This step is what all of your hard work has been leading up to.  You’re raising funds, asking people to be part of your team, building out your branding and the reason is that you’re trying to make a difference in the world.  Once you get here, this is the time to celebrate!  You’re seeing lives changed and now you get to tell people all about it and thanking everyone who took part.  This is a really fun step and one that too many people miss.   How do we celebrate with the team? If you haven’t read the book The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love that Lasts by Gary Chapman, you should check it out.  In the book, the author outlines 5 different love languages which are, Words of Affirmation, Acts of Service, Gifts, Quality Time, and Physical Touch.  Everyone has a primary love language.  You need to find ways to incorporate all these love languages with your team as well as donors.  Thank you notes, awards or plaques, or even hugs and handshakes are ways to show appreciation to your people.   How do we know a donor’s love language? People will typically tell you.  It comes back to running your research and drawing broad observations from minute details.  If they give you a gift, they like gifts.  If they give you words of affirmation, they like words of affirmation.  All you’re doing is watching how they communicate with you and that will tell you how to communicate with them.  I had a donor tell me once that we should have given warm cookies at Christmas time – more than likely his love language is gifts.    What can we do to make sure we are thanking people the right way? As much as I’m trying to pay attention to everyone, it is very challenging when you have hundreds of donors.  It’s just not practical.  So, I make sure at Christmas I do something special for the top sponsors like maybe a gift certificate and a bottle of wine as an example.  And I hand-delivered them.  After every fundraiser each year, I hosted a thank-you banquet.  I had a chairperson for the thank-you party and they were responsible for printing out all the plaques, every sponsor got their recognition, anyone who gave over $10,000 got a special award, we incorporated all of that.    Do you have any other takeaways for success? Freedom means to act, think, and speak without holding back.  All 7 of my steps are leading to that.  We talked last week about the power money has and I know how easy it is to go down a path because you had a donor who wanted to go down a path.  I don’t ever want money to control your organization.  I want your strategic plan to control your organization and you just happen to need money to fulfill that plan.  My steps all come back to what freedom looks like for you and your cause.  And then put your head down and go to work toward that.  When it comes down to it, it’s about building relationships with the right people and inviting them to feel like this is their thing too.   Resources from this episode: Strategic Plan Toolkit Fundraising Freedom Roadmap The 5 Love Languages book   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Mary’s book: Fundraising Freedom   Connect with Joel: Joel Kessel  

Nonprofit Executive Podcast with Joel Kessel and Mary Valloni

Episode 18 | Fundraising FREEDOM Step 7: Make Your Difference

What do you need to organize to make sure you’re in the best position to make the ask? Depending on how you’re raising funds, everyone has a demographic they serve and tend to raise funds from.  There is a process for every group of people, and you need to think it through before you just go in and ask for money.  You should never do a blanket approach to fundraising because you want to be well-received by every group you get in front of. Tell us more about dating and fundraising. When you talk to someone about how they met their spouse it usually goes something like this, “we were in the same place at the same time and started talking.” And it was a slow, progressive process.  We as fundraisers and nonprofit executives tend to jump in and immediately “go for the kill” and you’re pushing those donors and potential donors away because you reek of desperation.  No one wants to date someone who is desperate.  You have to get to know your donors by asking questions about what they are interested in, what do they like, etc. and you start to figure out if you like the same things or if you are compatible.  Now, I’m not saying they have to be your best friend, but I want you to make sure that you care about the same thing aka, your cause.  What do you say to that organization that needs a specific amount of funds in the next six months? You need money and you needed it yesterday.  This is a very common concern and why it is vital that you have a strategic plan in place so that you never put yourself in this frantic place ever again.  You should not be asking for the dollars you needed last month.  When you’re putting on a fundraiser of any sort, it’s easy to say you want to get it done in the next three months.  You glue it together, slap a coat of paint on it and call it good.  But what would happen if you planned that fundraiser 12 months out?  You can start accepting donations today for a fundraiser that’s in a year.  The urgency is whatever you place on it, which is why I like to use the calendar to create urgency.  If you plan out farther in advance, you can get the sponsorship dollars and then you aren’t frantically trying to do things last minute like picking up auction items and selling tickets.  Can you talk about the mindset around money? This is probably the biggest issue when people say they don’t want to ask for money.  Somewhere along the way, they gave money more power than it actually deserves.  I’m a big Dave Ramsey fan and I used his plan to pay off all my student loan debt.  He has a seven-step process which is what ultimately led to my seven steps.  One thing Dave shares is how money is amoral – it’s not good, it’s not bad, it just is.  You have to remove the emotion from money.  If you’re building a building, you don’t actually need cash, you need bricks and people to put those bricks together.  Remember, you don’t actually have to go after cash with each ask, you can go for goods and services too.  Back in the day, people didn’t exchange cash for services and they rarely exchanged cash at all.  But in today’s age, we’ve given so much power to cash and it’s not necessary.  When you’re ready to go in for the ask, who should you go to? Roughly 70% of donations come from individuals, but I always tell people that 100% of donations come from individuals.  You’re asking humans to give money and it all comes back to relationships.  You have to build relationships with people so when you ask for money, I tell people you have to send in the person who has the best relationship with the person sitting across the table.  That does not matter what kind of money you’re asking for, it’s all the same philosophy.  This once again goes back to step 3, enlist your team.  You will be able to raise WAY more money if you have the right team members.  If you have someone on your team who has built relationships with people in the community for the past 60 years (or more).  Statistics show that people will give to a cause when they have someone they know and trust who asks them to give.    Resources from this episode: Strategic Plan Toolkit Fundraising Freedom Roadmap   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Mary’s book: Fundraising Freedom   Connect with Joel: Joel Kessel

Episode 17 | Fundraising FREEDOM Step 6: Organize the Ask

In today’s episode we are talking about how to Deploy Your Team. This is where the momentum really picks up.  Often, when you’ve been fundraising for a while, you’ve done the first two steps where you knew your vision and then went straight to asking for money.  You jumped from steps 1 to 6 to 7 which gets you a little way, but then you run out of contacts, you run out of resources, and then your fundraiser dies.  This FREEDOM process we are talking about here is to help you never run out of resources or contacts. How do you know your team is ready? It is important to walk through some training with your volunteers.  You must sit down with your key volunteers and discuss what each of them is going to do versus what you, as the staff member, are going to do.  We call this the volunteer-staff partnership.  This allows for you to be that much more effective because you aren’t stepping all over each other’s stories and you’re presenting a united front.  If you have a full staff, typically the executive director and development staff are responsible for fundraising efforts.  When I’m talking about staff, I’m talking about paid positions.  If you have a board member who is playing that staff role, I want to caution you to keep in mind that board members are volunteers. Staff is responsible for knowing the statistics, the details of the organization – where does the money go, how are you going to spend the money, what impact are you actually making, the patient stories, the constituent stories-- any results-driven stories come from staff.  The volunteer story is all about their personal experience and why they give their time to the cause.  This is the story they should share with the donor.  The volunteer should schedule the appointment, has a relationship with the person across the table, and if possible, make the ask. Should your key volunteer “run the meeting"? You have to sit down ahead of time and talk about the person with whom you’re meeting.  Are they going to be a sponsor?  Are their staff members going to work at the event?  You need to understand the intention of the meeting in the first place, but I always want the volunteer to “go first.”  Walls come down immediately and the environment becomes more comfortable.  Plus, they were involved with the development of all the materials so they know all the details and can walk a potential donor through it all.  When your volunteers are empowered, there’s a chance you are going to say very little during this meeting.  You are there as "information" because you know the organization, you know how to collect the money, you know how they (the donor) will get the recognition, etc.  In your book you mention that titles are important, what do you mean by that? I love titles because it gives people language.  As a volunteer, you will feel so much more empowered when you can say, “I’m the chairperson of this event.” Instead of just telling people they volunteer with an organization, they are actually given a title that puts them in charge of their area.  This is why I like making up titles because it makes someone feel like they have ownership, and no one is going to step in my space.  I even had a “thank you chair” and that person was in charge of writing thank you cards.  I had a print chair who actually worked for a printing company.  Since she knew paper, she knew colors and understood stock so she could make decisions on what to print the invitations on.  She thought about the logo being embossed, the kind of envelope the invitation was put in – she was able to think about all the details in a much different way than someone without the knowledge.  One other thing I want you to think about is the bio for your volunteers.  If you go to a board member’s website and look at their bio, you want them to talk about your cause and if they don’t have a title, how do they tell people they volunteer for your cause?  When you give your volunteers titles, they become spokespeople for your cause. How are volunteers like donors? Statistics show that you are twice as likely to give to your cause if you’re a volunteer.  If you are volunteering for your cause, you are going to think about giving.  You’re asking everyone else to give, so why wouldn’t you give too?  You want your volunteers to first and foremost decide how they want to give.  They may not have the financial means to give, which is why they are volunteering in the first place, and that’s ok.  But I want you as the leader of your organization to have those conversations about what you want your volunteers to do.  Once the team is running, now what? One of the major things I encourage is ongoing communication.  I want to make sure people are continuously communicating with each other – have meetings, whether it’s once a month or once a week to keep everything churning.  Each person on the team has a chance to report in on what’s been happening since they can’t always do it in real-time.  This keeps everyone on the same page.  I think it’s so important for us to understand that people need direction.  If we don’t tell them we need them to go out and schedule meetings or to help open up doors, they won’t do it.  They are waiting for you as the staff lead to empower them and to say, we need you to step up.  And if they can’t do it, find someone else.  But at least the expectations are clear on what the role means.  Your volunteers want to be a part of your cause.  People want to be a part of your cause.  They will do as much as you ask of them.  If the role means they are going to have to invest several hours a week or month, be very clear about the expectation of that role entails.  Don’t sugarcoat it – get someone who is willing and able to invest the time needed to ensure your signature fundraiser is a success. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com.   Resources from this episode: Strategic Plan Toolkit Fundraising Freedom Roadmap   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Mary’s book: Fundraising Freedom   Connect with Joel: Joel Kessel    

Episode 16 | Fundraising FREEDOM Step 5: Deploy Your Team

Today we are on step 4 of Mary’s Fundraising FREEDOM process, Enhance Your Brand.  There are so many organizations that lean on their staff for branding.  They hire marketing people to design a logo or to make sure that your message is en pointe.  However, in this step, I want your volunteers to have a say in what you’re putting in front of the general public.  So if you’re going to be doing a campaign around your fundraising efforts, I want to make sure your volunteers have an opportunity to review every piece of branding you’re putting out there.  Of course, if you have a logo that your national organization has created, I’m not saying to just go and change it.  What I am saying is that you have control over this fundraiser you recruited volunteers for so if you’re going to create a logo for that particular fundraiser for any sort of print materials, you want their eyes on it.  This is why you recruit your team first and the materials come second – you can get their buy-in so they’ll want to share the information with those in their inner circle.  What do you say to the development director who isn’t willing to open up a discussion on branding to their team? There are layers when it comes to your volunteers.  When we’re talking about enlisting your team, we’re talking about the chairman of the fundraiser, the lead volunteers who are going to be spearheading this campaign. I’m not saying every single volunteer (such as event day volunteers) needs to be in the discussion; it should just be your top-tier people. What materials do we need to pull together? When you think about any kind of organization out there, any company you might have purchased a product from, they all have branding.  They all have materials like a website, print materials, products, or whatever they do.  But all of that encompasses their brand – the look, feel.  Because we are getting information dumped at us all day every day, we make snap judgments based on what we see.  And most of the time, you just have a few seconds to make an impression on someone.  In the branding section of what we’re talking about here are your colors, logo, the look, feel, theme.  Just like walking into a restaurant, you want to know what’s on the menu.  The same is true for charitable fundraisers.  When you’re first getting started, you have to have a menu, or a list of options.  For smaller organizations, I recommend a one-pager.  This is very different from your strategic plan one-pager, instead, this is one page that is broken into thirds and answers the who, what, when, where, and how.  The top third answers the who are you (logo, picture, cause).  The middle third should tell how someone can be a part of what you’re doing.  Why do you need help?  How can someone get plugged in?  And then the bottom third is a sign-up form.  It’s a fill-in-the-blank where someone can get involved or give to your cause.  The purpose of this one-page is NOT to send it out to the masses.  This is a sales document.  Second, is the case document.  I encourage people to do an eight-page case document that includes all of the details of your cause such as the mission and vision statements, the history of your organization, a letter from the chair or executive director stating why you have launched this campaign and why it’s important to give to it.  All you’re doing with this document is creating credibility for why a donor should give to your cause. What should we be doing online? What you need to do with your website is to make it very simple.  When I sit down with someone, I give them the one-pager and/or the case document and I want to be able to send them to my site.  Most people are going to your website to give or find more information.  You want to make sure the donate button is at the top, in the navigation bar, and throughout the site – AND you want to make sure it actually works.  You don’t want someone who is ready to give to get lost on your website and give up because they couldn’t figure out how to give you their money.  To summarize it all, branding matters.  Whether it’s your personal brand, your fundraiser brand, or your organizational brand, they all matter.  Be intentional and have a strategy.  Do your best with what you have right now – you don’t have to have everything today, start where you’re at.  Look in the mirror, how you are presenting yourself, and then move to your print materials, then your website. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com.   Resources from this episode: Strategic Plan Toolkit Fundraising Freedom Roadmap   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Mary’s book: Fundraising Freedom   Connect with Joel: Joel Kessel    

Episode 15 | Fundraising FREEDOM Step 4: Enhance Your Brand

This is the step that changes everything.  It’s how you go from raising thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars to millions and so on.  This is the meat of the entire Fundraising FREEDOM process.  Tell us about how to shift your mindset to know there are people who want to give to your cause. When you first get started, you don’t know anyone because you’ve never talked to anyone to giving to your cause.  As you’re getting going, now is the time to start thinking about how you want to form that conversation.  How do you want to talk to people about your cause?  And how can people be a part of it?  Enlisting your team is all about attracting the right people that correlate to the kinds of dollars you want to raise.  For example, if your goal is to raise $1,000,000 your team is going to look different than if you were planning to raise $10,000.  You don’t have to have a hundred people working toward your cause, it really all starts with one person you believe could open the door to the next person.  First, I want you to think about the ideal person you want on your team.  Do you want them to be a high-level executive at an organization or company?  Do you want them to be well-connected, a motivator?  It doesn’t matter if your organization is big or small because when we’re talking about enlisting your team, it all depends on your specific criteria for a lead volunteer or the person you want others to follow.  How do steps 1 and 2 of the FREEDOM process (Focus Your Vision and Run Your Research) factor into this step?  They are everything.  This is why knowing your vision and running your research happen before this step.  Let’s say you decide to host a black-tie gala based on your research.  You really want to engage a certain population of the community who are currently not a part of what you do.  So, if you’ve done your research, now you’re going to recruit a team that have that same vision.  Or maybe instead of an event, you’re doing a building campaign and you’re planning to raise $3 Million for a building.  Through your research, you determined you want a general contractor or someone in that industry on your team.  You would not recruit that kind of volunteer if you were putting on a walk/run fundraiser.  This is why you have to do your research before you enlist a team so you can make sure your volunteers are the right fit for the plan.  Once you have identified your list of potential volunteers, how do you make the ask? Let’s say I’m trying to fill the role of the chairperson.  The first thing I do is start talking to people in the upper leadership of an organization I’ve targeted.  I talk to the volunteers who are serving on the board and in other places and ask them to recommend an ideal person for whatever role I’m looking for.  All I’m doing is asking for verbal nominations.  I put those names on a list and once I start to have those conversations with more and more people, someone starts to bubble to the surface.  There’s always that one person who everyone thinks would be the best.  So then making the ask is so much easier because now I’ve got all their peers making the recommendation.  If you’re sitting across the table from someone who is telling you that all of your peers think that you are the best person for the job, you are going to be much more inclined to say yes.  However, if you take anything away from today, it’s this.  If you’re sitting across from someone and they immediately say yes with no hesitation, you should probably be concerned.  If you’re asking someone to serve in a strong leadership position, you want them to think about it and take some time to really process what they need to shut down in order to do this job well.  Now they’ve said yes, what happens now?  How do you get the rest of your team? After you’ve gotten your key volunteer, they are able to build their team.  A lot of times, as staff members we feel like we have to step in and recruit everyone on the team.  But this is where I want you to shift your thinking.  You must empower your new volunteer(s).  You as staff have a specific role to fulfill and your volunteers also have their specific role.  As a staff person, your job is to know the cause.  You know the mission.  You know the vision.  You know the stats and stories.  However, it is not your job to influence the donor across the table with your buying power.  But, your volunteers should.  Ask your volunteer who they want to work with.  What companies, groups, etc.?  The statistics show that two-thirds of people will say yes to an organization because a friend or family member vouched for it.  You can skip the line because your volunteer trusts you and the other donor or organization trusts your volunteer and therefore, you’re going to get them that much quicker. Another question I am frequently asked is, “what happens when I run out of contacts?”  That tells me that you either haven’t recruited any volunteers, or you haven’t recruited the right volunteers.  When you have built a team of people who are the right fit for the organization, they each bring to the table their own list of potential recruits.  Once you’ve gotten your one lead volunteer, you can recruit your volunteers off that one lead volunteer.  We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com.   Resources from this episode: Strategic Plan Toolkit Fundraising Freedom Roadmap   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Mary’s book: Fundraising Freedom   Connect with Joel: Joel Kessel    

Episode 14 | Fundraising FREEDOM Step 3: Enlist Your Team

What kind of research are we looking for in this step? Research actually allows us to gain confidence.  Especially if you are trying to raise a larger amount of money, this step allows you to regroup and overcome your fear of fundraising.  The data and numbers are important – you want to be as specific with the data as to be believable.  You want to give enough stats to show that you know what you’re doing.  In this step, what you’re trying to do is evaluate what other people are doing.  What’s working?  What’s not?  What is my competition doing?  What are my allies doing?  When it comes to charitable work, a lot of people don’t think they have competition because everyone is doing good work; which is true.  Clearly, there are organizations and other individuals doing similar work to yours.  Some of them are having great success while others aren’t.  You have to make broad observations off minute details.  Look to social media, local media, etc. and draw broad observations off the little details you’ve found.  How does the research help you decide where you want to focus your efforts? After you’ve compiled a list of what your competition/allies are doing, start looking for patterns - when are they doing it, what location are they using, what months are they fundraising, etc.  When I moved to St. Louis and started running my research, I realized that all of the elite charities were hosting their events at one particular venue.  I realized that if I wanted to compete with the “big boys” I had to either book that location or come up with a different, completely unique location that no one else was using.  It provided the opportunity to create a new environment that no one had been in before and I could create an elite experience for my audience.  Aside from allies and competition, what other things should you be looking at while running your research? The last thing I want to address here is desperation.  This is one of those topics I could rant on for quite some time. When you care about your cause and are so passionate about what you’re doing, you will say and do things that come across as very desperate.  Picture a young man who badly wants to be in a relationship with a young girl and he ends up saying things to her that are a complete turn-off.  Of course, she’s going to tell him to move along.  It’s the same kind of desperation we give off when it comes to raising funds.  I see it all the time – in print materials, on social media, on TV when people are doing interviews—and I think, why would you say that???  It comes out because there is this feeling as we need you so bad and it comes off as though we’re begging and pleading for cash.  I want to encourage you that even though you may feel that inside, put the face on that you’ve got this together.  Even if you don’t – sometimes you do have to fake it ‘til you make it.  We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com.   Resources from this episode: Strategic Plan Toolkit Fundraising Freedom Roadmap   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Mary’s book: Fundraising Freedom   Connect with Joel: Joel Kessel  

Episode 13 | Fundraising FREEDOM Step 2: Run Your Research

In today’s episode, we are jumping into Mary’s Fundraising FREEDOM process with step 1, Focus Your Vision.  For today, we are talking about vision as it pertains to finance.  Is it $100,000, $1,000,000, or $10,000,000?  Whatever it is, I want you to focus your vision on the dollar amount you want to accomplish that you’ve laid out in your strategic plan.  Get that number locked in your head.  I’m a big fan of the book, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.  When you can lock into that dollar amount, your thinking can change your ability to reach that number.  For me, I talk quite often about my experience with the American Cancer Society where we raised half a million dollars in the first year.  My supervisor gave me an initial goal of $50,000, which was what the feasibility study told us (this is why I’m not a superfan of feasibility studies – especially around fundraising – because it can be very limiting). We were able to raise that $500,000 with the steps I’m going to share in the upcoming weeks. You have to remove the emotion of money.  Money is literally just an exchange for goods and services.  Money is amoral – it’s not good or bad, it just is.  I’m also a huge fan of Dave Ramsey, and in one of his teachings, he compares a one-dollar bill to a brick.  The difference?  We don’t associate value on a brick.  However, they both allow us to build what we want.  Look, it doesn’t cost you anything to plan.  If you came to me and said, “Mary, I want to build a building,” but you’re not sure how much it will cost.  That’s not good enough.  So, you need to sit down and run the numbers.  Do the math and figure up exactly how much that building will cost to build. When I start talking to the top leaders of an organization, I always ask them what they would do if I wrote a check for one million dollars today.  If I wrote YOU a $1 MILLION dollar check, do you know where you’d spend it?  It’s kind of like the lottery.  Many people who win the lottery lose it because they don’t have a plan.  Also, you just told me (your donor base) that you don’t have a plan for my money, so why would I write the check? If you’ve been following along with Joel’s strategic planning process, you would know exactly where that money would go.  It’s important to surround yourself with the right people.  Jim Rohn says you are the average of the 5 people you spend your time with.  For example, if I say we’re going to raise $100,000, I want you to surround yourself with 5 people who can help you get there.  Now, if I change the number on you and I say, ok, now I want you to consider $1,000,000.  Who are the 5 people you’re going to surround yourself to raise a million dollars?  Are these 5 people going to be the same in both scenarios?  Probably not.  They are going to be completely different people.  Your entire focus, mindset, and strategy changes.  You now have to think on a bigger scale.  It may take a little longer on the front end to identify those people, but you’re going to see larger sums of money come in, in the end.  Finally, you have to know what your ‘why’ is.  When it comes to answering this question, every single person on your team is going to have a different answer.  Yes, you are all working together toward one mission and vision, but each person on your team has a different reason for being there.  When I was working at the American Cancer Society, my reason for being there was because I wanted to prove myself as a legitimate fundraiser for what I thought was the granddaddy of nonprofits.  Fast forward a few years, my dad passed away from cancer.  Then, my ‘why’ changed.  If you don’t know your ‘why’ these dollars are going to be really hard to raise those dollars and to keep going day after day, month after month.  We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com.   Resources from this episode: Strategic Plan Toolkit Fundraising Freedom Roadmap Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill   Connect with Mary: Mary Valloni Mary’s book: Fundraising Freedom   Connect with Joel: Joel Kessel  

Episode 12 | Fundraising FREEDOM Step 1: Focus Your Vision

After completing steps 1-6 of the Strategic Planning process, you should have tactics all over the place.  At this point, you are ready to formulate and pull together your one-page strategy.  You already have your strategic objectives finished, now all you have to do is gather the tactics you and your planning team have put together.  And that’s step 7. If you’ve been following the process and capturing all the notes, now it’s time to start plugging in the information into your one-page strategy.  It starts with your vision and mission, next is core values, then the four areas of focus (satisfaction, financial stewardship, internal process, capacity) and where your strategic objectives fall into those areas.  After that, are the strategic initiatives of how you are going to execute your plan.  Once you plug everything in and have your one-page strategy in place, it’s time to go back to your core planning team for final approval.  After that, it’s time to present your one-pager to the board for their approval.  A note about the presentation, please do NOT just shoot off an email to the board members with the one-pager attached and a note saying you’ll discuss it at the next meeting.  This is a huge mistake because the board members have no context.  They have no idea how much energy, time, and work went into pulling together the plan.  Instead, schedule the meeting and plan to take them through the journey of the core planning team.  Hopefully, you’ve had either the board chair or a board member on the core planning team and we encourage you to have that person take the board through the presentation as opposed to you, the executive director.  After the presentation, then you can hand out the one-pager you’ve created because the board members should now understand everything that went into it and why you’ve chosen the strategic objectives and initiatives.  Once you’ve gotten board approval, it’s time to go back to the planning team and decide what needs to happen in year one, year two, and so on.  You can’t do everything in year one, so you must prioritize those objectives and initiatives.  What matters?  What’s urgent now?  What needs to get done in the next 90 days?  Six months?  This is where you start implementing the work plans as well as tracking your progress so that you keep you and your team accountable for what you’ve set out to do.  It doesn’t do you any good to go through this entire process if this last step doesn’t happen.  Consider forming a group of volunteers who will help execute the work plan for year one.  Put together a one-page priorities document that outlines the details of the work that needs to happen so this group knows exactly what they need to do on a quarterly, monthly, and daily basis.  Make it manageable for the team. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom. Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.      

Episode 11 | Strategic Planning Steps 7 & 8: Tactics and Plan to Execute

On today’s episode, we are discussing step six of the Strategic Planning process, Establish Your Measurement.  How are you measuring the progress of the objectives and initiatives of the organization?  Starting with the end in mind and setting quantifiable goals is great, but you must also create targets and get those numbers on paper.  One way to measure your progress is, did you do it or not?  For example, if your objective is to increase the awareness and education of your audience, an initiative might be to create a marketing/communications plan that provides direction to achieve that objective.  The simplest measurement is whether or not you developed a plan.  But what about the metrics?  The second way to measure your progress is to use key performance indicators (KPIs) to show if your activities made an impact and whether or not you produced the outcomes you set out to accomplish.  It’s easy to fall into the trap of overanalyzing every piece of data.  You do have to measure, but measure what matters.  Be realistic about what you’re measuring and don’t get so far into the weeds that you are no longer progressing toward your objectives. Once you have a one-page strategy in place, it’s time to develop the work plans.  A great tool to develop KPIs is called Klipfolio.  This tool starts with a list of questions that will help you start to track your progress throughout the year.  Here are the questions: What is your desired outcome and where do you want to be at the end of the campaign/year? Why does this matter? How are you going to measure progress? How can you influence the outcome? Who is responsible for this outcome? How will you know if you achieved that outcome? How often will you review progress toward the end goal? Don’t get analysis paralysis!  It’s easy to become overwhelmed by all of the data so make sure you are measuring what matters.  To do this, your entire team must be aligned on the overall objectives and initiatives you determined in step five (Tighten Your Focus).  We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom. Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.  

Episode 10 | Strategic Planning Step Six: Establish Your Measurement

Today we are diving into step 5 of the strategic planning process, Tighten Your Focus.  This is where you start to drill down deeper and get your arms wrapped around your strategic objectives and initiatives.  There are four key areas that move from internal to external – capacity, internal process, financial stewardship, client and stakeholder satisfaction – and these four areas will show up on your 1-pager (strategic plan). Capacity: If you’re a 2-3-person organization, you simply don’t have a lot of capacity to engage in many initiatives compared to an organization with 15-20. What training do you already have and what do you need to gain to give you more mental capacity to engage in some of these activities?  Internal Process: This area focuses on what you already have in place, how efficient you are as an organization, and how you do work. Are there opportunities to improve upon these processes? Financial Stewardship: AKA your financial and fundraising performance. How are you raising money?  Are you diversifying your money?  How are you managing your money?  Client and stakeholder satisfaction: Who are the people who are ultimately benefitting from the great work you’re doing? If you’re doing the first three really well, then it’s going to be much easier to satisfy the people who are benefitting from your work. This is the messy stuff that scares a lot of people and why a lot of people don’t like strategic planning.  This step is the “make your brain hurt” type of work.  Embrace it.  It’s going to feel messy and that’s ok.  The first thing you need to do is frame this step into two overarching categories; what you need to do vs. how you need to do it.  Once you’ve separated the strategies from the tactics, you will then determine where they each fall within the four key areas.  For example, let’s say you’ve decided to enhance training internally among staff.  That objective would fall under the capacity bucket.  Or, maybe want to start an endowment.  This would fall into the financial stewardship area.  Essentially, you are identifying what is important to your organization and then splitting each objective into a specific category so you can immediately start to put together your one-page strategic plan.  Remember, you are planning for the future, so take the time you need to make sure you have covered each area to the fullest.  The point of this step is to come out with a balanced scorecard.  At the end of the day, you want 1-4 strategic objectives in each category.  If you find that you have an area that is unbalanced, you need to start making some tough decisions.  Go back to your core values and your vision and take capacity into consideration.  This will help you identify the priorities of the organization and determine what objectives you can realistically achieve based on the number of staff you have.  At the end of the day, you want to make sure you have the right objectives within the right area of focus and at a high level, you understand which strategic initiatives will support those objectives. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom. Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.  

Episode 9 | Strategic Planning Step Five: Tighten Your Focus

On today’s show, we are talking about Step 4 of the strategic planning process, Assessing Your Organization.  This step is important because it allows us to hit the pause button and really talk about ourselves and the organization as a whole.  This allows to get all the players in the same room and discuss what they’re good at as well as areas that need improved.  It forces you to have critical conversations and determine how your organization can grow. What is a SWOT analysis? A SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis is a tool that anyone can apply to any part of their organization – fundraising, marketing efforts, past events, as well as programs and services.  A SWOT analysis is NOT a strategic plan.  Here are some questions to get you thinking about each area: Strengths What are some advantages of your programs and services? What do you do better than anyone else out there? What are some unique resources you can draw upon that others can’t? What does your community see as your strengths? What factors mean you actually get the funding, donations, or support? What is your unique selling proposition? Weaknesses (these can be turned into opportunities) What could we improve upon? What should be eliminated? What does your community see as your weaknesses? What’s missing or not working properly? Opportunities What are some opportunities out there that exist for your organization? What would allow you to get more funding and have a greater impact? What areas of leverage could you exploit? What interesting trends did you find in your environmental scan? Threats What obstacles do you face? What are your competitors doing? Are your quality standards changing for your programs and services? What outside factors could make your organization vulnerable? What risks do you need to prepare for? How do you protect your data from security breaches? Is there a linchpin that could potentially bring down the entire organization? Who should be at the table when performing a SWOT analysis? Core planning team, other stakeholders (volunteers, donors, staff members, board members) How often should an organization do a SWOT analysis? This is such a helpful tool that it should be used liberally throughout your organization because you can SWOT anything. What happens after the SWOT analysis is complete? A lot of organizations get through this exercise and then stop.  I encourage you to go back to your strengths listed and determine how you can enlist the strengths.  This is also a great opportunity to brainstorm around your weaknesses and find solutions that you may decide to incorporate into your strategic plan.  And, now that you have a list of threats, you can talk about how the organization can either deal with or overcome those threats.  This is the time to put a plan into action in order to make improvements. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom. Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.    

Episode 8 | Strategic Planning Step Four: Assess Your Organization

On today’s episode we are talking about the second half of step 3, Realize Your Future, which relates to your Mission and Core Values.  Last week we talked about the first half of step 3, which is focused on your vision.  The difference between your vision statement and your mission statement is the vision is the end result and the mission is what you’re going to do to get there.  Mission is our purpose and why we exist as an organization.  It’s about the people we serve through our programs and services.  When you’re thinking about your mission statement, you want to be specific with who you’re helping and where you’re helping (as in geographically).  One of the mistakes a lot of organizations make is they feel like they only have one chance to tell people what they do, which leads to cramming all of this information into a mission statement.  There are too many messages, it’s too long, it’s confusing, and people still don’t know what it is you do.  Remember, simple is always better.  If you can’t easily repeat your mission statement to someone while standing in the grocery line, chances are it’s just too much.  The object is to keep the statement short and concise; not filled with jargon and fluff. When you sit down to come up with your mission statement, there are 3 questions you should ask: Why do we exist? Whom do we serve? What do we produce as outcome benefits? The first question addresses what makes your organization special or unique and how are you different from your competition.  Think of this as the basis for building a reputation among those you serve.  Why should they look to you instead of similar service providers?  The second question relates to the primary beneficiaries of your organization.  These are the people who are receiving direct, frequent services from your organization.  Finally, once you know who you are and who the primary demographic is, the third question is about expectations.  What do they (the beneficiaries) expect from us (the organization)?  It could be service, solutions, education, information, etc.  Once you’ve answered those 3 questions, it’s time to write out a statement.  A typical mission statement should look something like this: Our mission is to serve (client/people) with the (programs and services) in order to achieve (why we exist). Keep in mind that mission statements can change and evolve over time.  If your organization was founded 50 years ago, is the mission statement from then still relevant to the mission of today?  If not, then it’s time to develop a new statement that better reflects the current organization.  Remember, donors are interested in your relevance and keeping an outdated mission statement will affect the buy-in to your organization.  After you’ve gotten your statement down on paper, it’s time to focus on core values.  Core values are simply what you believe in.  If you’re clear on your core values, they become critically important in how you’re recruiting people.  Knowing what’s important to you opens communication with potential volunteers and donors alike.  It’s easy to spot red flags if there’s a misalignment in what you value and what your volunteers value; especially if this person is a candidate for your board.  Just as your mission statement, you should keep your core values simple by having no more than 3 words that have the most meaning to the organization.  The reason for using 3 words to represent your beliefs is because it’s very easy to remember.  A good exercise is to come up with a list of 50 values.  Then, each participant on your team chooses their top 5.  The key is for them to pick what’s important to them, not the organization.  This is an awesome exercise because there is a level of vulnerability that will help build trust within that group.  Once everyone has picked their top 5, then each person then shares with the group why these values are important to them.  The facilitator collects all the answers and comes up with the most common, could be a list of 15 at this point.  Then the group picks the top 5 from that list.  From there, those top 3 that have the most votes become the core values of the organization.  This is an easy process to walk through with your group and gets everyone to participate. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom. Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.  

Episode 7 | Strategic Planning Step Three: Realize Your Future (Mission & Core Values)

Step three of strategic planning is one of the most critical steps in the process because it can make or break your fundraising efforts and your organization as a whole.  Clarity attracts and confusion repels.  Everyone has people in their lives who communicate so clearly and effectively that you will follow them wherever they go.  Likewise, you also know those who say good words, but you have no idea what they actually said and what’s going on.  Today, we are talking about realizing your future.  What does this mean? This step is all about vision, mission, and core values of your organization.  You have to have a clear vision so when you’re sitting in front of potential donors, they’re clear and can see how they can fit into where your organization is going.  Habit number two of Steven Covey’s book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says to begin with the end in mind.  And that’s what we’re talking about here.  Where do you want to be?  What impact do you want to have in the world?  If you have a clear vision of three years down the road for your organization and your others have a different vision, this can be a real problem when you’re trying to gain traction and move forward.  As you look at your vision, it needs to be aspirational.  It needs to push you and almost make you feel like it’s impossible to achieve.  This is not something you’ll be able to get done in a year.  Oftentimes, we overestimate what we can do in a year and underestimate what we can do in ten.  It’s time to dream big.  Here are four questions the planning team should ask itself: What major accomplishments has our organization achieved by the year fill-in-the-blank? Based on question 1, how does our organization operate differently in 3-5 years than it does today? What will the people we serve, as well as our stakeholders, say about working with us? What will our staff or volunteers say about working for our organization?  As you’re having this great conversation and capturing your ideas, you then start to develop you vision statement within this framework:  we will do                     by this date                .  Then you can begin honing your vision statement to incorporate these goals and the dreams you have for the future.  Remember, your vision can and should change and you continue to grow.  Once your vision statement is complete, everyone starts to feel the sense of urgency to accomplish that vision by getting to work.  We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom.   Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.    

Episode 6 | Strategic Planning Step Three: Realize Your Future (Vision)

In strategic planning terminology, take a look at your world means to do an environmental scan.  What’s happening out there has an impact on your organization.  This is not to come up with a list of excuses of why you can’t get something done, but rather to help you make better decisions for the future of your organization. You’ve gotten your foundation set, so taking a look at the world around you is going to include articles, research and data trends, conversations you’ve had with your key stakeholders, and other ways you can get information.  What you need to be mindful of when you’re doing your environmental scan are socio-demographics; what is happening in society may affect the work your organization is doing in and for the community.  Another area to focus on is what’s happening with your competition.  Competition doesn’t have to be a negative term, rather, it’s an honest look at what similar organizations are doing and what’s working for them.  What’s going to be new or different in how your organization provides services and programs?   Sometimes you determine that you should collaborate in order to serve more people in your community.  Next, it’s important to look at the economy and the effect it may have on your organization in the next few years.  For example, if there is a downturn predicted, how will your organization weather that storm?  Or better yet, how will it thrive?  Knowing what’s happening economically is going to help you have that conversation when you get into the conference room to discuss strategy.  What’s happening politically?  Are there new regulations that will impact your organization? Keeping your finger on this pulse is especially critical if you are in the advocacy realm and trying to get laws changed.  It’s crucial to understand that there is a difference between observing what’s happening and getting sucked down the rabbit hole.  The way you handle this is to surround yourself with good people who will help you keep your focus.  Understanding what’s going on with technology is absolutely vital.  Technology is moving and changing so quickly that you can easily become paralyzed.  Understanding the overall strategy – what you are doing and how are you doing it – will give you insights when determining what technology to deploy.  Then you can find ways to leverage technology to help your organization become more efficient.  Keep in mind that technology doesn’t just mean social media and marketing.  It also includes how you are communicating internally with your team, keeping connected to one another, and project management systems.  Don’t let technology work you, you need to work technology. Finally, you need to take a look at your own clients and the people you’re looking to serve.  What change in demands might put pressure on your organization to perform at a higher level?  Your constituents may come to you asking for more support in a particular area.  You have to listen to your audience so you can better serve their needs. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom. Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.  

Episode 5 | Strategic Planning Step Two: Take a Look at Your World

The number one reason most nonprofits do not have a strategic plan is because they think it’s going to be a daunting task.  But all you’re really doing is gaining some clarity and focus in order to set the organization on the right path.  If you go on vacation, you have to plan out how you are going to get there.  Strategic planning is the same way; you’re mapping out the steps you need take to get to a desired future state.  There are 3 questions you need to ask yourself: Where do you want to be? What do you need to do? How are you going to get there? When you begin to think about strategic planning in the framework of those three questions, it is easy to put a plan in place.  Today we are going to focus on step one of your strategic plan, set the foundation. Setting the foundation should happen well before you ever set foot in the board room.  First, you need to gather a planning team.  You want a diverse group of 4-10 people, depending on the size of your organization, that includes a combination of the executive director, the board chair, major donors, other volunteers, etc.  Once the planning team is in place, it’s time to set up a meeting to discuss how you are going to run the organization for the next 3-5 years.  The first step in this process is to discuss the issues or challenges the organization is facing, which is what will set the tone for the 3-5 goals you will establish.  Keep in mind that some of the topics discussed may actually be symptoms of a deeper issue happening within the organization itself.  Next on the list to discuss with the planning team are the obstacles that could stand in the way of effective planning.  This could be how often you meet, the schedules of the team, or internal leadership support.  Remember, you can easily come up with a bunch of excuses that halt the planning process.  However, don’t let this stop you from building a strategy. Finally, you want to wrap up the initial meeting with some ground rules like consensus decision making because we want to do this as a team.  Actively support the group decision, even if it’s not the exact one you would personally make.  Make sure you prioritize what matters most.  Lastly, you need to take the time you need and not rush through the process and trust that this it does work.  It’s going to feel messy and that’s ok because it gives you permission come up with creative ideas on how you are going to take your organization to the next level. We know being a nonprofit executive is a lonely job and we want you to know that you are not alone as you work toward your mission.  If you like the content of the podcast, as well as the work we do, we invite you to join the Nonprofit Executive Club.  The Executive Club is a monthly training program that gives you the ability to increase your influence through strategic planning and fundraising support.  For more information and to join the Club, go to nonprofitexecutiveclub.com. Download the Strategic Plan Toolkit For more information about Mary Valloni, visit maryvalloni.com and to download our free Fundraising Freedom Roadmap, go to maryvalloni.com/roadmap. Get a copy of Mary’s book, Fundraising Freedom. Interested in learning more about Joel Kessel?  Visit kesselstrategies.com to find out how Joel helps growth-minded leaders gain clarity.  

Episode 4 | Strategic Planning Step One: Set the Foundation

The Nonprofit Executive Podcast with Joel Kessel and Mary Valloni is the podcast for growth-minded nonprofit executives looking to take their nonprofit to the next level through strategic planning and fundraising.

hubhopper

Nonprofit Executive Podcast with Joel Kessel and Mary Vallon...

hubhopper