What We’re Reading, Week of 7/6

From Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog…
How to convince your skeptical boss that social media has merit
In her latest blog post, Katya gives social media advocates a few pointers on how to convince their bosses that social media is an effective tool for promoting and publicizing an organization. She recommends signing up skeptical bosses with Google Alerts and Tweetbeeps, setting clear and understandable social media policies, and sharing progress frequently. These tips could be quite helpful to those who want to bring social media into their organization, but need to gain upper-level support first.

From Non-Profit Communications…
Non-Profit Blogs: Five Reasons You Do & Don’t Need One
Kivi Miller runs through five reasons that starting a blog could be helpful for a non-profit- and five reasons why not. He illustrates the different ways that organizations can use blogs, whether they want to merely “share the small stuff” or react quickly to a crisis. However, he also shows that blogging has a downside: blogging can do more harm than good if the tone is wrong, updates are too few, and transparency is an issue. Non-profits should carefully weigh out the pros and cons of blogging; a useful tool for one non-profit could be a bad option for another.

From Your Non-Profit Technology Community: NTEN…
Four Reasons Innovations Matter Now More Than Ever
The NTEN blog offers advice about the importance of innovation in the non-profit sector. While acknowledging the tough competition within the sector as well as the impact of the recession, non-profits need to continuously focus on innovation by reevaluating business models, offering high-quality services, and finding ways to work around slashed budgets and reduced donations. It will be interesting to see which tactics and strategies will help non-profits to weather the storm and continue to operate successfully.

MN & PA Laws On What Is a Charity

By John McGee, Principal at McGee Consulting

The recent reports in the Chronicle of Philanthropy on the new Minnesota law defining who might qualify for state and/or local tax exemption reminded me of the various steps the state legislature of Pennsylvania has taken over the years. Twenty-five years ago Pennsylvania began looking at ways to involve the non-profit community in supporting payment for public services that they consumed.  The state government made a two-pronged effort to achieve this.

The first, which still exists in various communities throughout the United States, was PILOT (Payment In Lieu of Taxes). The second was a litmus tax for granting non-profit status for state and local purposes to organizations.

PILOT was predicated on the idea that nonprofit organizations, who are exempt from property taxes, consume services that are funded through the property tax. Therefore, they should voluntarily support the municipalities whose services they consume by making a payment in lieu of a property tax assessment. But what is the value of tax-exempt property and how is it determined? The answers to these questions and other related ones were all over the map, according to a 2006 study conducted by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. So the idea of PILOT can be very hard to apply when one does not have valuation criteria to even request, let alone expect, such a donation. Passing legislation is one way to compel compliance or cooperation with the PILOT concept.

The second approach was driven by an attempt to define what a ‘public charity’ is, and then exclude those who did not meet the criteria from receiving tax exemptions. Even before the problems of applying PILOT became clear, Pennsylvania began addressing this issue. Pennsylvania was driven in part by Hosp. Utilization Project v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 487 A.2d 1306 (Pa. 1985) which established a 5-pronged criteria to qualify for exemption. The standards set down by the Court continue to be litigated and legislated. The legislative battle to define what “purely a public charity” is has raged on for some time and in many states. Defining and implementing a standard across the whole Commonwealth has been, and continues to be, a challenge, as I suspect Minnesota will find.

Minnesota, like Pennsylvania, drafted and enacted legislation designed to clarify application of a court decision. In Pennsylvania’s case, the law – Act 55 of 1997 “The Institutions of Purely Public Charities Act” - continues to be discussed, and issues inside it are continuously litigated. The reason for this is not a lack of good intentions on behalf of the parties that constructed the legislation. Rather, it is the continued conflict between the need of communities to expand their sources of tax revenue and the desire (and, in many cases, the survival needs) of nonprofits not to be burdened with the taxes in question.

As pressure mounts in this poor economy to find new sources of public revenue, more states and localities will resort to either directly taxing public charities or drafting legislation that contains multi-step criteria that appears to provide safe haven for non-profit organization but that may in reality expose more of them to the potential loss of their local and state tax exemptions. 

What We’re Reading, Week of 6/29

From Tactical Philanthropy…
Philanthropy’s Trifecta: Information, Wisdom, and Relationships
Inhis latest column for The Chronicle of Philanthropy, Sean Stannard-Stockton writes about the important combination of information, wisdom, and relationships. He views social media as an avenue for bringing together these three elements, in turn providing non-profits with increased opportunities for raising awareness and funds.

From AFP Blog: Nonprofit Technology…
What’s the Right Offline Event for your Organization’s Online Community?
This blog post explores ideas for bringing an online social media community together for in-person social events, citing an article on the same subject that appeared on www.netsquared.org. The post features real examples of events that organizations have used to bring together their social media communities in person. These examples provide insight into how social media can lead to real human interaction and relationship building.

From AFP Blog: Non-Profit Technology…
Nonprofits Get a Social Media Mentor in Socialbrite.org
Reed from the AFP Blog reports the launch of a new website that showcases social media tools. The site, www.socialbrite.org, was created by eight leading experts in the field, with the intention of helping non-profits to raise awareness and effect social change. It will be interesting to see if websites like Socialbrite can encourage non-profits to more frequently adopt social media as public relations tools.

What We’re Reading, Week of 6/22

From AFP Blog: Non-Profit Technology…
Internet Surfing Helping Non-Profits
Linking to an article in the Delaware Online news journal, the AFP blog discusses a new avenue of non-profit fundraising: search engines. One engine, www.goodsearch.com, donates a small amount of advertising revenue to charity every time someone performs a search with it. This is an innovative, easy way for non-profits to raise funds. It will be interesting to see if this concept catches on elsewhere.

From Beth’s Blog…
YouTube Video Volunteers Launch Program
Beth discusses a new YouTube initiative in which Youtube users can volunteer to make promotional videos for non-profits of their choice. Beth includes some sample videos in her blog post, so that readers can see what type of work the video volunteers have come up with so far. The program provides an interesting new avenue for volunteerism, allowing people to give their time for charitable purposes from their own computer screen.

From Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog…
Secrets to Social Media Campaigns: New Case Foundation Report
This article discusses a report that the Case Foundation published in light of a major social media philanthropy campaign that they undertook recently. After raising $2 million dollars for charity by encouraging social media users to solicit donations and matching awards, the Case Foundation analyzed the fundraising drive. They found many factors that contributed to the campaign’s success, including its competitive structure, limited time frame, and the use of personal connections to raise funds.

What We’re Reading, Week of 6/15

From AFP Blog: Nonprofit Technology…
Micropayments: Where Charity and Social Networks Meet – BusinessWeek
Linking to an article in BusinessWeek, the AFP Blog discusses a new form of philanthropy—Micropayments. Despite some of its hurdles, it will be interesting to see how its connection between charities and social networks will shape philanthropy.

From TechSoup…
Tips for Designing (or Redesigning) a Nonprofit Web Site
Designing a visually thought-out, informational website can be difficult. Chris Murphy offers tips to polish off your website—most important (and our favorite) no.1, Preliminary conversations. It’s important making sure all stakeholders are involved in the process.

From NTEN…
Cloud Computing 101: What You Need to Know
Not sure what exactly the cloud is? Rem Hoffmann and Rob Jordan provide organizations a quick 101 on cloud computing, and offer case studies of organizations that are using the cloud successfully.

What We’re Reading, Week of 6/8

From FrogLoop…
How Sticky is Facebook?
Allyson Kapin provides insightful statistics about Facebook users—“Facebook users with 500 friends actively follow the news on only 40 of them, communicate with 20, and keep in close touch with about 10. Those with smaller networks follow even fewer”. Are you using Facebook within your organization? If so, how is it working for you?

From Beth’s Blog…
Managing Multiple Twitter Accounts for Your Nonprofit
Last week Beth listed 8 CEOs from nonprofit organizations who use twitter. As a follow up, Beth provided some applications to help organizations manage multiple twitter accounts.

From Connections…
5 Email Sins to Avoid
Steve MacLaughlin shares with us 5 tips to avoid during an email campaign. Each tip is equally important and should be taken in to consideration.

More FTC Activity: Oregon

By John C McGee, Principal at McGee Consulting

More FTC activity occurred in Oregon (Oregon FTC and NFP fraud). There seems to be more concern over fraudulent activity by non-profits.  Discussions at all levels become interesting once-declining tax revenues are added in to the situation. 

The House will be holding an oversight committee meeting on the IRS, which may help define the type of legislation or activity for this Congress. In addition, Guidestar is holding a free webinar on grant-making compliance (additional information can be found in the ‘announcement’ file below)

The Austin, Texas area has been identified with the highest per capita concentration of non-profit organizations in the country. Interesting article (TX Austin NFP glut) on what solutions might be out there for this ‘over-population’.

Just a side note on funding sources as it relates to all of the above:

Reports from all sources indicate that resources available to the non-profit sector are shrinking.  Federal, state and local tax revenues are down meaning less government monies for programs run by non-profits, moreover it means greater pressure on the governmental entities to find new streams of income. The NFP universe will be scrutinized for any reasons to reduce, defer or eliminate considerations they currently enjoy in the tax code.  Concurrent with these pressures are the escalating demands on the NFP sector to provide services to the newly unemployed, disenfranchised or temporarily disadvantaged citizens; while being expected to meet new standards/expectations of governance, accountability and transparency with potentially fewer resources.

Agencies that are in an effort to survive and prosper in these times need to be ever vigilant of the changing requirements placed on them – either directly by donors (government, foundations or individuals) or indirectly by being in a class of recipients who are covered by regulatory decisions. This is not the time to let one’s guard down on best practices, internal controls or compliance and governance issues.

What we’re reading, week of 6/1

From FrogLoop…
Why Nonprofits Need to Grow their Online Lists
Allyson Kapin provides some insight on why organizations ought to grow its online lists, and provides tips for non profits on how to do just so.

From A Small Change…
Fact or Stories?
“Information is always more powerful when it is connected to real people,” Jason Dick states. Nonprofits should be more personal when sharing information/news.

From Beth’s Blog…
8 Nonprofit CEOs Who Tweet
Beth lists 8 CEOs from nonprofit organizations who use twitter. She also lists the benefits of having your CEO tweeting.

What we’re reading, week of 5/25

From FrogLoop…
The ROI of Social Media
Heather Holdridge provides insight on ROI and some clever tips on social media for non profits.

From The Raiser’s Razor…
A Call to Innovate: Co-Branding
As a follow up post, Jeremy Gregg encourages organizations to co-brand with other companies. Leveraging relationships with other brands can build a strong and confident network.

From Mashable…
4 Ways Social Media is Changing the Non-Profit World
Our friend, Beth Kanter, did a guest post on Pete Cashmore’s social media site on how social media is changing the nonprofit sector. Beth provided four helpful tips and examples.

What we’re reading, week of 5/18

From Katya’s Non-Profit Marketing Blog…
What absolutely must go on your home page
In the continuing discussion of website essentials, Katya calls out the 10 most important things to display right up front. Our favorite is #3: “Clear, intuitive navigation that is organized according to the brain of the people who come to your website and NOT your org chart.”

From NTEN…
09NTC Session Materials – Now Online!
Didn’t get to attended the NTC this year? NTEN announces that over 120 of the conference sessions are now available online.

Also from NTEN…
Small is the New Big: 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study Released
NTEN presents the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmark Study and an associated webinar – some great bits here for discussion and insight.