The Intelligent Edge - Helen Brown Group

October 20, 2022 By Helen Brown

Widening our perspective about giving in America

I got a new phone about 6 months ago (is it really a phone? do I actually use it as a phone? why do we call these things phones?) and I’m still getting used to the fancy camera. I really like the portrait mode, but it is constantly telling me to back up. I want it to change its focus, but no – I’m the one who keeps needing to change mine. Fine. But in the meantime I have a lot of stubbornly blurry photos.

I thought about that this week as I was reading a fascinating article from Vox titled “What happened to giving money to charity?”

It’s been a big source of concern lately in our sector, this rapid decline in the number of donors giving to nonprofit organizations. While the total dollars donated to nonprofits continues to increase annually – according to a study by the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy (IUPUI) the amount last year was nearly $485 billion – the percentage of Americans giving to nonprofits dipped below 50% for the first time in 2018.

So what’s going on? What accounts for people being so much less generous?

Well it turns out that, according to the experts, we’re just not looking at the whole picture. We really need to back up and get a wider view. Of course.

If you don’t track it, you can’t measure it

For academics who study philanthropy like Lucy Bernholz, a senior research scholar at Stanford University, the seeming decline in number of people giving in the USA caused her to consider the question in a different way than more traditional reports of annual philanthropy have done.

And what she found is that the traditional way of looking at philanthropy in America isn’t capturing the whole picture. As she remarked, we’re just not counting everything that counts. Philanthropy has “centered writing a check to a 501(c)(3) nonprofit as the singular act of giving in this country,” she told Recode. But that’s not nearly all that people are doing philanthropically.

Woodrow Rosenbaum, chief data officer at GivingTuesday observed “Most giving in the US does not involve nonprofit organizations.”

That’s some statement, eh? For those of us working in the nonprofit sector, that’s a pretty sobering observation.

The good news is that people are still generous. They are still giving. They’re just giving differently, and in ways that are harder to track (in the ways we’ve been tracking them up until now).

People are giving directly to others through GoFundMe or Facebook or directly amongst their friend groups. They’re joining giving circles or doing point-of-sale giving at the grocery store. They’re using platforms like GiveButter for direct peer-to-peer giving.

From the Vox article:

“According to a 2022 study by Independent Sector 57 percent of Gen Z believe that giving directly has more impact than giving to nonprofits.”

So that’s interesting from a traditional nonprofit/prospect research perspective, eh? How do we widen our vision to take into account those ways of giving as we consider prospective donors to add to major donor pipelines?

And/Or, how do we creatively utilize those new-ish giving platforms to bring donors who like giving in those ways – to us?

When you get a chance, please do take a look at the article and don’t forget to click on the studies and other articles that it draws on. It’s an eye-opening perspective on philanthropy, and it challenges us to think creatively as we strive to identify and engage new generations of donors.

October 6, 2022 By Helen Brown

Tips and tricks to make writing and editing easier

This week Viola Henning shares tips and tricks that she’s learned on her own and from others that make creating and editing reports much, much easier. Thanks, Viola! ~Helen

Viola Henning

One way to make my day is to show me a cool tip or trick on the computer that’s going to make my work life easier. Some of these are ones you may already know (if so, great!), but I hope there will be at least one or two that will be new and helpful to you.

If you have two monitors, then you know how much time it can save you. I actually don’t (my preference is to just have everything on one screen), so I love to Alt + Tab to switch between programs. If I need to compare things side by side, I use Windows Logo Key + Right or Left Arrow (The arrow determines which side of the screen it will be on).

Text-only copy-and-paste

One of the things that has saved me the most time is setting Word to Keep Text Only when Pasting from other programs. You can get to this by going to File > Options > Advanced and then scrolling down to this:

If I do want to keep the formatting from a website or other program I’m pasting from, then I can just go to the Paste drop-down and select Keep Source Formatting. (This is accessible by right-clicking as well).

Some other tips for How to Strip Formatting When You Copy and Paste Text include Ctrl + Shift + V (Cmd + Shift + V on Mac).

Also, Chrome has a browser extension called Copy As Plain Text that enables you to highlight the text you want on a webpage, then right click and choose Copy as Plain Text to strip the formatting out before you paste it. At least one other browser has a similar extension.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts such as Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V can be huge timesavers. Windows logo key + D displays and hides the desktop, as does the vertical bar all the way over in the bottom right of the screen.

Keyboard shortcuts in Word include:

Keyboard shortcut	What it does
Shift + F3	switches the case of the selected text between upper case, lower case, and title case
Ctrl + Home	moves the cursor to the beginning of the document (See Navigate the document for other such shortcuts)
Ctrl + End	moves the cursor to the end of the document (See Navigate the document for other such shortcuts)
Ctrl + Backspace	deletes one word to the left
Ctrl + Delete	deletes one word to the right

If you want to take it a step further, you can actually create your own keyboard shortcuts for commands you frequently do.

You can also add a frequently used command or commands to your Quick Access Toolbar at the top of Word or otherwise customize the Quick Access Toolbar. You can press Alt and a number to execute any of your Quick Access Toolbar commands.

Another great tip from my colleague Rick Snyder is that you can make changes to AutoCorrect (e.g., add a word or phrase that you often misspell). A great example from him is 501(c)(3). If you add that to AutoCorrect, then you never have to worry about Word autocorrecting it the wrong way.

The days of using two spaces after a period are over (I know, I’m still getting used to it, too). To make it easier to spot spacing mistakes, you may want to click the Show/Hide button to turn on hidden characters like spaces, paragraph markers, or tab marks. Or, just use Replace (Ctrl + H) to swap a period followed by two spaces for a period followed by one.

Adding images

I’m very visual so I love to add images. Rather than clicking the Prt Sc (Print Screen) key, pasting into a program like Paint and then selecting the portion of the image I want to copy into Word or another document, I can do all this in one step by using the Snipping Tool to capture images. You can get to it by typing “snip” in the search box in the bottom left of your screen.

Or, even faster, a tip straight from Helen Brown, you can just hit Windows Logo Key + Shift + S. If you open the Snipping Tool app and click the New button then select the portion of screen you want to capture (or click on the pop-up that will appear in the bottom right of your screen right after you select the image you want to capture using Windows Logo Key + Shift + S), you get some options for making adjustments to the image (e.g., highlighting) and you also have the option of saving the image. If you don’t need any of that, you can just select your image and paste it right into Word, an email or wherever you need it. (Once you select the image, it will be copied right to your clipboard).

Speaking of the clipboard, you can turn on your clipboard history and press Windows Logo Key + V to be able to see the most recent things you’ve copied and be able to paste and pin things you frequently copy.

A mouse with a forward and back browser button and good scroll wheel can also be a big help.

Thank you to Rick Snyder, Cap Henning, Nicole Dehaven, Eli Mendelson, Christina Bailey, Helen Brown, Kenny Tavares and all of the helpful people who have made my day by showing me one or more of these tricks or one like it.

September 29, 2022 By Helen Brown

Prspct-L: In the room where it happened

I’d really love to have been a fly on the wall at the Apra board meeting when it was decided that putting prspct-l behind a paywall was a good idea.

For readers who don’t know what prspct-l is, it’s a 30-year-old listserv that’s been available in a variety of formats, for absolutely free, to anyone interested in prospect research. Recently Apra announced that prspct-l would be moved behind Apra’s membership paywall.

A little history

Prspct-l was created by its patron saint and founder, Joe Boeke, in 1992. It was hosted by UC-Irvine and Bucknell University in its earliest days, and then moved to become a Yahoo! Group. In 2003, Joe asked APRA to assume ownership of “the L” which happened in April of that year, with Mark DeFilippis as its new caretaker moderator.

In 2005, Apra found a new e-home for prspct-l at Charity Channel, which was a popular platform at that time hosting all kinds of listservs for fundraising professionals, as well as webinars, book series, and other content. They already had the setup, and it upped the professional look of the L.

Unfortunately, that platform’s owner decided in 2008 that prspct-l, along with all of its other listservs, would go behind a $37-per-year paywall. Which now seems pretty quaint pricing, but at the time everybody in the prospect research community was up in arms.

Especially the Apra board. There was a sense of outrage around the board table that our agreement that the L would remain a free resource to our community could so easily be broken. We. Were. Getting. Prspct-l. Back.

How do I know? Because I was on the board when it happened.

Major negotiations took place to claw back prspct-l to our community. It was honestly touch and go for a while. For a while it seemed like the archives were going to be held hostage and that Charity Channel were going to create an alt-prspct-l listserv, complete with those archives.

It was a legal (and potentially financial) mess. But finally the Apra board, with the help of association management company SmithBucklin were able to successfully negotiate to move the L over to Apra’s platform.

In then-Apra president Elizabeth Crabtree’s open letter to the community, she shared the board’s joint message of relief and joy at the outcome.

In that letter, she also shared Joe Boeke’s comment:

Nearly two decades ago, I founded PRSPCT-L with a very simple premise…to provide the entire research community with a forum to discuss research methods and our profession. I am very pleased that APRA has acquired and committed the technology resources to continuing PRSPCT-L’s mission and the tradition of making the “L” a free resource for the entire development community.”

A free resource for the entire development community

Prspct-l has been every prospect researcher’s built-in mentorship and training program since 1992. The L is the place we all have gone to since then, to ask each other “How on earth do I find this?”

One of the reasons – maybe the reason – that we think of prospect research as such a giving, learning, nurturing, teaching, kind community, is because of prspct-l. For prospect development pros working in nonprofits large and small that do not support continuing education or association membership for their researcher(s) at any level, prspct-l is their only option for guidance.

And for many folks, prspct-l is the gateway to Apra or one of its chapters. It doesn’t take too long being on the L to learn about webinars, conferences, or other events coming up that allow you to network and learn. The L actually brings people closer to Apra.

But it’s going behind a paywall

Recent messaging from Apra about their decision to move prspct-l behind a paywall has been confusing/frustrating/maddening to many of us. Apra president Carrick Davis and SmithBucklin’s Robin Rone held an open forum on Zoom yesterday to discuss this change, and I applaud their willingness to be available to the community.

They reminded attendees (or in my case, informed us – many like me were unaware) that Apra has recently(?) made certain educational assets, including Connections, the association’s quarterly newsletter; podcasts; and Apra Bytes training videos freely available to all comers. These resources take staff and volunteers thousands of hours over a year to research, prepare, and present/write, and they are significantly valuable learning tools. Now free to anyone.

Meanwhile, except for moderation (and I by no means want to downplay the work entailed by the wonderful volunteers on the Online Content Committee whose job is to moderate the L), prspct-l generates its own content by questioners and volunteer responders. All day, every day. Yet soon going behind a paywall.

Now, I’m just a small business owner, but if I had a choice of what to ask clients to pay for – a quarterly edited professional newsletter, podcasts, and training videos, or a listserv that I can get a volunteer to moderate and would be part of a platform I already have to pay for to host other things anyway and which will bring me increased business for very little effort on my part? The financial decision seems pretty clear to me.

Davis and Rone explained that the expense of Apra’s new online platform to host the L and other resources is ~$10,000/year but indicated that moving prspct-l behind a membership paywall was not a financial decision. Then what can be the logical reason?

Davis and Rone indicated that the board were following the recommendations of volunteer committee members to put the L behind a paywall. The only committee I’m aware of that might make such a recommendation is the Online Content Committee, which oversees all of Apra’s online assets including moderating prspct-l. I have heard that, when they were informed of the possibility that the L might move behind a paywall, the OCC were passionately vocal with their concerns about the change. Later, they were distressed that they were not made aware that a final decision was made before it was public. The OCC committee members heard about the new policy at the same time as all of the rest of us. So who recommended the decision?

In the Zoom forum, Davis and Rone announced pricing for a new Apra associate membership level at $99 which will have fewer benefits than full membership, currently priced at $250 per year. (I would like to go on the record here and say that I’m totally for an associate membership – it’s a great idea that’s long overdue). They indicated that associate membership would include access to prspct-l.

But as Deborah Drucker insightfully noted in the forum’s chat:

Has APRA thought through the effect on PRSPCT-L’s content to members if it is put behind a paywall? It will decrease participation, and therefore the breadth of content, which will decrease, not increase, its value as a membership benefit.”

Jay Frost replied soon after:

Restricting the benefit to the wider community does not enhance membership value. It merely limits access.”

And later he wrote:

If the ‘L goes behind the paywall, what is to stop Apra from deciding to make it a premium benefit unavailable to “Associate Members” in the future?”

As Joe Boeke said, prspct-l was founded with a tradition to be free and I realize times do change. We reconsider many traditions with a modern eye and look to create change for the better. For example:

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Apra members will remember that the association recently underwent a great deal of organizational soul searching and action, announcing a commitment to greater diversity, equity, and inclusion on behalf of the association. Conversations happened. White papers were written. Policies were drafted. The efforts led by Apra’s then-president Misa Lobato were intensive and intent-ful. It took months of work.

So what’s up, then, with restricting access to the L now? This decision could make some wonder if that effort was performative. A decision to put prspct-l behind a paywall seems to be one of the greatest contradictions to inclusion that I can think of. Keeping it free is a tradition that supports DEI work.

Making access to prspct-l part of a cheaper membership structure is not supporting inclusion. It makes no business sense. And, as a nonprofit, it flies in the face of duty of care to your constituency.

My recommendation to the Apra board is to reverse this decision. Put Connections, the podcasts, the videos, and whatever else that takes hours of work to produce behind the paywall at whatever level the board chooses if you need assets that attract dues-paying members. Keep the thing that has been volunteer led and fed, and which has brought Apra members – for thirty years – free.

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