tio five years of membership on dh. They have special pricing, you know, valid through the month of december. So, you know, definitely worth a call out to them. And i was told to ask for rusty ways. Get a little provincial nasco this’s getting a little provincial now it sounds like small town asked for rusty, rusty, rusty burrell is even after he retired from the people’s court. Where did we leave off? That we’re number seven. Right. Wait a minute. Wait. I’m moving on to number six on my list is ah, resource. I think i’ve mentioned on your show before called reference yusa. Okay. And you kind of alluded to it earlier when you were talking about the looking at resource is that cover businesses on dh? This resource is available free through through almost every library and certainly any library i’ve ever tried to research it through and it’s a database and it’s. Very useful. Because if you are looking for again, proactively to develop lists of potential business owners in your community who might be supportive of your cause, uh, you can search this list. Uh, can you set up the search criteria yourself? So if you’re looking for a list of oh, i don’t know. Medical device manufacturers in a specific county that have sales over five million dollars. You can actually generate exactly that type of list. Okay. This is reference. Yusa any i’m sorry. Any fee for this one? No. It’s. Well, it’s free through public libraries. So that’s, where you want to start at your public library link generally, uh, county library will have links to online databases. Uh, some of the library’s might require you to go on site. I actually access it off site through my county library. So using my barcode on my library card, i can access this particular resource. All right? And you and i have talked about the value of the local libraries in the past. That there are a lot of free resource is in local libraries either online or or if you have to go in person, but sometimes you’ve you made the point worth the trip, even if you have to go in person. Yeah, absolutely. You know, this type of the database would be very expensive if you had to pay for it yourself. So, you know, might be worth just rerouting your commuting trip a little bit and then spend a few hours at the library if you need to. Okay, now you’re number five. Ah, you wrote fcc and i only know federal election commission, but alright, that’s exactly what it is. Federal election committee. What is your interest in the centre election dot gov and its data on political contributions. And so you would be able to determine if people have made donations of over two hundred dollars, that becomes part of public records. And i think most people know that. However, every once in a while you come across somebody who’s surprised to hear that those donations are actually recorded in a public wife. Okay. And that one again. Oh, uh, this is particularly useful, of course, for a non-profit who have might have some, you know, issues. You know that, are you? Know, politically motivated or divisive so you might want to, you know, just have an understanding of where you are particular prospect, eyes contributing their money politically, right? You might you might yourself be ah, politically, act active or be involved in political advocacy, but also you would be interested in the level of giving if someone is giving it a very high level. To what, whatever campaign that’s indicative of some wealth or not way have to take a break. Sam, we have still a minute, right? So that would that would just the size not necessarily where they’re giving right. So i looked for both, um and actually one of researching somebody i look att both their e-giving and their spouses e-giving politically because, you know, very often their spouse might be giving equal, if not more money than the prospects that i’m actually researching. Okay, that that might then go back. Tio my discussion earlier about hard credit itself credit but that’s about crediting gift. Okay, we’re going to take a break. Maria, of course, will stay with us. We’ll continue with the top ten and we’ll do Numbers 1 through 4 when we return. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Oppcoll 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. 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. I’m 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. Durney welcome back. We’re talking about maria symbols top ten list i got a sense of more live listener love just recently joining us polska, poland, toronto, canada, tokyo and shanghai and taipei in in asia. Welcome, welcome all foreign listeners live listener love. Um, we’re continuing our top ten. Yes, so, maria, i’m going to say, number four zillow, i love to look up friends, houses, i’m zillow, i love zillow. I love to look up friends, houses, i can’t help it. Why don’t you explain what zillow is spelled like a pillow, but with a z? Well, who knew you were such a nosy neighbor? But i can’t help it. Go ahead, tell everybody anyway, says illo, is a great tool that fuse by prospect researches, but it’s, really it was developed for the real estate industry to be able to track sales data as well as where evaluations are currently at. What i like about it is you can get information about where house price wass when the when the home was purchased, you get since general information you don’t know who owns the home, but gosh, you could find out so much other information you’ve got the photo of the home. Typically you have taxes that are paid on the property and generally goes back several years as well. So you could see, you know, the home valuation even over time as well as the taxes over time. So i really like that it’s definitely a stopping off point every time i’m doing prospect research. Okay. Now you would have to have the person’s address in order to use zillow, right? Yes, exactly. So you actually put in a home address, and it will give you all the pertinent data on that on that address. So, you know, real estate is a huge component of doing prospect research. You want to know about their primary residents and any secondary residences that they may own as well. Buy-in again, just her gaining a general level of wealth. Okay, i might have. I was once researching somebody. Tony and i came across data that i actually had to cross check elsewhere. Like i couldn’t believe the results on the two properties that this person owned. They were paying one hundred twenty five thousand dollars in property taxes. Yeah, well, okay, and i can vouch for zillow. It is very robust friends will stop giving me their their home addresses. But i convinced from personal experience a very, very interesting site. Zillow and it’s. Free and free. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Trust me, it’s free. Um okay, maria. Simple what’s, your number three. Number three on my list. We’ve talked about this resource a lot. It’s linked in on lincoln is a great social networking site, but it’s a great prospect research site as well, as far as i’m concerned, you know, people have profiles up there. It’s clearly marked public profiles. So i definitely like to use the data not only to check on, you know, people’s, employment history, their education and so forth. But also you can mind linked in by using the advanced search feature. Okay? And you can mind it for potential volunteers for potential donors. Um, and, you know, interestingly enough, i had done a, uh, workshop earlier this week, and i was looking for some statistical information that kind of talked about. Well, what are the income levels of people on lincoln? Generally, you know, on average compared to say, facebook and income levels are one hundred nine thousand dollars on average, uh, on lincoln versus twenty five thousand dollars on facebook really that’s very interesting, i thought it was a fascinating statistics, so you know, it really points to the reason why non-profits need to get better about howto leverage this tool, check out their new board connect feature, which will enable you tio have access to more advanced, more teachers on the search on the advanced search page. Then you would under a free account and they will give access to one person in the organization, free access to their talent. Find your tools, they’re calling it board connect. Yes, you, you and i have talked about board necked so listeners could go back. Listen to a previous podcast, andi don’t just remind people how you get to the advanced search, so to get to that particular tab, when you’re on the home page of lincoln up in the right hand corner, you’ll see a search box and to the right of that, you’ll see a link that you can click on called advanced search and that’s what you want to click through because it’s going to come up with again, going back to that earlier example, if you’re looking for men. You know, people making medical devices in a certain community, you can’t get it by income level, but certainly you can, you know, look for people in specific industries with certain titles, maybe having certain keywords in their profiles. So a great way, tio, come up with new list of people to connect to and potentially reach out to. We have to move on. Let’s, go to number two. Wealth engine number two wealth engine. So this is a sea based resource, it’s most people no wealth engine for their screening service, and so they’ll have their their dad based screened in order to be able teo elevator to the top, those prospects they would want to concentrate on again. Here. This is one of those resources that will give you a percentage off if you mentioned the prospect finder llc when you were trying to subscribe to them. Um, i’ll give you ten percent off. Oh, excellent prospect finder. Thanks. Pricing vary. So i really didn’t get a quote on pricing because they have, you know, screening is volume based. Their prospect generators service is volume based on dh. Then you know, they have the subscription fees to their to their actual databases. So again, i’ll put all the details on your page is how they can go about getting the percentage all excellent. Thank you. Prospect finder. Okay, burke, maria’s number one what is it? Number one is google and especially google alert. So a couple things you want to keep in mind with google? Um, certainly, you know, a couple of tips to make your google searching a little bit more effective when you’re researching somebody’s name if you’re researching tony martignetti, make sure you’ve got the name and quote so it’s not finding every web page that has the name tony and every web page that has martignetti so in quotes on let’s say you know everything about tony and his, his, his company and so forth, and you’re much more interested in knowing where tony is active in the nonprofit world. You want to make sure that you have google filter down the search results for you by putting in the word after you put in tony martignetti unquote space and the word site e colon dot org’s so it will return to you on ly the hits where tony’s name is associated with a dot or ge? I also do the same search for a dot edu okay, maria, we have to leave it there. Maria semple is the prospect finder. You can follow her on twitter at maria simple maria, thank you so much. Thank you, tony. Thanks for the top ten by now. Bye next week, amy sample ward she continues our siri’s on engagement in the social networks with get engaged three setting goals for your online engagement. Also, jane takagi and emily chan are legal contributors are going to talk about gift documentation rules? What is supposed to be in your acknowledgements to donors for their two thousand twelve gif ts we’re all over the social networks there’s a good conversation going on in linked in group on the areas that non-profits struggle with most very interesting. Most of the comments are about leadership, so add your comment. What do you think non-profits struggle with most that’s in the linked in group were on facebook? Of course, with that twenty five thousand dollar annual income, i’m i’m bringing the average down could follow me on twitter are hashtag is non-profit radio i’m also on foursquare, let’s, connect there and as i mentioned in tony’s take teo. I would be very grateful if you’d rate and review the show in itunes. Thank you very much for that. Wishing you good luck the way performers do around the world. We’re moving to poland. Poem ania nuke poem ania nuke. Break your legs. The polish want you to break both legs. Not good enough to just break break one leg. They want you, teo, break both legs. So that’s a double. Good luck, it’s. Like saying it twice and i send my thanks. Thanks very much to the polish consulate staff here in new york city for their help with that pronunciation. Thank you very much. And i wonder if that’s why poland joined us. So i’m wishing you for the week. Polonia nuke our creative producer. Hard to believe we have one. But we do. It’s clear. Meyerhoff and sam liebowitz is our line producer shows 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. Thanks. Also to janice taylor for all these excellent, um, entertainers. Good wishes research. Thank you very much, jenise. I hope you’ll be with me. Next friday, one to two p. M eastern for tony martignetti non-profit radio on talking alternative dot com. Andi, think it’ll do you? Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternate network duitz waiting to get me anything. Take it good! Hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream are show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life. We’ll answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten am 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 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. 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 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 broadcasting 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 shock a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory 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 go 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, i’m not sure you’re 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 e every time i was a great place to visit for both entertainment and education. Listening. Tuesday nights nine to eleven. It will make you smarter. Talking dot com.

102: Arts And Culture Building Bust? & Turn Supporters Into Honorees – Tony Martignetti Nonprofit Radio

Tony’s guests this week:

Joanna Woronkowicz, associate at University of Chicago’s Cultural Policy Center and lead author of “Set in Stone: Building America’s New Generation of Cultural Facilities, 1994-2008”

Preeti Davidson, director of development at The Legal Aid Society

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

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Cerini hello and welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent is july twenty seventh. Welcome time, your aptly named host. I very much hope that you were with me last week. I hope to hell you were with me last week because it would hurt me deeply if i had learned that you missed trim tab marketing. James he eaten is president and creative director of tronvig group. The metaphor of a trim tab as one person who can move an entire society has professional and personal meaning for him, he explained how something small and seemingly insignificant could make a big difference in your marketing and how to figure out what that small thing is and no more crappy corporate relationships. Erica hamilton, chief program officer for i mentor, and vanessa mendenhall, vice president of the fellows program at new york, needs you described their holistic approach to your corporate relationships this week. Arts and culture building bust joanna veronica bitch is an associate at the university of chicago’s cultural policy center. She’s, lead author of a study of the major building boom of museums performing arts centers in theaters in the u s from nineteen ninety four to two thousand eight, they started with about five hundred organizations and seven hundred building projects, ranging from four million dollars to three hundred fifty five million dollars. We’ll talk about the lessons from that research and turn supporters into honorees. Pretty davidson, a speaker at fund-raising day two thousand twelve, shares her methods for identifying, asking, setting expectations for working amicably with and following up with your event honorees. She’s, director of development at the legal aid society between the guests on tony’s take two one hundred show winners and some stand up comedy videos that’s what’s on my block this week and we’ll have a short clip for you of the latter stand up comedy use hashtag non-profit radio to join the conversation with us on twitter right now, we take a break and when we return, i’ll be with joanna veronica vich and we’ll talk about the study of cultural building, bust or boom from university of chicago’s cultural policy center will stay with me co-branding think tooting, getting thinking things you’re listening to the talking alternate network, get anything? Dahna good. 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. 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 huntress people be better business people. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Schnoll welcome back to big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. I’m joined now by joanna veronica, bitch she’s, the lead author of set in stone building, america’s, new generation of cultural facilities nineteen, ninety four to two thousand eight she’s, an associate at the cultural policy center at the university of chicago. She studies trends in building cultural facilities and best practices for going forward. Joanna. Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, tony it’s. A pleasure. What goes on over there at the cultural policy center at the university of chicago. Joanna, did we just lose joana? Sam joiner, are you there? You and i had this deep, insightful question about what goes on over there. My concern was that it might be ah, bunch of ivory tower academics thinking amongst themselves and nothing trickling down to the to the real world. But i i hope that she was going to dispel that she seems as she shy or we drop. We lost her she’s not shy, we lost her. Okay, well, the study that will will be talking about is one of building of museums, theaters and performing arts centers between nineteen, ninety four in two thousand eight. And we’re going to talk about what some of the aa markers of success are for those building projects and also what some of the red flags of potential problems are. As you might imagine, all these building projects don’t turn out quite the way always that boards of trustees imagine that they’re going to and the survey involved the research involved a lot of interviews with board members. Joanna, we have you back? Yes, i’m here. Ok. Ok. So we’re not sure what happened. I was just saying that, i hope. That the cultural policy center is not a place where a bunch of academics are talking to each other and nothing trickles down to the real world. That’s, that’s, that’s not that’s, not what’s happening there. Is it that’s? Certainly not what i want to make one of the major goals with the study in particular was to actually reach the field. So, you know, we had a long communications plan that went along with our research plan, and really the last six months have been devoted to figuring out how to reach the reach the field with our work. Okay, well, i’m sorry your spending time here because no one listens to this show, so this is squandering of your time. I’m sorry, but it’s too late. Now you’re committed. What? What does the cultural policy center do? Generally so generally, the cultural policy center is a joint initiative of both the hair school of public policy and nrc at the university of shots chicago, which nrc is one of the largest research institutions in this country over seventy years old, and started off with doing public opinion research and now the social science research. More generally, the cultural policy center than focused focuses specifically on research has as it has to do with thea arts and cultural sector, mainly non-profit organizations okay, and tell us what an o r c stands for so i can keep you out of jargon jail. Sure. So noor formally stands for the national opinion research center, which people know a little bit better of. Okay. All right, so these the research and the article that you are lead author of was set in stone. What was the method that you used to do the research on the’s cultural and performing arts? Well, these museums and theaters and performing arts centers? Well, this was really one of the the first systematic study of cultural building in the united states, and i think the word systematic because, you know, it was scientifically systematic, so we went through a variety of methods to make sure what we’re studying was representative of the non-profit our sector, yes, there was a number of steps that were involved. The first was really first getting a list of all construction projects of museums, theaters and performing arts centers that responded in the time period that we studied which again? Was nineteen, ninety four until two thousand eight way studied trends using that large list of of construction project. So that’s, where we came to conclusion such as there was more building going on in the south during that time period, there is also more performing arts center is being built, museums in cedars and some other conclusions that we came to. But but we also did with that list was we picked a representative sample of fifty six organisations in approximately six different cities across the united states that had a building project, and after we picked that sample, we interviewed a number of people with each organization that actually went through the building projects from beginning to end, to get details on the planning and building processes of these projects. And then, of course, we looked at those organizations, financial data as measures of outcomes for these projects. So you were you were given pretty pretty open access than to decision making and players involved in decision making. We definitely were, you know, our respondents were incredibly, they were way had a lot of really great participation, and i think one of the reasons being that we actually promised confidentiality to our respondents. So our respondents seems very much open to talking to us about how these processes actually took place. Okay, interesting. Now we have just about a minute before a break. Why do you think there’s there’s more building in the south than other parts of the country? Well, the main hypothesis and we’ve looked into this as well as because the south had less cultural facilities to begin, in a sense, they were playing catch up the other regions around the country. Ok? And you said this was the first study of its kind. There has never been a a scientific study of of outcomes in building, performing arts and arts and cultural centers. That’s, right? There have been smaller studies that have focused on the case studies, and then there have been other samples taken, but the’s samples usually are non representative. So we really tried teo stick to our methodology and making general conclusions that were representative of the entire our cultural sector. All right? And we’re gonna talk in more detail when we return after this break. Joanna veronica bitches with me and we’re talking about the study that she’s lead author of set in stone building. America’s, new generation of cultural facilities nineteen, ninety four to two thousand eight. Stay with us. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, i’m donna and i’m done were certified mediators, and i am a family and couples licensed therapists and author of please don’t buy me ice cream. Our show new beginnings is about helping you and your family recover financially and emotionally and start the beginning of your life will answer your questions on divorce, family court, co parenting, personal development, new relationships, blending families and more dahna and i will bring you to a place of empowerment and belief that even though marriages may end, families are forever join us every monday, starting september tenth at ten a m on talking alternative dot com 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 for action. Join me, larry shot a neo-sage tuesday nights nine to eleven easter for the ivory 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. Very 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. Money, time, happiness, success, where’s, your breakthrough. Join me, nora simpson, as i bring you real world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. To create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com. 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 christine cronin, president of n y charities dot orc. You’re listening to tony martignetti non-profit radio big non-profit ideas for the other ninety five percent. Welcome back. Before we dive back into this, i want to send out a little live listener love to ah, new brunswick, canada. Welcome and newport, north carolina. Welcome to both of you, there’s. Others, but that’s two so far. So, joanna, you had you did a lot of interviewing with people for representing the fifty six representative projects. Or was it all just sort of forensic and looking back? So we did a lot of interviewing. We interviewed approximately, i would say eighty people across those fifty six different organizations, so sometimes more than one person, it was mainly either the executive director or the board chair that way spoke to but way had to be sure that that person was around, right that’s, the beginning of the project and all the way through the end so we could get the entire story. We also wrote a series of case studies where we did probably about ten to fifteen interviews for each case, studies and those air available online as well with the report. And then we also did interviews with four hundred forty for organizations that did not have their own building projects, but we’re located in cities. Where there was a major building project and the purpose of those interviews were to see what the spillover effects of these types of projects are. Oh, so that’s what? You had over five hundred or you had five hundred interviews? Is that right? That’s? Right. Okay. Okay. Okay. So also then you had access to people in the communities? Not clearly, not only the charities that were involved. That’s exactly right? We really made a large attempt to speak to not only those people who were directly involved, but two people who we think might have been affected or might have had a different perspectives and those internal to the organization. And aren’t the community’s involved, or shouldn’t they be involved in assessing whether there’s a need for one of these ah, new facility of the type we’re talking about? Well, you know, that was exactly the question we were trying to get at, and we ask that question to not only the directors and board trustees that we spoke to involved in building processes, but way spoke to those organisations themselves, those external organizations to see if they have been contacted in, you know, in the planning stages. Of these building processes, i think a lot of the time there were sort of steps taken by the organization to make to reach out to the community, and that would include things like public forums and and other types of meetings and no feedback sessions and and then, you know, and there were actually attempt to speak to the arts community and seeing it, perhaps their collaboration, their partnerships available and pursuing these projects as well. And did you find that there was, ah, i don’t know how to describe just what i was there in your mind sufficient collaboration with the community partners at the feasibility study stage, so that was really one of the one of the conclusion we came to about best practices for going forward were based on what we saw in reaching out to the community, and we thought that those projects that actually did make a really attempt in getting feedback from the community and and listens to a point and were receptive to that feedback were projects that were much more successful and in those projects that either, you know, didn’t at all involved the community or didn’t didn’t really be receptive. Enough to the communities. Feedback. They had a harder time. They have a harder time after the project was open. Okay. And how did you define a successful project? It was one of probably the most difficult things that we did in the overall study was defined success. And so we ended up doing it a number of different ways. We had a lot of subjective measures of success that we actually had a sort of what we call it. Our expert review panel. Look at a lot of different data about each organization we studied, and then great success on its tail, kind of great, different dimensions of success on a scale. We also then looked at financial outcomes of these organizations and tried to get a good enough picture of after the project opened, what the finances looks like with the organization. So we gave ourselves a special that we studied organizations, that we could get financial data for at least five years out after the project opened. So those were those were definitely two ways that we categorize success with. All right. And so you talked about one of the markers of success being community involvement in the feasibility study stage. What’s, what’s what’s. Um, let’s. Talk about some others that would lead people to lead charities. Tohave ah, greater likelihood of a more of a positive outcome than not sure, you know way kind of identified four different dimensions that could lead to better, better projects down the line and one of those dimensions we call kind of the motivation for the project. And that includes really being able to decipher what’s an organizational need and what’s an organizational desire and and needs and desires, you know, already two very ambiguous terms to decipher between. But the way that we saw successful organizations decipher between the two that needed is clearly attached to demand assessment. So if you see demand increasing for your organization, then then it’s more likely that there’s a need for either better, more improved their larger facility. We also saw in terms of the motivation, those organizations that really clearly knew why the project is being built and how it related to their mission. We’re definitely much more successful down the line leadership with another dimension. So having a leader from right having the same leader start the project and then finish that project and making sure that before before the planning and building this place is definitely a vital to the project success and then way also looked at outcomes that was another dimension. And so we looked at sort of all of the ancillary revenue streams that organizations planned on having after the project opened, and we called that so we looked at essentially house flexible and nimble organizations could be in generating revenue, and then also in terms of outcomes we were those projects that were more successful also tended to really stick to the caps that they put on budgets in the planning and building processes. But most of the projects went way over budget, didn’t they? Over budget overtime? That’s right? Wasn’t eighty seven percent, eighty percent of project went over their initial budget, and and by large numbers to was it weren’t some of them to buy a factor of two? Yeah, but we did have some project over two hundred percent over their initial lodges budget s o and do we have any sense of we break that down and analyzed by that and look at what might have caused those projects that went way. Over budget to have to have been more likely to do so. Could you slice it that way? Definitely. We looked at that as well. And it was it was clearly so. One of the first reasons we call budgets really increase was that division of of the project in the beginning wasn’t as clear as it should have been. And so that’s what? We was sort of what you could call vision creased i mean, vision division kept on expanding, as i think, enthusiasm as an excitement kept on group growing with the project. But that was one reason. Okay, okay, you mentioned that something that would be likely to contribute to how you define a successful project was is that it is related to the mission. And that sounds a little bit like what you’re talking about now in mission creek. But but how does an organization start out with building a project, a concept that isn’t related to their mission? What does that look like? Well, a lot of the time, the reasons for these projects are our external to the organization. A lot of the time, you know, we saw organizations decided to build not because it was necessarily related to their mission, but because, you know certain members of the community or the board thought it would be a good idea for let’s, say economic development reasons or something like that. So it wasn’t directly attached to the organization. I think a lot of the time organizations and into trouble when that was the case, i see, ok on dh, you also talk about the the they’re being ah it’s more likely to be successful there’s increasing demand, which would sort of counter act the the ego factor, right? I mean, it wouldn’t every cultural organization like to have a brand new, spiffy building and, you know, it’s tens of thousands of square feet or something, but we have to overcome that ego and focus on some real numbers, right? I mean, you know, that’s, probably one of the most interesting elements of our facilities project is that they’re very much projects passion, a lot of the time and a lot of the time, those people who have the idea for the project, i mean, are really passionate about seeing it through because their patches passionate about their art form, passionate about their organization and which, you know, is is truly great. However, you know, the reason that we really went forward with this study was because in a way, way wanted teo see what rational elements we could pull out of this process and what rational elements we could bring to the table in for future projects. Because, you know, even though passion move the project, you really do have to think about the nuts and bolts of what’s actually going to be feasible. Down the line. Joanna veronica bitches with me she’s associate at the cultural policy center at the university of chicago and lead author of their study of building between nineteen, ninety four and two thousand eight among cultural institutions, what are some of the the markers of difficulty or sort of red flags? Well, way one of the other definitely one of the other elements in-kind sweet study was sort of what we called, how difficult the process ended up being. And, you know, they’re clear markers such as lawsuits and things like that, that i think anybody would agree that our elements of of difficulty, i mean, but really, it really had to do with, you know, a lot. Of the markers of difficult project had to do with all of the markers of success. So kind of if you think about the opposite so good earlier, right, that, you know, you needed leadership. The same leadership from the beginning into the end. Well, those projects that had a lot of turnover and executive leadership definitely had a tougher time down the line. Okay, so essentially the negatives of the success markers. That’s, right? Ok. Ok. I’m always interested in feasibility studies on dh because i think a lot of times that the organization that does the feasibility study has an interest in carrying on the work. So they want to have that they want to give a positive, um ah, positive projection to the charity so that they’ll be hired toe actually carry on the work. And i think that conflict exists a lot in campaign fund-raising feasibility studies. Do you think that exists here? Are there are there the same entities doing doing feasibility that also would carry the project through if if a project resulted? Yeah. You know, the feasibility studies are a good idea. And we saw our organizations do them. I mean, i almost every organizations we studied had a fund-raising feasibility study or community development feasibility study, but, you know, often often we the feasibility studies were useful for the organisation, but we also saw instances where if the feasibility study came back and didn’t give the results of the organization wanted, and sometimes we would be an organization, you get another feasibility study. Really? Oh, really, i did that with therapists therapist tells me something i don’t like. I just find a new therapist, but so organizations of doing that with their feasibility studies, some some are some are some are definitely not a general and general occurrence, but we did see a couple of instances. Okay? All right, well, that’s very disconcerting. Actually, we have just a couple of minutes left, and i’d like to just explore with you. Why? On a personal level? What? What motivates you about this research? Well, you know, funny now that you ask me this and it’s been part of my life for six or seven years now, and i wasn’t even it doesn’t even i can’t even remember how i got into it because it’s such a large part of my life now, honestly it comes from it. First comes from my love of the arts, and i’ve been in in the arts in some integral way, either working as an arts administrator, as an artist, as a a narc policy analyst sometime in my life, since i can remember that really does comes from my love for the art, and second to that i mean, because i do really value what the arts and culture contribute to society. I i do, and i’m very interested in sort of how to preserve the health of the sector as well, so that i would say probably what drives me to do all of this working honestly, it’s it’s incredibly interesting. I don’t know how you can not be interested in in all of the stories we got to hear this study and all of the great people that we met not an ivory tower academic at the university of chicago’s cultural policy center joanna veronica vich thank you very much. Thank you, it’s. Been a pleasure having you as a guest right now we take a break. And when we returned to tony’s, take two a little bit about last week’s show and a standup. Comedy clip. Stay with me. Talking alternative radio twenty four hours a day. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks. Been radio speaks. Been. Radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks band radio. 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’ll 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. Money, time, happiness, success, where’s, your breakthrough. Join me, nora simpson, as i bring you re a world tools for combining financial smarts with spiritual purpose. As a consultant to ceos, i’ve helped produce clear, measurable financial results while expanding integrity, passion and joy. Share my journey as we apply the science of achievement and the art of fulfillment. To create breakthroughs for people across the world. The people of creation nation listened to norah simpson’s creation nation. Fridays at twelve noon eastern on talking alternative dot com buy-in 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 zoho. Welcome back, some live listener love shoutout to nan you at new york and antelope california welcome, it’s time now for tony’s, take two at roughly thirty two minutes after the hour on my block this week, you’ll find a list of the winners from last week’s sorry from the one two weeks ago, the one hundredth show. Two weeks ago we gave away on our of free consulting and some books and t shirts, and those winners were listed on my block, but also there’s a couple of stand up comedy clips, too short ones from a gig that i did at the gotham comedy club back in january. And the reason that was on my mind is because i just did a gig last wednesday night at the gotham comedy club also, so i thought i would put a few clips on my blogged from the january gig, and i’m going to play one for you, right? Ah, yes, right now to get into law school. Or are there any lawyers clap? If you’re a lawyer and willing to do cool, you know, to get into law school, you have to take the law school admission test there’s. A part on this test. I could never get my mind around. Logical reasoning. There are eight red flags and six green flag. Each person can hold one or two flags there’s, an odd number of women and an even number of men seated around a rectangular table. Who ate the hut door for lunch? Okay, a little clip from last january this past january of gotham comedy club and there’s another clip on my block, which you’ll find at tony martignetti dot com, and that is tony’s take two for friday, july twenty seventh. Right now, i have a pre recorded interview from fund-raising day back in june, a couple of months ago with priti davidson about turning supporters into event honorees. Here’s that interview welcome to tony martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve in new york city were at the marriott marquis hotel in times square with me now is pretty davidson, and she is the director of development for the legal aid society of new york. Pretty welcome. Thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure. Thank you for taking time out on a very busy day. Your topic is converting supporters into event leaders. What type of leaders are you thinking about? We do one major fund-raising event every year. It’s, a corporate fundraiser for about a thousand people at the waldorf historia in every may on dh we have two honorees we do and one honoree from the legal community and one from the corporate community. The legal aid society is the oldest and largest not-for-profits public law firm in the country, and we have an extensive board made up of representatives from the top law firms in the country as well with headquarters in new york andare board is incredibly active, so generally we pick our legal honoree first, and it comes from our homegrown community of, um, from the legal community, okay, but i don’t see any reason to believe why this wouldn’t work for charities that have smaller galas and events resolutely your model, but what we’ve done this for? Well, well, well, we’ve done this event for thirty five years on dh i think in the last couple of years, what we’ve done differently is we’ve added a corporate honoree to try to expand our donor base from the legal community, broaden it to the corporate community and also you gonna fundez foundation fund-raising programming an individual donor program as well. Ok, now you’ve mentioned before we started that your model is different than traditional models, how is that? Back-up i think i think one thing that sets us apart is the deep roots that we have within the legal community there. Is no other charity that has the kind of commitment and the backing of the legal community that give us about close in nine million dollars a year, and so that those air relationships that some of them are over one hundred years old and those air very long term relationships that aren’t necessarily easily replicated owners who are over a hundred years the law firm’s air that, yes, the yes, some of our relationships with the firms are many, many years old, so we benefit from those long lasting relationships and are incredibly active board helps us pick our legal honoree on dh then we work closely with our with the legal honoree and with with the board again to to pick a corporate honoring, and we found that the model that works best is when the corporate honoree has some sort of a relationship to the legal honoree. Okay, so there’s a relationship there? Professional relationship, professional relationship. We’re able to leverage the relationship between the society and the honorees, thie honorees and their communities and their business communities in order to raise a cz much money is going on. Event leader, a gala leader, a leader of a gala of this sort could also be the chair doesn’t necessarily have to be the honoree. You include that the event chair in in your in your work, we do have a chair structure, we have chairs, vice chairs, we have a dinner committee and those air tied to giving levels, especially at the vice chair and dinner committee level dinner committee is anyone affiliated with a firmer corporation gives us ten thousand dollars in over or an individual and the vice chairs or twenty five thousand dollars, and over generally these air connected to our board, most of our board firms give it those leadership levels. Thie chairs are chosen in a number of ways. Thie honorees have an opportunity to pictures of their own on dh, then chairs are also appointed by the firms or the corporations that give it the highest levels. That would be the fifty hundred, one hundred fifty thousand dollar range on, and then we have honorary chairs, which our chairs in name only. Generally, they, they add, they bring a certain cachet to the events that usually very recognizable name, publicly recognizable name, but even around the honorary chairs is their expectations. About e-giving in a certain level, or or bringing a certain number of tables to the event? No, there is absolutely no expectation with the honorary chairs, their their their relationships that are held very closely, but by our honorees. And but i would say that in general honore teachers after the event will come back and make a gift to society in honor of the person. Okay, so what’s your advice about identifying the right people to be the the honorary arteries. So this is also where we’ve taken a little bit of a different approach, which i’m hoping will will will become more popular because it’s worked very well for us. We’re not looking for household names were not necessarily looking for people who everybody is going to be. Everybody would recognize if they looked at the invitation. We’re looking for people who are committed to raising money for us in the year that they’re being honored and we’re looking for people who may not have been necessarily honored in the past or sometimes over honored when lists air used over and over again, you go to the same well of people, you go to the same contacts. You don’t necessarily yield the best results, and i think they’re definitely unit new york is a really multifarious place, with many, many very successful people from different walks of life, and we’re thinking outside of the box when it comes to our corporate honorees and not necessarily looking for the name recognition, but looking for someone who’s really willing to roll up their sleeves and help us, the commitment is more important absolutely go absolutely and were very clear from the get go. What? What the expectations are what the commitment. Very next question. So how do you set the first? How do you determine what the expectations should be from honoree dahna region that that may vary from year to year? It does. So this is our our primary about this is this is the main event way did too. In the past and as many organizations have done, we scale backto one. And we put all of our resource is all of our staff time, all of our energy into this one event, and we have every reason because, yes, it is absolutely due to the reception recession excuse me? And it was probably about four years. Ago? Um, i’ve been at the legal aid society for three years, and i’ve i’ve helped oversee three dinners the first year was was very successful in my tenure because our new president, finn fog, became incredibly involved with this process, and i have to say that the fund-raising actually comes from our internal leadership. Our president are the chair of our board, our attorney in chief, members of our board are out there fund-raising forest constant that’s critical, and everybody doesn’t enjoy that they’d like to, but everybody doesn’t have that. This is one of the most active boards that i’ve ever professionally been involved with. So how about the the expectation setting for the honorees? So, it’s s o, i’m sorry to interrupt your sorry you’re setting the expectation at the point where you’re inviting to be an honor before they absolutely get it before they’ve except okay, so our model is is what is basically we’re looking for the trifecta the society raises a third, the corporate honoree raises the third in the legal on honoree raises a certain man, and this is this is not necessarily a strategy that that way set out with its one. That’s developed over the last three years, so in that first year we’re able to take this event used to raise just about a million dollars. In that first year, we’re able to raise two point, four million dollars with and that was the year that that set the tone for this model. So when we sit down with perspective, honorees and it’s generally not ah, host of leadership going to talk to that honoree it’s generally the person holding the closest relationship okay, the one on one conversation and were very clear about what the expectations aren’t it’s somewhere between eight hundred thousand and a million dollars and the and the expectations are in writing, the expectations were are not in writing during the point of where, when the commitment is being made afterwards, we do follow-up with very detailed timelines, and we cried a lot of administrative support. Another thing that’s been really crucial is that the honorees in the last three years have set aside some of their personal staff to help us so that we always have a lease on in their office and we’re working very, very closely and and quite seamlessly on this project. With them okay, okay are the expectations just about that money, but but not into sharing contacts and contact lists and vendor lists and things like the vendor? Listen, the contactless the business and personal contact lists are made available to us by the honorees. They’re sort of the expectations. It is definitely part of the expectation. It’s it’s the road map to how we raise that that kind of money, the other thing that we looked at very closely is where the common relationships, where the two honorees have a relationship in common, either with an individual, a firmer corporation or where the trifecta works really well is when all three of us have interest in the same entity, okay? And as you’re inviting people to be the honoree because they haven’t accepted yet, we’re still just setting the expectations. How do you explain that there’s benefit for them? A cz being honoree to be honored? I think the legal aid society is an incredibly prestigious and well known organization. We have a very, very prestigious board on dso. We’re talking about people who are asking other important business people to participate with them. An adventure that serves new york city there are over two million people living at or below the poverty line in new york city, and we address many incredibly crucial issues for them, and i think that our reputation is really well known. We have not had a problem so on then for smaller charities mean, what they might do is emphasize the value of their work, their niche that they serve in the community and help the honoree recognize that being allied with that level of with that type of work is valuable because we’re talking about someone who’s already committed to the organization and its work. So just thinking, you know, if someone doesn’t enjoy the reputation that legal aid society does it’s it’s really emphasizing your work and the of the alliance between the person or the corporate and or the corporation? Well, thunders generally want to help solve problems. So even for ah, smaller organization if if you’re able to make the case for for why your relevant why you’re crucial to whatever community or in larger small, i think of thunder is going to pay attention um, and and and i think funders are also interested in helping to raise the profile of worthy causes and using their name recognition in order to do that as well. Dafs you’re listening to the talking alternative network. Have you ever considered consulting a road map when you feel you need help getting to your destination when the normal path seems block 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. I’m montgomery taylor. 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Today, your greatest athletic performance is just a phone call away at eight a one six zero four zero two nine four or visit aspire consulting. Dot vp web motivational coaching for athletic excellence aspire to greatness. Talking. Hyre right? So the next step let’s say the person has agreed they’ll be the honoree. What what happens now comes the sharing of the timeline and on dh support begins we we actually actually, prior to that joint during the courting phase, we prepare a packet of materials that includes the videos we do a video every year for for this dinner, some years it highlights clients and case studies some other years it highlights sort of our more are broader impact and some of the larger issues that may not that we may not be known for in the communities bond, so that that packet of information helps kind of situate the individual, especially the one from the corporate community, because they aren’t as familiar with our work is the legal community is on. Then, after they’ve made the commitment we set up, we usually do a breakfast to introduce them to our leadership are the chair of our board of our development committee, myself and my mind top person, the president and the attorney in chief. Way more to get to know you breakfast. I generally like to go and meet with their office on by people who are going to be on the ground face-to-face relationship that isn’t just by phone and e mail it’s absolutely crucial att some point and sometimes it’s it’s not always possible, but where possible i highly recommend it. I also think that you won’t have actually becoming what you worked very closely with them and friendly enjoy a close and friendly working relationship. And i think at the end of it, we all sort of breathe a sigh of relief because there definitely ups and downs and and and we’re kind of in it together in the trenches. And how soon before how early before a kn event do you begin the process? Thie well, so we just had our event on may tenth, and i think that night we started talking about next year s o we try to waste no time it’s not always possible. We try to get our honorees securities soon as possible, ideally before the end of the summer for, um, a event would would be great. We would do ah first round of letters that fall to their contactless. We also have the process when we when we when we obtain the contact list that we’ve to get it into our system and so there’s there’s um data entry involved there on preparing ourselves administratively to be able to handle the workload at some point in in either early december, before before the season hits or or if for whatever reason, were delayed in early january, we do a save the date, okay on dh, then we send way send directed solicitation letters to a number of people that we identify on the three list, the society’s list and the two honoree lists after that way do a lot of leg work, it’s a lot of getting in front of people and calling her contacts and keeping track of who’s calling who? So we’re not when, when their interests, when we’re interested in the same prospect that we’re not, we’re not double calling, right, right? Because between the three of you, that could be overlap, and it was a lot of other absolutely avoid that my office is responsible for making sure that coordinating all the efforts okay, onda about follow-up after the event with the chair with the sari with the with the honorees way, try to keep in in close contact with the honorees, to be perfectly honest, we could do better in this realm, and i think there’s a lot of non-profits that struggle with what to do after the dinner, clearly, with the honoree from our legal community, they will continue to sort of go back and be a part of that community. It’s it’s more of a challenge with a corporate honoree? They didn’t they didn’t come to us with with the relationship already established, and it is, i think, it’s naive to think that even though they did great work for us over the course of the year that we’re gonna have them as lifelong supporters, i think we’ve been very fortunate that we’ve had very generous honorees who continue to support the society after being honored, but we’re still we’re still trying to figure out how to continue to make that that connection beyond the event, we also has the best practice, you know, we will continue to communicate with people who came to the event and or made a gift to the event, but we don’t circulate. We don’t we don’t their lists don’t get absorbed into our database unless the person has has shown interest in being involved in some custody, and when you’re in the heat of the event, thes air may events so in early mayor mid may well, end of may will give me ten it’s really bad. All right, so so hyre mid april, too late april what’s what’s keeping you up, what’s what’s really the most one or two things that you’re most concerned about, right? Two to three weeks before you know, we we do, we do a lot of our fund-raising on the front end, it’s incredibly important, and i think part of the secret to our success, that and a best practice in fund-raising that we’ve been able to get, i’d say two thirds to three quarters were fund-raising done before the invitation goes out, so not stressing about about hitting the goal at that point, i think that they’re r i think the stress and legwork comes over the course of january, february and march, where we’re doing the bulk of the solicitation and fund-raising in order to get the names on the invite, and then we found that first year we raised, i think it was one point three million or one point, four million dollars. Before the invite went out in eight hundred thousand dollars, came in after that, i think people want to be a part of a success, and success breeds success and we could use the money. Ok, but so what is it now? I’m gonna ask you again, what a couple of weeks, two or three weeks before, what is it that’s keeping you awake? Details it’s, you know, seating a thousand people for dinner is not easy there constant changes getting those lists, getting guests lists to come. I mean, there there are people there last minute changes that happened an hour before the event and making sure that our ducks in a row but i have to say that i’m not stressing anymore. This is our third my third year of doing this with it, with a great team and with a great with great invent consultants, we use susan ulan associates, they’re fantastic and i’m not stressing actually go in the weeks before the event and this year actually enjoyed the event xero which was a first for me and all right, so why did you leave listeners with just one tip? If you have to say there’s one thing that they really should take away from converting the there there’s serious, they’re they’re hyre level donors and committed people, too. Two honoree, what would that be? Well, i think that we’re very fortunate that philanthropy is very much a part of american culture and it’s been ingrained in all of us at some point to be involved in our communities and give back i thinkit’s a deeply american construct, and i feel that, you know, converting a leadership into honorees is a process. It takes time and it’s a process that it’s again it’s, another level of relationship building that, you know, if we’re able to make the compelling arguments to an outside audience, that we know why our organization’s make a difference in this world, that message is very clear, and i think that there’s a lot of people were incredibly receptive to that. So while it might take a little bit of time if it’s done the right way, you’ll have lasting results. Thank you very much. Pretty davidson is director of development for the legal aid society of new york. Been a pleasure having you as a guest. Thankyou. Thankyou, tony. My pleasure, tony. Martignetti non-profit radio coverage of fund-raising day two thousand twelve at the marriott marquis in new york city my thanks too pretty and also the organizer’s of fund-raising day and, of course, also to joanna veronica vich i hope you’ll be with me next week. I hope you’ll be listening next week. It’s audit week you’re hr owed it starts off karen bradunas human resource is consultant returns to the show there may be things hiding in your hr closet that you need to bring out and dust off to avoid problems later on, we’ll talk about your benefits, plan immigration, paperwork and that’s not only for immigrants and what to do if you get audited by federal or state regulators and then your social media audit, scott koegler continues our discussion from the one hundredth show on sites that help you assess how you’re doing in social media sites like hoot suite market me sweet and radiant. Six scott’s the editor of non-profit technology news and our regular tech contributor. We’re all over social media you can’t make a click without sparkle a testa it’s a tony martignetti non-profit radio means you can’t make a quick without smacking your head into us, but today, just focus on linkedin linked in group is probably a couple of months old now. Next time you’re on linked in for podcast listeners, please join the group comment on the show or there’s also an active discussion going on now about about social media so it doesn’t have to it’s not limited to subjects on this show. Please join the linked in group and i want to start wishing you good luck and good fortune in the words of artists throughout the world and this week i’m starting with italian in boca lupo, which means in the mouth of the wolf, and you would say that to someone as just as they’re going on stage in italy. In boca lupo, our creative producer is claire meyerhoff. Sam liebowitz is our line producer shows 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 very much hope you’ll be listening. Listening next week or the week will be on friday one to two p m eastern at talking alternative dot com in bocca al lupo i didn’t think that shooting. Good ending. You’re listening to the talking alternative network. Get in. Hi, this is nancy taito from speaks been radio speaks been radio is an exploration of the world of communication, how it happens in how to make it better, because the quality of your communication has a direct impact on the quality of your life. Tune in monday’s at two pm on talking alternative dot com, where i’ll be interviewing experts from business, academia, the arts and new thought. Join me mondays at two p m and get all your communications questions answered on speaks been radio. 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. 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 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 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. 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. Dahna