Fundraiser Provokes New Thinking for Non-Profit Industry

I have recently finished a thought-provoking book on philanthropy. Jimmy LaRose wrote this book to encapsulate the advice he has been giving his clients for a number of years. It is advice that does not go down easy and it is advice that does not always make him popular in the non-profit industry. LaRose, who is based in Lexington, S.C., titled the book RE-IMAGINING PHILANTHROPY.  His is a challenging message that I have to believe has received a good bit of blow back in much of the non-profit world.

Why the blow back? Well, LaRose is telling non-profits they need to do a better job of serving their primary clients while at the same time telling them the primary client is not the person receiving the non-profit’s services but the person and the people supplying the funds to sustain the non-profit’s work.

Throughout his book and the videos and other materials in which he shares his ideas, which are bed rocked in the statement, “Money is more important than mission (or Ministry).” (p 30)

With his unblinking focus on money, which he terms the oxygen of the non-profit system, he then concludes that “donors are more important than causes or people.” (p 33)

                                                Who is the actual "client"/ "customer?"

And as he continues to build his argument in that first chapter of his book, his next major position is that the customers, clients or non-profits are not those who are served but those whose money pays for the services. His in-your-face statement in positive terms is: “Successful nonprofits understand that donors are the object of their mission and must be served before people in need.” (p34)

Reading this as the executive director of a grant makingorganization (a donor organization) it immediately struck me that LaRose was choosing a very provocative frame around which to discuss how philanthropy might work. As a donor organization we work with non-profits to help them achieve amazing goals and succeed in making a positive difference in the life of people and the structure of community. I am not sure we have ever thought of ourselves as the customers of the non-profit.

As I process the information from this book, I am still not sure on which side I come down but I can say it provokes thought and new ideas for strategy and tactics in both fund raising and organization management.

                                                          Example of Mission Statements Changing

In this blog I am not going to try to provide all the arguments or assess the arguments. In this communication my goal is to make you aware the argument is out there.  And to show you a little about the direction the argument takes here is an example LaRose gives of a typical mission statement: “Harvest Town Food Bank exists to provide our community’s hurting, hungry, and homeless the clothing, food, and nutritional care they so desperately need.”  (p 35)  Now, here is that mission rewritten with a new audience as focus:  “Harvest Town Food Bank provides donors, volunteers, and advocated the organization they require to serve our community’s hurting, hungry and homeless.”

                                                              Opening New Discussion

Once you begin to see what reimagining philanthropy means in terms of mission it begins to make more sense and lead onto multiple paths of discussion – if not understanding – that may need to be part of building stronger, more sustainable non-profit organizations.

I have an extra book and am willing to share with anyone who would like to read it. And, you can find much of the Jimmy LaRose message in video on his website www.JimmyLaRose.com.

Impact and Outcomes becoming even more important in grant process

The Byerly Foundation Board has recently spent time having strategic conversations within the Board to determine if our grant processes are as good as they can be.  We know that our grantees have been able to make big differences in Hartsville and at the same time we wonder if there are other ways The Byerly Board might help focus even greater results.

One tool that the Board is thinking of implementing for our coming grant cycles is a set of five questions that have been constructed by the independent sector organization that we were introduced to by Charles Weathers of The Weathers Group. 

These questions seem to make sense for any organization looking at its programs and we think they make sense for a grant making board as it looks to which of the many solid requests it will be able to fund in a grant cycle will likely be:

1 – What is your organization aiming to accomplish with this funding?

2 – What are your strategies for making this happen?

3 – What are your organization’s capabilities for doing this?

4 – How will your organization know if you are making progress?

5 – What have and haven’t you accomplished so far?

If this were a discussion instead of a blog many people around the table might be thinking this is what we always include in our grant proposals. And, for many organizations this may be the case. At the very least, it is going to get both our Foundation Board and our grantee organizations focused on the impact/outcome discussion. As The ByerlyFoundation begins to plan for the coming grant cycle the idea of impact and outcomes is probably going to be taking more central focus in the thinking.  The Board has often done this with major grants and the thinking is moving toward this process becoming more critical for all the grants. We are in fact looking at this discussion as if we might be a grant seeker. Strategically, we are working to answer one of the major questions put out by the independent sector tool, "If someone unfamiliar with out work were to read about our grants, would have they have a clear definition of what long-term success means to our efforts?"

This blog is an opening in the discussion and we are looking for ways to extend this discussion. One of those ways will be some grant preparation workshops that will be held in April to get input and provide a little more direction to the grant seeking process.

Community Building and Psychic Income

On an almost daily basis I am amazed at the intelligence, creativity, energy, zeal, and time people from nearly every walk of life are putting in to make Hartsville an even better place to live, work and raise a family. Some are doing these things because they are part of their jobs -- and in most cases the real compensation for the extra they are putting into the community-building aspect of these jobs is only covered under psychic income.

Public officials in Hartsville get paid but their pay is not substantial in most cases and in nearly all cases they would be compensated much more richly were they putting their efforts into earning money.

Community volunteers are getting no financial compensation at all for what they do.  I work for a board of trustees at The Byerly Foundation who all have joined the Board to contribute to making this community one of the best in the world. They get no financial compensation. In the world of Foundations, many private foundation boards do earn money for their service.

City staff do get paid for their efforts. In some cases the pay is adequate and in some cases the pay is way low for city-value received yet we have some of the best "public servants" in Hartsville that you will find in government work around this country.  Many of the people I am thinking of almost never turn off their availability to helping meet our city's challenges.  Just had a conversation with one of those city people earlier this week and she was already planning her weekend around making significant headway on one of her city projects. No overtime involved in that decision; just a dedicated community builder.

I am glad we have people who will work for the psychic income their roles provide because we would not be able to afford them at market rates that people of their caliber bring in the corporate or business world.

My guess is that all of us know people who are dedicating a great deal of their time to making things better in our city, in our schools, with our children, in our public spaces, in our public places -- you would be amazed at how much a quick thank you would add to their life satisfaction. And, even without the thank you they are going to "keep on, keeping on."

Psychic income is often very valuable personal compensation.