Category Archives: Nonprofit/NGO/Agency Management

tips for fund-raising for NGOs serving the developing world

Some of the most frequently asked questions (FAQs) to online forums for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in developing countries, no matter what the subject of the forum is supposed to be (urban disasters, HIV/AIDS, maternal health, water and sanitation) , are regarding funding.

In 2004, frustrated at seeing fundraising questions from NGOs over and over and over again, and no INGOs nor UN agencies trying to answer them, I drafted a short list of basic tips for fund-raising for NGOs serving the developing world. I was an online volunteer with the Aid Workers Network then (the organization is long gone, unfortunately). Several other AWN volunteers revised the draft, and we finalized and published a version online for the AWN community. But I kept updating the document, and it grew from 15 pages to 30.

I have no idea how many people accessed the document. I tried to track it through various means, but was never successful.

I have updated the document for the first time since 2011, and instead of asking people to write me for it, so I could get an idea of how many people accessed it, I now have it ready for download from my web site. It’s now 29 pages.

But the big news is that I’ve updated it for the last time. I’m not updating it anymore.

Most of the information is timeless; the web sites in the document will change over time, the organizations cited will come and go, but the basic advice will always be valid, I hope. Also, there are so many more resources now to help NGOs with fundraising than there were 10 years ago, as any search on Google will show – this document isn’t filling an information gap like it was when it was first drafted and published.

Some things that have been surprising in the decade I’ve maintained this document, some of which are also reasons I will no longer be updating this document:

I have regularly gotten funding solicitations via email from NGOs in the developing world because they’ve done exactly what this document says NOT to do: they’ve found my name in association with fundraising and sent me a grant proposal, unsolicited, despite the obvious fact that I am NOT a foundation. The emails aren’t even addressed to me by name; they are often addressed to “sir”, or they have 10 other emails listed in the “to” bar.
I make it clear that this document is for NGOs serving the developing world, yet I frequently get requests for it from nonprofits in the USA. Sure, some of the advice is universal for mission-based organizations, but the document talks about funding sources that are available only to organizations working in, say, Africa or the poorest parts of Asia and South America, sources that are NOT available to organizations in North America.
Several people and organizations have posted the document to their web sites without my permission, despite me asking on my web site and in the document for this not to be done. When I’ve written to ask them to remove it – they often are posting an old version, not the latest – they say they had no idea I wouldn’t allow the document to be posted. Which means they didn’t bother to read even the first two pages, or, they just don’t care.
Several people and organizations have passed this document off as their own. That hurts most of all. All I’ve asked in return for this document is credit for it – I have never asked for payment. For someone to go through it and take my name off of it and then publish it as their own, including people from at least two NGOs – it’s shameful. It’s disheartening. It contributes to a negative image of NGOs working in and for the developing world.
I’ve never received follow up from anyone saying how they have used the document. Has it been helpful? Did it result in funding? I’ll never know.

I sound bitter. Sorry. I’m frustrated that a decade-long effort didn’t seem to do any good. If this document does make a difference for your NGO, I hope you will tell me.

Also see:

Survival Strategies for Nonprofits , a guide for nonprofits facing critical budget shortfalls.

UN Agencies: Defend your “internships”

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I love the United Nations, especially UNDP. I’ve been proud of my association with such in Germany, Afghanistan, Ukraine, and online. I hope to be associated with them again.

I am also a big advocate for internships, paid and unpaid, at the UN and other mission-based organizations.

But I’m bothered by many of the calls by UN agencies for unpaid interns to work 40 hours a week. And how many people are undertaking full-time unpaid internships at UN offices and have NOTHING about their terms of reference in writing at all.

Currently, formal recruitment messages from United Nations agencies for full-time unpaid interns talk about all of the tasks these volunteers – yes, volunteers, because they are UNPAID – will be responsible for, but rarely say what kinds of skills-development/career-development support an intern can expect. They also never say why these tasks have been deemed as most appropriate for an unpaid intern, as opposed to a paid consultant. I asked someone at a UN agency in an office where I was working why a particular role was designated for a full-time unpaid intern instead of a short-term, paid consultant or as a paid internship, and he said, “We don’t have the budget to pay someone.” Yes, I fumed. Involving volunteers – even if you call them unpaid interns – to save money is never the primary reason to involve such! NEVER. Unpaid interns are volunteers, and if you are involving them because you don’t have to pay them, you are, in fact, being exploitative.

If this keeps up, UN interns may use the dollar/Euro value of volunteer hours that UN Volunteers, IFRC, ILO & others are promoting to sue UN agencies for back pay – and there is growing legal precedent for them to do so (see the links at the end of this blog).

Also, think about how your full-time unpaid internships are limited to only certain economic classes, excluding some people because they can’t afford to give you that many unpaid service hours. Are you thinking about how to ensure a variety of qualified people can undertake unpaid internships with your organization, not just those that can afford to? One way to address this: make the internships only one or two days a week.

I established my own policy when I worked for the UN Volunteers programme in Germany that all staff in our department had to adhere to regarding involving unpaid interns. This was NOT an agency-wide policy, just the one I established for our department:

An internship had to have a primary focus on giving the intern a learning experience, not getting tasks done. Therefore:
- There had to be a written job description that reflected this primary purpose of the internship.
- The intern was invited to all agency-wide staff meetings, all staff meetings for just our department, and encouraged to ask to attend staff meetings for other departments, to learn about work across the agency. Staff were encouraged to take interns with them to meetings or events whenever possible, as appropriate.
- The intern also had one project that was uniquely his or hers, that he or she was responsible for and could put on his or her résumé (for instance, conducting a survey and writing up the results, or evaluating some process and making recommendations for improvement).
- The intern received job coaching and job search help from other staff members.
Those considered for the internship had to be able to say why they wanted to enter into a profession related to our agency’s work, and say what they had done up to that point, in terms of education, volunteer work and paid work, to pursue that career choice.
A person could hold an internship only for up to six months. They absolutely could not hold it beyond six months, no exceptions. An intern could NOT return to our department as an intern again, ever. That reduced the chance of a person being exploited as free labor; it forced rotation in what was supposed to be a role reserved for people learning about our work, not the opportunity for someone to have an unpaid assistant indefinitely. Interns were, however, welcomed to apply for paid positions, and we did, indeed, hire former interns for short-term consultancies sometimes – but we never guaranteed that this would happen.
Ideally, the intern that was leaving would overlap with the intern that was coming in by one week, so that the departing intern could get experience training someone, documenting his or her responsibilities, etc. – experience which looks great on a CV.
When the intern left, he or she was interviewed about his or her experience as an intern from the point of view of getting the learning and professional development he or she was looking for, and this was used to continually improve internship involvement and to show if interns were getting what our internship promised: a learning experience.

The primary task our department at UNV reserved for interns was answering the many, many emails that came in regarding the Online Volunteering Service. We found that interns really were the best people for this task: in contrast to giving this task to employees, interns brought freshness and enthusiasm to responses that really shown through. They quickly saw patterns in questions or comments that a jaded staff person might not see, leading to adjustments to web site information and other communications. Also, in my opinion, because the interns were volunteers, they assumed a much stronger customer-advocate point-of-view regarding the people emailing with questions or comments than employees did; the agency could have a real siege-mentality outlook when dealing with anyone outside the organization, while the interns had a mentality of being advocates for those outside the organization.

As I mentioned, I also came up with tasks specifically for an intern to own. It might be an internal staff survey, a customer/client survey, a research project, an evaluation/analysis project, production of a report or online resource, etc. Every intern walked away something that was his or hers, a project that he or her directed or managed or lead, and that employees and other interns contributed to. That gave interns the management experience so many were desperate for.

One more piece of advice: create a mission statement for your office’s volunteer (unpaid staff) involvement and live it: state explicitly why your organization reserves certain tasks / assignments / roles for volunteers (including unpaid interns), to guide employees and volunteers in how they think about volunteers, to guide current volunteers in thinking about their role and value at the organization, and to show potential volunteers the kind of culture they can expect at your organization regarding volunteers. A commitment by UN offices to involve volunteers would be a wonderful thing – allowing people, particularly local citizens, to take on tasks and see first hand how an agency works that is meant to serve them, creating a sense of both ownership by citizens as well as a sense of transparency about the agency.

My other blogs on this GROWING internship controversy worldwide:

Note that the links within the aforementioned blogs may not work, as I moved all of my blogs from Posterous to WordPress a year or so ago, and it broke all of the internal links. Also, some web pages on other organization’s sites have moved since I linked to such, and I either don’t know or haven’t been able to find a new location for the material.

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Which nonprofits serving military veterans are worthwhile?

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I get asked this question now and again, and I see this question posted in various places:

I want to donate money to help USA military veterans and their families. Which nonprofits are really worthwhile?

Sadly, I have trouble answering the question, because there are just too many news articles about very shady happenings by organizations claiming to help military veterans, such as this story from CNN’s Anderson Cooper, another one from Cooper, this one from the Daily Beast, this one from Veterans Today, and this from the Tampa Bay Times. I also find the TV commercials of several of these organizations emotionally-manipulative, as though donating to their organization proves your patriotism.

I’m not going to name any of the organizations in question, but it’s worth it to click on those previously-mentioned links and see the organization names yourself – some will be very recognizable.

Here are some questions you can use as you look at a web site to help you evaluate an organization that claims to help military veterans and their families:

Does this organization have a prominent link right on the home page for veterans or families of such in need of services – a link as prominent as its links for financial donors? If not, then it’s a red flag: how can an organization say it serves veterans or families of such but not have an obvious way for people to seek services? If it does have a link, click on it. Does the organization have just one page that talks about vague benefits – events, discounts, camaraderie, etc. – rather than concrete service information like mental health services / counseling, rehabilitation resources, accommodation adjustments in housing, debt management, help with government paperwork, job re-training, etc.? In short: pretend you are a veteran or family member in need and look at the web site from that perspective, then ask yourself this question: are you able to find information about services you urgently need?
Does the organization list its services as, primarily, directing veterans and their families to other agencies to help with health services, rehabilitation, job placement, etc. – or does the organization actually provide those services directly? If the former, your donation might be better going directly to those organizations that actually provide the services, since the organization is just referring people other organizations.
Does the organization say, right on the home page, that it involves volunteers? If no, that’s a red flag – why would a nonprofit not involve volunteers? Are they hiding something? If they do have such a link to volunteering information, do volunteers help in direct service, or do volunteers help just with fundraising? If the former, that’s a good sign that this is a legitimate organization, as they have a commitment to members of the public seeing their work firsthand – they value that kind of investment in their work. If the latter, then that’s a red flag: this organization sees volunteers only as fundraisers, as money-makers. There’s nothing wrong with volunteers being fundraisers, but if that’s the ONLY way the organization involves volunteers, it may mean the organization is concerned only with raising large amounts of money.
Does the organization provide an accounting of how it spends money, beyond saying, “80% of money raised goes to services”? For instance, what percentage of the organization’s staff is working in direct support to veterans and their families, versus staff working to raise funds, manage volunteers that raise funds, marketing staff, etc.?

Those are my suggestions of questions to ask before you donate financially to an organization that claims to help veterans and their families.

So, can I recommend any organization myself as one I would donate to (and maybe I have donated to)? Yes. I recommend the USO.

#HumanitarianStarWars

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In February 2015, #HumanitarianStarWars took off on Twitter – memes that sum up the universe in which humanitarian aid and development professionals work. The Guardian curated their favorite tweets from the somewhat trending topic – and I loved it because it brought together two things I love oh-so-much (I have been known to recite Princess Leia’s hologram speech upon demand).

What a shame I don’t know how to imbed a tweet – because I would love to show you my faves….

Learning from a nonprofit’s failure

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A couple of the nonprofits where I have worked over the last 30 years have closed for good. I don’t count my time at either agency as enjoyable, and I don’t mention either on my résumé. It was many of the things that made these places so unenjoyable for me (and others) that ultimately lead to their demise. But both organizations did teach me quite a bit in terms of how not to run a nonprofit.

As I read an article today by some of the board members that tried to save one of those organizations from closing its doors, I shook my head at the level of denial about what they said the problems were at the organization: they lamented how they were unable to find that one big donor that would have saved the organization with an annual massive donation and connections to friends who would also have made an annual massive donation.

Here are the actual reasons the organization closed:

The organization’s leadership never made an effort to connect with and serve the many diverse communities that made up their region. It’s not at all a cohesive community. It’s a community that’s known worldwide for people working in high-tech, but it’s also a community with a massive Hispanic population – both new immigrants and third, fourth, even fifth-generation families. It’s a community with massive wealth, but also massive poverty, with a homeless population that’s one of the largest in the USA. There’s no one style of music listened to by most people, no one type of food eaten by most everyone there, no one set of religious values most people in the region adhere to – it’s not a melting pot but, rather, a tossed salad of diverse thoughts, beliefs and lifestyles. This now-closed organization didn’t initiate meetings with representatives from the many different populations that make up the area, to talk about how to serve them better or better reach different people. There were no special employment or volunteer recruitment efforts to attract staff from those different communities – in fact, there was no volunteer engagement scheme at all outside of having ushers at events (almost always the same people, people just interested in getting community service hours rather than doing something to serve the organization’s mission). Programs were developed in a bubble, and leadership just never understood why people outside that bubble didn’t participate.
The organization never successfully marketed its fee-based programs to groups. Group sales are everything when you are trying to sell something for a price, something that people have to pay something for to be a part of. You must have a crackerjack person, or team, that knows how to sell blocks of items or event tickets in order to generate the proper amount of income. Successful ballet companies, art museums, live theaters and other arts-based groups know this. Roller derby leagues in the USA — all nonprofit — know this. For-profit sports leagues know this.
The organization didn’t really try to cultivate young people as participants. People that grow up participating in a particular activity often want to continue to participate in that activity as adults. Integrate your nonprofit program offering into schools, and you will have, in a few years, new supporters, new donors, and new participants. It takes more than just having a “youth day” or one “youth event.”
Leadership didn’t engage with the leadership of other nonprofits. There were no regular meetings, formal or informal, with others serving the community through nonprofit services, and, therefore, no relationships – instead, other nonprofits were seen as competition for audiences and donors. The long-time head of the organization’s programming was particularly isolationist, and saw no need for building professional friendships with other nonprofit leaders. Without those relationships, the organization wasn’t hearing about what was important in the region it served, wasn’t hearing fresh ideas, wasn’t learning new approaches that could have helped improve their own offerings.
Leadership ignored criticism. Certain actions by this organization had ignited hostilities of some rather outspoken folks who claimed to represent a certain population of the area, and such has received a lot of media attention. I’m not sure if those criticisms were legitimate, but they were loud and they created a mindset about many people about the organization that was quite negative. The organization chose to ignore that criticism, rather than sitting down not only with the people claiming to represent that group, but with other representatives from that group to find out if they felt the same way and what might be done to build bridges. Instead, the leadership said, internally, “This isn’t our audience anyway,” and took no action.

During my brief time working there, I was frequently reprimanded for how I approached things regarding public relations and marketing. An example: I marketed one program in particular so well that it became one of the best-attended in the organization’s history, but my boss told me that I had not done a good job, because I’d marketed the program to the large gay community of the region, and he didn’t want people thinking of the organization as “a lesbian” one. I once lined up several media representatives to interview a member of senior management, in order to create a blitz of coverage for our organization in a variety of publications, and she cancelled most of the interviews at the last minute, saying this one wasn’t really worth it, that she wasn’t in the mood to do another one, etc.

It’s strange that so many of the things I did at this organization that were so disliked by senior management have ended up getting me hired elsewhere, and have lead me to be successful at other organizations. Because I was so passionate about the organization’s mission, the experience was even more painful. But as a result of what I witnessed in my brief time at this now-failed agency, ties with the community is one of the first things I evaluate when I take on any communications or management task. I look to answer lots of questions:

What do different people from different populations say about this organization?
Are the different populations that make up our community represented among our employees and volunteers, and/or among the active participants in our programs? Who are we missing, and why?
Does this organization have lots of people making small donations, or is this organization funded primarily by just a few big donors and grants?
Are there people that don’t like this organization and, if so, why, and how should we address that?
Are media reps seeking our leadership out for stories, even to just comment as experts on a particular issue they are covering – and if not, why not?
Do emails, calls and tweets from the media get answered promptly?
Do we monitor social media about this organization and what people are saying?
What nonprofits are doing similar work, or are also serving this region, and what is our relationship with them?

I’m so sorry for the people that have lost their jobs because of this organization’s closing. I hope they have learned as much as I did as a result of their experience there, and I wish them the very best of luck.

Also see:

Survival Strategies for Nonprofits , a guide for nonprofits facing critical budget shortfalls.
My consulting services

The problem with Seth Godin

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This blog was originally posted to my then-blog host on September 16, 2009.

To Seth Godin, in response to his blog about nonprofits using networking tools

Before you chastise nonprofits for their supposed lack of use of new technologies, you might want to do your homework first. If you had, you would have been overwhelmed with examples of nonprofit groups, large and small, using social-media tools. As the Chronicle of Philanthropy pointed out in its rebuttal of your blog, “shows nonprofit groups are actually well ahead of businesses in their use of social-media tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and blogs.”

So what if there are no charities in the top 100 twitter users in terms of followers? The number of followers is NO determination of success that a message is really creating change, any more than number of cars passing a billboard or number of visitors to a web site. Big numbers of viewers does NOT equal big numbers of donors, big numbers of changed behavior, big numbers of event attendees, etc. If there are nonprofits out there who are turning Twitter followers, FaceBook followers, web site visitors, or email newsletter subscribers into volunteers, donors, clients or other supporters, good for them and who cares whether or not they are in the “top 100” group?

But what really infuriates me is your comment “The opportunities online are basically free, and if you don’t have a ton of volunteers happy to help you, then you’re not working on something important enough.” Here’s something you should know: volunteers are NEVER free. Never. Volunteers have to be screened, interviewed, trained and supervised, just like a consultant you hire to do something like manage online activities. That *time* costs *money*. So, yes, resources ARE an issue, particularly when you have corporate donors that balk at the idea of funding a volunteer manager.

Sorry if I sound upset, but I am. Another corporate guy mocking nonprofits, throwing around a lot of ignorant comments. Same old same old. Some paradigms never change. Meanwhile, nonprofits will plug along and keep doing really exciting, worthwhile things, online and off, and they will all be here, doing amazing things, when you’re long gone.

Reminds me of the 1990s, when all sorts of corporate folks did the same chastising regarding nonprofits’ perceived lack of use of the Web and email. Funny: so many of those hot new start ups those people represented are gone, but the nonprofits are still here.

Also see: Corporations: here’s what nonprofits really need

Oregon global initiatives

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When you think of USA-based initiatives focused on development and humanitarian work in other countries, you think of New York or Washington, D.C. You will find a fair number in San Francisco and Los Angeles as well.

But there are organizations and initiatives all over the USA, in every state, with a primary mission of undertaking development and humanitarian work in at least one country overseas. Even in Oregon.

I come from a state – Kentucky – that most people I mean outside the USA could not locate on a map, and many have no idea its a real place. And I now live in a state that, likewise, most people I meet outside the USA could not locate on a map – in fact, many have never heard of Oregon. Yet, in both states, there are for-profit, nonprofit and university-based initiatives that are focused on other countries.

I decided to make a list of nonprofit and university-based organizations and initiatives in Oregon that were undertaking aid, humanitarian and/or development work overseas. I also added organizations focused on educating people regarding other countries/global affairs. The first draft was 10 organizations. It’s now a list of 21 organizations.

I started this page because, as a consultant myself for organizations working in development and humanitarian activities overseas, I would like to know who my colleagues in my own “neighborhood” are, and because I would like for people in the USA to be much better educated about other countries – so I’d like to know who is doing that. Also, Washington State has a formal umbrella organization, Global Washington, for groups in that state that work overseas, though it’s not focused only on humanitarian issues. Oregon doesn’t have such, that I can find.

If you would like to add an organization to my last, please contact me. But note: your initiative has to be officially registered in some way, or already part of an officially-registered organization, and there needs to be names of real people on your web site (one web site I found for a 501 (c)(3) organization claiming to work overseas had NO names of people on it – no names of staff, no names of board members – so they aren’t on my list).

Terrific resources you’re missing from Twitter

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I share a LOT of information on Twitter: info on effective nonprofit communications, management or engagement of volunteers, job leads with leading nonprofit and humanitarian organizations, funding leads, updates on UN initiatives in Afghanistan, Ukraine, or anywhere else I care about (and I care about a LOT of places), and more. Often, it’s information I don’t share anywhere else.

I hear a lot of people say they don’t use Twitter because they “don’t want all the text messages.” They don’t realize that you do NOT have to receive tweets via text messaging – that hasn’t been true for many years. I read Twitter via my lap top or my smart phone, primarily – most people do. Also, you don’t have to follow everyone you find interesting – you can add people to different lists and view content when YOU want to (here are my Twitter lists, to give you an idea of how it can work).

Here are my tweets and retweets of the last three days: