Preparing for a Likely Recession

February 27, 2025

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 1:45 pm

February 2025

Preparing for a Likely Recession

No, I’m not an economist (although I do have a B.S. in Economics). 

A lot of smart people – including economists — thought there’d be a recession 2 years go and there wasn’t.

And the same thing the year before that.   And a few years before that.

You get the gist.   In any given year, somebody is predicting a recession.

Of course, this year, between the federal chaos/layoffs, tariffs, and general economic uncertainty created by businesses unwilling to invest under a unpredictable regime, it’s hard not to believe that the long overdue recession will finally come.

It doesn’t mean the end of your nonprofit.  Indeed, you may actually thrive during the recession.

I managed the Oregon League of Conservation Voters through the 2001-2002 recession and the first half of the 2008-2010 “great” recession. 

Having managed a nonprofit through these, what do I wish I’d done differently in the 6 months prior to them?

Here are six ideas of what to do and one of what not to do.  Some of these lessons are directly based on my experience at OLCV and others are based on my knowledge as a consultant.

  1. Pay attention to your cash reserve.  If you haven’t already, have a conversation with your board up-front about what level they are willing to let that reserve drop to during a recession.  It’s okay – indeed, it’s appropriate — to have an annual loss during a recession if you began the year with a large enough reserve.  Have this conversation openly with your board rather than making decisions on the fly

  2. Be open with staff about your financial situation.  Are you in a really solid position?  Or somewhat precarious?  At OLCV, I wasn’t always open with my staff about how tight our finances were leading up to the 2001-2002 recession.  When a difficult decision was made by the Board Executive Committee (with my support), to freeze all staff salaries (e.g. no pay raises during the year, even COLAs), there was some staff frustration.  If I’d done more in the year prior to educate staff about how thin our reserve was, I would’ve saved heartache later on.

  3. Think about delaying “icing” expenditures.  Some of what you do is the cake.  It’s what you absolutely need to do to advance your mission.  Other things are nice, but if you don’t do them, nobody’s going to look at your nonprofit and say: you’re failing.  Take a hard pass through your budget/expenditures and ask: what can easily be deferred 6-12 months until we know more about our financial situation?  Ask staff their opinion about what to defer (or just cut).

  4. Don’t stop fundraising!  If anything, step it up.  Some people might say: “our donors are probably freaked out, so now’s not the time to ask.”  Don’t make that decision for them!  You never know their situation.  I once had a donor who I knew had been laid off make his largest ever gift to us.  (I learned later it was because he’d received an inheritance).   Even in bad recessions, plenty of people have jobs/situations that leave them doing well financially.  They are sometimes even happier to donate recognizing the need and their relative good fortune.

  5. In your fundraising, focus more of your energy on cultivating existing donors to deepen your relationships than adding first-time donors.  When individuals cut back their giving during a recession, they tend to stick with organizations they already support versus those that are new.

  6. Also in your fundraising: focus on your relationship with your top donors.  In most organization, there are 10-15 donors who make huge difference.  Be proactive in the next few months cultivating your relationships with them.  Let me know what you’re doing, how your reacting to the new lay of the land, and how their donations are making a difference.

  7. Lastly, a lesson of what to avoid: don’t choose a recession as the time to launch a business-focused fundraising effort.  Corporate fundraising yo-yos much further down during a recession historically, compared to individual giving or foundation philanthropy.  If you’ve laid the groundwork or you’re targeting businesses that are somewhat recession-proof, this might not apply to you.  But think hard about making a new, business-focused campaign an important part of our 2025-2026 strategy.

Do you have lessons of your own to share? Please leave them as a comment!

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Year-end fundraising tips

November 27, 2024

Filed under: Fundraising — jonathanpoisner @ 3:28 pm

November 27, 2024

Given we’re on the cups of December, I felt it would be timely to share some thoughts on year-end fundraising.  Of course, in the ideal world, you would have finished planning for your year-end giving campaign earlier.  But it’s not too late to gin up a year-end campaign that builds upon your past successes.

So here are six key suggestions for you to consider when it comes to year-end fundraising:

1. Don’t just make one effort and call it done

People are incredibly generous in December.  I’ve read various statistics, but roughly one-third of all nonprofit donations come in during the month.  And as much as 10% comes in during the final couple of days of the year.

If your organization has the capacity, you should send out a letter to past donors (and prospective) asking for a gift.

Again, if capacity allows, you should individually follow up via phone or text with those you can (starting with those with the highest level of past giving assuming you have limited capacity).

Of course, for your very top donors, you should be trying to meet with them in-person if they’re interested as that’s the most effective way to build relationships.

Your email campaign should also not just be a one-off.  Ideally, you’d kick off the month with an email about your year-end campaign (perhaps focused on Giving Tuesday), follow-up mid-month with a progress/update, and finish it off on the 29th or 30th to spur those final end-of-year donations.

Layer in social media with an overlapping message.  And again, not just one.  Time at least some social media to go out the same day as your emails. Sometimes the first message piques their interest and the second spurs them to action.

For each separate social media channel where you are active, think 2-3 posts early in December launching your year-end giving, 3-4 mid-month, and a final burst of 4-6 between Christmas and New Years.

2. Make it an integrated campaign

You’re not coming up with a dozen different fundraising appeals for all the mail/email above.  You have one over-arching campaign, with a goal/theme, and you should repeat that across every appeal/channel.

Obviously, you’re not repeating word for word. Email will be shorter and use simpler language than mail, for example.

But your early December messaging should announce the year-end campaign, your mid-December message should report some early progress, and your end-of-month messaging should get people excited about the campaign’s success.

What that central goal/theme looks like will vary wildly by organization. While you’re thinking of this as a campaign, I don’t recommend pitching the dollars for a specific organizational activity, as end-of-year giving is a prime opportunity to generate general operating revenue that provides you the maximum flexibility.

3. Make your donor the hero of the story

Think you not we.

You want your donors (and prospective donors) to feel celebrated and important, to understand the appeal/importance of your mission, and to feel part of the team.  You want them to feel “super” like they have a “super power.”

For example, don’t talk about what “we” have accomplished. Talk about what “you” have accomplished.

Bonus points if you can make the story unfinished, so the donor’s continued generosity is key.  Or have a clear sequel story that you gin up as part of the ask for the “next story.”

4. Prime your best folks to further spread the word

You have your lists and social media reach and they get you so far.

But messages from you will have more power when reinforced by individuals who the donor knows.

Reach out to your board members and any key volunteers letting them know to expect the year-end fundraising email(s) and ask them to forward/share them (preferably more than one of them).

Consider directly messaging them on social media (if they’re on your channel) making the same request as you make posts.

This takes time, of course, but can both increase the odds donors respond and allow you to reach new donors from the networks of your board/volunteers.

5. Offer a match (if you can)

Especially for email, evidence shows a match can be motivating to some donors and increase the number of responses and the average gift. 

Of course, you can overemphasize a match. It needs to be part of the appeal — the shiny icing on the cake — not the cake itself.  

But to the extent you have a single donor (or an array of donors together) who can offer a match that’s large enough to seem motivating, you should do so. After all, cake icing is yummy.

I would not necessarily feature the match in every message.  I’d do so more at the beginning of the campaign and again at the end if you haven’t already secured the match.

6. Segment

Don’t treat all your donors the same.

To the extent you can, you should remove those you’re targeting with large individual asks from your mass emails and general mailings.  Perhaps include them in the final year-end emails if they haven’t given.

With mail, if you can produce two letters – one for those who haven’t given recently and one for those whose support you want to renew, that’s preferable to one message covering both.  The letter is mostly the same, but at a few key points your ask language would differ. You can, of course, take this further and segment past donors into different tiers who get letters that mention slightly varied asked for donation amounts.

Likewise, with email, if your email list is synced to your fundraising database in a way that allows you to distinguish past donors from prospective, I would again recommend a slightly different message to the two lists.

Bonus: Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good

Don’t read the tips above and get overwhelmed if you’re starting from scratch. Better to do a few of these than none. Pick those doable within your time and technology.

Then start planning earlier next year and see what more is feasible.

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Scary Nonprofit Quotes 2024

October 24, 2024

Filed under: Board Development,Communications,Fundraising,Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 3:04 pm

Welcome to the 3rd not-quite annual edition of Scary Nonprofit Quotes.

I authored the original edition in 2021 as Halloween approached and a follow-up in 2022.  After a one-year hiatus, I’m back.

I’ve wracked my brain and reviewed notes from the year. So without further adieu, here are the scariest things I’ve heard uttered by nonprofit leaders during the last couple of years.  Some of these may seem made up, but they’re not!

If you have a scary quote of your own, please add them as comments!

Scary Quotes, 2024 Edition

  1. I knew 10 years ago our fundraising database was a mess and needed to be replaced, but it just never seemed like the right time.

  2. I know this is what most of the people we had you interview said, but I don’t think they get nonprofits.  (Note: the people interviewed actually had more nonprofit experience than the board chair who uttered this].

  3. I can’t continue to be board chair of this organization unless the organization starts paying me as a contractor.

  4. I don’t believe we should work with deadlines or agreed upon objectives. 

  5. I don’t use talking points or write up what I’m going to say at our fundraising events. I prefer to wing it.   I’m not sure I could tell you what I said after the fact. 

  6. I know it’s a headache, but I’ll just leave that to the next Executive Director to deal with [after I leave in about 2 years].

  7. I don’t care if our board minutes are accurate.  Nobody will ever read them.

  8. I like to just use general topics for meeting agendas rather than specific questions.  I prefer to just let the meeting unfold.

  9. High staff turnover is something we just have to accept given we’re a nonprofit and therefore don’t pay well.

  10. I think I should be able to bring my wife to the board meeting. [notwithstanding the confidential information/topics that will be covered].

Let’s do a poll!  Please vote for your favorite Scary Quote of 2024.  I’ll be sure to post the results on Halloween. 

Please also comment if you have your own scary quotes you’d like to share!

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Nonprofit dashboards 101

May 30, 2024

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 11:41 am

The phrase “Nonprofit Dashboard” is not one I recall hearing in my first decade in the nonprofit sector (1994-2004).  Then, a few years into the new millennium, I started to hear the phrase occasionally.  By the early 2010s, I started to hear the phrase frequently.  

Dashboards have emerged as a tool for nonprofits because most organizations have far more data about their own performance than their counterparts two decades ago (or longer).  In addition, tools for graphically displaying data have become commonplace, embedded within programs we already use like Excel. 

But Dashboards aren’t something that are right for every nonprofit and doing them right requires serious thinking.

So what is a Nonprofit Dashboard? 

The term Dashboard is used because the tool is analogous to a car dashboard – a quick, comprehensive view of the overall status of the car.  In the organizational context, a Dashboard is usually a 1-3 page document, produced on a regular schedule, which uses a combination of tables, charts, and graphs to visually represent key metrics by which an organization is evaluating itself.  

While Dashboards can be focused solely on a specific program or other activity (e.g. fundraising), more often organizations develop Dashboards that are comprehensive with regards to their organization.

Why create a Dashboard? 

Do staff really need one more report on their to-do list?

Dashboards can serve many purposes, but the three most common benefits Dashboard proponents cite are: 

  • It generates strategic thinking about how the organization measures success.
  • It can help to identify on a timely basis where an organization is being successful and where things may be going off course.
  • It can provide a useful tool by which to focus the attention of the board on the most important things.

For really small organizations just struggling to hire their first few staff, a Dashboard is probably overkill.  But at some point Dashboards become worth the investment.

What should a Dashboard measure?  

There are many terms bandied about, but the one I like is Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).  “Key” because you have to pick and choose since there are many metrics that matter to an organization and the challenge is to pick out a reasonable subset of them that are most important.  “Performance Indicators” because you’re measuring something that’s an indicator of success.

How do you choose your KPIs? 

If at all possible, the search for KPIs should begin with an organizational strategic plan, which should already identify goals and measurements of success.  The challenge is to then pick which measurements are the most important to pay attention to in the next few years. 

If you don’t already have these, start with your programs and ask: Which are most important?  Some are more likely to be icing on the cake and others get at your core.  Focus on the core. 

For each program, what metrics are you already tracking (or can you reasonably track in the future) to evaluate your performance over time?   For some organizations these are straightforward.  A school may be tracking enrollment and learning (via test scores or grades).  A homeless shelter may track people served and homeless placed into permanent housing. 

For other organizations, particularly those engaged in advocacy, the search for meaningful program measurements can be more complex.  But every time I’ve engaged with an organization on this topic, we’ve come up with some outputs that are good indicators of progress, even if they don’t represent the ultimate outcomes being sought.

Leaving programs aside, nearly every Dashbaord I’ve seen also include multiple KPIs that focus on finances – mostly on the revenue side of the equation.  Here the challenge is to think through your revenue generating strategies and identify what matters most.  Overall revenue is obvious. Unrestricted funding is another good one. Or you may find it important to focus on fundraising metrics by major type of revenue (e.g. individuals, corporations, foundations, etc.).

With regard to fundraising from individuals, some metrics that may be important are: the number of individual donors (or members), retention rate for individual donors (how many who gave in the prior year, have given in this year), average gift levels, the percentage of donors who have upgraded in the last year, number of donors who’ve made a second gift, etc. 

Over several years, the list of which metrics you focus on may evolve – but at any given time you should look at your fundraising strategies and see what matters most. 

Sometimes no one metric seems right so you have to invent something that rolls up several data points into a new one.  For example, when I was Executive Director of the Oregon League of Conservation Voters, we developed a long-term communications plan where progress could be measured in dozens of different ways, no two or three of which seemed most important. 

Yet, in the end, we knew that what we really wanted out of our communications was for our constituents to take action.  So we created a new metric which we called “Total Actions” taken in response to our communications.  Each quarter we added up all sorts of actions people took in response to our online communications, such as clicking on links, forwarding emails, donations, downloading documents, social media shares, etc.  As long as Total Actions was on a solid upward trajectory, we knew we were making progress.

Of course, having good fundraising and/or communications data for your Dashboard presumes you’re using a valid Constituent Relations Management (CRM) database to track donations, online communications, and other data necessary to produce the metrics.  If you’re still on Excel or hate your current database, getting past that hurdle should come before you create a Dashboard.

Likewise, the discussion about program metrics presumes that you have a means of tracking the outputs and outcomes from your programs and you put that data somewhere – whether in your fundraising CRM or in some separate data set. If you’re not pulling together data to evaluate individual programs, it will be hard to create a Dashboard.

The last question is: how do you display the data?

I’ve found that Excel is plenty powerful to take data and generate good charts and graphs for a good Dashboard.  Or sometimes, just putting the data into a Table and color coding rows as Green, Yellow, and Red based on whether you’re doing great, okay, or not well is sufficient.

If your own Excel skills are too limited, you probably can find a skilled volunteer who in just a few hours time can take data in a spreadsheet and display it in a useful manner in a way you can easily replicate every 3-6 months without ongoing assistance.

It’s worth investing some time/energy to get the Dashboard display right.  If you’ve done all the work to generate and select the data, you should absolutely make sure it’s presented to your board and senior staff in a format that aids comprehension.  

If you have an example of a Dashboard you’re willing to share with me, I’m always looking for more ideas for how to use them effectively.

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On the value of one-on-ones

April 30, 2024

Filed under: Board Development,Fundraising,Leadership — jonathanpoisner @ 10:37 am

I was recently talking to an Executive Director and it became clear they hardly ever met with anyone else one-on-one. They were doing so much writing, emailing, and group meetings that they were hardly ever talking to just one person.

When I pushed them on this, they responded that meeting with just one person is inefficient.

I believe that is short-sighted. Organizations thrive based on personal relationships and it’s very, very hard to forge such relationships other than in one-on-one (or one-on-two settings when you’re forging a relationship with a couple).

Something happens in a one-on-one conversation that doesn’t happen at events and certainly not via email/mail or even on the phone.

You can form a stronger personal relationship and you can ask people to take personal responsibility.

Let’s start talking about forming relationships.

It’s not rocket science to understand forming relationships is easier in person.  Legions of studies have demonstrated the role of body language and facial expressions in communications – neither of which works over the phone. 

And in one-on-one meetings, you can make the communication truly two-way – asking questions of a potential organizational supporter and not just talking to them.  This can help you understand what motivates them so you can calibrate any asks to match their needs. You can do this in an authentic and not a staged way.

Meeting with people one-on-one also allows you tap into personal responsibility and not just collective responsibility.

At an event, it’s about how all these people in the room can help.  One-on-one, it’s about how you can help. Yes, peer pressure can matter. And well run events tap into that collective power. But getting somebody to take real ownership and dig deep when giving almost almost always works better off outside of events.

Studies done in the 1970s and 1980s focused on personal versus collective responsibility in a different context.  Scientists had people fake epileptic seizures in public places to see who would help. Sometimes they did this when only one person was around. Other times they did this when several people were around. Which situation led to more help?

Interestingly (to me), the answer is you were more likely to get help during the seizure if just one person was around. This is contrary to what I would have thought.

But it rings true upon further reflection.  When something happens and other people are around, you tend to look around to see how they’re responding.  And in unusual situations, people are often slow to act. If everyone else is also just looking around, you may think: I guess it’s not my problem. 

But if there’s nobody to look at for social cues, you know it’s about you, and you alone.

When you’re invited to give and the invitation is clearly about you, that’s when people tend to step up and make larger donations. 

In these contexts, as you get to know people, you’re also in a better position to add in further opportunities for them to step up — will they champion the organization to their friends, will they volunteer, etc.

This helps explain why time and time again, organizations that invest their staff and board time in doing one-on-one donor meetings are quicker to transform themselves financially than those that bank on fundraising events. 

The same thing is true beyond fundraising. Time and again, I’ve seen organizations build far more effective coalitions and partnerships with allies by doing a series of one-on-one meetings rather than relying on group meetings with several organizations at once. One-on-one meetings are also the bread and butter for community organizing where you’re trying to build not just an episodic volunteer base, but one where the volunteers are willing to take on leadership.

So stop putting your time into the next great event and banking on social media revolutionizing your organization.  If you want to grow, and grow quickly — get out and meet with more people and invite them to take responsibility.  Of course, for many Executive Directors, that requires figuring out what you can jettison from your busy schedule, a topic I’ll discuss next month.

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How to relentlessly focus on relationships

July 25, 2023

Filed under: Communications,Fundraising,Human Resources,Leadership — jonathanpoisner @ 3:42 pm

I’ve previously written about the value of relationship-building to nonprofit organizations.

Organizations that thrive relentlessly focus on relationships. Successful organizations are constantly expanding their pool of relationships and strengthening existing relationships. Then they consciously activate those relationships.

I was recently talking to a nonprofit leader who seemed to grasp this in theory, but struggled with execution.

As such, I’ve repackaged in this article some of my prior writing about the value of relationships with the aims of providing more practical advice people can use when it comes to building relationships that matter for your organization.

But first, why relationships?

It comes down to human nature.  While people receive information outside of relationships, relationships have a powerful role in how people react to information.

People listen more to people with whom they have a relationship.

People are more likely to be persuaded by people with whom they have a relationship.

People take action more when requested from people with whom they have a relationship.

Of course, the quality of the relationship matters too. The deeper the relationship, the greater the odds that we will listen to someone, be persuaded by them, or take action at their request.  Conversely, a bad relationship makes someone even less likely to listen or act upon a request.

Here’s a practical example of how this may impact fundraising for a nonprofit.  An Executive Director may give a pitch-perfect donation request to John Doe. A board member may give a mediocre donation request to the same John Doe.  If the board member and John Doe are friends and the Executive Director has never met John Doe, the mediocre board request is far more likely to yield a significant donation.

Yet, it would be a mistake to think of relationships as just about fundraising.  Relationships impact an organization’s interaction with volunteers, media, allied organizations, elected officials, and people the organizations are working to serve.  Any time you’re trying to shape behavior, relationships matter.

So how do you go from theory to practice?

Here are seven ideas worth considering.

First, build into your workplans (especially Executive Directors) time set aside for relationship-building.  If you don’t set aside time for it, you’re less likely to make it happen.  Examples of relationship-building activities that take time:

  • Attending fundraisers for peer organizations.
  • Going to lunch or coffee with allies who you don’t know particularly well.
  • Asking for advice from elected officials or other decision-makers.
  • Attending conferences and focusing on relationships more than the conference substance.

Second, create events with relationship-building in mind.  This could be:

  • A volunteer appreciation event. 
  • A “Meet the Executive Director” or “someone else important” event. 
  • A workshop or training where time is set aside for people to get to know each other. 

Every time you plan or attend an event, a standard question should be: “how can this event be used to meet someone new and/or strengthen my relationship with those I already know?” 

Third, train your staff about the value of relationships and events.  If they’re attending an event while working for you, they should understand they should be focused on new people and not just standing in the corner chatting with folks they already know well.  Challenge them to come back from every event with a couple examples of new people they met with whom they should do some follow-up.

Fourth, set relationship goals.  When I was an Executive Director, I had a goal of having lunch or coffee with one allied Executive Director per month with no agenda other than getting to know them (and their organization) better.  By putting this goal in writing as part of my annual goals with the board, I “forced” myself to stay on track.

Fifth, use your organizational database to record what you learn.  Even with the best intentions, it can be challenging to meet people and remember everything of relevance you learned six months or a year later. Your organization should have a CRM (constituent relationship management) database (probably primarily for fundraising, but for other things too) where you can keep track of who you met with of significance and add notes of anything significant you learned where you may wish to follow-up at your next meeting. Taking notes in your database doesn’t make your relationship any less authentic. It just recognizes we have fallible memories.

Sixth, seek out and bring into your organization those who’re obviously good at relationships.  You and I know them.  I’m a natural introvert.  But we all know those extroverts who seem to know everyone and like playing a connecting role between people. They are golden for your nonprofit if you can excite them about your cause.  If you see somebody who fits that bill express interest, put extra time and attention into cultivating them.

Lastly, be committed to asking those with whom you’re in a relationship to activate their relationships on your behalf.  As I write this, I have 1,345 LinkedIn Connections.  Those 1,345 have more than 477,000 unique connections!  Of course, LinkedIn is just being used as an illustration of a point:  the people with whom any individual has relationships open them up to a vastly larger network of relationships than they can ever tap on their own. 

So don’t just rely upon this “activation” of relationships to happen by chance.  Directly ask your supporters to reach out to their friends and neighbors.  This could be as part of a Peer to Peer fundraising effort, as part of volunteer recruitment, recruiting people to attend events, sharing online news, or some other method.  Bottom line: turn donors into fundraisers and volunteers into volunteer recruiters. 

Do you have other ideas for how to build and strengthen relationships? I’d love to hear in your comments.

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Scary Nonprofit Quotes of 2022

October 19, 2022

Filed under: About My Work,Board Development,Fundraising,Human Resources,Leadership — jonathanpoisner @ 4:57 pm

Welcome to the 2nd annual edition of Scary Nonprofit Quotes.

I authored the original Scary Quotes edition in 2021 as Halloween approached, documenting examples of some of the scariest things I’ve personally heard uttered by nonprofit leaders during my time as an Executive Director and consultant.

For this second edition I put out a call to colleagues far and wide to hear their scary quotes.

So without further adieu, here are the top Scary Quotes shared with me for 2022.

1. “We’re a 501c3 so we can’t lobby”

Note: Yes, 501c3s can lobby“

2. [As told by a board member to an outgoing Executive Director]: “We’re going to hire a person to run the organization even though they quit on you despite you telling us not to hire them.”

Note: 2 years later the  organization went defunct  

3. [Told by a board member to an Executive Director]: “I don’t want to ask X person for money because I think it would be impolite”

4. “Rather than pay a salary, let’s pay the development [fundraising] staff 100% on commission on the funds they raise.”

5. “Our nonprofit should expand. You’re either expanding or dying.”

6. “Raising funds for our issue is much harder than raising money for other issues.”

Note: I’ve heard person raising money for issue X say issue Y was easier to raise money for even as someone working on issue Y said issue X was easier to raise money for.  Unless your issues is exceedingly niche and unpopular, this is almost never the case.

Alternative version: “It’s much harder to raise money in ____ (locale).  People here just don’t donate like they do in ________.” 

Note: again, almost never true. Yes there are giving differences by location, but that’s very rarely the true barrier to an organization.

7. [By an Executive Director to another staff person]: “They can never fire me.  I am indispensable.”

8. [By a board member}: “We don’t need an Executive Director, a monkey could do that job!” 

Note: This board chair decided to do the job himself and tanked the organization.

9. [By a board member]: “I don’t do fundraising.”

Alternative version: “Why would I share my contacts/friends list with the organization?”

10. “Don’t worry about entry level staff pay, benefits, and opportunities for advancement. If people leave, no problem. Everyone wants to work here.”

11. [By a board member]: “It doesn’t matter. We’ll never get audited.”

12. [By an Executive Director asked why he wanted to be an Executive Director]: “I figure nobody could tell me what to do.” 

13. [By a board chair]: “The Executive Director doesn’t need a raise because his wife is a doctor.”

Let’s do a poll!  Please vote for your favorite Scary Quote of 2022.  I’ll be sure to post the results on Halloween.

Please also comment if you have your own scary quotes you’d like to share!

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Thankful nonprofit quotes

November 24, 2021

Filed under: About My Work,Board Development,Consulting,Fundraising,Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning,Volunteers — jonathanpoisner @ 1:50 pm

Last month, in the spirit of Halloween, I shared the scariest things I’ve heard uttered by nonprofit leaders.

As a counterpoint, this month I offer up some “thankful” comments about and from nonprofit leaders.

These are things I’ve actually heard nonprofit leaders say, or close paraphrases, to the best of my recollection and/or based on looking back at interview notes I’ve taken down over the years.

  1. Our donors are really amazing. Getting to know them is one of the best parts of my job as Executive Director.

  2. I really enjoy working with the rest of the staff. The team has really gelled over the last few months. It gives me such a thrill to see them working so well together.

  3. It feels so good to start work every day knowing I’m making people’s lives better.

  4. I love, love, love our volunteers.

  5. My board is our secret superpower. They provide so much great energy for our work.

  6. When we lost our largest funder, our board really stepped up and helped me find a path forward.

  7. I’ve only been at the organization a couple of years, and I’m sure I’ve made several life-long friends already.

  8. When one of the students [we’re teaching] eyes just light up because they’ve learned something new, I have to resist the urge to go give the a high five.

  9. I know this sounds nerdy, but I love crunching data with our fundraising database.

  10. [AND LASTLY, MY FAVORITE]: The strategic plan has been incredibly helpful as a roadmap and in securing big gifts.

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Scary nonprofit quotes

October 29, 2021

Filed under: Board Development,Consulting,Fundraising,Human Resources,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 10:52 am

In honor of Halloween 2021, here are the the scariest things I’ve heard from nonprofit leaders.  These are paraphrases as I wasn’t writing them down at the time.  If you read one of these and don’t think they’re scary, let me know and we can discuss. 

  1. I don’t have time to plan.  I’m just too busy.
  2. I don’t want an engaged board of directors.  They’ll just get in my way as Executive Director.
  3. I sent an email to my board asking for someone to volunteer for a task and nobody responded.  I guess they don’t care.
  4. I’ll be so glad when we get our Development Director hired and I can cut back on most of my time fundraising.
  5. “I hate hitting up people for money,” said by a Development Director.
  6. Not really something said, but I had lunch with a new Development Director.  It was a get acquainted meeting.  They talked about themself the whole time and didn’t ask me a single question.
  7. My staff’s pretty mediocre, but I’ve just come to accept that’s the way it is.
  8. I don’t care what the data says, I know it’s true.
  9. “It’s not that I don’t want coalition partners, it’s just that I think the other organizations who’re doing similar work just keep making stupid decisions.”  (Pretty sure that one’s an exact quote).
  10. Nonprofit leader: “I was really upset with the decision we made to X.” 

    Me: “But you didn’t say anything during the meeting!” I replied.  ‘If you disagreed with the potential decision, why didn’t you speak up?”

    “I didn’t want to make anyone upset,” he replied.

Have you heard any of these before? Something else scary to share?

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Ticket to Ride and nonprofit leadership

January 27, 2021

Filed under: Communications,Consulting,Fundraising,Leadership,Strategic Planning — jonathanpoisner @ 3:51 pm

One of my pandemic “weaknesses” has been the amount of time I’ve spent playing Ticket to Ride – the online version.  For those not familiar with the game, you can read about it here. 

In short, your intent in the game is to connect train routes between different cities, collecting cards of varying colors and playing them in a strategic way before your opponents take the connections you need.   Longer routes are worth more than shorter routes.  You can add routes during the middle of the game, not just the beginning. For the most part, two players can’t use the same connection.

In order to “justify” my time spent, I started thinking recently about the lessons Ticket to Ride offers to nonprofit leaders.   

So here, without further delay, are my top 5 lessons for nonprofit organizations.  Of course, I’m pretty sure these lessons are worth reading even if you have never and will play the game . . .  .

Lesson 1 – In Ticket to Ride, there is a tension between waiting to have all your cards collected to complete a whole series of connections versus seizing some early connections that are good enough to get you started.  If you wait too long, though, you can miss your moment — in particular, somebody else may claim the same connection.

I’ve seen some nonprofit leaders fail because they were so focused on getting everything right, making sure all the plans and resources were perfectly aligned, that they took action too late.  A certain degree of boldness is essential to lead a nonprofit. 

Lesson 2 – In Ticket to Ride, there are eight different colored cards and one wild color (e.g. yellow, green, black, etc., plus wild.) and you have to be mindful of what colors you need now, what colors you need in the future, and what colors are available right now (you get to see 5 options or pick a mystery card). If you focus too much on your short-term needs only collecting colors you need for a few early connections you want to make, you’ll find yourself short of what you need for subsequent connections.  Of course, sometimes that first connection is critical and it’s worth the short-term focus.  But, over time, I’ve found that I tend to score highest when I focus on a diversity of objectives, looking beyond the initial few steps and towards the next set.

So too in nonprofits I’ve seen nonprofit leaders become so short-term focused that they find themselves emerging from a successful early activity completely ill-prepared for what comes next.  In contrast, nonprofit leaders who amass a variety of resources with the aim of pursuing a series of objectives over time tend to achieve greater success.

Of course, astute readers may ask: “doesn’t this contradict Lesson 1?”  In part, yes.  But not completely.  You must be bold (as described in Lesson 1), but not so bold that you fail to build up the resources (money, people, other assets) that you need to be successful in future endeavors. 

Lesson 3 – in Ticket to Ride, there is a benefit in collecting a series of routes that piggyback on each other, so that you can advance towards multiple objectives (e.g. routes) with a single connection.  For example, connecting Denver to Kansas City could help you connect Salt Lake City to Chicago as well as San Francisco to Washington DC.   You can use that connection on both routes.   

So too for nonprofits, it’s important to look for synergies and other ways in which the same activity can serve multiple purposes.  To take just one obvious example I’ve experienced recently, if you write an article for your email newsletter, are you also posting the same content (with either no or minor edits) on a blog?  Posting it on social media? 

Similarly, if you build relationships with constituents as part of your volunteer program or advocacy, are you taking advantage of those same relationships when fundraising rather than treat your fundraising as unrelated? While this may seem obvious, I’ve watched more than one organization fail to take advantage of the volunteer-fundraising synergy. 

Lesson 4– in Ticket to Ride, you can play cutthroat, where instead of building your own connections/routes, you anticipate the routes others appear to be building, and you block them on your turn.  This is perfectly legal within the rules of the game. 

But within my own social circle and with those I’ve been randomly playing online, it’s considered a social faux pas, and people (including yours truly) will often refuse to play in the future with those who compete in this “blocking” manner. 

A similar dynamic is true for nonprofits.  There can sometimes be short-term advantages you can seize away from an organization with which you are sometimes allied and sometimes in competition.  An example I’ve observed: raising money from a set of overlapping donors with a fundraising message that’s explicitly anti the other allied organization.  This may yield some short-term donations. However, if you get a reputation of being not a good collaborator, future opportunities to collaborate/partner will disappear, to your detriment. 

I can attest first-hand that as an environmental group Executive Director there were some environmental organizations who I cut out of opportunities because I’d seen them repeatedly use messages that undercut other allies.  If you develop a reputation for not being a “fair” player, your nonprofit will be weaker in the end.    

Lesson 5 – In Ticket to Ride, most players exclusively focus on building connections that complete their routes, and nothing but their routes.  However, I have noticed that really stellar players are aware of the overall board and sometimes build beyond their routes, to the next major city.  Perhaps they have to go from Boston to Phoenix and they go ahead and build as well to Los Angeles.  This is because late in the game you can score extra points by drawing new routes and some cities in particular (Los Angeles being an example) come up a lot.  This is an “if you build it they will come” approach, to quote the movie Field of Dreams. 

So too in nonprofits, sometimes when launching a new program, you just have to go the extra mile and do it, even if there’s not yet funding attached.  Build the program and then go out and seek funding for it, rather than the other way around.  I’m not saying always do that; you have to evaluate the level of potential benefit and financial risk.  But on several occasions, I’ve seen organizations grow dramatically in their impact by taking leaps of faith like this at key junctures.

And there you have it – five lessons for nonprofit leaders from Ticket to Ride.  I can now play the game some more without feeling guilty.  And if anyone is playing it online and looking for an opponent, just email me and we can set up a game. 

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