For the Common Good

It’s a sign of growing old….older. Lamenting what youth is coming to and being very sure that the world, once they take over will fall apart. As if we’ve done such a good job.

In business, even the nonprofit business (or perhaps especially in the nonprofit world) issues of succession loom large. Once us boomers retire, who is going to take over? I mean, everyone (being us) knows that younger people (that’s they) just aren’t as noble, as involved, as committed. All they care about is texting and twittering. They don’t care about causes and helping others.

Wrong. Very wrong.

There’s a lot going on out there and social networking is actually doing a lot for good. Danny Moldovan, Director at Jobs for Change recently sent me an email, and I’m sure he won’t mind my quoting from it:

"Jobs for Change is a career service and marketplace for social change jobs that we’ve created in partnership with dozens of nonprofits, including Young Nonprofit Professionals Network, AmeriCorps Alums, Echoing Green, Network for Good, and Encore Careers. You can check it out at

"Our goal is to spark a nationwide movement toward careers in the common good – including nonprofit, government, and social enterprise jobs. We’re currently building a huge database of social change jobs with our partners and have just hired a team of career advisors who will be blogging every day to provide guidance on finding and developing a career in social change.

"We’re currently reaching out to likeminded bloggers and nonprofit leaders to help build momentum for the campaign and spread its vision. Would you be willing to sign a statement about the importance of mission-driven careers? You can see the “vision statement” at It would also be awesome if you might mention this on your blog."

I’ve always wanted to be awesome, so I’m mentioning it. But I’m also jazzed and, yes, awed. These guys are my kids age. Younger, actually. And they are doing amazing and wonderful things.

Amazing and wonderful because they are helping a whole group of people see what awesome really is: doing what needs to be done to make our world better.

No matter what your age, visit the site. If you are already in the nonprofit sector, tell a friend who isn’t. If the crisis we are all facing now has taught us one thing, it is that we had best recruit the best and the brightest to lead the nonprofit, government and social enterprise sectors.

Or, as the Jobs for Change vision states:

"This is a moment of incredible potential. If together we harness the renewed interest in public service by recruiting and developing the next generation of leaders in the social sector, we can overcome the challenges we face and build a better future for us all."

Janet Levine is a consultant who works with nonprofits and educational organizations. She can be reached at janet@janetlevineconsulting.com. Her online grantwriting class is available at www.janetlevineconsulting.com/classes.html.

Stuck On Start

The meeting was great. The committee all agreed on what needed to be done and each task was assigned to someone who was to have primary responsibility. We felt good. We felt like, finally, things were going to happen.

Then a week went by. Two. Finally it was a month and a half and very little had occurred. Worse, it was clear we had missed the deadline. And once again we were stuck on start.

Sound familiar? If you work or volunteer at a non-profit where there isn’t enough paid staff to pick up the slack, odds are it does. It’s not that anyone plans on not doing what he or she was assigned to do. Or that anyone means to miss deadlines. But the rest of life gets in the way, and no one has really taken charge of ensuring that all the pieces that have to come together do.

What you need is a “Chief Executive Nag.” The one person whose job it is to keep all the parts moving. Sounds simple, but believe me, it takes a lot more than just appointing someone as the CEN.

I’ve been that nag often in my life—both personally and professionally. What I’ve learned is that no matter how good a nag I am (and trust me, I nag fantastically), unless the entire team agrees that this project is something we all want to succeed, all nagging will fall on deaf ears.

Bring it home. I spent years nagging my kids to clean their rooms. The problem was that my definition of clean and theirs didn’t match. And my need for clean was, well, my need. They frankly didn’t care.

Take it back to your organization now. Clearly, the first thing is that everyone must be truly committed to getting it done. Whatever it is. The negotiations as to what constitutes “it” and what has to be done must happen up front. I also believe in writing it all down and getting buy-in from all concerned. And then—and this is really important—clearly and concisely, chart out who is responsible for doing what, when.

I used the word chart deliberately. Everyone involved needs to see how what they do impacts what others can and cannot accomplish, and how the whole comes together. I’m not above asking everyone to sign off on the document.

And now, the nag. That person’s main job should be to call each and every person involved and find out the status of his or her task(s). And then, the nag should, on an agreed upon time (Twice a week? Weekly? Bi-weekly?—whatever works for the group) let everyone know what everyone else is up to (or not!). This is really crucial.

Without consequences, things often get put on the back burner. The consequence of everyone knowing that I am shirking my duties, or at the very least, much further behind than I should be, is a great goad to getting my work done. And a wonderful way to ensure that your project does not get stuck on start.



Janet Levine is a consultant who works with nonprofits and educational organizations. She can be reached at janet@janetlevineconsulting.com. Her online grantwriting class is available at www.janetlevineconsulting.com/classes.html.

Fundraising Blueprints

Often I am asked if I can share a sample fund raising plan. Sure, but it is kind of like asking an architect to show you a house plan. You may get to see blueprints for a 5,000 square foot house on a interesting 5-acre lot where the person building has millions to put into construction. Great if that’s you, but I have a flat, small plot of land with only industrial views and not even close to one of those millions to spend. Blueprints for my project would be very different indeed.

Now, what I may see—and benefit from should I hire this architect—is the creativity, attention to detail and skill that he or she brings (or doesn’t) to the job. And I may learn how to read a blueprint, or in this case, to set up a basic fundraising plan

But style is one thing; substance is entirely something else. It is the substance of your fundraising plan that will make the difference.

Fundraising plans should not be stand-alone items (just as fundraising should never be disconnected from the rest of the organization). A good development plan sits on top of the organization's strategic plan and links that to the annual business plan.

Now, what do I mean by that?

Too often fundraising is just something we do because, well, we need money. We don’t consider what makes a good gift in the context of our mission. Nor do we build our program plans based in part of how well they lend themselves to fund development.

While that may appear to be appropriate, what I’ve seen is too many cases where a staff member or volunteer is telling someone about the work of the organization and the person asks, “How can I help?” Without a fundraising plan, the response is often a variation on “Uhhh, well, ummm……” At best, there is a blurted “you could give us some money.”

Now picture that conversation where there is clarity on what something costs and how much of that something must be raised from private donors. “That program costs $75,000 each year, and we have to raise $35,000 of that annually,” gives that potential donor a feel for what he or she can do that will make a difference.

Your fundraising plan, of course, would be more comprehensive than one program. I said a few paragraphs back that it should sit on top of your strategic plan. That presupposes that your strategic plan presents a roadmap for what your organization wants to look like over the next 3-5 years with a concrete idea of what that would cost.

Without knowing the cost of your goals and objectives, your strategic plan is just air. Once you know the price tag, how much comes from what sources, you can set your fundraising goal. And you can begin to develop which of the parts of the plan are most marketable for fundraising. And which fundraising techniques will be most appropriate for which parts.

But the strategic plan is long range. So your development plan also needs to consider the business or work plan. What, exactly, are we doing in the next 12 months? How will this change what we need to do?

Once you know the what, you have to consider the how. How you go about raising funds depends in large part on how you’ve gone about raising funds in the past.

No, I’m not suggesting that you blindly do what you’ve done and only that. What I am saying is that you must assess what you’ve done, see what is successful that you can build upon; what’s not been so successful or seems tired that needs to change. But you have to do more than that.

What you can do depends in large part on your resources. What size prospect pool do you have at every level? How involved and engaged is your board? Is there money and human resources to have a full comprehensive development program, or are you a one-person office with no budget? Do you have the technical expertise as well as the technology to take advantage of electronic ways on connecting with your donors?

There are no right answers here. The answers to these questions will, however, provide guidelines to help you develop the plan that works for you.

I recently worked with an organization that wanted to raise a large amount of money in a short amount of time. Unfortunately, they had been totally dependent on grants as their sole fundraising effort. They had no database of prospects and the board didn’t believe that it was their responsibility to either give or get.

The plan I wrote—which they hated—took a long view and recommended steps for building first awareness of the organization and then, slowly, major donors. They, of course, wanted instant gratification and felt that because their program was good, people should support them. I tried to explain that “if you tell them, they will give,” is not quite the whole picture of fundraising. And besides, no one should support anyone. We have to make a compelling case for their support.



Janet Levine is a consultant who works with nonprofits and educational organizations. She can be reached at janet@janetlevineconsulting.com. Her online grantwriting class is available at www.janetlevineconsulting.com/classes.html.

The First Rule of Fundraising

The first rule of fundraising is that people give to people. The corollary of this rule is that the people who are getting must have a viable list of prospects who can give. As Shakespeare said, “There’s the rub.”

Some schools and hospitals have great lists of those who have used their services and have the means to support those services so they will exist for others. Most nonprofits, however, are not so lucky. Their clients are neither affluent nor influential. How, then, do you build a prospect pool?

Your board, of course. But too many board members balk at opening their rolodexes. Others open it up, but refuse to make the contact. “Say I sent you,” they tell you, but that is not the best way to turn a perfect stranger into a friend.

Whining about the situation, while personally gratifying, isn’t going to resolve anything. But neither are nice platitudes about mining your data, picking “low-hanging fruit,” or the fact that long-time donors are likely larger donors—especially if you have none of the above.

By all means, if you have a viable database, go through it. Identify your top donors and make sure you have a solicitation plan for each. Look to see if there are folks who have been to four events in a row but have never given beyond that. Call them and see if they fit that low-hanging profile. But my experience has been that if I don’t know who to call, it’s because my organization has not done even basic cultivation and tracking.

With all due respect, a list of names—even in Excel—does not a database make. If your organization has been erratic at best with its direct mail or phone programs or any other not-really-annual giving plan, you probably do not have a viable prospect pool of likely larger donors.

What you have to do is connect the dots. You do that in any case—Board Member Joe knows Sally who gets involved and then introduces you to Joan. Or you see someone at an event who you know from another life and you reconnect with them while connecting them more tightly to your organization. Now, you just have to do more.

Draw a profile of a likely donor. While I think wealth as a primary indicator can be over-rated, do think about zip codes where they may live or work. What about profession—is there a natural connection or a connection you want to develop? For example, if you live in an area where there are a lot of high tech companies, might you consider those working there? What’s the age group you want to target?

Mainly, though, think about your mission and who is likely to care. Having a huge suspect pool is not the goal. You must identify people who are likely to become involved and invested in what you do.

Now comes the hard part. If you don’t already know these folks and your existing friends won’t introduce you, how do you get in front of these folks? Well, if the mountain won’t go to Mohammed….go where the mountain is.

If I want CEO’s of large companies, I’m not likely to go to the local Chamber mixer, but if I’m looking for entrepreneurs in my community, those are events I’ll attend. Ditto service clubs.

A friend who works at a small nonprofit in a smallish city thought that the likely donors in her area would also be the most community minded. So she started attending City Council and commission meetings. Over time (and development takes time) she made contacts with the movers and shakers. They are now not just donors but board members—and they know they have to open doors.

If you are my age, you remember society columns in newspapers which were wonderful ways to identify the likely philanthropic. Those pages may no longer exist (in LA where I live, it’s all about celebrities and those are not the folks I want to concentrate on), but my local throw-away does still write about who attended what event and the phone book often provides the rest.

Historically, prospecting referred to the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals and the like. It was hard work. So is prospecting for major donors. But it is work that will pay off over time. You’ll find that identifying one good prospect often leads to several others, and best of all, as your board members start seeing new faces and hearing about your successes, they are likely to want to join in.

Janet Levine is a consultant who works with nonprofits and educational organizations. She can be reached at janet@janetlevineconsulting.com. Her online grantwriting class is available at www.janetlevineconsulting.com/classes.html.

Boards in a Bubble

The question was should the board be allowed to have direct contact with the staff of the organization. I confess I was amazed that there was even a sliver of a doubt. Does anything really think we must keep our Boards in a Bubble, as if letting them talk directly with those doing the work was something bad?

Free-flow of information is vital. Damming up that raises the question: What are you trying to hide? More to the point, think of the closed-information systems we’ve recently seen (think the Bush administration or the Wall Street debacle) and what they have wrought. Making wise choices and running organizations well is where diversity really counts. Hearing different points of view always helps to make better decisions.

Yes, of course, the CEO is the primary contact with the Board. He or she should be in regular contact with every member, especially committee chairs. Frequent meetings with the executive committee should be part of the standard operating procedure. Together they should be agreeing on strategic directions and discussing in detail what is going on at the organization.

The Board and the CEO should be partners. If this is so, then there will be respect and an understanding of who is the day-to-day leader and ultimate decision maker at the organization. Steven Sample, President of USC, writes in The Contrarian Guide to Guide to Leadership writes that he will meet and listen to everyone, but decisions are made only in a strict hierarchical fashion. That means he never goes over any of his managers’ heads. That’s good advice for any leader, including board members.

But that should not mean that the Board only interacts with the CEO. This is how poor decisions get made. The Board must hear from those on the ground who are working directly with our clients and must have first-hand knowledge of how our programs are run. This is especially but not exclusively important as it relates to development.

Just as I want my major donors to have as many touch points within the organization as possible—and this always turns into a stronger relationship and, yes, more money—I want my board to have as broad a picture of the organization as possible. Otherwise they cannot either govern well or be passionate and honest ambassadors of our organizations to the public at large. Nor can they be effective fundraisers if they only see what the CEO tells them to see.

Yes, it’s messier if the board and staff talk freely with others. Yes, there is a possibility that an angry staff member may cause some problems (but let’s get real here—angry staff will always find a way to connect with board members; better you should know this is happening), and yes, it means more transparency. But that, I think, is a good thing.

Janet Levine is a consultant who works with nonprofits and educational organizations. She can be reached at janet@janetlevineconsulting.com. Her online grantwriting class is available at www.janetlevineconsulting.com/classes.html.

Looking a Gift Horse....

Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of grant work. That’s unusual for me. I do teach grant writing and occasionally I critique grants. But it’s been years since I actually spent much time writing and researching grants. It’s been good for me, and good for my students. I feel more confident that I am what I am teaching is current and reality based. Of course, I’ve always had an ace in the hole—a co-teacher who is a director of grants and so lives and breathes the topic.

What is of most interest to me, however, is the fact that so many nonprofits still think first of grants and events when they think of resource development. No matter how many times I tell clients or classes that 76% of all charitable monies come from individuals, no matter how many times they express surprise and say, “wow, we should look in that direction,” most still go back to relying on events and grants. And most of them never quite get out of financial crisis.

On the event side, it’s because no matter what most nonprofits think they net, they haven’t really considered all the true costs. Most importantly, they don’t act on the fact the event itself is not the end of a process, but rather the beginning. If, once the event is over you aren’t individually cultivating every last attendee, you aren’t working an event.

On the grant side, the issues are a more complex. The truth is that most grants are not moneymakers for an organization. Indeed, oftentimes grants cost more than bring in. What grants do best is to provide the wherewithal to implement a program or project that you wouldn’t otherwise be able to start. That’s the good.

The bad and the ugly is that while most funders expect that the project will then become institutionalized, or supported by the organization or other funding mechanisms, that seems to rarely happen. Especially in the case of multi-year, seven figure projects. They grow and sometimes thrive for 3 to 5 years, then as the grant disappears, the pieces get dismantled and it’s as if that program never even existed.

To be sure, there are good grants. Or more to the point, there are organizations that use their grants well. But they are the ones who understand that a grant is not really a gift.

A gift is something that someone gives you without any strings attached--or at least not the kinds that yank back the gift if you don’t do exactly as requested. In the nonprofit world, a gift with strings is called a restricted gift; ones without strings are unrestricted. In the former, the donor says that the gift is to be used for a particular purpose or at a particular time. Most grants are a form of restricted gift, but they go further. Grants have deliverables. And it is these that up the price.

Let’s imagine that some nice person gives me a gift to buy a stove. I cannot use it for a sink, a refrigerator, to go out to dinner. I can only use it for a stove. The gift is restricted. But typically, I can put that money toward whatever stove I want and buy it when I am ready.

If, on the other hand, I get a grant to buy a stove, I can expect that the type and even model of the stove will be proscribed, as will the timeframe in which I have to buy it. The deliverable will be the proof I must supply the grantor that I complied with the restrictions of my grant.

Now let’s say that the grant I request is to fund a cooking course for which I will have to buy a stove. This is a program grant and it is the most typical kind of grant made. Then I will have had to describe exactly how I will be using that stove. I will need to document what I will cook on it, how many people will be using the stove, what the results of what we cook will be. And I will have to track my results and write reports for the grantor.

Some organizations have whole departments dedicated to managing the spending and reporting side of grants. There is nothing wrong with this, except it does add a layer of cost that may be at the expense of the core programs of the organization. Of more concern is that too many organizations contort their missions to meet the requirements of a grant, thus spending more money to do things that don’t always serve their clients well.

Go after grants, sure. They can be an incredible boon to an organization. But make sure that you are looking for funding for a program or project that truly moves your mission forward. Don’t be grant seeking as much as seeking funding for a needed project.

There are, of course, unrestricted (or pretty unrestricted) grants that in effect pay for you to continue doing the good works you are already doing. Those are the best, and as with charitable gifts they are the hardest to get. The one good news of this horrible economy is that more and more foundations are discovering the value of these unrestricted operating grants.

This is good news for well-run nonprofits. My one hope here is that the new deliverable for these unrestricted grants be proof by the organization that it is, indeed, well run and that the clientele served get what is needed in a timely, respectful and helpful way.

If I were given these grants, I’d want to see that there is adequate and trained staff to accomplish the mission and that the staff is appropriately paid. And I’d want to know that the board is engaged, and all members support the organization with their actions and their wallets and not just their mouths. I would also want some proof that the board is strategically overseeing the work of the organization, regularly evaluating the CEO and themselves, and that they understand and follow the laws of nonprofit organizations.

Janet Levine is a consultant who works with nonprofits and educational organizations. She can be reached at janet@janetlevineconsulting.com. Her online grantwriting class is available at www.janetlevineconsulting.com/classes.html.

Keeping it Simple

A lot of my time in spent thinking about and helping my clients become more productive in their approaches to fundraising. I call this blog Too Busy to Fundraise because I’ve found that many people who have development responsibilities never seem to find the time to do the things that fundraising requires. I know. I’ve been there.

Oftentimes—and especially at times like now where the economic outlook is anything but good—we look for quick fixes to fundraising, as if some special technique will painlessly raise funds. We want something that will work, as if that something could do it without any help from us.

Making the time to fundraise, therefore, is the first step to actually bringing in gifts. The second step is to use your time and your resources wisely. That means keeping things simple.

That should be easy enough, but somehow too often, what should be a productive way to raise funds and increase your prospect pool gets turned into something that takes more time and effort than it warrants.

Like many consultants, I often remind my clients that the Board is their best fundraising magic bullet. This is especially true for smaller nonprofits with one or no dedicated fund development staff person. But most board members do not feel comfortable asking their friends for gifts. Since the actual solicitation is the last step and only one part of fundraising, I encourage board members to be actively involved in the beginning part of the process. I believe that board members are most effective at identifying potential donors and in introducing those prospects to the organization (and vice versa).

One really nice and easy way to do that is for the board member to host a small gathering, either at the organization or in his or her home. And by hosting I mean that the board member draws up the invite list from his or her personal or business rolodex, sends out the invitations and pays for whatever refreshments will be on tap. I also recommend that we, yes, keep this simple. A wine and cheese, coffee and cake, finger sandwiches. Nothing elaborate; nothing expensive.

Ditto the event itself. It’s meant to be intimate, where the board member can tell friends and colleagues why this organization is near and dear to his or her heart. The executive director or another staff member tells—briefly—what the organization does and shares some success stories. And either the host or someone else asks the attendees to “Join with me in supporting this wonderful organization.” Pledge cards are handed out, and the event is essentially over. Appropriate follow up with every person invited, of course, is necessary.

Simple, right? Doesn’t cost the organization much. And brings new people to the table. Except that I see too many folks turning this simple and effective event into a major production.

Suddenly, centerpieces or a particular color tablecloth with matching napkins are deemed necessary to the success of the gathering. The host decides that the attendees need “favors” or that a drawing would be a good idea, and now the scramble is on to find the goodies (and who is going to ask for them?). And rapidly this becomes a big deal and not particularly productive at all.

Once again, we find ourselves Too Busy To Fundraise. Too involved in turning a simple idea into a time-consuming monster. So, STOP! Re-think. Go back to the basics. Keeping it simple will—I can guarantee it if you actually do it—make your fundraising more successful and all those involved, more productive.


Janet Levine is a fundraising consultant. She can be reached at janet@janetlevineconsulting.com. Her online grantwriting class is available at www.janetlevineconsulting.com/classes.html.