BDPA Brotha Shares Simple Math Formula to Grow Your Membership

We will share occasional tips from the BDPA Brotha in effort to help local BDPA chapters and other small non-profits as they seek to deliver on their vision and mission. Today's tip is for those of you who need increased membership to grow your chapter.

In science and math, once you figure out the formula needed to achieve your desired result, you have a can't-miss method to getting what you want every time you use it. Wouldn't it be great if everything you wanted in life could be achieved through a simple formula?

Well, there isn't a formula for everything you want, but there is a formula for getting a new member. Once you understand this formula and learn how to initiate it, you can get all the members you want.

Are you ready? Okay, here it is: Trust + Respect + Need = Membership Growth.

Now that's not so hard. At least there's no long division or algebra.

The trust and respect part of the formula mean that you need to develop solid relationships with your potential members. You can instill a sense of trust by showing the buyer that you care more about their end of the deal than your own. People are hesitant to trust those who are solely concerned about themselves. To let the potential member know that you care about their success, let them do the talking while you do the listening. Speak when they need you to speak, but listen to them so they know that you are concerned about their needs.

To build a relationship of respect, follow through on the things you promise. Don't miss appointments, respond in a timely manner, and let them know that you value their membership.

During your time spent building trust and respect, you will discover what their particular need is. Once you know that, do everything in your power to meet that need and you will have a new member.

Mobilizing to Fundraise

Just about every organization has social media as part of the engagement process and many use mobile giving to raise funds. Together the two barely register in the giving scale, unless there is a natural disaster.

The question that requires an answer is whether engagement results in fundraising that isn’t immediately tracked. Clearly, the hope is that it does. The other challenge is expanding mobile giving to include more than just emergencies, given the capabilities of new phones.

Read more.

Tips for Nonprofit Websites

Crossposted: Nonprofit Local

Mary Kelly, CEO of Productive Leaders, is not only an economist and national leadership speaker, but she's also a nonprofit Board member and volunteer. Recently, she shared some solid reminders for nonprofit websites with us:

1. Keep your website updated. Nothing sends potential donors away faster than an old website. It makes the organization seem as though you are no longer active.
   
2. Put future as well as past events on the website. If it doesn't seem like the organization is doing anything, people won't feel compelled to be part of it.
   
3. List what you need, not just that you need money. Telling people that you need $18,000 to buy a van to shuttle senior citizens to medical appointments 7 days a week, operating 12 hours a day is a compelling cause. Telling people you need $18,000 is not.
   
4. Give people the opportunity to give more than money. Someone might have that van, though they don't have $18,000. List what you need that you would have to pay for (accounting services, plumbing, website design, dog food, trash bags, whatever). People who might not be able to write a check might have the talent or resources that you need.

Do a quick check-in on your organization's website. Can you put a check mark next to all of these items? If not, these quick changes could bring more donors and volunteers your way!

Six Tips for Foundations to Engage Their Audiences with Social Media

Soulclap to Sophia Guevara for publishing the following article in Re: Philanthropy.

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When it comes to the use of social media, many foundations have decided to focus their efforts on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to spread their messages. With most of these activities focused on advertising, how can a foundation use this technology for meaningful audience engagement?

I recently interviewed Cindy Johanson, executive director of the George Lucas Educational Foundation. In this podcast interview, I note the success the organization has experienced with its YouTube channel and Facebook and Twitter accounts. I was impressed by the number of channel views and Twitter followers the foundation was able to amass as I knew of several larger foundations that had not experienced anything close to this kind of success. How then, was Johanson’s organization able to achieve this? Here are a few of her tips to help your foundation successfully engage its audience with social media:

1. Use social media to support the audience and the organization’s mission. Don’t use it just for “blatant promotion.”
2. Encourage more of your staff to take part in social media communication so that they all participate in the conversation.
3. Listen to your audience’s online conversations and be aware of any challenges that may arise. Take action to let your audience know that they are being heard.
4. Don’t use social media to hold a one-way conversation. Encourage two-way communication. Welcome your audience in a trusted way to encourage the conversation people want to have.
5. Be aware of individuals who use the social media channel in an inappropriate way (promoting products, etc.). Try to engage these people offline.
6. Know who your audience is and understand what they want from you. Don’t assume - communicate. Do your research and give them the information they need in a way that can promote action.

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Do any of these six tips appeal to you as you work to engage your organization's members and supporters within the social media world?

Tips for Form 990 Filers

The IRS is providing a series of filing tips to help tax-exempt organizations and tax practitioners as they prepare to file the redesigned 2008 Form 990. The latest tip explains how to complete Part VI, relating to governance.

You can also review the Form 990 filing tips archive provided to us by the IRS.

How Best to Help Nonprofits Weather the Storm?

Our nonprofit foundation is impacted by the relentless drumbeat of lousy economic news. It is a challenge to deliver financial support for BDPA programs and services with the repercussions from the economic downturn in America.

As such, we read with interest the onPhilanthropy interview with Clara Miller, President and CEO of the Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF), which recently surveyed nearly a thousand nonprofit leaders on that question. NFF sought to identify the areas of most critical need occasioned by the economic downturn, both for the immediate and longer-term durability and effectiveness of the sector. In blunt terms, NFF reported "America's nonprofits, including the "lifeline" organizations that many depend on for food, shelter, and other basic services, are strained to the breaking point."

Read full interview.

Twitter Tip * Use Hash Marks to 'Go Viral'

Milt Haynes suggested that it is time for BDPA to 'go viral' in honor of our past national president Ollie Morgan. The process can begin immediately at your upcoming program meeting.

Get signed up with Twitter right away. The BDPA Foundation is on Twitter! Did you know that Twitter grew 900% in the past year. In fact, it's grown 33% since New Year's Day ... currently with 8 million users .... estimate is that they will be up to 50 million users by the end of the month. It is time for your chapter to take advantage of Twitter. Are you ready to 'make it so'?

Invite the Twitter community to buzz about your next program meeting. At the beginning of the meeting ask attendees to feel free to tweet about the meeting. Encourage them to use a hash tag, and then tell them what it is.

A hash tag is the character # followed by a short word that describes the event, or a particular topic, on Twitter.

For example, program meeting attendees can mark their tweets by typing "#BDPA" within each one.

That makes it easy for other BDPA members, including those that can't attend the meeting in person, to go to Twitter's search box and type in "#BDPA" to find all the tweets about the event.

You might be asking: Why would BDPA want the rest of the world to take advantage of information at an event that only members and their guests can attend?

Here's why:

1. It creates interest in BDPA programs, services and memberships. I guarantee that if you search for all the "#BDPA" tweets and read them, you will find at least three tips you can start using today to increase your bottom line. BDPA has a miniscule presence on Twitter right now. Shouldn't we get on this wave early in 2009 as we build towards the annual conference?
2. 51 chapter program meetings over the next 30 days ... if only 5-10 people at each meeting has a Twitter account ... that gives us 250-500 people each month tweeting about a technology topic or some other aspect of program meetings designed to advance the careers of African Americans in the IT industry. Each of these 250-500 people have 'followers' on Twitter. Some of those followers might think the tips are so valuable that they're worth "retweeting," thereby exposing thousands more people to BDPA.
3. No more whining about "BDPA being the best-kept secret in America." By using hashtags, we turn our entire program meeting audience into journalists and let THEM report on the BDPA for us. Often, their reach on Twitter will be far greater than the reach of many media outlets in your city. Plus, those tweets live online forever, just waiting for the search engines to find them.

Are you on Twitter yet? Are you ready for BDPA to 'go viral'?

Tell the Story As if Your Life Depends On It

We are the fiscal agent for 50 BDPA chapters around the country. Occassionally, we run across articles that we think would be useful for those chapters ... or other nonprofits. Here is one that I think any person serving in a leadership position for a nonprofit should take to heart. This article was written by Susan Carey Dempsey and published earlier this month by onPhilanthropy.

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When I meet with the leaders of a nonprofit organization for the first time, I often ask them what they would say if I grabbed them by the collar and demanded to know, “If your organization ceased to exist tomorrow, what would happen to the world?” The question always startles them, because they’d assumed that their mission was perfectly obvious, their cause deserving, and that if consultants like me could provide a little guidance, they could attract funds from donors large and small.

Having shocked them back to the moment of primal scream, I can begin to walk them -- whether they’re for Saving the Gecko or Banning the Split Infinitive -- through the indispensable process of telling their story. It’s also described as “Making the Case,” but the fundraising case we’re all familiar with is often a merely formulaic recitation that’s too easily ignored. Let’s look for a minute at what you can accomplish, if you really think about telling your story, as well as you possibly can.

Read the rest of Ms. Dempsey's article here.