by Barry McLeish

This is a time of clear opportunity – as well as peril – for nonprofit organizations.

Unless your agency is grounded in a solid identity as a result of a plan that is operating and has along with it a strategic stance that allows you the luxury of clear decision making, your institution - like many others - will get lost in a competing milieu of “look-the-same” nonprofit organizations. This is the peril.

However, the opportunity is that by developing a strong strategic stance, you set yourself away from the pack of institutions that do not have an operating strategy.

Four dimensions should define your strategy, so view this as a sort of test within which you can judge the veracity of your own organization:

1. First, you have to know where you are going to compete and which parts of your cause are going to receive the lion’s share of the dollars you are going to invest. This is a decision not only to choose what you are going to invest in, but also a choice of what you are not going to invest in. Both decisions matter greatly. All directors want instinctively to do more causally than they are able. As part of this decision you also want to think about what your work will look like in a couple of years. How will you invest in your work to grow it? Or do you expect everything in your agency eco-system to stay the same over time? Be careful if this is your attitude - today virtually nothing is staying the same. If you’re not interested in growth, are you going to stay the same? This too, is a decision. Or are you looking to get out of this part of your causal work in the future? You need to decide – your future depends on it.
   
   
2. With what you are doing causally, which parts of it have the most appeal to your key stakeholders? Not every donor for example, loves your organization equally. Everyone picks and chooses. You should know not only the most popular parts of your work (if may have little correlation with what is the most important part of your work) but you should know why people support this part of your causal mix. Is it a good value? Is the work done excellently? Do you do extensive work in a way competitors don’t? Are you innovative? Is your cause prestigious? Whatever the reason you want to know why individuals support you.
   
   
3. Have a clear understanding of what your organization can and cannot do. Though you may feel this unfair, most institutions only do a few parts of their work really well. They may do a lot of work, but only a few things that they do really capture the imagination of their supportive constituency. Have a firm grasp on those endeavors your agency is engaged in but does so in a marginal – or less than stellar - way. Know what you do well strategically and know what resources you have that allow you to perform at a high level. Strategic competencies underlie every good strategy.
   
   
4. All of the above allow you to develop those strategic programs that build on your strengths and have what the stakeholder wants in mind. Perhaps your strengths are such that you can build your brand. Or, maybe they allow you to develop a very strong donor relationship program. Your agency may be at a place where you can radically change the strength of your programs and upgrade them substantially.

Use your strategy to deliver value to your stakeholders. Good luck in the days ahead.

by Barry J. McLeish

Great achievements in the nonprofit world often occur when institutions harness their own internal energy and simultaneously, that of individuals around them and deal purposefully with an aspect of our nation or of any nation that needs intervention. Collectively they create for the briefest of moments a joint and reciprocally driven, caring, trusting community. Being accountable for the common good and the welfare of those needing help is assumed by all parties in the community and is a part of their underlying ideals and beliefs.

This has been my personal experience as a donor to a variety of causes. The urgency and ego of “me” is subsumed in the “we” as, bundled together with other donors and volunteers, I have contributed to solving an impending or immediate social problem, or have helped take advantage of a new opportunity that benefits a group of individuals in need. Just recently my wife and I helped in building a needed hospital overseas for a group of individual who did not have ready access to such facilities. Thousands of men and women – as donors and volunteers - had similar experiences after the Asian tsunami, the Kashmir earthquake, and the New Orleans flooding disaster.

However, what do you do as a development director when there is not an all-consuming crisis to draw everyone together? Are potential donors and volunteers increasingly becoming too narrowly self-serving in their approach to life to care for those who cannot succeed at the same level without the benefit of an event that demands their involvement? There is reason for some concern - some data suggests that major donors are retreating from giving and being much more cautious in their outlook on nonprofit involvement. Some authors have suggested that Americans could give billions more without decreasing their self worth.

However, a number of Americans choose not to follow suit. Why? One key may lie within us as development professionals. Regardless of how well those in need are served, many organizations have done a poor job in engaging donors’, customers’, and volunteers’ in a satisfactory way.

Is this the case with your organization?

While it may be true that for some donors their current involvement with causes they support is heavily in flux; it is equally true that many of these causes are changing their methods of operation to allow donors and volunteers access to their organizations mix and inner workings in a way previously not thought of as previously possible or appropriate.

Philanthropic tastes are changing and contribute to this churn, especially given the large number of individuals who no longer feel content to simply give financial gifts to charities. For many donors, being philanthropic now means not only choosing where their financial gifts to charities will go, but showing active interest, concern, and involvement with the recipient organization, with subsequent follow-up on how their gift is used.

A massive social and cultural revolution is at work, particularly in the way individuals relate to nonprofit organizations and each other, affecting what they will and will not support and what they expect from their philanthropic involvement.

Do you know what your donors expect from your organization? If not, why don’t you make a goal of talking to your ten most important donors and /or volunteers and find out why they are involved with your cause.

By Barry McLeish

My sister and her daughter are cancer survivors. They partook last weekend in a relay for life for cancer research, support, and survivors. All of that is pretty normal. I am guessing hundreds of these types of events occur across the country every year.

What was interesting about this event was its magnitude. Originating in a city of about 4000 residents, there were more than 100 teams involved, each team with 3 or 4 members, each team procuring pledges for their team members, and each member taking the time to be a part of the rally, some taking time from work, all being involved in ways that were meaningful to them.

The other interesting part was the weekend the events took place. Not only were there twice as many teams as last year’s event, there were also three times as many people who pledged. The night of the 24 hour event it rained all night. Driving rain with thunder and lightening. I casually asked my sister if the event had been cancelled – her look back at me almost took my head off.

“We don’t quit just because of weather.”

She and her daughter and her husband walked from 3:00am until 6:00am. She told me there were about 200 people there walking plus those urging them on. There were also volunteers making breakfast, serving coffee, and some were simply there talking to each other.

All of this added up to a type of community that was built around a compelling reason for the hundreds that were there.

Are you a part of a cause that can command this type of involvement, volunteerism, and loyalty? If you are, then you should leverage it the way the organizers of this event did within their community?

And if you are not, then you should begin looking for the types of common emotional denominators that are within your cause that would allow you and your associates to command this type of involvement, loyalty, and commitment and to create your own type of community.