By Jan Breiner Frazer, managing member, Planningplus, LLC
Planningplus+ LLC partners with our clients to strategically achieve tangible results, meaningful impact, and a dynamic corporate culture for current and future success. Our core competencies include strategic and operational planning, board development and committee alignment, leadership development, and building the HR infrastructure. As a result of 30+ years of experience, we have developed a number of our own and unique approaches to working with clients.
Here is an idea for you to consider: Are board-term limits always a good idea?
Read any books or articles on board governance and the issue of term limits is always addressed. Best practices mix indicate that board members should have 3-year term limits, allow a year or two off the board, and then they can apply for another term. But is that always a good idea?
In our years of consulting with nonprofit boards, we consistently find that the most significant challenge for the organization is (and always has been) money – keeping the bottom line profitable to be able to serve more in need, recruit and retain employees, upgrade old facilities, add technology, etc., etc., etc. While the executive director is typically the chief fundraiser, along with a chief development officer, boards generally have some type of committees to support those efforts, such as resource development, marketing, public relations.
But from a board member’s perspective, knowing you have only signed on for three years how much long-sustaining work can you really get done?
Yet who better to role model active support during campaigns, fundraisers, and other revenue opportunities than board members who have consistently shown passion for and commitment to the organization over time? Those longer-term board members have lived the ups and downs, challenges and frustrations, and have significant institutional knowledge about the organization. Is it in the best interest of the board to require them to step off the board?
There are both pros and cons for term limits. Establishing term limits ensures the organization can periodically bring on new perspectives, new energy, new passions and new ideas. Oftentimes these fledgling board members can be the ones who ask “why” and challenge thinking. You need them.
You can also reduce the “we tried it and it didn’t work” mantras. Perhaps most important, it is an easy out for board members who sporadically attend board meetings, avoid committee assignments, don’t show up and support events or who just got burned out over time.
On the flip side, there are always board members who have made significant contributions to the organization, both in time and money and want to continue serving. During capital campaigns, critical funding initiatives, and/or turnaround times these board members have already shown the passion for the mission and with their institutional knowledge of the agency can make a case for support.
As an example, one of our long-term clients, Big Brothers Big Sisters, demonstrated the benefits of retaining long-term, active board members during its capital campaign for a new building. According to Darcey Palmer-Schultz, CEO, it was many of those board members, their contacts, and their time commitments that had a direct impact on the outcome of the campaign. Palmer-Schultz believes that long-term board membership is one of the most common threads in the nonprofit’s major donor base, and she cannot imagine achieving the same level of success without them.
Many boards designate an “emeritus” status for high-dollar donors who don’t want to have to attend board meetings but want to be connected. This is often found in fairly large boards. Our recommendation, however, goes a step farther – to designate a class of board members who best understand the organization and its history, who have participated in the tough lessons learned, and who can mentor new board members coming on board. They are active members of the board, attend and participate in board and committee meetings, and otherwise fulfill all the duties of a responsible board member. On an annual basis these members can choose to continue to serve on a year-by-year basis, and could constitute one-third or one-half of the board, dependent on the size of the board. When working with boards we often refer to this group as the leadership council.
Traditional board members are those elected for the three-year term. More often than not, they have done a great job but after serving a regular term are ready to step back and simply volunteer and/or financially support the organization. After a year or two off the board, they are welcome to again serve for a three-year term (assuming they fulfilled all the responsibilities of board members).
Whichever way you go, our point is that enforced term limits may not be in your organization’s best interests. Consider balancing long-term passion and institutional knowledge with the influx of new ideas and perspectives when it comes time for this year’s elections.
Utilizing our history in board development, committee structure, and board/CEO relationships, we can help.
Jan Breiner Frazier, managing member of Planning Plus, has been a consulting professional since 1987. She has designed and facilitated strategic, annual, and operational planning sessions for a multitude of organizations, often bringing together diverse philosophies, opinions, and perspectives to help groups collectively meet stated objectives. Often, her planning projects have resulted in assisting with organizational design and process improvement initiatives. Her work with nonprofit boards and associations has ranged from strategic planning, board development and committee structure to identifying organizational competencies. Prior to her consulting work, she was the personnel/marketing director for a multi-state wholesale/retail organization, with additional experience in administrative management in public accounting, law and utility construction. She can be reached at jfrazier@planningplusllc.com.
Jodi Snell grew up in a small town. Under 20,000 people live in Jacksonville, Illinois, but Snell remembers her parents were always busy helping to make their tiny community a better place.
Like organizing a softball tournament to raise money for a young cancer patient and her family. Snell recalls personally delivering a Game Boy to the girl in the hospital and recalling that garidathe joy was clearly two-fold: on the girl’s part and hers.
Amanda Lopez had similar experiences in her hometown of Wabash, Indiana. Her mom and dad over the years were foster parents to more than 100 children.
In each case the message is the same. For those who do it, community work can be a rewarding. Most volunteers say it is time well spent and personally fulfilling, even if they can’t be sure they made a significance difference.
In the nonprofit world, where organizations depend on donations and grants, it’s a different story. Nonprofits must prove their worth to keep the operating cash flowing.
And how exactly do they do that? With a little help from folks like Snell and Lopez whose vocabularies these days are full of somewhat dry words as program evaluation, data collection, logic model, outputs and outcomes.
Lopez is the president and founder of Wabash-based Transform Consulting Company. She learned the importance of evaluating programs from her days at Purdue University. She was a member of a service-learning project team whose goal was to interest third graders in engineering and science. But without a tool to measure success, it was hard to know if the kids were really coming on board.
As the only non-engineering student in the group, Lopez had a double role: to ensure that activities were developmentally appropriate and to execute short- and long-term evaluations to provide data.
“That really opened my eyes up to evaluation and the opportunity there,” Lopez said.
“When I went to grad school, I focused on systems and evaluations. (How can we) collect the right data that tracks and reports the impact that (nonprofits are) having or gives them the data that they need to improve and strengthen,” she said. After a stint in the government and coastal agencies, in 2008, she returned to Indiana and formed her consulting company to help nonprofits do just that.
Snell moved to Indiana after college with plans to be a teacher. But at the time, Indiana was laying off teachers, so she stepped into a job in the nonprofit sector. She quickly realized it was her dream job. In those early years, she admits that while she did evaluation work, it wasn’t formalized. ln fact, she describes it as “scrappy.” But from the start, she understood the importance of assessment.
Now, one of her responsibilities at the Indianapolis-based Hedges & Associates is to lead the evaluation team’s work. Since beginning in 2002, the company has offered services to build nonprofits’ capacity and later help with evaluations.
In 2013, a widely circulated essay by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates extolled the role that measurement plays in improving the human condition, how it improved the delivery of vital services worldwide. But he also offered a rueful observation.
“This may seem basic,” he wrote, “but it is amazing how often it (measurement) is not done and how hard it is to get right.”
Perhaps in response to the essay, Snell said local nonprofits began requesting technical support, heavily focused on quantitative measurements. To that end, the company hired a technical evaluation expert to help develop stronger metrics and intentional strategy.
But in many cases, this was a bit disconnected from reality. Snell’s team learned that what should be done might not be what nonprofits had the ability or capacity to do.
“Nonprofits were all of a sudden expected to track certain metrics and do certain things with very little resources provided to do so. Evaluation work is not cheap. It is labor intensive, it takes a lot of time even when you think of just cleaning up data,” said Snell.
So, her team began asking to see a nonprofit’s data before it developed a proposal or entered into a contract.
“Before we develop a proposal, can we see what you’re working with? We will take a look at it, and if it’s not consistently collected or there’s not enough data to make a valid finding, we’ll say, ‘Don’t waste your time.’” Instead, in those cases, she said, they suggested qualitative collection, to determine where to improve and oftentimes the development of a logic model and evaluation foundational pieces, helping to put measurement tools in place.
“Many nonprofits didn’t have data or the right data to do thorough and meaningful evaluations. What they needed was support to determine what to collect as a precursor to evaluation,” Snell said. “Then a year or two years from now, we have something meaningful to evaluate.”
Snell said initially local foundations drove evaluations, but now more individuals and corporate donors have joined the ranks. More importantly, some nonprofits have tackled evaluation, not because of outside influence, but because the organization is committed to its outcomes.
Today, the use of data governs almost every aspect of our lives. This is particularly true for philanthropy, which relies on it to inform decision-making, define problems and measure impact. Lopez and Snell have seen this shift firsthand. Nonprofits understand that they must show qualitative and quantitative data, but the challenge for many nonprofits revolves around the “hows” – how to accomplish it, how to pay for it and how to help staff understand the correlation between collecting data and their day-to-day functions.
And nationally, that’s been the case. In a 2018 book, the authors of Engine of Impact: Essentials of Strategic Leadership in the Nonprofit Sector, 50 percent of the 3,000 nonprofit stakeholders surveyed struggle with impact evaluation. Respondents cited inadequate or unreliable measurement of impact and performance being a challenge, and of the group, 42 percent said that more than half of their major donors require impact evaluations, but only a fraction are willing to pay for it.
And that’s not all they worry about. Lopez said nonprofit staffs often have a palpable fear of not meeting targets and that that will have an adverse impact on funding.
“We really try to build a culture of ‘We do evaluation for the purpose of learning and growth and improvement.’ And it’s OK, if that means we’re not hitting those targets. Let’s figure out why and what to do differently. If we’re not studying and implementing an evaluation plan, we’re not going to learn,” she said.
Snell said she found that local funders are looking for the nonprofit that discovers what’s not working and changes it. While the funders want outcomes, they’re practical and know that it takes time to set up tracking procedures and measuring for some time before it can be attributed.
“I think you definitely have to be looking at which of your programs are producing outcomes, but I think the other side of that is we’re working with humans,” said Snell. “Most of our work is in the social services sector. Some of the evaluation pieces may not always feel ethical. When you’re thinking about a test group, would you deprive a certain group of the population from a certain service to see if it works? I think there will always be that challenge of how valid you can get the data.” said Snell.
Bottom line, Lopez believes that Central Indiana funders are more partner-oriented.
“Local funders have pushed grantees to get clear about outcomes and have strong metrics in place with quantitative data to demonstrate their impact,” Lopez said. “For them it is not a high-stakes test – meet the metrics or funding isn’t continued – but rather, ‘Let’s have an honest conversation around where you are or aren’t meeting those metrics and what kind of capacity support is needed. Accountability is a strong word, but in a way, they’re really pushing the grantees that they’re partnering with to get clear about their outcomes and have strong metrics in place with quantitative data to demonstrate their impact.”
“And that’s where typically, we’ll be asked to come in to help support these nonprofits,” said Lopez. “Organizations are collecting data, that’s really not the issue. When it comes to evaluation, it’s helping them to figure out: Are they collecting the right data? Is the data clean and accurate to reflect what they’re wanting to collect? And how are they using it to make meaning and inform their work. And That’s what we really come in to help them with.”
Oftentimes, federal and state funding requires an external evaluator. But she’s seen the tide change at the federal level, moving from compliance to quality improvement and looking beyond a checklist of accomplishments. They are asking the nonprofits to show how their work is moving the needle.
“In multiyear grants, they want to see how you’re choosing your data and show that you’re using that data from the first year to inform any changes for the next year of programming, professional development and other refinements,” Lopez said.
What most nonprofits struggle with is carving out the time to collect the data.
“So, we really try to help them understand the critical value and importance of building that into their schedule, just like they would build in the next level of programming or services that they would offer. There are really tremendous and helpful data tools out there,” said Lopez who uses a participatory evaluation framework.
“We really want to build their capacity and that sustainability beyond our engagement because we know that most of them cannot afford to hire us forever to do evaluation work. We really want it to become a part of their culture, not just something they outsource to the consultant when a grant report is due. That’s why we spend time building that capacity and knowledge, called data literacy, and evaluation literacy within the organization,” she said.
Snell said it needs to be part of staff’s job responsibilities, not an afterthought.
“Nonprofit professionals typically didn’t start in their career wanting to be evaluators. Right? They started because they are caring and passionate about the program,” said Snell. “However, we owe it to the individuals we’re signing up to serve to know if what we’re doing really matters. This is a step to get there, and it’s not as scary as what people think.”
The opportunity and responsibility are there to utilize the results for planning and decision-making.
“That’s when you see the transformation really occur. And when we see it, it gets us excited.” Citing an example of a local Head Start organization that her company trained, agency staff reached out after it reviewed its data. The staff called because they wanted to go deeper and look at how dads are engaged.
“They felt like that’s an area of concern and stopped to really use their data and to dig into ‘What is happening with dads and where are the gaps and opportunities?’ before they just went to program changes. We’re like ‘Yay, this is so exciting.’ We didn’t have to remind them. They got it.” said Lopez.
Snell cited similar experiences.
“We’ve seen some really great success stories from organizations that have utilized research to inform and change their programming decisions,” she said. “We had one client who was able to secure funding for a whole new curriculum to be developed based on what we learned about the outcomes they weren’t able to get to with the current curriculum.”
Another local organization, she said, did the full evaluation gamut and learned that their collection measurements weren’t telling the entire story.
“We were able to reset how they were evaluating and now their story will be even stronger. I sat in hours and hours of interviews with their participants, and (through) the collection process (learned), we just weren’t getting to that same data,” said Snell who’s hopeful that both the qualitative and quantitative information will tell the same story in the next year.
Lopez believes that if a nonprofit is struggling with fund development, enrollment or retention, evaluation can help solve those problems.
“A lot of the issues that we hear a nonprofit is struggling with, usually evaluation can help solve. A lot of times, individual donors are becoming more sophisticated and want to see the impact that their dollars will have. Your evaluation can help tell that story of how (a donor’s) funding goes to support the cause and furthering its mission. It goes back to using your data.”
Not every organization is ready to jump into impact evaluation, there is a continuum. Some nonprofits begin with number counts. But as nonprofits become more sophisticated, here is some advice from Snell and Lopez.
• Meet your staff where they are. Hedges offers a workshop called “Love your Logic Model” and Transform offers “Evaluation 101.” Both companies believe in starting staffs with the basics. With turnover rate in the sector high, implementing standard operating procedures with internal systems and procedures in place is key to continuing the effort.
• Involve programming staff early in the impact strategy, helping to see the entire picture.
• Start by including metrics in job descriptions and take time to explain to potential candidates how data collection is part of the culture.
• Create a work-flow chart with a clear understanding of how evaluation fits into the day-to-day work plans to ensure the effort is not an addition, but a daily expectation.
• Continuously refine how data is collected.
• Reinforce that if data indicates a programming isn’t working, the focus needs to be on readjustment, not blame.
• Design pilot or innovative programs with research. There are multiple evaluation methods and numerous processes nonprofits can use to match desired outcomes.
• If resources are tight, interviewing participants should top the list to inform your program with the voices of those you are serving.
• Share what you are learning with two audiences – internal and external. Internally can be a powerful affirmation or enlighten staff, board and volunteers about targets not hit.
• Research to locate best tool, particularly with the more “social side” like self-efficacy there are tried-and-true evaluation tools that have been validated to test those specifically.
Evaluation Resources
If you’re interested in keeping up-to-date on evaluation, Amanda Lopez and Jodi Snell recommend two membership organizations that offer top-notch resources, webinars and conferences and share the ethics of evaluation and trends.
If you are looking for further reading, Snell recommends the 2011 publication “Leap of Reason” by Mario Morino. The author focuses on integrating evaluation into regular work.
“It’s the expectation that everyone is driven by those outcomes. What I really like is that nonprofit evaluation is not being driven by an outside force, but it’s the responsibility to the community you signed up to serve to make sure that what you’re doing works. If you’re not making sure it works than what are you doing. Why would we keep doing what we’re doing?”
Lopez has several tool recommendations.
• Data-informed decision-making toolkit : Transform Consulting worked with the Indiana Early Learning Advisory Committee (ELAC) data workgroup to create this material, but the resource could be utilized by any organization. Some highlights: The data visual is a good overview tool and follows the 4-step evaluation process. It also includes a list of publicly available data by category and data visualization tips and strategies.
• Data Playbook: A helpful resource for organizations to guide the evaluation process and plan. Lopez’s team used it to help develop the Indiana Early Learning Advisory Committee’s data toolkit.
• National Head Start Association (NHSA) launched its own Data Playbook resource for how to use data to inform programmatic changes (CQI process). Even if an organization is not in the early childhood education industry, this site provides an example of how organizations are using data to drive change and how applicable it is.
By Leslie Wells, assistant director of communications, O’Neill School at IUPUI
In 2017, Nigena Livingston was building Urban Act Academy, a K to 8 charter school in Indianapolis, from the ground up. She had worked as an educator for more than 15 years, but launching a charter school was unfamiliar territory.
She was beginning to write the school’s charter and establish its founding board, but she lacked clear direction.
“I had been a principal but felt like a novice when it came to being a CEO,” Livingston says. “I needed more information about boards and board management. I wanted to know how to support my board so that we would know we were on track and doing right by our students.”
So she enrolled in IU Executive Education’s Effective Nonprofit Governance certificate course through the O’Neill School. The six-session program includes lessons on the responsibilities of board members, the evolution of a board, how members help with fundraising, and how to best hold CEOs accountable for advancing the organization’s mission.
“The board is essential to any organization’s success,” says Livingston. “If it’s not treated as essential, your organization won’t thrive. This course included all the information I needed to ensure I was recruiting board members who could participate in meaningful ways and advance our organization.”
Shortly before Livingston began her journey, Amanda Leffler — a nursing education consultant who serves on various boards — was elected board president for the Indiana League for Nursing. She says that election aligned perfectly with the Effective Nonprofit Governance program.
“Enrolling in the program was a strategic decision on my part,” she recalls. “This was an opportunity to learn how to govern a board of directors and grow into a new role.”
Leffler says the classes help participants better understand a nonprofit board’s purpose, how it should operate and how board members can help an organization fulfill its mission.
“Understanding the fundamentals taught in this course is critical to knowing where your organization is, where you want it to go, and how to get there,” Leffler adds.
In addition to content, Leffler and Livingston agree that the diversity of their cohorts provided a deeper understanding and context to the lessons they were learning.
“It was helpful to have non-educators in the room with organizations that face similar challenges to us,” Livingston says. “That helped us turn other organizations’ missteps into teachable moments.”
One critical takeaway for both Leffler and Livingston was gaining a better understanding of the various stages of board development and how to help boards progress — or take steps back — to grow alongside the nonprofit.
“I remember when our board was being nice but not being critical,” Livingston says. “Because of this course, I was able to provide leadership about how they should push me. Rather than just talking about what we want to do, we’re now becoming more evidence-based and developing policies.”
Leffler says that learning the five stages of the nonprofit organization lifecycle has given her “an immense advantage” over her colleagues.
“I approach each of the boards on which I serve in a different way depending on where they are in their life cycle,” she says.
She uses that knowledge to mentor her fellow board members and her nursing students.
“This course trains the trainer,” she says. “I took what I learned and pass it on to help others with whom I work grow, as well. I teach my students how to craft an elevator speech because that is something they need to know, no matter where they are.”
The lessons learned in the program extend well beyond the boardroom. Leffler says not only did she learn to be a better board member and leader, she also learned how to apply what she was learning to her everyday life.
“The knowledge and experiences I gained throughout the program are truly invaluable, especially for anyone looking to serve in the nonprofit sector,” Leffler says. “The tools are practical and simple to implement into everyday practice.”
Leslie Wells joined the O’Neill School at IUPUI as its assistant director of communications in 2018. She previously spent more than a decade in broadcast news and three years as media relations manager at the Indiana Youth Institute.
By Genevieve Shaker, associate professor of philanthropic studies, and Abby Rolland, communications project manager, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
Small gifts do matter
Nowadays, it’s easy to assume that small gifts* don’t matter. The U.S.’s biggest 50 individual donors gave $7.8 billion to nonprofits in 2018. The percentage of households that give is declining, even though total donations are increasing because major donors are giving more money.
However, small gifts still matter for at least three, important reasons.
First, when combined, small gifts can make a big difference for a cause.
In 2017, Hurricane Harvey struck the U.S. Gulf Coast. After disasters strike, the American Red Cross funds shelter, here food and relief items, basic health and mental health services, and other support. In the wake of Harvey, the Red Cross received over one million donations of gifts under $100. These gifts totaled over $35 million. Small gifts and funded immediate relief and long-term recovery efforts for hundreds of thousands of displaced Americans.
Second, small gifts matter to the nonprofit sector as a whole.
In 2016, 53.09% of households gave to charity. While this percentage declined from 2000 to 2016, it illustrates that the majority of American households do donate. These donor households gave an average amount of $2,763, supporting all kinds of nonprofit organizations. Individual donations (including bequests) totaled $331.8 billion in 2018, or 77% of charitable giving. Even though large donations are crucial, many, many small gifts also contributed to this total.
Third, small gifts matter because donors typically begin modestly, giving larger gifts.
World Vision US (WVUS) received its first donations from Dave and Dana Dornsife in the 1980s, when the Dornsifes click began contributing $20 to cover a monthly child sponsorship. Thirty years of continued donations later, and the Dornsifes gave $35 million in matching fund donations from 2011-2015. The match inspired over $256 million in donations, bringing clean water, sanitation and hygiene to 8.6 million people. Good stewardship and donor capacity can combine, leading to larger gifts and inspiring other donors to make contributions.
How can nonprofits and fundraisers build support for and sustain small gifts?
1.) Craft a strategy and fundraising plan that matches the audience at the given gift level.
It’s not sustainable to use the same strategy for a major donor as you would use for an annual fund donor. Tailor targeted approaches for each gift level and population that you’re soliciting and stewarding.
2.) Once you create a strategy, map out a plan and be sure to evaluate it.
Make sure that the strategies you’re using to earn those small gifts are cost-effective for your organization. Always evaluate the solicitation effort and consider what needs to be done differently if necessary. Implement new goals and tactics if previous efforts didn’t work.
3.) Once you identify new donors, create a plan to effectively engage with them.
Invest in communications and donor engagement. Craft a holistic strategy that not only considers the acquisition of a first gift but creates a good experience after the gift is made. Thanks to new technologies, nonprofits now have a range of tools for personalizing donor experiences at all levels.
4.) Show all donors that you know who they are.
Thank them. Spell their names correctly. Recognize donors in communications. Not only does it encourage them to give to your organization again, but nonprofits also have an ethical responsibility to document and demonstrate that their donor information is correct.
5.) Make sure to communicate the impact of giving on the cause.
Overall, donors expect information that tells them about the good they are doing. Not only will this help steward donors appropriately, showing what gifts achieve makes the case for future contributions (and involvement) at various levels.
Every donor should feel valued and know that they and their gift matter. Stewarding gifts properly is a part of our ethical responsibility … and a key to ensuring nonprofits’ financial futures.
*Small gifts may be defined as under $100 but the definition varies depending on the organization.
Genevieve G. Shaker, Ph.D., is associate professor of philanthropic studies at the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI. Her research focuses on fundraising, higher education advancement, philanthropy in the workplace, and philanthropy, public good, and faculty work. She is associate editor of the journal Philanthropy & Education.
Abby Rolland serves as the communications project manager at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, and is also working towards a master’s degree in philanthropic studies. She holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Gettysburg College.
By Barry Newman, senior human resources representative, Synergy
It might be obvious that severely overworked employees will burn out, but what about the harder-to-spot cases of employees who shoulder a little bit too much stress each day?
Improving work-life balance for your employees has been proven to create a more loyal and more productive workforce. While change can’t happen overnight, there are several methods for encouraging a healthier balance and preventing employee burn out.
Retire the nine-to-five mentality
As long as your industry and work product allow for it, try to provide more tailored scheduling for your workforce. This can make a huge impact, since 89% of surveyed professionals stated the number one thing that would improve their work-life balance would be flexible working hours. Look at each position and consider: why must this here employee be here for these exact hours? In many cases there will be certain meetings that need attending, but outside of that, allowing employees to come in early so they can finish their workday early or shift hours in another way can provide a huge boost to morale.
Offer remote working options
Today’s world is a digital one. Just as with business hours that are more flexible than ever, so too is the location from which employees work. Once again, look at each position and ask: ‘Why click does this employee have to physically be here every single day?’ If all they need is an Internet connection and computer to complete the majority of their job, there should be the potential to allow them to work remotely at least one day per month. In fact, the most engaged workers are those working remotely about 60% of the time, indicating a healthy work-life balance is critical to business success. Best yet, offering remote working options can be a great way to increase attractive benefits without adding any cost.
Tweak the office environment
People are products of their environments. Sterile, fluorescent office interiors are no longer in vogue. Employees desire to walk into a warmer workplace, one that is more vibrant and comfortable. While complete overhauls and construction from scratch can cost thousands, even small tweaks to your environment make a big difference. After all, employees spend a great deal of time at work. Think about the minor but impactful changes you can make, such as adding a new couch and TV to the breakroom, providing an unlimited supply of energy drinks and snacks, or putting a picnic table outside during the summer months.
Promote physical and mental health
An employer looking to improve their organization’s work-life balance must also consider physical and mental health, as psychological and physical problems stemming from burned-out employees cost between $125 and $190 billion per year in healthcare in the U.S.
Encourage employees to be active by enacting a step-counting contest or offering a discounted membership to a local gym. Bring in an exercise instructor once per week or month and have a yoga or other class outside at lunch or after work. Grant employees up to a $20 reimbursement for the purchase of well-being apps that can help them meditate or deal with stress in positive ways. Whatever the form it takes, promoting physical and mental health is an essential duty as an employer.
Adopt paid sick leave
Laws requiring paid sick leave are spreading, but even if it’s not a law in your area currently, it’s something that can go a long way to improving employee work-life balance. Many professionals force themselves to come into work when sick simply because they don’t want to take PTO that they’ve planned to use for their vacation or for an activity with loved ones. This is a dangerous trend since that employee who won’t likely match their normal work rate anyway can get co-workers sick. Build a sick leave policy into the employee handbook and benefits package so employees aren’t put in that situation. They will get healthy faster and appreciate their employer more.
5 ways to improve employee work-life balance
Improving employee work-life balance is more than just offering ample vacation time. While discretion will vary depending on the type and size of your organization, boosting employee morale is the duty of all managers, HR employees, and senior staff. Working together to determine what works best for your employees and implementing those strategies is the key to turning your employee experience from a seesaw to a balance beam.
Provide a boost to your HR and make your employees happier.
Barry Newmanis a human-resources professional with nearly 50 years of experience in all facets of HR in a variety of industries. For the last 25 of which have been with The Synergy Companies, a leading Professional Employer Organization providing Midwest-based clients with outsourced human resources management, payroll and benefits. Reach out to Synergy today.
By Chris Mennel, CPA, senior audit manager, Alerding CPA Group
Sometimes it begins with “borrowing” a small amount of money, as a temporary loan from an employer. He or she may be thinking, “I really need this money and I’ll put it back when I get my paycheck,” or “I just can’t afford to lose everything – my home, car, everything.” Or the employee is living beyond his or her means and wants to support an extravagant lifestyle.
Regardless of the rationale, lifestyle fraud is very real. And small businesses and nonprofit organizations are especially vulnerable.
For example, an employee was involved in an accident resulting in several injuries while also experiencing here marital troubles at home. As a result of the injuries, the individual was prescribed narcotics for pain management. She became dependent on the narcotics as a way to relieve her pain and escape her marital troubles. The employee began spending a large amount of money in order to obtain narcotics, which lead her to steal from her employer in order to make ends meet, resulting in a six-figure loss to the organization.
It’s easy to point the finger at this individual and cite statistics about fraud, but what if we could rewind the clock and encourage management to identify this individual as a potential fraud risk. click The organization’s management could have then reviewed internal controls making sure that stealing wasn’t an option. It sounds difficult to do, but the personal stresses mentioned above were well-known by management.
Don’t be a victim
In 2018, according to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE), 28 percent of employee fraud happened in small organizations, the highest number among all employer categories. Small organizations, less than 100 employees, are the most susceptible, because they lack the resources to implement complete systems of internal controls and properly segregate accounting duties among their limited staff.
The types of frauds include corruption, check tampering, skimming, billing and expense reimbursement fraud. Nearly half of the perpetrators were trusted employees who had been with the company from four to five years, worked in the accounting area and were first-time offenders. The median financial loss to these smaller companies was $200,000, the largest among victimized organizations of all sizes.
How to identify lifestyle fraud Could lifestyle fraud happen to your company or organization? Here are some signs:
1) Expensive purchases, which were previously out-of-the ordinary for this employee 2) Personal debt and credit problems 3) Behavioral changes indicating drug or alcohol abuse 4) Refusal to take vacation or sick time and refusing promotions for fear of detection 5) Carrying large amounts of money 6) Unwillingness to share accounting responsibilities 7) Uneasiness when being questioned about accounting records
How to stop it before it starts There are many ways to prevent lifestyle fraud in your organization or business. Here are some strategies:
1) Review your financial process and tighten controls 2) Make sure more than one person has complete control over an entire cash receipts or cash disbursement process 3) Approve every transaction by someone other than bookkeeping 4) Review bank statements by someone other than bookkeeping
Chris Mennel, senior audit manager at Alerding CPA group, oversees audit and accounting services, nonprofit and consulting services. Since joining Alerding CPA Group in 2006, Mennel’s clientele has grown to include several of the firm’s larger for-profit clients as well as approximately 20 nonprofits located throughout Central Indiana. He also prepares financial statement projections and other financial analyses to assist clients with their financing needs.
Lifestyle Fraud can be prevented with the proper controls and processes. If you need help setting them up or would like to discuss a specific concern within your organization, contact Alerding CPA Group at (317) 569-4181 or www.alerdingcpagroup.com
Jim McClelland first tried to retire five years ago after leading Goodwill of Central Indiana for 41 years. He planned to travel a bit with his wife, Jane, and maybe write a book.
Those plans changed in 2017 when Gov. Eric Holcomb called on McClelland to spearhead Indiana’s Next Level Recovery initiative, a statewide effort to address substance abuse. McClelland became known as the state’s “drug czar” and wore the mantle with gusto.
Last week, a reflective McClelland retired again, and was quick to credit his experience in the nonprofit sector for some of his successes in the state’s response to the growing opioid crisis.
Goodwill’s focus was on poverty, but the nonprofit found it could not just tackle it internally. Poverty wasn’t a stand-alone problem, but rather it was intertwined with multiple health issues, and a collaborative effort with other nonprofits and community groups was needed.
“Just like at Goodwill, social problems are interrelated,” McClelland said. “They tend to reinforce and compound each other. But as a society, we have tended to treat them individually, in isolation from the others. We’ve been lousy at connecting the pieces. We don’t solve the problems, if we don’t address all of them.”
But addressing them all would be a daunting task. It wasn’t the magnitude of the opioid crisis that was a surprise, but its complexity.
“There were hundred different things we needed to be doing all at once. It was extraordinarily complex,” McClelland said.
During his tenure as drug czar, McClelland spoke with over 150 groups across the state — including a number of nonprofits — and encouraged public and private groups to work collectively. In response, he has seen communities step up and form substance use disorder coalitions (SUD) to bring people together and focus on prevention, treatment and recovery.
“They’re bringing people together from business, education and health care, local government, law enforcement agencies, the courts, philanthropy, faith-based organizations, community-based organizations,” McClelland said. “They get to know each other, they get to learn from each other, and they can sometimes begin to see is how they can work together, leveraging their resources and their capabilities to help cause some good things to happen that otherwise wouldn’t happen.”
“They also gain an appreciation for different perspectives. You know, public safety typically has have a different perspective from the medical side, but they need to understand each other’s perspectives and have some respect for each other, and I’ve seen a lot of that developing.”
McClelland has been not only these groups’ cheerleaders, but he helped secure state funds for 10 coalitions. In early 2019, Indiana awarded 10 groups one-year $75,000 grants to support efforts locally to combat the drug crisis. The organizations were in Bartholomew, Cass, Clark, Dearborn, Hancock, Howard, Knox, Marion, Scott and St. Joseph counties. Recipients were selected from applications received in response to a request-for-funding announcement from the Indiana Family and Social Services Administration.
In Howard County, Paul Wyman, a county commissioner, saw the problem and decided to do something about it. In 2017, after the number of overdose deaths in Howard County spiked to a record high of 44, he organized a summit of community leaders and the nonprofit resource center Turning Point Systems of Care was born.
“Wyman had the ability to get a lot of people to come together. He brought about 100 people together and said, ‘We need to organize ourselves, and we need to attack this.’ He led it, and is still leading it, along with everything else that he does,” said McClelland.
As a result, the Howard County coalition hired two staff members — a coordinator and a navigator who connect people with services and provides continuity in the relationship. The group recognized that so many people needed help and wanted help but had no idea where to go.
“Everywhere in a local community where you see some really good things happening, there’s always strong local leadership, and it comes from different places,” said McClelland. “To me the coalitions are (one area) where we need to continue a strong emphasis.”
Bill Corley, a coach/consultant with Integrity Health Strategies, has led the INSTEP coalition, a nonprofit which coordinates the resources of 75 providers in the Greater Indianapolis area and serves as a hub for resources. Corley, who served for 25 years as president and CEO of Community Health Network in Indianapolis, said McClelland was the communicator in chief.
While McClelland would be the first to say he is not a health care guy, not only was he a great communicator, but he asked good questions, said Corley.
“That’s just a wonderful characteristic to have. He didn’t go into the job thinking that he knew everything, because he knew that he did not know everything,” said Corley. “When he communicated, he explained the why. The ‘why are we doing this.’ It should be obvious that people were trying to save people’s lives, but it’s more than that, it’s a social problem and people needed to understand why he was doing things.”
McClelland is also a great connector, never missing an opportunity to share what was going on in another part of the state.
“And that is extremely valuable to the rest of the state,” said Corley.
Getting all the providers to work together resulted in INSTEP hosting the SUD (substance use disorders) coalition summit in August on behalf of FSSA. The summit provided and opportunity for SUD coalitions like INSTEP to compare similarities, differences and common challenges for how others are addressing SUD issues in their communities. Now, Corley said, there is a desire to do it again and involve other groups in the state.
As McClelland exits his position, he is proudest of the number of people who responded to the all-hands-on-deck request.
“It’s just been really gratifying to see so many people who are willing to contribute. Some of them in a big way, some of them in small ways, but there are so many people really.”
In addition to coalition work in counties, efforts from LaPorte to Redkey were driven by local individuals.
Take for example, Larry Smith, a recovering addict. He pulled together a recovery support group built around exercise and physical fitness. Now in four communities, he has worked with existing fitness facilities to establish programs in the LaPorte area.
In Jay County, Randy Davis, a retired United Methodist pastor, lost a member of his congregation (substance use disorder). In 2014, he decided to do something to help support people who were struggling and formed volunteer recovery support groups. According to McClelland, under Davis’ tutelage, there are now at least 35 groups in various towns in Indiana and Ohio. Manned by volunteers, Davis now has a paid staff to keep them going.
McClelland’s work will continue under new leadership. Douglas Huntsinger was named to the post last week. As deputy director for drug prevention, treatment and enforcement since 2017, he stepped right into the position.
McClelland’s message to Huntsinger is that the state is on a good path.
His advice? “Keep bringing the pieces together. Continue to support strong local coalitions. So much of what needs to be done on the prevention side and the recovery needs to be done on a local level.
“We also need a lot more recovery housing, that’s been a really tough nut to crack because of the lack of capital.
“Yes, we got a long way to go,” McClelland said. “We have also seen a resurgence in meth, it’s not the kind of meth that was made in the kitchens and bathrooms of people a few years ago. This stuff is mass produced in Mexico. It’s high impurity, it’s very low in price, and it’s everywhere. It’s all over the country. We need to make sure that our infrastructure is able to deal with addictions of other types.”
“I can look back over three years, and say, ‘My gosh. We put together the strategic approach.’ I look at it now, there’s not a whole lot about it I would change.”
Some Next Level Recovery highlights By Lynn Sygiel, editor, Charitable Advisors
There’s not a whole lot about his work as “drug czar” that Jim McClelland would have changed, except to have quickened the pace.
“I’d love to see things move faster than they do, but I’m pretty much that way on everything,” McClelland said. “We have, I am told, compared with the usual pace in state government, moved with lightning speed. It’s kind of hard for me to believe sometimes, but we’ve gotten a lot done.”
In 2017, over 1,800 Hoosiers died of overdoses, and the number one priority of McClelland’s initiative, Next Level Recovery, was to keep people alive.
“Our death rate peaked in November of 2017, and then began a gradual decline. It is still declining, but much more gradually. We were down 12.9 percent last year, and nationally, it was down about 5.1 percent. So, we were like 2.5 times (better than) the national percentage. We are still declining greater than the national rate,” said McClelland.
Here are some highlights of the state’s efforts.
Legislation: McClelland credits the Indiana General Assembly with passing a series of drug-related bills. In 2017, he said, Indiana had the 10th highest opioid prescription rate in the country. In that year, the legislature limited first-time prescriptions to seven days for anyone under 18.
“We’ve had great legislative support. We’ve had a number of bills over these three years that passed both houses unanimously or maybe with one or two negative votes. The chief justice and all the other members of the Indiana Supreme Court have been incredibly helpful and supportive.”
Prescribing practices: Another tactic, undertaken by the Family and Social Services Agency (FSSA), was to provide doctors with comparisons of their prescribing practices. Awareness letters were sent to doctors who received payments through Medicaid. This effort resulted in a 26 percent drop in prescriptions from that group of doctors.
State-data base: Additionally, doctors are now required by law to check before prescribing an opioid. To aid this effort, the state paid for the integration of INSPECT with the electronic health record systems and pharmacy management systems around the state. That task is close to being completed.
“It has made it a really easy process that used to be laborious and time consuming,” McClelland said.
The Indiana Department of Health and the Indiana Hospital Association and Indiana Medical Association also developed new prescribing guidelines to manage acute pain. Basically, these guidelines suggest that doctors should attempt non-pharmacological approaches first, and if those don’t work, they should start with the lowest dosage for the shortest duration.
Disposal options: More safe disposal options have made it easier for people to get rid of excess meds.
“So, you take the lower prescribing rates, and a greater number of more convenient safe disposal options, and you have fewer pills available for non-medical use. That has helped,” McClelland said.
525 foundation launches Rx drop box effort South Bend-based Beacon Health System is taking steps to prevent unwanted prescriptions from falling into the wrong hands. The health system is partnering with the 525 Foundation, a national advocacy group based in St. Joseph County, to install drop boxes for unwanted or outdated medications at several hospitals and a supermarket chain in northern Indiana. Read More
Access to treatment: Timely access to treatment has been enormously important. To support this effort, the state invested in an interactive system to connect drug users with treatment facilities in order to make the process easier for drug users in desperate need of care. To support that effort, the and Indiana 211 streamlined the treatment search. The program, called OpenBeds, provides real-time data of beds available for facilities that cater to addictions.
Education: The Next Level Recovery website was launched and pulls together many of the programs and services at a one-stop site.
A new exhibit designed by the Indiana State Museum, FIX: Heartbreak and Hope Inside Our Opioid Crisis — the will share ways for Indiana communities to come together and shift the conversation and reduce the stigma surrounding opioid use disorder. Its goal is to show how all can play a role in finding solutions to this devastating crisis. Exhibit opens Feb. 1.
By Dave Voris, Vice President and Regional Manager,
Horizon Bank
If you’re an
administrator working for a nonprofit organization, you understand the
financial challenges behind finding support to do good work.
Big fundraising
events or donation drives may bring in large amounts of money all at once, but
spreading that money to meet monthly expenses can stress your resources.
For
qualifying organizations, Horizon Bank can provide lines of credit (LOC) to
help you through leaner times of the year to gap your cash flow needs – cash
receipts in and cash payments out — until grants and other funding commitments
are received.
It
is not unusual for a nonprofit to incur substantial upfront expenses associated
with delivering services. Ultimately these are funded by a third party, such as
a government agency or a foundation, but the challenge is the lag between the
expense on the front-end and the promised funding that may take weeks or even
months to come.
Lines
of credit have proven to be valuable resources and tool for nonprofits and
allow organizations to continue to deliver vital services while awaiting
receipt of grants or payments from contract work. After all,
salaries, rent, marketing services and other expenses must be paid consistently
and on time.
One important caution is that lines of credit
should be used only to address a timing discrepancy between expenses payments
and cash receipt. Even nonprofits that spend ample time on budgeting, and even have
year-end surplus revenues may need to access a line of credit occasionally to
fund general operating. When used appropriately, it can help solve the cash flow problem and
allow an organization to borrow based revenue that is due and collectible.
Your nonprofit
should prepare monthly or weekly cash flow forecasts and revise them over time
to keep tabs on repayment of an LOC. Identify when cash will be received that
will pay the LOC’s outstanding balance. Remember, borrowers pay interest and
funds should be used judiciously, building payment amounts into your year-round
budget.
A line of credit
can give you access to the funds you need, when you need them — with a
manageable payment to help spread those costs out over a longer period of time.
This approach can help balance your cash flow, though, in the long run.
When to see us
If you already
have a relationship with us, that’s great. We’ll be happy to sit down with you
to review your financial trends from the past, discuss your challenges and
determine the times of year when you might most benefit from a line of credit.
If you haven’t
worked with us before, it’s a good idea to come in and discuss your year-round
cash flow trends before you actually need help. That way we can assist you in
getting an appropriate plan in place ahead of time.
Here’s what to
bring when you come to talk about a line of credit.
Commentary about how the organization raises funds, including the
identification of sustaining funds.
Discussion about what would likely cause or has caused the need for
a line of credit.
Three years of prior financial statements, including the balance sheet
and the cash flow statement so our bankers can review your history.
A 12-month cash flow forecast to show the bankers that, despite the
request for a line of credit, the organization will continue its
self-sustaining capability.
All of this
information will help us better understand why you may need short-term
financing, and that you’ll be able to repay any debt.
Dave
Voris is a vice president in the Indianapolis market for Horizon Bank. As
a senior treasury management officer, he works closely with middle market,
nonprofits and small business companies in a broad span of industries. His 25
years of business experience have included treasury management, merchant
services, and international banking including sales management, client service
and implementation management, product management and electronic payment
operations.
We also provide longer-term loans for asset purchases such as vehicles or equipment. Visit one of our Commercial Banking Advisors today.
By Leslie Wells,AssociateDirector ofCommunication, O’Neill
Schoolat IUPUI
Kennedy Jefferies is eight months into her first full-time
job. The O’Neill Civic
Leadership major accepted a position as the director of preschool
ministries for a large church in Indianapolis.
She edits youth curriculum while recruiting and managing 30
to 50 volunteers who lead classes for hundreds of children, provide childcare at
church events and work during youth functions.
Jefferies is passionate about her work with volunteers. It’s
why she took Marshawn
Wolley’s Managing Workforce Diversity class at the O’Neill School of Public
and Environmental Affairs at IUPUI.
“You miss out on
opportunities if you don’t know how to leverage diversity,” says Wolley, director
of community engagement and strategic initiatives for O’Neill. “Managers are
responsible for creating inclusive environments that make everyone feel like
they belong and allow their teams to leverage the culturally salient aspects of
whoever they are to impact the work experience.”
Jefferies’ volunteers range in age from 8 years old to 82
years old. She’s even using her project from Wolley’s class to pair volunteers
with mentors to develop relationships and bridge generational gaps.
“I think we can often be unintentionally exclusive,” Jefferies
says. “To overcome that, I wanted to learn how to manage a workforce very
different than me.”
That isn’t the only lesson she applied when interviewing for
her current job. When the position first opened up, she nearly jumped at the
opportunity. But before she jumped, she thought back to a class discussion about
salary negotiation, the pay gap and why women
earn 85 percent of what men earn. Jefferies learned that research has shown
many
women simply don’t negotiate.
That was a light-bulb moment for Jefferies.
“We may not understand our own worth,” she says. “We may take
an offer because we just want a job. Men are often more willing to assert
themselves in negotiations and ask for more. And as they continue to earn raises,
women continue to be left behind.”
Wolley’s class helped Jefferies recognize there was
something she could do to help close the gap.
“It’s a problem I am personally committed to addressing,”
Wolley says. “I tell my students they are worth negotiating and that I expect
them to negotiate.”
Jefferies couldn’t shake the discussion. She says the salary
offer she received was fine but wasn’t what she really wanted.
“For me, I was so thankful to get an offer that the idea of
asking for more seemed greedy,” she says. “But, remembering that class, I knew
I should negotiate.”
She researched comparable positions and salaries.
She knew she had the grounds to ask for more so she met with Wolley to discuss
the offer and her options. He gave her the extra boost of confidence she needed
to negotiate.
“Students need that push,” he says. “They need someone to
tell them they can negotiate, they should negotiate, and they deserve to
negotiate.”
“(Wolley) really empowered me to do it,” she said. “He
told me that — from a man’s perspective — it wouldn’t be a question of
whether to negotiate and I should feel that way, too.”
He also provided her with a word of caution: she had
to be willing to walk away if she didn’t get what she wanted.
“You aren’t negotiating unless you can walk away,”
Wolley says. “Make your case, do your research, and, if they say no, move on to
the next thing.”
“That was a really hard concept for me because I really wanted
this job,” she recalls. “I didn’t want to walk away, but he told me I had to be
willing to do that if I was going to negotiate.”
She picked up the phone and made the call. The woman
on the other end told her to email them what she wanted.
Jefferies relied on her research and the
cost-savings the church would receive from declining their health insurance.
That, she said, should go toward her salary. She wanted extra paid time off, as
well. She asked for what she really wanted and she got it — without any hesitation
from the employer.
Wolley never had any doubts Jefferies would succeed
in her negotiations — and can now use her experience as an example.
“Kennedy’s
story provides a connection for other students to know that the things I’m
talking about in class are real,” he says. “It’s affirming to see a student
trust you, apply the lessons you’re teaching and succeed.”
Because of those lessons, Wolley’s support, and her
own courage to negotiate, Jefferies helped move the needle on the pay gap and
change her own thinking in the process.
“I didn’t see the mentality of avoiding negotiation until it
was pointed out to me,” Jefferies says. “Women have the ability
to change the pay gap. So, why shouldn’t we?”
Leslie Wells joined the O’Neill School at
IUPUI as its assistant director of communications in 2018. She previously spent
more than a decade in broadcast news and three years as mediarelations
manager at the Indiana Youth Institute.
The warning signs were out there, the
proverbial perfect storm brewing on the horizon. And Cayla Rosine, the vice
president of finance and operations at Joy’s House in Indianapolis, was
worried.
“We were drawing on our line of credit, and
we’ve never done that before. This was serious,” said Rosine of a critical
juncture last summer when Joy’s House found itself staring at a potential
shortfall that threatened to shutter the organization just as it was
approaching its 20th anniversary.
Joy’s House provides caregiver services for
adults with life-altering diagnoses and like many nonprofits, relies on
donations and traditional government funding sources. When those funding
streams change quickly for the worse, nonprofits and social enterprises
generally lack the extra funds on hand to make up the difference. Unlike
traditional businesses, it’s hard for a small nonprofit to develop a rainy-day
fund when donors and investors expect most of the money to go toward
programming.
Joy’s House accepts Aged and Disabled
(A&D) Medicaid waivers, the CHOICE program and long-term care insurance.
But changes in Medicaid reimbursements, state funding and declines in donations
put Joy’s House in a financial bind.
The
potential shortfall, however, is only part of the Joy’s House story. The organization’s proactive approach
and what it learned about itself and the community offers ideas for other
nonprofits seeking to avert a crisis.
Rosine has worked at Joy’s House for 21/2 years and
knows what it takes to run the organization: about $1.5 million a year. When
the financial picture darkened, she had a hard conversation with Joy’s House founder
and CEO/president Tina McIntosh.
The Joy’s House board was hoping things would
get better based, Rosine said, on 2018 being better than 2017. Joy’s
House has two sites, one in Broad Ripple on the Northside that opened in 2000,
and a Southside center that opened in 2014 near the University of Indianapolis.
Joy’s House isn’t unlike many human services
nonprofits facing financial challenges. Government contracts have not kept up
with the cost of services. Many nonprofits reporting receiving roughly 70
percent of direct program costs, according to a 2018 report commissioned by the
Alliance for Strong Families and Communities. Nearly one in eight organizations
have liabilities that exceed their total assets.
Sarah Shadday, the center’s outreach
coordinator, said
according to AARP, Indiana ranks
46th in the nation when it comes to Medicaid and state-funded
spending. The state also
ranks 51st for
long-term services and supports.
“Our society in
general does a really poor job of caring for our aging adults. We’re not
respecting the amazing people they are now, and the amazing things they have
done with their lives. We have people here who have birthed 12 children, we
have Ryan White’s primary care physician in this house right now. Just to cast
them aside because of a diagnosis. It’s asking a really hard question of the
community,” she said.
Earlier this year, Joy’s House already had made
some tough decisions. It reduced staff and eliminated its WIBC radio show,
“Caregiver Crossing,” which was transitioned as a podcast in August.
Unfortunately, the Joy’s House board realized,
those cost-cutting measures weren’t enough and in late summer, the decision was
made to start a critical fundraising campaign, a somewhat unusual move for a
nonprofit.
“Tina (McIntosh) would talk about how when they were thinking about the
idea of the critical fundraising campaign, she Googled it. There’s nothing out
there. Nonprofits just don’t do the critical,” said Shadday.
“The decision to launch this campaign was not
made lightly. A critical campaign is not something you can do multiple times in
your organization’s existence; it was a one-time shot. It was a pivotal time
for Joy’s House and the campaign would help make it or break it,” said board
treasurer Lisa Curry, who is a director in
Katz, Sapper & Miller’s Healthcare Resources Group, an
Indianapolis-based accounting firm.
Board
chair Corrine Walter said the board saw the incremental challenges facing the
organization and asked three critical questions: Are we needed? Should it be us
providing this service? Do people care?
The
campaign was covered by local media and in September, the center launched a
fundraising campaign. In multiple stories in the local press, headlines painted
a bleak picture if the organization didn’t generate the necessary community
support.
While the campaign’s goal was $559,000, Shadday said by the organization’s 20th
anniversary on Nov. 1, it had actually raised $720,000, and that figure is
still growing. But she said more importantly, it provided validation.
“In a typical year we have 700 to 800 donors,
which include foundations, donors and individual gifts from people. And in this
eight-week time frame, we had over 1,000 donors and half of them were brand
new,” she said.
Rosine said she hadn’t seen so much activity
that saw even neighbors stepping up.
“There’s
a church nearby that called and said, ‘You’re our neighbor. We cannot let this
happen.’ The church members took up a special collection and sent a check. It
was overwhelming in a good way. It made us emotional at times to see that
people do care,” she said.
Shadday
had a similar story. After an article ran in The Indianapolis Star, an
Eastside woman drove to Broad Ripple and announced her desire to help the effort.
The center’s senior vice president of care services happened to be covering the
front desk for the receptionist and talked with the woman who shared how much
the organization’s mission spoke to her.
“When
the woman left, they opened the envelope and found $1,000 in cash. This woman
had never heard of Joy’s House, 24 hours before,” she said.
While the nonprofit has utilized social media, they
witnessed its power and ripple effect. They also saw caregivers who already had
so much on their plate become part of the army that spread the word.
While the campaign ran from Sept. 1 to Nov. 1, the Joy’s
House lobby became a bit of a merchandise center. One local donor, Best Boy & Co., provided jars of whole grain mustard for Joy’s House to
sell onsite, and the company sold it in other area retail shops to benefit the
campaign. Another donor, Wood Warbler
Coffee, provided 50 percent of the proceeds of
coffee sold both at Joy’s House and online. There were other in-kind donations as
well and local restaurants that provided a percentage of the day’s total sales
to benefit the nonprofit.
As board chair, Walter, who is an
assistant vice president at Capital Group, saw a positive community
response to its internal questions.
“Our answers to those (internal) questions
were all ‘Yes,’” she said.
But it did more than that.
“The critical campaign was a means to shine a
light on needs within our aging population, needs for those with a variety of
diagnoses, and we wholeheartedly found out the community also said ‘Yes,’” Walter
said. “They said ‘Yes’ in their words and in their incredible financial
support. We cannot thank our community enough for their support during this
campaign for the many years to come.”
According to Rosine, some of the campaign funds
eliminated the center’s line-of-credit debt and got the checking account up to
60 days operating and beyond. Additionally, after a board vote this month, a
portion will be set aside as a board-advised fund.
“We’ll
have an endowment light. We won’t touch the principal balance unless we
absolutely have to, and we’ll have to go through the board for that approval.
It’s kind of an emergency fund, if you will, but also the interest that we can
generate on that will help us with our direct cost variable, so we have (dollars)
to keep the lights on, heat on, things like that that don’t change whether
we’re doing well financially or not. That’s the intention for those funds.”
McIntosh, who began a medical leave as the campaign wrapped up, wrote in a blog post: “This campaign has opened up conversations that needed to happen – about partnerships, opportunities, and how to do things better, not just at Joy’s House, but in our city and state. We are excited for the possibilities that will come in the near future. And we are grateful for the team that is being assembled to look at long-term sustainability for Joy’s House.”
What will change?
In Kim Klein’s
book, Fundraising in Times of Crisis, she explains that an
organization can survive a time of crisis, and even grow, if it addresses the
changes that need to be made while not sacrificing its mission. The tendency for most nonprofit
organizations is to determine how to cut corners rather than how to raise more
money. She encourages the implementation of diverse fundraising techniques as
the solution.
So, what are
the changes are on the horizon?
Improve marketing
For the past
seven years, a large portion of the center’s marketing budget went toward
producing the radio program. Transitioning that to a website-based podcast
significantly reduced the cost, and going forward, it will refocus it. Some of its
marketing budget will be for referral marketing to ensure the centers are at
capacity.
“We really want to get the word out about what
we do so that people will know we’re here, which leads to assessments and leads
to guests,” said Sarah Shadday, Joy’s
House outreach coordinator. “For me, it’s making it strong referral
marketing and strong community outreach.”
“Part of what this campaign did and will
continue to do is really is kick us in the butt a little bit about marketing –
what is important, what are the best practices and how do we keep this campaign
momentum that put us in front of all these people who had never even heard of
Joy’s House.”
Tell a more relatable story
There is a perception that most of the
nonprofit’s clients have dementia. Part of the work is to change that
stereotype. In reality, the nonprofit hosts clients who cannot stay home alone
because of health and safety concerns. While some are living with dementia,
others have multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, are stroke patients or have
other medical challenges.
“We are an adult-care facility. We have guests
in their 20s and 30s. Yes, it’s your mom with dementia, but it’s also your
brother with a traumatic brain injury or his sister with autism or an aunt with
Down syndrome. So really highlighting those individual stories to show that
we’re relatable,” said Shadday.
Ongoing fundraising
One of the things learned is that donors need
to be cultivated on an ongoing basis. Getting the donors is part of the effort,
but donor retention requires long-term engagement.
“We have to be
really careful of making sure that people don’t see that campaign as the end
all and be all. ‘Oh, now we’re great.’
The campaign helped us to continue, and in continuing, we need your
help,” said Shadday.
“This might sound silly, but if we don’t ask
people to help us, then they’re not going to. They’re not going to know that we
need their support for this important work. I know that sounds really basic,
but I feel like in the last few months, we had done so much better at just
saying, ‘Hey, remember us, we want to still be here.’ Not in a critical
campaign fundraising way, but in a more sustainable ongoing,” said Cayla Rosine, the vice president of finance
and operations.
Develop network of other adult day cares
In 2014, the National Adult Day Services
Association (NADSA) identified 5,685 day programs operating in the United
States, up from 4,601 in 2010. This rapid growth is based on the increasing
number of people who are getting older and require community-based solutions.
Nearly 78% of these centers are operated on a nonprofit or public basis.
Joy’s House staff said other centers are not
the competition and see banding together to support each other’s efforts. To
that end, they have just started an internal discussion.
“These are our friends, how do we work together
to make each other better?” said Rosine.
