Tag Archives: nonprofits

Something New & Innovative? How about something that WORKS?

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So often – TOO OFTEN – I hear nonprofits, government initiatives, NGOs, charities and other mission-based programs complaining that they aren’t getting good attendance at their events or program activities, or aren’t getting any press coverage, or don’t have enough volunteers, and so they are looking for something innovative and new in marketing.

But is something innovative and new really what they need?

In my junior year at Western Kentucky University, a million years ago, one of my professors proposed an idea to me: for one of my senior year classes, to fulfill my minor in theater, I could be in charge of marketing the Fall Children’s Theatre series, a then-annual event where three to four student-directed productions were presented, all focused on children audiences. I would get credit for a full senior-level class for such. I had also been working at the local arts center as a marketing intern outside of classes and had a wonderful mentor there who had taught me a lot about getting press coverage – combining this experience with my journalism major and newspaper experience, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse!

I was oh-so-successful at getting kids and their parents to the plays. One performance had to be delayed a few minutes because there were so many kids pouring in from an area kindergarten. We consistently sold out of intermission snacks, filling the coffers of our student theater society. Of course, I got an “A” for my efforts: my professor said they had never had so many full houses for the Fall Children’s Theater series.

Was I innovative in my approach to marketing these shows? No. All I did was the basics:

  • Sent press releases in a timely manner, with complete information, to area newspapers, and the one local TV station, in time to get into their calendar sections.
  • Sent press releases to local schools and kindergartens as early as possible.

That’s it. That’s all I did. And I sent these by mail – there was no Internet in my world back in those days. I had no budget to do anything else. All I did to be so wildly successful was the basics of marketing. And I did the basics WELL. Before my involvement, press releases were never sent, or were sent too late for information to be included in a local newspaper or on TV, or didn’t have complete information.

Before you start looking for something innovative to improve attendance at your events, increase program participants, recruit more volunteers, increase your visibility, etc., look at your current communications:

  • Is information on your web site up-to-date and complete, with answers to Who?, What?, Where?, Why? and When? right in the first paragraph of any information about events?
  • When you post about information on social media, do you make sure it includes Who?, What?, Where? and When? (you may not have enough room on Twitter for Why?)
  • Are you sending press releases and announcements to every area media outlet in your area, including newspapers, radio stations and TV stations watched in your area, in a TIMELY manner?
  • If you have a poster or brochure about the event, are the answers to Who?, What?, Where?, Why? and When? obvious and easy to find/easy to see?
  • Has your up-to-date, complete information been emailed directly to every employee, every consultant and every volunteer at your organization, in a timely manner?

There’s nothing innovative about any of that – but these steps are absolutely fundamental to successful marketing by nonprofits. And often, it’s all that’s needed.

Also see:

Crowdsourcing / Hive Mind – it’s been happening since at least 1849!

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Crowdsourcing is an open, public call for contributions from anyone to talk about a pressing issue, offer advice or data or to help solve a problem or challenge. It’s an open-call brainstorming session. While the term crowdsourcing was popularized online to describe Internet-based activities, there are examples of projects that, in retrospect, can also be described as crowdsourcing, without the Internet.

For instance, in, 1848 Matthew Fontaine Maury, an American astronomer, United States Navy officer, historian, oceanographer, meteorologist, cartographer and more, distributed 5000 copies of his Wind and Current Charts free of charge on the condition that sailors returned a standardized log of their voyage to the U.S. Naval Observatory. By 1861, he had distributed 200,000 copies free of charge, on the same conditions. The data the sailors provided was used to develop charts for all the major trade routes.

The Smithsonian Meteorological Project was started by the Smithsonian’s first Secretary, Joseph Henry, and in 1849 he set up a network of some 150 volunteer weather observers all over the USA. Henry used the telegraph to gather volunteers’ data and create a large weather map, making new information available to the public daily. For instance, volunteers tracked a tornado passing through Wisconsin and sent the findings via telegraph to the Smithsonian. Henry’s project is considered the origin of what later became the National Weather Service. Within a decade, the project had more than 600 volunteer observers and had spread to Canada, Mexico, Latin America, and the Caribbean. These remote volunteers submitted monthly reports that were then analyzed by a professor at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania, and published in 1861 in the first of a two- volume compilation of climatic data and storm observations based on the volunteers’ reports.

The Smithsonian information in this blog is from a 2011 article “Smithsonian Crowdsourcing Since 1849!” by Elena Bruno, a Smithsonian intern who conducted research into how crowdsourcing could be integrated into mobile applications and making the Smithsonian experience, for those inside our Institution and beyond, more valuable and engaging.

I miss the crowdsourcing feel of the 1990s Internet, particularly via USENET newsgroups. My favorite was soc.org.nonprofit, for the discussion of nonprofit organization management issues. It was amazing to see someone post a question about how to reach a particular audience or databases or whatever and see knowledgeable people offer helpful advice on the subject within days, sometimes hours. There was lots of help and very little posturing – or trolls. Good times. Read more about the Early History of Nonprofits and the Internet (before 1996).

 

vvbooklittleOnline crowdsourcing is one example of virtual volunteering. Wikipedia is probably the most well-known example of online crowdsourcing, but there are many more. For advice on working with remote volunteers, or using the Internet to support and involve volunteers, whether in crowdsourcing initiatives or in more formal, higher-responsibility volunteering, check out The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. It’s written by myself and Susan J. Ellis, and is the result of many, many years of research and experience.

Trump’s War on Volunteerism

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Volunteer engagement is essential to the democracy and the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for which my country, the USA, strives – paid staff just cannot do everything that needs to be done in this regard. Some activities are best done by volunteers – by people who aren’t being paid a wage to do certain work, who are freed from fear of being fired from a job that pays for their home, food, transportation, etc. and, therefore, able to speak more freely about what they are seeing and doing at the agency that hosts them as volunteers or in the community in which they are providing service.

But volunteer engagement does not magically happen and it is also not sustainable by mere good will and passion. Effective, sustainable volunteer engagement requires knowledge and processes.

A few months ago, I finally read By the People: A History of Americans as Volunteers, a book by my long-time colleague and friend, Susan Ellis, along with Katherine Campbell. The book does a fantastic job of showing the role of volunteers in the formation of the United States of America and so much of the best parts of our way of life, from mobilizations that lead to nonprofits like Goodwill, the YWCA and the Sierra Club – efforts often lead by women – but also of showing how volunteers have played such an important role in establishing the American character, one that relishes community-driven and do-it-yourself driven efforts to address community needs and concerns. The book provides repeated examples of how volunteers seized a social issue in the USA and amplified it and addressed it, from the abolition of slavery to the health of soldiers to the civil rights movement and so many things before and after.

But this American value is under attack by the current President of the USA, and it’s overdue for everyone who cares about volunteerism to speak out.

Here are five things that have been happening regarding volunteerism in the USA, lead the Donald Trump, that every association of nonprofit organizations and every DOVIA (directors of volunteers in agencies) and other association of managers of volunteers like the Northwest Oregon Volunteer Administrators Association (NOVAA) based in Portland, Oregon, needs to be commenting on via their outreach to members, their blogs, their social media and to the press (I think consultants regarding nonprofits, particularly regarding volunteer management, need to be speaking out about these as well):

(1)

In 2017, Donald Trump appointed Carl Higbie as chief of external affairs for the federal government’s volunteer service organization, the Corporation for National Service, to direct the public image and messaging of this agency that manages millions of Americans in volunteer services like AmeriCorps and Senior Corps. Before this role, as host of the radio program “Sound of Freedom,” an Internet radio station, Higbie made comments deriding black Americans, Muslims, women, LGBT people, veterans suffering from PTSD and immigrants. Higbie resigned in January 2018 after a CNN story brought these comments to light. All of these statements were publicly available and known by HIgbie’s associates, yet he was appointed anyway.

(2)

On February 12, 2018, Donald Trump sent his official Fiscal Year 2019 Budget request to Congress. This budget proposed the elimination of the Corporation for National and Community Service in FY 2019, and provided funding for an “orderly shutdown.” This budget cut would have meant the elimination of AmeriCorps, VISTA, the Conservation Corps (the modern-day CCC) and Senior Corps. Later, because of pressure from Republican colleagues and efforts by Voices for National Service, a coalition of national, state and local service programs, state service commissions and individual champions, President Trump signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 that provides the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) $1,063,958,000 for FY 2018, a $33.6 million increase over FY 2017 enacted levels. Here’s more about these two different budget announcements.

That a US President even entertained the idea of eliminating AmeriCorps, VISTA the Conservation Corps and Senior Corps, let alone announced it, should have gotten everyone’s attention, but the lack of outcry from DOVIAs and organizations that promote volunteerism was shocking. Make no mistake: these institutions remain under threat. I hope someone is working to scramble volunteers to preserve the research and resources CNCS has compiled on its web site before the government deletes it.

(3)

In July 2018, at a rally for his supporters, Donald Trump mocked the Points of Light volunteerism concept introduced by President George H.W. Bush.

“You know all of the rhetoric: ‘Thousands points of light.’ What the hell was that?” Trump asked his audience. “What does that mean?”

“I know one thing: ‘Make America Great Again’ we understand. ‘Putting America First’ we understand. ‘Thousand points of light?’ I never got that one. What the hell is that? Has anyone figured that out? It was put out by a Republican.”

In his inaugural speech in January 1989, President George H.W. Bush promoted the virtues of volunteerism, saying: “I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the community organizations that are spread like stars throughout the nation, doing good.” In 1990, he created the Points of Light Foundation for volunteerism in 1990. The initiative has been supported by every Democrat and Republican President since, until Donald Trump.

(4)

Breaking with his predecessors, Trump skipped doing any community service activities on Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2018, spending time on his golf course instead. By contrast, when President Barack Obama was in office, the First Family paid tribute to the civil-rights legend with some form of volunteer work, whether visiting a soup kitchen or helping paint a mural at a shelter. President Bill Clinton and President George W. Bush also participated in volunteering activities in association with the day.

What message is being sent by the current President in refusing to do any community service – to serve a meal to someone experiencing homelessness, to help build a house via Habitat for Humanity, to participate in a beach cleanup? No, throwing paper towels at reporters covering hurricane damage does not count as volunteering.

(5)

Donald Trump and Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin, as well as governors all over the USA, want to require unemployed Medicaid members to volunteer with nonprofit organizations – or, probably, Christian churches (but not other religious houses) – in order to receive those benefits. Bevin and Trump are expecting nonprofits to involve several thousand more people as volunteers – people who are being forced into the act – but without funding all of the increased costs nonprofits are going to have to create more assignments and supervise these people.

These five points, altogether, show a very disturbing message being sent out by the current President about the value of volunteerism in the USA. 

It’s overdue for nonprofits, consultants and anyone that claims to care about the spirit of volunteerism in the USA to speak out in press releases, guest columns in newspapers, letters to the editor, blogs and social media about this disdain for volunteerism coming from the current White House. The lack of any comment on these activities is why I have not joined any of the associations trying to fill the gap left by the Association for Volunteer Administration. It’s long overdue for bold statements regarding public policy that affects volunteerism and community service by these associations. I’m tired of being out here on my own.

No nonprofit will jeopardize its 501 (c) (3) status by commenting on any five of these items, by saying that these stances and activities are disappointing at least and outrageous and deplorable at worst. Any excuse that implies such is unacceptable.

That said, kudos to the Kentucky Nonprofit Network for being outspoken on some of these activities. Your voice and your courage is needed and appreciated.

Now, what about the rest of you?

Also see:

A plea to USA nonprofits for the next four years (& beyond)

Governor Bevin & Donald Trump Are Wrong on Community Service Requirements

Requirements to volunteer are getting out of hand

Kentucky politicians think volunteers are free

How Will Trump Presidency Affect Humanitarian Aid & Development?

List of my books, papers, citations in other publications

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I have no idea why I haven’t done this before: I’ve made a list of my own publications (many available for purchase, as well as books, white papers, academic papers, etc. that quote me or cite my work, going back to 1999.

vvbooklittleMy most well-known traditional publication is The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook. This book, which I co-wrote with Susan J. Ellis, is our attempt to document all of the best practices for using the Internet to support and involve volunteers from the more than three decades that this has been happening. Whether the volunteers are working in groups onsite, in traditional face-to-face roles, in remote locations, or any other way, anyone working with volunteers will find The Last Virtual Volunteering Guidebook helpful. The book is available both in traditional print form and in a digital version.

 

Diagnosing the causes of volunteer recruitment problems

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graphic by Jayne Cravens representing volunteersI see it and hear it over and over: comments from nonprofits or churches or schools saying they are having trouble recruiting volunteers.

Before you hire a consultant, even me, to see what the problem is regarding why you don’t have enough volunteers, you might be able to diagnosis the problem yourself. The only catch is that you MUST be honest as you answer these questions. Also, answering these questions is rarely a one-person exercise; you may think you know the answer, but you need to ask other staff members, including volunteers themselves, what their answers are to these assessment questions. Don’t be surprised if your receptionist or a volunteer gives you a very different answer to any of these questions than you yourself would give.

Questions to diagnose your volunteer recruitment problems:

  • Is it easy to know just from looking at your web site what volunteers do, the different roles, the time commitment, the training requirements, and how to sign up?
  • Is there an OBVIOUS link from your home page to information for potential volunteers, a link as obvious as your donation link?
  • When someone calls or emails about volunteering, or submits an application, does that person get an immediate reply regarding next steps? In fact, do they get info at all, or does someone take their name and say someone will get back to them and then, most of the time, no one ever does? Often, when I’ve been asked to assess a volunteer recruitment at a school, THIS is where the problem lies: plenty of people are calling to volunteer, but they never get the response they need to get started, or the response comes months later, when they are no longer interested or available.
  • Are your next steps for volunteering with your organization something that the volunteer can get started on in a few days? In several weeks? In a few months? The further away the next step, the more likely the volunteer candidate won’t follow through.
  • Are your volunteering opportunities listed at the most popular third party volunteering sites for your area? For instance, where I live, the most popular volunteer recruitment sites are VolunteerMatch and HandsOn Portland. Go to Google or Bing and type in volunteer and the name of your city and see what comes up. Also see these tips for Using Third Party Web Sites Like VolunteerMatch to Recruit Volunteers.
  • Do you need to alter the volunteer role so that a volunteer would get more out of it, in terms of training, career-development, university class credit, or personal fulfillment? Is there anything you can do to make the role more fun?
  • Can the people you are trying to recruit as volunteers afford to volunteer – to work for free? Do they have childcare responsibilities that are preventing them from helping? Could you offer childcare? Could you pay for parking or mass transit, provide lunch for volunteers, or do anything at all to ease their financial burden?
  • Could you make the service time commitment less for volunteers? Could you try to recruit more volunteers for shorter shifts, for instance, instead of fewer volunteers for longer shifts?
  • Do you have a myriad of opportunities available for volunteers, like Short-term Assignments for Tech Volunteers, One-Time, Short-Term Group Volunteering Activities, and virtual volunteering?
  • Does the task you are asking volunteers to do seem especially intimidating or daunting? Could you make it less so, by reducing the time commitment the volunteer would have to make, or by guaranteeing that there is a seasoned volunteer or employee always with the new volunteer? Or by taking away the tasks in the role that are the most intimidating and giving them to paid staff? Or by better-assuring candidates that they will be fully trained before they are put into potentially challenging situations?
  • Are you asking too much from volunteers in terms of a time commitment, training and the responsibilities they will undertake as unpaid staff? Do you need to convert such roles into paid positions, in order to better attract the people that can make the time and emotional commitment to the role?

A terrific, easy exercise that can be really helpful in diagnosing your volunteer recruitment problems is to create a flow chart mapping your volunteer engagement, or a series of maps for different parts of the volunteer management process — the volunteer in-take process, the volunteer assignment development and matching process, the volunteer support assignment, etc. You could do charts for each of these processes, and then show how they all intersect. You can do a map on what you do, and don’t do, now, and then alter it to show how it SHOULD be. A dry erase white board with markers is best, better than any computer app:

Here’s one example of what a volunteer in-take flow chart could look like as a result of your mapping exercise (every organization is different):

Let’s be clear: people WANT to volunteer, including the much-derided millennials. Just go to Quora or Reddit and see how many people, mostly from that generation, are posting questions about how to find volunteering. And people are hungry to connect: in this age of always-online, there are so many, many people looking to connect in a meaningful way offline. Your obstacle to recruiting volunteers isn’t that people don’t want to volunteer; it’s that people that want to volunteer can’t easily find your information, or your volunteer roles don’t fit their interests or schedules. What worked to recruit volunteers 30 years ago doesn’t work now; if you are having trouble recruiting volunteers, it’s overdue for you to take a hard, in-depth look at both how you recruit, what your in-take process is like, and the volunteer opportunities you have available.

Also see:

My most popular blogs of 2017

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logoEach year, I review which of my blogs have attracted the most traffic. Sometimes, a spike in traffic is because several people tweeted about the blog, or shared it on their own blog. Sometimes, I just have no idea why a blog starts seeing a lot of traffic. I also look at blogs that didn’t go anywhere, that have been seen by just one or two people – that does happen, and I need to figure out why.

I draw my material from my consulting work, from updating the Virtual Volunteering Wiki, from conversations with colleagues, from my own volunteering – even from things I’ve seen on TV or overhead somewhere. I never know what’s going to be popular. I’m frequently surprised what attracts so many readers – and what never catches on.

This list of my most viewed blogs probably isn’t of interest to anyone except me… but it’s something I like to do every year, to look for trends.

My top 20 most viewed blogs that I published in 2017:

I won’t help you recruit a receptionist/volunteer coordinator

Welcoming immigrants as volunteers at your organization

The harm of orphanage voluntourism (& wildlife voluntourism as well)

Anti-volunteerism campaigns

for volunteers: how to complain

Treat volunteers like employees? Great idea, awful idea

Mike Bright, Microvolunteering’s #1 Fan, Has Passed Away

Sympathy for one group – but not the other?

A plea to USA nonprofits for the next four years (& beyond):

Want to work internationally? Get involved locally.

J.K. Rowling speaks out against orphan tourism

Why Girls Want to Join the Boy Scouts

Creating a Speak-up Culture in the Workplace

When mission statements, ideologies & human rights collide

Volunteering, by itself, isn’t enough to save the world

What effective short-term international volunteering looks like

Resources re: labor laws and volunteering

Short-term deployments with Peace Corps & UNV

Medical Voluntourism Can Cause Serious Harm

Measuring social media success? You’re probably doing it wrong

If humans can do it, so can volunteers (who are, BTW, also humans)

That said… these weren’t my most visited blogs in 2017 – 17 of my 20 most read blogs in 2017 are from previous years, five of them having to do companies that sell letters saying someone has done community service for the courts and also claiming that the service is virtual volunteering (it’s not).

Also see:

My top blogs of 2016

My top blogs of 2014 (didn’t track it for 2015)

Conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research

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CALLS FOR CONTRIBUTIONS:
Thirteenth International Conference of the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR)
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands
10 July  – 13 July 2018

Conference Theme:
Democracy and Legitimacy:  The Role of the Third Sector in a Globalizing World

DEADLINE FOR CONFERENCE ABSTRACT SUBMISSIONS:   27 OCTOBER 2017

Conference organizers are keenly interested in a wide range of submissions, especially on topics related to democracy and legitimacy. In addition, ISTR is also interested in research which advances our understanding of theory, policy, and practice of third sector organizations. Conference themes include:

  • Democracy and Civil Society Organizations
  • Challenges and Opportunities of Advocacy by NGOs and Nonprofits
  • Governance, Management, Adaptation and Sustainability of Third Sector Organizations
  • Hybridity, Legitimacy and the Third Sector
  • New Models of Philanthropy and Voluntarism
  • Active Citizenship and Activism
  • The Third Sector and Development
  • Social Innovation and the Third Sector
  • Research on Teaching Third Sector Studies
  • Emerging Areas of Theory and Practice

Abstract Submissions
Contributions may take the form of a paper, a panel, a roundtable, or a poster.  The abstract must be less than 400 words in length.

Full details regarding submission specifications are found in the Call for Contributions.

Submissions for Panels, Papers and Posters
All panel, papers and poster proposals for the Conference must be submitted using ISTR’s online submission service. To submit your paper or poster abstract using this service, go to the ISTR website – www.istr.org/Amsterdam – and follow the link for ‘Submit a Proposal.’

Nonprofits, NGOs: An Opportunity for a Fabulous Web Site

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I am thrilled to announce, at last, that I am working with Knowbility, a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas with whom I’ve been working with on and off since its founding in 1998. And even better: what I’m doing will help nonprofits, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), charities, schools and others to be able to welcome more clients, more donors, more volunteers and more supporters via their web sites.

I am the Knowbility liaison for nonprofits, NGOs, schools and other mission-based organizations that will participate in OpenAIR 2018 . OpenAIR is my very favorite group volunteering gig and hackathon anywhere in the world. This Accessibility Internet Rally (AIR) by Knowbility was a hackathon before there was the word hackathon. It was an onsite, local event for many years, and is now an international virtual volunteering event!

Via OpenAir, mission-based organizations get professionally-designed, accessible websites that accommodate all visitors. In fact, via OpenAir, they get more than a shiny new web site; they become a more-welcoming organization online – and maybe offline as well. This is a life-changing event for many participants – expect to have your horizons expanded and your way-of-thinking about how people use online tools transformed! 

People with disabilities want to donate, volunteer and otherwise support causes they care about. Like all people, they love the arts, animals, and the environment, they enjoy beautiful parks and fun outdoor activities, they support education, they want serious social problems addressed, and they want to be involved in these causes – as employees, as donors, as volunteers and as clients. But if your organization’s web site isn’t accessible to them, you leave them out – and that means you leave out potential donors, volunteers, clients, ideas, talent and more. All of that changes when your organization participates in OpenAIR! Here’s more about what accessibility means and why it’s important.This is a GLOBAL event: participating nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other mission-based organizations can be anywhere in the world!

This is a GLOBAL event: participating nonprofits, NGOs, charities and other mission-based organizations can be anywhere in the world!

I am SO EXCITED about my role, and I can’t wait to start helping nonprofits and others participate!  In September and October, I will market the heck out of this event, and I hope you will help by:

  • sharing this blog that you are reading now via your social media and in emails to colleagues and associates
  • by retweeting tweets that use the hashtag #OpenAIR2018
  • by following @Knowbility on Twitter, liking the Knowbility Facebook page and liking all messages related to OpenAIR
  • by talking to nonprofits, NGOs and charities you know that either don’t have a web site, or have a web site but it’s in need of a redesign, and encouraging them to check out the nonprofit section of the OpenAir web site.

In fact, you don’t have to wait – you can start doing all that NOW.

In November and December 2017, and in January 2018, I will be knocking myself out doing everything I can to help participating nonprofits prepare their information for their design teams, so that those teams can get started on their web sites in February – these design teams have just six weeks to develop these sites as a part of the OpenAir competition! Judging and awards will take place in March 2018. Participating nonprofits pay $100 to participate in OpenAir, but that fee isn’t due until December 2017, and the informational webinars in September and October about accessibility and the competition will be free.

The web designers in OpenAIR are professionals who want to apply their accessibility design skills to a web site for an organization doing good in the world. Each design team pays a small fee to participate, and commits to several hours of classes by Knowbility regarding the latest web accessibility tools and techniques. These design teams are mentored by leading experts in the accessibility field throughout their design time during OpenAIR. The designers that participate in OpenAIR are professional, trained web designers working for a variety of companies and universities. Since 1998, OpenAIR (then AIR) has included teams of web professionals from IBM, Dell, Applied Materials, Google, GivePulse, TradeMark Media, Elemental Blend, Cognizant Technology Solutions, Cal State, University of Michigan, University of Southern Florida and many more. For Knowbility, these teams are volunteers, donating their time and talent to create high quality, professional websites for participating organizations. If your company or university or group of friends wants to form a design team to participate and support a nonprofit or NGO in creating its web site as a part of this competition, please see this OpenAIR design team information.

Can you tell I’m excited?! This is a dream gig for me: I adore the work of Knowbility beyond measure (at left is a photo of me and Sharron Rush, a co-founder of Knowbility and its Executive Director, at a conference in 2006, with me displaying my “are you accessible?” temporary tattoo), I had a blast being a part of the AIR events almost 20 years ago, back when they were onsite in Austin, I am passionate about web accessibility, I love how corporations walk away from this event with much more awareness about the work of nonprofits, and I love helping nonprofits! This means, however, that I’m not available for any consulting gigs until after February 2018. So if you are thinking of me as a consultant for next year, contact me ASAP, as my schedule fills up quickly! More about my consulting services.

Direct links from the OpenAIR web site for nonprofits:

I can’t wait to work with you! In fact, if you are in the Portland, Oregon metropolitan area, I would be happy to talk with you face-to-face, in-person about participating in this event. Just contact me at jc@coyotecommunications.com to set up a time and place!

How do I get to you without a car?

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If I want to come to come to your nonprofit organization, your NGO, your government office, etc. for a training or a workshop or a special event or for your services, and I will not be driving, will your web site tell me how to get there?

Will your web site tell me what buses stop nearest to your organization and how far the walk from a bus stop is to your office? Will it tell me where to park my bicycle? Is there a photo of the exterior of your agency, so I’ll recognize it easily?

I’m in a one-car family. I use mass transit and my bicycle to get around. In the greater metropolitan Portland, Oregon area, that’s not an easy thing (it’s fascinating to hear Portlandiers brag about their mass transit system, but start to stutter when I ask, “Do you yourself take it every day, or even every week? Do you rely on it to get to and from work?”). Looking at various nonprofit web sites when I’m supposed to have a meeting, I often can’t find the street address, and even then, there’s no information about mass transit options or bike parking. Yes, I’ve used the Portland mass transit trip planner, but it often doesn’t suggest the quickest route, or tell you that while there is a bus stop a block away, there’s a light rail stop just five blocks away. When you are actually on a Portland bus, routes usually are not announced, bus drivers aren’t happy about trying to help you find the right stop, and there are lots of challenges that would have been much more navigable has someone simply warned you about such.

There are people who cannot afford to buy a car, people who don’t have a driver’s license, and young people, too young to drive, who want to volunteer at your organization, attend an event, or access your services. If you don’t have information to help these people – and that includes me — you are telling these audiences, We don’t want you to come to our organization. Is that really what you want to say?

And, indeed, there are events, trainings and more I have wanted to attend, but cannot, because I either can’t figure out how to get to the organization by mass transit or the organization is having the meeting in a place not easily reached by mass transit. One organization had a meeting at a library branch that would have taken more than two hours for me to get to – but had they had the meeting just 3.5 miles away, at another library branch, it would take just 40 minutes – the difference was that one site is served by a bus that comes only every 30 minutes, while the other is on an express, frequent service bus line.

Your organization’s web site needs to have the following information – and it needs to be oh-so-easy to find:

  • a text-based rendering of your organization’s physical address (not just in a graphic)
  • a map that shows your organization’s location AND the nearest bus stops (including express/frequent service buses) and nearest light rail stops; there are online volunteers who would be happy to prepare this graphic for you
  • written advice that would be helpful to a bus rider (is there a landmark you should be looking for when riding the bus to know when your stop is coming? how long of a walk is it from the stop to your office? is there only one place to cross a particularly busy street that wouldn’t be obvious to someone unfamiliar with the area (as I recently encountered for an evening training, in the dark, at a nonprofit’s office)? Ask your current volunteers and clients about this – or create an investigative project for your volunteers to tease out this information
  • a photo of the exterior of your offices
  • information on where a bicycle rider would park. If you don’t have a rack outside, either get one or allow people to bring their bikes inside (an addition note about this is at the end of this blog)
  • tips specifically for bicyclists, like advice on routes (perhaps a bike rider would be more comfortable riding on a parallel street rather than a main one – another great investigative project for your volunteers)

There is no excuse to not have this information on your web site, unless your organization needs to keep its location private (a domestic violence shelter, for instance).   Not We don’t have the time or We don’t have the funding or All of our clients/volunteers drive. This information is just as important as parking information and your hours of operation!

Volunteers can help you gather this information. If none of your current volunteers are interested, post it as an opportunity on VolunteerMatch (or your country’s equivalent) and with your local volunteer center.

In addition, remember that in most cities, buses stop running after a certain hour. If your training goes past that time, you are excluding people who would be stranded after the training. If there is no way to change the hours, talk about ways to set up participant car pools.

Encourage volunteers to carpool as well. And brag about all these green living efforts to the board and on your blog!

On the subject of bike parking racks: Cyclists prefer to park very close to their destinations and will lock a bicycle to anything available unless a rack is nearby. They do NOT want racks that hold the bike by the wheel, nor racks with which they can’t use a U-Lock. Racks should be in public view with high visibility and good lighting. One that is filmed by a security camera is particularly great. Work with your city to get a rack installed for your building; they will have rules regarding where racks can go. Bike racks are great projects to fundraise around: identify exactly how much it will cost to buy and install such and involve your volunteers on creating a fundraising campaign to raise the funds needed for installation (what a great sponsorship opportunity!); when you install your new bike rack, take photos, make an announcement – maybe even throw a party! In short – make it a big deal.

A plea to USA nonprofits for the next four years (& beyond):

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speak upAttention nonprofits: stop believing that you automatically have some kind of magical, wonderful reputation because you “do good.”

Your organization’s future over the next four years depends on your organization rapidly becoming a much, much better advocate for its work as well as the work of the entire mission-based sector.

Over the next four years (and beyond):

Please dramatically improve how you communicate why your organization is necessary. Define it well, and say it repeatedly, in a variety of ways – in press releases, on your web site, in every speech you make, on your Facebook page, etc. Ask the spouses and partners of people that work and volunteer for your organization, people who have NOT volunteered or worked there themselves, to come in for coffee and donuts and a short discussion – and ask them why your organization exists, why it is necessary. Be prepared for them to have no specifics, just a possible, general idea. Use their feedback to create a plan to improve your communications, internally and externally, and to make sure it is clear to anyone and everyone why your organization is necessary. Make it a priority for the next four years to constantly and dramatically improve communication about what your organization does and WHY it exists.

Please dramatically improve how you communicate as to why there is poverty, or domestic violence, or homelessness, or unemployment, or a need for live theater, or whatever it is your nonprofit is concerned with addressing. Please don’t just ask for help for an issue without explicitly saying why the issue exists. And please say so more than once. This is another good opportunity for a focus group to find out just how much you need to improve regarding your messaging. This should also be a top priority.

If your organization does not address a critical humanitarian issue, then you must be even more explicit about why your mission is important. You cannot assume people know why a theater organization, a dance organization, a community choir, an art museum, a history museum, a chalk art festival, a historical society, a cultural festival, etc. is important to a community. Have hard numbers ready, in terms of economic impact, on what your organization contributes to your city or county. Have data on the impact of performing arts on health, school grades, crime, and any other quality of life issue and think of ways to get that data out there, repeatedly, via your web site, social media, press interviews, and on and on.

Make sure your volunteers know why your organization is necessary, even volunteers doing just one-time gigs or micro volunteering, and including your board of directors. Every volunteer, even those coming in for just a few hours as part of a group effort, must be given at least a short introduction to why your organization exists. All volunteers, past and present, microtasking volunteers and long-term volunteers, should be invited to public events. You must turn volunteers into advocates for your organization and nonprofits in general to their friends, family and colleagues.

Please correct volunteers and donors, even very large donors, who misspeak about your mission, or why the issue exists that you are trying to address. For instance, if your nonprofit helps the homeless, and a donor says that people are homeless because they are lazy and do not want to work, correct him and her. Make a list of myths about the issue you address, and the counters to those myths, and go over those myths with all staff, all board members, all leadership volunteers, and all long-term volunteers, at the very least.

If your budget is going to be cut because of actions by the President and Congress, you owe it to your community and to all you serve to say so. And you owe it to those same people to say how these cuts are going to affect your programs and, in turn, the community and those you serve. If cuts are going to hurt your clients, say so. This isn’t being political – this is being factual.

Stop talking about volunteer value primarily in terms of their hourly monetary value. When you do that, you justify a government saying, “Cut your paid staff and just get volunteers to do that work.” Governments HAVE done this, and it’s very likely the incoming USA federal government will do it too, and that this thinking will trickle down to state governments as well. When you talk about volunteer value primarily in terms of an hourly monetary value, you are saying that their PRIMARY value is that they work for free.

Use your web site to be absolutely transparent about who runs your organization, what it does, how much money is in its budget, where the money comes from and how it spends the money it gets. AND KEEP IT UPDATED. And be proud of it – no apologies for paying competitive salaries, for having offices that have adequate parking and lighting, for having clean offices, etc.

Make sure politicians know and appreciate your organization. Have a representative from your organization at every local public meeting by your state’s US Congressional Representatives and US Senators, and send those officials press releases about your organization’s accomplishments and impact. Invite representatives from their offices to every public event you have. Here is more advice on how to get a Congressperson to listen to you, which notes that posts to social media are largely ineffective because they are so easy to ignore, that paper letters are more effective than email, and that phone calls RULE. You need to do similar outreach with your state legislative representatives and senators – in fact, they should be much easier to meet with, in-person. Go in front of your local city council at least once a year to speak during the public comment: announce a new program, remind the council of something you are doing, tell them what a budget cut is going to do in terms of how it will affect your clients, etc. You have about two minutes: use it.

Make sure the nearest weekly and daily newspapers, and the nearest CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox affiliate TV stations know why your organization exists, what it accomplishes, and the underlying issues it addresses. And when they get a story wrong about the causes of homelessness, addiction, unemployment, domestic violence, poverty, etc., CALL THEM and SAY SO. Volunteers can help you monitor the media and look for opportunities for correction.

During the 2016 election, a worldwide audience, not just the USA, heard repeated disparaging remarks by the two main Presidential candidates about each other’s philanthropic bodies. Regardless of the truth or not of their attacks, many people have been left with the impression that all philanthropy – all nonprofits, all charities, all NGOs – is corrupt and conducted primarily with the goal of achieving more power and a good public image, rather than a genuine desire to improve people’s lives, improve communities or help the environment. Every nonprofit has to keep that in mind as it looks at the financial information on its web site and annual report, as well as in addressing the aforementioned communication issues.

Henry Berman said, in an article for an article for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, “We must tell our stories and the stories of those who benefit from our philanthropy, lest we allow the unchecked rhetoric of the campaign trail to define who we are, what we accomplish, and how we operate.” I couldn’t agree more.

You will not have your nonprofit status revoked for doing any of the above. Do not let anyone threaten such a thing. The aforementioned is all mission-based work. You aren’t endorsing a politician or a political party, and you are not directing people on how to vote, things that are strictly forbidden for 501 (c) (3) nonprofits.

Also see

“Every nonprofit organization and nonprofit cause or mission that relies on federal regulation, executive orders, or other non-legislative approaches to implementation is at risk of profound change or elimination when Donald Trump takes office in January.” An excellent warning from the Nonprofit Quarterly.

It’s Day One of the Trump Era: Let’s Defend Philanthropy

How Will Trump Presidency Affect Humanitarian Aid & Development?

My consulting services (I can help you with your communications strategies!)

January 6, 2017 update: Forbes has this excellent article on how corporations should have a crisis communications response in case Trump attacks them. It is a step-by-step guide on what that planning should look like. Have a look and think about how your nonprofit or government agency should create a similar guide for your mission-based initiative. If your mission has a focus on LBGTQ people, on helping immigrants, or helping women access abortion services, or is affiliated in any way with the Clinton Foundation, or has any Islamic affiliation, or works to help refugees, or has any other focus “relevant to the president elect’s hobbyhorses,” your organization REALLY needs to read this Forbes article.

February 27, 2017 update: With aid under attack, we need stories of development progress more than ever – from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the UK’s leading independent think tank on international development and humanitarian issues.

Also see:

Survival Strategies for Nonprofits