Understanding & Leveraging Your Nonprofit's Lifecycle Stage

I attended the Organizational Health and Nonprofit Lifecycle seminar, held by Don Crocker and John Brother at the Support Center for Nonprofit Management.
Understanding the life cycle is essential to any nonprofit’s continued success, no matter what stage it’s in (Idea/Startup, Growth/Maturity, Turnaround/Terminal Phases).
They first discussed criteria for board development and gave specific advice on steps that a nonprofit in the Idea/Startup phase could take to build a board, including forming a steering committee as a first step, producing an initial event to attract people, and leveraging members’ social networking.
One of the most compelling challenges for all nonprofits, is in marketing and branding. Here’s a short list of key challenges:
• Differentiating your organization from others.
• Investing in fundraising and marketing infrastructure.
• Using the Internet to build your nonprofit’s brand, create visibility, attract a donor base, and develop a community.
They suggest that it is possible to work with other organizations as resources towards addressing these challenges.
Then the audience learned more details on the profile of each stage in a nonprofit’s life cycle, in the areas of Operations, Governance, Leadership, Obstacles, and Opportunities and my realization is that I tend to work with nonprofits in the Growth/Maturity phase.
Here are some specific characteristics of the Growth/Maturity phase:
• Operations: 7- 20 years in operation
• Governance: board turnover policy and strategy is in place, and power is shared between Executive Director and board
• Leadership: since there are many managers on staff, Executive Director must possess good management and communication skills
• Obstacles: remaining client-centered rather than policy-bound, keeping staff motivated around mission, building strong financial footing from endowment or reserve, maintaining a programmatic edge, based on a continued relevancy
• Opportunity: new staff and board introduce new ideas, organization is known in community, adequate resources enable some risk-taking

Do you know what stage of growth your nonprofit is in? At the Non-For-Profit Leadership Summit VII, Don Crocker and John Brother of the Support Center for Nonprofit Management explained the stages:

Idea Phase: Imagine Inspire
Start Up Phase: The Labor of Love
Growth Phase: Ground & Grow
Maturity Phase: Produce & Sustain
Decline & Turnaround: Review & Renew
Terminal: Merge or Close Gracefully

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Volunteering Gets a Boost on CNN

Nonprofits and volunteering are in the news again. CNN online featured a story about a man who was laid off from his Wall Street job and decided to volunteer to work with baboons in Africa. Volunteering was positioned as a good way to spend time between jobs: contributing to society, moving outside of your comfort zone, gaining new skills and perspectives, and potentially reducing your living expenses.

WAKE UP CALL: How is your nonprofit taking advantage of the recession to attract highly-qualified volunteers to help bring about needed change.

UJA-Federation MAP Program Celebrates 25 Years

Last night, the UJA-Federation held a reception celebrating 25 years of its Management Assistance Program, its internal volunteer matching service to provide help to its 150 funded agencies.

MAP consultants have worked on more than 1,100 projects for UJA-Federation beneficiary agencies. Services have included strategic planning, board development, marketing, branding and creative services.

Red Rooster Group has provided pro bono branding services through MAP. The branding we did for ENGAJE!, a joint educational venture to help foster awareness of Jewish values to early childhood teachers was featured in MAP’s 25th Anniversary program. In addition, I was featured in a video of MAP consultants discussing their experiences.

ENGAJE! Stationery

For the ENGAJE! initiative, we created a logo and stationery items, brand manual, as well as invitations and program guide for their successful launch event. We are pleased that these items were selected as showcase examples to be featured in MAP’s 25th Anniversary brochure (shown above).

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Quick Tips for Better Pics

As spring rolls around and you are planning your fundraising events, you will undoubtedly want to take photos for use on your website and in your fundraising materials. You’ll want to make sure that you have the best quality images you can t0 reflect positively on your organization. Naturally, it’s best to hire a professional photographer. But if you can’t do that, consider these tips.

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Clients to Tell Their Stories in Direct Mail Cards

CLIENT: ProLiteracy

Direct mail packages that come in standard business size envelopes are identifiable as fundraising solicitations from a mile away. So the question is, how do you get the recipient to open the package, and once the package is opened, how do you appeal to donors?

When ProLiteracy asked us for recommendations to improve the effectiveness of their direct mail, we looked at their existing package. We suggested using a different size envelope that would stand out. And instead of a lengthy letter describing people’s stories, we suggested using cards that let the people tell their own story for more immediacy and a stronger emotional appeal. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, we suggested separate cards that feature the photo of the person on one side. They used our recommendations to create a package that stands out in the mail and gets their message across in a compelling way.

Working Together for a Vital City for All

As a cyclist who has been enjoying the recent additions of bike lanes in New York City, an article on the cover recent article in Chelsea Now, a neighborhood newspaper, caught my attention. It reported on local businesses who claimed to be losing sales due to a bike lane being installed on Eighth Avenue supplanting parking spaces. The argument seemed to parallel the same one that came bars and restaurants claiming that the smoking ban would harm their business, when in fact, the opposite has happened.

While the article was decidedly one-sided (no cyclists, pedestrians or shoppers were interviewed), it does raise the issue of the balance between businesses and overall city life. In the past year or so, the Bloomberg administration has made quality of life a priority, with the renovation of parks, installation of 300 miles of bike paths, and plan to plant 1 million trees. Not withstanding the few parking spaces lost, ultimately, this will get more people out and about on the streets, and that will be good for business.

WAKE UP CALL: We are all part of one city. Businesses, the government and nonprofits need to work together in the best interests of everyone. Renewing the quality of life for all, will ultimately create a vital city that will bring in tax revenue, keep businesses afloat and provide funding for nonprofits.

Advice-Link Events Help Nonprofits

Sue Green, Founder of Nonprofit Central and Howard Levy, Principal of Red Rooster Group, co-produce Advice-Link events for nonprofits.

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Nonprofits face pressing problems, but often lack the time or resources to vet consultants. Advice-Link events address that need. Nonprofits can sign up for 30 minute sessions with up to three consultants specializing in strategic planning, board development and program effectiveness and other areas of nonprofit fundraising, marketing and management to get specific feedback and direction on their issue.

This event is styled after the successful Craigslist Foundation’s Nonprofit Bootcamp’s Ask the Experts sessions and the Nonprofit Consulting Day sponsored by the Baruch College School of Public Affairs’ Nonprofit Group. Advice-Link is sponsored by ADP and the Change Group.

Advice-Link events are produced independently and are also offered through nonprofit associations as a benefit to their members or as an adjunct to their conferences. The last Advice-Link event on March 24, 2009 was produced for Governance Matters.

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Advice-Link events provide one-on-one advice for nonprofits by vetted consultants.

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Great Response from Participants

“I found the Advice-Link event very helpful and interesting. The structure encourages nonprofit staff to finely hone our  inquiries and truly get to the heart of the matter at hand, depending on who  we are talking to so that in and of itself, is a valuable exercise for those  participating. The time provided by the consultants is greatly  appreciated also, especially these days.”

– Cathy Sharp, Director Of Development & Communications, Greenwich House, Inc.

Red Rooster Group IconRed Rooster Group is a New York based graphic design firm that creates effective brands, websites, and marketing campaigns to increase your visibility, fundraising, and communications effectiveness. Contact us at info@redroostergroup.com.

Fair Representation of Nonprofits Needed

A recent article in The New York Times, Charities Give to State Campaigns, Despite Law, described how some nonprofits had purchased tickets to fundraising dinners for elected officials, or had otherwise contributed to their campaigns, in violation of the law. Neither party seemed to care or take responsibility, pushing off oversight to the IRS. The article acknowledged that minor amounts entailed, and yet found it fit to disparage nonprofits on the front page.

I find this quite disturbing for a number of reasons.

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Staying Strong in Weak Times

EHL Consulting Group, fundraising consultants, share the following lessons and observations regarding the US philanthropic marketplace.

Four Important Lessons Learned
The combination of the severe recession, coupled with the Bernard Madoff debacle, has made headlines and brought fear and deep anxiety throughout the nonprofit sector. There are a number of critical lessons that should guide us all going forward:

1. Few individuals or organizations are immune from current difficulties. Reflect compassion and a commitment to move ahead strategically to maintain your place and position in the community.

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