Third Sector Connector Blog

All too often, those of us working with community-based organizations forget that our personal “It’s-a-no-brainer-that-people-should-fund-and-support-this-organization” belief is actually a “what-inspires-others-to-give-their-time-talent-or-treasure-to-this-organization-and-how-are-we-passing-that-on?” question instead. If those of us within the organization aren’t feeling inspired and using words that inspire others, then it’s likely that all of our elevator pitches, major donor visits, grant applications, and marketing materials are uninspired, too, and probably aren’t delivering the results we want.

To “show the love” you need to “feel the love!”

I was recently talking with a Board member from a small local human services organization who felt like they weren’t getting the traction that they needed with key stakeholders, including donors, foundations, and even with volunteers. As we talked a little more, she shared their current vision and mission statements:

Our vision is to be the link between service providers, faith-based organizations and community partners to provide volunteers to care for older adults, family caregivers and adults with disabilities.

Our mission is to provide volunteer services to help older adults, family caregivers, and adults with disabilities maintain independence, dignity and quality of life.

I have to admit, I wasn’t inspired even though I’m a passionate advocate for the kind of work they do.

I took a few moments to look at their materials, and started wondering, “Where’s the joy? Where’s the inspiration? Where’s the language that will connect them with their community and inspire people to volunteer, contribute, or support them?” I couldn’t find it, yet from my interactions with this board member and from the testimonials about their services on their website, I know that they are often a true lifeline for the people and families they serve. I thought, “These folks need an ‘Inspiration Audit!’”

What’s an Inspiration Audit?

Don’t worry, this isn’t a patented, copyrighted or trademarked process and you don’t have to hire a consultant to do it. In fact, the audit itself takes only a few minutes of your time, and here’s how it works. At your next staff and board meetings, put a copy of your vision and mission statement in front of folks, alongside a couple of samples of your marketing or fundraising materials. Then, set aside a few moments to ask and begin to answer the following questions:

1. How can our vision be more inspiring? How can we reflect a better world if we reach our vision?
2. How does our mission communicate the real difference that we are making every day in the lives of the people we serve?
3. How does our elevator pitch, our website, and all of our marketing materials convey our passion for our vision and mission?

Sometimes the answer is simple, and sometimes it leads you to more deeply re-visit these areas. Either way, it’s likely that you’ll find that even just asking these questions will re-inspire and re-energize your board and staff teams.

Yikes! We Don’t Have Time for That!

You may be saying to yourself, “We have more urgent or important issues to focus on right now, we’ll do that later.” You’re right if you’ve got a lively vision and mission and everyone is already spirited, energetic, and engaged. Otherwise, use this as a quick, free, opportunity to re-inspire your board and staff teams.

Remember that boring vision and mission I mentioned earlier? Here’s what it could look like after an Inspiration Audit:

Our vision is a community where all people, including older adults and people with disabilities, live full and happy lives…

… a community where people with disabilities have the supports they need to be safe and healthy at home.
…a community where seniors have the opportunity to share their wisdom with younger generations, and be embraced and surrounded by loving family as the end of life grows near.

We aim to make this vision a reality by building and training a growing corps of compassionate and caring volunteers to provide older adults, adults with disabilities, and their families with supportive services, including friendly visitors, respite care, light housekeeping, and transportation services. Won’t you come join us?

Don’t you already feel more connected to this organization than you did before? That’s what a little dose of inspiration can do.

I don’t have the answer, although David E. K. Hunter thinks he does. In the past few days, I’ve had several colleagues send me the link to his recently published article, with “MUST READ” and multiple exclamation points in the subject line. After reading the article, I couldn’t figure out if my colleagues were telling my that it was a “must read” because they thought it was brilliant, or if it was because they knew that it would raise my blood pressure.

Earlier this month, I had already responded to a Wings for Kids blog posting by Paula Schwed about Dr. Hunter’s recent visit to Charleston, South Carolina (home of our Pluff Mud Connect service) where he advised “influential leaders” about “halting ’sentimental giving’ to ineffective nonprofits and diverting investments to high-performing nonprofits instead.” My response was in part, “Donors can fund high-performing organizations and at the same time work to build the capacity of those who just aren’t ‘there’ yet” by providing them “with coaching, training and capacity building instead of pulling out completely.”

In this new article, published in the October issue of the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal, Dr. Hunter argues among other things that, “Social investing, if widely adopted, will help channel funding streams that are directed by measurable performance rather than feel-good stories, habits of giving and rank sentimentality.” He says this on the heels of putting forth three “unpleasant truths,” including that “there is virtually no credible evidence that most nonprofit organizations actually produce any social value.”

Although I had to struggle through the early assertions and the one-sided examples at the article’s outset, I was grateful to see that Dr. Hunter acknowledged that there might be times where social investors might choose to channel resources toward nonprofits that “need additional time and resources” to build their capacity to create sustainable value. I also completely agree with Dr. Hunter’s focus on creating social value through measurable outcomes, not just by counting the numbers of people served (outputs). I was fortunate enough to be involved in the United Way of America’s pilot testing of agency training on outcomes measurement in 1996, and have seen the amazing results that can come from creating real and measurable changes in knowledge, attitudes, behaviors, skills and ultimately condition (for instance, from being unemployed to being employed) of service recipients. That’s why I simply don’t agree that the nonprofit sector is as broken as he asserts. For every example of ineffective programs, there are others that can demonstrate real impact.

Nonprofit Local Co-Founder, Mark Deaton also took issue with several of Dr. Hunter’s assertions and conclusions, and here’s what Mark wrote in a letter to the editors at the Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal sent earlier today:

Regarding David Hunter’s “End of Charity: How to Fix the Nonprofit Sector Through Effective Social Investing,” published in the October issue of Philadelphia Social Innovations Journal, I have a different perspective that I am writing to share with your readers. I’ll start with common ground. Dr. Hunter advocates for “clear thinking about what one is doing, why one is doing it and what one really is accomplishing” when deciding how to allocate resources in the nonprofit sector. He is also obviously a strong advocate for an outcome-focused approach, as am I. With those important agreements in mind, I differ with several of Dr. Hunter’s assertions, as well as some of his conclusions, two of which are the topic of this letter.

Quoting Dr. Hunter’s first “unpleasant truth,” he says that “there is virtually no credible evidence that most nonprofit organizations actually produce any social value.” There are three problems with this statement. First, lack of evidence does not necessarily mean lack of value. (I’ll set aside for the moment that I disagree with the premise from the outset, and grant that it might be true that credible evidence is lacking. However, by itself, that supposed lack says nothing about the level of social value being produced or not being produced. All it does is tell us that the author believes there is a lack of evidence. If Dr. Hunter has actual evidence that “most nonprofit organizations actually produce [no] social value,” I would be quite interested in seeing it).Second, the definition of social value is subjective, and the reader learns later that Dr. Hunter’s definition of social value heavily discounts activities such as feeding the homeless, providing shelter for children who don’t have it, and helping uneducated felons get educated. While the complexities of societal problems, such as homelessness, poverty, and poor education, require more than a meal, a roof, and a text book, to say that “very limited social value” is provided by these activities is not an “unpleasant truth,” it is an opinion; and one that I disagree with. Positing an opinion as fact is misleading, and it would have been (in my opinion) better if Dr. Hunter had started with “Unpleasant Opinion number 1.” While this approach to supporting the article’s conclusions runs throughout, I will avoid the temptation to focus on it further and move on.

The second area of disagreement is more important because it gets to the heart of what the Community Benefit Sector is all about – meeting public needs. While I appreciate the distinction Dr. Hunter makes between “low-risk” and “high-risk” social investing, and while I agree that nonprofit organizations should be held accountable for demonstrating positive societal impacts, he suggests that funding poorly performing nonprofits is a “high-risk” activity, without fully taking into consideration the area of need that the poorly performing nonprofit is targeting. For example, if a community has three well-funded, well-run nonprofits focused on reducing teen pregnancy and only one underfunded, poorly-run nonprofit focused on reducing drug addiction in an area with a disproportionate drug problem, which choice represents the greater risk? Investing in one of the well-run teen pregnancy organizations might arguably represent the larger risk, when considering how best to allocate one’s social investments. I applaud Dr. Hunter’s focus on steering social investing towards high-performing organizations, but not at the expense of meeting public needs. The need comes first, and we must all be careful not to let the perfect get in the way of the good.

Our mission at Third Sector Connector is helping nonprofits thrive, regardless of where they find themselves on any given performance measure. We believe that there is creativity to be harvested by sharing ideas across the sector, and that innovation can come both from market forces and from dialogue and change within the sector itself. What do you think?

–LD

(photo credit: Flickr:CarbonNYC)

New friends,

Since our site went live just a few short weeks ago, we’ve had an incredible response. Without much promotion and without even an official launch, we’ve already had more than 2,500 visits to our site from more than 50 countries in every corner of the globe (can a globe have corners?).

Many of you have been generous with both praise and feedback, and we’re already starting to incorporate your suggestions into changes that will make the site even better before we officially launch. That’s what this “beta” phase for the site is all about – making it a resource that you use and find helpful.

Our first major overhaul is in our forums. We realized that they were way too detailed and overwhelming, and we’ve simplified them, with just seven main forums for now. Although we encourage transparency, we’ve also added the ability for registered members to post anonymously by just checking a box before you post. This may be especially useful as a comfortable way to share specific concerns or worries about your organization. The new forums are:

• The Welcome Mat – The first stop for basics about how to use the forums and share your suggestions.
• Best Practices Pavilion – What’s working? Here’s a place to find and share effective practices, policies, and procedures. No need to re-invent the wheel if you can modify it, instead!
• Connection Café – If you’re looking to connect with someone from another community benefit organization (nonprofit or NGO), here’s the place to do it.
• Emergency Room – Are you struggling or in crisis? You can come here to ask for ideas and support.
• Fundraising Corner – This forum is a place to swap ideas about the best way to sustain and build your organization’s financial assets.
• Leadership Roundtable – Got governance or leadership issues? Come share them with your colleagues, and get valuable advice in return.
• Marketing Meetup - Come here for exchanges on all things marketing-related, including web 2.0 and social media.

We’ll continue to listen to everything you share, and incorporate your suggestions and feedback. Just stop by The Welcome Mat in the forums and leave us your feedback or contact us using our suggestion form on the site.

Thanks so much for your warm welcome and input so far!

–Laura

p.s. Now that we’ve got so much interest from outside the U.S., we realize our name may not be “global” enough. We’re working on that…stay tuned!