The Mission Paradox Blog

Worked so nice, let's do it twice

Our corporate giving workshop worked out so well, that we decided to do another one.  This one on Nonprofit Branding.  Click this link for more details.

And be on the look out, Branding Month starts in a few days.  The first post will be on what Harry Potter can teach us about branding.

Corporate Giving Workshop Tomorrow

If you are in the Chicago area tomorrow and want to learn about securing Corporate Sponsorship, stop by Robert Morris College, Room 302.  Click this link for more details.  And if you want to talk to me directly, email me at mission.paradox@yahoo.com

Next week, I will talk about the results of the workshop.

True Diversity.

While it may seem to be a bit cynical to talk a bit about creating more diversity in the nonprofit world during Black History Month, it is something worth discussing.

Full disclosure here, I'm a black guy.  Look at the photo in the "About Me" section if you don't believe me.  Being black doesn't automatically make a person a proponent of diversity, but it my case it does give me an unique understanding of how important it is for a workforce to reflect America in every way it can.

Diversity is often looked at as a numbers game i.e.how many Hispanics, or Asians do you have on your Board/Staff.  This is helpful to a point.  In my opinion, the real diversity question comes down to this . . .

When the really important organization decisions are made, who is in the room?

You can have the most numerically diverse organization in the world, but if all the truly important decisions are made by individuals who all look and think the same, then all the good intentions and good efforts are wasted.

I can think of one community advocacy group I have observed.  The Executive staff is mostly Caucasian, while the group they are servicing is mostly Latino.  They are working to diversify their organization, but in the interim, every time the organization makes a major decision they bring in people from all over and gives them a role in the decision making process.  That is true diversity in action.

So as your nonprofit comes about it work, think about how many voices you are allowing in when the crucial decisions need to made.

Rachael Ray and Branding

From one of my favorite blogs, "Escape from Cubicle Nation" check out this post on what Rachael Ray can teach us about branding.  Think of it as a early kick off to our upcoming Paradox Branding series of conversations.  Right now the point isn't for you to agree or disagree with the power of the Rachael Ray brand, it is just to get you thinking.

All About Branding

Coming soon, Mission Paradox will present Nonprofit Branding Month.  I will be doing a series of blog posts and e-blasts (emails to people on my mailing list) about what branding is, why it is importantly and how nonprofits can do it given their limited resources, time, etc.

The fun will start right after our Corporate Sponsorship Workshop, and continue on all through the month of March.  Everything will culminate with a full day workshop on Nonprofit Branding that I hope you will attend.  More information on the workshop will be up soon.

In the meanwhile, if you have any questions on nonprofit branding, please post them on the blog.

The Power of Leverage

Yesterday, I got an email from someone who felt like I shouldn't be doing a workshop on corporate sponsorship because the future of nonprofit funding lies in individual gifts.

I responded back saying that I certainly value the power of individual gifts (in fact I will be doing a workshop on individual giving soon) but that I also believed corporate sponsorship is a legitimate and potentially powerful source of funding.

Let's take a look at some common funding wisdom.

If I were to give your nonprofit one check for $5,000 from Corporation X and then a check from $5,000 from Individual Y, which check has more long term value for your nonprofit?

The tradition answer is that the individual check is more valuable because you can get that check year after year, while the corporate support is less reliable.

There is some truth in that statement.

But to really figure out which gift is most valuable, you have to determine which gift gives you the most leverage.

By leverage, I mean using that particular gift to try and receive more support.

The magic of receiving that relatively small check from a corporation is not the money itself, it is that the check opens the door to other forms of support!

Once you get that first gift, it is not that much of a stretch to sit down with your friend in that corporation and say "Hey, we are looking for Board Members, know anybody in your company that could help us?"

The reality is that many of the most powerful organizations in the world are corporations.  We may not be thrilled by that fact, but it is what it is.

If you are able to harness just a tiny, tiny, TINY, bit of that power you can jumpstart your nonprofit.

Will the corporate support last forever?  Of course not.  Can you survive with just corporate funding?  Nope.

But can one, well leveraged corporate gift advance your organization's mission quicker then a thousand individual gifts?  Yes.

If you want to learn more about it, then join us on February 23. 

A list of tech savy nonprofits

Seth Godin, one of my favorite experts in the marketing field, and his colleagues at Squidoo.com offer their list of the 59 "smartest" nonprofit organizations online.  In this case, they are defining smart as being able to use technology effectively.

Click this link to see the list, and be sure to visit the organizations listed so that you can steal some of their good ideas!

Laws of Attraction

Angie presents an interesting hypothetical for us to consider . . .

"Let's say me and 6 of my buddies from college decided we want to start a Not For Profit Theater Company. We are starting with nothing more than sheer love of Theater.

We have thrown ourselves a kegger and got together $1000 to put up our first show. 5 weeks late nights at some local black box. Our first show broke even and we got a nice review in the Chicago Reader. We feel like we want to continue.

How does a start up like this attract Board Members who can help them get to the next level? Is it impossible when you are such a young start up to find folks that are more than just you and your girlfriend and her sister and maybe your mom?"

There was a crucial line in that situation.  "We feel like we want to continue"

The question is, Why?  Why do you want to continue?

A person may reply, "because we love theatre".

The truth is, that is a perfectly good reason . . . to run a for-profit theatre.  If you want to run a nonprofit theatre, however, there was to be a bigger reason.

Notice I didn't say a better reason, just a bigger one.

People often misunderstand nonprofit status.  When a company signs up to be a nonprofit they are saying, "we want to serve a public purpose".  The problem is that doing something "just for the love of it" isn't serving a public purpose.

How does this relate to the problem of attracting Board members?

The only way possible Board members will be attracted to your work is if it serves a clear public purpose.

Here is a hard truth that many arts organizations, particularly theatres have to face.  The reason most of them fail is not because of poor management, or poor fundraising, or even poor art. 

The reason most of them fail is because they are novelty acts.  They exists solely for the entertainment of a small group of people.  They serve a private purpose versus a public one.

Putting on shows that you and your friends enjoy is not a public purpose, it is a private one.

Increasing cultural dialouge IS a public purpose.  Using theatre to improve a child's ability to create IS a public purpose.  Creating a show that inspires their audience to see the world different IS a public purpose.

Having a strong public purpose (and having the ability to effective communicate that purpose) is THE KEY to attracting Board members

So before that theatre group throws another kegger, they MUST sit down and ask themselves the crucial question . . . "How is what we are doing making a positive impact on society?"

Then you take that positive impact and create a mission statement.

A mission bigger then any particular person in that room. 

Once they create and execute on that mission, they will start to slowly attract Board members. 

The Aqua Teen People Got Greedy

By now you know the story, the marketers of the cartoon Aqua Teen Hunger Force did some of that "underground marketing" all the cool kids are talking about.  The planted some promotional items, the items got mistakened for bombs and all heck broke loose.  By the time it was all said and done, the CEO of a billion dollar company had to issue a public apology.

People have used this as an example of overly aggressive marketing.  I see it differently.  The main lesson the Aqua Teen people should have took from this, is that sometimes it is better to remain small.

The cartoon already had a niche (or cult, or whatever word you want to use) following.  They already had their 18-24 year old fans talking about the product to their 18-24 friends.  The problem is that somebody got greedy and wanted more. 

Instead of empowering their current fans and giving them more tools to talk about Aqua Teen, they decided to market in places where 90% of the people who view the ads would either 1) have no idea what it is or 2) be offended by it.

As nonprofit organizations we always want more.  More donations, more corporate sponsors, more individuals to see our work.  The problem is that often we ignore the people who already love us (our current donors, Board members, etc.) in the pursuit of bringing outside money and people to our cause.

The hard truth is, just like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force, a significant portion of the public just isn't interested in what you are doing, no matter how noble or worthwhile it is. 

The trick is to find that small population who ARE interested and then empower those people to go out and find others.

So maybe we should stop working so hard (and spending so much money) to find new patrons, donors or Board members and invest that into treating the ones we already have better.

The Hunt For Board Members

My Beyone Syndrome Post (see below) has led to some interesting discussions about what a person can do to find ANY Board member (not just a wealthy one).

I draw parallels between finding Board members and soliciting donations.  The primary reason that individuals fail to give money to organizations is because they aren't asked.

There is a similar issue with finding Board members.  You have to understand that 90% - 95% of the general public have NO idea what it means to even join a Board of Directors.  So it is important that you constantly inform and educate people about what it means to join a Board and why they should join YOUR Board.

A few examples . . .

1.  If you do any type of public speaking appearance, every time you speak you should mention the need for good Board members and a way to get more information from you about Board members.

2.  If you do a mailing for individual gifts, you should add information about Board membership into your mailing

3.  There should be a noticeable and well promoted link about Board membership on your website.

One final tip.  Everyone in your company, from your current Board members, to the person who volunteers to straighten up your office on weekends, should be trained on how to spot a Board member prospect.  It doesn't have to be an indepth training.  It can be as simple as sitting down with a person and saying "This is what we look for in a possible Board member.  If you see a person like that in the course of your day, stop, introduce yourself, give them your business card and ask if someone can contact them later on."

You will be amazed how many Board prospects pop up when you ask constantly and empower your entire organization to look on your behalf.

Now how do you choose the right Board member from those prospects?

We will talk about that later . . .