In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we’re talking with Jim Gibbons, president and CEO of Goodwill Industries International. Goodwill is such an interesting case because the organization has been practicing social entrepreneurship since long before it became cool, which I’ve talked about before. Goodwill started in 1902 in Boston and in 2010 provided jobs and job training to 2.4 million people with a budget of $4 billion. Gibbons earned his B.S. in industrial engineering from Purdue University, and a M.B.A. from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration, where he was the first blind person to graduate with a master’s in business administration.

You also can read past interviews in our Social Innovation Interview Series here.

Nell: Goodwill has employed a social enterprise model for over a century, long before social entrepreneurship was a buzzword. What made Goodwill so forward-thinking?

Jim: Goodwill is often referred to as “the original social enterprise” particularly by leading social entrepreneurs in the field such as Jim Fruchterman. Goodwill’s roots are deeply established in the belief of the human potential of dignity and self-sufficiency, and in an early learning that the people we serve want a “hand up, not a hand out.” Our founder, Reverend Edgar J. Helms, engrained in our culture his strongly held belief that we must challenge the status quo and be “dissatisfied until every person with a disability or disadvantage has an opportunity to develop to their fullest potential.” This drives the entrepreneurial spirit that exists at every independent, community-based Goodwill agency, allowing them to continually adapt and reinvent themselves in order to meet the needs of local communities.

Nell: How do you think an “old-fashioned” nonprofit like Goodwill fits into this growing social innovation movement? How do you make sure Goodwill is part of that movement and doesn’t get left behind?

Jim: The Goodwill brand is a household name and fortunately still leads efforts in social entrepreneurism, community collaborations and innovation. By staying ahead of the curve, we don’t fall behind. Goodwills are relentless in their desire to understand and meet the needs of the diverse local communities in which they operate. Goodwills challenge themselves to remain relevant and meaningful to the three million people we collectively serve each year. Goodwills across the United States and Canada have found the sweet spot of uniting enterprise with caring, ensuring that our social enterprise model is optimized in a way that empowers people and builds communities that work.

Nell: Goodwill has many more competitors these days than it did 10 years ago, particularly from for-profit competitors. How do you manage the competitive landscape and is it having a negative effect on your model?

Jim: As a market leader in this space, Goodwill always keeps its eye on external forces. We use our social enterprise model to advance millions of people who might not otherwise have the tools or help to succeed in life. We admire legitimate and credible nonprofits that leverage similar models to achieve their mission. While we do not condone the practices of those who market themselves to the public as something they are not, we welcome fair and honest competition, as we have earned the trust and support of more than 66 million customers as well as the people we serve every day. Goodwill earns the trust of shoppers by providing excellent value for their hard earned money. In addition, we earn the trust of donors through the assurance that we maximize the value of their donations in order to return the most benefit to the people we serve in local communities. At Goodwill, your donations generate opportunities for people to achieve economic stability, and build strong families and vibrant communities by offering job training, employment placement services and other community-based programs, such as financial education and youth mentoring. In addition, 84 percent of Goodwill’s revenues go directly into these programs, so members of the public can be sure that their donation(s) will have a direct impact on the people in your community. Last year, Goodwill’s retail enterprise revenues grew more than 12.5 percent, indicating that the public, even with increased for-profit competition, still values and trusts Goodwill.

In addition, we plan to remain a market leader through responsible community leadership. Across the United States and in Canada, we are working with municipalities and local governments to ensure that misleading donation bins are clearly marked so that the public is aware of whether or not their donations go to help someone in need, or if they simply add to a company’s profits. We also teach donors to check out a charity’s legitimacy and revenue information about overhead and administrative costs by contacting their attorney general or secretary of state’s office, a charity rating agency such as Charity Navigator or GuideStar, or online resources such as GreatNonprofits or Philanthropedia.

Nell: What do you do at Goodwill to continually innovate and reinvent the model? How is it possible to continue to innovate at a 100+ year old organization?

Jim: It’s not only possible to innovate, it’s necessary if we want to remain a leader in our market. At Goodwill, we don’t think of innovation as the creation of the next iPhone, but rather as the next idea that allows us to serve the communities we’re a part of in the most meaningful and impactful way. For example, at the Goodwill Industries of South Florida (Miami), they innovate every day and put thousands of people with disabilities back to work. People with disabilities enrolled in their programs learn apparel manufacturing, flag manufacturing, document destruction, and janitorial services. The Goodwill offers a broad range of flexible business solutions to private and public companies, while helping their employees achieve their independence. And it doesn’t stop there. We are committed to customizing the assistance workers need to achieve their peak performance, and we encourage them to continue to advance in their careers.

In Winston-Salem, NC, and Eugene, OR, (Goodwill Industries Northwest North Carolina and Goodwill Industries of the Columbia Willamette), we deploy ’Prosperity Centers’ that optimize community resources and drive community collaboration for the benefit of the people. Prosperity Centers are dedicated to assisting people in the community to succeed financially. That doesn’t just mean helping workers find jobs; it means giving them all the tools they need to build financial security and independence once they have a job, including resume-writing assistance, skills assessment, career counseling, access to computer and high-speed internet, and help with interviewing skills and financial counseling. At each of these centers, financial professionals talk to participants about their financial goals, and help them come up with a personal plan to meet those goals, whether that’s regularly paying their bills on time, reducing personal debt, starting savings to go to school, or investing in a big purchase like a car or home. With like-minded agencies partnering together, they are able to harness their resources, eliminate redundancies, strengthen their impact, focus the delivery of their services to meet the needs of local communities, and have a meaningful impact on their citizens.

At the San Francisco Goodwill, we’ve deployed the “Back On Track” program. A partnership with the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office and the Family Services Agency, “Back On Track” provides intensive case management to individuals who have been arrested for a non-violent, first-time drug sale felony. Goodwill provides job readiness workshops, case management, career advising, life skills workshops and job training and education placement. For every individual we train, we save the government an estimated $20,000 in jail/prison costs. This program has a less than 10 percent recidivism rate – compared to a 75 percent rate with other programs.

In Cincinnati, the Ohio Valley Goodwill Industries, paves an example for other service organizations that provide services to veterans. One hundred percent of the veterans they serve are homeless, and many have physical disabilities or mental health issues such as PTSD and TBI. Each veteran has a case manager who works with him or her to develop an individualized program plan. The Goodwill provides transitional housing for these veterans and strives to provide services to them in a holistic manner in order to achiever lasting success, a return to family, community and self-sufficient living. All of these innovative examples are shared across the Goodwill network, and modified and adapted to best meet the needs of local communities.

Nell: Goodwill is pretty active in the social media space and in fact you do a fair bit of Tweeting yourself (@jdgibbons). How have you integrated social media into your mission? What does it allow you to do?

Jim: Goodwill is a networked enterprise where the local Goodwills make up the heart and soul of the brand, and they participate in social media with aligned brand messages that communicate their local activities and impact. We’ve integrated social media into our global and national communication strategies in a powerful way because it’s an awesome tool for educating people about our brand. And we’re giving attention to having real conversations at the level that is important to our stakeholders and builds relationships with them.

Nell: You were recently appointed by President Obama to the White House Council for Community Solutions, which is a pretty interesting group working on bringing the public, private and nonprofit sectors together to solve problems. What is that group working on and what results are you seeing so far?

Jim: It’s exciting to work with a group of leaders from a variety of sectors to raise awareness on how collaborations solve problems in a profound way. Recently, the Council announced its commitment to expand job opportunities for youth through the White House Summer Jobs+ initiative. The initiative is a call-to-action for businesses, nonprofits and the government to provide opportunities for youth to obtain life skills, education, training, and social supports that are relevant for long-term employment, and to work together to provide pathways to employment for youth ages 16-24 (referred to as ‘opportunity youth’) who are low-income or face disadvantages to finding employment and related opportunities.

Goodwill will be supporting the Summer Jobs+ program by hiring 1,200 youth ages 16 to 24. The 158 Goodwill headquarter agencies across the United States will also provide more than 3,200 youth with life skills services, including communications, time management and teamwork; more than 2,300 youth will receive work skills services. In addition, 2,000 youth will be provided learn and earn opportunities, where they will gain the ability to acquire their first paid employment position, either through the form of paid internships or permanent positions that provide on-the-job training at Goodwill locations. Thousands of additional youth will also be provided with virtual career mentoring and exploration services.

The Summer Jobs+ initiative was created in response to research that shows that at least one in six young people ages 16-24 are disconnected from the two systems that offer the greatest hope for their future: school and work.

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. A Monster List of Social Innovation Books, Blogs, Conferences, Funders
2. What Social Entrepreneurs Can Learn From an Old Nonprofit
3. New Tools to Launch a Social Enterprise or Grow Your Nonprofit

Last week’s stunning PR nightmare at the Susan G. Komen Foundation is a textbook example of how not to run a nonprofit. Komen decided early last week to pull all funding from Planned Parenthood and then went radio silent in response to an increasingly angered social media network. Finally they flipped their original decision while firing the anti-Planned Parenthood vice president for public policy, Karen Handel.

Komen’s PR response was woefully inadequate, their social media efforts were non-existent compared to Planned Parenthood’s, and their board decision-making process was flawed. And all of this follows their brand-busting decision last year to partner with KFC.

Obviously, the organization is not making good decisions.

But few people are placing the blame for these missteps where it should probably go, at the top. Karen Handel herself argued that she wasn’t the only decision maker, “I clearly acknowledge [my role] in the process, but to suggest I had sole authority is just absurd. The policy was vetted at all appropriate levels.”

I wonder if Komen isn’t suffering from classic founder’s syndrome. Founder’s syndrome is when the original founder of a nonprofit (or a leader who has been there for a very long time) creates a culture where:

• Power and influence all reside within the single founder
• The brand of the organization is inextricably linked to the personality of the founder
• Staff are powerless to speak up and be heard when they disagree with certain decisions
• The board of directors merely rubber stamps founder decisions and have no real authority over and provide no strategic direction to the organization
• Decisions are rarely tested or debated

Komen was founded by Nancy Brinker when her sister, Susan G. Komen, died of breast cancer in 1982. For such a massive organization (a 2010 budget of $400+ million), the Komen Foundation only has 9 board members, most of whom are friends or family of the founder . The organization’s structure and behavior have all the signs of classic founder’s syndrome.

In a healthy nonprofit environment, staff are allowed (even encouraged) to push back, ask hard questions, have their dissenting opinions heard.  And the board of directors has the ultimate strategic and fiscal authority for the organization. As a group, they debate and grapple with big strategic decisions. And, as a group, board and staff together are charged with achieving the mission.

When founder’s syndrome is present it can spell trouble for a nonprofit. Far beyond the PR nightmare we have witnessed the past week with Komen, founder’s syndrome can fundamentally weaken an organization. It can make the organization’s funding and brand name overly reliant on one person. It can cause a lack of critical and innovative thinking. Ultimately, it can mean that the organization becomes less about social impact and more about the personality of the founder.

What has played out with the Komen Foundation over the past few months should be a cautionary tale for other nonprofits. To be strong, effective, innovative and sustainable, a nonprofit must encourage a culture of group ownership. It remains to be seen if Komen learns from their mistakes, but at the very least perhaps other nonprofits can.

Photo Credit: Jeffrey

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. 5 Nonprofit Trends to Watch in 2012
2. A Monster List of Social Innovation Books, Blogs, Conferences, Funders
3. Moving From Scarcity to Abundance: An Interview with Beth Kanter

When I speak to groups of nonprofit boards and staff, they are often shocked when I reveal how money flows to the nonprofit sector. Thinking that foundation grants are the holy grail of funding, many nonprofits hire a grant writer and spend countless hours and resources chasing highly competitive grants. But the fact is that barely 2% of the money flowing to the nonprofit sector comes from foundations. A much larger portion, over 11%, comes from individuals:

But many nonprofits don’t know how to raise money from individuals. For them, it seems somehow easier to research foundation guidelines, put together a proposal that answers each question, and hope for the best. But individual donor fundraising can help diversify a nonprofit’s funding picture, and major donor fundraising in particular, which requires a one-on-one relationship building mode,l can be a great way to systematically expand a nonprofit’s network and funding. It is also the highest and best use of a board member’s fundraising time.

To help nonprofits understand individual donor fundraising and how to get moving in that direction, the next webinar in our ongoing Financing Not Fundraising webinar series focuses on how to bring individual donors in the door.

The Finding Individual Donors webinar will give you tools and strategies to:

• Understand the differences between smaller donor fundraising and major donor fundraising
• Define a major gift for your organization
• Use social media to connect with individual supporters
• Create events that resonate with individual donors
• Identify prospects
• Engage your board in individual donor fundraising
• Create a system for engaging individual donors
• Launch a major donor campaign
• Break an individual donor dollar goal into pieces to make the goal achievable

And much more.

If you want to attract individual contributors to your nonprofit, but don’t know how to get started, or if you would like to expand the individual donors you already have, this webinar will show you how.

Webinar Details:
Financing Not Fundraising: Finding Individual Donors
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
12 noon-1:00pm Eastern
Price: $40

I hope to see you there!

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

Follow me on Twitter | Find us on Facebook | Sign up for our E-Newsletter

Related posts:

1. How to Find Individual Major Donors
2. Financing Not Fundraising: Finding Individual Donors
3. Financing Not Fundraising: 5 Lies to Stop Telling Donors

I can’t believe that January is already over, it was a complete blur. Nonetheless there was lots to read and ponder in the past month in the world of social innovation. Below are my ten picks of the best reads, but as always, please add what I missed in the comments. And if you want to see other things that caught my eye, follow me on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Pinterest (I’m starting to really love this new one!).

1. Socialbrite has created a mega calendar of 2012 nonprofit & social good conferences. Perfect for planning your year ahead.




2. In their Fast Company article, It’s Time To Start Judging Nonprofits Like For-Profits, Alexa Clay and Jon Camfield tell donors “Do not be turned off by high overheads. They’re healthy. They mean the organization has a longer-term view on its role in making change.” Amen to that!




3. Crowd-sourcing meets behavioral economics meets iPhone apps. A new approach to getting people to eat better. Love it.




4. FastCompany profiles the business pioneers who really understand and embrace the new chaos in which we all now operate. This should be required reading for any leader (for-profit or nonprofit).




5. I love it when we can use history to understand current trends. Phil Buchanan, CEO of the Center for Effective Philanthropy, reviews historian Oliver Zunz’s new book, Philanthropy in America. In so doing, Buchanan describes 7 “new” philanthropic concepts that really aren’t so new.




6. Jason Cohen from A Smart Bear always has a way of finding hope in the entrepreneurial process. Although this post is focused on “traditional” entrepreneurs, I think it holds for social entrepreneurs as well: Entrepreneurship is a torturous chaos, until it isn’t.




7. I have always said that in order to be a truly effective social change leader, you must be able to fully wield the financial sword. Kate Barr from the Nonprofit Assistance Fund in Minnesota breaks it down in the Executive Director’s Guide to Financial Leadership




8. January saw a pretty impressive mobilization of people via social media to protest against SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (Protect Intellectual Property Act). Dowser helps us understand what it means for online protest more broadly.




9. In an increasingly competitive and resource-strapped environment it is even more critical that nonprofits be able to demonstrate the impact of their work. Here is a great example of how a Michigan arts collaboration demonstrates the economic impact of the arts in their community.




10. Hull House, one of the oldest and most impressive American nonprofit organizations closed its doors in January. The Bridgespan Group explains the implications.

Photo Credit: ilovememphis

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. 10 Great Social Innovation Reads: July
2. 10 Great Social Innovation Reads: May
3. 10 Great Social Innovation Reads: June

I’ll admit it, I’ve been on a board fundraising kick lately in the blog (here and here). I just think that if your nonprofit is going to become more strategic and financially sustainable, you have to start from the beginning (or the top, as it were). In my last blog post I discussed how to overcome excuses for why a board member can’t bring money in the door. But the fact remains that a majority of people don’t like to (or simply won’t) ask for money.

The good news is that there are lots of other things board members can do to bring money in the door. And remember, if you are financing not fundraising your organization, your definition of “bringing money in the door” should be very broad.

Here are 9 things you could ask your fundraising-shy board members to do:

1. Help create or evaluate a business plan for an earned income venture. If you have business leaders or entrepreneurs on your board this would be a great use of their time and add tremendous value to your organization. If they can help you create a more profitable business, they are directly contributing to your organization’s bottom-line.




2. Advocate for government money. You may have a board member that can’t stand the idea of asking their friends for money, but they are well connected in city, county, state or federal government and could open doors to you for government contracts, grants, fee-for-service or other government monies.




3. Provide intelligence on prospects. If you have a board member that seems to know everyone in town, but for whatever reason refuses to ask any of them for money, they can still be incredibly useful. You may be getting ready to ask a prospective donor for $1,000, and this board member can tell you what that person has already given to, at what level, who else might know them and so on. When you make an ask, the more information you have going into it, the more successful you will be.




4. Set up a meeting with a prospective customer. If your nonprofit is engaged in an earned income venture, you probably always need help with new sales. If you have a board member who is part of, or connected to, the target customer(s) of your business, they could open doors to new customers. Or at the very least, they could help you think through your sales and marketing strategies and make them  more effective so that you can attract more customers.




5. Email, call or visit a donor just to say thanks. The stewardship of a gift is an often forgotten, but incredibly critical, part of the fundraising process. According to Penelope Burk’s annual donor survey, 84% of donors would give again if they were thanked in a timely way. And being thanked by a board member is a bonus. A donor who renews their gift to a nonprofit is providing more money for the organization.




6. Explain to a prospect why you serve. A board of directors is a group of volunteers who care so much about the mission of the organization that they are willing to donate their time (a precious resource) to the cause. As a donor, it is affirming to see that a volunteer is contributing time, but it is even more motivating to hear, in the board member’s own words, why they feel compelled to serve this organization. That story can be enough to convince someone to give.




7. Host a small gathering at your home. Over the course of a year, most people invite a gathering of friends and/or family into their home at least once. A board member could take a few minutes at their next dinner party, birthday celebration or Super Bowl feast to talk about something that is near and dear to their heart: the nonprofit on whose board they serve. They don’t have to ask people for money, but they could simply say, “If you’re interested in learning more, let me know.” And then the nonprofit’s staff could take it from there with those who are interested.




8. Recruit an in-kind service. If a board member could remove an expense line item from a nonprofit’s budget that would directly contribute to a stronger bottom-line. For example, if a board member works at an ad agency, could they convince their company to provide some pro-bono marketing services to their nonprofit? But keep in mind, these in-kind donations must be of value to the nonprofit and provide an offset to a direct cost that the nonprofit would otherwise have to bear.




9. Negotiate a lower price from a vendor. Do you have a board member with great negotiating skills (think of all of those lawyers on your board). Could they negotiate with your insurance providers, office space rental company, or printers, for a lower price? If so, that’s more money in the bank.

If you think of a board member’s “get” responsibilities in these much broader terms, then I find it difficult to imagine a board member who cannot bring money in the door. You just have to get strategic about how each individual board member can best contribute to the organization’s bottom-line.

Photo Credit: DeeganMarie

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. 7 Things Board Members Can Do To Raise More Money
2. Financing Not Fundraising: Jump Start Your Board
3. Overcoming Board Fundraising Excuses

It’s a point of debate in the nonprofit sector whether all board members of a nonprofit should be required to help raise money. Bill Ryan (co-author of the book Governance as Leadership) argued that the fundraising requirement of many nonprofit boards is “a giant, fast-growing myth that ends up choking good governance to death.” And I often hear from nonprofit leaders and board members that requiring every single board member to participate in money-generating activities just isn’t realistic. I strongly disagree. I’m a firm believer in a give/get requirement for every board.

But, that doesn’t mean that every board member must ask donors for money. Rather, a nonprofit must take a strategic approach to employing at least some of every board member’s time toward bringing money in the door. And there are many things board members can do, beyond making an ask, to raise money (which is the subject of an upcoming post). But first, nonprofits have to move beyond their many excuses for why every board member can’t help raise money.

Here are the some of the most common excuses and why they don’t fly:

• “We want client representation on our board, but our clients don’t have money.”
  Even though a client may not have access to large pools of money, they can still absolutely help bring money in the door. Because they have been helped by the organization, they can provide an amazing testimonial to potential donors about the impact of the organization. Why not take that client board member on some meetings with prospects? Their presence and their story might be enough to turn a prospect into a donor.




• “We need a specific skill set (legal, marketing, policy expertise) and those board members may not have a network that can give.”
  A board member who doesn’t count potential major donors among their friends still has networks to draw from. Everyone has co-workers, clients, vendors, neighbors, family, and/or social media followers. When you start to ask your board to systematically think through who they know, you would be surprised about how vast your organization’s potential network is. Just because a board member doesn’t know the list of 50 donors every other nonprofit in town is going after, doesn’t mean they don’t know people.




• “Some board members aren’t good at fundraising.”
  Actually the vast majority of people aren’t good at fundraising because it isn’t widely understood. But so what? Provide your board some fundraising training and have them practice on each other. Then pair greener board members with more seasoned ones to help them learn. Or ask another friendly nonprofit to have some of their effective board members come talk about their experiences raising money.




• “Some board members are uncomfortable with asking for money.”
  Yep. Actually most people are uncomfortable asking for money. Money is a taboo subject in our society. But instead of viewing money as a dirty thing, start viewing it as a critical component of the work your nonprofit does. Reframe money as a great, necessary opportunity to help your organization do more and better. Bring everyone’s discomfort with money out into the open and turn it something positive. Get the board excited about raising more money so that more can be accomplished.




• “We want board members with program expertise to focus on mission, not money.”
  I suppose in an ideal world it would be great if you could have mission without money, but that is just not the reality. Your organization does not have endless resources. Money is limited and therefore your programs and activities must be limited by an understanding of that resource. A board member cannot adequately discuss or plan for programs without intimate knowledge of and experience with the money that makes those programs run. You simply cannot separate the two. And the sooner you get those “program experts” contributing to the financial bottomline of the organization, the sooner you will have stronger, more sustainable programs.

Money is what makes a nonprofit and it’s work viable. It makes no sense to say that some board members should help bring it in and others should be excused. We have got to stop separating money, and the activities associated with it, from other aspects of a nonprofit organization. It makes no sense.

If you want help training your board on how to bring money in the door, check out the Speaking page of our website.

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. 9 Ways Board Members Can Raise Money Without Fundraising
2. Financing Not Fundraising: Jump Start Your Board
3. Getting Your Board to Fundraise – Recorded Webinar

Until recently, market research, or understanding the marketplace in which a nonprofit operates, had no place in the nonprofit sector. Once the sole purview of entrepreneurs and corporate brands, market research is quickly (and rightly) becoming a skill set that nonprofits must embrace. Because in an increasingly competitive landscape, if you don’t understand the needs of your clients, who else is addressing those needs, what your funders are looking for, who else they are funding, where policy makers and decision makers are moving, you are sunk. But for many nonprofit leaders market research seems nebulous, inaccessible and expensive. It doesn’t have to be.

Here’s how you can start to wrap your head around market research.

The first step is, with board and staff, to map the marketplace in which your nonprofit operates. A nonprofit is best positioned where their core competencies (those organizational assets they have that cannot be easily taken or replicated) intersect with a community need, apart from where their competitors or collaborators are strongest. Which looks like this:

The idea is that if a nonprofit organization can figure out what part of the solution to a social problem they offer and how that relates to the piece their competitors or collaborators have to offer, then the nonprofit can (for a start):

• Better articulate to funders what their nonprofit is uniquely positioned to accomplish
• Forge partnerships with organizations who supplement weaknesses the organization has
• Stop wasting resources on “doing it all” and focus on the 1-2 things they do exceptionally well
• Reduce competition for funding
• Chart a sustainable future direction

But it is not enough to simply ask board and staff where they think your nonprofit fits in this map. Once they’ve taken a stab at it, you need to get out into the marketplace and see if that assessment holds true. This is where market research comes in. You need to understand current and future trends in your competitors/collaborators and the community need you are trying to address. So you need to find the answers to questions like:

• Is the need within your client population expanding or contracting? In what areas? Why? What does the future hold?
• How else are your clients getting these needs addressed or not addressed?
• What is the future strategy of your competitors and collaborators?
• What are the core competencies of your competitors and collaborators?
• Are there new competitors/collaborators entering the space?
• How do key decision makers (policy makers, funders, etc) feel about your competitors/collaborators? What do they think your role in addressing the problem is?

So how do you go about finding these answers? You can call current funders, friends or other connections and ask them to give you a lay of the land. But you also need to pull some data. And there are lots of free resources out there. Here is a beginning list of things to try:

• Check out these free market research tools
• Ask your local reference librarian for help
• Use the many free databases available at public and university libraries
• Use SurveyMonkey (or other free/cheap survey tools) to ask clients, funders, volunteers what they think
• Ask a market research class at a local college or university to practice their new skills for free on your organization

There really is no excuse for nonprofits not to explore the market in which they operate. The information is out there, you just need to go out and get it. And if you don’t, you will be moving forward in the dark.

Photo Credit: HikingArtist.com

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. Where Do You Fit in the Market?
2. Raising Money to Grow On: Putting the Strategic Plan in Place
3. What Nonprofits Can Learn From Netflix

In part 12 of our on-going Financing Not Fundraising blog series we’re talking about activating an often under-used nonprofit financing resource: the board of directors. The words “fundraising” and “board” can sometimes seem so incongruous that it results in  a lot of eye-rolling on the part of an executive director. As a general (and probably optimistic) rule, nonprofit boards of directors are not very helpful at bringing money in the door. It is often a chicken or the egg scenario that leaves many nonprofits at an impasse. But I believe it is up to the executive director to get tough and strategic about getting her board to take action.

If you are new to our Financing Not Fundraising blog series, the series is about how nonprofits must break out of the narrow view that traditional FUNDRAISING (individual donor appeals, events, foundation grants) will completely fund all of their activities.  Instead, they must create a broader, more strategic approach to securing the overall FINANCING necessary to create social change. You can read the entire series here.

If you want to learn more about how to apply the concepts of Financing Not Fundraising to your nonprofit, check out our Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series.

Here are some ways to get your board to bring more money in the door:

• Make Them Strategic. Involve them in strategic planning. No one wants,  or is able, to raise money without a bigger plan. If you don’t currently have a strategic plan, put one together, but make sure to get the board involved in the whole process. It must be their strategic plan if they are going to help finance it. If you already have a strategic plan, make sure that you are updating the board, and more importantly, asking for their help on implementing it at every board meeting. It’s not enough to create a strategic plan, you must keep the board engaged in making it come to fruition.




• Force Them to Give. Once your board is excited about the strategic plan and the future direction of the organization, get them to invest. It is unconscionable to me that there are still nonprofit board members who don’t make a financial contribution to their organization. Make it abundantly clear that a contribution (at a level significant to them) is a requirement of service. No one can convincingly ask someone else for money if they aren’t giving themselves. End of story.




• Focus Their Fundraising. The highest and best fundraising use of a board member is major donor recruitment. Stop asking board members to be involved in any and all aspects of fundraising (event planning, direct mail letter creation, grant writing). Instead have them focus on tapping into their networks to bring people to the organization. And no matter how “connected” you may or may not think your board members are, believe me, their networks are vast. They include their friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, social media fans/followers, church congregants, fellow alumni and on and on. Ask each board member to come up with 5 people in their network that they think have the capacity to give at your major donor level. Then have the board member spend the year focusing on getting those people in the door.




• Integrate Money into Every Conversation. A lot of boards don’t like to talk about money: either raising it, or how it is spent. Boards often have limited financial management conversations, skimpy or non-existent finance committees, and a general preference for discussing mission over money. But you can’t let them get away with that. It is absolutely critical that money be fully integrated into any conversation the board has. They must understand what the financial model of the organization is and be continually monitoring the ability of that model to deliver on mission.




• Don’t Sugar Coat Anything. The tendency in the sector is to treat a board as the organization’s most important donors and from which you hide the truths about your organization. But you need to move beyond that and start helping the board to understand the harsh realities of your work. The next time your board asks you to raise more money without additional staff, or add programs without new funding, or go down a rabbit hole for no reason, tell them “No.” Give them your honest appraisal of what the organization should or shouldn’t do. And make sure they listen.

Boards need to step up. There is no doubt. But it is up to the executive director to make sure that they do. By getting your board to be strategic, focused, invested, integrated and aware they can start helping to finance your work.

Photo Credit: Intercontinental Hong Kong

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. 9 Ways Board Members Can Raise Money Without Fundraising
2. Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series
3. Financing Not Fundraising: Calculating the Cost of Fundraising

Although December was a “shorter” month because of the holidays, there was still much to read, particularly about what the new year might bring. Below are my 10 favorite reads from the past month, but as always, please tell me what I missed in the comments. And you can read other months’ 10 Great Reads lists here.

1. Since December was the last month of the year, there were lots of look back and look ahead posts. The PhilanTopic blog did a whole series of posts on 2011 Year in Review: What To Expect in 2012. And there is also 50 Economic Numbers from 2011 Too Crazy to Believe. And best of all, the Chronicle of Philanthropy launched a whole Outlook 2012 section of their site.




2. A follow up to the Money for Good report released a couple of years ago, the new Money for Good II report finds that donors would shift $15 billion to more effective nonprofits if they had better information. This is food for thought for the growing efforts (GuideStar, GiveWell, CharityNavigator, to name a few) to track and report on nonprofit results.




3. We are two years into the 5-year Social Innovation Fund experiment launched by the Obama Administration and what have we learned? Carla Javits from REDF and Lisa Jackson from New Profit, two recipients of SIF intermediary funding, offer their views.




4. From Capital Institute, an impassioned plea for foundations to make use of mission-related investments in order to tap into their (much larger) endowment assets and create even more social impact.




5. Rebecca Thomas and Rodney Christopher of the Nonprofit Finance Fund provide a fabulous description of how general operating support, capacity building grants and change capital differ in the nonprofit world. These are distinctions that every nonprofit leader should understand and employ.




6. A new group, Insight Labs in Chicago, provides nonprofits with a roomful of big thinking volunteers to hash out solutions to challenges the nonprofit is facing. Kind of a cool approach.




7. The Dowser blog profiles Project Interaction, a really interesting approach to educating kids. It is design thinking meets public education meets social problem solving. I love it.




8. Jessamyn Lau from the Peery Foundation writes a provocative post on their blog arguing that we need more patient changemakers in the social entrepreneurship field.




9. In the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog, Lisa Witter and Courtney Martin argue that we need to make a distinction between cultural and social entrepreneurship. Social entrepreneurship, they argue, changes markets and systems, whereas cultural entrepreneurship changes hearts and minds. Fascinating.




10. I always like finding a new “tell it like it is” blog, and so I was happy to find Nonprofit Nate, and his post Thank You For Your Trash, about how nonprofits need to take a step back and weigh the costs/benefits of in-kind gifts.

Photo Credit: Kenski1970

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

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Related posts:

1. 10 Great Social Innovation Reads: February
2. 10 Great Social Innovation Reads: November
3. 10 Great Social Innovation Reads: July

If you are serious about finding a way out of the nonprofit starvation cycle in this new year, you need a clear plan to get there. It amazes me how many nonprofits think that they can raise enough money through disjointed activities and hope. The only way you can raise the money it will take to accomplish your goals is to get strategic. And that means you need a strategic financing plan. Our upcoming Financing Not Fundraising webinar “Creating a Financing Plan” on January 24th can help you do just that.

This webinar is part of our ongoing Financing Not Fundraising webinar series. Based on the popular Financing Not Fundraising blog series, the monthly webinar series breaks down this new approach to finding enough money to achieve a nonprofit’s mission into the steps necessary to get there. You can learn more about all of the upcoming webinars in this monthly series here.

A nonprofit financing plan is different that a typical nonprofit fundraising plan for many reasons. Here is how they differ:

• A fundraising plan sets goals only for private revenue streams (foundation grants, individual gifts), but a financing plan includes goals for all money flowing to the organization (government grants, earned income, etc).
• A fundraising plan’s dollar goals are based on what the nonprofit thinks it can raise, but a financing plan’s dollar goals are based on what the nonprofit needs in order to meet the goals of their organization’s strategic plan.
• A fundraising plan is created only by the fundraising staff with no input or knowledge from the rest of the organization, but a financing plan is created with the whole organization’s input (board and staff) and is fully integrated into the organization’s overall strategic plan.
• A fundraising plan only includes activities that raise money for programs, but a financing plan includes strategies for raising infrastructure dollars as well.

This interactive “Creating a Financing Plan” webinar will help nonprofit leaders break down the steps of creating a financing plan. Webinar participants will think through how to:

• Set goals for ALL revenue streams flowing to the organization
• Tie their financing plan to their organization strategic plan
• Determine the infrastructure dollars they need to raise
• Create tactical steps to make the plan a reality, with activities, deliverables, people responsible, timeline
• Divide tasks by staff and board members
• Develop ways to monitor the plan going forward

I hope to see you there!

Financing Not Fundraising: Creating a Financing Plan
A Social Velocity Webinar
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
12:00 noon -1:00 pm Eastern
Cost: $40.00
Register Now

Photo Credit: kolix

About the Author: Nell Edgington is President of Social Velocity (www.socialvelocity.net), a management consulting firm leading nonprofits to greater social impact and financial sustainability. Social Velocity helps nonprofits grow their programs, bring more money in the door, and use resources more effectively. For more information, check out Social Velocity consulting services and clients.

Follow me on Twitter | Find us on Facebook | Sign up for our E-Newsletter

Related posts:

1. A New Approach to Nonprofit Funding: Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series
2. 5 Nonprofit Trends to Watch in 2012
3. Financing Not Fundraising Webinar Series