Nonprofit Chapin

Using Social Media in Your Strategy

June 17, 2013nonprofitchapin3 Comments

Between the creation of the idea of “slacktivism” and the general questioning of the importance of social media in creating movements or change, there are a lot of people claiming that a Like on Facebook or a tweet on Twitter don’t mean much. “Clicking a mouse is so easy. Does it do anything concrete?” they question. Last week I came across this great piece on the role that social media can play in creating social change called Can a “Like” Save a Life? on the Stanford Social Innovation Review blog.

The author outlines the ways that social media contributes to the larger good, by pointing out the unique things that social media platforms can offer to further nonprofit organizations. My favorite of her points was the power of influencers. No matter what the cause is, if you get the right people talking about it on social media, it’s gold. It’s just the same as offline communications.

I encourage you to read the piece. The takeaway I came away with was that online efforts should be one component of your marketing strategy. It’s not the solution to everything but it’s still important for you to incorporate. Whether you like it or not, many of our activity is happening online, so nonprofits better be there, too.

-N.C.

Lois Lerner, Say Something!

May 28, 2013nonprofitchapin

I hope you’ve been following the recent controversy between the IRS and conservative nonprofits (if you haven’t, there’s a good round up of coverage here). There’s discussion around the fact that some conservative groups seeking 501(c)(4) status were more closely screened because they had the words tea party, patriot, or conservative in their names. The IRS has said that these words were used solely to identify organizations that might have more political advocacy activities, which is given higher scrutiny. Many are outraged, calling this discrimination, and several IRS officials have been forced to resign by President Obama.

Clearly, something happened here. Maybe it’s because I like to see the good in people, but there’s a big chance this is all a misunderstanding. Whatever it is, Lois Lerner, the director of exempt organizations for the IRS, was asked to testify last week before a House committee. To the detriment of the entire sector, she asserted her Fifth Amendment rights and stayed silent. Check out this great opinion piece that the New York Times ran: Remaining Silent on the I.R.S.

I have to say I agree with everything that’s said there. We all know how the nonprofit sector is only highlighted when there is some sort of controversy to discuss. As the opinion piece mentions, it is quite likely that nothing went on. But Lerner should play ball and eat a little crow for the good of the sector. Explain what happened, own up to it, and it’ll all be over. Instead, by staying silent, she’s keeping it even more of a mystery, and drawing it out to be whatever is in the media’s imagination.

This can be said for any professional challenge. Even if you make a big mistake, talking it through with your boss is always the way to go. Open communication is always better than none at all, especially when you represent the nonprofit sector to the world.

-N.C.

I Won’t Support My Grandma’s Nonprofit

May 14, 2013nonprofitchapin

I’m thrilled to share my second guest blog post with Nancy Schwartz’s Getting Attention! Helping Nonprofits Succeed Through Effective Marketing. The post, entitled I Won’t Support My Grandma’s Nonprofit, is all about the importance of innovation in nonprofit organizations. It can be very tough to innovate in any realm, as it’s easy to slip into the “tried and true” cycle of repeating what’s done in the past. Nonprofits have even more obstacles to innovation, with their accountability to the public in different ways than the for profit sector (proving success is not as simple as a bottom line with nonprofits). However, nonprofits are the ones that should be innovating the most because they are solving the biggest problems and doing the most important work.

Whoever heard of a movement, revolution, or even new invention that was a product of the status quo? If you’re solving social problems that haven’t been figured out before, what makes you think you can get to the solution without doing something new?

Check out the blog post here and think about the ways your organization is (or isn’t) innovating.

-N.C.

Encouraging Teamwork Through Inclusion

May 8, 2013nonprofitchapin

I recently came across this great blog post on the Harvard Business Review Blog Network entitled Preventing Rejection at Work. The piece discusses the importance of inclusion when working with others to ensure productivity and happiness. The author offers some great tips on encouraging common ground at the outset and communicating in non-judgmental and respectful ways.

It’s natural to form friendships in the workplace, which have also been proven to increase productivity. But it’s important that when the time comes to work with others, you must welcome your colleagues into the conversation with open arms and encourage dialogue. No matter how confident or secure one is about their job, it’s all for naught if the person doesn’t feel as though they can speak openly. This is especially essential for introverts. Introverts often won’t speak up until they feel they are contributing value to the conversation. If you open a meeting by stating that all points of view are needed for success, you set your team up for productivity.

This is great advice that can also be translated into all of our personal lives. Let’s continue to be compassionate and open to everyone we meet. Everyone has a unique perspective and everyone has something to teach us. Let’s encourage that dialogue, ensuring a well-informed, diverse society.

-N.C.

Power, Authenticity, and Happiness

April 11, 2013nonprofitchapin

Like most Millennial nonprofit employees, I have always been a dedicated, hard worker, even working in the trenches. I’ve put my head down and charged through the work. I’ve voiced my opinion in forums where I was allowed, mostly in department meetings, but unless I got my manager on my side, my point of view never really seemed to have much pull on an organizational level.

I always craved that seat at the decision-making table, the chance to speak my mind, and to make change in my organization. In short, I wanted power. I assumed that with power came great responsibility, which came with stress, discomfort, and difficulty.

Yesterday I came across this post entitled Powerful People Are Happy. The concept is that along with power comes the ability to be authentic. You are in control of things and you can be your true self. And that, in turn, makes you happy.

I get that. But I wonder if we might be able to translate that lesson to the rest of us who aren’t directors. We should consider the way that us lower level staffers can maintain control and power in our own programs. Even something as “small” as the donor database – something that you manage, that is yours, and that you have power over. I hope that will allow you to be authentic and allow you some happiness, too.

Working in a nonprofit is hard work. As much as we can pay attention to how to be happy at work, we should. Read through the article, but be creative about how you think about power, and think about how you can apply it to your role, no matter whether you’re working in strategy or in data entry.

-N.C.

Reactions to Dan Pallotta’s TED Talk

March 25, 2013nonprofitchapin1 Comment

Nationally acclaimed fundraiser and nonprofit sector guru Dan Pallotta recently did a TED Talk entitled The way we think about charity is dead wrong – you can watch it here. There has been a lot of chatter about the Talk amongst the sector and people have started to ask my opinion of it, so I finally took the chance to sit down and watch the 18 minutes.

It’s 18 minutes worth watching, just so you can know what the hype is about, but from a nonprofit insider standpoint, it’s (mostly) nothing new. Dan details five ways the nonprofit sector is kept small: because of closed minded thinking about compensation, marketing, risk, time, and profit in the sector. I would say that none of these five points are anything I want to jump up and down about except the third one – risk – definitely something that the sector needs to switch its aversion to if it wants to get anything meaningful done.

The second part of the talk resonated more with me as a big issue that we should all stand up and pay attention to. He detailed the misconception that “overhead” is not part of the “cause,” and the fact that this misconception is ultimately forcing charities to not spend money on overhead and not expand and innovate in ways that are necessary to address such huge problems as the ones we are trying to solve.

Spot on, and I especially believe this as a fundraiser. Any activity that works toward the mission of a nonprofit: whether it is purchasing meals for the homeless, paying for lights at a shelter, or paying the salary of the marketing professional, should be considered part of the “cause.” The arbitrary designation of some of these expenses as more “worthy” than others of donations is ridiculous. In order to make real change in the world, we need to support all aspects of a nonprofit’s operation, whether it is directly touching a client or not.

I hope people come away from this Talk with that message at the very least. The next time you make a donation to a nonprofit, remember that they are the experts and know best where your support is the most needed. Give an unrestricted gift – you will do more for the nonprofit than you know.

“Don’t ask about the rate of [a charity’s] overhead, ask about the scale of their dreams.” – Dan Pallotta

-N.C.

2 Years & 100 Posts

March 16, 2013nonprofitchapin7 Comments

Two things to celebrate today! I started this blog exactly two years today, and this is my 100th post.

No pressure or anything!

I just want to take a moment to reflect on the past two years, what it’s given me, and the role blogging has had in my life.

In the past two years, I was accepted to and started the Masters in Nonprofit Administration program at University of San Francisco. I moved from San Diego to the bay area to pursue this program and move back to where my family is. I have had two different jobs, and am thrilled to share that I am starting something new in the coming weeks! My new opportunity, while still in development, is at a higher level than I’ve worked before. I have a successful career, am learning like crazy in my Masters program, and continue to rock it in the nonprofit sector.

Blogging has so much to do with this. Through this blog, I have connected with thought leaders in the sector. When at networking events, people commonly recognize my name and ask “Chapin – are you Nonprofit Chapin?” I started this blog as a way for me to process my experience and thoughts about my experience in the sector. And while I still do that, and that will always be the core of this blog, a strong consequence of this has been that others have recognized and appreciate that I put my voice out there.

I am so grateful to all of you, my readers, for your participation in my experience, whether it be silent or spoken. Thank you!

-N.C.

The Secret to Marketing to Millennials – There Isn’t One

March 4, 2013nonprofitchapin2 Comments

I’m excited to share that I was asked by Nancy Schwartz of Getting Attention!: Helping Nonprofits Succeed Through Successful Marketing to write a guest post for her blog. The post went up on Friday and you can read it here. Since she’s asked me to do a series of posts from the Millennial perspective, I wanted to set the stage that the Millennial generation cannot and should not be generalized. In the post, I list some of the reasons this is the case, and what to do about it.

Readers, I want to share with you that the only reason this happened is because Nancy, who is a well known and respected nonprofit marketing expert, came across my blog and enjoyed my voice. I am thrilled to be entering this partnership, as I know it will be phenomenal for my name recognition and my professional development. I again want to stress the organic nature of this arrangement and the fact that you can easily get there too – simply by starting a blog! I write about whatever I want, whenever I want, in my voice… and it’s been recognized! Very validating!

Happy reading!

-N.C.

UnderDeveloped

February 11, 2013nonprofitchapin2 Comments

I am thrilled to share a phenomenal report about the challenges faced by nonprofits surrounding fundraising. If you work in development or are a senior level employee at a nonprofit, you must read this! UnderDeveloped: A National Study of Challenges Facing Nonprofit Fundraising is a joint project of CompassPoint and the Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Fund that surveyed development directors and executive directors across the nation to understand their relationship to each other and to fundraising. The report includes insightful numbers on high turnover rates, skills and abilities around fundraising, and an entire section about nurturing a culture of philanthropy in organizations.

I believe the biggest takeaway from this report is that we must reframe what it means to raise money – whether that be by development directors, executive directors, or line staff. We need to have an honest conversation about money, what it means to all of us in society, and what it means to nonprofit organizations. Money, as I’ve mentioned in this blog before, is an incredibly taboo subject. People aren’t comfortable talking about finances in a really open way. It is not deemed to be an acceptable conversation topic. This is a problem when that is what fundraisers are supposed to do – talk about money all day. What does this mean for the success – or lack thereof – of fundraisers?

We need to get to a place where we all understand that money is necessary for nonprofits to provide the services they do, and without donors and their generosity, there would be none. We need to be comfortable to share that with outsiders when we are talking about our programs. We need each other – nonprofits need funds to run, and donors need causes to support and believe in. In the end, we will all win.

Please, read this important report and share it with everyone you know! It can have a great impact for people in need.

-N.C.

Stressed Out? Here’s What To Do About It

January 14, 2013nonprofitchapin2 Comments

As our world becomes more and more fast paced, the role of stress in our lives is increasing. We are expected to get better results, faster, and more easily. This expectation carries over into the nonprofit sector. Funders, donors, and clients are expecting quality services to be readily available, effective, and easy to use. Nonprofit employees would want nothing less, and have similar lofty expectations and goals for their own work and themselves. They are passionate about their work and the people they serve, so naturally they want to deliver their services in the most efficient way possible and help as many people as they can. They work hard to achieve success and they take a lot of pride in their work. Unfortunately, when expectations get out of control, there’s a very bad consequence: stress.

I recently took a course in Nonprofit Human Resource Management for my Masters in Nonprofit Administration program at University of San Francisco and did my final paper on the ways that Human Resources departments can address the problem of the role of stress in the lives of nonprofit employees. I first administered an informal survey (to my delight, I received 158 responses!), and the paper reviews some of my very interesting findings from this.

At the end of the paper there’s an addendum that is a short takeaway for Human Resources departments to take.

I wanted to share this paper and addendum on this blog because I see you all, my readers, as my community, supporters, and champions of the sector. You have seen that this is a topic I care deeply about, not just for my personal sanity but also for the health and sustainability of the nonprofit sector. We need to address this problem!

Click here to see my paper, and please let me know if anything great comes of it!

Enjoy!

-N.C.