Welcome to the Nonprofit Partnership E-News

In this Issue

	July, 2009
	Improving Your Web “Sight”
	Getting Your E-News Opened
	Six Weeks to Go
	And If You’re Putting It In Your Annual Report....
	Looking for More Grant Support? Don’t Miss These Two Events
	What Questions Are You Asking Your Donors?
	Nonprofit Financial Stress Abounds
	Nonprofits: Tell the Right Story to the Right Audience

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Robert Wooler,
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July, 2009

This edition of The Nonprofit Partnership e-news is sponsored by Malin, Bergquist & Co.

Improving Your Web “Sight”

Organizational websites are fast becoming your primary public face. Though they are a frequent cause for complaints, we are not always quick to pick up the hints and address the faults. How can you spot what’s wrong with your site? Here are some common problems – all avoidable and all fixable.

• No way to contact you. Do you have a “Contact Us” feature, and, if so, does it go to a named person (hopefully still with the organization) or an anonymous mailbox that may or may not be checked regularly? List the names of key staff prominently on your site and invite communication with them.

• Your web visitors are customers much more often than donors. Have the website follow this pattern. Information should be what the customers need and want. Donors may have a dedicated set of pages or extranet feature if needed.

• Out-of-date information. Time to get your eye back on the ball, convert to a website with CMS control where you manage the content, or change to a new web content manager.

• Video only and Feature Overload. Don’t count on the reader having special plug-in software for features or flash for the videos. Visitors want information first, pretty pictures and dazzle later, if at all.

• And make it readable. Low contrast, small type doesn’t work and is often a signal to older visitors that this site is not for them.

For more detail and a list of pet peeves regarding navigation and link problems, go to www.tsne.org.

Getting Your E-News Opened

One thing determines whether your e-mailed communication gets opened or not and that’s your subject line. In 50 characters or less, you need to grab the reader’s attention and convince them that there’s something inside worth reading. The purpose of the subject line is not to label the contents – it is to get someone to open the e-mail. Showing something new and different, promising to reveal a secret, and including the term “you” or “your” to personalize the appeal, often does the trick.

Source: Ahern E-News 7.4: A Few Newsletter Secrets You Should Know.

Six Weeks to Go

Summer is flying by at a furious pace and August 28 will be here soon. That is the due date for application for both of the following NPP competitions:

Bracken Award for Excellence in Nonprofit Governance. This annual competition wins the selected organization $5,000. If your Board has been meeting the challenge of the times and you’d like to tell us about it, do so in the Bracken Award application.

Annual Report contest. We believe that well-done annual reports can be proxies for organizational excellence, and we want to recognize and reward organizations both large and small for achieving those standards. Submit your annual reports with a simple cover form. Winners will receive $2,500.

Winners of the Bracken Award and the Annual Report content will be recognized at the full-day Nonprofit Day conference on Wednesday, October 21.  For details, visit the NPP website.

And If You’re Putting It In Your Annual Report....

Put It On Your Website.

GuideStar has released the findings of its 2008 transparency survey, noting that only 43% of its surveyed nonprofits posted their annual reports on their websites, only 13% posted their audited financials on their website, and only 3% posted their IRS determination letters on their websites.

It’s easy enough to do – GuideStar suggests that today’s heightened transparency practices dictate that we place these public documents online for all to see.

Looking for More Grant Support? Don’t Miss These Two Events

“How to Effectively Research Grant Opportunities”
Tuesday, July 21 9:00 am – Noon at Blasco Library, 150 East Front St.
Presented by: Anita Miller and Chris Dubbs, Gannon University and Anne Marie Schlindwein, Erie County Library.

Knowing where to look and what to look for are the most important first steps in effectively securing plausible grant opportunities. Because funding sources have tightened greatly these days, it is vital that thorough due diligence is conducted before an organization decides if it will submit a grant request. Divided into two distinct components, the first half of this session will cover the mechanics of grant research and utilizing the Erie County library resources while the second half will show participants how to effectively build a proposal that matches the potential funders’ desires and expectations.

“Effective Grant Writing”
Tuesday, August 4 – 9:00 am to 3:00 pm at Manufacturer’s Association, 2171 W. 38th St.
With Robert Wooler, Director, The Nonprofit Partnership

Effective grant writing begins well before the writing stage. Join us for this comprehensive look at the full grantwriting process, including selection of the right opportunities, formulating your argument or case statement, articulating an effective logic model, spelling it out in a compelling narrative, making yours stand out from the crowd, and following through for results. This full day session will involve a mix of presentation and self-paced work, so come prepared with a grant idea of your own. Lunch is included in this learning day.

RSVP to (814) 454-8800 or tnp@thenonprofitpartnership.org
 

What Questions Are You Asking Your Donors?

Do you know why your donors give? Do you collect their stories? Do you use their stories in your newsletters? Do you write up donor stories and send them to donors to share with their families?

Think about your own life and motivation as a donor. What questions do you wish organizations would ask you? How about these?
• Why do you give to our organization? What interests you the most and why? What doesn’t interest you and why?
• What are the most crucial results you expect from our organization? Why?
• What do you tell others about thisorganization?
• Why does this cause matter to you?
• How do you want to be remembered?
• If you had a family slogan or mission statement, what would it be?

For more, see Keep Your Donors: The Guide to Better Communications and Stronger Relationships, available at  www.wiley.com
 

Nonprofit Financial Stress Abounds

While the vast majority of nonprofits in the U.S. report being under significant stress from the recession, many still have been able to increase the services they provide to vulnerable people, a new study says.
Eighty percent of nonprofits surveyed are under fiscal stress, with four in 10 of those reporting their stress as severe or very severe, says the report from the Johns Hopkins Listening Post project.
The situation is worse for theaters and orchestras, three-quarters of which report high levels of stress.
And more than half of the 363 organizations surveyed say their revenues have fallen, with many also experiencing increasing costs, declining endowments and delays in government payments.

At the same time, however, almost three in four nonprofits say they have been able to serve the same number of people or more.
In some sectors, those numbers reach even higher, with 96 percent of disability groups serving the same number of people or more, and 92 percent of groups focusing on the economically disadvantaged reporting steady or increasing numbers of clients served.
"Resilience in the face of crunching challenges inspires pride in the sector, but also a deep concern about future capacities of nonprofit organizations to fulfill their missions," Peter Goldberg, chair of the steering committee of the Listening Post project, says in a statement.
More than half of nonprofits report donations from individuals are down, while 44 percent say they're getting less from corporations and 42 percent say foundation grants are down.
More than a third of nonprofits say government payments are down, and four in 10 say those payments have been delayed.
 

If it's time to go to Plan B at your organization, here are a few tips for your contingency options:

• Set priorities.  Identify programs that are central to your mission and contribute to your bottom line.  Focus there.
• Forecast your financial future.  Best case, middle, and worst case.  Make sure that worst is really worst.  The outlook for 2010 is not bright.
• Identify "Trip Wires".  Specify actions you will take if revenue drops and specify who will take those actions.

For more information, go to www.philanthropyjournal.org and www.philanthropy.com.

Nonprofits: Tell the Right Story to the Right Audience

Just like your nonprofit has different programs and services, it has different audiences it is trying to reach. Communication is much more effective when you are speaking directly to a specific audience.

Find your audiences. Break down who you are trying to connect with. Each of them will connect with your organization in a different way. But keep it consistent - use similar language and be consistent with your organization's brand. Remember, some audiences need more information, while others need less. The same message does not work with multiple audiences. This does not mean you have to develop 20 different versions of a brochure. Rather, you need to identify who your core audiences are (usually two to four categories), select the best way to reach them and determine what they need to know to become engaged.

Pick your battles. You can't win everyone over. Trying to get all audiences to listen and care is exhausting and impossible. Many nonprofits waste a lot of time and resources trying to be the most popular kid in the class. Do not fall into this wasteful pattern. You want to get your story out there, but you need to let go of the audiences that are not going to listen, and focus on the ones who are. Communicate to those who are already vested in your cause. Identify the audiences that are the most likely to listen and care. Then, build on that.

Don't just preach to the choir. Communicating with only those people and organizations who are already cheering for you does not help grow your organization. One of the most common mistakes nonprofits make is continuing to ask the same people for support and money over and over. Your donors and volunteers need you to grow your support base. Reaching out and connecting with new audiences is crucial.

Source: www.shoestringcreativegroup.com