Redefine the Need, Then Raise to the Need

I just had a conversation with someone after my mediocre speech at the CCSYNYS event, Money for Mission, held at Turning Stone Casino & Resort in Verona, NY.

So I planned to speak on sustainability and social responsibility (which is my thing), not specifically about fundraising. And it wasn't made entirely clear to me that it should have been about fundraising, but perhaps I just wasn't listening. So at the last minute I wrote out some notes relating more specifically to fundraising, and opened with that, and then dove into the sustainability speech.

Yawns. I caught a few bored-looking eyes and felt like I was losing the audience, so I skipped around more than I should have. Here's an old principle for me: sell what ya got. And I sort of dropped the ball on that.

Until, that is, the Q& A part--it turns out people were listening and interested, and the questions were great. Fundraising is part of sustainability. Of course. Money for Mission. The two are tied. And how you run your nonprofit is part of your sales pitch for raising money. The more your operations reflect your principles, the easier it is for people to believe you'll stay true to them and be effective with their dollars.

Sigh. So, ok. I nailed the Q&A section. But I'm going to obsess less over the presentation and work on timing, confidence, and not wearing my glasses so I can't catch the looks on people's faces.

So today's title...this was my thought after the conversation. A woman asked me how can she possibly apply sustainability to her purchasing decisions, payroll and benefits when it all costs money? My answer is twofold. First, redefine the need, then raise to the need. Redefine the need, raise to the need.

If you focus on line items, instead of on the whole, you are likely always going to find a cheaper way to run your operations. To your own peril. There's a sale at Costco--run out and buy bulk of some VOC-laden unsustainable product made in China with petrochemicals, shipped here and made available to you 15 miles from your office, which now contains some cheaply made, poison-emitting crap. Then turn around and try to raise money from a local manufacturer. See how well that works.

What I'm saying is that you should set standards--salary standards, health benefits, program standards--and goals (aim high), and then set a budget that reflects that. Then raise the money to that goal. The higher you set your sights, the more you will raise, naturally. You might fall short, sure, but you never get there if you define your goals sheepishly, or raise sheepishly, or think small and act small.

So reduce, reuse, recycle. Buy local. Don't pollute, don't support polluters. Speak out. Stay true to your cause, true to your principles.

When your practices reflect your mission, when your mission reflects specific principles, people notice. You can sell that. People will buy that. Because many, many people will share your mission. So define the need as this: we need to fund our mission to serve the following:

• our mission
• our community
• our sustainability and social responsibility (they are intertwined, interdependent), which includes
• our salaries, benefits, and healthcare
• our operating plan
• our fundraising plan
• our civic responsibilities

Redefine the need, then raise to the need.

The $250 Green Computer

I found this today over at ecogeek.com--a sustainable, $250 computer. No fan, no noise, zero impact. Probably going to get one to check it out...

The Sustainable Nonprofit

Last time I posted about excessive compensation in large (and some not so large) nonprofits. On my mind this morning is inadequate compensation and what sustainability means for smaller nonprofits.

So a few questions, starting with your personal sustainability:

• Is your pay market rate, and can you pay the bills with it?
• Do you have adequate health insurance?
• Are you developing your professional skills?

Next are questions about your organization itself:

• How will your nonprofit continue in perpetuity?
• Do you have a disaster plan?
• What happens when you fall short in your fundraising?
• Does any one donor or grantor provide more than 20% of your funding?
• What negative impact do you have on the community, environment, employees?
• What positive impact do you have?

The one question that turns heads when I talk about this is about negative impact. In starting and running our nonprofits, we allow ourselves to think our mission is noble, and compromise other things like personal health and wealth, and the good of the community in favor of that. But consider this: when you buy supplies from a national chain, only 11 cents of every dollar you spend stays local, but when you buy from local stores and businesses, 44 cents stays local. 4 to 1. 400% greater impact, just by buying local! Think of the irony of a job skills nonprofit that buys from Staples instead of the local office supply store, which could grow and provide more jobs with more local business.

Other negative impact is the energy you consume, both in daily operations and in the products you buy. How do you get to work? If you drive, can you carpool? When you buy organic food (and if it's local, you should), was it shipped from Bakersfield CA or from the farm up the road? Do you leave your monitor and computer on at night? What can you do to reduce your organization's negative impact on the environment?

To some of you some of this sounds simplistic. But so many nonprofits pass on using recycled paper, and chase the lowest price possible regardless of impact on their community, employees, and environment. I know it's tough with tight budgets, but that's where planning and fundraising to the plan come in; develop the socially responsible, sustainable plan, and then fund it. I think it's part of our responsibility to the world, regardless of the mission. Agree? Disagree?

Fundraising Day in New York

I love these conferences--tons of great people getting together to talk about fundraising. I'm heading over the Nonprofit Technology talk at 9:50.

One of the problems I see with nonprofits and technology--and I'll speak from a nonprofit volunteer perspective--is we try to fix problems with the assumption that technology is the key. I don't think it is -- not at all. And I'm a software guy who believes anything is possible through programming.

But start from the beginning: what are you trying to accomplish? What results do you want to achieve? What are the outcomes you'd like? Define that, then work back from that to define the how, and question the how along the way:

• is this the most efficient way of doing it?
• does an efficiency gain in one place create inefficiencies elsewhere?
• Where can we make process improvements?
• If we challenge every assumption, what new things do we learn?
• what can we automate? Not merely because we can, but because it makes us the most efficient or most productive.
• If we automate thorugh technology, what are the training implications?

Challenging assumptions has been a major part of our sustainability efforts within the company. We assume nonprofits want a printed receipt. But consider the cost of the paper to us and the environment. Consider the time it takes to process the receipt and order. The cost of mailing, the diesel fuel to get it delivered. Can we simply email the receipt? I think so.

We assume customers want written help, want guides, and want a manual. We were going to print one, but then felt it was better to not print on at all. Except our customers -- many of them--like a printed manual instead of an on-screen one. So they end up printing the manual out on their own paper, using their own ink and time, and, I believe, likely not in the most sustainable way.

So we're going to print the manual so we can control the environmental impact, and do it in a sustainable way. We'll use some sort of 100% post-consumer recycled, or hemp, or something with low impact.

So I'm headed off to the next session. Enjoy your day!