Tag: GuideStar

Old School Teaches New Lessons

On By Carolyn M. AppletonIn Nonprofit, nptechLeave a comment

Winter Storm Mara prevented me from speaking in person during the Real Places 2023 Conference, but we were able to visit with attendees remotely online. Our talk was timely, “Old School Teaches New Lessons: How Technology is Preserving a WPA-era Icon.” And in fact, being able to speak and share information online today is a godsend! Technology certainly saved our presentation.

I posted our slide deck to YouTube as a video. While our verbal commentary is absent from the video, we provided ample “notes” in the slide presentation to make watching it worth your time.

My thanks go to Jane Cook Barnhill, President of Atlanta Grade School Friends, and Danny Stanley, Treasurer, my co-presenters, and to the nonprofit arm of the Texas Historical Commission, the Friends of the Texas Historical Commission. A few years ago, I served on the Board of the Friends under former Executive Director Toni S. Turner. State funding is rarely enough to fully fund the restoration and long-term preservation of the many historic sites of Texas. Private sector donations mean so much and make saving the rich heritage of Texas possible.

I had been taking a late Christmas vacation in January to see my family in Tucson, Arizona. My flight home was rescheduled due to the winter storm something like six times! So, I recorded my part of the Real Places discussion on Vimeo, and while a little rough around the edges, you can hear my thoughts and avail yourself of more in-depth discussion via my YouTube channel. In addition, the full slide deck has been saved to ISSUU for ease of reading in digital magazine format.

You might be surprised to learn, we talked about technology being very helpful, but noted that it does not replace human beings. Relationships matter. But technology can enhance your organization’s “reach” dramatically. Partners of all kinds, donors, and especially younger generations are online in great numbers today. Why not be online with them using the latest social media communications and tech tools available?

I find technology makes the work of nonprofits more cost-effective. Remote working is safe and fairly easy! Several of the tools I reference are free of charge at the most basic level, and modestly-priced in more extensive forms. Thinking smart and making use of these tools can “up your game” dramatically and make you more attractive to audiences and partners of all kinds. I find the cost is mostly that of your time: take it.

My thanks go to our tech partners at Atlanta Grade School Friends. We are grateful for being able to avail ourselves of their convenient services.

In closing, I share a video showed at the conclusion of our presentation during Real Places 2023. It was made with a combination of Google Slides, PowerPoint and YouTube (channel and audio library). Enjoy! And if you would like additional information, email us via our new Gmail: atlantagradeschoolfriends@gmail.com, or reach out to me directly by using the secure contact form on my blog.

Thank you for reading this post, and best wishes for your fundraising and communications success this year.

Our presentation also references information from these organizations: Brookings Institution, Forbes, Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, National Council of Nonprofits, Psychology Today, Social Media Today, and World of Statistics on Twitter.

GuideStar: Invaluable Nonprofit Resource | An Update

On By Carolyn M. AppletonIn researchLeave a comment

Back in 2013, I was invited by GuideStar to produce two case studies about my experiences with the platform. They were produced in an interview format and attached to the GuideStar website. But since then, GuideStar and The Foundation Center merged to become Candid. Many helpful changes have been made to the website that have made Candid even stronger and more helpful today. But my case studies were lost in the transition.

I wanted to share those experiences along with more recent observations in a new blog post. I find most nonprofits barely skim the surface of GuideStar. While they may rightly focus on polishing their nonprofit profiles to secure official seals for transparency, they often abandon GuideStar after doing so, until a profile update is due. Smart nonprofit staff will learn to use GuideStar in greater depth, however. It is an indispensable research tool one should consult routinely.

My first experience with GuideStar was after many years of hands-on major gift fundraising experience, in the mid-2000s. I did not know much about it until then, oddly enough, as I had been distracted with multiple fundraising projects. In fact, I had just helped raise $5 million for a new facility, and our lead volunteers decided to polish the organization’s Board of Trustees as the organization moved forward into an exciting new era of community service.

The Board had become large and unwieldy. Some felt a lean and more engaged Board of Trustees made sense. Recent fundraising successes revealed those genuinely committed to the mission, and that was a relatively small group of civic leaders. To prepare, they asked me to reach out to similarly-sized nonprofit organizations in other cities, and to ask about the size of their Boards and what those groups found to be successful in terms of size and composition. I began my work.

But what I soon discovered was staff members of other nonprofits were reluctant to reveal the size and composition of their governing bodies, even in the most general sense. They felt the information was confidential. But the truth is, if you file a tax return as an approved nonprofit organization, your Board is public information. From Don Kramer’s Nonprofit Issues:

Can our 501(c)(3) organization keep the list of board members confidential and refuse to make it available to the public?

Not if you are required to file a federal Form 990, 990EZ or 990-PF tax information return. Each of those forms requires a list of officers, directors and key employees. State charitable solicitation registration forms are also likely to require the list.

If you are a very small organization or a church or other religious organization that is not required to make such a filing, you may have no legal obligation to disclose such information to the general public. But the failure to do so undercuts the credibility of the organization and is inconsistent with the increasing desire – and legislative demand – for transparency in the charitable sector.

The task was daunting. Few of my nonprofit colleagues wanted to bother with my pesky inquiries. I was frustrated. One fellow was so rude that I got angry, and I got online. And then I discovered GuideStar and tax returns galore. I was elated! I uncovered all the information I needed and more. I was able to produce a comprehensive survey and report to the Board of Trustees.

My second experience was meeting with a prospective donor, a well-respected attorney who also managed his family’s private foundation. I was implementing a major gift campaign, and had gotten halfway through the multi-million dollar effort. In this instance, I knew I needed to be well into the campaign, and to look solid and poised for success before attempting a grant request. And in fact, that was true by the time of our meeting.

I arrived with our executive director. We shared our story and why we were there to meet. The attorney then said he wanted to ask a few questions. And every one of those questions focused on our tax returns. Before we arrived, he had been doing his research on our financials as they appeared on GuideStar. But we hadn’t given them a thought. I was completely surprised. I did manage to defer the answers to his questions, as a form of follow-up to our meeting afterward (and we were able to secure the grant we sought, thank heaven). But this experience taught me to become familiar with GuideStar and my own nonprofit’s profile prior to showing up at a solicitation meeting.

My sense is today, with the ever-increasing role of professional advisors helping philanthropists make wise giving decisions, fundraising staff must familiarize themselves with their own GuideStar profile. And if the accounting staff or others have not already claimed and fleshed-out your nonprofit’s GuideStar profile, then fundraising staff should do so. As GuideStar notes, with your profile, you can:

– Showcase your programs and your impact

– Send fresh information to 200+ charitable sites, including AmazonSmile, Facebook, and Network for Good

– Add a Donate button directly to your profile to boost your funding

– Use your profile as the perfect handout in funder meetings

– Celebrate your diversity and share your staff & board’s demographics

– And much more.

Further, “Villanova University and University of Wisconsin Milwaukee researchers compared nonprofits that earned a GuideStar Seal of Transparency to those that did not. Nonprofits that earned a Seal averaged 53% more in contributions the following year than organizations with no Seal. The research also found organizations that elect to be more transparent had stronger performance across a range of governance, financial, and operational dimensions.”

Today, I remain an avid GuideStar fan. Not only do I make profile preparation a priority for the nonprofits with which I work, I use GuideStar to review the tax returns of private foundations that are also “nonprofits.” In these ways, GuideStar is an essential tool for building credibility, facilitating research of all kinds, and ensuring more effective and appropriate grant proposal targeting.

You might also enjoy

High Tech Prospect Research Worth the Investment (June 2011 and continuously updated since then)

Research and Writing | Ideal Tasks While Working from Home (May 2020)

TechSoup Connect Presentation on YouTube, “DIY Prospect Research” (May 2021)

Hurricane Inspiration on the Gulf Coast

On By Carolyn M. AppletonIn charity, conservation, Fundraising, Nonprofit, Primary Articles, Startup, TexasLeave a comment

When Hurricane Harvey began to threaten the Texas Coast, one of my foremost concerns was its potential impact on Texas Sealife Center. I met founder Dr. Tim Tristan before I moved from Corpus Christi about seven years ago. He shared his vision of a veterinarian-driven wildlife rescue and rehabilitation center to aid shorebirds, raptors and sea turtles with me back then, and I have never forgotten.

Sea Turtle Surgery
Thanks to the Baltimore Sun for covering Texas Sealife Center in Corpus Christi, Texas (February 14, 2017).

In 2011, Texas Sealife Center was established, and it has not looked back since. The Center is all-volunteer and it has been highly successful in helping animals caught in and injured by fishing lines, those that have ingested fishing lures, metal and plastic objects of all varieties, as well as those that have sustained physical injuries and contracted troublesome diseases.

Tim and I have kept up remotely on Facebook. This summer, I agreed to help with some grant research and writing. The Center’s goal is to secure new equipment to support its medical and rehabilitation activities, with an emphasis on sea turtles. Sadly, the number of stranded and injured animals in the Coastal Bend of South Texas continues to increase. And, more sea turtles require help than ever before.

Brown Pelican, Hurrcane Harvey
Click to reach Texas Sealife Center’s Facebook page and more photos illustrating its work during Hurricane Harvey and more.

As the volunteers have done time and again, they made themselves available 24-7 to aid wildlife caught in Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath. One of the Center’s primary partners is the ARK, or the Animal Rehabilitation Keep of the Marine Science Institute of The University of Texas at Austin, located further north on the Texas Coast. The ARK was heavily damaged during Hurricane Harvey, and Texas Sealife Center gladly took-in injured wildlife that could not be successfully released there. They continue to provide critical medical care and a safe haven until the animals can heal and be released into their natural habitats. Facebook became a powerful platform for conveying the work of Texas Sealife Center during this challenging time.

Aside from researching and submitting proposals for the Center’s urgent equipment needs, one of the most important things I did for this relatively young nonprofit was to create a meaningful GuideStar profile and to obtain the gold seal for transparency. Quite a few nonprofits with which I have worked fear they must have raised a lot of money and have well-known Board members, for instance, before establishing a full profile on GuideStar.

But what GuideStar is about is not money as much as it is how transparent nonprofits are about their operations and programs, their tax statements, future plans and more. GuideStar is about trust and honesty. And hopefully, by taking the worthwhile step to secure the gold seal will inspire even greater confidence by prospective donors in the Center and its management, with the current capital campaign in mind.

I have worked with nonprofit organizations large and small. Many of the larger ones have accomplished less than the smaller ones! Donors must be wary that a well-known “name” and a list of prominent Board members does not guarantee professional operations, efficiency, and genuine dedication by the leadership and staff.

I have found small nonprofits and startups work exceedingly hard, and their volunteers are often more dedicated than those supporting organizations with ample budgets and long tenures. After a long career in major gift fundraising, some of my most fulfilling projects have involved helping small groups build the credibility necessary to inspire significant donations. With this in mind, I urge you to support Texas Sealife Center, and please follow its progress on Facebook. Thank you!

You might enjoy reading my LinkedIn blog post from 2014, #2030NOW, which addresses startups and innovative young nonprofit concepts, and my hope more “Boomers” will fund them.