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Measuring Impact

October 21, 2010 by brightplus3 Leave a Comment

Measuring the results of a nonprofit’s campaign can be really important to measuring and maximizing your impact, as Ted wrote a bit about yesterday (“Getting to Stories With Metrics”).  It can also be a tricky business.  Aside from needing to overcome what is often pervasive resistance to the idea, and allocating the resources to do a good job, you also have to figure out what to assess and how to do it.

The easy way to pretend to measure the impact of a training program, for example, would be to report on the number of people who participate (yea, I’m picking on Ted a little for using this as an example in his post yesterday).  Although it might be useful for understanding the scope and reach of your program, alone it doesn’t tell you anything about how good the trainings are or how much impact the trainees themselves will subsequently have on your issues.

One national nonprofit we know goes to the trouble of assessing people before they begin the training and again three months later.  The surveys are subtle and sophisticated – they don’t rely on simple self-reporting but probe in more oblique ways – and the result is a numeric rating for each individual indicating their level of activity and leadership.  Their program evaluation, then, is based on the extent to which their trainees move up the scale as a result of the program.  Perfect?  Nope.  Simple?  Not really, since it takes some real effort to conduct each assessment, and tracking folks down three months after the training can be time-consuming.  Worthwhile?  It sure seems to be, because it allows them to track the real impact of their program and to better finesse both the program itself and their marketing.

Filed Under: Kick Ass Blog, Kicking Ass, Measuring Impact

Getting to Stories with Metrics

October 20, 2010 by Ted Fickes 1 Comment

Jeff Brooks is the man behind a great blog called Future Fundraising Now. In a recent post he discussed what performance metrics donors are looking for from the nonprofits they support.

Brooks’ thesis is that donors give primarily for emotional reasons and while metrics aren’t irrelevant donors aren’t seeking to connect with a cause or organization on data-driven, analytical levels. Stories about the people involved in and benefiting from the organization’s work (work funded by the donor) fuel the emotion that engages people to give, volunteer, fan organizations on Facebook and spread the word.

Yet Brooks doesn’t dismiss metrics one bit. With respect to stories he writes of good data gathering:

“You’ll get better stories. A system of gathering metrics will put you in contact of what donors really want: stories. And that leads to better fundraising.”

Metrics can tell a story about stories. Donors want stories.

But how do we learn about our storytelling from metrics? There is a ton of data out there. Too much. What can help guide us, inspire us to write better stories for our donors and others in our audience?

We can look at feedback metrics to gauge interest in our work. Some of these measurements also come with commentary that can give insight into the quality of the work. These metrics might be, for example:

  • pageviews of a blog post or other web page,
  • comments on a blog post, and
  • retweets, facebook shares and other social media discussion

If you don’t think that your content is generating the sort of reader numbers or discussion that you expect it could be a sign that you aren’t telling good stories and engaging people in your work through the content. Growing pageviews and comments in a certain type of content or subject area could indicate that those stories are interesting your constituents and may be good topics for further stories and fundraising efforts.

What about programmatic metrics? We can look at data measuring the type, quality or quantity of programs the organization provides to flesh out stories about that work. Here it is going to depend on your work but tying programmatic metrics to the people (and places) you have helped will strengthen stories.

  • How many people have been trained at job training sessions? How many participants are now in the workforce? What is a story of one or more participants about their experience and way life has improved?
  • How many meals were put on a table by your food bank? How many people have access to more local food with better nutritional value through your inner city slow food project? What are some of the stories from participants about how this has made them more independent or better able to feed their family?
  • How many people are receiving calls and emails encouraging them to attend a county hearing on natural gas drilling in the area? How many showed up? How many spoke? How many are now engaged in ongoing efforts to improve energy production in the area?

We work in a time when it is literally possible (almost) to drown in data that measures our performance. Your supporters don’t want to see it all. They will love you because you do great work that changes lives. Focus (for your donors) on telling good stories informed by solid metrics. If you want data for your accountant that may be something altogether different.

Filed Under: Kick Ass Blog, Kicking Ass, Measuring Impact, Storytelling Tagged With: data, metrics, story

Just What Does Your Organization Do?

October 18, 2010 by brightplus3 Leave a Comment

Mission statements clearly have internal organizational value; when they are well written they provide the staff, volunteers, and the board with a very clear organizational purpose.  They help make sure everyone is aiming in the same direction, and they help you figure out what to include just as much as they help you exclude.  They may even have external value, helping folks outside your organization figure out just what you do.

But it’s a separate question altogether whether to include your mission statement on your home page.  Not only are mission statements often vague, they are also often boring, and the last thing you want on your home page is uninspired prose that dulls potential donors or partners into lethargy or, worse, frightens them away.

It seems to me that what matters is whether your visitors can quickly figure out what you are about.  If posting your mission statement on your home page gets you there – if it’s tight and clear and inspired – then it might be a good option.  But you might find better ways to convey your mission without actually spelling it out.  From the rotating images in the center of the page, most of which are about protecting wilderness, to the “Help us protect wilderness” box below that, and the Take Action box about passing four million acres of wilderness just to the right, The Wilderness Society’s home page does an awfully good job of conveying a very simple, clear mission without bothering to rely on an actual mission statement.

But the home page for our friends at the San Juan Citizens Alliance is less clear.  The navigation bar is all environmental except, well, for the ones that aren’t, and the content across the home page spans a lot of terrain: air quality, fiscal policy in the state constitution, the Green Business Roundtable.  The point isn’t about how they’ve selected the programs on their agenda, but about how effective the home page is at quickly communicating a clear story about what the San Juan Citizens Alliance is and what they do.  To be fair, it may be that SJCA’s web site is well-tuned to the audiences they are targeting with their web site (and SJCA has also been one of the best-run nonprofits in Colorado for years), but the comparison draws attention to the value of clearly communicating your organization’s raison d’etre and, even more, to the point that clearly communicating your mission may not involve actually spelling out your mission but evoking and conveying it through a combination, as my KickAssNonprofits.org colleague Ted Fickes says, of design, content, and interaction.

Filed Under: Kick Ass Blog, Kicking Ass, Mission

Nonprofit Jedi Training

October 18, 2010 by Ted Fickes Leave a Comment

I recently came across a post by Robert Richman called My Zappos Jedi Training. Robert works with ZapposInsights and does a lot of thinking and work around organizational culture.

But we’re not just talking about “organizational culture” in the standard, canned human resources department orientation way but rather organizational culture that is broad and deep: a culture in which everyone involved lives a shared mission inside and outside the organization.

When I mention Zappos you probably get a sense of where this is headed. As you may know, Zappos is regarded as a leader in changing the way organizational culture works from the ground up. Zappos is a company built around great customer service in which customers and employees are all treated well. Zappos’ CEO, Tony Hsieh, has gone so far as to write a book called Delivering Happiness. We’ll get back to just what Zappos does later, perhaps, or you can read Richman’s post.

So Richman writes a post about Zappos’ organizational culture and the training involved. Zappos is a for-profit company known for mission-driven culture. Yes. For-profit and mission-driven.

While I think we hear a lot about nonprofit organizations being mission-driven I don’t have experience being in/around or hearing about nonprofits that come anywhere close to a mission-driven culture of kindness that seems to be what Zappos believes is at the core of its success at (of all things) selling shoes (and lots of other clothing these days).

It can be hard to get a job anywhere today but it has always been exceptionally tough to get one at Zappos. And once you do they will offer you a bonus to quit (not to stay but to quit). They want people that not just want to be there but love it.

Every new Zappos employee goes through the same training process. It is a process that isn’t about corporate HR policies and benefits but is more akin to a leadership retreat. The goal is to instill a shared and honest confidence around the way in which staff treat one another and their clients or customers.

Have you seen something similar in a nonprofit? What if everyone that came into an organization was immersed in the same week-long high-touch immersion that focused on creating a common language for interacting with people, members, donors, subscribers as well as the ‘core priniciples’ of the organization.

What if we focused on the passion of the mission and conveying the depth and quality of that passion in every interaction our staff has with people inside, outside, online, in person, during work and after hours?

If an organization’s mission statement talks about inspiration then inspiration shouldn’t be just a word in a mission statement. It needs to be a way of living that is reflected in the way people talk, think, write, interact. No matter your work or mission, the people in and around the organization are its ambassadors. Word of mouth starts there. Staff need to be clear, focused and wildly passionate if they hope to see others carrying the message to friends, family and others.

We have some ideas about creating and fostering meaningful organizational culture in nonprofits to share later. I’d love to hear your comments and examples of ways in which organizations are creating deep, strong culture.

Filed Under: Kick Ass Blog, Kicking Ass, Mission

Kicking Ass

October 17, 2010 by brightplus3 Leave a Comment

If you are the executive director of a noprofit organization, in our view your job is really pretty simple: empower and enable your employees and volunteers to kick ass.  Your job is to deliver to your team the resources they need and to eliminate the friction that gets in their way.  You are part coach (push and inspire), part quartermaster (make sure they have what they need), and part supervisor (hold them accountable).  And we believe that many executive directors, and the nonprofits they serve, while many do amazing and amazingly important work, can do more and better than they do now.

We take our inspiration partly from Jim Collins’ research on what makes organizations – regardless of the sector – great. We are motivated by bloggers and authors like Beth Kanter and Allison Fine, who are helping to light a path for nonprofits through the muddle and excitement that is social networking.  We get very jazzed about the enthusiasm and insight that technology evangelists and curators like Robert Scoble are bringing to mission of finding the coolest people in the world of emerging technology doing the coolest things.  And – having racked up a few decades of nonprofit work between us – we are fueled by the nonprofit organizations themselves and the characteristically impassioned commitment to solving problems and making good things happen.

Filed Under: Kick Ass Blog, Kicking Ass

Online Fundrasing Report: Sorting the Tea Leaves

March 24, 2009 by Ted Fickes 1 Comment

Chances are, if you have an email account (and if you don’t it’s hard to imagine you’re reading this) then you have received, oh, at least a couple messages from non-profits today that involve a donation request. Maybe you opened one. Perhaps, if it is a group or cause that touches your heart or just happens to have a crazy interesting pitch, you gave.

A recent New York Times article discussed a report from Target Analytics (a division of Blackbaud) that looks at online fundraising results over time in several large non-profit organizations. The report is worth a look for non-profit leaders and fundraisers.

The highlight of the report seems to be advertised as this: online donors might give more the first time around but aren’t so loyal (and seem to give via direct mail later on).

For folks that have thought about the generational differences between online and offline donors – or knows that organizations are busy sending mail to online donors but don’t know how to move mail donors online – the report might not be surprising.

But what is there that sheds light on some of the important strategic decisions that need to be made?

[Read more…] about Online Fundrasing Report: Sorting the Tea Leaves

Filed Under: Fundraising, Online Fundraising Tagged With: Fundraising

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