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