pic from flickr

I was at a board meeting recently and the conversation was about whether to have our next meeting on Valentines Day.  It highlighted how different the meaning of one day causes many to reflect about what is important. 

I would suggest to many nonprofits that this is a perfect time to send a day of thanks to its donors with a quick update of the major accomplishments the organization has made.  It would go a long way in keeping the donor connected to the organization. 

For those of you looking to make a long term impact on your relationship with someone you care for; donate to a nonprofit.  Go to Guidestar.com and type in your zip code to see the local organizations you can support.  This will provide you with a means to have your thoughts for this person continue throughout the year by the efforts of the nonprofit donated to on their behalf.   

In Boston, NPR (National Public Radio) raises money each year thorough a partnership with Winston Flowers and this year FedEx is donating the shipping.  This is a gift that keeps giving every day all year.  Now that’s a bargain.

Pic from Hiking Artist

Below are my top six areas for Donors to consider to fund.  Relax and dream a little.  Rushing the decision does not necessarily create the best results.

Education:  Choose a local public or charter school.  Require parent involvement and matching programs for funds.  Let volunteer time equal the same matching as funds.  Even incentives and make the volunteer hours worth more.  Make sure the match is at least the living wage of a family in the area being served.  Student enrichment programs are shown to increase the success of students. 

Environment:  Choose to become Carbon imprint neutral.  “A Penny A Mile” is a new nonprofit established to have an individual or company reduce their impact by funding the conversion of government and nonprofit facilities to green environments.  Use their roofs for solar electrical and heating and geothermal for cooling. 

Choose to adopt a Park:  Reduce the use of government funds and its inconsistency to private funding and endowments to make a difference.  Once endowment is reached for ongoing maintenance then capital campaigns could be next. 

Food:  Choose the creation of programs that show individuals how to meet their nutrition needs that are healthy, and teach individuals skills to maximize their budget and preservation of foodstuffs.  One said manner is the skill of preparing foods in a manner that allows them to be canned, jarred, or stored in the environment where a person lives.  Very few programs process food to preserve it.  Thereby, the shelf life of many items is deteriorating as the food nonprofit waits to distribute it.  Looks good on paper that they distributed so much in food stuffs, but was the person able to use it before it perished? 

Affordable Housing:  Choose environmentally sound choices to use the environment to cool the house from heat.  For instance, build a house where the cooler part built under ground is cool all summer such as finished walkout basements.  Make affordable housing based on a living wage of the geographic area the funding initiative choice.

Transportation:  Choose the reduction of gasoline costs and increase the use of inefficient vehicles.  These increased costs adversely hurt those just making the living wage than those above the living wage.
 
Utilities:  Choose the reduction of fuel costs for heating or electrical costs for staying cool.  Family day care providers are a good place to start since they are self employed and many serve government funded childcare recipients especially in poverty based areas.  The utility costs are a factor that any donor has the choice to affect many lives and improve the environment.  

In the selection of a nonprofit for the funding initiative you as the donor have chosen, plan on completing a full financial assessment of any non-profit before approaching them.  From the public records of a nonprofit you can already determine the nonprofit’s financial well-being and how you wish to have the nonprofit participate.  This helps the donor in two ways.  First, the donor choices avoid potential pitfalls, those being agreements with organizations that could not possibly succeed under any possible scenario.  Secondly, the donor focuses their energy into developing a specialized plan geared toward each nonprofit. 

pic from Graela

Just like the seriousness one takes in selecting a job applicant, information is key to decision making.   

I would like to convey to donors to fund and support smaller nonprofits because it is better.  I would even advocate further that any nonprofits that outsource would increase this impact even more.  The more that the administrative functions such as accounting, human resources, and grant writing are outsourced, the more likely that administrative costs can be controlled and capped.  The use of funds can be better spent on the mission of the nonprofit.  Smaller nonprofits tend to be more passionate about reaching outcomes and utilizing volunteers.  Smaller nonprofits are more able to provide for a more equitable system of impacting more geographic locations, more people, more causes and creating more self-sustaining networks at lower costs.  The concept that bigger is better is only best when it comes to standardization.  Government and donors can set the standard for all nonprofits.  Setting the bar higher as in the case of requiring audits that are extremely costly and then knocking the small nonprofit for a high administrative cost is one disconnect.  Most small organizations make a real difference in their community and reporting on the 990 and to state regulators is completed appropriately.  Costs of audits have gone up tremendously and have harmed the bottom line of all nonprofits who must do them. 

Corporate giving is both a personal and corporate core value approach to philanthropy.  The approach to identifying donors for nonprofits through annual giving must be based on connecting a corporation with a reason to give.  The message from a nonprofit to a corporation should be based on why the corporate giving is good for their business.  Give a corporation a reason or reasons why giving to your organization as a nonprofit is meaningful to those in the company.  What is the emotional bond that the nonprofit creates for the individuals in a corporation making the philanthropic decisions on giving to want the specific nonprofit?  What does the nonprofit know about the corporate leadership and meaning/purpose of their corporate philanthropy program?  How do the nonprofit’s mission, goals and services help the corporation’s philanthropic effort?  In an effort to win over a corporation to be a philanthropic component of your organization plan on giving to be creative to define a clear goal for the donor to help financially or with in kind services or products.  Be able to show a donor how their money was spent.  In the corporate philanthropy world there are those who say they want privacy about their giving and there are those that want recognition.  The bigger the number the more likely the person wants to feel important.

Corporate philanthropy is about matching planned corporate giving with gifts, praise that feels natural in the corporate culture.  Corporate giving does not have to be just focused on one time of the year.  Those corporate philanthropic campaigns that are monthly or quarterly make the corporate giving a more permanent connection to the community.

Core values of an organization provide a return of positioning the corporation for opportunities to responding with action that is a testament to their excellence.  The corporate philanthropy program provides for personally helping individuals or a cause.  The act of philanthropy provides a learning experience and opportunities for acting upon what is learned with the nucleus to provide a tremendous means to reach, overcome and plan positive outcomes throughout the year.

Know what geographic focus the corporation has and to what degree that has defined or restricted the corporate giving effort.  Knowing any employees of a company will provide better access to the corporation or to the board foundation set up by a corporation for giving.  Community giving to the geographic area in which the corporation has a presence is one means to provide maximum impact in the nonprofit community.

Statistically information from government and nonprofit sources provide a base of information to focus on giving in a philanthropic campaign.  Two basic variables to use are zip codes and the US census data. The use of data on a city or town provides the geographic focus and can provide the extent of the impact the corporate philanthropic campaign can make.  Measure what the money is spent on.  Feel comfortable restricting the use of the funds for certain purposes.  Administrative and fixed costs to support an organization should be no more than your corporation. 

So what is the difference or advantage for corporations to set up foundations?  It allows for the corporate giving program to be built and managed less contingent on the current standings of the company.  In the times of positive corporate returns money can be donated above what will be disburse.  In the times of negative corporate returns money donated can be less but still have the impact intended under the corporate philanthropy effort for giving.  To the degree the corporation wants to run annual corporate giving campaigns is another deciding factor to whether establish a corporate foundation.

Corporate philanthropy is about making an impact.  To turn over funds to a United Way or Donor Advisor fund entity to give, sets the stage for giving to be base on whom someone knows, meeting another entities agenda and most likely the same general group of nonprofits receiving the funds.  It is wise to remember that possession of the money allows for 90% of the decision-making. 

The nonprofits are responding to the entity that has the money.  Therefore, if the corporate philanthropy initiative for giving is to be tied to the corporate mission, then it needs to be in the corporation’s control. 

Dedicated staff time to focus on the Philanthropic endeavor will better provide for the goals and objectives of the corporate strategy for giving and making a difference.  To improve employee participation in the philanthropic endeavor the effort of corporate giving must as an important component allow for the provision of employee involvement.  The corporate giving initiative should provide for the opportunities of employees to identify the means for giving to nonprofits, the means to convey whom they wish to give to, how they wish the corporate giving to be recognized and to what degree they want to share with their fellow employees their opinions. 

Each employee has their own level of tolerance for giving and effort to accomplish the goal of corporate giving.  A flexible corporate philanthropy endeavor, which allows the various levels of participation, will improve the chances of success.  When the corporate giving program has a match or even a minimum that the corporation will give on behalf of each employee will increase participation.  However, there will be some people that just do not want to.  It is suggested that for the pool of money set aside by the corporate giving program for the match of employee which is unused at the close of the philanthropic corporate giving campaign be proportionally assigned to the organizations that were identified by the employees that did participate.  It provides for active employees to promote their cause and corporate giving campaign.  However, there should be ground rules for promoting the nonprofit causes.

Have the employees devise the corporate giving campaign with a geographical focus.  Have the campaign focus on the particular goals and objectives of the corporate philanthropic giving.  Have the employees or a consultant identify those nonprofits that meet the needs of the corporate giving campaign. 

Have a selection process for nonprofits that is either open, random selection, pre-selection or by invitation only. 

Open allows any nonprofit to apply to receive funds from the corporate campaign base on guidance set forth under the philanthropic endeavor.

Random selection is where the corporate giving decision making team just pick nonprofits and contact them to give them checks.

Pre-selection is when the corporate giving campaign is targeted for specific nonprofits that are known in advance.

By invitation only is where the decision-making team invites nonprofits to compete.

pic by Hiking Artist

Corporate giving is about community outreach with a response to positioning the organization for providing resources at targeted efforts.

A corporation getting involved in various opportunities for interaction with the community needs can greatly increase the corporations and employees grasp of the community.   The personal nature of corporate giving creates a valuable personal and corporate approach to philanthropy.  The message a corporation conveys on its corporate giving program to nonprofits should be for the nonprofit to show why corporate giving is good for their business.  Corporate giving starts with the corporate leadership.

The leadership conveys the meaning/purpose of their corporate philanthropy program.  The leadership conveys the mission, goals and objectives of the corporation’s philanthropic giving effort.

Nonprofits in an effort to win recognition by the decision making team needs to understand the past efforts of philanthropic giving.   Nonprofits should make an effort to define clear goals for the corporation giving of financial, in-kind services or products.

Show how the act of giving makes a difference.

Pic by Hiking artist

Corporate giving does not have to be a last minute philanthropy gesture to a nonprofit.  Corporate Philanthropy to be the most effective giving effort should be planned.  With over 1.2 million nonprofits, strategic giving should support your corporate philanthropy.  Targeting nonprofits that meet the mission of the corporate philanthropy act of giving will improve the likely successes of nonprofits.  Those nonprofits with a mission, which meet corporation’s philanthropy goals towards giving, will increase the likely outcome for both parties to achieve the goals set. 

Corporate executives devise and execute business plans to maximize the likelihood of success of the goals and achieve the monetary return on the invested capital.  Therefore, maximize the effect of corporate giving with a philanthropy business plan.  Identify those elements required by the nonprofits for the corporate giving to occur or for consideration of giving by the corporation.

Have a logical process for the nonprofits to identify how their mission matches the corporate giving mission of the philanthropy endeavor.  Have the nonprofit show what outcomes they would plan to achieve from the corporate philanthropy endeavor.

pic by magnusmangomango’s

Whether or not you agree with Greenpeace tactics, they are clear; raise the attention of their mission and they have created a solid funding base from individuals. It is fantastic that they are able to charge individuals to cover their expenses to volunteer on some of their missions. The result driven organization gives its supporters the opportunity to see, feel and hear the scope of their mission. The passion throughout the organization of belief to its mission and much of the funds are spent on direct service to that mission have really set the organization apart from other worldwide organizations. Most large worldwide organizations spend millions in overhead to coordinate their organization.

Many of the individuals who work for Greenpeace only ask for what is needed to survive to support the mission. In case your looking to support their efforts here is a link. http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/

I promote Greenpeace as a great case study of how to balance a mission and meet the needs of the support base wanting to be an active participant in its mission.

Space junk may just be the new initiative to clean up and change behavior that Greenpeace takes on.

pic by gettingrealnow@Yahoo.com

Stop thinking of just getting money from a company.  Stress a way for the company to have its employees to do volunteer work for your nonprofit and get paid by the company to do it.  Have a list of projects that a company can work on and see completed.  Satisfaction will always bring people back for more and they just might bring more friends or be a great source for referring more companies to you.

The charity work alternative to a party does not have to be centered around the holidays.  It might be during a slow time for the company or a specific day that represents something to the company.  It just might be a great tool for the company promoting itself in the community it serves.

Building these relationships takes time, but that slow building ultimately will bring the organization across the finish line a winner every time.  Consistency pays out.