No fundraising tool will replace an engaged membership who well-understands the necessity for monetarily supporting the organization's activities. Yes, a certain tool may be marginally more effective for certain kinds of asks or circumstances, but the common framing of tools (especially new/hot online tools) as alternatives to the regular grind of individual giving and relationship development ("cultivation") is a LIE.

When evaluating any tool, the questions to ask is:

1. Why is our existing fundraising strategy/planning insufficient to meet the need for which this tool is the (potential/alleged) solution?

2. Why can't we ask our membership to fund the need directly or through existing channels?

Which is not to take a reactive stance against any adoption of any new tool, but to ensure that we are investing in creating a stable base of individual donors who will fund us regularly and consistently---and building the organizational capacity to ask people for their money honestly, confidently and DIRECTLY.

See also FreeGeek Chicago's Funding Statement; an excerpt:

We believe these questions should be kept in mind when pursing funding:

• How does funding sustain or improve something FreeGeek Chicago already does?
• How does funding make FreeGeek more sustainable?
• Who provides the funding? Do their values and behavior match FreeGeek's mission and values?
• Has FreeGeek planned for the time when funding runs out? Where does it leave us?
• What forms of overhead does the funding create? Do we have the organizational resources to properly manage the transactions?
• What forms of accountability go along with the funding?
• How could the obligations of funding affect our organizational structure and community process?
• Can the goals of a funding source be better filled by another organization (either existing or to be created) outside of FreeGeek?
• Does the funder require personal information from participants? Are we comfortable asking for that information?

 

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I was interviewed for NAMAC's (National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture) Idea Exchange and the interview is now up on their website. The interview went great and I'm really appreciative of the opportunity to share our work at the Transmission Project with a wider audience. An excerpt:

NAMAC: August 2011 marks the end of The Transmission Project's main initiative, The Digital Arts Service Corps. What do you think The Digital Arts Service Corps's legacy will be?

Sheldon: There are countless transformative projects and organizations that we've supported over the years, but I think the most enduring aspect of the Digital Arts Service Corps comes from maintaining a leadership pipeline into media arts and technology. For example, every conference I go to has at least one presenter who is an alumni of the Corps. And not just the number of people we've been able to bring into the field, but the diversity of individuals who might not otherwise have seen a role for themselves in the field. Many of our most successful members could never edit a video or build a web page, but they brought new perspectives and leadership qualities to organizations who could not have otherwise taken the risk to hire them. Unfortunately though, it's this aspect of building a leadership pipeline that I see missing from other national service proposals -- and yet I think the results of such a pipeline will have the most long-lasting benefits.

NAMAC: What's next for The Transmission Project?

Sheldon: To be honest we're still figuring that out. The past 18 months have taken all our energy to ensure that Corps members in the field were little impacted by the funding and oversight environment we've had at home: the non-renewal of our funding, a national fundraising tour, a federal audit (which was copacetic, BTW), and now our impending closure. Not to mention trying to get in front of the emerging foundation and governmental recommendations to create a corps just like ours...it's been distracting, to say the least. We're using our last month on the payroll to archive as much knowledge as possible to make sure we can play an active role should those foundation and governmental recommendations turn into action.

NAMAC: Do you have any advice for someone who wants to start a service corps to build capacity in the public media and technology field?

Sheldon: I've already touched on building a leadership pipeline -- which means structuring roles and workplans to allow for leadership just as much as recruiting broadly in age, background, education and experience. In regards to outcomes, I'm really troubled by prescriptive "nonprofits need..." or "nonprofits suck at..." narratives that equate technical assistance with true capacity building. As if a dusting of "best practices" by volunteer trainers is all that stands between an organization and the realization of its mission. The Transmission Project takes a very active role in the RFP process: drawing upon our experience to help organizational applicants better define their projects and workplans over multiple feedback rounds -- sometimes to the surprise of applicants not used to being Socratically engaged by a potential funder. We call the methodology "Honest Practice" and it means looking at project stakeholders, organizational structure, community context and the potential for overall success. One of the most interesting questions in the final evaluation we send to our grantees is "What was accomplished that wasn't part of the original proposal?". Because we're granting something infinitely more valuable than money -- a person -- there is a wonderful opportunity to create unexpected, positive outcomes that just aren't possible in a one-size-fits-all approach.

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Today I sent another issue of Survival News---"the voices of low-income women"---to the printers; this is my second year as layout artist for the newspaper. At 40 broadsheets (11"x17"), the newspaper is the same size as last year. Published by Survivors, Inc., Survival News is the official newspaper of the National Welfare Rights Union and provides news, stories, advocacy information and 20 pages of Survival Tips---explanations and contact information to help in navigating the complex and crumbling web of social services and support systems---in English and Spanish, and excerpts in Vietnamese.

It's a great group with which to volunteer and the stories and information that's published are invaluable. Also, the group doesn't just stop at publishing the paper; they go into DTA (Department of Transitional Assistance: welfare) offices and volunteer as public advocates for those seeking assistance. This is an excerpt from a DTA Log by Diana Moon:

I started working for Survivor’s Inc. early last 2010. I met many wonderful families and individuals. Thanks to all for sharing their experience with me. Here are a few highlights that I recall from my visits to Dudley and the Revere DTA.

I offered “Survival News” to a woman explaining a little about Survivor’s Inc and also introducing myself. She then told me her story. She worked for many years and had good jobs and was self-sufficient. Last year she became ill with heart disease and was hospitalized. Unable to work she lost her apartment and moved to her daughter’s apartment. She is on a wait-list for housing. She is in today because her disability benefits were terminated because she has a burial insurance policy (which is counted as an asset.) At first she thought surely this must be a mistake; I agreed with her that a burial policy which can only be used at the time of her death should not be counted as an asset (WT**.) Wow... how perplexing! Then she became emotional because after all the years she has worked and all she’s been through it’s really painful to be spoken to by a DTA worker as if she has done something wrong; as if needing financial help or any other assistance or getting sick means a failure on her part. I felt upset too for this very dignified woman to have someone speak so carelessly to her. We must keep trying to be respectful to each other. We reviewed the Survivor Tip section and I encouraged her to contact Greater Boston Legal Services (GBLS). She knew of GBLS and said she would contact them although she informed me she learned there is a Regulation that burial policies count as assets. I hope this regulation will be changed! She thanked me for the paper and after we talked she said she felt a little better and less alone.

I talked with another woman about the Survival Tips section and we had a discussion of private rights and personal space and then what can happen to privacy when you live in public housing. For example, there is talk of making smoking illegal in public housing (more issues to debate). She told me she came in to apply for food stamps. She was laid off her job and then took a position for less income at a CVS. The food stamps are a big help she said. I’ve heard similar stories from other women who either work full time for minimum wage or have a part-time position and come to apply for or renew their food stamps. Food stamps are a great benefit and I feel thankful this is available for families! I think, too, about how many live vulnerably just one paycheck away from the threat of losing the security of their home. Another woman told me, “If I lose my job then I’ll be looking for shelter. I worry each month I won’t be able to make full rent and then I’ll be evicted.” I think about how we hear talk about strengthening families, about empowering families; well, then affordable, safe housing is a good place to start!

The artwork above was contributed by coworker Billy Brown. And I'm still trying to convince them to work on their website.

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Havard Business Review's Dan Pallota quoted from Julia Moulden's book, RIPE: Rich, Rewarding Work After 50:

• I can tell the difference between a customer who has a legitimate gripe with my company and one who is an alcoholic or has anger-management issues. At 25, I thought it was all and always about me.
• My bullshit meter is highly attuned because I've heard a lot of bullshit. At 25 I was naive enough to believe most of what everyone was dishing out.
• I have the confidence to know that if I don't understand some new business idea you're pitching to me it's not because I'm stupid. It's because you're not communicating it well. At 25 I was more prone to point the finger inward.
• I know that business construction projects cost about twice what you budgeted them to cost. At 25, I was continually shocked and unprepared when costly problems popped up or snags set projects back months.
• I know that being nice to people and being a good leader are two different things. At 25 I was nice to everyone. And not the best leader.

I suggested in the comments this addition:

My peers and I outnumber everyone else. At 25, people over 50 were few and far between which let me do a lot without someone looking over my shoulder and judging my work.

Which is really a defining difference between Boomers and Millennials: Millennials are coming of age with a lot more older people around then when Boomers came of age.

But I've also disagreed with Dan Pallota before. The population pyramid image is from here, which looks like it may have been copied out of a newspaper.

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All three deficit reduction proposals from the blue ribbon panels would eliminate the deduction in its current form.

One of the panels, the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform would give taxpayers a tax credit worth 12 percent of their donations — but only if they contributed 2 percent or more of their adjusted gross income to charity.

Another plan proposed by a panel of three liberal-leaning organizations — Demos, the Economic Policy Institute and the Century Foundation — is similar, suggesting a 25 percent tax credit for all charitable gifts.

The plan philanthropic experts find the most intriguing, however, comes from the Bipartisan Policy Center panel, which suggests borrowing a system of subsidizing nonprofits similar to the one used in Britain, called Gift Aid.

Under that proposal, nonprofits could claim a tax credit worth 15 percent of any charitable gift they received, effectively giving the donor a partial match. For instance, if a donor makes a charitable gift of $100 to a charity, the charity could apply to receive an additional $15 from the government.

I'm partial to this proposal from the Partnership for Philanthropic Planning (via Gift Hub):

For many years, PPP has suggested a conceptual alternative to the charitable deduction. PPP’s plan addresses the current goal of simplifying the tax code, while supporting a robust nonprofit sector that can compensate for reduced government services. Rather than a deduction from income, we propose that charitable contributions be treated as an adjustment from gross income. Since the donor never receives the benefit of income which is contributed to charity, the amount contributed should be considered unavailable for taxation at all. Far from the “tax expenditure” that the [National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform] suggests, allowing charitable contributions as adjustments to income would provide a fair and accessible incentive for charitable giving to all Americans.

And of course, don't forget the background context of rising inequity, a lapsed estate tax, and the models of individually-determined giving versus democratically-determined (ostensibly) government grants and earmarks.

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I don't get it either. But I've been increasingly thinking about a recent David Pogue column (http://nyti.ms/id0kep) in which he says "Things don’t replace things; they just splinter."

We have this idea in the nonprofit world that we must overly optimize the resources we have; cleanly transitioning from one model to the next with minimal duplication. That's not realistic and probably wouldn't be innovative either. Instead we just have this messy iterative process of broken models, half-starts and ignorant foundation officers---from which the next round of innovators can cobble together an itch-scratcher and pitch it as "Hotness-XYZ but for nonprofits".

I think Jumo sucks so far, but the few million dollars it took to launch is a drop in the bucket. Unless it causes Omidyar and Knight to pick up their checkbooks and go home, I think it will help move the ball towards something more transformational to the sector.

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The craving to undermine nonprofit signficance, value and tax-exemption is endless and will probably never be "satisified" until the entire 501-c section of the tax code is repealed. And there do exist those who want to do exactly that. Those who deeply resent paying taxes at all loathe the nonprofit field for its tax exemption. They won't stop and they won't shut up, even when repeatedly, humiliatingly and thoroughly refuted.

This is a perspective I share, though rarely so explicitly.

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The following excerpt touches upon how technology enables the developing world to experience the same leisure activities the developed world enjoys:

Along with differential access and capacity, a third mechanism—differential motivation—contributes to the widening divergence between the privileged and the marginalized. What do people want to do with the technology they have access to? Those of us who have worked in interventionist ICT4D have often been surprised to find that poor people don’t rush to gain more education, learn about health practices, or upgrade vocational skills. Instead, they seem to use technology primarily for entertainment. Telecenter surveys find that when a village has ready access to a PC—connected to the Internet or otherwise—the dominant use is by young men playing games, watching movies, or consuming adult content. Many become proficient at the software incantations required to download YouTube videos from a PC onto a mobile phone. But these same users typically forsake software-based accounting and language lessons. What interventionists perceive to be “productive” use of technology is trumped by the “frivolous” desires of users. Even users in the developed world rarely take advantage of their technologies for purposes of self-improvement—the most popular iPhone apps are games and other entertainments, nothing that would improve productivity or health—but this tendency is exacerbated among those who have grown up with lessons of learned helplessness and low self-confidence.

I’m not blaming the victim. None of the three mechanisms necessarily speak to failures on the part of those who are poor or poorly educated. Blame, if it must be attributed, falls readily on historical circumstances, social structures, and the rich world’s unwillingness to invest in high-quality, universal education. In fact, one reason for valuing education is that it generates the appetite for and capacity to use modern tools—all the more reason to focus on nurturing human capability, rather than trying to compensate for limited capacity with technology.

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Colleen Dilenschneider (of the Nonprofit Millennial Alliance) recently revisited Abraham Zaleznik's "Manager's and Leaders" from the Harvard Business Review. I read it when I did the Institute for Nonprofit Management and Leadership at Boston University;  it reminded me of Goofus and Gallant; but most proposals of dichotomous identities do.

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This briefing is from last Spring, in response to a key government stakeholder asking us to justify our continued relevance after 10 years in the field:

The Transmission Project (before, the CTC VISTA Project) has focused on the Digital Divide in America since its inception. Although this divide continues to exist, its nature has become more complex. No longer are we just concerned about an individual's access to a computer; other factors such as broadband adoption and the digital participation gap can now have direct impact on a person's ability to change their socioeconomic status. Enabling individuals and communities to emerge from poverty today relies even more upon their ability to participate in the production and sharing of information through media and technology.

The role information, media and technology play in economic development is well-recognized within government programs. The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) project on the Future of Media and the Information Needs of Communities identifies both “the role of public and other noncommercial media in serving the information needs of the underserved, including language minorities, ethnic minorities, children, the disabled, and the economically disadvantaged” and “the infrastructure needs and assets of public and other noncommercial media in delivering information to communities” as areas for development.

Supporting media and technology is a key activity of social and economic development. Grantmakers in Film + Electronic Media’s (GFEM) newly released report “Funding Media, Strengthening Democracy: Grantmaking for the 21st Century” pushes for acknowledgement of the prevalence and impact of media: “Foundations and government agencies of all sizes and in all fields will benefit from recognizing the growing importance of media to the future of every field—education, health, the environment, and more.”

Recent economic stimulus measures recognize the economic benefits of investment in communications programs and infrastructure. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s Broadband Technologies Opportunities Program, (BTOP) seeks to “expand broadband access to unserved and underserved communities across the U.S., increase jobs, spur investments in technology and infrastructure, and provide long-term economic benefits.” BTOP funded programs and organizations are a priority area for the Transmission Project in our 2010-2011 program year.

The FCC’s National Broadband Plan goes so far as to recommend a new Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) initiative, a Digital Literacy Corps, which would “help people get connected—not only to broadband—but to the educational and economic resources that broadband can bring to the next generation of Americans.” Such an initiative would mirror the impact of capacity building and organizational development the Transmission Project has supported over its 10 year history.

But broadband should not be the only focus of development. The FCC also encourages “innovative uses of social media, gaming, Internet applications, citizen journalism, mobile technologies, and other technological and organizational innovations and the possibilities for new kinds of noncommercial media networks” as solutions to the information needs of communities—areas in which the Transmission Project has long-focused.

Capacity building in media organizations takes on a variety of roles. The report "Fighting Poverty: Utilizing Community Media in a Digital Age" includes the World Congress on Communication for Development recommendation that development institutions should provide assistance to build the capacity of community media through training, strengthening of networks and sector associations, technical assistance and investment in order to result in community media's contribution to long term social change.

The capacity-building needs of media organizations echo the needs identified by the CNCS’s own stakeholder dialogues on capacity building in nonprofits: “The most critical capacity building issues facing small and midsize nonprofits right now are sustainability (cash flow and consistent funding, particularly for infrastructure), leadership, ability to nurture partnerships and relationships, capacity to manage and retain volunteers, weak understanding of the role of governance, short-term thinking and stagnation, capacity to use technology, and capacity to manage and cultivate human capital, both paid and volunteer.”

The Transmission Project, with the support of CNCS, has long recognized the need for capacity building within organizations that use media and technology and the positive impact those organizations and their initiatives can have upon individuals and communities in poverty. The information needs of communities, and the role public media and technology has in meeting those needs, are ever more relevant and necessary today as they were 10 years ago.

There are a few turns of phrase that make me cringe---not to mention reliance on the comma---but overall I am very proud of this writing. It was a quick, 2-day turnaround project that relied heavily upon recent reports and studies we had previously quoted on the Transmission Project's blog. We never received a formal response, so I assume it was effective.

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