pic from radio active girl

Each nonprofit wants you to think of them.  How to decide?

What is the market penetration that the donor wishes to achieve?  Currently, half of the non-profit organizations belong to various trade associations.  Because the providers view each other as competitors, the trade associations have been unable to compel the providers to pool their resources.  However, a donor who recognizes and understand the competitive nature of the non-profit world can take the leadership in an area.  For this reason, we do not expect our nonprofits to “pool” their money, but the donor can indirectly pool it.  The donor invites a selected group of nonprofits and/or government agencies to participate in their choice for an initiative.  

It is the intent of the donor to fund a cause where there will be a return to society.  The success ultimately depends on the success of the nonprofits and/or government entities for the most impact.  Nonprofits automatically think of making the most cash available for direct services.  It is important to convey the outcome to the nonprofits and what amount of cash return will the nonprofit see from joining the funding choices the donor made and when will they begin to see that return. 

The first risk factor is to look at whether to set up your organization, use a fiscal intermediary, or a project manager with funding going to the nonprofits as they reach certain outcomes.  The idea is somewhat more like the construction industry.  In order to distinguish the initiative a web presence helps in managing a project if the donor is going to be less dependent with on-site project management.

The second major risk identified is people’s inherent reluctance to relinquish control of a project to another entity, especially if it requires any of their funds.   It is certainly understandable why some nonprofits will hesitate to jump at a donor’s funding choice.  However, there are so many nonprofits and government type entities in any state that reaching the level of projected change the donor initiative wants to make should be doable.  Once the market is determined the donor can assume the penetration rate for each targeted market.  The penetration rates for each market are assumed to change each year, in response to the increase in available products, the increasing popularity of the service and economies of scale due to increases in infrastructure and staffing. 

Pic from Hiking Artist

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by: The Seafarer

Well as we can all see, the holiday season is upon us once again. I know for most it seems as though we just started 2009.  But this is the time of year when it seems that it is very important to give back.  Now with Thanksgiving already gone by, it can be a little hard to do much, but the December holidays are still to come.  So let me give a few tips of things that you and your non profit can do.  First, you can hold an office food drive.  Have people bring in non perishable food items and after a certain date bring them to your local food pantry.  You can also collect toys for Toys for Tots or other items for other holiday drives happening this time of year.  Another open is to gather up some of your employees and volunteer your time at a homeless shelter or food pantry.  There are many options out there of things you can do.  The most important thing is that you give something back.  As we, the fortunate, are celebrating the holidays with our families this year, we all need to think about those who are less fortunate an may not be as lucky as we are.  So go out there and give back to your community.

Photo by: goodrob13

In the weeks before Thanksgiving Day, Frank Sinisi is one busy retiree. He is standing in front of the walk-in freezer of Pronto, the North Bay Shore nonprofit community organization, for which he has served as unpaid president for the past 6½ years.

Packages of tamales stored there will soon be distributed to needy families, making room for hundreds of frozen turkeys, also for the less fortunate.

Next week, Sinisi, 75, will be among Pronto’s 40 volunteers who will be handing out the turkeys to families  who have registered for a free Thanksgiving dinner, with all the trimmings.

“We already have requests for over 900 turkey dinners,” says Sinisi, a genial man with a twinkling smile.

To read the entire article, please follow the hyperlink to the Newsday web-page.

Photo by:  Telstar Logistics

Some of you out there may be wondering about different ways that you can reach out to the college population to help them out and get interested in the non profit sector.  There are several different paths you can choose.
A popular option is to offer a scholarship.  This does not have to be much, only a few hundred dollars.  For college students trying to pay for school any money is a help to them.  If using a scholarship you should set up requirements.  You can have the applicants write and essay about something to do with the nonprofit sector or to come up with a plan to help some area of your nonprofit.  These options are really endless and all that is required is for you to just be a little creative.  You can even contact some colleges in a certain mile radius and see if they can put your scholarship in the list of scholarships that many schools have.  This will help to inform more college age people about nonprofits and get a number of them interested in joining the nonprofit sector after they graduate.

pic thanks to Healad Post via Flickr

A hero to many, she brought about the creation of one organization that fundamentally changed perception and provided the opportunity for the goals of millions to be reached.  Living life to ones highest potential and as part of the community, Eunice is a model citizen.  In honor of Eunice Shriver take a moment to make this the year you either donate your time or money in any amount to your local Special Olympics group.  For more information about Eunice check out this Washington Post article link.

Just one example of how one person can make a huge difference.

pic by reslifephoto

Have you conducted this easy task with your organizations volunteers?

pic by HandmadeSay Debbie

Making the most of your strengths.

Many foundations give out the approximately 5% of their assets each year.  If one was to review the purpose of the foundation set by its founder to its mission of today in most cases it has changed if the organization is older than 25 years. 

So there are two question to ask yourself when deciding to establish a foundation.

• Do I want to make the impact while as the donor I am alive or leave the impact to others to make on my behalf?
• Do I want to set a family legacy of philanthropic giving that lasts forever? 

Depending on your answer preserving cash or giving cash will be the key objective of the foundation that is established. 

According to the Foundation Center 2004 study limited-life foundations represent just over 10 % of the family foundations and has been growing.  I would agree with the likes of Warren Buffet and Bill Gates that today’s pressing issues should be ones focus.  Each year new family foundations are created with their own mission, vision and priorities that meet the concerns of the time. 

Is letting the Philanthropists of tomorrow resolve the problems of tomorrow and have the Philanthropists of today resolve the problems of today such a bad idea?

The economic crises of today has caused many foundations to cut back their issuing of grants or stop giving any grants to conserve cash.  This action provides clear evidence that a foundation is more interested in preserving itself than resolving the problems of today.  I would suggest that a Family Foundation close and move its funds to a Community Foundation.  Community Foundations are much better at keeping in touch with the pressing issues of the day and bringing new Philanthropist to the act of giving. 

pic by PBS hawaii.org

No reason to be worried about drowning in debt.  Take every advantage to throw a life line to those with college debt and matching them to the nonprofit staffing needs.  Some rules just might make the benefit worth a substantial amount of money at no cost to the organization.

An interesting trend is happening in the field of law.  Law firms are recruiting, hiring and then asking the postgraduate student to defer their start date with the firm.  However, they will pay their candidate a stipend and health insurance to work for a nonprofit or government for the year.

For those candidates who plan will try to make sure the nonprofit or government agency is eligible for a loan cancellation option and the gain for everyone will be even better.  Education and Child Welfare are two areas where such partnerships will be successful for everyone.

I know how you guys think that picking up garbage is Stinky but it helps the Earth. My grandmother always pick up garbage because she wants to save the world. She is way too old but she helps a lot . Recycling is the best thing to help the Earth. Just recycle and recycle till you have nothing left. I know it’s dirty work but it’s not about us it’s about the world. We are from the sun and earth.   When we build it has to be with our friends the Sun and the Earth.

My Papa calls it sustainable growth.    Using Flickr I found this picture by YR4 and it is what will happen if you do not help.