Leadership

Creating better business value…. Creating better nonprofit value….

Imagine if lots of nonprofits followed what California Green Academy (CalGreen) does to operate its business. (And gosh, just imagine if for-profits behaved this way??!!! WOW!!!!)

I’ll turn back to the nonprofit sector. And the wonderful nonprofits fighting so hard for justice and good ROI and and and….

Hey you nonprofits….Take a look at the Triple Bottom Line... The triple bottom line… an accounting framework with 3 parts: social, environmental (ecological), and financial. And systems thinking. YES! Systems thinking. Read all about it in my book Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last, 3rd edition. (There’s so much more to fundraising than just the asking part…than just the fundraising part…There’s the systems thinking part!!!

Try the CalGreen approach — Using various existing global documents to develop nonprofit corporate policies. How about these:

• 10 Principles of the UN Global Compact… for all nonprofits as well as for-profits
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• UN’s Women’s Empowerment Principles
• UN’s System-wide Strategy on Gender Parity

Why bother to write our own policies for our nonprofits? Our nonprofits can adopt these UN policies – or adopt with some edits. Hey nonprofits worldwide… Let’s be leaders. We can be leaders for the for-profit sector, too.

Hey. Here’s a question: Has your country (or mine) agreed to these – and ratified them by your country’s (or my country’s) legislature/congress/appropriate body?

Hmmm…….

From dear Tim Burchill….

“The sole meaning of life is to serve humanity.” Leo Tolstoy

“To give real service, you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity.” Donald A. Adams, 15th president of Rotary International

“A leader is best when people barely know he exists. Not so good when people obey and acclaim him. Worse when they despite him. But…of a good leader…who talks little when his work is done…his aim is fufilled. They will say: ‘We did it ourselves.'” Lao-Tse

And the email ended with “Happy New Year!”

Thank you dearest, Tim.

I’ve been collecting quotes since forever. And I often share them in my blogs and books and handouts and…

So I was going through old files and notes the other day. And came across an email to me, dated 12-28-2006. From my dear friend and colleague Tim Burchill. I know that many of you knew Tim.

That day, Tim sent me an email with leadership quotes. In the text of the email, he says “Beliefs about Ethical and Effective Leadership.”

And here is what Tim shared:

• “Leadership is one of the things you cannot delegate. You either exercise it or abdicate it.” Robert Goizueta, former CEO, Coca Cola
• “When you become a leader, you lose the right to think about yourself.” Reverend Gerald Brooks, Tony Cooke Ministries.
• “People don’t at first follow worthy causes. They follow worthy leaders who promote worthwhile causes.” John C. Maxwell, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Thank you, dear Tim.

LEARNING.   Learning more.   Learning new.   Developing yourself!!!   LIFELONG LEARNER.

Check out the Masters Program in Philanthropy and Development at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota.

See what the students say in this video.

Check out what our graduates are doing… For example:

• Aaron Sanderson (SMUMN Cohort 20) has been recognized by the Association for Healthcare Philanthropy (AHP) as one of the Forty Under 40.
• Cathy Mann (SMUMN Cohort 23) has been recognized as AFP Greater Toronto’s 2018 Outstanding Fundraising Professional.

The SMIT  (Single Most Important Thing)… THE RESIDENCY... On campus for 1 week together. Intensity of learning together, face-to-face. Sharing. Arguing. Laughing. Learning. (And you’ll want to build that back home in your office!)

Of course, there are great courses. I’m sharing just the tip of the iceberg in these bullets.

• Foundations of fundraising – and major and capital gift fundraising.
• Governance. Because the best fundraisers are highly knowledgeable about boards and board members and how to involve them and keep them in the right stuff and out of the other stuff!
• Strategic planning. Because without good institutional planning, how can your organization raise charitable gifts?
• Program assessment and evaluation. The criteria and process for creating programs with measurable outcomes. Without this, how can you prove that your nonprofit actually makes a difference?
• And how about legal and ethical issues? Some pretty weird stories there, I’ll bet!

Imagine showing this video every single year …. for your staff and for your board. Exploring questions. Then talking about the implications and applications for you as individuals, those you serve, and and and …

Better yet, imagine actually doing this live. And sure, staff and board members together.

And how about engaging donors in this? Hmmmm……

Learn about why and how and good and bad and and and on the Internet.

And check out the workshop at 2018 AFP Congress, too.

THE PHILANTHROPY INITIATIVE AT THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY 

Thanks Jeff Broberg, cohort 17, MA in Philanthropy and Development at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota for sharing this!!!

“The Philanthropy initiative is a long-term project to collect, research, document, and display materials relating to the history and impact of American philanthropy, broadly-defined. An annual program, The Power of Giving: Philanthropy’s Impact on American Life, and changing exhibition, Giving in America, explore the collaborative power of giving in all forms and at all levels across a wide spectrum of issues and movements.”

HOW GREAT… Philanthrop is part of American history. Remember the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville — and his article “Democracy in America.” In this article, de Tocqueville wrote about civil and political society and the individual.

….Videos. Exhibits. Info about who gives and why and how and what we give. Giving and the arts, environment. Sample pledge letters and more.

Thank you thank you, Jeff!!!!

WOW. I’m listening to Ben Phillips speak at the UN.

The concluding panel of the UN Conference on Overcoming Inequalities, November 2018.

Only 9 minutes long. Listen. Please listen. Reflect. Please please reflect.

We have so much work to do and we’re just not yet doing it well enough.

New research PROVES how massively important saying thank-you really is!!

Yes, I know that you know that saying thanks is important. Your mom told you so, right? Or maybe your grandma? At least someone told you so.

But now we have actual academic research carried out by the amazing team at the Philanthropy  Centre and a team of philanthropic psychologists at Plymouth University, U.K. (Make sure you subscribe to the Philanthropy Centre!!!!!)

Hey, people out there. This is real and valuable and applicable to any organization no matter the size. Imagine what the findings will do for your fundraising!

• The summary: Even subtle changes to communications have the ability to profoundly influence how good donors feel as a result of reading that communication. AND! There’s evidence that the recommended practices have the potential to increase average donation amount, response rate, and how good the donor feels and….
• A few specifics: How/when to use an email thanks. Thanking donors who give most frequently. And……………….Download the research! Apply it!

Report authors: Professor Jen Shang. Professor Adrian Sargeant. Kathryn Carpenter. Harriet Day.

Sponsors…YES!!! Donors… The marvelously wonderful organizations that made this possible. In alpha order: Bloomerang Inc,  Institute for Conversational Fundraising, and Pursuant Inc.

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So now I’m going to play around with thank yous.

Hello research sponsors Bloomerang, Institute for Conversational Fundraising, and Pursuant. WOW! OH MY GOSH!! So absolutely marvelously wonderfully important for the nonprofit sector and world of philanthropy…

Without your leadership support, Pursuant, my clients wouldn’t know how massively important thank you is. Sure my clients know it’s important. But there’s so much else to do and…. So thank you Pursuant for your ongoing support of the Philanthropy Centre’s research.

Gracias, Kent. We haven’t talked or seen each other in ages. How wonderful to see your support of critical research for fundraising. We’ve got a long way to go to strengthen fundraising – and your support helps us all move forward. Thank you so much.

Hey Bloomie peeps… You know I love you. And again, you’re sponsoring critical research about donor retention. Thank you et merci!! With donors like you, we can help nonprofits around the world. Thank you again.

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And here’s just a bit of what our sponsors – our exceptional donors – say about the research findings. Their testimony reminds us of what great research can do.

“If charities were as studious and deliberate about thanking as they are about asking for philanthropic support what a difference it would make!” Kent Stroman, Principal and Founder, Institute for Conversational Fundraising™

“…The time and effort used for proper acknowledgements is easily justified based upon the results of this study where significant increases in funding were realized!” So says Jay Love, Chief Relationship Officer and Co-founder of Bloomerang. 

“…Cultivation and acknowledgement is vital to building strong, long lasting and authentic relationships with donors.” Rebecca Gregory Segovia, Executive Vice President, Pursuant 

[This is a long blog. More like an article. But there are good resources and cool ideas and – as usual – my various musings…. insightful, I hope. So I hope you’ll stick with it – or print it for future reading.]

I recently learned about the California Green Academy. I’d previously met the Founder/Chief Sustainability Officer, Greg Justice, through a masters program at the University of San Francisco.

So off I went to the internet to learn about CalGreen. Lots of stuff pushed my buttons! Here goes…

• Mission: Promoting systems thinking and the Triple Bottom Line in business, energy, and transport.
• Vision: Becoming a premier educational source for sustainability and systems thinking.

I fell in love with systems thinking back in the 1990s. I wrote about systems thinking in the first edition of my first book, Strategic Fund Development: Building Profitable Relationships That Last. And systems thinking is alive and well in each subsequent edition of this book, now up to the 3^rdedition.

I’ve never fallen out of this love. Systems thinking is a permanent love. And that an organization actually includes systems thinking in its mission and vision? Wow!!

A few years ago I developed an entire workshop on nonprofit sustainability. My sustainability was definitely NOT just financial. Visit my Free Download Library for my handout.

How about that triple bottom line? Adding  social and environmental values to good old economic measures. Social values like fundamental rights, respect for human dignity, democracy, respect, honesty, and…

By the way, when I think “business,” I think for-profit mostly. Or rather, I think that the world thinks for-profit.

For me, life focuses on 3 sectors: Nonprofit sector. For-profit sector. Government. Businesses are for-profit and nonprofit. (Of course, we can also think of the government as business. But I don’t so much.)

I wish the world better understood the nonprofit sector – called the social sectors by Jim Collins in his marvelous monograph Good to Great and the Social Sectors; and, read about civil society in Mike Edwards’ book of the same title. By the way, here’s a must-read book for anyone who works in the nonprofit sector, also by Mike – Small Change: Why Business Won’t Change the World.

I’m pleased to say that the CaliforniaGreenAcademy just added Nonprofit Studies to its Programs. Hey, CalGreen, consider the book suggestions above for your library in Nonprofit Studies – and for those for-profit businesses, too.

More Simone buttons pushed by CalGreen peeps….

Anyone who knows me or reads anything of mine or hears me speak knows how important diversity-equity-social justice are to me. I contacted Greg about the dominance of men within the organization. Greg explained the impressive detailed efforts taken to-date in this 1-year old organization. He talked about the board member search firm CalGreen has just retained.

Now check out these blogs – and the impressive actions described.

• CalGreen’s Board permanently implements the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in governance.
• CalGreen’s Board permanently implements the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals in governance.

When I’m talking governance, I always talk about board composition and diversity and equity and… But I’m now thinking about following the lead of CalGreen and talking about adopting these UN policies.

Okay. That’s it. Farewell for now, Simone

P.S. I’m increasingly pissed about energy and transport and the not- so-good job we do in the US about these 2 items.

P.P.S. I think “chief sustainability officer” is a really good name for the chief executive officer. Of course, we’ve encountered so many CEOs who did/do a damn awfully terrible job of making sure their corporations are sustainable. Remember these corporations: Lehmann Brothers, Enron, Wells Fargo Bank…And on and on still today and over and over…

Okay. This is really farewell!

A NEW masterclass for really greedy nonprofits … March 4-6, 2019.

New research shows how to double donations. How cool is that?

And guess who your instructors are? Adrian Sargeant and Tom Ahern.

Where? Someplace improbable, like Lord of the Rings or The Game of Thrones improbable (hint: Scotland, on scenic and legendary Loch Ness; in a venue with a Michelin-rated chef; includes a single-malt whisky-tasting bar to encourage deep, peaty conversations)

 Who’s attending? Well, first of course, there’s YOU … and then there are your other high-performance, really-worth-knowing classmates … and these two experts who speak internationally to rapt audiences … trapped in a small-class setting.

So, yeah, there’s science.

But mostly you get friendly, encouraging, cheer-leading-even (Tom has a story of high-school hijinks), prayerfully supervised, critiqued-by-experts PRACTICE.

It’s a 3.5-step process:

• You come up with stupid ideas.
• You come up with better ideas.
• You come up with breakthrough ideas.

And you’re launched … into the next stage of your career’s advancement … the one where you make WAY more money for your charity employer. 

What’s it like being there?You sit, casually dressed, in an old hunter’s lodge, above Loch Ness. That’s your classroom.

Dress warmly if you like to be outdoors. It’s March; in the very midst of some of the most spectacular hiking country on earth (if that’s you).

Also a great place to read a novel by the fire. Or write some of the deepest, most moving pages in your diary.

Also a great place to walk a few meters … and then hurry back into the bar for a double of that one you liked so much last night.

Just click here.