In This Edition:

• Conflicting Interests: What To Do And How To Do It
  
  
• Marketing ...
  Getting your board to get your message out
  
  
• Management ...
  Important advice for picking a partner
  
  
• Direct Response ...
  Be careful when issuing a catalog

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Conflicting Interests: What To Do And How To Do It

By Catherine Oetgen and Sarah Siegel

Charities are facing heightened scrutiny today from both regulators and the general public in situations where their directors, officers, and other insiders derive (or appear to derive) personal benefits from the organization.

Although conflicts of interest have traditionally fallen within the purview of state regulators, conflicts are now even more important with the Internal Revenue Service’s (IRS) recent introduction of the revised Form 990.

To read the complete article click here...

Marketing ...
Getting your board to get your message out

One of the overlooked possibilities for board contribution to an organization is that of marketing.

This might seem like a non-starter to some people and a no-brainer to others, but in his book NonProfit NonMarketing, Mark Mathis offers several means of marketing that might be overlooked by board members or even executives. They are:

• Talking points. Provide board members with 3x5 cards with three or four key taking points about key issues facing the organization.
• Elevator speech. The name means that it is a speech that can be given in the time an elevator travels one or two floors. It should be short and simple and tug at the heartstrings.
• Board member recognition. It should be impressive enough that a member will want to display it and handsome enough to elicit questions. Make sure the board member understands the marketing implications of it.
• Past board member recognition. It helps to recognize the efforts of members after they have served, not just while they do or when they leave.
• Newspaper announcements. Instead of sending announcements of appointments or achievements in bunches, send one a week to keep the organization’s name in the paper.
• Commitment for letters. When doing an orientation for board members, tell them they should write two to four letters to the editor each year. The same can be done for state legislators.

Management ...
Important advice for picking a partner

Is a nonprofit partnership a chance for organizations to expand mission and accomplish more, or is it nothing more than a fall into mutual recrimination and failure? Let’s face it. Partnerships have resulted in both, despite everyone’s best intentions.

Speaking at a Cause Marketing Forum, Bob Ottenhoff, president and CEO of GuideStar, offered advice about nonprofits pondering partnerships or relationships with other organizations.

• Confirm that the nonprofit is legitimate. Look it up in a source like GuideStar, ask for a copy of its IRS letter of determination, or check IRS Publication 78 at www.irs.gov.
• Look at more than finances. Compare mission and programs. Do the programs support the mission? Look at goals and accomplishments. Are they concrete and measurable?
• When you look at finances, look at them in context. Look at more than one year. Compare apples to apples. Only compare organizations that have similar missions and programs.
• If the numbers concern you but the nonprofit is otherwise a good fit, talk to the organization. Are they aware of the problem? If so, what caused it? What are they doing to fix it?
• Trust your instincts. If: The nonprofit’s mission, programs and values are a good fit, its goals and accomplishments are concrete and measurable and the numbers look good or the answers you receive pass the smell test. But if you still have doubts after your due diligence, find another organization.
  

Direct Response ...
Be careful when issuing a catalog

The great thing about merchandise catalogs is that everything looks great in them. It’s when they are worn, hung on the wall or given as gifts that the items start to look bad.

So, too, can it be with catalog fundraising: it can look great, but the reality is what counts.

Catalog fundraising works best for nonprofits that are able to package specific products and designate funds, can provide a wide range of price points (from a low of $20 to a high of $5,00 or more) and whose products can be well represented visually.

Speaking at the DMA Nonprofit Federation 2009 Conference in Washington, D.C., Lisa Scott Benson of Russ Reid said that catalog fundraising generates incremental gifts from existing donors, extends an organization’s reach to new donors unreceptive to traditional mailings and offers and enhances awareness and builds preference with both purchaser and recipient.

She offered the following cautions, because not all catalog donors are created equal:

• Catalog donors are better called “catalog buyers.”
• Don’t cultivate as if they are traditional direct mail acquired.
• Segment quickly and decisively for optimal return on investment.
• Convert where possible to an ongoing cultivation stream.
• Identify and create a treatment stream for those responsive to additional catalog opportunities only.

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