Gary Bagley

Too many people have no idea about the challenges attracting and retaining employees, many of whom are people of color, to serve the I/DD population due to pay inequality. You can learn about them and find out how to take action in this episode of The Heart of Giving Podcast.

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This one's for my non-profit and mission-driven biz friends. 🌟 Ready to shake up your strategic planning? 🌟 Jen Self, phd licsw, Queer JEDI, Desiree’ Wilkins Finch, MA are launching our equity-centerd, cohort-based strategic planning program this fall. Strategic planning is often unwieldy, overwhelming, and frankly...not that fun. Our cohort-based model is designed for up to 10 organizations to embark on this journey together. Led by our expert team, you’ll create your organization’s equity-centered strategic plan in parallel with your peers in the cohort, with lots of community-based learning and support along the way. We have a few spots left, and we're wrapping up enrollment in the next week, so if you're interested...let's talk! I'll drop a link to more info in the comments; DM me if you want to chat!

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“This report summarizes findings from an extensive field and literature scan and interviews with 30 informants, including practitioners, funders, researchers, consultants, and staff members from several foundations. The report makes recommendations for foundations to consider in identifying and working with intermediaries to support racial equity, power sharing, and community voice. An adaptable tool was also created to help foundation staff navigate decision-making points and options for determining when and how to best work with intermediaries.” Working with Intermediaries Strategically

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For anyone beginning a new strategic initiative or strategic planning process, this article is a wonderful resource. Congrats to Marilyn Darling and Veena Pankaj for the recently published "Seeding Impact: Shifting from Orchestration to Emergence." Full article at https://lnkd.in/eHD6QMcm #impact #strategy #strategicplanning #emergentlearning #systemschange

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Despite the fact that collaborative funds are being talked about as the next big thing in philanthropy, there's still a lot we don't know about their value-add to philanthropy. Often the discussion centers on how they enhance the experience and impact of donors. This new piece from Jennifer Stout draws attention to the importance of examining the experiences of grantees who receive funding from collaborative funds, as compared to their experiences with "direct funders". For The Freedom Fund, our understanding of how grantee partners perceive us largely comes from continuously seeking feedback (more on that here: https://lnkd.in/eEa6u7F6). We also see a big part of our role as identifying and building relationships with groups who have tremendous potential for deep, sustainable impact but who more traditional funders might overlook. As Jen says, we need more research across the field to draw broader conclusions and make the case for why collaborative funds, when structured appropriately, can fill gaps and do things differently.

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I highly recommend completing this course. You will gain a deeper, data-driven perspective of the entire grant life cycle.

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4 Components of a Culture of Philanthropy "Development staff are always included in organizational decisions. Program staff play an active role in relationship building. Fundraising and engagement are inextricably linked. Transformational relationships take priority over transactions." More insights and explications of these points can be found in this important article by Claire.

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What does it take to ensure that community engagement isn't transactional, reduced to a buzzword or checkbox, in building partnerships between healthcare and people with lived experience? Our Power session with the team from INSPIRE is up on the website, you can learn from their research process, best practices, and action recommendations what it looks like to make community engagement more authentic and transformational.

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Looking forward to this webinar; i think that soft skills can be an obstacle in career progression as much as our technical skills. Sign up for this if you are looking to continue to develop those intangible skills that will help you with your 4 C's (customers, co-workers, clients & community.

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A must-read post by my colleague Kevin Bolduc! "But as a sector we really need to avoid the continual temptation to assume that we’ve found a transformative new philanthropic approach, or even that there is a single one out there to find. That’s particularly true when that assumption becomes a distraction to the very hard work of understanding the performance of organizations using various approaches — new and old — and improving their implementation! I’ve been around philanthropy long enough to have seen the “next great approach” emerge again and again. Think back to venture philanthropy, social impact investing, collective impact, giving while living, and, more recently, trust-based philanthropy. Each, at moments, has been touted as the “new” approach that could be used by every funder to increase their impact. Even though I think each did bring something fundamentally important to philanthropy, more nuance is required: these are tools that work better and worse depending on the goals and the context of change you’re after."

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The Far Side of Fundraising Tip of the Week Transactional fundraising leads to high rates of donor loss. Most organizations lose 4 out of 5 first-time donors. The more rapidly and impersonally we secure support, the more we sub-optimize giving potential and the more rapidly donors depart. High rates of donor attrition, coupled with the continue contraction of giving households, spell long-term disaster for most nonprofits. Don't follow the transactional lemmings as they plunged into the sea. Adopt sustainable practices. You may be in the minority but you will help your organization survive and eventually thrive. This one requires that you closely to see who stands out in adopting sustainable practices.

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Many donors still are trying to understand how donor-advised funds work. Likewise, a lot of nonprofit leaders still are unsure the right way to work with donors who give through DAFs, much less the DAF providers themselves. In the latest Giving Ventures podcast, we tackle both sides of the equation. The podcast plays back a great webinar we hosted for non-profit leaders last week exploring how to use and work with DAF providers. Take a listen, whether you be a donor, non-profit CEO, or a fundraiser. You'll find something to help you!

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Just listened to an eye-opening podcast episode featuring Dr. Akilah Watkins on the power and influence of the nonprofit sector. Did you know that nonprofits are the third-largest driver of the economy? Yet, we often find our voices missing in crucial policy and decision-making spaces. Dr. Watkins brings to light many insightful points on how we can elevate the influence of nonprofits, especially at the federal level. This discussion is a must-listen for anyone committed to amplifying our sector’s impact and ensuring our voices are heard where it matters most. Check it out here:  #CommunityHousingNetwork #NonprofitSector #EconomicImpact #PolicyInfluence #NonprofitLeadership #CommunityImpact #FederalAdvocacy #VoiceForChange #NonprofitPower #NonprofitGrowth 

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20 Strategies For Recruiting The Next Generation Of Nonprofit Volunteers To sustain their missions and impact, nonprofit organizations must proactively recruit the next generation of volunteers. Leveraging social media, offering flexible commitments and providing meaningful, skills-based roles can help to attract younger volunteers. These strategies align with the preferences and values of younger generations who often seek convenience, purpose and opportunities for personal growth in their volunteer experiences. Below, 20 Forbes Nonprofit Council members share actionable steps nonprofits can take to engage and inspire the next generation to become a committed volunteer base for the future. #12 Allow Younger Stakeholders To Work With Older Peers Find a strategy to afford younger stakeholders a chance to join older peers in being the “hero" of the organization's story. As younger stakeholders become stewards of the organization's mission, they will have ownership in the organization's future and their involvement will provide a foundation for institutional knowledge. - Aaron Alejandro, Texas FFA Foundation #leadershipdevelopment #agriculture #education #stem #FFATODAY #mytexasffa https://lnkd.in/ebmgV6CZ Texas FFA Foundation Forbes Forbes Councils Forbes Nonprofit Council Aaron Alejandro

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🎙️Mom, look, my first podcast! 🎙️There are few things I love more than a fun conversation at the intersection of volunteerism and marketing! Thanks to a true leader in our field, Dana Cory Litwin, CVA, for the interview and the opportunity to share marketing tips and tricks for individuals working in volunteer engagement. Would love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Full episode out next week!

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Stop Trying to Wow Donors Into Philanthropic Submission: Increasingly, donors are asking for more “how” and less “wow” in concept papers, proposals and cases for support. In particular, they are asking how your organization proposes to: Tighten its focus to ensure greater mission realization Convert private support into significant, sustainable societal outcomes Relate the dollar amounts requested to specific outcomes Evaluate and report on the progress being made on projects they have funded Adjust and adapt to current and emerging societal trends Successful fundraising, in light of these expectations, must be: Less mass-marketed, more micro-targeted Lower in gloss, higher in content Less dependent on adverbs, more reliant on action items Less about telling, more about resonance Adhering to these new realities will make for more responsive and relevant organizations, not just improved fundraising results. Indeed, being more responsive and striving for greater relevance will be essential to sustaining and securing organizations' “market share” of private support in a declining philanthropic market. 

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Tailor Your Funding Requests to Donors' Level of Receptivity The most receptive: ⏺ Living donors who have made estate commitments ⏺ Multiple major gift givers ⏺ Loyal annual givers of 15 years or more ⏺ Volunteers long-engaged in substantive activities (e.g. board membership) ⏺ Highly engaged in events and actives Moderately receptive: ⏺ Single major gift givers ⏺ Annual donors who have given 6 to 10 years, sometimes intermittently ⏺ Volunteers engaged for 3-5 years in occasional activities ⏺ Occasionally engaged in events in activities Lightly receptive: ⏺ Two recent and modest commitments ⏺ Attended a few events Where you would be wrong to assume receptivity to another funding request: ⏺ First time donors given little or nothing after their first commitment ⏺ Major donors who have not be contacted personally in a year or more ⏺ Someone who volunteered once or twice but never gave ⏺ Someone who attended one event Where you would be crazy to assume receptivity: ⏺ "Prospects" who have done none of the above Strategies that work best with each of these cohorts The highly receptive: ⏹ You can speak to the building blocks of organization because they are so much a part of it and trust in its ability to convert investment into impact The moderately receptive: ⏹ Conduct donor satisfaction interviews or survey's first The lightly receptive: ⏹ Interview or conduct survey to see how strongly they believe in your purpose, direction and leadership; the degree to which they feel they belong and if they see how their giving has bettered the lives of those you serve. Unsure of receptivity: ⏹ Interview or conduct survey asking to which cause or purpose they have been the most pleased and why, what has been their most and least satisfying giving experience, and their receptivity to volunteering. No indication of receptivity ⏹ Stop calling them prospects ⏹ Don't put them in portfolios ⏹ Look for other giving experiences as evidence of what they might be receptive to ⏹ Invite them to a substantive event that tracks with previous philanthropic interests Is this perfect? Hardly, but any effort to segment, experiment, and learn is much better than the spray-and-pray or assuming a "one size appeal fits all." Segmentation and customization are the beginnings of strategic philanthropic facilitation. Defaulting to the usual unimaginative tactical grind is wasteful and depleting for the organization and those engage in doing of that work, and good way to continue squandering your philanthropic potential.

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