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5 Tips For Coalition Building

Nonprofits occasionally find it effective or expedient to form coalitions to bring about some kind of change. Although forming coalitions can bring strength through numbers, the results may not always be the optimum results expected by each member.
In The Nonprofit Lobbying Guide, Bob Smucker offers several considerations for any organizations thinking of joining forces with others for a certain objective such as legislative issue.

To determine if there is sufficient interest one organization should describe in a page or two the problem. Once that is done, potential members can be invited to a meeting.
To avoid later misunderstandings, everyone should seek clear agreement at the outset on the goals of the coalition, how it will target its efforts and how the undertaking will be financed.
A small “secretiat” will be formed, usually of coalition leaders. It should build a sense of trust and openness, with honesty and no surprises. It should also be allowed to make on-the-spot compromises.
One organization must serve as the clearinghouse. This starts at the initial meeting and continues with that organization receiving information from the others and passing it along without delay.
It is wise to assess in advance the commitment of the organizations being asked to join.
It is good to remember that the coalition issue is not a priority for every member.

6 things about constituents

Research can provide organizations with a clear sense of an audience’s wants and values. Katya Andresen, author of Robin Hood Marketing: Stealing Corporate Savvy to Sell Just Causes, says that nonprofits should look at research as a zooming satellite telescope. First you would see the country, then a state, city and neighborhood.

Andresen adds that organizations want to know the groups in which its audience belongs (the far away view from the telescope – nationality, geographical location, race, religion, social class); with whom they associate (families, friends, groups they join); what they do (jobs finances, stage of life); and how they think and feel (psychology).

Andresen suggests making a list of information that is needed about each audience.

What demographic and geographical groups do they belong?
What do they care most about? What are the most important issues in their lives?
Have they ever taken the action that you are seeking? If not, what have they done instead? Talk to both groups of people.
What constitutes your competition? How do they talk about your issue? How do they react?
What appeals to the audience about your action and what do they see as being easy or difficult about it? What is their decision process like? How much do they know about taking this action? Is the action relevant and feasible? What would make it easier?
Who approves or disapproves of their taking this action? Who influences them? Do other people around them take the action? What do they think of those people? Where do they get their information?

Engaging citizens in your mission

As organizations seek to improve themselves as a means of improving their communities, many find that engaging the public in various ways, including forms of governance, can be extremely helpful.

In their book Results That Matter: Improving Communities by Engaging Citizens, Measuring Performance, and Getting Things Done, Paul D. Epstein, Paul M. Coates and Lyle D. Wray maintain that there is a model of effective community governance that involves four essential ingredients, or advanced practices.

Those essential ingredients are:

Community problem solving: alignment of engaging citizens and getting things done. This includes robust citizen engagement in all major roles, citizens influencing what gets done and accountability by citizens developing solutions collaboratively with organizations.
Organizations managing for results: alignment of measuring results and getting things done. In this, engagement is limited, with citizens being primarily stakeholders and only occasionally in other roles. Regular results measurement provides useful information on outcomes or performance of programs and services.
Citizens reaching for results: alignment of engaging citizens and measuring results. Citizens have opportunities to play most or all major roles. Engagement tends to be robust, citizens are involved in collecting and evaluating data or act as advocates for change and measures of results are not systematically connected to results.
Communities governing for results: alignment of the other practices, engaging citizens, measuring results and getting things done. There is robust citizen engagement in all major roles, citizens tend to influence what is accomplished, regular results measurement provides useful information that is fed back into decision making.

Family inns combat homelessness

There is no shortage of ideas about how to end the never-ending cycle of poverty, crime, homelessness and despair that entraps far too many Americans.

If anything, those who have studied the problem agree that they can’t all agree, although many have come to accept the fact that there is no single answer for a huge and complex problem.

Among the many solutions that have been offered, Ralph daCosta Nunez has promoted the concept of the American Family Inn as a way of addressing the problem of homelessness in this country.

In his book The New Poverty, Nunez explains family inns as residential education-based facilities, which he says have helped break the cycle of homelessness as well as the cycle of dependency.

Among the main features of family inns:

Education. Education programs are designed to meet the individual education needs of each parent. There is a focus on basic education in the context of family issues to improve literacy rates.
Family preservation. Programs ensuring family unity and protecting children are emphasized. Domestic violence, child abuse and neglect are met head-on.
Job readiness and training. Job readiness, job training and job placement are paramount for preparing families for the challenges and responsibilities of independence and full-time work.
Permanent housing. The independent skills of budgeting, health, nutrition and parenting are taught.

IDEAS FOR INTERNET FRIEND-RAISING

Online giving is increasingly spread throughout different age sub sets and is growing as a source of income. According to Michael Johnston, president of HJC New Media, many online donors are affluent and while people are beginning to give to multiple charities via online channels, loyalties are not as multiplied as with offline methods.

People tend to choose monthly giving more than single giving and are more trusting of charities online than they are of institutions online (e.g. giving email, opening attachments, etc.)

At a recent direct response conference in New York City, Johnston provided a peek at new and emerging technologies for fundraising and provided ten keys to online fundraising/friendraising.

1. Build a fundraising-friendly Web site.
2. Provide a secure giving page.
3. Understand your online donor.
4. Conduct strategic planning. Have a vision, develop principles and goals and provide actions/deliverables to users.
5. Don’t forget to apply offline fundraising principles.
6. A marketing plan is key.
7. Empower donors. Collect constituent information for segmentation and align appeals and interests. Personalize the experience.
8. Integration across all channels.
9. Create a plan and benchmarks.
10. Innovate…but it takes planning, teamwork and technology.

Advocacy...
8 questions to answer on electioneering

This election year feels more like a decade, especially with endless media coverage on political spats and multi-million dollar campaigns.

And more nonprofits are getting in on the action by making sure political candidates understand and address the issues closest to their organization.

Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) status cannot endorse a political candidate but are free to compile nonpartisan candidate questionnaires to inform voters. These questionnaires allow organization members to see which issues the candidates care most about and help them stay informed before the elections.

But nonprofits should make sure informational questionnaires are unbiased and conform to the Internal Revenue Service’s standards for voter information or risk losing tax-exemption.

Here are just a few tips for creating an unbiased, informational questionnaire:

Make sure that all candidates receive the questionnaire with equal opportunities to answer questions to ensure that your organization isn’t labeled as biased
Give each candidate equal space to answer questions by setting a word count, but with enough room to address issues
Use font, type size and color consistently and do not make any distinguishing changes among candidates
Do not alter or cut any candidate’s answer
Ask broad, open-ended questions that will elicit more than just a “yes/no” response
Ask a large range of general questions that would be important to the general voter without a particular focus
Do not include your organization’s position in the guide
Make the information available to members and the public

While this information should serve as a guideline, always consult with the proper legal authorities.

For the full “Election Year Activities and the Prohibition on Political Campaign Intervention for Section 501(c)(3) Organizations” from the IRS, visit http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=154712,00.html

7 pieces of progressive polling data

What are donors looking for from their nonprofits? That’s a great question, and maybe someone will come up with a one-size-fits-all answer.

Until then, looking at small or targeted populations might be the way to go.
At the recent Fund Raising Day in New York, sponsored by the New York chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals, representatives of the A.B. Data Group and The Mellman Group offered the results of polling among individuals identified as progressive donors, that is, those who donate to progressive organizations.

In answer to the question “To which of the following progressive organizations would you be most likely to contribute this year?,” the poll presented groups by interest/activity rather than name. The results and percentages:

Educating the public about progressive issues – 20 percent;
Working at the grassroots level to develop support for progressive policies – 15 percent;
Encouraging presidential candidates to commit to clear stances on issues important to the progressive community – 13 percent;
Lobbying Congress to pass progressive legislation – 10 percent;
Lobbying Congress to block Bush’s agenda – 10 percent;
Challenging the legality of right-wing legislation in federal courts – 9 percent; and,
Blocking radical judicial appointments to federal courts – 7 percent.

7 hardball lobbying strategies

Even though lobbying is a potential minefield for nonprofit organizations, they still can make efforts to influence legislative action. Advocacy need not be unvarnished lobbying.

In his book Hardball Lobbying for Nonprofits, Barry Hessenius writes that nonprofits can make their campaigns effective by following a few simple strategies. They need to be:

Easy, simple and clearly defined. The nonprofit must be sure that what people are asked to do is clear and understandable, that the goal is realistic and that the people doing the work have the tools to do the job.
Based on a sense of community. People are more likely to participate if they perceive that they will be acting in concert with others instead of alone.
Organized on the principle that everybody counts. Supporters must be convinced that their support is essential.
Fun and pleasurable. The advocacy enterprise should not be so serious that there is no room for fun.
Contagious. Involvement can spread, and nothing is more contagious than success.
Able to tap into a sense of outrage. People need to have a stake in what they do.
Training-oriented. If people believe they lack the skills for an activity they will be reluctant to take part and they will fail.