Mitchell Kapor Foundation Weblog

I was glancing through the latest issue of The Chronicle of Philanthropy and came across an interesting news briefing that said Americans who volunteer donate 10 times more money than those who don’t volunteer.  This was based on a study that Harris Interactive, a consumer research firm, conducted on behalf of Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund.  I would presume that individuals who care enough about a cause or organization to volunteer time may have a deeper connection to that particular cause than someone who does not.  It’s common knowledge that volunteers provide lots of in-kind support to organizations, with some organizations being completely volunteer driven.  But, this study shows that volunteers don’t just give their time.  They give their treasure as well.  I never thought much about this in the context of fundraising and the potential impact that volunteers can directly have on an organization’s bottom line.  But, this study suggests that it may pay to invest in building up your volunteer base, if your organization can support the use of volunteers.  For those of you who want to improve your volunteer outreach strategies, here are a couple of resources that may help: CaliforniaVolunteers, VolunteerMatch, and Volunteer Center.

Re: Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission:

The Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.

Hopefully this decision by the Supreme Court will create the popular and political tsunami needed to pass suitable fair elections and campaign finance limitation legislation.  Nick Nyhart, President of Public Campaign, wrote a compelling response on Huffington Post. Voter Action is even preparing a “Free Speech for People” campaign to push for a constitutional amendment in response (and be sure to spread the word about their awesome call to action video!).

Death sentence for democracy? We’ll see…

I’m excited to share the announcement for our latest position: Program Coordinator, College Bound Brotherhood!

This is a part-time (20 hours/week), salaried position with an excellent benefits package (health, dental, vision, PTO, life and disability insurance) in a respectful work environment – ideal for someone who has another part-time obligation or is enrolled in graduate school.

Please do not post this announcement on other websites without prior clearance.

Raj Patel & Cedric Brown

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, particularly in the midst of the holiday shopping madness, I’ve spent some thinking about how and what we value. I keep coming back to this question: Do Americans value consumption over citizenship? Believe me, these are not my random thoughts.

It all started with this story on National Public Radio about a 3-D television that would make the Super Bowl a ‘greater’ experience for sport fans. I turned to my husband and was outraged that advances in technology could allow us to watch football practically live in our living rooms, but that we, as a society, did not prioritize preventing voter fraud or providing all people with accessible quality organic food over this experience. It all seemed crazy.

Thankfully, there are people like Raj Patel in the world who are thoughtful about these contradictions and are able to offer some insight on how we can transform this madness. Raj Patel is what my graduate school adviser would call a ‘double-agent’. He worked at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund and is now at the forefront of battling these institutions by calling into question how we come to value goods in our current economic and political configuration. In the ‘The Value of Nothing: How to reshape market society and redefine democracy,’ he asks a simple question: Do we really know what goods and services cost in our society? His response is no and that we really need to wake-up and smell the impact of not knowing this cost soon or we’re going to be in serious trouble.

In his recent talks and interviews throughout the Bay Area, he gives the example of knowing the cost of how and what we eat. One in five health care dollars in the United States is spent treating someone who has diabetes. We know that there are food choices that can transform the impact of diabetes, but we do not place a value on trying to eat well nor in staying away from processed sugars or fats. On the contrary, it actually costs more to eat better. He offers the solution of having a tax on goods that we know have less value on our health. Just imagine a soda tax or a juice benefit!  The world is already a little better.

P.S.  from Cedric: I’ve known Raj for about four years through his wife/partner Mini Kahlon, one of my former colleagues at the Level Playing Field Institute.  Lots of brainy pizazz in that family! I’m so proud of him!

Foundation Directory Online

I’m sure many of you have heard about San Francisco’s Foundation Center.  One of the Foundation Center’s key resources is their Foundation Directory Online (FDO) which allows nonprofits to electronically search their extensive database of over 100,000 foundations for relevant potential funders.  They’ve also added a new Power Search engine called FDO Professional, which searches through NINE Foundation Center databases at once, identifying even more funding prospects. Their databases have also been updated with a section called ‘Economic Crisis Information’ to let you know how the particular foundation has altered its funding strategy in response to the economic crisis.  If you go to the Foundation Center, they can show you how to use the directory, AND you can use it for FREE.  If you access it from work or home, you will need to pay a subscription fee based on the type of access you want.

Training Scholarships

In addition to the Foundation Directory Online, the Foundation Center offers a variety of training opportunities.  Did you know that they also have scholarships available to help under-resourced nonprofits attend their full-day training seminars? If you represent a CA nonprofit organization with a budget under $1,000,000, you are eligible to apply. The Foundation Center offers another way to save money as well.  They provide special discounts: if more than one person from your organization attends a particular full-day training, you only have to pay $25 for each additional person on your team to attend a particular fundraising course or $25 for each additional fundraising course you attend.

I encourage you to take advantage of the opportunities to advance your knowledge base, especially when you have excellent resources available like these!

Happy New Year everybody! Like many others, I’m glad to see the dawn of a new decade.

There are many things that I thought I’d never see happen, or that I’d be quite elderly before they did. Aside from the obvious and much-talked about one, I also never envisioned gay marriage being legal (although in precious few places, but still…). And as a native North Carolinian, I never thought I’d see the day when smoking was banned in public places in my home state.

During my childhood, tobacco was king. My high school is named after a tobacco baron. My grandfather, uncles, cousins, and stepfather all worked in the local tobacco company. It was steady agri-industrial work for high school grads with limited opportunities in the newly integrated/de facto segregated south.  I spent a summer sweeping the floors of a cigarette factory after my first year of college. And one of the nation’s fiercest basketball rivalries (go ‘heels!) plays out along the folksy-named Tobacco Road.

While North Carolina started to diversify its economic offerings in the 1980s, the tobacco industry still exerts a strong presence in the state. So imagine my surprise when I saw that, as of the beginning of this year, North Carolina restaurants and bars can no longer allow smoking (California fully enacted similar legislation in 1998).

This was a nice affirmation that change does come. And to paraphrase my grandmother, it “may not come when you want it, but it’s always right on time.” Let’s keep that in mind as we continue to work for equity, justice, and access during the coming year.

Happy New Year, everyone!  I recently received a short article called “Keep Up the Momentum: Use Your Year-end Fundraising to Kickstart 2010: 10 Strategies for Turning Your Year-End Fundraising into Sustained Growth in the New Year.”  The article was sent by Convio, a constituent relationship management software and services provider.  Here is a short breakdown of the ten strategies.  I hope they’re useful to you!

1. Capture email address for offline donors at events, through direct mail response cards, and through telemarketing.
2. Use multiple channels (email, mail, and telemarketing) to garner support – Convio’s research shows that direct mail donors who also get email solicitation give twice as much and renew at 10% higher rates than those who just get email.
3. Get to know your supporters better -  This allows you to segment your lists and send targeted communications and appeals based on their interests, gender, age, etc.
4. Segment your welcome messages and follow-up practices for the different types of supporters you have.
5. Be transparent – Provide regular updates via email, direct mail, and phone on how funds are being used.
6. Promote a Sustainer or Pledge Giving Program – Give reasons why supporters should give on a recurring basis or give more money and allow that money to be paid over time. Convio says that Sustaining and Pledge donors renew at rates 10-20% higher than single-gift donors.
7. Optimize your website home page by having a strong message, decreasing clutter on the website, and improving registration opportunities which increases chances to get email addresses.
8. Create targeted website content for your various audiences.
9. Make email newsletters more engaging: perhaps having two versions – one for prospects/non-donors and one for current donors. You can also give donors a chance to update their addresses or to share stories.
10. Tap into the power of viral marketing – Donors can help spread the word about your organization if you provide things like Tell-A-Friend links, personal outreach tools, and widgets that supporters can plug into their social network sites.

Hopefully you can find something in this list to help you strengthen your fundraising strategies.

Click here if you want to read the entire article.

(Artwork from beyondwar.ning.com)