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Photo by Gonzalo Baeza Hernández

Reports as recent as March of this year show 91% of Americans use cell phones. That means roughly 285 million Americans are mobile subscribers. This should be a target rich environment for micro-donors, right?

Not quite.

Text-to-give programs have proliferated over the past year because of high profile successes. Text based campaigns announced President Barack Obama’s Vice Presidential nominee and raised millions of dollars in Haiti. The barrier to entry isn’t that high and if only 1% of mobile phone users give, that would be nearly 3 million people. The law of large numbers should make success a no brainer. Sadly, it isn’t. The pitfalls are easy to look past with numbers and opportunities this large.

In the wake of Haiti, Mashable looked at 5 real challenges for non-profit texting campaigns.

Not surprising, the two primary problems non-profits face are cost and scale. Text to give programs can range in cost from $2,000 to $15,000. Some are monthly costs, some have hidden fees, and others have costs associated with exclusivity or customization. This isn’t an insurmountable hurdle, but contributions through text-based programs are capped at just $10 on the high end.  To cover the cost of the smallest possible program would require 200 donors before any non-profit recoups their costs.

An effective e-mail program averages $81.33 per individual donor. It would require 10 text to give donors to catch up. A sustaining donor averages $24.25 per month. That’s nearly 3 text to give donors.  Clearly, if you aren’t doing either, start with a well planned and organized e-mail fundraising campaign first. Even if you get fewer donors, the costs are lower and the potential for success is higher.

Of course, why leave money on the table. Costs aren’t a problem to a large scale non-profit. If you are generating a constant stream of donors or are responding to an immediate and urgent problem like Haiti, the cost benefit analysis is simple. Go where the donors are — phones.

If you are a smaller organization, or non-profit, text-to-give programs can have surprising and unexpected costs. Assuming you aren’t the Red Cross responding to a global tragedy, there is an unspoken cost to making a text to give program successful and viral– media.

Mobile Loaves and Fishes (MLF) Austin had a recent success with a text-to-give program. Their “I am Here” campaign raised money to help get Danny off the street and into a home. The campaign received attention from CNN, MSN, Dallas Morning News, Austin American Statesman, Huffington Post, USA Today, GOOD, and the list goes on.  The campaign was an undeniable success. The public relations costs though, aren’t included in the cost of the program. For every “I am Here” campaign, there are countless others that fail to meet the minimum threshold because they lack the communication infrastructure or public relations capacity to promote their campaign.

This isn’t to say these campaigns don’t have value. On the contrary, non-profits that expand their outreach and fundraising toolkits to include more innovative techniques tend to succeed. It is important for every non-profit to excel in e-mail, social media and social networks while also innovating and expanding their infrastructure.

As online media and social networks become more and more of a necessity, it will become harder and harder for non-profits to break through the noise to new members and supporters. It is important to go where people are most comfortable.

Before you sign on to a text-to-give program ask yourself these questions:

1)     What is our goal?

2)     How much can we spend?

3)     Is it a success even if we don’t cover our costs?

4)     What is the media strategy surrounding our campaign?

5)     How will we use our other infrastructure to promote our text to give campaign?

If you can’t answer all of these questions, immediately, make sure to plan so you can execute the campaign successfully. With 91% of Americans connected and using mobile phones, there is a clear and captive audience. Just remember, even though there is a captive audience, it does not make success a guarantee.

By that point it’s often too late to remake the case for the Return on Investment of hiring an external IED, so I thought I’d take a few moments to share with you the true value of hiring an external IED so that when your organization is contemplating this important decision, you are better prepared.

• It’s already budgeted. Engaging an IED generally costs no more than what you already budgeted and anticipated spending on your existing and now departing Executive Director. While you might think you can “save” money by not spending it on an ED salary, remember that the reason you budget and staff that position in the first place is that there is work to get done and that work can’t get saved up for later. By hiring an IED, you spend from the ED salary line-item of your budget—and usually less than you’d budgeted in the first place.

• Your staff get to do their jobs. Your nonprofit’s staff are already focused and working hard on their specific jobs. Asking them to fill in the gaps for an absent Executive Director over a 3-6 month period is strenuous and often untenuous. When other staff try to cover additional responsibilities that they know are organizational priorities, their original set of assigned priorities tends to get short-shrifted and the organization’s services can be compromised. By bringing in an external IED, you allow your staff to focus on the jobs they were hired for and boost their confidence in the board’s leadership and decision-making abilities.

• The board gets to focus on its job. The board’s focus during a transition should be on strategically understanding the organization’s needs and what type of leader would be best suited to fill those needs, and then on finding and hiring that next leader. When a key board member attempts to fill the ED position himself as the interim, the board loses that individual’s dedication and expertise in the search process. By hiring an external IED, all board members can focus on the most important task for the organization: identifying and hiring the next leader.

• You get perspective on the organization and its needs. In addition to providing coverage of crucial tasks, a Greenlights IED conducts an organizational assessment that provides the board with context in its hiring decision and helps the new Executive Director get up to speed. By engaging an independent and objective IED, you can gain clarity about the organization’s needs, prioritize accordingly, and hire a new ED whose skills are the right match for those needs and priorities.

• You get to catch your breath. Knowing that things are covered and a competent leader is in place gives the board and staff time to reflect on their leadership needs without worrying that things aren’t being covered. By bringing in an external IED, the board and staff can deal with the PTSD of one leader’s departure and prepare to welcome the next leader with open arms and minds.

Can you add all that up to a neat figure with a dollar sign? No, but Mastercard acknowledges that for many of the most important things, there isn’t a monetary value. Engaging an external IED is truly a priceless investment and opportunity for a nonprofit in transition.

After evaluating several solutions, Greenlights chose Convio Common Ground and Salesforce CRM since it was web-based and addressed our various challenges.

After implementation, this combination now enables us to manage relationships more effectively than we were able to with our Access + multiple excel files “system.”  We are now able to run our workshops and conferences online – including time, date, location and registrations.  Additionally, our membership program has transformed from a very hands-on time consuming process to a paperless method.

With our new systems in place Greenlights is now able to process donations five times faster than before.   When we were tracking donations in our Access database, we had to spend ten minutes creating a record now it takes less than two minutes for us to enter all the information related to a donation.  As for creating reports, what used to take eight to twelve hours to do before is now done instantaneously with the click of a button.

Daily, we are finding ways to improve our efficiency and create new processes utilizing these robust systems.  We are consistently keeping track of future enhancements we can make and taking the time for training.  Thanks to information from NTEN, I want to make sure that we are implementing effective technology planning into our strategic planning.

In order to stay informed, I recently became a part of the Salesforce Noprofit User Group, I look for resources on the Salesforce Foundation website and sign up for great webinars through Convio trainings. I’m also excited to attend DreamForce in December!  Is anyone else going to be there?

I thought I’d share a few suggestions for making your budgeting process this year one to remember (and maybe even enjoy?):

1.       Budgeting as a form of strategic thinking and planning. Budgeting usually involves spreadsheets, which tend to connote boring, tedious work that is focused in the weeds on lots of details. Which candidly it is. But it is also much more! Budgeting is, in essence, the financial manifestation of your organization’s strategic plan for that particular year. It is just saying, in dollars and cents, what your organization needs and will primarily focus on next year. Your budget can and should be in lock-step alignment with what your nonprofit is planning to accomplish next year. Budgeting is, in this respect, a superior form of strategic thinking, and if you approach it from that perspective, it will be much more enjoyable an experience.

2.       Share the pain (and the pleasure). Many nonprofits see budgeting as something the CFO/finance manager and maybe the ED take full responsibility for. This can be a big mistake. Nonprofits should give, at a minimum, managers of key departments and/or programs responsibility for developing their own revenue and expense needs. Those initial draft departmental budgets may need to be modified when combined into a full organizational budget, but we find that sharing the love, if you will, in the budgeting process not only makes for more accurate estimating but also for enhanced ownership of financial performance across the organization.

3.       Develop multiple scenarios. Sometimes it can be difficult to pin down one particular set of budget assumptions in which you are fully (or at least mostly) confident. You may or may not get that big grant in February, you may need to hire another staff person if you do, etc. So one trick is to develop both a baseline budget (one in which you have a high degree of confidence based on current and recent realities) and at least one additional scenario that makes more bold or ambitious assumptions about funds raised and increased programmatic impact. We’d still recommend that your board formally adopt only one budget against which you track your performance next year, but the second or third scenario can serve as a motivator to your staff and board to achieve even more.

4.       Document your assumptions. Nothing is worse than getting 6 months into your budget year, realizing you are already way over budget on a particular expense line item, and not remembering how you came up with that budget number long ago. A simple but incredibly useful and time-saving practice is to document in as much detail as you can how you arrived at each number in your budget. For example, you might budget $900 for professional development next year (which we hope you would use on Greenlights’ great workshops of course!), and that number might consist of an estimate of 18 people each attending a $50 training event.

5.       Follow a budget development calendar. I know, not a very fun suggestion, but believe me it helps. By simply working backward from when you would like to take a final budget to your board for approval, you should be able to set several date targets by which different aspects of budget development will be completed. For example, you might schedule milestones such as “major budget assumptions developed”, “draft revenue-only budget developed by staff”, “full revenue and expense budget developed and reviewed by the board Finance Committee”, etc.

If you are looking for more resources to support your budgeting needs, including sample budget templates, timelines, etc., please check out the Greenlights Financial Management Toolkit.

Happy Budgeting!

Here are five steps I have found to be essential to any successful planning retreat:

Tall Trees, by Nanagyei on Flickr

1. Location, location, location. This mantra is not just for real estate brokers!  Choosing the right location can be a critical aspect of a good planning retreat.  If at all possible, get out of the office, and ideally get away from other reminders of “the everyday.”  Doing a retreat on a Saturday?  Consider a setting like a board member’s home or a casual and fun setting like the Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve.  If you can’t get out of town, see if a board member has access to a spacious conference room with plenty of room to spread out in and a nice view, or at least lots of windows and natural light.  You’d be surprised how much easier it can be to “think outside the box” when you don’t feel like you’re trapped in one.

2. Thoughtfully arrange the room set-up and logistics. People won’t learn well if they’re uncomfortable or distracted.  It’s that simple.  There are three major aspects of creating the right environment that you want to keep in mind:

a. Configure your space. In general, set your space so that everyone can see each other (no rows facing the front).  Your meeting room design can help attain your goals, so think about whether a semi-circle of chairs with a flip chart in the front, a “hollow square” arrangement of tables, or groups seated around several smaller tables would be most conducive to what you’re trying to accomplish.

b. Agree upon ground rules up front. Another element that helps your attendees feel comfortable participating openly is to feel comfortable with the expectations and boundaries for the group.  Committing to starting and ending on time, listening and avoiding side

conversations, and keeping an open mind will help your participants feel safe to share big ideas and engage fully.  My personal favorite is “turn off distractions” – detach from those cell phone umbilical cords and focus on being fully present, here and now.

c. Bring good grub! Part of being comfortable is having good snacks.  Seriously!  Make sure your participants have some food and drink to nosh on, as this will keep the energy flowing as you plan. Going the extra mile with your spread also signals to attendees that they are important, as is this time they’ve carved out to focus on the organization.

3.  Set clear goals and an agenda to meet them. As I’ve blogged about previously, the best meetings are those with clearly established goals for the session, goals that you and your participants can use to gauge success.  One goal might be, “to get to know one another better as board members,” while another could be, “to agree upon our top 3 issues to address in 2011.”  I like to put the goals right on the agenda handout, so everyone can see what we’re aiming for.

Your agenda, then, should be a set of activities that help you meet your session goals.  If one of my goals is to increase board member cohesion, for example, then I’d want to include at least one activity that allows board members to do some sharing and working together with one another.  If my goal is to develop an understanding of the current challenges and opportunities for the nonprofit, then I would want to include some reporting out on key data that will help participants understand just that.  Make sure to set times for the activities on your agenda (remember, we’re committing to start and end on time!), and distribute it in advance to those who are attending the retreat.  This helps avoid surprises and generates buy-in for the process.

4. Variety is the spice of life. People learn and process information in different ways.  Think about designing your retreat so that auditory (“I need to hear it!”), visual (“I need to see it!”) and kinesthetic (“I need to do it!”) learners can all be engaged in a fun and varied way.  At Greenlights, we like to design interactive retreats that involve pair and small group exercises as well as chances for the entire group to work together.  Our retreats may include PowerPoint presentations, video clips, and handouts (visual), lots of different voices sharing perspectives throughout (auditory), and activities that require hands-on participation and movement around the room (kinesthetic).

5.  Finish strong. Finally, make sure you leave a little bit of time at the end of your retreat agenda to handle next steps and closing business.  For me, few things are as frustrating as leaving a planning retreat without being clear about what happens next.   Get concrete with your next steps!  Who will be responsible for that action item?  By when will he or she address it?  After all their hard work, it is also important to give participants a chance to reflect on the session and what they got out of it, and to “take leave” of one another until the next time.  As a facilitator or retreat organizer, it’s also a golden opportunity to learn what worked and didn’t work for next time!

So there you have it, five tips to keep in mind when organizing your next planning retreat.  What other tools and approaches have you found to be helpful when organizing retreats or planning sessions?

Although many believe that Greenlights’ educational programs make up the bulk of our programs and services, they are actually a small portion of our work when compared to our consulting and resource sharing services.  So, sometimes I have to ask myself… “Why am I doing this?” Why do we continue to try and seek that perfect mix of factors that will be enough to get people to come together and explore a new way, gain a new perspective and meet some new colleagues?

Well, it’s because we believe in it. As a nonprofit with a mission to “build capacity,” we naturally turn to educational events as a primary tool for doing just that.  How can one expect to affect change among people unless people are given new information or perspectives that show them how to change?  If your nonprofit has an education-related mission, you know this to be true.  You know the transformational nature of education and your organization probably offers some kind of educational programming designed to fulfill your mission.  If your nonprofit is about nurturing leadership, you also know how important educational programs are and likely offer them to your constituents.  If your nonprofit is about advocacy, or entrepreneurship, or workforce development or about affecting any kind of behavior change, you probably agree that learning new perspectives is very important.

Regardless of your organization’s mission, I challenge you to make sure that you are placing a priority on your team’s own learning.  Make sure you budget not only money, but also time, for everyone on your team to tap into the power of education.   No matter how you choose to spend that time and money, each of us owes it to ourselves and our clients to prioritize learning.

I know it’s not easy to make room in your budget and your workday for professional development.  And sometimes when you participate in a workshop, conference or other event, you don’t find what you were looking for.  But it’s hard to argue the fact that we all need to commit to more and better professional development if we are truly going to affect the kind of change we seek in the world.

We are currently formulating the next Greenlights strategic plan and exploring new and better ways to serve your professional development needs.  If you have some ideas or thoughts, please let us know!  But most importantly, be sure you think seriously about the resources you are dedicating to building your own capacity to serve.  Whether or not you spend those resources with Greenlights, the power of education to transform our work is too important to ignore.

How can you make time work for you? The idea that time can be “managed” is a myth. No matter what you do, you can’t change the amount of time you have, nor can you change how quickly or slowly time goes by. You can only manage yourself and the choices you make with your time. Here a few tips to help you make the most of your time.

1. Improve Your Time Habits

One of the greatest tips I received from the SOS Leadership Protecting Goals Program is this:

Keep a small sign on your desk that reads, “Is this the best use of my time right now?”

Every time I see my sign, I force myself to give an honest answer. If what I’m working on isn’t the best use of my time, I stop. Procrastination is a habit, one that can be replaced as we make better choices about how we spend our time.

2. Identify Your Time Thieves

How many times each day do you get distracted from the task at hand? Whether it’s a phone call, someone stopping by your office, a coworker sharing endless details about his or her weekend, or receiving dozens (maybe even hundreds) of emails, we often allow time thieves to steal valuable hours from us every day.

For the next week, track your interruptions by writing down what happened and how long it took. Look for patterns among the time thieves. Is the same person always interrupting you? Strategize ways to minimize the impact of the time thieves so that you can remain focused on your goals.

3. Prioritize What Matters Most

Most of us make “to do lists” so that we don’t forget to complete any important tasks. When we tackle our “to do lists” each day, we often do the things that are easiest to do first, rather than starting with the tasks that are the highest priorities.

How many times do you get to the end of your day and realize you didn’t finish the one task you really needed to complete? You see lots of check marks on your “to do list,” but there’s no check mark by the thing that should have been first on your list.

Learning to schedule what matters most first and prioritize your tasks takes practice. We’ve been conditioned to schedule our work commitments, but not our personal ones. Our personal lives often take a back seat to our professional obligations. This is a choice we make, and we can begin choosing to prioritize what matters most TODAY!

Greenlights is hosting a Lunch & Learn about The Time Management Myth on December 1^st from 11:30 am to 1:00 pm. This session will focus on improving your time habits, identifying your time thieves, and making time work for you. We’ll share valuable ideas and insights to help you protect your most valuable asset: your time. I hope to see you there!

“Change is hard because people overestimate the value of what they have—and underestimate the value of what they may gain by giving that up.” —   James Belasco and Ralph Stayer, Flight of the Buffalo (1994)

Typically, an individual, or a small group of people, develops a non-profit organization to provide a service that they believe, is needed in their community.

Some of the initial efforts of the founder(s) will include assessing the growth for the need and seeking funding for operations. Unfortunately, there is little consideration given by the founder(s) about how their roles will change or end as the organization evolves.

As author Stephen Covey lists, in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, one of those habits is to “begin with the end in mind.”

And so it goes that as an organization transitions with new goals and objectives, including recruiting new board members, hiring more staff and implementing new programs that result in positive and productive outcomes, you will also see negative and reactive behavior from the founder(s) who begins to resist these changes. For the Founder(s), change can be perceived as loss of control not only in the operations, but also, in the mission and vision of the organization.

Senior Leadership and the Board of Directors must address the Founder(s) inappropriate behavior promptly and directly. If necessary, based on the Founder’s behavioral history and current position with the organization, it may become necessary to remove the individual(s) from the organization.

Once they are removed, even for a brief time, it is difficult for a Founder to return to an organization and adhere to changes that have taken place since they left including respecting the new leadership both at the management level and on the Board of Directors.

Founders, who do not accept change, will continue to distract employees, management, and the Board with their continual dismay of how things “should be done” rather than be supportive of the organization’s new directions.

By allowing negative Founders to remain with the organization jeopardizes the efficiencies and effectiveness of the organization in carrying out its mission and vision.

My lunch companion replied, “This seems like a great way for me to get my feet wet with Greenlights.”

Her reaction told me that I passed the test, but more importantly, it summarized what I hope 501 Council Members experience by being part of this group. Not only is it a great way to “get your feet wet” with understanding Greenlights’ mission, but the 501 Council is a great way to “get your feet wet” with the entire nonprofit community.

Here’s how it works:

1. Each council member donates $250 towards the 501 Council capacity building fund.
2. Greenlights’ members are invited to submit a 501 Council Grant Application and explain how this grant could help them in the areas of board excellence, strategy & planning or fundraising & resource development.
3. The 501 Council Members review the applications and decide which projects are funded.
4. 501 Council members also have the opportunity to engage in networking and educational events throughout the year.

And with the number of applications more than doubling from the first year, the Council’s decision won’t be an easy one. This week I’ve gotten a sneak peak at the grant applications as I get them ready for the Council’s review. In addition to describing their organization’s core services, each applicant must outline why they are applying for this capacity building grant, what steps they have taken to address this challenge in the past and how this grant will ultimately impact their organization.

In the coming weeks, the 501 Council will be tasked with reading the more than 50 grant applications and narrowing it down to two finalists per category. The finalists will then have the opportunity to meet the Council and make a brief presentation.  In the end, there will be three selected organizations that will get to carry out their capacity building project with the Greenlights consulting team.

Although their decision may be tough, their work is vital. As evidenced by the number of applications, the need for capacity building services is great. Through their part in the 501 Council, each member will make a great impact on the strength and vitality of Central Texas nonprofits and will definitely get their feet wet into Greenlights’ mission and services. If you want to get your feet wet too, let me know. There’s still time to make an impact this year!