Financing Not Fundraising: Find Money for Building Capacity

Part 6 of our ongoing blog series, Financing Not Fundraising, demonstrates the critical importance of money for building nonprofit capacity and describes how to find it.

There must be a recognition in the nonprofit sector, and among the philanthropy that funds it, that nonprofits need money to support not only their direct services, but also the infrastructure (technology, systems, evaluation, training, fundraising) of the organization. Nonprofits will only get better at creating social change if they have a strong and effective organization behind their work.

In case you’re new to this series, our Financing Not Fundraising blog series seeks to address the reality that fundraising in the nonprofit sector is broken.  In fact, traditional fundraising is holding the sector back by keeping nonprofits in the starvation cycle of trying to do more and more with less and less. The nonprofit sector needs a financing strategy, not a fundraising one.  That means that nonprofits have to break out of the narrow view that traditional FUNDRAISING (individual donor appeals, events, foundation grants) will completely fund all of their activities.  Instead, nonprofits must work to create a broader approach to securing the overall FINANCING necessary to create social change. You can read the entire series here.

George Overholser, from the Nonprofit Finance Fund, is the pioneer of this critical distinction in the nonprofit sector between money to BUY services and money to BUILD organizations.  The idea is simple. There are two types of dollars in the nonprofit sector. Those that BUY nonprofit direct services (dollars for more beds for the homeless, more hours of ESL instruction) and those that BUILD a stronger nonprofit organization (dollars for technology, systems, fundraising staff, etc).

A nonprofit that wants to get out of the vicious fundraising cycle needs to make a commitment to building their organization and finding, and convincing, donors to fund that building effort.

Let’s take fundraising infrastructure for example. Most nonprofit organizations lack sufficient infrastructure to bring enough money in the door.  They don’t have enough money to hire experienced fundraisers, buy efficient and effective technology to track donors, create compelling messaging and collateral, train their board in fundraising, and so on.  But with dollars to invest in staff, technology, planning and expertise, the organization could transform their fundraising function into one that raises many more times the amount of money that they currently do.

So how does a nonprofit organization find money to build their organization? Here are the steps:

1. Create a Plan. Develop a road map for the future that includes a budget for the real costs of the real infrastructure and capacity you need to get there.




2. Determine the Ask. Split the overall cost for these infrastructure elements into reasonable ask amounts given the relative capacity of your donors.




3. Create the Pitch. Create a compelling capacity funding pitch that connects these infrastructure elements to an increase in your ability to create impact in the community.  A more seasoned development director means that you can raise more money, more effectively, more quickly. With that additional revenue, your services can reach more people.




4. Analyze your Donors. Look for the individuals, foundations, and corporations who love what your organization does, have the ability to give at the ask levels you determined in #2, and could be made to understand the argument that money to build can allow your organization to do so much more.




5. Explore Alternative Funding. Find new ways to fund capacity building. For example, PRIs, or program-related investments, (essentially loans to nonprofits) could be used to build fundraising  infrastructure because once a nonprofit’s capacity to raise money has been increased, the loan could be paid back out of the additional revenue. Explore creative options like this with funders.




6. Make the Ask. Present your plan and pitch to the donors you have identified and educate them about the critical importance of capacity capital.

Money to build nonprofit organizations isn’t just lying around. Indeed, most donors claim that they aren’t interested in funding anything beyond direct services. But with a compelling argument for how money to build an organization can result in much greater impact, many more donors can become builders.

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.

To download the 27-page Financing Not Fundraising e-book, click here.

Photo Credit: y_katsuuu

Tags: buy vs. build nonprofits, financing not fundraising, fundraising infrastructure, George Overholser, increasing fundraising, making the ask, nonprofit capacity building, Nonprofit Finance Fund, nonprofit fundraising, PRIs

Add Your Voice to the Nonprofit Sector Survey

Today the Nonprofit Finance Fund launched their third annual Nonprofit Sector Survey. The Nonprofit Finance Fund is one of the country’s leading community development financial institutions (CDFI) that makes millions of dollars in loans to nonprofits and pushes for fundamental improvement in how money is given and used in the sector. Their 2011 Nonprofit Sector Survey opened today and will be open to responses until February 15th. If you are a nonprofit leader, consider taking the quick survey and adding your voice to their annual assessment of the state of the sector.

You can read the results of last year’s survey here.  The results of this year’s survey will be released in March.

The first year they got 1,000 respondents, last year it increased to over 1,300, and they’d like to increase that trend this year.  They repeated a number of questions from last year so that they can see trends, but also made some changes.  Their questions focus more on action this year—actions nonprofits are taking, and even their thoughts on what funders can do. The Nonprofit Finance Fund is really trying to expand the number and diversity of responses this year, so they are undertaking a larger push to get out the word. So, take a few minutes and add your thoughts. Click here to take the survey.

I’ll share my thoughts on the results when they are released in March.

If you need additional incentive, watch the short, cheeky video above that NFF created.

Tags: CDFI, nonprofit capacity, Nonprofit Finance Fund, Nonprofit Sector Survey, state of the nonprofit sector 2011

The Awkwardness of it All: SoCap and the Nonprofit World

I’ll give a full rundown of my Day 1 experience at SoCap in a later post, but first I have to admit my excited anticipation of this year’s Social Capital Markets conference encountered some disappointment yesterday as the third annual conference kicked off. The day began with a co-keynote address by Sean Stannard-Stockton, from Tactical Philanthropy and organizer of this year’s first philanthropy/nonprofit focused track at the conference, and Kevin Jones, co-founder of SoCap. Kevin and Sean’s figurative two-step was a nod to the on-going confusion about where/whether philanthropy and the nonprofit sector fit, or how they fit, into a conference who’s heart and founding are heavily in the double bottom-line, impact investing camp.

Sean gave an eloquent speech arguing for the inclusion of the nonprofit/philanthropy sector in this movement to create a social capital market, arguing that “We don’t speak the same language, but we have the same goals,” and “We need to come together to be better able to find what we are both looking for.” But Kevin still referred to Sean and his track as the “nonprofit clan” and Sean as its “emissary.” I’m not sure why there has to be this awkward line between impact investing and philanthropy, but apparently there is still quite a bit of discomfort with the connection between the two worlds. As Stacy Caldwell, Executive Director of Dallas Social Venture Partners, so eloquently Tweeted yesterday:

I’m not sure that we are past the “awkward” stage yet.

To me, it seems so obvious that the nonprofit and government sectors, who hold the majority of money up for grabs in the social impact space, must be full and equal partners in the creation of the social capital marketplace.

But we are still speaking two different languages. And I’m not sure we’re pushing the conversation forward.

The first breakout session I attended yesterday was the Tactical Philanthropy Track’s “Decriminalizing Fundraising” session with two of the rockstars of nonprofit fundraising: George Overholser, from Nonprofit Finance Fund, and Dan Pallotta, author of Uncharitable. But I have to be honest with you, and it pains me to say this about two people I admire quite a bit, I was underwhelmed. The session was just a recap of the spiels George and Dan have given many times before, rather than a cutting-edge discussion and demonstration of how we change the broken funding of the nonprofit sector. If you missed the session, or haven’t read any of Dan or George’s writings, Adin Miller did a great job of summarizing the session on the Tactical Philanthropy blog. But the conversation didn’t go nearly far enough. As Adin said:

In general, the audience seemed to agree with the speakers’ position. There were little to no objections to their key points. The questions from the audience reflected more practical inquiries related to changing perceptions and attitudes toward nonprofits and freeing them up to truly grow the sector. And yet, I feel the conversation has just started and that we need a lot more insights into new strategies and tools to truly decriminalize fundraising.”

There ARE new tools and examples of organizations doing exciting things to finance their social impact in the nonprofit space. I would have loved to hear about those, instead of these old arguments about the need for new tools.  And I would have loved to see a discussion about what infrastructure and structural changes need to happen in the sector to push funding forward and how we make those happen.

In the sessions on impact investing and the general sessions later in the day there is a constant movement to push the conversation forward, to unveil new tools, to detail new approaches, to describe new infrastructure in order to push the impact investing sector forward. There is a very palpable sense that this new market is ours to create, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for,” as Lisa Hall from the Calvert Foundation said in a later session on impact investing. But yesterday at SoCap I didn’t see that same confidence, that same rigor, that same diligence, that same drive in the nonprofit/philanthropy side of the market to create new funding vehicles, new solutions to the broken funding structures we encounter every day.

Let’s see how today goes…

Tags: Adin Miller, Calvert Foundation, Dallas Social Venture Partners, Dan Pallotta, George Overholser, impact investing, Kevin Jones, Lisa Hall, nonprofit finance, Nonprofit Finance Fund, Philanthropy, Sean Stannard-Stockton, SoCap, Social Capital Markets conference, Stacy Caldwell, Tactical Philanthropy

The Power of Philanthropic Equity

Philanthropic equity, or “growth capital”, is just a fancy way to say money that nonprofits desperately need. The idea behind philanthropic equity is that nonprofits are only allowed to raise money for programs, when what they really need to make their programs bigger and better is money to build a stronger organization. These dollars that build a stronger organization (technology, systems, non-program staff, etc) are called philanthropic equity. It’s a new concept for the sector and one that the Nonprofit Finance Fund has helped to pioneer. It’s also a concept that we’ve been talking about on this blog recently here, here and here.  Today NFF released a report on how their work to help nonprofits raise philanthropic equity has affected those nonprofits. The results are pretty impressive.

NFF has helped nonprofits like Year Up, Donors Choose and Volunteer Match raise philanthropic equity investments, totaling $312 million since 2006. The report analyzes the role of philanthropic equity in the nonprofit sector based on these engagements – detailing results-to-date, the characteristics that have helped spur success, and challenges that remain in building a nonprofit growth capital marketplace. The initial results are promising: NFF found that  philanthropic equity has, on average, more than tripled program delivery, and doubled revenue for nonprofit organizations that have conducted comprehensive campaigns (and some results were even greater.) Some specific results include:

• Annual program delivery has grown on average by a factor of 3.1x, with a compound annual growth rate of 57%.
• Annual business model revenue for these nine organizations has grown on average by a factor of 2.0x, with a compound annual growth rate of 36%. In aggregate, business model revenues have expanded by $30 million compared to pre-campaign baselines
• Three of the portfolio members – GlobalGiving, Ashoka’s Changemakers, and VisionSpring – accomplished five-fold growth in their program areas.

Why does all of this matter? Because if nonprofits can demonstrate that philanthropic equity can dramatically increase their ability to create social change, then more donors will be willing to make those extremely necessary kinds of investments. And if more philanthropic equity investments are made in the nonprofit sector, the sector will become stronger and better able to create social change. Philanthropic equity is such an important concept because it could dramatically shift the sector from one that lives hand to mouth, to one that grows increasingly sophisticated and capable of solving our greatest social problems.

If you are a nonprofit leader, encourage your board and donors to read the report. The results clearly make the case for philanthropic equity. And once nonprofits and their donors are convinced about the power of philanthropic equity, the sky’s the limit.

Photo Credit: Mr. T in DC

Tags: Ashoka's Changemakers, Donors Choose, GlobalGiving, Nonprofit Finance Fund, nonprofit growth capital, philanthropic equity, VisionSpring, Volunteer Match, Year Up

Can’t Small Nonprofits Raise Capital Too?

In our two part interview with George Overholser of the Nonprofit Finance Fund, George made an argument that gave me and some of my readers pause. He argued that only the largest nonprofits can really benefit from his “radical” idea of using a capital campaign to build their organization (instead of a building). But with Social Velocity I have seen small and medium-sized nonprofits raise capital to grow their impact or  build a stronger, more sustainable organization, albeit on a smaller scale.

George believes that raising capital for building an organization is currently only feasible for the largest nonprofits, as he argued:

Only a small percentage of nonprofit organizations actually aspire to undergo major growth, or any of the other disruptive transformations that are inextricably linked to a capital investment…Still, what about the small organizations that DO aspire to undergo a big transformation?…I believe that it is absolutely vital that we come up with a way to better capitalize these smaller organizations. Sadly, though, at this stage of capital market evolution, it is still quite expensive to prepare for a successful nonprofit equity campaign. Unless several million is being raised [the costs are] prohibitively high. This constrains us to campaigns of $5 million or more, which, in turn, constrains us to organizations that are already pretty large.

This argument got me and some of my readers thinking. As one reader wrote:

As the ED for a very small nonprofit (<300K) I am greatly disheartened to essentially read “yes, we can cure the large guys, but for the rest of you -80% – well good luck! No answers for you yet.” WOW…Really is education and awareness for buyers to support the whole organization vs. its programs enough? (Although I agree wholeheartedly, a needed step) I believe there has to be a way to “create compelling ‘asks’ for equity capital” that is less expensive. There has to be way to finance a small organization’s desire to meet the needs of the community which could mean doubling their impact. We are asked to relearn, redo, change our practices to support (finance) the organization’s mission to change the world, but is no one considering the relearning, redoing or changing the expensive processes/methods so all nonprofits can benefit?

I agree wholeheartedly, and that need–to strengthen and grow smaller nonprofits–is why I launched Social Velocity. There is a category of capital that smaller nonprofits, who aren’t interested in or able to achieve major growth, can access. It can be capital to grow a successful program to other clients, other cities, other regions. Or it can be capital to strengthen and make more sustainable the organization.  For example, as any small nonprofit will tell you, it is nearly impossible to get a funder to pay for a Development Director, a donor database, marketing collateral, a new website and so on. These are the tools that will allow the “sales team” to raise the income necessary to run programs. What if these smaller nonprofits could hold a mini-capital campaign to raise the capital necessary to increase the enterprise’s ability to raise income. Or to purchase technology to increase operational effectiveness?  Or to grow, not to scale, but significantly?

True, a $5 million equity capital campaign is beyond all but the largest, most sophisticated nonprofits. But there is still the vast majority of organizations that are struggling within the vicious starvation cycle of not having the right elements of their built enterprise necessary to effectively deliver or grow programs. Yet money can be raised to build out that enterprise.

Social Velocity has worked with a number of small to medium sized nonprofits to create a pitch for capital to help the organizations strengthen their revenue function, grow programs, and so on (read about this here, here and here). The idea is the same as George’s, but on a smaller scale. With a good plan and the right pitch, any nonprofit can raise the capital required to achieve more social impact through a strong, sustainable, bigger enterprise. A nonprofit equity campaign is not just for the largest and wealthiest nonprofits. The principle can be applied to even the smallest nonprofit, and in that way, George’s radical idea could become revolutionary.

Photo Credit: Stuart Conner

Tags: capacity capital, George Overholser, growth capital, nonprofit capital campaign, Nonprofit Finance Fund, small nonprofits, Social Velocity

A Radical Spin on Capital Campaigns: An Interview with George Overholser, Part 2

As promised, today we are bringing you Part 2 of our interview with George Overholser from the Nonprofit Finance Fund. You can read Part 1 here.

Nell: You have argued before that to transform the nonprofit capital market we need a few capital deals at the top of nonprofit market. How do you think the bottom 80% of nonprofits (those with budgets under $1M) fit into a transformed nonprofit capital market?

George: I absolutely believe that the nonprofit capital market needs to extend everywhere, not to just the high profile “darlings” that seem to get all of the attention, but also the millions (!) of smaller nonprofits that truly make up the lion’s share of our vital nonprofit sector.

So why focus first on multi-million dollar growth plans? This is an excellent question!

One part of my response comes in the form of a reminder. Remember: MONEY AND CAPITAL ARE NOT THE SAME THING. Every nonprofit needs money to operate. But quite appropriately, only a small percentage of nonprofit organizations actually aspire to undergo major growth, or any of the other disruptive transformations that are inextricably linked to a capital investment. Very few for-profit companies with revenues of $1 million or less are interested in taking on equity. Nor should they! Small is beautiful! They are the bedrock of our economy. The same goes for our smaller nonprofits.

Still, what about the small organizations that DO aspire to undergo a big transformation, perhaps to double their ongoing impact, for example? Why not focus on them?

Well, I believe that it is absolutely vital that we come up with a way to better capitalize these smaller organizations. Sadly, though, at this stage of capital market evolution, it is still quite expensive to prepare for a successful nonprofit equity campaign. Unless several million is being raised, the hundred thousand or more dollars of required planning, documentation, due diligence, marketing, reporting and campaign management expense is prohibitively high. This constrains us to campaigns of $5 million or more, which, in turn, constrains us to organizations that are already pretty large.

In some ways, we shouldn’t be surprised. There are hundreds of professional fundraising consulting firms that assist with traditional capital campaigns, involving billions of dollars each year. But they, too, are unable to justify their fees unless the campaigns involve a lot more money than most “small” nonprofits are prepared to take on.

I hope that some day there will be a less expensive way to create compelling “asks” for equity capital, but that day has not yet arrived.

As a field, we are still in the very early days of showing how (learning how!) philanthropic equity can help organizations thrive. As such, it seems prudent to focus initially on the limited number of comparatively high-profile organizations that seem best prepared to implement their social impact growth plans. This has led equity funders to partner, at least initially, mostly with organizations that have already shown they can scale. To date, NFF has worked on 16 transactions, involving $310 million of new philanthropic equity raised. Every one of those 16 organizations went into their campaigns armed with track records that showed, compellingly, that they already know how to grow, and are now prepared to accelerate. So far, in just two or three years, the group that we track closely has more than tripled its level of program execution, while also more than doubling the long-term business models that will sustain the execution once the equity runs out. If results like these can be kept up, I expect it will help to attract more and more equity-like funders that serve an ever-broadening range of high-performing nonprofit organizations.

Nell: You have argued in the past that the reason a nonprofit market for growth capital has not materialized is because nonprofit accounting does not allow for a distinction between money to build the organization (investments) and money to maintain services (revenue). But beyond the accounting issues there is also a fundamental lack of understanding about finance in the sector. What do you think will change that?

George: I envision an evolution where funders become more and more specialized. Most funders, I envision, will migrate towards playing the role of BUYER. They will be the real connoisseurs that search among providers to learn what works best. Then, without seeking to change those providers, they will fund the providers to do what they do so well. Collectively, the buyers will be an important part of the field’s overall portrait of sustainability. I would include government as being among the most important buyer-type funders, but so, too, would be the many philanthropic funders who seek the most effective existing ways to achieve social impact with their money.

I would expect a smaller number of funders to focus on playing the role of BUILDER — they are financiers, really, or banks. These financial specialists will play a niche role. Because nonprofits can only take on a limited amount of equity, the BUILDER funders will actually have to compete against each other to “win” the right to invest in the most promising nonprofit firms. And the way they will win in this competition is by offering not just money, but also very sound financial know-how, to the organizations they partner with.

Lots of accomplished BUYERS, a smaller number of accomplished BUILDERS. I sometimes explain this line of thinking by describing what happens when you go into a flower shop – suppose you want them to send flowers to your mom in Florida. Clearly, the vast majority of money that flows into this flower shop is money in exchange for flowers (BUYER-type money). Only a very small percentage of the money that flows into the flower shop comes in the form of capital – a bank loan, perhaps, or, in the early days, an initial equity stake. Thus, the vast majority of check-writers are interested in FLOWERS and the benefits that flowers bring. Only a very small minority of check-writers are interested in BALANCE SHEETS and the other technical details of finance.

I am hopeful that nonprofit equity accounting will allow funders to be better at self-selecting into their chosen areas of expertise. Most will need to be BUYERS of program execution. A smaller number of funders will emerge as the financially-oriented BUILDERS that are needed to provide philanthropic equity and growth stewardship.

Nell: Do you think there is something to be gained by having the bottom 80% of nonprofit organizations better financed, more knowledgeable about finance and with more access to patient capital? What needs to happen to get there?

George: This may sound strange, but I believe that the key to helping most nonprofits to thrive has more to do with improving our BUYING behaviors than to do with finding more capital. To me, the problem is not so much that the bottom 80% lacks access to the capital they would need to maintain healthy balance sheets. Rather, they find themselves chronically saying “yes” to funding arrangements that cause them to deplete these capital reserves. The capital can be raised — but the unhealthy buyer relationships cause the capital to evaporate.

It’s hard to place blame for this phenomenon. Taken one at a time, most of the grants that an organization relies upon make a lot of sense. But, collectively, when multiple funders converge upon an organization with differing theories of change, or expectations that someone else will pay for overhead, or a hunger for customized reporting, special tweaks to the program, and long conversations about small checks, organizations can’t help but burn through whatever small cushions of capital they may have squirreled away.

We need to raise consciousness among BUYERS that whole enterprises — not just programs — should be kept in mind when they make their grants.

Tags: George Overholser, nonprofit builder vs buyer, nonprofit capital campaign, nonprofit capital market, nonprofit finance, Nonprofit Finance Fund, philanthropic equity

A Radical Spin on Capital Campaigns: An Interview with George Overholser, Part 1

In this month’s Social Velocity blog interview, we are talking with George Overholser, Founder and Managing Director of NFF Capital Partners, a division of the Nonprofit Finance Fund. George is a recognized leader in the field of capitalizing high-performing nonprofit organizations. Since its launch in 2006, NFF Capital Partners has served as advisor on transactions involving over $250 million of charitable investment.

We had such a great conversation with George that we have broken it into two parts. Part 1 is below and Part 2 will be posted next week.

You can also read our past interviews with Clara Miller, Kevin Jones, Lucy Bernholz and Paul Tarini.

Nell: George, you have a pretty radical idea for getting nonprofits out of the hand-to-mouth starvation fundraising cycle, which you describe as expanding a traditional capital campaign so that the entire balance sheet of a healthy organization gets funded, not just buildings and endowments. How does a nonprofit break out of the mindset that they can only raise large amounts of money for a tangible building or endowment?

George: Ha! Please don’t tell my mom that I’m a radical! In truth, the concept of “Philanthropic Equity” may feel a bit radical, but really it is just an extension of tried and true nonprofit capital campaign techniques that have been with us for generations. Every year, billions of dollars are raised (often tens of millions at a time) to support capital campaigns for permanent, tangible things like buildings and endowments. Philanthropic equity suggests there is a third permanent, tangible thing that lends itself well to a capital campaign: not a building, not an endowment, but a business plan and management team that, if well-capitalized, will build an enduring and effective nonprofit organization.

This isn’t about just money. It’s about capital. And what makes capital different from all of the other money that flows into an organization? Precisely put, capital is all about turning a one-time infusion of money into benefits that recur over and over again. An endowment gets raised once and then provides subsidy every year, forever! Constructing a new building costs $5 million, once. But it wouldn’t be a good capital investment unless the building went on to house effective programs for years and years to come.

And so, the key shift in mindset is for an organization to envision very crisply how it intends to sustain ongoing program execution, once the equity has run out. It needs to paint a “portrait of sustainability” around which the philanthropic equity is raised.

But there’s a catch! The portrait cannot simply involve repeating equity capital campaigns over and over again. That would be cheating! Equity funders, who seek “perpetuities of impact”, would catch on pretty quick.

For example, imagine an internet-based nonprofit that plans to be sustained entirely by its online fundraising pitches. When originally launched, the organization has not yet built its web site, and so the online sustainability model is not ready to work. This is where philanthropic equity comes in. Philanthropic equity (from OFF-line funders) pays the bills while the site is first being built. It also subsidizes the organization in the early years of operation, before a critical mass of online donors has been established.

Once these changes (a new site, a critical mass) have been accomplished, the organization becomes self-sustaining, and — this is key — the site doesn’t need to raise any more philanthropic equity. In this way, a one-time infusion of $5 million in OFF-line philanthropic equity can give rise to $10 million per year of recurring ONLINE revenues that keep the program thriving year after year.

Nell: Why has this idea not caught on throughout the nonprofit sector? And how do we reach that tipping point?

George: Clara Miller is right: “Accounting is destiny!” And I believe that a change in nonprofit accounting practices would be our most effective way to move towards the next nonprofit capital market tipping point. These need not be official changes to GAAP (the federal standards), although that would be GREAT! As we’ve seen with our 16 philanthropic equity clients, an awful lot can be accomplished simply by adjusting the way today’s standard accounting rules are used to track equity.

Until recently, there was simply no way to distinguish nonprofit “equity” as being different from all the other types of money that flow into a nonprofit organization. There was no way to keep tabs on (a) who is and is not an equity investor, (b) how much equity has been consumed by the organization so far, or (c) whether or not the organization continues to take on more equity, in which case it has not yet achieved its chosen “portrait of sustainability”.

In recent years, we and others have begun to learn that equity accounting actually CAN be applied to nonprofits. Unlike for-profit accounting, it doesn’t track who has first dibs on the distribution of profits — after all, this is philanthropy, and there is no financial return to be had. But it DOES track whether or not the organization has achieved its chosen portrait of sustainability. It DOES answer the question of how much equity has been consumed so far. And, like any good naming opportunity, it DOES document who deserves the financial credit for having built an enduring institution.

Why does this matter?

This isn’t just window dressing, or simply a gimmick for creating more pseudo naming opportunities. Most of all, it is about changing incentives, and, therefore, it is about changing behaviors among key funders. That’s because clear accounting allows equity stakeholders to stay keenly focused, in a measurable way, on protecting the nonprofit’s FUTURE ability to have ongoing impact. (Just as someone who paid for a building is keenly focused on knowing it won’t be crumbling to pieces any time soon!)

Equity accounting also places the equity stakeholders into a single pool. It helps to point out that equity investors act in concert with one another, at the enterprise level, to comprise the nonprofit’s capital structure.

Thus, equity stakeholders (if you are lucky enough to have them!) provide a vital counterbalance to all of the other stakeholders, most of whom act alone (not in concert with others), most of whom seek nearer term results than the equity stakeholders, and most of whom need not contemplate the long-term consequences that their near-term desires may imply.

Please don’t get me wrong! These non-equity stakeholders (I often call them BUYERS) are the lifeblood of any sustainability plan. As BUYERS, who seek to exchange their hard-earned dollars for effective program execution, it is right and good that they demand certain accountabilities. Otherwise, our sector would not be performance-driven:

• I am asking you to turn my money into effective program execution, and I would prefer you to have low overhead.
• Please tell me how many tutoring sessions will happen as a result of my grant — the more the better!
• Please customize your program to address the particular needs and communities that my foundation has charged me to serve.
• I don’t need you to tell me about your other funders. Just write a report about my grant and what it accomplished. Again, the more you can accomplish during the grant period, the better!

But for an organization to thrive, it needs a counterbalance to the BUYERS. Equity stakeholders, (when they exist!), provide this counterbalance because they measure success in terms of how much impact the organization makes over the long run. Their presence—and their money—make it POSSIBLE for the organization to push back against unhealthy funding relationships… until healthy and enduring ones can be found. They ask questions like:

• How do we avoid accepting underfunded program grants?
• How do we resist the temptation to add too many new program features?
• What can we invest in today that will make us more compelling in the future, even if it bloats our overhead for a while?
• Can we really afford to keep a sub-par person in this key management role?
• How can we grow more quickly (without imperiling the long-term health of the organization)?
• When we look at the organization holistically, taking all of the funder relationships, program designs, infrastructure, balance sheet — you name it! — into account, does it feel like it will thrive and endure?
• If we write a bigger equity check, will that make it easier for the management team to resist distractions in the critical early days? Will they be more likely to build an enduring institution?

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our interview with George next week.

Tags: George Overholser, NFF Capital Partners, nonprofit accounting, nonprofit capital campaign, nonprofit equity, Nonprofit Finance Fund, philanthropic equity

Wielding the Money Sword

A new blog at the Chronicle of Philanthropy site launched this week that I’m pretty excited about. Written by Clara Miller and others at the Nonprofit Finance Fund, the Money and Mission blog will help nonprofits “understand and skillfully wield money as a tool.”  What a revolutionary idea.

As Clara writes in the inaugural post:

Great ideas, deep caring for those in need, creativity, resourcefulness, a service ethic, and an expansive vision for the future are abundant in the nonprofit world. But we lack the financial capacity to meet these ideals, and our financial habits undermine efforts to build it. We need to think of finance as more than a muddle of fund raising, budget monitoring, and compliance with overhead rules. The current, tough economic environment is spurring needed change. Now, understanding money concepts like risk, leverage, and accounting, seems to be a moral imperative.

Indeed, the nonprofit sector has for too long been burdened by a lack of financial literacy and thus an inability to use money effectively. Sure there isn’t enough money in the sector, but if nonprofit leaders better understood the financial tools available to them and how to use them to their advantage, the results could be revolutionary. This is the argument in our Financing not Fundraising series.

Capital campaigns provide a great example of this. Nonprofits have used capital campaigns for years to raise money for a new building or, less often, an endowment. Capital campaign money is raised and used in a very different way from how general operating money is raised and used. A capital campaigns USES money raised to buy a building. An annual fundraising campaign USES money raised to buy additional services that the nonprofit provides (food for a food bank, mentors for kids). An annual fundraising campaign often RAISES money by cobbling together various activities (events, grant writing, some direct mail appeals) hoping that the sum will equal the expenses needed for the year. A capital campaign, however, RAISES money by conducting a feasibility study to determine how much they can likely raise, then creates a plan, budget, and case for support. Then potential donors are cultivated and solicited in a systematic way. This is a deliberate, strategic way to bring capital campaign investors in the door.

However, capital campaigns are often misguided attempts to grow the impact of an organization. A nonprofit thinks that in order to be taken seriously in the community and attract larger donors they need to build a new building. Enormous amounts of time, energy and money are spent to create a building they don’t need, burn out their development staff, and eventually shoulder new building maintenance fees for years to come.

What if nonprofits could pour those same desires–to do more, to make a bigger impact, to attract more resources, to build deeper networks–and that same time, effort and resources into a campaign that will actually help them build a more effective, more sustainable organization that delivers more impact? What if the methods of a capital campaign were instead employed to raise growth or capacity capital that allows the organization to provide more, better services to the community? That would be huge. Enormous.

The Nonprofit Finance Fund turned capital campaigns on their head with their SEGUE (Sustainable Enhancement Grant) program. It is essentially a capital campaign, but instead of buying a building, the nonprofit raises growth capital to scale the organization for greater social impact. NFF takes a concept nonprofits understand and are comfortable with, a capital campaign, and transforms it into a way to raise organization building money, a completely new idea. I’d love to see more nonprofits using financial tools already available to them to accelerate their ability to create social impact.

Like it or not, money is an incredible tool. If nonprofit leaders could better understand it, stop fearing it, and learn how to wield it effectively, the results could be transformative.

Photo Credit: piermario

Tags: capital campaign, Chronicle of Philanthropy, Clara Miller, financing not fundraising, growth capital, Money and Mission blog, Nonprofit Finance Fund, SEGUE