Return on Mission

Thanks to Kevin MacDonell, of the CoolData blog, for this awesome guest post.  I appreciate others who, like myself, seek ways to help organizations find efficiency in processes that directly aid mission impact for organizations.  Thanks Kevin!

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I’m a believer in nonprofit fundraisers learning how to mine their own data. I love to see highly motivated people learning the true value latent in their databases and leveraging it for their causes, to the point where they are gaining actionable insights and developing their own predictive models. It’s what I write about on my blog.

You might think that because I believe in developing in-house expertise, I must look forward to a day when vendors of analytics products and services are no longer needed. And you’d be wrong! Skills development is not necessarily about replacing outside services — it can also be about helping us to be more knowledgeable purchasers. The client is in control of choosing or rejecting a vendor: Any knowledge acquired will be an asset in making good choices.

I’m inspired by the example set by people such as Peter Wylie, Joshua Birkholz, Lawrence Henze, James Parry and others. They write books, issue freely-downloadable white papers, speak at conferences and give webinars.  They may be regarded as educational leaders, pushing our profession in the direction of improved “analytics literacy”, but they are also all vendors, which is why I single out these names specifically. They sell software, predictive models, wealth screenings, and various services related to data analytics. Although their education efforts are helpful to everyone in the sector, you can be sure that it forms part of their business plans — and that’s just fine.

In-house staff have the advantages of proximity and agility when it comes to mining their database for variables related to affinity with the organization. But external companies have the advantage in areas involving external data sources, wealth screening, and matching up philanthropic activity outside the organization. A hybrid of internal (affinity) and external (capacity) modeling can be especially potent in major gift prospecting. A vendor might also have a wider range of approaches and techniques to draw on than an in-house practitioner has, and therefore more likely to have the appropriate solution. (Of course, that depends on the vendor.) Read more…

In my last post I discussed the usage of the poor statistic of infrastructure versus program expenditures as a judge of the efficiency of a nonprofit organization. I made the case that with todays technology the line is blurred between the two functions and saying a piece of technology is completely divorced from the implementation of an organizations mission is ridiculous. What used to be infrastructure is really program. What used to be seen as only program is now intertwined with infrastructure.

That point being made I thought I’d relay this particular bias as it shows up in the larger world. By continuing to use this statistic, or other worthless measurements, we perpetuate charity stereotypes that culminate in articles like this one I read last month. The article came to me through a google alert of some kind, I’d have to go find exactly where and how it came across my desk, but it is entitled “10 Reasons Why I would Never Donate to a Major Charity (or, How to be a Superhero, Part 2)“. The Author is James Altucher and he posted this on April 27th. He is a well known trader/investor who appears regularly on CNBC and the like.  Needless to say, if you read his bio, you’ll realize he’s a pretty smart guy.

With that background in place let’s look at what he’s saying in this article and what it means for our sector.  This post is not meant to excoriate Mr Altucher for his opinions. Rather, it’s meant to hold up a bit of a mirror that shows us what we have done to ourselves by relying on old, outdated statistics to showcase our successes to the world and that we need to do better.

In this article he calls giving to charity a “myth” that we follow blindly and that more “harm than good is done” by giving to us. Read more…

There you are again needing to go make some kind of important software purchase. Perhaps you’ve wanted this for awhile, but it’s only recently that you’ve made the move to get the process started. You’ve reached out to friends, co-workers, vendors you’ve met at a tradeshow or two. You may have even tried this process once before, but are back at it again.

I had a friend tell me that buying software for his nonprofit was like weight loss. With his weight loss he would decide that is was finally time to lose that 30 pounds he’d been carrying for all of these years. His goal would change, but after a month, the weight hadn’t begun to decrease. Then he would realize that he hadn’t changed his behavior correctly. Diet, lifestyle, exercise? Not much had actually changed when it came down to his daily schedule. With weight loss goals it’s usually very apparent the weight won’t come off until at least one of those three behaviors changes.
Read more…

Oh how I love you, let me count the ways!

We have sonnets, plays, movies, music, cards and so much more directed to your loved one for Valentines Day.  It’s an overwhelming time for many as they wonder what they should do to show their significant other the heights of their affections.

Now what about your relationships at work with you various suppliers and vendors?  It’s a safe assumption that most of us are not sending a Valentine card to our vendors.  It’s a strange thought isn’t it?  Do you love your vendor?  For some they may actually spend more time on their vendors tech support line than they do with their spouse!  Quite unfortunate for sure, but it happens. Read more…