Helen Brown - 34/34 - Helen Brown Group

April 10, 2011 By Helen Brown Leave a Comment

Building Alliances for Nonprofit Success

Last month I had a great conversation with my friend Ellen Winiarczik about her strategic planning work with nonprofits. Our two worlds run parallel to each other most of the time; while my team and I are usually helping an organization find funding sources, Ellen deals more with making sure that a nonprofit is structurally strong, that the organization is prepared to meet its mission and that its board has a firm grip on the rudder. I asked Ellen to share a few words about her work and how our worlds collide (in a good way!) with each other.

Ellen and Helen

For 13 years I’ve run a firm that consults with nonprofits, foundations and government agencies, large and small, in strategic planning and implementation, resource investment, program evaluation, leadership and fund development as well as inclusive excellence. I just returned from a 12 day exchange visit with leaders of US nonprofit organizations visiting their counterparts in charities of all flavors in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. These visits that I lead every year are designed to create lasting relationships and learning opportunities amongst far-flung peers, and they’re always an enlightening and wonderful experience for all of us.

While our economy is showing small signs of recovery, it’s clear that an Irish banking collapse and an over-extended government calling for austerity measures means cut backs for everyone there, especially for nonprofits depending upon government programs and funding.

Every nonprofit organization no matter where you are needs to chart a steady course for their future. Those that are the strongest, even in difficult times, find ways to strategically engage board members, staff, volunteers and stakeholders to guide the organization’s future by making concrete goal-driven plans to ensure success.

They do this in part by sharing mission and operational clarity that spans across the organization at all levels. This phenomenon occurs when good communication exists, vertically and horizontally, and everyone is consulted about strategic plan creation and reasonable goal setting.

Strategic planning, according to BoardSource, the leading US information-sharing organization for nonprofit leadership, requires both thinkers and doers and must meet the needs of a wide variety of stakeholders. If [any] are left out of the process, the final plan tends to serve the needs of a few who may not be fully aware of the actual impact of their decisions. The BoardSource website goes on to outline the different roles for each of the key players in this equation.

Board members govern the organization and set policy as well as outline strategic organizational direction. Boards deal with multiple priorities including organizational governance, investment and spending policies, and programmatic direction. Clearly board members need to have a keen eye on ensuring that financial resources are always available to support key programs that carry out the organization’s mission.

Executive leadership provides the data necessary to inform the board and works in tandem with the board to craft reasonable (or even lofty!) strategic plans. Operational data includes specifics on all resources needed to run and sustain operations with enough in the bank for adverse situations (in a perfect world, 6-12 months). This information is optimally sourced from all departments and outlines an organization’s current direction with solid operational data to inform and support key growth opportunities.

With data in hand executive leadership and board members feel confident that they have all the right information to make key strategic planning decisions that includes anticipating how much money, personnel, and facilities are needed to support existing operations, and grow, if desired.

But what if an organization has key roles such as development (fundraising) that are not invited to participate in the process? In my experience, this happens all too often. Here’s where effective communications including relationship building and strategic outreach as well as a healthy dose of data to support the development office’s real or potential impact on the bottom line come in handy.

Sometimes, though, it’s simply a case of the board and executive leadership not being aware of development’s expertise. For example, I worked with a small organization on strategic planning a few years ago. This organization was embedded in a larger, higher education institution, but hadn’t engaged in conversation with the fundraising staff of the parent institution during their 5 year existence. While highly autonomous this small organization neglected to realize that they had larger institutional resources to leverage in securing future programmatic success. Once they forged those relationships, key funders were quickly identified and became engaged as supporters.

Steering a clear course in these economic times can be unnerving. Boards, CEOs, and fundraising staff have the opportunity to create a strong team with which to weather the storm together. As spring moves into summer it’s beginning to look like our economy may have some small squalls to navigate. Nonprofits need to stay true to their course and communicate across the organization to accomplish their strategic outcomes for stability and growth.

Ellen Winiarczyk is President of Win-ar-zic & Associates in Denver, CO. Her firm specializes in strategic planning, leadership development and evaluation for nonprofits and foundations. She is on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/ellenw.

April 4, 2011 By Helen Brown Leave a Comment

Three Truly Great (FREE!) Fundraising Research Resources

I just finished Tony Hsieh’s highly-recommended book Delivering Happiness, and it’s gotten me thinking about resources for fundraisers/researchers that provide a WOW factor: sources that deliver beyond expectations.

For me, that would be a metasite, or web page that has lots of links and resources of help to users. Here are my top picks in three categories. What are your favorites?

Best Overall Collaborative Metasite

First up I recommend SupportingAdvancement, a Mall of America-sized site with resources for every department in a fundraising office. The site has free templates, report formats, white papers, and training resources useful to everyone, as well as links to research-specific sites and much more. It’s updated daily and thrives on the generosity of its contributors of content and site sponsors. I could go on, but really, you have to see it to believe it.

Best Metasite Created as a Division-Wide Resource (update: link sadly no longer valid because they liked it so much they turned it into an internal-only resource)(!)

This next site is a resource created by the research team at The University of California San Diego for the entire development department. It’s called the Development Office Toolkit and they created it using Google Sites (free!) and linked it to the university’s servers. The site is chock-a-block with information for the whole development office: news of upcoming training classes, pdfs of internal (yet public) reports, how-tos, templates, university event calendars and lots more.

For prospect research specifically, there are pages on ethics and confidentiality policies, information about prospect management and links to lots of research resources, including some niche sources like BloodHorse for finding thoroughbred horse owners.

This is a fantastic example of an internal resource that isn’t just a research department resource, but one created with the needs of the entire division in mind. And since they used Google Sites to make the resource, you can too! It’s a great example for others to follow. Bravo!

Best Metasite For Research-Specific Information

And last but definitely not least, Northwestern University has kept up a comprehensive Research Bookmarks list of several hundred links since the early 1990s, and it is consistently fantastic. Updated monthly from recommendations within the NU research department and from the prospect research community at large, the list is particularly strong with links to international resources including hard-to-find offshore real estate listings. It’s been on my bookmarks list for years and it should be on yours, too, if it isn’t already.

If you have other metasites that you’d like to add to this list, comment below! Let’s crowd-source this!

March 21, 2011 By Helen Brown 1 Comment

Glass Houses

Rocks, boulders and a few velvet-covered pebbles have been hurled on both sides of the James O’Keefe vs. NPR debacle earlier this month. In case you’ve been living under one (a rock, that is), O’Keefe, a self-described journalist, hired two actors to pose as donors with $5 million in order to lure NPR executives to meet with them. In exchange for an expensive free lunch, O’Keefe’s team fed NPR’s then-VP for Fundraising Ron Schiller and a colleague false information in order to entice them to reveal NPR’s ‘secret left-leaning agenda’ to a hidden videotape. Schiller and his boss were subsequently fired in the recorded tape’s aftermath.

I have listened to a lot of the invective that has been thrown by people who are sure that in the same situation they would have acted better. I don’t know that they truly know how they would react in that cushy restaurant chair.

What I do know is that I’ve got terrible aim when it comes to throwing stones. Also, I live in a glass house.

I get nervous or angry sometimes and say things I don’t mean. Sometimes things come out entirely differently from how I meant them. I have been known, when pressured, to agree with (or smile woodenly at) people who are in positions of power over me who I may not actually agree with.

In order to appease them.
In order to shut them up.
In order to move the conversation along to (please, God) any other topic.
In order to represent my organization appropriately, even if it’s not my personal belief.
In order to avoid an unnecessary fight.

This I have done.

There are lies to appease and there are lies to deceive.

Between white lies and damned lies it seems to me that there’s a line. In order to maintain a civilized society, some small amount of lying keeps us from killing each other. No, honey, those pants don’t make you look fat. Or from disappointing each other. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Or from dinnertime inconvenience. She’s not here right now, may I take a message?

In prospect research, our code of ethics is crystal clear about lying. According to the Association of Professional Researchers for Advancement (APRA)’s Statement of Ethics:

“Members shall be truthful with respect to their identities and purpose and the identity of their institutions during the course of their work.”

It’s more than just maintaining professional integrity, although that’s a pretty decent benefit. The purpose is to protect our organizations’ reputations and help build strong and transparent relationships with donors. Besides, we don’t need to misrepresent. If we have to lie to get a piece of information, it’s probably not the kind of information we should hold in our files anyway. Does it help build a stronger relationship between our organization and the donor? If not, forget it.

But what if we’re pressured from our higher-ups to get the information anyway? What then? I have been in that situation. Between a rock and a hard place.

Professional ethics are important to front-line fundraisers, too. According to the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP) Ethical Principles, members are required to:

“…practice their profession with integrity, honesty, truthfulness and adherence to the absolute obligation to safeguard the public trust.”

But unlike prospect researchers, where the tools of our trade – the facts we seek – come from public sources, the tools of the fundraiser’s trade are relationships. Built from the narratives they tell each other about their lives.

I find it hard to believe that in building those relationships people don’t tell white lies to each other sometimes.

In order to appease them.
In order to shut them up.
In order to move the conversation along to (please, God) any other topic.
In order to represent their organization appropriately even though it’s not their personal belief.
In order to avoid an unnecessary fight.

That must be a hard line to walk, especially since AFP put both honesty and truthfulness in that one sentence as if to underscore that it’s a big deal.

The profession of journalism also has its code of ethics (a mighty long one, too, I might add). The code put forth by the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) states up front:

“Journalists should be honest, fair and courageous in gathering, reporting and interpreting information.”

There’s that word again – honest. Later the code says do not misrepresent. Again, a concept voiced twice.

Where is the line in the sand?

Ethics statements are the rules we craft to give ourselves a moral framework to work within. They are the aspirations we keep in our hearts knowing that we are all human, ergo we err.

It’s a fine line. Lies to appease over here and lies to deceive over there. And ethics statements forming the immovable, unshifting framework that provides no wiggle room.

I hope the rock-throwing is through. It has stalled at least two careers and I wonder if it will ruin others. As a co-worker and consultant, I have worked with Ron Schiller off and on for over 10 years. He’s a gentleman and a truly gifted fundraising professional. I’ve never had cause to question his integrity. But as a human being, I’m guessing he errs. The way we all do sometimes.

Me, I’m keeping my stones well behind me.

March 15, 2011 By Helen Brown 6 Comments

Can You Research Better Than A 4-Year Old?

When my nephew Jason was a little kid, he could drive me crazy with his questions. He’d start with “What is that man doing?” “He’s digging a hole.”

“Why?” “Well, he’s helping build a bridge.”

“Why?” “The old one washed out.”

“Why?” “Because there was a mudslide.”

“Why?”

Before I knew it, I was trying to explain global weather patterns and El Niño…and quickly getting w-a-y out of my depth. (Of course, this was before iPhones; I think I’d last a few more rounds now).

“Why?” is the question

In fundraising research, we need to be like four-year-olds every time we do our work. Every single time we come up against information that doesn’t quite make sense.

Why does that couple belong to a golf club on an island off the coast of Georgia? They live in New York. Their second home is in Colorado. What’s going on? Is their capacity to give larger than we think?

Why is our alumnus not responding to a 45-page proposal we labored over for two solid weeks? It was a sure thing – he asked us to put it together!

Why did a distinguished business leader suddenly change her giving priorities ten years ago? It used to be the environment, now she’s into medical research. Will she give to us?

Something’s just…off

When we research, facts that are asymmetrical should grab our attention and bug us like a stone in our sandal. We’re not just finding information, plonking it down in a report and throwing it over the transom in a factory line. Yawn. Another report done. Next.

The couple belongs to the island golf club because their third home is there, held in trust in a compound the wife’s grandfather, an oil baron, established. Fortunately on its website the golf club’s newsletter mentioned the great season-opening party at the couple’s house, with photos of the art collection and the back-story of the oil baron.

The alumnus mentioned in a newspaper interview years ago that he is dyslexic. Our alum hasn’t read the proposal and didn’t feel comfortable mentioning it.

The prospect’s sister died of a hereditary disease 10 years ago. In a video interview she discusses how she’s motivated to honor her sibling and find a cure for herself and her family.

These are three real examples* where asking “why?” made a make-or-break difference in our client’s success with engaging a donor. None of the answers were available on the three main search engines – they were found in deep web sources.

Every piece of research you do could make that difference

We have to keep at it ~ to keep asking “why?” Yes, it’s a lot more work, but it makes work a lot more interesting. We researchers live for that “Eureka!” moment, and there’s no better feeling than being part of a gift that transforms a donor, an organization and the people or cause we serve.

*Details changed to preserve anonymity

February 22, 2011 By Helen Brown 2 Comments

The Best All-In-One Research Tool

Clients ask me this question a lot:

“Which online prospect research tool should I buy?”

Then they’ll go on to say:

“My old colleague tells me to use this one because it’s really inexpensive, my consultants tell me I should use their product, and I just heard about something else that’s supposed to integrate with my database …I’m so confused! Which one is the best?”

It’s a really good question.

You’ve got limited time, limited staff and a limited budget. Wouldn’t you love to have a tool to be able to look up a name, push a button and get a perfectly-honed strategic research profile on that exact person?

Yeah, me too. I’m really sorry; it doesn’t exist. There is no push-button profile. Although I’m sure the good people at IBM are looking into ways to maximize Watson beyond Jeopardy!

Until then, there are subscription services to multi-database products designed to get as close as possible to this ideal. In alpha order, the largest services operating in this space are: DonorScape, DonorSearch, FindWealth Online, Prospect Research Online and ResearchPoint.

These products represent a portion of what I consider the Swiss Army Knives of the prospect research world. They package as many different databases as possible to help with the variety of wealth-and-philanthropy information needs of the typical development office. Most of these vendors also provide electronic screenings of your database, but you aren’t required to do a screening with the company to purchase access to their look-up service.

But which one is the best?

I guarantee you that within a week, you will know. You will need to commit about 5 hours of your time, but that time you spend could save you thousands of dollars (and a lot of aggravation). This is a big decision and depending on the size of your budget this could be a significant purchase for you. You want the most for your money and a tool that saves you time. So when you’re ready, just follow these three easy steps:

STEP ONE: Get the lay of the land

First, visit the vendors’ websites and spend 15 minutes familiarizing yourself with each company’s offering. You will notice some similar databases and features as well as some differences. Many of the vendors have pdfs with further information for you to download or print. If you’re a paper person, create a grid. If you’re a computer person, try Evernote or Zotero, two very cool tools for saving, filing, and creating notes online.

STEP TWO: Kick some tires

Now that you’ve gotten an overview, call the vendors of the products you’re most interested in. Arrange for all of the product demonstrations to happen on the same day. Why?

a) You will begin to form opinions quickly based on what you’re seeing from one product to the next in that short period.

b) If you ask, most of the vendors will provide a week’s worth of access to test their product after the demo, and you will be able to test them out side-by-side in the week ahead.

Smart, huh?

At this point I would recommend not asking about pricing. You want the best product for you, not just the cheapest. The one you select may actually end up being the least expensive, but don’t let that be a factor – yet.

STEP THREE: Take them for a test drive

Do the exact same searches across all of the products, entering names of donors and volunteers you know very well and those you don’t know well at all. Ten to fifteen of each group should give you the information you’ll need to make a solid decision.

Which had the easiest interface for you to use? Which was the most confusing?
Which gave you the most information? The least?
Which gave you the most accurate information based on what you already knew about your insiders? Which gave the most false hits?
How easy is it to build and store lists?

And some more general questions to ask yourself…

How much information do you need to know generally?
How much time do you have to sift through information?
What questions about prospects will you need to answer over the coming year?

The focus really sharpens now

Usually at this point a fairly clear ranking is emerging on the decision grid. If you’re ready to buy, now it’s time to call the sales rep(s) to get pricing for your top one(s).

DO: Ask for and call three references. How responsive is the vendor’s customer service? What do they love about the product and what do they find frustrating?

DO: Find out if a professional association you belong to has negotiated any special discounts with the vendor to maximize your budget.

DON’T: Just go with the service your best friend likes. Your organizations may be similar, but your situation is completely different from theirs.

Voila!

And there you have it – the very best prospect research Swiss Army Knife lookup service. You knew I was going to say this all along, didn’t you – it’s the one that’s best for you.

Note: I have specifically omitted tools like Lexis Nexis, Dialog, Factiva, Highbeam, Morningstar and others from this article because I consider them in a different category of information aggregators. But you can still use the techniques I’ve described above to determine which of those resources would be best for you, too.

February 14, 2011 By Helen Brown 1 Comment

Rescue from the Digital Firehose

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about content curation – ways to corral the rushing river of media coming at all of us. Because we are all drowning in too much information.

Information is a fire hose blasting at us full bore. If it’s not email, it’s Facebook. Blogs. White papers, professional journals and newsletters. RSS feeds and search alerts. Some of it we read, most of it we just don’t have time for.

It’s just crazy. New resources, new services, and even new data-stream-tamers are popping up every day. It can be overwhelming just deciding which filter to use.

Marketing ninja Mark Schaefer’s recent blog posting about hot new Q&A site Quora elicited this comment from Paul Gailey, another digital consultant:

Observations like that make me feel – ugh – overwhelmed for a second. It’s true – the information is only going to keep rushing at us. But there are LOTS of solutions. We have to filter out the noise, but we absolutely cannot afford to filter out the information that we need to see.

Here at HBG my team and I use several free and fee-based tools to help ourselves and our clients deal with the digital firehose. I’d like to show one of those easy-to-use free resources that I think you’ll find helpful. Maybe best of all, you’re not meeting some hot new untested thing. It’s familiar. It’s…

Your old pal, Google

You probably use Google every day, but do you have an iGoogle account? If not, you are truly missing something. Signing up is easy and free. Just click iGoogle on the top-right corner of your Google main page and sign up.

Now you can personalize your home page. Or, if you don’t want to, just skip to item 2. This is my personalized page with a beach theme at sunset (hey, it’s February. I live in Boston.):

There are a zillion themes from which you can choose – from beaches, Italian gardens and English lakes to [*ahem*] scenes that are clearly NSFW. <–(You don’t need to click that if you know what it means). Click “Change theme” (1) to select your choice.

Once you’ve done that click “Add stuff.” (2) That’s where you’ll find goodies called ‘widgets’ that add personalized news feeds, weather forecasts, stock market updates, Twitter, Facebook, and lots of other tools.

You can also set up web and news search alerts and have the alerts sent to your iGoogle page via an RSS feed. That way you’ll be the first in your office to know when a company goes public, someone’s portfolio soars, a foundation you’re tracking announces grants, or the $100-million gift across town gets announced.

But it gets even better. See on the left where it says “Edit this tab”? (3) (I clicked on the down arrow next to ‘Home’ to show you that pull-down window). If you select ‘Add a tab” you can create a new tabbed page – just like tabs on your web browser – and name it whatever you like.

I created this tabbed page for fundraising blogs I follow. You can create tabs by theme, geography, key influencers you’re following …and you can add or delete feeds easily as you find new thought-leaders to follow.

The information you need, curated for you

A ten-minute scan of your tabs first thing in the morning will get you up-to-speed on all the news. You’re not rooting all over the web to find the information you want; the content’s all coming to you. You can add new must-see sources as you find them. Most importantly, you’re not left unaware of critical information that you can’t afford to miss in this busy digital world.

For more about content curation and to find other tools professionals are using,

here are two articles to get you started:

The Content Strategist as Digital Curator, by Erin Scime on the blog A List Apart

Curation is the New Creation, by Paul Gillin on B2BOnline.

February 10, 2011 By Helen Brown 1 Comment

The Scoop on Venture Philanthropy

Map of Europe

My friend Chris Carnie at Factary in Bristol, England gave me a scoop that I am excited to share: Factary is releasing a white paper today on venture philanthropy in the UK and Europe titled The Venture Philanthropists; A Review of Venture Philanthropy Funds in the UK and the People Behind Them.

What makes this study different is that it is written by someone on the inside: Chris is a member of the Finance and Fundraising Committee of the European Venture Philanthropy Association (EVPA) and works closely with members of the venture philanthropy (VP) community. This fascinating white paper focuses on the specifics: Who they are. How much they give. What they give to. And most importantly, the keys to involving them. I asked Chris a few questions:

HELEN BROWN: Chris, how long have you been following this topic and what kind of access have you gotten to the real story?

CHRIS CARNIE: We’ve been tracking venture philanthropy in Europe since it started. I got interested when one of the founders of VP in Europe attended a training course I gave years ago; he came from a private equity background, and wanted to know more about how the nonprofit sector worked. I spent some time with him, and then got to attend the first conference on VP in Europe, in Amsterdam in 2004. Since then, I have stayed involved and now serve on the Finance and Fundraising Committee of the European Venture Philanthropy Association, EVPA.

I’m interested in VP for lots of reasons. First, it has attracted some of the cleverest people I have ever met. People who are happy to throw all of the old ideas out of the window and build something completely new, creating social change in ways that are truly inventive. Second, it reaches a section of the community that has, historically, been very hard to get to – the private equity, City of London [financial district] people. Traditional “charity” is not very attractive to these people, but VP fits perfectly with the way they think. Third, well, when you get invited to speak at a private conference in Venice or Luxembourg, it’s hard to resist…

HB: So what makes this new white paper a must-read?

CC: It’s a 70-page report on venture philanthropy in the UK. We’ve focused on the 130 or so people in the UK who have led and supported the growth of VP in the UK. The typical venture philanthropist was born in 1960 – so the median age is 51 – and is in private equity. Eight out of ten VP trustees are male, and the most common source of women on VP boards is from the nonprofit sector.

He’s likely to be wealthy, and in fact the VP community have attracted a high proportion of people of wealth – across just 11 VP funds, we’ve counted 24 who feature in the UK’s best known wealth listing, the Sunday Times Rich List.

There are currently 11 full VP funds in the UK. I’m saying “currently” because the growth rate of VP in Europe has been extraordinary. The EVPA has grown membership 25 times in the last 6 years. They are supporting a very wide range of causes – there’s a shared interest in youth and education, but they are backing health, clean energy, HIV/AIDS too, both in the UK and overseas.

HB: But there are only 11 of these funds? Why are they so important?

CC: That’s one of the keys to understanding this community of philanthropists – their influence is enormous. What’s happening is that large-scale foundations in Europe are taking a strong interest in the VP model. A number of the heavyweights have started venture funds within the umbrella of the larger foundation: an example in England is Charities Aid Foundation which runs a VP fund called Venturesome.

HB: Is that the future of VP?

CC: In part, yes. The VP model is about scale – growing small, high-impact nonprofits into bigger ones. In the UK we’re just at the start of that process (the first VP fund was set up here in 2002, four years after the Silicon Valley Venture Fund became the first VP in the US). But we’re going to see stronger growth as the large foundations get on board. We’re also going to see traditional foundations copying the impact measurement tools that the VP community has developed. There will be continued growth in this sector and much of that growth will be international – the VP community has been very good at building links across Europe and the United States. Their conferences and meetings are multi-lingual affairs.

HB: Thanks Chris for this sneak peek into the white paper. For more information or to purchase the report for £125 contact research@factary.com.

RELATED: The Atlantic magazine’s article “The Rise of the New Global Elite” by Chrystia Freeland provides another fascinating insider look at this group of influential and philanthropic individuals, including their interests and priorities.

February 2, 2011 By Helen Brown 6 Comments

Google+Spam=Opportunity (for Bing?)

The Washington Post ran an article on Jan 30^th by Michael Rosenwald highlighting the increasing amount of spam on Google. Spammers have figured out a way to cheat the Google system and are now bringing it direct to you and me. It’s clogging up the works and many are starting to worry that Google isn’t taking the issue seriously enough.

How the spammers do it

1. Content farms – businesses created specifically to generate cheap and filling answers to popular search strings – are increasingly padding out the results.

According to Rosenwald, websites like eHow hire freelancers to write how-to articles on a wide variety of topics. The sites work hard to optimize the page content so that they get pushed to the top of search results, and because we trust Google’s algorithms to give us good hits, we click the link. And when we click the link, we’ve reinforced to Google that that link is what we’re looking for – Google ranks web pages in part based on how many click-throughs it gets. Once we actually see the page, we realize it’s crap, but now we’re there, we’ve committed. We’ve clicked. Crap.

2. Nickel-a-clickers – People that are paid to click links to bring a web page higher in the rankings.

Through employment matchup services like Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, spammers hire cheap labor to click on links in order to make their site seem more relevant. Every time the clickers click they get five cents, or whatever the agreed-on rate is. In order to earn a decent return, they have to click a lot of hotlinks. I can’t imagine the boredom that entails, but I suppose it’s pretty easy work.

I’d never heard of Mechanical Turk, so I thought I’d have a look-see. One of the jobs on offer: “CopyEditing and Logically Filling up of Blanks for Recipe Database.” Job description: “Check for grammer errors.” Oh good. Final comment on the job from the employer: “It doesn’t have to be factually correct. As long as the details seems plausible and logical it is fine.” Well, there’s another reason for sticking with reliable ol’ Epicurious.

Big deal, there’s more spam in Google results. Whatever.

You might say that now, but if spammers are enlisting armies of cheap labor to scam the system, Google’s in big trouble. Because if we all get fed up, there are several other big engines ready and waiting for the influx of search émigrés. And Google will be another name like Netscape or Northern Light that you think “Oh yeah! I used to use that all the time!”

And it means trouble for us, too, because some of the pages you click through to are going have more and more distasteful things on them. And like bedbugs they could start creeping onto your hard drive and lurk there.

Mud Man lurking - photo ©2005 Julie Kahn

What lurks beneath the surface?

Lurking things? Eww. Are there options?

Alternatives to Google include Bing, Blekko, and Exalead, just to name a few. Here at HBG, we check more than one search engine for every search we do and you might want to consider making it a habit too, if you aren’t already.

Here’s another reason why you might want to use more than one engine: studies in recent years by researchers at Penn State, the University of Kashmir, metasearch engine Dogpile and others have shown repeatedly that information overlap between search engines is very low, sometimes as little as 1% in the first page of returned results. You get a stronger variety of results if you cast your net wider.

[An interesting sidenote here: search guru Danny Sullivan posted an article on the Search Engine Land website yesterday titled “Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results.” Apparently Google set up a sting operation recently to prove that Bing has been lurking over their shoulders and copying search results. Sullivan’s article has pictorial evidence and everything. Will Bing just clone Google’s results, spam and all? I sure hope not.]

And finally, consider this: when you search Google or any search engine, you’re looking at a static database of web pages that were scanned in days, weeks or perhaps even months ago. Which is why sometimes when you click a link you won’t find the word you were looking for. The page was updated in the interim between when it was saved in the search engine’s database and when you clicked the link. One search engine may have cataloged a site yesterday and another last month. Or last year. For freshness, reliability and completeness, it just pays to use more than one search engine.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Google. But this spam thing is starting to bug me. Are you concerned? Or is this much ado about nothing?

January 25, 2011 By Helen Brown 4 Comments

Twitter and Your Nonprofit

You may be a relatively new immigrant to the nonprofit section of the Twitter’hood. Maybe a reluctant one? A colt trying to figure out your leg-support system?

One of the things I love about getting to know another country is learning to navigate the social behaviors of a foreign culture. You make some mistakes, there is a lot of smiling and head-nodding (perhaps some eye-rolling from the natives), but eventually you get the hang of communicating. And if you’re there long enough, you start noticing the underlying social niceties and who is using them well.

The culture of Twitter is a lot like that, especially for nonprofits. There’s some gangly-leggedness and braying going on out there (tweets like: “HELP US! We’ve got 15 minutes to raise $15,000!”) but there are native speakers, too. Stay with me and you’ll see what I mean.

Social media experts like Beth Kanter and Allison Fine write truly helpful blogs and books on creating social media plans for your nonprofit that I consider must-reads. But if you’re just sliding your legs under the table and figuring out which fork to use, I thought I’d share a few observations on customs I’ve noticed to help keep you from making a Twitter faux pas.

Don’t Be Singular – Get Engaged

You’ve entered Twitterland to communicate with potential and current stakeholders. So engage with them! Make a point to “follow” your board, your top donors, prospects, allies and anyone else you want to notice you. Many people are glad to “follow” back, so if you suspect that some of your annual fund letters may be decomposing alongside the used coffee grounds, this is a great way to directly connect with people you want to get to know better, and vice versa.

Being truly engaged is an art, but it’s not rocket science. Look at this tweet from Computer Aid in London…

They’ve engaged your imagination: Can’t you just see Rob-the-Driver tooling around the streets of Oxford in the Computer Aid van? They are connecting with and mentioning their donor: adding Oxford University’s Twitter handle (@UniofOxford) helps people follow Oxford now, too. Most importantly, they’ve created a way for other potential donors in and around Oxford to take an immediate action. Click here. Contact us now. Donate. Brilliance in 140 characters.

Re-tweet and Thank

Did a follower just re-tweet something you sent out? Say thank you. Now.

The culture in the Nonprofit Twitterhood isn’t just talking about your .org, it’s also helping others spread their word and giving props to people who help you out. It’s hard to find different ways to thank people sincerely and succinctly, but the folks at the Foundation Center seem to have that nut cracked.

In addition to being a leading resource for grant-seekers, the Foundation Center’s tweeters are creative and generous.

You can use Twitter to engage and cultivate donors, too. Did a board member add a grandchild to her family? Did an alumnus win a prize? If you are connected to them via Twitter (and even if you’re not) send your congratulations. Tweets get re-tweeted and re-posted on LinkedIn and Facebook … you never know who’s going to see (and appreciate) them. And maybe, just maybe, it’ll start a conversation with someone who’s been tossing your appeals in the trash.

Conversations, Not Bullhorns

Sure, there are still people out there blabbing, “I’m at the Starbucks at 12^th and Third,” but Twitter’s emerging custom is real-time conversations. Consider joining one of these organized Twitter web chats for nonprofit professionals:

Wednesdays at 3PM (ET) #NPTalk is sponsored by Nicole Harrison (more info here)
Every other Friday at noon (ET) #smNPchat is hosted by Pamela Grow (more here)

These chats were made for participating and getting fresh ideas from peers. A growing list of chats curated by Robert Swanwick can be found here or follow @twchat to get up-to-the-minute listings.

Never Twitter-chatted before? It’s much easier than clearing customs, and here’s a 4-minute video tutorial to get you going.

Want More Help?

I can’t help it — I’m a sharing-resources kind of gal. So while the following sites aren’t about the culture of Twitter, they’re really helpful if you’re still figuring out this whole Twitter ‘thing.’ Some are useful even if you’re an old hand!

If you’re overwhelmed with the fire hose of tweets gushing at you, sign up for HootSuite or TweetDeck to manage the geyser. You’ll be glad you did.

Social Media Tools 101 from Interactive Insights Group. For those new to social media who want one-stop shopping to bravely enter this new world.

SocialBrite’s deep library of how-tos and examples of all aspects of social media. Some of it is crowd-sourced from community members.

What other unique cultural patterns have you noticed in the Twitter’hood? Comment below, or tweet them to me at @AskHelenBrown. Even if you don’t have anything to report yet, connect with me anyway. I’d love to be your neighbor in this new land.

January 6, 2011 By Helen Brown 3 Comments

Crystal Ball for 2011

John Gillespie over at Social Edge took out the crystal ball for 2011 and provided these trends. I think this is a pretty good list. What do you think?

Demonstrate & Differentiate – With more social ventures and nonprofits vying for a slice of the ever-shrinking financial pie, organizations must work harder than ever to distinguish themselves by communicating clearly to potential donors and funders through a variety of tools – from donor packages and newsletters to social media (such as Twitter and Facebook) and websites. We’ve seen an increased emphasis on program results and performance metrics with 61% of nonprofits surveyed listing it as a top priority compared to 46% last year.
Cut Through the Red Tape – While government funding has been cut or depleted, there are grants and other sources of revenue that still exist. Mission-oriented organizations should take the time to learn more about the grants that are available as well as the application process—the time will be well spent.
Reward your Talent – Nearly 40% of nonprofits surveyed reduced staff and salaries in 2010, which means remaining teams are working harder than ever. Leaders need to recognize the efforts of their employees and spend more time with their stars—66% of those surveyed list retaining and motivating staff as a top priority and 53% plan to focus on improving organizational culture.
Assess your Team – Fifty percent of the organizations surveyed had less than 20 employees. With teams this size, there is no margin for error—every employee must possess the skills to execute their role. Taking the time to evaluate your staff will have a major impact on your organization in the long run.
Entrepreneurial Growth Strategies – Much of the growth in the mission-oriented sector will stem from innovative, entrepreneurial strategies. Seventy percent of organizations surveyed list new revenue generation as their top priority for 2011—up from 58% in 2010 – and 28% plan to pursue earned income ventures. We’re also seeing organizations start another 501(c)(3) under the parent organization and more social ventures starting B Corps and L3Cs (low-profit limited liability companies)—allowing them to pursue more innovative revenue generation strategies and differentiate from their peers.